IV. Crozier’s Sanctuary Question Considered.

But October 22 passed and the Lord did not come. S. S. Snow dropped the question late in October precisely as Miller had dropped it late in March of that year.

But just as Snow came to the rescue of the Millerite movement immediately after Miller’s disappointment, so Hiram Edson was destined to come to the rescue of the Advent movement immediately after Snow’s disappointment.

HOW IT HAPPENED.

Hiram Edson was out in the field praying— behind a shock of fodder, so he stated—on October 22, when the thought came to him that the sanctuary to be cleansed was in heaven. He communicated this thought to O. R. L. Crozier, and together they carefully investigated the question of the sanctuary from a biblical standpoint. Two years later (1846) an elaborate exposition of the sanctuary question was printed in the Day Star, an Advent paper then published in Canandiagua, N. Y. These two men took the position that on October 22, 1844, Christ began the work of cleansing the heavenly sanctuary, and that he would close this work just before he comes again. (“Great Second Advent Movement,” page 193.)  

The Edson-Crozier discovery of the heavenly sanctuary saved the Advent cause. Adventism, as it stands to-day, is a structure built around this theory of the sanctuary.

Edson and Crozier discovered the famous “elastic clause” that saved the day for Adventism. If Christ does not come for a thousand years, Adventists may be found preaching that he is not yet through with his work of cleansing the sanctuary.

THE EDSON-CROZIER THEORY.

Crozier assumed that there are two apartments in heaven, just as there were two apartments in the tabernacle built by Moses. These heavenly apartments are the “holy” and the “most holy” places. Crozier again assumed that services are rendered at different times in these two heavenly apartments, even as there were in the earthly tabernacle. It is assumed that Christ ministered in the first apartment, or “holy” place, in heaven from 33 A.D. until October 22, 1844, when he vacated the “holy” place and took up his work in the “most holy.” He is there now, has been there for the last seventy-five years, and will continue to minister in the “most holy” place until the end of the world. He is performing a work of judgment, trying the cases of the living and the dead.

MOSES’ TABERNACLE.

Measurements.—Forty-five feet long, fifteen feet wide, and fifteen feet high.

Coverings.—First, fine linen (Ex. 25: 33) ; second, goat’s hair (Ex. 25: 4, 5) ; third, red ram’s skins and seal skins. (Smith’s Bible Dictionary.) 

First Apartment.—The “holy” place, fifteen by thirty by fifteen. This apartment contained (1) the table of showbread (Ex. 25: 23-30), (2) the golden candlestick (Ex. 25: 31-33), and (3) the altar of incense (Ex. 30: 1-10).

Second Apartment.—The “most holy” place, a cube of fifteen feet in measurement. This apartment contained (1) the “ark of the covenant,” with a lid of gold called the “mercy seat” (Ex. 25: 10-17) ; (2) the two “tables of the covenant,” the contract between God and Israel (the Ten Commandments) ; (3) a pot of manna; (4) Aaron’s rod that budded; and (5) a copy of “the law” in its entirety (Heb. 9: 4; Deut. 31: 24, 25). These articles were all in the ark of the covenant.

Curtains.—There were three curtains connected with the tabernacle. These were termed “veils.” The first constituted the door of the outer court, the second constituted the door of the “holy” place, and the third was the middle wall between the “holy” and the “most holy”* places. (See McClintock and Strong’s Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge, Article “Veil.”)

The Daily Services.—These were performed by the ordinary priest in the “holy” place, and consisted of diverse sacrifices of animals and food materials. The sinner confessed his sins over the head of the animal, the priest slew the animal, and the priest took a portion of the blood into the tabernacle and sprinkled some of it on the “altar of incense,” which stood immediately before “the veil” separating the two apartments, and poured the rest of the blood out at the base of the altar of burnt offerings in the court in front of the tabernacle. By this daily service the sins of Israel were transferred from the sinner to the victim, and from the victim, by the mediation of the priest, to the sanctuary.

The Day of Atonement.—This was the last day of the year, the tenth day of the seventh month. On this day the first apartment was closed, and the high priest alone ministered in the “most holy” place. The high priest confessed the sins of all Israel over the head of a goat, slew the goat, and sprinkled of its blood on the ark of the contract between God and Israel, and some on the altar of incense before the veil. The high priest then took another goat, confessed his own sins and the sins of all Israel over the goat’s head, and gave this last goat to a responsible man, who led the victim into the wilderness and turned it loose.

This was cleansing the sanctuary.

THREE STEPS.

William Miller.—The Jews spent seventy years in the Babylonian captivity—608-538 B.C. During this time the sanctuary was not in existence. For seven years, therefore, it had not been “cleansed.” Daniel prophesied that “unto twenty-three hundred days” the sanctuary would again be cleansed. (Dan. 8: 14.) Miller warped this entirely out of its setting (which was nothing more than a prophecy of consolation for the exiled Jews in Babylon), and used it as a basis for his belief that, according to 2 Pet. 3: 10, the world was to be burned with fire, and that in the year 1844.

S. S. Snow.—Snow had the same idea.

Edson and Crozier.—These men adopted Miller’s original application of the length of the period, but denied the burning of the world at the end of the time. It is interesting to know that both Edson and Crozier repudiated the entire sanctuary theory which they developed and gave to Adventism almost immediately.

INCONSISTENCIES.

In accepting the Edson-Crozier theory of the sanctuary, Adventists had of necessity to accept the many inconsistencies that came along with it. This is the price one has to pay for his devotion to error. A few of the inconsistencies:

1. In Rev. 3: 21 we read that when Christ ascended he sat down on the throne with his Father. In the Mosaic tabernacle Jehovah’s seat (throne) was over the mercy seat in the “most holy” place. (Ex. 25: 21-31.) Following the analogy, therefore, the Father’s seat, in the heavenly sanctuary, must be in the “most holy” place. Therefore, when our Lord ascended, he must have begun his work in the “most holy” place. But the Edson-Crozier theory places him in the “holy” place, or first apartment, until October 22, 1844, when he left the “holy” place and began his work in the “most holy” place. In order that this may be so, the Father’s throne must have been in the “holy” place, or first apartment, in the heavenly sanctuary, when our Lord ascended, and must have remained in the first apartment until 1844, when it moved back into the “most holy” place. And, strange as it may seem to the casual reader, this theory is precisely what Adventism teaches. Hear this:

“He began his ministry in the holy place, and at the termination of the prophetic days in 1844, as foretold by Daniel the prophet, he entered the most holy place to perform the last division of his solemn work—to cleanse the sanctuary.” (“Great Controversy,” Old Edition, page 266.)

“When Christ commenced his ministry above, on the throne of the Father, that throne was in the first apartment of the heavenly sanctuary.” (“Looking Unto Jesus,” page 134.)

2. But our Lord went into the “most holy” place in heaven when he ascended. (Rev. 3: 21; Heb. 1: 2; Col. 3: 1; Acts 2: 34; Heb. 1: 13; Heb. 8: 1; Heb. 10: 12; Heb. 12: 2; Eph. 1: 20; Acts 7: 55, 58; Heb. 9: 24.)
3. From Lev. 16: 17 we read that there was no man in the tabernacle of the congregation on the day of atonement; and from Rev. 15: 8 we learn that when the work of judgment is being performed in this dispensation the temple will be filled with smoke, so that no one will be permitted to enter while the work of judgment is proceeding. This means that probation will have closed. Putting these passages together, it is easy to see that if Christ is now performing the last work of judgment, then the tabernacle in heaven is closed and mercy also has been withdrawn. In the next short chapter we shall learn of the surprise that awaited the Advent movement on this point.

THE VEIL.

“Within the Veil.”—Paul, in Heb. 6: 20, tells us that when Christ ascended he went “into that which is within the veil.” We propose to show that “within the veil” means within the “most holy” place.

1. “The veil shall separate unto you between the holy place and the most holy.” (Ex. 26: 33.)
2. “Within the veil the ark of the testimony.” (Ex. 26: 33.)
3. “Within the veil, before the mercy seat.” (Lev. 16: 2.)
4. “Within the veil,. . . the mercy seat.” (Lev. 16: 12, 13.)

There is not a single passage in all the word of God that uses “within the veil” so that it could possibly mean anything other than in the “most holy” place.

“Without the Veil.” —If “within the veil,” then, means at all times and under all circumstances within the “most holy” place, beyond doubt “without the veil” means out in the “holy” place.

1. “Set the table without the veil.” (Ex. 26:35.).
2. “In the tabernacle of the congregation without the veil.” (Ex. 27: 20, 21.)
3. “The table, …without the veil.” (Ex. 40: 22.

“Before the Veil.”

1. “The…altar…before the veil.” (Ex. 40: 26.)
2. “Sprinkle of the blood seven times before the Lord,…even before the veil.” (Lev. 4: 6, 17.) This service took place daily in the first apartment.

“THE HANGING.”

1. “Thou shalt make a hanging for the door.” (Ex. 26: 36.)
2. “And he set up the hanging at the door of the tabernacle.” (Ex. 40: 28.)
3. In Ex. 26: 31, 36 the “hanging,” which is pointed out as the door of the tabernacle, is carefully distinguished from “the veil,” similarly pointed out as the wall between the two apartments.
4. In Ex. 40: 21, 28 the “veil” is once more, and in the same way, carefully distinguished from the “hanging.”

That which God has separated man should not seek to join together.

In the face of these very plain and unanswerable teachings of the word of God, no less an authority than Mrs. Ellen G. White, the lifelong prophetess of Adventism, allows herself to go on record with the following assertion:

“The ministration of the priest throughout the year in the first apartment of the sanctuary, ‘within the veil,’ which formed the door and separated the holy from the outer court, represented the work of ministration upon which Christ entered at his ascension.” (“Great Controversy,” page 420.)

Query: How could “within the veil” form the door to anything? Mrs. White’s inspired pen (?) wrote this statement.

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CONTENTS