"So we know where Jesus is now; He's in the most holy place of the heavenly sanctuary. And we know what He's doing there; He's attending a 'wedding' and participating in the preadvent 'judgment.' But what, in simple language, does all this mean? What is Jesus doing now?"
Edson and Crosier were seated at a table in Edson's Port Gibson farmhouse, where Crosier made his home part of the time. A third friend had joined them, Dr. F. B. Hahn of Canandaigua, the secretary of his county medical society. Bibles, a copy or two of Cruden's Concordance, and probably some Millerite publications lay before them.
Joseph Turner's article in the Advent Mirror was still some weeks in the future, and Ellen's visions would remain unknown to them for over a year; thus our Port Gibson three sought their answer in the best of all places, in their Bibles.
As the three of them met time after time to study and pray for new light, their understanding of the heavenly sanctuary deepened. They became convinced, for example, that it was a real place, as real as the "city which hath foundations" (Hebrews 11:10) in which it is located, and as real as the "many mansions" that Christ has gone to prepare in His Father's house. John 14:1-3. [1]
But their study was guided principally by key sentences in Hebrews 8 and 9: "We have such an high priest, who is set on the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens; a minister of the sanctuary, and of the true tabernacle." "There are priests ... who serve unto the example and shadow of heavenly things." "The first tabernacle was a figure." "It was therefore necessary that the patterns of things in the heavens should be purified by these [the sacrifices of animals]; but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these."
From passages such as these they came to realize that Christ's sacrifice on the cross and His priesthood in heaven were symbolically prefigured in the ceremonial rituals of the Old Testament. They learned that God directed Moses to set up the tabernacle and its services as an object lesson to teach great truths about Jesus Christ. And they saw that if we want to know what Jesus our High Priest is doing in the heavenly sanctuary today, it is vital to discover what the priests did in the Old Testament sanctuary long ago. Here was a key to immense treasure!
Reading in Exodus and Leviticus, it can scarcely have taken them long to learn that the earthly sanctuary (or "tabernacle" as it was often called) was a portable two-room tent used by the Israelites during their long journey through the wilderness from Egypt to the Promised Land. Every day, as people came to confess their sins they offered an animal sacrifice and were forgiven. Then the priest, either directly or indirectly, [2] conveyed a small quantity of the animal's blood into the first room (the "holy place"), depositing it on the beautiful little golden altar located there. By doing this he carried into the sanctuary a record of confessed sin; and because sin is terribly unclean, even this record of confessed sin polluted or "defiled" the sanctuary.
Once a year, on the Day of Atonement, the high priest carried sacrificial blood right on into the second room (the "most holy place"), and sprinkled some of it on the sacred, gold-plated chest (the "ark") that contained the Ten Commandments which, by sinning, the people had broken.
To Edson, Crosier, and Hahn, the Day of Atonement seemed the most significant event of all. It was the Day of Atonement that had provided Samuel Snow with his proof at the Exeter, New Hampshire, camp meeting that the 2300 days ended on October 22, 1844; and quite evidently it was the most solemn and salient occasion of the ancient ceremonial calendar.
But before we find out what they learned about the Day of Atonement, let us look for a moment at the word "atonement" itself. This interesting word is based on the idiom "to be at one." William Tyndale, who translated the Bible into English at the cost of his life in the early 1500s, used "atonement" for the restoration of friendly relations (at-one-ment) between God and sinners, and also for the means by which this good relationship is achieved. From Tyndale's Bible it was transferred about a century later into the King James Version, and from there it entered the vocabulary of every English-speaking student of the Word.
Sinners are "at odds" with God, separated from Him by their sins. (Isaiah 59:2) Because they cannot restore themselves, someone else must provide at-one-ment. To fill the need, Jesus laid down His life; and this is the reason that most Protestant theologians speak of Christ's death as "the" atonement. Adventists however, in their eagerness to learn all they can about Jesus, have come to understand atonement in a significantly broader sense. [3]
Hiram Edson and his friends, for example, noticed that in the earthly sanctuary services, as the people offered their sacrifices and confessed their sins day by day, they were forgiven and an atonement was made for them. See Leviticus 4:26, 31, 35. Notwithstanding this, every year their forgiven sins were reviewed and cleansed away on the Day of Atonement.
On this solemn Day of Atonement (Leviticus 16), God required the high priest himself to perform the rites. No ordinary priest would do. On this one day in all the year the high priest entered the most holy place, where the presence of God was symbolized by a brilliant, supernatural light above the ark. And the high priest's purpose on this special day in this special place was emphatically stated in the Scriptures: to "make an atonement for the holy sanctuary," and to "make an atonement for you [God's people], to cleanse you, that ye may be clean from all your sins before the Lord." (Leviticus 16:33,30)
Cleansing of the sanctuary and ultimate cleansing of forgiven people went hand in hand in Old Testament times. Thus, Edson and his friends reasoned, cleansing of the heavenly sanctuary and the ultimate cleansing of God's forgiven saints must be the meaning of Christ's special ministry in heaven's most holy place since October 22, 1844.
With the help of their concordances, Edson, Crosier, and Hahn looked up the words "atone" and "atonement" every time they occur in the (KJV) Bible, and they found that they are associated with such words as "cleanse, reconcile, purify, purge, pardon, sanctify, hallow, forgive, justify, redeem [and] blot out." [4] They paid particular attention to the promise in Acts 3:19-21 that in an ultimate sense sins will be "blotted out" just before God sends Jesus back to earth at the end of the world.
They reasoned that the daily atonement was a type of Christ's gracious death on the cross and of His ministry in the heavenly holy place, making forgiveness of sin available to every sinner; and that the annual Day of Atonement was a symbol of Christ's ministry in the heavenly most holy place, blotting out the sins of every believer who has remained sincere since his confession. Thus they developed the triumphant conclusion: As sinners have sought forgiveness through the ages, Jesus has carried the record of their confessed sins into the holy place, where it has defiled the heavenly sanctuary. And just as it was necessary that the "patterns of things in the heavens should be purified" by animal sacrifices, so it became necessary in time that "the heavenly things themselves" needed to be cleansed. (Hebrews 9:23) The cleansing of the sanctuary now in progress is a truly great work of at-one-ment; it is nothing less than the final removal and blotting out of every sin that separates God's people from Himself.
Crosier, the best author in the group, was commissioned by the others to write up the results of their research. Enoch Jacobs, a friendly Adventist editor in Cincinnati, agreed to publish his article at their expense in a special number (or "extra") of his journal; the Day-Star. The cost was about $30.00, and so tight were their circumstances that Edson and Hahn, who agreed to underwrite the expense if Crosier undertook the writing, were hard put to it to come up with even half of it. Mrs. Edson sold some of her silverware to help out. They hoped the balance would be contributed by grateful readers.
Some of the Adventists among whom Ellen Harmon was traveling at the time in Massachusetts and other parts of New England were evidently on the mailing list; and when the Day-Star Extra of February 7, 1846, arrived, she was delighted. It harmonized strikingly with the visions she had received.
Her enthusiasm was quickly endorsed. In another vision soon after, the Lord showed her that "Brother Crosier had the true light, on the cleansing of the Sanctuary, &C., and that it was His will that Brother Crosier should write out the view which he gave us in the Day-Star Extra, February 7, 1846." She commented, "I feel fully authorized by the Lord to recommend that Extra to every saint." [5]
Many years later, after receiving much further light on the subject, she still spoke as they had done of "this great work of atonement," the "blotting out of sins." [6] She also called their new concept one of the "landmarks" of the Seventh-day Adventist message. [7] Unless we understand it, she said, "it will be impossible" for us "to exercise the faith essential at this time." [8] Near the end of her life she reiterated her emphasis: "The sanctuary is the foundation of our faith." [9]
The sanctuary is the foundation of our faith!
Seventh-day Adventists exist to bear to the world a message about what Jesus is doing now for those who put their trust in Him.
For those who put their trust in Him. Even in Old Testament times, when the high priest cleansed the sanctuary, he cleansed the people too, as the Lord through Moses told the people, "that ye may be clean from all your sins before the Lord." "The passing of the time in 1844," Ellen White wrote in 1889, "was a period of great events, opening to our astonished eyes the cleansing of the sanctuary transpiring in heaven, and having decided relation to God's people upon the earth." [10]
How very glorious and how very personal that relationship is to God's people on earth she hinted at in The Great Controversy, page 485: "Thus will be realized the complete fulfillment of the new-covenant promise, 'I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.' 'In those days, and in that time, saith the Lord, the iniquity of Israel shall be sought for, and there shall be none; and the sins of Judah, and they shall not be found.' (Jeremiah 31:34; 50:20."
Edson and his friends learned a good deal about Jesus; but we still have to wait till later chapters for an explanation of the vital ways in which Christ's high-priestly ministry is related to the wedding and the judgment, as also to the third angel's message, the seal of God, the spirit of prophecy, and, in particular, to the seventh-day Sabbath.
Notes: