Lesson 1: Making Sense of History: Zerubbabel and Ezra
The memory text for this week's lesson tells us that the Persian king Cyrus commanded Ezra "to build Him [God] a house at Jerusalem which is in Judah" (Ezra 1:2, NKJV). The return of Israel from exile was about the restoration of God's sanctuary truth. The same is true of the 1888 message.
The 1888 message as brought by A. T. Jones and E. J. Waggoner and endorsed by Ellen G. White, was the beginning of a profound and glorious revelation of the gospel as the fulfillment of truth, in harmony with and parallel to the unique doctrine of the cleansing of the sanctuary.
Seventh-day Adventists, rejoice in the truths that made us a people distinct from the Sunday-keeping Evangelicals and the Seventh Day Baptists.
Then why are so many Seventh-day Adventists today giving up the sanctuary message?
Why, for example, does an editor of our very fine Commentary now repudiate it? The sanctuary truth is said to be a "liability." Many of our pastors and church leaders also inwardly doubt it, even though they stay in the closet as church employees.
What they have understood as the sanctuary message has always been only a cold theological doctrine. It never became a heart-gripping, heart-melting truth. They never learned to love the message. It left them cold, and probably in many cases, worse than that, the Investigative Judgment left them dominated by nightmarish fear.
They saw Christ's ministry in the Most Holy Apartment as a court trial where our very existence is jeopardized. A rejection slip in the Investigative Judgment was a consignment to hell. So this distorted view of the doctrine was not mere theological trivia; its side effect to them was spiritual terror.
But the issue could not be more important to understand.The most disturbing statement Ellen White ever made makes simple common sense. It is a brief passage [1] where she says that if we reject a change in Christ's sanctuary ministry in 1844, we lay ourselves open to a deception of the false christ posing in place of the True One, putting on a show that is complete with miracles. By now, the counterfeit has become extremely sophisticated.
Yet we face the influence of former prominent Seventh-day Adventist thought leaders who repudiate these insights about a difference in Christ's high priestly ministry. It may not be their fault that they feel this way. Ministers and leaders in our past generally have taught them the sanctuary message divorced from the special enlightenment of the 1888 message. The most precious message was hijacked when the Lord "sent" it.
Ellen White told us in 1896 that "by the action of our own brethren [the light] has been in a great degree kept away from the world"and "from our people." [2] So let's be charitable to these current sanctuary message rejectors, and "consider others lest we also be tempted." These people among us who today are rejecting the sanctuary message very likely never grasped the 1888 message. They grew up and went through academy, college, and university without anyone teaching them either the message or its history. To this day none of our schools offers a course in the 1888 message. Anyone who gets it does so by accident.
The message lifts the unique Seventh-day Adventist sanctuary message out of confusion and perplexity and clothes it in the bright garments of Christ's righteousness, that is, the gospel seen as very good news.
There are two books that warm the heart through unique sanctuary ideas in the 1888 message:
Waggoner's The Glad Tidings is where you can learn the difference between the Old Covenant and the New Covenant. It's the discovery that the Gospel is very good news. It grips your heart. You can see justification by faith as far more than a cold theological formula. It's good news far beyond pastors and leaders who don't see the Sabbath truth, nor the sanctuary doctrine, nor the truth about sleeping saints awaiting the resurrection "in Christ."
God has many people in the Sunday-keeping churches living up to all the light they have. They simply don't see the 1888 idea of justification by faith because they don't see that in death man sleeps until the resurrection, and they don't know how to follow Christ in His closing work of atonement in the Most Holy Apartment. Both ideas are essential to justification by faith as it is "present truth" today.
There's also Jones's The Consecrated Way to Christian Perfection with a new perspective. The main idea is that the heavenly sanctuary can never be "cleansed" until first of all the hearts of God's people are cleansed. That's simple! And it's far more than a legalistic accounting trick whereby God looks the other way while we continue sinning. The missing factor is supplied by a new and clearer grasp of justification by faith, which Ellen White saw makes the 1888 message become "the third angel's message in verity." [3]
How does the 1888 message lead us to fall in love with the Seventh-day Adventist sanctuary message?
The cleansing of the heavenly sanctuary makes a difference in practical day-by-day living.If it's impossible for the sanctuary in heaven to be "cleansed" or "justified" or "made right" (Daniel 8:14) until the hearts of God's people on earth first are cleansed, then that has an important conclusion: Christ as our High Priest is specializing now in convicting His people of previously unknown sin. As sin each is seen and forsaken for His sake day by day; the special work of cleansing goes on. The High Priest plans for it to become complete. And He wants it to be soon. He'll do it if His people don't resist Him.
You can get your Old Testament history lesson from the Quarterly. But let's make these lessons on Ezra and Nehemiah practical by viewing them through the beauty of the 1888 message!
--Paul E. Penno
Endnotes:
[1] Ellen G. White, Early Writings, pp. 55, 56. It is developed further on pages 260, 261.
[2] Ellen G. White, Selected Messages, book one, p. 235.
[3] Ellen G. White, Review and Herald, April 1, 1890.
Notes:
Pastor Paul Penno's video of this lesson is on the Internet at:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=muSitzTjdPg
"Sabbath School Today" is on the Internet at: http://1888message.org/sst.htm
| RR |
