The SDA Sanctuary
Doctrine
As the sanctuary plays an important part in the SDA faith, I will first explain it
briefly, without special argument.
Moses erected a building called the tabernacle, or sanctuary.
It had two rooms. The first was called the Holy Place, the second the Most
Holy Place. In the first was the table of showbread, the candlestick, and the altar
of incense; in the second, the ark. The two rooms were separated by the veil.
Outside, in the court, stood the altar of burnt-offering.
In the court and in the Holy Place the priests ministered daily.
No one entered the most Holy Place except the high priest and he only once a year,
on the tenth day of the seventh month, the "day of atonement" (Lev.
23:37). The services of this day were the most important of the year, and are
described in Leviticus 16. On this day the high priest went into the Most Holy Place
with the blood of a general offering for all the people, and made an atonement for all
Israel. By sprinkling blood on and before the mercy-seat on the ark, on the altar of
incense, and on the altar of burnt-offering he was said to "cleanse" the
sanctuary from all the sins of the people.
All this was figurative and typical -- an object lesson
pointing to Christ.
Miller's view that Christ would come in 1844 was based on his
calculations regarding the time for the "cleansing of the sanctuary" (Dan.
8). When the time passed, and Christ did not come, he, with other leaders of the
body of Adventists generally acknowledged that he had been mistaken in the time. But
a few -- James White, Ellen Harmon, Joseph Bates, and a few others --
held that the calculated day had been right. But they could not explain the failure.
About two years later, in 1846, one O. R. L. Crosier presented a
theory of the sanctuary very much as it is now held by SDAs. His view was accepted
by few Adventists at the time, and Ellen Harmon afterward had a "vision" in
which she said the Lord showed her that Crosier's view was correct (A Word to the
"Little Flock", pages 11, 12). His theory was that the earthly
sanctuary was a type of one just like it up in heaven, and that this sanctuary in heaven
was the one referred to in Dan. 8:14, upon which was based the 1844 time-setting
calculations; that Jesus, as our high priest, was to minister in the first room, or Holy
Place, in heaven, from his ascension until Oct. 22, 1844, receiving there the confessed
sins of believers, and that on Oct. 22, 1844, He finished His ministry in the Holy Place
and went into the Most Holy, and there began the "cleansing of the sanctuary,"
which had been typified by the day of atonement. In this theory the atonement does
not take place at the cross, as most Christians believe, but eighteen centuries later, in
1844.
Crosier held that the work in the first apartment of the sanctuary
was for "forgiveness of sins" only; hence when the work in the first apartment
of the heavenly closed (Oct. 22, 1844), there ended forgiveness of sins for all the
world. Probation for sinners ended. Thus, after 1844, Christ's work of
atonement in the Most Holy Place was for saints only.
Mr. Crosier later stated that the object of his article on the
sanctuary was to prove that probation had ended in 1844.
Adventists knew nothing of the sanctuary theory until about two
years after 1844. But when Crosier's theory was published, they thought they saw all
the pieces of their puzzle fall into place. Correct were Miller's calculations from
Daniel 8, the prophecy of the 2300 Days, as pointing to October 22, 1844; wrong was simply
Miller's thinking the "cleansing of the sanctuary" (from Dan. 8:14) referred to
the cleansing of the earth at the Second Coming: it really referred to the cleansing of
the sanctuary in heaven. Christ's parable of the ten virgins (Matthew 25) had been a
prophecy of the experience of 1844, and taught that for all who had not been ready in 1844
the door had been shut:
. . . they that were ready went in with him to the
marriage; and the door was shut.
Matthew 25:10.
Crosier's theory now showed what door had been shut: in
passing from the sanctuary's first apartment to the second Jesus had shut the door between
those two apartments. It also showed why sins could not be forgiven: Christ
was no longer in the first apartment of the heavenly sanctuary, which ministry had been
typified by the daily service in the Mosaic sanctuary, where a person came to have his
sins forgiven.
It was not until 1851 that the SDAs, long after everyone else,
finally abandoned the Shut Door. But although they abandoned the Shut Door, they
continued to hold to Crosier's sanctuary theory: a theory devised to prove and explain the
Shut Door.
Weighed and Found
Wanting
Such is the sanctuary doctrine. Seventh-day Adventists make
everything turn upon their view of the sanctuary. To them, it is vital. They
dwell upon it, and affirm that they are the only ones who have light on it. If they
are wrong on this, their system breaks down. I will therefore devote a few lines to
show the fallacy of it.
1. God sent the original Adventists [i.e., the Millerites]
with a last solemn message to earth upon which the destiny of the church and the world
depended. The first thing they did was to get the wrong year, 1843 instead of
1844. Then, when they got that fixed, instead of announcing the real event to take
place, the change in Christ's work in the sanctuary in heaven, they said it was the Second
Coming; they next got that wrong!
2. Not one in fifty of
the original Adventists ever found out the mistake they had made. No leading
Adventist, like Miller, Himes, or Litch, ever accepted Crosier's sanctuary explanation.
Of the great mass of 1844 Adventists, the "truth" about the sanctuary was
accepted by only a handful.
3. Miller himself
opposed the SDAs, rejecting (in addition to their other distinctive doctrines, such as the
visions of Ellen White, the sleep of the dead, the annihilation of the wicked, and
the Sabbath) their idea of the sanctuary. What a tangle that Advent work was!
What if Moses had opposed Joshua, and John the Baptist had opposed Christ? Miller
was sent to do a work, got it wrong, and then opposed those who finally got it right!
4. Instead of
receiving the "light" on the sanctuary from Mrs. White's visions, or from
heaven, they got it from Crosier. But he soon abandoned it. A theory
looks none too good when it is repudiated by its inventor.
5. SDAs adopted the
sanctuary theory to show why the door of mercy had been shut in 1844: that is, to
prove the Shut Door. In the type, no sin could be confessed after the high priest
had entered the Most Holy. Lev. 4:1-7; 16:17-24. So if this was a type of the
entrance of Christ into the Most Holy in heaven in 1844, leaving behind his ministry in
the first apartment in the sanctuary then truly the door of mercy did close then, and sins
thereafter could not be forgiven. Now that no one believes any longer in the Shut
Door, it seems odd to believe the Sanctuary theory that proves and implies it.
6. No work was to be
done on the day of atonement, or the day when the sanctuary was cleansed.
It shall be an holy
convocation unto you. * ** And whatsoever soul it be that doeth any work in
that same day, the same soul will I destroy from among his people. Ye shall do no
manner of work.
Lev. 23:27-32.
If we are now in the day of
atonement, as Adventists teach, then Adventists ought not to work. And many of them
after 1844 held that they were not; but time starved them out, and they had to go at it
again.
7. Their Shut Door
doctrine (a doctrine in which they had put a great deal of importance) they abandoned in
1851. In abandoning it they saved face by devising a rationale. They said that
in 1844 a door had been shut; but come to think of it another door had been
opened; this open door, however, could be used only by those who knew Christ's post-1844
location in the heavenly sanctuary. Thus Uriah Smith, Objections to the Visions
Answered, says:
A knowledge of Christ's
position and work is necessary to the enjoyment of the benefits of his mediation. *
* * When he changed his position to the Most Holy Place * * * that knowledge of his
work which had up to that point been sufficient, was no longer sufficient. * *
* Who can find salvation now? Those who go to the Saviour where he is and view
him by faith in the most Holy Place. * * * This is the door now open for
salvation. But no man can understand this change without knowledge of the subject of
the sanctuary. They may seek the Saviour as they have before sought him, with no
other ideas of his position and ministry than those which they entertained while he was in
the first apartment; but will it avail them? They can not find him there. That
door is shut!
So also Mrs. White:
They have no knowledge of
the move made in Heaven, or the way into the most Holy, and they cannot be benefited by
the intercession of Jesus there. * * * They offer up their useless prayers to
the apartment which Jesus has left.
Spiritual Gifts (1858)
Vol. I, p. 171, 172.
What a doctrine. No
one can be saved unless they know which room Christ is standing in! But no one
"knows" this except SDAs. And even they, in praying, don't recall this
doctrine so as to properly route their prayer.
8. Now they hold that
all who honestly seek God may be saved, including those having no knowledge of the
sanctuary.
Thus they have held five
positions:
1. The
sanctuary is the earth.
2. The sanctuary is a building in heaven.
3. The door of mercy was shut to all sinners in 1844.
4. The door of mercy is open to anyone, provided they
know the SDA sanctuary doctrine: that is, they
know where Jesus now is in that building in heaven.
5. The door is open to all.
Is There a Literal Tabernacle
in Heaven?
The Adventist theory of the sanctuary postulates a real building
up in heaven, just like the one on earth. They "know" this because Ellen
White in vision several times entered that building and saw its apartments and furniture.
But is there?
1. Paul states that the types of the law
were "not the very image of the things" they represent. Heb.
10:1.
2. Paul says that Christ is a minister of a
greater and more perfect tabernacle. Heb. 9:11. Then it must differ from the
earthly one.
3. Paul says it is one "not made with
hands." Heb. 9:11. It is not a material building.
4. Paul says that Jesus' flesh is the veil.
Heb. 10:20. This shows that the temple was only figurative.
5. Adventists would have an exact duplicate
of the Mosaic sanctuary service operating in heaven. But between the type and the
antitype are many points of difference.
The priests of the tribe of Levi;
Jesus was of the tribe of Judah.
The former priests were in many
in number;
Jesus was only one.
The priests offered sacrifices
every day;
Jesus but once.
Lambs & oxen were the type,
Jesus the antitype;
but he was a man and they were beasts.
The bodies of those beasts were
burned;
the body of Jesus was not.
They were slain at the
sanctuary's door;
Jesus was not.
Their blood was carried into the
temple;
Jesus' blood was not.
Their blood was placed on the
altar;
the blood of Jesus was not.
6. Let Adventists read this: "The
Most High dwelleth not in temples made with hands." Acts 7:48.
But does not Paul say that the Jewish tabernacle was a shadow,
figure, a pattern of heavenly things, Heb. 8 and 9? Yes; and he also says the
offerings and holy days of the Old Covenant were shadows of Christ, Col. 2:16-17.
But where are our feast days, new moons, meats, etc., under the gospel? Nowhere,
except in a spiritual sense. So Paul says the early temple was only a figure of
a "tabernacle not made with hands." Heb. 9:9,11. How could he say
more plainly that the heavenly are not literal?