“The cry for justice . . . and the answer from the sanctuary”

“They called out in a loud voice, ‘How long, Sovereign Lord, holy and true, until you judge the inhabitants of the earth and avenge our blood?’ ” (Rev. 6:10).¹

“Thousands upon thousands attended him; ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him. The court was seated, and the books were opened” (Dan. 7:10).

Many years ago I was flying out to the West Coast of the United States to give a presentation regarding the sanctuary on the campus of an Adventist college. As we settled in, I and the passenger next to me shared with each other the purpose of our trip. Then just as I thought we were done, he sprang this unexpected question to me: “So what are you going to talk about?”

As I struggled to describe the sub­ject of my presentation in a way that would make sense to him, the thought occurred to me that as Adventists we have developed a whole body of lan­guage around the sanctuary theme that is not easy to translate into common speech for the general public. And in one of my books on the sanctuary,² I make the point that in order to fully understand the sanctuary’s central teaching, we need to focus on its essen­tials. As we do this, the entire ancient sanctuary operation divides into three fundamental segments:

1. Atonement in the outer court— which points to Calvary.
2. Intercession in the Holy Place­ which points to the ministry of Jesus, our great High Priest, from the Ascension to probation’s close.
3. Solemn services of the annual Day of Atonement—which symbolizes judgment.

I wish to focus here on one aspect of the final segment.

Scratching where people itch

If the sanctuary doctrine is to remain strong and relevant, it must somehow make contact with the con­temporary mood, addressing both its longings and problems. In other words, it must scratch where people itch today.

What do people around us (and we ourselves) long for most? I would suggest the following, among others: justice, forgiveness, reconciliation, peace, community, renewal, secu­rity. And what problems face us all? Tribalism, estrangement, loneliness, boredom, stress, alienation, hopeless­ness, futility. This article focuses on just one of those contemporary long­ings—the longing for justice. Justice is not only intimately intertwined with judgment but constitutes judgment’s fundamental goal, and thus is a central theme of the sanctuary.

As I labored on my doctoral disser­tation on the doctrine of the sanctuary in the Adventist Church, I shared a quiet room inside the James White library at Andrews University with fellow doctoral student Arthur Ferch. He was working on Daniel 7. I well remember the day when he literally jumped out of his seat, breaking the silence of the enclosed carrel to announce, “I’ve found it!” Carefully poring over the original text, he had just discovered that the judg­ment described in Daniel 7 was taking place in historical time, contemporane­ous with the activities of “the little horn” on earth—which meant that the judgment was happening pre-Advent. This he had always believed, but his excitement came from actually seeing it in the text.

Adventists have tended to con­fine this (pre-Advent) judgment to the comparatively few people who have claimed the name of God over the centuries. But a careful reading of Daniel 7, in conjunction with Daniel 8 and the corresponding sections of the book of Revelation, would indicate that the pre-Advent judgment includes, in its scope, God’s faithful people—“the saints of the Most High” (Dan. 7:18, 22); God’s apostate people, symbolized by “the little horn,” “Babylon,” and the sea beast of Revelation 13 (Dan. 7:8, 11, 20–22, 25, 26; Rev. 13:5–8; 16:10, 11; 18:2, 15–20); “the kings” and “the inhabitants of the earth” cooperating with Babylon (Rev. 17:1, 2; 19:17–20); the devil—“that ancient serpent,” the deceiver of the whole world (Rev. 12:9; 20:1–3); and, finally (in a sense), God Himself (Rev. 15:2–4; 19:1, 2, 11–16).

While it would be impossible to unpack all this in a single article, of course, the listing shows the broad parameters of this extraordinary heav­enly assize. Daniel 7 means to confront nations, institutions, and individuals with the awesome gravity of this cosmic tribunal in session now and with its profound implications for every soul on earth. To believe otherwise is to charge God, inadvertently, with injustice. For in Revelation 16, the seven last plagues from the heavenly sanctuary, “like guided missiles,” pursue only those with “the mark of the beast”—clearly showing that “there has been a prior assessment in order to affix the mark legally to some and not to others.”³

Why it matters

At a time when there is growing impatience and frustration with the administration of justice worldwide, this judgment message, correctly handled, directly addresses the peren­nial human longing for justice.

I sensed this while on a flight from Germany to South Africa in 1995. The woman sitting next to me, perceiv­ing somehow that I was a minister, wanted to know what I thought about the genocides in Bosnia and Rwanda. She could not understand how the perpetrators of such atrocities could get away with it. As I saw the depth of her concern, I began talking to her about (of all things) the judgment; and in surprise I watched her face relax. As I finished, she was actually beaming to know that there is Someone in ultimate control; Someone who eventually will bring the miscreants of this world to justice.

In this connection, I have always been intrigued by Psalm 73, with its depiction of the fate of evil and the destiny of its perpetrators. Asaph, to whom the psalm has been attributed, confesses that he had almost lost his way, obsessing over the prosperity of the wicked. Swollen with arrogance, they “lay claim to heaven” and earth and, in the process, even question the wisdom of God (vv. 6–11). “Always care­free, they increase in wealth,” while the humble and godly suffer harassment and derision (vv. 12–15).

This is the great conundrum of the ages. Is life fair? Is there justice? It almost drove Asaph into agnosticism; and in a million ways, this still plagues our psyche, today. “When I tried to under­stand all this,” Asaph says finally, “it was oppressive to me deeply till I entered the sanctuary of God; then I understood their final destiny” (vv. 16, 17).

Whatever else Asaph’s words might mean, they certainly present the sanctuary as the place where our vision unclouds, where the puzzle of life unravels, where we obtain a fresh concept of ultimate justice. Seen through the lens of the sanctuary, Asaph’s discovery can bring to us, in our times, a sense of security, reconcili­ation, peace, renewal, and hope.

The world cries out for it

The specter of injustice, in our times, overwhelms us. The produc­ers and distributors of pornography, whose multibillion-dollar enterprises wreck countless lives and homes each year, largely get away with it. And so also do many who traffic in illicit drugs and in human beings; murderous gangsters; terrorists, with their wanton maiming and killing of innocent peo­ple; the kingpins of organized crime; and those who oppress the helpless poor. To catalogue the injustices done and experienced in contemporary soci­ety would fill encyclopedic volumes as far as the eyes could see.

The United States ranks among the best countries in the world in regard to justice. Yet it is a country in which a man who murders an innocent 17-year-old black boy, minding his own business on the way home from the corner store, walks free; while a black Tampa, Florida, woman who fires a warning shot into a wall to scare off her estranged, abusive husband—with nobody getting hurt—is sentenced to 20 years in prison.

Today 1,000 trouble spots around the world lie dormant but not dead, because justice was never realized. Revolting genocide and crimes against individuals and humanity go unre­solved and unpunished.

On February 16, 1997, CBS’s 60 Minutes carried a piece by Bob Simon on South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission. The commission was an effort to fully understand the tragic events that took place during the cruel years of apartheid. Describing how the commission worked, Simon, perhaps unwittingly, used language that uncannily spoke to the universal yearning for justice: “The victims tell their stories, stories of atrocities which were literally unspeakable. . . . Then the perpetrators get a chance to own up to their crime, and by doing so, become eligible for amnesty. All they have to do is tell the truth. They don’t even have to say they’re sorry—no apologies, no remorse and no justice.”⁴

The commission certainly answered the deep human yearning for forgiveness, one of the longings listed above; and its architect, Nelson Mandela, appropriately received worldwide commendation. On the other hand, the commission might be seen, essentially, as a symbol of human impotence in the face of mammoth evil on the part of very powerful systems or people. Charity Kondile, the mother of a  boy who’d been killed and burned to ashes by the secret security police, said, painfully, “Imagine some people are in jail for stealing a chocolate, and now men who have committed such crimes will be given amnesty. I mean, that is ridiculous, unbelievable.”⁵

It is against this and many other heart-rending issues that we should trumpet the message of a judgment in session now. If we assume that the “souls” under the altar in Revelation 6:9, 10 refer to religious martyrs across the centuries, then we are right. But if we think that the reference is only to them, then we limit the outrage of an offended God—a God who registers the fall of every sparrow, a God who hurts for the cruelty committed against every human being on earth.

We believe, of course, in mercy. We believe in grace. Where would any of us be without these? Really! But I notice that when Paul, the unequaled cham­pion of grace among early Christian leaders, appeared in Felix’s court, his message included none of these. The record says that “Felix became frightened” as Paul “discussed justice, self-control, and the coming judg­ment” (Acts 24:25, NRSV).

Sometimes we think that God is too good to punish people—that He leaves such dirty work to the devil. But if God Himself does not bring to justice the perpetrators of the bloody crimes and atrocities committed across the centuries, then we live in an immoral universe. In the face of extreme evil, there is a sense in which a “rush to mercy” is insensitive, irresponsible, even immoral—and a sense in which inaction is criminal. On assignment for the United Nations (UN) in Rwanda during its genocide, retired Canadian three-star army general Romeo D’Allaire pleaded in vain to his superiors for help—for food, medicine, and mate­rial—and “just 3000 combat troops.” But tragically, the UN never responded.

The memory of that catastrophic nightmare, and particularly of his own impotence in the wake of that dark evil, shattered D’Allaire’s mental equi­librium and sent him into psychiatric counseling and therapy. At one point, he was downing nine tranquilizers and antidepressants a day to keep from going crazy. In a television inter­view that I watched back in February 2001, D’Allaire openly confessed to ABC’s Kevin Newman that he stood at that time on the verge of committing suicide.⁶

The outrage against injustice lies buried deep within the human psyche.

That is why it is present truth

To look at acts of injustice and tragedy only as signs of the times is often to fail to share the outrage that affects regular people. We can come across as unfeeling, with our heads in the clouds, unaffected by the common afflictions of human beings all around us. Only when we can share society’s collective indignation over the failure of our human systems can we point to the reality of cosmic justice.

A whole catalogue of Old Testament saints, in sync with the “souls under the altar” in the heavenly sanctuary, cry out for judgment, justice, vindication. They represent the cry of millions through the ages and around the world who have been victimized because of their faith, religion, race, ethnic origin, or political beliefs. If this is not one of the most basic concerns of contempo­rary society, then I must be listening to news from another planet.

The judgment referred to in Felix’s court, future in Paul’s day, stands in session now. And God’s “loud voice” message “to every nation, tribe, lan­guage and people” is to “ ‘fear God and give him glory, because the hour of his judgment has come’ ” (Rev. 14:6, 7). The court is seated, and the books have been opened (Dan. 7:10).

Felix trembled, but none of God’s children need to. The ancient day of judgment in Israel ended with the people being declared “ ‘clean from all your sins’ ” (Lev. 16:30); in the judgment of Daniel 7, “the Ancient of Days . . . pronounced judgment in favor of the saints” (v. 22); and in Revelation 19:9, God’s faithful get “ ‘invited to the wedding supper of the Lamb.’ ”

Simply put, judgment in the context of the heavenly sanctuary is God’s action to hold accountable the perpetrators of evil and injustice on this planet and in the cosmos; to clear His name from the besmirchment, slander, and universal stigma that have been cast upon it on account of sin and wickedness in the world and the evil machinations of Satan and his angels; and, finally, to vindicate God’s name and people.

The cry for justice becomes louder with every passing day. But with that cry also comes the increasing realization of the inadequacy of human justice. What human court could adequately take on the human animals that have engineered the bloody horrors and massacres across the centuries? Some of the crimes committed are too com­plex and entrenched for human justice to unravel. And some of the criminals are too powerful and well connected for human courts to prosecute. That is why we need a judge big enough to take on the system, however well established, and big enough to con­front the most entrenched citadels of organized crime, wherever they exist. We need a judge who is absolutely beyond corruption or intimidation. That Judge is Christ, before whose judgment seat we shall all appear (Rom. 14:10; 2 Cor. 5:10).