As October 22, 1844 slowly faded into October 23 a great weeping swept the countryside as 50,000 true believers in the accuracy of William Miller's
prediction (of Christ's return to Earth) faced the stark reality of total soul-crushingly Great Disappointment.
How had they come to this bizarre conclusion and what would they now face by way of recrimination and disconfirmation?
When something deep has been explained step by step until a glowing light of dawning understanding arrives the human heart leaps joyfully to conclude
"this is truth."
When it isn't----Wow! That really hurts!
After all, Miller had not been the first to discover that 2300 days in Daniel 8:14 really meant 2300 years! What Miller had improved upon was the
explications of when those years began their count and where they would end.
Every link in the chain of logic and understanding was picture perfect! Yet, arrive He did not!
Two shattering decisions lay as alternatives to the victims of the Great Disappointment.
1. Scrap the beautiful chronology and heartfelt emotional confirmation of true truth, OR
2. Search ever deeper for alternative interpretations to finesse what may well be a simple error easily adjusted!
Out of the 50,000 heart broken Adventists 99% went back to their churches with heads hung low like Prodigal refugees. A meager 1%, 50 members, saw a light at the end of the dark tunnel which consisted of reframing the argument toward an alternate conclusion.
Adventists invent New Light!
The 2nd coming was nothing of the sort! Rather, Christ had entered the Most Holy in the heavens of which the earthly tabernacle in the wilderness was but a shadow.
A man named Edson lay claim to a vivid vision while he stood in a cornfield the day following the Great Disappointment. Edson's mysterious vision was to form the basis of a new doctrine of the "sanctuary" needing to be cleansed using Daniel 8:14 in a different way.
So, what HAD happened on that fateful October day if Christ had not "come"?
The faithful 50 warmed to the idea that a probationary period had closed instead! What illustrated this best was the parable of the 10 virgins of Matthew chapter 25 which describes the door of salvation shutting.
The significance of the new interpretation was enough to give them goose bumps as they realized only the ones who had been through the Great Disappointment -faithful as virgins -were candidates for salvation with their bridegroom, Jesus Christ. Whew! 99% fell away as unwise while they alone remained, the faithful 50 were the wise virgins!
What an exciting and rejuvenating explanation! (spoiler alert** this is bullshit).
But, there appeared a genuine downside to be reckoned with! As the faithful 50 shared this new light --the ones listening-- became convicted of its truth in their heart and they converted on the spot to total acceptance!
The "unfaithful virgins" wanted to join the "faithful"! Uh-oh, that wasn't supposed to happen!
In the parable, once the door was shut--it was shut once and forever! So, either another looser interpretation had to be dreamed up, or, 1844 ended the chances of the 99% to ever become the bride of Christ henceforth.
Sooooo, what was it going to be? Shut door and probation's close......or.....something else?
Well, guess what? As it turns out-there were apartments in the heavenly sanctuary that parallel the close of Jesus' minstry.
(Note: Jehovah's Witnesses had a closed door policy themselves. They taught for awhile that in 1935 the door to heavenly calling was shut and only the "other sheep" could subsequently be saved. So too, like the Adventists, this teaching had to be finessed away because more and more "anointed" were being counted at the yearly Memorial service. This continues to plague them so that it has become necessary to ridicule partakers!)
October 22, 1844 was the close of...uh hem...the first apartment only. Yeah, that's what they said! A change in Christ's ministry. Crisis averted!
Would you believe this series of changes and interpretations met with skepticism?
So, back to the drawing board to tie everything up with a neat bow before settling on the true truth of any new light!
Here is how the entire doctrine came to be viewed.
The heavenly santuary needed to be cleansed. Right? Right.
This involved some sort of judgment work as described in Daniel 7:13, 14 in a courtroom scene foreshadowing the time immediately preceding Christ's actual 2nd coming.
The time period commencing with the October 22, 1844 date was an interim of time in which the lives of believers passed in review before the heavenly judge. Christ had entered the Holy of Holies (in heaven) and the review had begun. This was labeled an "INVESTIGATIVE JUDGMENT"
During this time period it was incumbent upon earthly faithful believers to concentrate on perfecting their character development to pass the review and become the elect.
The person of Ellen White who was known and accepted among these Adventists as a true seer of visions explained in her book, THE GREAT CONTROVERSY what this was all about.
Those who are living upon the earth when the intercession of Christ shall cease in the sanctuary above are to stand in the sight of a holy God without a mediator. Their robes must be spotless, their characters must be purified from sin by the blood of sprinkling. Through the grace of God and their own diligent effort they must be conquerors in the battle with evil.
— The Great Controversy, chapter 24
Indeed, quite literally, whenever a date was predicted the members would don actual white robes like Roman togas as they expectantly awaited fulfillment in their perfectionism.
Inasmuch as the followers of Charles Taze Russell were themselves 2nd Adventist sympathists fully aquainted with the Investigative Judgment, it should
surprise no one that Russell's teachings closely mirrored the character development quest for virginal perfection and Russell himself sought to live a
married life as a literal virgin. He had a Roman toga prepared for him which he was wearing the night of his death on the train in Texas 1916.
Russell's successor, J.F.Rutherford and his hand-picked board members closely traced theirdoctrines along the lines of the historical developments of Adventism.
A shadowy copy-catversion of the INVESTIGATIVE JUDGMENT appears in their explanation of their own "passing inspection" in 1919. The original spin
comes with the JW conclusion that the governing body of J.F.Rutherford and presumably (though not actually) his 7 member board, were awarded the
special office of sole purveyors of Christ's channeled truth as a "faithful and discreet" slave. (Qualified To Be Ministers, Watch Tower Society, 1955, page 381,)
Simply put, then, Jehovah’s Witnesses believe that 3 and a half years after Jesus invisibly took Kingdom power in 1914, he inspected all Christian groups on earth. And then, based on this careful inspection, he selected Joseph Rutherford and his associated, aka the Bible Students, to be his “faithful and discreet slave” and appointed them “over all his belongings”.
Back to the 2nd Adventists for the moment...
Inside the Adventist church critics have arose time and again to complain the interpretation of Investigative Judgment does not correspond in any believable way to actual scriptural basis. Time and again these critics within the church have been surgically removed!
Finally, a large conference of the finest scholars convened for the purpose of going over the question with a fine tooth comb and the following conclusions were published.
"The [sanctuary] doctrine is, to me, the most colossal, psychological, face-saving phenomenon in religious history. [...] We personally do not believe that there is even a suspicion of a verse in Scripture to sustain such a peculiar position, and we further believe that any effort to establish it is stale, flat, and unprofitable. [...] [It is] unimportant and almost naïve. "
and...
"Without exception, the scholars responded by acknowledging "that there is no valid linguistic or contextual basis for the traditional interpretation of Daniel 8:14. "
Raymond F. Cottrell. ""The Sanctuary Doctrine—Asset or Liability?" (part 6)". Adventist Today. Retrieved 2007-12-01.
None of this has led to reform, admission of error or retraction of any sort.
With Jehovah's Witnesses, however, the effort has been to use whatever doctrines Adventism invented and shape them in a way that suits their ends and purposes.
Jehovah's Witness theology is glued to 1914 the way Adventism is stuck on 1844 the same as Bible Students under Russell had their anchor points in 1874.
The FDS doctrine needed support and 1914 was as good a launching pad as any.
(Page 24 of the January 15, 2008 Watchtower )
What are we to conclude from these parallel teachings of Adventists and Jehovah's Witnesses?
The 7 Day Adventist church suffers from internal schism and doubt among its scholars while the ruling body makes excuses and wields the power to send critics packing.
Jehovah's Witnesses deal with critics (especially ex-members) summarily and harshly.
The Governing Body has recently moved the "investigative judgment" interpretation out of reach of disconfirmation by moving it into the future thus rescuing it from the past.
July 15, 2013 Watchtower:
"When Jesus comes for judgment during the great tribulation,he will find that the faithful slave has been loyally dispensing timely spiritual food to the domestics. Jesus will then delight in making the second appointment—over all his belongings. "
The Faithful and Discreet slave stoops to stealing ideas from those it publicly regards as false
religion. The duplicity is a stinging rebuke to those who cling to the notion there is any "truth" other than the truth about the Truth: it is plagarized false teaching!