I grew up in Adventism picturing Jesus busily working in the heavenly sanctuary. With the help of the illustrations in my Adventist textbooks, storybooks, and other Adventist publications, I had a clear mental image of Him dressed like Aaron the high priest. He wore a breastplate with 12 stones; He had a Urim and a Thummim on His breastplate, and he had a blue linen ephod over a white garment and a white linen cap with a golden crown having the words “Holy To The Lord” engraved on it.
The Adventist high priestly Jesus was always standing in front of the golden cherubim bowing over the mercy seat on top of the golden altar in which (we were told) the Ten Commandment tablets lay, and this Jesus was usually pictured mediating the prayers of the obedient Adventists huddled in earnest petition on the dark earth below. This Jesus was looking for repentance from every single sin the faithful overcomers had committed so He could finally apply His blood and forgive them permanently.
In fact, this Aaron-like priest was at the center of the Adventist “sanctuary doctrine”. He had gone into the heavenly Most Holy Place where He began His “mediation” in the presence of the ark of God and the mercy seat in 1844. It was important for Him to be dressed like Aaron because He was the heavenly “anti-type” of the earthly high priests. Dressing Him like Aaron would help us understand that He was in heaven doing what Aaron and his descendants had done on the Day of Atonement, only He was “applying His blood” instead of the blood of animals.
Where did this idea come from?
Readers who have never been Adventist might well wonder how Adventists ever got such beliefs, and the answer would be simple: Ellen White. In the early days after the Great Disappointment of October 22, 1844, when Jesus did not return as William Miller had predicted, a persistent group of early Adventists who did not repent of their date-setting coalesced and founded a new movement. Led by Joseph Bates, James White, and James’s young wife Ellen G. Harmon White, a prophetess, these disappointed but determined early Adventists hammered out a set of doctrines for their fledgling church which eventually organized and adopted the name Seventh-day Adventists.
Adventism depends upon Ellen White’s interpretation of Scripture. Even though today many say they do not read her nor believe her, the fact remains: Adventist doctrine and the Adventist worldview are shaped entirely on the basis of Ellen White’s visions, commentary, and inspiration.
The Adventist history book used for years at the Adventist seminary at Andrews University quotes Ellen White in this excerpt explaining how the early Adventists arrived at their doctrinal positions:
…they were hammered out as the result of Bible study, discussion, and prayer. Much of the time, Ellen White testified, she could not understand the texts under discussion and the issues involved. Yet she later remembered that when the brethren who were studying, “came to the point…where they said, ‘We can do nothing more’ the Spirit of the Lord would come upon me, I would be taken off in vision, and a clear explanation of the passages we had been studying would be given me, with instruction as to how we were to labor and teach effectively.” Because the participants “knew that when not in vision, I could not understand these matters,…they accepted as light direct from heaven the revelations given” (R.W. Schwartz, Lightbearers To the Remnant, Department of Education, General Conference of SDA, 1979, p. 68–69).
The Adventist dependence upon Ellen White, however, opposes Scripture’s clear declaration about itself:
For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account (Heb. 4:12–13).
As we look at the Adventist interpretation of Jesus and His high priestly work, it is crucial that we remember Adventism’s own declaration of how they developed their doctrines. They tell converts and the public that all of their doctrines are based on Scripture alone, yet internally they acknowledge and teach that their doctrines derived from Ellen White’s visions. They admit that the founders and Ellen White herself did not understand Scripture and had to have outside visions in order to come up with their doctrines.
Ellen White’s law
Because of Ellen White, Adventism teaches that the law is the revelation of the character of God and the standard of righteousness by which the saved will be measured.
In the Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary Ellen White is quoted:
The great standard of righteousness presented in the Old Testament is not lowered in the New. It is not the work of the Gospel to weaken the claims of God’s holy law, but to bring men up where they can keep its precepts.
The faith in Christ which saves the soul is not what it is represented by many. “Believe, Believe,” is their cry; “Only believe in Christ and you will be saved. It is all you have to do.” While true faith trusts wholly in Christ for salvation, it will lead to perfect conformity to the law of God.
The enemy has ever labored to disconnect the law and the gospel. They go hand and hand.
We honor both the Father and the Son when we talk about the law. The Father gave us the law, and the Son died to magnify it and make it honorable (SDA Bible Commentary, book 6, Ellen G. White’s Comments section, p. 1072–1073, on Rom. 3:24–28).
As an Adventist, I believed that the law was eternal, that Jesus lived to demonstrate how we could keep the law as He did, and that He died to uphold and establish the law as a continuing requirement for all people and a binding measure of righteousness for Christians. Therefore, because the law was eternal, all people were required to keep the seventh-day Sabbath.
Thus Jesus, as the high priest in heaven, was waiting for true believers to perfect their law-keeping, especially their honoring of the seventh-day Sabbath, and He was waiting for every prayer of repentance for every transgression against the law that professed believers committed. This heavenly investigative judgment of believers’ law-keeping and punctilious repentance was the essence of what we as Adventists called “the sanctuary doctrine”.
The law was changed
Imagine our shock one evening in the mid-1990s when, as we were discovering the gospel and realizing Adventism was not based on the Bible alone, our older son Roy came out of his bedroom and announced to us: “Hey! Hebrews 7:12: ‘For when the priesthood is changed, of necessity, there takes place a change of law also.’”
Richard and I grabbed our Bibles and looked for ourselves. Sure enough; right there in Scripture was the declaration that the priesthood of Jesus was not the same as the Levitical priesthood. Jesus was of the order of Melchizedek, not of Levi, and with a change in the priesthood, the law also had to change. What did that mean?
Hebrews 7:11 made this reality even more clear:
"Now if perfection was through the Levitical priesthood (for on the basis of it the people received the Law), what further need was there for another priest to arise according to the order of Melchizedek, and not be designated according to the order of Aaron?"
This text reveals three important things. First, there are two kinds of God-appointed priesthoods in the Bible: one in the levitical order, and the other in the order of Melchizedek. Second, these two priesthoods administer different laws. Finally, Israel received their law on the basis of the Levitical priesthood.
In other words, in the Bible, “law” is formulated on the basis of the priesthood that administers it. One order of priesthood cannot administer a law based on a different order of priesthood. Therefore, if Jesus is not in the order of Aaron and the Levitical priesthood, then the law of Christ cannot be the same law that involved a Levitical priesthood. It has to be a different law!
Who was Melchizedek?
What does it mean that Jesus is not a priest according to the order of Levi but rather of Melchizedek? If He is our high priest in heaven—and the book of Hebrews is clear that He is—how are we to understand that fact? As Adventists, the only high priest we knew wore a breastplate, a blue linen ephod, had a Urim and a Thummim, and stood in front of the heavenly ark of the covenant mediating the incense of Adventists’ prayers!
In order to understand what it means that Jesus is a Melchizedek priest instead of a levitical priest, we need to know what the Bible tells us about Melchizedek.
There are three places in Scripture where Melchizedek is mentioned. The first is Genesis 14, and this passage gives us the brief story of this mysterious but real figure. There was an ancient war of the kings in the region near the Dead Sea. In the course of the battle, the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah fell into tar pits, and the surviving warriors fled—but not before taking all the goods and food supplies of Sodom and Gomorrah. They also took Lot, Abraham’s nephew, who was living in Sodom.
Abraham heard that Lot had been captured, and he pursued his captors with his own trained army of 318 men. Abraham and his men defeated those kings, retrieved Lot, the food supplies, and all the captured women, and brought them back.
Genesis 14:18–20 then introduces Melchizedek:
"And Melchizedek king of Salem brought out bread and wine; now he was a priest of God Most High. He blessed him and said, “Blessed be Abram of God Most High, Possessor of heaven and earth; And blessed be God Most High, Who has delivered your enemies into your hand. He gave him a tenth of all."
We learn several important facts about Melchizedek in this passage. First, he was a king and he was also a priest. His royal rule was over Salem—the same city that later became known as Jerusalem. In his role as priest, he served the Most High God. Importantly, Melchizedek’s priesthood predated the law. Levi had not yet been born; Israel was not yet a nation.
Also importantly, under the levitical law, kings and priests could never be the same person. Kings came from the tribe of Judah; priests came from the tribe of Levi. No Israelite could hold a dual office because the offices were designated by the tribe. Melchizedek, however, predated the law and was not ruled by it.
Another thing we learn is that Melchizedek fed Abraham bread and wine, refreshing him after his slaughter of the kings. Melchizedek also blessed Abraham, and Abraham paid tithe to Melchizedek.
In other words, Abraham recognized Melchizedek’s God-given authority over him. He honored him as a king, but even more significantly, he honored him as a priest of God, paying him tithe of his war spoils and receiving a blessing from him.
The second place we hear of Melchizedek is from David in Psalm 110:4. Psalm 110 is a Messianic psalm written by David, the one to whom God covenanted that a descendant of his would always sit on the throne. In fact, the Messiah was designated throughout Old Testament prophecies as the Son of David.
In verse 4 of Psalm 110, David writes:
"The Lord has sworn and will not change His mind. You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek."
Clearly, David was writing a prophecy about someone greater than himself. He was writing about someone who would be a priest “forever”, not just for a human lifetime. He would be “forever”, and his priesthood would be according to the order of Melchizedek.
Because of what we know from Genesis 14, we can conclude certain things about this prophesied “forever” priesthood. It would not be like the priesthood of those levitical priests who served in the Tabernacle at the time of David. Those priests served under the law and received their instructions for service from the law. Every ritual, sacrifice, and function of the priesthood was determined by the law. This coming priest, however, like Melchizedek, would not be under the law. Melchizedek’s priesthood was outside the law and encompassed interceding for God, blessing those who came to him, providing food for them, and receiving offerings. Moreover, Melchizedek’s priesthood allowed him to hold the office of king as well as of priest.
David, who may not have fully understood the prophecy he was writing as the Holy Spirit inspired him, spoke of One to come who would be a priest different from those David knew. This coming one would be a priest like the great priest in Genesis: he would serve the Most High God with authority directly from God, unmediated by a law.
Melchizedek in Hebrews
The author of Hebrews picks up the subject of Melchizedek and explains his significance more deeply. In fact, Hebrews 7:1–10 unpacks how this ancient figure foreshadowed Jesus and shows how David’s prophecy is fulfilled in Christ. In this passage, we learn that Melchizedek’s name means “King of righteousness”. Moreover, we learn that his royal title, King of Salem, actually means King of Peace.
The writer of Hebrews goes even further and compares the fact that the Bible is silent about the personal details of Melchizedek with the miraculous lineage of Jesus. He says of Melchizedek, “Without father, without mother, without genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor end of life, but made like the Son of God, he remains a priest perpetually” (v. 3).
Moreover, Melchizedek blessed Abraham. The author of Hebrews makes a point to explain that blessings are given by the greater to the lesser; the person with more authority and greatness blesses the person with less. In fact, the author explicitly points out that Abraham, the one to whom God gave the promises of seed, land, and blessing and through whom the whole earth would be blessed—this great Abraham was blessed by someone even greater: Melchizedek.
In fact, Abraham was the greatest of the patriarchs. He was the one who was blessed with God’s promises and through whom all God’s people are named! In Jewish history, no one except the Lord Jesus Himself—and Melchizedek—is greater than Abraham.
Furthermore, the author of Hebrews explains that Melchizedek was greater than Levi, the father of the priestly tribe; in effect, Levi himself paid tithe to Melchizedek because Levi was still in the loins of his great-grandfather Abraham. By Abraham’s paying tithe to Melchizedek, Abraham demonstrated that he and all his descendants were less than this ancient priest-king who met him after war.
Importantly, Hebrews also discloses that Melchizedek was not from the priestly tribe, yet he performed the role of a priest to Abraham who had been given divine promises!
What about Levitical high priests?
Since the author of Hebrews goes on to contrast the order of Melchizedek as superior to the order of Levi, let’s review what we know about levitical high priests and their duties. First, as both the Old Testament and Hebrews 7 explain, levitical high priests were appointed by law. They received their offices by the legally established rules of inheritance; they had to be descended from the tribe of Levi, and they had to be descended from specific sons of Aaron in order to qualify as high priests.
Levitical high priests had to offer sacrifices for themselves as well as for the people. In other words, they had no advantage the people did not have in terms of forgiveness or innocence. They had to offer sacrifices for their own sins. Moreover, they were weak and impermanent, and they died. They held the office of high priest for only a few short years.
Finally, their sacrifices were only cleansed ritually; they never removed sin. They only offered animal sacrifices, and while God granted ritual cleansing for those sacrifices, they never made the people truly clean. They could not remove sin.
Jesus: a Melchizedek high priest
Now that we have seen the significance and symbolism of the ancient man Melchizedek and also the characteristics of the levitical priests, we can understand why the Lord used Melchizedek as the type of Jesus and introduced him to Israel both in Genesis and in the Psalms to prepare His people for the coming reality: the Messiah, the Lord Jesus!
Jesus had no beginning and no ending. Just as Hebrews 7 says Melchizedek had no genealogy and remained a figure whose beginning and ending were utterly obscure, so the Lord Jesus actually has no beginning and no end. Further, like Melchizedek, Jesus is greater than both Abraham and Levi.
Also like Melchizedek, Jesus did not descend from the priestly tribe of Levi. In other words, he was not a legal priest. Under the law, He would have been disqualified as a priest. Moreover, Jesus was from the tribe of Judah, the royal tribe. As Hebrews 7:13 says, no one from the tribe of Judah ever “officiated at the altar”. Like Melchizedek, Jesus is both a king (legally and physically, according to the law’s designation of the tribe of Judah and according to God’s promise to David) and a priest—but His priesthood is NOT according to the law, as Melchizedek’s was not. Jesus’s priesthood is, as the author of Hebrews states in 7:16, not on the “basis of a law of physical requirement, but according to the power of an indestructible life.”
Unlike the weak and impermanent levitical priests who cannot maintain their priesthood because of death, Jesus is a priest on the basis of a life that is indestructible. He has no ending!
Hebrews 7:20–21 explains that Jesus’ priesthood was appointed by an oath of God. He is, therefore, a king by descent and a priest by God’s oath. His priesthood has no end; like the foreshadowing of the mysterious Melchizedek, his priesthood is perpetual, and just as Melchizedek blessed Abraham and his unborn descendants, Jesus also blesses the descendants of Abraham.
The truth about the law and Jesus
In order to understand the limitations of the levitical priesthood, we must understand that the entire law was only a shadow of reality, “not the very form of things”, as Hebrews 10:1 states. According to Hebrews 10, the law made nothing perfect. It demanded animal sacrifices which could never take away sins, and they were offered by mortal priests who had no enduring office (Heb. 7). Moreover, the law had rituals and sabbaths which were only shadows of the reality found in Christ (Col. 2:16–17).
The law was a conditional covenant that depended on two-way promises between God and the nation of Israel. It was flawed, however, because those it governed (the Israelites) as well as those who mediated the terms of the covenant (the priests) were flawed sinners (see Heb. 8:7–13). As sinners, the Israelites could not make eternal promises which could not be broken.
The law, which contained all the details of Israel’s civil, moral, and religious life and unique identity, was given to the Israelites on the basis of the Levitical priesthood, as 7:11 explicitly states. Therefore, the priests oversaw the law’s requirements and mediated ritual cleansing for sinful Israel—rites and ceremonies which were mere shadows of the good things to come.
In other words, since the priests were weak, flawed, and impermanent since the sacrifices provided ritual cleansing but could not remove sin, this law of shadows had priests who were shadows who offered sacrifices that were shadows—all of which foreshadowed the “good things to come” that were realized in the person of Christ.
Jesus, however, is better than the law. He is the eternal, sinless, righteous High Priest and cannot mediate a law of shadows—because He is not a shadow. He is the Reality!
Jesus is the guarantee of a better covenant. He is an eternal High Priest. He is the perfect Sacrifice sufficient for all past, present, and future sins!
Adventist art: perceptions imprinted with pictures
As Adventists, many of us felt confused about the “sanctuary service” as Adventists. We couldn’t have explained what it was, what Jesus was supposed to be doing, or what its purpose was. While these details matter under the surface, we are tempted to think they don’t really matter to us.
The reality, though, is that even though we didn’t necessarily understand the doctrine, without knowing it, we were deeply taught that Jesus is the wrong kind of priest.
Look at the picture above; what kind of priest is Jesus? Let’s observe his garments. He is wearing a breastplate with 12 stones. He has a gold, purple, scarlet, and blue ephod over a white linen robe. He has Urim and Thummim stones on the sides of the breastplate. He has onyx stones on his shoulders a sash and a turban. He’s standing in front of a golden ark with cherubim on the sides. Jesus is pictured exactly as the levitical high priests are described in Exodus when they wear their full regalia.
Jesus in Adventist art is pictured as an Aaronic high priest wearing the garb Aaron and all his descendants wore to signify their holy calling on a daily basis. The Adventist Jesus, garbed in full levitical high priest regalia, stands in front of the ark of the covenant in heaven mediating the prayers of Adventist believers. In fact, Ellen White said Jesus answers those who believed Jesus began the investigative judgment in 1844 and had asked forgiveness of every sin and had kept the law.
Adventist art reflects Ellen White’s teaching that whenever true Adventist believers pray, Jesus mediates their prayers before the ark of God, and He answers them.
Priestly garments and the Day of Atonement
Where did Adventists get the idea that Christ was an Old Testament priest?
Ellen White had a vision showing Jesus dressed like a levitical high priest. Read her own words:
I was then shown what did take place in heaven as the prophetic periods ended in 1844. I saw that as the ministration of Jesus in the Holy place ended, and he closed the door of that apartment, a great darkness settled upon those who had heard, and had rejected the messages of Christ’s coming, and they lost sight of him. Jesus then clothed himself with precious garments. Around the bottom of his robe was a bell and a pomegranate, a bell and a pomegranate. He had suspended from his shoulders a breastplate of curious work. And as he moved, it glittered like diamonds, magnifying letters which looked like names written, or engraven upon the breastplate. After he was fully attired, with something upon his head which looked like a crown, angels surrounded him, and in a flaming chariot he passed within the second vail. I was then bid to take notice of the two apartments of the heavenly Sanctuary. The curtain, or door, was opened, and I was permitted to enter (Spiritual Gifts, v. 1, p 158, 159).
This vision is exactly contrary to Scripture! Not only does Hebrews explain that Jesus is not a levitical priest, but Leviticus 16:3–4 reveals that the Old Testament high priests took off their official regalia when they entered the Most Holy Place on the Day of Atonement. Ellen White describes Him putting on the breastplate and ephod before entering! (In addition, she also states that she herself entered the Most Holy Place.)
Leviticus shows that the Old Testament high priests were to dress in the most simple clothes because they were entering the presence of the holy God, bearing blood sacrifices for the sins of the nation.
They themselves were in danger of being killed if they did not properly cleanse and humble themselves before entering God’s presence. They were to wear the badges of their office before the nation because the people were to respect them as the ones who did the dangerous work of interceding with their holy God on their behalf. Before God, however, their marks of office were meaningless. They had to humble themselves in the presence of God as they mediated blood for the cleansing of the nation.
Moreover, when they completed their yearly work of atonement before the mercy seat, the high priests were to enter the tent of meeting and undress, leaving their holy linen garments which they had put on to enter the presence of God, and they were to bathe before putting on their regular high priestly clothes. Only then would they offer up the final burnt offering for atonement for themselves and for the people. (See Lev. 16:23–24).
Interestingly, (and with thanks to Dale Ratzlaff for pointing out this parallel) in John’s account of the resurrection, he tells of running with Peter to the tomb and arriving first. When he looked inside, he saw “the linen wrappings lying there” (Jn. 8:5). Just as the high priests left their linen clothes in the tent of meeting after presenting the atoning blood in the Most Holy Place, so the Lord Jesus, the perfect Sacrifice, left His linen wrappings behind when He had completed shedding His blood, dying for sin, and had risen to life! In His death and resurrection, Jesus had fulfilled the high priestly work of atonement for humanity, right down to leaving behind the linen cloths as did the high priests who left behind their holy linen garments after sprinkling the blood.
The fact that Adventist art shows Jesus ministering in heaven dressed in high priestly regalia reveals that they are only giving “lip service” to their statements that He fulfills the work of the levitical high priests. In Israel, the work of atonement was done once a year by a high priest divested of his official “glory”. Adventism claims that “atonement” occurs in heaven during the investigative judgment as Jesus “applies His blood”, yet they portray Jesus in a non-atonement dress. Even their art reveals that their Jesus is not the mediator of eternal cleansing and atonement.
Adventism’s Jesus is an old covenant priest
Seeing pictures of Jesus dressed as a levitical high priest in heaven probably feels familiar to most people reading this article. This familiar reaction is intentional. Art teaches ideas without using words, and we often form our ideas of reality by seeing it illustrated.
Adventist art intentionally imprints children and adults with a great controversy worldview. Because we have “seen” Jesus standing in His breastplate in heaven, even when we read passages like Hebrews 7 and learn that He is a high priest of a different order, we still picture Him dressed like Aaron. We mentally “see” Him doing the work of a glorified Old Testament high priest in a glorified heavenly sanctuary.
While the Bible is clear that Jesus is not a levitical priest, Adventism shows us that He is. Without words, we learned from our earliest childhood that Jesus is in heaven doing old covenant rituals as an old covenant priest. We know that Hebrews says He is different, of the order of Melchizedek; we interpret “different” as an old covenant variation. Adventism insists that Jesus is in heaven vindicating the law as a levitical high priest. We internalized the idea that the law continues in the new covenant because we learned through pictures that Jesus is a priest according to the old covenant law.
Think about it; we learned by pictures that the Lord Jesus, God the Son, is in heaven wearing a Urim and a Thummim—those mysterious stones the Israelite high priests wore in order to receive direction from God! The implication of this picture is that Jesus is less than God and that He needs direction from God as Aaron and his descendants did. The Adventist Jesus does not think the thoughts of God and do the works of God as His Father thinks and does His will, yet Jesus Himself said that whatever the Father does, He does (Jn. 5:19–20). He and the Father are one. Adventist art, however, shows Jesus as distinctly separate from and in need of external direction from the Father.
Words are not even needed to make these points go deeply into our worldview. The pictures of Jesus standing in old covenant high priestly garments in front of a golden ark of the covenant (in which, Ellen White says, the law resides in heaven) teach us more firmly than mere words ever could. We see and “know” that the Adventist Jesus is an old covenant priest. Thus, when we read Hebrews, we picture what we have seen since childhood, and we interpret the words according to the deeply imprinted Adventist belief that Jesus is simply a glorified “Aaron”.
What is real, and why does it matter?
Hebrews drives home reality: Jesus is a Priest of a different order. He is perfect and eternal, and He offered a perfect, sufficient sacrifice for sin. Jesus is greater than the Levites and greater than the patriarchs. He is greater than the temple (Mt. 12:6) and He is the fulfillment of the law (Mt. 5:17; Co 1:13; Heb. 10:1). Jesus is the Reality that makes the shadows obsolete. The author of Hebrews explicitly states this fact in 8:13: “When He said, ‘A new covenant,’ He has made the first obsolete.”
Adventism intentionally imprints us with the idea that Jesus is a levitical priest in order to perpetuate the investigative judgment and the great controversy. If we picture Him in heaven dressed like Aaron, doing things like Aaron did, we can explain his “sanctuary service”. If we think of Him as the anti-typical high priest doing the ongoing work of the supposed anti-typical “Day of Atonement” during the investigative judgment, we then have no trouble believing that His atonement was not completed at the cross.
If Jesus is a glorified old covenant priest working in heaven, then He is not a “seated” high priest at the right hand of God, as Hebrews 10:11–14 says He is. In fact, Hebrews 10:11–14 contrasts Jesus, who is seated at God’s right hand, with the old covenant priests who “stand daily ministering and offering time after time the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins.”
The Adventist Jesus is a standing, continually working priest who mirrors the earthly high priests as he performs Old Testament rituals glorified in heaven. In fact, the Adventist sanctuary doctrine teaches that He is in heaven deciding which of the believers’ sins are worthy of final forgiveness. This doctrine says that when people confess belief in Jesus, their sins are transferred by Jesus’ blood into the heavenly sanctuary where their record remains on the heavenly books. Thus the record of believers’ sins, which remain in heaven until the end of the investigative judgment, defile heaven.
Consider carefully; this belief clearly assigns Jesus’ blood the duty of transferring sins from the sinner to heaven. In other words, Jesus’ blood is the vehicle of heaven’s defilement.
Further, this sanctuary doctrine requires Jesus to “apply His blood” over and over as believers sin and confess, just as the Levitical priests offered sacrifices over and over. This belief is heresy!
Hebrews 9:24–26 destroys this teaching:
"For Christ did not enter a holy place made with hands, a mere copy of the true one, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us; nor was it that He would offer Himself often, as the high priest enters the holy place year by year with blood that is not his own. Otherwise, He would have needed to suffer often since the foundation of the world; but now once at the consummation of the ages He has been manifested to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself."
Reality
The heresy we believed as Adventists teaches that in the investigative judgment, Jesus’ blood transfers believers’ sins from them to the heavenly sanctuary. Our sins, transferred to heaven, defile the sanctuary. Jesus then “applies His blood” to each confessed sin, changing it from “pardoned” to “forgiven”.
The truth we didn’t know, however, is that Jesus shed His blood once for all on a different kind of altar: on the cross at Calvary. When we trust Him His blood takes away our sin immediately and eternally, and we enter at that moment into eternal life (Jn. 5:24). The real Jesus is finished with His work and is not standing in Aaronic garb in front of a gold ark mediating and applying His blood. No! He is sitting at the Father’s right hand!
Jesus is a different kind of priest; He has offered one perfect sacrifice for sin—Himself. He has fulfilled every shadow of the levitical priesthood and its sacrifices, and He has made the law and its priesthood obsolete by being the reality it foreshadowed.
The Adventist Jesus is still fulfilling the Day of Atonement; He is still an old covenant priest serving the old covenant law.
The real Jesus’s work is completed; His sacrifice is sufficient, and His atoning work is done. He has sat down at the Father’s right hand; His blood never defiles and never carries sins into the presence of God. His blood always cleanses. As a priest according to the order of Melchizedek instead of Aaron, the real Jesus inaugurated and mediates a new covenant. He has fulfilled the law and made it obsolete, and because He is a new and different kind of priest, there has been a change of the law.
Now what?
Hebrews 10:28–31 gives us a severe warning about refusing to embrace the real Jesus and His powerful, completed atonement in His blood:
Anyone who has set aside the Law of Moses dies without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. How much severer punishment do you think he will deserve who has trampled under foot the Son of God, and has regarded as unclean the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has insulted the Spirit of grace? For we know Him who said, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay.” And again, “The Lord will judge His people.” It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God.
Horrifyingly, as Adventists we trampled the Son of God underfoot, denying His finished work of atonement and His identity as a completely different kind of Priest. We regarded His blood as an unclean thing, believing it defiled heaven by taking our sins there. Further, we insulted the Spirit of grace, believing we had to keep the law to prove we were safe to save.
Our God, however, is merciful and gracious. He shows us our sin, and He leads us to repentance. We who have been subjected to Adventism’s false Jesus must make a decision. Will we look back, like Lot’s wife, and long for the familiar deception we thought was true, or will we believe what the Bible says about God the Son and trust the real Jesus?
When we see the truth, we know we must repent for believing in a false Jesus and for regarding His blood as unclean. The real Jesus has paid the price of sin, has finished the atonement, and has sat down at the Father’s right hand. He is truth, and He is life. He is our High Priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek, and in Him we are eternally secure!
Note: The painting at the beginning of this article is a modern piece done by Lars Justinen who does work for several Adventist publications including the Pacific Press and the Sabbath School “Quarterlies”. It demonstrates that even today Adventist artists depict Jesus clearly as an Old Testament high priest standing and working in heaven in front of the mercy seat. Their unique sanctuary doctrine requires Jesus still to be working on atonement for sin, unlike the seated High Priest whose work is finished as described in Hebrews 10:11–12. USAGE IN PRINT AND ONLINE LICENSED BY © GOODSALT, INC.
Colleen Tinker, the editor of Proclamation! magazine and her husband Richard left Adventism in 1998 with their two sons, Roy and Nathanael, who were in grades six and ten. They have co-led the Former Adventist Fellowship since 1999. Colleen, a graduate of Walla Walla University, is a former high school English teacher and also the former managing editor of Adventist Today magazine. Colleen became the stepmother of Roy and Nathanael in 1989, and in 2008 she adopted them. Romans 8:15-17 has assumed new depth and significance for her and Richard since she and her sons chose to claim each other legally and permanently. She and Richard share an office and a commitment to sharing the gospel of the true Jesus with all of those seeking a way out of the bondage of the false gospel of Adventism.
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