SYNOPSIS OF THE PRESENT TRUTH

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jul 22, 1880

SYNOPSIS OF THE PRESENT TRUTH.

NUMBER TWENTY-SEVEN.

REFLECTIONS ON THE SANCTUARY.

The Sanctuary! Momentous subject! Grand nucleus around which cluster the glorious constellations of present truth! How it opens to our understanding the plan of salvation! How it lifts the vail from the position of our Lord in Heaven! What a halo of glory it throws upon his ministry! What a divine harmony it establishes in the word of God! What a flood of light it pours upon past fulfillment of prophecy! How it fortifies the mighty truths of these last days! What a glory it sheds upon the future! With what hope and joy and consolation it fills the heart of the believer! Glorious subject! Its importance can neither be overdrawn nor over estimated. It is as though a new apartment of the heavenly temple were suddenly opened before us, filled with all the divine splendor, the majesty and the beauty of eternal truth.

We venture the assertion that it is impossible for a person to entertain correct and scriptural views on the subject of the sanctuary, and yet be at variance with any of the fundamental points of what we consider Present Truth; and perhaps no one fact can serve to place its importance in a stronger light than this. It is the great safeguard against all those bewildering errors, which since the passing of the time in 1844, have torn and scattered the once harmonious body of Advent believers. An application of this fact in a few particulars may be well.

The wild and disastrous work that has been made by some during the past thirty-six years, in setting so many erroneous times for the second advent of the Saviour, growing out of the idea that the prophetic periods must reach to the coming of the Lord, in the light of the sanctuary might have been avoided. That shows us at once that those periods were not designed to extend to that event.

The most important one, perhaps, anywhere given in the Scriptures, is expressly declared to reach only to the cleansing of the sanctuary. Dan. 8:14. The 2300 days ended in 1844. We believe that then our great High Priest entered into the most holy of the heavenly sanctuary, and commenced the work of its cleansing, as the prophecy declared, and that no jot nor tittle of what we were warranted to expect at that time, has in any wise failed.

That any of the prophetic periods extend beyond the termination of the 2300 days we have no evidence. The 1335 days will doubtless here recur to the mind of the reader, and the inquiry will arise if Daniel's standing in his lot at the end of the days does not mean his rising in the resurrection, and if therefore those days do not extend to the coming of the Lord. The difficulty lies in the expression, "stand in thy lot." The lot is taken to mean the "lot of his inheritance," and the sentence is supposed to refer to the resurrection. The Englishman's Hebrew Concordance however shows that this is not its meaning.

The Hebrew word from which lot in Dan. 12:13 is translated, is "goh-rah-l." This word occurs, and is translated lot, seventy-six times in the Old Testament. That the reader may be able to determine its significance we give the instances of its use.

" Lev. 16:8. Aaron shall cast lots. one lot for the Lord, and the other lot for the scape-goat.

upon which the Lord's lot fell.
on which the lot fell.

Num. 26:55. the land shall be divided by lot. 56. according to the lot shall the.

The definition of the word lot, as given by Webster, 1. "That which in human speech, is called chance, hazard, fortune, but in strictness of language, is the determination of Providence; as, the land shall be divided by lot. 2. That by which the fate or portion of one is determined; that by which an event is committed to chance, that is, to the determination of Providence; as, to cast lots; to draw lots."

There is another word [gheh-vel] which is translated, region, country, lot of inheritance, etc., as in Deut. 3:4, 13, 14; 32:9; Josh. 17:5, 14; 19:9, 29. But it not being the word used in Dan. 12:13, all ground for the objection usually raised on that point, is removed. It will hence be seen that Daniel does not stand in the "lot of his inheritance," as it has been expressed, at the end of the 1335 days, but he stands in his lot in the decisions of the judgment of the righteous dead. He stands in his lot, with all the righteous dead, in the person of his Advocate. And such we believe has been his position since the ending of the days. The vexed question of Daniel's standing in his lot is therefore settled. The word that is used, determines it with a precision, from which there is no appeal.

Being satisfied with regard to the termination of the prophetic periods, we are guarded also, by this subject, against giving up the past Advent movement, as a delusion, or ignoring the divine agency that produced it. We are prevented from misapplying the first and second messages of Rev. 14, as they were but proclamations preparatory to the sanctuary work; and we are as firmly fixed upon the third, since that work is its very root and foundation.

But we call attention more particularly to the connection which this subject has with a practice which constitutes one of our distinguishing features as a people—we mean the observance of the Lord's Sabbath.

We read in Revelation, "that the temple of God was opened in Heaven, and there was seen in his temple the ark of his testament." Chap. 11:19. This ark of the testament, whether contemplated on the earth, as man was connected with it under the former dispensation, or in Heaven as it is here introduced to us, is equally an object of interest.

Considering that the sanctuary of the first covenant was but a type or shadow of the sanctuary of this, which now exists in Heaven, who may tell us that the ark of the true tabernacle which the Lord pitched and not man, differs from the former, either in the purposes for which it was used, or the things which it contains? The ark of the earthly sanctuary was called the ark of the testimony, or testament. Ex. 25:22. It contained the tables of stone, on which were engraved by the finger of God the ten commandments, and just as he engraved them. Ex. 25:16; 31:18. The ark of the heavenly sanctuary, called also the ark of his testament, as in the text above quoted (Rev. 11:19), must also contain similar tables, with precisely the same commandments, else it was not prefigured by the former.

The ark, then, under whatever dispensation we view it, suggests to our mind the same idea, the commandments of God, as he uttered them from Sinai, and engraved them with his own finger.

But who can suppose that thoughts of the ark, or the writing it contained, suggested to the mind of a Jew, the observance of the first day of the week as a day of rest! Neither does it suggest such an idea to our minds; but quite another, according to the reading of the fourth commandment contained in it, which says, The seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God, etc.

Such are some of the considerations which naturally connect themselves with the ark of God. But, says the Revelation, "The temple of God was opened in Heaven, and there was seen in his temple the ark of his testament;" therefore considerations like these have been, and are still, agitating the minds of the people; and as we have seen by faith, through the declarations of his word, those tables of the law carefully preserved in the holy temple of the Highest, overwhelming impressions of its immutability and perpetuity have rolled over us, till we could do no otherwise than turn our feet to the keeping of all those holy commandments.

Here is a nail in a sure place. The tables of the testimony are enthroned in Heaven. There they exist without liability of change or decay. Men may legislate and hold councils, and past decrees, and vent their rage against those who will acknowledge the claims of the royal law, but they cannot touch the law; as high as heaven from earth it still remains above their reach. What must man do to change it? He must ascend to Heaven, dethrone Jehovah, burst through the angel guards into the sacred temple, wrest from the ark the mercy-seat, and with his own would-be omnipoient finger, change the writing of the imperishable tables.

And yet people will talk about the change of the law as a very little thing! or even proceed further and speak of its abolition! They might as well talk of abolishing earth and heaven!

The temple has been opened in Heaven, and there is seen the ark of his testament. I have set before thee an open door, says Jesus, and no man can shut it. Rev. 3:8. Men may endeavor with all their energies to obscure the claims of the law, but they cannot obscure them. They may raise all the stir they please amid the dust and dirt of earth, and joy over the portion they succeed in throwing into their own eyes; but we have only to look away to the heavenly sanctuary, and behold therein the ark of his testament, and in that ark the tables of the commandments, safely deposited beneath the eye of Him who slumbers not nor sleeps.

We now perceive a beauty, before unnoticed, in the work of redemption. Sin is the transgression of the law. The law is deposited in the ark. The cover of the ark is the mercy-seat. Ex. 25:21. Before the mercy-seat Christ pleads his blood for sinful man. Before the eyes of our Mediator therefore lies the law which we have transgressed, and which is the test of our characters. And now, reader, what think you? Can you with confidence approach the throne of grace, and plead with the Minister of the sanctuary for mercy until you are conscious that you are at least striving to keep every one of those commandments, just as they are engraved upon those tables which repose beneath the mercy-seat before which he ministers? Think well upon this point; and may the Lord help you to seek in a consistent manner remission of your sins, and justification by faith in Christ.

Thus the sanctuary becomes a great bulwark of the truth on every hand. We do not say that a person cannot keep the Sabbath unless he believes in it; but we do say that a person cannot believe in it, and yet consistently, we may say honestly, refuse to observe the Sabbath.

Never lose sight of the sanctuary. When carnal hearts around you are venting their spite against the law of God, look to the sanctuary. Amid all the opposition of "unreasonable men" against the commandments of God, look to the sanctuary. In hours of darkness, trial, temptation and persecution, look to the sanctuary. There is light and glory there. There help has been laid upon One that is mighty. There our High Priest ministers for us; and thither our hope has entered, within the vail. Heb. 6:19, 20.