The Seventh-day Adventist denomination has done well to direct its members to the study of Revelation and to encourage them to live by it (Rev. 1:3; 22:7). However, it is too easy to miss the warning at the very end of the book about subtracting from its inspired contents (Rev. 22:18, 19). I submit that the current lesson from the Sabbath School Quarterly unwittingly does both.

The writer has done well to repudiate certain positions taken by Uriah Smith and other nineteenth-century Adventists. However, I believe he has not gone far enough. Scholars of apocalyptic, even among Seventh-day Adventists, have long known that the historicist hermeneutic is not biblical, and that the offering of specific dates after the cross as fulfillments of symbolic prophecy cannot be substantiated.

As an illustration, the lesson sets forth the United States as the second beast of Revelation 13. As proof, it invokes the year-day principle and points to a political event in 1798 as fulfilling Revelation 13:3. By contrast, what follows, it seems to me, is what the best apocalyptic scholars of the Christian church see in the wound of the first beast and its healing.

First of all, the Greek text does not mean a wound that leave its possessor alive. (See all modern translations.) The wound is fatal, and the healing is resurrection from the dead (Rev. 11:7; 17:8). This mortal wound is an allusion to the casting down of the dragon in Revelation 12 by the atonement of the "man child" and fulfills the prophecy of Genesis 3:15 that the Messiah would bruise the serpent’s head. (See also Heb. 2:14; John 12:31; Rev. 12:17; and Rom. 16:20.) Therefore, "the deadly wound" took place at the time of Calvary’s sacrifice—not in 1798—and the healing will be the final rise of world government in its attempt by satanic inspiration to crush Christ’s nonconformist people.

All of Revelation in principle had meaning for the people who first received it. The beast of Revelation 13 was pagan Rome in its political form and the second beast was the false religious system of the day, which promoted emperor worship. Like Matthew 24, Joel 2:28–32, and many other prophecies, those of Revelation 13 have had fulfillments throughout the ages and await the final consummation. Always the principle is the same: the power of false religion. The second beast of Revelation 13 is the final elaboration of the Balaam motif first set forth in Revelation 2:14.

It is a great pity that the writer of the quarterly is either ignorant of—or has chosen to ignore—the facts given by a former Seventh-day Adventist conference president in his book The End of Historicism.1 This doctoral dissertation clearly sets out the reasons why, after the debacle of the Great Disappointment in 1844, the Christian church in general rejected the year-day principle. Those who read, for example, the fifteen "proofs" offered by Miller in defense of his use of the year-day principle will see immediately why the Adventist Church has repudiated fourteen of them.

They will also understand why it is that Leroy Froom’s conditionalist Faith of Our Fathers can list a multitude of modern scholars in support of the Adventist view of conditional immortality, but his Prophetic Faith can do no such thing in drawing from today’s Bible scholars to support the year-day principle. As the Glacier View Consensus statement of August 1980 declared, there is no clear statement in all of Scripture that supports this tradition.

Studied in context, Numbers 14:34 and Ezekiel 4:6 are perfectly irrelevant as an apologetic. Furthermore, all the New Testament anticipates the likelihood of Christ’s return soon after Pentecost, if the church is faithful. (See, for example, 1 John 2:18; 1 Thess. 4:15; Matt. 24:34; 10:23; Rom. 13:11–12, and so forth.) As added support, the section in the revised SDA Bible Commentary that deals with the seventy weeks of years in Daniel 9 admits that the year-day principle is NOT there.

This week’s Sabbath School lesson has merit because it repudiates the traditional interpretation of 666, and because it demonstrates awareness that the dragon, the beast, and the false prophet constitute a false trinity. This insight illustrates the principle that the whole book is built around a system that juxtaposes the true and the false: Jerusalem and Babylon, the lamb and the beast, the pure woman of Revelation 12 and the courtesan of Revelation 17, the mark and the seal, and so forth. The lesson also points out that the fire of Revelation 13 is the opposite of the true fire symbolized in divine activities, and it is clearly correct to point out that a time of great tribulation triggered by satanic aid of worldwide apostate powers of church and state will characterize the last days. Similarly, there can be no doubt concerning the writer’s position that the decisive issue will concern worship.

However, the author of the quarterly seems to have missed what many classic expositors recognize in Revelation 13’s allusion to the days of Antiochus Epiphanes: it was a time when an image to a false god was placed in Israel’s sanctuary, and all of God’s people were commanded to worship it on pain of death. Christ kept the feast of Hanukkah, which commemorated divine deliverance from that awful time of testing (approximately 2,300 days with its greatest intensity covering 1,260 days—see John 10:22).

The reason why official Adventist writers cling to such outmoded positions is their misuse of the writings of Ellen G. White, a church leader of great gifts, Christian charity, and integrity, despite multiple charges levied against her. They forget that she disclaimed infallibility and forbade Adventist leaders from using her writings to support prophetic positions. (See Selected Messages, 1:164, about the "daily.")

For example, consider an illustration from The Great Controversy, a marvelous evangelical tract for its time, which is mainly valuable for revealing the history of SDA doctrinal positions, rather than as an exegetical work. The book endorses August 11, 1840, as a fulfillment of Revelation 9:15, but church leaders repudiated that date in Ellen White’s own lifetime.

Its limited exegetical value can also be seen from a comparison of the author’s perspective of the veil in the Sanctuary with her application (correctly) of the same item in all of her other writings. In addition, compare the parable of the ten virgins in The Great Controversy with the application in Christ’s Object Lessons.

May God bless those who heed both the encouragement to study Revelation and the warnings against adding or subtracting to its meaning, given in love by the inspired writer of Patmos.

Notes and References

1. Kai Arasola, The End of Historicism: Millerite Hermeneutic of Time Prophecies in the Old Testament (Upsalla: [S.n.], 1990).

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