1844 and the Sanctuary: Adventism's Message for the Last Days

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Adventist Theological Society

Richard Davidson

When Did the 2300 Days of Daniel 8:14 Begin and End? 

Our Father in heaven, we thank you for the privilege of studying your word.

We thank you that we have a sure foundation on the prophetic word, and the, not only the prophetic word, but the incarnate word of Jesus Christ.

And Lord, I pray that this afternoon, even as we look at more minute details that undergird this message.

May we see your hand of providence at work.

May we see these prophecies pointing toward Jesus, and May he be lifted up as a result of our being here today.

Guide what we study and come and be our teacher, I pray in Jesus' name, amen.

Those of you who have anything to say or to know about Seventh-day Adventists, you know that we were a church that was founded upon this great text over in Daniel 8.

The Millerite Adventists preached this with all their hearts, unto 2, 300 days then shall the sanctuary be cleansed.

This morning I tried to, in a few minutes, share what that meant when it said the sanctuary would be cleansed, nits dach, that it has a practical statement that refers to setting right of the gospel which had been eclipsed by the false power of the Middle Ages and a work of judgment that was beginning in heaven in which God was cleansing the records of the heavenly sanctuary and we're inviting the Spirit to cleanse our hearts and the work of vindication.

This whole great controversy has been over the character of God.

And God is saying to us, yes, I am a trustworthy God.

And He's saying to the universe, look at the ways that I deal with my children.

1 of the issues that were raised back with Desmond Ford, back when he raised his attacks, was He attacked the investigative judgment, the idea of an investigative judgment.

There is no such thing as an investigative judgment of God's people, he said.

It's just a face-saving device invented by the Millerites back in 1844, And that text has nothing to do with investigative judgment, it has to do with Antiochus Epiphanes and that whole history.

And the Adventist pioneers were so ignorant, even if it did have to do with the judgment, they couldn't even get the right date for when it started.

They settled on 457 as the seventh year of Artaxerxes and all the scholars know it was 458 rather than 457.

And so they're off, they were off by a year.

And then come to 1844, even if it were the year 1844, what did those foolish Adventist pioneers do?

They went to a little group of, a little sect of Jews called the Karaites.

All they would have had to do was to open up the Jewish almanac for 1844.

Anyone could see the Day of Atonement that year was September 23, not October 22.

That was his argument among the many others.

And so I became excited when I learned that there was very solid evidence for the foundation pillars of this 2300 day prophecy, when it began and when it ended.

Now I'm not telling the story today of the year, 458 versus 457.

If you want to learn that story, you're actually sitting in an auditorium that has as its namesake, the 1 this was founded, named after, Len Wood was an archaeologist who worked with Siegfried Horn and wrote this book called The Chronology of Ezra 7, in which he went back, and the story's a fascinating 1 to tell.

Michael can probably tell it better than I, because he knows all the archaeology behind it.

But on a little island, down in the southern part of Egypt, the little Elephantine island, they found some papyrus manuscripts, thousands of them, written by Jews that had been stationed there, but they were living in Egypt, so they started writing double dating, dating in the Jewish way of the dating and dating in Egyptian dates, and they have to be living in the very time of Artaxerxes.

And so they double dated these manuscripts, and by Linwood, as he and Siegfried Horn explained it very well, by checking out these dual datings of every manuscript, they were able to determine which was the true seventh year of Artaxerxes when this decree went out.

God preserved some dusty papyrus manuscripts which were then, even after they were found, they were hidden in a vault someplace, and then they were stuck in an old trunk someplace until finally someone translated them and saw that they had the key that unlocked the beginning date, gave us confirmation.

You can find it already in scripture, but this was icing on the cake to show the date is 457.

Well, I was just curious as I was wrestling with this passage on 457, do you think we can even be more accurate about when the date started?

The 2300 days, then shall the sanctuary be cleansed.

And that language of cleansing is Day of Atonement language.

In fact, the whole eighth chapter of Daniel gives us hints that it's pointing toward Day of Atonement.

Even the goat and the ram that are the 2 animals that are used there for the animals of the Daniel 8, those are Day of Atonement animals.

The only time when all of those 2 are sacrificed by themselves together is Day of Atonement.

And so Daniel 8 points toward Day of Atonement.

But the debate is, when was day of atonement that year?

Domshtiep is going to take us through the history of the care rights and how Adventists made the connection with the Karaites.

And so I'm gonna try to, what I say, not overlap what you say, but we're probably gonna have some overlap and you'll just correct me the things that I'm wrong and the church historian will take precedence, just listen to him rather than to me.

So let the church history guy come in and say the truth.

So I'm gonna spend a lot of time on 457, which was before the Karaites ever came around.

Anybody not have a handout, raise your hand.

Even though I'm not using PowerPoint, first of all, I grew up in a different generation than PowerPoint, I grew up in the generation where they told us this was the power, that this is PowerPoint.

Pointing to the word, that's where the power is.

Every time I try to use PowerPoint, something goes wrong with the electronics, but when I use the word, nothing ever goes wrong.

So I'm here with the word, but I also wanted to have you to have something to take home with you and to have an outline to follow.

You'll see the main points here in this outline as we look through, asking the question, if 1844 ended the 2300 days, and that came on a day of atonement.

And if God is a God of precision and accuracy, when would He have started the 2300 days?

Could it be possible that he actually started the 2300 days on a day of atonement?

Well, I actually found A couple of people who were pioneers who asserted that, that 1844 was the end point of a 2300 days that started in 457, but more particularly on Day of Atonement, 457.

I have the honor of being called the J.N.

Andrews professor of Old Testament at the seminary.

I've been trying to find round glasses so that I will look like J.N.

Andrews and be able to hold up the tradition.

But I know I'll never make it because he had a memory that he could memorize the whole New Testament in his brain.

But I was delighted to see in his book on the 2, 300 days, and let's see if we can get the reference here, where he actually says that it probably took place on the Day of Atonement, But he didn't give any evidence.

And then there is another person by the name of S.S.

Snow also in 1 of his references, he spoke about the Day of Atonement, or about the 457 actually starting on the Day of Atonement.

And you know what he, this is the terrible thing about doing research, is that he wrote it in 1 of his articles and he said, now in the previous article, I've given the evidence for this and we have no record of that previous article.

I've gone to the White Estate in Washington and here in up in Maryland.

But I found a later book that he wrote in which he actually gives a synopsis of it, of the reasons.

And all he says is, it has something to do with the sacrifices that were unique, that were supposed to be offered.

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When Did the 2300 Days of Daniel 8:14 Begin and End?

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