Aids for Bible Readers

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Mar 26, 1908

Aids for Bible Readers

Historical quotations and extracts from various writers which may assist the thoughtful student of the Scriptures.

Chronologic Prophecy

THE conviction that we are living in days which have about them a character of finality deepens in the minds of thoughtful men. From the most unlikely quarters there come, ever and anon, expressions of this feeling. The grounds assigned for the sentiment or opinion differ; in some cases it is apparently without foundation; but it prevails.

It is in reality a well-grounded conviction; the Word of God leaves no room for doubt that we are living in the last days of this dispensation, and have well-nigh reached the close of the existing state of things. It leaves no room to doubt that a change—a change greater than any the world has ever seen—is impending. Bible readers have a clearer and deeper impression on the subject than others, though in too many cases even they would find it difficult to give any solid reason for their opinion. But students of the prophetic Scriptures have no such difficulty; to them the fact that these are in the most literal sense the last days is one capable of the fullest demonstration, a fact as clearly ascertained and as easily proved as any other fact of science.

The assertion may sound strange to some, but there is a science of chronologic prophecy—a science of recent origin, and one as yet too little studied, but one of unspeakable interest and importance.

Our desire in the following pages is to lead lovers of truth to the study of this sacred science. It is not a fashionable one in any circle. It is condemned and decried as speculative folly in some, and totally neglected in others; in others again it is pursued, but only in a desultory

manner, by a few. As a rule, it is not publicly taught, even by those who understand it; and the result is that it is scarcely recognized as a science at all.

But if science be a knowledge of facts arranged in order and explained by law, then is there beyond all question a science of chronologic prophecy; and none of the sciences so ardently studied in this nineteenth century yield results of greater practical importance. In bygone ages there was a cause why this science made little progress, a reason that it could not be understood. But this cause and this reason exist no longer; on the contrary, the time has come when this subject must and will be successfully studied and understood by many; for, so it is distinctly predicted in Scripture.

When, twenty-five centuries ago, God granted to Daniel the revelations which form a large part of the material of this science, the prophet, who failed to understand especially the chronological statements embodied in the predictions given to him, asked further explanation. His request was refused, and he was informed that these predictions were not for the benefit of the then existing generations, but for that of distant future ones. He was directed in the meantime to “shut up the words, and seal the book,” and informed that the meaning of the visions was “closed up and sealed” to “the time of the end;” and in that time “the wise” would understand them, though “the wicked” would never do so. “None of the wicked shall understand,” it was said to him; “but the wise shall understand.”

Now it is clear that none can read a divinely sealed book until God himself breaks the seal and throws open the pages. None can penetrate his sacred mysteries till he is pleased to remove the veil that covers them. Chronologic prophecy must, in the very nature of the case, be designed for the benefit of later and not of earlier generations. The prophets themselves did not always understand their own chronological predictions. When the time was near, the period short, and the language in which it was expressed simple and literal, they of course did so; but when the events were distant, the period long, and the prophecy expressed in symbolic language, we are told by the apostle Peter that, so far from understanding, they “inquired and searched diligently . . . what, or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify,” and it was revealed to them “that not unto themselves, but unto us they did minister.” Hence it is evident that the treasures of chronologic prophecy were committed to earlier ages for the benefit of later ones, and especially of the latest. As the end draws near, the mysterious predictions are gradually explained by their own progressive fulfilments, and the light grows stronger and clearer to the close.

The statement that not even “the wise shall understand” chronologic prophecy till “the time of the end,” accounts for all the misunderstandings of earlier ages, and all the partial comprehensions of later times, and is an encouragement to the study of it in these days; for that we live in “the time of the end” is plain with a moment’s reflection.

What does the expression in Daniel “the time of the end” mean?—Clearly the time of the end of the events revealed to Daniel. His prophecies foretold the events of twenty-five centuries, the existence of the Babylonian, Persian, Grecian, and Roman empires, and represent these as occupying the entire interval between the prophet’s own days and the day of the resurrection of the dead, and the establishment of the glorious and everlasting kingdom of God on earth. They predict that the last or Roman dominion would exist in two distinct and successive stages, contrasted in many respects, but alike in some, and especially in that they are both phases of the rule of Rome. The first, a stage in which that great city is the fountain of authority and government to an undivided empire; and the second, in which it is so, in a different way, to a tenfold commonwealth of kingdoms.

We know that not only the first three of these great universal empires have risen, ruled, and passed away as predicted, but that the dominion of Rome pagan was in due time, as foretold, succeeded by that of Rome papal over the ten Gothic kingdoms of modern Europe; and that this last is now in a state of decadence, its temporal rule having already come to an end sixteen years ago [1870]. In other words we are not only living at a distance of twenty-five centuries from the days of Daniel, but we can trace, during the course of these centuries, the fulfilment of all his predictions except the very last. The Babylonian empire occupied the time of the beginning; the rule of Persia, Greece, Rome pagan, and Rome papal, occupied the long subsequent course of the period, and the fall of this last power must clearly mark the close of the predicted series of events. The promise that in the time of the end “the wise shall understand” must therefore, if it is ever to be fulfilled at all, be fulfilled in our days; and there is no room for an “if” as regards any of the promises of the Faithful and True Witness, the God who can not lie. The time has come at last for the comprehension of the chronological predictions of Scripture, and all who desire to understand them may plead the promise that there shall be light on them in these days. . . .

Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ began his ministry with a statement connected with chronological prophecy; a statement which showed how carefully he had pondered, and how clearly he comprehended, Daniel’s prediction of the “seventy weeks.” Mark records, as the first utterance of the ministry of Christ, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye, and believe the gospel.” What time was fulfilled?—The mysterious “seventy weeks” to the Messiah the Prince.

Peter says of this study, that we do well to take heed to it; and John says of it, “Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear,”—the words of the most mysterious of prophetic books,—the latter clause showing that prophetic study has practical bearings.

Daniel, a scholar and a statesman, one of the wisest and holiest of men, gave himself earnestly, even in his old age, to the study of chronologic prophecy. He was himself a prince among prophets; and yet he disdained not, as he tells us, to devote himself to the study of “books,” especially of the books of Jeremiah, that he might solve to his own satisfaction the chronological problem of the exact period of the termination of the Babylonish captivity. The effect of his studies was to prostrate him in prayer and supplication before God, and to secure for him an additional revelation, the most glorious that up to that time had ever been given—a revelation of the exact interval to the first advent and redeeming work of Christ.

Simeon and Anna were students of chronologic prophecy, and to their light on this subject it was owing that they were found in the temple, waiting for “the Consolation of Israel.” The just and devout Simeon was rewarded with a special revelation, that “he should not see death, before he had seen the Lord’s Christ.” Do these things look as if prophetic students of the God-fearing, holy living, Bible-loving, sober-minded sort, are fools, or wise? Nay, is it not an insult to the All-wise to assume that it is folly for his people to study the predictions which he in his wisdom has given, and which he has sealed with his unconditional promise, that the wise shall in “the time of the end” understand them?

Twenty-five centuries of history are now casting back the light of their multiplied fulfilments on these sacred prophecies. Men require in these last days just such fresh demonstration of the inspiration of Scripture as only fulfilled prophecy can afford. Miracle is doubted or denied; the supernatural is spurned as incredible by this generation, which smiles at the idea of inspiration. But if it be so that the very things now going on in the world were distinctly predicted in Daniel’s day, and even the very dates of the occurrence of contemporary events indicated, who can doubt that “holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost”? Such evidence should be, and frequently is, valuable for convincing the most skeptical unbelievers; but if it only serves to root and ground true Christians in their most holy faith, and to render them proof against the attacks of infidelity, it answers no mean end. If it serves, moreover, to quicken hope and practical zeal, and to produce and preserve in the church a body of disciples who shall be watching and waiting for Christ at his coming, it abundantly accomplishes its purpose.—“Light for the Last Days,” by Mr. and Mrs. H. Grattan Guinness, London, Hodder and Stoughton, 1893, pages 3-70.