THE JUDGMENT OF THE GREAT DAY

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Tuesday, February 24, 1885

FromThe Review and Herald, Vol. 62, No. 8

THE JUDGMENT OF THE GREAT DAY.

(Continued.)

The sublime scene revealed to Daniel when the Judgment was set and the books of destiny laid in solemn pomp before the heavenly tribunal, did not open unheralded to the world. It was meet that the period of the investigative Judgment, when the cases of all who have ever turned to God were to be examined, their destiny be decided, their sins or names be blotted from the books, the atonement be made, the sanctuary be cleansed, and the probation of all mankind forever closed—it was meet that such a period should be ushered in by a solemn proclamation to the inhabitants of the world.

The work in the most holy of the heavenly sanctuary, the investigative Judgment, began, as we have seen, at the end of the 2300 days in 1844; and right there the voice of a divine message was echoing around the world. The prophecy of this solemn warning is found in Rev. 14:6, 7: “And I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people, saying with a loud voice, Fear God, and give glory to him; for the hour of his Judgment is come; and worship Him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters.”

This angel preaches the gospel and yet announces the coming of the hour of God’s Judgment. The Judgment here mentioned is therefore some portion of the gospel, and must take place while probation continues. Paul says that the gospel of Christ is “the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth.” Rom. 1:16. And he declared that no other gospel could lawfully be preached even by an angel from heaven. Gal. 1:8. It is therefore an inevitable conclusion that the message of the angel brought to view in Rev. 14:6, 7, represents some part of the great gospel proclamation. It certainly belongs to that preaching which is “the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth;” and this fact alone is conclusive proof that this proclamation concerning the hour of God’s Judgment must be made while human probation lasts. Two other solemn messages follow the one recorded in verses 6 and 7; and it is evident that the human family are still on probation as late as the last of these messages, which declares that, “If any man worship the beast and his image, and receive his mark in his forehead or in his hand, the same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God.” These messages of Rev. 14 are consecutive, as the prophecy plainly shows; but it is not till after all these proclamations are finished that the Son of man is seen coming upon the white cloud to reap the harvest of the earth.

The message of verses 6 and 7, beginning to go in great power as early as 1840, in the advent movement of that time, reached an immense extent and unparalleled power as the world approached the great epoch of the ending of the days in the autumn of 1844. As the expectation of the people had been directed to an event which was not then to take place, believers were thrown into great confusion when the time passed and the Lord did not appear. Many entirely lost their bearings, but some held to their anchorage that God had been in the movement, and it must therefore have been essentially correct. Increasing light soon dispelled the shadows, and solved the mystery of the non-appearance of the Saviour. It was seen that the time had not yet come for the Lord to appear, but the days only marked the time for the cleansing of the sanctuary to begin, and for the hour of God’s Judgment to open—the very time and work which the message brings to view. The links of the prophecy were again picked up with a firmer grasp; and the message, proclaimed at first prophetically, was then uttered as an accomplished fact—the hour of his Judgment has come. Additional links were developed, the two messages to follow the first were seen in their true light, and the great truth flashed upon the mind that while the hour of God’s Judgment is passing—during this solemn time—the third message (Rev. 14:9–12) was to be proclaimed to the world.

The dawning light of the sanctuary question revealed the true meaning of many scriptures not apparently connected with that subject. One of these is found in Rev. 11:19: “And the temple of God was opened in heaven, and there was seen in his temple the ark of his testament.” The scene here depicted occurs under the sounding of the last, or seventh, of the series of seven trumpets, which span the Christian dispensation from the first great calamities that burst upon the old Roman world, till human history ends amid “lightnings, voices, thunderings, an earthquake, and great hail.” This opening of the temple taking place under the sounding of this seventh trumpet (verse 15), it occurs near the close of this dispensation. But could this opening of the temple be understood till it was seen that there is a tabernacle on high where Christ our high priest ministers,—a building which has two apartments, a first and second, a holy and most holy, into the latter of which Christ must go to finish his priesthood in the work of the atonement? That the opening of the second apartment of the sanctuary is what is here brought to view is evident from what was revealed therein. “There was seen in his temple the ark of his testament.” But the ark never had any other location than the most holy place. It was fixed by divine appointment to that position. Consider further that the most holy was opened only for the purpose of making the atonement and cleansing the sanctuary. The scene described in the first part of Rev. 11:19, therefore took place at the end of the 2300 days in 1844, and was the opening of the investigative Judgment.

A matter of wonderful significance is brought out by what John there beheld. It is nothing less than the fact that the great standard by which all cases shall be tested in that investigative Judgment, now going forward, is the law of God as written upon the tables contained in the ark. “There was seen in his temple the ark of his testament.” In the type the priest, in the most holy place, sprinkled the blood upon the mercy-seat, which was the cover of the ark, beneath which blood-stained cover reposed the law which the people had broken, and thus made it necessary that blood should be shed for them. So in the temple above, our High Priest ministers his blood upon the mercy-seat, the cover of that ark John saw in heaven, beneath which reposes God’s holy and immutable law, the standard of Judgment for all mankind.

That the ark as John beheld it contains the law is evident from the name he gives it. The ark was called “the ark of the testament,” because it contained the tables of the testimony or the law which God wrote on the tables of stone. It was made for this very purpose, and without the law never would or could have borne that name. But John, beholding the ark in heaven, under the sounding of the seventh trumpet, at the opening of the investigative Judgment, still applies the same name, “the ark of His testament.” It therefore contains the same law, jot for jot, tittle for tittle, which He wrote with his own hand on Sinai.

Another conclusive evidence that the law for the investigative Judgment is the same as written on the tables of stone lies in the fact. Christ’s work is the antitype of the work of priests under the Mosaic dispensation, who atoned for sins in figure; Christ atones for sins in fact. But sin is the same, and the standard of right and wrong which reveals sin is the same. But the standard then was the law on the tables of stone. With reference to that, the typical atonement was made; with reference to the same, therefore, the real atonement must be made. Christ’s work is not the antitype of the former. But Christ’s work is the antitype; and the ten commandments, just as written on the tables of stone, unrepealed, unaltered in a jot or tittle, constitute the law by which all cases will be tested in Judgment work.

Another portion of Scripture made very clear by this Judgment work of the sanctuary is found in the tenth chapter of the Revelation: “And I saw another mighty angel come down from heaven, clothed with a cloud, and a rainbow was upon his head, and his face was as it were the sun, and his feet as pillars of fire. And he had in his hand a little book open; and he set his right foot upon the sea, and his left foot on the earth. And the angel which I saw stand upon the sea and the earth, lifted up his hand to heaven, and sware by Him that liveth forever and ever, who created heaven, and the things that therein are, and the earth, and the things that therein are, and the sea, and the things which are therein, that there should be time no longer. But in the days of the voice of the seventh angel when he shall begin to sound, the mystery of God should be finished, as he hath declared to his servants the prophets. Verses 1, 2, 5, 6, 7.”

This prophecy is simply another representation of that movement brought to view by the message of Rev. 14. The angel in this chapter, as in that, solemnly appeals to the Maker of the heavens and the earth. The message in each relates to time. The angel of chapter 10 has one foot upon the land and the other upon the sea, showing that his message is world-wide, just as in chapter 14, the proclamation goes to every nation. The angel of chapter 10 has in his hand a little book open from which he proclaims his message concerning time. He declares that “time shall be no longer”—not literal time; for days are mentioned afterward (verse 7); and not probationary time; for a further proclamation of the gospel is brought to view in verse 11—but prophetic time. But the fact that the longest and latest prophetic periods are found in the prophecy of Daniel. From what other book could he utter such a proclamation concerning the close of prophetic time? But the book was closed up and sealed to the time of the end. Dan. 12:4. The fact that it was here “open,” locates this message in the “time of the end,” or in the last days. The angel of chapter 14 proclaims the “hour of God’s Judgment” come, and here again we are thrown back upon the prophecy of Daniel; for his is the only prophecy which gives a prophetic period marking the beginning of this hour of Judgment. This is given in the great prophetic period of the 2300 days of Dan. 8:14: “Unto two thousand and three hundred days, then shall the sanctuary be cleansed;” and this cleansing of the sanctuary is, as we have seen, a work of Judgment; hence the period of the 2300 days must be the very one the angel of Rev. 10 refers to when he says that time shall be no longer.

The identity between the message of Rev. 14:7, and that of chapter 10 being thus shown, we now come to the point of chief interest in the matter, which is found in verse 7: “But in the days of the voice of the seventh angel when he shall begin to sound, the mystery of God should be finished, as he hath declared to his servants the prophets.” In connection with the previous verse, we

have the assertion that when prophetic time is “no longer,” or when the prophetic periods come to an end, then the seventh angel begins to sound, and in the early days of that sounding the mystery of God is to be finished. But in Rev. 11:15, 18 we have these wonderful announcements: “And the seventh angel sounded, and there were great voices in heaven saying, The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever. And the nations were angry, and thy wrath is come, and the time of the dead, that they should be judged.” The sounding of the seventh trumpet, therefore, marks a momentous epoch for the world. For then the everlasting reign of Christ is at hand; but that reign cannot commence till the investigative Judgment is passed to determine who are to have part with Christ therein. The first part of the sounding of the seventh trumpet therefore covers the period of the investigative Judgment. But as already quoted from chapter 10, during the initial days of that angel’s voice the mystery of God is to be finished.

It is now in order to inquire, What is the mystery of God? and what is its finishing? The Scriptures tell us very plainly what they mean by the “mystery of God,” in the following passages: Eph. 3:3–6: “How that by revelation he made known unto me the mystery, as I wrote afore in few words; whereby when ye read ye may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ, which in other ages was not made known unto the sons of men, as it is now revealed unto his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit; that the Gentiles should be fellow heirs, and of the same body, and partakers of his promise in Christ by the gospel.” In this passage the apostle refers doubtless to Gal. 1:11, 12, written six years before, where we find him saying: “But I certify you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached of me is not after man. For I neither received it of man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ.” Again in Col. 1:26–28, we read further: “Even the mystery which hath been hid from ages and from generations, but now is made manifest to his saints to whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles: which is Christ in you the hope of glory.” The “mystery of God” is thus clearly shown to be the work of salvation for fallen man through the gospel of Christ. It is that which unites Jews and Gentiles in one body as fellow heirs, having Christ in them the hope of glory. The finishing of the mystery of God must therefore be the accomplishment or finishing of the work of the gospel among men. And when this is finished, mercy is no longer offered, probation no longer continues.

The finishing of the mystery therefore signifies the concluding of two important branches of work pertaining to this dispensation; first the priesthood of Christ, which closes with the last offer of mercy, and the end of probation; secondly, the preaching of the gospel to the inhabitants of the earth, which ceases with the final messages of warning. Rev. 14:6–12.

This work of finishing the mystery of God is not accomplished instantaneously; for “days” (years) are allotted to it; but the time is brief; for the “days” only constitute the “beginning” of his sounding: “In the days of the voice of the seventh angel when he shall begin to sound, the mystery of God should be finished.” A period of time is therefore set apart to the finishing of the work of mercy both in heaven and on earth. But this period coincides exactly with the cleansing of the sanctuary, the investigative Judgment, during which the Ancient of days sits as Judge, and Christ accomplishes before him the grand conclusion of his mediatorial work. The 2300 days, as we have seen, ended in 1844. Then the temple was opened in heaven (Rev. 11:19); the majestic scene of Dan. 7:9, 10 was set in array, the investigative Judgment commenced, the seventh angel began his sounding, and the heavenly world entered upon the solemn work of finishing the mystery of God, or bringing to a conclusion the work of salvation for lost men. The wrath of God which follows this period of Judgment is at hand (Rev. 11:18); and angel voices wait to herald in tones of joy, loud as the sound of many waters, the transfer of earthly kingdoms to the authority of Jesus Christ our Lord. Then shall the heathen (the nations) be given him for an inheritance (Ps. 2:8), and all Judgment be committed unto the Son. John 5:22.

(To be Continued.)