Understanding Ellen White

Visions revealing the past, present, and future

W. C. White recollected a couple of experiences that illustrate that Ellen White at times found it difficult to know whether what she was shown was past, present, or future, or simply a warning of what might happen. He explained how humans draw fine distinctions between the past, present, and future but how “with God, all is present.” One of the stories was of a letter he had received when Ellen White and her son were far away from Battle Creek. The letter reported that a member had been removed from membership in the church. When he told his mother, she did not seem surprised and indicated that it was because of “too much affection for a young lady.” When he asked her how she knew about it, she said, “Some months ago they were represented to me as standing in a public place, he with his arm around her, and she looking lovingly into his face.” She then made a vitally important statement. “I did not know at the time whether it was a picture of an actual occurrence or a warning as to something that they should avoid.” ¹³ UEGW 87.1

At another time, a minister in Australia came to W. C. White distressed that he had received a testimony reproving him for something he never did. Willie’s advice to him was to take it as a warning and to act in such a way as to totally avoid the danger. Some months later, this man was doing the very thing he had protested innocence of previously. ¹⁴ UEGW 87.2

A major challenge was made by J. H. Kellogg and others that W. C. White and others influenced the content of Ellen White’s visions or what she wrote as coming from vision. A common example of this occurred during the late 1890s and early 1900s. J. H. Kellogg made a major issue of the fact that Ellen White had written him a letter rebuking him for constructing a building in Chicago that had not been built. However, Judge Jesse Arthur later reported that plans had been in the works to erect just such a building in Chicago. ¹⁵ Ellen White, who was in Australia at the time, had seen what would happen if the plans were carried out. She did not know that the building had not yet been constructed. Though it caused both her and her son much trouble, it did cause Kellogg to abort his plans. The point to remember was that Ellen White was not always able to determine the timeframe of what she was shown. UEGW 87.3