One Sabbath I was reasoning with a brother from United Church of G-d about Seventh Day Adventism. He pointed out to me that Seventh Day Founders arrived at errors in their prophetic interpretation due to the fact that in the time that the Church was started, Israel did not exist.
For those of you who are familiar with SDA history and also are aware of Israel's history, you can see some truth to that. The SDA Church was established in the 1800's, (1844 was not the actual date in which the church was "nominated"). The state of Israel on the other hand was once again established in 1948, after World War II.
Interestingly, Israel that now exists is not the full Israel that the Bible speaks about. In fact, what we call the state of Israel today is actually the kingdom of Judah - consisting of two tribes of Israel, Judah (from which we get the Jews) and Benjamin, with Levites interspersed., as Levites in the Bible do not have any land.
This is how many arrive at the phrase the "Ten lost tribes of Israel"! For more information, I point you to two encyclopaedia articles for reference "Ten Lost Tribes" Wikipedia and "Ten Lost Tribes of Israel" Encyclopaedia Britannica Online.
However, Seventh Day Adventist founders, mistakenly adopt a theology that the Church has replaced physical Israel as the Spiritual Israel.
Consequently, all theology about the coming of Christ in 1844 and prophesies concerning Revelation are falsified on that premise.
The woman in Revelation 12 is not the Church, for why would the church give birth to Christ (Rev. 12:5)?
The current leaders of the Church will need to re-examine doctrines based on Miller's claims and prophetic interpretations regarding Revelation in light of what their founders did not see - the physical return of the original kingdom of Israel to the land of Palestine. I will write more on this in a future blog entry.
General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists http://www.adventist.org/world_church/facts_and_figures/history/index.html.en
"History of the Seventh-day Adventist Church." Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Seventh-day_Adventist_Church
"Ten Lost Tribes" Wikipeda http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ten_lost_tribes.
"Ten Lost Tribes of Israel." Encyclopædia Britannica. 2009. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. 02 Feb. 2009 <http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/587080/Ten-Lost-Tribes-of-Israel>.
For those of you who are familiar with SDA history and also are aware of Israel's history, you can see some truth to that. The SDA Church was established in the 1800's, (1844 was not the actual date in which the church was "nominated"). The state of Israel on the other hand was once again established in 1948, after World War II.
Interestingly, Israel that now exists is not the full Israel that the Bible speaks about. In fact, what we call the state of Israel today is actually the kingdom of Judah - consisting of two tribes of Israel, Judah (from which we get the Jews) and Benjamin, with Levites interspersed., as Levites in the Bible do not have any land.
This is how many arrive at the phrase the "Ten lost tribes of Israel"! For more information, I point you to two encyclopaedia articles for reference "Ten Lost Tribes" Wikipedia and "Ten Lost Tribes of Israel" Encyclopaedia Britannica Online.
However, Seventh Day Adventist founders, mistakenly adopt a theology that the Church has replaced physical Israel as the Spiritual Israel.
Consequently, all theology about the coming of Christ in 1844 and prophesies concerning Revelation are falsified on that premise.
The woman in Revelation 12 is not the Church, for why would the church give birth to Christ (Rev. 12:5)?
The current leaders of the Church will need to re-examine doctrines based on Miller's claims and prophetic interpretations regarding Revelation in light of what their founders did not see - the physical return of the original kingdom of Israel to the land of Palestine. I will write more on this in a future blog entry.
Works Cited
General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists http://www.adventist.org/world_church/facts_and_figures/history/index.html.en
"History of the Seventh-day Adventist Church." Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Seventh-day_Adventist_Church
"Ten Lost Tribes" Wikipeda http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ten_lost_tribes.
"Ten Lost Tribes of Israel." Encyclopædia Britannica. 2009. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. 02 Feb. 2009 <http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/587080/Ten-Lost-Tribes-of-Israel>.
2 comments:
Your piece is thoughtful, but with Revelation, multiple interpretations are possible.
We'll know soon enough which are correct.
You may be interested to know, though, that Prophet White had insights more than 100 years ahead of science!
http://whereholyfeethavetrod.blogspot.com/2008/10/ellen-white-and-her-prophetic-ministry.html
While I am aware that there are multiple ways of interpreting Revelations and Daniel and the various prophecies in the scriptures, I am however convinced that G-d intends for there to be only one right interpretation.
The understanding of prophecies are however progressive. As time passes on, we get greater understanding of what G-d meant.
I however, would not want to wait until a denomination gets it wrong to revise my understanding. Especially when the denomination's mission is based on a particular prophetic interpretation.
While I admire E. G. White's insights and counsels, some of which were ahead of her time, and what I would call word of wisdom (1 Corinthians 12:8), she does have serious errors in her prophetic interpretation which I will write on further on. So while I accept her spiritual gift of wisdom, my goal is to ensure that the Scripture is correctly interpreted and followed.
Thank you though for that link to an interesting site!
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