An Overlooked doctrine by Traditional and Modern Christianity

Koot van Wyk (DLitt et Phil; ThD)

Visiting Professor

Kyungpook National University

Sangju Campus

South Korea

Conjoint Lecturer of Avondale College

Australia

2 September 2011

Thousands of theologians have read the Bible from cover to cover. They knew about other theologians before them who also read the Bible from cover to cover. When the brain saw something odd, they consulted what was written before, a policy that is not bad, but theological gutters are theologians in the past that dictate to our cognitive aspects of our brain the limits of our thinking. That is not by itself bad. As long as the thinking remains by what is said in the text between the covers.

        How people read the Bible is important. Certain hermeneutical keys are used to unlock the biblical words and give meaning to them, for the past what it meant and for the present what it means. When the cognitive aspects of the reader wants to lock events of the Bible in a meant pattern in the past and past only, then idealism is the only way to make it mean something today. The Bible then functions as a kind of Goethe poem that is beautiful to read and uplifting for the soul. And that is it. With God or without God, the poem is good. But is that the way the Bible was meant to be mean? For a long time many scholars thought so but a number of scholars placed God’s intentions horizontal and not only vertical: God gave messages to the prophets that covers all generations, sometimes, from themselves to beyond our own times to the eternity restored for us.

        A school of theologians developed with this last thinking that through the centuries was playing with figures and numbers to calculate periods in which things may happen or happened and see if they cannot predict the coming of the Lord. His Second Coming. The similarity between a Jew and Christian is that both expect the Messiah to come soon. The Jew expects the first arrival of the Messiah but the Christian expects the second arrival of the Messiah. For the Christian the Messiah came soft at first but will come glorified at second. For the Jew there will be two Messiahs, one which will be soft in future and one which will be glorified, who followed.

        There is a doctrine that Christians missed through the centuries despite all their rowing on the open sea of thoughts. Catholics missed it and Protestants came, and from what one can see from Luther, Calvin and the others, they also missed it. That is why the book of Hebrews was the most neglected book in the twentieth century by modern scholars. They did not see any use for it.

        Minorities in the Middle Ages, when the Catholic empire was the empire of the world, comparable with the USA influence today everywhere, had the view of what we think here is the ideal to discover and understand this neglected, overseen doctrine that is been spoken of here. Then came the Protestants and they joined these minorities in principle, if not totally in doctrine and build on the concepts for interpreting the prophecies of the Bible. During Orthodoxy many were continuing with similar investigations which were challenging the World empire of the Middle Ages, the papacy and his church. But then came the deadly wound in 1798 when France arrested the pope and took him to Europe. Deadly wound, for the world order changed from mixed religious constitution to a mixed secular constitution, ever since. The USA was the R&D for this constitution and all countries emulate it, even the Vatican in 1961-1964 with the Vatican II deliberations. That is why the opposition in the Catholic church wants to return to the pre-1798 conditions. Middle-Age Empire Romanticists they are but the Catholic church wound was healed and today they are silently very powerful. But that was not the doctrine that all Christians missed. This is just history and reality connected with predictions in Revelation 13 which has the Middle Age Ecclesiastical power as the first beast and the second beast as the USA secular constitutional empire that will restore the image of the first beast globally. Catholicism globally restored by the very powers who took it down in 1798. But that is also not the doctrine that Protestants missed although many of them do not know of this interpretation in Revelation 13.

        Maybe one must first ask why they did not see this doctrine in the Bible. The main reason traditional and modern Christians missed this cardinal doctrine in the Bible is because they locked the Bible in its own times. Period. The prophet cannot see in our days. The Bible is an old book for its own generation but not for our times. So what do we have here? Did not Traditional Protestantism operate with the same concept that God predicted some prophecies of the Bible to take place in their own time and our own times? They did. Everything went well and the knowledge was increased with this model of thinking. The year-day principle in prophecy was seen as a key to unlock many of the prophecies and it worked and worked well. Days in prophecy meant years. And so security for the system was seen in Daniel 9:24-27 as an exact calculation of the very year Jesus was Baptized in 27 CE and by calculation the very year by which He would die. Many Protestants in Protestant Orthodoxy periods wrote commentaries on this and knowledge slowly increased fanning out to other aspects of prophecy as well.

        Then in the early 1900’s they discovered that 2300 days of Daniel 8:14 must also mean something. That is Traditional Protestantism that we are speaking about here, even people with the name of Hengstenberg. They began to postulate that it means the Messiah will come at the end of the 2300 days. Hengstenberg thought that period is somewhere in the 1880’s. Scholars then asked themselves that they need clarity on the starting date in order to know the end date. Investigations came to a halt with the time of Ezra 4 and 7 in 457 BCE as the starting date for the 2300 years period. William Miller and others decided that the date for the coming of the Messiah should be 1843/1844. This is not the new doctrine that Christians missed. In fact, they did not miss this date for all over the world, millions of people and scholars were looking into this. Advent fever was all over the world. History books refer to it as the Advent Awakening or the Advent Movement. Protestants knew this and they knew why scholars came to this understanding. But that day came and past and the Lord did not come. Result? Disappointment. Many dropped the idea and threw out the baby with the bathwater.

        When Traditional Christianity experienced this disappointment in 1843-1844, they wanted to disassociate themselves from this disaster and what did they do? They changed the rules of the game. From now on, the Bible is a book for its own times, locked into the past and we can only romantically extrapolate here and there nice verses for our own meaning. Idealism applied thus. For this reason and at this crucial point, Traditional Christianity missed the opportunity for completely developing into the true doctrine surrounding this date 2300 years, since that period cannot be thrown out of the Bible. Something happened of tremendous importance in 1843/1844 and shelving it, as nearly 99% of Protestants did, is not going to solve the issue. Traditional Catholicism shelved it already in the Middle Ages, the possibility that God could have a message in the Old Testament prophets day for our day, for example, the year-day principle, and other views the minority scholars, not unpunished for their views in those days, had about these matters. So Catholics are not included in Traditional Christianity here although they also did not develop into this doctrine.

        The neo-Protestants were those who stepped out in the disappointment years in 1843/1844 to develop Idealism and Preterism as a prophetic interpretation model and attempted to tone down the statements of Wycliffe, Knox, Luther, Calvin on these matters. What the Bible meant was for its own times, is a doctrine that Myers in his commentaries on Calvin, would want to emphasize. One can see it in his appendix to the book of Daniel of Calvin. He explains all that we are saying here plus more.

        But the morning after the disappointment, Hiram Edson was walking in a field when he suddenly got the answer. 1844 was not the date when Christ comes. It was the date Christ moved from one apartment in the Heavenly Sanctuary to change His function in the Most Holy of the Sanctuary, similar to the Old Testament High Priestly Day of Atonement ritual. To this Protestants were no longer there to listen. They closed their ears and minds to any interpretation to these sections in the Bible and the result is, today they miss the key to a proper understanding of the purpose and reason by God for the Sanctuary of the Old Testament and the purpose and reason of God’s inclusion of Paul’s explanation of it in the book of Hebrews in the New Testament. This is the origin of the banana on which Modern Protestants or Neo-Protestants slipped and are still slipping. In fact, the Seventh-day Adventists church continued these ideas of Hiram Edson with gaining clarity of this doctrine and insight to such an extent that it became the strongest contribution that Seventh-day Adventists made to Modern Christianity but unrecognized since Neo-Protestants have deviated from 1856 onwards in works like those of Thomas Myers from Traditional Protestantism interpreting the Reformers themselves on principles of interpretation. They toned down the remnant of those days after 1844’s message, to the result that they missed the discovery of the true meaning that they should have had before 1844, that they were developing into on all continents, a fact that is illustrated by the history on commentaries of Daniel and Revelation by Traditional Protestants . Isaac Newton’s commentary on Revelation is such an example. It is online.

        Why do they not see it or cannot see it today? They operate with the neo-Protestant principle of Preterism for Prophecy rule since Thomas Myers in 1856 in the Calvin Daniel commentary Appendix explained. Lock the Bible into its own time, and you cannot see an explanation for 2300 days as in 1844. It is that simple. Nothing happened except at the Cross in 31 CE for them. After John the Revelator who wrote things in the days of Domitianus and referring to Nero, for them, the Bible has no power but that of a nice poem. That is for them in their neo-Protestantism model after 1844 disappointment.  

        So what did Christ come to do in 1844? Adventists studied Daniel 7 and got the answer. Continuing the principle of the Reformers of the succession of empires in Daniel 7, they arrived at the fourth empire as Rome and the Little Horn as the Middle Age Catholic empire that succeeded it. Notre Dame University history professor had an online article boasting about this glorious time of the Catholic church. A flourishing time indeed. Both in Daniel 7 and in Revelation12 the years are given as 1260 years. It started from the day Emperor Julian changed his mind to be a theologian and no longer a soldier in 538 CE, as one can see in numismatics or the science of coins of that year and a year before compared. The ending time we already indicated above with the deadly wound in 1798 and the mixed secular constitutional empire of the USA succeeding. One can say, “but it was Napoleon who captured the pope not USA?” Yes but it was after the liberation of the French Revolution which came with the ideology and inspiration from the American Revolution and ideas since 1776, that is why the Lady of Liberty was a gift from France to the USA. It is that simple. The USA also work through allies and friends and that in prophecy is also as such indicated at a number of places, Daniel 11 (last part) and in Revelation 13. Protestants cannot see this for they chose to close their eyes in 1856 following the embarrassing disappointment of a no-show of Christ in 1844. The prophecies are very convincing when compared to history and so certain and accurate and that is what Seventh-day Adventists discovered and try to bring as understanding to all people over the world. There is a message still for our time in the Bible and attention to those aspects are essential for peace of mind in a time when all falls apart and economy and society transforms every day and migrations are taking place all over the world. Stress is up and people’s heart problems increased. Understanding what is going on properly is essential as a survival kid for some more troublous times ahead.

        As long as neo-Protestantism (and let us include Catholics), let us say Modern Christianity, continue to close their eyes to these realities, they starve themselves from understanding, so vital for their proper role according to the Bible.

        How do we know they have problems? The meant aspect regaring Bible understanding cannot keep track in their “lock up approach” to modern discoveries and technology, so metro-worship and metro-technology streams into their worship styles to supply them with a focus on experience above doctrines of the Bible, and their grabbing of the Bible prooftexts is getting thinner and thinner by the day. Existentialism counts more for them than Biblical analysis. That is because the Bible was locked up in 1857 by Thomas Myers in a Preteristic system of interpretation and meant and means was separated with a barrier or wall very high between the two of them. Post-modernists cannot even see the Bible of what it meant any longer and start to mix what they have around them on this side of the means, existing around them, by name existentialism with a process of eclectically pick and choose anything that appears nice, inclusive, peaceful and OK. But it is not OK. Protestants missed the Sanctuary Message. They missed the Investigative Judgment of Daniel 7 understanding. They missed a proper understanding of the Atonement as a continuing process until Satan is eradicated. They missed that Christ work now in Heaven is to remove the stigma of our sins from the “books of heaven”, not books of God, for the Trinity do not need books, but the jury, the angels, the two thirds that did not participate in the Rebellion in Heaven by Satan, but who is asking, what right do any sinner, forgiven by Christ have to join them in future, if they have records on the books? Christ says ilasterion. Eradication. Eraser. Christ is the big eraser in heaven erasing all our sins when our book comes up, probably at our death, to say, showing His nail mark hands, “leave him/her alone. He/she is mine, because I died for them.” That is why the tax collector in Luke 18:13 prayed such a powerful prayer: “O God, ilastheti  = eradicate for me, my sins”. Ransom or lutron was paid at the cross in 31CE. It made reconciliation or katalege or exagorazo. The penalty, guilt, punishment was taken over by Christ in 31CE. That is by the cross. What is remaining was His function since 1844 in the Most Holy to remove the stigma of sin from the books by ilasterion. An expiation process. An eradication process. Erasing the sins in the court of heaven. A court that we can see in Daniel 7 starting after the end of the Little Horn of Daniel 7, after his 1260 years, ending in 1798, thus after that, that is why 1844 is the candidate for that proper dating. It is a confirming text to Daniel 8:14 of the 2300 days.

        Said the Tax Collector, “Lord, when You are going to open Your books in the Investigative Judgment since 1844, erase also my stigma of my sins.” This is the doctrine that neo-Protestants missed and modern Christianity at large: Even if you received at the cross release from the penalty, guilt and punishment, it is not enough, you still need to have the stigma of been called “sinner” [Tax Collector: “for me, for a sinner”] removed in the Investigative Judgment of the Son of Man coming to His Father according to Daniel 7. As Edward Heppenstall said in his book on these aspects, Our High Priest chapter 2 paragraph 20: “Christ’s work is not complete until sin is eradicated”. As long as Modern Christianity locks themselves out of the Bible, by following Historical Criticism in all its forms, by insisting on meant only for those days 2000 years ago and means only as a kind of soap opera of existential nice stories as sermons, they will miss it.

        What about modern Judaism? They do not recognize Christ so how will they be able to discover 1844 when the building block for the year-day principle illustrates in Daniel 9:24-27 that Christ started His ministry in 27 CE and died in the middle of the week, or 3 and 1/2 years later in 31 CE? How will they identify the Son of Man in 1844, even if they come that far? They have also locked in modern days the Bible into its 2000 year past frame and use modern existentialism as their source of wisdom by comparison with ancient thoughts of a past history of the Bible. It is a distant collateral alignment of their lives to a norm, only distant. In contrast to modern Judaism, the Middle Age Rabbis came very close sometimes to what Seventh-day Adventists later discovered, for example the Elijah Message, the Third and [my view: Fourth Elijahs], the Latter Rain theology, the Remnant and the Judgment message developing into Adventists understanding of Revelation 14:6-12 etc. Especially Rashi, Radak, Kara, Ibn Ezra, Moses Maimonides, Abarbanel, and others for the book Daniel like Japhet ibn Ali Halevi, a contemporary of Saadyah Gaon in the tenth century. Ibn Ali Halevi is a very valuable scholar for modern day Adventists to look into. One can see how they were also discovering something in those days, the lines which show correlations to the manner and methodology of Seventh-day Adventism in prophetic interpretation, which incidently compares very well with the way Luther and Calvin and Wycliffe dealt with prophecies. But until the willingness to study is there, knowledge cannot be developed and discovered.  Scholars of the caliber of Rashi, Radak et al is hard to find among modern Rabbis. Modern rabbis like Judah J. Slotki and Ephraim Oratz compare very well in their representation of the ideas of the Middle Age Rabbis to Thomas Myers in 1856 with Calvin. Lock the Bible away from modern times especially with Antiochus Epiphanes overdose for Daniel, similar to what became the standard procedures of the Catholic church in the Middle Ages and later until this day against the minority objectors in those days to the method of interpretation. Modern Christianity missed the development in the understanding of these important set of doctrines.