Apocalyptic Disappointments.pdf

Apocalyptic Disappointments

and the “Appointed Times of the Nations”

A characteristic of some Christian cults 1 indigenous to America is

predictive prophecy. The nineteenth century gave rise to a number of

groups eagerly anticipating the fulfillment of God’s scheme of redemption

in America as the promised land. The confusion and spiritual malaise that

seemed to exist among the traditional churches provoked many to search

outside the mainstream for the “truth.” Revivals helped to remedy these

problems in the traditional churches, to a degree, by unifying some

denominations. At the same time,

The revivals left many individuals distraught and torn by anxiety; and, having

tried without success to gain a sense of assurance in their own churches, they

were in a receptive mood to listen to new prophets who offered definite

guarantees of spiritual security. 2

Hudson gives three emphases stimulated by revival which created

the climate out of which cults, sects, and communities evolved:

“immediate confrontation with God…perfect sanctification…millennial

expectation.” 3 It was primarily the last of these emphases that gave

impetus to a mentality which focused on the specific date for Christ’s

return. An early expression of this was given by William Miller who

calculated that the return of Christ would occur in 1844. Although Miller

and his followers experienced a “great disappointment” when Christ failed

to return, some remained resolute in their hope. Following his death his

followers divided into three groups, one of which was led by Ellen G.

White. She concluded that Christ actually did return as Miller predicted,

but only in a spiritual sense into the “most holy place” (Dan. 8:14; Heb.

9). His physical presence was not realized because Christians had failed

to observe the Sabbath. This doctrine was later called “the investigative

judgment” by those who followed White, viz., the Seventh Day Adventists.

“The investigative judgment” doctrine has been seriously challenged from

1 “Cult” is difficult to define. Generally, a Christian “cult” is a group which differs

significantly on one or more of the basic orthodox beliefs—particularly in reference to

Theology, Christology, and Soteriology—of the normative expressions of the Christian

faith. The group usually centers around and submits to an individual’s or organization’s

authoritative interpretation of the Bible. Consequently, there is frequently some sense

of “progressive revelation” espoused. Cults generally view themselves outside of

mainstream Christianity, which they perceive as apostate.

2 Winthrop S. Hudson and John Corrigan, Religion in America: An Historical Account of

the Development of American Religious Life, 5th ed. (New York: Macmillan Publishing

Company, 1992), 181.

3 Ibid.

within the Seventh Day Adventist church itself, but the challenge has been

countered with firm disciplinary action. 4

The Seventh Day Adventist story demonstrates a pattern replicated

later by the cult that perhaps best expresses the millennial expectation

mentality, the Jehovah’s Witnesses. This pattern includes specific date

setting by the central figure (organization), failure of fulfillment,

disappointment and disaffection among followers, reinterpretation of the

date’s meaning, challenges from within, and unilateral authoritative action.

The Watchtower Bible and Tract Society (Watchtower) is the official organ

of the Jehovah’s Witnesses tradition and tenaciously promulgates specific

eschatological dates that are central to the beliefs of its followers. It is the

purpose of this paper, first, to examine some of those dates, and, second,

demonstrate how they arrive at the most crucial date in their apocalyptic

calendar—A.D. 1914.

A LITANY OF APOCALYPTIC DISAPPOINTMENTS

1874. The earliest prophet in the Jehovah’s Witnesses 5 tradition

was Charles Taze Russell (1852 - 1916). Penton chronicles Russell’s

eschatological background rooted in the Millerite movement through

George Storrs and Nelson Barbour. 6 Barbour modified the calculations of

John Aquila Brown, the first expositor to interpret the “seven times” of

Daniel 4 as a period of 2,520 years, to arrive at the year A.D. 1914 as

the end of the “Gentile times” of Luke 21:24 (see extended discussion

below). Russell agreed with Barbour and encouraged him to write Three

Worlds and the Harvest of This World, published in 1877. This book

spells out the 1914 eschatological chronology.

Russell explicates his views in a series of six books called Studies in

the Scriptures, published by the International Bible Students Association. 7

Following Barbour, he taught that the second coming of Christ occurred in

4 See Edward E. Plowman, “The Shaking Up of Adventism?” Christianity Today 24 (8

February 1980): 64 - 67; and James C. Hefley, “Adventist Teachers Are Forced Out In a

Doctrinal Dispute,” Christianity Today 27 (18 March 1983): 23 - 25.

5 The name “Jehovah’s Witnesses” was not taken by the group until 1931 (M. James

Penton, Apocalypse Delayed: The Story of Jehovah’s Witnesses [Toronto: University of

Toronto Press, 1985], 62).

6 Ibid., 13 - 24. See also Carl Olof Jonsson, The Gentile Times Reconsidered, 2nd. ed.

(Atlanta, GA: Commentary Press, 1986), 21 - 39.

7 The Plan of the Ages (1886), The Time is at Hand (1889), Thy Kingdom Come (1891),

The Day of Vengeance (1897), The At-one-ment Between Man and God (1899), and The

New Creation (1904). A seventh volume was published posthumously in 1917 entitled

The Finished Mystery which actually contained some material by Russell as well as

others (Penton, Apocalypse, 50 - 51). In addition to these are a number of other books,

booklets, tracts, and Watchtower magazines that contain his writings. See the

bibliography in Penton, Apocalypse, 361 - 382.

1874. The disappointment over Christ’s failure to appear physically was

allayed by a reinterpretation of scripture yielding an “invisible presence” of

the Lord in 1874. 8 This was the beginning of the “Jubilee Year” (Lev. 25),

“the times of the restitution of all things.” It was the beginning of the last

of seven one thousand year periods of humanity from Adam, i.e., the

millennial reign of Christ from Revelation 20. 9 In 1878 Christ assumed

power as King of kings and the resurrection of the faithful (144,000)

began. 10 In 1881 the fall of Babylon the Great—the end of false

Christendom’s reign over the church—occurred. 11 This position on the

second advent of Christ was held by the organization through 1929 under

its second president, J. F. Rutherford. 12

1914. Two caveats are in order when discussing this date as

understood in the Jehovah’s Witnesses tradition. First, the later tradition

(following 1929) understands it as the second coming of Christ as

opposed to the earlier tradition’s focus on 1874 for this event. Second,

later editions of Studies in the Scriptures have been altered to

accommodate various predictive failures by Russell concerning 1914. 13

Thus, there is confusion as to precisely what the organization teaches

concerning this date.

For Russell the significance of the year 1914 is summarized in The

Time Is at Hand: 14 1) the Kingdom of God is established “on the ruins of

present institutions,” 2) proof of Christ’s presence and rule is

demonstrated, 3) the last member of the body of Christ is glorified with

Christ and rules with him, 4) the end of the times of the Gentiles comes, 5)

Israel’s blindness begins to end, 6) the great “time of trouble such as

never was since there was a nation” culminates and the “new heavens and

new earth” begin, and 7) “before that date God’s Kingdom” crushes all

civil and ecclesiastical power.

With the outbreak of the First World War Russell’s emerging

disappointment with the fulfillment of these predictions was alleviated. He

died in 1916 confident of his chronology. However, with the end of the

8 Raymond Franz, Crisis of Conscience (Atlanta, GA: Commentary Press, 1983), 142 -

147.

9 Time Is at Hand, 173 - 200; Thy Kingdom Come, 121 - 134; and Finished Mystery, 301 -

302.

10 Time Is at Hand, 239; and Day of Vengeance, 604, 621 - 622.

11 Thy Kingdom Come, 132 cf Finished Mystery, 273 - 276.

12 The Harp of God (Brooklyn: International Bible Students Association, 1921), 234 - 238;

and Prophecy (Brooklyn: International Bible Students Association/Watch Tower Bible and

Tract Society, 1929), 65 - 66.

13 E.g., the 1912 ed. of Thy Kingdom Come states the “deliverance” of the bodies of the

saints (Rom. 8:22 - 23) “must take place some time before 1914.” The 1917 ed. states

it “must take place very soon after 1914” (228) (emphasis mine).

14 76 - 78, 101.

war in 1918, and the failure of all seven predictions, it was up to

Rutherford once again to abate the growing disappointment of Russell’s

followers by reinterpreting the nature of what was to occur, leaving the

when firmly in place. Rutherford (in 1930) spiritualized all the events and

translated the sphere of fulfillment to heaven. As early as 1917 he was

already modifying and adding to Russell’s earlier predictions. 15 He also

changed the 1874 date of Christ’s invisible presence (and the

accompanying events of 1878) to 1914 (and 1918), the chronology

followed by Jehovah’s Witnesses to this date. 16

A major problem remains for the Jehovah’s Witnesses concerning

this date. They apply Matt. 24:34—“this generation will not pass away

until all these things take place”—to the generation of 1914. 17 Given their

definition of a generation (eighty years), 18 this application fit well with their

1975 prediction (see below), but is now (2005) facing difficulty and

another great disappointment. The number of those alive today who were

alive in 1914 is shrinking rapidly. This fact is intensified by Watchtower

statements that the “generation of 1914” was “15 years of age” in 1914, 19

and “ saw the events of 1914 C.E.” (emphasis mine). 20 Consider these

words from the Watchtower as late as 1982:

But that generation of 1914 certainly did see what happened here on earth as a

“sign” of his presence and as “a beginning of sorrows” for mankind! (Matthew

24:8, Authorized Version) And the remaining ones of that generation of 1914

are still talking about it. Some of them will be talking about it right down to the

time when the “great tribulation” wipes Satan’s wicked system of things off the

face of our globe. 21

A number of suggestions have been floated by the governing board

of the Watchtower concerning this “generation” problem: it referred only

to the 144,000, it applied only to Jesus’ generation concerning the fall of

Jerusalem in A.D. 70, it referred to the generation that saw the “Celestial

Phenomena” in Matt. 24:29 - 44 which began in 1957, marked by the

launch of the first Russian Sputnik. 22 To date, the Watchtower has clung to

the original interpretation, but disappointment is sure to follow the last

survivor of that generation.

15 Finished Mystery, 57 - 62, 128 - 129, 484 - 485, 513 - 515, 594 - 595.

16 Jonsson, Gentile Times, 29 - 36.

17 ”What Will the 1970’s Bring?” Awake! 8 October 1968, 13 - 14.

18 Aid to Bible Understanding (Brooklyn: Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York,

Inc./International Bible Students Association, 1971), 641.

19 ”What Will the 1970’s Bring?” 13 - 14.

20 This statement is on the inside cover of every issue of Awake! explaining why the

magazine is published.

21 The Watchtower 1 May 1982, 15.

22 Franz, Crisis, 214 - 220.

1925 . Undaunted by past prediction failures, the Bible Student

organization experienced new growth in the early twenties with the release

of Rutherford’s little book Millions Now Living Will Never Die. 23 It predicted

that the millennium would begin in 1925 based on the “jubilee system” of

Lev. 25. Specifically, Rutherford predicted the resurrection of some Old

Testament faithful:

The chief thing to be restored is the human race to life; and since other

Scriptures definitely fix the fact that there will be a resurrection of Abraham,

Isaac, Jacob and other faithful ones of old, and that these will have the first

favor, we may expect 1925 to witness the return of these faithful men of Israel

from the condition of death, being resurrected and fully restored to perfect

humanity and made visible, legal representatives of the new order of things on

earth. 24

This year marked the beginning of “the earthly phase of the kingdom.” 25 It

was “the beginning of the reconstruction,” or “restoration,” which included

the gradual restoration of “a man of seventy years of age…to the days of

his youth and [he will] live on the earth forever and never see death.” 26

A book by W. E. Amburgh, written for children, also promised the

literal physical presence of Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Isaac…John the

Baptist to whom all the faithful would have direct access: “No doubt many

boys and girls who read this book will live to see Abraham,…and those

other faithful men of old, come forth in the glory of their ‘better

resurrection,’ perfect in mind and body.” 27

Another disappointment followed the failure of these predictions.

The church experienced a serious loss of membership, members were

blamed for viewing the prediction as a “certainty” rather than a

“probability.” Rutherford admitted his mistake, but continued to assure

his followers that the Old Testament faithful would return. A house was

built in San Diego, California in 1930 to house them upon their return. 28

Nevertheless, Rutherford continued to maintain that the dates 1914,

1918, and 1925 “were definitely fixed in Scriptures; and they [the

organization] also learned to quit fixing dates for the future and predicting

what would come to pass on a certain date.” 29 Apparently, Rutherford

learned the lesson, but the Watchtower did not.

23 Brooklyn: International Bible Students Association, 1920.

24 Ibid., 88.

25 Ibid., 89.

26 Ibid., 97, 100.

27 The Way to Paradise (Brooklyn: International Bible Students Association, 1925), 226.

28 See Franz, Crisis, 190 - 197; and Penton, Apocalypse, 57 - 58.

29 Vindication, Book 1 (Brooklyn: Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society/International Bible

Students Association, 1931), 338 - 339.

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