The Order of Events in the Judgment.
By John Nevins Andrews
It is remarkable that each of the visions of Daniel bring to view either the coronation of Christ or that event which immediately precedes it, the close of his priesthood. Thus in Daniel 2:44, we read:— “And in the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed; and the kingdom shall not be left to other people; but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand forever.” But in the seventh chapter the very manner and place of this event are given us. Thus when the prophet describes the act of the Father in taking the place of judgment, he represents the Son as being crowned at that tribunal. Dan. 7:13, 14: “I saw in the night visions, and behold one like the Son of man came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of days, and they brought him near before him. And there was given him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all people, nations, and languages, should serve him; his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom that which shall not be destroyed.” How the kingdom thus set up in the days of these kings shall break in pieces all the wicked kingdoms of earth, is very plainly stated in Rev. 19:11-21. The coronation of our Lord is very distinctly marked in Daniel's fourth vision, as recorded in chapters 10-12. Thus we read:-- Dan. 12:1: “And at that time shall Michael stand up, the great prince which standeth for the children of thy people; and there shall be a time of trouble such as there never was since there was a nation even to that same time; and at that time thy people shall be delivered, every one that shall be found written in the book.” The standing up of Michael is simply the commencement of the reign of Christ, as has been shown in a former article. This is followed by the great time of trouble which will be briefly noticed hereafter. But the third vision of Daniel, which says not one word respecting the coronation of our Lord, does distinctly mark that event which directly precedes it, viz., the closing act of his priesthood. Here is the record:— Dan. 8:13, 14: “Then I heard one saint speaking, and another saint said unto that certain saint which spake, How long shall be the vision concerning the daily sacrifice, and the transgression of desolation, to give both the sanctuary and the host to be trodden under foot? And he said unto me, Unto two thousand and three hundred days; then shall the sanctuary be cleansed.” Here is an event to transpire in the conclusion of this vision; in other words it occurs in the end of the gospel dispensation. The sanctuary to be cleansed at the conclusion of the new covenant dispensation, must be the sanctuary of the new covenant. A sanctuary implies of necessity a priesthood. The cleansing of the sanctuary is that event which completes the work of the priest who ministers therein. When, therefore, we read of the cleansing of the sanctuary at the end of the twenty-three hundred days, we understand that this is the closing event of the priesthood of the Son of God. It is of necessity a work which brings human probation to a close and marks the transition from the priesthood to the kingly office of the Saviour. Paul tells us that there are two covenants, the old and the new. Gal. 4:24. He tells us that the sanctuary of the old covenant was the tabernacle which Moses made like that one showed him in the mount. Heb. 9:1-5; 8:5; Ex. 25:8, 9, 40. This tabernacle was a pattern of the heavenly temple. Heb. 9:23, 24; Rev. 11:19. When the temple was erected, some five hundred years after the time of Moses, a larger and grander building, indeed, that also was a pattern of the temple of God in heaven. 1 Chron. 28:11, 12, 19; Wisdom of Solomon 9:8. But the sanctuary of the new covenant is this heavenly temple itself. Here are the words of Paul defining the new covenant sanctuary to be the temple of God where our High Priest is ministering for us. Heb. 8:1, 2: “Now of the things which we have spoken this is the sum; We have such a high priest, who is set on the right hand of the Majesty in the heavens; a minister of the sanctuary, and of the true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, and not man.” The temple of God in heaven is, therefore, not only the great original which Moses and Solomon copied in erecting the tabernacle, and the temple, each in its period being the sanctuary of the old covenant, but the heavenly temple is certainly the new-covenant sanctuary. David and Jeremiah each mention this sanctuary in heaven. Ps. 102:19: “For he hath looked down from the hight of his sanctuary; from heaven did the Lord behold the earth.” Jer. 17:12: “A glorious high throne from the beginning is the place of our sanctuary,” Comp. Rev. 16:17. No one will dispute that “the sanctuary” in the days of Moses was the tabernacle. Nor will they deny that 500 years later this gave place to the temple which was thence-forward, till its destruction, the sanctuary of the old covenant. It will also be freely admitted that with the new covenant came the great antitype of all this, viz., the temple of God in heaven, which is the real sanctuary of the Lord. But it will be denied, by many, that this sanctuary of God in heaven is brought into the vision of the prophet. The ninth chapter of Daniel is a key to the eighth. A literal rendering of Dan. 9:24, informs us that “Seventy weeks are cut off upon thy people and upon thy holy city.” Then it is certain that not all the vision pertained to old Jerusalem. The period of 490 years belonged to that city, the place of the earthly sanctuary. But the remainder, viz., 1810 years, coming wholly within the gospel dispensation must pertain only to the sanctuary of the New Testament. And it is remarkable that the very verse which tells us how much of the vision pertained to the earthly sanctuary does present to our view the sanctuary of the new covenant in close connection with the introduction of the new covenant. Dan. 9:24, 27. For one of the last events in the period of 70 weeks is the anointing of the most holy. This is not the anointing of the Saviour, for the term is literally, in Hebrew, the holy of holies; a plain reference to the sanctuary itself. This anointing was performed in the earthly sanctuary when the ministration therein began. Lev. 8:10, 11. The anointing of the holy of holies at the end of the 70 weeks, cannot relate to the earthly sanctuary, which was no longer the sanctuary of prophecy, but must relate to the heavenly tabernacle which then became the sanctuary of prophecy. Its anointing was an event preparatory to Christ's ministering therein, just as the earthly sanctuary was anointed in both its holy places before the Levitical ministration commenced in it. We cannot, therefore, doubt that the last 1810 years of Daniel's 2300 relate to the sanctuary of the new covenant. The objection that this sanctuary cannot be trodden down is met by the fact that the New Testament plainly declares that Christ, the minister of this sanctuary, is trodden under foot of wicked men. Heb. 10:29; 8:1, 2. The further and final objection that it cannot in the very nature of the case ever be cleansed, is fully answered by the expressive language of Paul, who states that the heavenly sanctuary is to be cleansed for the same reason that the earthly one was. Heb. 9:22, 23. In a former article we have seen that the cleansing of the earthly sanctuary marked the conclusion of the yearly round of service. Lev. 16. The services of the heavenly sanctuary are performed once for all. The cleansing of the sanctuary must therefore have its antitype only once, and that at the close of the priesthood of Christ. The 2300 days mark the time of that event. When this work is entered upon by our Lord, it is the concluding work of his priesthood, and the period for the finishing of human probation. This work finishes our Lord's priesthood preparatory to his coronation. It takes place in the second apartment of the sanctuary. Lev. 16; Rev. 11:19. As the session of the judgment by the Ancient of days is the very place where the transition from Christ's priesthood to his kingly office takes place, we cannot err in placing the cleansing of the sanctuary in Dan. 8:14, in the closest connection with the blotting out of sins at the Father's tribunal. Dan. 7:9-14; Acts 3:19, 20.
J. N. A.