The First Vision Described

Ellen herself, writing about this first vision, described it in these words:GVEGW 18.3

“While I was praying at the family altar, the Holy Ghost fell upon me, and I seemed to be rising higher and higher, far above the dark world. I turned to look for the Advent people in the world, but could not find them, when a voice said to me, “look again, and look a little higher.” At this I raised my eyes, and saw a straight and narrow path, cast up high above the world. On this path the Advent people were traveling to the city [New Jerusalem], which was at the farther end of the path.GVEGW 18.4

“They had a bright light set up behind them at the beginning of the path, which an angel told me was the midnight cry. This light shone all along the path and gave light for their feet so that they might not stumble. If they kept their eyes fixed on Jesus, who was just before them, leading them to the city, they were safe. But soon some grew weary, and said the city was a great way off, and they expected to have entered it before. Then Jesus would encourage them by raising His glorious right arm, and from His arm came a light which waved over the Advent band, and they shouted, ‘Alleluia.’GVEGW 18.5

“Others rashly denied the light behind them and said that it was not God that had led them out so far. The light behind them went out, leaving their feet in perfect darkness, and they stumbled and lost sight of the mark and of Jesus, and fell off the path down into the dark and wicked world below.” ^{10Early Writings, 14, 15. Ellen’s use of the descriptive adverb “rashly” in describing the denial of faith is both interesting and significant, for it prefigures a philosophy of faith that would slowly develop over the subsequent years, finding a more full characterization in the two metaphors “transaction” and “covenant” (The Desire of Ages, 347). Ultimately Ellen would come to envisage faith as a seven-step process in which God took the first four steps before asking man to take the remaining three (see Roger W. Coon, “How Jesus Treated Thomas—The Pessimistic Doubter” [unpublished monograph, May 8, 1990], pp. 4-6).}GVEGW 18.6