Stephen
Terry, Director
Satan
and His Allies
Commentary
for the March 2, 2019 Sabbath School Lesson
“ The beast was given a mouth to utter proud words and
blasphemies and to exercise its authority for forty-two months. Revelation 13:5, NIV
Our lesson quarterly this week brings us to the crux of
the problem we have been speaking of all quarter so far, the challenges facing
a historicist approach to Revelation. Because of the reference in chapter 12
last week and chapter 13 this week to a period of forty-two months or 1260
days, based on 30-day months, some have interpreted this to be identical to the
“time, times and half a time of Daniel 7:25. As a result they have intentionally
linked the books of Daniel and Revelation and thereby imposed Daniel’s
historicism on the latter book. In the 19th century, this led
Adventists into the Great Disappointment where a date was set for the Parousia
in October of 1844. This was done in spite of Christ’s words that no one knows
the day or the hour except the Father in heaven.[i] Strangely, even though
Jesus says that even the angels don’t know the date, yet here in Daniel is an
angel giving Daniel exactly that if we accept the Adventist interpretation of
the interchange. Not surprisingly, Jesus did not show as predicted. However,
rather than question the whole idea of date setting in the first place, when Hiram
Edson declared he had a vision that it referred, not to the Parousia, but to
Jesus entering the most holy place of the heavenly sanctuary, some in the
distraught group of Adventist believers jumped in with both feet and declared
this must be the answer to their literal, historicist interpretation of Daniel’s
timeline. Was Edson correct? That question soon faded into irrelevance when
Ellen White, the church’s founding prophetess acknowledged it as correct. In
the minds of the other founders, it could then no longer be challenged, in
spite of the fact that Ellen had on more than one occasion reminded others that
she is not infallible.[ii] Besides, it offered an
apparent foundation, however feeble, for building a theology upon that offered
promise to keep the little flock together. Once settled on this issue, they
could move on to other issues that threatened to divide them, issues like the
Trinity; Commandment Keeping, especially the Seventh-day Sabbath; and dietary
commandments, euphemistically referred to as Health Reform.
The Great Disappointment was not the only issue with the
historicist approach however. It naturally pushes one toward a more literal
approach to the Bible that stumbles when faced with things that might more
easily be approached as metaphor. In other words, it works up to a point, but
then eventually things begin to break down as they do with this week’s lesson.
It may seem to work well with seven churches, seven seals, and seven trumpets
when one arbitrarily identifies them with seven periods of church history, but
then when we get to chapters 12 and thirteen, in order to maintain any apparent
literalness, we are forced to jump back and forth between the two chapters like
a schizophrenic theologian telling us “Look over here in chapter 13! Now look
back here in chapter 12!” The implication is that the literal understanding
they are offering only makes sense by abandoning a natural historicist
progression and skipping about like a flat stone on a pond, never dreaming that
perhaps there is a flaw in their approach that is creating this need rather
than the narrative itself. Unfortunately, once we fully commit to that
approach, things begin to crumble and we end up with End Time conspiracy
theories that threaten to derail the entire edifice. People start believing in
a literal mark to be impressed in the foreheads or hands of those who reject
Christ. Studies done regarding the efficacy of implanting microchips in human
beings have only fanned the flames of these literalist based fears. Among Seventh-day
Adventists, the belief is common that the Sabbath is the identifying seal placed
upon God’s people. While this implies that those who do not observe the
seventh-day Sabbath are not God’s people, a more significant problem is that it
accepts a metaphorical understanding of God’s seal while allowing a rejection
of a metaphorical understanding of the “Mark of the Beast.” It seems some want
to have it both ways regardless of the contradictions it produces.
Seventh-day Adventist evangelism has for generations
depended upon one assumption – that we know exactly
what all the symbols of Daniel and Revelation mean and salvation is dependent
upon that knowledge. Apart from the obvious Gnosticism of such an approach, it
makes it very difficult when looking at prophecies like Daniel, chapter 11, to
admit that we simply do not know what it means. Not a few have struggled unsatisfactorily
with that chapter, and if we are honest, we are little closer to understanding
it than we were in the 19th century. Yet, in spite of that, we
presumptively stand up and say we have the End Times all figured out. Everyone
is going to come out of Babylon (those other churches that don’t keep the
Seventh-day Sabbath), unite with the Adventist church, and we will all meet
Jesus in the clouds to live happily ever after. Oh, and as a side note, even
that will not happen unless we all become perfect so Jesus will come. “Where
did that come from?” you ask. Remember Hiram Edson? Well if Jesus is in the
most Holy Place of the Heavenly Sanctuary interceding for us, then when he
comes in the Parousia, he must leave that sanctuary, so between the moment he leaves and the time he arrives here, the argument
goes, we must be without an intercessor. So if we are not perfect at that time,
we are lost. This is the kind of mess that historicism and literalism leaves us
in, and it is a growing problem within Adventism known as Last Generation
Theology. Perfectionism has reared its head several times throughout the
history of the denomination. Usually those episodes have resulted in cultic offshoots
that, impatient with the church’s unwillingness to fully embrace perfectionism,
have created their own fellowships. Often those fellowships are rife with
internal conflict because it is difficult for imperfect people to agree on an
accurate definition of perfectionism.
Too few seem to recognize that perfectionism is little different from the old
righteousness by works trope. Even though Paul makes clear it is not our works
that save us,[iii]
some continue to march in that wilderness seeing the Law, not as something that
condemns our sinfulness, but as a salvation in and of itself. They forget that
if that were true, the incarnation would not have been necessary. When we buy
into that understanding, we are eventually broken when we discover we cannot
achieve that perfection. The result is too often that instead of coming to
Christ with our brokenness, we indenture ourselves to Babylon and its
unrelenting oppression as though we had no other choice, just as the Jews did
when they turned from God. Even when those who escaped Babylonian captivity had
a clear and appealing message of love and acceptance from God through the
prophet Jeremiah, they chose to go their own way rather than trust that message
for their salvation.[iv]
Today, we continue to be faced with those who would rather trust to their own
strength instead of responding to the love of God. We commonly hear of those
who believe that if they can manage to do enough good to outweigh the evil,
they just might make it. But the flaw with this plan is that they themselves
define what is good or evil, feeling that if there is any
question they can somehow rationalize away any doubts of their good intent.
But if they would simply consider how they feel when someone does them wrong
and then tries to rationalize their behavior in explanation, they might realize
how erroneous this presumption is.
I will end this commentary with an attempt to illustrate
some of what metaphor can open up in Revelation, chapter 13. Looking at the
Mark of the Beast number of 666, many have focused on the possibility of an arcane
numerology deciphering the numbers through some manner of mathematical computation.
Using Roman numerals or various formulas, they have applied the Mark of the Beast
to everything from the Pope[v] to Ellen White.[vi] But if we do a
metaphorical examination of the symbology, and we look back to Genesis, not
Daniel, to do so, as I have done elsewhere this quarter, we discover that
mankind is identified with the sixth day of Creation and that God completed
Creation on the seventh day. The number 6 then might represent incompleteness
of God’s work, even a substitution of our own efforts for Gods as became
apparent later in the narrative at the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. On
the other hand, seven, a number repeatedly emphasized in the prior chapters of
Revelation may be a metaphor for God’s entire effort on our behalf. It is
perhaps not without significance that the seventh church in chapter three
leaves us with Jesus standing at the door knocking and seeking entrance into
our lives. Perhaps lost in all the beasts, fire and dragons of Revelation is the
real issue of whether or not we are going to try to work things out for
ourselves or are we going to open the door and welcome God’s solution instead
of our own. That choice, with or without the book of Revelation is really what
the Bible is all about. That choice will make all the difference in our lives.
Maybe it is time we considered our options.
