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The Two Mysteries of the Sanctuary Revealed

 

I am writing to you today from the beautiful Tampa Bay area.

 

Friday’s section of this week’s SS lesson says, “Think about the fact that Lucifer was a “perfect” being and yet iniquity was found in him.” This is a mind boggling thought. How could someone so perfect become so sinful? This is the mystery of iniquity, and here is what Ellen White has to say in the book Great Controversy p. 493, “Sin is an intruder, for whose presence no reason can be given. It is mysterious, unaccountable; to excuse it, is to defend it. Could excuse for it be found, or cause be shown for its existence, it would cease to be sin.”

 

This brings up the two mysteries in the Great Controversy between God and Satan. The first is the mystery of iniquity. How could someone so perfect become so sinful? Is it God’s fault for making us with a free will or is Lucifer to blame?

 

The question is answered and the controversy is settled with another mystery. The cleansing of the sanctuary will place the blame for sin upon Satan and will also present a mystery of its own. Speaking of the sanctuary service in Revelation 10, verse seven tells us “the mystery of God should be finished” The mystery of God is the exact opposite of the mystery of iniquity. First lets see what the mystery of God is. Colossians 1:27-28 reads, “To whom God would make known what [is] the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory: Whom we preach, warning every man, and teaching every man in all wisdom; that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus.” So while the mystery of iniquity asks, how could someone so perfect become so sinful, the mystery of Godliness will counteract that by taking a sinful people and making them perfect in Christ. Revelation 7 tells us about people from every tribe and walk of life, who will be sealed with the Character of God before Christ returns. Sound impossible? Remember that sin seemed as impossible in heaven as perfection seems here on earth. Both are mysteries.

 

As we continue to explore the atonement this quarter the sanctuary will reveal to us the true character of God and the true character of Satan. The lies will all be washed away. Satan’s only power over Eve was his power to lie. Without lies Satan is totally powerless. He has no power. All he has are lies. The cleansing of the sanctuary will wash away all of Satan’s lies leaving him powerless. With a lie Satan gained control of Eve and the human race. The truth found in the sanctuary will free us from those lies and from Satan’s control and thus will begin the mystery of Godliness, and a race of people from all different backgrounds being sealed with God’s character. All the blame for sin, suffering, and rebellion will be placed on Satan; the scapegoat. No one will blame God for the sin problem anymore and we will be reconciled to Him. Thus the mystery of godliness will overtake the mystery of iniquity.

 

Someone asked me just this week, “If Satan who was so perfect became so sinful, how do I know I will not sin in heaven?” The answer has nothing to do with our natures. Satan sinned with a perfect nature. Jesus perfectly obeyed in a human nature. Jesus obeyed because He knew something we did not, the truth about Satan’s lies. The cleansing of the sanctuary washes away Satan’s lies thus cleansing us from all unrighteousness both now and forever!

 

check out the Bible Studies at In Light of the Cross.

Was The Atonement to Appease an Angry God or an Angry Race?

I am writing from the beautiful Tampa Bay area. 

These are my thoughts as we begin studying the atonement in this quarter’s SS Lesson.

But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.  Romans 5:8

 

Was the atonement and sacrifice of Christ a matter of vengeance? Did God the Father send His Son to die because He needed to see someone suffer for the rebellion?   Do we serve a God that just has to see somebody suffer and pay the price for disobeying Him? Really, why did Christ have to die?

 

There is so much more to the atonement than we mortals can even begin to imagine. Satan would like us to be short sighted and only see God becoming a man and thus providing a human sacrifice to appease an angry God. Nothing could be farther from the truth. First of all, God is not angry with us, but rather we are angry with God. The atonement is not about us making peace with God it’s about God making peace with us! After the fall, it was not God running from man but man running from God. It was God who wanted to make an atonement, not man. When God came to earth the angels announced “Peace on earth good will towards man” not “God is over in Bethlehem and boy is He angry with you, you’d better go over there and talk to Him and see if you can get this thing straightened out!” God Himself had already straightened things out between us when He became “The Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.”

 

God did not need to see His Son or someone else suffer in order to be satisfied. Simply put, God says, “But he that sinneth against me wrongeth his own soul: all they that hate me love death.” Proverbs 8:36 It is not that God wants to see someone suffer but rather that the sinner loves death. God does not want us to love death, He wants us to love life! Romans 8:7 tells us clearly what the problems is. God is not at enmity with us but rather “the carnal mind [is] enmity against God.”

 

So why is the carnal mind at enmity with God? Because we have bought into Satan’s lie that God is not a God of love. That He is really quite selfish and only thinks of Himself. The carnal mind also believes that only Satan and a lawless society can make us happy. Satan has deceived the human race into thinking that God is a selfish tyrant forcing people to worship Him and obey His laws because He is wrapped up in Himself. Satan has deceived the human race and even a third of the angels into thinking that Satan is more concerned about our welfare and happiness than God is.

 

This is why there needed to be an atonement. Not so that an angry God could see someone suffer, but so that humanity could see the real character of God and the real character of Satan. God provided an atonement not so much for our sin but because our minds and attitude need to be healed.  (Salvation comes from the word, “salvo,” which means healing.  The Bible states Jesus came to save his people from their sins.  What this actually means is Jesus came to heal us by removing Satan’s lies from our minds, which is the cleansing of the sanctuary). And not just for our attitude but also the attitude of all the angels, fallen and unfallen. In John 8, Jesus calls Satan a murderer from the very start. Who did Satan murder in heaven? Remember Jesus says if you want to commit murder, it is as if you already have. When Satan said he wanted to sit on the throne of the Most High there was murder in his heart as you can only take the throne if you kill the one already on it. Meanwhile, Satan is trying to convince the angels that God is selfish and he is the only one who cares about others. A third of the angels go with Satan while the others stayed but were not totally convinced about who was right.

 

The cross more than atones for sin, it also atones our attitude with God’s attitude. At the cross we see Satan and see his true colors. While telling the angels he was the only one who really cared for them, at the Cross we see Satan is willing to kill anyone who gets in his way of being number one. Satan is all about preserving self at the expense of others. Meanwhile, at the cross we see the true colors of God. While Satan accused Christ of being selfish, we see that Christ is willing to die in order to save the world. Christ wants to preserve others even at His own expense.

 

God did not need to see Jesus die in order to be atoned with us, but rather we needed to see Jesus die in order for our attitude to be atoned with His attitude. Christ’s suffering was not to appease an angry God but rather to appease an angry human race and the rest of the universe that had questions about His true character.

 

Satan uses pagan religions and pagan gods to skew our understanding of the Christian religion and the True God. In pagan religions, the people make human sacrifices to get the god to accept them. The Aztecs were making human sacrifices up until the 1500s in order to get the sun to rise. They thought the sun would not rise unless the gods saw them making a human sacrifice. In Christianity the exact opposite is true. The God sacrifices Himself to get the people to accept Him. God is not at war with humanity; humanity is at war with God. God the Father did not need to see his Son suffer to change His attitude towards us as much as we needed to see God suffer on the cross to change our attitude towards Him, thus the atonement.

 

May God richly bless our understanding of the atonement as we study this quarter and throughout all eternity.

 

 

Please also visit my personal website, In Light Of The Cross.