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A Day.
It is a small word, but with a large
impact. Especially when used in symbolic language.
When the Bible speaks of a “day”, it
undoubtedly has varying meanings. It does not always mean a 24 hour
period of time. For instance:
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2 Peter 3:8, 1 day = 1,000 years |
One day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand
years as one day |
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Ezekiel 4:6, 1 day = 1 year |
I have appointed thee each day for a year. |
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John 8:56, 1 day = the entire time of Jesus’ earthy
presence, 33 ˝ years |
Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day: and he saw it,
and was glad. |
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John 9:4, 1 day = the time of Jesus’ earthly ministry, 3 ˝
years |
I must work the works of him that sent me, while it is day:
the night cometh, when no man can work. |
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Hebrews 3:8-9, 1 day = 40 years |
Harden not your hearts, as in the provocation, in the day of
temptation in the wilderness: When your fathers tempted me,
proved me, and saw my works forty years. |
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2 Corinthians 6:2, 1 day = Indefinite number of years during
which the gospel is being preached |
Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of
salvation. |
Both 6th seal and 7th seal advocates
have used this “day” symbol as evidential proof in justifying the
year 1880 AD as the beginning of the evening light reformation
movement. In Revelation 11:9, we find the following:
“And they of the people and
kindreds and tongues and nations shall see their dead bodies
three days and an half, and shall not suffer their
dead bodies to be put in graves.”
Among the Church of God, this
scripture is interpreted as a time when Protestant and sectism would
not allow the Word and the Spirit of God (the two witnesses) to have
their rightful place within the body of Christ. This time period was
prophesied to last a symbolic “three days and an half.”
Daniel S. Warner, in his A
Prophetic Time writing (see Birth of a Reformation by A. L.
Byers), appears to be the first to describe these 3 ˝ days as
equaling 350 years (3 ˝ a half centuries, i.e., 1530 A.D. to 1880
A.D. or the 4th and 5th seals combined). His statement is as
follows:
“Following this (1,260
prophetic years from 270 – 1530) comes three days and a half
(three centuries and a half) of Protestantism during which the
two witnesses (Word and Spirit) are, in the governmental sense,
operatively dead, the organized systems of man rule having
usurped the place of divine government and authority which these
witnesses originally held. At the end of the three days and a
half, three hundred and fifty years (which, added to 1530,
brings us to the year 1880) “the Spirit of life from God entered
into them, and they stood upon their feet.”* (Revelation 11:11)
They ascended to their place in the ecclesiastical heaven, to
the true church, and were thus victorious. This brings us to the
present reformation."
Notice that not one
single biblical scripture reference is presented by Warner that
portrays 1 day as symbolically representative of 100 years (a
century). It would seem that we have yet another example of where an
end date was presumed (1880 AD) and a backwards calculation was made
from that date to arrive at 1530 AD.
C. W. Naylor, early
pioneer of the Church of God, said of Warner’s interpretation,
“The only other
scripture used to prove 1880 was a prophetic year is the three
and one-half days of Revelation 11:11. This is interpreted to
mean three and one-half centuries and to measure from A.D. 1530
to 1880. The interpretation that these three and one-half days
signify three and one-half centuries has not one fact to sustain
it. Nowhere else in Scripture is a time prophecy where days
signify centuries to be found. The only support that can be
given to this interpretation is the support of the interpreter's
word. It is a pure assumption: it is a mere guess: it is an
interpretation that has no standing. Chronologically, therefore,
1880 was not a prophetic year.”
Since Warner’s early
writing on this subject, many others in the Church of God have
assumed this same symbolic interpretation method of a day equating
to a century with not an ounce of scriptural support. Thankfully,
many are now seeing and questioning this inconsistency and are
seeking God for renewed inspiration and guidance.
Prophecy always points
forward. Never backwards! When one begins to interpret symbols with
an assumed end date and then calculate backwards from that assumed
date, you can rest assured that there will be errors and
inconsistencies that will eventually be discovered.
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