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Petrus Romanus: The Papacy as Antichrist

04/16/2012 36 Comments


By Cris D. Putnam

The idea that the pope or office of the papacy is the biblical Antichrist offends modern sensibility. Contemporary culture elevates political correctness as a cardinal virtue albeit many of its staunchest proponents are intolerant of those who advocate objective truth. It seems pluralism rules the day in religious discourse. Even in evangelical circles, ecumenism disavows such an idea. However, protestant tradition is not politically correct. The purpose of this series is to survey the history of the notion that the papacy fulfills the prophetic descriptions of Antichrist and to follow the data where it leads. This presentation will first give a broad overview and summary of the biblical data and then it will offer a sampling of significant Protestants who have contended for the idea. Two noteworthy proponents, Francis Turretin and Charles Hodge, will be discussed more thoroughly. Finally, a brief discussion will be offered on contemporary responses and conclusions will be drawn. While the argument that the papacy fulfills the prophecies of the Antichrist is sound and compelling, it seems unwarranted to conclude that it does so exclusively.
 
 

The Antichrist in Prophecy

The concept of antichrist traces back to Israelite history where Israel as the chosen people of God were threatened or opposed by a pagan Kings. For example, concerning the Babylonian King, Isaiah writes, “You said in your heart, ‘I will ascend to heaven; above the stars of God I will set my throne on high; I will sit on the mount of assembly in the far reaches of the north” (Is 14:13). Ezekiel paints a similar portrait of the King of Tyre (28:2) and Gog of Magog (38-39). This self-proclaimed apotheosis is also found in the “little horn” of Daniel 7 and 8. Even more, it is seen in Daniel 11:36-37. Antiochus IV Epiphanes who desecrated the second temple typifies the eschatological figure and the infamous “abomination of desolation” is seemingly spoken of as future event by Jesus (Mt 24:15). This deified tyrant figure appears in the New Testament in Paul’s description of the “man of lawlessness” who “proclaims himself to be God” (2 Th 2:4). In John’s Apocalypse, he is the beast from the abyss whose image is idolatrously worshipped (13:1-18). In Mark 13:22, Jesus warns near the time of his return that false Christs (pseudochristoi) and false prophets (pseudoprophētai) will deceive people by doing signs and wonders (cf. Matt 7:15; 24:11, 23–24). These texts form a composite picture from which scholars and expositors have formed a model of who this is and how he might manifest.

The Greek term antichristos can be taken two ways as “opponent of Christ” or as “false Christ.” This is due to the twofold meaning of the prefix “anti.” It can mean “against” or “instead of.”[1] It is only used explicitly in 1 John 2:18.22; 4:3; 2 John 7, and in other apocryphal Christian literature. If we look to John’s epistles we see that antichrist is defined as “he who denies the Father and the Son” (1 Jn 2:22b). This meets the “against” sense the prefix “anti.” Yet, John also seems to distinguish between a single Antichrist “who is coming” and a plural “many antichrists who have come,” (1 Jn 2:18). Leon Morris offers, “Perhaps we should bear in mind that John refers to ‘the spirit of the antichrist’ as well as ‘the Antichrist’ (thus using both neuter and masculine); indeed, he refers to ‘many antichrists’ in whom that spirit finds expression (1 John 4:3; 2:18).”[2] Thus, it seems prudent to be flexible in one’s view. Even so, in 2 Thessalonians 2, Paul’s use of: 1) “man of lawlessness;”2) ” son of destruction;”3)”he who opposes and exalts himself;”4) “he whose coming is after the working of Satan” points to a single individual. Due to this and because Jesus is described as defeating an individual (cf. 2 Th 2:8; Re 19:20), one should understand the general term “antichrist” as many individuals culminating with an ultimate incarnation, “the Antichrist,” just prior to the Parousia.

Most interpreters conflate the two meanings of “anti” with a figure who poses as Christ while initially clandestinely opposing God in allegiance with Satan. This portrait of a deceptive usurper is well supported by the above mentioned passages. Yet, the futurist interpretation has not been the dominant view of the Apocalypse historically. Since the reformation, there has been a large body of biblical scholarship which posits the events in the book of Revelation as milestones along church history. We believe that this approach has merit and will suggest a hybrid of futurist and historical interpretation. While speculations on the identity of Antichrist have run the gamut from Muhammad to President Obama, arguably, until very recently, the dominant opinion since the reformation has been the Roman Catholic pope albeit not a single pope rather the office of the papacy. Even though strictly historical interpretations seem inadequate, a hybrid of historical with a still yet ultimate realization of “the Antichrist” offers more promise. Nevertheless, it is demonstrable that from the time of Luther to the present day, there has been a consistent and compelling argument that the office of the papacy fulfills the prophetic type of antichrist.
 

Next we begin a survey of some of the major proponents of the papal Antichrist.

[1] L. J. Lietaert Peerbolte, “Antichrist.” in Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible. 2nd extensively rev. ed. K. van der Toorn, Bob Becking and Pieter Willem van der Horst (Leiden; Boston; Grand Rapids, Mich.: Brill; Eerdmans, 1999), 62.

 

[2]Leon Morris, vol. 13, 1 and 2 Thessalonians: An Introduction and Commentary, Tyndale New Testament Commentaries (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1984), 129.

 

Filed Under Petrus Romanus Tagged With Antichrist, Church History, Prophecy of the Popes, Romanism

Isaac Newton, Daniel’s 70 Weeks & the Six Day War

04/14/2012 60 Comments

By Cris D. Putnam
 If you have ever spent any time studying Daniel’s seventy-weeks prophecy you might have been somewhat annoyed by the first seven weeks.

“Know therefore and understand, that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem unto the Messiah the Prince shall be seven weeks, and threescore and two weeks: the street shall be built again, and the wall, even in troublous times.”(Da 9:25)

Frankly, it seems to just be dangling there without a purpose.  Most prophecy teachers simply add the two together to make sixty-nine weeks without saying much about why it is “seven and threescore and two (62).” Well, this bothered Newton too. He explained the odd seven weeks as referring to the second coming, after a future restoration of Israel which had not yet occurred! He explained the verse in this way:

Know also and understand, that from the going forth of the commandment to cause to return and to build Jerusalem, unto the Anointed the Prince, shall be seven weeks.

The former part of the Prophecy related to the first coming of Christ, being dated to his coming as a Prophet; this being dated to his coming to be Prince or King, seems to relate to his second coming. There, the Prophet was consummate, and the most holy anointed: here, he that was anointed comes to be Prince and to reign. For Daniel’s Prophecies reach to the end of the world; and there is scarce a Prophecy in the Old Testament concerning Christ, which doth not in something or other relate to his second coming. If divers of the antients, as Irenæus, Julius Africanus, Hippolytus the martyr, and Apollinaris Bishop of Laodicea, applied the half week to the times of Antichrist; why may not we, by the same liberty of interpretation, apply the seven weeks to the time when Antichrist shall be destroyed by the brightness of Christ’s coming?[i]

He puts the first seven in the future after the second rebuilding of Jerusalem. Jerusalem was reclaimed by Israel during the Six Days War in June of 1967. Recall that in the seventy-weeks paradigm, the “seven” is seven weeks of years which is (7 x 7) forty-nine years. T. W. Tramm explains a remarkable concurrence:

June 7, 1967 falls in the Hebrew year 5727, adding forty-nine prophetic years to this date we arrive in the Hebrew year 5776, which is 2015 on the Gregorian calendar. Interestingly, if one counts exactly forty-nine (360 day) prophetic years (17,640 days) from the June 7, 1967 date of Jerusalem’s recapture, we arrive at September 23, 2015—the Day of Atonement! Coincidence?[ii]

We verified this remarkable match but we also noted that if one counts 49 x 365 days for solar years, one lands in 2016 which corresponds nicely with historical approach of AD 756 the acceding of temporal power to the pope plus 1260 derived from Revelation 11:3. Although no man knows the day or hour, it is hard to ignore the remarkable preponderance of prophecy pointing to the period we have entered.

View Newton’s notes and prophetic writings for yourself online here.

Next we will begin to examine the views of the reformers.

[i] Isaac Newton, Observations upon the Prophecies of Daniel, and the Apocalypse of St. John (London: 1733); viewable here: Newton Project, last accessed February 2, 2012, http://www.newtonproject.sussex.ac.uk/view/texts/normalized/THEM00204.

[ii] T. W. Tramm, 2012–2015: The Season of Return (self-published 2010), 265.

Filed Under Petrus Romanus

Isaac Newton, David Flynn & the Arrival of Petrus Romanus

04/12/2012 17 Comments

By Cris D. Putnam
Back in February of 2003, the Daily Telegraph, a London newspaper, published a front-page story announcing Isaac Newton’s prediction that the world would end in 2060. This date has been promulgated throughout the internet yet few folks actually understand the rationale behind it. Newton’s calculation is not all that mysterious. In fact it is based on the exact same logic we have presented in Petrus Romanus which as explained in detail in my previous article (I recommended that you read article in order to fully grasp this one).

The main idea is that when the papacy became a political power yielding the temporal sword, the 1260 years of spiritual oppression ensued as inferred from the year/day reading of various biblical prophecies (Rev. 11:3; 12:6; Dan 7:25; 12:7). According to Newton scholar and professor of the history of science and technology at the University of King’s College in Halifax, Nova Scotia., Dr. Stephen D. Snobelen:

This did not involve the use of anything as complicated as calculus, which he invented, but rather simple arithmetic that could be performed by a child. Beginning in the 1670s and continuing to the end of his life in 1727, Newton considered several commencement dates for the formal institution of the apostate, imperial Church. Earlier commencement dates include 607 and 609 A.D. As Newton grew older, he pushed the time of the end further and further into the future. In Yahuda MS 7 Newton twice gives 800 A.D. for the beginning of “the Pope’s supremacy”. The year 800 is a significant one in history, as it is the year Charlemagne was crowned emperor of Rome in the west by Pope Leo III at St. Peter’s in Rome. Since Newton believed that the 1260 years corresponded to the duration of the corruption of the Church, he added 1260 to 800 A.D. and arrived at the date 2060 for the “fall of Babylon” or cessation of the apostate Church.

http://www.isaac-newton.org/update.html

Newton based his date of 800 on the reign of Charlemagne and the institution of the Holy Roman Empire. However, as I documented in the last post, The Donation of Pepin was when Pope Stephen first achieved true political power over the papal states and it is dated to 754 -756, the range presented in Petrus Romanus.  We make cogent case based on the historical record that an important moral and spiritual line was crossed at that time. The late David Flynn also wrote about Newton’s theories extensively in Temple at the Center of Time and offered another fascinating synchronicity with our findings:

Rome lay on the Tiber River, which bisected the city. Its original founding date also can be regarded in a similar bisected manner. The prophetic implication of a revived Roman Empire at the coming of the Antichist is not outside the possibility of a supernatural time signature, a year mirroring the original on the other side of the dividing point of the era founded at the birth of Christ. As has been demonstrated in previous chapters, the application of the number 2,520 and its half 1,260, suits a variety of prophetic and geometric realities. Using this principle, the year 753 BC designates the founding of physical Rome and AD 753 establishes the rebirth of the spiritual Rome. Newton’s count of 1,260 years from AD 753 brings us to the future year AD 2013.[i]

My original research was for a Church History term paper and was conducted without regard to Flynn’s work. I arrived at AD 756 based on the beliefs of Jonathan Edwards. While the dates are not identical, the synchronicity is still rather astounding. Furthermore, David Flynn arrived at a prophetic event horizon in roughly the year 2012 from several different angles and our research for the soon to be released, Petrus Romanus, seems to further confirm many of Flynn’s ideas. The date of  temporal ascendency is placed in a range by scholars (752-756), as one can readily see from the various sources I have cited here and in my previous article. On top of all of this, it seems beyond the reach of mere chance that a Belgian Jesuit predicted the arrival of the prophesied final pope in 2012 (back in 1951!) using the Malachy prophecy. The concurrence is remarkable to say the least.

View Newton’s notes and prophetic writings for yourself online here.

Next we will look on Newton’s prescient discussion of the reestablishment of Israel.

 

[i] David Flynn, Temple At The Center Of Time: Newton’s Bible Codex Finally Deciphered and the Year 2012 (Crane MO: Official Disclosure, 2008), 254.

 

Filed Under Petrus Romanus Tagged With Petrus Romanus, Prophecy

Petrus Romanus – Historicism Back to the Future Part 3

04/07/2012 17 Comments

By Cris D. Putnam
It seems fair to ask, “what if the past failures of the historical interpretation picked the wrong starting place?” It is for that reason that in Petrus Romanus we survey the rise of papacy up until the reformation and explain in detail the reformers unanimous charge that the papacy fulfilled the Antichrist prophecies. We also discuss the leader of the first Great Awakening in America,[i] Jonathan Edwards, who was open to two possible dates for the rise of the papal Antichrist, 606 and 756. In our book, Petrus Romanus, we show how in AD 756, Pope Stephen used the fraudulent document, The Donation of Constantine, to convince King Pepin to go to war for the Vatican to take various lands which became the Papal States. According to contemporary historians: “In 756 a Frankish army forced the Lombard king to surrender his conquests, and Pepin officially conferred the Ravenna territory upon the pope. Known as the ‘Donation of Pepin,’ the gift made the pope a temporal ruler over the Papal States, a strip of territory that extended diagonally across Italy from coast to coast. Peter recovered his sword.”[ii]

We first learned that Edwards was open to this date in a Church History journal article which stated, “Edwards considered that the most likely time for the end of the reign of Antichrist was 1260 years after either A.D. 606 (the recognition of the universal authority of the bishop of Rome), or A.D. 756 (the acceding of temporal power to the pope).”[iii] We sought to verify this by examining a collection of Jonathan Edward’s voluminous writings and in the book we publish examples from Edward’s works. The suggestions we offer are right in line with what Mr. Edwards taught, so we rest secure being in agreement with such a seminal figure in Christian theology. As a sample for what the book reveals, we also found this letter by Edwards which addresses the starting date for the 1260 days:

The rise of Antichrist was gradual. The Christian church corrupted itself in many things presently after Constantine’s time; growing more and more superstitious in its worship and by degrees bringing in many ceremonies into the worship of God, till at length they brought in the worship of saints, and set up images in their churches. The clergy in general, and especially the bishop of Rome, assumed more and more authority to himself. In the primitive times, he was only a minister of a congregation; then a standing moderator of a presbytery; then a diocesan bishop; then a metropolitan, which is equivalent to an archbishop; then a patriarch. Afterwards he claimed the power of universal bishop over the whole Christian church; wherein he was opposed for a while, but afterwards was confirmed in it by the civil power of the emperor in the year six hundred and six. After that he claimed the power of a temporal prince, and so was wont to carry two swords, to signify that both the temporal and spiritual sword was his. He claimed more and more authority, till at length, as Christ’s vice-regent on earth, he claimed the very same power that Christ would have done, if he was present on earth reigning on his throne; or the same power that belongs to God, and was used to be called God on earth; to be submitted to by all the princes of Christendom.

[edited for blog posting]

Your Affectionate Brother and Servant,

In Our Common Lord,

Jonathan Edwards

[iv]

As we demonstrate decisively in the book, the pope’s rise to temporal power began when the pope Stephen began courting Pepin around 751 and then became a reality in 756 with the expulsion of the Lombards. We quickly broke out our calculators and saw that 756 placed the target sometime in 2016 which can also be thought of as in the range of three and a half years from 2012. Perhaps it seems we are mixing up our eschatological systems? It may seem a bit odd as the futurist view gets seven years from Daniels seventieth week, but usually bifurcates it into two, three-and-a-half-year periods with the latter representing the Great tribulation (the part with the severe trumpet and vial judgments). Of course, the three and a half years is the same as the 1260 days (Rev. 11:3; 12:6) or “times time and half a time” (Dan 7:25; 12:7) that the historicist view uses to span 756 to 2016. Is it possible that the year/day theory and the literal three and half years could both be true? We make a compelling case in the book.

We offer another startling find by a friend Trey Clark who emailed Tom Horn after doing some of his own digging. This is from a collection titled “Lectures on the Revelation” by the Reverend William J. Reid, former pastor of First United Presbyterian Church in Pittsburgh, PA, which were given over a period of time ending in March of 1876. Where there seems to be a little disagreement in the nineteenth-century historical scholarship concerning the date of the Donation of Pepin, his lecture is still astounding. He reached the same conclusions we did, but we only became aware of this document near the end of writing this book. Here is a scan of the document published in 1878:

[v]

 Keep in mind this was published in 1878! What is it about this period of time we have entered? What is it about this period of time inaugurated in 2012 that has caught the attention of so many divergent traditions? What are we to make of Jesuit Rene’ Thibaut deriving 2012 from the Prophecy of the Popes along with the above? Is it a mere coincidence?

This is merely the tip of the iceberg… You will read even more startling connections in Petrus Romanus.

Next week we look at Isaac Newton’s beliefs.

[ii]Bruce L. Shelley, Church History in Plain Language, Updated 2nd ed. (Dallas, TX: Word Pub., 1995), 175.

[iii] Clarence Goen, “Jonathan Edwards: A New Departure in Eschatology” (Church History 28, 1 Mr 1959), 29.

[iv] Jonathan Edwards, The Works of Jonathan Edwards, Volume 1, 594. Included FREE on Petrus Romanus library DVD.

[v] William J. Reid, Lectures on the Revelation (Stevenson, Foster, 1878), 306. Included FREE on Petrus Romanus library DVD.

Filed Under Petrus Romanus Tagged With 2012, Eschatology, Petrus Romanus

Petrus Romanus – Historicism Back to the Future Part 2

04/05/2012 29 Comments

By Cris D. Putnam
While we lean strongly toward the futurist school, we acknowledge that there is merit to the historicist approach. It seems like a mistake to just dismiss centuries of scholarship with a hand wave. However, there are many criticisms. Biblical scholar, G.K. Beale, characterizes historicism in this way,

“Typically this view identifies parts of the Apocalypse as prophecies of the invasions of the Christianized Roman Empire by the Goths and the Muslims. Further, the corruptions of the medieval papacy, the reign of Charlemagne, the Protestant Reformation, and the destruction wrought by Napoleon and Hitler have been seen as predicted by John.”[i]

Another characteristic weakness is that it tends to be myopic by limiting symbols to the expositors own contemporary situation. Accordingly, when one compares historicist commentaries from different eras, they seldom agree with one another. While their speculations on the identity of the Antichrist have run the gamut from Nero through Muhammad to Napoleon, arguably, until very recently, the dominant opinion since the reformation has been the pope, albeit not a single pope rather the office of the papacy.

However, it seems to us that some of this criticism is not valid. We agree that it is a weakness that a historicist commentator will usually believe his own period is the final one. But that is a very real part of the tension, which is inherent for Christians living in the already/not yet paradigm. Though it is also a weakness that historicists seldom agree, the fact that these interpretations are divergent on many details makes the areas where they do converge even more compelling. It is inescapable that they all converge on Rome and the papacy.

An often-heard criticism from historicists is that modern evangelicals who hold a futurist or preterist view have been influenced by the Jesuit Counter Reformation effort to discredit the historicist view of the reformers. We believe there is some truth to this conspiracy because the Romanists have vested interest in protecting the papacy.  But a lot of the criticism we have read coming from historicists seems unfair. Truth be told, one could argue that historicism is also a Catholic invention. The dominant Catholic interpretation after Augustine’s City of God in the fifth century was allegorical. It was only after a mystic monk, Joachim of Fiore (1130–1202), introduced a chronological division based on three ages corresponding to the Trinity that the historical interpretation gained traction. So it really is not fair for historicists to charge everyone who disagrees with them as being influenced by Rome. Furthermore, it is a logical fallacy known as the genetic fallacy to deny the truth of a proposition based solely on its origin.[ii] The futurist interpretation is judged unfairly due to a few influential Jesuit advocates.

A Jesuit named Francisco Ribera published a Revelation commentary, In Sacrum Beati Ioannis Apostoli, & Evangelistiae Apocalypsin Commentarij, advocating the futurist view in 1590. Another Jesuit, Laconza, wrote under the name Ben-Ezra teaching the premillennial advent and literal restoration of Israel. As a means of criticism, strict historicists trace this through to John Nelson Darby, the Moody Bible Institute, and the Scofield Reference Bible. In other words, they argue that nineteenth-century dispensationalists fell for a counter-reformation propaganda campaign. They claim that the teachings of the reformers have been suppressed, drowned in a sea of Jesuit propaganda, i.e., futurism. Yet, it seems that even for a Jesuit, the imagery of Revelation 17 is too persuasive to deny. In fact, the Jesuit, Lacunza, actually wrote:

Rome, not idolatrous but Christian, not the head of the Roman empire but the head of Christendom, and centre of unity of the true church of the living God, may very well, without ceasing from this dignity, at some time or other incur the guilt, and before God be held guilty of fornication with the kings of the earth, and amenable to all its consequences. And in this there is not any inconsistency, however much her defenders may shake the head. And this same Rome, in that same state, may receive upon herself the horrible chastisement spoken of in the prophecy.[iii]

We do find it very interesting that even these Jesuits identified papal Rome as the woman who rides the beast. Although acknowledging that Rome certainly has an interest in obfuscating the classic historicist view, we are not under Rome’s spell in holding futurist views. The futurist interpretation is based on sound exegesis and the historical grammatical hermeneutic.

For instance, the reason we do not agree that the papacy is the ultimate realization of 2 Thessalonians’ “man of Sin” is purely exegetical. “Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition” (2 Th 2:3). Paul was instructing his first-century readers that the judgment of God had not arrived because “the man” had not yet appeared. The Greek language is much more precise that English and the second declension noun, anthropos (man), is in the singular form. Paul’s teaching would be meaningless if he was referring to an institution lasting hundreds of years that had not yet appeared. For it to be helpful in identifying the day of the Lord he necessarily meant one man. Paul’s readers would have never understood it to mean the institution of the papacy. For them, it was very clearly an individual of whom it says the Lord “shall destroy with the brightness of his coming” (2 Th 2:8). This clearly speaks of one man who is present when Jesus returns. Thus, if one accurately accounts for grammar and context, this is necessarily an individual on the scene when Jesus returns. One should allow Paul’s intent be the guiding factor.

Another reason the historicist approach is not as widely known today is that it requires a great deal of study and knowledge of history. Take the massive eschatological study written by Edward Elliott in the nineteenth century called Horae Apocalypticae (“Hour of the Apocalypse”).[iv] At over 2,500 pages split into four volumes with copious footnotes, charts, and illustrations, Spurgeon called it “the standard work on the subject.”[v] Elliot argued Revelation was both the unrolling of a sealed scroll and the continuing drama of salvation history. He saw the first six seals as broken with the empire, decline, and fall of pagan Rome around AD 395. The six trumpets were various attacks by the Goths, Saracens, and Muslims with the Protestant Reformation ensuing at trumpet six. Because Daniel describes the Roman Empire, in terms of legs of iron (Dan 2:33), the split of Rome into Eastern and Western legs is evident in prophecy. He explained the two beasts of Revelation 17 in this way:

At the same time that in the particular symbolizations contained in this subsidiary Part of the Prophecy, viz. those of the ten-horned Beast itself, its chief minister the two-horned Beast, and the Image of the Beast—explained respectively of the Papal Empire, Papal Priesthood, and Papal Councils…[vi]

A major component in Horae Apocalypticae and most historicist readings is that the 1260 days in Revelation 12 are years in which the Church is subjected to persecution by papal Rome. This is an area where nearly all historicists find agreement, but where they disagree is when the 1260 year-long period began. In fact, the death knell of Elliot’s gargantuan work of scholarship was that it set a date which came and went.  Unfortunately, Elliot placed the beginning of the 1260 years in AD 606 when the emperor Phocas rubberstamped Pope Boniface III’s claim for the primacy of Rome. We discuss this papal milestone in chapter 9 of Petrus Romanus, “Donation of Constantine and the Road to Hell.” Concerning this, Elliot wrote:

“At the same time that the fall and complete commencement of the period appeared on strong and peculiar historic evidence (especially that of the then risen ten diademed Romano-Gothic Papal horns) to have about synchronized with the epoch of Phocas’ decree A.D. 606; and the corresponding epoch of end with the year I866.”[vii]

Of course, 1866 came and went and the papacy under Pius IX even got bolder by claiming infallibility in 1870. However it is interesting in the same year, Napoleon’s advance led the Italian government to raid the Vatican and take the Papal States from the pope. However, the loss of temporal power was brief as Pius XI signed a pact with the fascist dictator Mussolini on February 11, 1929, restoring papal governing power to Vatican City. Even so, Elliot’s grand historical scheme was undone when 1866 passed with no second advent. This is another characteristic weakness of the historicist approach. It has this track record of failed date-setting.

Another famous failure was when a Baptist preacher, William Miller, predicted the imminent return of Jesus Christ. On the basis of Daniel 8:14, “Unto two thousand and three hundred days; then shall the sanctuary be cleansed.” Miller became convinced that the twenty-three-hundred-day period started in 457 BC with the decree to rebuild Jerusalem by Artaxerxes I of Persia. Then using the day/year principle favored by historicists he calculated Christ’s return to occur in 1843. It is now famously called the Great Disappointment of 1844. Many folks had sold everything they owned because of this belief. Other groups resorted to rather pitiable lengths to preserve the date. Reaching for straws, they speculated that Miller’s assumption — that the sanctuary to be cleansed was the earth– was the problem and that it represented the sanctuary in heaven.

Accordingly, the October 22, 1844 date was modified to denote when Christ entered the Holy of Holies in the heavenly sanctuary, not the Second Coming. This group became the Seventh-day Adventist Church of today and this modification is called the doctrine of the pre-Advent Divine Investigative Judgment.[viii] Frankly, it seems like an excuse to us. Miller was simply wrong. The lesson to be learned here is that it is perfectly fine and even commendable to be fascinated by prophecy and to study various interpretations, but always follow Paul’s teaching in 2 Thessalonians. The purpose of that letter leads many interpreters to infer that some of the Thessalonians were so sure that the day of the Lord was upon them that they had quit their jobs. Paul admonished them in chapter 3 to remain steadfast maintaining their lives and testimonies. We encourage you to do the same. We want to be upfront that the ideas in this book concerning the Malachy prophecy with dates and times are speculative. We are only pointing out what others have written. It is always wise to be prepared, but we certainly do not recommend selling all of your possessions like the Millerites!

Here is an elaborate chart which was popular prior to 1844 showing many historical events in the Millerite historical framework:

Next week we will examine the historicist views of Jonathan Edwards and a prominent Presbyterian who predicted the year 2012 back in 1876!

 

 

[i] G. K. Beale, The Book of Revelation: A Commentary on the Greek Text (Grand Rapids, Michigan; Carlisle, Cumbria: W.B. Eerdmans; Paternoster Press, 1999), 46.

[ii] “Genetic Fallacy,” Fallacy Files, http://www.fallacyfiles.org/genefall.html

[iii] Manuel Lacunza, Edward Irving, The Coming of Messiah in Glory and Majesty, Volume 1 (Seeley, 1827) pg. 252.

[iv] The entire set is available for free on the Pertrus Romanus Giveaway Disc.

[v] Charles Spurgeon, Commentating on Commenataries (London: Passmore and Alabaster; 1876) p. 199

[vi] Edward Elliot, Horae Apocalypticae vol 4, (London: Seeley, Burnside, and Seely, 1847), 233

[vii] Edward Elliot, Horae Apocalypticae vol 4, 237..

[viii] Roy Adams, “The Pre-Advent Judgment” Adventist World, last accessed January 27, 2012, http://www.adventistworld.org/article.php?id=136.

Filed Under Petrus Romanus Tagged With Eschatology, Petrus Romanus, Prophecy
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