Posted by Elana Janson on June 23, 2007 at 07:27:09:
Some thoughts on Sir Isaac Newton and his prediction of the time of the end
The renowned British scientist Sir Isaac Newton, the father of modern physics and astronomy, predicted the world would end in 2060 in a letter dated in 1704. The letter, currently on show at Jerusalem's Hebrew University is part of an exhibition entitled "Newton's Secrets". The letter is one of numerous documents of the British scientist bequeathed to the institution by a wealthy collector of scientific manuscripts.
Newton is regarded as one of the most original and influential theorist in the history of science. In addition to his invention of calculus and a new theory of light and colour, Newton transformed the structure of physical science with his three laws of motion and the law of universal gravitation. Newton's work combined the contributions of Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, Descartes, and others into a new and powerful synthesis and became perhaps the most renowned figure in the scientific revolution of the 17th century. Newton's late 17th century work at Cambridge University was the foundation stone of modern science until the discovery of relativity and quantum mechanics in the last century.
So well-known and so highly regarded as a scientist and physicist, there are some that would think that Newton must also have had some insight into time measures of the Bible.
I believe that I have been given much understanding of the prophecy of Revelation through the initial insight that was given me through the Divine intervention. I therefore believe that I am in a position to comment whether he had actually touched on some understanding of time measure in Scripture. I do not agree with his predicted time of 2060. I think that the Return is going to be much sooner for the signs of the end seem to be coming together at the present time. Planet earth is not going to be destroyed.
Newton and religion
Although the laws of motion and universal gravitation became Newton's best-known discoveries, he warned against using them to view the universe as a mere machine, as if akin to a great clock. He said, "Gravity explains the motions of the planets, but it cannot explain who set the planets in motion. God governs all things and knows all that is or can be done."
In this regard Newton was quite the prophet for at that early point in the discovery of the laws of motion he had the insight that men would become so intrigued by the forces in nature that they would ultimately believe that the earth and the universe actually sustain themselves by those the laws. This is exactly the thinking that I believe Revelation is revealing through the ‘gestalt’ of the ‘beast out of the earth’. Man would become so enthralled by discoveries in science that he would believe that science can explain and man can understand all things.
My analysis
Readers of my books and website will know that I analysed the “beast out of the earth” by linking the years of the period of “six hundred, threescore and six to the years” (Rev 13:18) to the words of Rev 13:11-18. In this way I believe I discovered the time measure of 1266 to 1932 that is one of the twelve time measures of Revelation. (Readers should refer back to the sections on the “beast out of the earth” on this Forum and website.)
Because people have not understood Revelation, the number ‘666’ has become synonymous with everything sinister, evil and Satanic. In the understanding of Revelation, I believe the number relates to discoveries of certain men in certain years. This does not make the discoverers evil; it simply reveals the expansion of knowledge and how the expansion of knowledge would influence religious thought and faith. As Newton himself predicted there was the possibility that the laws that govern the universe would so fascinate mankind that they would ultimate ponder the understanding of all things and think that there is no longer a God in control. History shows that as the nations became more inclined to move away from the control that the Christian Church had over the ruling of the nations, the more inclined they would be to think that the universe and the earth were controlled by the laws of science.
Revelation explains this in Rev 13:11: “And I beheld another beast coming out of the earth; and he had two horns like a lamb, and he spake like a dragon.”
The words “two horns like a lamb, and he spoke as a dragon” means that man’s endeavors to take minerals from the earth (out of the earth) and make discoveries were initially innocent, but after 1906 these endeavors, that would have such great value that they would cause Christian nations to make war against other Christian nations (“like a dragon” – the meaning of “dragon” in Revelation is basically the transgression of one Christian accusing another Christian, therefore also on a global scale in the twentieth century of one Christians nation accusing another to the point of conflict). As mentioned in the analysis of the “beast out of the earth” the word “speak” in Revelation, relates to the time 1906. In the analysis of the beast out of the earth the year 1906 is linked to the year of the development of the radiotelephone that was demonstrated in the United States. The triode “Audion” amplifying valve, that would largely improve telecommunication, was patented in New York that year (“that the image of the beast should both speak” – Rev 13:15) - in other words the year of greatly improved world–wide communication. This communication would spread the ideas, discoveries and ideologies of man that began innocently as the fascination of discovery, but would ultimately in the twentieth century be used by those who wished to destroy the hold of religion and the supernatural on the generations to come. In this way there would come about a greater rift between man and faith, the Christian Church and Christians and ultimately a falling away from faith.
1666
The year 1666 is part of the “six hundred” years (1266,1366, 1466,1566,1666,1766,1866) and the words that link that year to the time 1666 are the words “count the number” (Rev 13:18), revealing the invention of ‘calculus’, by Newton in that year.
His scientific fame notwithstanding, Newton's study of the Bible and of the early Church history was among his greatest passions. He devoted more time to the study of the Scriptures and the history, and said, "I have a fundamental belief in the Bible as the Word of God, written by those who were inspired. I study the Bible daily. It is said that to Newton, his scientific and religious experiments were one and the same, observing and understanding how the world functioned. He also attempted, unsuccessfully, to find hidden messages within the Bible
In his own lifetime, Newton wrote more on religion than he did on natural science. He believed in a rationally immanent world. Thus, the ordered and dynamically informed universe could be understood, and must be understood, be regular.
Taking all of this into account, one wonders if the number “666” in Revelation, and living in the year 1666, struck him as having any meaning into the “six hundred threescore and six years” in Revelation. I say this for the happenings of 1666 in Britain was historically a very difficult time. It was the time of the Great Plague. Soon after Newton had obtained his degree in 1665, Cambridge University closed down as a precaution against the Great Plague. For the next 18 months Newton worked at home on calculus, optics and the law of gravitation.
As he later recalled, 'All this was in the two plague years of 1665 and 1666, for in those days I was in my prime of age for invention, and minded mathematics and philosophy more than at any time since.' This is very interesting in the analysis of “the beast out of the earth” for not withstanding the difficult years of the Great Plague 1666 falls in the time of Newton’s greatest discoveries.
Letter of 1704
Newton’s letter written in 1704, in which Newton calculates that the world will end in 2060, states that this calculation is based on a phrase from Daniel 12:7 "for a time, times, and a half." Newton interpreted this phrase as meaning 1,260 years would pass from the establishment of the Holy Roman Empire by Charlemagne in 800, until the End of Days.
Time, times and a half
It is interesting that Newton interpreted the phrase “time, times and a half” as being the time of 1260 years. In Revelation the time “one thousand, two hundred and threescore days” (Rev 11:3) is given. The time “1260 years” does not appear in Daniel or in Revelation, and as far as I know in the Bible. It may be that Newton had the insight that the time measures of Daniel and Revelation were measures of time, but not necessarily times as we normally understand them to be. This is of course an understanding of the time measures of Revelation that I believe has been revealed to me. Readers can refer back to the post on this Forum, “The time measures relating to “hour”, “day”, “month” and “year” in Revelation”.
AD 800
In the light of my analysis of Revelation the information given in the letter of 1704 seems to show that Newton realized that the year AD 800 was of importance. In that year a very significant event took place: 800 was the year that there was the establishment of the unity of the Christian monarch and the Roman Catholic Church in Europe. He may have linked the symbolism of the rider on the white horse (Rev 6:2 and 19:11) to the year 800. The symbolism of the rider on the white horse is the “crown” (Rev 6:2) which is symbolic of the king or ruler and “his name is called the Word of God” (19:11), the word “Word” denotes Christ himself and therefore the Christian faith.
According to my understanding of Revelation, which I believe was Divinely inspired and is correct, the time of the very beginning of the idea of the unity of the Christian Church and State is the time 216, the time that the Christian faith was reaching prominent members in the Roman Empire – not the emperor as far as we know at that point in time.
The composition of light
In 1665-1666, Newton performed a number of experiments on the composition of light. Guided initially by the writings of Kepler and Descartes, Newton's main discovery was that visible (white) light is heterogeneous--that is, white light is composed of colors that can be considered primary. Through a brilliant series of experiments, Newton demonstrated that prisms separate rather than modify white light. Contrary to the theories of Aristotle and other ancients, Newton held that white light is secondary and heterogeneous, while the separate colors are primary and homogeneous.
The New Jerusalem
It is very interesting to note how the description of the New Jerusalem, as explained in Revelation, chapter 21, corresponds to our knowledge of light and that it is composed of colours.
In Rev 21:11 it is said about the New Jerusalem: “Having the glory of God; and her light was like unto a stone most precious, even like a jasper stone, clear as crystal”
These words that describe the New Jerusalem relate to the coming of the Christ in Scripture, but also in 2007 they reveal the understanding of Revelation.
The words “stone most precious” relates to Isaiah 28:16 and 1 Peter 2:6
Isaiah 28:16 “Thus saith the Lord God, Behold I lay in Zion for a foundation a stone, a tried stone, a precious corner stone - a sure foundation”. Also 1 Peter 2:6 “Wherefore it is also contained in the scripture: Behold I lay in Zion, a chief corner stone, elect, precious.” Therefore the words “Having the glory of God” and her light was like unto a stone” means that we can inherit everlasting life that is the New Jerusalem, because of the light of the coming of the Christ who died for our sins.
Revelation specifically combines “light”, “stone” and the colours of the gemstones in the description of the New Jerusalem. These words, together with the gemstones that form the foundations of the wall of the New Jerusalem (Rev 21:19 and 20), as well as the words “as it were transparent glass” (Rev 21:21) seem to reveal the knowledge that when light is passed through a glass prism it reveals a rainbow. The colours of the gemstones of the New Jerusalem also reveal the colours of light, that are the colours of the rainbow, red, orange, yellow, green, blue and violet.
The colours of the gemstones of wall of the New Jerusalem (Rev 21:19-20)
Jasper is opaque white; sapphire is blue; chalcedony, blue-white; emerald, green; sardonyx, red; carnelian, red; chrysolite, green-yellow; beryl, green-yellow; topaz, yellow; chrysoprase, yellow-green; jacinth, orange-red; and amethyst, indigo.
In my analysis of Revelation it was this knowledge that the colours of the gemstones of the New Jerusalem are actually the colours of refracted light that revealed that “colour” reveals time on earth. In this way symbolism connected to the colours of the rainbow mentioned in verses in Revelation could be linked to time on earth to reveal meaning. This was shown on the charts of measures of the “three days and a half “in the second millennium and the colours placed on the time of the twelve periods of twelve years in the time 1860 to 2004.
It is a wonderful symbol that combines the power of God over that which took place on earth in the past two thousand years. For God in heaven in the New Jerusalem is the “light”, in the course of the past two thousand years his influence (the white light refracted into colour) reached the earth. The spectrum of the twelve colours of the gemstones that are also the foundations of the wall of the New Jerusalem, reveal knowledge of the times on which the colours fall in twelve time measures in history on earth.
As mentioned, the first real understanding of colour came from an experiment carried out by Sir Isaac Newton in 1666. Newton passed a beam of light through a prism and found that it was split up into a series of colours, the spectrum of the colours of the rainbow. 1666 is one of the numbers of the time “six hundred threescore and six” (Rev 13:18).
Knowledge will increase
It seems that Revelation once again reveals how knowledge would increase. Revelation seems to reveal that the discoveries of man would mislead the nations and some would fall away from the faith, but that the discoveries were to give great insight into the God’s Creation and to the benefit of mankind.