The Judgment of the Dead
“When the Lamb opened the third seal, I heard the third living creature say, ‘Come!’ I looked, and there before me was a black horse! Its rider was holding a pair of scales in his hand. Then I heard what sounded like a voice among the four living creatures, saying, A quart of wheat for a day’s wages, and three quarts of barley for a day’s wages, and do not damage the oil and the wine!’ ” (Revelation 6:5,6)
Seal #3 Black Horse – 1844
Before we proceed with this study on the third seal, I would like you to consider that the third seal concerns judging the dead and the fourth seal concerns judging the living. These two seals are extremely important and reveal dimensions of Jesus that are infinitely wonderful. The third seal is more difficult to explain than any of the other six, because it requires a person to understand two essential Bible doctrines as well as two apocalyptic prophecies from the book of Daniel. If you are interested in a comprehensive study on these doctrines, please see Chapters 11 through 14 in my book, Jesus: The Alpha and The Omega. If you also wish to examine the two apocalyptic prophecies that position the third seal in 1844, please see Chapters 4 and 6 in my book, Daniel: Unlocked for the Final Generation. PDF versions of both books can be found here: https://www.wake-up.org/find-articles-by-topic/
The third living creature that spoke to John had a face like that of a man. (Revelation 4:7) This face is perfect for this campaign. You may recall that the other three faces of the Holy Spirit in Revelation 4 are faces of animals (a lion, an ox and an eagle) and the one feature that separates mankind from animals is that man has the ability to reason. Mankind also has a brain that can consider ideas and remember details, he can exercise intelligent choice and he has free will to act according to his will.
The scales in the rider’s hand indicated judgment. From Babylonian days, scales were used to signify judgment. (Daniel 5:27) Before John’s day, Egyptian, Greek, and Roman cultures incorporated the idea of a woman dispensing justice. Later, Rome used the symbol of a blindfolded woman holding a pair of scales to represent judgment (a goddess named Justitia). Today, courthouses often incorporate statues of “Lady Justice” holding scales in one hand and a sword in the other. The blindfold over her eyes indicates she pays no heed to personal status. Everyone in her court is judged without bias. The scales in her left hand represent measurement. She measures the strength or weakness of each case on its merits. The double-edged sword in her right hand represents justice which the court must implement for plaintiff or defendant.
More than 600 years earlier, Daniel saw the judgment of the dead begin. He wrote, “the court was seated and the books were opened.” (Daniel 7:10) King Solomon saw the judgment of the dead, “For God will bring every deed into judgment, including every hidden thing, whether it is good or evil.” (Ecclesiastes 12:14) Paul also knew that judgment day was coming, but he did not know when it would occur. (The date would not be revealed until centuries after his death.) Paul wrote: “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive what is due him for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad.” (2 Corinthians 5:10) The judgment of the dead merges the inauguration of Jesus, the doctrine of “soul sleep,” and the doctrine of “parallel temples” into one comprehensive subject. Of course, if a person does not understand the doctrines of soul sleep or parallel temples, breaking the third seal in 1844 is meaningless. We will spend some time establishing the basis for the doctrines of parallel temples and soul sleep in the next part of this chapter.
In the third seal, Jesus sent the Holy Spirit from Heaven to Earth to begin a new campaign. His mission was to inform Bible students that the time had come for Jesus to judge the dead. Jesus commissioned the Holy Spirit to reveal that Jesus had opened the books of records and started his investigation of each person’s thoughts, motives, words, and actions. After a thorough investigation, Jesus declares a verdict of either eternal life or eternal death.
The Connection Between the Earthly Temple and the Heavenly Temple
When God delivered Israel out of Egypt, He gave Moses a set of plans. These plans included details concerning the construction of His temple and instructions on how services were to be performed in the temple. (Hebrews 8:1-5) God gave Moses very intricate directions because God planned for earthly temple services to provide important details about similar processes occurring in Heaven’s temple. So, God designed a skit, a set of processes that people could view and study, which would allow finite beings to understand His ways. God designed the earthly temple and its services to parallel similar processes in Heaven. For this reason, the doctrine of parallel temples is similar to the “Heaven Earth Linkage Law.” God established this elaborate system so that people could begin to understand His terms and conditions for salvation. In other words, any ideas about salvation that do not align with the processes God designed in the earthly temple services are false.
Before Jesus created Earth, the Father set a date, near to the end of the world, when Jesus would begin “cleansing” Heaven’s temple. Jesus needs to “cleanse” the temple in Heaven of the record of sin because Heaven’s temple operates as “a holding tank” for sin. Please consider the following statement to appreciate how this works: God does not forgive sin, but He has a method whereby sinners can be freed from sin’s guilt and sinners can receive Christ’s righteousness. Both elements, freedom from sin’s guilt and Christ’s righteousness are necessary for salvation. When Adam and Eve sinned, God’s law said they were guilty of sin and the law condemned them to death. They also lost God’s righteousness which they wore (as garments of light). For sinners to be saved, a guilty person must be freed from sin’s guilt and have God’s righteousness restored. Unfortunately, many Christians do not understand this.
God designed a process to free a person of sin’s guilt and restore His righteousness to the sinner. This process allows the guilt of a repentant and faithful sinner to be transferred to an altar. When the earthly temple was built, this altar was called “the Altar of Burnt Offering.” To transfer his guilt, the sinner needed to obtain and present a perfect lamb at the Altar of Burnt Offering. The only possible way for the sinner to receive freedom from guilt and God’s righteousness was through the perfect life and death of the lamb. After the sinner confessed his sins by placing his hands on the innocent head of the lamb, he slit the lamb’s throat and took the lamb’s life. The attending priest at the altar captured some of the lamb’s blood in a cup, dipped a branch of hyssop into the cup, and sprinkled the lamb’s blood on the four horns of the altar. That blood served as a record of the sinner’s sin and at that point, the Altar of Burnt Offering was defiled by sin.
This daily process in the earthly temple teaches three important points. First, the plan of salvation is not based on the “erase theory.” God does not whitewash or erase sin. Instead, He created a legitimate way to set a repentant sinner free from sin’s penalty while preserving the record of sin in the temple (on the altar). Second, when the sinner killed the lamb and transferred his guilt to the altar by the blood of the lamb, the sinner instantly received the lamb’s righteousness. The lamb had never sinned, so in God’s sight it was innocent, not under the penalty for sin. When the sinner received the lamb’s righteousness, this means that in God’s sight, the sinner was totally justified and in God’s eyes, it was as though the sinner had never sinned. Third, once a year, on the Day of Atonement, the high priest performed a ceremony that cleansed the temple and its altars of the accumulated guilt. The guilt that was previously stored on the horns of the altars was transferred to the scapegoat’s head. Again, this transfer required a perfect sacrifice (the Lord’s goat) to die. At the end of this service on the Day of Atonement, the earthly temple was “cleansed” and all repentant sinners received the lamb’s righteousness.
A coin always has two sides and likewise, I understand the coin of salvation to have two sides. One side concerns removing our guilt and the other side concerns our need for Christ’s righteousness. When we understand both sides of this coin, we see how the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit have made it possible to save sinners. The Father so loved the world that He created a plan of salvation. Jesus so loved sinners that He came to Earth to do something that no human has been able to do. First, Jesus faced and overcame every temptation so that he could give repentant sinners His righteousness. Second, Jesus came to give His eternal life to repentant sinners. Jesus was willing to cease to exist forever so that He could transfer His eternal life to every repentant sinner. No demonstration of love will ever match the humility and love that Christ expressed and this is why the Father decreed that Jesus Christ will be fully revealed! Finally, the Holy Spirit loves sinners so much that He can hardly bring Himself to walk away from us, even when we are defiant. The Holy Spirit does His best to bring us to repentance, transform us, make us thirsty and hungry for truth and righteousness, and sanctify us so that He can draw us closer to the Father and Jesus. He gives us strength and victory over sin whenever we ask. He does His best to lead us into all truth, giving us precious insights into the Father’s character, will, and plans. Even with all the Father has done for us, it is nearly impossible for Him to sway the free will of rebellious sinners.
One final point regarding parallel temples is that there is no justification for sin. This means that if a person chooses to sin, he is guilty of sin because he made the choice to disobey God. Every sinner must die unless he is willing to repent, forsake his sins, and put his faith in Jesus as his Savior. Because God wisely chose to allow Lucifer and his followers to live after they sinned, the whole universe now sees (after thousands of years) what the curse of sin ultimately does to angels as well as human beings. Sin’s curse turns every sinner into a predator. Lucifer preyed on his friends – innocent angels. Lucifer preyed on Eve. Eve tempted Adam and sinners have been preying on one another ever since. Even Adam and Eve’s first born son, Cain, preyed on his brother Abel. Because Lucifer sinned first and all sin in the universe can be traced back to him, Lucifer is the universe’s “predator-in-chief.” This explains how the earthly temple was finally cleansed on the Day of Atonement. All of the accumulated guilt was transferred from the temple to the head of the scapegoat which represents Lucifer, the originator of sin. This annual process in the earthly temple points forward to a day when Jesus will transfer the saint’s guilt to Lucifer’s head. When that day arrives, Heaven’s temple will be cleansed. The process will be completed.
The Doctrine of Soul Sleep
We first have to understand the doctrine of soul sleep before we can understand Jesus’ judgment of the dead. The doctrine of soul sleep teaches that when a person dies, he does not immediately go to Heaven or Hell. This doctrine teaches that a person knows nothing after death and has no awareness or intelligence. (Ecclesiastes 9:5) The person simply ceases to exist with the only thing remaining is the record made by recording angels. Since the person has no consciousness, all spiritists and mediums are either pretending or communicating with demons. (Leviticus 19:31; 20:6) The doctrine of soul sleep teaches that Jesus will resurrect those judged to be righteous to meet Him in the air at the Second Coming. (1 Thessalonians 4:16,17) The people judged to be wicked will remain in their graves until Jesus resurrects them at the end of the thousand years. (Revelation 20:5,6)
The Promise of Wages
When Jesus broke the third seal, He sent the Holy Spirit to the world on an educational campaign. As the Holy Spirit prepared to leave the throne room, Jesus said, “A quart of wheat for a day’s wages, and three quarts of barley for a day’s wages, and do not damage the oil and the wine!” Jesus promised wages, in the form of “good” food, to those who will enter God’s service to educate others about the judgment of the dead.
The Old Testament has a very good parallel concerning the use of wheat, barley, oil, and wine as wages! King Solomon offered Hiram, king of Tyre, an enormous quantity of food if Hiram’s servants would gather materials to construct the Lord’s temple in Jerusalem. “I will give your servants, the woodsmen who cut the timber, twenty thousand cors of ground wheat [125,000 bushels], twenty thousand cors of barley [125,000 bushels], twenty thousand baths of wine [115,000 gallons] and twenty thousand baths of olive oil [115,000 gallons].” (2 Chronicles 2:10, insertions mine) Solomon offered Hiram food because at that time food had a greater value than silver or gold. Solomon did not have the needed building materials, but he did have “good food” to compensate for building the Lord’s enormous temple in Jerusalem. As you think about this, do not forget that at various times in human history, food has been the currency of choice between nations.
The parallel between Solomon and the promise of wages in the third seal is that since 1844, Jesus has been offering wages to those who are willing to build up the knowledge of His ministry in Heaven’s temple. The Bible is a very comprehensive book and God’s ways are vast. Teaching God’s Word, if done properly, is not a simple or easy task. I can testify from personal experience that this work has been the most difficult assignment I have ever had. Jesus gave an offer of wages when he broke the third seal because He wants the world to know that He is judging dead people and He will judge living people soon. Jesus wants the news spread everywhere and He is willing to pay wages to anyone willing to carry the news!
William Miller (1782-1849)
An interesting sequence of events occurred in the United States just before the third seal was broken. The story began on a Sunday morning in 1816, when the Holy Spirit changed the heart of William Miller. Captain Miller was a 34-year old army officer who had settled in Low Hampton, New York, after retiring from military service. At the time, Miller was a self-proclaimed deist. (Deists believe in a Supreme Being, but they deny the Bible is inspired and their view of God is contrary to the Bible.) However, Miller had two uncles who were Baptist preachers, and even though he was not a church member, he dutifully attended services at the Hampton Baptist Church with his believing wife whenever his uncle, Elisha, was preaching.
Because Miller did not attend church when his uncle was absent, a few members of the church thought Captain Miller might be persuaded to attend church more regularly if he were asked to participate. So, they asked him to read a selected sermon from Proudfit’s Practical Sermons the next time his itinerant uncle was absent. To their surprise, Miller agreed. A few weeks later, they called Miller to read the sermon one Sunday morning. About halfway through the sermon on Isaiah 53, Miller was suddenly overcome with a personal realization of what he was reading. Isaiah’s predictions about Christ’s suffering for our sins caused Miller to stop mid-sermon and begin weeping. He buried his face in his hands and humbly sat down. Many in the audience wept, too. The Holy Spirit moved powerfully on that wonderful morning and, from that day forward, William Miller was a changed man. He became a born again believer in Christ and joined the Baptist Church. After Miller’s conversion, he began to study the Bible intensely. Two years later, in 1818, Miller concluded the book of Daniel revealed that Jesus would return to Earth “around 1843.” For several years, Miller kept this matter to himself because he thought he was the only person who believed Jesus was returning in 1843.
Fifteen years after becoming a born again Christian, Miller began to feel the Holy Spirit calling him to share his discoveries in the Bible. Miller’s nephew invited him to speak to a small church group in August 1831 and this initiated Miller’s “lay ministry.” Miller’s views on the Second Coming were unusual and word of his findings spread. People who heard Miller speak respected him even though he was not highly educated. Miller was a very bright person, a keen thinker, well organized in his thoughts, thorough in his research and most of all, humble.
In the early nineteenth century, New England Baptist churches were loosely organized and independent of one another. The churches were isolated and had no electronic communication, so ministers in some areas could accept Miller’s views without causing a problem for the Baptist denomination in general. Because Miller was a layman and his early efforts were confined to a small geographical area in New York, opposition to Miller’s ministry was not significant in the beginning. In addition to this, Protestants in New England were quite open to new ideas from the Bible. There was deep respect and interest in the Bible in those days. Remember, the Declaration of Independence was only 55 years old when Miller began to preach. In 1833, a small group of Baptist ministers licensed Miller so he could preach in surrounding Baptist churches.
An event occurring on November 13, 1833 suddenly transformed Miller’s obscure ministry into a public phenomenon. That night, New England experienced the most remarkable meteoric shower people had ever witnessed. In New England and portions of Europe, people saw tens of thousands of meteorites falling. It looked as though the whole sky was falling! New Englanders panicked and many thought the world was ending. This spectacular event catapulted interest in Miller’s message to a much larger stage and Miller’s seventeen years of study on Bible prophecy had prepared him for this dramatic moment. When it became evident that Miller was unusually qualified and informed on the books of Daniel and Revelation, a group of about 40 ministers (half of whom were Baptists) recognized Miller’s unique ministry in 1835 by granting him a license to speak in their affiliated churches. This impressive meteorite shower overcame denominational barriers so that Baptists and non-Baptists were interested to hear what a self-taught Baptist preacher had to say.
William Miller has had few peers in early American history and people considered him the “Billy Graham” of his day. Of course, as Miller’s popularity grew, so did resistance. At the height of Miller’s ministry, historians calculate the Millerites (as his followers were often called) numbered between fifty and one hundred thousand people. By 1844, Miller estimated that he had personally delivered 4,500 lectures on Bible prophecy to 500,000 people. This was a remarkable feat considering that he was about 50 years old when he began preaching, most of his travel was on horseback, and he spoke to audiences without the support of a public address system. When Jesus did not appear in 1843 (which Miller corrected to 1844), Miller’s credibility was ruined and he went to his grave five years later bearing the shame and stigma of a “false prophet.”
Shortly after the bitter disappointment of 1844, Miller responded to his critics saying, “I have never courted the smiles of the proud, nor quailed when the world frowned. I shall not now purchase their favor; nor shall I go beyond duty to tempt their hate. I shall never seek my life at their hands; nor shrink I hope, from losing it, if God in his good providence so orders.” (The Prophetic Faith of Our Fathers, by LeRoy Edwin Froom, Volume IV, page 683) William Miller died in 1849, broken in health and a pauper. He had “bet the farm” on Jesus’ Second Coming and spent everything he owned in an effort to educate people about the good news of Christ’s return. Miller died as he lived, a man of faith, trusting in Jesus as his Savior. I have no doubt that Jesus will resurrect him with the righteous at the Second Coming. He was never able to understand where he had gone wrong.
William Miller’s Logic
Miller believed in 1833 that Daniel 8:14 pointed to the Second Coming in 1843, so he interpreted the meteorite shower to be a prophetic sign meaning Jesus would appear in about ten years. He had no doubt that the falling stars were a fulfillment of Revelation 6:13. Consider the basis for his logic:
The breaking of the sixth seal defines a sequence of events that climax with Jesus appearing in the clouds of Heaven. These events include a great earthquake, the darkening of the sun, the falling of the stars, and Jesus’ appearing, in this order. (Revelation 6:12-14) Appealing to recent history, Miller reminded his listeners of the Lisbon, Portugal earthquake on November 1, 1755 where 60,000 people perished. This, he claimed, fulfilled the great earthquake in Revelation 6:12. Some New Englanders remembered “the dark day” of May 19, 1780. By noon on that day, the sun became so dark that a person could not see a white sheet of paper in front of his face. Later that day, the moon appeared and it was blood red. The animals even came in from the field around noon because of the darkness. There is historical evidence that suggests this darkness was caused by a massive volcano eruption in Mexico. When Miller considered the dates of the great earthquake (1755), the dark day (1790), and the falling of the stars (1833) during a period of 78 years, he concluded the sixth seal had been broken. Therefore, according to Miller, Jesus’ second coming had to be the next event because Revelation 6:14, the next verse after the falling of the stars, begins to describe Jesus appearing in clouds of glory.
To make the breaking of the sixth seal even more timely and believable, Miller then demonstrated from the book of Daniel how the 2,300 evenings and mornings in Daniel 8:14 terminated in 1843. The dates seemed to properly align and many sincere Protestants embraced Miller’s message. Several influential pastors joined Miller and the Millerite movement formed. As Miller’s teachings grew in popularity, mainstream Protestant churches circled the wagons by expelling people from their churches for “denying the faith once delivered to the saints.”
When the spring of 1843 passed and Jesus did not appear, the Millerites poured over their calculations and found a simple mistake. They had overlooked one year. Because calendar years are not counted on a mathematical scale, the transition from B.C. dating to A.D. dating requires adding an extra year because there is no zero year. So, the 1843 date was corrected to 1844 and 1844 became the terminus of the 2,300 years of Daniel 8:14. The hopes of the Millerites were renewed and, more important, they had one more year to spread the doctrine of an imminent Second Coming. But the spring and fall of 1844 came and went without a Second Coming. Jesus did not appear and the Millerite movement imploded in bitter disappointment. The Millerite fiasco caused many Protestant churches, particularly Baptists, to disdain study and interpretation of prophecy.
Millerites Conclude Heavenly Cleansing of Sanctuary
After the Millerite movement collapsed, many Millerites renounced their faith in God or sheepishly returned to their churches, but a few Millerites did not give up. They returned to their Bibles to try and figure out what went wrong and soon, they discovered the problem. Miller had interpreted the cleansing of the sanctuary in Daniel 8:14 to mean the cleansing of Earth. Miller thought Earth would be purified of wicked people in 1844. After carefully comparing the books of Hebrews, Leviticus, and Daniel, these Millerites concluded that Miller’s view on the 2,300 years was correct, but the sanctuary to be cleansed was the true temple which is in Heaven. (Leviticus 16; Hebrews 8 and 9) In other words, they concluded that Jesus began cleansing Heaven’s temple in 1844.
Looking back, I conclude that Miller’s ministry and disappointment served two important purposes. First, Miller brought attention to Daniel 8:14 in a way that no one else had done. Second, the doctrine of parallel temples was discovered because of Miller’s disappointment. The Holy Spirit achieved an important victory through a bitter failure. After the Millerite movement imploded, there were people on Earth who understood that Jesus had begun to cleanse Heaven’s temple and remarkably, all of this information came out of the Bible.
Mainstream Protestants were pleased when the Millerite movement disappeared, but out of the ashes of Miller’s disappointment, a new church body formed that would become known as the Seventh-day Adventist Church. This church group organized about twenty years after the disappointment (1863); the same year that astronomer Hubert Newton figured out why the meteorite shower occurred in November 1833. Every thirty-three years, Earth passes through the same clump of space debris and this produces the shooting stars. Some years the number of shooting stars is few and other years the number is great.
Although William Miller died in 1849 without understanding why Jesus had not appeared and even though the Seventh-day Adventist church does not properly understand the books of Daniel and Revelation, their stories are germane to the breaking of the third seal. The Holy Spirit raised up a humble Baptist preacher to draw attention to 1844 and He used Seventh-day Adventists to draw attention to the judgment of the dead. (2 Corinthians 5:10; Daniel 8:14) This is not surprising. The Holy Spirit used a Catholic monk (Martin Luther) to draw attention to the essential doctrine of justification through faith alone. (Romans 1:17)
Consider the historical process: God broke the power of the Catholic Church in 1798. Just a few years previously, God had opened a new frontier in 1776 called the United States of America. Uniquely, this nation had a constitution providing separation between church and state. The doctrine of salvation through faith in Christ had blossomed. The Holy Spirit driven Bible translation and distribution was going strong. The Holy Spirit found a willing man in William Miller in 1816 and the Spirit empowered Miller for 15 years to proclaim a Bible truth whose time had come. Even though many of Miller’s conclusions were faulty, he correctly understood the 2,300 days in Daniel 8:14 ended in the spring of 1844 and my studies affirm the validity of his claim. I am also convinced the Holy Spirit raised the Seventh-day Adventist Church out of the ashes of Miller’s implosion. God wanted these people to bring together five essential Bible doctrines in a systematic way. Seventh-day Adventists compiled Luther’s discovery of salvation through faith in Jesus, the Congregationalist view of soul sleep, the Seventh Day Baptist view on the observance of God’s seventh day Sabbath, Miller’s views on the Second Coming, and they discovered the doctrine of parallel temples.
Adventists carefully merged these five doctrines into a harmonious system of understanding. As church bodies go, they have done well. The church claims to have nearly twenty million members today. But the Seventh-day Adventist church, like all Protestant churches, has stumbled because it has not been willing to follow the advancing light of truth. This is a true paradox. Even though Protestant churches will form around a truth whose time has come, they seem incapable of moving beyond their beginning when the Holy Spirit provides additional truth. In this sense, Seventh-day Adventists have followed in the footsteps of all Protestant churches. None of them have been able to move forward with advancing light. Of course they respond to this charge saying that they have “the light” or they are walking “in the light” and everyone else is in darkness, but the truth about their prophetic poverty will only be revealed when they admit their understanding of God’s Word is inadequate. This painful awakening is about to occur. The fourth seal will do the job!
Summary
Four key points need to be emphasized as we conclude this section on the breaking of the third seal. First, a person cannot reach the intended meaning of the third seal without some understanding of the inauguration of Jesus in 1798, the doctrine of soul sleep, and the operation of parallel temples.
Second, history reveals that the advancement of truth always comes with a high price and most people are unwilling to pay the price. It is much more comfortable to remain within the social and religious comforts of fellowship than to follow the Spirit into the desert of rejection where often, you are alone with God. The Bible represents people as sheep for good reason. They prefer to flock together. They also tend to follow their leaders (political and religious) without thinking or thoroughly studying matters out for themselves. Consider all the religious thought that Hindus, Moslems, Catholics, Jews, Protestants, atheists and pagans believe today. All of these different ideas about God came from spiritual leaders who are as blind as the people they guide. (Matthew 23:16)
Third, people are capable of believing anything. Man’s diversity proves that religious systems have nothing to do with eternal truth. Even though Catholics and Protestants insist their views come directly from Scripture, a cursory study of Scripture can demonstrate otherwise. Truth is not determined by a majority vote or acceptance. Thoughtfully consider these amazing words: “Truth is not what I believe. Truth is not even what I know. Truth is fact. I may not believe it. I may not know it. That does not change it. It is there nevertheless, waiting to be discovered and believed. Truth does not depend on the unsettled and changing opinions of men. It was truth before it was believed. It remains truth whether it is believed or not. Reason does not originate or create it. It merely discovers it. Consequently, reason is not a source. Truth goes back beyond reason. Others would have us believe that the church is the source of authority, particularly in matters of theology. They are wrong. The church is the product of truth. It does not originate it. It came into being by accepting divine revelation. It is not the source of that revelation. Truth goes beyond the church, it is antecedent to it.” (When a Man Dies, Carlyle B. Haynes (1882-1958); p.5)
Finally, Jesus broke the third seal in 1844. Because the Heaven Earth Linkage Law says there are corresponding events on Earth with events in Heaven, the unique ministry of William Miller and the subsequent discovery of the doctrine of parallel temples affirms that Jesus began cleansing Heaven’s temple that year.
One last thought: The first thing Jesus did after He began His public ministry on Earth was to cleanse the temple in Jerusalem. “To those who sold doves He said, Get these out of here! How dare you turn my Father’s house into a market!’ . . . Then the Jews demanded of him, ‘What miraculous sign can you show us to prove your authority to do all this?’ Jesus answered them, ‘Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days.’ The Jews replied, ‘It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and you are going to raise it in three days?’ ” (John 2:16-19) Jesus cleansed the Earthly temple after forty-six years of construction, and there is forty-six years between the time that Jesus received the Book of Life and began breaking the seals in 1798 to the time He began cleansing Heaven’s temple in 1844.
Do not forget. If you are interested in a comprehensive study on soul sleep and God’s use for parallel temples, please see Chapters 11 through 14 in my book, Jesus: The Alpha and The Omega. If you also wish to carefully examine the two apocalyptic prophecies that position the third seal in 1844, please see Chapters 4 and 6 in my book, Daniel: Unlocked for the Final Generation. PDF versions of both books can be freely downloaded here: https://www.wake-up.org/find-articles-by-topic/ )
