The Heavenly Sanctuary.—Concluded

Notes

1. It was a work of judgment. It was so regarded by ancient Israel. The people were to afflict or humble their souls, or be cut off from Israel. Lev. 23:29.

2. Sin has been conveyed to the sanctuary by the ministration of the priest, as shown by the type, and it must be removed or cleansed by blood. The sanctuary is, therefore, to be cleansed from sin, and not from physical impurity.

3. Every work will be brought into judgment. This shows that sins are not blotted out at conversion. They remain on the books of record till the judgment, the great antitypical day of atonement, the cleansing of the heavenly temple. "The blood of Christ, while it was to release the repentant sinner from the condemnation of the law, was not to cancel the sin; it would stand on record in the sanctuary until the final day of atonement; so in the type, the blood of the sin offering removed the sin from the penitent, but it rested in the sanctuary until the day of atonement."—Patriarchs and Prophets, p. 357.

4. Judgment will begin first upon the people of God, and their cases must be decided before Christ comes, because the saints are to judge the world after He comes. Dan. 7:22; 1 Cor. 6:1-3; 4:5; Rev. 20:4.

5. "In the great day of final award the dead are to be 'judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works.' Then, by virtue of the atoning blood of Christ, the sins of all the truly penitent will be blotted from the books of heaven. Thus the sanctuary will be freed, or cleansed, from the record of sin. In the type this great work of atonement, or blotting out of sins, was represented by the services of the day of atonement,—the cleansing of the earthly sanctuary, which was accomplished by the removal, by virtue of the blood of the sin offering, of the sins by which it had been polluted."—Patriarchs and Prophets, pp. 357, 358.

6. This scripture locates the time of the blotting out of sin just before the second coming of Christ. He completes His priestly work before He comes. The blotting out of the sins of His people is, therefore, just before He comes to gather His elect.

7. Christ, as our great High Priest, bears our sins from the heavenly temple, as indicated in the type, and they are placed upon the head of Satan, the antitypical scapegoat. "Since Satan is the originator of sin, the direct instigator of all the sins that caused the death of the Son of God, justice demands that Satan shall suffer the final punishment. Christ's work for the redemption of men and the purification of the universe from sin, will be closed by the removal of sin from the heavenly sanctuary and the placing of these sins upon Satan, who will bear the final penalty. So in the typical service the yearly round of ministration closed with the purification of the sanctuary, and the confession of the sins on the head of the scapegoat."—Patriarchs and Prophets, p. 358.

8. In the typical service the sins of God's people were placed on the head of the scapegoat at the close of the yearly round of service. It was an act performed after the sanctuary was cleansed, and the priest had come out from it, bearing the sins of the people. Hence the sins of God's people will be placed upon Satan at the close of our Saviour's priestly service in the heavenly temple.

9. At the resurrection of the just, which takes place at the commencement of the thousand years, when Christ comes the second time, Satan is cast by an angel into the bottomless pit—abussos—abyss (see Revised Version), which means a waste, void, uninhabited place. This was very plainly symbolized by the scapegoat being sent away by the hand of a fit man into the wilderness, into a land not inhabited. Lev. 16:21, 22. When Christ comes, the righteous will be taken to heaven (1 Thess. 4:16, 17; John 14:1-3), and the living wicked will be destroyed (Isa. 24:1-3; Jer. 4:19-27; 2 Thess. 2:8). Thus the earth will be desolate and waste till the wicked are raised from the dead at the end of the thousand years. Rev. 20:5, first clause, 3, 7, 8.