“Then Shall the Sanctuary Be Cleansed” | Chapter 5 | (1991) | Donald K. Short
What would you have done had you been in the shoes of Caiaphas? Think a moment. He had a job to do. He was the chief executive officer. But more, he had logic on his side when he said it was expedient that one die for the nation rather than for all to die. To him, crucifying the Son of God was not sin; it was merely an administrative necessity. As administrative committees often work, he chose the lesser of two evils. This is a trap that Seventh-day Adventists fall into frequently. To choose the lesser of two evils is to cast a vote for continuing sin.
Does this indicate a problem that is not yet realized? Can a people be genuinely converted, living up to all the light they have and yet have unknown sin lurking beneath the surface? Can God seal a people in this condition? Is the final sealing work related to character development or is it mere ritual in heaven?
We have long talked of the time when God’s people would be sealed and live without a mediator or an intercessor as they faced the time of trouble in the end. The very fact that a mediator is needed at any time indicates there is a problem. That problem is sin and when the day comes that no mediator is required, it means the problem has been removed.
This group of people will be unique in all history. Their conversion, their understanding of sin, will also be unique. They will know the difference between the old covenant and the new. They will sense that the two promote opposing ideas of reconciliation. They will understand the old covenant idea of God being reconciled to man as perverted, whereas the new covenant provides for man to be reconciled to God. Man will understand that from the beginning it has been his own sin that separates. The whole point of the sanctuary truth is that Christ will not remain an Intercessor and Substitute forever; this work must come to an end. There must be a character development that no community of saints has ever previously experienced. They will overcome “even as [Christ] overcame.” The issue is not concerned with getting a people ready for death, but for translation.
The evangelical world does not see the distinction between forgiving sins and blotting them out. They are willing to have God reconciled to man whereas the truth demands the reverse of this. They do not even believe that true cleansing is possible or necessary, for like a growing number of Adventists, they are content to make provision for sinning up to the moment of glorification. Along with doing away with the law they have adopted the Roman Catholic idea that sin cannot be overcome so long as human beings have a sinful nature. But there is a more serious problem. In the eternal balances of God’s justice all sin must be judged, both known and unknown, conscious and unconscious. The old covenant must truly be replaced by the new in practical results manifest in the lives of God’s people.
How Deep Is Sin Buried?
The medical profession now accepts psychoanalysis as a legitimate and respectable branch of medicine which provides therapeutic assistance for mental illness. Scientific methods have been used to discover the way the mind functions. This has led to the conclusion that there