Historic vs. Futuristic Interpretation of Prophecy

Historic vs. Futuristic
Interpretation of Prophecy

By
Clarence H. Hewitt

Advent Christian Publications

In considering the Historic and Futuristic systems of interpretation, we are dealing with a dispute among friends. Advocates of both schools of thought with one heart desire and with a single voice proclaim the real, personal, and imminent return of the Lord Jesus Christ. The argument over our differences ought, then, to be maintained on a high level of brotherly charity and consideration. Differing as brothers, let us reason as brothers.
But while we Historicists rejoice with our Futurist friends in the unity of the blessed hope of Jesus’ coming, and while we acknowledge the good which they have done in turning the hopes of thousands to the returning Christ, yet we must expostulate with them for what, upon candid examination, seem to us very hurtful and insidious errors in their method of interpreting prophecy. Granting them an equal desire with us to rightly divide the Word, and as great a love of the truth, we must assert the conviction, kindly but firmly, that the method of interpretation which they employ must be rejected as a wrong method, dangerous in its trend and deplorable in its results.
The Historical Interpretation is built upon the belief that “Prophecy is History written beforehand.” Futurism holds that it is Eschatology pictured in detail. This is a very broad distinction, and one that presents some startling contrasts. Futurists hold that the book of Revelation, together with its parallel prophecies, refers almost entirely to events yet future, and is to be fulfilled within a few brief years in immediate connection with the consummation. They believe that the great apostasy (and the man of sin), of which Paul wrote, are yet to come. Historical expositors, on the other hand, regard the Revelation as a progressive, symbolic history of the Church, extending from the time of St. John to the time of the end, and culminating in the glorious triumph of our God and of His Christ. They believe that the predicted apostasy and man of sin are now facts of history.
The Advent Christian people have always been Historicists. They will always continue to be. This denomination was born of the earliest study of men who sought to discern, by the application of prophecy to history, where they were living in the stream of time. It was cradled in the conviction that the great prophetic lines were nearly all run out, the signs for the most part already fulfilled. This people was guided in its youth and until his hour by the rays of that “sure word of prophecy,” which, like a beacon light, shone upon the long, winding path over which the Church had come, and illumined the brief space that still remained ere God’s clock should strike the knell of Time and the dawn of Eternity.
The Historic Interpretation may therefore be called the heart of Adventism. No doctrine held by this people has been so intimately interwoven into its life. Should that heart fail to function, the life of Adventism would be critically endangered. For this body, at this late day, to abandon the understandings of prophecy which gave it birth, would be to deny its past. It would be to question our percentage.
The subject, then, of Historical vs. Futuristic Interpretation, is of intensest interest to every one of us. We are called upon to consider a way of expounding prophecy, which, if true, would undermine the position upon which, more than any other, rests the existence and history of this people.
I. Modern Futurism is certainly in bad odor on account of its origin.

When Luther and his fellow-workers, at the time of the Reformation, charged the Papacy with being the Antichrist of prophecy, and produced such clear and convincing proofs of the identification, they forged a thunderbolt capable of dealing tremendous blows to the Papal empire. It became indispensable to Rome to devise some scheme of warding off this attack. Ribera, a Jesuit, published, in 1585, a commentary on Revelation which set forth the essential points of Futurism. Alcasar, also a Jesuit, not long thereafter sketched the outlines of what is now called the Preterist Interpretation.
Either one of these expositions answered well the purpose for which their authors invented them. One of them made all prophecy stop short of the era of papal Rome, and the other made it leap over that era, and refer only to events in immediate connection with the consummation. In either way, all possible application to Romanism of the prophecies concerning Antichrist and Babylon was eliminated. What subtle skill was manifested by these Jesuitical doctors—how well they calculated the effect of their schemes—may be seen from the fact that today the majority of Protestants are following the piping of one or the other of these pied pipers of Rome.
Understand me. I do not claim that Futurism should be rejected simply because Rome accepts it. You and I believe many things that Rome endorses. They are things which Rome received from the early Catholic Church as established articles of faith. But I do assert that when Rome invents a theory, or garbles an old one and puts it forth as if primitive, in order to serve her own ends in a matter that is vital to her, Protestants would do well to be wary of such a theory.
How different now is the lineage of the Historical Interpretation!
It had the sanction of the Greatest of all the prophets. We appeal to His teachings. “O ye hypocrites, ye can discern the face of the sky; but can ye not discern the signs of the times” (Matt. 16: 3)? What did the Saviour mean? He was enunciating a principle; viz., that in the economy of Providence, the times—the ages—have their signs, which the people of God are to discern, in order that they may know the things that are coming upon the earth. Later, His disciples asked Him, saying, “What shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world?” You are all familiar with the discourse which followed. Now if any one thing is clear about the 24th of Matthew, it is that the signs therein divinely given were intended to serve as indications to the Church of the approach of the end of the age. The events predicted must therefore be events of history which could be observed by the Church prior to the Second Advent. Listen again. “All these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet.” And again, “All these are the beginnings of sorrows” (Matt. 24:6, 8). What do such statements mean, except that the events signified are to require a long period of time for their unfolding? The Greek word rendered “sorrows,” signifies the recurrent pangs of child-birth. The figure is that of Mother Earth, seized with initial pangs in the signs which would speedily be fulfilled in connection with the fall of Jerusalem, and finally, after an age-long labor, marked by recurrent periods of sign fulfillment, bringing forth the glorious advent of the Son of man. It is therefore evident that the Lord Himself inculcated that principle of prophetical application by which Historicists profess to be guided.
The apostles followed in the steps of their Lord. They taught concurrently and consistently that the Church would be able to discern the approach of the Second Advent by the historic fulfillment of prophecy. “Ye, brethren, are not in darkness that that day should overtake you as a thief” (1 Thess. 5:4) “Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed,” etc. (2 Thess. 2:3). “For we have also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place until the day dawn” (2 Pet. 1:19).
In these passages it is pretty evident that the apostles were exhorting the Church to be of good cheer as they should observe the fulfillment of prophetic signs, whereby they would know that the day-dawn was nearing. This fact is significant. Of what possible value could Paul and Peter have thought it would be to the Church to be told things that were to occur, not before the Lord should come for them, but afterward? Of what possible value the great prophetic light if it should not shine in its brilliance save for seven fleeting years, after the Church shall have been caught up to meet the Lord in the air?
Futurists say that the Thessalonians thought they were already in the Tribulation, and were therefore expecting the Revelation, not the Rapture, to soon occur; and that in 2 Thess. 2, Paul was warning them that the Revelation could not take place until the man of sin should be revealed. How absurd! For on Futurist ground the Thessalonians must then have also believed that the Rapture was past, that the saints had already been caught up to meet the Lord, a thing we know they could not have believed, inasmuch as they themselves, with several of the holy apostles, were still abiding upon the solid earth. If, however, the Thessalonians were not looking for the Revelation to soon take place, it must have been the Rapture that they expected; and if that is the case, then the apostle was teaching them that the Rapture could not occur until after the apostasy and the revelation of the man of sin.
No. There is—there can be—no sense in Paul’s express statements that “that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed,” except on the ground that the apostle expected these predicted events to be realized in history, prior to the parousia. Remembering that Futurists look for the fulfillment of these things after the parousia, we can readily see that Paul was in line, not with the Futurist, but with the Historical Interpretation.
And what of those great men who followed the apostles? How did the early Fathers line up on this question? They were historical interpreters. Archbishop Cyril of Jerusalem, in his Fifteenth Catechetical Lecture, stated his conviction that the signs of Matt. 24 had largely been fulfilled in events of history in his own day. Cyril may have been mistaken in some of the applications. He certainly however, endorsed the historical principle.
The early Fathers “judged with one consent that Daniel’s Fourth Beast symbolized the Roman Empire; that the Little Horn of that Beast, or its equivalent, the last Head of the Beast of Rev. 13 and 17, symbolized the same Power as St. Paul’s man of sin and St. John’s Antichrist; and that the Roman Empire, in its then existing state, was the let or hindrance, meant by St. Paul, standing in the way of the man of sin’s manifestation. Moreover, they were agreed that this Antichrist was to persecute the Christian Church with a fierceness altogether unparalleled; and that thus there would be a second series of Roman persecutions and a second series of martyrs slain under Roman oppression.”—Prof. Cachemaille, in “Historicist, Prelerist, Futurist; What are These?” p. 9.
Again, the Fathers regarded the Antichrist as a Roman power, which should arise upon the fall and dismemberment of the empire. We quote Archbishop Cyril again. “This aforesaid Antichrist is to come when the time of the Roman empire shall have been fulfilled…There shall rise up together ten kings of the Romans, reigning in different parts perhaps, but all about the same time; and after these an eleventh, the Antichrist, who by his magical craft shall seize upon the Roman power.” Now the empire fell in 476 A.D. It will thus be apparent to the candid inquirer that the early Catholic Church expected the man of sin to emerge at an era not far in the future from their own day, and now far back in history. In other words, they were historical expositors.
And yet again, the primitive Fathers looked for the Antichrist to be a power professedly Christian rather than infidel.
Athanasius taught that he would be a Roman ruler making Christian profession, and that he would claim, “I am the Christ,” thus assuming Christ’s place and character. Hilary of Poictiers denounced Constantine the Great as the forerunner of Antichrist, and asked, “Is it a doubtful thing that Antichrist will sit in Christian churches?” Archbishop Cyril declared, “He will sit in the temple of God; not that which is in Jerusalem, but in the churches everywhere.” And the great Jerome gave it as his belief that the temple in which he would sit is the church. His words were, “in the temple, that is, in the Church.”
Thus we see that the early Fathers manifested the main essentials of the Historic Interpretation. They are to be regarded, together with the apostles, and our blessed Lord Himself, as parents of the Historicist method.
The lineage is continued through the Reformers and early Protestant Martyrs. “The Reformers were Historicists. Their names have left their mark on history: Luther, Melanchthon, Zwingle, Bullinger, Bale, Calvin, Tyndale, Latimer, Ridley, Cranmer, Bradford, Jewell, Knox, and many others. All these held that the Papacy was Antichrist, and the Church of Rome, Babylon.” –Cachemaille, “Historicist, Preterist, Futurist; What are These?” p. 23.
Since their day the greatest of Protestant commentators have followed in their steps: such princes of exegesis as Mede, Sir Isaac Newton and Bishop Newton, Vitringa, Faber, Cunningham, Keith, Bickersteth, Wordsworth, Elliott, Tregelles, Birks, and Guinness.
The Protestant Church has made the Historical Interpretation a matter of faith. She has put it in her confessions of faith, that it might be known as a distinguishing mark of true Protestantism. It is found in the Helvetic Confession of 1536. It is included in the Smalcald Confession of 1537, and the Bohemian Confession of 1573. The great Westminster Confession of 1648, which received the sanction of the Presbyterians and Congregationalists both in England and America, also holds it as an article of faith. What are modern Protestant interpreters thinking of, that they abandon a well-worn path of apostolic, primitive, and reformed interpretation such as this, in favor of a theory of no antiquity, little authority, and decidedly suspicious parentage?
Thus a comparison of the two systems from the standpoint of their origin reveals that the apostles, the early church Fathers, and all the great Reformers believed in the continuous application of prophecy to history, and that the Lord Himself intended His great eschatological discourse to be so understood; while on the other hand the Pope of Rome and the Jesuits, together with the Futurists, unite in postponing the fulfillment of the greater part of prophecy to events immediately connected with the second advent. This fact ought to discredit Futurism everywhere. As Guinness well observes, the Reformation rested upon the identification of the Papacy as the man of sin, and to reject this identification is “to reject the foundation of the noblest work which has been wrought in the world since the day of Pentecost.” Are we Adventists ready to reject that work? Are we? Are we prepared to part company with the inspired writers of the New Testament, the Fathers, the Reformers, the founders and sustainers of our Protestant Christianity, who purchased our heritage of religious liberty with the blood of their testimony against Antichristian popery, and to follow the lead of Popes and Jesuits in our understandings of Scripture? God forbid! Indeed, I am persuaded there is little danger of it; unless I sadly mistake the stuff and temper of our solid Protestant manhood.
II. But we leave the matter of origins. The Futuristic system should not be accepted because
it is based upon an incorrect method of interpretation.

The Bible, being a book, should be subjected to the recognized principles of literary interpretation. The divinity of the Book is an added reason for this. We cannot reasonably suppose that God would give a written revelation to men unless that revelation should conform to the usages and laws of human language.
Now the Futurists interpret Scripture as though it were more like a disassembled picture puzzle, than the most wonderful of books. They seem to deem it proper to carve out a verse here and there, wrench this passage or that from its context, insert bits of the Old Testament into the middle of verses from the New, and so, by this arbitrary methods, to fit together a picture of eschatology which they exhibit as the solution of the prophetical puzzle.
In a single chapter of one of the standard Futurist works (Jesus is Coming, Blackstone) the learned author uses the following references in the order named. Two verses from 1 John; 1 verse from 2 John; another verse from 1 John; a passage from Hebrews; 1 verse from John’s Gospel; a passage from 2 Thess.; a few verses from Isaiah; 1 verse from 1 Thess.; a part of 2 Thess. 2; 2 verses from 1 Cor.; a single verse from Eph.; 1 verse from the Gospel of John; 1 from 2 Thess.; 1 from Luke; 1 from Rev.; a trio of verses from 1 Thess.; a single verse carved out of the consecutive prophecy in Dan. 11; the author then repeats a passage previously used from 2 Thess.; leaps back into the first part of Isaiah, skips from there to the little epistle of Jude, and finally comes to a stop where he began, in 1 John. When pieced together in this order, these bits of Scripture form the picture of Futurism’s last day Antichrist. A feat of agile exegesis truly remarkable! Not the least remarkable feature of this exhibition is the fact that out of these twenty-three passages, thirteen, upon carefully study in the light of their contexts, and the subjects to which they relate, are discovered to have not the most remote connection with the awful figure of the man of sin. The remaining ten references do apply to him, and would be properly used in an understanding of his character and course. Who cannot see the baleful results of scattering thirteen inappropriate proof-texts, where one may please, among ten appropriate ones? And who can defend such reckless exegesis?
Our Futurist brethren contravene some of the fundamental laws of literary interpretation. There is the Law of Circumstances. This principle holds that every passage should be interpreted in the light of all the attending circumstances: such as the context, the author and his object in writing, the date, the place, the persons to whom written, grammatical form, etc. Surely no one should seek to interpret literature upon any other basis. Yet our Futurist friends are repeated offenders against this very essential law. Take, for example, the use they make of Isa. 28:15: “Because ye have said, We have made a covenant with death and with hell are we at agreement; when the overflowing scourge shall pass through, it shall not come unto us: for we have made lies our refuge, and under falsehood have we hid ourselves.” This is a prophecy, so they tell us, that when the Jews have returned to their own land, and, following the rapture of the church, Antichrist arises as hell’s representative, they will make a covenant with him. But examine the circumstances. Isaiah was writing to the scornful leaders of Judaism in his own day, and he said, “Because ye have made a covenant with death, and an agreement with hell.” Evidently, the covenant to which he referred was one that had already been made in his own day. What has that to do with an Antichrist yet to come, or with the political maneuverings of last day Jews?
Another great principle in understanding literature is the Law of Usage. This law requires that a word or expression of frequent occurrence, standing in a given passage, should be studied in the light of its general usage. For example, Rev. 1:10: “I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day.” In this passage, some Futurists want to interpret the expression, “the Lord’s day,” to mean, “the day of the Lord;” and on the basis of this understanding they build the contention that John was carried forward by the Spirit to the great predicted “day of the Lord,” and in the entire Apocalypse saw only events connected with that distant day. What folly! “The Lord’s day” is a phrase commonly used in the New Testament to designate the first day of the week, and it was on this day that the seer of Patmos received his visions.
Notice also John 14:30: “Hereafter I will not talk much with you, for the prince of this world cometh and hath nothing in me.” Blackstone sees here a prediction of the coming of Antichrist as the prince of this world. But how is the name, “prince of this world,” used elsewhere in the New Testament? Why, to designate Satan, as every one should know. Why overlook the evident point that Jesus gave the coming of “the prince of this world” as a reason for ceasing conversation with the disciples? The thought of a person who should not come for two thousand years would be no reason for that. But if Jesus meant that Satan was about to come near unto Him, for the final conflict of Gethsemane and the Cross, all becomes plain. The Law of Circumstances and the Law of Usage, if only observed, would prevent many of the childish interpretations of the Futurists.
They seem to forget the first principle of exegesis: the Law of Common Sense.
“Many theorists write into the word of God what is not there. We cannot say that in all cases they do this knowingly or willfully, but the result is just the same. Every passage of scripture should be examined in the most prayerful spirit, and by the aid of the best and most devout scholarship that can be obtained. With even painful self-denial, he who writes about a Scripture text should make sure that he has not put into it the least thing it does not actually say.” –Dr. G.P. Echman, in “When Christ Comes Again,” p. 11.
This is a sensible canon of interpretation. We should not ask, “What may this passage possibly be made to mean?” – but, rather, “What does it actually say?”
Exegesis, or true exposition, is bringing out of a passage what is legitimately and necessarily in it. Eisegesis, or false interpretation, is bringing into a passage a meaning that is not properly there. We are constrained to observe that Futurists have a penchant for this counterfeit exegesis.
A flagrant example—there are many others equally bad—is their treatment of Daniel’s 70 weeks. “Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city” (Dan. 9:24). If we ask, “Just what does this passage say?” – we shall have no trouble. The 70-week period is evidently integral and continuous, since nothing is said to the contrary. True, certain subdivisions of it are suggested, such as sixty-two weeks and one week, but there is not even a hint that these subdivisions are to be separated from one another by intervals of time. The seventy weeks are plainly consecutive and should be so applied.
Yet what does Futurism do? It severs the final week from the preceding sixty-nine. It locates the sixty-nine weeks where they belong, back of the first advent of Christ. It then transports the seventieth week to the end of the age, and tacks it on following His second coming. Thus, it pries apart a consecutive chronological measurement, and reads into the hiatus thus arbitrarily and unnaturally created about two millenniums of human history! Is this interpreting Scripture? I charge that it is manipulating Scripture! Is this exegesis? I insist that it is eisegesis. This is not common sense: it is nonsense. It can only discredit the whole system of which it is a part.
III. The Futuristic Interpretation, again, should be rejected because it ignores the proved principle of prophetic time periods: the year-day principle.

Historical expositors regard those chronological periods of Daniel and Revelation which figure out to three and one-half years, or 1260 days, as standing for a period of 1260 years of the history of Antichrist. Futurists, on the contrary, wholly ignoring the year-day law in this very important matter, make the period one of three and one-half literal years. We regard this as condemning their entire system. The year-day principle is abundantly justified by both Revelation and Science, and ought to be applied to the interpretation of these various 1260-day periods.
The reality of this principle is implied by the analogy of prophetic symbolism generally. We believe that as the objects and activities with which prophecy deals are expressed in symbols, so the periods of time are likewise contemplated in a figurative manner; that as great personages and powers are represented under the comparatively diminutive figures of animals, heads, and horns, so the actual length of their existence in history is expressed by greatly shortened periods: time in miniature. There is thus seen to be a fine appropriateness generally to symbolic prophecy in the year-day principle.
This principle was directly revealed by God to the prophet Ezekiel. Ezek. 4:6: “I have appointed thee a day for a year, a day for a year” (marg. Rend.). Jehovah here expressly asserts that He has ordained to the prophet a day for each year. In the context, God reveals to Ezekiel two periods, one of 390 and another of 40 days. The best commentators agree that these periods of days are meant to represent periods of a like number of years in the history of Israel and Judah. Surely a law of prophetic time measurements thus clearly revealed ought to be observed and not disregarded.
Not the least impressive argument for the year-day principle is that it works. Applying the principle to prophetic time periods has yielded such results as to confirm it. For example, take Daniel’s period of 70 weeks or 490 days. Our Futurist brethren themselves confess that it is a measurement of 490 years. That the last week of this period should represent seven years is fundamental in their scheme. The question we would like to ask them is, Upon what logic do they interpret the 490 days period of Dan. 9 in harmony with the year-day law, and the 1260 days period of Dan. 7 in contravention of it? If the one period is symbolic, upon the basis of a day for a year, so must the other be. They are found in the same book. Why should not the mind that meant to typify years by days in the one case, mean to do so in the other? “Time, times, and the dividing of time” (Dan. 7: 25), then, does not mean three years and six months, but 1260 years.
Our confidence that this is true is increased when we discover that 1260 years is the actual length of the supremacy of the papal “little horn.” The Roman Pontiff was elevated to the supreme bishopric in 607 or 610 A.D., and twelve hundred and sixty years later, “judgment sat upon him,” as was predicted by Daniel, in the loss of his temporal “domination,” in the events of 1867-70. Cf. Dan. 7:25, 26.
Thus Scripture plainly reveals the year-day principle. And so does Science reveal it. Dr. H. Grattan Guinness, having made the discovery that the prophetic time periods of Daniel and Revelation are very perfect astronomical cycles, harmonizing solar and lunar years, was able to compute form these sacred numbers, understanding them of years, a series of tables, giving the dates, to the hour and minute, of all the vernal equinoxes and mean and true new moons, for 3,555 years, from the probable date of the Exodus, B.C. 1622 to 1934 A.D. Upon their publication these tables were received by scientists as more accurate than any previously in use. How can we dismiss this astonishing fact as a mere freak of coincidence? But if it was planned—planned by the same Mind that is back of both astronomy and prophecy—then not only do prophetic time numbers, when understood by the year-day principle, aid the calculations of the astronomer, but astronomy interprets the prophet and confirms the principle. We would earnestly ask any who may be attracted by Futurist claims to study Dr. Guinness’ full explanation of this discovery.—History Unveiling Prophecy, Chap. 11, and also Appendix A.
Brethren, let us stop talking about the year-day theory. Let us speak rather of the year-day law. Surely that is what it is, a law of prophetic interpretation: such a law as must be observed by all students of prophecy who would be sound in their conclusions. The Futurists do not observe this law. They proceed to interpret the 1260 days of Daniel and Revelation as though no such principle existed, and consequently wander far, far astray. Thus again, and in what all must admit is an essential and crucial matter, they discredit themselves by their heedless manner of handling the prophecy. They are lawless expositors.
IV. Futurism is not acceptable because it invents an arbitrary, involved, and grotesque
scheme of events, luridly colored and highly improbable, in connection with the second advent of Christ, resulting in that loved doctrine of the early church, and article of the received faith, being made to appear childish, ridiculous, and unworthy of belief to a great proportion of thinking men. Surely here lies a valid objection. Truth is self-confirmatory. There is that about it which commends it to the mind as rational and credible. Its details and ramifications should be such as to commend it. But the astonishing program of events related by Futurists for the consummation is of such a character as to cause men to wonder that rational beings can accept it. We wish that our Futurist friends had a saving sense of humor.

But let’s look at the facts! Futurists have done the truth of the Lord’s return a service in preaching it so zealously that thousands have accepted it in various denominations. This service they have largely compromised, however, by connecting with the hope of seeing Jesus a story of accompanying events so dreadful as to cause other thousands of men to lose faith entirely in the second coming. Such men have said, “If we must swallow all that inconceivable program of melodramatic horrors in order to be counted premillennialists, we will be postmillennialists.”
Now orthodox Adventists object to this. We object to any presentation of the blessed hope of the Lord’s coming which discredits that great truth, and drags it in the mire of the ludicrous. We have seen what has been going on in the religious world. We have seen the storm of protest that has been raised against premillennialism. We have noted the books that have been put forth by reverent and scholarly men, wholly denying—some of them—that our Lord will ever return to this earth. We have smelled the battle from afar. What has brought about this state of affairs?
Brethren, mark my words. It is not because the second coming had been preached in Scriptural beauty, simplicity, and purity—but it is because that doctrine had been presented with such an inter-mixture of error and fancy that men have risen in rebellion. Listen! In Christian circles generally the term Premillennialism today does not suggest what it suggests among the Adventist bodies. It does not suggest the soon coming of the Lord Jesus Christ in power and majesty to reward His people, half so much as it does the soon coming of the awful and terrible Antichrist, to kill, burn, pillage, persecute, and destroy. It is a fact. And I charge that for this reprehensible condition Futurism is directly responsible. For it teaches that before there will be any visible manifestation of Christ—any possibility of earth’s millions knowing that He has come—Antichrist will appear, to initiate the most lawless, cruel, bloody era the world, in all its centuries of sorrow, blood, and death, has ever seen. In all humanity, men recoil. In all reason, men cry, “Away with this unscriptural, ungodlike, and monstrous program!”
V. I would point out further, that in its treatment of the main event, the return of the Lord,
Futurism is clearly incorrect.

Futurists claim that there are to be two stages of Christ’s coming. They distinguish these two phases by the terms “Rapture” and “Revelation.” They say that the Rapture “occurs when the Church is caught up to meet Christ in the air, before the Tribulation and the Revelation occurs when Christ comes, with His saints, to end the tribulation, by the execution of righteous judgment upon the earth. At the Rapture, Christ comes into the air for His saints. At the Revelation He comes to the earth with them.”—Blackstone, “Jesus is Coming,” p. 75.
It is further claimed that in connection with the Rapture the first resurrection will take place, and the living saints will be caught up with those raised to the trysting place in the air in a manner secret and invisible to the world at large. Nor will the world know that Christ has come. The only thing that will be noticeable to men about this first stage of the Second Advent will be the fact that so many good people will have suddenly and inexplicable disappeared.
Seven years later, the mystery will be solved. Christ will descend out of the secret chambers into which the saints were caught up, and will manifest Himself unto the world. This will be the Revelation.
Now is it true that there will be a second and a third coming of Jesus, with seven years between? If so, then the whole Church was in ignorance of it for eighteen hundred years. The doctrine of a secret advent of Christ to secretly steal away His saints is only about a century old. According to the great expositor, Tregelles, this notion was first given form as an “utterance” or “revelation” through one of the “restored” prophets of the early Edward Irving movement in England, while under the supposed influence of the Spirit. Tregelles’ exact words are the following: “I am not aware that there was any definite teaching that there would be a secret rapture of the Church at a secret coming until this was given forth as an utterance in Mr. Irving’s church, from what was there received as the voice of the Spirit; but whether anyone ever asserted such a thing or not, it was from that supposed revelation that the modern doctrine and the modern phraseology arose.”—The Hope of Christ’s Second Coming.
Such an assertion, coming from a man of Dr. Tregelles’ standing and wide acquaintance with the history of exegresis, is worthy to be received. It ought to set the matter in a true light. The “secret rapture” upon which Futurism builds so largely turns out to be, not the teaching of “holy men of old who spoke as they were moved by the Holy Ghost,” but a supposed revelation, uttered by a spurious prophet belonging to a latter-day, fanatical movement. How unlucky Futurism is in the parentage of its leading tenets!
In the New Testament three Greek words are used to designate the second coming of Christ: parousia, epiphaneia, and apokalypsis. Futurists claim that the two last refer to the second state of His coming, or the Revelation; while His secret advent to steal away His Church is indicated by parousia. It will then be pertinent to inquire, Do those passages where parousia is used picture a secret coming? They do not. On the contrary, they speak of the parousia as an open, visible, noisy, and brilliant event: the very antithesis of secrecy.
The Master so described His coming in Matt. 24: 30, 31: “And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven; and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect, from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.”
Now these words undoubtedly refer to the parousia. They were spoken in answer to the disciples’ question, “What shall be the sign of they parousia?” and they speak of the gathering together of the elect to meet the Lord in the air. But do they show that the descent of the Lord for the purpose of this rapture or gathering process is to be secret or invisible? By no means! They declare that the parousia will be preceded by a sign in the atmospheric heavens; that the Lord will first come down upon the clouds, with outward manifestations of power and glory, so that the nations of earth shall see Him and be thrown into great mourning; and that after this, the angels will go out to gather the faithful to meet the Lord in the air. First the descent and manifestation of Christ, then the rapture of the waiting saints, not secretly, but evidently in full view of the world; this is the divinely given order of events at the parousia.
The testimony of St. Paul is the same. “For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the parousia of the Lord shall not prevent (precede) them which are asleep. For the Lord himself shall descent from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trump of God, and the dead in Christ shall rise first; then they which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so shall we ever be with the Lord” (1 Thess. 4:15-17).
This language is very explicit. The parousia and the rapture of the saints is to be heralded by a trump, a voice, and a shout. This reiterated assertion makes it quite impossible to believe that those events will be secret and unobserved, --unless we accept the naïve theory of Blacktstone, that although the Lord will come down personally into the air, only the saints will notice Him there, and although there will be the noise of a shout, and the voice of the archangel, and the clarion blast that will wake the dead, yet these sounds will all be of such a peculiar quality that only the initiated will hear them. Cf. Jesus is Coming, p. 184, foot-notes d and 3. But we must decline to countenance such trifling with the solemn verbiage of Scripture.
Time fails us to speak of 2 Pet. 3, where the apostle associates the passing away of the heavens with a great noise, the dissolution of the elements with fervent heat, and the destruction of wicked men, with the parousia; or of the fact that the Green nouns parousia, epiphpanera, and apokalypsis are used with but slightly differing shades of meaning to designate one and the same event and are practically interchangeable; or of 2 Thess. 2: 8, where both parousia and epiphaneia are used in a single verse to refer to the same action—“whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the epiphaneia of his parousia,” or as the Syriac has it, “the visibility of his advent.” Notice that this passage also reveals that the man of sin is to be destroyed at the parousia, a fact which Futurists deny. He is to be ruined, not at the Revelation after the Parousia, but by the revelation of the Parousia.
We must take the time to refer to a text that is important above all others in this connection. It is the warning of Jesus Himself that we should never be deceived by any thought of secrecy in connection with His second coming. Matt. 24: 26, 27: “Wherefore if they shall say unto you, Behold, he is in the desert, go not forth; behold, he is in the secret chambers, believe it not. For, as the lightning cometh out of the east and shineth even unto the west, so also shall the parousia of the Son of man be.” Do you call that secret or invisible? The parousia is to flash upon the vision of men like the lightning’s fiery leap across the sky! No theologian said that. No expositor figured that out. No theorist invented that. No deluded fanatic dreamed that. That is the declaration of the Son of God. And mark His words—aye, and forget them not—If anyone shall teach otherwise, “if they shall say, Behold, he is in the secret chambers, believe it not.” I have no disposition to judge my Futurist brethren. But for myself I could not accept a theory of a secret parousia and a secret rapture which I would have to deliberately adopt in the face of the plain warnings of my Lord Himself to the contrary.
VI. And now, a final and fatal objection to Futurism. It is proved wrong because it overlooks noteworthy and certain fulfillments of prophecy in past history, and projects into the future events that have already transpired. What could more thoroughly overthrow a system of prophetical interpretation than this?

Futurism forgets the historic restoration of the Jews to their own land, and looks for them to be gathered to Palestine for the third time in the interval between the Rapture and the Revelation; although it is not denied that the Jews did return, and that this occurred after the prophecies respecting their restoration were given.

Futurism winks at that great apostasy which turned the Christian Church over to the practice of pagan and idolatrous rites and the belief of unscriptural doctrines, obscuring the Gospel light for centuries, and strains its eyes forward in search of some future, short lived falling away, of whose character it has not the slightest idea.

It overlooks the most terrible tribulation which the Church has ever been called upon to undergo, during which fifty millions of loyal Christians were martyred by the orders of the papal Antichrist, and points instead to an Antichristian tribulation yet to come; into which the Church, strange to say, is not to enter, although every passage in the Word of God which speaks of persecutions under Antichrist shows that the particular objects of his malevolence are “the saints of God” (Dan. 7: 20, 21, 25; Rev. 13: 7; Rev. 17:6; 18:24; 19:2).

And Futurism completely ignores what may reasonably be regarded as the clearest, most undeniable, and most significant fulfillment that sacred prophecy has ever met in all the long centuries of history. I mean the rise and course of the papal man of sin.

The question of Antichrist is at the heart of this whole problem. That the man of sin should be a last-day ruler that he should not rise to power until after the Church has been taken out of the world at the Rapture, is essential to the Futuristic interpretation. One of their writers says, “To assume that Antichrist has come, necessitates the removal of all premillennial conclusions from popular eschatology.”—H. Pierson King, “The Imperial Hope,” p. 130. We think differently. But to the Futurist, premillennialism is based upon the contention of a future Antichrist. If he is right in that point, the main outlines of the whole scheme follow. But if he is wrong, and the man of sin has already appeared, then the Futurist himself will admit that his system breaks down at a vital point.

The most direct approach to the problem of Antichrist is to settle the question of when the prophets predicted he would appear. The date is the pivot of the argument. If it is not until following the Rapture, Futurism is correct. But if it is at a point already past in history, the Historicist is right. We therefore ask, “Do the prophets help us to fix this date?”

Let us turn to Daniel, the seventh chapter. We remember that the prophet saw the little horn come up on the head of the Roman beast after the ten first horns had appeared, and in their midst. We agree with our Futurist brethren that the little horn is a symbol of Antichrist. And we wish to point out to them that the fact just cited establishes the time at which Antichrist is to be manifested.

What do these symbols mean? In the book of Daniel, horns typify divisions of the government represented by the beast upon whose head they are seen. The proof can be seen in the two-horned ram of Medo-Persia and the four-horned goat of Grecia. The ten horns upon the Roman beast are therefore a prediction of the division of Rome into ten parts. And by the prophetical law that a thing represented with respect to a symbol must be fulfilled during the actual history of the power symbolized (and not before or afterwards), the ten horns must stand for kingdoms that were actually to be made out of the Roman Empire while it was still in existence. They can be no coalition of modern European nations. There are not ten kingdoms in Europe today that can point to an uninterrupted existence from the days of the Roman Empire. No. The ten kingdoms must be looked for back in history at the time of the historic division of the iron empire into many parts, which occurred in the fifth and sixth centuries A.D. We believe, therefore, that Antichrist must be looked for back in the era of the barbarian kingdoms, because the little horn came up after the ten first horns were in place, and in the midst of them; i.e., while the divisions of Rome which they represented were still standing. Antichrist could not come before the partition of Rome. We are convinced that his rise could not be long delayed thereafter.

Now let us turn to Rev. 13. Here we find the familiar prophecy of the great Antichristian beast out the abyss. We read, in verse 2, “And the dragon gave him (the Antichristian beast) his power and his seat and great authority.” In other words, the beast comes up as the dragon goes down. The beast-power is to follow in point of time the dragon-power, and is to succeed to the dragon’s seat and authority. Therefore, to determine when Antichristianity is to arise, we have only to identify the dragon, and to discover when, if ever, the dragon went down, and to whom, if any, he gave his power and seat. This will not be difficult.

We beg leave to submit the following points of identification:

1. The Church of the second, third, and fourth centuries identified the ten-horned wild-beast power of Revelation with the ten-horned, wild-beast power of Daniel; that is to say, with the Roman Empire—Guinness, in “History Unveiling Prophecy,” p. 51.

2. The dragon was a well-known symbol of Rome, being used as an ensign by the imperial armies.—Ibid., p. 52.

3. When the emperors of pagan Rome embraced Christianity, that event was regarded as constituting the fall of this dragon power. And when Julian the Apostate was slain in battle, Bishop Gregory Nazianzen in a sermon referred to that event as “the destruction of the dragon,” and “the breaking of the heads of the dragon in the water” (cf. Rev. 13:15, 16).

4. The dragon is seen as first standing before the woman, who represents the Judeo-Christian Church, to devour her Son, the Messiah, upon His birth; and then as warring against her and her seed. The Roman Empire, both in the person of Herod and of Pontius Pilate, stood ready to put Christ to death. And the Roman Empire, under its pagan rulers warred against the Church and persecuted her seed.

How then can we resist the conclusion that the “great red dragon” symbolizes the Empire of the Cesars? Accepting this as a true identification, we are ready to proceed. When did the Roman dragon go off the stage of history? In the fall and dismemberment of the iron empire! What power, that will answer to the requirements of prophecy, came up in its place, and occupied its seat, the city of Rome?

We will ask a witness no less prejudiced against our case than Pope Pius IX to tell us. “By a singular arrangement of Divine Providence…it happened that, the Roman Empire having fallen, and being divided into many kingdoms and diverse states, the Roman Pontiff, in the midst of such great variety of kingdoms, and in the actual state of human society, was invested with his civil authority.”—Pope’s Allocution of 1866. Listen also to the testimony of Cardinal Manning. “The possession of the pontiffs commences with the abandonment of Rome by the emperors…No sovereign has ever reigned in Rome since except the vicar of Jesus Christ.”

Ah, yes! Rome imperial, the dragon goes down, and Rome papal, the beast, comes up in its place, and exercises authority in its very seat.

Nor should we forget the Pauline picture of the man of sin (2 Thess.2:1-12). According to the apostle, Antichrist would not be revealed until there should be an apostasy in the Church, and until a certain agency that was hindering him should be taken out of the way.

About the apostasy, it is pertinent to inquire, “How would an apostasy in the Church be a preparation for the rise of Antichrist, unless that one was to be associated with the Church?” And how significant that there should occur a very remarkable falling away from primitive faith and practice in the very era in which the Roman Empire was breaking up, and the ten horns were taking their place upon the head of Daniel’s fourth beast! And following that apostasy, that there should emerge, within the circle of the professed Church, a power that answers to Scripture’s picture of the man of sin as exactly as a casting fits the mould from which it came. Surely such coincidences – giving every evidence of design – may not idly be dismissed!

Let us now ask, “What power in Paul’s day was withholding the manifestation of Antichrist?” Paul says, “And now ye know what withholdeth.” If the early Christians did know, and passed the secret from lip to lip, then primitive tradition on this point will settle the matter. Elliott, the great expositor says that “we have the consenting testimony of the early Fathers, from Irenaeus the disciple of St. John, down to Chrysostom and Jerome, that it was understood to be the imperial power ruling and residing at Rome.” This is unimpeachable testimony. And, as we have already shown, the hindering agency was taken out of the way, contemporaneously with the growth of the apostasy, the fall of the dragon, and the emergency of the ten horns, when the imperial power went down, and Rome was divided. How can we doubt that these converging lines of evidence point conclusively to an epoch not far removed from the sixth century of the Christian era? That century witnessed rapid strides in the rise of the papacy. It was not, however, until the dawn of the following century, or in 607 or 610 A.D., that the reign of the popes may be said properly to begin. Note well these dates: 476 A.D., Rome fell; 494 A.D., Roman bishop claimed the supremacy of the Roman See: 607 A.D., supremacy of the Pope was acknowledged and proclaimed by the Emperor Phocas.

But there is another avenue of approach to this question. By comparing Dan. 7 with 2 Thess. 2, it is evident that sometime previous to the Second Advent, a judgment will come upon Antichrist in the loss of his dominion. The temporal dominion of the papacy was lost in 1870. If we begin with that year and count back the 1260 years that Daniel and the Revelator give for the length of Antichrist’s supremacy we arrive again at the year 610 for its beginning.

Such agreement, from every angle of view, of the facts of history with the pictures of prophecy is most remarkable. It amounts to a refutation of the Futurist Interpretation. For if the era for the man of sin to appear lies now sixteen centuries in the past, and if that one has palpably appeared, run his predicted course, and incurred his initial judgment, it is manifestly useless and absurd to be still looking for him to come.

We bring, then, six indictments against Futurism. We charge that Futurism should be avoided on account of its Jesuitical origin, so different from the grand and noble history of primitive and Protestant Historicism. We claim that Futurism should not be accepted because it is supported by a wrong method of interpretation. We declare that it is to be rejected because it ignores the important matter of the year-day law. We claim that it discredits the very doctrine it seeks to defend. We assert that it is fundamentally wrong in its division of the second coming into two separate events. And we affirm that Futurism is refuted by the fact that it overlooks remarkable fulfillments of prophecy in the course of history, and idly invents future fulfillments for these same prophecies. These reasons, among others, we deem sufficiently cognent and weighty to deter us from adopting the Futurist program.

The Historical Interpretation is its own best defense. By showing the harmony of the events of history with the symbols of prophecy it proves its case, and commends itself to rational minds. We Historicists do not half realize the strength of our position. Futurists may point ahead to ingenious fancies. We are able to point back to recorded facts. Facts may point ahead to ingenious fancies. We are able to point back to recorded facts. Facts may not be as alluring as speculations, but they are a much more solid basis for faith and hope.

The whole question may be drawn to a single burning focus. The kingdom of Christ, or the kingdom of Antichrist: which does the future hold as just before us? Do we face the apocalypse of the man of sin, or the revelation of the Son of man? What are we to behold, as the next great development of the chain of prophecy, the cruel, bloodsmeared, diabolical visage of a devil incarnate, ruling over the ten kingdoms of a hypothetical Roman Empire redivivus; or the blessed, gentle, smiling, thorn-kissed, and glorified face of earth’s returning Majesty? If not the former, then the latter! Not the false Christ, but the true Christ! Glorious thought! The day is coming when the Lord Jesus will descent, the dead will stand up, all men will be judged, the wicked will be punished, the Lord’s enemies will perish, this earth will be born again, and clothed in the garb of her eternal Eden-hood, and the triumphant Christ will reign forever, here when the prophecies concerning His kingdom were written into history, here where the battles of His Church were fought and won. All hail, bright day! All hail, true Christ!

Let us then light the lamp of hope at the shrine of that “sure word of prophecy” which shineth in this dark world until the day shall dawn and the star of day appear. Let us press along our homeward way, singing the song of faith:

“We are voyagers on an ocean, and our destiny we know,
For our chart has been pointing out the way,
And our Captain he is cheering us as through the night we go,
Saying, “Courage, sailors, soon you’ll see the day.’

“We have passed the coast of Babylon, and Medo-Persian piers,
We have left the realm of Grecia far behind;
We’ve been sailing down the Roman coast for nineteen hundred years,
And our chart declares the port we soon shall find.

“Then we’ll watch and we’ll pray, as our vessel bears away,
And we’ll never be disheartened any more,
For the port is getting nearer, and I hear the Master say,
‘We shall soon reach the harbor and the shore.’”