Proclamation! | Spring | 2018 | Editor’s Comments
By Colleen Tinker
It was the spring of 1974. I had just finished my junior year at Walla Walla College (now University), and I was staying on campus to complete some Bible credits during summer school. In fact, I could hardly believe my good fortune; I was taking Daniel and Revelation from the dean of the theology department, Gordon Balharrie! At last, I thought, I would figure out the details of 1844, the cleansing of the sanctuary, and the timeline for the end times.
I had memorized the dates of the 2300-day prophecy and drawn diagrams of the tabernacle furniture; I had read The Great Controversy for Bible class; I was clear that a Sunday Law was coming—but no matter how hard I tried, the details never quite made sense. Even when I read passages from the Bible, I couldn’t figure out how they meshed with the timelines I had learned. The Bible words seemed vague when my teachers or textbooks explained what they meant.
Now, though, it would all be clear. Dr. Balharrie himself would teach the class, and I would finally understand Adventist doctrine and eschatology!
A few days into the class, however, I was fighting the old familiar confusion. Even with Dr. Balharrie’s notes, the details were not resolving. Even the dean of theology could not explain the details of Daniel’s and John’s prophecies in any logical way. In fact, I spent that summer session struggling to stay awake and fighting profound disappointment. The business of a time prophecy ending in 1844 was simply unclear to me, and I couldn’t track with the familiar leaps of interpretation that made a call to worship the God who made heaven and earth (Rev. 14:6) a command to keep the seventh-day Sabbath.
The summer session ended, and my disillusionment was complete. Dr. Balharrie didn’t even finish his curriculum. The last part of the class he simply left untaught.
In retrospect, I have a hunch that Dr. Balharrie himself couldn’t make the pieces fit. The Adventist interpretation of Daniel and Revelation simply makes no contextual sense, and the chairman of the department had to see that the doctrines he taught were contrived.
As I’ve rebuilt my understanding of prophecy and the end times through Bible study and through hearing expository preaching, I’ve come to see that the core of the unique Adventist doctrine of Jesus’ “sanctuary service” hides a dark reality: the Adventist Jesus is not a priest according to the order of Melchizedek, as Hebrews declares. Moreover, the shed blood of the Adventist Jesus actually defiles heaven, and heaven is not cleansed until Satan—not Jesus—bears away the sins of the saved into the lake of fire.
In this issue
In this issue of Proclamation! we look closely at the heart of this unique Adventist doctrine. I will show how Adventist art has imprinted us with an image of Jesus being the wrong kind of priest, and we will look at what Scripture says about the differences between levitical priests and one in the order of Melchizedek. Russell Kelly explains how Adventism rips the verses of Daniel 8 out of context with each other in order to create its doctrine of 1844 and the cleansing of the sanctuary.
Phil Harris describes the process of his leaving Adventism that involved his study of Leviticus 16. As he pursued that little-known chapter, He realized that Satan could not be the scapegoat that takes our sins away from us. Also in this issue, Rick Barker addresses the Adventist Fundamental Belief #24: “Christ’s Ministry In the Heavenly Sanctuary”.
Nancy Paige, granddaughter of the woman who wrote I Was Canright’s Secretary, shares her faith story, and Kelsie Petersen brings us back to the clarifying book of Galatians. Finally, in this issue we introduce our new back page columnist Nicole Stevenson. She will share her insights as we all continue to live the Life After.
We pray that as you peruse this issue of Proclamation!, you will know that the Lord Jesus is finished with His work of atonement and is seated at the right hand of the Father. We can believe that His blood washes us clean when we trust Him, and in Him we have life! †
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