What about Christ’s suffering, His pain? He no longer hangs on a cross of wood as He did for six hours nearly two millennia ago. However, for six thousand years sin has caused Him infinite grief and pain. Few think about it. Few understand it. The cross reveals to our dull senses the pain that began when sin began and can never stop until sin stops.
Speaking of those who keep on sinning when they know better, the Scriptures say, “They crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame” (Hebrews 6:6). In the sanctuary service when a man had broken the law and brought his lamb and confessed his sin, when the substitute was slain and the blood had been ministered, the man went free. Forgiven and covered, he returned to his home. Suppose the next week he broke the law again. He must bring another lamb, for the previous lamb was dead and couldn’t die again. But in the heavenly reality God supplies the Lamb, and He has only one. “By every sin Jesus is wounded afresh” (DA 300).
“As you near the cross of Calvary there is seen love that is without a parallel. As you by faith grasp the meaning of the sacrifice, you see yourself a sinner, condemned by a broken law. This is repentance. As you come with humble heart, you find pardon, for Christ Jesus is represented as continually standing at the altar, momentarily offering up the sacrifice for the sins of the world. He is a minister of the true tabernacle which the Lord pitched and not man. The typical shadows of the Jewish tabernacle no longer possess any virtue. A daily and yearly typical atonement is no longer to be made, but the atoning sacrifice through a mediator is essential because of the constant commission of sin” (1SM 343).
I am sure I do not understand all that is involved in this statement. But I can grasp enough to know that here we face a stupendous fact. “Christ Jesus is represented as continually standing at the altar, momentarily offering up the sacrifice for the sins of the world.” Although life and joy come from it, the sanctuary service is one of pain, of suffering, of death.
Do we still sin? Then something else continues. If God offers us the opportunity of forgiveness, an officiating priest must stand between us and the broken law, presenting the blood of His one all-sufficient atonement. “ The atoning sacrifice through a mediator is essential because of the constant commission of sin.”
How long, then, must the ministration of that sacrifice continue? As long as the sins continue. The sanctuary can never be cleansed as long as you and I keep breaking God’s heart by breaking His holy law. When we truly understand this, we will rather die than transgress His commandments. Then we will be prepared to meet the test of the mark of the beast. When the decree goes forth that no man can buy or sell unless he breaks God’s holy Sabbath, the saints will remain immovable. They would rather starve, rather be put into prison, rather suffer death, than disappoint the One who died for them and who must suffer yet if they should break His law. When we love Him enough, it won’t be hard to keep His commandments.
The last book of the Bible opens glorious revelations of Christ’s work in the temple above. In chapters 4 and 5 John sees a door opened in heaven. As the prophet looks in he views the seven lamps of re burning before the throne. He observes the worship of the living creatures, the twenty-four elders, and the myriads of the angel host.
In the right hand of the King of the universe he notices a sealed book, and a strong angel proclaims with a loud voice, “Who is worthy to open the book, and to loose the seals thereof ?” (Revelation 5:2). The prophet weeps because no one in heaven or on earth can open the book. Then one of the elders comforts him, saying, “Weep not: behold, the Lion of the tribe of Juda, the Root of David, hath prevailed to open the book, and to loose the seven seals thereof ” (Revelation 5:5).
Here comes a lion! He will open the book. John turns to look at the conquering lion. And what does he see? “I beheld, and, lo, in the midst of the throne and of the four beasts [“living creatures,”RSV] and in the midst of the elders, stood a Lamb as it had been slain” (Revelation 5:6). A lamb? a dying lamb? in heaven? Yes. Here on the Isle of Patmos John looks through the prophetic telescope and sees the temple of God in heaven. He views the candlesticks and the altar with the incense ascending before the throne, and in the center of it all he sees “a Lamb as it had been slain.”
Let us not misunderstand. As far as the pain of the spikes in His hands and feet—that was over long ago. But His personal suffering due to sin did not begin when they nailed Him to the tree nor did it stop when they took Him down. “The cross is a revelation to our dull senses of the pain that, from its very inception, sin has brought to the heart of God. Every departure from the right, every deed of cruelty, every failure of humanity to reach His ideal, brings grief to Him” (Ed 263).
Think how that very first sin in Eden must have pierced His heart! The beings He had made in His own image, those whom He had surrounded with everything beautiful, turned from their allegiance and joined with the great rebel. Oh, what sorrow filled heaven! Love sorrowed and suffered, and Love must find a way to ransom the lost and to remove the sin that had made the separation. “God so loved the world, that He gave his only begotten Son” (John 3:16), and when He told Adam and Eve of the plan of salvation, when the first lamb was slain, that very evening there began a series of sacrifices to vividly represent the pain which sin brings to God’s heart.
Is it really true that our repeated transgression means repeated grief on our Lord’s part? Is it really true that the only way to end the continuous pain which sin causes Heaven is to stop sinning so that God can cleanse the sanctuary once for all?
If all this is not true, nothing matters. But if it is true, nothing else matters. This is what our time is for—to behold Him on the cross and in the sanctuary till we are heart to heart with Him in His solemn, closing work, till we hate sin as He hates it and love righteousness as He loves it. Then He can sprinkle the blood on the mercy seat so that He can blot out the iniquity of His people forever. With sin no longer a barrier, the reunion will be eternal. R&R WDF
