Before we move into a detailed discussion of how and why and what went into the Sanctuary that Solomon built for God, it would be wise to discuss the Bible history of the Sanctuary. God has gone out of His way to discuss the concepts of the Sanctuary and this doctrine is one of the central Bible teachings. The Sanctuary Doctrine is in virtually every book of the Bible and is especially mentioned in Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Judges, I & II Samuel, I & II Kings, I & II Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Haggai, Zephaniah, Zechariah, Malachi, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts, Romans, I & II Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, I & II Thessalonians, Hebrews, Revelation. All of the other books of the Bible have peripheral Sanctuary concepts in reference to atonement, sacrifice, blood, cleansing, intercession, salvation, redemption, and all have reference to the Lamb of God – the Center of the Sanctuary Doctrine.
The Sanctuary Doctrine starts in the book of Genesis in the Garden of Eden. The Garden of Eden had sides to it and only one entrance. In the middle of the Garden of Eden was the tree of life and a river flowed out of the Garden. God placed Adam, the father, or priest, of the race, in the Garden to dress it and to keep it. There God met with Adam on a regular basis, in this author’s opinion God met with Adam in the morning and in the evening on a daily basis. There God gave the Law of God to Adam with the blessings – you can partake of the Tree of Life and not die, and with the curse – in the day you eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil you will surely die.
When Satan tempted Eve to eat of the tree of knowledge, and then for her to tempt Adam into departing from God, Adam and Eve found that they had lost their garments of righteousness and felt naked. To cover their nakedness Adam and Eve made garments of fig leaves. In the cool of that evening God came looking for His children and they fled from His presence and hid themselves. God performed the investigative with them and asked them if they had broken His law and eaten of the tree He had forbidden them to eat of. They blamed each other and would not confess their sin. God then promised to come and die for them. God then made garments out of skins and apparently they were willing to exchange their fig leaf garments for His garments made out of skins. Garments of skins means that something had to die in order to get the skins. This is the first sacrifice and the first death of any living thing on the earth. After this event God escorted Adam and Eve out of the Garden of Eden and preserved the way to the tree of life with a flaming sword of the Word of God. (Ephesians 6:17)
In Patriarchs and Prophets God explains to us that Adam and his family often came to the doorway to the Garden of Eden to worship God and to offer sacrifices. "…At the cherubim-guarded gate of Paradise the glory of God was revealed, and hither came the first worshippers. Here their altars were reared, and their offerings presented. It was here that Cain and Abel had brought their sacrifices, and God had condescended to communicate with them." Patriarchs and Prophets 83-84.
When Cain and Abel came to worship at the gate of Eden we have the first recorded conflict over worship issues. Abel "brought of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof and the Lord had respect unto Abel and to his offering" and "he obtained witness that he was righteous." Genesis 4:4; Hebrews 11:4. Cain on the other hand, "brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the Lord…But unto Cain and to his offering He (God) had not respect." Genesis 4:3,5 Cain brought an offering of his labors and God did not accept this offering because there was no blood in it. Without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sins. Hebrews 9:22. This disagreement about how to worship God at the altar of sacrifice led to the first martyr to religious persecution.
For many centuries the worship service of God was held at the individual altars of sacrifice for each family. We have no example of any corporate worship during this many years. We do have example of the father of each family building a stone altar and offering on it the lamb, representing the Seed, which would come someday and die for our sins.
After the flood and the intervening years of Shem, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph, brings us to the time of the captivity of the Children of Israel for several hundreds of years. During this time of captivity the Children of Israel were not able to worship in the manner that their fathers had and when delivered from Egypt God brought them to Mt Sinai to instruct them in the corporate worship that He would outline to Moses. God showed Moses a model of His sanctuary and instructed Him in the manner of how to conduct this worship in the center of Israel. Hebrews 8:5; Exodus 25:9,40. In much of the writings of Moses the Sanctuary is discussed and the various tasks were outlined in great detail.
The Sanctuary that Moses built was used for several hundreds of years. When Israel had become fully established in Canaan then David and Solomon were moved upon by God to build a more permanent Sanctuary in which to conduct the worship of God for the nation. David reports "All this, said David, the Lord made me understand in writing by His hand upon me, even all the works of this pattern." I Chronicles 28:19, 12, 11. Solomon was appointed by God to do the building since he was a man of peace. Solomon took 7 years to build the Sanctuary of God and God honored it by filling it with His glory (I Kings 8:10-11) and when Solomon dedicated the Temple to God He sent fire from heaven consumed the sacrifice and filled the temple so that no man could enter it. II Chronicles 7:1-3
This Temple, that Solomon built for God, lasted several hundreds of years until the children of Israel had so rebelled against God that God chose to allow His Temple to be destroyed by King Nebuchadnezzar, and all of the vessels of the temple taken to Babylon. God had predicted that Israel would stay in Babylon for 70 years (Jeremiah 25:8-14; 29:10-14) and then He would bring them back to Israel to rebuild the Temple and rebuild the city of Jerusalem. Isaiah 44:28, 45:1-13; Daniel 9. This rebuilding time was discussed in Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, Haggai, Zechariah, Zephaniah, and Malachi. When Israel returned they rebuilt the Temple but it was so much smaller than the one that Solomon had built that the older believers wept at its sight. Ezra 3:10-13. None the less Haggai had prophesied that the glory of this Temple (the one built in the time of Ezra) shall be greater than the former Temple (or the Temple that Solomon had built) Haggai 2:9.
This Temple built by Ezra lasted for over 500 years and came down to the time of Jesus. This Temple had been enhanced by Herod and Rome but no one could figure out how it was to have more glory than the time of Solomon. But in the providence of God the Answer came. When Jesus was born and when He had matured He – the real Shekinah glory – entered into the Temple and His glory and ministry fulfilled the prophecy completely. The ministry of Jesus was the fulfillment of Exodus 25:8 "And let them make me a sanctuary (tabernacle John 1:14) that I may dwell among them." Jesus had come in the body of a human being and through this avenue revealed the Sanctuary truths to His people. Hebrews 10:5-10
All of the gospels tell the story of the coming of the Lamb of God, first as a baby, then as a child, then as a young teacher in the Temple, and then at 30 when He was anointed by the Holy Spirit and blessed by His Father as the Messiah – the Anointed One. When the prophet John declared Him the Lamb of God (John 1:29) then all of the sacrificial Scriptures were revealed to be speaking of Him who was "slain from the foundation of the world." Revelation 13:8 We follow Him as He ministers to the people, finds His apostles, fulfills a life without sin, and the is the perfect sacrifice to fulfill all of the Sanctuary concepts all through Scripture. Jesus Himself gave the ultimate Bible study to His disciples in Luke 24:25-48 to assure them that all of the Scriptures had been fulfilled in His life.
After His resurrection Jesus spent 40 days instructing His disciples for what would happen in the future. After these 40 days Jesus returned to Heaven where He would continue to intercede for His people. After He had returned to heaven He was installed as the great Melchisedek High Priest of the temple in Heaven. Hebrews 7-10 At His inauguration He sent out the Holy Spirit in a manner reminiscent of His anointing of the Temple built by Moses and the Temple build by Solomon. In Acts 2 we see that the Holy Spirit came upon the disciples with cloven tongues of fire and they were filled with the Holy Spirit to minister to the people and tell them the great works of God. Acts 2. This baptism of the Temple of God’s people (I Corinthians 3:16-17; Ephesians 2; I Peter 2:1-10) by the Spirit was a sign of the connection between the true Temple in heaven (Hebrews 8:1-2) and the Temple on earth. Christ conducted His intercessory ministry in the Temple in heaven to fulfill the Holy Place phase of the Sanctuary Doctrine. This ministry continued for many years from 31 AD until 1844 AD. The primary function of this phase of the ministry of God was to provide education about the Word of God and forgiveness of sins. This phase is revealed in the Sanctuary principles in the book of Revelation chapters 1-11. But God had another phase to share with us.
In 1844 there was a profound change in the Sanctuary ministry. In 1844 the 2300 day prophecy of Daniel 8:14 was completed. (457 BC to 1844 AD) At the end of this time prophecy the time of the judgment had come and the ministry revealed in Daniel 7:9-14 would take place. This was the period of time known as the time of the Investigative Judgement the process whereby the cleansing of the Sanctuary and the Day of Atonement of Leviticus 16 would occur. God reveals that the temple in heaven was opened and there was seen in His Temple the ark of His testament. Revelation 11:19 Once this part is revealed God begins to focus on the judgment scenes (Revelation 14:7) and the need to be cleansed by His Word. Ephesians 5:25-26.
This final phase of the Sanctuary is to be completed just before the Second Coming of Christ and is to be similar to the work done during the Day of Atonement in Leviticus 16. In the Old Testament there were seven annual Sabbaths described in Leviticus 23 and in Numbers 28-29. These seven annual Sabbaths were to be a shadow picture of the entire cleansing process involved in the Sanctuary service from Passover, the first annual Sabbath, to Feast of Tabernacles, the seventh annual Sabbath. When these seven feasts were accomplished it was a shadow, or a symbol, of how God was going to cleanse His people from sin and bring a total re-unification to His estranged people. When the Day of Atonement was completed, and the sins transferred to the Scapegoat and it lead to the wilderness, then the rejoicing of the people would be fulfilled in the great marriage supper of the Lamb. Revelation 19:9 which the Feast of Tabernacles symbolized. This phase of the Sanctuary will be completed when the Great Prince Jesus comes to gather us to Himself and take us to heaven and to His Father’s House.
But the Sanctuary service is not yet completed. After a 1000 years in heaven God will bring His people, and the New Jerusalem, back to the earth. There the last phase of the Sanctuary judgment scene will take place and God will resurrect the wicked and conduct the great white throne judgment of Revelation 20. When this judgment is completed, Christ recreates the earth and presents it again to His redeemed and cleansed people. Then there will be a temple of God’s people, which surrounds the throne of God in the New Jerusalem, and God will dwell with His people forever more. Revelation 21:22-22:21
This brief overview is to give an outline of the Sanctuary doctrine in Scripture. We will now go through all of the facets of the Sanctuary Doctrines as presented in the Temple that Solomon built for God
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