Must Eschatology Be Panic Theology?

Much popular teaching about the end of the world terrifies because it separates Christ’s Second Advent from Christ’s first advent and the gospel.

Books, such as The Late Great Planet Earth, by Hal Lindsey, which claim to explain the prophecies of Revelation and other Scriptures, actually teach what has been called ‘panic theology.’1

The impact of these books on many people is poles apart from the influence of the New Testament’s proclamations of the end of the world. The New Testament calls the Second Advent ‘the blessed hope’ (Titus 2:13); it implies that contemplation of that blessed hope automatically leads to increases in faith, hope, and love. This is a far cry from the apocalyptic fever frequently associated with modern presentations of the end.

How is it possible to contemplate the appearance of Christ the great Judge-while aware of personal residual imperfections-and not panic? The answer is the Second Advent must always be viewed through the lens of the first.

Cardinal Principle of Theology
It is a cardinal principle of theology that many things which can, and must be distinguished, should never be separated. This is true of the Members of the Godhead, the two natures of Christ, justification and sanctification, law and gospel, faith and works, etc. in eschatology, the second advent of Christ must be distinguished from the first advent, but never separated.

Only those who by faith have been crucified with Christ-those who have perceived that they already have exhausted the wrath of God in their Substitute and Surety-only those can contemplate the return of the King of kings with equanimity. They are ‘complete in Him,’ ‘accepted in the Beloved,’ and for them there is no condemnation, neither today, nor at the hour of His appearing (Col 2:10; Eph 1:6; Rom 8:1, 33-34).

Many churches have separated the Second Advent from the first by failing to proclaim it. Others have erred in reverse: stressing the second coming but paying only lip service to the pre-eminence of the cross of the first advent. The great principle of theology demands distinction without separation. Those who look to the Second Advent as the great saving act have failed to distinguish rightly that event from Calvary. It was at Calvary that the Saviour declared (concerning our reconciliation with heaven), ‘It is finished’ (Jn 19:30).

Bible Illustration of Principle
When Christ was on the Mount of Olives and gave His revelation of events associated with the second advent, He drew largely from the messianic prophecy of Daniel 9:24-27. This passage has been called ‘the foundation stone of the Christian religion,’ and is often understood as applying only to the first advent of Christ.

Our Lord’s exposition of Daniel’s prophecy makes it clear He saw it as embracing His Second Advent as well as the first. But as He applied the specifics of Daniel 9:24-27 to the Parousia, He did so while interviewing allusions to His approaching Passion.

Thus, when we look at Daniel 9:24-27 through the eyes of Jesus, a great prophecy about the first advent is seen to embrace the second. (This illustrates again that some things distinct must yet never be separated.) More than this, when we contemplate the second advent discourse of Matthew 24-25 (see parallels in Mk 13; Lk21) we discover that it heralds an end time which will rehearse Christ’s own last days on earth.

Two Clear Truths
Certain truths should now stand out. First, Jesus teaches clearly that His first advent forensically embraced the Second Advent. He taught this when He expanded the Daniel prophecy of His first advent to include His second. Therefore, to rightly understand the cross, we must see its impact on God, humanity, and the universe as a whole. The cross was in a real sense-though not a materially manifest sense-’the end of the world’ (compare Jn 12:31; Rom 13:11-12; 16:20; 1 Cor 10:11; 1 Th 4:15; Heb 1:2; 9:26; Jas 5:9; 1 Jn 2:17).

Second, our Lord tells us that if we would understand the events awaiting us, we should keep in mind the pattern of the cross. It is the cross event-as it climaxes the last days of the first advent-which is the paradigm and pattern for the experience of the church in the last days.

These truths, implicit in Daniel’s first ‘Revelation of Jesus Christ’ are sounded again through the last revelation made to John on Patmos (Rev 1:1). The Bible’s closing book is the book of the Second Advent. It emphasises judgement and associated matters more than any other part of Scripture. But for the sake of the consolation and assurance of the believer, it never separates the first advent from the second. Distinction, yes; separation, no. Any commentator or preacher on the Apocalypse who fails on this principle, fails everywhere.

The Returning Judge Is a Lamb
The Book of Revelation opens with allusions to Christ being pierced for us, His having been dead, and His passage through the grave. That keynote is struck again and again in succeeding chapters.

It is the Lamb that was slain who sits upon the throne and is coming once more to deliver his people. Twenty eight times throughout Revelation, the returning Judge is named Lamb. There are no grounds for panic theology as we study the book of the Parousia. The returning One is he who once hung upon the cross for our sakes. Our future is in his hands.

Footnotes
1. Dale Moody, The eschatology of Hal Lindsey, p. 271.

(Adapted from Desmond Ford’s Crisis! Volume 1, Chapter 11, pp. 126-131. See book for complete argument and scriptural support.)

Crisis! Volume 1 is a hermeneutic on apocalyptic literature. It gives the principles of interpretation for understanding the Book of Revelation. Crisis! Volume 2 is a commentary on Revelation, and applies the hermeneutic of Volume 1. Both are available from: Desmond Ford Publications, 7955 Bullard Drive, Newcastle CA 95658. Volume 1, $9.00 ($1.50 mail). Volume 2, $16.00 ($1.75 mail). In California, add 6.25 percent sales tax.

A Book Review

By Desmond Ford

1844 Made Simple, Clifford Goldstein, Pacific Press Publishing Association, Boise, Idaho, 1988, 96 pages, $6.95.

My sympathies are with the writer, Clifford Goldstein. He has attempted an impossible task. For years, my own ardent efforts were made in a similar direction-but also without success. Indeed, some of the arguments Goldstein now uses are those that originated with Des Ford long ago!

Not a Scholar
It is significant that this attempt to defend the sanctuary doctrine and 1844 was not made by one of the scholars of the SDA denomination. Very few of this group could be persuaded to do what Goldstein has tried to do. They know too much and think too highly of their reputations. Adventist scholars never write on the sanctuary doctrine and 1844 for non-Adventist journals or readers.

Clifford is certainly correct when he tells us, ‘The mass of American Adventism couldn’t give an intelligent study on that doctrine (1844 and the Investigative Judgement) if their eternal destiny depended on it… You probably haven’t heard a sermon on it or read about it in years’ (p.11).

True, because many, many Adventist pastors have known for a long time that the traditional SDA doctrine of the Investigative Judgement is not to be found in Scripture.

Where Are the Plain Statements of Scripture?
So what does Clifford do? Instead of providing us with plain statements of Scripture, such as, ‘The seventh day is the Sabbath,’ or, ‘If I go I will come again,’ he gives us inferences from debatable passages! This is the same method used by Jehovah’s Witnesses to support the invisible coming of Christ of 1914, and used by Latter-day Saints to support baptism for the dead and the pre-existence of human spirits.

Clifford, that really won’t do. Basic truths of Scripture are clearly stated, and they never depend upon a solitary passage. ‘A matter must be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses’ (Deut 19:15) is a principle established by Scripture in more than two or three places (Num 35:30; Deut 17:6; Mt 18:16; 2 Cor 13:1; 1 Titus 5:19; Heb 10:28).

The number 2,300, which is so important to the doctrine of 1844 and the Investigative Judgement, occurs but once-and without the Hebrew word for ‘days’. In other words, even the phrase ‘2300 days’ is an interpretation, not a clear, undeniable statement of inspiration. For example, the Good News Bible (Today’s English Version) translates the key verse Daniel 8:14, ‘It will continue for 1,150 days, during which evening and morning sacrifices will not be offered. Then the Temple will be restored.’ Almost all commentaries published recently agree with the TEV translation.

(Please note the word translated ‘restored.’ This is a key word for the 1844 doctrine. SDA pioneers preferred the less-accurate translation ‘cleansed,’ which allowed them erroneously to link Daniel 8:14 with Leviticus 16.)

Judgement upon Antichrist
Clifford says, ‘Actually, the most information in Daniel about the Investigative Judgement is found in Daniel 7’ (p.20). This is an interesting statement in view of the fact that the judgement verses in chapter 7 clearly speak of judgement upon antichrist. (The Investigative Judgement is upon believers.)

Daniel 7:25-26 tells us that the wicked deeds of the little horn (antichrist) continue until the court judges it and takes away its dominion, destroying it forever. Verses 10-11 say the same.

The whole purpose of biblical apocalyptic is to comfort persecuted saints with the assurance that God will intervene, and punish their oppressors. This is true of Daniel, and also Revelation. In the Book of Revelation, the judgement hour of 14:7 applies to symbolic Babylon and not to believers (see 14:8 and 18:10).

Daniel 7:22 says that the judgement is ‘in favour of the saints’ (NASB) not of the saints (emphasis supplied). Furthermore, this judgement comes while the antichrist is ‘wearing out’ the saints. SDAs believe persecution ceased about the middle of the eighteenth century, not in 1844. Daniel 12:7 uses the same imagery, saying that destruction of antichrist comes when the shattering of God’s people over ‘a time, times, and a half’ ceases. This is not the same historical point as 2,300 years after the decree to rebuild Jerusalem.

Historical Inaccuracies
Clifford speaks of the prophecy of the antichrist’s times in Daniel 7. Clifford says that this period covers AD 538-1798. It is not historically true that the papacy was supreme over Europe’s monarchs for this period. About three centuries is nearer the mark. Neither were the Ostrogoths uprooted in AD 538. The correct date, as any exhaustive history shows, is AD 554. Nor was AD 1798 particularly significant. Papal persecution ceased long before that. Neither was this the first time a pope went into captivity.

The 1919 SDA Bible Conference made most of these points about the historical inadequacies of the 1844 doctrine. The Conference also pointed out that there is no support for August 11, 1840 (based erroneously on Revelation 9:15). W.W. Prescott, who made some of these protests, also had trouble accepting October 22, 1844. Years later, he lost his job at Atlantic Union College because he told the brethren that the Investigative Judgement is not in harmony with Scripture. The late Dr. L.E. Froom, just before his death, told the same hard truth to elder Neal Wilson.

Question and Answer
Chapter 5 of 1844 Made Simple shows the parallels between Daniel 7 and 8. Clifford equates the cleansing (restoring) of the sanctuary in Daniel 8 with the judgement of Daniel 7. He is correct in doing this. But again he has not noticed that it is a cleansing from the work of the little horn (antichrist) not a cleansing from the sins of the saints. Isn’t it strange that Ellen White’s Great Controversy has much to say on Daniel 8:14 and the cleansing of the sanctuary, but never quotes the question of Daniel 8:13? The question of verse 13 is about the little horn to which verse 14 is the answer!

The problem is easily solved when we remember that Ellen White was simply paraphrasing the writings of Uriah Smith and other Adventist writers. They, too, had ignored the scriptural context.

Cut Off
Chapter 6 of 1844 Made Simple resolves around whether Daniel 9:24 is best translated, ‘Seventy weeks are (cut off) upon thy people and upon they holy city’ (p.47). I could find no Bible version used today by Christians that translates it the way Clifford quotes it. Search and see.

In traditional SDA proof-texting fashion, Clifford wants to ‘cut off’ the 490 years from the 2,300 days/years. This way he can use the same starting point for two prophecies and end with 1844.

It is true that the Hebrew word chathak (translated ‘determined’ in KJV) comes from a root meaning ‘cut.’ ‘Cut’ does not necessarily mean ‘cut off’ in the sense of an allotment or determination (‘decreed’ in NASB, NIV, RSV; ‘marked out’ REB; ‘length of time God has set’ TEV).

What Clifford apparently does not know is that there are several Hebrew words meaning ‘cut’ in Daniel 9:24-27. Only one is translated ‘cut off.’ That one is in reference to the Messiah (v.26) who would be cut off at Calvary for the sins of the world.

Starting Date for 1844
Also in chapter 6 (pp. 48-49), Clifford uses Ezra 7 as evidence for starting the 2,300 days/years prophecy in 457 BC It should be pointed out that there is nothing in Ezra 7 about rebuilding the city of Jerusalem (as is required by the prophecy of Daniel 9:25). Rather, the decree of Ezra 7 is included in Ezra 6:14 among the temple decrees! Furthermore, exegetes and archaeologists are not agreed on the date 457 BC for Ezra 7, nor on which of the Artaxerxes is meant. (There were three Persian kings named Artaxerxes.)

Concluding Chapters of 1844
I have touched only upon the first six chapters of 1844 Made Simple because they set out Clifford Goldstein’s case for 1844 and the Investigative Judgement doctrine. I have covered the details of his arguments in my book Daniel 8:14: The Day of Atonement and the Investigative Judgement. I will not try to compress into this review the one thousand pages of that manuscript.

There are three more chapters in which Clifford answers objections to the doctrine, but the attempt is inadequate. The concluding section ‘Investigating the Judgement’ consists of two chapters explaining the significance of the doctrine.

Interestingly, it is in this section that we read, ‘Standing in the judgement has nothing to do with legalism-salvation by works. Those who live in this time are saved by the same thing that saved the thief on the cross: the righteousness of Jesus for them, in place of them, imputed to them. When their names come up in the judgement, Christ will plead His blood, His righteousness in their behalf’ (p.95). In this passage Clifford admits that it is the cross of Christ (‘His blood’) that really counts, not 1844. This gospel passage (the only one of its kind I could find in the book) concedes that it is the gospel that is of first importance, not the Investigative Judgement. (When the Investigative Judgement doctrine was first taught, its proponents said Christ’s atonement was not completed until 1844. The doctrine has undergone many changes since than.)

Clifford also concedes that there is no real difference between before 1844 and after 1844. If we are saved the same way as the thief on the cross, what contribution does 1844 really make?

Hebrews 9 Explains
The issue of 1844 and the Investigative Judgement can be easily resolved. All you have to do is read Hebrews 9 in any accurate modern translation.

It is a well-established Christian principle that the Old Testament is to be understood in the light of the New Testament. (The doctrine of 1844 and the Investigative Judgement seeks to interpret the New in the light of the Old.)

Hebrews is the only book in the Bible that examines the meaning of the Day of Atonement ceremonies. The early verses of Hebrews 9 tell us that the two apartments of the earthly sanctuary represent the two covenants and the two eras of the Old Testament and the New. Verses 8, 12, and 25 say that Christ fulfilled the Day of Atonement-type by his death-and-resurrection atonement. Hebrews 9:23 (compare 1:3 where the Greek root for ‘cleanse’ is the same) tells us the heavenly sanctuary was cleansed by the sacrifice of Christ on Calvary. The very heart of the ancient Day of Atonement was the sacrifice. There was no sacrifice in 1844.

Christ Is Sufficient
Let none think that when Jesus cried, ‘It is finished!’ on the cross he really meant, ‘It is begun.’ Neither should any miss the glorious truth that Hebrews clearly teaches: Christ entered the heavenly Most Holy Place by virtue of his death. (Scripture’s symbolism says he entered the Most Holy Place through the veil, or curtain, which is His body, 10:19.)

Ever since Christ made His grand entrance, the way into the presence of God has stood open for the guilty. Christ has dealt with sin, and reconciled the world. Salvation has been achieved for all. It is not our sins dragged up again in the Investigative Judgement that excludes us from salvation. Only unbelief in the sacrifice of Christ can exclude us from God’s loving gift of perfect righteousness and eternal glory (Rom 5:9-21; 2 Cor 5:14-25; Heb 6:19; 10:11-14, 19-22).

(Dr Ford’s book on this subject, Daniel 8:14: The Day of Atonement and the Investigative Judgement is available from Good News unlimited using the order form at this site. This book includes many previously unknown records from the General Conference archives.)