The sacrifice is fulfilled for all services at one time, but not Christ's priestly activities. He is presented, as of the time of Paul, as being involved in priestly activities. If the day of atonement was fulfilled (when would that be, before pentecost(?)) as a day in the past from which Paul was writing, what time would that leave for priestly activities to be done? It would seem that the whole of the sanctuary services, in type, should be completed from what you're saying, on that one day. If not, one seems to be left with a rather odd apportioning of events. The anti-type seems not to correspond to the type.



If one considers that the daily services took place for 359 days, and the Day of Atonement for just one day, one can see that the period from 1844 until the coming of Christ was intended to be a very short period of time (this is, of course, assuming the SDA interpretation of Dan. 8:14 is correct). It comes out to about 5 years, if you work out the math. So a delay of 150 years was never intended.

However, God is working with a stubborn people, which, unfortunately, has been His lot throughout history. Because of the intransigence of SDA's, we have this delay. The text doesn't speak of it, because it was never intended to happen. Again, Christ could have come, and should have come, very soon after 1844.

Ellen White speaks to this in saying, as early as the late 1850's, that Christ "could have come before now."

This reminds me of the extra 40 years of wandering in the wilderness after the time in which they should have entered into the promised land.

The 1888 message was to prepare for the coming of Christ. EGW says that Christ was "disappointed" that He could not come, I think in 1903. I'm mentioning this because Taylor Bunch wrote a book called "Exodus and Advent Movements in Type and Antitype" where he made exactly the application that you've brought out here, Daryl, to the 1888 message and its aftermath.

I see no problem in a celestial geography with two compartments, since Revelation mentions, as I said, instruments of service of both compartments.
We must understand why the presence of God usually manifested itself in the most holy place. When God restricted His visible presence to the most holy place, this had the practical purpose of permitting the permanence of the priest within the sanctuary when receiving God’s instructions (Ex 25:22), since when God’s presence filled the whole sanctuary nobody could remain inside it (1 Ki 8:11). But, of course, the presence of God was not restricted to the most holy place.


1:3 mentions the cleansing of sin, and 9:23 mentions the cleansing of the heavenly sanctuary. I understand 1:3 as a probable reference to the cross, for the recurrent theme in the Bible is cross-throne, not presentation of blood-throne.


Paul is speaking of the dedication of the sanctuary in vv. 21-23. Then he speaks of an entrance in v. 24. The particle gar connects v. 24 with the preceding section, therefore the entrance is connected with the dedication.
In v. 25 Paul does use day-of-atonement language, but then he is referring to the once-for-all sacrifice of Christ. If the entrance in v. 24 referred to the day of atonement, Paul would be speaking of the presentation of blood before speaking of the sacrifice, which is an illogical order.
Barclay’s translation renders v. 25 in this way: “It is not that he has to offer himself repeatedly, as the High Priest year by year enters into the Holy Place with a blood that is not his own.“ Phillips renders it in this way: “There is no intention that he should offer himself regularly, like the High Priest entering the holy of holies every year with the blood of another creature.” I think this is the general idea of the verse.


Which means that a type coexisted with its antitype, which is completely illogical.


His enemies will only be made His footstool at the end of the millennium:

“Then comes the end, when He delivers the kingdom to God the Father, when He puts an end to all rule and all authority and power. For He must reign till He has put all enemies under His feet. The last enemy that will be destroyed is death” (1 Cor. 15:24-26).

The explanation for the 150 is that Christ is waiting for His church to be ready for His coming.


I completely disagree. The laver was for the priest/high priest to wash/purify himself. This has no application to Christ, not even on earth, much less in heaven.

Besides, in visions of the glory of God, it is related that this crystal pavement goes together with God’s throne.

“The likeness of the firmament above the heads of the living creatures was like the color of an awesome crystal, stretched out over their heads. ... And above the firmament over their heads was the likeness of a throne, in appearance like a sapphire stone; on the likeness of the throne was a likeness with the appearance of a man high above it” (Ez 1:22-26; See also Ex. 24:10).

Therefore, the laver of the earthly sanctuary has no relationship whatsoever with the crystal sea. It's clear that the courtyard of the heavenly temple was on earth.


The throne is the throne, and the ark is the ark. The counterpart of the ark on earth is the ark in heaven.

Revelation 11:19 Then the temple of God was opened in heaven, and the ark of His covenant was seen in His temple. And there were lightnings, noises, thunderings, an earthquake, and great hail.


How can you object to this? You say that the death and resurrection of Christ fulfilled the type in one day, but defend a 2000-year fulfillment for the Day of Atonement.


I insist on adherence to the type as much as the Bible does. What I see is that Jesus waited ten days just to fulfill the type on the appointed day, and I don’t think, if the Day of Atonement was to be fulfilled before Pentecost, that God would give the feasts to the people of Israel in the incorrect order.

This sounds interesting. Would you flesh this out a bit please?



Actually, tall got this right. I explained some of the details in my post #96570. This doesn't negatively impact the argument you're making in general, however, in any way.



Actually, the courtyard of the heavenly temple *was* (or is) the earth.



I think this is a good argument. I'm also having trouble seeing the sense of the types being fulfilled out of order.

It would be difficult to demonstrate that purification of sin (1:3) is the same as the purification of the sanctuary (9:23), specially considering that the purification of the sanctuary mentioned in 9:23 is more related to its dedication. Purification of sin (an expression also found in 2 Pet. 1:9) seems to be a reference to the cross and the purifying effect of Christ’s blood. Besides, since a recurrent theme in the Bible is Christ’s exaltation at the right hand of God after the cross, and Heb. 1:3 contains a reference to this exaltation, so it would be only natural that it also contained a reference to the cross.


Sorry, but I disagree. The laver in the earthly sanctuary was not for the people, but for the priests to wash/purify themselves, and this has no application to Christ. It’s like the sacrifices the priests had to offer, first, for their own sins – this has no application to Christ.


Well, I consider that both things mean the same, so we are in agreement on this.

It does have an application to Christ. Everything about the sanctuary has an application to Christ. It represents His resurrection.

There is deep symbolic meaning in the sanctuary. You're looking at this rather myopically if all you see from the laver is that it was a way for the priests to wash themselves. That would be like saying the only purpose of the bread was so they could feed themselves. The bread also has an application to Christ, as does the candelabra, as does the veil, as does everything about the sanctuary.

This is from a web site I found at random by searching for "Exodus experience".



The sanctuary is tied into the Exodus experience. The alter represents the Passover, and the laver represents the Red Sea experience. Any Israelite would have known this. Not only the Israelites knew this, but the surrounding cultures knew this too, which is why the sanctuary was such an excellent potential evangelistic tool. It preached the Gospel in a way that all of Israel's neighbors would have understood.

Here is a row from a table from the same web site referred to above:



Here's another statement from another web site chosen at random:



This is from Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary



Here's another statement from another web site chosen at random:



There's tons of these. I'll stop here.

The relationship between the Red Sea and the sea of glass I can see. About the relationship between the laver and the sea of glass I don't agree with it.
Also, in baptism the believer is symbolically cleansed, not the priest. The only function of the laver was for the priest to wash himself. So, again, I don't agree with this application. Besides, if the cortyard of the temple is the earth, how is it that an instrument of service of the cortyard would be in heaven? Could you please explain it?


Since when was the laver before the mercy-seat?

This is from http://www.seventh-day.org/sanctuary.htm



I think this is the Amazing Facts web site.

Perhaps the following explanation will make sense:



What's being explained here is known as the "Exodus Experience." A web site I referred to earlier, http://www.teachinghearts.org/dre17hstsblue.html, explains it in detail.

This experience is relived in the sanctuary, and every Jew was aware of this. Even today, Jews know the laver represents the Red Sea. This was a part of the everyday culture of the time. There's a lot of evidence for this you can find yourself on the web, if you research it. The Babylonians had an equivalent to the molten sea.



The above quote is from an occult site! Even pagans know of this!



I take it you're not familiar with the "Exodus experience"? I'd suggest googling "Exodus experience" and look around. The Blue Stone site looked like a decent place to start.

When I was at Andrews, I took several courses which dealt with this. The Exodus Experience is related throughout Scripture, is replayed in the sanctuary, and has application in prophecy, especially Revelation, as this discussion is bringing out. The Exodus experience theme abounds in Revelation, much of the time by way of sanctuary symbolism.

One of the sites I looked at pointed out that the dimensions of the laver were far larger than would be necessary for simply cleansing, pointing to this as evidence of its having additional meaning.



If you draw an "X" in the courtyard, the center of it is the altar (in the sanctuary proper, it's the ark). Symbolically, the cross is the center of the earth.

The laver represented the crossing of the Red Sea, which was victory of evil. In the experience of Christ, it represents His resurrection. In our experience, it represents baptism. Scripture speaks of our being baptized into the resurrection of Christ, which is relating to this same idea of victory over the powers of evil, which the parting of the Red Sea represented, and was relived by the laver. (Jesus walking on water is another example of the imagery).

There is a tie in with Egyptian mythology, which it's been too many years since I studied this to remember clearly, but the language of the sanctuary was a common vocabulary to contemporary cultures of the Israelites.

Anyway, back to the laver. Seas, or water, in Scripture represents the forces of evil. Crossing the red sea, Christ's resurrection, standing on the sea of glass, are all bringing to mind this imagery. There are many depths of meaning to the symbols in the sanctuary, so one cannot look at as saying "this means A; this means B" and so forth.

Sorry this is to brief. I hope it's somewhat helpful. My best suggestion would be research things on line. From the brief looking I did, it looked like there's quite a few sites which go into this.



Take a look at the web site and see if it makes sense. I'd have to look to see what there were referring to here. I just grabbed this to show that understanding of molten sea/laver/red sea (or sea of glass) is a common understanding.

By the way, if you're really interested in pursuing this subject, you could try asking Andrews University for the S. Douglas Waterhouse collection, which is a collection of 8 syllabi. Unfortunately, Dr. Waterhouse's syllabi don't make for the easiest reading, as it is a summary of things he amplified in the courses he taught, but they all have a lot of good drawings and illustrations which make the concepts clear.

Tom,

As the people of Israel sang at the banks of the Red Sea commemorating the victory over their enemies, the Church will sing on the Sea of Glass commemorating the victory over their enemies. This is the parallel I see.
As I said previously, the crystal pavement is part of the throne of God and, therefore, presents no parallel with the laver, unless you believe the throne of God was in the courtyard of the temple.
Besides, you did not explain how an instrument of service of the courtyard would be in heaven if the courtyard is the earth.