The year 1798 is an important date. It identifies the end of a long period during which the church of Rome tortured to death millions of thinking dissenters. It is a dividing line between the long dark history of Roman church oppresssion and the dawn of religious light and freedom.
During the first part of the nineteenth century, in democratic, Protestant America, Baptist preacher, William Miller correctly recognised 1798 as the end of the 1260 years foretold in Daniel 7:25 and Revelation 13:5. This was not speculation. In February 1798, Napoleon's General Berthier entered Rome, took the pope prisoner, and inflicted on the Vatican what was seen as a “mortal wound” from which the papal church would never recover.
Prophecy had been unmistakably fulfilled for all the world to see.
1798 is an immovable milestone in history.
From their study of the prophecies Miller and his associates
expected Christ to return in 1843. Because 1843 lay 45 years after 1798, they concluded that this period corresponded to the final 45 days between the 1290 and 1335 days of Daniel’s prophecy. So they labelled it, the Time of the End.
Assuming all prophetic “days” represented years, they naturally decided the “1335 years” must end with Christ’s return—in 1843.
In 1842 this interpretation seemed convincing. They produced a complex visual
chart showing prophetic symbols and timelines.
But Christ did not return. Their expectations were shattered.
By now the expression the “Time of the End” had become linked to the Millerite understanding.
Nearly two centuries later Christ has still not returned.
It is clear that William Miller’s understanding of the “Time of the End” cannot be the same as Daniel’s—or Jesus’. Daniel 12 describes events that belong exclusively to the closing period of Earth’s history, the very time Jesus pointed to in Matthew 24:15. And that lies ahead of us.
Ellen White consistently identified 1798 as the
beginning of the Time of the End, never 508. She described it as the commencement of a period of unspecified length “that extends to the very eve of the consummation”, not as an interval ending in 1843.
This raises an important and timely question: Would God give Daniel a prophecy,
specifically intended for the end of time, if every one of its time components have already been fulfilled—beginning more than 1,500 years ago and ending almost two centuries in our past?
Over time, the phrase the "Time of the End" has become familiar Adventist terminology. But in the process it has drifted far away from the meaning Daniel originally gave it. The outcome has been a seriously misleading, unbiblical tradition.
Of the greatest significance to us is the fact that Daniel 12 contains the
only sign Jesus pointedly warned His followers to recognise. Yet that sign is completely buried by the assumptions inherited from the Millerite phenomenon—assumptions that history itself has demonstrated to be mistaken.
If those assumptions are
mistaken then Daniel's final prophecy deserves to be re-examined with fresh eyes.
In truth the implications could not be more important. In
AD 70 it was crucial.
Failing to decouple William Miller’s honest error from Daniel’s final prophecy has produced much confusion.
And now for us it has literally become a fast-looming matter of life and death.
••••••••••••••••The Möbius loop is a famous optical illusion that aptly illustrates the logical and historical implausibility of the common understanding of the 1335 Days prophecy in Daniel 12.
