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Commentary on "The Promise of His Return"
Day 5: Wednesday, March 28, 2012 - "Where Is the Promise of His Coming?"
Overview
Today the author of the quarterly takes the time element into consideration. His main goal is to show that the prolonged waiting for Christ's coming is not unusual in light of the way in which God's promises from the past have been fulfilled. According to the author, Eve expected her firstborn child, Cain, to be the Savior promised by God, and also in Hebrews 11 there is a long list of believers waiting for the kingdom of God who died without seeing it. Even in Peter's times people appeared who were ready to accuse God of slackness for not showing up earlier. Taking all of these examples into account, it becomes easy for the Adventist author to classify the Adventist's failed expectations into the category of delayed biblical expectations.
Observations
Despite good intentions, this attempt at explaining can't work because for years Adventists distinguished themselves from other churches which believed in Christ's second coming by their emphasis on their peculiar soon expectation of Christ's coming, an emphasis expressed on their doctrinal statement. The argument was that the other churches were willing to wait even hundreds of years for Jesus to appear, while Adventists knew, due to prophetic fulfillment, that Jesus's coming is right around the corner. They entitled themselves to this conviction because as Adventists, they believed that the long time of waiting expired once the 1260 years of papal domination was over in 1798. Moreover, the astronomical signs of a darkened sun and the falling stars, which occurred on May 19, 1780, and November 13, 1833, respectively, confirmed the nearness of the second advent. Since October 22, 1844, the final judgment had begun with the dead and soon would involve the living, and when this judgment was over (a period of time which was not supposed to be too long), Jesus would come.
Is the author of the quarterly willing to go back to the position that Adventists criticized so heavily? This flip-flop may be popular and acceptable in the political world of presidential candidates, but for somebody taking pride in having the guidance of a prophet in understanding God's Word, these changes betray not only the identity of the movement, but they are destroying any claim to special understanding of God's Word. Adventists have to chose; either they must go with a definite expectation of a short time before the second coming, or they must renounce their earlier beliefs and endorse an indefinite time of waiting. They can't have their cake and eat it, too.
These things being said, the arguments presented in the lesson are pretty much sound. God's timing is not our timing, but His promise is sure and will be fulfilled according to God's good will. If Adventists truly want to prove that they have learned this lesson, they should abandon their prophetic charts that were used in the past, stop justifying the pioneer's actions in stirring up expectations that failed miserably, stop presenting those pioneers as models of dedication and sacrifice, because what made them tick was self-deception, based on biblical speculations regarding the second coming.
Copyright 2012 BibleStudiesForAdventists.com. All rights reserved. Revised March 21, 2012. This website is published by Life Assurance Ministries, Camp Verde, Arizona, USA, the publisher of Proclamation! Magazine. Contact email: BibleStudiesForAdventists@gmail.com.
The Sabbath School Bible Study Guide and the corresponding E.G. White Notes are published by Pacific Press Publishing Association, which is owned and operated by the Seventh-day Adventist church. The current quarter's editions are pictured above.
Official Adventist Resources
Standard Edition Study Guide Week 13
Teacher's Edition Study Guide Week 13
Easy Reading Edition Study Guide Wk 13
Search the Complete Published Ellen G. White Writings
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