THE SANCTUARY,

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jun 8, 1876

Twenty-third Paper.—The New Covenant Sanctuary.

The reader will now understand why we have dwelt so lengthily upon the history of the worldly sanctuary. It is because Paul in plain and explicit language declares that that building erected by Moses at the command of God, and which was perpetuated in the temples built by Solomon, Zerubbabel and Herod, was the sanctuary of the first covenant; and it was important to see how prominent a place that held in the former dispensation. The word sanctuary occurs in the Old Testament one hundred and forty-two times, and in almost every instance refers to this building. It was no insignificant object, it was no trifle in the divine economy of that age. It is everywhere held before us, as the sanctuary, the holy place, the sacred place, the dwelling place of the Most High among the children of men. And Paul presents the complement to all these declarations when he declares so clearly that this was the sanctuary of the first covenant.

We desire the reader to appreciate the full value which this statement possesses in this investigation. From this there is no appeal. Here all believers in the Bible must occupy common ground. Here for the space of fifteen hundred years, we are all brought together on this subject. From Moses to Christ, this object, and no other, was the sanctuary of the Bible.

We have followed this to the close of its history. In A. D. 70 it disappeared forever from the face of the earth. Has there been no sanctuary since that time? Or has something else taken the place of that sanctuary? If this latter be the fact, we ask what that something else may be.

We have seen that only 490 years of the 2300 belonged to the Jews and Jerusalem. When that period ended, the services of the sanctuary of that people had come to an end. But yet 1810 years remained, bringing us down even to 1844. And it had been announced through the prophet that then the sanctuary should be cleansed. What sanctuary? and where? No sanctuary on the earth; for since A. D. 70 there has been none here. But a sanctuary cannot be cleansed that does not exist. There must therefore be a sanctuary somewhere, and that date must bring us to its cleansing, or the word of God prove incorrect.

Paul says that the sanctuary of Moses was the sanctuary of the first covenant. It was, as we have seen, one of the chief features of that covenant. But that covenant has given place to the new. Jer. 31:31; Heb. 8:10–12. Under this new covenant we are now living; for it was confirmed by the Messiah, the prince, during the last week of the 70, or the last seven years of the 490, by himself in person for the first half of the week, three years and a half to A. D. 31, and through his apostles, during the remainder of that period, to A. D. 34. Heb. 2:3. The great features of that first covenant find their counterpart in the present. The sanctuary of that covenant must find its counterpart here. And the Bible nowhere recognizes anything as the sanctuary of God, except the sanctuary, or sanctuaries, connected with these two covenants. The new covenant therefore has a sanctuary, as well as the old.

This is proved directly by the words of Paul in the text in question. Heb. 9:1: “Then verily the first covenant had also ordinances of divine service, and a worldly sanctuary.” Paul is showing the relation which the two covenants sustain to each other; and the word, also, shows that those things which he mentions pertained to both. One had ordinances of divine service; the other also has them. One had a sanctuary; the other also has a sanctuary.

The great question to which we have now come, and in which all the controversy is involved, is then simply this:—

What is the sanctuary of the new covenant?

The sanctuary of the old covenant must bear the same relation to the sanctuary of the new covenant, which the old covenant itself bears to the new. And on this point we suppose there is no controversy. All agree that they stand as type and antitype. The first was the type and shadow; this is the antitype and substance. The sanctuary of that dispensation was the type; the sanctuary of this, the antitype. But the sanctuary of that dispensation was the tabernacle of Moses. Of what, then, was the tabernacle of Moses a type, figure, or shadow?

The answer to this question is intimated in various scriptures to which we now call the attention of the reader. To Moses, the Lord said: “Let them make me a sanctuary, according to all that I show thee, after the pattern of the tabernacle, and the pattern of all the instruments thereof, even so shall ye make it.” Ex. 25:8, 9. “And look that thou make them after their pattern which was showed thee in the mount.” Verse 40. “And thou shalt rear up the tabernacle according to the fashion thereof which was showed thee in the mount.” Ex. 26:30. “As it was showed thee in the mount, so shall they make it.” Ex. 27:8. “Our fathers had the tabernacle of witness in the wilderness, as he had appointed, speaking unto Moses that he should make it according to the fashion that he had seen.” Acts 7:44. “While as the first tabernacle was yet standing, which was a figure for the time then present, in which were offered both gifts and sacrifices.” Heb. 9:8, 9. “For Christ is not entered into the holy places made with hands, which are the figures of the true.” Verse 24.

These texts afford no material for an argument and conclusion. They make a plain, positive assertion, which, if we believe their testimony, we must admit. They declare that the tabernacle built by Moses, the sanctuary of the first covenant was not an original structure; it was made after a pattern; it was simply a model or figure of something else, given for the instruction of his people; and that from which it was modeled or fashioned, is declared to be the true sanctuary; and this true sanctuary must be the sanctuary of the new covenant; for God recognizes in connection with his work only two: the true, and the figure or model which was made from it. The figure was the tabernacle of Moses. What is the true?