Thief in the Night or The Strange Case of the Missing Millennium

5. The third promise

ing of all. It was given in the twenty-fourth chapter of Matthew.

The third promise was again given in direct answer to the questions of His disciples:

“And as he sat upon the mount of Olives, the disciples came unto him privately, saying, Tell us, when shall these things be? And what shall be the sign of thy coming?”¹

Christ foretold that ‘iniquity would abound’ in that day, and that the ‘love of many shall wax cold’; then He makes His third promise in these words:

“When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place, (whoso readeth let him understand.)”²

The chapters of Daniel which deal with this subject are those from eight to twelve inclusive. These chapters (according to millennial scholars, as well as my own research) foretell not only the second coming of Christ, but to my keen interest, His first appearance as well.

It was this link between the first and the second coming of Christ which give to these chapters of Daniel such great importance in the study of the subject, and indeed this third promise was considered to be the most important of the three.

In these chapters, Daniel prophesies that from the issuing of the decree to rebuild Jerusalem, until the time when the Messiah shall be cut off (crucified) there are appointed 70 weeks. Daniel gives this prophecy in two different ways:

1. As 70 weeks.

2. As 7 weeks, 62 weeks, and one week; during which the Messiah confirms the covenant.

However, both ways total up to 70 weeks or to 490 days. This becomes 490 years in prophecy with a day for a year.

In His first coming, it is prophesied that from the issuing of the decree to His cutting off, or crucifixion, 490 years will pass. The important thing then was for me to discover at what time the decree had been issued.

I found that there were four decrees to rebuild Jerusalem. They were as follows:

1. Issued by Cyrus in the year 536 bc. This decree is recorded in the first chapter of Ezra. It went unfulfilled.

2. Issued by Darius in the year 519 bc. This decree is recorded in the sixth chapter of Ezra. It also went unfulfilled. Only the Temple was rebuilt.

3. Issued by Artaxerxes in the seventh year of his reign in the year 457 bc. This is recorded in the seventh chapter of Ezra. It was fulfilled by the fourth decree.

4. Issued by the same Artaxerxes in the year 444 bc. This is recorded in the second chapter of Nehemiah. This decree fulfilled the third.

Most of the students of Scripture accepted the third decree of Artaxerxes as the one referred to by Daniel. They reasoned that since the fourth decree was merely an extension of the third, and was issued by the same king it was in reality the same decree. Therefore, they favoured the decree issued in 457 bc.

With this knowledge, it was now possible to state the prophecy of Daniel as follows: From the issuing of the decree of Artaxerxes in the year 457 bc until the time of the crucifixion of Jesus the Christ, there would be appointed (or pass) 70 weeks, 490 days—or in prophecy, 490 years.

Many Bible scholars merely subtracted the 457 from the 490. This gave them 33 years. The Messiah (Christ) in His first coming would therefore be 33 years of age when He was cut off or slain.

I found that authorities differed widely as to the date of the birth of Christ, as well as to the date of His death. According to the Gospels, His birth took place before the death of Herod. Many historians calculated the death of Herod to have taken place in the month of April in the year 4 bc. Some said it was the year 5, some 6, some as early as the year 8 bc. Therefore, some of these scholars maintained that Christ was only 28 or less at the time of His death.

Others give a different year and a different day. However, they all centre around the period foretold by Daniel. Thus with amazing accuracy, Daniel had given the time for the first coming of Christ. No wonder Jesus Himself was so emphatic about Daniel’s prophecy concerning His second coming or return. He told His disciples to ‘stand in the holy place’ when Daniel’s prophecy about the ‘abomination of desolation’ was fulfilled. In that day He promised:

“… they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven …”¹

I followed the pattern of the millennial scholars of the 1840s and carefully examined Daniel’s prophecy concerning the ‘abomination of desolation’. His exact words were:

“How long shall be the vision concerning the daily sacrifice, and the abomination of desolation, to give the sanctuary and the host to be trodden under foot? And he said unto me, Unto two thousand and three hundred days; then shall the sanctuary be cleansed.”²

Thus, Daniel prophesied that two thousand three hundred days (2,300) would pass before the sanctuary would be cleansed. Following this time, all things would be made pure again. Before this time, the people would have fallen into a state of ‘abomination’ without love for God or man; then the

Messiah would appear and restore their Faith and the purity of their belief. This was the general conclusion.

When would this take place? Daniel said it would come to pass in 2,300 days. In prophecy, this becomes 2,300 years.

Using the same frame of reference for the second coming, as was used for the first coming (the decree of Artaxerxes), the Bible scholars made the following calculations:

1. The decree was issued in 457. They subtracted 457 from 2,300 and arrived at 1,843. Thus the year 1843, they said, would mark the beginning of the end of the ‘abomination of desolation’.

2. Some scholars pointed out that from the issuing of the decree in 457 until the birth of Christ there were 456 years, not 457; therefore, it was necessary to subtract 456 from 2,300. This left the year 1844.

Although many disputes arose as to the exact month, day, and hour, there was a basic agreement among nearly all that Christ’s return must take place between the years 1843 and 1845, with the year 1844 as the central point of reference.

One group of Christian scholars worked out Daniel’s prophecy in the greatest detail. They even built a special chart to show that Christ would return in the middle of the year 1844.¹

E. P. Cachemaille, sometime scholar of Cambridge University, in a new edition of H. G. Guinness’s book Light for the Last Days, maintains that this book had been recognized for over thirty years as a standard work of chronological prophecy. He quotes Guinness as saying the following about Daniel’s prophecy: “The decree (Edict of Toleration) was published in the 1260^th year of the (Muslim) calendar. It is dated 21 March 1844. This date is the first of Nisan in the Jewish year, and is exactly twenty three centuries (2,300 years)

from the first of Nisan, 457 bc, the day on which Ezra states that he left Babylon in compliance with the decree given in the seventh year of the reign of Artaxerxes.”

Thus the year 1844 was firmly established in their minds as the year for the fulfilment of the third promise of Christ concerning Daniel’s prophecy.

I found that all three of Christ’s prophecies to His disciples had been fulfilled exactly as He promised.

1. The Gospel had been preached in all the world for a witness.

2. The times of the Gentiles had been fulfilled.

3. The prophecy of Daniel given by Christ as the time to stand in the holy place had come to pass.

Each of these prophecies had been fulfilled in the year 1844!