This weekly feature is dedicated to Adventists who are looking for biblical insights into the topics discussed in the Sabbath School lesson quarterly. We post articles which address each lesson as presented in the Sabbath School Bible Study Guide, including biblical commentary on them. We hope you find this material helpful and that you will come to know Jesus and His revelation of Himself in His word in profound biblical ways.
Lesson 11: “New Covenant Sanctuary”
This week’s lesson compares the sacrificial system of the Israelites with what Adventism teaches about the heavenly sanctuary. The lesson does not go into detail about what Ellen White said about the investigative judgment, but it compares the sacrificial animals to Jesus and His sacrifice.
I grew up seeing the book of Hebrews used to prop up Ellen White’s paradigm of the heavenly sanctuary, and I learned that the only thing about the Law that was made obsolete was the system of sacrifices.
Adventism never deals with the full teaching of the book of Hebrews, however, that makes it very clear that every single physical shadow of the earthly sanctuary was fulfilled in Jesus. It wasn’t just the sacrifices that were fulfilled; it was the priesthood (see Hebrews 6 and 7); it was the Sabbath (see Hebrews 3 and 4); it was the sanctuary itself. We can’t look primarily at Jesus replacing the animal sacrifices and see the reality of the new covenant. We have to see that the ENTIRE Mosaic covenant was a shadow of the Lord Jesus and His work of atonement.
Perhaps the biggest omission in Adventist comparisons of the earthly to the heavenly “sanctuary services” is Adventism’s ignoring of Jesus’ priesthood.
The lesson takes a whole day’s teaching to focus on the idea that God wants “relationship with His people”. While this statement is not wrong, it is not fully true. God is not waiting somewhat pathetically for humanity to see that He is kind and good, hoping against hope that they will trust Him and enter relationship with them.
God is sovereign, and His redemption of humanity through the Lord Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection was not a reaction to human sin. It was planned from before creation (see Revelation 13:8). In fact, the lesson uses verses from Hebrews 8 and 9 to emphasize its point that Jesus’ sacrifice replaced the insufficient lambs and made it possible for people not to have to bring animals when they sin.
That fact is true, but the whole of Hebrews 8 and 9 show that the entire structure of Adventism and its sanctuary doctrine are not biblical. Ion fact, it was Hebrews 9 that convinced Desmond Ford that the investigative judgment could not be found anywhere in Scripture, but that Scripture denied the IJ.
The lesson stresses that Jesus left His earthly ministry which culminated in His death and resurrection and took up His heavenly ministry—meaning, of course, He work as the High Priest conducting the investigative judgment and applying His blood to confessed sins.
The Bible teaches, however, that there is not “heavenly atonement”. Jesus finished the atonement on the cross. There is not second phase! He is in heaven now, seated at the Father’s right hand, interceding for us—but not by applying His blood when we confess. His blood was applies ENTIRELY when He spilled it on Calvary!
When we see that Jesus fulfilled every single requirement of the old covenant and took the law’s curse of death on human sin, we have to see that in so doing, Jesus rendered the old covenant obsolete, as Hebrews 8:13 says.
There are no records of sins anywhere over which Jesus is still applying His blood. No! When we trust Jesus, we enter eternal life because He gives our dead spirits life. All our sins—past, present, and future—are forgiven. Think about it; when Jesus gave His blood as then propitiation for sin [Rom. 3:25–26,] ALL of your and my sins were future sins! Jesus’ blood works backwards and forwards; all sin of all those who have faith in God’s word for all time are covered by Jesus’ blood!
Jesus’ Priesthood
Perhaps the biggest surprise I had in the book of Hebrews was the discovery that Jesus’ priesthood is completely different from the levitical priesthood. Adventism teaches that the work of the levitical high priests on the Day of Atonement tell us what Jesus is doing post-resurrection in heaven. They say, based on Ellen White’s teaching, that when a person “accepts Jesus” and (essentially) accepts Adventism, his or her sins are transferred by Jesus’ blood to heaven. There, in heaven, a record of sins is kept, but those sins are not eradicated. They are “stored” there until Jesus, beginning in 1844, started “applying His blood” to those individual sins whenever the believer prayed for forgiveness for them.
They further say Jesus is in heaven reviewing the records of believers’ lives, seeing if they had confessed all their sins and seeing whether they consistently progressed in sanctification and ever-increasing law-keeping.
Hebrews, however, teaches that when Jesus died, His blood was shed for ALL sins for all time. Thus, whenever a person realizes his or her own need of a Savior and repents, asking Jesus to forgive Him and trusting Him as His Savior and Lord, Jesus’ blood covered ALL that person’s sin for all time.
In fact, Jesus’ blood covers sins backwards from the cross as well as forward. His sacrifice was “once for all” (Heb. 9:28). As humans, we are born dead in sin, our spirits dead and needing life (Eph. 2:1–3). When we trust Jesus He brings our dead spirits to life (Jn. 5:24). God transfers us from the domain of darkness into the kingdom of His beloved Son (Col 1:13).
Meanwhile, Jesus, who descended from the tribe of Judah, has no qualifications to be a priest according to the law. He is from a tribe that never represented God at the altar! Yet He has a new priesthood—not according to Levi but according to Melchizedek—an ancient king and priest of God who lived hundreds of years BEFORE the law—before Levi had even been born. In fact, Abraham paid tithe to Melchizedek (Gen 14)—a fact that shows Melchizedek was greater even than Abraham, the one to whom God made unconditional promises! (See Hebrews 7.)
Hebrews 7 explains that the Law was formed on the basis of the levitical priesthood and all its functions. The Law, along with the levitical priesthood, is temporary and can only exist as long as the sacrificial duties of the levites are required.
Now, with Jesus’ once-for-all sacrifice and eternal blood of the covenant already shed, there is no more place for the levitical priesthood. And with the disappearance and obsolescence of that priesthood comes the obsolescence of the law.
Hebrews 7:11—14 says this:
Now if perfection had been attainable through the Levitical priesthood (for under it the people received the law), what further need would there have been for another priest to arise after the order of Melchizedek, rather than one named after the order of Aaron? For when there is a change in the priesthood, there is necessarily a change in the law as well. For the one of whom these things are spoken belonged to another tribe, from which no one has ever served at the altar. For it is evident that our Lord was descended from Judah, and in connection with that tribe Moses said nothing about priests.
The law CANNOT be carried over to the new covenant because it cannot exist without the basis of the levitical priesthood! Now, with a new priesthood, we have a new law: the Law of Christ (see Galatians 6 :2 and 1 Corinthians 9:21).
Jesus: Mediator and Sanctuary
The lesson uses 1 Timothy 2: 5, 6 and asks the reader to ponder how these two roles of Jesus were “prefigured in the earthly sanctuary”. However, in a very real sense, these two roles could not be prefigured in the earthly sanctuary.
Here is the passage:
For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all, which is the testimony given at the proper time (1 Timothy 2:5–6).
The book of Hebrews explains that Moses was the one who delivered the covenant to Israel, and it even says, using a Jewish tradition, that angels mediated the covenant. Thus we have the old covenant being mediated by angels and by Moses who told Israel what God said and spoke to God on behalf of the people.
Jesus’ role as mediator is not portrayed so much by the high priest and the sacrifices of the old covenant as by Moses. Yet this is an example of how limited the types and shadows really are.
The passage in 1 Timothy shows us that Jesus was the one Mediator between God and man. He was God the Son—fully God and possessed of every attribute of God, while He was also fully man, incarnated in mortal flesh. In our Lord Jesus were BOTH PARTIES who needed to be reconciled. He was both God and man—the perfect Mediator.
As the perfect Mediator who had in Himself both parties needing to be reconciled, He gave Himself as the ransom for men. He gave Himself as the ransom, the substitute, the perfect sacrifice, and Paul says this offering was “the testimony given at the proper time.”
In other words, as He gave Himself as the perfect human ransom for mankind, He was also God’s perfectly timed testimony of His salvation of humanity. In Jesus was both the ransom and the testimony—the human offering and the declaration from God that mankind was being ransomed from God’s own penalty!
Jesus’ sacrifice was sufficient, once for all, for all mankind. Everyone who trusts Jesus is ransomed by Jesus’ blood and hidden in Christ. Thus our sins are either on Jesus—or on us. There is no middle ground.
Our salvation is entirely purchased by Jesus’ blood, purchased from the condemnation of God (not of Satan), and we are justified, sanctified, and glorified, as Romans 8:30 says. When we trust Him, we are given eternal life and saved. If we do not trust Him, we are condemned already.
Jesus said this in John 3:18:
Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.
The Sabbath School lesson teaches the confusion of an incomplete atonement and a fallible man standing in heaven pleading our case before God. Scripture, however, teaches that God Himself became man. God, who cannot sin or fail, became incarnated in mortal flesh, and he did what the entire sanctuary system foreshadowed. He is the eternal High Priest. He is the perfect sacrifice. He is the bread of life; He is the light of the world. He is the embodiment of the Law—the actual righteousness of God. He is the Source of Life who only could break the curse of death. He is the shekinah glory who indwells His people. He is at the right hand of God, eternally alive in the heavens, and when we believe, He brings our spirits to life and seats us with Him in heavenly places (Eph. 2:1–10).
The new covenant “sanctuary” is the Lord Jesus Himself. His atonement is finished, and we are made eternally alive when we hear the gospel of our salvation and believe (Eph. 1:13–14). †
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The major flaw with the first covenant , the law , was that man was unable to keep it because he had a problem with being faithful . The New Covenant was not between God and man , but between God and Jesus . God did not make the New Covenant in which man’s lack of faith stopped Him from doing His part . This is the major difference between the old and new covenants . The New Covenant of Grace is an agreement between God and Jesus and we are the beneficiaries .