MARTIN CAREY | Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and Life Assurance Ministries Board Member |
Recently while having coffee with my Christian friend Greg, he talked about his Adventist friend. “We talked about our faith and what was important to us,” Greg told me, “and his beliefs were right on. And he’s a nice guy.” I hesitated before answering. As a former Adventist, how should I respond to my Christian friend who thinks there are no important differences between Adventist and Christian evangelical teachings? I told myself, “Be kind, be truthful, be helpful,” and sent up a little prayer for help. I told Greg that there are important differences between Adventist and Christian teachings, even if his Adventist friend is unaware of them.
“You are right,” I said, “they are nice people, and they do good work at Loma Linda. They also have a different gospel, especially about the forgiveness of sins. In Adventist beliefs, forgiveness isn’t really forgiveness.” Greg looked quizzical, so I told him, “Adventist gospel words sound the same as ours, but there are deep problems in their special meanings for their words.” I explained how those special Adventist meanings go back to the roots of Adventism, in the Millerite advent movement.
Nowadays, it is not polite to criticize other belief systems, so we adjust our words to sound broad-minded. We can easily compromise on vital truths, especially when talking about Him who said He is the way, truth, and life. Whether we are talking to Baptists, Methodists, or our Adventist family and friends, we want to be clear about the essential truths at the heart of the gospel. That is why this year, for our FAF weekend topic, we focused on Jesus’ mighty cry from His cross, “It is finished!” What did Jesus mean by that, and how does that control our theology? Do Adventists teach something different, in their version of the gospel, from evangelical Christians? I discovered that indeed, they do, and they always have. Let’s take a closer look at the 19th century Advent movement and what they considered essential to their message for the world.
Back to the Anti-trinitarian Source
As leader of the Advent movement, William Miller was passionate about Jesus coming soon, physically returning to earth, bringing salvation for the righteous and fiery judgment on the wicked. However, Miller’s convictions were a product of his background and associations with another movement, the Christian Connexion. Connexion followers were passionate about restoring Christianity to the purity of the early church, by divorcing themselves from all denominations, creeds, and traditions. The Connexion believed that the Christian church had gone into apostasy, and that God had rejected all the denominations. They believed they were sent to offer a fresh new start to the Christian world.
Christian doctrines that the Connexion rejected included the trinitarian nature of God, Jesus’ full divinity, and His vicarious atonement for sins. These central Christian doctrines were also strongly rejected by two influential Connexion ministers in New England, Elias Smith and Abner Jones. William Miller attended Connexion conferences, shared a common cause, and made close alliances with their leaders. Also among the New England Connexion followers were Adventist pioneers Joseph Bates, Joshua Himes, and James White. The Millerite and Early Adventist movement had deep roots in the Christian Connexion movement, roots that bore fruit in Adventists separating from other Christians, in their teachings on the nature and identity of Jesus, and what He accomplished at His atonement on the cross.
Now let us consider how William Miller reached his convictions about the prophecies of Jesus’ second coming and the essential last-day message. In 1818, after intensely studying Bible prophecy, Miller became convinced that Jesus would physically return to earth about 1843. From 1831 to 1844, he preached his Advent message to many thousands, leading a movement that would grow to 100,000 plus. As Adventists, we learned to be very respectful when talking about William Miller and his movement. Ellen White gave him prophetic authority, even though his predictions failed, multiple times. Mrs. White’s seal of approval on Miller put a glow over teachings that discouraged any serious critique of his methods of Biblical interpretation. Mrs. White endorsed William Miller’s reasoning as a “perfect chain of truth,” so we felt compelled to defend Miller’s reasonings and uses of scripture.
Much has been said about Miller’s work, so let’s look at his “proofs” that support his predictions of the Advent’s dates of arrival. Underneath his proofs are assumptions that control his methods in understanding Scripture. One such assumption was his day-year principle. Miller decided that when Scripture speaks of days, that can be interpreted to actually mean years. Miller selected two texts as proof:
“And when thou hast accomplished them, lie again on thy right side, and thou shalt bear the iniquity of the house of Judah forty days: I have appointed thee each day for a year.” —Ezekiel 4:6
“After the number of the days in which ye searched the land, even forty days, each day for a year, shall ye bear your iniquities, even forty years, and ye shall know my breach of promise.” Numbers 14:34
Miller applied his day-year principle to other prophecies that speak of days, asserting that they are actually years, such as Daniel 8:14: “Unto two-thousand and three hundred days; then shall the sanctuary be cleansed,” King James Version. Miller greatly favored the KJV, considering it “50 times” better than other translations. This is significant, considering that many other translations use different words for “cleansed,” giving careful consideration to the passage’s context and the Hebrew meanings. Miller did not know Hebrew, and like many in the Christian Connexion, had a low opinion of Biblical scholarship. Here are two recent translations of Daniel 8:14:
NASB: “He said to me, ‘For 2,300 evenings and mornings; then the holy place (Hebrew – Kodesh) will be properly restored.’”
ESV: “And he said to me, ‘For 2,300 evenings and mornings, then the sanctuary shall be restored to its rightful state.’”
The King James translation of this verse was central to Miller’s teaching and shaped his theology of salvation. Unfortunately, Miller payed little attention to the context of chapter 8. “Cleansed” in Daniel 8:14 is clearly referring to the earthly tabernacle being defiled by the evil little horn power, then being restored to its rightful state of pure worship. The Hebrew words translated in the KJV for “2300 days” are 2300 evenings and mornings. However, Miller was more interested in hidden symbols in the words and numbers. He saw this text as fulfillment of the Day of Atonement cleansing of sin, and believed the sanctuary to be cleansed was the entire earth. Therefore, he thought, the 2300 days are years, marking the end of the world. Through some complex calculations, he became convicted that Christ would come again in 1843 to cleanse the earth of all sin.
Miller wrote and preached extensively, with complex and elaborate “proofs” of his calculations about prophecy. In his book Cultic Doctrine of Seventh-day Adventists, Dale Ratzlaff analyzes each of Miller’s 15 proofs and comments. To get an idea of how Miller reasoned, let’s look at his first proof:
“I prove it by the time given by Moses, in the 26th chapter of Leviticus, being seven times that the people of God are to be in bondage to the kingdoms of this world; or in Babylon, literal and mystical; which seven times cannot be understood less than seven times 360 revolutions of the earth in its orbit, making 2520 years. I believe this began according to Jeremiah 15:4, —‘And I will cause them to be removed into all the kingdoms of the earth, because of Manasseh, the son of Hezekiah, king of Judah, for that which he did in Jerusalem,’ and Isa. 7:8, ‘For the head of Syria is Damascus, and the head of Damascus is Resin: and within three score and five years shall Ephraim be broken, that it be not a people,’—when Manasseh was carried captive to Babylon, and Israel was no more a nation,—see chronology, 2 Chron. 33:9, ‘So Manasseh made Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem to err, and to do worse than the heathen, whom the Lord had destroyed before the children of Israel,’—the 677th year B.C. Then take 677 out of 2520, leaves A.D. 1843, when the punishment of the people of God will end (Quoted in Dale Ratzlaff, Cultic Doctrine, 57).
There are significant issues to consider here in Miller’s method. Miller saw, “I will punish you seven times more for your sins” and saw mystical meanings. Seven times are actually 7 years, with each year having 360 revolutions (earth days). So 360 x 7 = 2520 years, minus 677 BC, and you arrive at 1843!
About this first proof, Ratzlaff comments: “This ‘proof’ is a classic nineteenth-century illustration of proof-texting running wild. The context of the proof texts are ignored and supporting texts are linked together haphazardly. Lev. 26:18 reads as follows: ‘If also after these things, you do not obey Me, then I will punish you seven times more for your sins” (Lev. 26:18).’”
Ratzlaff asks how Leviticus 26 addresses Christ’s second coming, or how it can be considered a prophecy at all. “This first proof is totally invalid and makes a mockery of sound biblical interpretation. If this is one of the links in the ‘perfect chain of truth,’ it is a broken link” (Ibid). With his 14 other proofs, Miller clearly ignored the contexts of the scriptures he used and added his own special meanings.
Miller’s Multiphase Atonement
Once Miller assumed that the cleansing of the sanctuary in Daniel 8:14 referred to the Day of Atonement, his line of reasoning changed his entire gospel message. He looked to Leviticus 16 to explain the meaning of atonement and the removal of sin. Because atonement in that chapter involves multiple steps to deal with sin, Miller reasoned that Jesus’ death on the cross as a sacrifice for sin was only the first part of a multi-step process of atonement to remove sins from the earth. Miller strongly believed that the various parts of the Day of Atonement ritual, the type, must be enacted in detail in the anti-type, Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross.
Likewise, Miller also reasoned that Jesus could not have been both priest and sacrifice on earth, because on the Day of Atonement, sacrifices could not offer themselves; priests offered the sacrifices. In addition, Miller taught, Christ’s death and resurrection did not complete atonement. Why? Because in the Mosaic ritual, atonement was not complete until sin was completely removed from the camp by transferring them to the scapegoat. Therefore, because sin was not removed from earth at the cross, the atonement had only just begun. According to Miller, it can only be completed when sin is “blotted out,” when every sinner is either fully cleansed or destroyed. In a letter dated December of 1844, Miller stated,
“Is not the offering and sacrifice of Christ the atonement? No. These are only preparatory steps, Lev. 1:1-4; 4:13-20…Where is the atonement made? While the High Priest is in the Most Holy Place, Lev. 16:27.” (Letter From Brother Miller, Midnight Cry 4, Dec. 21, 1844)
Miller’s Cleansing of the Sanctuary
To briefly summarize Miller’s message: he assumed that the sanctuary mentioned in Daniel 8:14 was the earth, so the earth would be cleansed at the end of the 2300 days. That was to come in 1843. He assumed that the days in prophecy actually were years. He assumed that the text symbolically referred to the Day of Atonement, so the 2300 year time period would end with the complete cleansing of sin from the entire earth. Miller believed that because Christ did not finish the atonement for sin on the cross, the atonement cannot be complete until the final judgment of all mankind at the second coming. Miller applied 2 Peter 3:7, where the heavens and earth are reserved for the fire of God’s judgment.
Great Advent Moments
In 1839, William Miller met with Joshua Himes at a Christian Connexion conference and agreed to publish Miller’s work in Himes’s paper, Signs of the Times. In 1843, the Advent movement met with its first disappointment, and after much discussion, some proposed the date be reset to March of 1844. Jesus did not come. In August of 1844, Samuel Snow taught that the real date of Jesus’ coming would be October of 1844, “The Seven-month” movement, based on calculations of the Jewish Karaite calendar for the Day of Atonement. Snow stated that the Adventist believers were fulfilling Jesus’ parable in Matthew 25 of the 10 virgins. At midnight, the cry went out, “Behold, the bridegroom cometh! Go ye out to meet Him!” The bridegroom tarried in the parable, and he tarried again in 1844. But again, disappointment. Snow and many of the Advent believers agreed that as in the parable when the bridegroom shut the door against the late-arriving virgins, so the door was now shut against all the world who were not accepting Miller’s message that Jesus was coming at the time they predicted.
Hiram Edson’s Cornfield Vision
Miller’s multi-phased atonement became Adventist doctrine when Hiram Edson told his friends Crosier and Hahn of his conviction that Jesus had entered into the heavenly Most Holy Place in 1844, starting a new phase of atonement, fulfilling Daniel 8:14. Josiah Litch had proposed that God’s judgment occurs in two phases, trial and execution. Out of this new teaching, Joseph Bates formulated what would become Adventism’s investigative judgment doctrine. That judgment was to decide “who is, and who is not worthy to enter the gates of the holy city.” After Bates presented this formulation, his new friend Ellen White had a vision supporting that teaching as divine truth (ESDA, Joseph Bates).
The False Gospel of 1844
Miller’s message for the world in 1843, “present truth,” to urge readiness for Jesus coming and final judgment, was not the gospel. Miller’s message was not the gospel of sinners believing in Jesus’ dying and rising for their sins. Therefore, it was not the everlasting gospel of the 1st angel’s message.
Secondly, Miller’s date-setting messages proved to be false, three times. Yet, Ellen White called them “light,” and a “perfect chain of truth,” and those who rejected it are eternally lost.
Third, Miller and the Adventists taught that Christ’s atonement for sins was not finished at the cross, and that the total blotting out of sins does not happen at conversion. Atonement and blotting out of sins can only happen when the Investigative Judgment is complete. Atonement for sins will only be complete when our sins our laid on the Adventist scapegoat, Satan.
Atonement: Probation vs. Reconciliation
Ellen White presents the Adventist doctrine of atonement as a gradual, probationary process:
“Faith in the merits of the Son of God would so elevate man that he could resist the devices of Satan. Probation would be granted him in which, through a life of repentance, and faith in the atonement of the Son of God, he might be redeemed from his transgression of the Father’s law, and thus be elevated to a position where his efforts to keep his law could be accepted.” E.G. White, Spirit of Prophecy, 49
So, according to Mrs. White, after we demonstrate total victory over sins, our efforts at law-keeping can be accepted. Here we see the results of the teaching of an incomplete atonement. When atonement is incomplete, forgiveness of sins is provisional. Right standing with God is, therefore, merely hoping for the future when we might have proven ourselves worthy of salvation. What kind of gospel is that? This is a pious-sounding, dangerous, counterfeit gospel. The real gospel gives us genuine reconciliation and total forgiveness, where our sins are not counted against us, ever again. This is all because of Christ’s finished atonement that we can receive by faith in His blood:
“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation.”—2Corinthians 5:18-19
- The Root and Fruit of Adventism’s Atonement - March 19, 2026
- Kill the Hostility - January 29, 2026
- Out of the Mouths of Babies - December 5, 2025