p. 9 | The Cause of Our Disappointment

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Nov 8, 1906

The Cause of Our Disappointment

By John Nevins Andrews

As Published in 1853

WHY were those disappointed who looked for Jesus in 1844? This important question, we believe, can be answered in the most satisfactory manner. Our disappointment did not arise from mistaking the beginning of the seventy weeks. The argument by which the original date is sustained, is, as we have seen, invulnerable. Nor did our disappointment arise from a mistake in believing that the seventy weeks form a part of the twenty-three hundred days; for every part of that argument, as we have shown, still stands good. These two points being susceptible of the clearest proof, we were not mistaken in believing that the twenty-three hundred days would terminate in the seventh Jewish month, 1844. Neither did our disappointment arise from believing that at the end of the twenty-three hundred days the work of cleansing the sanctuary would take place. For it is plainly stated, “Unto two thousand and three hundred days; then shall the sanctuary be cleansed.”

But when we said that this earth, or a part of this earth, was the sanctuary, and that Christ must descend from heaven at the end of the twenty-three hundred days, to purify the earth by fire, we looked for that which the Bible did not warrant us to expect. Here was the cause of our disappointment. For we have seen that there is no Scriptural authority to support the view that any part of the earth is the sanctuary, or that the burning of the earth, and the melting of the elements, is the cleansing of the sanctuary. 2 Peter 3.

By a multitude of witnesses, we have proved that the tabernacle of God is the sanctuary to be cleansed, and that its cleansing is a work performed in that sanctuary, with blood, and not with fire. Our disappointment, then, arose from a misunderstanding of the work to take place at the end of the days.

Our evidence established the fact that the sanctuary should be cleansed at the end of the twenty-three hundred days, and that they would terminate in the seventh month, 1844. The types in the example and shadow of heavenly things, set before us the work of the high priest in the seventh month; namely, his act of passing from the holy place to the holiest of all, to cleanse the sanctuary. We reasoned that as the paschal lamb, which was slain on the fourteenth day of the first month, met his antitype in the death of the Lamb of God, on that day (Ex. 12: 3-6; 46; 1 Cor. 5: 7; John 18: 28; 19: 36); and the offering of the first-fruits on the sixteenth day of that month, met its antitype in the resurrection of Christ, on that day, the first-fruits of them that slept (Lev. 23: 10-15; 1 Cor. 15: 20, 23); and the feast of the Pentecost met its antitype on the day of its occurrence (Lev. 23: 15-21; Acts 2: 1, 2); so the cleansing of the sanctuary in the seventh month (Leviticus 16) at that time of the year when the twenty-three hundred days would end, we believed would meet its antitype at the end of that period.

Could we then have understood the subject of the sanctuary, our disappointment would have been avoided.—J. N. Andrews.