This is the last of three essays dedicated to re-examining key Adventist positions connected to pre-Second Advent events. The first two – Universal Sunday laws and Adventist Perfectionism/LGT – delved into aspects of our Second Coming posture where we could, and often did, offer plausible deniability. Though we have historically viewed these two positions as important building blocks of our eschatology, we seem at the same time to question their centrality in our overall theological outlook, and have therefore not included them in our official fundamental beliefs. Not so the Investigative Judgment (IJ) or the broader Heavenly Sanctuary motif. This bonafide doctrine is number 24 of our 28 Fundamental Beliefs. (FB)
I must confess, as a lifelong SDA, that I am not very familiar with the 28 FB. Possibly in some sort of vague way. Regarding #24, this little snippet, “The investigative judgment reveals to heavenly intelligences who among the dead are asleep in Christ and therefore, in Him, are deemed worthy to have part in the first resurrection. It also makes manifest who among the living are abiding in Christ, keeping the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus, and in Him, therefore, are ready for translation into His everlasting kingdom.” To me, it negates John 3:16, we not only have to believe but still must pass muster by a judgement. Christ says ‘believe in me and be saved’, no mention of ‘well, let’s get you through judgement first’! The last part of of the above quote speaks of ‘works’ that makes someone ‘ready for translation’! To this limited mind, all that is quite confusing, let alone going through all the rest of the gyrations of number manipulations. No wonder so many people grew up without knowing if they are truly saved by believing in Christ!! (my two cents worth)
The shabby, shameful, sordid way that Desmond Ford was treated at Glacier View, and subsequently, underscores the fact that this doctrine is suspect. And our current leader’s father was the perpetrator.
I could follow the logic if the other cited Biblical versions of Daniel 8:14 read something like: There were 2300 days and/or there were 2300 separate mornings. Then possibly this could be interpreted as being 1150 days since it takes an evening and a morning to equal a day (See Genesis Chapter 1.) For example, Genesis 1:1 in the NASB reads “… And there was evening and there was morning, one day.” So at least in the NASB it appears that one 24 hour day is equivalent to an evening and a morning. I don’t quite see how Genesis 1:1 can be interpreted as one half a day. It seems to me that foregoing should be applicable to whether a day and morning included in Daniel 8:14 is a 24 hour period. Then you would apply the one prophetic day equals one literal year principle (See Ezekiel 4:6 and Numbers 14:34) to establish the 2300 year prophecy.
Are you as tired as I am? Tired of William Miller given sainthood? He was a fraud. He was a false prophet. You cannot slice him in any other way. He chose to make predictions, he became a prophet. They were false. This was not the “Great” disappointment. it was the GREAT deception. But we wiggle six ways from Sunday to make him a saint…then laughably, taunt other denominations and their false prophets. William Miller was a sham and died in obscurity. No matter what anyone says, he was a charlatan. He ruined countless lives and turned many away. Just because something good came out of it, he was still a fraud.
I know that I am out of step with most people on Spectrum, and for many years I had the same doubts. If you take a good look at Revelation 10:9-11, it appears that after John ate the little book, he was told to prophesy again.
Out the stir that this mistake created, came the Adventist church with many Bible truths that had been overlooked, even by the Protestant reformers.
Daniel 8:14 means there is a verse 13 which means there is a verse 12, and 11… In context the desecration of the temple under the rule of Antiochus Epiphanes is the only logical interpretation of the vision.
The book of Daniel was written as a warning to prepare the Jewish nation for the coming of the Messiah. No time prophecy goes beyond 70 AD. These prophecies deal with the events that shaped the nation of the Holy People that Messiah was born into.
Christ crucified and risen is the stone cut out without hands who struck the image of human power and false religion a fatal blow through his finished work on the cross. Christ is this stone that is the cornerstone of the temple of the Christian era, the church which is his body, that is a world-wide temple in which every believer is a living stone. God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple and by grace we are gifted a place in that dwelling place of God for eternity.
By what authority does Adventism take Daniel 8:14 out of context and build a theology if investigative judgment? Leviticus 16 is about cleansing, not judgment. The blood of Jesus cleanses us from all sin? That’s gospel truth at its best from which all other blessings of the gospel flow. Grace upon grace.
However, neither cleansing nor judgment can be supported by Leviticus and the book of Hebrews. Day of Atonement as a part of the ceremonial law was nailed to the cross. What is Jesus cleansing any way?
I agree with your interpretation of Daniel 8:14 applying to Antiochus Epiphanes. His desecration of the temple was what Daniel saw in vision and which made him so sick (8:27).
Thanks, Ray, you always speak with authority and above all, the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is wonderful to read something like Matthew’s piece. Over forty years ago, the brethren plotted to get rid of Des by using the Dallas Statement and not the consensus statement of the group at Glacier View. That consensus statement went towards Des’s position in his manuscript in 12 points, 7 of them major. Des said he could live with it. He told me this, and he told PREXAD at the judgment on Friday afternoon. The brethren did not believe him. They did not want to. Des was utterly devoted to Christ and Adventism, but an Adventism centred on Christ, the cross and the gospel, with doctrines that could be biblically supported. His focus was on God’s forgiveness and the forgiveness that we the believers should manifest towards our enemies. The greatest thing about Des was that he lived what he believed and had no antipathy to anyone when he died—living as he always had in recognition of his own short-comings and the wonderful grace of God that set him free as a young man of 15.
I guess Leviticus 16:30 is the basis for my reference to cleansing. “for it is on this day that atonement shall be made for you to cleanse you; you will be clean from all your sins before the Lord…”
Then 1 John 1:7. “but if we walk in the Light as He Himself is in the Light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin.”
Well, cleansing is the only part of Leviticus I have no problem, while the cleansing in Dan. 8:14 We consider the basis. But to this day I am not sure what actually was cleansed.
I think if we start with one verse in John rather than one obscure verse in Daniel we are on the right track.
John 2: 19 Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” 20 The Jews then said, “It took forty-six years to build this temple, and will You raise it up in three days?” 21 But He was speaking of the temple of His body. 22 So when He was raised from the dead, His disciples remembered that He said this; and they believed the Scripture and the word which Jesus had spoken."
Verses 19 and 22 are the key to unlocking the sanctuary doctrine of the new covenant in Christ’s blood. The only Scriptures the disciples had after the resurrection are what we now call the Old Testament. It didn’t take them long to make the transition from the old to the new covenant and they changed the world forever through the power of the Holy Spirit in them.
Matthew raises a number of critical issues that we must face if we lose site of Jesus as our temple and our place, as believers, in his body, the church.
Only because of Christ’s finished work on the cross and his resurrection are we now, today, justified, sanctified, born again, redeemed, forgiven, recipients of eternal life and peace, cleansed from all sin that willl never rise up against us in judgement, not now, not ever.
Father, Son, Holy Spirit and every born again believer in Jesus is the temple of the new covenant if we can accept it. God in us. We in God. That is the power of the sanctuary doctrine.
