The Sanctuary | AdventAI

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Dec 1, 1863

The Sanctuary.

"A TRACT for the times. The Sanctuary. By Eld. R. V. Lyon, Minister of the Gospel, Oshawa, Canada West."

Such is the title of a tract which we recently saw advertised, and purchased for perusal. Whenever we meet with anything bearing the title of the sanctuary, our attention is at once arrested; for we regard it as one of the most important, beautiful and harmonious subjects that can, at the present time, engage the mind of man.

The tract of which we speak is designed to enlighten certain classes who are ignorant on this important question. It therefore comes forth challenging public examination; and as it is perused by those for whose benefit it is designed, consistency requires that, if they are enlightened by it, they should acknowledge that fact; and if not, that they should give their reasons why.

After quoting Dan. viii, 14, "And he said unto me, Unto two thousand and three hundred days; then shall the sanctuary be cleansed," the tract opens with the following very unfortunate assertion: "First-day Adventists have taken and still take the position, that the earth as a whole, is the sanctuary spoken of in the text. The Seventh-day Adventists take the position that it is heaven. Each are wrong in their positions! And the object of these pages is to assist honest inquirers, to arrive at the TRUTH on this all-important theme—the sanctuary."

We have given the above, with its exclamation point, italics and small caps, just as we find it. In reply we speak, of course, only in behalf of Seventh-day Adventists. We are among those, it appears, who are wrong in their position; and this tract has come forth to set us right. The modest declaration that "the object of these pages is to assist honest inquirers to arrive at the truth," with its implied suspicion of our honesty in this matter, can only mean in plain language that their object is to expose our dishonesty, and reveal, if not dispel, our ignorance, on this question.

The author commences by stating that the position of Seventh-day Adventists is, that Heaven is the sanctuary. He has no right to make such an assertion for two reasons: 1. If he knows so little of our views, or has so heedlessly examined our arguments as to suppose that we believe that Heaven is the sanctuary, he has no right to stand forth as an exponent of our belief in this matter; and 2. If he knows what our position is, he has no right to misrepresent it by the utterance of that which is utterly and positively untrue. We do not thank any man for conjuring up positions which we do not believe, and then proclaiming them to the world as a part of our errors. That which he gives as the position of the Seventh-day Adventists, is not, and never has been, their position; nor have they ever written anything from which such an inference could be drawn.

But a tract which is designed to set right those who are wrong, should be exhaustive of the subject in hand; it should thoroughly canvass the testimony, and all the testimony bearing on the question, point out the wrongs and establish the truth. How far this tract does this we shall see. A very few words will suffice to set forth its method of reasoning and the sum of its testimony.

We are treated first to the different meanings of the word sanctuary. On p. 4 we read: "First, What are we to understand by the word sanctuary? Upon an investigation of the Living Oracles, we shall find that the word sanctuary has various meanings. First, the temple at Jerusalem is called a sanctuary." We reply that it is called more than this: it is called the sanctuary; and of the one hundred and forty-two times of the occurrence of the word sanctuary in the Old Testament it refers in almost every instance to this building and the tabernacle of Moses, of which the temple was but a continuation, on a larger and a more magnificent scale.

We quote from the tract again: "Second, The holy place, or place appointed for the public worship of the Lord is called a sanctuary. Ps. lxxiii, 17, 'Until I went into the sanctuary of God.'" This undoubtedly refers to the temple, and hence is not a different application of the word from the one given above.

We read again: "Third, Judah is called God's sanctuary. Ps. cxiv, 2. 'Judah was his sanctuary.'" The same psalm says, "The mountains skipped like rams, and the little hills like lambs." Verse 4. This shows the highly figurative nature of that psalm. In another psalm we read, "But chose the tribe of Judah, the mount Zion which he loved." Ps. lxxviii, 68. Shall we understand from this that Judah was mount Zion? The same rule which would make Judah the sanctuary in Ps. cxiv, 2, would make it mount Zion here. It is not difficult to see that these are figurative expressions; and the reason why such figures are applied to Judah, may be learned from those texts which inform us that mount Zion was the city of David, a part of Jerusalem, which was located in Judah, as one of its cities. See 2 Sam. v, 6, 7; Ezra i, 3; Ps. lxix, 35.

Mr. L. continues: "Fourth, Christ is called a sanctuary. Isa. viii, 13, 14. 'Sanctify the Lord of Hosts himself . . . and he shall be for a sanctuary.'" This text does not call Christ the sanctuary or a sanctuary. It only says he should be for a sanctuary.

Again, "Fifth, Heaven is called the sanctuary. Ps. cii, 19. 'For he hath looked down from the height of his sanctuary; from Heaven did the Lord behold the earth.'" Heaven is not here called, nor proved to be, the sanctuary. To illustrate we might say, From the capitol, from Washington, come forth the laws of this nation. This would not prove that the capitol was Washington, but only that it was in Washington. So Psalm cii, 19, does not prove that the sanctuary is Heaven, but only that it is in Heaven: so that in looking from his sanctuary, the Lord would, of course, look from Heaven.

Again we read: "Sixth, mount Zion, or the land of Palestine is called the sanctuary; and this is the sanctuary spoken of in the text." We deny that the land of Palestine is ever called the sanctuary! But even if it is, how does he arrive at so sudden and abrupt a conclusion that it is the very one spoken of in the text? We have his assertion for it—nothing more. To prove Palestine the sanctuary, he quotes the following texts which will be noticed hereafter: Ex. xv, 17; Ps. lxxviii, 54; cxxxii, 13, 14; Isa. lxiii, 18. To prove it the one spoken of in the text, he offers—nothing.

His second chapter then opens as follows: "In my first chapter, I have shown the reader, by presenting to him immutable testimony, that the sanctuary spoken of in my text is Palestine." He thus rests his whole argument on the four texts last quoted; for these are the only ones claimed to refer to the land of Palestine. These are the texts which are to show that all others are wrong and he is right. Truly this is reducing the subject to a very small compass. Accordingly chapter ii, which commences on page 6 of his tract is composed of quotations from the prophecies threatening desolation to the land of Israel. Whether these have anything to do with the sanctuary or not, all depends upon the texts quoted to prove Palestine the sanctuary. If they do not prove it, these of course are altogether irrelevant.

Chapter three embraces pp. 9–23, and concludes the book. This chapter is composed of long and rambling quotations from prophecies supposed to refer to the Age to Come, in which the only point worthy of notice is, that the land is to be defiled by the dead bodies slain in the great battle, and it is to be cleansed by burying them! Eze. xxxix, 11–16. Such, according to this book, is the cleansing of the sanctuary! Whether the writer has any just conception of this great work, and the relation it sustains to the plan of salvation, the readers of the Review can judge. There is therefore nothing in chapter iii, that demands notice, as whatever relevancy its testimony has, is dependent on the texts before quoted to prove Canaan the sanctuary; for, if they do not prove it, none of these prophecies are relevant to the subject in hand. The whole question, therefore, so far as this book is concerned, is reduced to the four texts above mentioned. These we will now examine.

1. Ex. xv, 17. "Thou shalt bring them in and plant them in the mountain of thine inheritance; in the place, O Lord, which thou hast made for thee to dwell in; in the sanctuary, O Lord, which thy hands have established." It will be noticed that this is a part of the song of Moses uttered immediately after the passage of the red sea. It is a prediction of what God would do for Israel. It was to be accomplished in the promised land, hence we may look for its fulfillment; and when we see how it was fulfilled, we shall have, beyond question, the intent of the prediction. We trace the history of Israel till they were brought in and planted in the land of Palestine, and the mountain of his inheritance, as predicted. But what do we then learn of the sanctuary? We learn that a sanctuary was built therein by that people, as the center of their worship and the dwelling place of God. And could we have asked Moses, or any Jew, from his day down to A. D. 70, to point out to us the sanctuary, the answer would ever have been, Behold the tabernacle, or the temple. David bears direct testimony on this point; but as his language is quoted as text number two to prove the position under review, we will examine it as such.

2. Ps. lxxviii, 54. "And he brought them to the border of his sanctuary, even to this mountain which his right hand had purchased." This text belongs with Ex. xv, 17; for it is the record of the fulfillment of what Moses utters as a prediction. Hence it is an inspired commentary upon that song. But so far from proving the mountain to be the sanctuary, as has been hastily inferred from the song of Moses, it tells us plainly that the mountain was only the border of the sanctuary. Our author does not seem inclined to use further testimony from this same psalm of David. But there is, a few verses further on, direct testimony as to what the sanctuary then was. Why was not this quoted? To introduce it would indeed have been fatal to his purpose of proving Palestine the sanctuary; and shall we conclude that this is the reason it was omitted? He has certainly left the way all open to so grave a suspicion as this. But let us look at the testimony. After stating that the Lord had brought his people into that good land, and cast out the heathen before them, the psalmist proceeds, verse 69, "And he built his sanctuary like high palaces." Ah, then the sanctuary was a building erected in that land, and not the land itself. If there are any who still cannot see the difference between the sanctuary and the land, listen while good king Jehoshaphat, a ruler on the throne of David, rebukes such lack of discernment: "Art not thou our God, who didst drive out the inhabitants of this land before thy people Israel, and gavest it to the seed of Abraham thy friend, forever? And they dwelt therein, and have built thee a sanctuary therein for thy name saying, If when evil cometh upon us, as the sword, judgment or pestilence, or famine, we stand before this house, and in thy presence (for thy name is in this house), and cry unto thee in our affliction, then thou wilt hear and help." 2 Chron. xx, 7–9. The house which is here referred to, was the temple which they had built in that land; and this is plainly called the sanctuary, in distinction from the land in which it was built.

3. The third text quoted is Ps. cxxxii, 13, 14: "For the Lord hath chosen Zion, he hath desired it for his habitation. This is my rest forever; here will I dwell; for I have desired it." How this proves that the whole land of Palestine is the sanctuary, we should be truly gratified to learn. It speaks of Zion, not Palestine; and the reason for calling Zion his habitation, can only be because Jerusalem of which Zion, the city of David, was a part, contained the sanctuary, in which God dwelt." Ex. xxv, 8.

4. Isa. lxiii, 18. "The people of thy holiness have possessed it but a little while; our adversaries have trodden down thy sanctuary." This cannot be offered as positive testimony that the land is the sanctuary, since the treading down is equally applicable to cities or dwellings, as to the land. And it is a fact that when the people were dispossessed of the land, the sanctuary which they had built in that land was laid

in ruins. In referring to the same event in the next chapter, verse 11, the prophet says, "Our holy and our beautiful house, where our fathers praised thee, is burned up with fire;" thus showing that the sanctuary was their beautiful house, and not the land.

And this is the sum total of the "immutable testimony that Palestine is the sanctuary," which this book claims to give. We have said that a book coming forth with the claims of this one, should be exhaustive of the subject. How far it is so, the reader can now judge. No word is said in reference to what Paul calls the sanctuary of the first covenant, Heb. ix, 1, 2, and the wonderful service connected therewith, and which occupied so prominent a place in the former dispensation. No word is spoken of Paul's invincible commentary on that system, in his epistle to the Hebrews, in which he shows that the sanctuary and priesthood of this dispensation is in Heaven, as that of the former was upon earth. And of the one hundred and forty-six times of the occurrence of the word sanctuary in the Bible, only four texts, and one of these not even mentioning the sanctuary, are quoted to show what the sanctuary is! Is this important subject to be settled with treatment like this?

We are reminded by this effort that there are few subjects which our opponents seem more loth to meet, and certainly none on which they manifest greater weakness, than the subject of the sanctuary. Brethren, we have here a citadel of strength. Here all the great columns of present truth center; and our system of truth forever remains unshaken while this citadel stands.

Let nothing then cause your interest in this subject to wane away. Let nothing obscure its light and glory. But remember that the light has come, not so much to enable us to maintain a theory, as to reveal the momentous work now consummating before the ark of God in Heaven, to show us the position of our Great High Priest, inspire us with earnestness to confess all our sins ere his intercession shall cease, and enable us to be among the number whose sins shall be blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord, and he shall come forth to pronounce the everlasting covenant of peace upon his people. And while we are strong and joyful in this blessed truth, let us also be faithful in all the duties which it brings to view.