The Seventh-day Adventists – The Second Coming and the Scapegoat Azazel

In this lecture His Holiness Pope Shenouda III explains his critique of the beliefs of the Adventist group (the Sabbatarians) regarding the timing of the Second Coming and the meaning of the scapegoat Azazel ritual in Leviticus. He affirms that attempts to set the date of the Coming and prophetic warnings (such as the visions of Mrs. Ellen White) failed and that relying on them as doctrinal sources is wrong.

Main reply points

• He warns against interpreting the Revelation passages and the prophecies of Daniel and Ezekiel according to personal whims to set a date for the Coming, and cites failed examples such as the years 1844 and 1914.

• He explains the meaning of the “scapegoat Azazel” ritual in Leviticus (the Day of Atonement): it is a symbol of removing sins and sending them away into the wilderness, not that Satan bears sins or that the atonement was completed after 1844.

• He establishes that Christ bore our sins and completed the atonement on the cross, and that Christ’s entrance into the heavenly kingdom and His sitting at the right hand of God occurred immediately after the Ascension and not in a later dated year.

• He cites verses from Isaiah, Jeremiah, Romans, Corinthians and Hebrews to support that God forgives and forgets sin and that redemption occurred on the cross.

Spiritual and educational dimension from a Coptic Orthodox perspective

The lecture calls for steadfastness on the Holy Bible and the Fathers’ traditional interpretation, and warns against prophetic enthusiasms and setting dates for God’s work. The aim is educational and spiritual: to preserve a correct understanding of the atonement, and to reassure believers that God has ceased accounting the sins of believers by Christ’s death and resurrection.

Brief conclusion

His Holiness emphasizes the necessity of returning to the Holy Bible and the Fathers’ exegesis and not being led by interpretations outside the universal Christian faith, and calls for discernment and calm in the face of interpretations that claim dates and temporalizations for divine events.

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