Isaiah 6 and Ellen White and the End-time as opposed to Isiannic immediate
History It was concerning the future
fulfillment of this prophecy that Isaiah had heard the shining seraphim singing
before the throne, "The whole earth is full of His glory." Isaiah
6:3. The prophet, confident of the certainty of these words, himself afterward
boldly declared of those who were bowing down to the images of wood and stone,
"They shall see the glory of the Lord, and the excellency of our
God." Isaiah 35:2. {PK 313.2} The vision given to Isaiah represents the condition of God's people
in the last days. They are privileged to see by faith the work that is going
forward in the heavenly sanctuary. "And the temple of God was opened in
heaven, and there was seen in his temple the ark of his testament." As
they look by faith into the holy of holies, and see the work of Christ in the
heavenly sanctuary, they perceive that they are a people of unclean lips,--a
people whose lips have often spoken vanity, and whose talents have not been
sanctified and employed to the glory of God. Well may they despair as they
contrast their own weakness and unworthiness with the purity and loveliness of
the glorious character of Christ. But if they, like Isaiah, will receive the
impression the Lord designs shall be made upon the heart, if they will humble
their souls before God, there is hope for them. The bow of promise is above the
throne, and the work done for Isaiah will be performed in them. God will
respond to the petitions coming from the contrite heart. {CC 234.3}
When God was about to send Isaiah with a message to His people, He
first permitted the prophet to look in vision into the holy of holies within
the sanctuary. Suddenly the gate and the inner veil of the temple seemed to be
uplifted or withdrawn, and he was permitted to gaze within, upon the holy of
holies, where even the prophet's feet might not enter. There rose before him a
vision of Jehovah sitting upon a throne high and lifted up, while the train of
His glory filled the temple. Around the throne were seraphim, as guards about
the great King, and they reflected the glory that surrounded them. As their
songs of praise resounded in deep notes of adoration, the pillars of the gate
trembled, as if shaken by an earthquake. With lips unpolluted by sin, these
angels poured forth the praises of God. "Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of
hosts," they cried: "the whole earth is full of his glory"
(Isaiah 6:3). {AG 72.2} In the year that King Uzziah
died, Isaiah was permitted in vision to look into the holy place, and into the
holy of holies in the heavenly sanctuary. The curtains of the innermost
sanctuary were drawn aside, and a throne high and lifted up, towering as it
were to the very heavens, was revealed to his gaze. An indescribable glory
emanated from a personage on the throne, and His train filled the temple, as
His glory will finally fill the earth. Cherubim were on either side of the
mercy seat, . . . and they glowed with the glory that enshrouded them from the
presence of God. . . . These holy beings sang forth the praise and glory of God
with lips unpolluted with sin. {RC
338.2} Christ Himself was the Lord of the temple. When He should leave it,
its glory would depart--that glory once visible in the holy of holies over the
mercy seat, where the high priest entered only once a year, on the great day of
atonement, with the blood of the slain victim (typical of the blood of the Son
of God shed for the sins of the world), and sprinkled it upon the altar. This
was the Shekinah, the visible pavilion of Jehovah. {4BC 1139.5}
It was this glory that
was revealed to Isaiah, when he says, "In the year that king Uzziah died I
saw also the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train
filled the temple" [Isaiah 6:1-8 quoted] (MS 71, 1897). {4BC 1139.6} Comment: It is the task of Aristotelian Interpretation models to
point all fulfillments in prophecy to the prophet’s own time. When there is
reference to the Second Coming or Investigative Judgment or the like, then they
see it as figurative speech or metaphors. Platonic Interpretation models tend
to see heaven as a literal reality and when these vision data is provided to
the prophet, they interpreted it as literal. Ellen White falls into the last
category and also Adventism with their historicistic interpretation models.
Preteristic models falls into the first category with heaven almost denied and
set aside with local history fantasies and connections. They lock God’s
End-time message in a spider network of Isaiah ontology and experience only. In 1508 Michael Angelo painted the Market Scene on the Sistene
Chapel. Plato was Leonardo da Vinci, his colleague there, and he was Aristotle
in the picture. Plato pointed up where reality is, namely heaven and Aristotle
is pointing down for reality is only on this earth so hedonism is served: let
us eat and drink and be happy for tomorrow we shall die. Adventists know
better.