ESCHATOLOGY AND ADVENTIST
SELF-UNDERSTANDING
by Jon Paulien
Adventist-Lutheran Dialogue
Publication Draft

The Seventh-day Adventist Church, as I understand it, derives its unique witness to Jesus
Christ from the conviction that Biblical apocalyptic prophecies portray a relentless march of
history leading up to a critical climax at the End. That climax calls forth a people from every
nation and from every denominational background who will give voice to one great final Christian
witness to the world. This great final witness is not to be some cultically peculiar message that
stands in arrogant contrast to earlier witnesses to Christ, such as Luther. It is, rather, to be the
proclamation of the “everlasting gospel” (Rev 14:6) in a voice that is attuned to the unique
circumstances of that end-time situation laid out in the pages of the Book of Revelation.

ways, Adventist interpretation of the last book of the Bible is at the heart of Adventist self-
understanding and identity. The specific contribution that I hope to make is to outline the
exegetical basis for Adventist self-understanding in the text of the Biblical Book of Revelation.
This proves to be a very foreign world to most Lutherans, so I would like to begin by affirming
that SDAs and Lutherans share a common understanding of the basics of NT eschatology.

This paper focuses on the Biblical perspective regarding the very last days of earth’s
history, the events surrounding the second advent of Jesus Christ. But the Biblical perspective is
broader than just an outline of final events. As Jörg Rothermundt points out, the NT writers

Christ’s finished work at the cross. Nothing I say in this paper should be understood to negate
this central teaching of the NT. In the NT there is an ongoing and creative tension between the
indicative and the imperative, the now and the not yet, the inaugurated and the consummated, the
heavenly and the earthly, the realized and the not realized. This tension can be illustrated by
means of the following diagram:

Common understanding between Adventists and Lutherans on this point does not require
one or the other to give up Scripture, rather it calls both of us to stand together in maintaining a
healthy Biblical tension before our respective constituencies. Here we can learn balance from
each other’s testimony. The tension between a totally just and saved standing before God now
and the ongoing battle against the old reality is the sum and substance of NT eschatology at the
personal level. To the extent that Adventists have lost this tension in an enthusiastic pursuit of
end-time understanding, we must go back to our Lutheran roots and relearn the whole counsel of
God. On this point, at least, the “heart of Lutheran eschatology” should be the “heart of
Adventist eschatology” as well.

In the mid-19th Century early Adventists approached the Book of Revelation out of their experience at the margins of American society. When they read about suffering and martyrdom in the Book of Revelation, they felt a kinship with this book. Their experience as “outcasts” of

Some of the sharpness of early Adventist expressions toward the papacy and other
Christian groups, therefore, must be understood in the context of boundary-setting and the search
for a clear identity. From their study of the Bible, and particularly the Book of Revelation,
Adventists came to believe that the final days of earth’s history will throw all true Christians of
every denominational background into a similar experience of marginalization and persecution. In

See also Nelson Kilpp, “A Lutheran Interpretation of the Book of Daniel,” especially pages 6-9.
John J. Collins prefers the term “periodization of history” to the phrase “ex eventu prophecy.”
See J. J. Collins, “Sibylline Oracles: A New Translation and Introduction,” in James H.
Charlesworth, editor, The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, vol. 1, Apocalyptic Literature and
Testaments (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1983), p. 323.

76; and the Apocalypse of Abraham 29. There is a ten-fold division of history in 1 Enoch 93:1-10
and 91:12-17, Sib Or 1:7-323 and Sib Or 4:47-192. History is divided into seven periods in 2
Enoch 33:1-2 and bSanhedrin 97

Seventh-day Adventists, as noted in the Introduction, differ sharply from Lutherans in
their assessment of the quality of the Book of Revelation and its authority. The Adventist-
Lutheran discussions have highlighted two further points of difference. Lutherans have been
presented to us as understanding that the works of biblical apocalyptic (such as Daniel and
Revelation) are no different than non-canonical apocalypses, which make use of pseudo-
authorship and portray the history of the past as if prophesied in advance (usually called “ex
eventu” prophecy or “periodization of history;” prophecy is written after the events “prophecied”
have already taken place). Lutherans, therefore, do not see in Revelation any element of

Adventists are in serious disagreement with this rejection of the special character of
biblical apocalyptic and of the predictive nature of some of the utterances found in it. SDAs
believe that God “knows the end from the beginning” and is well able to announce ahead of time
“what is yet to come” through the Holy Spirit (Isa 46:10; John 16:13). While acknowledging the
existence of pseudo-authorship and ex eventu prophecy in non-biblical apocalyptic, Adventists