The Sanctuary Doctrine Defended

1. Background

Since its inception the Seventh Day Adventist Church has embraced the Sanctuary Doctrine as a pillar of Its faith.  However, it is a doctrine that is not shared by mainstream Christianity, and is now denied even by many Seventh Day Adventists. 

Deniers assert that upon the Cross the atonement for sin was completed entirely, and thus there is no need for further atonement.  Scripture, however, confirms that until Christ’s Resurrection, mankind was still in sin (1Co 15:17) – only at His Resurrection, by overcoming death, did Christ wholly defeat sin.       

Deniers also assert that the Sanctuary Doctrine robs believers of the assurance of salvation – this is a serious accusation which needs to be addressed.

Despite the growing attacks on the Sanctuary Doctrine many Seventh Day Adventists remain true to all the founding principles of their faith.  This study is a brief defense of the Sanctuary Doctrine – essential details only have been included. 

2. The Two Sanctuaries

2.1 The Sanctuary on Earth

Anciently, God painted, in the form of the earthly Sanctuary, a picture of atonement for sin.  He did this both for the people of the time, and for all subsequent peoples to study.

Main purpose. The sacrifices of the earthly Sanctuary, both daily and annual, separated confessing sinners from their confessed sin, albeit in figure acceptable for the time.

Two compartments. The earthly Sanctuary had two compartments: 

The two compartments were separated by a veil (see: Sanctuary diagram).

These consisted of the ‘Daily’ continual sacrifices, and the annual Day of Atonement.

The ‘Daily’.  This encompassed ongoing sacrifices for sin, the death of which paid the price of the sin confessed by individual penitent sinners.  The blood of each sacrifice was then offered upon the altar of burnt offering (Le 17:11) for an atonement.

Most importantly, when the blood was smeared on the horns of the altar (Le 4:25) the sin was ‘graven’ upon the horns (Je 17:1), thereby separating the sin from the sinner, transferring it to the Sanctuary.  The separated sin remained for later cleansing. 

The annual Day of Atonement (Leviticus 16). By means of a final sacrifice made by the High Priest in the Most Holy, i.e. in the presence of Almighty God, the Day of Atonement cleansed the Sanctuary (Le 16:30) of all the sin stored there by the Daily sacrifices. 

All were judged as to their faithfulness.  The sin of those who had made sacrificial atonement (thereby transferring their sin to the Sanctuary) was eradicated, fitting them to remain as God’s people. 

Only those who had confessed sin stored in the Sanctuary were covered by the Day of Atonement.  Those who had not sacrificed for their sin condemned themselves, rejecting God’s pleas that they should repent, spurning His love.

By cleansing the Sanctuary of sin the Day of Atonement finished the atonement process, thereby completing the separation from sin, but in figure, for one year only.  After the Day of Atonement the process began again. See: OT sacrifice for personal sin.

Every animal sacrifice, both Daily and annual, prefigured the One True Sacrifice of Christ.

2.2 The Sanctuary in Heaven

The Heavenly Sanctuary is the place from which God beholds His creation (Ps 102:19).

It is the true Sanctuary (He 8:2), which set the pattern for the earthly Sanctuary (He 8:5). The two compartments on Earth (the Holy, outer compartment, and the Most Holy, inner compartment) therefore depict the Heavenly originals. 

Thus the form and function of the Heavenly Sanctuary is made absolutely plain – this is (arguably) the most powerful factor in support of the Sanctuary Doctrine.

Main purpose. As with the earthly Sanctuary, the main purpose of the Heavenly Sanctuary is to separate confessing sinners from their confessed sin, not in figure, but for all eternity.

It is commonly believed by deniers of the Sanctuary Doctrine that because Christ, upon His ascension, sat at the Father’s right hand (He 12:2), He entered directly into the Most Holy, where it is believed the presence of the Heavenly Father resided. 

The Sanctuary Doctrine, however, takes the position (based on Scripture) that Christ’s Ministry in the Heavenly Sanctuary conforms to the ministry in the earthly Sanctuary, i.e. the Heavenly ‘Daily’ followed by the Heavenly ‘annual’.  Thus Christ entered the Holy in Heaven first, followed by, at the appropriate time, the Most Holy.

To determine which is correct, we need to examine God's Word.  This study is conducted in: Christ's entry into the Heavenly Sanctuary, which, upon close examination of Scripture, concludes that Christ, upon His ascension, entered the whole Heavenly Sanctuary.  Thus Christ conformed to the earthly pattern: He entered first into the Holy to conduct His ‘Daily’ Ministry, followed by the Most Holy (at the appropriate time) to conduct His final cleansing Ministry.

Confirming Christ in the Holy in Heaven

Re 1:10-13  I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day, and heard behind me a great voice, as of a trumpet, 

11  Saying, I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the last… 

12  And I turned to see the voice that spake with me. And being turned, I saw seven golden candlesticks; 

13  And in the midst of the seven candlesticks one like unto the Son of man, clothed with a garment down to the foot, and girt about the paps with a golden girdle. 

In the Sanctuary diagram , we see that the Holy (outer compartment) on Earth contained the Menorah, the seven-branched golden candlestick. 

Correspondingly, and because the earthly Sanctuary is patterned on the Heavenly Sanctuary, the golden candlesticks seen by John the Revelator were in the Holy of the Sanctuary in Heaven. 

Christ was ‘in the midst’ of the candlesticks - therefore, Christ, the Son of man (Mt 16:13), was in the Holy in Heaven.

Note.  The Lord’s day here (v10 above) is the day of which Christ is Lord: the seventh day Sabbath of the Fourth Commandment

Mk 2:28  Therefore the Son of man is Lord also of the sabbath. (also Lk 6:5)

The location of the Father

Because Christ, upon His ascension. entered the Holy in Heaven and sat at the right hand of the Father’s throne, the Father must have been in the Holy.

In the earthly Sanctuary the Father’s presence, to avoid His Glory destroying any sinner who looked upon Him, was confined to the Most Holy.  In  Heaven, however, there are no sinners, and thus the Father is not confined to the Most Holy. The location of the Father  is addressed in more depth later.

The original ‘Daily’ in Heaven is based on the Blood of Christ (He 9:12).  His death upon the Cross is sufficient to pay the price of sin for the whole of mankind, and therefore it needed to occur once only (He 7:27;9:28;10:12).  Thus the ‘Daily’ in the Heavenly Sanctuary requires no further ongoing sacrifices.

However, in the Heavenly ‘Daily’ the Blood of Christ is offered many times – when a sinner repents Christ pleads His own Blood as an unfailing Atonement, thereby transferring the confessed sin to the Heavenly Sanctuary, where it remains for later cleansing. 

The confessing sinner is entered in the Book of Life (Re 3:5) – as are the repentant of all ages. Their names remain in the Book of Life for later judgement and cleansings.

The second cleansing stage in the earthly Sanctuary (the Day of Atonement), which was repeated annually, and was a figure for the time only, prefigured a second cleansing stage in the Heavenly Sanctuary, i.e. the ‘Cleansing of the Sanctuary’.

As in the earthly Day of Atonement, in the Heavenly cleansing only those who have repented of sin, i.e. those entered in the Book of Life, are considered.  The Heavenly cleansing finishes the Atonement for sin.  It eradicates the sin of the faithful, thereby completing their separation from sin, but unlike the earthly cleansing, the Heavenly cleansing is for all eternity.  It will therefore never need to be repeated.

Because it occurs only once, we need to know the precise time when the Cleansing of the Sanctuary begins.

The Cleansing announced

The Cleansing of the Sanctuary was announced in the prophetic book of Daniel:

Da 8:14  And he said unto me, Unto two thousand and three hundred days; then shall the sanctuary be cleansed. 

The Sanctuary here cannot be the earthly Sanctuary because the prophetic book of Daniel is sealed until the ‘time of the end’ (Da 8:17;12:4,9), at which point in time the earthly Sanctuary has long been abolished.

Prophetic ‘days’ are widely understood to refer to actual years (accepted by many of the Protestant reformers, notably Martin Luther).  Thus the prophecy points to the end of a period of 2300 years.

To determine the end of the 2300 years we must look to the only other time-related prophecy in Daniel that points to a specific point in history: the 70 weeks prophecy (Da 9:24-27) which refers to 490 actual years, which begin at the start date of the prophesy and end at the completion of the earthly Ministry of the Messiah (Christ).

The 70 weeks begins with the decree ‘to restore and to build Jerusalem’ (Da 9:25) issued at the end of the 70 years Babylonian captivity which, because of apostasy, Judah had brought upon itself.

This decree was given in the seventh year of the reign of the Persian king Artaxerxes I (Ezr 7:6-9), which is dateable historically to 457 BC.  The decree was put into effect when the returning Jews arrived in Jerusalem in the fifth month (October today) of that year.

Dating the 2300 days/years prophecy

As we have seen there are two prophecies in Daniel that point to a specific times, but only one start date (457 BC). Furthermore we see that the 70 weeks are ‘determined’ – properly ‘cut off’ (Da 9:24), i.e. from another longer time period.  The only available time period is the 2300 years of Daniel 8.

Start. Thus the 2300 days prophecy has the same start date as the 70 weeks prophecy, i.e. October 457 BC.

End. The 2300 years of the prophecy therefore point to October 1844 AD (there is no year 0). 

The event: the Sanctuary cleansed

In October 1844 AD Christ entered the Most Holy in the Sanctuary in Heaven to begin, in the presence of Almighty God the Father, the event prefigured in the earthly Day of Atonement: the Cleansing of the Sanctuary.

Note. To begin the Cleansing, the thrones of both the Father and the Son were moved from the Holy to the Most Holy - see: Moving from the Holy to the Most Holy

The Cleansing is underway at this moment - Christ is now judging those written in the Book of Life (hence the cleansing is known as the investigative judgment).  Those who have maintained their faith and have undergone the ‘washing of regeneration’ (Tit 3:5) in the Blood of Christ (Re 1:5), are retained in the Book of Life (Re 3:5) and receive the Seal of God (Re 7:2).

Those who appear in the Book of Life but have not remained faithful are removed. 

Those who never repented were never entered in the Book of Life, and are thus not considered in the Cleansing – they are condemned by their own hand, having rejected God’s mercy and spurned His love.

When Christ finishes His work, probationary time for sinners will be over.  Then after a brief period of unprecedented trouble, Christ will return in glory to claim His redeemed.

3. The Cleansing imperative

The Cleansing of the Heavenly sanctuary is crucial to the plan of salvation, as follows.

In order to join the unfallen universe in the Kingdom of Heaven it is not sufficient for the redeemed to be regarded as being without sin – they must actually be without sin – as sinless as were Adam and Eve before they surrendered their perfect state. 

This is accomplished by the cleansing of the Heavenly Sanctuary, which utterly eradicates confessed sin so that it no longer exists. The redeemed then have no association with sin – they are made, in Christ, the Righteousness of God (2Co 5:21).

Therefore the imperative of the Cleansing is that without it sin would not be eradicated, and no sinner could ever be disassociated completely from sin, and thus they could not rejoin God’s unfallen universe.

4. Assurance

As we have seen, arguably the most serious accusation laid against the Sanctuary Doctrine is that it robs believers of the assurance of salvation. 

However, the Sanctuary Doctrine increases the assurance of salvation, as follows:

First. The Cross gives assurance that the penalty for sin has been paid;

Second. The Resurrection of Christ gives assurance of life eternal;

Third. the Cleansing of the Sanctuary gives assurance of ultimate and complete separation from sin.

Thus, when properly understood, the Sanctuary Doctrine provides TRIPLE assurance of salvation.

Therefore, far from denying the Sanctuary Doctrine, we should welcome it and be thankful that the redeemed will be made ‘without sin’ in the sight of Almighty God. 

Consequently those who are in Christ have no reason to fear the Cleansing of the Heavenly Sanctuary, or be uncertain of redemption.

5. Summary

The Cross, though paying the price of sin, did not eradicate sin.  The Cleansing of the Heavenly Sanctuary however applies the Blood of the Cross to forever separate the redeemed from their sin, eradicating it so completely that it no longer exists.

The most powerful argument in support of the Sanctuary Doctrine is the fact that the earthly Sanctuary was modelled on the True Sanctuary in Heaven, thus making plain the form and function of the Heavenly Sanctuary.

The Sanctuary Doctrine completes the Atonement for sin, giving, for those in Christ,  TRIPLE assurance of salvation, free from fear and uncertainty.