Truth.
Our High Priest, Jesus Christ, Son of God, our Savior- LIVES. Creator, Redeemer, He lives.
Right now He is in the Heavenly Sanctuary. He is there on OUR behalf. He is cleansing the world from the stain of sin. Sin's stain has left its mark in Heaven and Earth. Sin's stain has left it's mark upon the very flesh of our Savior. Forever we will know the price that our Savior paid so that we could live. The cleansing is removing the sins of the saints and all record of those sins from heaven's books. They are HIS, He paid the price, He became the sacrifice necessary to remove the record of sin so that ONLY the names of the saints remain in the book of life, their names no where else not a single sin left to recall. Every single sin committed by those who would be Christ's will be completely blotted out, not just forgiven, but CLEANSED, completely gone forever! And right now our Savior is performing this cleansing and the cleansing will continue right up until the last possible moment before the cup of iniquity is totally full. The living saints will be sin free- but they won't know it, that can't know it. Christ will be living in them so completely, the Holy Spirit living in them that they and they alone will be spared the horrors of the plagues, of living in the time when the Savior NO longer pleas on our behalf because the cleansing work is finished. He will stand up, it will be over. He will come for the saints as a conquering King, not as the High Priest any longer that work will be over.
We've been so incredibly blessed that our High Priest has ministered for so long, desiring as many as would be His to come to Him, to believe in Him.
Remember this is the work of God that He would have us do-
Joh 6:28 Then said they unto him, What shall we do, that we might work the works of God?
Joh 6:29 Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent.
Believe on our SAVIOR.
Let's continue with our study of the Sanctuary- remember this is an in depth study, you won't find fluff here. You will find only TRUTH.
May God bless us and may the Holy Spirit open our hearts and eyes to all His truth, to all His love.
*******
'WWN 2002 Mar -- XXXV - 3(02) -- "The Judgment Was Set"
-- Editors Preface --
In the course of our Church history (((SDA)))), we have had problems with the doctrine of the Atonement.
Adopting the position of Crosier from his study on the Sanctuary following the Great Disappointment in 1844, we denied that there was an atonement made at the Cross, and declared that there was only one atonement, the final, which began with the fulfillment of the prophecy of Daniel 8:14 in 1844.
The very use of the designation, "final" would indicate more than one atonement.
Then in the infamous SDA-Evangelical conferences, we denied what we had taught regarding the final atonement and declared with emphasis - "Adventists do not hold any theory of a dual atonement. 'Christ has redeemed us' (Gal. 3:13) 'once for all' Heb. 10:10). Q on D, p. 390)
In this compromise, we indicated plainly that a single atonement was completed on the Cross. In fact, the Adventist conferees went so far as to declare that Christ obtained nothing for us at
the time of His entrance upon His priestly ministry, nor has He at any time since, because "He had already obtained it for us on the cross." (ibid., p. 381).
If the typical priestly ministry in the Hebrew Sanctuary has meaning as the book of Hebrews indicates (Heb. 8:5), then there is a dual atonement, one involving forgiveness and one cleansing.
(((Heb 8:5 Who serve unto the example and shadow of heavenly things, as Moses was admonished of God when he was about to make the tabernacle: for, See, saith he, that thou make all things according to the pattern shewed to thee in the mount. ))))
Beginning in earnest with Ballenger, and climaxing in Dr. Desmond Ford's assault on the Doctrine of the Sanctuary, we have faced serious challenges to a basic Adventist teaching.
Ballanger based his thrust on the cry of Jesus on the Cross, "It is finished." In this issue of WWN, we discuss these words of Jesus, what He meant, as well as consider things needed to be learned, and unlearned in our teachings regarding aspects of the Sanctuary question. Perhaps, if we had done so before, we might have escaped the tragedy of the SDA-Evangelical Conferences.
"We have many lessons to learn, and many, many to unlearn. God and heaven alone are infallible."
*
"The Judgment Was Set and the Books were opened" --
(((Dan_7:10 ... the judgment was set, and the books were opened. ))))
In recent decades, this prophetic "Judgment" scene in Daniel 7:10 has been called "the pre-Advent judgment," instead of "the investigative judgment" by which it was known at its inception when set forth as an explanation of what did occur when Christ entered His final ministry in the Most Holy Place of the Heavenly Sanctuary.
Closely associated with this "Judgment" is the focus of the paralleling prophecy in Daniel 8 on the sanctuary - "then shall the sanctuary be cleansed" (v.14).
This introduces into the prophetic picture the typical Day of Atonement, when annually, the earthly sanctuary was figuratively cleansed.
Add to this, the announcement of the First Angel of Revelation 14 - "The hour of His judgment is come" (v.7) - and you have the heart and core of Adventism.
A. F. Ballenger, a powerful preacher and revivalist, was one of the first to challenge this core teaching. In the 1890s, his revival meetings in Battle Creek centered on "Receive Ye the Holy Spirit," led many of the church and college students to rededicate their lives to Christ and His service. Ballenger carried this message to worker's meetings and camp meetings. It was at one of these meetings in Indiana that S. S. Davis, the originator of the Holy Flesh Movement, received his inspiration. (See The Holy Flesh Movement 1899-1901, pp.5-6)
At the turn of the century, Ballenger accepted a call to the British Isles. While laboring in various large cities, he was also developing new theological concepts. These were finally published in a book, The Proclamation of Liberty and the Unpardonable Sin. He would write: If the reader would know at once what is the central thought, - the all absorbing theme, - the body, soul and spirit of this book, it is summed up in the final words of our dying Lord, "It is finished" (p.5).
This is the pivotal point on which the whole of the core teaching of the sanctuary doctrine turns.
All who have followed Ballenger in challenging the sanctuary teaching of the Church, including Dr. Desmond Ford, have done little more than elucidate and enlarge on the original premise of Ballenger.In simple application, the final, dying words of Jesus are used to substantiate the concept that the death of Christ is the final, once for all, atonement for sin.
In other words, the atonement was finished at the Cross; there is no final atonement. (See next article, "The Final Words of Christ").
It also needs to be remembered that following the Great Disappointment in 1844, 0. R. L Crosier wrote a lengthy analysis on "The Sanctuary," with the premise that "the sanctuary was the heart of the typical system." He challenged the idea that the atonement was completed on the Cross writing that Christ "did not begin the work of making atonement, whatever the nature of that work may be, till after His ascension, when by His own blood He entered His heavenly Sanctuary for us" (The Advent Review, September, 1850, p.45).
Neither can this position, nor the one advanced by Ballenger, be sustained by the type.
In the daily (((sanctuary)))) service, provision was made for the individual who brought his sin offering to the Altar in the Court, to receive an atonement which resulted in forgiveness.
The Scripture reads - "and the priest shall make an atonement for him, and it shall be forgiven him" (Lev. 4:31; see also 4:26, 35).
(((Lev 4:26 And he shall burn all his fat upon the altar, as the fat of the sacrifice of peace offerings: and the priest shall make an atonement for him as concerning his sin, and it shall be forgiven him.
Lev 4:35 And he shall take away all the fat thereof, as the fat of the lamb is taken away from the sacrifice of the peace offerings; and the priest shall burn them upon the altar, according to the offerings made by fire unto the LORD: and the priest shall make an atonement for his sin that he hath committed, and it shall be forgiven him. ))))
This atonement for the individual was ALWAYS at the Altar in the Court and performed by a common priest.
The atonement made on the typical DAY OF ATONEMENT was both corporate and individual (Lev. 16:33),…
(((Lev 16:33 And he shall make an atonement for the holy sanctuary, and he shall make an atonement for the tabernacle of the congregation, and for the altar, and he shall make an atonement for the priests, and for all the people of the congregation. ))))
...and involved a HIGH PRIESTLY MINISTRY beginning in the MOST HOLY PLACE and being COMPLETE AT THE ALTAR in the COURT.
The emphasis placed on the Day of Atonement in the Scriptures dare not be overlooked.
While atonement was granted to each individual who confessed his sin day by day, and was forgiven, it was not designated as a "Day" of atonement. That designation was reserved for the tenth day of the seventh month and involved a cleansing which is much more than just being forgiven.
The figurative intent was to be so cleansed as to sin no more.
Further, in the designation of this Day, the plural is used.
The Scripture reads: On the tenth day of this seventh month there shall be a day of atonements. ... And ye shall do no work in that same day: for it is a day of atonements. (Lev. 23:27, 28; Heb.)
While it might be argued that because of the multiple aspects and wide range of the atonement made by the High Priest on this tenth day (Lev. 16:33), it could be considered as a simple plural. However, the distinction made between this day and the other feast days given to Israel, requires that this be considered the Hebrew use of the plural as the pluralis majestaticus v. excellentiae, even as in the use of Elohim. All the other feast days given in Leviticus 23 - the Passover, the day of Pentecost, "a memorial of blowing of trumpets," and the two "holy convocations" connected with the "feast of tabernacles" - required only the cessation from "servile work" (vs. 7, 21, 25, 35-36). The Day of Atonements was ranked with the seventh-day Sabbath - "ye shall do no work
therein" (23:3) - with a fearful judgment attached (23:30).
While the first of the "feast" days of Israel was the Passover, which was fulfilled in the Offering at the Cross (I Cor. 5:7), it does not receive the status accorded the Day of Atonement in the yearly typical services of Israel.
This should in no wise reflect on the centrality of the Cross because it was not only the Blood of Calvary which provided forgiveness, but it is also the same Blood which was offered "once for all" that provides for the cleansing from sin.
It is the dual atonement made possible by the one and same sacrifice which we dare not mitigate. Our Great High Priest, as a common priest, offered Himself confirming the first step of reconciliation - forgiveness.
Then as the High Priest, He ministers the same blood for cleansing so that when He returns as King of kings, and Lord of lords, He comes "without sin unto salvation" (Heb. 9:28).
If the typology has any meaning, then the emphasis on the Atonement must be where Heaven places it - the final atonement via the sacrifice at the Altar in the Court.
We need to keep in mind that "a kid of the goats" (Lev. 4:23. 28), and "the Lord's goat" (Lev. 16:9), both offered on the Altar in the Court, pointed to the one great Sacrifice made on Calvary.
Calvary provided a provisional at-one-ment; forgiven, though still a sinner.
The ministration of the great High Priest on the antitypical Day of Atonements provided for a complete at-one-ment, a cleansed sinner to sin no more.
*******
Pausing here… we will continue tomorrow by the grace of our God.
Truly our Savior is still ministering for us today to think otherwise, I can't comprehend.
We've been given an example to ignore the example because we have some fanciful imagined idea of how things should be, is to ignore truth, God forbid we do that!
Please LORD SAVIOR, please bless us, please forgive us! We would be YOURS, wholly YOURS!
By Your MERCY, GRACE, LOVE!
All in YOU!
Our High Priest, Jesus Christ, Son of God, our Savior- LIVES. Creator, Redeemer, He lives.
Right now He is in the Heavenly Sanctuary. He is there on OUR behalf. He is cleansing the world from the stain of sin. Sin's stain has left its mark in Heaven and Earth. Sin's stain has left it's mark upon the very flesh of our Savior. Forever we will know the price that our Savior paid so that we could live. The cleansing is removing the sins of the saints and all record of those sins from heaven's books. They are HIS, He paid the price, He became the sacrifice necessary to remove the record of sin so that ONLY the names of the saints remain in the book of life, their names no where else not a single sin left to recall. Every single sin committed by those who would be Christ's will be completely blotted out, not just forgiven, but CLEANSED, completely gone forever! And right now our Savior is performing this cleansing and the cleansing will continue right up until the last possible moment before the cup of iniquity is totally full. The living saints will be sin free- but they won't know it, that can't know it. Christ will be living in them so completely, the Holy Spirit living in them that they and they alone will be spared the horrors of the plagues, of living in the time when the Savior NO longer pleas on our behalf because the cleansing work is finished. He will stand up, it will be over. He will come for the saints as a conquering King, not as the High Priest any longer that work will be over.
We've been so incredibly blessed that our High Priest has ministered for so long, desiring as many as would be His to come to Him, to believe in Him.
Remember this is the work of God that He would have us do-
Joh 6:28 Then said they unto him, What shall we do, that we might work the works of God?
Joh 6:29 Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent.
Believe on our SAVIOR.
Let's continue with our study of the Sanctuary- remember this is an in depth study, you won't find fluff here. You will find only TRUTH.
May God bless us and may the Holy Spirit open our hearts and eyes to all His truth, to all His love.
*******
'WWN 2002 Mar -- XXXV - 3(02) -- "The Judgment Was Set"
-- Editors Preface --
In the course of our Church history (((SDA)))), we have had problems with the doctrine of the Atonement.
Adopting the position of Crosier from his study on the Sanctuary following the Great Disappointment in 1844, we denied that there was an atonement made at the Cross, and declared that there was only one atonement, the final, which began with the fulfillment of the prophecy of Daniel 8:14 in 1844.
The very use of the designation, "final" would indicate more than one atonement.
Then in the infamous SDA-Evangelical conferences, we denied what we had taught regarding the final atonement and declared with emphasis - "Adventists do not hold any theory of a dual atonement. 'Christ has redeemed us' (Gal. 3:13) 'once for all' Heb. 10:10). Q on D, p. 390)
In this compromise, we indicated plainly that a single atonement was completed on the Cross. In fact, the Adventist conferees went so far as to declare that Christ obtained nothing for us at
the time of His entrance upon His priestly ministry, nor has He at any time since, because "He had already obtained it for us on the cross." (ibid., p. 381).
If the typical priestly ministry in the Hebrew Sanctuary has meaning as the book of Hebrews indicates (Heb. 8:5), then there is a dual atonement, one involving forgiveness and one cleansing.
(((Heb 8:5 Who serve unto the example and shadow of heavenly things, as Moses was admonished of God when he was about to make the tabernacle: for, See, saith he, that thou make all things according to the pattern shewed to thee in the mount. ))))
Beginning in earnest with Ballenger, and climaxing in Dr. Desmond Ford's assault on the Doctrine of the Sanctuary, we have faced serious challenges to a basic Adventist teaching.
Ballanger based his thrust on the cry of Jesus on the Cross, "It is finished." In this issue of WWN, we discuss these words of Jesus, what He meant, as well as consider things needed to be learned, and unlearned in our teachings regarding aspects of the Sanctuary question. Perhaps, if we had done so before, we might have escaped the tragedy of the SDA-Evangelical Conferences.
"We have many lessons to learn, and many, many to unlearn. God and heaven alone are infallible."
*
"The Judgment Was Set and the Books were opened" --
(((Dan_7:10 ... the judgment was set, and the books were opened. ))))
In recent decades, this prophetic "Judgment" scene in Daniel 7:10 has been called "the pre-Advent judgment," instead of "the investigative judgment" by which it was known at its inception when set forth as an explanation of what did occur when Christ entered His final ministry in the Most Holy Place of the Heavenly Sanctuary.
Closely associated with this "Judgment" is the focus of the paralleling prophecy in Daniel 8 on the sanctuary - "then shall the sanctuary be cleansed" (v.14).
This introduces into the prophetic picture the typical Day of Atonement, when annually, the earthly sanctuary was figuratively cleansed.
Add to this, the announcement of the First Angel of Revelation 14 - "The hour of His judgment is come" (v.7) - and you have the heart and core of Adventism.
A. F. Ballenger, a powerful preacher and revivalist, was one of the first to challenge this core teaching. In the 1890s, his revival meetings in Battle Creek centered on "Receive Ye the Holy Spirit," led many of the church and college students to rededicate their lives to Christ and His service. Ballenger carried this message to worker's meetings and camp meetings. It was at one of these meetings in Indiana that S. S. Davis, the originator of the Holy Flesh Movement, received his inspiration. (See The Holy Flesh Movement 1899-1901, pp.5-6)
At the turn of the century, Ballenger accepted a call to the British Isles. While laboring in various large cities, he was also developing new theological concepts. These were finally published in a book, The Proclamation of Liberty and the Unpardonable Sin. He would write: If the reader would know at once what is the central thought, - the all absorbing theme, - the body, soul and spirit of this book, it is summed up in the final words of our dying Lord, "It is finished" (p.5).
This is the pivotal point on which the whole of the core teaching of the sanctuary doctrine turns.
All who have followed Ballenger in challenging the sanctuary teaching of the Church, including Dr. Desmond Ford, have done little more than elucidate and enlarge on the original premise of Ballenger.In simple application, the final, dying words of Jesus are used to substantiate the concept that the death of Christ is the final, once for all, atonement for sin.
In other words, the atonement was finished at the Cross; there is no final atonement. (See next article, "The Final Words of Christ").
It also needs to be remembered that following the Great Disappointment in 1844, 0. R. L Crosier wrote a lengthy analysis on "The Sanctuary," with the premise that "the sanctuary was the heart of the typical system." He challenged the idea that the atonement was completed on the Cross writing that Christ "did not begin the work of making atonement, whatever the nature of that work may be, till after His ascension, when by His own blood He entered His heavenly Sanctuary for us" (The Advent Review, September, 1850, p.45).
Neither can this position, nor the one advanced by Ballenger, be sustained by the type.
In the daily (((sanctuary)))) service, provision was made for the individual who brought his sin offering to the Altar in the Court, to receive an atonement which resulted in forgiveness.
The Scripture reads - "and the priest shall make an atonement for him, and it shall be forgiven him" (Lev. 4:31; see also 4:26, 35).
(((Lev 4:26 And he shall burn all his fat upon the altar, as the fat of the sacrifice of peace offerings: and the priest shall make an atonement for him as concerning his sin, and it shall be forgiven him.
Lev 4:35 And he shall take away all the fat thereof, as the fat of the lamb is taken away from the sacrifice of the peace offerings; and the priest shall burn them upon the altar, according to the offerings made by fire unto the LORD: and the priest shall make an atonement for his sin that he hath committed, and it shall be forgiven him. ))))
This atonement for the individual was ALWAYS at the Altar in the Court and performed by a common priest.
The atonement made on the typical DAY OF ATONEMENT was both corporate and individual (Lev. 16:33),…
(((Lev 16:33 And he shall make an atonement for the holy sanctuary, and he shall make an atonement for the tabernacle of the congregation, and for the altar, and he shall make an atonement for the priests, and for all the people of the congregation. ))))
...and involved a HIGH PRIESTLY MINISTRY beginning in the MOST HOLY PLACE and being COMPLETE AT THE ALTAR in the COURT.
The emphasis placed on the Day of Atonement in the Scriptures dare not be overlooked.
While atonement was granted to each individual who confessed his sin day by day, and was forgiven, it was not designated as a "Day" of atonement. That designation was reserved for the tenth day of the seventh month and involved a cleansing which is much more than just being forgiven.
The figurative intent was to be so cleansed as to sin no more.
Further, in the designation of this Day, the plural is used.
The Scripture reads: On the tenth day of this seventh month there shall be a day of atonements. ... And ye shall do no work in that same day: for it is a day of atonements. (Lev. 23:27, 28; Heb.)
While it might be argued that because of the multiple aspects and wide range of the atonement made by the High Priest on this tenth day (Lev. 16:33), it could be considered as a simple plural. However, the distinction made between this day and the other feast days given to Israel, requires that this be considered the Hebrew use of the plural as the pluralis majestaticus v. excellentiae, even as in the use of Elohim. All the other feast days given in Leviticus 23 - the Passover, the day of Pentecost, "a memorial of blowing of trumpets," and the two "holy convocations" connected with the "feast of tabernacles" - required only the cessation from "servile work" (vs. 7, 21, 25, 35-36). The Day of Atonements was ranked with the seventh-day Sabbath - "ye shall do no work
therein" (23:3) - with a fearful judgment attached (23:30).
While the first of the "feast" days of Israel was the Passover, which was fulfilled in the Offering at the Cross (I Cor. 5:7), it does not receive the status accorded the Day of Atonement in the yearly typical services of Israel.
This should in no wise reflect on the centrality of the Cross because it was not only the Blood of Calvary which provided forgiveness, but it is also the same Blood which was offered "once for all" that provides for the cleansing from sin.
It is the dual atonement made possible by the one and same sacrifice which we dare not mitigate. Our Great High Priest, as a common priest, offered Himself confirming the first step of reconciliation - forgiveness.
Then as the High Priest, He ministers the same blood for cleansing so that when He returns as King of kings, and Lord of lords, He comes "without sin unto salvation" (Heb. 9:28).
If the typology has any meaning, then the emphasis on the Atonement must be where Heaven places it - the final atonement via the sacrifice at the Altar in the Court.
We need to keep in mind that "a kid of the goats" (Lev. 4:23. 28), and "the Lord's goat" (Lev. 16:9), both offered on the Altar in the Court, pointed to the one great Sacrifice made on Calvary.
Calvary provided a provisional at-one-ment; forgiven, though still a sinner.
The ministration of the great High Priest on the antitypical Day of Atonements provided for a complete at-one-ment, a cleansed sinner to sin no more.
*******
Pausing here… we will continue tomorrow by the grace of our God.
Truly our Savior is still ministering for us today to think otherwise, I can't comprehend.
We've been given an example to ignore the example because we have some fanciful imagined idea of how things should be, is to ignore truth, God forbid we do that!
Please LORD SAVIOR, please bless us, please forgive us! We would be YOURS, wholly YOURS!
By Your MERCY, GRACE, LOVE!
All in YOU!
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