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Dear Tom: When I was a teenager I attended evangelistic meetings held by SDA evangelists and remember that they were adamant in the belief that the Jews would never return to Palestine. Biblical texts were quoted in evidence.
Could you kindly give me the texts used and the current SDA belief about this subject? When did this opinion change (if it has) and on whose authority? It would mean that the texts quoted would now be reinterpreted by the SDA Church.
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Tom Norris said: The SDA’s and the Jews
This is a rather complicated topic that needs some explanation. While the Millerites were not anti-Semitic, they did NOT embrace the views of the British Adventists who taught that the Jews must return to Israel prior to the Second Coming.
Listen to Ellen White make this point.
“Then I was pointed to some who are in the great error of believing that it is their duty to go to Old Jerusalem, and think that they have work to do there before the Lord comes... I saw that Satan had greatly deceived some in this thing... I also saw that Old Jerusalem never would be built up...” Early Writings p. 75.
http://www.pickle-publishing.com/papers … deo-30.htm
Before William Miller went public with his views about the Second Coming, others were proclaiming the literal, pre-millennial doctrine of the Second Coming. To be specific, a Jew by the name of Joseph Wolff, became a Christian and promoted the Second Advent as well as the doctrine that the Jews must return to Jerusalem prior to the Second Coming.
"In 1821, three years after Miller had arrived at his exposition of the prophecies pointing to the time of the judgment, Dr. Joseph Wolff, "the missionary to the world," began to proclaim the Lord's soon coming." {GC88 357.1}
Edward Irving, who seems to have been the first pre-millennialist in England, embraced Wolff’s views. He too would become a supporter of a restored Israel, which he also thought must take place before the Second Coming.
In fact, even before Wolff and Irving, there is a long history of British Support for Jewish Restoration. Thus the Balfour Declaration, which allowed the Nation of Israel to return to Palestine, has a long history and background that goes back to the English Puritans
http://www.mideastweb.org/britzion.htm
http://www.mideastweb.org/briefhistory. … %20Mandate
Irving become a pastor in 1822; four years later, he discovered Manuel Lacunza, a Spanish Jesuit who wrote a book under the pseudonym of Juan Josafat Ben-Ezra, allegedly a converted Jew, entitled, "The Coming of the Messiah in Glory and Majesty".
Irving actually learned Spanish in order to translate and publish the work in English. Not only that, he added a 203 page preface in which he presented with great conviction his own unique eschatology about the end of the world, predicting the apostasy of Christendom, the subsequent restoration of the Jews and finally the imminent return of Christ.
While Irving never came to America and died in 1834, there were many areas of his theology that were different from Miller. For example Irving's hermeneutic was the opposite of Millers Protestant version because Irving came to believe that the Holy Spirit was to guide the Christian as opposed to the "received traditions."
Moreover, as far as Miller was concerned, there was no prophecy that said the Jews had to return to Israel prior to the Second Coming, nor was there any time for such a migration to take place before the end of the world in the 1840’s. So Miller and Irving agreed on pre-millennialism, but not on how the Jews fit into eschatology.
In 1831, while Miller was still unknown in America, Irving is given credit for starting the modem Pentecostal movement that promoted speaking in tongues and other manifestations. Although he did not speak in tongues himself, nor heal or utter prophecy, the commotion from those who followed his teachings caused him to be fired from his Presbyterian church position at Regent Square, in London England. He left with half the congregation and formed the Catholic Apostolic Church. But he was never in charge of that new offshoot, and died a few years afterwards.
Not only has Irving been given credit for modern Pentecostalism, he was also connected to the doctrine of the secret rapture as well as dispensationalism; all of which came to America thanks largely to John Darby.
John Darby (Nov 1800-April 1882)
The most influential of all the British Adventists was John Nelson Darby. Unlike Irving, John Darby and his zeal for Christian Zionism did migrate to America. It was Darby’s view that the Jews would have to be returned to their ancient kingdom and be converted to Christianity before Christ could rule on Earth. His views became very popular in America and remain so to this day.
Darby’s dispensational views feature the Secret Rapture, which has since become very popular in modern Evangelical circles. Thus Darby actually taught that there would be Two Second Comings.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline … ophesy....
http://www.pre-trib.org/article-view.php?id=158
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Nelson_Darby
http://www.sullivan-county.com/news/cathouse/darby.htm
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?ti … lson_Darby
http://www.stempublishing.com/authors/B … darby.html
Neither the Millerites nor the SDA’s ever embraced what Wolff, Irving, or Darby were teaching about the Jews in Prophecy. Nor could they ever accept this strange view of the Secret Rapture, which became associated with this brand of eschatology.
While the Millerites were literalists that embraced the same view of pre-millennialism as Wolff, Irving, and Darby, they rejected their view that “the Old Testament prophecies of Israel's restoration and world leadership were to be fulfilled by a future gathering of literal Jews into Christ's millennial kingdom. A kingdom on this earth, with its capital in literal Jerusalem, to which the nations would come up to a restored temple and its services.”
(See: The Gathering of Israel A Historical Study of Early Writings, pp. 74-76, Julia Neuffer, Former Assistant Book Editor
Review and Herald Publishing Association)
http://www.adventistbiblicalresearch.or … israel.htm
After the disappointment of 1844, some Millerites embraced this idea that the Jews would return to Jerusalem prior to the Second Coming. But not the SDA’s. They have correctly rejected the Secret Rapture as well as Darby’s dispensationalism, and the teaching that the Jews must restore their Nation and Temple prior to the Second Coming.
The Problem
But there is still a problem. The SDA views about the Jewish Nation in prophecy pre dates the restoration of the Jewish Nation in 1948. Neither Miller nor the SDA Founders had any idea that the Nation of Israel would come back to life and walk back into the stage of history. Had that been the case, the American Adventists would have been forced to deal with the very issues that Wolff, Irving, and Darby were addressing.
In other words, the SDA’s can no longer ignore the fact that the Nation of Israel must play a role in the last day events. Not in the way that the British Zionists envisioned, but certainly in some real way. Thus the present position of the SDA’s that the Jews play no role in the last days is obviously wrong. The Nation of Israel, with its ancient Capitol Jerusalem cannot be ignored in 21st century eschatology.
The Solution
The SDA’s must update their eschatology and include the Nation of Israel in the last day events.
See also:
http://www.adventistbiblicalresearch.or … israel.htm
http://allfaith.com/Religions/Noahide/chosen.html
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline … opsis.html
Today, the Nation of Israel can no longer be ignored or marginalized by SDA’s. 21st century eschatology must deal with the Jews and the Nation of Israel. This is yet another reason why the SDA’s need doctrinal reform.
I hope this information was helpful.
Tom Norris for All Experts.com and Adventist Reform
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Follow up QUESTION for Tom Norris: Does the General Conference of SDAs in Washington DC have an official view of this eschatological proclamation about the Jews and does it take any responsibility for the lapsed viewpoint?
Your comment that SDAs need doctrinal reform is difficult to analyze and I wonder whether Tom Norris has any official status with the GC?
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Tom Norris said: Adventist Reform
Here is a link to 12 areas of doctrinal reform. (I think this list is self-explanatory, but that must not be the case, because I have been getting hundreds of questions about it.)
http://en.allexperts.com/q/Seventh-Day- … eform.h...
Tom Norris has no official status at the GC or the NAD. But he has met with various leaders over the years, including Arthur White, and written some policy papers for the NAD.
He recommended, 30 years ago, that the White Estate be cleaned up, and the historical record corrected. He also advised the leaders to honestly re-educate the church about Ellen White and church doctrine. But he was ignored.
http://www.sdanet.org/atissue/soapbox/norris.html
http://fountainoflanguage.com/sda/adven … risis.html
Instead of telling the truth about what the White Estate had done, and correcting the false record, the leaders opted to follow Pluralism. Such a view is not supported by the NT or the Pioneers. It is an evil policy that was designed to protect the long running fraud that has taken place in the White Estate. To this very day, the SDA’s are following a policy that promotes division and doctrinal confusion. They prefer this to telling the truth and repenting.
SDA’s and Zionism
Here is some additional information from the GC website that deals with how the Pioneers viewed Zionism.
After the great disappointment of 1844, a growing number of Adventists embraced the concept of the return of the Jews to Palestine. But the SDA founders agreed with Miller and Himes and repudiated such a literal, Old Testament interpretation. They did not believe that the OT prophecies about the restoration of Israel were literal in the NT era.
So in the 1850’s there was great debate and division within the Adventist Community about how the Jews fit into modern eschatology. Those who supported Zionism were known as the “age to come” group. The SDA’s opposed them.
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“What the Millerites repudiated as "Judaism" had nothing to do with either the religious teachings of the Jews or with the Sabbath. It was one specific doctrine of the millennium, namely, the teaching that the Old Testament prophecies of Israel's restoration and world leadership were to be fulfilled by a future gathering of literal Jews into Christ's millennial kingdom-a kingdom on this earth with its capital in literal Jerusalem, to which the nations would come up to a restored temple and its services.”
“The Millerites, on the contrary, saw in the gathering of Israel the gathering of the immortal saints to meet Christ in the air. All the true children of Abraham by faith-Jew and Gentile-would be caught up at the blast of the trumpet, then would return with Christ to, possess the renewed earth…[15]”
‘Since the Seventh-day Adventists held to the date 1844 for the end of the 2300 days, they were not seeking for a substitute date. This gave them a certain immunity to the date-setting fevers transmitted by various individuals among the other Adventists. (There were a few exceptions, around 1850.) ”
“As for their view of the future age, the Seventh-day Adventists had retained the original Millerite belief that Christ's return would end probation and would begin the reign of the immortal saints, Jew and Gentile alike. They also developed by 1850 a new doctrine of the millennium-held, so far as I know, by no one else-a view that placed the millennial reign in heaven, with the earth left during that period without a single living human being. This view provided an effective inoculation against the Literalist millennialism being newly taught under the name "the age to come."”[33]
The Adventist Reply
How did Himes and the majority group reply to the age-to-come doctrine? They contended that there was no prophecy that must yet be fulfilled in a future age before the end of probation, and that the promises made to Israel were being misinterpreted. Against the new "Judaism" the writers in the Advent Herald repeat the same Scriptural arguments as had been employed in the Miller period, and the same as those used later by the early Seventh-day Adventist pioneers. Some of these, when used today, have been regarded as new by those who do not know what the early Adventists-and the early Seventh-day Adventists-said on this subject.
The principal points made by various writers may be itemized thus:[68]
1. The kingdom promises to ancient Israel were conditional.
Many of them are made to them [the Jews] conditionally, and the conditions not having been complied with, the promises are not now good to them. . . .
Here [in Jer. 18:7-10] we have the unvarying conditions on which are given all national promises.[69]
2. These promises were forfeited through failure to meet the terms.
When he [Christ] came. . . . and his nation rejected him, their probation ended. . . . The national probation for the enjoyment of the inheritance and kingdom [of God] was at an end.[70] [Matt. 21:43 quoted.]
3. These prophecies picture what might have been if the conditions had been met.
Had they [the Jews as a nation] been faithful to their covenant obligations to their God, it would seem that they would have been blessed finally in a manner similar to the blessings promised in the new earth. . . .
[After the Babylonian captivity] thorough repentance, and continuance in obedience, would have again secured to them the promise of. . . the ultimate state promised to, and forfeited by their fathers.[71]
Had the nation. . . accepted Christ, it would not have fallen, but would, as a nation, have had the advantages above all other nations. . . . If with their fall and diminished numbers the Gentiles have been made rich, how much more would the Gentiles have been enriched if the full number (fulness . . .) of the Jews had believed.[72]
4. Some of these prophecies were fulfilled to the Jews in the past.
The prophecies which are supposed to hold out to the Jew and to Jerusalem a future hope [include] the prophecies which referred to the restoration of the Jews from the captivity in Babylon.[73]
5. Some will be fulfilled to "true Israel" in the final reward of the saved.
Then ["at the resurrection of the just] will be verified the ancient promise, "Behold, O my people, I will open your graves, . . . and bring you into the land of Israel .... "The patriarchs and their true seed will inherit the promised territory when they shall live in the resurrection state.[74]
6. The Old Testament prophecies must be understood in harmony with the inspired interpretation in the New Testament.
[Some promises] are explained by the inspired commentators in the New Testament, to be good to all who are of the faith of our father Abraham, to all who are grafted into the good olive-tree.[75] If we had no inspired [New Testament] expositions of the promises which relate to the inheritance of "Abraham and his seed," there would be some excuse for applying the promises to Abraham and his seed according to the flesh. . . . But we should need a new revelation before we should dare to apply those promises to Jews, as such. . . .for Paul has applied them otherwise.[76]
For all of these arguments against the "Judaizing" interpretation the writers cited various scriptures. It is true that not all of them stayed within the proper limits of Scriptural evidence. Some of them-like, unfortunately, certain of their Seventh-day Adventist successors in later years-went out on a limb and said that since the prophecies did not promise the literal Jews a future restoration as a theocracy, there would never be a Jewish nation in Palestine at all. But some of them, more than a century ago, pointed out the valid distinction between a return as a national, political entity and a return as the theocracy foretold in the divine prophecies.
Not a Fulfillment of Prophecy
Take Himes for example. What would he have said if he could have looked into a crystal ball and seen the establishment of the twentieth-century State of Israel?
Would he have decided that the prophetic views of the age-to-come people were right after all? Hardly-no more than he would have swung over to the British-Israel doctrine if he could have seen Allenby entering Jerusalem and the League of Nations setting up the British Mandate in Palestine.
He would have said, presumably, just what he did say as early as 1849, in discussing M. M. Noah's great expectations: that even if the Jews should be restored nationally in Palestine under conditions of probation, their occupancy of the land would not constitute a fulfillment of the prophecies. The promise, says Himes, was of "the land. . . for an everlasting possession.". . . No mere sojourn in the land of promise could be a fulfillment of it. . . . As no mere residence in that land, whether as a nation, or as individuals, was the promised possession, so the longer continuance of the Jews, or another restoration of them there, under the same probationary conditions, would or can be no fulfillment of the promise.[77]
Curiously enough, Crozier, in the age-to-come camp, said almost the same thing later. Since he taught the literal restoration of Israel during the millennium, he contended with those who looked for it to begin before the Second Advent. Even if Rothschild should buy Palestine, gather the Jews, and rebuild the Temple, he declared, that would not be a fulfillment of prophecy.[78] And that was not new. Already in 1842 Henry Dana Ward had written:
Were they restored to Palestine to-day, they could not have it more than Jeptha [sic]. Samuel, and David had it; but as their possession was not the promised possession [for all these "received not the promise" (Heb. 11:39, 40 cited)]; neither would the possession by the modern Jews be the promised possession. . . .Those who inherit with [Abraham and Christ] will not expect it in this mortal life, but in the resurrection and eternal life.[79]
The Seventh-day Adventists, still a small minority group, stayed out of the 1850 controversy; indeed, they could hardly have been accepted as allies by either side. Himes' Advent Herald party and Marsh's age-to-come adherents recognized each other as erring brethren, but considered the Seventh-day Adventists outside the pale.
The latter, in turn, regarded both other parties as having departed from the original Advent message and having rejected the new light on the Sabbath.[80] But the Seventh-day Adventist doctrine of the millennium precluded accepting the age-to-come views: With all the redeemed in heaven and no human being left alive on the earth, there is simply no room for either probation after the Second Advent or a "Judaizing" millennial kingdom on earth.
Like the Millerite "anti-Judaizing" view, the Seventh-day Adventist belief had nothing to do with the Jews or with their religion or national status. It opposed one specific Christian prophetic interpretation, namely: the application of certain prophecies to an expected gathering and conversion of the Jews, and to their place in a "Davidic" kingdom on earth during the millennium.
(An opinion for or against the "Judaizing" Literalist interpretation of the prophecies no more makes one pro-Israel or anti-Jewish than does the acceptance or rejection of the British-Israel claim make one pro- or anti- British.)[81]
http://www.adventistbiblicalresearch.or … israel.htm
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The SDA's need to update their eschatology. The Jews have returned to their Homeland and the Nation of Israel once again walks on the stage of history. They must play some role in last day events, and thus the SDA’s can no longer ignore the State of Israel in eschatology.
I hope this answers your questions and gives you the resources you need for further research.
Tom Norris for All Experts.Com and Adventist Reform
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Tom,
This was a thoughtful and informative post. Let's have more like it.
Hubert F. Sturges
www.theeverlastingcovenant.com
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Dear Tom:
It is difficult to rate you from my viewpoint, because I am starting from a point of ignorance on the subject.
You certainly have educated me.
Pastor Dunbar Smith was one of the Evangelists that spoke on the matter that the Jews would not return to Palestine. This was well before 1948. The historical setting of the doctrine provided is appreciated however.
I did not realize the huge denominational history background, although I was educated in "SDA Denominational History" in Avondale College in Australia.
The great void of Biblical proof for the Adventist denial in my early youth of the Jews ever returning to Palestine is astounding. Texts were used by the old evangelists that applied to the City of Babylon rather than Jerusalem.
I guess the SDAs based their beliefs on EGW's statements.
I left the SDA Church in 1979 after Des Ford's epochal lecture at PUC on the Investigative Judgement. Some members of the family were actually disfellowshipped on the issue.
The matter came up again as I am writing the story of our family and discussing old times.
Thank you for your help.
Allan Juriansz
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