Hello All,
(Just a general disclaimer that I must insert here at the beginning. I am but a lay person, like most of you. And these weekly “thoughts” are but my own. Not the definitive word on this or any topic. Just my own conclusions derived from my own study and faith in God. The greatest hope I have for these weekly “thoughts” is to have them be a springboard for further study on your part. Not to be a weekly treatise to be blindly accepted. So, please read them with this intent, this motive in mind).
This week’s lesson from “The Adult Sabbath School Guide” is titled “New Covenant Sanctuary”. In any study of the Sanctuary (on Earth or in Heaven), we must always remember that this Sanctuary service is full to overflowing with symbolism. We can be tempted to just take the Earthly symbolism and place it in Heaven… only larger and bigger… and think we have captured the meaning. Is there a “Lamb” to be sacrificed in Heaven? Is there an altar in Heaven? Is there a Holy Place, a Most Holy Place, and a veil between the two in Heaven? Is blood being sprinkled on that veil? And asked this way, I hope this makes you pause to consider that this is not literally true. I repeat… THIS IS NOT LITERALLY TRUE! These are symbolic descriptions. Because Jesus is the “Lamb” in Heaven, He is not being killed on any Heavenly altar and His blood is not being sprinkled on any Heavenly veil. As Hebrews 9:9 states regarding that Earthly sanctuary service, “It was symbolic for the present time in which both gifts and sacrifices are offered which cannot make him who performed the service perfect in regard to the conscience“. Notice, the Earthly service is symbolic. Therefore, transporting the whole symbolic service to heaven and just making it bigger and grander to fit the bigger and grander Heaven is not a true depiction of what goes-on in Heaven. Because whatever happens in the Sanctuary (on Earth or Heaven) has everything to do with you and your conscience, not with rituals. And when it comes to the “veil”, Hebrews 10: 19-20 tell us, “Therefore, brethren, having boldness to enter the Holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which He consecrated for us, through the veil, that is, His flesh”. The Heavenly “veil” between the Heavenly “Holy Place” and Heavenly “Most Holy Place” is His flesh??? And verse 22 states that we are “having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience”. The Heavenly “sprinkling” is not on any literal “veil”. It, too, has something to do with our minds/ hearts. So you see, even what is going-on in the Heavenly Sanctuary is not so literal after all. It, too, like the service on Earth, is still highly symbolic crying-out for interpretation and understanding.
Remember this as we study this week. Let us not be content to take the symbolism as the substance without asking what it all means. And let us not be content to have a separation between Son and Father. As if the two are different. As if the Son must persuade the Father to forgive. Nothing could be farther from the truth. The Son is not pleading the Father. The two are one. “’And the counsel of peace shall be between them both.’ The love of the Father, no less than of the Son, is the fountain of salvation for the lost race. Said Jesus to his disciples, before he went away, ‘I say not unto you, that I will pray the Father for you; for the Father himself loveth you.’ [John 16:26, 27.] God was ‘in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself’ [2 Corinthians 5:19.] And in the ministration in the sanctuary above, ‘the counsel of peace shall be between them both.’ ‘God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life’.” [John 3:16.] (The Great Controversy pg. 416).
So to conclude this weekly “thought”, I decided to look at the idea of “the shedding of blood”.
In Hebrews 9:22 we read that “according to the law almost all things are purified with blood, and without shedding of blood there is no remission”. The term “shedding of blood” means “death”. Without death there is no remission (“remission” means deliverance-from or freedom-from). That’s right. Only death can free us from the sin that defines us. We are sin through and through. (Paul uses a similar analogy/ symbol of death being the only way we are free to be “married” to Christ. That our “old man” dying is the only way… see Romans 7). Therefore, this “shedding of blood” that was accomplished by Christ on the cross symbolizes our own death with Him. It must, else we are not free from our “old man”. We are still held in the grip of sin. Death is our only escape. “Then He said to them all, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me” (Luke 9:23). And this is evident by what Christ tells us to do with His shed blood… “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For My flesh is food indeed, and My blood is drink indeed. He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him” (John 6:53-56). Christ tells us that we are to drink His blood… meaning, to make His death (and then His life) as our own. We must die. We will die. Sin is killing us. But if mortals like we die, then we are gone. So the death that is to be ours must be with Him who is life. Else our own death is final. He bids us die with Him in order to be fully alive with Him. If we die with Him, then we will have His life as our own. If not we die alone. But die we will. Either with Him or without Him.
Again, let us not be content with the symbols or with any easy explanation that makes it seem that the Father must be appeased in order to forgive. If we really dig, we will see that the entire Sanctuary service is to change us, not to change the Father. And if we see it this way, we will begin to more rightly understand it all. But if we have the Son appeasing the Father, we have a spurious understanding. One that will never lead to the remission (deliverance-from) sin and never lead us into a life of love for others. We must exercise intelligent faith based on understanding, appreciation and love for our Father and His loving ways.
With brotherly love,
Jim