SECOND COMING—WITHOUT SIN.
By I. D. Van Horn
"So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for him, shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation." Heb. 9:28. The most common interpretation of this passage is, that Christ will come the second time without sin, i. e., without a "sin-offering," unto salvation. This amounts to saying that Christ will not be offered the second time for sin. While it is true that Christ will not be a sin-offering a second time at his coming, yet the force of this text is destroyed by giving it that interpretation. The text really means what it says: He shall "appear the second time without sin." We may ask, Without whose sin? Not his own sin, certainly; for he never had any, never having sinned. The true, and only answer is, Without the sins of his people. Does Christ have anything to do with the sins of his people? Most assuredly he does in his work as High Priest in the heavenly Sanctuary. In his first advent he bore the sins of the whole world on the cross. He was the spotless victim typified by all the beasts slain as sin-offerings in the former part of the world's history. In this sense, he is the "Lamb slain from the foundation of the world,"—"The Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world." Because of this act of the Son of God, all will be released from the penalty of Adam's sin, for all will be raised from the dead, "the just and the unjust." But in another sense, the Son of God has to do with the sins of his people. The Lord, by the apostle in the book of Hebrews, chapters 7, 8, and 9, has given an extended argument on the priesthood of Aaron as compared with the priesthood of Melchisedec, and the earthly sanctuary as compared with the heavenly. The yearly round of service in the earthly sanctuary by the Aaronic priesthood, was a type, or figure of the work of our High Priest in the heavenly Sanctuary. One part of the work of the high priest in the earthly, was to make an atonement,—that is, "to cleanse it, and hallow it from the uncleanness of the children of Israel." Lev. 16. This was done by the priest removing the sins from the sanctuary to the head of the scape-goat, and sending him away into an uninhabited wilderness. This purifying of the earthly temple, done by the blood of beasts, "was a figure for the time then present," and is proof that the heavenly Sanctuary is to be purified. "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." Heb. 9:23. "Unto two thousand and three hundred days; then shall the Sanctuary be cleansed." Dan. 8:14. This long prophetic period began at the going forth of the commandment to restore and build Jerusalem, B. C. 457 (Dan. 9:25; Ezra 7:11), and ended in the fall of A. D. 1844. This marks the time when Christ, our great High Priest, entered the Most Holy place of the heavenly Sanctuary, to cleanse it and hallow it from all the sins of his people, from righteous Abel to the end of the world. When this work is completed, he will come out of the sanctuary, bearing the sins of his people to the door, and there he will lay them upon the anti-typical scape-goat—Satan. The people of God will then be free from sin, and they will be remembered against them no more forever. Christ will put them off from himself on the head of Satan, the great originator of sin. At this point Christ comes to earth the second time. He comes without sin unto salvation. O mighty salvation! O grand, glorious day that frees God's people forever from their sins, and gives them an abundant entrance into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ.