Revelation's Seven Trumpets Reconsidered

“As I taught the book of Revelation [at Pacific Union College in the 1970’s] – I had not taught it before I came here – it occurred to me that there were many different views on the Trumpets – and the seals, too, for that matter. So I spent months and months studying the seals and the trumpets.  As a result of the study of the seals, I wrote the little book, Heaven’s Open Door, which a gentleman at Sonoma Church, is also putting on the internet. I have a slightly different view of the seals, although it doesn’t contradict the historical approach.  And then I studied the trumpets, and my view was that you had to take every symbol, and you had to trace every symbol through the scriptures, and then draw your conclusions to what was intended.

“The Book of Revelation was a very arduous process, and I came up with about 150 pages of notes. I used it in my teaching, but I never did write it up.  I thought, when I retired, that I’d better get to work and do this.  So I wrote it up into a book of 270 pages and that was based on the notes that I had prepared when I was teaching.  That’s what the [Trumpets] book is all about.

“The thesis of my book is that the Trumpets have a duel application.  I believe that Revelation 8:5 is the close of probation.   In Revelation 8:2-5, Christ is the High Priest.  He’s standing at the altar of incense, offering incense, the prayers of His people. The merits of His intercession mingle with our prayers.  In verse 5 He takes the censor and He casts it into the earth.  I believe that that’s the end of intercession, I believe that that’s the close of probation.  There were two closes of probation. There was a close of probation for the Jews at the end of the 70 weeks prophecy in 34 AD, so there are historical trumpets, after that close of probation.  There’s an end-time close of probation. After that end time close of probation, there are eschatological trumpets – end time trumpets. 

“So I believe history repeats Itself. I believe Kenneth Strand had a wonderful idea when he talked about history as cyclical, so he came up with the philosophy of history approach.  I believe that the historical trumpets are types of events that will occur after the end-time close of probation. So when we study those historical trumpets, we can know the kind of event that will occur after the close of probation.  If you put that with Ellen White’s Great Controversy, especially the final chapters, she spells out what happens after the close of probation and it’s dramatic how that fits in with the further prophecy of the trumpets.  I think that what she wrote was intended to be an interpretation of the prophecy of the trumpets even though she didn’t state that. 

“My view of the historical trumpets is substantially the orthodox Adventist view. A little different than Uriah Smith, but so is the view that is spelled out by  Dr. Jon Paulien, and the views spelled out by Ranko Stefanovich, who teaches at Andrews and wrote a commentary on Revelation.   His view of the historical trumpets is substantially the same as Jon Paulien’s.  I have believed that they’ve got it pretty straight historically, but they don’t spell out Revelation 8:5 as the close of probation, nor does Mervyn Maxwell in his book, God Cares, volume 2.  I think that that verse is absolutely crucial, and Ellen White identifies that as the  close of probation. She talks about the censor being cast.  I’ve quoted her.

“What I do is to present the historical trumpets, which is standard Adventism, and then I say that this is a type of what is going to happen at the end of time, after the end time close of probation, and these are the events that will occur, and I’ve spelled it out in detail with some nice charts and all the rest of it.

“As I studied it and read it, I thought, this is scary stuff. Many may read it and be frightened to death by it. But what do you have when you read the final chapters of Great Controversy? That’s scary stuff, too.  We need to know what’s going to happen.  And this prophecy in Ellen White’s material spells out what’s going to happen.  Through this whole experience, God is with us."

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The Arian or Anti-Trinitarian Views Presented in Seventh-day Adventist Literature 
and the Ellen G. White Answer

Books by Dr. Gane include: