The cleansing of the sanctuary in relation to justification by faith can hardly be over-emphasized. We must have a clear understanding of this truth in order to endure unto the end:
"The subject of the sanctuary and investigative judgment should be clearly understood by the people of God. All need a knowledge for themselves of the position and work of their great High Priest. Otherwise it will be impossible for them to exercise the faith which is essential at this time or to occupy the position which God designs them to fill. …
"The sanctuary in heaven is the very center of Christ's work in behalf of men [justification by faith]. … It opens to view the plan of redemption, bringing us down to the very close of time and revealing the triumphant issue of the contest between righteousness and sin." The Great Controversy, p. 488.
Further, this great sanctuary truth in relation to justification by faith is the foundation of the Seventh-day Adventist message:
"The correct understanding of the ministration in the heavenly sanctuary is the foundation of our faith." Evangelism, p. 221.
"God's people are now to have their eyes fixed on the heavenly sanctuary, where the final ministration of our great High Priest in the work of the judgment is going forward,-where He is interceding for His people." Ibid., p. 223.
"In the future, deception of every kind is to arise, and we want solid ground for our feet. … The enemy will bring in false theories, such as the doctrine that there is no sanctuary. This is one of the points on which there will be a departing from the faith. …
"Satan is striving continually to bring in fanciful suppositions in regard to the sanctuary, degrading the wonderful representations of God and the ministry of Christ for our salvation into something that suits the carnal mind. He removes its presiding power from the hearts of believers, and supplies its place with fantastic theories invented to make void the truths of the atonement, and destroy our confidence in the doctrines which we have held sacred since the third angel's message was first given. Thus he would rob us of our faith in the very message that has made us a separate people, and has given character and power to our work." Ibid., pp. 224, 225, emphasis added.
Ellen White recognized that the 1888 message of Christ's righteousness restored the "presiding power" of the sanctuary message to the "hearts of the believers." She saw that the joining of the Adventist truth of the cleansing of the sanctuary with a more complete view of justification by faith was like the confluence of two rivers that had flowed separately but now joined to produce a tide that could bear the ship safely to port. She saw in the 1888 message the glorious means of divine grace provided to make a people ready for the coming of the Lord. She recognized that "union with Christ" meant union with Him in His closing work of atonement. She saw the clear distinction from His work in the first apartment, where the "door" was now "shut." (See Early Writings, pp. 55, 56, 260, 261.)