The Sanctuary and Twenty-three Hundred Days

THE TWO DESOLATIONS ARE PAGANISM AND PAPACY

“I read on, and could find no other case in which it [the daily] was found, but in Daniel. I then [by the aid of a concordance] took those words which stood in connection with it, ‘take way;’ he shall take away,‘the daily; ‘from the time the daily shall be taken away’, etc. I read on, and thought I should find no light on the text; finally, I came to 2 Thessalonians 2:7, 8. ‘For the mystery of iniquity doth already work; only he who now letteth will let, until he be taken out of the way, and then shall that wicked be revealed,’ etc. And when I had come to that text, oh! how clear and glorious the truth appeared! There it is! That is ‘the daily!’ Well now, what does Paul mean by ‘he who now letteth,’ or hindereth? By ‘the man of sin,’ and the ‘wicked,’ popery is meant. Well, what is it which hinders popery from being revealed? Why, it is paganism; well, then, ‘the daily’ must mean paganism.”-Second Advent Manual, page 66. S23D 34.1

It needs no argument to prove that the two grand forms of opposition, by which Satan has desolated the church and trod under foot the sanctuary of the living God, are none other than paganism and popery. It is also a clear point that the change from one of these desolations to the other did occur under the Roman power. Paganism, from the days of the kings of Assyria, down to the period when it became so far modified that it took the name of popery, had been the daily (or, as Prof. Whiting renders it, “the continual”) desolation, by which Satan had stood up against the cause of Jehovah. And, indeed, in its priests, its altars and its sacrifices, it bore resemblance to the Levitical form of Jehovah’s worship. When the Christian form of worship took the place of the Levitical, a change in Satan’s form of opposition, and counterfeit worship, became necessary, if he would successfully oppose the worship of the great God. And it is in the light of these facts that we are able to understand our Lord’s reference to the abomination of desolation in Matthew 24:15. It is evident that he there cites Daniel 9:26, 27. Now, although we do not understand that paganism in the year 70 had given place to popery, we do understand that that same power which then appeared, modified somewhat in name and form, was the very power that should, as the abomination of desolation, wear out the saints of the Most High. S23D 34.2

The language of Paul is to the point: “For the mystery of iniquity [popery] doth already work; only he who now letteth will let, until he be taken out of the way. And then shall that Wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the Spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming.” 2 Thessalonians 2:7, 8. That Paul refers to paganism and popery, none question. And here is direct proof that popery, the abomination of desolation, had in Paul’s day already begun to work. Nor was it a very great change of character when Satan transformed his counterfeit worship from paganism to popery. The same temples, altars, incense, priests and worshipers were ready, with little change, to serve as the appendages of the papal abomination. The statute of Jupiter readily changed to that of Peter, the prince of the apostles; and the Pantheon, which had been the temple of all the gods, without difficulty became the sanctuary of all the saints. Thus the same abomination that desolated Jerusalem, in a degree changed and modified, became the wonderful desolater of the saints and martyrs of Jesus. And in its so-called temple of God, it set at naught and trod under foot the true temple of Jehovah, and he who is its minister, Jesus Christ. The change from paganism to popery is clearly shown in John’s view of the transfer of power from the dragon of Revelation 12, to the beast of Revelation 13. And that they are essentially the same thing, is evident from the fact that both the dragon and the beast are represented with the seven heads; thus showing that, in a certain sense, either may be understood to cover the whole time. And in the same sense we understand that either abomination covers all the period. Christ’s reference to the abomination of desolation (Matthew 24:15; Luke 21:20) is an absolute demonstration that Rome is the little horn of Daniel 8:9-12. Having shown that there are two desolations, by which the sanctuary and the host are trodden down, we now notice the fact that there are S23D 35.1