1. Adventist Movement (1844-1848) 1. Groups That Arose from the Great Disappointment 1
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1. Adventist Movement (1844-1848) 1. Groups that arose from the Great Disappointment 1. New York Group: 1. Lead by J. V. Himes, who said that they had the right interpretation of the event, but had miscalculated the date. Continued to look forward to Christ's coming. 2. Spiritualizers 1. Believed that they had the correct date, and Jesus had come, but that it was a spiritual coming. 2. Acted like children. 3. Adventists 1. Believed they had the right date, but they had misinterpreted the significance of the “cleansing of the sanctuary.” 2. On October 23, 1844, Hiram Edson became convicted that light should be given” and “our disappointment explained” 1. As Edson crossed a field, he stopped midway, and had a vision. He saw Christ entering into the second apartment of the sanctuary. 2. His mind was directed to Revelation 10, with its bittersweet experience, and with the closing command to “prophesy again.” 3. Edson, Hahn, and Crosier all began a deeper Bible study. 1. In early 1845, Crosier began to print the findings of their combined study in Day-Dawn. 2. On February 7, 1846, Enoch Jacobs published their findings in the Day-Star Extra under the title “The Law of Moses.” 1. A literal sanctuary exists in heaven 2. The Hebrew sanctuary system was a complete visual representation of the plan of salvation that was patterned after the heavenly sanctuary. 3. Just as the earthly priests had a two-phase ministry in the wilderness sanctuary, so Christ has a two-phase ministry in the heavenly. (The second started October 22, 1844) 4. The first phase dealt with forgiveness, the second, the blotting out of sins 5. The cleansing of Daniel 8:14 was a cleansing from sin. 6. Christ would not return to earth until He completed His second apartment ministry. 3. In February of 1840, Josiah Litch had indicated that the judgment must take place before the resurrection. 4. In December of 1844, Ellen White experienced her first vision: 1. “I raised my eyes, and saw a straight and narrow path...On this path the Advent people were traveling to the [heavenly] city, which was at the farther end of the path. They had a bright light set up behind them at the beginning of the path, which an angel told me was the midnight cry.” 2. This vision confirmed that October 22 was a fulfillment of prophecy. 5. Controversy emerged over the inspiration of Ellen White 1. Ellen white came to be viewed as a lesser light to point toward the Bible 6. The Sabbath 1. Rachel Oakes challenged an Adventist preacher to keep all of God's commandments 2. Frederick Wheeler and his congregation in Washington began to observe the seventh day in the spring of 1844. 3. T. M. Preble published his Sabbath beliefs on February 28, 1845 of Hope of Israel. 4. Preble's writings fell into the hands of Joseph Bates in March. 5. Bates shared the Sabbath with Crosier, Hahn, and Edson. 6. This group eventually became known as Sabbatarian Adventists. 7. Bates suggested that after God entered the second apartment of the temple, the ark of the covenant was spiritually revealed and people began to search the Scriptures. 8. Based on Revelation 13, Bates argued that faithfulness to the biblical Sabbath would be the outward focal point of the end time controversy. 7. Conditional Immortality 1. Most Christians throughout the cemeteries held Greek views on death. 2. In 1840, George Storrs concluded that humans do not possess inherent immortality. 3. Thus, Storrs began to preach “annihilationism.” To believe anything else was to impugn the loving character of God. 4. Conditional immortality seemed to be necessitated by the doctrine of pre- and postmillennial resurrections. 8. Shut Door approach to Mission 1. Based on the parable of the ten virgins in Matthew 25, Sabbatarian Adventists believed that October 22, 1844 was the close of human probation. 2. Further Bible study eventually removed this belief. 3. The Shut Door approach gave Adventism time to solidify their doctrine. 9. Major tenets of SDA theology: 1. The personal, soon-coming, premillenial return of Jesus 2. The two-apartment ministry of Christ 3. Validity of the gift of prophecy 4. Obligation to observe the seventh-day Sabbath 5. Conditional immortality 10. At the core of these tenets are two biblical ideas 1. The sanctuary 1. Stresses Christ's ministries and the 10 commandments 2. Three angels' messages. 1. Proclaim the message through missions to” every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people” 2. Come out of Babylon 3. Keep the commandments of God.