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University SDA Church- East Lansing

The Cross and the Sanctuary

David Shin

The Cross and The Sanctuary- Part 1

Well, I want to welcome you again to our worship service.

This morning we begin a brand new five-part series of messages that we've entitled, The Cross and the Sanctuary.

And I'm really personally excited about this, and I'll be in the pulpit the next 5 weeks straight which is kind of unusual I'm usually in the pulpit but this time it's 5 weeks straight and we'll be going through this topic of the cross and the sanctuary week in and week out so want to encourage you to come out each Sabbath as we go through this presentation.

Let's bow our heads at this time as we ask the Lord to be with us.

Father in heaven, we thank you so much for this opportunity that we have to be in your presence.

We thank you for the Sabbath that we have the opportunity to come apart from the cares of this life to worship You in spirit and in truth.

And we pray that as we study this important and relevant topic that You would bless us, hide me behind the cross, may Jesus be seen, for we ask these things in Jesus' name.

You should see in your bulletin, if you have not pulled it out already, there is a study guide, which is a brief outline of today's presentation.

And I want to invite you to pull that out this time.

It'll make following along a lot easier as it gives an outline of today's study and presentation.

And if you don't have 1, raise your hand.

We'll have our ushers in the back that will assist you.

Daniel, we have a few hands that are coming up at this time.

And I'm going to read the top part of this study guide as we look into this topic of the cross and the sanctuary.

Keep your hands up as our ushers deliver those study guides to you.

It will make following along so much easier and they say that if you see it and you write it down, you're more inclined to remember the things that you've been presented with.

At the top of the study guide it says there are various versions in Christendom over the significance of what happened at the cross Whether it is Protestant or Catholic the discrepancies of understanding regarding the theology of the cross are prevalent.

How can the gospel be good news if there is so much confusion?

Is there a biblical key that will unlock the mystery of the cross?

And I've had the privilege of studying Christian theology for my graduate studies, and it was amazing as I studied contemporary theology to come to the recognition and the realization that something as basic and fundamental and foundational as the cross and the gospel is a point of controversy today in the scope of Christianity.

Whether you study Roman Catholic theology, or whether you study Catholic or Protestant theology, there is a cacophony of differences when it comes to this basic fundamental teaching along the lines of the cross.

And so I want to invite you to follow along in your study guides.

I have all of the texts in on the study guide and on the screen and the first 1 is found in John chapter 1 verse 36.

This is the testimony of John regarding Jesus Christ and it says, And looking at Jesus, he walked as he walked, he said, Behold the Lamb of God.

This is the testimony of John in regards to Jesus Christ and this is an unusual statement.

This is in the introductory part of John chapter 1.

Notice that Jesus did not say, Behold the Messiah.

He did not say, Behold the Christ, behold the Son of God, but he refers to Jesus as a lamb.

A lamb is an adolescent sheep and this is an unusual statement.

Now this is not the only time that Jesus is referred to as the lamb by John the Baptist.

You can see it again in John 1, verse 29.

It says, the next day, John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, behold, what does it say?

The Lamb of God, here he gets a little bit more specific, who takes away the sin of the world.

Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

Now for any red-blooded Jew, this would have rung a bell in their minds.

I would argue this morning that if the Jewish nation just would have looked at this text and done exegesis on it, or done a meditation on this passage alone, they would have recognized that Jesus is not coming as a king, but he's coming as a sacrifice.

They missed this opportunity and this is the introduction of the ministry of Jesus by John the Baptist.

The function of the Lamb is to take away sin.

Jesus' function is to take away not the sin of an individual, but the sins of the entire world.

Implied in this statement is the concept of substitution and the transference of sin.

Now the Jewish mind would have recognized, because for the last 1500 years prior to the coming of Christ they had been offering sacrifices in Moses' sanctuary and then Solomon's sanctuary and then later on Herod's temple during the time of Christ.

And this is found in Leviticus chapter 4 verse 32 to 35 and this had been carried on for hundreds of years.

You can fill this out in your study guide.

By the way if you're watching online there will be a link made available on our website where you can download the study guide and follow along.

Leviticus chapter 4 verse 32 through 35, if he brings a lamb as his sin offering, then he shall lay his hand on the head of the sin offering and kill it as a sin offering at the place where they killed the burnt offering.

The priest shall take some of the blood of the sin offering with his finger and put it on the horns of the altar of the burnt offering and pour all the remaining blood at the base of the altar.

You can see that The individual that had sinned would bring this animal into the sanctuary.

He would place his hands on top of the head of this animal.

I'm so glad that we don't have to do this today.

The concept of what we call the atonement or the forgiveness of sins is predicated on the notion that sin can be transferred.

Sin is transferred from the person to the animal and then the animal is slain.

You had to slit the animal's throat from ear to ear.

After that happened, the priest would take the blood and then place it upon the horns of the altar in the sanctuary.

The sin would be transferred from the person to the animal, to the blood, and the record of that transgression was left upon the horns of the altar of the sanctuary.

So the sin was transferred from the person to the animal, to the blood, to the sanctuary.

We'll be discussing a little bit more about that in our study as we go on in our successing weeks.

Now this is an important principle for us to follow because it's amazing when you look at lenses.

Alright, I'm into photography and This is a fisheye lens.

As you can see that this horizon is bowed and this lens has the incredible ability to see 180 degrees but the problem is that everything gets distorted.

As you change lenses the perspective changes in what you see.

The data changes in our reality and many of us in this room have glasses.

This concept of different lenses as we approach scripture is what theologians call hermeneutics or principles of biblical interpretation.

Many people have asked, you know, why is it that we have 1 Bible and so many different denominations?

Well, 1 of the reasons is because even though we have 1 Bible there are many different lenses that are used to interpret scripture hence we come to different conclusions as you can read in your study guide I'm going to read the statement right after Leviticus chapter 4 verse 32 to 35.

Jesus being referred to as the lamb, which takes away the sins of the world, implied that sin was to be transferred from the world to Jesus.

Jesus was to become our sin bearer and die as our substitute.

Had the Jews understood the connection between Christ and the sanctuary, they would have understood the purpose of Christ in coming to earth.

The sanctuary provided the key that unlocked the significance of Christ's earthly mission.

In other words, the sanctuary became a necessary interpretive framework for the Jews to understand what happened on the cross.

This is what theologians would call a hermeneutical key.

Hermeneutics refers to the principles of how we interpret scripture the sanctuary gives us the key for interpreting the cross correctly which means if the Jews had understood the mission of Christ through the lens of the sanctuary, they would not have rejected Christ as the Messiah.

But because they had different glasses on, they had the glasses that Christ was to come as a coming king and deliver them from the Romans, it didn't matter what they heard.

They had different glasses on, and so they came to different conclusions.

We are living at a time of Christianity and even Adventism today, where people are coming to different conclusions because they have different glasses, which brings them to a different theological trajectory.

And our study today, we want to ask the question, is the sanctuary still relevant today?

Now many people, sincerely, in the Christian world, have come to the conclusion that the sanctuary is an archaic, Old Testament relic that we don't need anymore today.

And hence they stop using the glasses of the sanctuary at the cross.

They say Jesus is the Lamb of God and they put the sanctuary back on the shelf and they no longer use it as their lens to interpret scripture.

Now the question is, is the sanctuary still relevant?

Or did the sanctuary die away when Jesus died on the cross?

Now, this is important for us to understand.

And in our study, I want to invite you to look in your study guide.

I have this on your study guide as well as on the screen and I want to point out very quickly that the sanctuary is not just found in the Old Testament pointing to this concept of an earthly sanctuary but there's something more implied and you can find it there in Exodus chapter 25 verse 8 through 9 it says, and let them make me a what?

A sanctuary that I may dwell among them according to all that I show you that is the what?

That is the pattern of the tabernacle and the pattern of all its furnishings just show so shall you make it now when Moses was given the concept of the sanctuary God himself told him that this was to be after a pattern in other words the implication was that the earthly sanctuary was a miniature of something else.

This was not just something that came up and was created by Moses.

The Cross and The Sanctuary- Part 2

We said that John referred to Jesus as the Lamb of God who takes away sin And you remember last week we mentioned that the only way that the Jews would understand what John was talking about was through the paradigm or the framework or the lens of the sanctuary.

We said that the lens for understanding what John was saying would have been impossible without the context of the sanctuary.

The sanctuary service of the lamb taking away sin was a common phenomena in the 1500 years since the institution of the sacrificial service by Moses.

The sinner would come into the sanctuary, the next passage is on the screen, and this is what would happen when you committed sin in the times of the Old Testament prior to the coming of the Lamb of God, Jesus Christ.

Leviticus chapter 4, verse 32 through 35, and the Jews practiced this for hundreds of years.

If he brings a lamb as a sin offering, then he shall lay his hand on the head of the sin offering and kill it as a sin offering at the place where they killed the burnt offering.

The priest shall take some of the blood of the sin offering with his finger, put it on the horns of the altar of the burnt offering, and pour out the remaining blood at the base of the altar.

This is what happened in Old Testament times during the time of the Mosaic and Solomonic and Herod's Temple.

The sinner would bring the offering, the lamb, into the sanctuary.

He would put his hands on the head of that animal.

He would confess all of his sins onto the animal.

This lamb now became the sin bearer, was taking away sin.

He with his own hand would slit the animal's throat from ear to ear.

And as that innocent lamb was dying, the priest would be there and catch the blood in a bowl.

He would take the blood and do 1 of 2 things.

He would place it either on the horns of the altar or he would take it into the sanctuary and sprinkle it before the veil.

The sin was being transferred, it was being taken away from the sinner to the lamb, to the blood, to the sanctuary.

And here In the beginning of John's epistle, John the Baptist says, behold the Lamb of God.

All of the types of the Lamb had pointed forward to this moment and Jesus had come to take away the sin of the world.

And we said last week that the only way to understand what Jesus did at the cross in taking away sin was in the framework of the sanctuary.

We call this hermeneutical key, hermeneutical lens, the interpretive key to understanding Christ.

And because the Jews did not use this lens when they looked at Jesus, they misinterpreted and missed the purpose of the Messiah.

If they were using the sanctuary hermeneutic, the sanctuary lens, they would have understood that Jesus is not coming as a king, he's coming as a lamb, as a sacrifice.

Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.

The transfer of sin from us to the Lamb is only understood in the context of the sanctuary.

This was to be the framework for understanding what Christ did at the cross.

So if you read it Just a few moments ago, John chapter 19, verse 30, this is 1 of 7 pronouncements that Jesus made at the cross.

And bowing his head, he gave up the spirit.

Just As a parenthetical note, some people have wondered what this means to give up the spirit.

This word spirit there is the Greek word pneuma, where we get the word pneumonia.

It's the same root as pneumonia or pneumatic.

And if you were to read this literally, it's, we're to say, he gave up his breath.

Notice that Jesus here is actively giving up his breath.

And in John chapter 10, Jesus says, I lay down my life and take it up again.

He made the decision and gave up his breath and died.

The point that I want to focus on this morning are the words, it is finished.

What are the implications of this statement?

There are several things that happened when Jesus died on the cross.

1 of them is the other gospel says that the temple veil was rent from top to bottom, meaning that the sacrificial services were no longer valid because Jesus had died.

There are several things that happened and 1 of my favorite books, The Desire of Ages 758, commenting on this phrase, it is finished, says that several things happened when Jesus died.

And I quote, Jesus did not yield up his life notice the language here yield up his life Till he had accomplished the work which he came to do and with his parting breath He exclaimed It is finished John chapter 19 verse 30 the battle had been won praise God His right hand and his holy arm had gotten him the victory as conquer He planted his banner on the eternal heights, was there not joy among the angels?

All heaven triumphed in the Savior's victory.

Was defeated and knew that his kingdom was lost.

So 1 of the implications is when Jesus died on the cross, salvation was assured, our debt was paid, and Satan knew that the end of the story was already written.

We know that at the end of the book of Revelation that this is going to turn out in God's favor and that is because of the cross.

When Jesus exclaimed the words, it is finished, we know the end of the story.

God is going to win the war and Satan knew that it was over.

The fulfillment of all the messianic prophecies came to fruition in that moment when Jesus died on the cross.

If indeed Jesus said the words, "'It is finished, ' which He did, and this meant that everything had been accomplished, what year is it right now?

We are right now over 2, 000 years After Jesus said those words, it is finished.

Now, if you're like me, It begs me to question, I'm like, what did that mean?

If it's finished, why didn't Jesus come much earlier?

Just in the last century, we've had terrible wars.

World War I, World War II, the Korean War, Vietnam.

Right now, we are experiencing a time in Earth's history with epidemics like Ebola and ISIS in the Middle East.

Something was accomplished at the cross, but here we are, 2, 000 years after the cross, and this is the question that I have.

If it was done at the cross and Jesus went to heaven, then what is the point of all this time that has transpired?

And some people have said, you know, David, God is waiting for the gospel to be preached in all the world.

And that is true in a sense, but you remember in the first century, Paul wrote with his own finger or with his own pen, he said that the gospel had been preached to every creature under heaven.

In other words, the gospel had been preached to all the world in the generation of the apostles.

But God could have come in the first century, which leads us to this conclusion that in order for us to understand the term it is finished, there's something that we're missing if we say that everything was finished at the cross.

Because indeed, something was finished, but not everything was finished.

Otherwise, God is just sitting up there watching all this suffering here on earth when it was really finished at the cross.

He could have come a long time ago, but he's not.

Now this is where the question of our thesis comes to in our presentation today.

You can see it there in your study guide, our thesis question.

This is what we're hoping to answer here today in our presentation.

If it was finished at the cross, why are we still here 2, 000 years after the cross?

And the answer really comes using the same lens that the Jews were supposed to use We are to use It's the sanctuary When we look at the sanctuary you will notice just from a elementary standpoint of view that there are 3 compartments in the sanctuary.

You have the courtyard, the outermost portion of the sanctuary.

The Cross and The Sanctuary- Part 3

On the screen I have a picture of the Rosetta Stone, which is located in the British Museum there in London, England.

It's a stone that weighs about 1700 pounds, and it's a proclamation put forth by Ptolemy V who was living about 200 years prior to the time of Christ.

Now the interesting thing about this stone is that it is written in 3 different scripts or 3 different languages.

It's written in Greek, it's written in Demotic, which is the common vernacular back in the time of the Egyptian period, 200 years prior to the time of Christ, and it's also written in Egyptian hieroglyphics.

Now, for hundreds of years, individuals have been trying to unlock Egyptian hieroglyphics and they were quite unsuccessful in this endeavor.

And this rock presented quite a unique opportunity.

And this man, his name was Jean-Francois, yeah, Champ-Huillon, I don't know if I'm saying that right, but he's a brilliant linguist And he unlocked this stone.

He unlocked this stone and wrote a dictionary of hieroglyphics.

Because it was written in Greek and hieroglyphics, they were able to unlock the meaning of hieroglyphics.

And this gentleman used the Rosetta Stone to open a whole new way of understanding Egyptian life.

And as we have said in this study, Today is part 3 in our five-part series of messages entitled the cross and the sanctuary We've said that the sanctuary is the key It's the Rosetta Stone that helps unlock what Jesus has done is Doing and will do remember in our first presentation.

We said that John made the statement Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world and the only way to understand the meaning of the Lamb is in the context of the sanctuary.

It's the sanctuary map that helps us to understand what Jesus did at the cross.

And because the Jews did not understand the sanctuary framework, the sanctuary map applied to Jesus Christ, they ended up misunderstanding what his purpose and mission was.

We also said that Paul mentioned that Christ is our high priest in the sanctuary above.

So the sanctuary becomes a framework for not only what Jesus did at the cross, but also what Jesus is doing in heaven as our high priest.

And I want to invite you, if you have not already, to take out your study guide.

It's a brief outline of today's presentation.

We have a couple ushers in the back that will give you 1, we have 1 right up here.

This will provide a framework, a reference point for our study today.

All the key passages are in this study guide and if you're watching online in the description underneath the video there will be a link where you can download this and follow along.

Remember we said that the sanctuary is the interpretive what?

The sanctuary is so broad it extends from Genesis to Revelation.

You can find implications and nuances of the sanctuary all throughout the Bible and we said that the sanctuary is the interpretive key for not only understanding Christ as the Lamb of God, but for understanding Christ as our high priest.

And we said that the sanctuary has 3 different compartments.

It has the courtyard, the largest portion up there.

It's the courtyard and then you have the holy place and then you have the most holy place.

And the trajectory of the individual in the plan of salvation is to go from the courtyard to the holy place to the most holy place.

This provides a roadmap for how God deals with sin.

He wants to take us from the outer court to the holy place to the most holy place into the very presence of God.

It's as though God has given us a kindergarten kind of map to illustrate what Christ is doing in the process and the plan of salvation.

3 compartments, 3 phases, and we said last week that the sanctuary illustrates that there are 3 phases in the plan of salvation.

The courtyard phase, the holy place phase, and the most holy place phase in the plan of salvation.

We said that when Jesus died on the cross, representing the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, he completed the sacrifice in the courtyard.

This was foundational and if Christ did not die on the cross, the plan of salvation would have been lost.

The courtyard, the burnt offering, Jesus was the sacrifice.

Then we said last week that the second compartment would be the logical place if the sanctuary is our road map for the plan of salvation We asked the question what compartment of the sanctuary did Jesus enter upon his ascension and this would logically be using the roadmap from the courtyard to the holy place and where do we see this in scripture remember last Sabbath we looked at this in our study guide Revelation chapter 1 verse 13 this is after the cross upon the ascension of Jesus here John in the last book of the Bible the book of Revelation he sees a vision and notice the words that are on the screen Revelation chapter 1 verse 13 through 18 then I turned this is John to see the voice that spoke with me, and having turned I saw 7 golden lampstands, and in the midst of the 7 lampstands, 1 like the Son of Man, clothed with a garment down to his feet and girded about the chest with a golden band.

I am he who lives and was dead and behold I am alive forevermore." Who is this?

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