THE SANCTUARY by Uriah Smith

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jun 1, 1876

FromThe Review and Herald, Review and Herald, Vol. 47, No. 22.

THE SANCTUARY.

By Uriah Smith

Twenty-second Paper.—The Sanctuary Rebuilt.

When the seventy years of Israel's captivity were expired, and the land of Judea had lain desolate and thus enjoyed her sabbaths of which the wickedness of the people had deprived it, the Lord, in fulfillment of his word, stirred up the spirit of Cyrus, king of Persia, to make a proclamation throughout all the kingdom, that of all the people of the God of Heaven dwelling therein, whosoever would might return to Jerusalem . Two tribes only, as tribes, Judah and Benjamin, acknowledged the heavenly token, and availed themselves of the opportunity offered. The majority of the other tribes chose to remain in their iniquity, and to abide still in the land of the heathen. But some of all the tribes joined themselves to the returning company, so that all Israel was represented, and all the tribes were perpetuated in Judea after the captivity. Hence the idea sometimes advanced that there are ten lost tribes which are to be restored at some time in the future, is a figment of the imagination.

Forty-two thousand, three hundred and sixty persons, enough to people quite a respectable city, returned under the proclamation of Cyrus, to the site of Jerusalem, to rebuild the house of the Lord. And the sacred vessels which had been taken away were also restored. Fifty-two years after the complete destruction of the first temple the foundation of the second was laid by Zerubbabel. The prophets, Haggai and Zechariah encouraged the builders. Ez. 5:1; 6:14. Hindered fifteen years through the influence of the Samaritans, and others, it was at length finished and dedicated in the sixth year of Darius Hystaspes, B. C. 515, twenty-one years after its commencement.

Though this temple was not, in some respects, equal to the first, yet the Lord promised that the glory should be greater, because to it, in the fullness of time, should come the Desire of all nations. Hag. 2.

What was wanting in the second temple? It was not with respect to size that the first house surpassed the latter; for this was of the same dimensions as the former, being built upon the same foundations. But those marks of the divine favor which were the main glory of the first temple, were wholly wanting in this. These the Jews reckon up in five particulars; namely, 1. The Ark, and the Mercy-seat which was upon it. 2. The Shekinah, or divine presence. 3. The Urim and Thummim. 4. The holy fire from the altar. 5. The spirit of prophecy.

What had become of the ark? Upon this question there has been expended much conjecture. That it was not carried to Babylon is generally admitted; as, if it had been, it would have been brought back with the other sacred treasures which had been carried thither. Ez. 1:8–11. It is supposed by some that it was hid away and preserved by Jeremiah. To sustain this view reference is made to the book of Maccabees which contains the following account of the matter:—

Jeremy the prophet “being warned of God, commanded the tabernacle and the ark to go with him, as he went forth into the mountain where Moses climbed up, and saw the heritage of God. And when Jeremy came thither he found an hollow cave, wherein he laid the tabernacle and the ark, and the altar of incense, and so stopped the door. And some of those that followed him came to mark the way, but they could not find it. Which when Jeremy perceived, he blamed them, saying, As for this place it shall be unknown until the time that God gather his people again together, and receive them unto mercy.” 2 Mac. 2:4–7. And from this latter expression some have inferred that it is to be discovered and brought forth again before the end.

“Most of the Jews will have it,” says Prideaux, “that king Josiah being foretold by Huldah the prophetess, that the temple, speedily after his death, would be destroyed, caused the ark to be put in a vault under ground, which Solomon, foreseeing this destruction, had caused of purpose to be built for the preserving of it.” For proof they produce 2 Chron. 35:3. But Prideaux argues that “these words import no more than that Manasseh or Ammon having removed the ark from where it ought to have stood, Josiah commanded it again to be restored to its proper place.”

These are, perhaps, but little more than conjectures. And while there seems to be an improbability that God would permit any work of his own hands, like the writing on the tables of the decalogue, to be destroyed by the hands of wicked men, there does not appear any positive proof that the ark and its contents were not destroyed with the temple, as were, probably, the show-bread table and the golden candlestick.

The want of the ark was, however, supplied as to the outward form; for an ark was made of the same shape and dimensions as the first, and placed in its appropriate position in the second temple (Lightfoot on the Temple, c. 15, s. 4); but it contained no tables of the law, there was no appearance of the divine glory over it, and no oracular answers were given from it.

The Urim and Thummim. These were the third object specified as wanting in the second temple

. What were they? Prideaux concludes that the words meant “only the divine virtue and power given to the breastplate in its consecration of obtaining an oracular answer from God, whenever counsel was asked of him by the high priest with it on, in such manner as his word did direct; and that the names Urim and Thummim were given hereto, only to denote the clearness and perfection which these oracular answers always carried with them; for these answers were not, like the heathen oracles, enigmatical and ambiguous, but always clear and manifest; not such as did ever fall short of perfection, either of fullness in the answer, or certainty in the truth of it. And hence it is that the Septuagint translate Urim and Thummim by the words delosin kai aletheian, i. e., manifestation and truth, because all these oracular answers given by Urim and Thummim were always clear and manifest, and their truth ever certain and infallible. As to the use which was made of the Urim and Thummim, it was to ask counsel of God in difficult and momentous cases relating to the whole state of Israel.”—Connection, Vol. i. p. 156.

Five hundred years elapse. The temple, as might well be supposed, became, during this time, in many respects sadly in need of repairs. Whereupon Herod the Great, to ingratiate himself into the favor of the Jews, conceived the idea of rebuilding it throughout. The old temple was pulled down to its foundation, and the building of the new one commenced B. C. 19. It was this temple to which the Jews referred when they said to the Saviour at his first passover in the spring of A. D. 28, “Forty and six years was this temple in building.” John 2:20. It had been completed the year before, A. D. 27, the very year in which Christ commenced his public ministry. To this temple, according to the prophecy of Haggai, the Desire of all nations had now come. Happy would it have been for the Jews if, knowing the time of their visitation, they had received him as their Lord, and owned his mission.

Externally, this building was at once the admiration and envy of the world. “Its appearance,” says Josephus, “had everything that could strike the mind and astonish the sight; for it was on every side covered with solid plates of gold, so that when the sun rose upon it, it reflected such a dazzling effulgence, that the eye of the beholder was obliged to turn away from it; being no more able to sustain its radiance than the splendor of the sun.” “It appeared at a distance like a huge mountain covered with snow; for where it was not decorated with plates of gold, it was extremely white and glistening.”

Thus we are brought to the time of our Saviour. That covenant which had its ordinances of divine service in connection with “a worldly sanctuary,” was drawing to a close. The great Sacrifice to which the offerings of the sanctuary pointed was about to be offered. The Lord was engaged in his solemn mission of love to man. Often would he have gathered them, to enlighten their blindness, heal their backslidings, and save from destruction. But they would not. Their incorrigible resistance at length wrung from him the mournful lamentation, “Behold your house is left unto you desolate.” Matt. 23:37, 38. Yes, their beautiful house, the Spirit and presence of God driven therefrom, had become only a tomb of darkness and death. And as Christ departed with sad and lingering footsteps from the temple, the fearful doom which he saw awaiting that people obliged him to declare, not in anger, but in sorrow, that the temple should be thrown down, so that not one stone should be left upon another.

In the purpose of God, the services of this worldly sanctuary were now at an end. And when amid the startling scenes, the darkness and the earthquake, that attended the crucifixion of the Son of God, unseen hands violently rent in twain the magnificent veil that hung before the holy of holies, its services came really to an end; for they were no longer of any virtue.

A few short years sufficed to bring the literal fulfillment of our Lord's prediction. The armies of Rome environed Jerusalem. The city fell. Titus desired to spare so gorgeous a trophy as the temple, but a Roman soldier, impelled by a blind spirit of infatuation, or perhaps by a divine impulse, climbing upon the shoulders of his comrade, thrust a blazing firebrand into the gilded lattice of the porch. The flames at once sprang up. No power could then save it. It soon lay a melted, shattered, hissing mass of ruins. And the date of this destruction, in A. D. 70, falls upon the same month, and the same day of the month, as the destruction of Solomon's temple by Nebuchadnezzar, six hundred and fifty-eight years before.

Standing here at the conclusion of its earthly history , it remains to inquire why this arrangement was ever instituted. What was the object of this earthly sanctuary and the services connected therewith? U. S.