In an article on "The Second Coming of Christ" in the Methodist Christian Advocate, William P. King writes: "The whole procedure of dealing with Daniel and Revelation, as with all of the prophetic literature, is fantastic and imaginary. Adventist writers exercise the liberty of making anything mean what they want it to mean."—August 21, 1941, According to Doctor King, "these authors wrote for the strengthening of the hope and courage of their contemporaries," and the "time of the authors, or the immediate future," rather than the far-distant future, is comprehended in the messages of the two books.
So central in our religious thinking is the blessed hope of the second coming of Christ, and so fundamental to our faith are the prophecies of the Bible, that we do not realize that there are many who identify the second coming with the gradual triumph of the spirit of Christ in the world, along with the gradual development of His kingdom. The answer to Doctor King's false interpretation of the doctrine of the second coming is as follows:
First, to appeal to the words of Jesus and the apostles regarding the manner of Christ's coming. If words have meaning, the coming of Jesus is personal, literal, visible, and cataclysmic.
Second, to appeal to the prophecies of Daniel and the Revelation, with their sweep of the centuries, to include not only the events immediately preceding the second coming, but also the end of sin and death, the purifying of the earth, and the eternal home of the redeemed. If the picture of the four world kingdoms of Daniel 2 and Daniel 7, with the grand finale of world events and the establishment of Christ's kingdom, has merely a local fulfillment in the days of Daniel, then words fail signally to convey their meaning. And so, too, with the other prophecies of these books.
Doctor King's interpretation is the interpretation of Modernism. He applies the book of Daniel to the time of Antiochus Epiphanes, which was more than three centuries after the visions were given to the prince of Israel in the land of Babylon. If three centuries could be comprehended in the prophecy, surely three millenniums could be as easily comprehended. But modern criticism rejects prophecy, and, in so doing, rejects the mightiest defense to the inspiration of the Scriptures. The critic dates the book of Daniel in the time of Antiochus„ and thus discredits the greatest of all the prophetic books of the Old Testament. Every student of prophecy should read "Studies in the Book of Daniel," series one and two, by Robert Dick Wilson (Revell, New York City), for a scholarly and authoritative answer to the critics' contention that the book of Daniel was the work of some unknown Hebrew patriot of the times of Antiochus.
That Doctor King is not at all conversant with the teachings of Seventh-day Adventists is apparent from his statement, in the same article, that Adventists teach "a thousand years of physical reign of Christ on earth." It is a bit amusing to note that he cites as the two leading exponents of Adventism, "W. A. Spicer, author of 'Beacon Lights of Prophecy'," and the "Scofield Reference Bible" ! The fact is Seventh-day Adventists reject as unscriptural the dividing of time into dispensations and the material millennial kingdom as taught by the Scofield Bible. Doctor Scofield and W. A. Spicer are as far apart as the poles in their theology. Adventists teach the thousand-years reign of the saints as in heaven, not on earth. Their view is the Bible picture of a desolate earth and a heavenly reign during the millennium.
The second coming of Christ, without a visible return for the raising of the righteous dead, the translation of the righteous living, the destruction of sin and sinners, would not be the second coming of Christ. The prophecies of Daniel and the Revelation have a mighty bulwark of support in the doctrines of the Gospels and the Epistles. Bible truth is a harmonious whole. The "more sure word of prophecy" unites its testimony with the author of the other books of the Bible. Moreover, if the prophecies of Daniel and the Revelation are not directed toward the climax of human history in the second coining of Christ, what shall we do with the words of Jesus Himself in the prophecy on the mount? Is Matthew 24 concerned only with the days of Jesus and the apostles, and not with the events of the far-distant' future and His second coming?
Doctor King declares that "the doctrine of Adventism is contrary to the historic creeds of the church, all the way from the Apostles' Creed down to the Twenty-five Articles of Religion of Methodism." It is true that Adventists care not for the creeds of the church, either Roman Catholic or Protestant. They earnestly contend, however, for the faith of the Bible. Their appeal for authority in teaching the doctrine of the second coming, the resurrection and translation of the saints, the millennial reign in heaven, and the new earth of eternity, is to Jesus and the prophets. It is interesting to note that the clear-cut prophecies of the books of Daniel and the Revelation have been taught by the greatest of all Bible expositors. The Protestant Reformation, and pre-Reformation, from the days of Wycliffe to the days of John Knox, were carried forward by men who found the picture of the Papacy portrayed in prophecy.
Again we repeat that Seventh-day Adventists have never taught a material millennial kingdom, with a reign of Christ on this earth.