Discovering the New Covenant by Greg Taylor - exAdventist Outreach

DISCOVERING THE NEW COVENANT
underfoot?" He said to me, "It will take 2,300 evenings
and mornings; then the sanctuary will be reconsecrated."
(NIV)
William Miller had come to the conclusion that this was
a reference to the second coming of Christ and therefore,
Jesus would come in 1843. Connecting the start of the 2300
day prophecy with the start of the prophecy of the Messiah in
Daniel 9, the command to restore and rebuild Jerusalem, had
given him a starting point. While most scholars today do not
agree with the starting point he chose because it was not the
right command for restoration and rebuilding, Miller
nevertheless convinced many thousands of people, especially
in New England, that Jesus would come by the end of 1843.
He later changed this to 1844 because of the absence of a
year “Zero” between BC and AD in historical reckoning.
There were three disappointments. The first came when
Jesus did not return in 1843, the second when the spring of
1844 passed, and most importantly the final and Great
Disappointment of October 22, 1844. This last date had
come to the forefront because of the connection of the
cleansing of the sanctuary with the Day of Atonement in the
Jewish calendar and described in Leviticus 16.
This disappointment was devastating to the early
Adventists. Many of them had not harvested crops and had
burned relationships with their former churches by calling
them “Babylon” and “Apostate.” 1 Many Adventists had been
expelled from their churches, not because their fellow
Christians did not believe that the second coming of Christ
was near, but because they did not believe it wise to set dates
when the Bible tells us not to do so. 2 Some Adventists
repudiated their date setting, swallowed their pride, and
returned to their former churches. William Miller himself did
1 Ellen G. White, Spiritual Gifts, Vol. 1, pp 139-140.
2 Ibid. p. 139
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