Jerusalem Never to Be Rebuilt?
Ellen G. White wrote in 1851 that “old Jerusalem never would be built up.” [1] By itself, the statement looks unsustainable. But when the setting is reconstructed, we find Mrs. White counseling the growing Adventist group that both time-setting [2] and the “age-to-come” notion [3] were incompatible with Biblical truth. She emphasized that the Old Testament prophecies regarding the establishment of a Jewish kingdom in Palestine were conditional on obedience and forfeited by disobedience. Unfulfilled prophecies would be fulfilled to “true Israel” as unfolded in the New Testament text. Thus the popular movement of the 1840s and 1850s to promote a Zionist state in Palestine was not a fulfillment of Biblical prophecy and not a quest in which Adventists should become involved. Her warnings and instruction were designed to turn the interest away from Palestine and toward the work God had opened up before them. In a September 1850 vision she saw that it was a “great error” to believe that “it
