The good news of the pre-Advent judgment

If we are saved by faith and not by works,¹ what does it mean, then, to be judged by works?² Not just Seventh-day Adventists but other Christians, too, have wrestled with this question.³

How do we reconcile these two biblical truths? This article claims that we find the answer specifically in Daniel 8:14.

Every secret thing

If we put aside, for now, anything distinctly Adventist, one truth echoes loudly through Scripture.

“For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil” (Eccl. 12:14, KJV).

“Every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment” (Matt. 12:36, KJV).

God “will bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and will make manifest the counsels of the hearts” (1 Cor. 4:5, KJV).

“For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may be recompensed for his deeds in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad” (2 Cor. 5:10, NASB).

“For it is time for judgment to begin with the household of God; and if it begins with us first, what will be the outcome for those who do not obey the gospel of God?” (1 Peter 4:17, NASB).

No wonder that, in the context of judgment, Ellen G. White, having just quoted some of those verses and more, wrote that every “work passes in review before God and is registered for faithfulness or unfaithfulness. Opposite each name in the books of heaven is entered with terrible exactness every wrong word, every selfish act, every unfulfilled duty, and every secret sin, with every artful dissembling. Heaven-sent warnings or reproofs neglected, wasted moments, unimproved opportunities, the influence exerted for good or for evil, with its far-reaching results, all are chronicled by the recording angel.”⁴

So how well will you fare when you must answer for every idle word, when every secret thing is judged, and when what you have hidden in darkness is, with “terrible exactness,” brought to light?

Day of Atonement

The answer appears in Daniel 8:14—“And he said to me, ‘For two thousand three hundred days; then the sanctuary shall be cleansed’ ” (NKJV).

First, the passage is talking about the sanctuary. The earthly sanctuary in the wilderness or the temples in Jerusalem were where God revealed the gospel to ancient Israel. Every animal sacrifice was a mini prophecy that pointed to the death of Jesus as our perfect substitute, our atoning sacrifice for sin. And the intercessory work of the priests in the sanctuaries foreshadowed our High Priest in the heavenly sanctuary, Jesus Christ (Hebrews 8:1–6). The earthly sanctuary cultus, in essence, was the plan of salvation taught in symbols.

Second, the sanctuary is cleansed. To this day, the Jews still understand the Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur, as a time of judgment. How fascinating and crucial that when you parallel Daniel 7 and 8, the cleansing of the sanctuary in Daniel 8:14 parallels the great judgment scene in Daniel 7:9, 10, 13, 26, which itself leads to the second coming of Jesus (Dan. 7:14, 27)—hence, a pre-Advent judgment. The pre-Advent judgment in Daniel 7 and the cleansing of the sanctuary in Daniel 8 both depict the same event (although Daniel 8 suffuses it with sanctuary imagery).

Here, in this sanctuary ritual, is the answer to how we, as sinners, make it through the judgment.

Leviticus 16 depicts the Yom Kippur ritual in some detail, but for our purposes, one element is crucial.

“Thus Aaron shall come into the Holy Place: with the blood of a young bull as a sin offering. . . .

“He shall take some of the blood of the bull and sprinkle it with his finger on the mercy seat.

“Then he shall kill the goat . . . , bring its blood inside the veil, do with that blood as he did with the blood of the bull. . . . And he . . . shall take some of the blood of the bull and some of the blood of the goat. . . . He shall sprinkle some of the blood . . .” (Lev. 16:3, 14, 15, 18, 19, NKJV).

Blood, blood, blood. It is Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement), not Yom Ahseret Hadebarim (Day of the Ten Commandments [literally “Ten Words”]), and atonement comes only by blood, not by the law. And any day dedicated to atonement, to what Christ does for us by His shed blood, should be good news.

How, then, has it been turned into a negative for so many? The answer is easy: They took people into the Most Holy Place of the heavenly sanctuary, where the judgment takes place—but without blood. And without blood, there is only law, and the law never atones but always condemns. Just as Israel needed a priest to mediate the blood for them, we, too, must have Jesus mediating His blood for us—now and especially in the judgment.

“Now this is the main point of the things we are saying: We have such a High Priest, who is seated at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens, a Minister of the sanctuary and of the true tabernacle which the Lord erected, and not man” (Heb. 8:1, NKJV).

“Who is he who condemns? It is Christ who died, and furthermore is also risen, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us” (Rom. 8:34, NKJV).

“Therefore He is also able to save to the uttermost those who come to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them” (Heb. 7:25, NKJV).

Peshayim

You might be faithful—and we are called to be faithful. You might be obedient—and we are called to be obedient. You might be holy—and we are called to be holy. But are you faithful enough, obedient enough, and holy enough to get through the judgment, which will expose every secret thing before God?

Crucial to the Yom Kippur ritual is Leviticus 16:16, which explains why the sanctuary needed cleansing and why we need the blood and a Mediator to minister the blood on our behalf: “So he shall make atonement for the Holy Place, because of the uncleanness of the children of Israel, and because of their transgressions, for all their sins; and so he shall do for the tabernacle of meeting which remains among them in the midst of their uncleanness” (NKJV).

The people are guilty of—what? Uncleanliness, transgressions, and sins? The Hebrew for “transgressions,” peshayim, is the harshest and strongest word for sin in the Old Testament. So however faithful, obedient, and holy the people seek to be, especially on Yom Kippur, the text assumes their sinfulness, the precise reason the sanctuary needs to be cleansed.

Twice (vv. 29, 31), the Hebrews are told, “Afflict your souls” on that day. Though debate exists over the precise meaning, it surely included fasting (Isa. 58:3; Ezra 8:21), repentance, humility, self-denial, and confession of sin, all of which imply the inherent sinfulness of the people, even on Yom Kippur. Also, because the command to “afflict your souls” was “a statute forever” (Lev. 16:31, NKJV), one can assume they are going to need blood and mediation year after year as well, for the same reason that they required it that particular year: “because of the uncleanness of the children of Israel, and because of their transgressions, for all their sins” (v. 16).

Our heavenly High Priest

In the same book in which she wrote about God going over the records “with terrible exactness,” Ellen G. White also explained what Jesus does for His people in that judgment.

“Jesus does not excuse their sins, but shows their penitence and faith, and, claiming for them forgiveness, he lifts his wounded hands before the Father and the holy angels, saying, ‘I know them by name. I have graven them on the palms of my hands.’ ”⁵

Jesus does not excuse their what? Sins? They sound like those depicted in Leviticus 16:16, sinners in need of grace—precisely what they get on Yom Kippur with all that blood.

She continues:

Man cannot meet these charges himself. In his sin-stained garments, confessing his guilt, he stands before God. But Jesus our Advocate presents an effectual plea in behalf of all who by repentance and faith have committed the keeping of their souls to Him. He pleads their cause and vanquishes their accuser by the mighty arguments of Calvary. . . .

. . . But while we should realize our sinful condition, we are to rely upon Christ as our righteousness, our sanctification, and our redemption. We cannot answer the charges of Satan against us. Christ alone can make an effectual plea in our behalf. He is able to silence the accuser with arguments founded not upon our merits, but on His own.⁶

Sin-stained garments? Guilt? Sinful condition? No wonder they need arguments founded on Christ’s merits, not their own.

Harmony with the law of God

But what about the judgment by works? How does that fit in here? She writes: “All who have truly repented of sin, and by faith claimed the blood of Christ as their atoning sacrifice, have had pardon entered against their names in the books of heaven; as they have become partakers of the righteousness of Christ, and their characters are found to be in harmony with the law of God, their sins will be blotted out, and they themselves will be accounted worthy of eternal life.”⁷

The key phrase is “their characters found in harmony with the law of God.” “Found” as in investigated; “found” as in judged. Their works, their deeds, and “every secret thing” are exposed, revealed, and what do they show: sinlessness, or a people who—having “become partakers of the righteousness of Christ”—manifest characters “in harmony with the law of God”?

Whatever their faults, whatever their past mistakes, now their lives, works, deeds, and words show the reality of their faith and the depth of their repentance (“Jesus does not excuse their sins, but shows their penitence and faith”⁸). The judgment, therefore, is not when God finally decides to accept or reject us but when He finalizes our choice whether or not we have truly accepted Him, a choice made manifest by our works. And those works reveal a life “in harmony with the law of God.”

In 1962 the Americans launched Mariner 1, which quickly veered off course. After a few minutes airborne but before the rocket could damage anything below, a NASA engineer had it self-destruct.

What happened? One letter of computer code was wrong. One. Though the code was basically “in harmony” with what was needed, it was not exact, and the launch failed.

A character in harmony with the law of God is a wonderful thing, but in terms of salvation, it is no better than that failed rocket. Only the perfect righteousness of Jesus, which is “the righteousness of God” Himself (Rom. 3:22), can get us through the pre-Advent judgment. And this righteousness is what the Day of Atonement ritual foreshadows, a foreshadowing made real in the gospel promise of Daniel 8:14.