The Gentile Times Reconsidered Chronology Christ

The “Seven Times” of Daniel 257
C. THE SETTING UP OF CHRIST’S KINGDOM
As was pointed out in Chapter 1 of this work, Pastor Russell’s
predictions for 1914 were not fulfilled. When the First World War
ended, the Gentile nations still ruled the earth instead of Christ’s
Kingdom, and Jerusalem in Palestine was still occupied by a
Gentile nation. Evidently, the time for the events expected could
not be right. But to draw this simple conclusion was not an easy
thing. Additionally, something had happened: the World War. So it
was felt that the time was right after all. Russell’s followers,
therefore, concluded that they had been expecting the “wrong
thing at the right time.” 39
C-1: Failed expectations—wrong things at the right time?
Gradually a new apocalyptic pattern emerged. The World War with
the many crises following it came to be regarded merely as a
beginning of the overthrow of the Gentile nations. In 1922 J. F.
Rutherford, the new president of the Society, explained:
God granted to the Gentiles a lease of dominion for a term of
2520 years, which term or lease ended about August, 1914. Then
came forward the Landlord, the rightful Ruler (Ezekiel 21:27), and
began ouster proceedings. It is not to be expected that he would suddenly
wipe everything out of existence, for that is not the way the Lord does
things; but that he would overrule the contending elements,
causing these to destroy the present order; and that while this is
going on he would have his faithful followers give a tremendous
witness in the world. 40
This reminds us of later explanations of the 1934 failure by the
Pastoral Bible Institute editors discussed above. The setting up of
Christ’s kingdom had earlier been seen as a process which began in
1878 and which would culminate in 1914 with the destruction of
the Gentile nations. 41 But in 1922 the starting-point of this process
was moved forward to 1914 and the overthrow of the Gentile
nations was expected to take place in the near future. This new
view was presented by J. F. Rutherford at the Cedar Point
Convention of September 5–13, 1922 in his address, “The
Kingdom of Heaven is at Hand”.
39 A. H. Macmillan, Faith on the March (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, Inc.,
1957), pp. 48–49.
40 The Watch Tower, May 1, 1922, p. 139; also published in the booklet The Bible on
Our Lord’s Return (Brooklyn, N.Y.: International Bible Students Association, 1922),
pp. 93–94. Emphasis added.
41 See the article “The Setting Up of Christ’s Kingdom” in The Watch Tower of June 1,
1922, which still has the 1878 date.