1335 Days are Prophetic

ARE THE 1290, 1335 DAYS LITERAL OR PROPHETIC

Defending the Prophetic Interpretation

Is there a Biblical backing for the historical 1290 day/years?

From the time the daily is taken away and the abomination set up; 1290 days.

Let's look back to the vision part in Daniel 11 to for our first clue.

In Daniel 11:31 we see:

Forces (or an army) will be mustered by him to pollute the sanctuary and take away the daily and place the abomination of desolation. This takes place before verses 32-35 where the saints are persecuted, giving us a clue that the 1290 day/years begin before the 1260 day/years. Daniel 8:11 again speaks of taking away the daily and setting up the abomination.

In that chapter we clearly see that the sanctuary being attacked is Christ's ministry in the heavenly sanctuary, as the horn reaches up even to the hosts of heaven and exalts himself as high as the Prince of heaven (Jesus in His priestly ministry), and casts the sanctuary and truth to the ground.

This system places itself between the people and Christ's heavenly ministry so people look to this earthly system for forgiveness and entrance to salvation, not to Christ.

But notice something more:
In both Daniel 11:31 and Daniel 8:12 we read that this power receives an army by which he opposes the daily and sets up the abomination.

Daniel 8:12 An army was given over to the horn to oppose the daily. (NKJV)
Daniel 11:31 And forces shall be mustered by him, and they shall take away the daily and place the abomination.

Was there a time before the beginning of the 1260 years when the papacy came into possession of an army which it used to set up it's authority over spiritual matters?

Indeed there was!

The Biblical bases has been explained
and history bares record that indeed

AN ARMY WAS GIVEN HIM to enforce his manipulations of truth

Quote:
"With the conversion of Clovis, there was at least one barbarian leader with whom the Bishop of Rome could negotiate as with a faithful son of the Church. It is from the orthodox Gregory of Tours that most of our knowledge of Clovis and his successors is derived. In Gregory's famous History of the Franks, the cruel and unscrupulous king appears as God's chosen instrument for the extension of the Catholic faith. Certainly Clovis quickly learned to combine his own interests with those of the Church, and the alliance between the pope and the Frankish kings was destined to have a great influence upon the history of western Europe." (James Harvey Robinson, History of Western Europe, pp. 35, 36.)

With Clovis began the Merovingian dynasty which through the years was the military strong arm for Catholicism. The following was from Bonifacius and shows what help the Franks were to the Catholic Church:

Quote:
"Without the patronage of the Frankish ruler, I can neither govern the people nor defend the presbyters, deacons, monks or handmaidens of God; nor even could I forbid the pagan rites and sacrilegious idolatries in Germany without his mandate and the fear of his name." (Epist. 12 ad Danielem episc.)

The Salian Franks were the first among the Teutonic tribes to embrace Catholicism, and force the other Germanic nations under her brand of Christianity.

Quote:
They gave the death blow to paganism in Rome. Once converted to Roman Christianity, the Germans became the staunch supporters of the papal hierarchy and enabled the Pope to enforce his prerogatives in the West. Backed by these sturdy Teutons, the Pope became the most powerful individual in Christendom." (Alexander Flick in "The Rise of the Medieval Church" p. 180

The 1335 Days

Daniel 12:12 says: Blessed is he that waits and comes to the end of the 1335 days.

The 1290 and 1335 day/years are dependant upon one another-- they belong together. The evidence supports the idea that they begin at the same time, as Daniel mentions them together. This is emphasized by the admonition to "wait" out the lengthened period.

Above I have shown the reason why I believe the 1290 days/years began in 508 with Clovis, king of the Franks, who gave his armies to further papal designs.

These 1290 years ended when the Frank (FRENCH) emperor Napolean attacked the papal authority and ended the long relationship.

If the 1335 years begin in 508, they would end in 1843-- the year the first and second angel's messages swelled into a loud cry proclaiming the hour of His judgment has come, come out of Babylon my people.

Thousands were led to embrace the truth preached by William Miller, and servants of God were raised up in the spirit and power of Elijah to proclaim the message. Like John, the forerunner of Jesus, those who preached this solemn message felt compelled to lay the ax at the root of the tree, and call upon men to bring forth fruits meet for repentance. Their testimony was calculated to arouse and powerfully affect the churches and manifest their real character. And as the solemn warning to flee from the wrath to come was sounded, many who were united with the churches received the healing message; they saw their backslidings, and with bitter tears of repentance and deep agony of soul, humbled themselves before God. And as the Spirit of God rested upon them, they helped to sound the cry, "Fear God, and give glory to Him; for the hour of His judgment is come."

To understand the 1335 day/years we need to look back at the 2300 day/years prophecy found in Daniel 8:14, which first led the people to proclaim this "hour of His judgment is come" message.

In Daniel 8:13 we find a question--
*How long will the vision be?

The angel, Gabriel consistantly speaks of the "vision" as the whole revelation given to Daniel beginning with the ram and ending with cleansing of the sanctuary--"for at the time appointed the end shall be." (vs. 19)

The answer, as to how long the vision, till the end shall be, is 2300 day/years extending from the Persian kings (and the command to rebuild Jerusalem, seen in Dan. 9) to 1844 when the cleansing of the sanctuary would begin.

This is considered "the time of the end".

However, the question in Daniel 8:13 has parts to it that are not answered until we get to Daniel 12.

* How long will the daily be replaced by the abomination?
Daniel 12:12 tells us that from the time the daily is taken away and the abomination set up is 1290 day/years.

* How long will the sanctuary be trodden underfoot?

Daniel 12:12 tells us "blessed are they that wait till the 1335 days-- that's when the sanctuary doctrine once again began to open to people. After the great disappointment the work of Christ our PRIEST/KING in the heavenly sanctuary and HIS work for HIS people began to unfold.

* How long will God's saints (God's host) be trodden underfoot? The answer to that is in Daniel 12:7 as well as in Daniel 7:25 For 1260 day/years the Holy People will be shattered.

The 1335 day/years and the 2300 evening and morning/years, answer the same question, "How long till the time of the end?" Therefore they point to the same date-- 1844, when the heavenly day of Atonement to cleanse and make pure began.

When people refuse to see the 1335 days as pointing to this "time of the end" they are also undermining the 2300 days as pointing to 1844.

THE MISAPPLIED QUOTE:

Quote:
“Brother Hewit from Dead River was there. He came with a message to the effect that the destruction of the wicked and the sleep of the dead was an abomination within a shut door that a woman, Jezebel, a prophetess had brought in and he believed that I was that woman Jezebel. We told him of some of his errors in the past, that the 1335 days were ended and numerous errors of his. It had but little effect. His darkness was felt upon the meeting and it dragged.” {6MR 251.2}

This is statement is used by some to say the 1335 days are future. After all, it is claimed, EGW and her husband are here telling Mr. Hewit how wrong he is is saying the 1335 days are ended!

However, I see this as Brother Hewit running around projecting the 1335 days into the future, and Ellen White and her husband telling him that is error!

The syntax makes the paragraph vague, but if we read:

Quote:
"We told him of some of his errors in the past, [we told him] that the 1335 days were ended [we told him] and numerous errors of his. It had but little effect. His darkness was felt upon the meeting and it dragged.”

Now does this reading agree with what Ellen and James would have said?

Yes, it does.

James White writes concerning the 1335 days and Daniel 12.

Quote:
R.H. January 29, 1857 (In 1844, he affirms, the great day of atonement began) "for the blotting of the sins of all of every age, the cases of patriarchs and prophets, and sleeping saints of all past ages will come up in judgment, the books will be opened and they will be judged according to the things written in the books....thus it is that according to the Scriptures, at the end of the 1335 days in 1844, Daniel stood 'in his lot in the decisions of the judgment of the righteous dead'....the judgment of the righteous dead commenced at that time."

"The day and hour of Christ's second coming are not revealed in the Scriptures. Neither is the year in which this glorious event is to take place pointed out. Not one of the prophetic periods reaches to the second coming of Christ. The sanctuary is to be cleansed at the end of the 2300 days, and Daniel is to stand in his lot at at the end of the 1335 days. But that these events occur before the second appearing of Christ, is susceptible of the clearest proof. Both these prophetic periods terminated in 1844" (Second Coming of Christ, p. 62 (1870)).

What does Ellen herself say about the prophetic timelines?

Quote:
Should we advance in spiritual knowledge, we would see the truth developing and expanding in lines of which we have little dreamed, but it will never develop in any line that will lead us to imagine that we may know the times and the seasons which the Father hath put in His own power. Again and again have I been warned in regard to time setting. There will never again be a message for the people of God that will be based on time. We are not to know the definite time either for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit or for the coming of Christ. {1SM 188.1}

"I have borne the testimony since the passing of the time in 1844, that there should be no definite time set by which to test God's people. The great test on time was in 1843 and 1844; and all who have set time since these great periods marked in prophecy were deceiving and being deceived."LS80 221

RH.1894-10-09.010 God has not revealed to us the time when this message will close, or when probation will have an end. Those things that are revealed we shall accept for ourselves and for our children; but let us not seek to know that which has been kept secret in the councils of the Almighty.

I think it's perfectly clear that the long timelines have all been fulfilled and trying to set them in the future is not something we should do.

Quote:
RH.1894-10-09.010 God has not revealed to us the time when this message will close, or when probation will have an end. Those things that are revealed we shall accept for ourselves and for our children; but let us not seek to know that which has been kept secret in the councils of the Almighty.

Most of the speculative re-interpretations of the timelines will attempt to tell you when probation closes.

There is now a chart out that basically says:

Sunday laws start the 1260 days
The death decree is set up at the end of those 1260 days.
It takes 30 days for it to go into effect.
this takes one to 1290 days.

PROBATION CLOSES sometime between the 1260 and 1290 days.
The plagues fall for 45 days.
Then on day 1335 there's the blessed resurrection.

Now, what is the danger in that theory?

It is time setting?

It's saying don't worry about probation closing--
You can wait till the Sunday laws come and then you still have three and a half years time to get your life right with God.

Is this the message we are to teach?
Is this the message that will prepare us to stand?

No! This is NOT the message of Daniel 12.

Yes, I believe many are missing the message of Daniel 12 --- IT IS NOT ABOUT TIME SETTING. It is all about what happens at the end of that time-- when Christ appears before the ANCIENT OF DAYS to receive His dominion and confesses the names of His faithful before the Father and the angels. (Dan. 7 and Rev. 3:5)

Quote: EGW tells us:
"The message of salvation has been preached in all ages; but this message (the 3 angels' message) is a part of the gospel which could be proclaimed only in the last days, for only then would it be true that the hour of judgment had come . The prophecies present a succession of events leading down to the opening of the judgment. This is especially true of the book of Daniel. GC 355

Is there a resurrection at the end of the 1335 days?

No--

THE BLESSING for those who come to the end of the 1335 days--
Is found in Rev. 14:13

The 1335 days takes us to the THREE ANGEL'S MESSAGES, thus we need to look for the blessing pronounced there. A blessing that says "from hence forth"!

The 1st angels message started sounding, "The hour of His judgement is come, worship Him Who made heaven and earth!
The 2nd angel's message started sounding, "Come out of her my people.... After 1844 the third angel's message started sounding, SUNDAY is the mark of apostacy, blessed are they that keep the commandments of God and have the faith of Jesus.

WHAT IS THE BLESSING?

Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth ; Yea saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labours and their works do follow them.

This blessing is pronounced on those WHO ACCEPT THE THREE ANGEL'S MESSAGES!

If this message had been heeded by Protestantism they would not now be on the road to forming an image of the beast.

As this message sounded and the truth of God's judgement and His commandments came forth, Protestantism had to make a choice-- would they move forward AWAY from the papal dogmas, or would they cling to the papal dogmas and reject Christ as their judge and His commandments as their standard?

The blessing is pronounced upon ALL WHO HAVE DIED IN THE HOPE AND BELIEF of the three angel's messages. For their names will Christ confess before the Father and before His angel's in that heavenly court room. (Dan. 7, Rev. 3:5)

Quote:
Those who rejected the first message could not be benefited by the second; neither were they benefited by the midnight cry, which was to prepare them to enter with Jesus by faith into the most holy place of the heavenly sanctuary. And by rejecting the two former messages, they have so darkened their understanding that they can see no light in the third angel's message, which shows the way into the most holy place. I saw that as the Jews crucified Jesus, so the nominal churches had crucified these messages, and therefore they have no knowledge of the way into the most holy, and they cannot be benefited by the intercession of Jesus there. Like the Jews, who offered their useless sacrifices, they offer up their useless prayers to the apartment which Jesus has left; and Satan, pleased with the deception, assumes a religious character, and leads the minds of these professed Christians to himself, working with his power, his signs and lying wonders, to fasten them in his snare EW.260

When does Daniel stand in "his lot"?

Quote:
GC.488.002 The subject of the sanctuary and the investigative judgment should be clearly understood by the people of God. All need a knowledge for themselves of the position and work of their great High Priest. Otherwise it will be impossible for them to exercise the faith which is essential at this time or to occupy the position which God designs them to fill. Every individual has a soul to save or to lose. Each has a case pending at the bar of God. Each must meet the great Judge face to face. How important, then, that every mind contemplate often the solemn scene when the judgment shall sit and the books shall be opened, when, with Daniel, every individual must stand in his lot, at the end of the days.

So what is Blessed for those who died after the 1335 years?

THOSE WHO DIED IN BELIEVING THE THREE ANGELS MESSAGES DO RECEIVE A SPECIAL BLESSING! --- a special resurrection---

not at the end of the 1335 years, for they died AFTER those 1335 years, but their works do follow them and ------

Quote:
EW.285.001 Deliverance of the Saints It was at midnight that God chose to deliver His people. ....There was a mighty earthquake. The graves were opened, and those who had died in faith under the third angel's message, keeping the Sabbath, came forth from their dusty beds, glorified, to hear the covenant of peace that God was to make with those who had kept His law.

The attempt to make the 1260, 1290, 1335 days literal, does great damage to the historicist interpretation of scripture.

1. The methods used to "debunk" the day/year principle for these texts can be used equally effective on the 2300 days, thus destroying the very foundation upon which Adventist doctrine is based.

2. The sanctuary doctrine was NOT developed mainly from Daniel 8:14 it stands solid on many Biblical passages. The 1260 and 1335 days were very much part of the foundations for the doctrines. To destroy their position is like cutting legs off a chair and expecting it to stand on just the remaining ones.

3. If these "time of the end" timelines have not yet taken place, then we are not yet at the time of the end. Then the book of Daniel must still be sealed, then we must still go through EVERYTHING and Christ's coming is still a long way off. Rev. 10 could not have occured yet, and we must still go through another big disappointment after which we must prophecy again.

4. Destroying the historic timelines and wresting them into futuristic interpretations has greater consequences then many realize-- it will destroy the BIBLICAL BASIS of our prophetic message.

Far from making things more "relevant" it throws everything ahead into the future, and lulls people into thinking there is lots of time yet!

Another Quote-- Does it say the 1335 days are future?

In Manuscript releases Vol. 15 p. 228 Ellen White admonishes us to study Daniel chapter 12 for "IT IS A WARNING that all need to understand before the time of the end."

This speaks of a warning in Daniel 12. What is that warning?

She explains:

Quote:
The people of God need to study what characters they must form in order to pass through the test and proving of the last days. Many are living in spiritual weakness and backsliding. .....
They are not sanctified through the truth. Unless a change comes in their lives, they will say, "My Lord delays His coming."
Read Luke 21, there Christ gives the warning,
Take heed to yourselves, lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting and drunkenness, and cares of this life, and so that day come upon you unawares. For as a snare shall it come on all them that dwell on the face of the whole earth. Watch you therefore, and pray always that you may be accounted worthy to escape all these things and to stand before the Son of man".

This isn't a warning about "know the time", it's a warning to be right with God in constant expectation.

In another place she writes:

Quote:
God is purifying a people to have clean hands and pure hearts to stand before him in the Judgment. The standard must be elevated, the imagination purified; the infatuation clustering around debasing practices must be given up, and the soul uplifted to pure thoughts, holy practices. All who will stand the test and trial just before us, will be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped, not participated in, the corruptions that are in the world through lust.RH.1887-05-24.002

The time lines all point forward to the judgment between professors of religion and true followers of Christ.

Daniel 12 is all about being purified and made white, even though tried.
The emphases is on escaping the deceptions developed in religious dogmas and imposed and forced upon the people--
The emphases is to be white and clean and come before the judgment with a character surrendered and developed in Christ in holiness.

It is not about knowing the dates for the close of probation, nor knowing the length of the time of trouble, and the date on which the saints deliverance comes-- NO -- instead it is ALL ABOUT developing our Characters in Christ, to stand in the judgment for HIS glory.

How Can We tell if Time is Symbolic or Literal

Now I’d just like to explore the concept that “if there is a symbolic beast etc.” in the surrounding verses, then the time is also symbolic. If there is no symbolic beast etc. then the time is literal. This concept I believe, was first brought out by Marian Berry, who was rather inconsistent in her application. In her works she stresses this idea to maintain that Daniel 12’s timelines are literal, but then uses her interpretation of literal 1260 days in Daniel 12 as proof that Revelation 13’s 1260 days are also literal even though Revelation 13 has beasts.

Be that as it may--

In a previous post I asked if the day for a year applied to the 490 days as there was no symbolic beast in Daniel chapter 9. Now I agree with the answer given that the 490 days are 490 years and that they are part of the 2300 days and an explanation of Daniel 8 which contains "beasts".

The only problem is that first you must convince the skeptic that Daniel 9 is related to the vision of Daniel 8. The skeptic has already studied Daniel 8 and is convinced the 2300 evening and mornings refer to the 2300 sacrifices which were not offered during Epiphanies “abomination”. They will tell you that the two visions are something like eight years apart and not one and the same.

Where is the KEY within Daniel itself that Daniel uses symbolic language for his time prophecies?

The most effective KEY that Daniel uses symbolic time is found in a chapter and vision that does not use any symbolic beasts! That chapter is Daniel 9. Most Christians will recognize that the 70 weeks are symbolic weeks not literal weeks. From there it is easy to go to chapter 8 and point out that the question in verse 13 is addressing the “whole vision” not just the cessation of the sacrifices (sacrifices is a word that is not in the original) and must therefore also be 2300 years, not days.

Now I take this further.
We agree that Daniel 9, even though it’s a vision some eight years later and deals with literal specifics not really touched upon in Daniel 8, is a further explanation of Daniel 8's timeline.

I also see Daniel 10-12 as a vision that deals with literal specifics that further explain Daniel 8 as well. The parallels between the two visions provide us with many links to believe this to be true.

Thus the same principle that would makes Daniel 9 and Daniel 8’s timelines symbolic day for a year, would also make Daniel 12’s timelines symbolic day for a year.

As for the key to help us determine which time periods are symbolic which are literal, I find the explanation that we look to see if they are apocalyptic timelines. Do they project to something in "the time of the end" which would give us the clue that they translate “days” for symbolic “years”. This is a far more consistent rule than simply looking for symbolic creatures within the prophecy.

I look at Daniel 4, there we have the symbolic tree, there we have “seven times” or seven years. Yet the seven years are not symbolic, they are a literal seven years. Why?

This is not an apocalyptic time line but a local prediction.
This is not an apocalyptic timeline pointing to events in earth's future but merely depicting a happening within a a specific king's life. Therefore this prophecy does NOT translates “days” into symbolic “years”.

The 1335 days/years-- like all the other timelines in Daniel 12 point us to Christ's entry before the Ancient of Days to Receive the dominion, and to confess the names of His followers befor the Father and the angels of heaven. (Dan. 7, Rev. 3:5) We know He is there now, we do not know the day, nor the time when He comes to earth again.