1844 Made Simpler (in 10 steps)

Roy Gane

SDA Theological Seminary, Andrews University

Adapted from:

Roy Gane, Altar Call (Berrien Springs, MI:

Diadem, 1999), chapters 38-40; Who’s Afraid

of the Judgment (Nampa, ID: Pacific Press,

2006), chapter 8.

Reason

• Reason for knowing time of judgment: to

be able to participate (cf. Lev 23:26-32).

• Now we participate by keeping the

commandments of God and holding to

the faith of Jesus (Rev 14:12).

Step 1: Identify the “Little Horn”

(Daniel 8)

• In Daniel 8, God’s sanctuary is justified

after “2,300 evening morning” (v. 14)

• Justifying the sanctuary solves problems

caused by the evil “little horn” power.

• The “little horn” arises after a succession of

powers.

Step 1: Identify the “Little Horn”

(Daniel 8)

• Ram (vv. 3-4) = Medo-Persia (v. 20)

• Goat (vv. 5-7) = Greece/Macedonia under its first king (vs. 21), i.e., Alexander the Great (330s B.C.).

• Four horns (v. 8) = Hellenistic kingdoms (v. 22), i.e., Ptolemaic Egypt, Seleucid Syria, Attalid Pergamum, and Antigonid Macedonia.

Step 1: Identify the “Little Horn”

(Daniel 8)

• “Little horn” = a greater empire from one of the four “winds of heaven,” i.e., directions to which Alexander’s empire was divided (vv. 8-9).

• “Little horn” is distinct from the four Greek kingdoms, arises at the end of their rule, and supersedes all of them (vs. 23)

• So “little horn” = Rome.

Step 1: Identify the “Little Horn”

(Daniel 8)

• Roman domination had two major phases.

• Roman empire from shortly before the beginning of the Christian era to the fifth century A.D.

• Church of Rome, which dominated the Middle Ages.

Step 1: Identify the “Little Horn”

(Daniel 8)

• In Daniel 8, justifying God’s sanctuary is after domination by the “little horn,” which is Rome.

Persia Greece 4 kdms Rome Sanctuary Justified

Step 2: 2,300 Cannot be Literal Days

• Question: “How long is the vision…?” (v. 13).

• Answer: “2,300 evening morning” (v. 14), i.e., 2,300 days.

• The vision lasts from Medo-Persia (vv. 1-3) until the end of Rome, many centuries.

• This is many times longer than 2,300 literal

days (less than 6 and 1/2 years).

Step 3: Daniel 9 Explains Daniel 8

• Gabriel came to Daniel to help him “understand the vision” (9:23).

• No vision in Dan 9, so this is the vision of Dan 8.

• Gabriel comforted Daniel: Restoration for his people within “70 weeks,” sooner than the end of the 2,300 days (vv. 24-27).

Step 4: Beginning of “70 Weeks”

• “70 weeks” began “from the time that the word went out to restore and rebuild Jerusalem” (9:25), i.e., to restore ownership of the city to the Jews as their capital.

• Decree of Persian king Artaxerxes I, which went with Ezra to Jerusalem in the seventh year of his reign (Ezra 7), i.e., 458-457 B.C.

• Ezra reached Jerusalem in 457 B.C. (Siegfried H. Horn and Lynn H. Wood, The Chronology of Ezra 7 [Washington, D.C.: Review and Herald, 1953, 1970], 115, 127).

Step 5: “Weeks” of Years

• “70 weeks” began in Persian era and included rebuilding Jerusalem and Messiah’s coming (9:24-27).

• A “week” could be a week of years: Jubilee freedom after seven Sabbaths/weeks of years, i.e., 49 years (Lev 25:8-10).

• In Daniel 9, freedom from foreign domination after “70 weeks” of years = 490 years.

• “70 weeks” begin with 49 years (“7 weeks”; v. 25).

Step 6: End of 490 Years

• No zero year between B.C. and A.D. time (1

B.C. 1 A.D.; not 1 B.C. 0 1

A.D.).

• So 490 years from 457 B.C. is 34 A.D.

• On a calculator: 490 - 457 = 33, but add 1

because there was no zero year (490 years

cover an extra year).

Step 6: End of 490 Years

• 34 A.D. is confirmed.

• Messiah to come seven years before end of “70 weeks”, i.e., 27 A.D. (9:25-26).

• Jesus began ministry in Tiberius’s 15th year (Lk 3:1).

• Tiberius began reign on August 19, 14 A.D.

• Jews counted first regnal year as part of year before first New Year’s Day (in October).

• So 15th year = autumn 27 to autumn 28 A.D.

Step 7: Events Later in 2,300 Days

• Christ was “cut off” and Jerusalem was

destroyed with its temple (Dan 9:26).

• Messiah would make a covenant with many

and make the sacrificial system cease (v. 27;

cf. Matt 26:28; 27:51; Heb 7-10).

• Then there would be a false replacement: “an

abomination that desolates…” (Dan 9:27).

Step 7: Events Later in 2,300 Days

• This refers to what is predicted in 8:11-13 (v. 13—“transgression that makes desolate”) for the later part of the 2,300 days.

• So 9:27 ties in to the rest of the story, which we already know from Daniel 8.

• The Roman “little horn” would put earthly false worship in place of the earthly sacrifices that Christ had made to cease (in significance).

Step 8: 2,300 Years

• The “little horn’s” abominations occur after

the earthly temple was destroyed in 70 A.D.

• So the sanctuary cleansed after 2,300 days

must be God’s heavenly sanctuary (Heb 7-

10).

Step 8: 2,300 Years

• The 2,300 days of Daniel 8 and the 490 years of Daniel 9 both began during the Medo-Persian empire.

• The 2,300 days reach beyond the 490 years, through the time of Rome’s false worship.

• So the 2,300 must be longer than 490 years.

• So the 2,300 must represent years (cf. Num 14:34; Ezek 4:6).

Step 9: 490 Years Overlap First

Part of 2,300 Years • Gabriel explained “the vision” but only gave

a beginning for the 490 years.

• 490 years = first phase of 2,300 years.

• So the beginning point for the 2,300 years must be the same.

• 490 years to Christ’s first phase of atonement, and 2,300 years to His second phase of atonement.

Step 9: 490 Years Overlap First

Part of 2,300 Years • “Seventy weeks are decreed for your

people...” (Dan 9:24).

• The Hebrew word translated “decreed” appears only here in the Bible.

• In rabbinic Hebrew it is quite common, most often with the basic meaning “cut.”

• Both meanings apply here: “70 weeks” cut off from 2,300 years, and also “decreed” for Jewish people.

Step 10: End of 2,300 Years

• 490 years began in 457 B.C., so the 2,300 years also began in 457 B.C.

• Going forward 2,300 years from 457 B.C., without a zero year, comes to 1844 A.D, soon after the political power of the church of Rome was suspended in 1798.

• It makes sense that a heavenly judgment beginning in 1844 would solve problems created earlier by the Roman power.