In the early nineteenth century, Baptist minister William Miller began preaching that Jesus would return in 1844. He based his conclusions on a prophecy found in Daniel 8:14:

And he said unto me, Unto two thousand and three hundred days; then shall the sanctuary be cleansed (KJV).

Based on the precedent of:

• The Israelites wandering 40 years in the wilderness, one year for every day the spies spent in Canaan (Numbers 14:34).
• The number of days the prophet Ezekiel was to lie on his side symbolizing the number of years of punishment for Israel (Ezekiel 4:5, 6).
• And the Seventy Weeks prophecy of Daniel 9:24–27, which represents 490 years (70 weeks x 7 days).

Miller interpreted the 2,300 days to represent 2,300 years.

He identified the start of the 2,300 years as when Artaxerxes I ordered the rebuilding of the Hebrew temple and the restoration of autonomous rule for the Jews in Jerusalem, which occurred in 457 BC. Miller then concluded this prophecy would end 2,300 years later, which is 1844. He also taught that the cleansing of the sanctuary meant the cleansing of the Earth; thus, he believed that the Second Coming would occur on October 22, 1844.

Miller’s preaching was part of the Great Awakening, a period of revival and rededication to Christ. Thousands believed Miller and looked with humble expectation for Jesus to return. When this event did not take place, it resulted in what came to be known as The Great Disappointment, and the majority of the Millerites returned to their former churches and gave up on the expectation of Christ’s soon return.

A few, however, reexamined the prophecy and concluded Miller was right about the dates but wrong about the event. They concluded that the prophecy was not about Christ’s return; instead, they believed it referred to Christ’s preparation of His people for the Second Coming. These individuals rightly concluded that the Bible does not teach that the Earth is the sanctuary. They realized that the Bible refers not only to a temple/sanctuary built by Moses and then Solomon, but also a sanctuary built by Christ in heaven, and that in 1844, there was no sanctuary in Jerusalem to be cleansed, so it must be the sanctuary built by Christ that was to be cleansed.

In 1863, this group of believers formed the Seventh-day Adventist (SDA) Church. They believed in the soon coming of Jesus, His advent, and, thus, they put “Adventist” in their name. They also believed that those who are ready to meet Jesus will be loyal to Him and, therefore, would follow His directions for their lives, so they returned to honoring the Bible Sabbath and also put that in their name.

But the SDA Church soon faced a crisis that diverted its message and mission. At the 1888 SDA General Conference, two young leaders brought a message that was to fuel, invigorate, enlighten, and empower the church to fulfill its mission of calling people back to Creator worship and prepare them for the Second Coming. Unfortunately, legalists in the leadership rejected the message that would have freed it from the Romanization of Christianity—the idea that God’s law functions like Roman law and, therefore, God is like Caesar, an imperial dictator who makes up laws and uses power to enforce those laws through inflicted punishment. And ever since, the SDA Church has struggled to fulfill its mission because its correct doctrines have been set in the wrong understanding of law, and it continues to teach a false penal/legal system of salvation with the wrong understanding of who God is.

The 1888 Message

Specifically, the message brought to the church in 1888 was one about God’s law—that as Creator, God speaks reality into existence and His laws are the laws reality is built, sustained, and functions upon, like the law of gravity, laws of physics and health, and the moral laws. Violations of these laws naturally injure and result in death. Sin breaks God’s laws and causes death:

“Sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death” (James 1:15 NIV84).

“The one who sows to please his sinful nature, from that nature will reap destruction” (Galatians 6:8 NIV84).

Sin causes death by breaking the laws God built life to operate upon, ultimately separating us from God. God is the source of life, and if sin is not removed then we will ultimately die. But God loved us too much to surrender us to death, and He, therefore, sent Jesus to destroy death and restore us to unity with Him, thereby giving us life:

“For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6:23 NIV84).

“Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil” (Hebrews 2:14 NIV84).

“Christ Jesus, who has destroyed death and has brought life and immortality to light” (2 Timothy 1:10 NIV84).

But again, the legalists in leadership rejected the truth that God’s laws are design protocols for life and, therefore, that death is the natural result of clinging to sin, and that salvation requires restoration to harmony with God’s law, which humanity could not do for itself; therefore, God, who loves us so much, sent His only Son to become a real human, take up the life infected and terminal from Adam, be tempted in all ways like every human, but choose as a human to live in perfect harmony with God’s Spirit of truth and love, thereby purging, destroying, eliminating, eradicating the spirit of fear and selfishness in the humanity He inherited through Mary and replacing it with the sinless Spirit of love and trust inherited through the Holy Spirit, who impregnated Mary with His humanity. 

Instead of accepting design law with its healing reality, the legalists taught that God’s laws are imposed, made-up rules like the laws that sinners make up and which require enforcement through inflicted punishment. Thus, the SDA Church, instead of taking a message of healing, renewal, and recreation built on trust in worshiping God as both Savior and Creator, the One who is the source and sustainer of life, taught a legal fiction built on the lie that God’s law functions like Roman law, with a punishing judicial god who is the source of inflicted pain and death under the guise of so-called justice.

A Faulty Lens

This legal view resulted in interpreting the prophecy of Daniel 8:14 into a legal fiction of heavenly courts, legal books, accounting, erasing historical records, legal judgments by a punishing god with the required infliction of torture and death at the hands of that god—but worse, this false legal view actually led them to worship a god who uses divine power to perform a miracle to keep people alive in fire in order to torture them as long as their sin crimes deserve before he kills them. Some even teach that memories of the saved are erased so that no one in heaven will know the sins of the righteous.

It is this false legal view, with its subsequent concrete interpretation of Bible symbols, that has opened the church up to criticism about the prophecy of Daniel 8:14. The prophecy of Daniel 8:14, like all prophecy, is highly symbolic, and a correct understanding requires moving beyond fictional legal interpretations to reality. Unfortunately, many in the SDA Church have failed to do this and interpret many of the symbols concretely or legally, which results in ideas ripe for criticism.

An example is teaching:

• There is a literal building in heaven with two rooms separated by a curtain.
• That smoke mixed with Jesus’ blood ascends over the curtain whenever saints pray on Earth.
• God the Father is seated behind a curtain.
• Jesus could not enter the Father’s presence until 1844.

Such interpretations of the Bible’s symbolism result in easy criticism and rejection of the entire prophetic truth, because we know Jesus went immediately to His Father’s presence after His ascension. He told Mary,

Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet returned to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, “I am returning to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God” (John 20:17 NIV84, emphasis mine).

And as Jesus told John in Revelation:

To him who overcomes, I will give the right to sit with me on my throne, just as I … sat down with my Father on his throne” (3:21 NIV84, emphasis mine).

So before the end of the first century, Jesus had already entered into His Father’s presence, which in no way undermines the truths contained in the Daniel 8:14 prophecy. This realization moves the understanding away from concrete literalism to accurate interpretations of reality.

The sanctuary message is not about geography or physical location, but about function, process, and necessary actions in the plan of salvation.

The sanctuary message that was brought to light by Miller and then clarified by the Adventist pioneers became corrupted and diverted by the legalists in SDA Church leadership in 1888. And their legal interpretations opened this message, and the organization itself, up to criticism and rejection.

Another criticism, which has probably been the most effective, is the one that the 2,300 days are not prophetic days and should not be interpreted as 2,300 years, and instead, they should be applied to Antiochus IV’s desecration of the Jewish temple in Jerusalem at the time of the Maccabees, the defeat of his forces, and the rededication of the temple at that time.

There are multiple lines of argument that suggest this possibility, that thoughtful people have not conjured up or invented, but which seem to fit that application. However, I do not believe they are correct, so I thought it might be helpful to review the reasons why I reject that interpretation and also conclude that the 1844 date is indeed valid for this prophecy.

I also believe that had the SDA Church accepted the message given to it in 1888 and embraced the truth that God’s laws are design laws, they would not have created the easy opening for this other interpretation.

I believe the error is not in the date but, instead, is in setting the cleansing of the sanctuary message into a legal framework—that is, attempting to explain this salvation work through the human imposed-law lens has opened the door for this criticism.

The Story Arc of Scripture

The story arc of Scripture is God’s creation of a sinless humanity in governance of a sinless planet in a universe in which Lucifer had already rebelled; the war of ideas, methods, and principles focusing on God’s trustworthiness was already raging.

When Adam and Eve believed the lies about God and broke trust with Him, they were changed from beings motivated by love, truth, trust, and loyalty to beings motivated by fear and selfishness.

This break with God would have resulted in death immediately (as God is the source of life) if God did not intervene (intercede) to suspend those consequences for a time to allow His plan of salvation to be accomplished (Romans 3:25). Right there in Eden, as recorded in Genesis 3:15, the Messiah was promised to destroy sin and Satan and provide salvation (Hebrew 2:14; 2 Timothy 1:10).

Adam and Eve’s sin did not change God or God’s law. It changed them. They were no longer motivated by the spirit of love and trust, but a spirit of fear and selfishness. Their condition became terminal; they were dead in trespass and sin. They did not have a legal problem; they had a lethal problem.

They needed salvation, a remedy, a cure, a new life, a new sinless spirit, a new animating energy, which they could not conjure up, create, work for, discover, obey themselves into, find through ritual, ceremony, or in any other means provide for themselves. Thus, Jesus, the “Lamb that was slain from the creation of the world” (Revelation 13:8 NIV84), became a real human being, descended from Adam through David (Romans 1:3), and was tempted in all points like us but was without sin (Hebrews 4:15). Jesus, in His humanity, destroyed the infection of fear and selfishness and replaced it with His perfect sinless life, spirit, animating life-giving power resonate with perfect truth, love, and trust.

Upon His resurrection, Jesus ascended back into His Father’s presence in His humanity! Jesus returned to heaven with His love-gift to His Father, the redeemed, cleansed, restored, perfected, sinless humanity that He purged and purified through His sinless life and voluntary sacrificial death. Thus, He returned to His Father’s presence immediately, just as He told Mary and John, and took up His station, not only as the Son of God, but as the Son of man, as the second Adam.

His victory, in His person, set the human species right with God (justified the race), but it also provided what is necessary for every individual human sinner to be saved from sin. But individual sinners must participate, partake, receive, what Jesus provides, and this is done through faith, through restored trust.

When we are won to trust and open our hearts, the Holy Spirit takes the sinless life of Christ and shares it with us. We become partakers of the divine nature (2 Peter 1:4); we are reborn with a new Spirit (John 3:3), a new animating motivating energy or life, the life of Jesus, and then it is no longer our sinful fear-ridden selves living, but Christ living in us (Galatians 2:20). And this work is metaphorically acted out and described in the sanctuary system.

Understanding this story arc of Scripture, man’s fall and God’s intervention through Jesus to save, we understand that in Daniel, God foretells His plan to save, heal, cleanse, and reconcile His people to Himself. Before we can be fully in God’s presence again, we must not only experience God’s forgiveness, but we must also be cleansed, purified, freed from the corruption and the control of fear, selfishness, guilt, and shame that sin causes. This is why the Bible describes the church being washed, purified, cleansed, before Christ returns. He does this work to present Himself with a pure bride who is ready to stand in His presence. The cleansing of the bride/church and the cleansing of the sanctuary are the same event.

Antiochus IV’s desecration of the temple does not fit in this story arc. It has no place in the plan of salvation and serves no purpose for God to foretell it. In fact, how the Antiochus event does fit in the Bible story arc is as a counterfeit to God’s truth.

Satan’s Counterfeit

Satan has counterfeited God’s truth all through history, and he has a counterfeit interpretation of Daniel 8:14, which is the Antiochus interpretation.

• Cain had a counterfeit offering to what God requires.
• Magicians in Egypt counterfeited the miracles of God.
• Various false prophets throughout history
• Baal worship—Baal, son of El, god of weather, fought the great serpent, fought Mot, god of death, died, rose again to bring life to the land—but Baal required sacrifice, payment, and appeasement. It is a legal religion.
• Jeroboam set up alternate worship centers in Bethel and Dan to Jerusalem.
• The mystery religions at the time of Jesus, with dying rising saviors, baptisms in blood, and various communion services.
• The legal counterfeit to true Christianity when Constantine converted.

Satan seeks to counterfeit all of God’s truths, and he inspired Antiochus to do what he did to set up a counterfeit to the true message of Daniel.

1844 Fits Daniel’s Pattern

The 2,300 years ending in 1844 with Jesus starting the cleansing work fits with the theme of Daniel’s other prophecies.

Daniel’s prophecies have a recurring pattern—they prophecy the story arch of the Bible all the way down to Jesus setting up His kingdom.

• The multi-metal man ends with the rock destroying the kingdoms of this world and Jesus setting up His kingdom.
• The period of the lion, bear, leopard, and grotesque beast ends with the destruction of the beast and the Son of Man coming in the clouds.
• The ram and goat cover the same story arc, and the interpretation given by the angel to Daniel tells us that the prophecy “concerns the time of the end” Daniel 8:17. And this little horn power will be destroyed but not by human power, Daniel 8:25. Additionally, because Daniel becomes overwhelmed, the angel returns several times to explain and reveal more to him. Therefore, my view is that Daniel chapters 8–11 all cover the same events and end when Michael returns, just like the two previous prophecies.
• Understanding that story arc, Daniel 8:14 is not about the Jewish building desecrated by Antiochus; it is about the true temple being desecrated and then later cleansed by Christ before His return.

Harmonizes With Other Prophecies of the Same Event

The cleansing of the sanctuary before Christ’s return is such an important element in the plan of salvation that the Bible describes it in multiple places, and Daniel 8:14 fits perfectly with these other revelations:

• Daniel 7:13: Jesus coming to receive His kingdom and opening the books.
• Malachi 3: Jesus coming to His temple to cleanse it.
• The parable of the wedding feast.
• The day of atonement object lesson of the Old Testament sanctuary, which occurs before tabernacling with God (Feast of Tabernacles).
• The cleansing of the bride of Christ.

Evenings and Mornings

Some struggle with the 1844 date because the text of Daniel 8:14 uses the language of evenings and mornings rather than days. The modern translations read,

It will take 2,300 evenings and mornings; then the sanctuary will be reconsecrated (Daniel 8:14 NIV84).

The objection asserts that this language does not represent 2,300 days, but 2,300 evenings and mornings for a total of 1,150 days.

However, this requires one to overlook God’s own description of a day in Genesis 1: “There was evening, and there was morning—the first day” (v. 5 NIV84).

The conclusion, therefore, that the 2,300 evenings and mornings do not represent actual days requires a new, non-biblical interpretation. Interpreting this as days is consistent with the Bible itself.

Cleansed or Justified?

Another objection is that the word translated in the KJV as “cleansed” is more accurately translated as “justified”—made right or put right. This is correct. The SDA Bible commentary affirms this view, and it is not a problem at all when one returns to design law. In fact, the understanding of justified (put right) makes the application of 1844 even more accurate.

Humanity, by Adam’s sin, became corrupted with fear and selfishness and was no longer in rightness of function, trust, love, truth, and oneness with God. In Jesus, humanity was put right, set right, justified, restored to perfect unity and oneness with God by Jesus’ purging the infection of fear and selfishness and restoring sinless perfection within humanity, which is reality-based cleansing, purifying, renewing of the spirit temple—the reality of which the building was pointing (John 2:19).

But some object that such a cleansing, purifying, “rightifying” work is required for sinners before the second coming of Christ. I think this is because of the infection of Roman law and the legalization of Christianity—the teaching that sin is a legal problem and sins are legal crimes that require external legal enforcement through inflicted punishment; therefore, it makes salvation about a legal adjustment in books, rather than the cleansing of hearts and minds. 

Because imperial/imposed law requires punishment for wrongdoing, the church of the Dark Ages taught that sin must be punished. This led to the doctrine of purgatory, which says that, after death, conscious souls have their sins purged through punishment. In Roman Catholic theology, entrance into heaven requires the “remission before God of the temporal punishment due to sins whose guilt has already been forgiven,” for which indulgences may be given that remove “either part or all of the temporal punishment due to sin,” such as an “unhealthy attachment” to sin.[1] Those who die in grace but who have not yet fulfilled the temporal punishment required due to their sin can do so in purgatory.

One of the major doctrines that the great reformer Martin Luther rejected was the teaching that conscious souls are punished in purgatory. He disagreed with this doctrine in two ways:

First, he did not believe in a conscious soul that could experience punishment; instead, he taught that the saints sleep peacefully: “It is enough for us to know that souls do not leave their bodies to be threatened by the torments and punishments of hell, but enter a prepared bedchamber in which they sleep in peace.”[2]

Second, he put forth a new theory designed to free people from both the fear of purgatory and the exploitation of indulgences to buy loved ones their freedom from further punishment in purgatory. He expanded Anselm’s satisfaction theory of atonement by adding inflicted punishment. Luther taught the idea that all sin by all humans from all time were placed on Christ at the cross and punished by God at the cross. Thus, for the saints, there were no unpunished sins remaining to be punished; thus, there was no need for purgatory.[3]

Unfortunately, the same root lie underpins both purgatory and Luther’s solution—that God’s law functions like human law and that breaking the law (an act of sin) requires punishment.

The legalistic Adventists who rejected the 1888 message about God’s laws being design laws clung to that lie and made the same error Luther did—placing the sanctuary doctrine in a false legal setting and teaching the same distortion as purgatory—that all sins require punishment; either they get punished in Jesus, or God will punish people the appropriate time they deserve after the 1,000 years.

As a result, the sanctuary doctrine is also falsely taught as legal accounting and determining how much punishment each person deserves for their sins. The Catholics have the sins being punished in purgatory in order to purge the soul and save the sinner; the legalistic Adventists have the sins being punished after the 1,000 years simply to torture sinners for so called justice’s sake before execution.

Returning to design law, we rightly realize that the cleansing, justifying, putting right is not a legal accounting but an actual healing of hearts and minds, putting people right with God again—as Abraham experienced. He was born with a natural state of enmity to God; his heart was naturally driven by fear and selfishness, but he experienced a change from distrust to trust. And only after Abraham’s heart had been changed, set right, put right with God, did God recognize, account, and declare that Abraham was justified or righteous because his heart was, in fact, reborn with a new spirit of love and trust and he was set right.

So, the 1844 date fits with the unfolding of time, and the work that needs to be done prior to Christ’s second coming to cleanse the true sanctuary, the one built by Christ, with Him being the chief cornerstone and individual saints being the living stones in need of cleansing. And it fits with history as a real event happened that is required for this cleansing to occur.

A Real Event Happened in 1844

Something really happened in 1844—a historical fulfillment of the Daniel 8:14 prophecy. What happened? Attention was drawn to Jesus as our heavenly High Priest, His soon return, the preparatory work before His return, and the message of the three angels began to be preached. All of this is evidence of the cleansing of the sanctuary before the Second Coming. And this is consistent with how reality works—if one returns to design law, it fits exactly with what must happen before Christ returns and how it happens. How is this evidence?

After Christ’s ascension into heaven, Paul wrote:

Don’t let anyone deceive you in any way, for that day will not come until the rebellion occurs and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the man doomed to destruction. He will oppose and will exalt himself over everything that is called God or is worshiped, so that he sets himself up in God’s temple, proclaiming himself to be God (2 Thessalonians 2:4 NIV84, emphasis mine).

This man of sin did not ride up into heaven and throw Jesus off His throne and proclaim himself to be God in the heavenly courts. No! He set himself up by replacing the truth about God in the hearts and minds of people with a false version of God. He did this by getting people to believe the lie that God’s law functions like human law, and, therefore, they worship a god who is like Satan in character, the one who is the source and wielder of death. Thus, Satan set himself up in the spirit temple, proclaiming himself to be God. This man of sin is the little horn that Daniel tells us wars against the saints:

I beheld, and the same horn made war with the saints, and prevailed against them; until the Ancient of days came, and judgment was given to the saints of the most High; and the time came that the saints possessed the kingdom (Daniel 7:21,22 KJV, emphasis mine).

But this is not a physical war; it is a war of lies versus truth, centering on the character of God:

For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ (2 Corinthians 10:3–5 NIV84, emphasis mine).

And the lie that God’s law functions like human law became orthodoxy with Rome and the man of sin was winning, until the saints were given judgment to discern the difference and make a right judgment about God. As Paul wrote:

Let God be true though every one were a liar, as it is written, “That you may be justified in your words, and prevail when you are judged” (Romans 3:4 ESV, emphasis mine).

Thus, the prophecy of Daniel 8:14 is God looking down the corridors of time and informing Daniel that the little horn power, the man of sin, will war against the saints and prevail until judgment is given to the saints, until they gain the ability to discern the truth and judge God to be the Creator and not an imperial dictator, until the hour of God’s judgment comes (Revelation 14:7).

The saints must understand reality and have the lies that hold them captive removed. And this ability to make a right judgment about God and have their spirit temples cleansed will not occur for 2,300 years, because it requires the recovery of the evidence; the Bible must be translated into the language of the people. But when that prophecy comes to completion, the message will go forward that the hour of God’s judgment has come—the hour for people to make a right judgment about God.

God told Daniel that 490 years would be cut off from that 2,300-year period for the Jews to complete their mission and the Messiah to come and complete His mission and do away with the sacrificial system. But it would be 2,300 years before the temple in which the little horn, man of sin, sets himself up will be cleansed. Because of how reality works, the cleansing of the spirit temple requires truth to be recovered and understood, lies rejected, trust established, and hearts renewed. God cannot cleanse hearts and minds by might and power, only by truth and love (Zechariah 4:6; Romans 2:4).

Malachi’s prophecy describes the same event as Daniel 8:14 and makes clear what is being cleansed are the saved:

Then suddenly the LORD you are seeking will come to his temple; the messenger of the covenant, whom you desire, will come,” says the LORD Almighty. But who can endure the day of his coming? Who can stand when he appears? For he will be like a refiner’s fire or a launderer’s soap. He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver; he will purify the Levites and refine them like gold and silver (Malachi 3:1–3 NIV84, emphasis mine).

This cleansing of the Levites is the cleansing, justifying, reconsecrating, rightifyiing of the sanctuary because, as the Bible teaches:

“You also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood” (1 Peter 2:5 NIV84).

“Him who overcomes I will make a pillar in the temple of my God. Never again will he leave it. I will write on him the name of my God and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem, which is coming down out of heaven from my God; and I will also write on him my new name” (Revelation 3:12 NIV84).

The cleansing of hearts and minds only happens through the application of the truth in love; it requires the individual to choose to agree, to believe, to trust. Thus, Jesus could not cleanse the sanctuary from the lies about God and restore trust as long as people believe the lie that God’s law functions like human law and that God is the source of inflicted pain and death, because that view keeps Satan enthroned in the temple.

So Daniel 8:14 and the 1844 date fit perfectly—a real event happened, the Millerite movement, which called people to prepare for Christ’s return, which led to a real event, the Great Disappointment, which led to restudying and re-examining the Scripture, to uncover and understand the truth of the Great Controversy over the character and government of God, which brought forth the truth about God’s law being design law, which empowers us with judgment, so we can make a right judgment about Him and give the final message of mercy to the world that will cleanse His sanctuary.

[1] Catechism of the Catholic Church, “The celebration of the Christian Mystery.” The Holy See. The Catholic Church. Retrieved 14 March 2017.
[2] Weimarer Ausgabe, 43, 360, 21–23 (to Genesis 25:7–10); also Exegetica opera latina, Vol 5–6 1833 p. 120 and the English translation: Luther’s Works, American Edition, 55 vols. (St. Louis: CPH), 4:313.
[3] Paul Althaus, Die Theologie Martin Luthers, 7th ed. (1994), 179, 191-195.