When Christ ascended from the earth He entered into His role as our High Priest in the Heavenly Sanctuary. By studying the earthly sanctuary we can better understand the work that Jesus is doing for us right now in heaven. This knowledge will open the way to uncovering the meaning of the cleansing of the sanctuary that began at the end of the 2300 day prophecy in Daniel 8, and the relationship this has to the judgement and closing works of Jesus ministration for us in the Heavenly Sanctuary.
God’s way of dealing with sin can be found in studying the sanctuary service. In the Old Testament God gave to Moses the instructions for the building of the earthly sanctuary and explained to him the various ordinances that were to be carried out in relation to its operation. God intended to teach the people about Himself and how the sin issue was being rectified through the ordinances of this sanctuary. Through learning about this service we can see how God was endeavouring to teach His people of a coming Messiah who would fulfil the types and shadows that this service pointed to.
Your way, O God, is in the sanctuary; Who is so great a God as our God? Psalms 77:13
Today few realise that the Old Covenant earthly sanctuary was made after the pattern of the true tabernacle (sanctuary) in heaven. When given the instructions for the building of the earthly sanctuary Moses was shown the heavenly sanctuary and instructed to construct it after this pattern.
And let them make Me a sanctuary, that I may dwell among them. According to all that I show you, that is, the pattern of the tabernacle and the pattern of all its furnishings, just so you shall make it. Exodus 25:8-9
The earthly sanctuary had two main compartments: the Holy Place and the Most Holy Place. Within the Holy Place was the table of shew bread, the golden lampstand and the altar of incense. The Most Holy Place had only one piece of furniture: the Ark of the Covenant containing the Ten Commandments. These two compartments were separated by a veil. Outside the entrance to the holy place was the outer courtyard that contained the laver of water and the altar of burnt offering.
For simplicity, the work of the sanctuary service can be grossly divided into two main parts: 1) daily sin was transferred into the sanctuary, and 2) once a year the sanctuary would be cleansed and the sin forever removed.
Day by day the repentant sinner brought his sin offering to the door of the tabernacle and, placing his has hand upon the victim’s head, confessed his sins, thus in figure transferring sin from himself to the innocent sacrifice (Leviticus 4:4). The animal was then slain.
And according to the law almost all things are purified with blood, and without shedding of blood there is no remission. Hebrews 9:22
This is because the “life of the flesh is in the blood” (Leviticus 17:11). The penalty for sin is death (Romans 6:23), so it was necessary for a life to be given for sin to be purged. In this case, the animal carries the guilt of the sinner and dies in their place. The blood of the slain animal (representing its life) was then taken into the Holy Place by the officiating priest and sprinkled before the veil behind which lay the Ark of the Covenant containing God’s offended law (Leviticus 4:6). In some instances the blood was not taken into the holy place; in these cases, the priest was to consume the flesh of the sin offering (Leviticus 6:26) and thereby bear the sins of the people (Leviticus 10:17). When the priest would make a sin offering for himself, the blood of this offering was always taken into the Holy Place and sprinkled before the veil, upon the altar of incense (Leviticus 4:6).
From this we see how the animal sacrifices bore the sins of the people, and these sins were then transferred into the sanctuary. However, once a year, on the Day of Atonement, the opposite would occur; the High Priest would enter into the Most Holy Place and the sins that had been day by day taken into the sanctuary were then purged and placed upon the scapegoat that was led into the wilderness and left to die (Leviticus 16).
Aaron shall lay both his hands on the head of the live goat, confess over it all the iniquities of the children of Israel, and all their transgressions, concerning all their sins, putting them on the head of the goat, and shall send it away into the wilderness by the hand of a suitable man. The goat shall bear on itself all their iniquities to an uninhabited land; and he shall release the goat in the wilderness. Leviticus 16:21-22
On the Day of Atonement the Sanctuary was cleansed from the sins of the people. In this way, the sins of the people were forever separated from them. Until the Day of Atonement, however, their sin remained in the sanctuary.
The Old Covenant was based around the ordinances and priestly ministration of the earthly sanctuary.
Then indeed, even the first covenant had ordinances of divine service and the earthly sanctuary. Hebrews 9:1
The Old Covenant with its earthly sanctuary was a shadow and type of the great work that Christ is now doing for us. Just as the Old Covenant had an earthly sanctuary, the New Covenant centres on Jesus’ ministration for us as our High Priest in the Heavenly Sanctuary. Salvation has only ever been through Christ. The blood of animals has no power to save us but pointed to Christ as our perfect sacrifice, by whose blood we are healed.
For the law, having a shadow of the good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with these same sacrifices, which they offer continually year by year, make those who approach perfect. For then would they not have ceased to be offered? For the worshipers, once purified, would have had no more consciousness of sins. But in those sacrifices there is a reminder of sins every year. For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and goats could take away sins. Hebrews 10:1-4
Now this is the main point of the things we are saying: We have such a High Priest, who is seated at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens, a Minister of the sanctuary and of the true tabernacle which the Lord erected, and not man. Hebrews 8:1-2
Just as the priest would take the blood of the sin offering into the Holy Place day by day, so Christ, after He had offered up His own life for our sins, entered into the Holy Place of the Heavenly Sanctuary and presented His blood as an offering for sin.
But Christ being come an high priest of good things to come, by a greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this building; Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us. Hebrews 9:11-12
Therefore it was necessary that the copies of the things in the heavens should be purified with these, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these. For Christ has not entered the holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us; Hebrews 9:23-24
As further evidence that Jesus entered into the Holy Place of the Heavenly Sanctuary at His ascension, John, in vision, beheld the lampstand before the throne of God.
And from the throne proceeded lightnings, thunderings, and voices. Seven lamps of fire were burning before the throne, which are the seven Spirits of God. Revelation 4:5
The golden lampstand which contained seven lamps is furniture that belongs in the Holy Place. The altar of incense is also found in the Holy Place.
Now when He had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, each having a harp, and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints. Revelation 5:8
At His ascension, Christ entered into the ministration of the High Priest within the Holy Place of the Heavenly Sanctuary. This work consisted of presenting His blood before the Father as an offering for our sin. As the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world, Jesus bore our sin in His own flesh; as our High Priest, He has now transferred our sin to the Heavenly Sanctuary. As the High Priest once a year entered into the Most Holy Place to cleanse the earthly sanctuary of sin, so Christ too must undergo this great and final work in heaven.
And he said to me, “For two thousand three hundred days; then the sanctuary shall be cleansed.” Daniel 8:14
Here we are presented with the longest time prophecy in Scripture. Each of the holy days of the Levitical law were shadows that pointed to some aspect of Christ’s work of redemption. The Passover foreshadowed His death (1 Corinthians 5:7), the Firstfruits His resurrection (1 Corinthians 15:20), and Pentecost the bestowal of the Holy Spirit upon the disciples (Acts 2:1-4). In like manner, the Day of Atonement foreshadowed an aspect of Christ’s work for us in heaven. At the fulfilment of the 2300 days, Jesus will enter into the work that was performed by the High Priest on the Day of Atonement; He will enter into the Most Holy Place of the Heavenly Sanctuary and begin the work of its cleansing from the sin that has been transferred there.
The question now is when did the 2300 day prophecy meet its conclusion? For this, we need to go back to Daniel 8 and 9 to find the answer. In a previous article, we covered the 70 weeks prophecy of Daniel 9 and how this pointed to Jesus as the Prophesied Messiah. We saw that this prophecy began with the command to restore and rebuild Jerusalem, which was given by King Artaxerxes in the autumn (Northern Hemisphere) of 457 B.C. How does this relate to the 2300 days? In Daniel 9:24 we read that “Seventy weeks are determined”. The word here for ‘determined’ is the Hebrew word ‘chathak’ which literally means ‘cut off’. So we are being told that these 70 weeks are being cut off from something else. If we now go back to Daniel 8 we see that Daniel fainted before the vision had been completely shown to him.
And I, Daniel, fainted and was sick for days; afterward I arose and went about the king’s business. I was astonished by the vision, but no one understood it. Daniel 8:27
In Daniel 9 the angel Gabriel returns to him and picks up right where he left off completing the message that God had for him. Within the vision shown to Daniel before he fainted is the 2300 day prophecy, no other time period is given. So it follows that the 70 weeks must be cut off from the 2300 days previously mentioned. This then gives us the start point for the 2300 day prophecy - 457 B.C. Using the same day for a year principle (Ezekiel 4:6) that was applied to accurately decipher the 70-week prophecy, we add 2300 years to 457 B.C. which brings us to the autumn (Northern Hemisphere) of 1844 A.D. In 1844 the Day of Atonement fell on October 22, and so this day is held to be the day that Jesus moved from the Holy Place into the Most Holy Place of the Heavenly Sanctuary to begin His cleansing work.
What does this work of cleansing involve and how does it affect us? Click here to find out!
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