Sanctuary
Message and Meaning
Koot van Wyk
Without a
knowledge of the Sanctuary Message it is not possible to understand some
nuances that are built into texts in both the Old and New Testaments. When Christ
died as the Lamb of God it was such a paradigm shifting event in the universe.
It was the end of any thought of wonder about the Rebellion in Heaven and its
immediate outcome. All the
unfallen worlds, did not need any longer evidence of God’s Love. Giving Himself
to die and that in a human form with the intention to save them, was all they
needed. From now on,
all heavenly creatures were of the same accord. Satan’s mask was completely
removed and they could see him in all his evil. His law of
death stood in contrast with the law of life of Christ Who decided to not only
save His own reputation but that of the fallen human race. He could have
died as a God and they would have still love Him and respect Him as the loving
God, But He chose to
die and included an accessory, a human body from fallen humanity. In this way
He can save them. Of course He
chose in the Trinity to die, by Himself but this is not a suicide planned by
God. It was still Satan the father of death who killed Him. But, that was Satan’s
error also, that he was willing to kill anyone in front of him, even the Son of
God. Before 3 pm
that Friday in 31 A.D. when Christ died, Satan and his demons could still argue
that death came because God withdrew Himself from this earth where they were
thrown out of Heaven to after the Rebellion in Heaven. But not when
Satan himself enacted the very deed visible by the whole Universe on their news
network that displayed the forces of Satan ransacking and killed God Himself. This was so
desecrated that anyone who watched this in the abodes of heaven shrunk back
from any association with Satan or even thoughts about that. The most
beautiful creature in the Universe went too far. No longer could he lie or
deceive. God chose this
method of dying as a human precisely because after 4000 years of killing and
murdering people the vulnerability of God Himself was at stake in the weak
baby-God in diapers. Maybe the
unfallen worlds did expect that if God came as a baby, that Satan and his
angels would convert and this conversion would lead to the glory of God in the
highest heaven and peace on earth among all, humans and non-humans? We do not
know. For four
thousand years Satan studied the Messianic utterances in the Books of the Old
Testament minutely and carefully, knowing better than anyone on earth his
scriptures and theology. He saw the predictions of God and when the 70 weeks
prophecy of Daniel 9 verse 24 and further was given by Daniel in the mid-sixth
century BCE, Satan could calculate exactly when the Messiah would come since He
would be baptized in the 69th week when He was publicly prepared to
be presentable, namely at the age of 30 and since the date of the calculation
457 BCE was clear to Satan to calculate the 490 years from, using the year-day
principle, he knew that Christ would be born around 4 BCE. Satan was not the
only one who knew this, faithful students of the Old Testament prophets in the
form of the wise men from the East, also knew the interpretation of this
prophecy. Thomas Aquinas knew about this prophecy too and he was catholic.
George Joy knew about it. The list is longer than this. It is common among
modern Adventism to reveal this chronological chart of the seventy weeks in
this way too. And that is correct. By dying on the
cross, God could restore the fallen mekun / place of His truth in Daniel 8:11.
The Investigative Judgment was the place to restore this as is indicated in the
book of Joel. The nekun of Joel. It is the equilibrium that was destroyed by
the Rebellion in Heaven by Satan and his angels. That equilibrium was restored
by Christ dying on the cross. It was the start of this work of restoration.
Atonement for the human race was part of this program of restoration. It was to take
the impossible and make it possible. The lost and saved them. The wayward and
bringing them back unto Himself. For this the Trinity as a team were involved.
The Holy Spirit was the indwelling person of the Godhead that assisted and
helped any weak and fragile will that wants to be on God’s side to arrive
there. Luther and many
since him are holding that if the sinner accepts Christ as ransom for sins, the
sinner becomes saint and his sinner-saint at the same time. To begin with.
Since many habits that built-up through years will have to be sharpened out and
dropped. Some fast, some not so fast. This struggle in Sanctification also goes
hand in hand with the same Holy Spirit. An understanding force within released
by Him to assist when asked for and to step aside if not but to wait close-by
just in case to return without blame but with joy. But the target
or goal of this sanctification process is not to remain simul iustus et
peccator, same time saint and sinner. One cannot say as some did, that only at
the Second Coming will perfection be attained since one remains both
sinner/saint until then due to the original sin that remains in all of us. Original sin?
All are sinner and come short of the glory of God. The father cannot be held
accountable for the sins of the son and the son of the Father [even father
Adam] as Ezechiel 18 told us. Thus, the sin that we got here is by ourselves.
But babies and young children are rebellious against their parents from young.
Yes, but they are not responsible human beings yet, since the parents are
shaping them still with rod and words of discipline. When they come of age,
that is when they are responsible enough to become sinner. Not until then. The original
sin text in Romans 3 does not read original sin and the whole translation for
example in the Latin Vulgate is made on the basis of a wrong reading of the
Greek. Certain words in the Latin are not in the Greek of Paul. But in sin did
my mother conceive me text by David in Psalm 51? No, in the environment of sin
in which my mother lived did my mother conceived me. Mother/father cannot pass
on their sins’ responsibility to the son or daughter, see Ezechiel 18
principle. The Bible is not contradicting itself. Follow a holistic
interpretation. Do they pass on
weak genes to their children? Yes. Is homosexuality one of these original sins
or weak genes that is passed on to their children? The answer is no. Prone to
is a possibility but contradicting against is also a possibility by the same
person. Plus of course the help of the Holy Spirit enabling total freedom from
any sins in that direction if the person so wishes. So where does
the born with homosexual genes come from? From atheist and nihilist
psychologists like Carl Jung, et al. They are not believers at all and think
that all religion is man-made and self-constructs. They belong to the same
class as Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels who studied theology under a famous
Theologian way back in the Victorian age but who defected from it and became
nihilists. The same with
Charles Darwin who lost his daughter ten years old to an incurable disease and
while lying in a Sanitorium dying, he sat at her bedside every hour making
notes. Bored he started to read the literature of the sanitorium who happened
to belong to the president of the Spiritism society. When his daughter died he
blamed God for it and decided to come out with his Origin of Species book to
knive God the creator and lover of humans with a denial that He exists. Thus
the conclusion after an extensive investigation by an emeritus professor from
Canada in 2016 of which his article is online. And the whole world runs after
Darwin without realizing this. It was in the age
of Rationalism fanned out by Thomas Payne in his book The Age of Reason. He set
out to systematically deny God in this book. Where did he end? Alcoholic on the
streets in the USA. Tragic. Hebrews 9:8
states plainly that the Holy Spirit revealed to Paul that the way into the Most
Holy was not yet ready in 58 A.D. when Paul wrote this book, although Jesus
according to the same Book, already entered into the Holies or first division
between the two curtains, veil one and veil two already after His ascension
according to Hebrews 9:28. Why not the Most Holy? For it is was not yet the end
of the 2300 years of Daniel 8:14. That would be calculated the same date from
457 BCE of which the 70 weeks were calculated from. But Thomas Aquinas missed
this second long period determination until 1844. William Miller et al knew. The First Day
Adventists soon realized that Jesus did not come in 1844 since His movement was
not vertical but horizontal within the heavenly temple from the holies to the
most holy. This is what Paul had in mind also in Colosians 2:17 with the shadow
of things to come. Things to come? The Crucifixion was in 31 A.D. , the
entering into the Holies between the two veils was directly afterwards for
atonement purposes as the New Testament authors pointed out, so what else could
be a shadow of things to come if it is not the heavenly Yom Kippur since 1844
to “cleanse the sanctuary/ the justify the sanctuary” whichever semantics one
choose to use here. It is a judgment scene in that once in a year event of
Leviticus 16 in Moses day but it is also in heaven the start of the
Investigative Judgment. Seventh Day Adventists very soon in 1844 also realized
the same and said so in a note in 1847 citing the view of the First Day
Adventists. Of course, they themselves were first day Adventists before they
turned into seventh day Adventists. Heavenly
sanctuary? Of course, Moses was shown a pattern by God to simulate. That
pattern was not left on Mount Sinai. It was a vision into what is in heaven.
The true sanctuary is in heaven as Hebrews 8:2 explicitly indicates. So when is
atonement. At the cross or after the cross? It was after the killing of the
lamb when the priest took the blood into the holies or cleansing when the
Highpriest took it into the Most Holy. So when is Atonement at the cross/altar
or in heaven when Christ mediate? Lastly. Many Reformers made this mistake. The
cross is the altar and death of Christ. His blood is taken into the Holies to
intercede for us. This is all biblical and Pauline and Petrine. The disciples
knew this. John in Revelation knew it. Atonement is a
daily process in the Old Testament and the same in the New Testament. But what
about the once and for all statements, nearly 8 of them in the Book of Hebrews?
Once and for all dying. Not once and for all atonement. There is a difference. Christ did not
die twice or more. It is only once. The atonement process is a drawn out one.
The Yom Kippur process started in 1844 and this Investigative Judgment has to
precede the Executive Judgment that will happen after all saints are safely in heavenly
Zion, Heavenly Jerusalem or Heaven.