The Sanctuary Pt. 2

Sanctuary 3

Why is it important that we study the sanctuary?

Hebrews {8:1} 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; {8:2} A minister of the sanctuary, and of the true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, and not man.

This is why.

We have a minister of the sanctuary.

A minister of the true tabernacle.

A minister of the tabernacle the Lord pitched and not man.

We have a High Priest.

Hebrews {9:11} But Christ being come an high priest of good things to come, by a greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this building; {9:12} Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us.

But Christ being come an high priest.

By a greater and more perfect tabernacle not made with hands.

Not by blood of goats and calves.

By His own blood he entered in once into the holy place.

Do you see why we should study the sanctuary? What it meant to be given the sanctuary, what it meant so that we can understand even more fully what our Lord and Savior has done in becoming a High Priest for us.

Some might thing all that sanctuary stuff has been done away with and is nonsense destroyed by Jesus, but I don't think that at all. I think the old covenant with the earthly sanctuary served its purpose in being an example. Jesus' birth, life, death, and resurrection are all tied into the old covenant as He made a new one.

Sometimes in life we don't *have* to understand the old way of things to be part of the new way, but history is taught in all our schools because history shows us where we've been, how far we've come, it reveals the good and the bad and we constantly seek to make our present and future lives something meaningful so that one day when it to is history we'll be able to say that we progress, we learned from the old and welcomed the new.

Learning from the old can sometimes fully explain the new for those seeking a deep understanding of things more than a superficial one. Sometimes we are called to a deeper understanding, sometimes it is very necessary especially when Satan would have us give up hope and make it all a lie. The deeper rooted we are into the Word of God the harder it will be to uproot us. I pray that God through His Holy Spirit by the Grace and Mercy of His Son, our eyes and hearts are opened to the understanding He would have us find in Him through love.

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Picking up from yesterday with just a tiny review--

1981 May-- XIV 5(81) -- LET'S TALK ABOUT THE ATONEMENT - I Author William Grotheer

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Pg. 3

{22:44} And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly: and his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground.

Thus Gethsemane could have become the antitypical Altar. Why then the Cross? The Cross brings to our poor deranged and dull senses that sin is the will to kill God. Jesus had told the Jews that the lusts of their father the devil they would do. Being a murderer from the beginning - desiring to kill the Immortal Potentate, Satan would have them do that very thing to God's Son in whom all the fulness of the Godhead dwelt. (John 8:44) When we truly perceive what sin really is, our thinking is rearranged, and we see in Him whom we have pierced, our Sacrifice and Substitute.


However, with the healing of our thought processes, we are still short of the glory of God.

We are still just as unable to meet the judicial requirements of God as stated in His law, as we were before we found our place at the foot of the Cross.

But He who became our Sacrifice and Substitute speaks to us, and says I will be your Mediator - your Priest. I will accomplish your atonement with your God. And so "of Him are [we] in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption." (I Cor. 1:30)

"Wisdom" - for by the Cross we see the real meaning of sin; "righteousness" for by His righteousness God is able to declare "the remission of sins that are past." (Rom. 3:25); "sanctification" for by His sanctification the truth is to be inwrought in our lives (John 17:19); and "redemption" for by that redemption our vile bodies shall be changed into the likeness of His "glorious body" (Phil 3:21); - yea all this is for us by Jesus Christ that "in all things He might have the preeminence." (Col. 1:18) But in this divine process whereby we become atone with God and see His face again (Rev. 22:4), there are specific acts to be performed on both the part of the priest and the individual.

These conditions were outlined in the types of the earthly sanctuary which foreshadowed the work and ministry of our great High Priest as He makes atonement for us in the sanctuary of the heavens.

In the Court --

The principle article of furniture as far as the individual was concerned was the Brazen Altar.

On this Altar was offered the sin offering.

While the disposition of the blood varied with the status of the sinner, the process by which it was presented, and the ultimate result reflecting back on the sinner was the same.

The one presenting the animal of the sin offering must bring it "to the door of the tabernacle of the congregation before the Lord." (Lev. 4:4)

Then he would "lay his hand upon the head of the sin offering and slay the sin offering" before the Lord. (Lev. 4:29)

With this ritual the participation of the sinner ceased. But in his participation, he had performed two very meaningful acts.

First, he had presented a substitute to meet the demands of justice, and secondly, he himself slew the substitute.

At the point when the victim was killed, the priest took over.

He either ministered the blood directly before "the veil of the sanctuary" (Lev. 4:6), or he partook of the flesh of the sin offering. (Lev. 10:17)

Through the priestly act, atonement was made, and forgiveness was extended to the sinner. (Lev. 4:20)

Again this ritual tells us something. The atonement of man with God was not made until after the sacrificial substitute was offered.

The result of the atonement was forgiveness - judicial in its results, because the sinner had just as much a potential to sin after the sin offering was presented as he had before its presentation.

The forgiveness extended had only one effect upon him - he could rest in the consciousness of freedom from the guilt caused by his sin. He stood before his God as though he had never sinned.

The victim had borne his sin, and had been accepted in his place.

The Hebrew word translated "atonement" in describing the ritual of the sanctuary is kah-phar. It means literally "to cover."

Its first use in Scripture had to do with Noah's ark. There God commanded Noah - "Make yourself an ark of gopher wood, and cover it inside and out with pitch." (Gen. 6:14 RSV)

In the sanctuary service as pertaining to the sin offering, the priest made the "covering."

The sin of the sinner was open - he confessed, and was deserving of death, but had presented a substitute. By the means of the blood of the substitute, the priest had in turn "covered" his sin.

In the reality, Jesus became both Substitute, and Priest, one following the other. As the great High Priest over the house of God, He has effected the judicial atonement - whether individual or corporate - covering the sins of all who "come unto God by Him seeing He ever liveth to make intercession for them." (Heb. 7:25)

If in the sanctuary service, the ritual of the Court had been all that was to be performed, and the first apartment into which the priest went with the blood of the sin offering was a vacant vestibule, then we might conclude that the "new theology" had some merit. But the Scripture plainly teaches that beyond the judicial atonement was much more to be performed by the priests on behalf,of the sinner directly effecting his final atonement with God.

There was the Holy Place, not vacant and meaningless, and the Most Holy Place, where the final decree regarding sin and sinners was prefigured each year in the great Day of Atonement. These we shall discuss in the next thought paper, God willing.

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And with that note we will pick up with the next part of our Sanctuary study tomorrow.

There is a lot of food for thought here, a lot.

The fact that we are each responsible for the slaying of the innocent Lamb of God, responsible in a REAL way, not an imagined abstract way. Our sins, our seeking to kill God, to separate ourselves from God is so real. We don't want to look at sin that way. We want to look at it as harmless little acts we are compelled to perform beyond our ability to control. We want to take ourselves, our blame out of the equation and toss it elsewhere. We want to imagine that those little defiant acts that scream selfishness and self love over God love aren't so bad as all that. Sin is horrific and when we take the true nature of sin and try to conform it into something it isn't who are we deceiving but ourselves? Yes, the heavy weight of the knowledge is grievous and we can't imagine ever being sinless, and this is where our faith has to come into play. Our faith and our belief that God is willing to guide us to the acceptable place in our lives through the mercy and grace of His slain Son, not because we deserve it, because we don't, but because He loves us with an unimaginable love.

By His Grace. By His Mercy. By His Love.

Amen.