Church of God (Restoration) - Eschatology

Eschatology

Daniel Sidney Warner and the earlier ministers of the Church of God (Anderson) taught that the restoration of the church was prophesied by the Old Testament Prophets, in the New Testament, and in the book of Revelation. They taught that 270 to 1530 was the Papal age and 1530 to 1880 was the Protestant age with 1880 being the year the church of God was restored with the full message of salvation, sanctification, and unity of Gods people. Warner describes how he came up with these dates in Birth of a Reformation. From a number of scriptures in Daniel and Revelation he took "time, times, and half a time", "42 months" or "1260 days" (Dan 7:25; 12:7, Rev 11:3; 12:6; 12:14; 13:5;) to mean 1260 years of the Papal age holding that in symbolic language one day is one year. The 1260 years of the Papal age is added to the time that the church lost its unity and purity which gives the end of the Papal age as 1530 AD. Then using the symbol from Revelation of "three days and a half" (Rev 11:11) with each day equaling a century they held that the duration of the Protestant age was 350 years which brings them to 1880. This date was the beginning of the full restoration of the church of God and called the Evening Light age.

The Church of God (Restoration) builds their movement dating on the same dates the Church of God (Anderson) earlier ministers did. They also hold that in about 1930 the Church of God (Anderson) Movement as a whole became apostate and there was silence in the spiritual heavens for "the space of half an hour" (Rev 8:1). This one half hour taken to mean 50 years using one hour in symbolic language as one century. The time of the silence period ended in 1980, which was about the time of the beginning of Daniel Layne’s ministry.

Some reject the date of 1880 and claim the dates 270 and 1530 hold no historical significance and were only obtained by back dating from 1880. They also point out that while there is Biblical authority to use the symbol of one day for a year (Num 14:34; Eze 4:6) there is no Biblical authority to use one day as a century or one hour as a century which the Church of God (Restoration) uses to get the 350 years of the Protestant age and the 50 years of the silent time.