The Papacy and the Sanctuary by Editor

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Mar 24, 1910

The Papacy and the Sanctuary

By Editor

Editorial

“CALL to remembrance the former days,” said the apostle. All along the way the Lord has led in this advent movement by the light of his Holy Word.

The Word is the chart and compass, and it is also our sure defense. It is interesting to note how the objections now urged against the truths of the message are usually the same that were urged in the early days of the work. The word of the Lord cleaves the clear way through them all.

The Papacy and the Sanctuary. — As the pioneers saw the light of the sanctuary truth, and preached it, they met the determined attacks of First-day Adventists, who held to the old view that the sanctuary to be cleansed was on earth. “How could a heavenly sanctuary,” they said, “be trodden under foot?” Elder James White answered (in No. 4 of the REVIEW, January, 1851) by showing how the Papacy had done that very thing in its warfare against the truth of God:—

The sanctuary in heaven has been trodden under foot in the same sense that the Son of God has been trodden under foot [Heb. 10:29]. In a similar manner has the “host,” the true church, also, been trodden down. . . . The Catholic Church has trodden under foot not only the “holy city,” but the sanctuary, and its minister, or priest, “the Son of God.” Rome has been called “the Holy City” and the “Eternal City,” which can only be said of the city of the living God, the New Jerusalem.

An Earthly Substitute. — Continuing, Elder White showed how an earthly service had been substituted for a heavenly:—

The Pope has professed to have “power on earth to forgive sins,” which power belongs alone to Christ. The people have been taught to look to “the man of sin,” seated in his temple,—or as Paul says, “so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God,” etc.,—instead of looking to Jesus, seated at the right hand of the Father in the heavenly sanctuary. In thus turning away from Jesus, who alone could forgive sins and give eternal life, and in bestowing on the Pope such titles as “Most Holy Lord,” they have “trodden under foot the Son of God.” And in calling Rome the “Eternal City” and the “Holy City,” they have trodden down the city of the living God and the heavenly sanctuary. The “host,” the true church that have looked to Jesus in the true sanctuary for pardon of sins and eternal life, has, as well as their divine Lord and his sanctuary, been trodden under foot.

The time of restoration came in 1844, with the opening of the judgment hour in the heavenly sanctuary. With the joy of men who find great treasure, those early pioneers went forth to preach the message which is to restore to believers the truths obscured and trodden under foot through the centuries by papal tradition.