Sabbath: New Covenant Sanctuary
Image © Pacific Press
Read for This Week’s Study: Exodus 25:8; Isaiah 53:4-12; Hebrews 10:4; Hebrews 9:14; Hebrews 8:1-6; 1 Timothy 2:5-6.
Memory Verse: “Therefore he is the mediator of a new covenant, so that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance” (Hebrews 9:15, RSV).
A moonless evening, the sky black like spilled ink, all covered Frank in shadow as he walked the empty urban streets. After a while he heard footsteps behind him, someone following in the darkness. Then the person caught up with him and said, “Frank, the printer?”
“Yes, I am he. But how did you know?”
“Well,” answered the stranger, “I don’t know you. But I know your brother very well, and even in the darkness your mannerisms, your way of walking, your figure all reminded me so much of him I just assumed that you were his brother, because he told me that he had one.”
This story reveals a powerful truth regarding the Israelite sanctuary service. It was, the Bible says, a shadow, a figure, an image of the real. Nevertheless, there was enough in the shadows and images to clearly foreshadow and reveal the truths they were supposed to represent: the death, and high-priestly ministry of Christ in the heavenly sanctuary.
The Week at a Glance: Why did God want the Israelites to build a sanctuary? What does the sanctuary teach us about Christ as our Substitute? What does Jesus do in heaven as our Representative?
Study this week’s lesson to prepare for Sabbath, June 12.
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I have mentioned before that Carmel and I are involved in a movement known as U3A (University of the Third Age). It is a secular organisation that aims to keep older people active and socialised by organising classes and activities. It is a great organisation. I run bird observation and photography courses and Carmel takes part in "Balance and Bones" and ukulele strummers class. Carmel and I both enjoy our involvement in part of the wider community we live in.
Last week, they had the Annual General Meeting and I was voted in as a committee member with the title IT Officer. Five minutes after the AGM had finished, we had our first committee meeting. Suddenly I had gone from being a member where I enjoyed classes and activities to being part of the group that actually run the show by making decisions and doing the hard unseen work. (Actually there was a fair bit of finagling to get me onto the committee because someone let slip that I knew a fair bit about computers and databases - but that is another story and not relevant to the current discussion)
The point is that the committee meets and makes decisions and the IT officer works far into the night to ensure that the machinery of U3A works. Membership and class lists kept, financial records maintained, and all the other stuff that is so necessary for the organisation to work is carried out.
In a sense, the heavenly sanctuary is like the unseen work of the U3A committee. We cannot see it physically but it does happen and is part of the whole salvation story. It is not secret spiritual business but it is unseen and sometimes forgotten. Like the work of the U3A committee, it is the unseen work that makes things happen.
Seventh-day Adventists lay claim to understanding the heavenly sanctuary service and it has really become part of our identity. Some like to think that it is our unique contribution to theology. That may or may not be true, but it is also worth reminding ourselves that knowledge in itself is useless unless it has a practical application. How do our lives and our relationships with one another reflect our knowledge and understanding of the heavenly sanctuary and its work?
New Covenant Sanctuary
Have we ever stopped to think in the garden of Eden there was no sanctuary. The Lord could have built a sanctuary so he can meet with Adam and Eve and their generation. He did not because, He, the Lord himself was their sanctuary. He was dwelling with them and among them, they all had a special relationship like no other human on earth. Sanctuary means a sacred place for worship of the Creator. The entire garden of Eden was a sacred place to worship and it also had the Tree of Life planted in it. After sin entered into the world and the relationship was broken, humans became untrustworthy. Humans(Adam and Eve) were driven out of the Garden of Eden because it was a sacred place and Angels were placed to guard the entrance .......more to come.
As time went by and humans had lost the very essence of what it meant to have a relationship with their Creator, the Lord invited Moses up with him and gave him the laws by which the people should live by. The Lord also shew him a pattern of the heavenly sanctuary and said to Moses, build me a sanctuary so I can dwell among my people.
The sanctuary built on earth and all its services represent/pointed to the Savior who will come to redeem men from sin. After the death of Christ, Christ ascended up and cont to be the mediator for humans as a High Priest in heaven. He is now doing the work of what Aaron and the other High Priest did on the day of atonement. He is also sanctifying his children and putting his laws in their minds.
The Garden of Eden was the Sanctuary! That is where they met with God!
The sabbath was a Sanctuary in Time for our first parent
Yes Lyn, why would sinless Eden need a sanctuary? What God gave through Moses to Israel and the world was an illustration of the means by which sinners may once again walk with God(Amos 3:3). The sanctuary rituals, practices, and even the courtyard, building, and its furnishings all depict HOW the fallen nature may be restored by becoming a partaker of the Divine nature again. We have the insight of the old to understand the new.
”And Melchizedek king of Salem brought forth bread and wine: and he was the priest of the most high God. And he blessed him, and said, Blessed be Abram of the most high God, possessor of heaven and earth:” - Gen.14:18-19KJV
About Christ Jesus: ”Though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered; And being made perfect, he became the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey[follow] him; Called of God an high priest after the order of Melchizedec – Heb.5:8-10KJV
Melchizedek never was born - never died.
Psalms 110:4KJV; Heb.6:20KJV; Heb.7:15-17KJV; Heb.7:21KJV. – there is something special about this Priesthood of the Order of Melchizedek. Jesus and Melchizedek were both part of it.
I see Christ Jesus as the mediator of the Old versus the New Covenant in the context of His power to absolve iniquity of the believer by their faith in His Gospel, the Word and Will of the Father. Once the believer accepted Salvation, he/she will follow the Walk of Faith in the Life and Light of the Gospel.
If it was just a continuation of the Old Covenant, we would still be looking at Salvation by Faith in Works. With Him, the New Covenant available to everyone who believes – Gentiles and Jews.
Melchizedek had no record of his birth nor his death. That does NOT mean he was never born or never died. That would make him God.
From those sacrifices first offered in Eden for the guilty pair, to the temple in Jerusalem where Jesus taught and ministered, the heavenly sanctuary was being foreshadowed, where Jesus now mediates for repentant sinners. In these types, we may come to understand the vitally important work of Jesus for us at this hour, which will soon come to a close. We also have a vital part in this work.
Sanctuary, a holy place to worship God. It's been an old works by our elders, even on the first generation of Adam's
family they make sanctuary, right after the great flood, Noah's family makes sanctuary to dwell with the Lord. Early christians assemble themselves to meet the Lord in churches, it's a sabbath sacredness. As I studied sanctuary, nowadays, it comes first deeply from our hearts. Remember Jacob, Daniel ... until John ( the revelator) they meet God on their hearts. Our sincerity and eagerness to meet the Lord comes from our hearts. Every Christian with the same feelings get together on the seventh-day sabbath as God commanded. Thanks be to God.