Should S. D. Adventists Exist? No. 2.
By Ransom F. Cottrell
Most Christians have been taught that Jesus Christ is an intercessor and mediator at the throne of God; but that there are two distinct parts of his ministration in the temple of God, corresponding to the daily and yearly services of the Jewish priests, though clearly revealed, seems to have been hidden from men's eyes, till “the time of the end,” when it was promised that knowledge should be increased, Dan. 12: 4, even till the beginning of the sounding of the seventh angel, when the temple of God in heaven was to be opened. Rev. 11:19. People speak of the atonement as having been made on Calvary. The offering was there slain; but the atonement is made by the priest, entering into the sanctuary with the blood. Christ is a priest; but his office of priesthood is performed wholly in heaven. The apostle says, “If he were on earth, he should not be a priest.” He must, as priest, follow the type that was given on purpose to truly represent his priestly service. He must, as we have said, minister first in the first apartment of the sanctuary, and then close his service by entering the most holy place to cleanse the sanctuary, removing all the sins of all his people, from first to last, from the sanctuary, where they have been conveyed in the blood of the sin-offering, blotting them from the book of God's remembrance forever. By reading Lev. 16 carefully, it will be seen that the day of atonement, or of cleansing the sanctuary, was a great solemnity; that it was a scene representative of the Judgment. Hence we infer the importance of the work of Christ in the anti-type. And has the time of this work of our great High Priest been set in prophecy? If so, it is of vast importance to understand it. Paul says that God “hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world,” by Jesus Christ. That day is doubtless a period of considerable length. And who can say that it does not begin before the second advent, even with the work of Christ in his closing ministration in his priestly office, in which the sins of his people are finally disposed of, and they acquitted forever? At his second coming no investigative judgment takes place; but “in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye,” the saints are rewarded with immortality. Will they be judged after having been made immortal? It seems that their judgment has preceded this. If so, it must have been in connection with the closing ministration of their High Priest in the sanctuary in Heaven. Has the time been appointed for this solemn work? It has. More than two thousand years ago an angel of God said to the prophet Daniel, in a vision, “Unto two thousand and three hundred days, then shall the sanctuary be cleansed.” Dan. 8: 14. It was a subject of importance to men to be thus revealed, especially to those that should live at the end of the days. Have those days terminated? S. D. Adventists teach that they have; and we are the only people that hold forth this great truth to the people. Time-setters, those who have been determined to tell the world the exact time of the second advent—a thing not revealed in the Scriptures—have tried to stretch these days down, from time to time, this side of 1844, where they evidently ended; but no prophetic student of intelligence can now pretend to affirm that they have not ended. If Dan. 8 and 9 are connected, if Gabriel gives the date of their commencement in Dan. 9: 25, as there is abundant evidence, then they have certainly terminated. From the time that Ezra began the work “to restore and to build Jerusalem,” B. C. 457, (Ezra 7) 2300 years would reach to A. D. 1844. There we believe and teach that they ended; and it is of importance that it should be known. The revelation was not made without a purpose; and the evident purpose is that we may know the present closing, judgment work of our great High Priest, namely, the final atonement for sin, preparatory to his coming “a second time without sin unto salvation.” The period has ended in the past. No one can refute this declaration. It ended somewhere within twenty years of 1844. There should be something to mark its termination. What has occurred to mark its close? In 1844 a message was sounding through the world, the burden of which was, “Fear God, and give glory to him, for the hour of his judgment is come.” Rev. 14:7. And this preaching was based upon the ending of the 2300 years at that time. There was an error connected with that preaching; for it led to a disappointment. Now since it is so evident that the time is expired, the error must have been in relation to the sanctuary and its cleansing, a subject that is now clearly seen. The promises of God, both in Daniel and Revelation, have been fulfilled, and there is perfect harmony. Here is a truth of God of thrilling importance to all. The time appointed for the closing work of our Mediator at the “right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens,” the “minister of the sanctuary, and of the true tabernacle,” is come. The decisive period of the atonement for sins is here. It cannot be refuted. None are preaching this truth but S. D. Adventists. Therefore they have a right to exist. No, this is a necessary work; and “if these should hold their peace, the stones would immediately cry out.” Hosannas welcomed the King of Israel at his first advent; we preach the message of his second coming near, in the very order as it has been expressly foretold in prophecy.