XPost: talk.religion.satanism, tx.religion.pagan, tx.religion.pagan.dark   
   XPost: ucb.org.iran-club   
   From: ghunt@biblesearch.com   
      
   Open and Shut Door   
   [From the Seventh-day Adventist Encyclopedia, Second Revised Edition,   
   Commentary Reference Series vol. 11 (Hagerstown, Maryland: Review and Herald   
   Publishing Association, 1996), pp. 249-252.]   
   OPEN AND SHUT DOOR. An expression derived from Rev. 3:7, 8, where Christ is   
   described as the one "that openeth, and no man shutteth; and shutteth, and   
   no man openeth" (an allusion to Isa. 22:22), and as the one who says to the   
   Philadelphia church, "Behold, I have set before thee an open door, and no   
   man can shut it." Seventh-day Adventists have applied these texts to the   
   closing of the first phase and the opening of the second and final phase of   
   Christ's ministry in heaven, where He has been the Christian's high priest   
   since His sacrifice on the cross (see Sanctuary). Christ's dual ministry was   
   prefigured by the service of the ancient high priest, who served "unto the   
   example and shadow of heavenly things" (Heb. 8:5). In the earthly sanctuary   
   he served daily in the holy place, the first apartment of the sanctuary, and   
   once a year in the Most Holy Place, the inner shrine where was the golden   
   ark in which were the tables of the Ten Commandments and over which appeared   
   the visible glory of God. This entering into the Holy of Holies took place   
   on the Day of Atonement in the ceremony of the cleansing of the sanctuary   
   (Lev. 16).   
      
   In applying the type to Christ, Ellen White declared: "Then Jesus rose up   
   and shut the door in the holy place, and opened the door in the Most Holy,   
   and passed within the Second Veil, where He now stands by the ark; and where   
   the faith of Israel now reaches. I saw that Jesus had shut the door in the   
   holy place, and no man can open it; and that He had opened the door in the   
   Most Holy and no man can shut it: (Rev. 3:7, 8); and that since Jesus has   
   opened the door into the Most Holy Place, which contains the ark, the   
   commandments have been shining out to God's people, and they are being   
   tested on the Sabbath question" (Present Truth 1:21, August 1849; also Early   
   Writings, p. 42).   
      
   This application corrected, not immediately but eventually, a   
   misunderstanding of the "shut door" of the parable of the wise and foolish   
   virgins--a misconception that had been derived from the Millerite movement   
   of 1844.   
      
   The Millerites had based their expectation of the return of Christ   
   principally on Daniel's prophecy of the cleansing of the sanctuary at the   
   end of 2300 prophetic days (Dan. 8:14). At the climax of the movement, in   
   1844, they [p. 250] specifically connected this prophecy with the   
   purification ceremony of the ancient Day of Atonement as typifying the   
   ending of Christ's mediation for sins (though they saw the cleansing of the   
   sanctuary as the purging of the earth in the final fires). At the same time   
   they gave increased and specific emphasis to the prophetic parable of the   
   wise and foolish virgins (Matt. 25).   
      
   William Miller had likened his message of the expected Second Advent to the   
   "midnight cry" of the parable ("Behold, the bridegroom cometh"), and had   
   emphasized the point that the wise virgins, who were ready to meet the   
   arriving bridegroom, entered with him into the wedding, where the door was   
   shut after them, leaving the tardy foolish virgins outside. The virgins he   
   interpreted as those summoned to meet the returning Lord; the wedding, the   
   eternal kingdom, from which the unready would be forever excluded. "The door   
   was shut," he said, "implies the closing up of the mediatorial kingdom, and   
   finishing the gospel period" (William Miller, Evidence . . . of the Second   
   Coming of Christ [1840], p. 237).   
      
   Unlike most others who were then looking for the near advent of Christ (see   
   Premillennialism), the Millerites placed strong emphasis on the doctrine   
   that at the coming of Christ every human being would be either ready or   
   unready to meet Him, and that opportunity for salvation would then cease.   
   This in theological parlance was called the close of human probation. The   
   Millerites taught "that the notion of a probation after Christ's coming is a   
   lure to destruction, entirely contrary to the Word of God, which positively   
   teaches that when Christ comes the door is shut, and such as are not ready   
   can never enter in" ("Boston Second Advent Conference," The Signs of the   
   Times 3:69, June 1, 1842; reprinted in SB, No. 1083).   
      
   Because they expected Christ to return at the close of the 2300 prophetic   
   days, they had emphasized the close of probation at the end of that period.   
   Therefore, for a short period after the disappointment of October 1844,   
   Miller and many others thought that their work for the world was done, that   
   there was only a little "tarrying time" left--perhaps but a few days or   
   months--until Christ would come. In December 1844 Miller wrote: "We have   
   done our work in warning sinners, and in trying to awake a formal church.   
   God, in his providence has shut the door, we can only stir one another up to   
   be patient; and be diligent to make our calling and election sure. We are   
   now living in the time specified by Malachi iii:18, also Daniel xii:10, and   
   Rev. xxii:10-12. In this passage we cannot help but see, that a little while   
   before Christ should come, there would be a separation between the just and   
   unjust, the righteous and wicked, between those who love his appearing, and   
   those who hate it. And never since the days of the apostles, has there been   
   such a division line drawn as was drawn about the 10th or 23rd day of the   
   7th Jewish month" (William Miller letter, in Advent Herald, Dec. 11, 1844,   
   p. 142; reprinted in Western Midnight Cry 4:25, Dec. 21, 1844).   
      
   Others expressed themselves similarly at first. But J. V. Himes, Miller's   
   most prominent colleague, and others held that since Christ had not come,   
   the 2300-day prophetic period must not have ended in 1844; that it must   
   extend to some other date in the future, and therefore that the fulfillment   
   of the "midnight cry" of the parable of the virgins was also still future;   
   and that the October 1844 movement (see Seventh-Month Movement) was a   
   mistake, and was not a fulfillment of prophecy. By the spring of 1845 the   
   main Millerite group, including Miller, had come to this view. This group,   
   still possessed of the idea that the "door" of the parable of the virgins   
   was none other than the "door of salvation," argued thus: Since Christ has   
   not come, the door of salvation is still open; therefore, the parable of the   
   virgins has not yet met fulfillment. They concluded that anyone who taught   
   that this parable had been fulfilled must believe that probation had ended,   
   and must, therefore, be ipso facto a "no-mercy" heretic. The phrase "shut   
   door" became an epithet.   
      
      
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