April 12  Becoming Open-Door Adventists-1

Behold, I have set before you an open door, which no one is able to shut. Rev. 3:8, RSV.

Some weeks ago we noted that the early Sabbatarians were shut-door Adventists. Miller had used the phrase "shut door" from Matthew 25:10 to signify the close of probation before the arrival of the Bridegroom, or Christ. Another way of putting it is that Miller believed that every person will have made a decision for or against Christ before He comes again, that there will be no second chances after the Second Advent. That is good Bible teaching.

But Miller's understanding of the shut door had an inbuilt problem. More specifically, he had tied the Second Advent to the end of the 2300 days of Daniel 8:14. Thus he believed up through the end of 1844 that probation had closed by October 22 of that year, that the work of preaching the gospel to sinners had ended, that no more sinners could be converted.

All early Sabbatarian Adventists, without exception, were shut-door believers. However, Bible study, as we saw earlier, soon led them to conclude that the cleansing of the sanctuary was not the Second Advent, but had to do with Christ's ministry in the heavenly temple.

At that point they found themselves holding a theology that no longer fit together. They had changed their interpretation of the cleansing of the sanctuary but had not reinterpreted the timing of the shut door. A transformation in one belief, however, demanded a shift in the other. But that point was not immediately obvious to the Sabbatarains.

It would be the early 1850s before they had worked out a harmonized position on the topic. But the change did not come about ebcause they  first saw their mistake in the Bible. To the contrary, they faced another problem that wouldn't go away. Whether the;y liked it or not, they kept getting converts to their message who had not gone through the Millerite experience. At first they thought that they should refuse to baptize them, since such conversions were "impossible." Such was the case of J. H. Waggoner, who later became a leading minister among the Seventh-day Adventists.

It was the reality of the converts who shouldn't have been that drove the Sabbatarians back to the Bible to restudy the topic. By late 1851 or early 1852 they had realized their mistake. As a result, they concluded that while it was true that probation would close before the Advent, that that event was still future. That insight opened the way for them to spread their message to everyone.

The good news is that God leads us even through our muddles!