The Great Visions of Ellen G. White

Allegory Versus Reality

Did Ellen White ever have “parable-like” visions? Indeed she did; the one in which she saw her husband in his bedroom, and Dr. Kellogg in his bedroom, each crouching over a strange pile of boulders, preparing to “stone” each other, is a good example. ²³ GVEGW 46.1

Was the 1847 vision also of a “parable” nature, or is there a literal sanctuary/temple in heaven that Ellen White visited in company with an angel and Jesus Himself? Let the woman speak for herself. In chapter 23 (“What Is the Sanctuary?”) in The Great Controversy Mrs. White spoke of the work of early Seventh-day Adventist pioneers in these cogent, trenchant words: GVEGW 46.2

“Those who were studying the subject found indisputable proof of the existence of a sanctuary in heaven. Moses made the earthly sanctuary after a pattern which was shown him. Paul teaches that the pattern was the true sanctuary which is in heaven. And John testifies that he saw it in heaven.” ²⁴ GVEGW 46.3

Indeed, in 1864, in some of her earliest writing on the sanctuary, Ellen White had declared that Christ on Sinai “presented before Moses a miniature model of the heavenly sanctuary.” ²⁵ GVEGW 46.4

SDA Theological Seminary professor C. Mervyn Maxwell has helpfully pointed out that in the Greek Septuagint translation of the Bible the terms paradeigma of Exodus 25:9 and tupon (from tupis) of Hebrews 8:5 may both properly be translated as “model.” ²⁶ GVEGW 46.5

Ellen White believed in a real, literal sanctuary in heaven! GVEGW 46.6

Mrs. White was greatly concerned about those who would “spiritualize away” the great truths of God’s Word. ²⁷ She knew allegory when she saw it, saw a genuine (if limited) value in it, and publicly expressed appreciation for John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress. ²⁸ But she also knew her Christian church history; and she doubtless remembered the excesses of certain learned Christian theologians (especially Clement of Alexandria and Origen [second and third centuries A.D.]) who “would see an allegorical meaning in almost every passage of the Bible and sometimes deny a literal sense altogether.” ²⁹ GVEGW 46.7

And she was aware of the potential for theological damage in misusing allegory in the twentieth century as well. A classic example we may cite is the doctrine that teaches that the personage identified by the name Satan in Scripture is not a real supernatural being but merely a metaphorical figure of speech to personify evil. ³⁰ Mrs. White taught that this would be an especially pernicious teaching “as we approach the close of time” in the “last campaign.” ³¹ GVEGW 46.8

A similar heresy of an allegorical nature—“the doctrine that there is no sanctuary”—not only was clearly identified as one of a number of dangerous “false theories,” but the prediction was made categorically that “in the future” “this is one of the points on which there will be a departing from the faith.” ³² GVEGW 47.1