creation, and forfeited by him( Genesis 1:26; 3:17), shall be given to Jesus. He shall be king over all the earth. The groanings and lamentations of the creation shall cease, but songs of praises and thanksgivings shall be heard.... When Jesus comes in the glory of His Father, with the holy angels,... the dead believers shall rise first. 1 Thessalonians 4:16; 1 Corinthians 15:32. This is what we Christians call the first resurrection. Then the animal kingdom shall change its nature( Isaiah 11:6-9), and be subdued unto Jesus. Psalm 8. Universal peace shall prevail."-- Journal of the Rev. Joseph Wolff, pages 378, 379. " The Lord again shall look down upon the earth, and say, ' Behold, it is very good.'"-- Ibid., page 294.
Wolff believed the coming of the Lord to be at hand, his interpretation of the prophetic periods placing the great consummation within a very few years of the time pointed out by Miller. To those who urged from the scripture, " Of that day and hour knoweth no man," that men are to know nothing concerning the nearness of the advent, Wolff replied: " Did our Lord say that that day and hour should never be known? Did He not give us signs of the times, in order that we may know at least the approach of His coming, as one knows the approach of the summer by the fig tree putting forth its leaves? Matthew 24:32. Are we never to know that period, whilst He Himself exhorteth us not only to read Daniel the prophet, but to understand it? and in that very Daniel, where it is said that the words were shut up to the time of the end( which was the case in his time), and that ' many shall run to and fro '( a Hebrew expression for observing and thinking upon the time), ' and knowledge '( regarding that time) ' shall be increased.' Daniel 12:4. Besides this, our Lord does not intend to say by this, that the approach of the time shall not be known, but that the exact ' day and hour knoweth no man.' Enough, He does say, shall be known by the signs of the times, to induce us to prepare for His coming, as Noah prepared the ark."--Wolff, Researches and Missionary Labors, pages 404, 405.
Concerning the popular system of interpreting, or misinterpreting, the Scriptures, Wolff wrote: " The greater part of the Christian church have swerved from the plain sense of Scripture, and have turned to the phantomizing system of the Buddhists, who believe that the future happiness of mankind will consist in moving about in the air, and suppose that when they are reading Jews they must understand Gentiles; and when they read Jerusalem, they must understand the church; and if it is said earth, it means sky; and for coming of the Lord they must understand the progress of the missionary societies; and going up to the mountain of the Lord ' s house, signifies a grand class meeting of Methodists."--Journal of the Rev. Joseph Wolff, page 96.
During the twenty-four years from 1821 to 1845, Wolff traveled extensively: in Africa, visiting Egypt and Abyssinia; in Asia, traversing Palestine, Syria, Persia, Bokhara, and India.
246