Prophecies Fulfilled
333
“While the bridegroom tarried, they all slumbered and slept. And
at midnight there was a cry made, Behold, the bridegroom cometh; go
ye out to meet him. Then all those virgins arose, and trimmed their
lamps.”
Matthew 25:5-7
. In the summer of 1844, midway between the
time when it had been first thought that the 2300 days would end, and
the autumn of the same year, to which it was afterward found that they
extended, the message was proclaimed in the very words of Scripture:
“Behold, the Bridegroom cometh!”
That which led to this movement was the discovery that the de-
cree of Artaxerxes for the restoration of Jerusalem, which formed the
starting point for the period of the 2300 days, went into effect in the
autumn of the year 457 B.C., and not at the beginning of the year, as
[399]
had been formerly believed. Reckoning from the autumn of 457, the
2300 years terminate in the autumn of 1844. (See Appendix note for
page 329.)
Arguments drawn from the Old Testament types also pointed to the
autumn as the time when the event represented by the “cleansing of
the sanctuary” must take place. This was made very clear as attention
was given to the manner in which the types relating to the first advent
of Christ had been fulfilled.
The slaying of the Passover lamb was a shadow of the death of
Christ. Says Paul: “Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us.”
1 Corinthi-
ans 5:7
. The sheaf of first fruits, which at the time of the Passover
was waved before the Lord, was typical of the resurrection of Christ.
Paul says, in speaking of the resurrection of the Lord and of all His
people: “Christ the first fruits; afterward they that are Christ’s at His
coming.”
1 Corinthians 15:23
. Like the wave sheaf, which was the
first ripe grain gathered before the harvest, Christ is the first fruits of
that immortal harvest of redeemed ones that at the future resurrection
shall be gathered into the garner of God.
These types were fulfilled, not only as to the event, but as to the
time. On the fourteenth day of the first Jewish month, the very day and
month on which for fifteen long centuries the Passover lamb had been
slain, Christ, having eaten the Passover with His disciples, instituted
that feast which was to commemorate His own death as “the Lamb of
God, which taketh away the sin of the world.” That same night He was
taken by wicked hands to be crucified and slain. And as the antitype
of the wave sheaf our Lord was raised from the dead on the third day,