"THEN SHALL THE SANCTUARY BE CLEANSED."
THOSE who read in last week's SIGNS the article entitled "The 2,300 Days of Daniel 8," need not be told that those days, or years, rather, ended in 1844 A. D. It was shown in that article that the seventy weeks, or 490 years, cut off upon the Jews, ended A. D. 34; then of course the remaining 1,810 years would bring us to 1844 A. D., the year which was marked by the great Advent movement under the leadership of William Miller, and by the disappointment experienced by those who looked for the Lord to come at that time. The angel said to the prophet: "Unto two thousand and three hundred days; then shall the sanctuary be cleansed." Dan. 8:14. Taking this text, and computing the time just as we have computed it, and in the only way that it can be properly reckoned, and finding that the time ended in the autumn of 1844, Mr. Miller concluded that the second advent would take place in that year. That his computation of the time was correct, has been repeatedly demonstrated; that he was mistaken as to the event, was shown by the passing of the time, and it appears also from the teaching of the Scriptures. The event to take place at the end of the 2,300 years was not the destruction or cleansing of the earth by fire, as those supposed who looked for the coming of the Lord at that time, but the cleansing of the sanctuary; and this naturally suggests the question, What is the sanctuary? This is a question which is most satisfactorily answered in the Scriptures. We read in Heb. 9:1 that the first covenant, the one made with the children of Israel at Sinai, had "ordinances of divine service, and a worldly sanctuary," "which was a figure for the time then present, in which were offered both gifts and sacrifices, that could not make him that did the service perfect, as pertaining to the conscience; which stood only in meats and drinks, and divers washings, and carnal ordinances, imposed on them until the time of reformation. But Christ being come a high priest of good things to come, by a greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this building; neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us." "And almost all things are by the law purged with blood; and without shedding of blood is no remission. It was therefore necessary that the patterns of things in the heavens should be purified with these; but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these." Language could scarcely be plainer than this; and by reading the whole chapter we learn that the earthly sanctuary, the tabernacle set up in the wilderness, and later the temple in Jerusalem, was only a type of the heavenly sanctuary, or holy places, and that the work of the Jewish priests in offering sacrifices was only typical of the work of Christ, our great High Priest, which he was to accomplish in heaven for his people. We have not room for an extended argument upon this point, and indeed one is scarcely necessary since the apostle speaks so plainly on this subject in the chapter referred to. The sanctuary of the first covenant was the earthly sanctuary, but the sanctuary of the second or new covenant, the covenant promised in Jer. 31:31-34, is in Heaven. Under the old covenant, the priests offered the blood of bulls and of goats, typifying the blood of Christ which he offers for his people continually under the new covenant. "Seventy weeks," said the angel to Daniel, "are determined [cut off from the 2,300 days] upon thy people [the Jews] and upon thy holy city, to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the Most Holy;" which is only to say that 490 years were cut off from the 2,300 years and given to the Jews and to the earthly sanctuary. It follows, therefore, that the remainder of the 2,300 years belong to the "sanctuary and the true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched and not man;" and that the cleansing at the end of the 2,300 days was not a work to be accomplished on earth, but something to be done in Heaven, which would answer to, and be in fact, the antitype of that part of the work in the earthly sanctuary known as its cleansing. After describing the two apartments of the earthly sanctuary as erected in the wilderness, the apostle says: "Now when these things were thus ordained, the priests went always into the first tabernacle, accomplishing the service of God. But into the second went the high priest alone once every year, not without blood, which he offered for himself, and for the errors of the people." Heb. 9:6, 7. Here the apostle refers to the daily round of service in the earthly sanctuary, and to special service upon the great day of atonement, described in Lev. 16. Under the old covenant the penitent brought his offering to the altar of sacrifice before the door of the tabernacle; then, placing his hands upon the head of his offering, he confessed his sins, thus signifying their transfer to the animal. This done he took the life of the victim, thus acknowledging that he justly merited death because of his sins. Here the priest took up the work, and, bearing some of the blood into the sanctuary, he sprinkled it before the vail that concealed the ark in which was the law of God that the sinner had violated, and which demanded his death. By these acts the sins of the penitent were transferred from the head of the sinner to the most holy place in the sanctuary. This work was carried on for 359 days; but on the tenth day of the seventh month there was a change in the service. On that day the priest, after offering sacrifices for himself, chose a goat with which to make an atonement and cleanse the sanctuary. (Please read all of Lev. 16.) By this service the sins of the people were removed from the sanctuary and sent out of the camp into the wilderness. Of course this work was done only in figure. Pardon under the old covenant was real; "his sin shall be forgiven him," was the divine promise; but it was forgiven only in virtue of the promised offering to be made under the new covenant. The blood of bulls and of goats could not take away sins, but the promised blood of Christ could, and did, even as it does now, cleanse from all sin. It may be asked "Of what use, then, were the offerings under the old covenant?"—They were of service to assist the faith of the worshiper and to enable him as he took the life of an innocent victim to realize something of the sinfulness of sin and of the certainty of the penalty threatened against it: "The wages of sin is death." In the earthly sanctuary the blood representing the forfeited life of the sinner was borne into the sanctuary, but in the heavenly sanctuary the record of the sinner's life is taken in and presented before the Judge. The Scriptures teach that the angels take a record of our lives; and we are to be judged out of the things written in the books. Rev. 20:12. In the type the sins of the people, though forgiven, were supposed to remain in the sanctuary till the tenth day of the seventh month of the Jewish year; and just so it is with our sins, though forgiven they are not blotted out till the great day of atonement. Said the apostle: "Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord; and he shall send Jesus Christ, which before was preached unto you." That sins are not185blotted out when they are forgiven is also shown by the parable in Matt. 18:23-35. The servant which owed his Lord ten thousand talents was forgiven (verse 27), yet when he refused to forgive his fellow-servant, "his Lord was wroth, and delivered him to the tormentors, till he should pay all that was due unto him." Verse 34. "So likewise," said the Saviour, "shall my heavenly Father do also unto you, if ye from your hearts forgive not every one his brother their trespasses." Verse 35. C. P. B.