(New Sanctuary Positions…. (continued….)

It should be made clear, however, that commentators and theologians in general have been greatly divided over the meaning of the 5th and 6th trumpets. This has been due principally to problems in three areas: (1) the meaning of the symbolism itself; (2) the meaning of the Greek; (3) the historical events and dates involved. But to canvass adequately these problems would carry us beyond the space limits permissible in this commentary. (SDABC 7:796)

Dan. 11 has also come in for new attention. The 1919 Bible conference saw a strong emphasis on new positions which ultimately were to replace the old. Thus the revised Daniel and Revelation reduces Smith’s fifteen pages on Dan. 11:45 to four short paragraphs. R. F. Cottrell has traced the swing away from the old positions regarding the French Revolution and the Turk. Similarly, none of our scholars today see any reference in Rev. 16 to Turkey. “The sick man of the east” has at last come to his end as regards Adventist prophetic exposition, and with him many other “ailing” prophetic interpretations.

Matt. 24:34 was understood by our 19th century writers (and many in the first part of the 20th century) as teaching that those who saw the falling of the stars would witness the coming of Christ. The Desire of Ages certainly did not originate that view but it does express it as follows:

At the close of the great papal persecution, Christ declared, the sun should be darkened, and the moon should not give her light. Next, the stars should fall from heaven. And He says, ‘Learn a parable of the fig tree. When his branch is yet tender, and putteth forth leaves, ye know that summer is nigh. So likewise ye, when ye shall see all these things, know that He is near, even at the doors” (Margin).

Christ has given signs of His coming. He declares that we may know when He is near, even at the doors. He says of those who see these signs, “This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled.” These signs have appeared. Now we know of a surety that the Lord’s coming is at hand. (76)

The following is found in the files of F. C. Gilbert:

The Last Generation as Located by the Spirit of Prophecy

At the General Conference at Battle Creek, May 27,1856,1 was shown in vision some things that concern the Church generally … I was shown the company present at the conference. Said the angel, ‘Some food for worms, some subjects of the seven last plagues, some will be alive and remain upon the earth to be translated at the coming of Jesus” (1T 131, 132).

The following list of names of those present was revised July 14,1911, by Sister M. P. Comings of Battle Creek, Mich., in consultation with Elder G. W. Amadon, Sister Caroline Dodge, and Matilda Marvin. The vision was given at five o clock in the morning.

Living January 1, 1918

Hannah S. Hastings
–

Aceneth Smith-Kilgore
–

J. E. White
70

W.C.White
66

T. B. Lewis
76

Ogden Lewis
68

Lorinda Nordyke
–

Asheal Smith
83

Mrs. D. W. Reavis
67

Anna L. Wilson
79

Julia K. McDowell
82

Smith Kellogg
85

Dr. J. H. Kellogg
68

Mrs. Emma Kellogg
70

Matilda Marvin
86

Griffin Lewis
78

Deceased

JamesWhite
Roxena B. Cornell

UriahSrnith
Clara Banfoey

Cyrenius Smith
Jennie F. Rogers

Deborah Lyon
Richard Godsmark

Sarah Beldon
Mrs. Richard Godsmark

H. N. White
David Hewitt

Dan R. Paimer
Mrs. David Hewitt

J.P.Kellogg
Waiter Grant

Mrs. J. P. Kellogg
Jesse Dorcas

Leonard Eggleston
EliasGoodwin

Cynthia Bachellor
S. W. Rhodes

Henry Gardner
George W. Amadon

Mrs. Henry Gardner
J. W. Bachellor

George Lowry
Loisa Bovee

S. B. Warren
E. G. White

Martin Phillips
Albert Kellogg

S. H. Lance
Martha L. King

S. E. Belden
Carioline S. Dodge

Samuel Warren
Laura E. Brackett

Jarvis Munsell
S. C. Bovee

Total number of those in attendance at the conference, 61. Of this number, 17 are living, and 44 are dead.

Between us and eternity stand 17 persons, the youngest of whom is 66 years of age; the oldest 86 years.

“Transgression has almost reached its limit. Confusion fills the world, and a great terror is soon to come upon human beings. The end Is very near. God’s people should be preparing for what is soon to break upon the world as an overwhelming surprise” (Mrs. E. G. White).

Note The last revision of this list was made by Mrs. D. W. Reavis, who was one of the number, and several names added at suggestion. (77)

Compare words spoken at the 1919 Bible Conference:

Can you decide in your own mind whether in this generation of the proclamation of the message we have gone far enough, so the children of parents who first heard it are old enough so that the generation In your mind has begun yet? Is there any way to tell whether the generation has started yet or whether or not it has started?

PRESCOTT: I can’t fix any date when it started. My father as a young

93

man he was 16 years of age when the time passed in 1844. He accepted with his father the message of William Miller, and they left their crops standing in the field in the fall of 1844, on the basis that the Lord was coming. I am his son, still living, trying to join with you in proclaiming this message. I am 64 years old. I think we have entered upon that generation surely, but I don t attempt to fix any date when it commenced or when it closed.

F.M. WILCOX: I got an article from W. C. White yesterday in which he referred to the time when he was seven years of age and someone preached in the tabernacle that the Lord should come in a few years. He asked the preacher how much a few years was, and they told him six or seven. He figured it out that the Lord would come when he was 14. But He didn’t, and he is now many years older than that, and the Lord still delays. But he expressed the thought that he had learned this, that he was to live as though the Lord were to come today, and he was to prepare himself for labor and provide facilities to carry this message to earth’s remotest bounds. The Lord says it isn t for us to know the times or the seasons, the Lord hath kept them in his own power. “But ye shall be witnesses unto me.” I think there is danger, brethren, of our catching up some expression in the Bible or the Testimonies, and we think this limits for certain things to be fulfilled, and we make a stir over it, and then the years go by and that thing isn t fulfilled. I can remember the time when I came into the truth, they preached that those who saw the dark day, that was the beginning of the generation. Then they changed it to 1798, then to 1833. We have advanced the dates as the years have gone by. (78)

Gilbert and his contemporary Adventist believers considered the end imminent, not only because of Ellen G. White’s prediction of 1856, but because of the Scriptural data in Matt. 24 regarding the signs in the heavens and the promise of Matt. 24:34.

In the Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary on Matt. 24:34 we read:

This generation. Commentators, generally, have observed that the expression “this generation” of ch. 23:36 refers to the generation of the apostles (see on ch. 23:36). Jesus repeatedly used the expression ‘this generation” in this sense (see ch. 11:16; cf. chs. 12:39, 41, 42, 45; 16:4; 17:17; etc.; see on ch. 11:16).

Christ did not intend that His followers should know with exactitude when He would return. The signs foretold would testify to the nearness of His coming, but, He declared emphatically, the “day and hour” of that event “knoweth no man” (Matt. 24:36). To make the expression, “this generation,” the basis for reckoning a period of time supposedly terminating with His return violates both the letter and the spirit of His instructions (see on verses 36, 42) (79)

It should also be added that few New Testament scholars amongst us today believe that the events of 1755, 1780, and 1833 accomplished the prediction of our Lord in His Olivet sermon. The signs are reproduced in Rev. 6:12,13, and the first is a great earthquake. This earthquake of the sixth seal, on the verge of Christ’s coming, is found also in the later description of the seventh trumpet, and the seventh plague. See 11:19 and 16:18. This earthquake causes all the cities of the nations to fall, (and obviously has not yet transpired). Adventists who located the darkening of the sun within the 1260 prophetic days failed to notice that Mark 13:25 also placed the falling of the stars “in those days.” It has become obvious that the real accomplishment of

94

these signs is yet future. Today it is well understood that the Dark Day was not global, and that the meteoric showers of 1833 were the recurring display of the Leonids, which have been witnessed about every 33 years, though not as grandly as in 1833. The Lisbon earthquake, as regards loss of life involvement, pales before several since that time. In the providence of God, these historic events encouraged the second advent movement, but the complete fulfillment of the prophecies regarding such signs is yet future. See the section on this in our last chapter.

When one reads such works of the last century as Christ Our Advocate, it becomes clear how far we have traveled since that time in prophetic understanding, and in repudiating positions once erroneously cherished. But it is not always understood that the inquiry must be made as to whether the early understanding of 1844 is in any wise affected by these new insights into apocalyptic exegesis. If Dan. 9:24 does not use the year-day principle (the Hebrew mentions “seventy sevens” it does not refer to “days” at all), if, as the Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary in its additional note on Dan. 7 declares, it is impossible to date precisely the rise and fall of the papacy, if the word for “hour” in Rev. 9:15 has nothing necessarily to do with a twenty-fourth of a day, if the three and a half days exposition of Rev. 11:9 is erroneous historically, if the “days” of Mark 13:24 extend till the end of the world, if it is impossible to date the beginning of the seventh trumpet in 1844, if the signs of the sixth seal have not yet transpired, if neither the French Revolution nor the demise of the Ottoman power are signs of “the time of the end,” if Christ’s use of “generation” always applied to His contemporaries, if the New Testament always locates the Second Advent as an event for that generation of readers, if the seven references in Revelation to the imminent return of Christ imminent in the first century cannot be dismissed by a misuse of 2 Peter 3:8, and if the literal fulfillment of Daniel’s prophecies was dependent on Israel’s fidelity if these things be so, or if only some of them be so, how is our interpretation of Dan. 8:14 affected?

If we have failed to set forth Biblical evidence for the year-day principle, and have shunned the task because of its impossibility of fulfillment, where are we then left? Are we pleasing God if we permit the “urgent” ever to crowd out the “important”?

Furthermore, if the second advent movement was one raised up by God (as both this writer and his readers believe), how shall we understand its significance, and the message God intends this remnant to give to the world? What is the practical significance of Dan. 8:14 that should now be proclaimed to every nation, kindred, tongue and people? In what way does it decide the destiny of souls? How is it related to the grand central truth around which all other truths cluster the Cross of Christ? Is stress on celestial geography really that important for a generation dying through ignorance of the gospel?

The author of this paper is aware that his realm is often dealing with abstract ideas. He does not have to handle many of the practical and urgent burdens which those in administration have to wrestle with daily. But he does believe that this issue over the sanctuary and investigative judgment is only one case in a question of much wider scope, which has implications which are extremely practical and urgent.

He feels that many intelligent people in the church, including lay-people as well as employees of the church, while wishing to be loyal to the denomination, find it extremely difficult to advance in research in many areas (from history to science, but particularly in theological research), (80) since any position which seemingly differs or re-expresses what has gone before, especially as expressed by Ellen G. White, is looked upon as treason or “removing the landmarks.” He feels that such a climate puts a strangulation-hold on research and true progress, and that it is in the church’s temporal and eternal interest to deal with such questions openly and without fear. The chief problem in many questions is the nature of the inspiration of Ellen G. White. Though we have never taken the position of verbal inspiration (i.e. infallibility),

95

in our published literature, there is nonetheless much misunderstanding about the nature of how inspiration works. We plan to talk more about this in a later section of this paper, but believe that the present discussions on Ellen G. White will inevitably help the church to face honestly such problems as the sanctuary, without taking anything away from the true role of the Lord’s messenger.