I HAVE just been told, by a friend, that we adhere too strictly to the literal interpretation of the Scriptures. Said he, You have seen the error of the old fashioned way of spiritualizing every thing, and you have gone into the opposite extreme, and have got off the track on the other side.
The subject upon which we were conversing was the heavenly Sanctuary and the services of our great High Priest in its two apartments. My friend thought it not necessary to understand this subject so literally, as if there was in reality a Sanctuary in the heavens. Perhaps he may discover, upon examination, that Paul ran as deep into this error as any one at the present time. "We have such an high priest," says he. What! a literal high priest? Yes, the man Christ Jesus, who ascended to heaven bodily in the sight of his disciples.
Well, of course we admit that we have a literal High Priest, but we are not to understand that he ministers in a literal Sanctuary.
What kind of a Sanctuary, then?
O, it is a figurative or spiritual Sanctuary.
What is that? If I have the right idea of such a Sanctuary it is composed of nothing.
That is it; and any one can see that it is impossible for nothing to have two apartments.
We will try to understand it so. On earth there was a real, literal sanctuary pitched by man, where the priests performed their service. But Christ is "a minister of the Sanctuary, and of the true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, and not man." This Sanctuary is composed of nothing, and of course its locality is nowhere. But the Lord pitched it, and has provided a literal High Priest, having flesh and bones, to minister in it. The priests on earth served "unto the example and shadow of heavenly things." That is, they shadowed forth, by their services in the two apartments of the "worldly sanctuary," what Christ would do for his people in the heavenly, which has no existence. This is shadowy enough! A shadow of something that is less than a shadow. Then, Moses was shown nothing, or the figure of nothing, while he was on the holy mount, and was strictly charged to make every thing pertaining to the tabernacle just like it.
But enough of this. Enough has been said to show the folly of spiritualizing into nothing the things in the heavens. Paul says, It was therefore necessary that the patterns of the things in the heavens should be purified by these; (the blood of animals;) but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these. Was the Apostle too literal?
But my friend is watching the Advent movement with interest, and thinks that there will be, eventually, a people sifted out of the Advent ranks that will be right. In this I agree with him, and believe it will be the hundred and forty-four thousand which will stand with the Lamb upon Mount Zion. Here again, perhaps I am too literal; but I cannot attempt to improve the words of the Holy Spirit.