Anyone who resolves to do the will of God will know whether the teaching is from God or whether I am speaking on my own. John 7:17, NRSV.
We are not to set our stakes and then interpret everything to reach this set point. Here is where some of our great Reformers have failed, and this is the reason that many who today might be mighty champions for God and the truth are warring against the truth.... God designs we should be learners, first from the living oracles, and second from our associates. This is God's order.
The Word of God is the great detector of error; to it we believe everything must be brought. The Bible must be our standard for every doctrine. We must study it reverentially. We are to receive no one's opinion without comparing it with the Scriptures. Here is divine authority, which is supreme in matters of faith.
It is the Word of the living God that is to decide all controversies. It is when people mingle their own human smartness with God's words of truth, in giving sharp thrusts to those who are in controversy with them, that they show that they have not a sacred reverence for God's Inspired Word. They mix the human with the divine, the common with the sacred, and they belittle God's Word....
The correct interpretation of the Scriptures is not all that God requires. He enjoins upon us that we should not only know the truth, but that we should practice the truth as it is in Jesus. We are to bring into our practice, in our association with others, the spirit of Him who gave us the truth. We must not only search for the truth as for hidden treasures, but it is a positive necessity, if we are laborers together with God, that we comply with the conditions laid down in His Word, and bring the spirit of Christ into our hearts, that our understanding may be strengthened and we become apt teachers to make known to others the truth revealed to us in His Word....
There is no assurance that our doctrine is right and free from all chaff and error unless we are daily doing the will of God. If we do His will, we shall know of the doctrine. We shall see the truth in its sacred beauty. We shall accept it with reverence and godly fear, and then we can present to others that which we know is truth....
The soul that is in love with God and His work will be as candid as the day. There will be no quibbling, no evading the true bearing of Scripture. God's Word is our foundation of all doctrine.—Letter 20, 1888 (The Ellen G. White 1888 Materials, 42-44).
From Christ Triumphant - Page 331
Christ Triumphant