For want of a nail the shoe was lost;
for want of a shoe, the horse was lost;
for want of a horse, the rider was lost;
for want of the rider, the battle was lost.
—Attributed to Benjamin Franklin (1738)

Close to the nerve center of the sanctuary doctrine that created the Seventh-day Adventist Church lies the tiny prophetic detail of "the daily" in Daniel 8, 11, and 12, where it occurs five times.

The pioneers had a clear and cogent idea about it that they defended. Lesson 11 this quarter promotes an alternative view known as "the new" one, not divulging to the reader that a "pioneer view" exists.

Abandonment of what Ellen White called "the correct view of the daily" (Early Writings, 75) is the horseshoe "nail," the want of which has been the key factor in some prominent scholars and leaders abandoning the sanctuary doctrine and even leaving the Church.

The new view of the daily of Daniel 8:11–13 proposes that the high priestly ministry of Christ in his heavenly sanctuary was "taken away" by the papacy. (Sounds plausible, until one remembers that he "is a priest forever," "continues forever, [and] has an unchangeable priesthood" [Heb. 7:21–24, emphasis supplied]).

The daily is a simple little issue.

The Hebrew is a phrase, ha tamid (the daily), an adjective here a noun. Nowhere else in Bible prophecy does it appear in noun form with the article the (the word sacrifice is not in the Hebrew text, and Ellen White agreed that the translators should not have added it [Early Writings, 74, 75]).

In Daniel 11:31, ha tamid becomes a military power removed in order to set up "the abomination that maketh desolate." In Daniel 12:11, 12, it is burdened with two historical time prophecies of 1,290 and 1,335 literal years, respectively (compare the year-day principle). We cannot safely assume to explicate ha tamid, as our lesson does, unless we include those time prophecies. Otherwise the identity of ha tamid remains in biblical limbo. Our Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary acknowledges that failure to elucidate these two time prophecies leaves the new view embarrassed (4:881).

The so-called "old view" was held by the Church from its beginnings in the 1844 movement until the end of the nineteenth century, William Miller being its pioneer. Ha tamid was seen as arrogant paganism; its motif of self-exaltation that characterized the world empires of Daniel 2 and 7 was taken over, exalted, and absorbed by the papacy.1 Ellen White describes paganism as "incorporated into the faith and worship of the Roman Catholic Church" (Great Controversy, 50).

The new view was proposed around the turn of the century by L. R. Conradi, an anti-1888-message enthusiast. He rejected the pioneer view and, in the process, also the third angel’s message. He ended up in the Seventh Day Baptist Church, where his sympathies had always tended.

Among the first to accept his new view was E. J. Waggoner, then in decline from his 1888 understandings. Next was A. T. Jones, likewise in decline; then W. W. Prescott converted A. G. Daniells, the General Conference president, and even won Willie White. Together they "evangelized" our ministers in North America, to Ellen White’s dismay. There is a manuscript as late as 1910 in which she registers severe disapproval of their promotion of the new view.2

Reducing the subject to simple language, we note:

1. The Hebrew of Daniel 8:11 does not say that the daily was taken away by the "little horn." This mistranslation was spawned by 1611 translators’ prejudice for Antiochus Epiphanes as "the little horn." The daily was "exalted," "lifted up" (Heb., rum), "absorbed" could be a good translation, identical in meaning with Ellen White’s word incorporated, which she used to describe the historical process that rum predicted of Romanism "exalting" paganism in its doctrines (Great Controversy, 50). This theological infiltration of paganism within the Christian church resulted in "baptized paganism."
2. Whatever the papacy did to Christ’s high priestly ministry, it did not lift it up or exalt it!
3. Daniel 11:31 describes the military and political removal
of paganism as a hindrance to the power of the rising papacy. Military force is the language here, not theology.
4. Daniel 12:11, 12 details the periods from the removal of paganism as a political power in Europe (508 A.D. according to the pioneer understanding), unto the end of the 1,260-year prophecy, and asserts a special "blessing" for anyone whose "lot" is cast after the close of the 2,300-year prophecy. This was the view cherished by Seventh-day Adventists in the nineteenth century, unanimously.3 Those pioneers who survived to the twentieth century, including Ellen White herself, vigorously opposed the new view.4
5. The most emphatic declarations of the New Testament assert the perpetuity of Christ’s High Priestly ministry, making impossible removal or termination of it by anyone (Heb. 7:24, 25). An earthly power invading the heavenly sanctuary and tearing the Lord Jesus from his ministry was abhorrent to the pioneers.
6. All during the Dark Ages, God had true people, often Sabbath-keepers, whose faith in Christ included his High Priestly work, which they knew couldn’t be taken away. Some of these were Waldenses. Whereas the papacy did not actually change the Sabbath but only "thought" to do so (Dan. 7:25), this has no such "thought to" in it. Whatever the daily is, it was indeed "lifted up" or "exalted." No mere "thought to" do so.
7. No Seventh-day Adventist scholar, minister, or lay person holding an informed grasp of this pioneer view has abandoned the sanctuary doctrine. As noted, Ford asserts that the "new view" was the initiating factor in numerous people doing so.5
8. Both Waggoner and Jones eventually lost their way beginning with accepting Conradi’s new view. Waggoner recalls in a letter on November 22, 1909: "Early Writings most clearly and decidedly declares for the old view. O. A. Johnson shows most clearly that the Testimonies uphold the view taught by Smith." Upon realizing this, he says he simply dropped his confidence in Ellen White. From then on, he drifted away from his Seventh-day Adventist beliefs. Jones became confused after his similar 1905 endorsement of the new (Conradi’s) view in his book, The Consecrated Way to Christian Perfection (99, 100, original ed.).

Regarding the cleansing of the sanctuary and the little horn of Daniel 8, we can conclude that the Seventh-day Adventist message rests on solid linguistic, contextual, and historical truth. Our pioneers were the first group to assess the import of the Daniel 8 prophecy. (The Jewish interpretation of Antiochus Epiphanes as the little horn has been error even since the Maccabees).

Our new view of the daily is logically an appendage of the Antiochus Epiphanes view. The inconsistencies in this new view have helped render Daniel almost a taboo topic in many Adventist pulpits and classrooms; into the vacuum have rushed the Cottrell-Ford assertions of Adventist prophetic-biblical illegitimacy.

William Miller’s grasp of the daily defended him from his "Antiochus" opponents enabling him to maintain his position in their face. Thus, Miller’s view of the daily, although a trifling detail in itself, the horseshoe’s "nail," was integral in establishing the Seventh-day Adventist message. Ellen White says she "saw in relation to the ’daily’ (Dan. 8:12) that…the Lord gave the correct view of it to those who gave the judgment hour cry. When union existed, before 1844, nearly all were united on the correct view of the ’daily’" (Early Writings, 74, 75).

The Jones/Waggoner message of 1888 era set the unique Adventist idea of the cleansing of the sanctuary in a clear and rational light. It illuminated a unique idea of justification by faith that upheld the law in relation to much more abounding grace. Thus, it established confidence in the destiny of the Seventh-day Adventist Church and promised to lighten the earth with glory.

Notes and References

1. The Hebrew verb usually mistranslated as "take away" is rum, which always means "lift up," "exalt" (compare 4:37; 5:19, 23; 11:36).
2. MS Release no. 1425.
3. See Uriah Smith’s Daniel and the Revelation; and S. N. Haskell’s The Story of Daniel the Prophet (this writer has produced a modest pamphlet, Have We Followed Cunningly Devised Fables?).
4. Her 1910 testimony (Selected Messages 1:164–68) opposed the controversy but did not support the new view. Silence was eloquent because the bitter controversy diverted minds from soul winning. Her testimony provides for the original truth to emerge again at some future time of importance.
5. Desmond Ford, The Day of Atonement and the Investigative Judgment (Glacier View Manuscript) (Casselberry, Fla.: Euangelion Press, 1980), 47, 48, 65, 66, 79ff, 129, 195, 196. Key figures: A. F. Ballenger, W. W. Fletcher, Harold Snide, R. A. Grieve, Robert Brinsmead, Earl Hilgert. Raymond Cottrell can be included.

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