Sunday, July 28, 2019

Purpose of the Sanctuary

"It is a marvelous revelation that the entire sanctuary service was symbolic of Christ’s priestly ministry. He was represented in every sacrifice, and fulfilled both phases of the priesthood–the first by dying for fallen man, and the second by pleading before the Father for every repentant sinner.


When Christ ascended to heaven, He entered not “into the holy places made with hands, which are the figures of the true; but into heaven itself now to appear in the presence of God for us:” (Heb.9:24). So, the earthly sanctuary came to an end. Remember, it was destroyed in A.D. 70 by the Roman army.

The priests, under the old covenant, performed their ministry in relationship to the Ten Commandments. So, Jesus Christ our high priest, now in heaven, under the new covenant performs His ministry in relation to these same Ten Commandments; the original law of God. We read in Hebrews 8:8-10: “Behold the days come, saith the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah: Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt; because they continued not in my covenant, and I regarded them not, saith the Lord.” Now notice this– “For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people.” What is God saying? He says that under the new covenant, He is going to take away sin out of our hearts, and He says, “I will give you a new heart, and write my law in your heart.” You notice God did not say, “I will abolish my covenant, and give you a new law.” and neither did He say, “I will give grace to supersede the Ten Commandments.”

What God is really trying to tell us is that because of His grace, He will write His law in our hearts, and bring our lives into conformity to His precepts. Isn’t that simple? Perhaps I should say isn’t that beautiful?

Now you can easily see that during a year’s time, there would be a multitude of sins that had gathered in the earthly sanctuary. This is what made it necessary to cleanse the sanctuary, or blot out the record of those sins, and take them out of the sanctuary as
described in Leviticus 16. And so it was, that there was a day known as “The Day of Atonement”, in which the sanctuary was cleansed.

From 34 A.D. until 1844 Christ ministered within the first apartment of the sanctuary, according to the terms of the new covenant. But, in 1844, Christ entered within the veil, just as the priest in the earthly sanctuary did on the Day of Atonement to cleanse the sanctuary. This is what we read in Daniel 8:14, “Unto two thousand three hundred days; then shall the sanctuary be cleansed.” So Christ our high priest left the first apartment, of the heavenly sanctuary in 1844 and entered the second apartment to finish His mediatorial work, to become our Advocate."
StepsToLife