Sanctuary 2 - The Priest
Study given by W. D. Frazee - July 12, 1969
"And he said unto me, Unto two thousand and three hundred days; then shall the sanctuary be cleansed" Daniel 8:14.
What visions this text awakens. What memories it brings back. This verse is the foundation and pillar of the Advent movement. If we had been listening to William Miller or Joseph Bates or James White a hundred twenty-five years ago this summer we would doubtless have heard this text over and over again. Thank God, it has lost none of its meaning and none of its importance. It is more important to us than it was to them.
Most of you are familiar with this prophecy. It is clear that it points to the twenty-second day of October, 1844 as the time when the sanctuary shall be cleansed. This period of literal years reaching from the decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem down through the anointing of the Messiah, His death on the cross, and the giving of the gospel to the Gentiles, finds its culmination in 1844. What event is this which is so important that the longest time prophecy of the Bible points it out over two millenniums in advance? It is certainly nothing minor. It is a great event in the working out of the plan of salvation.
Paul devotes many verses in the book of Hebrews to establish the fact that the sanctuary of the new covenant is in heaven. God had Moses make a copy down here in this world, but it was only a copy. That is all it was intended to be. It was an object lesson teaching precious lessons concerning the temple of God in heaven and the work that our great High Priest would there carry on for
the removal of sin.
"Now of the things which we have spoken this is the sum: We have such an high priest, who is set on the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens; A minister of the sanctuary, and of the true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, and not man" Hebrews 8:1,2.
What is the cleansing of the sanctuary? Why should there be anything in heaven that needs cleansing? How could there be anything in heaven that needs cleansing?
If God says there is something there that needs cleansing we had better believe Him. And if He shows there is a part we have in connection with the cleansing, we want to find it and do it. I can tell you that Jesus will never come until the sanctuary is cleansed.
"And almost all things are by the law purged with blood; and without shedding of blood is no remission. 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" Hebrews 9:22,23.
Moses took various animals and sacrificed them, it was that the earthly sanctuary should be cleansed by the blood of animals, but the heavenly things with better sacrifices. Concerning both it is necessary that they be cleansed. What does
necessary mean? It has to be. It must be. It is required.
It was necessary that the earthly sanctuary be cleansed with the blood of animals. It is necessary that the heavenly sanctuary be cleansed with better sacrifices, the precious blood of Jesus.
For Christ is not entered into the holy places made with hands, which are the figures of the true; but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us: Nor yet that He should offer Himself often, as the high priest entereth into the holy place every year with blood of others" verses 24,25.
Every year the high priest went into the most holy place for the service of cleansing the sanctuary. Jesus will not do it over and over again. Why?
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When necessary
"For then must He often have suffered since the foundation of the world: but now once in the end of the world hath He appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself" verse 26.
So the cleansing to be accomplished is the cleansing from sin. Putting away sin. Getting rid of sin. Of course, the question comes, Why would there be any sin in heaven to be cleansed?
We might reason about that for a long time and never get anywhere. The way to find out about things in heaven is to let God tell us. He speaks for heaven and from heaven. Through His Word He has given us a picture of heavenly things. This is what He had in mind when He had Moses build the earthly sanctuary. He tells us that the priests who served in that tabernacle served unto the example and shadow of heavenly things Hebrews 8:5).
If we can find out how sin got into the earthly sanctuary, we will find out how sin gets into the sanctuary above. If we can find out how sin was cleansed out of the earthly sanctuary, we will find out how the cleansing of the sanctuary in heaven takes place.
Notice that the first five verses of Hebrews 9 are devoted to a description of the sanctuary that Moses made. Then it says:
"Now when these things were thus ordained, the priests went always into the first tabernacle, accom- plishing the service of God. But into the second went the high priest alone once every year, not without blood, which he offered for himself, and for the errors of the people" Hebrews 9:6,7.
Who went into the holy place every day? The priests. Who went into the most holy? The high priest. Let me put is simply. The work of the daily service was to get sins into the sanctuary. The work of the yearly service was to get them out of the sanctu- ary.
Someone might ask, Well, if they are going to take them out, why bring them in?
We read that at the end of the twenty-three hundred days the sanctuary would be cleansed. We read that it is a cleansing from
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sin. The purpose of getting sins in is because God wants to remove sin from us. The only place He has found to do it is through the sanctuary. So the purpose of getting the sins in is so they can be taken from us. The purpose of cleansing the sanctuary from them is that the universe may be rid of them forever.
Sometimes little illustrations help us. I suppose some of you take your clothes to a laundry. The first work of a laundry is to get the clothes in, and the second work of a laundry is to get them out. Can the laundry do any good for the clothes that are not brought to it? Not a bit. You have to leave them there too.
The sanctuary is God's laundry. He is in the business of removing every spot and stain. And when He comes He is going to find a church without spot or wrinkle or any such thing. But remember, the clothes must be brought to the laundry.
"These are they which came out of great tribula- tion, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb" Revelation 7:14.
Thank God that every sin can be washed away.
How do the sins get in? How do they get out. Let's go back to Leviticus and see. In the fourth, fifth, and sixth chapters we find various offerings that the people were to bring in order to have their sins forgiven. Ten times in these three chapters it is spoken of as the atonement. Atonement is the work of bringing man and God together. Sin separates.
"But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid His face from you, that He will not hear" Isaiah 59:2.
I suppose we have all had experiences in our human relation- ships that help us to understand that. An experience comes to me that happened when I was just a nine year old boy. My father and mother and my little brother and I had just moved to San Diego, California. We were staying at the home of some cousins while my father and mother were hunting for a house. The cousins were away on a trip, and we had the house to ourselves.
While father and mother were out hunting for a house my Sanctuary 2 - page 4
brother and I were playing in the back yard. This particular morning our parents had said, "Boys, don't touch that apricot tree."
It was summer time and the apricots were just getting ripe. Before the morning was gone there was something very interesting about that apricot tree. I am sorry to say we got near it. I am sorry to say we touched. And I am sorry to say that some of the fruit got into our hands and mouth.
As we looked down the street and saw father and mother getting off the streetcar we felt just about like I imagine Adam and Eve felt when they heard God coming in the cool of the day . How different it was from the day before. The day before we were just so glad to see them coming. But this time it was different.
They didn't know anything about what we had done. What had happened? Had something come in and separated us? Yes, we boys had disobeyed.
Sin brings something between the soul that disobeys and the God that gives the command. And it is the work of the sanctuary to bridge that gulf, take away the sin, and thus bring about the atonement.
How utterly impossible it would be to bring about any real atonement as long as the sin remains. I fear that some people look upon the gospel as a method of escaping the penalty of sin.
A man is speeding down the highway at ninety miles an hour. The police stop him and give him a ticket. He puts the ticket in his pocket. He says, Never mind. I have a friend who knows the judge. He will fix this ticket for me.
Do you think Jesus is in that business? Not a bit of it. The sacrifice of Christ and the service of the sanctuary is not to cancel out the penalty so you and I can go on sinning. I don't care what the name of the religion is that teaches such a thing. It is heathenism. It would make God a co-partner with the devil in perpetuating lawbreaking.
Nothing like that is so. The work of the atonement is to remove sin. It has to do with relieving us from having to pay the
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penalty for sin which is eternal death. But unless the sin is removed the atonement is not accomplished. Only as sin is taken out of the way are man and God truly brought together again.
You will find ten different descriptions in these three chapters of Leviticus that vary in details, but the central fact is clear. In order for a man's sin to be forgiven it must be transferred from himself to a substitute. That substitute might be a bullock. It might be a goat. It might be a lamb. But whatever the animal, it was brought by the sinner who had broken the law to the altar of burnt offering which stood in the court at the entrance to the sanctuary.
As the sinner put his hands upon the head of the substitute he confessed his sin, and thus transferred the sin from himself to the substitute. Since the wages for sin is death, what must happen to the substitute? The substitute must die. What was on the substitute when it died? Sin. Is that why it died? Yes. It died because of the sins that had been put upon it.
Who killed the substitute? The sinner. You can read it over and over again in chapters four and five of Leviticus. His hand must take the knife and slay the sacrifice. That was to teach him, and us, that sin brings death. It is to teach me that my sin brings the death of my substitute.
Suppose we were back there. We sinned today and bring the substitute. We confess the sin, transfer it to the substitute, slay it, and the priest ministers the blood. Then we go home.
Suppose tomorrow we sin the same sin again. The first lamb is dead. It can't suffer again. We must bring another lamb.
Suppose next week we do the same thing again. We must bring another lamb.
But in the heavenly service God has only one Lamb. So for each transgression that Lamb must suffer. So it is written concerning those who keep on sinning:
"If they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put Him to an open shame" Hebrews 6:6.
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It is serious business. Do you see what God was trying to teach the Israelites? Sin brings pain, suffering, anguish, agony, and death. Not merely sin in general, but specifically my sin. Whatever I did that causes me to come to the sanctuary with the lamb is the thing that kills the lamb.
If I have any gratitude, any regard for the lamb or the one whom the lamb represents, what will I do? I will quit. Do you see the purpose of it?
I am sorry to say that there is a great religious system which calls itself the church. It has a method of dealing with sin which instead of looking toward quitting sin takes for granted that people are going to keep on sinning. That system has a priesthood on earth. It has a confessional on earth. Our Priest is in heaven. Our confessional is in heaven.
When a human being kneels down before another human being and pours out his sin, and the priest says he absolves and forgives, and gives a penance to perform, it cheapens the whole business.
God never intended any such thing. He intended that when you and I confess our sins we should not put them before some human priest, but before the heavenly Priest. We should put them on the Lamb who died for us, and linger and see what sin does to Him until it makes us sorry enough to give it up and not go back to it. If people would do this there would not be so much repetition over and over again.
"And the priest that is anointed shall bring of the bullock's blood to the tabernacle of the congrega- tion: And the priest shall dip his finger in some of the blood, and sprinkle it seven times before the LORD, even before the vail. And he shall put some of the blood upon the horns of the altar which is before the LORD, that is in the tabernacle of the congregation, and shall pour out all the blood at the bottom of the altar of the burnt offering, which is at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation" Leviticus 4:16-18.
The priest took the blood the sinner had shed out in the court. Passing through the veil he entered in, and standing before the second veil he sprinkled the blood seven times. Then he put some of the blood on the horns of the golden altar. This
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is the way the atonement was provided.
"And he shall do with the bullock as he did with the bullock for a sin offering, so shall he do with this: and the priest shall make an atonement for them, and it shall be forgiven them" verse 20.
This was the atonement for the forgiveness of sin. What made it possible? The transfer of the sin from the sinner to the substitute, the death of the substitute, and the blood taken in and sprinkled before the veil and on the horns of the golden altar.
This showed that the sin was forgiven. David said, Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered" Psalm 32:1.
Perhaps I can illustrate it. I will take a piece of paper with some marks on it. I will let it represent my sin. I bring it to Jesus and give it to Him. He takes it.
As He goes into the sanctuary with the blood of His sacrifice He carries my sin with Him, and it is covered. Can you see it? No.
Everyone of us has sinned. We are conscious of that. And every sin we have committed is either covered or it is not covered. If you have confessed it to Jesus, and He has forgiven it, then it is covered by His precious blood. But if you have it, it is not covered. And you had better not try to cover it, for Solomon says, He that covereth his sin shall not prosper (Proverbs 28:13). It makes a great deal of difference who does the covering.
Jacob tried to cover up some sins he committed. He didn't do a good job of it. Peter tried to cover up some sins he committed. He didn't do a good job of it. There is only one real covering for sin, and it is the blood of the sacrifice. But notice that the sacrifice could not be slain until the sin had been confessed and put upon it. Sins that are forgiven are sins that are given up. Nothing can be at the same time in two different places. You can't keep your sins and at the same time have them in the sanctuary covered with the blood.
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Let me illustrate it with something tangible. Here is a man who is smoking two packs of cigarettes a day. He knows if he keeps smoking he will get lung cancer or a heart attack, but he keeps on puffing.
He hears the good news of the forgiveness and cleansing at the sanctuary, so he comes. He brings the sin and puts it on the Lamb. What does he do with the package of cigarettes? He lays it down. Can he be forgiven and still keep them in his pocket and keep on puffing? Oh, no. Jesus will keep pleading with him. The Holy Spirit will keep working with him. But there is no forgiveness of sin that we keep in our possession.
The service of the sanctuary shows us that the covering of sins with the blood is for those who give them up and put them on the Lamb.
The worse sin can be forgiven that way, but the best sin (if there were such a thing) can never be forgiven as long as we hold onto it.
That doesn't mean we have to live for a week without sinning before we can be forgiven. No. If it meant that we would be hopeless. We can be forgiven this minute if we give up our sins. We don't have to be on probation and prove ourselves. In fact, the only way to walk the Christian way is to get rid of the load of sin. There is only one who can carry it for you, and that is the Lamb that was slain from the foundation of the world.
The sin got into the sanctuary through the sprinkling of blood. Another way it got in was through the priest eating a small portion of the sin offering.
"And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto Aaron and to his sons, saying, This is the law of the sin offering: In the place where the burnt offering is killed shall the sin offering be killed before the LORD: it is most holy. The priest that offereth it for sin shall eat it: in the holy place shall it be eaten, in the court of the tabernacle of the congregation" Leviticus 6:24-26.
When the sin offering had the blood taken into the sanctuary, then the priest was not to eat it (verse 30). If the priest did
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not sprinkle the blood, he ate a portion of the sacrifice and sprinkled the blood on the horns of the altar of burnt offerings in the court. So there were two different ways. One way or the other the sin went in.
When we celebrate the ordinances of the Lord's house we partake of bread and wine. Concerning the bread the Saviour said, This is My body. Concerning the wine He said, This is My blood.
So either through the eating of the flesh or the sprinkling of the blood the sin was carried into the sanctuary.
"Both ceremonies alike symbolized the transfer of the sin from the penitent to the sanctuary" Great Controversy, page 418.
In Leviticus 17:11,14 we noticed that the blood represents the life. The life is poured out. The life is given in sacrifice. When the Son of God suffered upon the cross His blood was shed. When they pierced His heart with the spear blood and water poured forth in token that He had died of a broken heart. What was put upon Him? Sin.
"Who His own self bare our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed" 1 Peter 2:24.
Seven hundred years before the birth of Christ Isaiah wrote it down prophetically:
"The Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all" Isaiah 53:6.
When the lamb died, it died with sin upon it, and the blood was sin-bearing blood. When the priest ate some of the flesh he was, as it were, eating the sin of the sinner. This is all in type, you understand. But I want you to get the picture. The priest bore in his own body the sins of Israel.
On one occasion the sons of Aaron failed to eat the sin offering. Notice what Moses said:
"Wherefore have ye not eaten the sin offering in the holy place, seeing it is most holy, and God hath given it you to bear the iniquity of the congregation,
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to make atonement for them before the LORD" Leviticus 10:17.
The priest must bear the iniquity if he is to make the atonement. Someone must bear it. If the sinner bears it there is no atonement. If the sinner isn't bearing it, where is it? It is put upon the substitute, and the substitute dies. Then through the sprinkled blood or the living priest that sin is carried into the sanctuary.
Our great High Priest must bear our sins until the final cleansing of the sanctuary. One of our problems with sin is that we have little idea of what it costs. We sin and get sorry. We kneel down and say we are sorry, and ask God to forgive us. Then we run away and it is all fixed up. Next week we do it again, or something worse. But what is happening all the while?
Someone says, But I thought Jesus died upon the cross so our sins could be all forgiven, and He did that two thousand years ago. It is all taken care of.
Listen:
"Few give thought to the suffering that sin has caused our Creator. All heaven suffered in Christ's agony; but that suffering did not begin or end with His manifestation in humanity. The cross is a revelation to our dull senses of the pain that, from its very inception, sin has brought to the heart of God." Education, page 263.
For six hours Jesus hung on a cross of wood that you and I might understand the pain that bearing our sins has brought to His heart for six thousand years. When sin is transferred from us through the substitute to the sanctuary someone must bear the sin. It is the priest that does it. Our Priest is Jesus the Son of God.
Aren't we thankful that Jesus loves us enough to do it? And how long do you want Him to keep bearing that load? Certainly not a minute longer than necessary.
Read the chapter, What Is The Sanctuary in Great Controversy. Read the chapter, The Tabernacle and Its Services in Patriarchs and Prophets. Let's get full of these things.
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What a wonderful hour to be living in when our great High Priest is going to make an end of the sin problem.
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Continue by clicking on the study below
Study 1 The Holy Spirit & The Sanctuary - The Sacrifice
Study 2 The Holy Spirit & The Sanctuary - The Priest
Study 3 The Holy Spirit & The Sanctuary - The Day of Atonement
Study 4 The Holy Spirit & The Sanctuary - Sanctuary Closed
Study 5 The Holy Spirit & The Sanctuary - Sprinkled Blood
Study 6 The Holy Spirit & The Sanctuary - House of God