Stephen
Terry, Director
Light
From the Sanctuary
Commentary
for the May 25, 2024, Sabbath School Lesson
"They
serve at a sanctuary that is a copy and shadow of what is in heaven. This is
why Moses was warned when he was about to build the tabernacle: "See to it that
you make everything according to the pattern shown you on the mountain."
Hebrews 8:5
The sacrificial system is almost
as old as Eden and humanity. Some have said that when created, Adam and Eve
were enshrouded in garments of light.[i]
Once they chose to break the bond of trust that existed between them and their Creator,
that light dissipated, leaving them exposed. They understood their nakedness to
be evidence of wrongdoing, and they attempted to create replacement garments
from the leaves of the garden. But when God found them in the garden in their
makeshift clothing, he knew it was inadequate and the first sacrifice occurred.
God took animal skins and made clothing for the hapless pair.[ii]
Those animals were the first to die to expiate wrongdoing. The Bible does not
say whether the pair witnessed the slaying of the animals. They may have been loving
companions who frolicked about them as Adam and Eve worked in the garden. It must
have been hard to see the price of their sin, not only what it cost them, but
its impact on the rest of Creation.
We are not told much about the
institution of the sacrificial system during those early ages. The next
sacrifice is Abel's offering of a lamb. When his brother, Cain, offered produce
instead of a lamb, his offering was
rejected while Abel's was accepted. In this can be found the origin of the
idea that without the shedding of blood, there can be no forgiveness.[iii] Throughout
the patriarchal period, animals are sacrificed occasionally, commemorating
something special. They seemed to be spontaneous and no consistent rule for
offering sacrifices is mentioned until after the exodus from Egypt.
Egypt had a highly regulated religious
system with the pharaoh occupying a demi-godlike position at its apex. The
patriarch Abraham was told that his descendants would
be captives in Egypt for four hundred years.[iv] This
began when Abraham's grandson, Jacob, and his family were driven into Egypt by
a seven-year famine. They went willingly and were treated
with honor, but over four centuries, an anti-immigrant faction gained power in
Egypt, and Abraham's descendants were reduced to slavery. They no longer
offered sacrifices, nor did they remember the Sabbath established at Creation. For
those centuries, they lived under the Egyptian religious system. They learned
how it functioned and made accommodations to enjoy "the fleshpots of Egypt."[v]
Even Moses, their eventual deliverer, was raised in Pharaoh's
household and instructed in the religion, politics, economy, and military
strategies of the Egyptians. He saw that the Egyptians had a separate priestly
caste. He saw that mandatory offerings and grants of land supported that
priesthood. He saw Pharaoh worshipped as a god, and while on military
campaigns, Pharaoh's tent was separated into a most
holy place where Pharaoh resided and a holy place where he held court with his
officials. He saw the courtyard before Pharaoh's tent where the priesthood
addressed the people and received their petitions and offerings on Pharaoh's
behalf. All these things would later be incorporated into the Jewish worship
system. Moses who, in the past, has been credited with writing the Pentateuch,
would have found much to inspire the development of the Jewish system of
worship.
Like Pharaoh's military campaign
tent,[vi]
Moses directed the Jews to build a wilderness tabernacle, a euphemism for a
two-chambered tent surrounded by a drape-walled courtyard. As Pharaoh was attended by his court, including high ranking members of
the priesthood, so the tabernacle was to be attended
by Moses, Aaron, his brother, and Aaron's descendants for perpetuity, assisted
by the tribe of Levi. This tabernacle endured for around two centuries when it was replaced by a permanent structure as in our illustration
accompanying this commentary. This was despite rebellions that arose because of
those who saw this system as favoring the power of one family over the rest.
Some wanted to return to slavery in Egypt. Others wanted to seize power in the
wilderness. In his writings, Moses credits divine intervention with overcoming
every crisis. This raised the status of slaves fleeing their Egyptian masters
to that of a Jewish Hajj to Jerusalem a millennium and a half before the
Prophet Muhammed introduced the idea for Muslims and Mecca. While Muslims trace
their ancestry back to Abraham's son, Ishmael, they were not
made slaves in Egypt and did not experience the Jewish Wilderness Tabernacle,
and its sacrificial system. their system of worship evolved differently, even
though they also are sons of Abraham.
While Moses claimed to be
constructing the wilderness tabernacle based on what was shown him by God, as
the writer of Hebrews points out in our opening verse, The fact that there is
no record of any such structure throughout the Patriarchal Period and that
similar two-chambered religious structures were not unknown, it could be argued
that Moses was simply building things as he was taught during his forty years
in Egypt. This would not deny divine involvement. The narrative of Exodus makes
clear that there is divine purpose behind Moses eventual rise to power over
Israel. Who among us has not seen a plan come together well in our own lives
and said afterwards, "This is the Lord's doing." This is a biblical principle
echoed by James, who wrote, "Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming
down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting
shadows." (James 1:17) He recognized that the goodness of a thing is enough to
commend it as provided by God. Certainly, the survival of the Wilderness
Tabernacle for over two centuries is a testimony to its value.
By the time of Solomon, the sacrificial
system had become so institutionalized, a tent of skins was no longer adequate
for dealing with the tens of thousands of animals being sacrificed month by
month. Therefore, he built the grand temple in our picture. That temple endured
for almost half a millennium when it was destroyed by a Babylonian army under
Nebuchadnezzar. Many Israelites were taken away to Babylon and captivity. But
less than a century later, Babylon fell, and a portion of those Jews and their
descendants returned. Under Zerubbabel, they rebuilt the temple, but wept at
its poor representation compared to what Solomon had built.[vii] Zerubbabel's
temple was in turn desecrated by Antiochus Epiphanes and subsequently cleansed
and rededicated by the Maccabees during their revolt against Syrian rule. Later,
Herod enlarged and improved the temple, but it was barely
completed when it was destroyed during the Jewish Revolt in 70 CE. As
can be noted from this brief recounting of temple history, the daily sacrifices
were stopped more than once by events the Jews were unable to prevent.
Nonetheless, once Jewish control was re-established, sacrifices were resumed.
The shedding of blood was foundational to the Jewish religious system. When the
final destruction of the temple occurred in 70 CE, blood sacrifices ended, and
Judaism had to find another means to achieve expiation.
Christians have seen this long
and bloody sacrificial history as pointing toward the sacrifice of Jesus, the
Messiah. Since Jews do not recognize Jesus as a Messiah and a fulfillment of
the sacrificial system, they are left at a loss as to how to find forgiveness
through that system. Whereas Christians feel the blood shed by Jesus has
eternal significance and is more than adequate to provide salvation for all who
would come and accept that sacrifice on their behalf. The fact that that sacrifice
took place outside the temple and the curtain of the temple was torn at the
moment of sacrifice on Golgotha, negates all that went before. This fact was originally
lost on the Apostles. Even Paul continued to offer sacrifice at the temple.[viii]
But when the temple was destroyed, Christians realized that Jesus fulfilled the
blood sacrifice with his own blood.
Some believe that Jesus is our Melchizedekian High
Priest and is continually offering up his blood in heaven in the original
sanctuary that was the pattern for what Moses built. But this does not seem biblical
as the writer of Hebrews tells us that Christ was offered
once for all.[ix] Stephen the martyr saw Jesus
alfeady at the right hand of God when he was judged and stoned to death for his
Christian faith. This is problematic for Seventh-day Adventists with their
propensity for date setting based on Bible timelines. We are taught that Jesus entered
God's presence in 1844 to begin the judgment in the most holy place. We base
this on the claim of a vision given to Hiram Edson, a Baptist faith healer and
charismatic. That vision has been much embellished over time and Hiram Edson
himself never published anything about it. It was claimed that the idea that
the Wilderness Tabernacle was based on a patten shown by God was proof that the
same tabernacle exists in heaven. But if Jesus was to enter God's presence in
1844, where was he between Stephen's stoning and 1844? Why did he leave God's
presence? Sometimes when we try to save face when we make mistakes, it only
makes things worse. Rather than admit that there was no significance to the
year 1844, we double down and grasp at an idea tossed out by someone as though
it was a life saver that will deliver us from the tempestuous seas of doubt and
shame. It is human nature to grasp at such straws rather than admit we were
ever wrong, but there can be no repentance without confession of sin.[x]
Admitting an error, even after two centuries, can be the road home.