Sirje,
Your statement raises so many questions, I am confused as to your understanding of prophecy. Do you believe that Daniel’s 2,300-day prophecy ended at Calvary? Do you believe that God’s redemptive purpose reached its fulfillment at the cross? what is the purpose for God’s church for 2,000+ years after that? is this not where the work of Jesus’s Holy Spirit begins? who is His remnant church, who is the antichrist? Why re ny of us still here then?
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I don’t mind sharing with this forum that this reply full of sarcasm and unbelief, and the endorsement it received by the many likes of regular commenters here really saddens me, especially considering the time we live in, may God help us all.
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Rob,
Thank you so much for this thoughtful analysis of God’s prophetic purpose.
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No
The 2300 days culminated regionally for the Jewish people.
Yes
…sustained by the Spirit, God’s people are to spread the “Good news” of that redemption around the world by each successive generation until Jesus returns.
The remnant church is composed of all who have accepted the redemptive act of God; and are spreading the Gospel. This church is not found in a building, composed of brick and mortar. It’s a spiritual church that reaches around the world and through time.
Different people and various ideologies make up the identity of the “Antichrist”. through time. It’s the spirit of rebellion against the purposes of God at any given time.
Apparently because evil hasn’t run its course, and taken us to the brink of destruction. Jesus said He would return at a time when waiting any longer, “there would be no one left alive to meet Him”.
Pass or fail your little test?
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Anyone looking for prophets to explain what’s going on these days, I strongly recommend, for those over 45, re-reading “1984” - George Orwell; “animal Farm” - George Orwell; and especially since we’re burning books again, and destroying history -“Fahrenheit 451” - Ray Bradbury.
For those who graduated from high school in the past 20 years, you need to find those books and read them now.
For graduates from any SDA academy, at any time, this will be a new read.
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Well what do you do when a predictive prophecy fails? You could:
- Become a dispensationalist and look forward to a fulfillment after a gap of thousands of years.
- Reinterpret the prophecy in a novel way to make it appear that something happened. (This method is really helped along if the “fulfillment” occurs outside of the realm of verification.
- You can call it conditional; “don’t worry, it will be fulfilled once the bumbling followers perform adequately.” This method had the advantage of never having to face the reality of being in error.
What do you do when there is a supposed fulfillment of a prophecy which wasn’t a prophecy in its original context? The gospels are full of these. One example is Matthew 2:15 where Matthew quotes a portion of a verse in the pericope of Hos 11:1-4 “out of Egypt I have called my son…” Clearly this is harking back to the story of the exodus, referring to Israel as “my son”. Nevertheless, the author of Matthew’s Gospel, looking for a prophecy-fulfillment under every bush, created the story of the flight to Egypt in order to show a fulfillment. I will now hazard a guess that Matthew was using typology to draw out a prophetic meaning from that which obviously indicated nothing of the sort in its context. That is called twisting something out of its context which wasn’t there. Matthew is actually using the pesher method of creative interpretation, popular at the time, which can be seen in the Dead Sea Scroll “The Habakkuk Pesher”. This method shouldn’t be convincing to anyone.
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No
The 2300 days culminated regionally for the Jewish people.
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This misunderstanding on your part is an issue too deep to get into with all the implications and misalignment it creates with the overall purpose of prophecy in Scriptures, but more importantly, concerning the predictions of both the beginning of Jesus’s ministry and death here on earth (symbolic sanctuary) as well as the beginning of his ministry in the heavenly one. In other words if you don’t accept the Historicist interpretation of prophecy for 1844 then you can’t partially apply it to Jesus’ 3.5 year-ministry either.
Yes
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Well this of course fits very well with your prophetic scenario above but you are greatly diminishing the priestly / redemptive role of Jesus here on Earth and also in Heaven to that of only justification. He is much more than just our Savior he is our Creator, and our re-Creator as He implants His Holy Spirit in us. If you we don’t understand this dual role of Jesus how can we ever receive the latter rain?
I never said the remnant church is made out of bricks and I also believe is not exclusive of non-SDAs, but the purpose of prophecy is to guide this remnant right to the end of the Second Advent, once people came out of the horrific dark ages brought by the spirit of antichrist new light dawned s people understood prophecy and provided sustenance to millions of martyrs and believers.
So in your answer you said the purpose of God’s church in the past 2 millennia is to just teach the gospel without any firm expectation of His return? So Jesus told us when He would come the first time but not the final time? Does it make sense to you? I know for starters this is counter to what He told us in Scriptures.
Other no-so-minor points remain but it is late:
- I know you now the antichrist as mentioned in Scriptures all the way from Jesus’ time on Earth is much more than just “the spirit of rebellion against the purposes of God at any given time” as you said. Scripture describes him in fine detail of time and places throughout history and ultimately, it is identified by the number of a man, so I will leave it there.
- Why are we still here 2000+ years later? You said: “Apparently because evil hasn’t run its course, and taken us to the brink of destruction. Jesus said He would return at a time when waiting any longer, “there would be no one left alive to meet Him”?
Wow, so God is going to keep us here until He decides when enough evil is enough and save the few that are left just before we all kill each other off?
I would rather believe that we have a purpose, such as proclaim the righteousness of Christ our Savior and in the process bring as many souls we can, to prepare the way of the Lord’s Second Coming.
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As Jesus explained to Nicodemus, salvation involves “rebirth” through the Holy Spirit. The Spirit guides the Christian, giving each “purpose, such as proclaim the righteousness of Christ our Savior and in the process bing as many souls we can, to prepare the way of the Lord’s Second Coming.” So, this has nothing to do with knowing dates.
I did not say that. Jesus, himself, told his disciples to “go in all there world” and spread the GOSPEL. So, JUST teaching the Gospel is what we were asked do. I don’t know what you think the Gospel is, calling it JUST the Gospel. I think that says it all.
The Millerites thought, for sure, Jesus was coming ing in 1844 (when He didn’t come in 1843). We are told “NO ONE KNOWS WHEN JESUS WILL RETURN”. It takes FAITH to be a gospel-believing Christian.
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What would it take to conclude that the historicist method is a failure?..that the entire concept of a sweeping layout of prediction unfolding through history is an error?..that that was never the intent of the apocalyptic writers?..that they were directing their writings to the people of their time and interpreting the meaning of the phenomena they were experiencing at that moment?..along with the expectation that all would be resolved very soon? The preterist approach recognizes the normal motivations of people in crisis and danger.
In the words of that sage Yogi Bera, “Predictions are very difficult, especially when they are about the future”.
Of course, that well known historicist Isaac Newton calculated the end of the world in either 2030 or 2050. Maybe we’ll see if he was more correct than William Miller…or not.
For any proposition to be true, that is, to be verifiable, it must also be subject to falsification. What could falsify the historicist construct? What could falsify the day-year notion? Both are models suggested as paradigm and method (key), although both are impositions on the text not inherent therein. Or are they beyond question?
By context, they are irrelevant.
But in attempted application, how would the method and key be nullified? Would a failure in prediction invalidate them? Would multiple failures do the trick? At what point should abandoning the attempt to use the historicist model be the reasonable choice?
They are opportunistic. The paradigm wasn’t created from fact; but the validation came from the paradigm. The scenario was created before the facts were found to validate it. You can come up with whatever story you want, and find validation somewhere in the Bible.
The Bible is too often read as one large book. Actually it’s made up of 66 separate books. You wouldn’t look for validation of a historical fact in a math book; yet, we think we can mix any number of of Bible books to find validation for whatever we come up with.
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Sirje,
You are mischaracterizing my response by changing the placement order of 'just" in my sentence. Is this how you read Scriptures too? Go back and read it again please In my case I used it to mean: ‘simply’ or ‘absolutely’ and was meant to add emphasis, in other words, was this the only purpose for His Church? Furthermore my sentence ended with a question to you about the lack or absence of the return of Jesus in this purpose, something I trust you know He promised to his disciples (and us by extension) before giving them the Great Commission and ascending to Heaven.
I believe you were an English teacher so I trust that you are well qualified to understand the meaning I had intended in my sentence.
Then why do you so vehemently reject 1844 as a prophetic framework in which we are to deliver the last messages of the Gospel?
“The theme of greatest importance is the third angel’s message, embracing the messages of the first and second.” ( Evangelism, p. 196, Letter 97, 1902).
“Justification by faith [Righteousness by faith, or the message of “Christ our Righteousness”] . . . is the third angel’s message in verity” (RH, April 1, 1890, par. 8).
:
When you begin with a false assumption you will always arrive at a false conclusion, this is not a cliche, it is true and it applies to you. I suspect part of reason you re so confused could be because that you have read so many incorrect theories on how to interpret Scriptures, such as the optional methods you provide: Dispensationalism or possibly Preterism. The third option: “Conditional” is usually fairly easy to determine since in those cases God ussualy starts with “If”.
This is completely incorrect (assumption) You don’t seem to know that Jesus name is Israel, which He gave to Jacob, whose descendants received, so your conclusion is wrong. This was intended to record Hosea’s prophecy fulfillment in the life of Jesus himself.
And incidentally, when Matthew wrote his gospel he wasn’t “looking for prophecy fulfillment under every bush” as you say. We Christians believe he was actually writing under the Divine inspiration of Jesus himself.
Suggestion to you: I am glad you seem to be reading Scriptures for some unknown reason but if you want to find light in it you must first change your disposition and pray for the Holy Spirit to freely give you the gift of faith, wht do you have to loose?
Basically, YES. As Paul said, the gospel is “the power of God for salvation” Ro. 1:16. You may add all kinds of bells and whistles, all of which are covered by the acceptance of the gospel. The “meaning you had intended”, I presume, is that there his more to being a Christian than the gospel. Specifically, you said, "So in your answer you said the purpose of God’s church in the past 2 millennia is to just teach the gospel without any firm expectation of His return?" … and the answer is still YES, however, I did not say, or infer, there would be no “firm expectation of His return”. If you mean a date and time, you’d be right; but the hope of the Christian is the return of Christ - in His own time since we “can’t know when” - But of the day or the hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the son, but the Father alone. And I might add, not William Miller or Ellen White, or you.
One more clarification, - you said, Wow, so God is going to keep us here until He decides when enough evil is enough and save the few that are left just before we all kill each other off?
No, …until mankind decides enough is enough - when there is no more time to fix anything by any means other than a complete wipe out.
For then there will be a great tribulation, such as has not occurred since the beginning of the world until now, nor ever will. Unless those days had been cut short, no life would have been saved; but for the sake of the elect those days will be cut short.*
You said, I would rather believe that we have a purpose, such as proclaim the righteousness of Christ our Savior and in the process bring as many souls we can, to prepare the way of the Lord’s Second Coming.
News flash, THAT IS THE GOSPEL COMMISSION.
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Thank you for making my point, and by the way, to properly understand it, you can’t ignore the climax point of this commission, which is to deliver the 3rd Angels’ Message before the end of probation. Understanding the importance of 1844 is not trying to set dates, as you insist, but rather it confirms God’s purpose to His remnant church, that there is a role for it and a desperate need, and provides assurance that He has been in full control all throughout the ages.
You said, “When you begin with a false assumption you will always arrive at a false conclusion”
You stated this correctly. The three most important words I ever saw phrased were “Check your premises.” I did, and found them to be defective. Have you done so?
You said, " I suspect part of reason you re so confused could be because that you have read so many incorrect theories on how to interpret Scriptures." Having received a degree in theology and history, an MDiv from Andrews, and having completed PhD work in NT theology, I would hazard a guess that I have read everything you ever have in SDA methodology, multiplied many times. I have also read extensively in historical-critical methodology. I have also written many articles dealing with these issues. Just a guess, but I’m doubtful that you have ever actually read any in-depth disconfirming publications. You should do so. You might find the exercise challenging, even enlightening.
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That’s not the climax I found in the Bible.
In my world 1844 is the product of date-setting that ended up being wrong, at least a second time. Shifting the fulfillment to heaven is not helpful; and in opposition to the warning against date-setting. It is irrelevant since we still can’t know the “day or the hour”- back to the beginning, having gained nothing we didn’t have before Miller had that pipe dream.
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Who ever decided that which is orthodox anyway? And on what basis? For all we know, we could all be misguided. The point is how are we suppose to manage our misguided notions?