Scripture and Chronology

These and other scriptures clearly proved to Miller that the universal reign of peace and the setting up of the kingdom of God upon the earth were subsequent to the second advent. Furthermore, the condition of the world corresponded to the prophetic description of the last days. He was forced to the conclusion that the period allotted for the earth in its present state was about to close.HF 202.2

“Another kind of evidence that vitally affected my mind,” he says, “was the chronology of the Scriptures. ... I found that predicted events, which had been fulfilled in the past, often occurred within a given time. ... Events ... once only a matter of prophecy, ... were fulfilled in accordance with the predictions.”^{2Ibid., pp. 74, 75.}HF 202.3

When he found chronological periods that extended to the second coming of Christ, he could not but regard them as the “times before appointed” which God had revealed unto His servants. “Those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children forever.” The Lord declares that He “will do nothing, but he revealeth his secret unto his servants the prophets.” Deuteronomy 29:29; Amos 3:7. The students of God's Word may confidently expect to find the most stupendous event in human history clearly pointed out in the Scriptures.HF 202.4

“I was fully convinced,” says Miller, “that all Scripture given by inspiration of God is profitable; that it ... was written as holy men were moved by the Holy Ghost, and was written ‘for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope.’ ... I therefore felt that in endeavoring to comprehend what God had in His mercy seen fit to reveal to us, I had no right to pass over the prophetic periods.”^3Ibid.HF 202.5

The prophecy which seemed most clearly to reveal the time of the second advent was Daniel 8:14: “Unto two thousand and three hundred days; then shall the sanctuary be cleansed.” Making Scripture its own interpreter, Miller learned that a day in symbolic prophecy represents a year. (See Appendix) He saw that the 2300 prophetic days, or literal years, would extend far beyond the close of the Jewish dispensation, hence it could not refer to the sanctuary of that dispensation.HF 203.1

Miller accepted the general view that in the Christian age the earth is the “sanctuary,” and therefore understood that the cleansing of the sanctuary foretold in Daniel 8:14 represented the purification of the earth by fire at the second coming of Christ. If the correct starting point could be found for the 2300 days, he concluded that the time of the second advent could be revealed.HF 203.2