Hiram Edson - The Great Disappointment

The Great Disappointment

Edson spent October 22, 1844 with friends waiting for the event, and was heart-broken when Jesus did not return as expected. He later wrote,

"Our fondest hopes and expectations were blasted, and such a spirit of weeping came over us as I never experienced before. It seemed that the loss of all earthly friends could have been no comparison. We wept, and wept, till the day dawn."

As the hours passed, Edson reflected on the events of the previous year. He believed he had been given the power to heal the sick, and he had seen many hundreds of friends turn to Jesus as a result of his preaching. His confidence soon returned, and he suggested that he and some friends visit some nearby Adventists (or Millerites) to encourage them. On the morning of October 23, 1844 they walked through Edson's cornfield to avoid the mocking jeers of the neighbors who had refused to believe the Advent message. (8) It was in this cornfield that Edson claimed to have seen a vision. In this vision, Edson came to understand that "the cleansing of the sanctuary" meant that Jesus was moving from the Holy Place to the Most Holy Place in the heavenly sanctuary, and not to the Second Coming of Jesus to earth:

"We started, and while passing through a large field I was stopped about midway of the field. Heaven seemed opened to my view, and I saw distinctly and clearly that instead of our High Priest coming out of the Most Holy of the heavenly sanctuary to come to this earth on the tenth day of the seventh month, at the end of the 2300 days, He for the first time entered on that day the second apartment of that sanctuary; and that He had a work to perform in the Most Holy Place before coming to the earth."

Edson shared what he believed he saw with many of the local Adventists who were greatly encouraged by his account. As a result Edson began studying the Bible with two of the other believers in the area, O. R. L. Crosier and Franklin B. Hahn, who published their findings in a paper called the Day-Dawn. This paper explored the biblical parable of the Ten Virgins, which describes a group of women waiting at a wedding for the bridegroom to arrive. The bridegroom, who was thought to symbolise Christ, was delayed, of which the men saw a parallel in their own situation. They attempted to explain why the "bridegroom" had tarried. The article also explored the concept of the day of atonement and what the authors called "our chronology of events".

The findings published by Crosier, Hahn and Edson led to a new understanding about the sanctuary in heaven. Their paper explained how there was a sanctuary in heaven, that Christ, the heavenly High Priest, was to cleanse. The believers understood this cleansing to be what the 2300 days in Daniel was referring to. This belief is known as the investigative judgment. Crosier's published account of Edson's vision came into the possession of James White (husband of Ellen G. White) and Joseph Bates, the latter of whom visited Edson in New York and converted him to the seventh-day Sabbath.