There are four offices in the Old Testament
prophets
priests
judges, and
kings
If you look in the order in which those offices were manifested you first have:
prophets (Noah, Abraham, Joseph- main office of Genesis),
priests (Exodus thru Deut.),
judges (Judges), and then the last office was
king
This is the order of the Old Testament. If you consider that…with prophecies of Daniel, the:
70-weeks points to Christ’s coming to us as a prophet,
1,260-days points to him ascending to heaven in His High Priestly ministry,
2,300-days points to him as judge; prior to him coming back as
King of Kings and Lord of Lords.
This pattern of the judgment of the 70, 1,260, and 2,300 is in so many places in scripture. Also, parables of Jesus point to this judgment as well.
Sins were recorded in the temple (mind). When the temple is finally cleansed – we will have no memory, no recollection of them. Ellen G White says…At the end of times the saints are trying to remember their sins and could not bring them to mind. Why? Because the temple had been finally and ultimately cleansed. So, the cleansing of the heavenly sanctuary is in fact an object lesson of what God is going to do in His saints.
Know that you are the temple of the Holy Ghost and that the Spirit of God dwells in you (1 Cor. 3:16). Whosoever defiles his temple, him will God destroy (1 Cor. 3:17). Isn’t that something we read in Leviticus 16:16 while the earthly sanctuary was being cleansed the people were being cleansed at the same time.
Think of this analogy: Every day we put the garbage in the trash can. Then, the trash is placed into the outside trash bin = I have forgiven you. The house is clean but the garbage is still with you because it is still in the outside trash bin = there is still memory of it and we can fall back into those things. We will be constantly taking out the garbage. The house is clean…you’re good to go; but the garbage is still there in the bin. Then the cleansing comes: One day of the week, we will call the Day of Atonement, this is when the bin is set at the street and the garbage truck comes and takes it and dumps it in a desolate place and only then can you actually forget about the garbage. This is a simple example of the principle that the “Day of Atonement” and what it is trying to teach us. We can say we are in the anti-typical Day of Atonement.
The “Day of Atonement” is representing the time just before the Feast of Tabernacles. The Feast of Tabernacles is the last feast, it was the feast where everybody celebrated, it was the last feast of the year. You had just gone through the whole process of the sanctuary, and the feast of tabernacles parallels with ‘behold the tabernacle of God is with men (Rev. 21-22). So, living in the anti-typical Day of Atonement means we are now living in the time where the judgment is occurring…we are now living in the time where Jesus is doing the final work of putting away sin forever. So, it is really just another way of saying this is the final phase of Jesus’ work…the end is coming soon. The stone is going to be cut out of the mountain without hands and will destroy the image on his feet. And just before that time we are going through this process of the judgment. The judgment is not about God trying to find out who He can destroy…that is not what the judgment is about…the judgment is about God vindicating his people from the beginning of time down to the last day. The judgment is about the vindication of God Himself and all of this will culminate in the final judgment; which occurs during the millennium. God will leave no question unanswered as we look at His judgment of the unsaved. The execution of that final judgment will occur when we return with Jesus and city of the New Jerusalem back to earth. The unsaved are raised the verdict is presented and in view will be the evidence of why they are in the lost condition…all questions are answered…every knee will bow…even Satan himself…every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord and only then are the wicked destroyed. God is going above and beyond, going out of His way to make sure that the process is fair and that no one can complain that God is unjust because if that happens sin rises a second time in heaven…we know scripture tells us that it won’t and that is because of the care and way God handled the sin/rebellion problem.
Pastor Ivor Myers of Power of the Lamb Ministries