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HOW LONG THE VISION?

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Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Nov 14, 1878

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 52, No. 20.

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HOW LONG THE VISION?

The question which Daniel heard one saint asking another, is one of intense interest to the people of God: “How long shall be the vision concerning the daily sacrifice [desolation], and the transgression of desolation, to give both the sanctuary and the host to be trodden under foot?” Dan. 8:13. Then the angel, with a tender regard for the wants of Daniel and the people of God in the then future ages, turns to him and says: “Unto two thousand and three hundred days, then shall the sanctuary be cleansed.” Verse 14.
How far this answered the question has been with many a matter of some study; and the connection between the question and the answer has seemed to some not very apparent. But we think the answer was given with direct reference to the question, and that there is a more intimate connection between them than would at first sight appear.
We say that the 2300 days ended in 1844, and that the cleansing of the sanctuary commenced at that time. Then, says the objector, if that has anything to do with the end of the period of treading under foot the sanctuary and the host, what change has taken place since that time? Have they not been trodden under foot just as much since as before? We think we can safely say, Not as much; and shall now endeavor to show wherein.
We first inquire in what respects the sanctuary and the host have been trodden under foot by the daily, paganism, and the transgression of desolation, the papacy. The answer is, They have suffered 1st, Civil oppression by earthly powers; 2d, Spiritual oppression, by the errors and superstitions under which the minds of men, and many of those who were really children of God, have been held in subjection. For one of the ways in which “the transgression of desolation” was to accomplish its work of treading down, was to “cast down the truth to the ground.”
The church from Daniel’s day to the present has been under the dominion of the wicked governments of the earth; and the sanctuary of God has all the way along been confronted with the rival sanctuaries of Satan. In the days of Samuel, when the sanctuary was in Shiloh, there was, in opposition, the temple of Dagon, in which the Philistines worshiped. To oppose the glorious temple of Solomon, Jeroboam erected a rival sanctuary at Bethel, and drew away ten of the twelve tribes. In the days of Nebuchadnezzar, Satan’s rival sanctuary was the temple of old Belus in Babylon. Later still there rose amid the idolaters of pagan Rome, the Pantheon, or “temple of all the gods.” And when the “transgression of desolation,” the papacy, took the place of the daily desolation, paganism, as the great system of organized oppression against the church, and the sanctuary of God on earth had given place to the sanctuary of the new covenant in Heaven, it was not difficult to baptize the old Roman temple of all the gods, and call it the sanctuary of all the saints. Thenceforward there was a “temple of God” in Rome, and in that temple one who claimed to be above all that is called God, and who has been characterized as the blasphemer of God’s tabernacle in Heaven. Rev. 13:6. By this means he has trodden under foot the sanctuary, even as the Son of God himself, the minister of the sanctuary, is trodden under foot by the same means. Heb. 10:29.
In these respects, and by these means, have the sanctuary and host been trodden under foot. We now inquire, What would be the natural order of events when this work is brought to a close? We know that the church is delivered from the civil dominion of earthly governments when Christ comes, or a little before, at the close of probation. But to be prepared for this, it is necessary first to become free from error, and spiritually right in his sight. God seeks such to worship him, especially the last church, as can worship him in spirit and in truth. John 4:24.
The first work is therefore to be a reform from error, a return to the pure and simple teachings of the word of God, in contrast with the superstitions and mysticisms of the papacy. This power has so beclouded the Christian world in respect to their belief concerning things in Heaven, that scarcely any one has any definite conception of the position and work of our Lord on high, or the place where he fulfills his office as mediator for us; and God and Christ, and Heaven itself, have become in the popular mind mysterious and shapeless nonentities.
And perhaps worse than this, the same papal power has taken the seal from the law of God, and inserted its own mark in its place, in the form of a human or antichristian Sabbath.
But when that auspicious moment arrived when the prophecy, “Then shall the sanctuary be cleansed,” was changed to a reality, a new era of truth dawned upon the church. Then, like the rays of the sun suddenly shining forth from behind the dark cloud, the light re-appeared on the subject of the sanctuary,—light so early obscured in the Christian church that Paul had scarcely set forth the truth upon it in the book of Hebrews before it was buried from sight by the mystery of iniquity even then at work.
And further, at the end of those days an aggressive reform at once commenced touching the law of God, and undoing the work of the papacy in this respect. Thus as never before the work of the papacy stands exposed, and the remnant church is ridding herself, to the last item, of the trappings of the mother of harlots.
Thus it is seen that the answer was directed to the very point embraced in the question, “How long the vision, . . . to give both the sanctuary and the host to be trodden under foot?” Unto two thousand and three hundred days; then shall begin the first division of that work which is to free the church forever from all oppressive powers; then shall begin the spiritual deliverance which is to be followed by the physical, the undoing, so far as the church is concerned, of the work of those powers which have first cast down the truth to the ground, then restrained the liberties of those who would obey them.
And how could a more comprehensive, direct, and definite answer have been given? It must be an answer which would bring to view the ultimate work, and not overlook the preliminary. And such it is. For the cleansing of the sanctuary embraces the latter, and is the most important work to which the minds of men can be directed. And when that is accomplished, the people of God will be glorified.
The time appointed was long. But we may now rejoice that the slow-revolving ages have rolled away. The days have ended. The predicted work has already for years been in progress. Truth has had a marvelous resurrection. A great movement has been going forward, and is still to go forward, with a power which is not of man, till it shall reach its triumphant issue. The great jubilee is now at hand; and soon those who have been faithful servants of the Most High shall no longer be trodden under foot, but enter into the glorious liberty of the sons of God.