Comments on Lesson Nine: Day-Year Principle Desmond Ford
Adventist Today, CA - 8 hours ago
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Today it is still held by Jehovah’s Witnesses who thereby come up with Christ’s invisible return to earth in 1914 to set his seal on the Watchtower ...
Comments on Lesson Nine: Day-Year Principle Desmond Ford
A former Seventh-day Adventist Conference president, Kai Arasola, wrote his Ph.D. dissertation on The End of Historicism commenting upon the demise of the year-day principle. Today it is still held by Jehovah’s Witnesses who thereby come up with Christ’s invisible return to earth in 1914 to set his seal on the Watchtower organization. Among Bible scholars, the theory has been defunct for over 100 years. Jehovah’s Witnesses borrowed it from Adventists. It is not widely known that William Miller had 15 ways of arriving at 1844. No SDA teacher would ever invoke 14 of these today, and no true scholar can give adequate evidence for choosing to abide by the 15th argument—the year-day principle. Observe some of Miller’s other arguments: Lev 26:18 :…I will punish you for your sins seven times over. Deut 15:1: At the end of every seven years you must cancel debts Eze 39:9,10: … for seven years they will use them for fuel… Ex 31:13-17 … you must observe my Sabbaths… Other passages used were Lev 25:8-13; Hos 6:1-3; Dan 12:11-13; Rev 9:5;11:3; 12:6,14; 13:18 Today, only a mad genius would attempt to arrive at 1843 by the foregoing. Miller believed the earth would be 6000 years old by 1843, and his other chronological computations were similarly mysterious, including his use of Dan 8:14. Concerning Miller’s approach to exegesis, Arasola says: “It almost totally ignores the original context and combines texts together in a rather flaccid fashion, and it shows a blind faith in the English translation.” p. 100 SDAs have done similarly, relying on the proof-text method until the second half of the 20th century when some scholars diverged to more correct approaches. None of this is meant to condemn Miller as a man. He was a devout Christian, and God used him despite his errors. Is it not still the same with the best of us? We must ever keep in mind that in Miller’s time the theological world was drunk with a post-millennial optimism which only two World Wars would fully destroy. The providential purpose in the Miller movement was to challenge the popular view that the world would be converted before Christ came. We do not glorify God by clinging to the errors of our fathers. The year-day principle may for centuries have been a permitted crutch for those longing to see Christ return, but today, with our knowledge of inaugurated and consummated eschatology, there is no need for it. Consider the words found in the famous Lange Commentary, written over a century ago: …no clear instance can be adduced of the use of a “day” in Scriptural prophecy for an exact year, where the typical character of the time is not immediately expressed as being limited to that particular case, much less is there any intimation that such a rule is to apply to prophecy in general . To admit such a principle in Biblical interpretation is to abandon all precision in the use of language. Daniel, p.87. The Glacier View Consensus statement admitted that there is no clear statement in the Bible setting forth the year-day principle. Why then is it now still invoked? It is done in desperation, and the arguments brought forth are similarly desperate. For example, it is argued in the lesson that Dan 9 uses the year-day principle. But “days” are never mentioned in this prophecy, and the Christian church interpreted it for long centuries before the year-day principle surfaced. (See the SDA Encyclopedia p. 1440 for the evidence that the principle was the product , not of Bible times, but long afterwards.) In Numbers 14:34 the prophetic part of the verse uses years for years. They are literal, and not the symbol of anything else. If we were to apply the year-day principle to Num 14:34 the result would be an anticipated fourteen thousand, four hundred years of wandering, not forty. In Ezekiel 4:6 we have, not a symbolic prophecy, but a symbolic action. Ezekiel did not lie on his left side for 390 years, and on his right for forty. Not one of the dates deduced by the year-day principle will stand the test of investigation. See the report of the 1919 Bible conference which rejected the 538 to 1798 scenario, and Oct 11, 1840. Why do we not listen to and obey the words of our Lord; “It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority.” Acts l:7 ? The demise of this principle in the minds of its holders is sure once they search history for the importance of the dates supposedly referred to in the time prophecies, such as 538, 1798, 1840, 1844. ALL OF THEM ARE WITHOUT BIBLICAL OR HISTORICAL SUPPORT. Search and see. P.S. The stratagem suggested on p. 108 that the word “concerning” has no rightful place in 8:13 and that therefore the period of the 2300 evening-mornings covers from the time of Medo-Persia is one I myself entertained till forced to abandon it.. The translators were correct in inserting this word because the heart of the vision concerns the work of the little horn set forth in vs 8-13. Neither Medo-Persia nor Greece are central to this vision.