The Gentile Times Reconsidered Chronology Christ

274 THE GENTILE TIMES RECONSIDERED
As was shown above, the failed prediction that the trampling down
of Jerusalem would end in 1914 necessitated a reinterpretation of
this idea. When the year 1914 had passed and the city of Jerusalem
continued to be controlled by Gentile nations, the Watch Tower
Society finally changed the location to heavenly Jerusalem, arguing
that the trampling down ended by the setting up of Christ’s
kingdom in heaven in 1914.
This idea, however, was shown to be contradicted by several
texts in the Bible, which unequivocally establish that Christ’s
universal kingdom was set up at his resurrection and exaltation,
when he also began to rule “in the midst of his enemies.”
Finally, the claim that Satan was hurled down from heaven in
1914 was examined and found to be biblically untenable. The Bible
brings it out clearly that the “fall of Satan” was occasioned by
Christ’s death and resurrection.
Thus, a number of events that the Watch Tower Society claims
to have taken place in 1914 are actually shown by the Bible to have
occurred at Christ’s death, resurrection, and exaltation.
What, then, about 1914? Does this year have any prophetic
meaning at all?
D. 1914 IN PERSPECTIVE
As discussed in Chapter 1, the upheavals in Europe and other
parts of the world brought about by the French Revolution and the
Napoleonic Wars impelled many to believe that the “time of the
end” had begun in 1798 or thereabouts, and that Christ would
return before the end of that generation. Numerous schedules for
the end-time events were worked out, which later on either had to
be scrapped or revised.
When, finally, the nineteenth century was gone and the chaotic
events that inaugurated that century became increasingly remote,
the prophetic significance attached to the period faded away and
was soon forgotten by most people.
The chaotic events of 1914–18, too, now belong to the early
part of a past century. Is it possible that the interpretations
attached to the 1914 date will also fade away and finally be
abandoned and forgottten? There are reasons to believe that this
date will not so easily be done away with.
It is not just a question of an erroneous chronology that has to
be corrected. The unique claims of the Watch Tower movement
are closely connected with the year 1914.