WHEN Jesus said to the rich young ruler, "If thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments" (Matt. 19:17), He was expressing an eternal truth. But a misinterpreted doctrine of the grace of God leads many Christians today to assume that Jesus did not really mean what He said. This is one fact that makes the doctrine of the sanctuary and the judgment as taught by Seventh-day Adventists distasteful to these same Christian brethren. The sanctuary sustains the authority of the law of God and shows it to be the continuing standard of judgment even for believers in the gospel of Christ.
Prophets, apostles, martyrs, reformers, have all understood that Christ came to save men from sin, not in sin, and that sin is disobedience to the known will of God. Sin began that way with Lucifer, it was sold that way to Eve and Adam, it has been bought that way by every sinner since, no matter how well disguised. And if ever we are to be restored to eternal harmony with God and are to share His eternal throne, it will not be by any change or accommodation that He has .made or will make in the law on which His kingdom stands eternally.
What many of our friends (and we) fail to remember, however, is that the law of God is the law of love—His love. It is not in any way contrary to God, His character, or His purposes. Indeed, the grace of Christ is designed to bring our hearts into increasing harmony with the love of God, and you cannot have the love of God in your heart and hate any of His commandments at the same time—except in ignorance, perhaps, but even then not for long.
As to the doctrine of the sanctuary's cleansing and the judgment message, let me remind you that the sweetest, purest Christian movement since Pentecost grew out of the expectation of the Lord's imminent coming to the earth in judgment. The preaching of a specific time for that coming to cleanse the earth-sanctuary with fire caused hardened sinners to tremble and to seek reconciliation with God. The first angel's message rang through the world: ". . . for the hour of his judgment is come."
The first and second disappointments tested the continuing sincerity of the watchers for the Lord's coming, and either in relief or in despair, most dropped away.
But clearer light on the sanctuary and its cleansing gleaned from deep searching of the Word and undoubtedly by revelation through the simple testimony of the newly manifested Spirit of Prophecy (see Selected Messages, book 1, pp. 206-208) held together that torn and bleeding "little flock" of which we are the direct spiritual descend ants. And as they with John the revelator glimpsed the law of God in the "ark of his testament" as "the temple of God was opened in heaven" (Rev. 11:19) they were confronted anew with the immutable law of God's immutable love. You cannot change God. His character, His name, His government, His law, His nature—these are solid. (The youth can count on these.)
Could God have changed one iota of His law and been true to Himself, there would have been no sacrificial shedding of the blood of animals (see Heb. 10:4), "ordained by God to be to man a perpetual reminder and a penitential acknowledgment of his sin and a confession of his faith in the promised Redeemer."—Patriarchs and Prophets, p. 68.
If God could have changed one tittle of His law of love we would not have seen His Son grasping at the very earth in Gethsemane as if to save Himself from the horror of this unknown relationship to His Father as the Son became our sin-bearer. (See The Desire of Ages, pp. 686, 687.)
But as in the services of the earthly sanctuary the ministry of the sacrificial blood was ever in close touch with the sacred law of love enshrined in the heart of the Most Holy Place—making an atonement—so Christ, the Lamb of God (John 1:29), our High Priest (Heb. 8:1), has be come the mediator of the new covenant under which the same laws of God are written in the believer's heart, and his sins and iniquities are remembered no more (see verses 6-10; chap. 10:17).
So it was with rejoicing that the Adventist pioneers directed their prayers to Christ in the "Most Holy Place" phase of His mediatorial work, believing that in a renewed sense they were to be the champions of His neglected law, as the light of the fourth commandment shone with a new brilliance for them, and the confused doctrines of Babylon and the threatening mark of allegiance to the beast power gave new significance to the united messages of the three angels of Revelation 14.
They saw more clearly the unity between the everlasting gospel and the commandments of God. "Get ready to meet your God," they began to cry anew to the unrepentant world and to the nominal churches. "We have all been violating His law, in ignorance. It is time to repent and to return." And under the banner of the "commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus" they moved out to "prophesy again before many peoples, and nations, and tongues, and kings" (Rev. 14:12; 10:11).
New understandings were given them of the beast and his image, his mark, of Babylon in her final God-challenging blasphemy as the instrument for world unity in defying the seal-commandment that identifies the authority of God in giving His laws for the allegiance of men and angels. Gradually the larger significance of the sanctuary and its services was opened to their understanding, and they saw that the pending case of every believer at the throne of God (as portrayed in Daniel 7) would display before the entire universe the fact that God has purchased the right, through the sacrifice of Himself in the Son (2 Cor. 5:19), to reconcile the believing sinner unto Himself, being just while justifying "him which believeth in Jesus" (Rom. 3:26).
They began to see that the revived and awakened Laodiceans (a people adjudged) must be a people of righteousness, a theater to angels, as well as to men (1 Cor. 4:9), a demonstration ultimately to the universe of the full, reconciling power of the grace of Christ, so that redeemed men not only profess the name of Christ, not only grasp His forgiveness for their own guilt, but (as in Christ's parable of the unmerciful servant) themselves begin to treat others as they needed the Lord to treat them. So that their lives are not only counted righteous through faith in Him, but they are speaking and acting righteously because He has been granted full possession of their hearts and minds. They have become "holy" because they have chosen to be "wholly" Christ's. Thus the righteousness of the law is fulfilled in them "who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit" (Rom. 8:4).
And there they became newly aware of the place of the Lamb's book of life in their eternal destiny. They saw that while a profession of Christ inscribes the believer's name in the book of life, there is also the possibility that some names may not be retained in that book (Rev. 21:27; 20:15, 12; 22:19). They saw that it is "he that overcometh" who is clothed in white raiment and whose name is not blotted out of the book of life (chap. 3:5).
The pioneers better understood the principle enunciated in Ezekiel 18:24 and 33:12, 13, and demonstrated in the relation ship of the daily to the yearly services of the earthly sanctuary. The experience be gun in penitence, faith, and righteousness must be continued in the same, or a turning away from the ways of righteousness would result in a returning upon the sinner's own head of the consequences of his past iniquity. If he continued in faith and willingness to obey, ultimately the "scape goat" would bear the responsibility for the believer's sins.
"Ah," says one, "you are moving back under a covenant of works, back under the law." In a sense, yes. But what does the new covenant do with the law of God? Where does it put it? No, the believer does not go back under the law's condemnation, but God enshrines the law in his heart. And was not that where the Saviour had His Father's commandments? (See John 15:10.)
And what, my brethren, is Jesus doing for us at this hour? The book of Hebrews shows us that He is presenting before the throne of God, before the law, the merits of His shed blood in behalf of the penitent believer. "Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil con science, and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering; (for he is faithful that promised)." "For ye have need of patience, that, after ye have done the will of God, ye might receive the promise. For yet a little while, and he that shall come will come, and will not tarry" (see Hebrews 10:19-39).
In exalting the law of God, let me make it clear that there is no saving power in the holy commandments of God. Every "sinner man" must bow in guilt before the broken law of God. And not one iota of our obedience to His law purchases for us one thread of the wedding garment of Christ's righteousness. It is a garment that Christ alone provides us.
At the same time, clearer revelations of the agonizing Saviour in Gethsemane and on Calvary will lead the sinner to loathe his sins, and to embrace each succeeding ray of light that shines upon his way. He believes the promises of God, which in Christ are made unto him righteousness and sanctification and redemption. Being justified by faith, he carries cheerfulness with him in his obedience in all his life. Peace with God is the result of what Christ is to him. (See The SDA Bible Commentary, Ellen G. White comments, on Rom. 3:24-26, p. 1071.)
Thus all by grace, all by God's love, there is made real in the believer what Jesus would have made real to the rich young ruler many years ago: "If thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments" (Matt. 19:17). The promise is in the command.
