The Sanctuary Doctrine | Ty Gibson (Part 1) — Transcript

This episode is sponsored by Bible Bricks. They've created a brick building set of the wilderness sanctuary.

Yep, the one from Exodus with around 1,200 pieces, custom minifigs, [music], and instructions that explain each part of the tabernacle as you build. Visit them at biblebricks.com to learn more and maybe buy yourself a set.

[music] How's it going, everyone? Welcome to Seeking What They Sought. We're here with Ty Gibson today. Uh, Anthony is not with us. Um, he heard that we were doing this with Ty and just said, "Nope, I'm out." So, uh,

never again. Yeah, he wanted us to communicate just how deeply he did not want to be here. Um, so I say that they're mutual.

Okay, perfect. Actually, they're not. I love him. I'm a little offended. Jesse, can I—I actually love that guy.

I was going to say one thing, Jesse. So, so Ty, you and me and Anthony were texting back and forth trying to find because you're a busy man. We were trying to find a time to record and Jesse, we didn't tell you about this,

but I responded because you know how I am. I'm trying to get to the bottom. Hey, can we find a date? Can we find a time?

And you know, Anthony's more laid-back, so there's that dynamic. But then Ty, instead of texting me like, "Hey, yeah, let's look at this date," he proceeds to start telling us that he's making dinner and goes into this detailed process of

sending us pictures of every step of him making his dinner for like an hour. He's making noodles, fresh pasta with like fettuccine Alfredo, and he's talking about how amazing it is.

It was a very interesting experience. Ty, no, I loved it. Me and Anthony enjoyed the ride. You took us on your entire meal journey as we—Oh, this was Ty. I thought that was Anthony. I thought Anthony was because

Anthony will do that. No, no way. It was Ty. Ty went through, sent us every picture of him cooking the food, like eating it. It was great.

Yeah. Text threads with a ride. [laughter] It's like every time I'm in a group chat with Ty Gibson, I'm just like, dang. I was not expecting us to go the places we went. So, um, it's a

privilege to have you on the podcast, Ty. Um, here with you guys. Yeah. Yeah. We're talking about the sanctuary doctrine. We've had an episode with you before where we did what is an Adventist. It was a lot of fun. We found

out that you got, if I remember correctly, you got kicked out of the church for a bit if I remember correctly. Um, so we don't have to get all that.

That's a—you know, that's how you might describe it on the street: kicked out. We don't use that language. I was dysfellowshipped, but they were nice about it. It was

respectful, but it didn't work. It didn't work. It didn't work. You're back because here I am.

You're back. So, yeah, I've been back forever. If anyone wants to listen, if anyone wants to listen to that episode, then go back and listen to that. But today, we're talking about the sanctuary doctrine. I know you and David,

your partner in ministry at Lightbearers, you guys have just recently actually done a whole big push around the sanctuary doctrine.

So, wanting to get into it. Obviously, this is one of those doctrines that I could tell people if they want to look at those, go to the Lightbearers YouTube channel. It's 10 sessions called Dwell. We did myself, David Ashik, Jeffrey Rosario, Angelo Graasso. We basically dove into the sanctuary doctrine and it was great fun.

Lots of insights were generated through the process. So go to the Lightbearers YouTube channel and you can take a tour through the whole sanctuary.

10 hours, is it? 10? 10 hours. Okay. So 10 hours. Can we distill that into like one hour and we're probably good, right at that point?

Yeah. No, we can't cover all the material, you know. I mean, there are so many aspects to the sanctuary. It's a multi-dimensional prism of theological meaning.

Yeah. So after this conversation, we're going to—we'll put in the show notes, we'll have Eric put in the show notes a link to the Lightbearers spot where you can go and watch those just to add on to this conversation. So this is kind of an introduction, right? We're kind of—we've had different perspectives through this series and we want to hear yours, especially after doing that series. This is fresh on your mind and you've been able to gather information to see how did that go, what worked, what could still be worked upon when it comes to communicating this topic because like you said, this—what we found is this is such a hard topic to communicate. We've found in the church, we all kind of just hear about the sanctuary and we've talked about many times that we've grown up learning about it, but we couldn't explain it after that. Like we went through K to 12 Adventist education and even in the theology classes at Walla Walla, not to knock on anyone there because we've talked to everyone that comes out of any theology department like how do we actually teach this? What does this actually mean or matter? And that just seems to be an inherent problem with this doctrine. Not that it's biblically inaccurate, but we just don't know what to do with it. And so I think that's one of the goals here is to just get into the heart of what it is, what it isn't, and why we should pay attention to it. Why should it matter to us?

Well, from the outset, and I don't know if you want to get into this, but the reason why the doctrine is problematic is because of what is sometimes called first principles. So there are basically two theological lineages, lines of thought, theological lines of thought in Protestant evangelical Christianity. Um, there's the Calvinist branch and the Arminian branch. In the Calvinist branch of Christian theology, there is no room for process because everything is a predetermined done deal by the sovereignty of God. So you can't really sit the idea of a process that plays relational dynamics between God and human agents. And the sanctuary is all about that play between God and human agents. It is a doctrine of the sanctuary and everything about it is a distinctly Arminian doctrine that only fits into your theological framework if you allow for free will. If there is no such thing as free will, you can't comprehend or even deal with a theological perspective that is all about relational dynamics between God and the human agent. There are no—in Calvinism there is no relational dynamic between God and the human agent. God takes up all the relational space unilaterally. In Calvinism, God predetermines all events and outcomes including who will be saved, who will be lost. All of that's a done deal. So there's no process. There's no point in having anything. That's why at the foundation people struggle with it.

Yeah. If I could just briefly, for those who might not understand, Calvinism is this idea that because God is so sovereign, everything is already predetermined by Him. Like there is no room for human free will in there truly. Um, and as a result of that, we have this battle between that and Arminianism, which is based on the idea that God has given us free choice and respects that. And so those are the two warring things. Calvinists tend to come from the Reformed tradition. So that's where you're going to get like Presbyterian—I'm trying to remember all the Reformed traditions. Lutheran, yeah, Lutheran, although Lutheranism is divided on the subject, but yeah, so that's Reformed, although the Anglican church is also divided on the issue now due to the work of John Stott. So that's where those churches are, and then a large branch of Protestantism is Arminian.

know, information to see how did that go, what, you know, what worked, what what could still be, you know, worked upon when it comes to communicating this topic because like you said, this what we found is um this is such a

hard topic to communicate. We've found in the church, we all kind of just hear about the sancture and we've talked about many times that we've grown up learning about it, but we we couldn't explain it after that. Like we went

through K to2 Adventist education and even in the you know in theology classes at Walaw Wala not to knock on anyone there because we've talked to everyone that you know comes out of any theology department like how do we actually teach

this? What does this actually mean or matter and that just seems to be an inherent problem with this doctrine. Not that it's biblically, you know, inaccurate, but we just don't know what to do with it. And so I think that's one of the

goals here is to just get into the heart of what it is, what it isn't, and why it's why we should pay attention to it. Why should it matter to us?

Well, from the from the outset, and I don't know if you want to get into this, but the reason why the doctrine is problematic is because of what is sometimes called first principles. So there are basically two theological two

theological lineages lineages lines of thought theological lines of thought in Protestant evangelical Christianity. Um there's the Calvinist branch in the Armenian branch. uh in the Calvinist branch of Christian theology, there is no room for process because everything is a predetermined

done deal by the sovereignty of God. So you can't really sit the idea of a process that plays relational dynamics between God and human agents. And the sanctuary is all about that play between God and human agents. It is a the

doctrine of the sanctuary and everything about it is a distinctly Armenian doctrine that only fits into your theological framework if you allow for free will. If there is no such thing as free will, you can't comprehend or even

deal with a a theological perspective that is all about relational dynamics between God and the human agent. There are no in Calvinism there is no relational dynamic between God and the human agent. God takes up all the relational space. unilaterally in

Calvinism. God predetermines all events and outcomes including who will be saved, who will be lost. All of that's a done deal. So there's no there's there's no process. There's no point in having anything. That's why at the foundation

people struggle with it. Yeah. If I could just briefly for those who might not understand. So Calvinism is this idea that because God is so sovereign everything that he everything is already predetermined by him. like there there is no room for for human free will in

there truly. Um and as a result of that um we have uh this battle between that and our minism which is based on the idea that God has given us free choice and respects that. And so those are the

two waring things. Uh Calvinists tend to come from uh reformed tradition. So that's where you're going to get like uh what Presbyterian I'm trying to remember all the reformed traditions. um Lutheran yeah Lutheran although Luther Lutheranism is divided on the subject

but yeah so that's reformed although the Anglican church is also divided on the issue now due to the to the the work of John Sto so then so that's that's what that's where those churches are and then a

large a large branch of uh Protestantism is Armenian so based in that free will idea so what you're talking about is that if you're within the Lutheran Presbyterian world you're like this is not there's not a ton or there's going

to be a lot less openness to the idea that that God could be judged or that there could be some sort of process between humans and God um versus in the Armenian world that can actually function.

So just trying to give some arcianism is pure relational dynamic between God and humanity. You know, Jacob Arminius, the Dutch scholar who himself was a Calvinist, uh, simply pushed back on the idea that Calvin Calvin and, you know,

his followers were pushing and that was that that all decisions are God's decision decisions and therefore there is no there is no there is no unilateral dynamic between God and humans. And this is important to understand because the

reason people reject the idea of a quote unquote judgment, an esquetological judgment, an investigative judgment, is because they can't they can't fit a process by which the human agent is evaluating God and God is evaluating the human agent. And that outcomes

that outcomes are actually open until they're closed. Totally. there in in Calvinism, outcomes are not open until they're closed.

They're all closed already. It's all done. So, that's kind of the the the basis then is this doesn't work in a in an environment where God just pre-ordains everything and it just happens because he he says so. The only way

Well, then I guess it's not even like we're trying to make the sanctuary reduction work, but just if we're if our starting foundation is God has given us free will and he respects our decisions to some degree. um and works within

those or works with us relationally, then there's other questions to answer. And so something like the sanctuary doctrine comes out of that foundation as opposed to anything else. So that's what I'm hearing you say at least.

Yeah, for sure. Um so, so one of two things is happening between God and humans. I mean there are other options outside of the parameters of Christian theology like materialism.

Um but within the parameters of Christianity from a theological perspective one of two things is happening. either either God is sovereignly exerting authority over all events and outcomes or God is aiming for a relational dynamic between himself and humans the definition of which is

love. Absolutely. So that that's that's what's that's the foundation of of as we get into the sanctuary doctrine which I know is not the whole thing. That's not the whole message that you're talking about, but as we get into that, that's the

foundational approach that you're coming into the sanctuary doctrine with. Yeah, it if I could just bring up there's there's the challenge that I think um I had coming into this conversation um that we've been having over the last year or so

because whenever I would hear the sanctuary doctrine expressed, it was always expressed relatively poorly in my experience. Um and it did not come across as love. it came across as primarily um uh just like intellectual maneuvering of of text.

You know, Jesus has to change jobs, you know, it's like, okay, it doesn't matter to me. And then um ultimately that there's some sort of investigative judgment at the end there. And so then all it ends up being all it ended up

being for for most of it was just some sort of fear-based concern of like, oh gosh, like what's going to happen when that judgment happens? as I've delved deeper into it over the last few years, I've seen that it's not that it it

actually is saying something different. So, when you say that it's based out of love, I see that. But if we were to go through, there's some I I have some curiosity around how this all gets framed um within that love throughout. So, like

if you just start off in in the doctrine, it says that there is there is a sanctuary in heaven, the true tabernacle that the Lord set up not humans. In it, Christ ministers on our behalf, making available to believers

the benefits of his atoning sacrifice offered once for all on the cross. So, I guess maybe that's split into two things. Like, why?

Well, you might might want to specify what you're reading there. You just read something. What?

Yeah, that was that was the the one that was the number 24 fundamental belief that Christ ministry in the heavenly sanctuary. Um, so yeah, of the 7th Day Adventist Church for those who may be tuning in who aren't

Seventh Day Adventists. Yeah, actually most of our audience is going to be Adventists and then there's the ex Adventists who are mad we're even having this conversation at all. So it's it's uh Okay.

And then there's a bunch of advent I don't even know what this is. I'd like to I'd like to be friends with the ones that are mad. the ones that are mad. I I want to say to them, uh, would

you just give me a few minutes to tell you why as an outsider who came into Adventism, as a quote unquote convert to Christianity in general and Adventism in particular, um, I would just ask you to to to to give to give a hearing to a way

of understanding the sanctuary that is very biblical and extremely attractive. Absolutely. Also, Ty, it sounds like uh sounds like the cult got you. You know what I'm saying? [laughter] I'm just kidding. Yeah. Well, so let's go through it. I really appreciate I

want I want to hear how how you formulate this because it's and I just want to say but and before you do that, Ty, I know that we say yes, there are those that are met, but we have a lot of people that come in that

are a mix. Like we way back when we started this series, we did a poll asking, you know, what are your thoughts on the sanctuary doctrine? They had everyone, you know, answer on social media and, you know, close to half said

they believe in it. And then you've got 15% or so that were just outright, no, I don't buy into it. And then, you know, the the last bit, the 30% or between 30 and 40% were like unsure. So, there's

there's a lot of kind of that mix of where people whether they're still they still, you know, subscribe to the tribe of Adventism, they're just unsure of what that is. And then you've also got um ex Adventists, people that we know. I

I've spoken to a lot of them that aren't mad per se, but they're just like, I don't see how this can have any redeeming qualities or or it can be biblical in any way.

And therefore, I cannot be an Adventist if that means, you know, they say I've had many say, I'm 95% Adventist, uh except for spirit of prophecy and investigative judgment. And you know, we're not going to totally delve into

Spirit of Prophecy, but that that piece is always there. sanctuary, investigative judgment. It's always one of the most common things that that is pushed against for saying I can't be Adventist if that is a thing. So you're saying it's biblical and it's

attractive. So that's I think yeah, let's get into it. Okay. Basically, you're saying that, you know, 50% say I believe it. The other 50% like I don't need it, I don't like it, whatever.

Right. So that's like saying that's like I meet somebody and they say to me, they say to me, you know what? I don't like tacos.

I'm like, "Bro, you've never had a good taco then." So, so here's the thing.

If somebody says, "I don't like a thing." The first question has to be, did they actually encounter the thing in its authenticity for what the thing itself is?

Yeah, totally. Is it possible to somebody to have a bad experience with tacos? Yes, you can have a bad experience with tacos. You can you can go to the wrong taco shop and you can say tacos are lame. I'm not a taco

person. I don't like tacos. I don't like the sanctuary. That's not for me. I don't need it. I had a bad experience with the sanctuary. Well, then I would say, "Hey, come to my house. Come to my house. I will make you a taco that will

change your life." And then you will say, "I love tacos." So the question isn't whether or not tacos intrinsically have the potential to be good or not.

That's a given for me. The sanctuary doctrine is beautiful if you encounter it for what it actually is. Of course you can encounter distortions of anything. Right.

Absolutely. I'm just really curious about what you're like. Are you using veggie meat? What's the what's the base on the taco here?

Oh, bro. I I have so many different kinds of tacos and the best ones right now are Korean tacos.

Korean tacos. I know that doesn't make sense to a lot of people's minds, but but but you know, Korean tacos are amazing and and the base for that the base for those tacos is a very interesting way that you deal with

cauliflower. Okay. Well, yeah. Anyways, that's not the topic here. That ruined it for me. So, I'm This can be the topic. We can forget about the sanctuary. You have not tasted cauliflower tacos. You have not had Korean tacos the way that the way

they're meant to be. I'm ready. Next time next time I'm in town, I'm ready. So, there's two things here. Uh the sanctuary, there is a sanctuary in heaven and in it, Christ is doing something. Um making available to

believers the benefits of his atoning sacrifice offered once and for all on the cross. If we were to just stick in those two initial spots to set all this up, like what are your thoughts on those?

Okay. So, I would begin by pointing out that if the sanctuary doctrine is not biblical, we should we should trash it.

We don't we don't need it. We're not the Seventh Day Adventist Church is not interested, at least not this Seventh Day Adventist, in believing things that aren't robustly biblical and beautiful and believable.

So I would begin by pointing out that if you have a problem with the sanctuary doctrine, you have a problem with scripture. Scripture start to finish.

Genesis to Revelation is saturated with sanctuary knowledge, sanctuary teaching. David, King David, who was also an inspired uh prophet of God, was a sanctuary scholar. David was a sanctuary scholar. He was obsessed with the sanctuary. If you read the Psalms, David

tells us what he encountered in his contemplation and study of the sanctuary. For example, he says in Psalm 27:4, "One thing have I desired of the Lord, and that will I seek, that I may dwell in the sanctuary of the Lord, the

house of the Lord, all the days of my life." Listen. to behold, to comprehend, to grasp, to understand. That's what the word behold means here. To behold the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in his temple. So apparently

David believes that if you contemplate, if you study the sanctuary, you're going to encounter the beauty of the Lord. He also says that God is taking questions and to inquire in his temple. The biggest issues that the human brain

tries to process are answered. The big questions of life according to David, God is taking questions and the sanctuary answers those questions. This is Psalm 63:es 1-3. Oh God, you are my God. Early will I seek you. My soul

thirsts for you. My flesh longs for you in a dry and thirsty land where there is no water. So I have looked for you. I'm hungry and thirsty for you, God. So I have looked for you in the sanctuary to

see your power and your glory because your love, your love is better than life itself. My lips will praise you. And then this one, this is from Psalm 73 16 and 17. When I thought how to understand this, by which he

means in his context, all the suffering and evil in the world, child trafficking, starvation, the world is full of evil men doing evil things. And when I thought to understand all of this that was going on in the world, he says,

"It was too painful for me until I went in to the sanctuary of God. Then I understood therein." That is the end of evil.

So, so, so according to David as a sanctuary scholar, if you study the sanctuary, here's what you should expect to encounter. And I would say that if you have not encountered this in your study of the sanctuary, you haven't

actually tasted the real tacos that are the sanctuary. You you you should expect according to King David, which is to say according to scripture, you should expect to encounter in the sanctuary the beauty of God, God's answers to our big

questions, God's power, God's glory, God's love, and God's way, his methodology of eradicating evil and pain from the world. Are you not interested in discovering that God is beautiful in character? Are you not interested in discovering that God is love in the most

radical, beautiful sense imaginable? And are you not interested in discovering that evil and suffering are an anomaly in the universe that God will eradicate from existence so that there is no more pain or evil into eternity future? Well,

if you're interested in those subjects, the sanctuary unveils the truth of those topics. So, I I'm totally with that. I I am realizing and you might already be doing this, but I'm realizing that to some degree as an someone who's grown up

Adventist, the idea of the sanctuary in the temple and sort of the obsession that we've had with the layout of it and the, you know, the the prophetic meaning behind it, I'm almost realizing that I have to divorce the tabernacle and the

sanctuary from the sanctuary doctrine initially to actually have any ability to appreciate it. Because I I get what you're saying, but like if I'm David, I'm I'm not reading this in the context that I have it as an Adventist now and

and all of the baggage that's been attached to it. I'm I I would imagine that being around the the sanctuary where God's presence literally dwells would have been a pretty wild experience. And I can imagine that being able to be there tangibly and and

physically experience that proximity and the you know you know that like that feeling when you walk into a cathedral or you walk into a special place like a you know you walk into the into a a a stadium right before a game and

there's like the the tension but also like the the hope and all the all of the emotions that like I can't experience unless I am actually kind of like putting myself there.

Yeah. And so when I hear what you're quoting from Psalms, I hear his physical felt experience, the emotional connection into that that experience.

And so I don't know. I'm not saying this to disagree with anything you're saying as much as just like I have to divorce it.

I would say that it's it's it's theological and intellectual. Yeah. I I would say that what David is describing is a cognitive process that he went through in examining the sanctuary and not merely a sense of awe at the the enormity and the spectacle of

the stadium, you know, or or some kind of big building in the middle of a city.

And and so he's just waxing eloquent with with hyperbole. Um the sanctuary, I'll give a definition.

of what I think David was encountering. The sanctuary is theological theater. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that's what I'm saying is like he's not it's not just that it's not that he's just experiencing the theater of it though,

but he's experiencing the God that's present there, but also through the physical and the emotional experience of being in that place. Right.

And so it's actually tracking he's actually tracking with what it means. Yes. So, so the sanctuary is is theater.

It's it's a stage. It's a stage play. Uh there are props. There are actors.

None of it is what it is. The priest is not the priest. The altar is not the altar. The the the none of it is what it is. It's all a series of props or symbols that are pointing to

reality. It's not reality itself. So the priest is a human that is enacting a series of rituals that are reality in the person of Christ. The altar points to the cross of Calvary, for example. That altar is symbolic. It just

it it's pointing to something. So So I think that David is actually tracking I think like I said, he's a sanctuary scholar. He's actually processing, okay, all of these symbols and these ritual enactments mean something. What do they

mean? And according to David, what they mean is they constitute a revelatory system. And the revelation is God's love that is revealed by the means and the process by which he deals with the sin problem, by which he deals with evil and

eventually eradicates it from existence. He's blown away by by the truth that is dulged to him in the sanctuary. So, so are you saying that if someone divorces themselves from this teaching the sanctuary, they can't fully see God's

beauty and the way he is dealing with the sin problem? That if you're if you were to throw out the sanctuary because some people have accused, okay, some of the sanctuary sounds nice, but maybe it's redundant. Maybe I can find

throughout scripture something I don't need the sanctuary for. Boy, can can I make a clarification?

I just want to make a clarifying point here because we're using sanctuary interchangeably. There's the there's the doctrine of the heavenly sanctuary and then there's like the sanctuary that you're talking about right now, Tai, which is like the earthly sanctuary that

has a lot of description all throughout the Old Testament and all of that. So, when you say what you just said, Sean, I'm curious what you mean by that because I don't I don't necessarily think people are trying to throw out the

sanctuary from the Old Testament. Sure. Sure. Sure. No, no, I understand. I think the way that we're Yes. So the way that we're interpreting the significance of the sanctuary not as just a single time and place and a in

the Old Testament that there is a there was a perpetual eternal value to the sanctuary as a model as theater as Tai described that it wasn't just a temporary uh method for God to you know deal with sin in Exodus with the

Israelites but it was something more that it points to this heavenly reality and it points to as as Tai described that David was experiencing something that and maybe I'm wrong on this, but are you saying like this is something we

can experience if we enter as David did? This is an eternal reality we can enter as David did at his time to see the beauty of God, to see the way he deals with sin and to to conclude that he is

love. Is is that fair? Yeah, that's fair. I wouldn't say in your first statement uh that you made and then and then Jesse made a statement and then you made another statement. And if you go back two statements, you you you said,

Ty, are you saying that a person cannot encounter the beauty and love of God if they threw out the sanctuary? I wouldn't say that. I think I encountered the beauty of God's character prior to my exposure to the sanctuary doctrine. I

believe that a person in the deep jungle of the Amazon can have a revelation from God contemplating, you know, the nature of reality. Uh but I think that if a person uh is uh interested in cracking the code of

reality that the sanctuary is an extremely sophisticated system that deals with the nature of evil and its ultimate eradication and the character of God or the way God conducts himself through that process.

process. If a person is wanting, you know, answers to those kinds of questions, the sanctuary is uh is deliberately addressing all of these questions.

It is the entire plan of salvation outlined in the form of a series of symbolic rituals in advance. And then when Jesus comes into the world, he is simply and intentionally when you read the New Testament, he is intentionally

himself um enacting the reality of which the sanctuary was a type. When he comes into the world, he literally lays claim to all the symbols of the sanctuary. He comes into the world and the first thing you notice in John is John says, "Behold

the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world." We just laid claim to the to the lamb symbolism and the altar in the courtyard. Um he says I'm the water of life. He just laid claim to the

labor. He says I'm the bread of life. You need to eat me in order to be uh eternally sustained. He just laid claim to the table of showbread. And he says I'm the light of the world. He just laid

claim to the candalabra with the seven etc etc. He over and over again Jesus is simply laying claim and using the language of the sanctuary. So when you come to the New Testament for example, you can't really understand

what's going on in the New Testament unless you're sanctuary literate. Let me let me give an example. Let me give an example.

So So Jesus early in his ministry, this is John chapter 2. Jesus says to the people when they say, "Hey, give us a sign that you're the Messiah." He says, "Destroy this temple in three days and I'll raise

it up." Okay, he just invoked temple language. They then are ridiculously reductionistic in their thinking and they say, "Oh, we've been building this temple for 40 years. How can you destroy it and build it up in three days?" And then the text literally says

in verse 21, this is chapter 2 of John verse 21, but he was talking about the temple of his body.

Okay. So Jesus in John chapter 2 is essentially saying, "Hey, you know that temple system of the Hebrew people in the Old Testament, you you know that whole thing." He says, "There is some sense in which that temple

was pointing to me. I am the temple of God. And he says specifically, destroy it. He's talking about the fact that, you know, he'll be killed and crucified and in three days I'll raise it up.

Resurrection. Well, the next time that John encounters the resurrected Christ, John's the one, the Apostle John wrote John chapter 2, destroy this temple and in three days I'll raise it up. The next time that John encounters Jesus is after

his resurrection in John in Revelation chapter 1. He says, "I saw him standing among the candlesticks." And he says, "His feet were like fine brass as if burning in a furnace, and in his right hand were seven stars, and his eyes were

like flames of fire, and his countenance shone like the sun in all its strength.

And he was clothed with a garment down to his foot and around his chest was a golden girdle. I I'm I'm quoting to you John chapter I mean Revelation chapter 1 where John describes the resurrected Christ and he is describing the

resurrected Christ by describing the sanctuary. Yeah. The feet the feet like fine brass burning in a furnace refer to the altar of sacrifice in the courtyard. His faith shining like the sun in all its glory is the kind of glory in the most holy

place. Yeah. The chest girded with with gold. The veil that separated the holy from the most holy place was the only veil of the three veils that was uh interwoven with gold thread.

Mhm. In his right hand are seven stars. If you lay a body over, he says that the temple is my body. If you lay a body over the the sanctuary uh the architecture of the sanctuary in aerial view of the sanctuary, the right hand

lands where the seven branch candlestick is. So Jesus, okay, you come to the new people say, "Ah, I just want Jesus. I don't want the sanctuary." And then Jesus says, "Well, I am sanctuary." Yeah.

So, uh, you're going to have to deal with the fact that I, Jesus, the Messiah, your savior, in the New Testament, I am literally invoking all the symbols of the sanctuary to tell you who I am and what I'm doing

for you as your savior. To say, "I don't want the sanctuary. All I want is Jesus," is nonsensical.

Yeah. Now that doesn't mean that you can't encounter Jesus in some way on a more elementary level as some kind of uh you know like oh Jesus loves me let us close with prayer that's fine you know we're all at that stage of our

intellectual and spiritual development at some point I mean that's that's how we all have to begin right but if if you want to crack the code of reality if you want to understand the character of God and how he conducts himself in real time

down through history to deal with evil and sin in such an effective manner that according to David he eventually eradicates it from existence so that only love exists into eternity future.

If you want to understand that the sanctuary is for you. So, I mean, a lot of what you just said was was uh like I hadn't even thought about that revelation connection with how he's being described there. And as soon as

you said, I was like, "Oh, yeah. I see I see the imagery there." So, this is all present throughout. You you you just described how Jesus is claiming to be um claiming to be the sanctuary in in in

some fashion. Um literally, he Yeah, you're Okay, go ahead. Here's here's the thing that I think I don't think any of this would be argued at all by well I guess I could Christians can argue about anything but

I I would dare say that most you know scholars or most Christian denominations be like yeah 100% totally with that we as a denomination take it a step further and go okay all of this is true there's also like a something happening in

heaven and Jesus is has a job up there and um is doing his high priestly intercessory ministry. Uh and then we go into 1844 and and beyond. So it's it's interest because everything you've said so far I'm like I think I think most

denominations go sure yeah 100% I'm with you but what about this whole I don't think any of them are even talking about it or care Christian theology and I and and I can tell you that what what we're talking

about at this stage of the game of this discussion on the sanctuary um is extremely important.

for the very reason that you've already indicated. So you guys began this discussion by saying ah you know 50% of people say they believe it 50% say they don't care they don't need it and then I describe to you why it is

just permeating scripture and is the the language that the savior himself uses to describe who he is. Right? And you're like, "Well, yeah, everybody believes that." No, nobody's talking about this believes it.

What I mean is talking about this. Not to say that that everybody else is talking about it. I'm just saying if you laid all that out, I think that most people go, I see the connections. I see I see

Well, my point is my point is this, bro. My point is this. My point is this. If you don't lay out the part that we are now beginning to lay out, of course, if you just want to leapfrog

past the entire biblical narrative regarding the sanctuary and say, "Oh, forget about the beauty stuff, the love stuff, the eradication of evil stuff.

Forget about Jesus laying claim to all the symbols. Let's just talk about the fact that there's some kind of work going on in heaven and people don't see the necessity for that." Sure. If you if you want to if you want

to draw the thing down to the controversial point that some people struggle with, basically you're just doing you're doing you're doing apologetics at that point and apologetics are without any and apologetics are without value. So, so the only thing that really matters,

the only thing that really matters is the gospel and how the gospel is explained in scripture. uh the apologetic enterprise of taking controversial points in with myopic vision and then you know lining up the verses and the the arguments in favor

and against is a is a valueless intellectual us in like I see what you're saying. You're saying like, "Yeah, okay. If if all we're doing is trying to talk about these controversial things and and uh um without all of the setup for why this

thing even might matter, then all we're doing is just trying to prove a point, right? There's not there's not a greater story that this is connected to. There's not a deeper meaning behind it at all." That's right.

And there's and there's really nothing that you can get out of. You you can't you can't just say, "Okay, so let's begin by uh talking about this idea that there is that Jesus is our high priest in heaven and what is he doing up there?

That sounds kind of ridiculous. Is there really a sanctuary in heaven? Does it have some walls? Is there real gold there? Does it does is there really a sanctuary? Oh, come on. Th this is, you know, this whole way of dealing with

with subject matter is not productive of any positive outcomes in my opinion. Not the way you're doing it. You're this is fine. Our discussion is fine. But I've been in enough of these discussions to know, you know, people want to ask

questions like, well, is there a literal sanctuary in heaven? It's a it's a dumb question.

I was I was gonna ask you what your thoughts on this. It doesn't yield. It doesn't give any any any light. The Bible just assumes it. The Bible The Bible isn't trying to to split the hair of what how big it is

and whether or not there's really wood and gold. And God, I mean, honestly, it's it's intellectually flat and it leaves pe it leaves people in a loop, an argumentative loop about things that are are not really the thing. We

need to get to the thing behind the thing behind the thing that is the real thing. And I believe this is this is just where I come at it from. And I'm a convert to Christianity and Adventism.

And I can almost guarantee you that the people who are splitting the hair with regards to is there a literal sanctuary in heaven? Is Jesus like moving his hands or something? Or is he standing there doing something 24/7? These people

are all cultural adventists who were raised in the system and they have a cynicism about the thing because they don't understand it.

This is this is why I love they don't they don't understand it. They don't understand it. They don't they don't know what it looks like to someone like me who is a random messed up dysfunctional human wandering the

face of the earth who's seeing real suffering and real evil up close and personal concrete evil in the form of blood and gore and longs for beauty and longs for a resolution to evil so that children don't suffer anymore. And so

that so that all there is is goodness and love and okay. So that's the angle I'm coming at it from. And the sanctuary answers answers my existential need, my existential questions.

I'm not like, oh, is there a literal sanctuary in heaven? Come on. Well, that's why we're having the discussion.

But this is why because what you just described is there's this deep desperate desire in humanity for for justice and for goodness and for the restoration of all things. You've just described that what many of us in cultural adventism

have experienced is this weird nitpicking down to these like minor details about all of these things that then ended up in some crazy like, oh yeah, God's going to judge everybody in the end. And I'm not trying again, your

whole point is that if you haven't experienced the real thing, then yeah, you're gonna say that that that thing could be bad, right? And but what I'm just trying to express is I'm totally with you and I really appreciate what

you're saying. I think the reason it gets nitpicked is because of intellectualism within Adventism, which is like, okay, like we're going to get the truth behind all of this and that and like all these tiny little details are the thing itself. It's like, no,

they're they're not. And that's what you're trying to say. But because that's how it's often expressed.

And if I'm just being honest, so many of the people that I've noticed are really into the sanctuary uh are the type of people who will get super into all of like they're the ones drawing out the diagrams, all that stuff and trying to

get everything down to the details. And that's not inherently bad, but it's just like if that's the primary way you're hearing it, then that's all that you find you figure is important about it.

So, okay. So if this is the case, then there's this deep need in humanity that is being met as God does this all throughout history from from its actual um physical existence here on on earth through Jesus now saying all of that is

seen in me or I I am it to a to a large degree. now to all of the imagery that we have um in Hebrews and in other places that talks about and in Revelation and talks about this

sanctuary. Um but again, it doesn't it seems to be less literal in its expression of this exists up there and more like in in Revelation. It's it's a it's a there's a different layout. It's trying to make a different point. You

can see all the way through the thing um in in in one point in Revelation. And so it seems to be making poetic points using all of this these these uh the imagery and the and the setup to all of

this. So there's all sorts of different ways it seems to be it seems to be used.

What why in the world does it matter so much at least in our stated doctrine of belief that Jesus is up there ministering on our behalf? Because as soon as you say that, what it starts to sound like is that God and Jesus are in

opposition or like Jesus is on our side, God's against us, and therefore Jesus has to stand in the middle of it all.

And I don't personally believe that, but that's definitely how it sounds without any sort of extrapolation on it. So I'm curious of what your thoughts are on that.

Well, the truth is God's not against us and Jesus in favor of us. We're against us. There is a fundamental fracture in human consciousness that was imposed upon us by sin that the plan of salvation is attempting to

rectify. So let me make a statement and then support the statement. The sanctuary is a model of the human psyche and the journey psychologically, emotionally, conceptually, volitionally the psychological journey that a human being must undergo in order to be restored to

the originally intended purpose of being a human and that is to love like God loves without the interposing shame in between. Let me say it this way. The the sanctuary is according to scripture addressing the problem that came into being in Genesis chapter

3. Yeah. Okay. So God the the the original sanctuary is the garden of Eden.

Yeah. The garden of Eden is the original uh place of meeting or dwelling for God Yahweh would show up to have open fellowship with the humans that he made.

And this was an unveiled fellowship. This was it was it was it was it was God meeting with humans with no veil between with no psychological um veil between.

They were naked and not ashamed. They there was a naked and not ashamed vulnerability.

They were in fellowship with God and fellowship with one another. the sin problem enters the picture and Genesis 3 describes a a psychological complex of problems that immediately take form and the this psychological complex of problems is described where it says that

they they knew that they were naked. This is a Bible the Bible's way of describing that they began to experience the psychological phenomenon of shame.

Number two, because of the psychological phenomenon of shame, they began to make coverings. This is the Bible's way of describing the manufacturing of compensation mechanisms to deal with shame.

Yeah. And they make coverings and then when God approaches, their impulse is to hide. Why do they hide? Genesis 3 says that when they come out of hiding before God and he says, you know, why were you what have you done? Why were you hiding?

They said, well, we hid because we were afraid. Yeah, there's phobia. So, you have shame, you have covering, you have hiding, you have phobia. You you have psychological distortion that has occurred on an extremely deep level within the human

person within within the human person. Now, let me back up and make make a point here. When God made the man and the woman, they had a holistic consciousness.

Yeah. There there was no there was no sense of self. Adam was perfectly conscious of God and Eve.

So he was completely other centered or outward centered in his psychological processing of reality. God is beautiful and awesome and he loves me and I love him. Eve is beautiful and awesome and I love her and she loves me. The same was

the experience of Eve. Eve was clearly conscious of God and Adam. There was no such thing as insecurity. There was no such thing as any kind of listen there was no such thing as any kind of psychological mirror.

Yeah. Nobody was looking at themselves. They were only looking outward at the other. And the only principle of their existence was love. Other centeredness, lavishing love on the other. Sin enters the picture. And sin by definition is anti- love.

Yeah. It's not the breaking of arbitrary rules that God made up. It's it is sin is the is going against the grain of reality itself.

Yeah. I was ma Adam and Eve were made to only ever love like God loves and sin was the introduction of the selfishness principle into human psychology and relational dynamics. So immediately the moment the gaze turns inward the shame and the sense of self-loathing

are psychologically unbearable. Shame must be dealt with either by offloading it by means of forgiveness or by coping with it by any number of self-medicating processes even.

Okay. And the [clears throat] the primary self-medicating self-medication that humans engage in is described in Genesis 3. Adam when when when God when God looks at Adam and says, "Hey, Adam, what's up?" Adam says, "Eve, yeah, she's the problem." They start blaming.

So then God look then God looked at Evede and Eve says, "No, no, no, no, serant." Yeah.

And both of them by logical extension are saying, "God, yeah, you put us in this predicament. you're the one.

So, so the blame mechanism is the is the psychological survival maneuver that the human psyche is engaging in. Now, this is extremely important to understand the sanctuary because now that sin is in the picture, now that sin is in the picture, Kabad

has occurred. The glory of God has departed from the garden and from the citadel of the human mind and consciousness.

Yeah, the human being. Yeah, we said earlier that Jesus said that he there are three temples. I mean, there's more, but you'll see what I mean. There are three temples in the Bible. There is the the physical temple that is built by Israel

in the wilderness and then it takes on different fors forms with Solomon's temple. It's more elaborate, but just call that the earthly sanctuary.

Then there is the heavenly sanctuary according to the book of Hebrews and according to Exodus that this earthly one was built as a model of. But here's the crucial thing.

There's a third temple. And it is the human being. Yeah. The human being. The Bible literally says when you come to the New Testament, do you not know? Paul says in 1 Corinthians that you are the temple of

God and that the spirit of God dwelt in you. So the human being was created by God as a habitable creature.

The human being cannot do reality solo. You and I independence is an illusion. There is no such thing as a human being that that is sustainable apart from an intimate fellowship with the one who made the human being. So when God

created the human being, check this out you guys. When God created the human being, you have just picture Adam and Eve. There's a a physical body there.

Well, that physical body has a brain and that brain has chemical and electrical impulses that form thoughts and feelings and engage in decision making process and and that brain with that brain which is a physical organ listen generates the

phenomenon of mind. Yeah. M I N psyche consciousness physical organ called the brain adds chemical and electrical processes that generate the non-material reality of mind and that non reality that non-material reality of mind that's where identity is formed and

resides. That's where you have like you can dissect a brain on a lab table. It's a physical thing. You can take it out of the skull, preferably postmortem, and you can put it on the table and you can

slice that thing up into pieces and look at it under a microscope. You can't you cannot do that with a thought or a feeling or a motive or a memory.

Absolutely. So right now to make my point, right now you Jesse, you Sean, I Todd, you are the sum total of all the experiences that you have ever had.

Yeah. Every everything you've done and everything that was done to you resides within what the Bible calls remembrance.

Remembrance. The the the mind is a recording device that takes in all the data of your experience, positive and negative, and forms identity. Now, the identity of the man and the woman prior to the fall was a fully conscious and

integrated consciousness. Fully conscious. You've heard people say, "Well, we're only using 10% of our intellectual capacity. Imagine if we were using 100% of our intellectual capacity." Well, it's a it's a it's a demonstrable fact scientifically that we are not firing on all cylinders. We're

basically stupid on balance. So, so we're not using all of our intellectual processing power, but there's a reason for that, you guys. There's a reason why the majority of human consciousness is subconsciousness, and that is because of the phenomenon of

shame. We cannot process reality [snorts] without imploding. So, we're constantly engaged in hiding and covering mechanisms, self-medicating processes in order to protect ourselves from realities we find unbearable.

I just want when when ad when Adam and Eve sinned, something happened within human psychology.

Consciousness was split. There used to be one of us. Now there's two of us.

This is all through the writings of Paul in the New Testament. Old man, new man.

Yeah. The the the natural man. It's enmity against God. The new man. There there's now there's two of you, Jesse. There's two of you, Sean. Yeah.

There there there's a war. There's a civil war going on in your mind. Yeah. We call that schizophrenic.

When Yeah. Yeah. When sin entered the human mind, it generated the psychological phenomenon of shame.

Yeah. The psychological phenomenon of shame generated a split consciousness, a fracture in human consciousness where now we have the conscious mind and the subconscious mind. And most of our memories, our the wrong things we've done, the the things we're not proud of,

the things that have been done to us that were traumatizing, we according to scripture, we quoting Job, we hide them in our bosom. Indeed, this is a poetic way in the book of Job of saying, I took my iniquity, Job says,

my sin and my shame, and it was more than I could bear. So he said, "I I hid it." Yeah.

In my bosom. I I pushed it down in to my subconscious realm. So So you're wondering why why I'm talking about all of this, but it it it it matters. If we're going to understand what the sanctuary is dealing with, we

have to know the problem the sanctuary is attempting to address. Now, watch this. Watch this.

Can Well, can I can I butt in and just try to encapsulate what you're saying?

So what what I'm hearing you say there's there's there's different dwelling places of God that are described as sanctuaries or or Yeah. I mean sanctuary means dwelling place or or tender tabernacle that like that's that means dwelling place. So that could be the physical

earthly one described in as the the the the temporary structure or also the the the physical temples that were built. Um also the heavenly sanctuary where God dwells. Whatever that means, whatever that looks like is less important than

than the fact that God dwells in that space is what I'm hearing. Then there's the human the humans are ourselves or humans even as as a group because I think also Paul refers to the church as the as the dwelling place of God. So

it's it seems individually and corporately and corporately. Yeah. So in that but in that reality what we were made for this incredibly uh this incredible gift of being other centered and being able to function in a space that um we didn't have to be

self-protective. We didn't have to we didn't have to be afraid of the other. We could simply exist and give of ourselves because God was fully giving to us and our partners were giving to like yes that's a beautiful interchange.

However, as soon as we go hey what if we could be like God? What if we could do what God does? Now all of a sudden we're all defining good and evil on our own for for ourselves. And so now what's

good for me, I might define it as good for me, but it actually is bad for you.

And so now now I have to protect myself from you. And there's also this concern and this fear about who I am. And what if you truly saw me? Would I actually would you actually love me still? So now

I have to hide from you in order to be safe. And I also might damage you. You also might harm me. So now we're all living in this kind of crazy self-protective realm. We also have all these internalized experiences that are

happening to us. Um, and all of the the the memory of what we have done and that creates a whole mix like this like concoction of shame and guilt and brokenness and coping mechanisms and all that stuff. So what

what I hear you saying is then is that and I haven't I haven't heard it described this way, but what I'm I'm going to put some of my own words to it.

I'm hearing you say that there is like a cosmic like big picture something that God is doing and you haven't started describing that fully yet. But there's that. There's also like the like the the the maybe the religious realities of of

of uh function and form in the context of like an earthly sanctuary. But in the context of humanity, God seems to be doing something through the sanctuary that is revealing what he's doing in us as individuals um to heal us to address

this brokenness within us so that there might be a restoration to what was always meant to be. Is that is that a fair representation?

And those are and those those are grander and more important questions than how big is the one in heaven and does it have literal walls and blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. We should be talking about the realities it intends

to communicate which transcend the more reductionistic questions that we for some reason are fascinated by and I I for the life of me can't figure out why we even are are spending energy in that direction. Here's a short way of saying

what I said. The human being was created by God, designed by God, engineered by God to love without any kind of impediment or crippling. Planet Earth is a trauma ward and all of the human race is traumatized by sin and guilt and shame. And all of

us, whether we know it or not, are are navigating our subconscious traumas and shames by imposing uh blame on others, by adopting, you know, extreme ideological positions and playing politics and getting a Twitter account or an ex account and jumping on Facebook

and blah, you know, blasting people for this is all survival mechanism. This is self-medication.

blaming accusing condemning judging. This is the medication that keeps us alive and it ultimately pans out in a scapegoat mechanism by which we find somebody to blame rather than to bear our own, you know, process. The the fact is that

we were made, Jesse, Sean, we are designed for a beautiful intellectual emotional intimacy Yeah.

with God and one another. Mhm. You guys listen. If if the three of us if the three of us were to experience friendship on the level that we were originally made to experience friendship. I mean I love you guys. I'm

assuming you love me. But we are loving one another with such a twisted broken love that that it friendship on the level that the Bible envisions with no insecurities or phobias, no shame, no violations between.

Now we're talking about subject matter that is worthy of our intellectual pursuit. Now, now we're asking questions that are worth asking. How does a human being get the shikina glory of the intimate presence of God back in to the citadel

of the mind? Okay, right there. Okay, right there. That's that's a wild statement in in a in a great way because I think that's the thing that we I think we struggle to identify with in a western concept of of the the sanctuary

or the the dwelling place of God because we don't have that felt experience of like God's in there and if I walk in there I'm I'm dead. You know, we don't we don't have that same like physical experience in our world. Um, and yet if

you were to imagine if you were to imagine God trying to inhabit like truly fully unveiled inhabit me, I I think it would be psychologically dismantling like to to a degree that I don't know if I would survive that because for for God

to step in and go and and just to try and change one piece of me, which is to be fully vulnerable in a way that demanded that I didn't have that I was not trying to be self-protective. Like that would I feel

like would dismantle me at a level that I'm not sure I would psychologically be able to recover from. So, so what I hear you saying is that there is a there has to be proc there's a healing process

that's in place as opposed to God just imposing that on us in in all this. Yeah. So that's really interesting necessarily though. So go back go back to the problem. If you read the the fall of humanity and the complex of

psychological problems that are the cascading outcome of the introduction of sin into human psychological experience.

When you read all of that, the problem is that we have is from our side of the relational dynamic, not God's side.

And one of the ways that we imagine is that God is the problem in the relational dynamic. And God needs to get over the the the breakdown of the relationship and be reconciled to us.

The scripture teaches that God is already reconciled to us and always has been and that that the problem is from the human side of the relational dynamic. Our sin has created a barrier between us and God. And God's response

is to say, "Okay, let me bridge the gulf between you and I in a way that is manageable and will result in our complete intimate union again without destroying you." Short way of saying that is that God is trying to save me

without destroying me. Yeah. God is trying to enter into relationship with me in an incremental fashion through a series of veiled veils that have to be penetrated.

The sanctuary the sanctuary is a model of human the human psyche the human mind. The most holy place is the subconscious.

The holy place is the conscious mind and the courtyard of the conscious mind. And what the way the Bible describes it is, you know, David comes along and this is so mind-blowing to me. David comes along and he says, uh, in Psalm 77:13, he

says, God, your way, Derek, in the Hebrew path journey. Your way is in the sanctuary. So if you look at a, you know, an aerial view of the sanctuary, it forms a path.

Yeah. It's a journey. It it depicts a developmental process by which a human being moves through a series of veils.

There's three in particular. The the veil has to be penetrated into the courtyard. Then the veil has to be penetrated into the holy place. And then the final veil to be penetrated into the most holy place. That's where the

unveiled shakina glory of God and his law covered by the mercy seat resides once. So, so, so the sanctuary is essentially saying saying the sanctuary is basically saying this, hey, you've been separated from God. Come on.

There's a way back. There's a there's a way there's a way back. Now, now, now you were exactly right, Jesse, when you said that if I were to enter in to full unveiled the full unveiled presence of God right now, it would destroy me. Now,

when I say that, I don't mean God would destroy me. I'm saying the experience itself would destroy me. In in Exodus 33:20, uh Moses says, "God, show me your face." And God says to him, "No man can see the

face of God and live. I'll cover you while I walk. See my face." Yeah. He's not saying if you see me, I'll kill you. He's saying if you see me, you'll die.

These are two different ways of of understanding. So if you see me, now watch this you guys. Mo God is saying to Moses, Moses, if you see me, you'll see you.

And you can't handle that. What do you mean by that? I think I'm following you a bit.

Okay. God is saying no man can see the face of God and survive the ordeal because the pure love and glory and holiness and righteousness of God is a revelatory mechanism. It's a revelatory experience. If I see God just as God is,

it will awaken in me by contrast a level of selfawareness that I'm incapable of processing.

Like for instance, when like when like when when you are somebody who is living a lifestyle that you you're personally already ashamed of, right? Like it doesn't I don't even have to say anything specific, but just like you're not stoked about it and you

go into someone who you just see them living in a way that's like ideal. Like it's like, man, this looks so good.

It awakens your car chubs. You go in there and you're like, I feel even more aware of all of the different pieces of my life that are out of sync.

So, it would be and I I feel I've felt that at different times kind of like in my own experience with God kind of yeah, I put in air quotes because I don't know how to explain this other than to say

entering into the presence of God in my own experience. And it is true like what I often have felt is just this like whoa this deep awareness of the brokenness within me as I've grown as I've as I've

matured in my experience with God. It's less shame. It's it's it's less shame and more just like a a realistic feeling of oh yeah like this is who I really am.

Yes. Um that with the unveiled experience of God and how good he is and me like that would be I could see how how just a glimpse of how incredibly destabilizing.

That would be a very minimum. But here's the thing, Jesse. Here's the thing. It's all based on a lie.

Yeah. Part of the sin problem, if you go back to Genesis 3, is the serpent brought sin into the human experience by misrepresenting the character of God as against humans. that God is fundamentally selfish and that he is

operating by self-serving motives and so you need to break ranks with God in order for you to ascend to the place that he doesn't want you ascending to.

The moment Adam and Eve believed the lie, they committed the act of sin and then the shame cascaded upon their conscience. So then God God essentially so when I say it's all based on a lie. Um Jesus describes

the sanctuary mediation mechanism in John chapter 16. He says the time is coming when I will tell you plainly about the father.

What do they mean? He what something's being Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He says he sh this is that saying Johnapter 16 Jesus says to this point I've been talking to you in figurative language I've been using metaphors like the sanctuary the

sanctuary is a series of metaphors by which we are able to access deeper and deeper intimacy with God without being destroyed in the process. I've been talking to you in metaphors and symbols and parables. Jesus says, "But the time

is coming when I will tell you plainly about the father." And here's the plain truth about the father. Jesus says it, "The father himself loves you." And he says that in that day you will pray in my name.

Yeah, this is mediation. Dear father in heaven, etc., etc., etc. I pray in the name of Jesus. I'm going through the mediator, through the high priest. I'm going through the veil.

He is the He is the the veil through which I'm accessing the father. Jesus comes along and he says, you know that mediatorial role that I'm playing, it's only necessary because you don't know that the father himself loves you. But

when you come to realize and to know that the father himself loves you, then mediation becomes unnecessary because now you're not afraid anymore and you don't need to protect yourself from the father. You don't need to protect yourself from God. And this is what the

book of Hebrews, by the way, is all about. Hebrews chapter 6 and Hebrews chapter 10. I will summarize for you because I I know that you only do this for a certain amount of time and we're probably gonna you're gonna probably

shut this down any second here. Just keep going. I won't go. Just keep going.

This is good. So So Hebrews chapter 6, Jesus is called the forerunner or the one that goes before. The forerunner, not the Toyota. The forerunner is the one who goes before the others. Right? So he's describing Hebrews chapter 6 is describing his

mediatorial role as our high priest. And what's that mediatorial role? He's the forerunner. Where does he go ahead? He goes ahead into the most holy place.

It says to the presence behind the veil. Jesus has penetrated all the veils and he's now in the most holy place, right? And from the most holy place, he says to us, "Hey, God is good. He loves you. He's

friendly. I'm here with him right now. And you can come. You can come boldly with confidence. You can also enter in through the series of veils into unveiled shakana glory presence of God.

You can because I'm the forerunner and I've gone there for you. And here's here's here's where the idea of mediation. You know, in Adventism, you have this idea that mediation will end, right? And you will stand in the

presence of God without a mediator. And people like panic and freak out and say, "What?" No, I need Jesus to be my mediator forever.

What do you mean mediation ends? Well, don't you want mediation to end? Don't you want to know the love of God with such crystal clarity that you feel perfectly at home yourself in the presence of the father so that you can

be there in the most holy place and Jesus can say, "I told you he's friendly. He loves you. He's good. There is nothing but grace and mercy with God.

You don't need to be afraid of him. Mediation is a temporary is a temporary fixture in the plan of salvation. It's not an eternal reality in this sense that in the sense that we're talking about Jesus says that the plain truth about

the father is that the father himself loves you. So come on come on come with me through the veils into the most holy place. And there is a mutual inddwelling that is described in the New Testament.

Jesus says, "I want to dwell in you and I want you to dwell in me." So I to the degree that I come into fellowship with the father into fellowship with God, he comes into fellowship with me until I

experience what Paul describes in uh Ephesians chapter 3 where he says that when you comprehend the love of God, he uses the word comprehend. When you comprehend the love of God, you are filled with all the fullness of God.

This kind of glory takes up residence again in the sanctuary of human consciousness and fellowship is fully restored.

I think where we've got nobody's nobody's talking about that. I think I think nobody's talking about about this aspect of the sanctuary truth and yet this is the way the Bible describes it.

Yeah. So, so a couple things here going back even to what you said that's a huge paradigm shift of the idea of, you know, living without a mediator because I think the way we grew up hearing about it. Uh, it was it was very much in this

legalistic mindset of, you know, living without a mediator means we're going to be perfect in a way that, you know, it's it's it was more about it wasn't about this this bigger picture idea of of, you know, understanding that the veil's been

taken away and I'm fully at peace with who God is as a good God. It was seen as like, you know, I'm going to I almost thought of it as a scary like test like you were going to be without immediate.

Okay, you know, you're going to be without Jesus to protect you. You better have all the things. You know, you're keeping the commandments perfectly.

You're doing everything right. You don't need Jesus to cover you. Like this end time test is the way that I always had heard it described where you're describing it as as a beautiful thing where it's finally unveiling, you know,

who God is and taking on this trajectory. What you were raised with is like an Edgar Allen Poe version of the sanctuary doctrine. You were raised with bad tacos, bro. So the the the Are you are you saying that Edgar Allan

Poe is a bad writer? Is is that what you're saying? He's an excellent writer. I'm talking but he's the he he's the he's the original American horror author. Yeah. I mean, you can I had I had somebody say

to me recently, they said, um, Ty, I can't I can't believe the the the doctrine of the judgment because, um, it's terrifying to think that God will judge me.

Okay. But from the biblical standpoint, the biblical writers are asking for judgment. Amen. The biblical God, judge me.

Assess me so I can assess me. Search me, oh God, and know my heart and try me and know my thoughts and see if there's anything in my subconscious realm that needs to be that needs to be released

from shame and trauma so that I can stand in your presence and feel perfectly at home there. See if there's any wickedness deep in my subconscious.

I mean, do you guys of course you do you want, you know, unrepentant child molesters to be freaked out at the idea of standing in the presence of God.

Sure. Yeah. Okay. So, so, so this person said to me, I don't like the judgment doctrine because it makes me feel like God is going to judge me and I don't like the idea of being judged in the

condemnatory sense. And and I simply said, well, the biblical idea of the judgment in Daniel chapter 7 and 8 is that judgment is in favor of the saints of the most high God.

You don't need to be afraid of the judgment. God likes you. God loves you. Jesus is your savior.

that you you need to be eagerly anticipating that God will judge the world in righteousness and resolve child molestation and wife beating and war and political subduge and all the e I mean there is evil going on in this world

that is just absolutely horrendous. Do we not want God to to to pass judgment on all of that? But that's not you, John. That's not you, Jesse. You've taken refuge in Christ. The judgment is good news for you. This is God

confirming your your your relationship with him. So, practically speaking, I don't get the negativity of the doctrine.

Well, let me tell you why. Because practically speaking, the way that it's been used in our church, and I I know you say I was grew up with bad tacos.

I'm telling you, I think most of Adventists grew up with bad tacos if what you're saying is true. because the fruit of of the investigative judgment and sanctuary doctrine has not been what you've described. You said no one's

talking about it. I think I agree. I think it's shifting. We've talked to some people like, you know, Richard Davidson talked about, you know, retooling or re uh describing investigative judgment as affirmative judgment, which is what you just

described is that God is in favor of us. He's a he's a good God that that wants to redeem us. But for so many years, it seems like maybe even the majority of Adventist history, that has not been the

message of the sanctuary. That is not what we have taught. Yeah. Because the fruit of the the the teaching and the doctrine has been fear and shame that oh yes, we talked about the child molesters and the extreme examples you gave, but

what about me? What about the sins I've done? I'm not good enough. I'm not ready for I may not be Oh, Jesse knows way too much. Uh [laughter] I I you know the fear of not being in the book of life

that you know you've been erased from that space and this idea that you know all this imagery we could go on and on about this idea of like none of that is good news bro I know but that's my point

is that that has been what has been explained about it which is why people leave they like you just described at the beginning people have left because the image of sanctuary investigative judgment is you know idea that number

one the the accusation is things were not done at the cross so therefore adventists cannot not be assured of their salvation. And there and and here's the reality the way it's been taught. I agree with them because there's so many and I've even taught I

I've even worked with students where the number one thing is like do you know you're like if you follow Jesus do you know that you're saved and there's a constant I see it all over the place in Adventism that there's a fear like I'm

not good enough and and and you know Yeah. real quick I I just I I want to I want to get to the assurance of salvation thing in a in a little bit. I that's a big one. Or like or can we

Well, don't forget because I I have something on the tip of my tongue about that. So don't don't I just want to come back a note.

I just want to make it I just want to come back to the mediator thing before we move on because I I think um okay this is a this is a big piece that I have personally struggled to connect

with as well. Um and then we can kind of go into the into why does what is the atonement piece of this? Um would it be fair to describe the mediating reality of of this whole conversation both the

the high priest in the Old Testament then to what Jesus is doing later is I mean we we even do it with um with people in our real in our you know day-to-day life. There might be somebody that someone else knows and they're

important or they have they have power in a or authority in a specific company or or place and it's like I don't want to just walk in there by myself. I don't know that person, they're going to think

I'm, you know, they're think they think I'm presumptive. Uh I'm I'm going to walk in there and I'm not going to know how to talk to them or what to say. So we we ask our friend to introduce or our

friend offers to introduce us to that person. And that that is I hate the term mediator because it sounds so legal in its implications, but if we're talking relationally then and I'm not trying to say it's a bad word for it. It just it

doesn't compute for me. But if we're talking relationally, there's that friend or that person who's like, "Hey, I know this person. I I trust them." When I walk into their presence, like I'm I'm fully uh relaxed because I know

them and so I'm going to take you with me into their presence and you're going to experience them through my through my relationship with them. Is that a fair assessment of of mediation?

Yeah. The only the only thing that I would add to it is that the the whole point of mediation is to reveal God to be friendly, not to keep us away from him. There's no there's no there's no distinction

between Jesus and the father in character or posture toward humans. This is a mis misnomer of bad religion. So the whole the whole point of Jesus ministry, he comes into the world, right? And when he comes into the world, I'll use, you

could do this with any of the gospels or the writings of Paul, but for the sake of brevity, I'll just deal with the gospel of John. So Jesus comes into the world and the sanctuary language is immediately invoked in chapter 1 of John

verse 14. It says, "The word became flesh and tabernacled among us." Dwelt among us.

Okay? Jesus is the temple. He comes into the world. The the word became flesh and dwelt among us. Now, here's the part.

Watch this. The word became flesh and tabernacled among us. And we beheld, we encountered his glory. And it is the glory of the only begotten of the father full of grace and truth.

Yeah. And then it says that no one has seen God at any time except for the one who was in the presence of God. He has revealed him as well in chapter one.

Yeah. Verses 14 through 19. And Jesus, the gospel of John begins by saying Jesus is now in the world in a veiled form bearing our flesh with the glory of the shikina glory of God dimmed down in a

form we can encounter it and not be destroyed. And he says, "Hey, I am the shikina glory of God taking up residence in a human body." Yeah. And now I'm with you and you can see me as I am. And what you're going to

encounter is grace and truth in equilibrium. So So grace and truth in equilibrium. I love you. Now here's the truth about the father. Here's the truth about you. Do you want do you want to move on in this

relationship? This is John chapter one. Well, then Jesus in chapter 5 of John, I'm just I'm just picking through through the gospel in order to save time here. In chapter five, he says he says, "Everything I do is because of the father."

Yeah. I only do what he This is chapter five. Then in chapter 14, he straight up says in chapter 14:9, "If you have seen me, you have seen the father." And then in chapter 16, he says, "I've been talking

to you in veiled language, in metaphors, and figurative language, but I will tell you plainly about the father. The father himself loves you.

So you will continue your habit of praying in my name, but I will not pray to the father for you any longer." Why?

Because the father himself loves you. Yeah. So what I'm seeing here of John is just saying to us the yeah Jesus Jesus is basically saying the sanctuary is an experiential journey of a deepening unveiled intimacy with God until you are fully back in the most

holy place as it were in fellowship with God and you don't need somebody in between to keep telling you that God is good because now you know that God is good. He loves you. You are forgiven and you feel perfectly at home in the

presence of God. Tell me about good news. No, that's amazing news. This is good news.

What I'm also hearing in that though is because I've always struggled with like the media because if it's just legal, it's weird. It's a weird thing, right?

But what I'm hearing is like if I'm I'm thinking about it being an Israelite in the ancient world with the sanctuary, it's like I that God that's in there is mildly terrifying at best and extremely terrifying at worst. Like I mean like

that's a crazy experience. That God if he were to fully pop out of the tent, we'd all be dead. Okay, that's terrifying. I don't know how to go near that god, but I know I know you the high

priest or I know you the priest. like I have a relationship with you and if I know you and you walk in there, then you're carrying me in there with you, right?

And you're having that relationship with God. But what I'm also starting to envision from a relational standpoint is like say a president or a CEO of a company and there's your friend who who who who knows this person. So now they take you

in and at first it's a bit terrifying. You're like, I don't know how to act around this person. I don't know what to do. But then if they kept go if you kept going in there with them over time,

you'd start to get to know the other person. And what's wild is that Jesus's claim is that I am the CEO to like or I guess to this is going to be a heretical expression of this, but but the CEO the

CEO and I are one. If you know me, you know the CEO. Yeah. And so what's wild is I get to know Jesus outside of the context of the terror of that space. what what would be my terror of that space of that office

over there that I don't know what to do in. But then as I'm closer with Gez, I go I go into that space and I start to develop a relationship with the CEO and I realize I've I've actually known this

guy the whole time because he's he's he's the friend as well. I'm starting to see this in a relational sense that makes way more sense than how I've heard it expressed. And it's all because of how you're how you Ellen White is um this

interesting thing. By the way, Ellen White is unnecessary to to formulate the sanctuary doctrine. And the Adventist Church never never uh has set forth the idea that uh the sanctuary doctrine has its origins in the writings of Ellen

White and we need her writings to prove it. I believe that Ellen White uh I have I've been reading the writings of Ellen White since my baptism and I believe her writings are are inspired by God. But my

point is doctrinally, you'll notice that everything I'm talking about is biblical. I've never brought up Ellen White's writings. You don't need her writings to teach the sanctuary doctrine uh at all. But I want since you brought this up, there's this very interesting

psychological hypothetical experiment that Ellen, it's a it's an act of pure genius. She says she she poses the hypothetical question. Uh think about this. What if the father, she says, was the one who came to the world in the

flesh rather than Jesus? And then she says we wouldn't have seen anything different. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's what that's what I was thinking.

It's the same, you know. Exactly. It's an ingenious little psychological experiment because we've been you know through paganism and the Christian version of paganism in you know p the papal doctrinal system um through through paganism which has permeated a lot of

Christian thinking we have this bifurcation between the father and and the son and we think Jesus is the friendly one who loves us and the father is the one who's ticked off to the max and that he must be persuaded to love

us. This is complete nonsense. Yeah. Totally. The the Bible knows nothing about this. From a biblical standpoint, the only reason Jesus is between us and the father is because our heads are filled with lies about God and our shame,

our shame, our guilt. Yeah. Causes us to see him in a way that is inaccurate. Jesus resolves our shame.

He relieves our guilt so that we can have a clear window in to the heart and mind of of God the Father and not feel as though God is against us but Jesus likes us.

That that's just not an accurate depiction of of of the gospel. Again, the whole reason Jesus came you've seen the father. The father himself loves you. So now to get to what Sean was kind of bringing up when you

talk about the judgment piece or the atonement or even as we talk about like 1844 at least the way the doctrine states it is then Jesus enters the second phase of his atoning ministry. So I have a whole thing about 1844 as a

date. You know I'm still not totally convinced on that date. But I would love to lay that aside for for a moment and just get to like what what's the idea behind that? Because as as Sean was saying, now we have this like Jesus goes

in there and now he's doing this work of investigative judgment and that sounds terrifying and we've already established that like that's not that's not the heart of God. Um, right?

But what exactly are is I'm not trying to say the the 28 fundamental belief or the 24th fundamental belief here is the gospel um in the sense that like the way that it's written out is the gospel. But

what I am trying to get to the bottom of is why why this second phase, why this shift of of role, why why does that matter and and why an investigative judgment at that point?

Okay. So, so this is this is a really important question and Sean was connecting it to, you know, the assurance of salvation uh question and this this is a very big subject. Um, let's do it in five minutes. No, I'm just kidding.

Okay. Okay. So, so let's begin by saying this. according to the sanctuary which is a prophetic symbolic model of the plan of salvation.

There are two phases or two rituals that are conducted. There's the daily ritual that takes place every day of the year. And then there's the yearly ritual that happens on the 10th day of the seventh month of each calendar year in the Hebrew system

called the day of atonement or judgment or yam kipore. Okay, let's just begin by acknowledging the fact that the model itself that scripture itself explicitly says that there are two phases. Now, we can just say, "Oh, no. I

don't want two phases. I'd rather just have one phase." Um, I mean, that's Do we do we want to study the Bible or do we not want to study the Bible? Does the Bible actually depict two phases? And

the answer is yes. The Bible depicts two phases. Okay. Does the New Testament come along and depict two phases? Yes.

Very clearly when you read the New Testament, Jesus dies on the cross of Calvary. And that is not the end of the story. He's resurrected and he ascends to the right hand of the father to the victory position and he takes up his

role according to his own testimony and according to the writings of Paul and the book of Hebrews. He becomes our heavenly high priest.

Yeah. We either want to know what that means or we just don't want to know what it means. It it's very strange to me as a convert to Christianity and Adventism to to simply reduce the whole thing to

to I don't want God to judge me. Um so I reject that doctrine of the the sanctuary and and and I want the assurance of salvation. This is going to be offensive at first, but I'm just going to say it. And we're we've all

we've all been there and we're there now. All of us, including myself, to some degree. The question of the assurance of salvation is a a a egocentric question.

It it's it's a question that is centered on me and my salvation. And the Bible is dealing in larger issues.

the resolution of the sin problem for the universe at large for eternity future. Now in and also it is on our behalf. It is for our restoration and all of that stuff, but that me as an individual is not I'm not the

main character of that story. That's what it sounds like you're saying. Yeah. My salvation is a given in Christ.

It's a done deal. He's Jesus. Jesus is the savior of the world. And by faith, I've said yes to it. I'm in.

Now, let's move on and talk about stuff beyond um whether or not I'm going to make it.

The the the question of, you know, Jesus is coming soon and the investigative judgment is underway. I wonder if I'll make it.

Yeah. Is really a 10-year-old question spiritually, theologically speaking. We need to start asking questions that pertain to the larger issues at play in the sanctuary. And the larger issues at play in the sanctuary have to do with the eternal security of the universe

against a second rebellion. Not just my security of salvation, me going to heaven and having eternal life. Praise God. I'm super jazzed about that. But the sanctuary, the sanctuary is depicting God as so merciful and compassionate that I mean my salvation

is just not a super interested subject because God is already in my favor. He loves me.

Jesus is my new representative head. He died for me. He resurrected. He ascended to the right hand of the father. And I don't need to, again, I I'll quote Ellen White in in uh the book Steps to Christ,

uh not to prove a doctrine, but in order to just make a point. She says, and I'm quoting, "We should not indulge anxiety as to whether or not we shall be saved." Rest in his love.

Yeah. End quote. Okay. We I don't need to be all anxious about my salvation because my salvation is his job and he did it.

Yeah. And our salvation is dependent on his heart towards us which is shown to be overwhelmingly faithful and kind and compassionate. Overwhelmingly forgiving.

But so much of the DNA but so much of the DNA of Adventism has rooted itself in like those that are going to be deceived in the end times and are you going to be in the kingdom or out?

There's been so much imagery that maybe not directly stated be the opposite of what you just did, Todd, but it it produced a reality where those of us that grew up with the way that things were structured and systematized in our

church created that inherent fear of this is where I'm going to be. I want to be I wasn't raised with any of that. So, I hardly know what to to make of it. I think it was a major misstep in

Adventist history. We could have another conversation sometime about Adventist history, the Advent Adventism's theological history, but here here's here's what I think happened just to ever so briefly address that.

within Adventist history, what happened was God raised up the Advent movement to to give to the world a revelation of his good character and the the gospel with unprecedented clarity through a doctrinal system that that vindicates the beauty of God's character against

all kinds of really horrible doctrinal charges against God in bad religion. And then we uh at a point in our history, we bifurcated doctrine from gospel and we began proving doctrines as apologetic arguments. Yeah.

Which Ellen White specifically addressed and rebuked and divorced from the context of of the story which would give which would give a lot of this actually relational and emotional meaning to us.

But now it just becomes intellectual pursuit. That sounds scary if if I'm if I'm hearing.

Well, yeah. We Yeah. We reduced the Sabbath, for example, to right day versus wrong day.

And here's the verses to prove it. And we reduce the state of the dead doctrine to when you die, you're really dead and unconscious. And that is not your deceased grandmother visiting you in in the night. And here's the verses. and

the the mathematics of Daniel 8:14 comes out to October 22nd, 1844. Let us close with prayer. We're right.

We've we've engaged in reductionism. We've reduced our doctrine to apologetic points to be proven in theological arguments. And all the while, every one of those doctrines was intended to be a window into the love of God, a lens

through which some dimension of the beauty of God's character is. The Sabbath isn't merely right day versus wrong day. Make sure you're going to church on the right day.

Yeah. It really is. Is that is that it? No, that's not it. The Sabbath is this beautiful doctrinal theological passageway in to the doctrine of justification by faith and resting in Christ for my salvation so that the bigger issues of

the great controversy between good and evil can now receive my attention. Yeah. My attention need to be not on whether or not I'm going to make it and more on God is beautiful. How can we leverage all of our resources to communicate to

ourselves and to the world the goodness of the character of God so that he's not a threatening figure to them anymore and they can approach him freely. Our energy and our resources need to be put into magnifying the beauty of God's

character, not quibbling over or not whether I'm going to be saved. Indeed, this is this is this is a bad use of of energy. the the when you say what you're saying, I'm like, this is beautiful.

This is Adventism at its most beautiful. And what what Sean is bringing up is the version of this that felt so harmful.

It's it what it feels like in in a lot of ways, I want to say this and then I want to I want to go back to the the the second phase piece, but it it feels like people who, you know, you experience you

watch marriage turn out so poorly for someone, you're like, I never want to get married. And then it's like, yeah, but that's not actually what marriage is. You know, marriage can be beautiful.

And and what I hear you describe a really good analogy. Yeah. So that's what that's what it feels like. And and and yet and there's a there's a there's a challenge I think and I I I lay this out to to those of us

who are are Adventists because I think this is a real problem for us is so many of us are still deconstructing the trauma. some of us is still happening to, but so many of us are still deconstructing the trauma of what it

was, what it what happened to us and what it should have been instead of of that um that we're still stuck having those conversations constantly instead of now engaging in the what is the beauty behind it all and [music] full

boore going after that. So I I just want to say I deeply appreciate your presence in Adventism and how you are expressing a far better story about what this all is that feels cohesive and still very Adventist. Um but it's far

better than the story that I think most of us have heard. I think there's a challenge for us to maybe for those of us who can at this point to stop just sitting in the Yeah. in the trauma of it all and

starting a better story next. But what's the better story? Exactly. [music] Hey everyone, thank you so much for listening to part one of our discussion with Ty Gibson on the sanctuary. We're going to get into investigative judgment, 2300 day prophecy, and even

this thing, the little horn of the beast of Daniel. Uh we're going to talk about that in part two of our discussion with Tai. So, I know that 2 hours was a long time, but we just scraped the surface of

the sanctuary doctrine. So, we had a lot more we wanted to talk to Ty about and we love having him on. So, look forward to in the near future uh seeing more content from Tai in part two. So, again,

we just want to say at the end of the episode, thank you so much to our patrons for supporting us. We'll have a little spot on the side where we um appreciate them. If you're willing to uh give back to us, we'd love to have your

support so that we can continue to keep growing this ministry. And [music] uh whether or not you do that, we just appreciate you listening. So, thank you so much for all of you who've listened and we'll see you next time on Seeking

What They Saw. [music]