This week marks the 171st anniversary of Seventh-day Adventism’s Great Disappointment: October 22, 1844—the day Jesus did not return.
October is the month that spawned the Adventist movement. On October 22, 1844, hundreds of people in New England who had accepted William Miller’s predictions that Jesus would return that night lost their crops, their belongings, and their pride. Devastated that their hopes had been dashed by a normal fall night instead of the Lord descending in clouds with trumpets blasts, many of the disappointed returned to their churches and repented of their error of date-setting.
While most of the disappointed returned to their homes and local churches and repented of their date-setting, a small group that became the Seventh-day Adventists insisted that Miller’s date was not wrong. After Hiram Edson had an opportune vision in a cornfield in which he purportedly saw Jesus not returning to earth but entering the Most Holy place in the heavenly sanctuary, these persistent people developed their explanation: October 22, 1844, was the starting date of what became Seventh-day Adventism’s central, only unique doctrine: the investigative judgment.
According to this doctrine which was developed and ultimately explained by the prophetic voice of Ellen White, a co-founder of the organization who received her understanding in a vision, Jesus began on that day to examine the records of all those who had ever professed faith in Christ. All who had confessed each of their sins and had been faithful to keep the law would be saved. Those who had failed or forgotten to confess each sin, or those who had refused to honor the law—especially the Sabbath of the fourth commandment—would be lost in spite of their profession of faith.
According to the doctrine of the investigative judgment, when Jesus finishes perusing the heavenly records of each act of each person expressing faith, He will place the sins of those who have been found worthy of salvation onto the head of Satan the scapegoat. Satan will carry the sins of the saved out of the heavenly sanctuary and into the lake of fire where he will be punished for them. Thus, the heavenly sanctuary will finally be cleansed by Satan’s purging it of the sins of the saved.
For Seventh-day Adventists, the Great Disappointment continues to remind members that they are on probation and that they must obey the law and be faithful to keep the Sabbath until Jesus finally comes.
Jesus delays because members are not ready
Ellen G. White and her husband James, along with Joseph Bates, were three co-founders of the early Adventist movement. (JamesWhite and Joseph Bates, it should be noted, came from the Christian Connexion and never left their Arian beliefs that Jesus was not eternally God the Son of the same substance as the Father.) While it would be nineteen years before that “little flock” of Adventists would officially become the Seventh-day Adventist Church, Ellen White’s authority as the movement’s prophetic voice grew. During the formative years as the founders tried to establish their doctrines, they often became “stuck” as they tried to understand the Scriptures. Ellen, who admitted she didn’t know or understand the Bible, would at those crucial times be taken into vision, and she would be given revelations that explained the Scriptural passages and gave the doctrine-writers the understanding they needed. In fact, they stated that they knew Ellen’s visions were authentic encounters with God because they knew she didn’t understand Scripture on her own.
Moreover, after the Great Disappointment of October 22, 1844, Ellen White continued to set new dates for Jesus’ expected return. After six or seven years, however, the continued failure of Jesus to return caused Ellen to come up with new messages. Her predictions gave way to remonstrations as she lay the blame for Jesus’ non-appearing on the guilt-ridden Adventist members. In her classic work The Desire of Ages, p 633-34, she wrote, “By giving the gospel to the world it is in our power to hasten our Lord’s return. We are not only to look for but to hasten the coming of the day of God…Had the church of Christ done her appointed work as the Lord ordained, the whole world would before this have been warned, and the Lord Jesus would have come to our earth in power and great glory.”
In 1900 she pressured the guilty members with this message: “Christ is waiting with longing desire for the manifestation of Himself in His church. When the character of Christ shall be perfectly reproduced in His people, then He will come to claim them as His own” (Christ’s Object Lessons, p. 69).
Trying to “finish the work”
Today, the Seventh-day Adventist Church lives in the dissonance of knowing that Jesus’ failure to return is caused by their own failure to reflect His character, while simultaneously believing that they can bring Him back by finishing “the work”—the job of taking the message of Seventh-day Adventism into the whole world.
This past July marked the quinquennial General Conference Session held this year in San Antonio, Texas. During his sermon on July 11, his first after after being re-elected as the president of the General Conference, Ted N. C. Wilson mentioned some of the growth initiatives he has implemented during his first five years in office: “Revival and Reformation, Mission to the Cities, comprehensive health ministry, and a daily online Bible study plan—to call on every member to share Jesus in their communities” (http://news.adventist.org/en/all-news/news/go/2015-07-11/wilson-calls-for-unity-in-adventist-mission/).
Significantly, Wilson stressed that reading “the Bible and the writings of Ellen G. White were key to developing a closer relationship with Jesus” (ibid.).
It must be noted that within Adventism, a “relationship with Jesus” is a phrase that describes adherence to unique Adventist doctrine including believing that Jesus is in heaven investigating the works of those professing belief in Him, and keeping the seventh-day Sabbath as a sign of that belief. Thus, reading the works of Ellen White is necessary if one is to understand Adventism and know how to incorporate its practices.
Just this month during the annual Fall Council held at Adventist headquarters in Silver Spring, Maryland, President Wilson presented his plan for Total Member Involvement, known as TMI, in which Adventists from around the world will become involved in attempting to proselytize new members.
In a report dated October 11, 2015, Lauren Davis of Adventist New Network wrote, “‘Members in this worldwide church of almost 19 million are called to partner with the Heavenly Sower, Jesus Christ, in proclaiming His final message of love, righteousness, redemption and last-day prophetic warning heralding Christ’s soon return,’ Wilson said to a full auditorium of church leaders and lay delegates. Wilson appealed to lay persons, especially, to help push the church’s mission more ever before” (http://news.adventist.org/en/all-news/news/go/2015-10-11/everyone-called-to-participate-in-churchs-new-outreach-mission/).
Davis further said, “On Sabbath Afternoon, Annual Council attendees received a commitment hand-out describing Total Member Involvement as ‘a calendar-driven intentional soul winning plan that discovers the needs of family, friends, and neighbors; then shares how God fulfills every need resulting in Church Planting with a focus on retention, preaching, sharing, and discipline.’ This plan includes strategies such as constant prayer and using Christ’s method of ministry, Adventist radio and television support, health ministry outreach, investments in Pathfinder and youth programs, Christ-centered evangelistic efforts and more” (ibid.).
One of the leaders of the TMI initiative, Duane McKey, “encourages all members to join in. Christ won’t return until the church is completely immersed in mission, McKey said” (ibid.).
Membership impact
During this year’s General Conference Session, concurrent with the focussed push to involve all Adventists in an effort to make new members, David Trim, the director of the organization’s Office of Archives, Statistics, and Research (ASTR) reported on a five-year audit of Adventism’s membership data collected between the years 1995 and 2010. Adventist News Network reports:
“What is striking, however, is that the audits revealed major losses. Not only had deaths been underreported; so, too, had the number of those who left the church (currently described in official statistical reports under the title “dropped” rather than the older term “apostasies”), and the number of ‘missing’: i.e., people who simply cannot be found when an audit is carried out.
“The result of widespread audits over the past five years was that a total of 2,983,905 members were dropped or registered as missing; 261,888 deaths were recorded; and a total of 5,563,377 were added by baptism or profession of faith. The number of reported deaths rose slightly but remained relatively stable, whereas the totals of the missing and dropped increased steeply.
“The sheer magnitude of the losses (dropped and missing) identified in audits undercuts the considerable numbers of accessions. The huge number of members slipping out the metaphorical back door undercuts the growth that comes in the front door…Improved retention is vital” (http://news.adventist.org/en/all-news/news/go/2015-07-06/archives-statistics-and-research-report/).
Adventism is growing fast, especially in countries in the Southern Hemisphere. Nevertheless, membership data has been inflated because of poor reporting of lost and missing members.
Many former Adventists, meanwhile, state that when they actually read the New Testament in context, the truth of the gospel of the Lord Jesus became clear, and they saw Adventism as a false gospel which teaches that Jesus did not finish the atonement at the cross, that Jesus could have failed, and that man does not have a spirit that survives death and which is dead in sin until born again by the Spirit when one believes in Jesus.
Furthermore, Adventism teaches that keeping the seventh-day Sabbath is what will distinguish the saved from the lost, and worshiping on Sunday is (or will be) the mark of the beast. Finally, Adventism teaches that Satan, not Jesus, is the scapegoat prefigured in Leviticus 16 who bears away the sins of the saved into the lake of fire and is punished for them. This belief makes Satan, not Jesus, the final sin-bearer.
This year as Adventism experiences its 171st anniversary of the Great Disappointment, it still sees itself as God’s remnant church of Bible prophecy commissioned with the last saving message for the world. The organization still sees prophetess Ellen White as carrying prophetic authority for the organization (Fundamental Belief #18), and Adventists understand the Bible through the lens of Ellen White’s hermeneutic.
As Adventism struggles with its drain of members out the “back door” of the organization, President Wilson continues to lead his flock, faithful to the mandate laid down by the disappointed founders who refused to believe October 22 was not a biblical date.
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I’ve seen this a number of times in formers writings regarding ” Ellen White continued to set new dates for Jesus’ expected return.” I never see the list of dates she set or references to her writings where she did so or what vision she had giving a new date or any such thing. If you could help with the references, that would be helpful. Thank you.
Also, regarding the development of the Sanctuary Doctrine, you wrote, “According to this doctrine which was developed and ultimately explained by the prophetic voice of Ellen White, a co-founder of the organization who received her understanding in a vision, Jesus began on that day to examine the records of all those who had ever professed faith in Christ.” What vision is this? I know of the content in Great Controversy which she took from Andrews, but I know of no specific vision explaining this doctrine, especially the Investigative Judgment. I have read a good amount of her writings, but certainly not all. Maybe I missed something and would appreciate your input. Thank you.
Karl, Dale Ratzlaff has written about the expanding dates for Jesus’ return which corresponded to the “shut door theory” following the Great Disappointment. The chapters “The Swinging Door” and in Cultic Doctrine gives quotations and evidence that the early Adventists, including Ellen White, taught that the door of mercy was shut for all those who did not accept the 1844 message. As time passed, however, they had to open the door to include children born into the early Adventist families and people who married into those families, etc. From 1844 to 1851 there were several times when the “shut door” was opened briefly with the expectation that Jesus would come again. In fact, EGW had a vision in 1845 out “the Bridegroom’s coming”. While they may not have published mass announcements of Jesus’ coming in certain years, nevertheless, the shut door of mercy teaching continued from 1844 to 1851 when it finally became clear that Jesus could not be expected to return immediately. The door of mercy swung open and shut several times between 1844 and 1851 when it was finally abandoned altogether.