Experimental exegesis with Daniel and
Revelation
The word “experimental” means that one
tries an interpretation because it appears to be the likely outcome but when
history proves it to be otherwise, it remains experimental and thus failed. The
rule for a sober Adventist, is to keep your own private experimental
interpretation for yourself and not to advocate it from a pulpit, Sabbath-school
class even in table talk discussions. The reason for that is the way the
Holy Spirit works with unfolding truth. Unfolding truth happens when the Holy
Spirit opened-up the mind of a person to see an interpretation that was not
seen before but which according to all counts, has the right to be the only interpretation
originally intended for a passage. Rambam or Moses Maimonides was a datesetter
and so was Luther and Calvin, although people never thought of that, William
Miller of course after many in between, even the Lutheran scholars Hengstenberg
who had a very conservative commentary on Daniel, were all datesetters. And
then myself also. My errors are online at Academia and I
left it that way to indicate how one can make predictions in Daniel 11 based on
knowledge and how it proves wrong in history since what I thought may
inaugurate in 2008 never did and we are now in 2019. However, not all my
predictions were off the mark. But, I do not want to get into that. If the Holy Spirit opens the mind of
one person, it is never only to one person. Truth is shared and not secretive
or secret codes. It is normally very visible, clearly available and simple to
explain. It is also revealed to someone else even in another culture and continent
at the same time. So the secret of so-called “New Discoveries” are this: wait
for others to also come up with the idea. There is a difference between a
preteristic interpretation and futuristic interpretation of prophecy and a
historicistic one. The first two interpreters are standing with their faces to
the future horizon, but the preterist has his/her Bible behind his back on the
ground or on the shelf since all data was exhausted already in the days of the
historical prophets mentioned in the Bible. Thus, they are just using brains
and feelings to wonder what the future may bring. The Futurist also faces the future and
stand with their Bibles in their hands. They of course look for word or phrase
cues in modern events around them now, and look for antichrists from evil
labels that they place around them in immediacy. They expect normally the
Spirit to miraculously outline the connection with today and tomorrow’s events
for them from the words and phrases that they read. The Historicist ironically, do not face
the future but the back since he/she is standing with their Bibles in their
hands but they are looking on the ground at newspapers and history books to
find clear, simple, globally evident and easily available information to be
prove for the data, words or phrases in the unfulfilled prophecies. Their minds
are on the future but their eyes are on the ground and in the biblical text in
their hands. Thus, for a historicist, tomorrow is
not predicted, it is called-off or announced as it already happened and can be
proven to be so. The frames of prophetic charts are known to the historicist
but their timing is a matter of waiting before they are explained in specific
detail. It is not the case of a one-man show
interpretation. It is a consensus of many continents that came to the same view
after considering the data in the newspapers of history books. La Rondelle was clear that the last
part of Daniel 11, from verses 40-45 is a “grey area” in interpretation in SDA
circles. Rightly so. And when Smith et al speculated about these passages, and
came in controversy with James White, he cautioned everyone to be careful and
wait until the events happen before they make utterances as to the fulfillment
of these verses. The interpreter needs to move forward,
on the knees, citing the SDA interpreters on Daniel and Revelation from the pioneers
to present on a verse, without trying to rewrite the history of interpretation
in the remnant on prophecy. The Holy Spirit does not reform the remnant with
new ideas, the remnant reform the history of interpretation of less known to
more known confirmations of the already revealed interpretations. Continuity of
truth is a very important tool of the Holy Spirit. One will for example find
that when Adventists came to their full understanding of a doctrine, others
came near it in a similar way before but never as perfect in quality as the
Adventists. Truth is not divisive it is harmonious. In harmony with the
pioneers or some pioneers and continuing with the same principles of
interpretation that they used for their historicist interpretations. Better
sources will bring better results but most of the time the pioneers were not
that far off the mark. When they became sinfully dogmatic about their own
opinion, or opinionated, or jealous in political wars with their peers in the
work of the Lord, then they made gross errors, and the funny thing is, they
worked themselves out of the Adventist church. They admitted that in their
publications later then. This is not how the Spirit works with
prophetic interpretations of aspects that is still to unfold to us. We need to
be humble and wait almost silently until history or the newspapers announce the
case.
Koot van Wyk, Chongni, Sangju, South Korea,
15th of May 2019