One of the reasons for the importance of the sanctuary doctrine is that it anchors the historical basis for the message and mission of the Seventh-day Adventist Church: "The subject of the sanctuary was the key which unlocked the mystery of the disappointment of 1844."--The Great Controversy, p. 423. In fact, Ellen White further declared, "The scripture which above all others had been both the foundation and the central pillar of the advent faith was the declaration: 'Unto two thousand and three hundred days; then shall the sanctuary be cleansed.' Daniel 8:14."--Ibid., p. 409.
If the sanctuary doctrine is "the very message that has made us a separate people, and has given character and power to our work" (Evangelism, p. 225), then we must know the reasons for this. Or else we will drift into that dreamy sea where we sense no specific urgency or distinctiveness as a people. Our reason for existence as a church would be blurred indeed if we should forget the unique implications of the sanctuary doctrine.
As early as 1851 Ellen White and others saw clearly that "such subjects as the sanctuary, in connection with the 2300 days, the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus, are perfectly calculated to explain the past Advent movement and show what our present position is, establish the faith of the doubting, and give certainty to the glorious future. These, I have frequently seen, were the principal subjects on which the messengers should dwell."--Early Writings, p. 63.
The sanctuary doctrine anchored the Seventh-day Adventist Church in history and gave it purpose in existence, became it explained the significance of October 22, 1844. Although many thousands of Millerite Adventists turned away from the rich experience that bound them to one mother and to their Lord after the day of great Disappointment, others did not repudiate the validity of their experience, and these continued to study the Bible, endeavoring to understand more clearly the meaning of Daniel 8:14.
William Miller had based his electrifying message that Jesus would return to this earth about 1843/1844 primarily on Daniel 8:14.[1] He first declared the church to be the sanctuary that was to be cleansed. Later he stated it to be the church and the earth, both of which would be cleansed by the fires of the last day at the close of the 2300-year prophecy.
After an adjustment was made in Miller's chronology, to better conform to the Karaite reckoning of the Israelite calendar, the Millerites changed the expectation of the Second Advent from the spring of 1844 to the fall, on October 22.
During the spring and summer of 1844 closer study was given to the sanctuary doctrine and its application to the Christian gospel. That Christ was to come out of the Most Holy Place on the antitypical Day of Atonement at the time of His second advent became clearer. But it was not seen that the concept that Jesus would leave the Most Holy Place--a part of the heavenly sanctuary--to "cleanse" by fire the so-called sanctuary on earth at His second advent in 1844, was in error.
Steps toward resolving the confusion that called both the earth and heaven the sanctuary referred to in Daniel 8:14 were taken the day after the great Disappointment. Two Millerites, Hiram Edson and a friend, were deep in contemplation while crossing a cornfield near Port Gibson, New York, to visit a group of disheartened Millerite Adventists. Edson suddenly saw the paradox and perceived that "instead of am 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 before coming to this earth.[2]
For several months Hiram Edson, Owen R. L. Crosier, and Franklin B. Hahn studied mew the sanctuary doctrine. Crosier published preliminary results of these studies in 1845 and more expanded discourses in 1846-1847. In these articles and letters it was forcefully stated that the heavenly sanctuary was the only sanctuary existing when the 2300 year prophecy ended in 1844; thus, it was the only sanctuary to be cleansed at that time.
Crosier's view, which also represented those of Hahn and Edson, was quickly accepted by James White and Joseph Bates. It was endorsed by Ellen White as "the true light, on the cleansing of the Sanctuary, &c." (SDA Encyclopedia, revised edition (1976), p. 1281).
Crosier's position provided a base for those Adventists who would not reject their "experience" of the 1844 disappointment by blindly declaring that the 1844 computation was in error, or accept the explanation of the "spiritualizers" who held to the prophetical correctness of 1844 but reinterpreted the event as the "coming of Jesus" into the lives of faithful Christians. For those who stood with Crosier, the heavenly sanctuary was as literal as was the New Jerusalem. For them the event marked by the end of the 2300 years of Daniel 8:14 was the transition in Christ's high-priestly ministry from the holy place in the heavenly sanctuary to the Most Holy, signifying a new and final work on behalf of His people.
In addition, Crosier declared that "there is a literal and a spiritual temple--the literal being the Sanctuary in New Jerusalem (literal city), and the spiritual the church--the literal occupied by Jesus Christ, our King and Priest...; the spiritual by the Holy Ghost.... Between these two there is a perfect concert of action, as Christ 'prepares the place' the Spirit does the people. When He came to His temple, the sanctuary, to cleanse it; the Spirit commenced the special cleansing of the people. Mal. 3: 1-3."--Letter (March 31, 1846), printed in The Day-Star, April 18, 1846, p. 31.
Crosier's presentation became the nucleus for the standard position taken by Seventh-day Adventists. But there was much yet to follow as the sanctuary doctrine was more fully studied. The concept of the judgment, especially the investigative, or pre-Advent[3], phase, was not yet linked with Crosier's clarification regarding the cleansing of the heavenly sanctuary and the judgment-hour message of Revelation 14.
During this period, after Crosier's study settled the location of the sanctuary referred to in Daniel 8:14, other Bible references to the heavenly sanctuary became clearer. The revelator's depiction (Revelation 11:19) of events during the seventh trumpet became very relevant, especially the reference to the heavenly sanctuary: "The temple of God was opened in heaven, and there was seen in his temple the ark of his testament" (K.J.V.). It is the truth contained in these words, developed by other portions of Scripture, that formed the historical and theological uniqueness of the Seventh-day Adventist Church.[4]
Understanding the sanctuary doctrine led Adventists to see the importance of the Biblical Sabbath, the seventh day of the week. Accepting the truth of the heavenly sanctuary as anchored in the 1844 experience "involved an acknowledgement of the claims of God's law and the obligation of the Sabbath of the fourth commandment" (The Great Controversy, p. 435).
Not before J.N. Loughborough's article in 1854[5] was the cleansing of the sanctuary linked with the judgment-hour message as set forth in the first angel's message of Revelation 14. Not until James White's Review article in 1857[6] were the concepts of the investigative judgment, the cleansing of the sanctuary, and the judgment-hour message joined and settled permanently in Seventh-day Adventist thought.
Thus, a group of post-1844 Adventists moved from one Biblical link to the next: from determining the heavenly sanctuary as that referred to in Daniel 8:14, to understanding the Most Holy Place of that sanctuary to be the place of Christ's new role as high priest since 1844, to the acknowledgment that obeying God's law in its fullness was inextricably connected with the new light on the sanctuary doctrine, to the awareness that the distinctive truths enunciated in the messages of the three angels of Revelation 14 coincided with their enlarging cluster of sanctuary truths. The 1844 date historically anchored the doctrine of the investigative, or pre-Advent, judgment and the beginning of the judgment hour announced by the first angel in Revelation 14.
The link between the maturing doctrine of the sanctuary and the messages of the three angels of Revelation 14 gave new impetus to the young band of Adventists who were now Sabbath-keepers,[7]
The members of the growing Adventist movement sensed the urgency implicit in living in the judgment hour, when the life records of all the righteous of this earth, the dead and then the living, would be judged in the heavenly tribunal. They had experienced the excitement of preaching the message of the first angel prior to 1844; some believed, further, that they were sounding the call of the second angel during the summer of 1844, "Babylon is fallen," when many of them were expelled from their own churches. And now, with their new insight into the coordinated sequence of the three messages, plus their awareness of the third angel's emphatic warning against worshiping "the beast and its image" and the commendation for those who "keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus"--the basic platform for the emerging church was formed.
Seventh-day Adventists saw in the sanctuary doctrine "a complete system of truth, connected and harmonious, showing that God's hand had directed the great advent movement and revealing present duty as it brought to light the position and work of His people."--The Great Controversy, p. 423. They saw clearly the validity of the 1844 experience, crushing as it was before its meaning became clear. They saw their present duty as spokesmen for God in sounding the dire warnings and divine invitation of the third angel of Revelation 14 to all who would listen. They saw the future in the light of God's judgment on this earth, life for the righteous and destruction for the wicked.
Past, present, future--all became clearer because of the sanctuary doctrine. What this expanding understanding of the sanctuary doctrine meant experientially to Adventists in the mid-nineteenth century and what it should mean to us today will now be studied.[8]
Notes: