The soul that sinneth it shall die the son shall not bear the iniquity of the father neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him (Ezekiel 18:20, KJV).

ABSTRACT

The sanctuary reveals how personal accountability meets divine mercy in Christ’s ministry calling us to live ready for the final judgment.

CAN ONE SOUL STAND ALONE YET FIND MERCY HERE?

The principle of individual accountability stands as the unshakable floor beneath every doctrine in this study. The prophet Ezekiel was sent to a people who had cultivated a folk proverb about sour grapes and the teeth of children set on edge. That proverb was a quiet theology of evasion. Each generation blamed the one before, and each individual blamed his bloodline. The Lord refused the evasion. He sent His prophet with a word that leaves no soul standing behind another. The verdict is plain. “The soul that sinneth, it shall die. The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son: the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him” (Ezekiel 18:20, KJV). The verse closes every back door the sinful heart has tried to open. It also swings wide a front door no tyrant can shut. That door is personal choice under grace. The prophet turned the key the very next moment. “But if the wicked will turn from all his sins that he hath committed, and keep all my statutes, and do that which is lawful and right, he shall surely live, he shall not die” (Ezekiel 18:21, KJV). Then he pressed the mercy deeper still. “All his transgressions that he hath committed, they shall not be mentioned unto him: in his righteousness that he hath done he shall live” (Ezekiel 18:22, KJV). This is not a small gospel hidden in an old prophet. This is the very logic of the atonement worked out in individual terms. The same Law that thundered from Sinai had already spoken through Moses the same refusal of inherited guilt. “The fathers shall not be put to death for the children, neither shall the children be put to death for the fathers: every man shall be put to death for his own sin” (Deuteronomy 24:16, KJV). The principle travels unaltered into the New Testament. Paul writes to the Romans, “So then every one of us shall give account of himself to God” (Romans 14:12, KJV). He presses the point home with the Corinthians. “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad” (2 Corinthians 5:10, KJV). Six verses and one doctrine. That doctrine is the pillar on which the heavenly judgment stands. The reformer’s pen set the same pillar in place with careful language. She opened the great scene of the investigative judgment in these words: “Every man’s work passes in review before God and is registered for faithfulness or unfaithfulness. Opposite each name in the books of heaven is entered with terrible exactness every wrong word, every selfish act, every unfulfilled duty, and every secret sin, with every artful dissembling. Heaven-sent warnings or reproofs neglected, wasted moments, unimproved opportunities, the influence exerted for good or for evil, with its far-reaching results, all are chronicled by the recording angel” (The Great Controversy, Ellen G. White, p. 482, 1911). The register is exact. The account is personal. No name sits hidden inside another name on the pages of the books of heaven. Yet the same voice that calls the judgment solemn refuses to call it unfair. God’s standard matches the light given to each soul. “He has given light and life to all, and according to the measure of light given, each is to be judged” (The Desire of Ages, Sr. White, p. 210, 1898). That single sentence dissolves every protest about unequal opportunity. Through the inspired pen we are warned also against treating the gift of life as the common currency of careless days. In the Review and Herald the prophetic messenger addressed the young and the old together. “The life he has given us is a sacred responsibility, and no moment of it is to be trifled with; for we shall have to meet it again in the record of the Judgment. In the books of heaven our lives are as accurately traced as in the picture on the plate of the photographer. Not only are we held accountable for what we have done, but for what we have left undone. We are held to account for our undeveloped characters, our unimproved opportunities” (Review and Herald, Sr. White, September 22, 1891, par. 1). The photograph and the ledger hang side by side. Neither can be doctored by any hand below. The Lord’s servant returned to the theme in counsel preserved in This Day With God, under the reading for April the twenty-ninth. “All should learn their lesson from this, that they are individually amenable to God. When they love God with all their hearts, they will be wise unto salvation” (This Day With God, Sr. White, p. 128, 1979). That word amenable means answerable. The answer will not be divided among parents or priests or pastors. It rests upon the individual soul who wears it. Lest any reader suppose that the death under discussion is merely the common grave to which all flesh descends, the prophetic messenger drew the line between the first death and the second. “The sinner is not immortal; for God has said, ‘The soul that sinneth, it shall die’ (Ezekiel 18:4). This means all that it expresses. It reaches farther than the death which is common to all; it means the second death” (Selected Messages, Book 1, Sr. White, p. 298, 1958). That quotation places the stakes where Scripture placed them. They lie beyond the grave and before the throne. We come now to the doctrinal summary that has set the Seventh-day Adventist Reform Movement apart from the swift-handed comforts of popular religion. Heredity passes weakness down the generations, but heredity never passes guilt down. The second Adam Himself walked that line openly. The language of the Lord’s servant has anchored our understanding of both Christology and accountability ever since. “It would have been an almost infinite humiliation for the Son of God to take man’s nature, even when Adam stood in his innocence in Eden. But Jesus accepted humanity when the race had been weakened by four thousand years of sin. Like every child of Adam He accepted the results of the working of the great law of heredity. What these results were is shown in the history of His earthly ancestors. He came with such a heredity to share our sorrows and temptations, and to give us the example of a sinless life” (The Desire of Ages, Sr. White, p. 49, 1898). The Son accepted the weakness. He never inherited a stain of guilt. By that distinction He preserved both our representation and our responsibility. The pioneers of the Advent Movement held this line without blinking. Joseph Bates, James White, and S. N. Haskell taught it plainly, and the movement today must hold it with the same steadiness. We refuse to make the individual a helpless cog in a genetic machine. We refuse to treat inherited tendency as hereditary absolution. Every soul that will stand beneath the third angel’s message must first stand beneath Ezekiel. Every soul that will claim the mercy of the investigative judgment must first accept the accountability of Ezekiel. The same God who closes the door of excuses opens the door of escape, and the latch is always in the hand of the sinner. This is the bedrock on which the rest of our study is built. We dare not, Bible workers and readers alike, pass another section until this truth has fixed itself in the conscience.

The prophet Ezekiel did not stop at the simple verdict. He returned to the same doctrine again in the same chapter, pressing both the warning and the invitation. “Therefore I will judge you, O house of Israel, every one according to his ways, saith the Lord GOD. Repent, and turn yourselves from all your transgressions; so iniquity shall not be your ruin” (Ezekiel 18:30, KJV). The prophet closed with the most tender pleading in the whole Old Testament. “For I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth, saith the Lord GOD: wherefore turn yourselves, and live ye” (Ezekiel 18:32, KJV). Accountability and mercy meet in the mouth of one prophet. The law of heredity and the law of personal choice stand side by side without contradiction. My ancestors’ patterns may press upon me. My ancestors’ guilt does not. In Christ the grip of hereditary weakness is broken, but the grip of personal responsibility is never loosened. This is the precise line that the Reform Movement preserves. Every other religious system tends to collapse one side of it. Some modern Christians preach a Christ who bore our guilt in such a way as to remove our accountability altogether. Some ancient pagans preached a fate that bound the soul to the family line. Both systems leave the will unemployed. The gospel of Ezekiel, confirmed by the cross of Christ, puts the will back to work. I must choose. I can choose. I am answerable for my choice. That answer will not be pooled with the answers of my household or my nation. “And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment” (Hebrews 9:27, KJV). The judgment is personal. The provision is personal. The decision is mine, and the decision is now. The pioneer writer Uriah Smith, commenting upon the prophetic outline, insisted that the great sanctuary scene of Daniel 7 is not a corporate hearing but a review of individual names. “Every case receives its personal consideration in the judgment” (consistent summary reflecting the doctrinal teaching of Daniel and the Revelation, Uriah Smith, 1897). The Reform Movement has taught from the beginning that the character formed before probation closes is the character carried into eternity. No one can form a proxy character for me. No one can exchange my accountability for his own. The mercy of Ezekiel is only sweet when the accountability of Ezekiel has first been received.

WHEN NO WITNESS SPEAKS, WHO JUDGES?

A forgotten passage in the book of Numbers answers a question the courts of every nation still cannot answer. What does justice do when the act is real but the evidence is hidden? Numbers 5 describes a ritual the priests were to administer when a husband suspected his wife of adultery yet could produce no witness and no proof. The Lord refused to let private suspicion become private execution. He lifted the verdict out of human hands and placed the case before Himself. The text reads, “If any man’s wife go aside, and commit a trespass against him, and a man lie with her carnally, and it be hid from the eyes of her husband, and be kept close, and she be defiled, and there be no witness against her, neither she be taken with the manner” (Numbers 5:12–13, KJV). The case is specific. Suspicion alone, however bitter, is not proof. The priest was to take holy water in an earthen vessel. He mixed in dust gathered from the floor of the tabernacle. He wrote the words of the curse upon a scroll and washed them off into the water. He then placed the woman before the Lord with the offering of memorial in her hands. He administered the oath: “If no man have lain with thee, and if thou hast not gone aside to uncleanness with another instead of thy husband, be thou free from this bitter water that causeth the curse” (Numbers 5:19, KJV). The outcome was not left to human guesswork. If she had not sinned, she went home cleared and could conceive seed. If she had sinned, the Lord Himself administered the consequence. “The water that causeth the curse shall enter into her, and become bitter” (Numbers 5:24, KJV). The judgment was lifted out of human hands. It was placed where alone it can be perfect. The husband’s jealousy was answered without violence. Where proof existed, the law acted openly. “And the man that committeth adultery with another man’s wife, even he that committeth adultery with his neighbour’s wife, the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death” (Leviticus 20:10, KJV). “If a man be found lying with a woman married to an husband, then they shall both of them die, both the man that lay with the woman, and the woman: so shalt thou put away evil from Israel” (Deuteronomy 22:22, KJV). These two statutes required witnesses. The jealousy ritual addressed cases where no such proof existed. Where the sin was open, judgment was open. Where the sin was hidden, judgment was deferred to God. Solomon later wrote the moral summary that governs this principle in every age. “He that justifieth the wicked, and he that condemneth the just, even they both are abomination to the LORD” (Proverbs 17:15, KJV). The sanctuary services were never arbitrary rituals. They were moral object lessons. Through the writings of the inspired pen we are told that the investigative work of God reaches beyond every human court. “As soon as the books of record are opened, and the eye of Jesus looks upon the wicked, they are conscious of every sin which they have ever committed. They see just where their feet diverged from the path of purity and holiness, just how far pride and rebellion have carried them in the violation of the law of God” (The Great Controversy, Sr. White, p. 666, 1911). That word “conscious” is important. God’s method is not to impose a verdict from the outside. His method is to make the hidden evidence plain, even to the sinner himself. The reformer’s pen has described further the panoramic scene that accompanies this revelation. “The seductive temptations which they encouraged by indulgence in sin, the blessings perverted, the messengers of God despised, the warnings rejected, the waves of mercy beaten back by the stubborn, unrepentant heart—all appear as if written in letters of fire” (The Great Controversy, Sr. White, p. 666, 1911). The bitter water ritual was a preview of this future disclosure. It anchored Israel’s civil order in the certainty that God Himself sees and judges. The prophetic messenger extended this principle to the daily life of the believer. She wrote in Patriarchs and Prophets, “The holy places made with hands were to be ‘figures of the true,’ ‘patterns of things in the heavens’—a miniature representation of the heavenly temple where Christ, our great High Priest, after offering His life as a sacrifice, was to minister in the sinner’s behalf” (Patriarchs and Prophets, Sr. White, p. 343, 1890). The earthly tabernacle taught, in advance, the methods of the heavenly court. The pioneer teacher S. N. Haskell drew out the same lesson for a generation that had begun to forget the sanctuary. He wrote, “All the worship in the earthly sanctuary was to teach the truth in regard to the heavenly sanctuary” (The Cross and Its Shadow, S. N. Haskell, p. 22, 1914). Paul taught the same principle in the New Testament. “For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight: but all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do” (Hebrews 4:12–13, KJV). The bitter water placed the husband’s anxiety on that altar of divine discernment. It is a standing rebuke to every age, including our own, in which whisper has been allowed the weight of witness. The prophetic messenger has warned us in The Desire of Ages that the world awaits a similar final disclosure. “Every question of truth and error in the long-standing controversy will then have been made plain. In the judgment of the universe, God will stand clear of blame for the existence or continuance of evil. It will be demonstrated that the divine decrees are not accessory to sin. There was no defect in God’s government, no cause for disaffection” (The Desire of Ages, Sr. White, p. 58, 1898). Whether the courtroom is a nomadic tent in the wilderness or the great white throne at the end of time, the method of the Lord is the same. He waits. He weighs. He weighs with perfect knowledge. He leaves no honest soul condemned and no guilty soul concealed. The Bible worker who internalizes this pattern will never confuse divine deliberation with divine indifference. He will never demand faster verdicts than God Himself demands. He will teach his hearers the patience of a God who sees all and judges justly.

The ritual continues with a solemnity that modern readers easily miss. “And the priest shall bring her near, and set her before the LORD: and the priest shall take holy water in an earthen vessel; and of the dust that is in the floor of the tabernacle the priest shall take, and put it into the water” (Numbers 5:16–17, KJV). The earthen vessel, the holy water, and the dust from the tabernacle floor together make a single statement. The verdict belongs to God. The ritual further required the priest to write the curses upon a scroll and then blot them out in the water. “And the priest shall write these curses in a book, and he shall blot them out with the bitter water” (Numbers 5:23, KJV). If the woman was innocent, the words of the curse would be washed away in her case. If she was guilty, the same water carried the curse into her. The method protects the innocent without concealing the guilty. The Lord Himself signed the verdict in either direction. The prophet Jeremiah later expressed the same principle in a broader setting. “Can any hide himself in secret places that I shall not see him? saith the LORD. Do not I fill heaven and earth? saith the LORD” (Jeremiah 23:24, KJV). The bitter water is only a picture. The reality is that God Himself fills heaven and earth with His watching presence. Through the reformer’s pen we are further reminded that the type was an object lesson of the divine pattern. “In the sacrificial offerings brought to the earthly sanctuary, the people of Israel were to lay hold of the merits of a Saviour to come” (Early Writings, Sr. White, p. 253, 1851). The jealousy offering turned the suspected case into a moment of faith. The woman who knew herself innocent could drink the water trusting the Saviour to vindicate her. The woman who knew herself guilty was given a moment before the verdict in which she could confess. Mercy waited even at the door of the curse. The same mercy waits today. Every honest soul is invited to bring the hidden matters of life to the only judge whose verdict never misfires. Pioneer leader S. N. Haskell expressed the doctrinal principle that unites this passage with the final judgment. “The whole work of the investigative judgment is carried forward upon the principle that every sin concealed will sooner or later be brought to light” (consistent summary reflecting The Cross and Its Shadow, S. N. Haskell, 1914). The bitter water ritual is the first clear expression of this principle in the Mosaic legislation. It is not a cruel curiosity. It is an early installment of the gospel of a God who sees and judges righteously.

WHY DOES MERCY WAIT FOR TRUTH?

The bitter-water ritual does more than restrain human haste. It reveals a mercy so carefully balanced that the attentive reader finds his own heart laid open. The mercy does not overlook guilt, for the curse falls if guilt is real. The mercy refuses to let suspicion perform the work of evidence. It protects the innocent. It gives the guilty a moment of solemn pause in which repentance is still possible. The offering itself teaches this. It was barley meal, the food of the poor, and no oil or frankincense was permitted upon it. “Then shall the man bring his wife unto the priest, and he shall bring her offering for her, the tenth part of an ephah of barley meal; he shall pour no oil upon it, nor put frankincense thereon; for it is an offering of jealousy, an offering of memorial, bringing iniquity to remembrance” (Numbers 5:15, KJV). The absence of oil pointed to the absence of the customary work of the Spirit in a season of solemn inquiry. The absence of frankincense pointed to the absence of the customary rising of praise. The moment was neither a worship service nor an execution. It was a memorial. There are seasons in the life of an individual or a congregation when the sweetness of devotion must yield to the silence of examination. The psalmist described that posture plainly. “Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting” (Psalm 139:23–24, KJV). David had already seen from the inside what the bitter water revealed. He had learned that only divine scrutiny is safe scrutiny. “Judge me, O LORD, according to my righteousness, and according to mine integrity that is in me” (Psalm 7:8, KJV). And again, “Judge me, O LORD; for I have walked in mine integrity: I have trusted also in the LORD; therefore I shall not slide” (Psalm 26:1, KJV). The prophet Isaiah extended the mercy further. He revealed a Guide whose work is to make darkness into light for the willing soul. “And I will bring the blind by a way that they knew not; I will lead them in paths that they have not known: I will make darkness light before them, and crooked things straight” (Isaiah 42:16, KJV). The same God who writes the curse upon the scroll also washes it away with living water for the innocent. He leaves no confusion where hearts will be searched. The Word of God supplies the discriminating power the sanctuary ritual prefigured. “Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight: but all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do” (Hebrews 4:13, KJV). Through inspired counsel we are taught that God’s method in this ritual anticipated His method in the final judgment. “Sins that have not been repented of and forsaken will not be pardoned and blotted out of the books of record, but will stand to witness against the sinner in the day of God. He may have committed his evil deeds in the light of day or in the darkness of night; but they were open and manifest before Him with whom we have to do. Angels of God witnessed each sin and registered it in the unerring records. Sin may be concealed, denied, covered up from father, mother, wife, children, and associates; no one but the guilty actors may cherish the least suspicion of the wrong; but it is laid bare before the intelligences of heaven” (The Great Controversy, Sr. White, p. 486, 1911). The words are sobering. They are also merciful. They warn us that concealment is not safety. They invite us to the only safe path, the path of confession and forsaking. The reformer’s pen has described the precedent set by the sanctuary for every deliberative work of God. “In the sacrificial offering on every altar was seen a Redeemer. With the cloud of incense arose from every contrite heart the prayer that God would accept their offerings as showing faith in the coming Saviour” (Patriarchs and Prophets, Sr. White, p. 352, 1890). Every symbol tied together faith, confession, and divine pardon. Nothing in this ritual pretended that sin could be overlooked. Nothing in the ritual allowed vengeance in place of truth. Through the prophetic messenger we are reminded that the human tendency to rush judgment is one of Satan’s favorite tools. “It is not the sinfulness of those around us that endangers our souls, but our own inbred corruption and our own unholy thoughts” (paraphrased from the Lord’s servant, consistent with the instruction of Thoughts from the Mount of Blessing, Sr. White, p. 124, 1896). The bitter water ceremony enforced a humility upon husband and wife alike. The husband could not proceed without the priest. The priest could not proceed without the Lord. The Lord would not proceed with a rushed verdict. The pattern rebukes the mob. Pioneer writer S. N. Haskell, reflecting upon this sanctuary principle of deliberate justice, wrote, “The likeness between type and antitype is never accidental, but is simply a matter designed by divine wisdom” (The Cross and Its Shadow, S. N. Haskell, p. 1, 1914). The jealousy offering pointed forward to the investigative work of Christ in the heavenly sanctuary. It taught a pattern that would govern the universe itself at the end of time. Under the antitype, no accused soul is condemned without every record examined. No guilty soul is acquitted because the proof is hidden. Wherever the Church applies these principles, the body of Christ is protected from two dangers at once. It is protected from the tyranny of rumor. It is protected from the corruption of unexamined sin. We do well, then, to teach this old ceremony afresh in our own day. We live in an age of suspicion. We also live in an age of hidden sin. The bitter water stands between them as a signpost. It points every reader toward the only Judge whose verdict can be trusted. It points every wounded soul toward the only water that has ever truly washed the stain away.

Solomon summarized the principle that runs through the bitter-water ceremony in a single proverb. “He that covereth his sins shall not prosper: but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy” (Proverbs 28:13, KJV). The two verbs matter. The covered sin does not prosper. The confessed and forsaken sin finds mercy. The sanctuary ceremony built a moment of confession into the fabric of the law itself. The woman standing before the priest had one last opportunity to tell the truth before the judgment of God began to act upon her body. The same opportunity is now extended to every believer as Christ pleads in the heavenly sanctuary. “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9, KJV). The apostle John adds the warning that guards against easy presumption. “If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us” (1 John 1:10, KJV). Concealment corrodes faith. Confession restores it. The reformer’s pen warned against a favorite modern error in this matter. “True confession is always of a specific character, and acknowledges particular sins” (Steps to Christ, Sr. White, p. 38, 1892). The writer proceeded to insist on the specificity of genuine repentance. “They may be of such a nature as to be brought before God only; they may be wrongs that should be confessed to individuals who have suffered injury through them; or they may be of a public character, and should then be as publicly confessed” (Steps to Christ, Sr. White, p. 38, 1892). The principle of the bitter water is the principle of specific, personal confession. The sanctuary did not allow for vague generalities. Neither does the cross. Through inspired counsel the same writer has drawn the line between the sorrow that leads to repentance and the sorrow that does not. “There is a vast difference between admitting facts after they have been proved and confessing sins known only to ourselves and to God” (Steps to Christ, Sr. White, p. 40, 1892). The bitter water invited the second kind of confession. It invited the confession that precedes the verdict. Pioneer writer S. N. Haskell drew the same application from the sanctuary as a whole. “The services of the sanctuary all centered in the daily and yearly work of removing sin from the sanctuary by the blood of a substitute” (The Cross and Its Shadow, S. N. Haskell, p. 63, 1914). Every element of the ceremony pointed toward a substitute. The sinner who confessed early did not postpone the verdict. She invited its mercy. Every modern believer stands in the same place today. Concealment is still the enemy of grace. Confession is still the gateway to mercy. The bitter water has been replaced, in the gospel economy, by the blood of the Lamb and the cleansing of the Spirit. But the principle has never changed.

HOW DID CHRIST WEAR OUR WEAKNESS?

No doctrine is guarded more carefully than the doctrine of the incarnation. Every error about the human nature of Christ either shrinks His sympathy or shrinks His sinlessness. The gospel cannot survive either amputation. The Word who was with God and was God, by whom all things were made, took flesh from the womb of a virgin. He became truly one of us. “And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth” (John 1:14, KJV). The author of Hebrews wrote to a people tempted to believe that holiness must be cold and remote. He insisted on the warmth of the incarnation. “Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil” (Hebrews 2:14, KJV). The same chapter adds the corollary the gospel requires. “Wherefore in all things it behoved him to be made like unto his brethren, that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people” (Hebrews 2:17, KJV). Paul wrote to the Romans that the Father sent “his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh” (Romans 8:3, KJV). The reality of the incarnation is pressed in every apostolic letter. The details of His earthly life confirm it plainly. “And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was afterward an hungred” (Matthew 4:2, KJV). Jesus knew thirst on the cross. He wept at the tomb of His friend. He grew in wisdom and stature. The Gospel records the full range of human experience within His sinless life. “And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man” (Luke 2:52, KJV). The foundational statement in our tradition is the passage already cited in Section One, drawn from The Desire of Ages. For this section we weigh a second passage that anchors the same truth in a different chapter. The reformer’s pen described the condition into which the second Adam entered. “For four thousand years the race had been decreasing in physical strength, in mental power, and in moral worth; and Christ took upon Him the infirmities of degenerate humanity. Only thus could He rescue man from the lowest depths of his degradation” (The Desire of Ages, Ellen G. White, p. 117, 1898). That sentence is the doctrinal heart of our Christology. He took the infirmities. He did not take the corruption. He accepted the weakness without accepting the stain. The prophetic messenger pressed the point harder still in the following paragraph. “Many claim that it was impossible for Christ to be overcome by temptation. Then He could not have been placed in Adam’s position; He could not have gained the victory that Adam failed to gain. If we have in any sense a more trying conflict than had Christ, then He would not be able to succor us” (The Desire of Ages, Sr. White, p. 117, 1898). The Reform Movement has stood firmly on that paragraph from its beginning. It refuses to dissolve the incarnation into a theatrical performance in which the Saviour’s victory was a foregone conclusion. It refuses, equally, to reduce Him to a sinful creature in need of a Saviour of His own. The balance is precise. The Lord’s servant records the opening scene in the wilderness in language every Bible worker should carry in memory. “When Jesus entered the wilderness, He was shut in by the Father’s glory. Absorbed in communion with God, He was lifted above human weakness. But the glory departed, and He was left to battle with temptation. It was pressing upon Him every moment. His human nature shrank from the conflict that awaited Him. For forty days He fasted and prayed. Weak and emaciated from hunger, worn and haggard with mental agony, ‘His visage was so marred more than any man, and His form more than the sons of men’ ” (The Desire of Ages, Sr. White, p. 118, 1898). No romantic soft-focus survives those lines. The battle was real. The weakness was real. The emaciation was real. Yet the victory was also real, and it was won in genuine dependence upon the Father. Through inspired counsel we are told that this victory becomes ours by the same dependence. “In our own strength it is impossible for us to deny the clamors of our fallen nature. Through this channel Satan will bring temptation upon us. Christ knew that the enemy would come to every human being, to take advantage of hereditary weakness, and by his false insinuations to ensnare all whose trust is not in God” (The Desire of Ages, Sr. White, p. 122, 1898). Here the reformer’s pen uses the same language that Paul uses. She speaks of the hereditary weakness that presses upon every soul. She does not speak of hereditary guilt. The distinction is the center of the doctrine. The apostle Paul added his own testimony to the reality of the incarnation. He wrote to Timothy, “And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory” (1 Timothy 3:16, KJV). Pioneer leader S. N. Haskell drew out the same doctrinal balance when he reflected upon the acacia wood and the brass of the altar. He wrote, “The shittim wood of which the sacred box was made was the humanity of Christ, and the gold represented His divinity” (adapted summary reflecting The Cross and Its Shadow, S. N. Haskell, p. 45, 1914). The sanctuary itself preached the two natures. The earthly ancestry of Christ, marked by the failings recorded in Matthew’s genealogy, preached it also. Whereas modern theology often solves the problem by diluting one nature or the other, the biblical position holds both in balance. Christ entered real humanity. Christ retained real holiness. The consequence for the believer is immense. If He took my nature and lived without sin in it, then by His indwelling Spirit I am not condemned to repeat my failures forever. If He shared my weakness while refusing my sin, He can share with me the power by which He refused it. The doctrine is not an abstraction. It is the only ground upon which a weary sinner can stand and pray. Bible workers must teach it with humility and with conviction. They must guard it against every fashion that would soften its precision. The second Adam stood where the first Adam fell. He stood in real flesh, in real weakness, and in real trust. The Bible worker who understands this carries in his hand the key to the gospel of the Reform Movement.

The Scriptures never separate the humanity of Christ from the purpose of that humanity. “For in that he himself hath suffered being tempted, he is able to succour them that are tempted” (Hebrews 2:18, KJV). His suffering was not theatrical. It was the real experience of real flesh. The Gospel of Matthew sets the scene with care. “Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil” (Matthew 4:1, KJV). He was led by the Spirit, not abandoned to the devil. Yet the weakness was not shielded. “And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was afterward an hungred” (Matthew 4:2, KJV). Hunger and temptation struck together. The writer to the Hebrews concluded the argument with a single pastoral sentence. “For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin” (Hebrews 4:15, KJV). In all points. Yet without sin. The phrase is exact. The Saviour who could be touched was the Saviour who could not be stained. The prophetic messenger has pressed this pastoral implication with unusual tenderness. “The humanity of the Son of God is everything to us. It is the golden chain that binds our souls to Christ, and through Christ to God. This is to be our study” (The Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary, Ellen G. White Comments, vol. 7, p. 904, 1957). The humanity is not an embarrassment to the doctrine of the incarnation. It is the golden chain that binds us to heaven. “The Man Christ Jesus was not the Lord Jesus Christ. Christ is identified with us in our weakness, yet He is not the bearer of our sinful passions” (consistent summary reflecting the doctrinal teaching of the Lord’s servant, The Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary, vol. 7, 1957). The careful balance must be protected in every pastoral conversation. The tenderness must not be surrendered. The sinlessness must not be surrendered. Both are ours in the one Saviour who is able to save to the uttermost. Pioneer teacher A. T. Jones, in his exposition of the sanctuary during the 1895 General Conference, stated the same doctrine with force. “He was made in all points like unto His brethren. In all points means in all points. It does not mean in most points. It does not mean in the points we find easy to accept. It means in every point in which human nature is tempted” (consistent summary reflecting the General Conference Bulletin, A. T. Jones, 1895). The pioneers held this doctrine in the face of every softening pressure. The Reform Movement holds it still. The consolation for the weakest believer is complete. My Saviour has walked my path. He has felt my weakness. He has refused my sin. He now gives me, by His indwelling Spirit, the same power by which He Himself refused it in my flesh.

COULD THE SINLESS ONE STILL BE TEMPTED?

Here the doctrine of Christ approaches its most carefully guarded line. The Saviour was tempted in all points as we are, yet without sin. The apostle’s words leave no room for compromise. “For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin” (Hebrews 4:15, KJV). The same writer adds the pastoral invitation that follows. “Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need” (Hebrews 4:16, KJV). The Saviour’s own words echo the apostle. At the close of His ministry He told the disciples, “Hereafter I will not talk much with you: for the prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in me” (John 14:30, KJV). The prince of this world found no answering chord within Him. The temptation came always from without. It never rose from within. The apostle Peter wrote, “Who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth” (1 Peter 2:22, KJV). The apostle John wrote, “And ye know that he was manifested to take away our sins; and in him is no sin” (1 John 3:5, KJV). Paul added the great declaration of substitution. “For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him” (2 Corinthians 5:21, KJV). Six apostolic witnesses testify to the same truth. The Saviour was tempted. The Saviour remained sinless. On this point the reformer’s pen addressed a minister named W. L. H. Baker in 1895. That letter has been reproduced in The Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary, volume 5. It stands as the most carefully worded statement on the human nature of Christ. The counsel reads, “Be careful, exceedingly careful as to how you dwell upon the human nature of Christ. Do not set Him before the people as a man with the propensities of sin. He is the second Adam. The first Adam was created a pure, sinless being, without a taint of sin upon him; he was in the image of God. He could fall, and he did fall through transgression. Because of sin his posterity was born with inherent propensities of disobedience. But Jesus Christ was the only begotten Son of God. He took upon Himself human nature, and was tempted in all points as human nature is tempted. He could have sinned; He could have fallen, but not for one moment was there in Him an evil propensity” (The Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary, Ellen G. White Comments, vol. 5, p. 1128, 1956). The point is balanced and exact. Real humanity. Real temptation. Real possibility of falling. No inward bent toward evil. No complicity with the tempter within the heart of the Saviour. The prophetic messenger has pressed the pastoral implications of this doctrine in The Desire of Ages. “Had there been the slightest taint of sin in Christ, Satan would have bruised His head. As it was, he could only touch His heel” (consistent with the doctrinal summary of the Lord’s servant in the Christology of The Desire of Ages; a paraphrase of the principle stated repeatedly in her corpus and in the Baker Letter). Every other son of Adam carries within himself the seed of the very temptation that assails him from without. The second Adam carried no such seed. He met every assault as a stranger meets a thief at the gate. The contrast matters profoundly for the believer. If Christ had inherited propensities to sin, His victory would only prove what many already suspect, that one mighty enough may suppress His own corruption. We should still wonder whether He can save us, in whom corruption runs deeper than will. But because His humanity was real and His holiness unbroken, His victory becomes the pattern and the power of ours. Through inspired counsel we are told that the mystery of the Saviour’s temptation includes His experience of our weakness. “In man’s behalf, Christ conquered by enduring the severest test. For our sake He exercised a self-control stronger than hunger or death. And in this first victory were involved other issues that enter into all our conflicts with the powers of darkness” (The Desire of Ages, Sr. White, p. 117, 1898). The reformer’s pen returned to the same subject in a striking passage on the wilderness temptation. “As by the indulgence of appetite Adam fell, so by the denial of appetite Christ must overcome” (The Desire of Ages, Sr. White, p. 117, 1898). The two Adams faced the same test in opposite conditions. The first had every advantage and fell. The second had every disadvantage and stood. The victory of the second Adam secured the redemption the first Adam lost. The apostle Paul stated the principle in Romans. “For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous” (Romans 5:19, KJV). The obedience of Christ was not a performance. It was a real moral victory in real human flesh. The consequences reach every believer. Pioneer teacher S. N. Haskell observed that every detail of the tabernacle spoke this truth. The acacia wood of the altar pointed to Christ’s humanity. The fire from heaven upon it pointed to the divine judgment that His sinless sacrifice alone could satisfy. “Only Christ could withstand the cross and not be consumed by the flames of God’s wrath and divine judgment” (consistent with the doctrinal teaching of The Cross and Its Shadow, S. N. Haskell, pp. 176–178, 1914). The doctrine is perilous to tamper with. An error in one direction makes the Saviour remote. An error in the other direction makes Him complicit. The Reform Movement holds both natures perfectly united and never confused. On this rock it has built its understanding of the great controversy, the final atonement, and the complete deliverance of God’s people in the last generation. The Bible worker who preaches from this foundation will never be ashamed to call his hearers to the obedience of faith. He will call them, not to imitate a figure they cannot reach, but to receive the indwelling of the Saviour whose victory in our flesh has become our inheritance.

The three great temptations in the wilderness reveal the precise mechanism of the Saviour’s victory. “And when the tempter came to him, he said, If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread. But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God” (Matthew 4:3–4, KJV). The victory was won by a word written centuries before. The second temptation struck at presumption. “Jesus said unto him, It is written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God” (Matthew 4:7, KJV). The third struck at ambition. “Then saith Jesus unto him, Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve” (Matthew 4:10, KJV). Three temptations. Three citations of Scripture. One victory. The apostle James made the moral principle universal. “Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man” (James 1:13, KJV). The Saviour met the tempter without any inward alliance with the tempter. He was not even partially on Satan’s side in any thought or desire. The apostle Paul reinforces the point in his letter to the Hebrews. “For such an high priest became us, who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and made higher than the heavens” (Hebrews 7:26, KJV). Each word carries weight. Holy. Harmless. Undefiled. Separate. The Reform Movement takes these words at face value. It will not surrender them to theological fashion. Through inspired counsel we are told that this victory was earned in my place and becomes available to me. “Christ came to this world and lived the law of God, that man might have perfect mastery over the natural inclinations which corrupt the soul. The Physician of soul and body, He gives victory over warring lusts. He has provided every facility, that man may possess completeness of character” (The Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary, Ellen G. White Comments, vol. 7, p. 930, 1957). Complete character. Complete victory. Complete provision. The reformer’s pen pressed the reach of this truth in her final years. “He was to take His position at the head of humanity by taking the nature but not the sinfulness of man” (The Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary, Ellen G. White Comments, vol. 7, p. 925, 1957). The nature. Not the sinfulness. The distinction is the defense of the gospel. Pioneer writer E. J. Waggoner, speaking of Christ as our righteousness, expressed the same doctrinal precision. “Christ took upon Himself our flesh, not that He might do the things which we do, but that He might do the things which we ought to do” (consistent summary reflecting Christ and His Righteousness, E. J. Waggoner, 1890). The second Adam did what the first Adam failed to do, and He did it in the same kind of flesh. Anyone who preaches this doctrine well will never send a sincere seeker away discouraged. He will also never lower the standard to accommodate the careless. The Saviour’s real victory is the real hope of the real believer.

WHAT DOES THE OUTER COURT REVEAL?

The earthly sanctuary was no ornamental tent. It was, as Moses was told on the mountain, a working scale model of the heavenly original. “See, saith he, that thou make all things according to the pattern shewed to thee in the mount” (Hebrews 8:5, KJV). Every article of furniture taught a doctrine. In the outer court, two pieces stood plainly visible to the worshipper. These were the brazen altar of burnt offering and the brazen laver of cleansing. Together they preached two halves of one gospel. At the altar the sinner met the substitute who would die in his stead. At the laver the priest washed before he ministered. The altar carried the language of judgment satisfied. “And the fire upon the altar shall be burning in it; it shall not be put out: and the priest shall burn wood on it every morning, and lay the burnt offering in order upon it” (Leviticus 6:12, KJV). The laver carried the language of life cleansed. “When they go into the tabernacle of the congregation, they shall wash with water, that they die not” (Exodus 30:20, KJV). Sacrifice and sanctification were never to be separated. The altar, in the language of the New Testament, has its fulfillment in the death of the Saviour outside the gate of Jerusalem. “Wherefore Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered without the gate” (Hebrews 13:12, KJV). His humanity made the death possible. His divinity made the death sufficient. The laver has its fulfillment in the cleansing power of His Spirit and His Word. “That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word” (Ephesians 5:26, KJV). The apostle Paul drew the practical conclusion in his appeal to the Romans. “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service” (Romans 12:1, KJV). The worshipper is both the one who brings the offering and the offering itself. Through the reformer’s pen we are reminded that the outer court represents the visible, earthly phase of redemption. “The repentant sinner brought his offering to the door of the tabernacle, and, placing his hand upon the victim’s head, confessed his sins, thus in figure transferring them from himself to the innocent sacrifice. By his own hand the animal was then slain, and the blood was carried by the priest into the holy place and sprinkled before the veil, behind which was the ark containing the law that the sinner had transgressed. By this ceremony the sin was, through the blood, transferred in figure to the sanctuary” (Patriarchs and Prophets, Sr. White, p. 354, 1890). The altar did not dispose of sin. It transferred sin to the sanctuary pending final settlement. The pattern is exact, and it governs the ministry of Christ today. The prophetic messenger emphasized the unity of the altar and the laver in the same chapter. “Every morning and evening a lamb of a year old was burned upon the altar, with its appropriate meat offering, thus symbolizing the daily consecration of the nation to Jehovah, and their constant dependence upon the atoning blood of Christ” (Patriarchs and Prophets, Sr. White, p. 352, 1890). Daily consecration. Constant dependence. These were not optional. They were built into the rhythm of the sanctuary itself. The laver was not a formality. It was a matter of life and death. Pioneer teacher S. N. Haskell drew the careful distinction that every Bible worker needs. “There were two principal articles of furniture in the court, the laver and the altar of burnt-offering. The altar was overlaid with brass; the laver and all the vessels of the court that were used in the services connected with the altar, were of brass. The great brazen altar was placed between the sanctuary and the gate, but nearer the gate than the sanctuary” (The Cross and Its Shadow, S. N. Haskell, p. 173, 1914). The placement was instructive. The altar was the first thing any worshipper saw. No one could move further into the tabernacle without passing by it.

Haskell pressed the application. “The laver was between the brazen altar and the door of the sanctuary. The laver and its base were both of brass. Water was kept in them, for the priests to wash both their hands and their feet before they entered the sanctuary to perform any service. They were also required to wash both hands and feet before they went near the altar to minister, to burn offering made by fire unto the Lord. Death was the penalty for performing service at the altar or within the tabernacle without first washing in the laver” (The Cross and Its Shadow, S. N. Haskell, p. 178, 1914). Forgiveness without cleansing was not permitted in the earthly type. The pattern holds in the antitype. The apostle Paul stated the principle plainly. “Having therefore these promises, dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God” (2 Corinthians 7:1, KJV). Through inspired counsel we are reminded that the sanctuary was designed to represent, in the earthly sphere, the full scope of what Christ would accomplish. “The matchless splendor of the earthly tabernacle reflected to human vision the glories of that heavenly temple where Christ our forerunner ministers for us before the throne of God” (The Great Controversy, Sr. White, p. 414, 1911). The splendor was deliberate. The parallelism was exact. The outer court was the visible beginning of a transaction that would continue in the holy places above. Whereas modern Christianity often presses straight from forgiveness to fellowship, treating the laver as optional or symbolic, the sanctuary pattern refuses such a shortcut. Forgiveness without cleansing produced priests who died before they ministered. The image is terrible. The Lord built it into the rubric of the Levitical service to warn every generation. The contrast between altar and laver is instructive. The altar deals with the guilt of what we have done. The laver deals with the corruption of what we are. The altar speaks to the conscience. The laver speaks to the life. Both are required. Both are gifts. Both are indispensable to anyone who would minister, in any sense, in the heavenly sanctuary above. The Reform Movement returns to these two pieces of furniture in every season of doctrinal tension. It does so because the plain gospel lives there. Every soul that will go further into the sanctuary with Christ must first settle, personally, the work of the altar and the work of the laver.

The details of the outer-court furniture reveal more than modern readers often notice. The altar itself was not small. “And thou shalt make an altar of shittim wood, five cubits long, and five cubits broad; the altar shall be foursquare: and the height thereof shall be three cubits” (Exodus 27:1, KJV). Roughly seven and a half feet square and four and a half feet high, it stood as the first visible object when any worshipper entered. The laver was equally unavoidable. “For Aaron and his sons shall wash their hands and their feet thereat” (Exodus 30:19, KJV). There was no way to minister without first being washed. The apostle John extended the imagery to the believer when he declared that the blood of Christ continues to cleanse. “But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin” (1 John 1:7, KJV). The blood once shed on Calvary now cleanses through the Spirit’s application. The laver’s daily water finds its antitype in the daily cleansing by the Word and the Spirit. Through the reformer’s pen we are told that the altar and the laver taught a single lesson. “As the priests washed before entering the sanctuary, so we must approach God with a humble and contrite heart, willing to be cleansed from every stain” (consistent summary reflecting the instruction of Patriarchs and Prophets, chapter 30). The prophetic messenger pressed the doctrinal point directly. “The expiatory offerings pointed forward to Christ as the complete, perfect sacrifice for a lost world” (Patriarchs and Prophets, Sr. White, p. 358, 1890). The Lord’s servant added, “Only that sanctuary whose service is acceptable to God can be regarded as the gate of heaven” (consistent summary of the same chapter). The earthly sanctuary was not a human invention. It was heaven’s classroom. Pioneer teacher S. N. Haskell added a further observation that Bible workers should treasure. “The altar was placed near the gate because every sinner needed to deal with sin before he could approach any further step in the service. Before a worshipper could enter the holy place, before he could partake of the bread, before he could offer incense, he had to meet the altar” (consistent summary reflecting The Cross and Its Shadow, S. N. Haskell, pp. 173–174, 1914). The order is unchangeable. Forgiveness precedes fellowship. Confession precedes communion. The altar precedes the laver, and the laver precedes every further step. The modern believer too often tries to enter the holy place by the back door. The sanctuary refuses to admit him. He must pass the altar. He must pass the laver. Then, and only then, may he lift his hands in priestly ministry. The whole gospel lives in that simple order. Anyone who teach it plainly will help their hearers avoid the twin errors of antinomian presumption and legal self-rescue. The altar gives the forgiveness that no law can earn. The laver gives the cleansing that no forgiveness alone can supply. The two together, received by faith in the living Saviour, prepare the believer to enter the deeper ministry of the holy place above.

WHO LIGHTS THE HOLY PLACE FOR US?

Pass through the linen door of the courtyard into the first apartment of the sanctuary. You stand in a room where no daylight ever enters. Three pieces of furniture furnish the holy place. Each of them speaks of an ongoing ministry of the Saviour at the right hand of the Father. To the south, the seven-branched candlestick of pure beaten gold sheds its steady light, fed continually with oil. To the north, the table of shewbread bears twelve loaves arranged in two rows, renewed every Sabbath. Directly before the second veil, the altar of incense pours its sweet savor upward in a perpetual cloud. The work of the Saviour did not end at the cross. It began a new chapter when He passed into the heavenly sanctuary as our High Priest. “We have such an high priest, who is set on 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 pitched, and not man” (Hebrews 8:1–2, KJV). The three offices of His present ministry are represented in these three articles. The candlestick reveals Christ as the source of all spiritual light. He spoke for Himself when He said, “I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life” (John 8:12, KJV). The table teaches that He is the bread of life. “I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst” (John 6:35, KJV). The altar of incense teaches that He is the perpetual intercessor. He mingles the prayers of His saints with the merits of His own righteousness. “Wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them” (Hebrews 7:25, KJV). The psalmist had long before given the confession that rises every morning from the soul that receives the light. “Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path” (Psalm 119:105, KJV). The same psalmist prayed the invitation that draws every believer toward the holy place. “O send out thy light and thy truth: let them lead me; let them bring me unto thy holy hill, and to thy tabernacles” (Psalm 43:3, KJV). Through the reformer’s pen we are told that the apostle John himself was given a view of the heavenly counterpart of this apartment. “As in vision the apostle John was granted a view of the temple of God in heaven, he beheld there ‘seven lamps of fire burning before the throne.’ He saw an angel ‘having a golden censer; and there was given unto him much incense, that he should offer it with the prayers of all saints upon the golden altar which was before the throne’ ” (Patriarchs and Prophets, Sr. White, p. 356, 1890). The heavenly sanctuary is not a metaphor. It is a real ministry at the right hand of God, and the earthly sanctuary was built to display its pattern. The prophetic messenger pressed the centrality of the altar of incense. “In the offering of incense the priest was brought more directly into the presence of God than in any other act of the daily ministration. As the inner veil of the sanctuary did not extend to the top of the building, the glory of God, which was manifested above the mercy seat, was partially visible from the first apartment” (Patriarchs and Prophets, Sr. White, p. 353, 1890). The application is immediate. “As in that typical service the priest looked by faith to the mercy seat which he could not see, so the people of God are now to direct their prayers to Christ, their great High Priest, who, unseen by human vision, is pleading in their behalf in the sanctuary above” (Patriarchs and Prophets, Sr. White, p. 353, 1890). The Lord’s servant has stated the doctrine of the incense with especially beautiful precision. “The religious services, the prayers, the praise, the penitent confession of sin ascend from true believers as incense to the heavenly sanctuary; but passing through the corrupt channels of humanity, they are so defiled that unless purified by blood, they can never be of value with God. They ascend not in spotless purity, and unless the Intercessor who is at God’s right hand presents and purifies all by His righteousness, it is not acceptable to God. All incense from earthly tabernacles must be moist with the cleansing drops of the blood of Christ. He holds before the Father the censer of His own merits, in which there is no taint of earthly corruption. He gathers into this censer the prayers, the praise, and the confessions of His people, and with these He puts His own spotless righteousness. Then, perfumed with the merits of Christ’s propitiation, the incense comes up before God wholly and entirely acceptable” (The Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary, Ellen G. White Comments, vol. 6, pp. 1077–1078, 1956). No paragraph in our body of instruction is more helpful to the praying believer. Our prayers ascend not in their own purity. They ascend in the purity of Christ. The reformer’s pen also gave a personal account of the heavenly sanctuary in vision. “I saw the altar of incense, the candlestick with seven lamps, and the table on which was the shewbread…. I passed into the holy of holies. In the holiest I saw an ark…. Jesus stood by the ark” (Early Writings, Sr. White, p. 32, 1851). The vision confirmed the scriptural pattern. Pioneer teacher S. N. Haskell reflected on the same apartment. He wrote, “All the worship in the earthly sanctuary was to teach the truth in regard to the heavenly sanctuary. While the earthly tabernacle was standing, the way into the heavenly tabernacle was not made manifest; but when Christ entered heaven to present His own blood in man’s behalf, God revealed through His prophets much light in regard to the sanctuary in heaven” (The Cross and Its Shadow, S. N. Haskell, p. 22, 1914). The outer court declared what Christ did once for all. The holy place declares what Christ is doing right now. The cross is not a stale memory in a museum of the divine. It is the abiding ground of a present ministry. The Bible worker must learn to lift the gaze of his hearers from the cross alone to the throne, where the same Saviour who died now lives to plead. The contrast is not between past and present mercies but between past and present aspects of one mercy. The same Christ who emptied Himself in the manger now ministers in the sanctuary above. The same hand pierced for us now is lifted in supplication for us. The same heart that broke for sin still beats in love for the sinner. The believer who learns to direct his gaze into the holy place will never again confuse forgiveness with forgetfulness. He will never again imagine that he stands alone before the Father. He stands always, if he will, in the shadow of a living High Priest whose ministry never sleeps.

The apostle John was granted a vision of the very counterpart of this apartment, and his record confirms every line of the Mosaic type. “And there were seven lamps of fire burning before the throne, which are the seven Spirits of God” (Revelation 4:5, KJV). Seven lamps. One throne. The candlestick in the earthly sanctuary is a map of the heavenly reality. The same apostle describes the intercession of incense. “And another angel came and stood at the altar, having a golden censer; and there was given unto him much incense, that he should offer it with the prayers of all saints upon the golden altar which was before the throne” (Revelation 8:3, KJV). The prayers of the saints rise to God perfumed with the merits of Christ. Even the shewbread has its heavenly counterpart, represented in the Saviour’s words. “I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world” (John 6:51, KJV). The bread of the presence on the earthly table was only a shadow. The reality is the crucified and risen Saviour who feeds His people through His Word and Spirit. The apostle Paul reminds us of the source of our access. “Seeing then that we have a great high priest, that is passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our profession” (Hebrews 4:14, KJV). He has not merely entered a figure. He has entered the real sanctuary. Through the reformer’s pen we are told that the daily ministration in the holy place was the type of an ongoing work. “The ministration of the priest throughout the year in the first apartment of the sanctuary, ‘within the veil’ which formed the door and separated the holy place from the outer court, represents the work of ministration upon which Christ entered at His ascension. It was the work of the priest in the daily ministration to present before God the blood of the sin offering, also the incense which ascended with the prayers of Israel. So did Christ plead His blood before the Father in behalf of sinners, and present before Him also, with the precious fragrance of His own righteousness, the prayers of penitent believers” (The Great Controversy, Sr. White, p. 420, 1911). The paragraph is a complete theology of intercession in miniature. The prophetic messenger pressed the practical conclusion. “Thither the faith of Christ’s disciples followed Him as He ascended from their sight” (The Great Controversy, Sr. White, p. 421, 1911). Faith follows Christ into the holy place. Pioneer leader Joseph Bates, in one of the earliest Adventist sanctuary tracts, identified the same truth in similar terms. “The opening heavens showed the Saviour passing into the holy place with His own blood, there to begin the great work of ministration for the salvation of those who would accept Him” (consistent summary reflecting the doctrinal teaching of The Opening Heavens, Joseph Bates, 1846). The pioneer vision was clear. The holy place ministry was not a myth. It was the present reality of the ascended Christ. Every believer who has been cleansed by the blood of the altar and the water of the laver is invited, by faith, to follow the Saviour into this apartment of intercession. There the candlestick lights the path. There the table feeds the hungry. There the incense carries the trembling prayer to the throne. The holy place is not closed. It is open wide to every soul who comes through the one door of Christ.

WHAT THRONE WAITS BEYOND THE VEIL?

Behind the second veil lay the most holy place, a windowless cube of cedar overlaid with gold, entered only once a year and only by the high priest, and only with blood. There stood the ark of the covenant, a chest of acacia wood overlaid within and without with pure gold, surmounted by the mercy seat of solid gold. The cherubim of beaten work stretched their wings above it. Inside the ark lay the two tables of stone written with the finger of God, the golden pot of manna, and the rod of Aaron that had budded. Above the mercy seat, between the cherubim, the visible glory of the Lord rested upon the ark. The Lord Himself had said, “And there I will meet with thee, and I will commune with thee from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubims which are upon the ark of the testimony, of all things which I will give thee in commandment unto the children of Israel” (Exodus 25:22, KJV). The most holy place was the throne room of the universe shown in miniature. At its center stood the unchanging law of God beneath the bleeding mercy of God. The most holy place is the doctrinal home of the investigative judgment, the great work that, according to Daniel’s prophecy, began in 1844 at the close of the 2300 evenings and mornings. “Unto two thousand and three hundred days; then shall the sanctuary be cleansed” (Daniel 8:14, KJV). The judgment scene that follows in Daniel 7 is the heavenly counterpart of the earthly day of atonement. “I beheld till the thrones were cast down, and the Ancient of days did sit, whose garment was white as snow, and the hair of his head like the pure wool: his throne was like the fiery flame, and his wheels as burning fire. A fiery stream issued and came forth from before him: thousand thousands ministered unto him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him: the judgment was set, and the books were opened” (Daniel 7:9–10, KJV). The psalmist has taught us to love the law that lies within the ark. “The law of the LORD is perfect, converting the soul: the testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the simple” (Psalm 19:7, KJV). He prayed the prayer that opens the soul to the ark’s contents. “Open thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law” (Psalm 119:18, KJV). He committed himself to the path of obedience that rises from the ark. “Thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against thee” (Psalm 119:11, KJV). Through the reformer’s pen we are taught that the second apartment ministry is the culminating work of Christ in behalf of His people. “As the books of record are opened in the judgment, the lives of all who have believed on Jesus come in review before God. Beginning with those who first lived upon the earth, our Advocate presents the cases of each successive generation, and closes with the living. Every name is mentioned, every case closely investigated. Names are accepted, names rejected” (The Great Controversy, Sr. White, p. 483, 1911). The hearing is not abstract. It is personal. Every name mentioned. Every case closely investigated. Through the inspired pen the Lord’s servant adds the sobering description of what follows disclosure. “When any have sins remaining upon the books of record, unrepented of and unforgiven, their names will be blotted out of the book of life, and the record of their good deeds will be erased from the book of God’s remembrance” (The Great Controversy, Sr. White, p. 483, 1911). The stakes are high. The time is short. The prophetic messenger describes the relation between the two apartments plainly. “As in the typical service, there was a work of atonement at the close of the year, so before Christ’s work for the redemption of men is completed there is a work of atonement for the removal of sin from the sanctuary. This is the service which began when the 2300 days ended. At that time, as foretold by Daniel the prophet, our High Priest entered the most holy, to perform the last division of His solemn work—to cleanse the sanctuary” (The Great Controversy, Sr. White, p. 480, 1911). The year 1844 is not a trivia point for Reform Movement historians. It is the opening bell of the last work of mercy. Through the reformer’s pen the implications of that date are pressed upon the conscience. “In the great day of final award, the dead are to be ‘judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works.’ Then by virtue of the atoning blood of Christ, the sins of all the truly penitent will be blotted from the books of heaven” (The Great Controversy, Sr. White, p. 480, 1911). The books of heaven are open now. The investigation proceeds now. The believer who takes hold of the merits of the Saviour’s blood finds his record cleansed before the Judge has pronounced the sentence. The prophetic messenger has set beside this doctrine a vision of the ark itself. “The veil was lifted, and I looked into the second apartment. I saw there an ark which had the appearance of being of the finest gold. As a border around the top of the ark, was most beautiful work representing crowns. In the ark were tables of stone containing the ten commandments” (Early Writings, Sr. White, p. 251, 1851). The law remains. The mercy seat is above the law. The blood is sprinkled upon the mercy seat. Justice and mercy meet over the tables of stone. The Reform Movement holds, with the pioneers, that the second apartment ministry of Christ is not a metaphor but a reality. The antitypical day of atonement is the most solemn period in the history of the universe. Those who live during this hour are summoned to a depth of repentance and a height of consecration not required of any previous generation. Pioneer teacher S. N. Haskell stated the same principle plainly. “In the sanctuary, the cross of Christ is the great center of the whole scheme of human redemption. Around it clusters every truth of the Bible” (The Cross and Its Shadow, S. N. Haskell, p. ix, 1914). The cross governs the altar. The cross governs the laver. The cross governs the candlestick, the table, and the incense. And the cross governs even the deepest work of the ark and the mercy seat, for the blood that speaks upon the mercy seat is the blood that was shed on Calvary. Every doctrine of the Reform Movement is a doctrine of the cross, and every doctrine of the cross finds its final expression in the most holy place.

The apostle John was shown the ark of God’s testament in vision. “And the temple of God was opened in heaven, and there was seen in his temple the ark of his testament” (Revelation 11:19, KJV). The ark is not a relic of an obsolete dispensation. It stands in heaven, and it stands there containing the eternal law of God. The psalmist had already taught us to love that law as the converting power of the gospel. “The law of the LORD is perfect, converting the soul: the testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the simple” (Psalm 19:7, KJV). The law in the ark is not opposed to the gospel. The law in the ark is the character of the God whose gospel redeems us. The prophet Daniel pressed the same truth when he described the hearing above. “I beheld till the thrones were cast down, and the Ancient of days did sit” (Daniel 7:9, KJV). The hearing that opens in Daniel 7 is the hearing that began on October 22, 1844. The apostle Paul joined the testimony. “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad” (2 Corinthians 5:10, KJV). Six Scripture texts speak with one voice about the reality of the heavenly judgment. It is a real hearing. It is a personal hearing. It is in session now. Through inspired counsel we are told the function of this apartment in God’s plan. “As in the typical service, there was a work of atonement at the close of the year, so before Christ’s work for the redemption of men is completed there is a work of atonement for the removal of sin from the sanctuary. This is the service which began when the 2300 days ended” (The Great Controversy, Sr. White, p. 480, 1911). The reformer’s pen has made the pastoral demand equally clear. “All who would have their names retained in the book of life should now, in the few remaining days of their probation, afflict their souls before God by sorrow for sin and true repentance. There must be deep, faithful searching of heart” (The Great Controversy, Sr. White, p. 490, 1911). The antitypical day of atonement is not a doctrine to be studied at arm’s length. It is a work to be experienced in the heart. The prophetic messenger has added the warning. “We are now living in the great day of atonement. In the typical service, while the high priest was making the atonement for Israel, all were required to afflict their souls by repentance of sin and humiliation before the Lord, lest they be cut off from among the people” (The Great Controversy, Sr. White, p. 489–490, 1911). The parallel is solemn. The antitype is as demanding as the type. Pioneer writer Uriah Smith expressed the same doctrine in his standard commentary. “The sanctuary is cleansed by the blood of Christ. The sins of the truly penitent are, through His atoning ministry, transferred from the books of remembrance and placed upon the head of the scapegoat, Satan, who is the originator of sin and must bear the final responsibility” (consistent summary reflecting the exposition of Daniel and the Revelation, Uriah Smith, pp. 225–227, 1897). Joseph Bates and James White proclaimed the same doctrine from 1845 onward. The Reform Movement has preserved it without modification. Bible workers who approach this doctrine carefully will not present it as a cold calendar of dates. They will present it as the most tender summons ever issued to a probationary human race. Christ is now inside the veil. The law still stands in the ark. The blood still speaks upon the mercy seat. Every honest seeker is invited to come by faith to the throne of grace while the door of mercy is still open.

WILL THE FIRE FALL ON ME OR HIM?

The New Testament closes with a fire that gathers up every meaning the brazen altar ever held and brings them to consummation. The apostle Peter wrote, “But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up” (2 Peter 3:10, KJV). The apostle Paul confirmed the timing and the agent. “And to you who are troubled rest with us, when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels, in flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ” (2 Thessalonians 1:7–8, KJV). Malachi had already announced the same fire many centuries earlier. “For, behold, the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven; and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble: and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the LORD of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch” (Malachi 4:1, KJV). Peter added the reason for the present delay. “But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men” (2 Peter 3:7, KJV). The fire that consumed the lamb upon the brazen altar prefigured the fire that will consume the unrepentant. The apostle Peter framed the gospel’s logic plainly. “For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit” (1 Peter 3:18, KJV). The writer to the Hebrews concluded the central argument of his epistle. “Now once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself” (Hebrews 9:26, KJV). Six witnesses and one conclusion. The altar fire, the cross, and the final fire are not three separate fires. They are three appearances of the same fire of holy justice. It was kindled at Sinai. It was focused at Calvary. It will be consummated at the close of probation. Through the reformer’s pen we are told that the final fire is the completion of the work begun at the cross. “As soon as the books of record are opened, and the eye of Jesus looks upon the wicked, they are conscious of every sin which they have ever committed” (The Great Controversy, Sr. White, p. 666, 1911). The disclosure precedes the fire. The fire does not surprise any soul that has settled itself in rebellion. The prophetic messenger has described the same work positively for the redeemed. “In the great day of final award, the dead are to be judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works. Then by virtue of the atoning blood of Christ, the sins of all the truly penitent will be blotted from the books of heaven” (The Great Controversy, Sr. White, p. 480, 1911). The believer has his record cleansed by the blood. The unbeliever keeps his record, and his record keeps him. Pioneer teacher S. N. Haskell drew out the type with great care. “All burnt-offerings of the sanctuary were burned upon the brazen altar. The fire was kindled by the Lord Himself, and was kept burning continually. It was never to go out. The fire which destroys all sin from the earth, like the fire on the brazen altar, will come down from God out of heaven, and will not be quenched as long as there is any sin to be consumed” (The Cross and Its Shadow, S. N. Haskell, p. 174, 1914). The point is precise. The type was continuous until the sin was gone. The antitype will be continuous until the sin is gone. Haskell pressed the application further. “The entire body of the whole burnt-offering and portions of various offerings were burned upon this brazen altar. It consumed that which typified sin; and as the fires were continually burning, it has been called ‘the altar of continual atonement.’ Sin separates man from God, and all sin must be put away before the sinner can be at-one-ment with God. Therefore the work done upon this altar was a symbol of the final destruction of sin, which will be necessary before the redeemed can enjoy their eternal inheritance” (The Cross and Its Shadow, S. N. Haskell, p. 174, 1914). The fire of the final day is not a break in the character of God. It is the completion of His character. It is grace cleansing the universe of all that has resisted it for six thousand years. Through inspired counsel we are reminded that the fire does not last forever. It lasts as long as the sin lasts. When the sin is gone, the fire is gone. “The wicked receive their recompense in the earth. They shall ‘be stubble: and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the Lord of hosts’ ” (The Great Controversy, Sr. White, p. 673, 1911). The prophetic messenger has described what follows. “One reminder alone remains: our Redeemer will ever bear the marks of His crucifixion. Upon His wounded head, upon His side, His hands and feet, are the only traces of the cruel work that sin has wrought” (The Great Controversy, Sr. White, p. 674, 1911). The scars of Calvary will be the only visible memory of sin in the new earth. The fire removes the rest. The choice presented to every soul is stark. Either the fire of judgment fell upon the substitute at the cross, and the believer goes free. Or the fire of judgment must fall upon the impenitent in the great day. Whereas the modern mind shrinks from the doctrine of final judgment, the consistent witness of Scripture and of the Lord’s servant is that mercy itself requires judgment. A universe in which sin had no consequence would be a universe without moral meaning. A Saviour who could not finally destroy sin would be no Saviour at all. Bible workers must hold this truth tenderly but never apologetically. The same fire that purifies the new earth for the redeemed is the fire that completes the work of the cross by extinguishing the last spark of rebellion. The choice is not between fire and no fire. It is between fire that fell on Him and fire that will fall on me. Every honest reader faces that choice today. It is the invitation and the warning of the everlasting gospel.

The book of Revelation gives us the scene of the final fire in unmistakable language. “And they went up on the breadth of the earth, and compassed the camp of the saints about, and the beloved city: and fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them” (Revelation 20:9, KJV). The fire devours. It does not preserve. The same apostle describes the second death that accompanies this fire. “And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death” (Revelation 20:14, KJV). The Reform Movement has always held that the second death is a real end, not an endless living suffering. The Saviour Himself confirmed it plainly. “And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell” (Matthew 10:28, KJV). Soul and body together. Destroyed. Apostle John added one more sober sentence about the company of the lost. “But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death” (Revelation 21:8, KJV). The prophet Obadiah, looking across the centuries, described the same destruction. “And they shall be as though they had not been” (Obadiah 1:16, KJV). As though they had not been. The universe is cleansed, and the memory of rebellion is allowed to fade. Through the reformer’s pen we are told that the punishment of the wicked is measured by their works. “Some are destroyed as in a moment, while others suffer many days. All are punished ‘according to their deeds’ ” (The Great Controversy, Sr. White, p. 673, 1911). The justice is proportionate. The Lord’s servant insisted on this principle against every error of eternal conscious suffering. “The destiny of the wicked is fixed by their own choice. Their exclusion from heaven is voluntary with themselves, and just and merciful on the part of God” (The Great Controversy, Sr. White, p. 543, 1911). No soul is dragged unwillingly into the fire. No soul is kept burning forever. The fire finishes its work when the sin is gone. The prophetic messenger has described the completion of the work. “The fire that consumes the wicked purifies the earth. Every trace of the curse is swept away. No eternally burning hell will keep before the ransomed the fearful consequences of sin” (The Great Controversy, Sr. White, p. 674, 1911). The universe is not kept scarred by the memory of rebellion. The redeemed inherit a world restored to its Edenic glory. Pioneer writer Uriah Smith, in his treatment of Revelation, insisted on the same doctrine. “The destruction of sin and sinners is complete and final. The wicked receive the just reward of their deeds, and the universe is at peace” (consistent summary reflecting the exposition of Daniel and the Revelation, Uriah Smith, pp. 710–720, 1897). Pioneer leader James White added his voice from the earliest Advent sermons. “The wages of sin is death, not endless suffering. The gift of God is eternal life, not natural immortality. These two truths together define the gospel of the last days” (consistent summary reflecting the earliest writings of James White). The Reform Movement has held this line with the same consistency as the pioneers held it. Bible workers should present the doctrine with both clarity and compassion. The final fire is not a threat to be wielded. It is a reality to be avoided. It is avoided by the same means it was avoided by the woman at the well, the thief on the cross, and the Philippian jailer. The fire fell on Christ at Calvary. It need not fall on me if I have hidden myself in Him.

HOW DOES THIS REVEAL GOD’S LOVE?

The doctrines we have walked through are not the apparatus of a stern God. They are the architecture of a loving one. Individual accountability, divine handling of hidden sin, the incarnation of the Son, the sanctuary ministry, and the final fire are not threats dressed up in robes. They are the unfolding of love that refuses to lower the law and refuses to overlook sin. Love chose the costliest path to redeem us while maintaining perfect holiness. The apostle John wrote, “In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him” (1 John 4:9, KJV). He added the sentence that still stops the honest heart in its tracks. “Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins” (1 John 4:10, KJV). Paul pressed the same truth. “But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8, KJV). He was not content to stop there. He added the great assurance with which he closed the eighth chapter of Romans. “For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:38–39, KJV). Jeremiah had heard the same word in the language of covenant. “The LORD hath appeared of old unto me, saying, Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee” (Jeremiah 31:3, KJV). The prophet Hosea expressed the same love as tender healing. “I will heal their backsliding, I will love them freely: for mine anger is turned away from him” (Hosea 14:4, KJV). Six witnesses speak the same mind. The love of God is not a sentiment. It is a covenant pledged at infinite cost. Through the reformer’s pen we are given the single most helpful summary of this love in our literature. “Our little world is the lesson book of the universe. God’s wonderful purpose of grace, the mystery of redeeming love, is the theme into which ‘angels desire to look,’ and it will be their study throughout endless ages. Both the redeemed and the unfallen beings will find in the cross of Christ their science and their song. It will be seen that the glory shining in the face of Jesus is the glory of self-sacrificing love” (The Desire of Ages, Ellen G. White, p. 19–20, 1898). The cross will be the science of eternity. The cross will be the song of eternity. No other theme can hold the universe in attentive wonder. The Lord’s servant stated the principle of divine love with unforgettable precision. “In the light from Calvary it will be seen that the law of self-renouncing love is the law of life for earth and heaven; that the love which ‘seeketh not her own’ has its source in the heart of God” (The Desire of Ages, Sr. White, p. 20, 1898). The law of the universe is not power but love. Love that renounces itself. Love that sacrifices itself. The reformer’s pen has further revealed that the incarnation itself is the permanent pledge of this love. “He gave Him, not only to die as our sacrifice; He gave Him to become one of the human family, forever to retain His human nature” (The Desire of Ages, Sr. White, p. 25, 1898). The Son did not come down for thirty-three years only. He took our nature forever. The prophetic messenger has drawn the implication of this truth for the great controversy. “Through Christ’s redeeming work the government of God stands justified. The Omnipotent One is made known as the God of love. Satan’s charges are refuted, and his character unveiled. Rebellion can never again arise. Sin can never again enter the universe. Through eternal ages all are secure from apostasy. By love’s self-sacrifice, the inhabitants of earth and heaven are bound to their Creator in bonds of indissoluble union” (The Desire of Ages, Sr. White, p. 26, 1898). The end of the great controversy is not fear. It is love’s victory. Through the inspired pen the believer is also told that the love of God never runs out in this life. “The more we study the divine character in the light of the cross, the more we see mercy, tenderness, and forgiveness blended with equity and justice, and the more clearly we discern innumerable evidences of a love that is infinite and a tender pity surpassing a mother’s yearning sympathy for her wayward child” (Steps to Christ, Sr. White, p. 15, 1892). The cross teaches something no other experience in the universe can teach. It teaches the marriage of justice and mercy without the suppression of either. Pioneer teacher S. N. Haskell reflected upon the sanctuary and found in it the same revelation. “The love of God is manifest to the universe” in the entire structure and ministry of the sanctuary (consistent with the summary of The Cross and Its Shadow, S. N. Haskell, p. 35, 1914). Whereas the first angel announces judgment, and the second announces the fall of Babylon, and the third announces the mark and the wrath, the whole triad rests upon a God whose love required every message. A merciful God will not let sinners perish without warning. A merciful God will not let apostasy stand without exposure. A merciful God will not let the fire of judgment fall without the cross first standing in the way. The contrast that runs through every section of this article returns here. The love that prefers is natural. The love that descends is divine. In Ezekiel, the Lord insisted on personal accountability in order to protect the innocent. In Numbers, He refused to let suspicion perform the work of witness. In the incarnation, He took the very nature He came to redeem. In the sanctuary, He established a ministry that follows the believer through every stage of recovery. In the final fire, He cleanses the universe of what has resisted Him from the beginning. Every section has been, in its deepest meaning, a section on the love of God. Bible workers must speak often of this love. Nothing else will hold a soul through the storms that are now gathering. The doctrine is not a theological ornament. It is the heart of God made visible.

The apostle Paul prayed for his readers in a way that gathers up the whole argument of this article. “That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; and to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God” (Ephesians 3:17–19, KJV). Breadth. Length. Depth. Height. Four dimensions of a love that passes knowledge. The psalmist used the imagery of distance to describe the same love. “As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us” (Psalm 103:12, KJV). The same psalmist lifted the image upward. “For as the heaven is high above the earth, so great is his mercy toward them that fear him” (Psalm 103:11, KJV). The Saviour Himself set the final measure. “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13, KJV). The apostle Paul closed the measurement by declaring that Christ went further still. “For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die: yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die. But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:6–8, KJV). The love of God reaches the unrighteous, the weak, and the ungodly. It does not wait for our worthiness. It creates it. Through the reformer’s pen we are given the picture that has anchored so many Bible workers in their long labors. “The sacrifice of Christ as an atonement for sin is the great truth around which all other truths cluster. In order to be rightly understood and appreciated, every truth in the Word of God, from Genesis to Revelation, must be studied in the light that streams from the cross of Calvary” (Gospel Workers, Sr. White, p. 315, 1915). The cross is the interpretive center of the whole Bible. The Lord’s servant wrote, “God is love. Like rays of light from the sun, love and light and joy flow out from Him to all His creatures. It is His nature to give. His very life is the outflow of unselfish love” (Steps to Christ, Sr. White, p. 77, 1892). The nature of God is not neutral. It flows outward in giving. Every created thing that lives, lives because God is love. The prophetic messenger has traced this love through the sanctuary itself. “In the cross of Calvary love and justice met. Mercy and truth met together. Righteousness and peace kissed each other. In this meeting the character of God was fully revealed” (consistent summary reflecting the teaching of The Desire of Ages, chapter 78). Pioneer teacher E. J. Waggoner, reflecting on Romans 5, wrote, “The everlasting gospel is the revelation of the love of God in the cross of Christ. To present any other gospel is to present a counterfeit” (consistent summary reflecting the exposition of Christ and His Righteousness, E. J. Waggoner, 1890). The everlasting gospel is the love of God made visible. Every doctrine in this article has pointed to that love. Individual accountability protects the dignity of love. Divine discernment preserves the justice of love. The incarnation is the descent of love. The sanctuary is the machinery of love. The final fire is the triumph of love. The responsibility we owe to God is the response of love. The responsibility we owe to our neighbor is the overflow of love. Bible workers who grasp this unifying thread will preach the gospel with a warmth that every hearer can feel. Every sermon. Every Bible study. Every prayer meeting. Every article in faithfundamentals.blog. The love of God is the heartbeat of all our work.

WHAT DO I OWE MY SAVIOR NOW?

When I have followed the argument of this article and grasped what God in Christ has done, the question rises naturally in my heart. What shall I do, Lord? I owe Him, first, the surrender of my conscience to the principle of personal accountability that He has plainly taught. I cannot hide behind ancestry, denomination, or ignorance. The Word of God will not let me. The apostle Paul wrote, “And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God” (Romans 12:2, KJV). The renewal he describes is not a vague aspiration. It is the daily death of my own preferences and the daily rebirth of my mind under the authority of Scripture. I owe Him, second, the work of repentance. It is not a single moment of regret but a continuing posture of the heart. The prophet Jeremiah heard the Lord say, “Return, ye backsliding children, and I will heal your backslidings. Behold, we come unto thee; for thou art the LORD our God” (Jeremiah 3:22, KJV). I have backsliding to confess. I have a Lord who has promised to heal it. I owe Him, third, the consecration of my body and my labor. The apostle wrote without ornament, “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service” (Romans 12:1, KJV). The brazen altar required a whole burnt offering. Nothing less satisfies a Saviour who gave Himself wholly. I owe Him, fourth, the daily cleansing of life that the laver represented. “Having therefore these promises, dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God” (2 Corinthians 7:1, KJV). I owe Him, fifth, a watchful expectation of His return. The lamps must be trimmed. The oil must be in the vessels. The loins must be girded. “Let your loins be girded about, and your lights burning” (Luke 12:35, KJV). The sixth debt is prayer that holds me in readiness. “Watch ye therefore, and pray always, that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of man” (Luke 21:36, KJV). Six debts and one posture. The heart that owes them all rejoices to pay them. The reformer’s pen pressed the absolute nature of this surrender. “God accepts no divided heart. Those who love Him will give themselves wholly to His service” (paraphrased summary of the consistent doctrine of Steps to Christ). In Steps to Christ we read the fuller statement that has shaped generations of Reform Movement workers. “Consecrate yourself to God in the morning; make this your very first work. Let your prayer be, ‘Take me, O Lord, as wholly Thine. I lay all my plans at Thy feet. Use me today in Thy service. Abide with me, and let all my work be wrought in Thee’ ” (Steps to Christ, Ellen G. White, p. 70, 1892). The morning consecration is the beginning of the day’s debt paid. Through the prophetic messenger we are told that this consecration deepens during the antitypical day of atonement. “Now, while our great High Priest is making the atonement for us, we should seek to become perfect in Christ. Not even by a thought could our Saviour be brought to yield to the power of temptation. Satan finds in human hearts some point where he can gain a foothold; some sinful desire is cherished, by means of which his temptations assert their power. But Christ declared of Himself, ‘The prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in me.’ Satan could find nothing in the Son of God that would enable him to gain the victory. He had kept His Father’s commandments, and there was no sin in Him that Satan could use to his advantage. This is the condition in which those must be found who shall stand in the time of trouble” (The Great Controversy, Sr. White, p. 623, 1911). The condition is exacting. The Saviour’s resources are sufficient. The Lord’s servant has expressed the inward character of my debt in unforgettable terms. “The religion of Christ means more than the forgiveness of sin; it means taking away our sins, and filling the vacuum with the graces of the Holy Spirit. It means divine illumination, rejoicing in God. It means a heart emptied of self, and blessed with the abiding presence of Christ” (Christ’s Object Lessons, Sr. White, p. 419, 1900). Taking away, not tolerating. Filling, not decorating. Emptied of self, not merely improved. The prophetic messenger added, “The grace of Christ must mold the entire being, and its triumph will not be complete until the heavenly universe shall witness habitual tenderness of feeling, Christ-like love and lowliness in the children of God” (Christ’s Object Lessons, Sr. White, p. 419, 1900). The debt I owe cannot be paid in one act. It is paid in a life. Through inspired counsel we are further warned that admiration alone cannot pay this debt. The Lord has not asked for my applause. He has asked for my life. “A profession of faith and the possession of truth in the soul are two different things” (consistent with the instruction of Christ’s Object Lessons). Pioneer teacher S. N. Haskell summarized the practical result. “The cross of Christ becomes the science and song of the redeemed. As we behold it, we are transformed into His image, and we become, through His grace, a living sacrifice acceptable to God” (consistent summary reflecting The Cross and Its Shadow). Whereas the unconverted heart owes God nothing it cannot calculate, the converted heart discovers that it owes Him everything and rejoices to do so. The contrast that closes this section is the contrast between admiration and discipleship. Admiration costs nothing. Discipleship costs everything. To withhold my life after all that He has done is the deepest of ingratitudes. To give it is the only freedom worthy of the name.

The writer to the Hebrews summarized the posture I owe in a single image. “Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God” (Hebrews 12:1–2, KJV). Lay aside. Run. Look. Three verbs, one life. The apostle Paul repeated the same call in his letter to the Philippians. “Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 2:5, KJV). His mind is to be mine. His humility is to be mine. His obedience is to be mine. He does not ask for imitation alone. He gives, by His Spirit, the very mind He asks of me. The apostle Peter added the practical edge. “Wherefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 1:13, KJV). Sobriety. Hope. A girded mind. Not a mind carried away by every current thought. Through the reformer’s pen we are told that this consecration is not occasional but continual. “Consecration must be an every-day work. Those whose hearts are stayed upon the Lord are held in a peace which the sorrows, trials, and enmities of this world cannot disturb” (consistent summary reflecting The Desire of Ages and the consistent instruction of the Lord’s servant on consecration). The prophetic messenger pressed the same point in Steps to Christ. “Many have an idea that they must do some part of the work alone. They have trusted in Christ for the forgiveness of sin, but now they seek by their own efforts to live aright. But every such effort must fail. Jesus says, ‘Without me ye can do nothing’ ” (Steps to Christ, Sr. White, p. 69, 1892). The life I owe Him must be lived in Him. My debt is paid by His indwelling, not by my self-improvement. The Lord’s servant wrote further, “Our growth in grace, our joy, our usefulness—all depend upon our union with Christ” (Steps to Christ, Sr. White, p. 69, 1892). Pioneer writer E. J. Waggoner expressed the same truth with characteristic economy. “The life of the Christian is a life lived by faith in the Son of God, who loved him and gave Himself for him. There is no other Christian life” (consistent summary reflecting Christ and His Righteousness, E. J. Waggoner, 1890). There is no other Christian life. Not a faith life for justification and a self-help life for sanctification. One life. By faith. From first to last. The responsibility I owe God is the responsibility of daily receiving what He daily gives. I owe Him my hunger. He gives me His bread. I owe Him my thirst. He gives me His water of life. I owe Him my weakness. He gives me His power. I owe Him my sin. He gives me His righteousness. The exchange is absurd from any human accounting. It is the glory of the gospel. Bible workers who have settled this in their own hearts will preach with unwavering joy. They will also live the doctrine before they preach it, and the Spirit of the Lord will bear witness through them. The debt is paid not by my strength but by His own. That is the mystery of the everlasting covenant, and that is the answer to the question with which this section began.

WHAT DO WE OWE OUR NEIGHBOR YET?

When the people of the third angel’s message turn from the throne to face our neighbor, we discover that the doctrines we have rehearsed lay heavy obligations upon our common life. The principle of individual accountability does not isolate us from one another. It places upon us the duty to bear true witness, never to convict by suspicion, never to spread an accusation we cannot prove. Solomon insisted, “He that is first in his own cause seemeth just; but his neighbour cometh and searcheth him” (Proverbs 18:17, KJV). The same wisdom warned against gossip. “A talebearer revealeth secrets: but he that is of a faithful spirit concealeth the matter” (Proverbs 11:13, KJV). The bitter-water ritual we studied earlier in this article stands as the standing rebuke of every congregation that has allowed whisper to perform the work of witness. We owe our neighbor nothing less than the patience of God Himself. We owe our neighbor, further, the truth as we have received it. The apostle wrote, “Having therefore obtained help of God, I continue unto this day, witnessing both to small and great, saying none other things than those which the prophets and Moses did say should come” (Acts 26:22, KJV). Paul withheld nothing from his hearers. He taught them what Moses and the prophets had taught. To withhold from a neighbor the doctrine of the sanctuary, the doctrine of the investigative judgment, the doctrine of the Saviour’s two natures, or the doctrine of the final cleansing, is a quiet form of theft. We have been entrusted with these truths not to hoard them in private libraries but to carry them through every door, every street, every town the providence of God may open to us. The prophet Isaiah heard the Lord say, “Is not this the fast that I have chosen? to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke?” (Isaiah 58:6, KJV). The fast pleasing to the Lord empties our hands of selfishness and fills them with practical mercy. The Saviour Himself summarized the life of witness in the Sermon on the Mount. “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven” (Matthew 5:16, KJV). He gave the moral shape of our dealings in the same sermon. “Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets” (Matthew 7:12, KJV). Six statements of Scripture bind us to our neighbor. There is no escape. The reformer’s pen has stated the principle of Christian service with force. “The Saviour’s life on earth was not a life of ease and devotion to Himself, but He toiled with persistent, earnest, untiring effort for the salvation of lost humanity. From the manger to Calvary He followed the path of self-denial and sought not to be released from arduous tasks, painful travels, and exhausting care and labor” (The Ministry of Healing, Ellen G. White, p. 500, 1905). The Lord’s servant further insisted, “The spirit of unselfish labor for others gives depth, stability, and Christlike loveliness to the character, and brings peace and happiness to its possessor” (The Ministry of Healing, Sr. White, p. 503, 1905). In the same chapter she wrote, “Our Lord Jesus Christ came to this world as the unwearied servant of man’s necessity” (The Ministry of Healing, Sr. White, p. 17, 1905). The pattern given us is the pattern of unwearied service. The prophetic messenger pressed the application to the mission of the Church in our generation. “To every one who offers himself to the Lord for service, withholding nothing, is given power for the attainment of measureless results” (The Ministry of Healing, Sr. White, p. 159, 1905). The result is not ours. The effort is. The result belongs to God. Through inspired counsel we are told that the religion which does not reach outward is not the religion of the Bible. “The religion of Christ means more than the forgiveness of sin” was true at the altar. It is also true at the door of the neighbor. The pioneer leader S. N. Haskell taught the same connection when he reflected on the court that surrounded the tabernacle. “The court was open to all Israel. It was in the court that the sinner met the priest, brought the sacrifice, and received the promise. The court was the missionary field of the sanctuary, the place where the work of reconciliation was visible to the nation” (consistent summary reflecting The Cross and Its Shadow, S. N. Haskell, pp. 173–174, 1914). The outer court was designed to be seen. Our work must also be designed to be seen, not for display, but for witness. Whereas the doctrine of personal accountability could be twisted by a small heart into an excuse for spiritual privatism, the same doctrine in a heart shaped by the cross becomes the engine of evangelism. I see at last that my neighbor must answer for himself, and that I must give him the gospel by which alone he can answer well. The prophetic messenger has drawn the line clearly. “We are not to hide our light under a bushel…. If Christ is in our hearts, we shall show Him to others” (consistent summary reflecting the instruction of Christ’s Object Lessons). We owe one another truth in love. We owe witness without slander. We owe mercy without compromise. We owe the persistent labor of those who know that a great judgment is in session and that probation will not last forever. The contrast between hoarded faith and shared faith is the contrast between salt that has lost its savor and salt that still seasons the earth. The Bible worker carries the salt. The Bible worker carries the lamp. The Bible worker carries the water of life, not in a cistern to be guarded, but in a cup to be offered. Every heart that has been warmed by Ezekiel’s verdict of mercy, cleansed at the laver, fed at the table, illumined by the candlestick, and lifted up in prayer at the golden altar, owes the same mercy, cleansing, feeding, light, and prayer to the stranger at the gate.

The apostle John placed the responsibility to our neighbor on the same ground as the responsibility to God. “But whoso hath this world’s good, and seeth his brother have need, and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him?” (1 John 3:17, KJV). The question answers itself. The same apostle stated the principle negatively. “If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen?” (1 John 4:20, KJV). Love of God is always tested at the door of the neighbor. The apostle James enforced the practical application. “What doth it profit, my brethren, though a man say he hath faith, and have not works? can faith save him? If a brother or sister be naked, and destitute of daily food, and one of you say unto them, Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled; notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body; what doth it profit? Even so faith, without works, is dead, being alone” (James 2:14–17, KJV). The Saviour placed the same test at the center of the judgment scene. “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me” (Matthew 25:40, KJV). The apostle Paul widened the scope beyond the household of faith. “As we have therefore opportunity, let us do good unto all men, especially unto them who are of the household of faith” (Galatians 6:10, KJV). Six Scriptures converge upon one lesson. Gospel privilege creates gospel duty. Through the reformer’s pen we are told that the religion of Christ extends itself naturally into the lives of those around us. “We are to be channels through which the Lord can send light and grace to the world” (consistent summary reflecting the instruction of Christ’s Object Lessons). The prophetic messenger pressed the practical shape of such channeling. “Christ’s method alone will give true success in reaching the people. The Saviour mingled with men as one who desired their good. He showed His sympathy for them, ministered to their needs, and won their confidence. Then He bade them, ‘Follow Me’ ” (The Ministry of Healing, Sr. White, p. 143, 1905). Mingling. Sympathizing. Ministering. Winning confidence. Then, and only then, the invitation. The Lord’s servant added the reach of the duty. “The service of love gives dignity to life” (consistent summary reflecting Ministry of Healing, chapter 29). Pioneer leader S. N. Haskell emphasized the missionary shape of every sanctuary truth. “Every truth of the sanctuary is meant for proclamation, not for private enjoyment. The altar is for the sinner. The laver is for the seeker. The candlestick is for the learner. The table is for the hungry. The incense is for the praying. These ministries were never intended to remain behind a veil of theological language” (consistent summary reflecting the missionary vision of The Cross and Its Shadow, S. N. Haskell, 1914). Bible workers should teach the sanctuary in the streets and living rooms of their communities. They should teach the sanctuary in the language of the common believer, not in the code of the specialist. The contrast between self-serving piety and outward-flowing piety is the contrast between a pond and a river. A pond retains its own water and grows stagnant. A river carries its water to distant fields and renews them. The soul that has received the grace of the sanctuary is called to be a river. It is called to carry the cleansing, the light, the bread, and the prayer of Christ to its neighbors. The Bible worker is not the only channel of this ministry. Every member of the body of Christ is called to it. The responsibility that rests upon me in the pulpit rests also upon me at my kitchen table, at the street corner, at my place of employment, and at the side of the sickbed. I owe my neighbor the truth I have been trusted with. I owe it to him while the door of probation stands open. I owe it to him in love, in patience, and in prayer.

WHERE DOES THE ROAD NOW LEAD?

The road from Ezekiel to Revelation is one road. It leads to a person before it leads to a place. “He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life” (1 John 5:12, KJV). To have the Son is to receive His sacrifice at the altar, His cleansing at the laver, His light from the candlestick, His sustenance from the table, His intercession from the altar of incense, His law in the heart as it lay in the ark, and His mercy from the seat above the cherubim. To have the Son is, finally, to be ready for the day when the elements shall melt and the earth and its works shall be burned up. The same fire that falls then will only confirm what was settled long before, when the same fire fell upon Him on a hill outside Jerusalem. The first angel calls us to that readiness today. “Fear God, and give glory to him; for the hour of his judgment is come” (Revelation 14:7, KJV). The end of the road is not destruction. For those who have hidden themselves in Christ, the end is the new earth. “And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea” (Revelation 21:1, KJV). The new earth is not merely a restored version of the old. It is a created world in which the tabernacle of God is with men. “And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God” (Revelation 21:3, KJV). The entire story of the sanctuary comes home at that moment. The dwelling place moves from a tent in the wilderness, to a temple on a hill, to a throne in heaven, to a city on earth. “And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away” (Revelation 21:4, KJV). John added the final sentence that closes the great controversy. “And there shall be no more curse: but the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it; and his servants shall serve him” (Revelation 22:3, KJV). Six verses and one destination. The servants will serve Him. The curse will be gone. The tabernacle will be with men. Through the reformer’s pen we are given the doctrinal summary of that consummation. “The great controversy is ended. Sin and sinners are no more. The entire universe is clean. One pulse of harmony and gladness beats through the vast creation. From Him who created all, flow life and light and gladness, throughout the realms of illimitable space. From the minutest atom to the greatest world, all things, animate and inanimate, in their unshadowed beauty and perfect joy, declare that God is love” (The Great Controversy, Ellen G. White, p. 678, 1911). The last sentence of the Conflict of the Ages series is the first sentence of eternity. God is love. The prophetic messenger describes the continuing experience of the redeemed. “There the redeemed shall know, even as also they are known. The loves and sympathies which God Himself has planted in the soul shall there find truest and sweetest exercise. The pure communion with holy beings, the harmonious social life with the blessed angels and with the faithful ones of all ages who have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb, the sacred ties that bind together ‘the whole family in heaven and earth’—these help to constitute the happiness of the redeemed” (The Great Controversy, Sr. White, p. 677, 1911). The ties that sin has broken are all restored. Through inspired counsel we are told that the study itself continues without exhaustion. “All the treasures of the universe will be open to the study of God’s redeemed. Unfettered by mortality, they wing their tireless flight to worlds afar—worlds that thrilled with sorrow at the spectacle of human woe and rang with songs of gladness at the tidings of a ransomed soul” (The Great Controversy, Sr. White, p. 677, 1911). The science that began at the cross continues forever. The song that began at the cross continues forever. Pioneer teacher S. N. Haskell captured the same truth in a sentence from his preface. “In the sanctuary, the cross of Christ is the great center of the whole scheme of human redemption. Around it clusters every truth of the Bible” (The Cross and Its Shadow, S. N. Haskell, p. ix, 1914). Every truth we have handled in this article clusters around that cross. Personal accountability makes the cross necessary. The bitter water foreshadows the divine discernment that the cross vindicates. The incarnation carries the cross to us in human flesh. The altar offers the cross. The laver applies the cross. The candlestick shines the cross. The table feeds us the cross. The incense carries our prayers through the cross. The ark contains the law the cross has upheld. The mercy seat bears the blood of the cross. The final fire completes the cross. The love of God is the origin of the cross. Our responsibility to God is the response the cross demands of us. Our responsibility to our neighbor is the overflow the cross produces in us. The Bible worker who has followed this article to its end has, I trust, found here something he can use in the field. The doctrines treated are not denominational ornaments. They are the substance of the everlasting gospel as the Reform Movement has received it from its founders. The argument has moved from one accountable soul to a sanctuary full of furniture, from a sanctuary full of furniture to a fire that ends one world and begins another, and through it all the Saviour has been the constant. May the Spirit of God write these truths upon the hearts of those who read them. May the careful work of those who carry them house to house be honored by the Lord of the harvest. He has promised that His word shall not return unto Him void. The road ends at Him. There is no other road. There is no other end.

“Wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them.” — Hebrews 7:25, KJV

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SELF-REFLECTION

1. Have I accepted the doctrine of personal accountability that Ezekiel teaches, or am I still hiding behind family, denomination, or circumstance for what is mine alone to confess?

2. Do I treat suspicion as evidence in my own dealings with brethren and neighbors, or have I learned the patience of God who, in the bitter-water ritual, refused to permit private accusation to become private execution?

3. When I think of Christ’s humanity and divinity, do I cling to both with equal firmness, refusing to imagine Him with sinful tendencies and refusing to imagine Him as a being so distant that He cannot sympathize with me?

4. Have I located my own daily walk on the map of the heavenly sanctuary, knowing where the altar stands, where the laver waits, where the candlestick shines, and where the mercy seat is now being approached on my behalf?