A recent article challenged our eschatology on three points. First, we are wrong on our identity of papal Rome’s role in the last days. Second, there are many good people in the Catholic Church. Third, our eschatology has failed.
First, in Daniel 2, four kingdoms—Babylon (gold), Medo-Persia (silver), Greece (bronze), Rome (iron, later iron and clay), come and go until the Lord sets up “a kingdom which shall never be destroyed” (Dan. 2:44).
In Daniel 7 four kingdoms—Babylon (lion), Medo-Persia (bear), Greece (leopard), Rome (dragon, later little horn in its head)—come and go until God’s “everlasting kingdom” (Dan. 7:27) is established.
In Daniel 8 three kingdoms—Medo-Persia (ram), Greece (goat), Rome (little horn)—come and go until the time of the end (see Dan. 8:17, 19), when the little horn “shall be broken without human means” (Dan. 8:25).
In all three chapters, what power arises after ancient Greece and remains until the end? Solely, totally, and only Rome (pagan, then papal).
Whatever questions remain, we have no reason to doubt
This same power, Rome, reappears in Revelation 13 as the chapter draws imagery from Daniel 2 and 7, specifically imagery of the little horn in Daniel 7, papal Rome. Though papal Rome gets “mortally wounded” (Rev. 13:3), it is not only healed but becomes central to the end-time persecution around “the image of the beast” (verse 15). In fact, Rome is the beast, which, according to Daniel 2, 7, and 8, exists until the end.
Second, imagine if the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists claimed that it, and it alone, possessed all the merits of Christ, and that through only it, the Adventist Church, could you receive salvation. That’s, very broadly, the Roman system: what we, by faith, receive directly from Christ Himself is, instead, according to their theology, dispensed solely through the institution of the Roman Church. Anti-Christ does not mean only “against Christ” but also “in place of Christ,” a fitting depiction of papal Rome, and one reason the Protestant Reformers adamantly named it as Anti-Christ. Rome’s blasphemous system of “salvation,” among other errors, is what we oppose. That there are good people in the Roman Church is, really, irrelevant to prophecy.
Finally, has our eschatology failed? If Jesus returned, and no Sunday persecution had preceded that return, then they would have a point. Otherwise—what failure? That no Sunday persecution has yet come? The children of Israel were in Egypt 430 years. The “time, times, and half a time” (Dan. 7:25) of past papal hegemony was 1,260 years. Daniel’s prediction for the coming of the Messiah was for 490 years. Daniel 8:14 projected ahead 2,300 years. Our waiting, for what, about 170 years so far, hardly proves failure, especially when we have put no time element on the end anyway. That Adventists expected Jesus to be back earlier—so? Paul wrote the book of Hebrews to people who were already discouraged because Christ hadn’t yet returned. And that was 1,900 years ago.
Whatever questions remain (and many remain), we have no reason to doubt our eschatology. The end will come, perhaps even sooner than we’re prepared for.
