" 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 decree 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 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 Corinthians 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 . One of 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 , " the first fruits of them that slept ," a sample of all the resurrected just , whose " vile body " shall be changed , and " fashioned like unto His glorious body ." Verse 20 ; Philippians 3:21 .
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