Bringing the Holy Place into Right Condition

“Until two thousand three hundred evenings and mornings; and the holy place will certainly be brought into its right condition.”​—Dan. 8:14, NW; RS.

1. After her centuries of existence, in what way has Christendom been disappointing, and near the close of what period is she?

AS TIME rapidly moves on, more and more persons are becoming convinced that Christendom is not the place or sanctuary of pure worship of the one living and true God. The place of His worship ought to be holy, and Christendom is far from being that. After the sixteen centuries of her existence, something better than her unholy condition should have been expected of her, for she claims to worship this true God, the Creator of heaven and earth. After all the religious unsettlement that has been taking place, it is now evident that Christendom has not been “brought into its right condition,” or, “restored to its rightful state.” (Revised Standard Version) Plainly, Christendom is in her “time of the end” and is nearing the close of it.​—Dan. 12:4.

2. For the fulfillment of what prophecy of Daniel must we look elsewhere than to Christendom?

² It is necessary for us to look somewhere else than to Christendom to find where that “holy place” or that “sanctuary” of the Most High God has been “brought into its right condition,” or, “shall be justified.”​—Dan. 8:14; Leeser’s translation.

3. Where is the center of the theocracy, and what good definition does one Cyclopœdia give of the term “theocracy”?

³ According to the Sacred Scriptures, the “sanctuary” of God is his temple of worship. It is his “palace,” according to another meaning of the word that the Scriptures use for “temple” (hei·khalʹ, Hebrew). (Mal. 3:1; Ps. 45:15) In it he reigns over his dedicated people. To these he is the God Ruler or Theocrat. It is from there that he exercises theocratic rule or government. It is the center of his theocracy. A good definition for this governmental term “theocracy” is given in M’Clintock and Strong’s Cyclopædia, Volume 10, page 317, which says: “A form of government such as prevailed among the ancient Jews, in which Jehovah, the God of the universe, was directly recognised as their supreme civil ruler, and his laws were taken as the statute-book of the kingdom. This principle is repeatedly laid down in the Mosaic code, and was continually acted upon thereafter.”

4. What questions therefore arise as to Jehovah’s “holy place” or “sanctuary,” and why should religiously disturbed persons be interested in the answers?

⁴ In view of the foregoing, how would the “holy place” or “sanctuary” of Jehovah God need to be “brought into its right condition”? And when would this occur, or when did it occur?

THE “HOLY PLACE” OR “SANCTUARY”

6. Before being taken into exile, where had Daniel worshiped his God, and did that God lose his real temple by what happened about eleven years later?

⁶ Before being taken into exile in the year 617 B.C.E., Daniel had worshiped his God Jehovah in the temple at Jerusalem. But about eleven years later, in 607 B.C.E., King Nebuchadnezzar, the grandfather of Belshazzar, had destroyed the city of Jerusalem and its temple that had been built by King Solomon. That glorious temple was not really the dwelling place of Daniel’s God Jehovah, but was pictorial of it. And so at the destruction of Jerusalem’s temple by the Babylonians in 607 B.C.E., God’s real dwelling place or Palace was not really destroyed.​—1 Ki 8:27; Acts 7:48; 17:24.

7. What did that temple at Jerusalem picture, and in the Most Holy thereof whose sacrifice was presented?

⁷ That earthly temple did not picture or typify the Christian congregation that was established 639 years later in the rebuilt city of Jerusalem, on the day of Pentecost of 33 C.E. No, but it was pictorial or typical of Jehovah’s heavenly temple or palace, in which he reigns supreme above the living cherubs who attend him. As it is beautifully stated in Psalm 99:1, “Jehovah himself has become king. Let the peoples be agitated. He is sitting upon the cherubs. Let the earth quiver.” It was there in the Most Holy of Jehovah’s temple that Jesus Christ presented his sacrifice after ascending to heaven.

8, 9. (a) Who entered into the Most Holy of the earthly temple, and to do what? (b) What does Hebrews 9:1, 24-28 say regarding the services of Jesus Christ as a spiritual High Priest?

⁸ In ancient Jerusalem before its destruction by the Babylonians the Jewish high priest presented the blood of the Atonement Day sacrifices every year on Tishri 10, sprinkling the blood before the golden mercy seat upon which were carved two golden cherubs, above whom the Shekinah light appeared, to represent the invisible presence of Jehovah there. (Ex 25:17-22; Lev. 16:11-17; Num. 7:89; 1 Sam. 4:4; 2 Sam. 6:2) On the other hand, Jesus Christ was not a Levite priest of the family of Aaron and did not enter into the Most Holy of the earthly, mundane temple at Jerusalem. So as regards his service as Jehovah’s spiritual High Priest we read:

⁹ “Christ entered, not into a holy place made with hands, which is a copy of the reality, but into heaven itself, now to appear before the person of God for us. . . . But now he has manifested himself once for all time at the conclusion of the systems of things to put sin away through the sacrifice of himself. . . . so also the Christ was offered once for all time to bear the sins of many.”​—Heb. 9:1, 24-28.

10. When did Jesus enter upon his sacrificial course on earth, and like what ancient priest did he become?

¹⁰ When on earth Jesus laid down his perfect human sacrifice, he entering on this course of self-sacrifice at the time that he was baptized in water by John the Baptist, in 29 C.E. There God’s spirit descended upon Jesus, begetting him to spirit life as a spiritual Son of God. At the same time that spirit anointed him as a spiritual High Priest and a spiritual King who resembled King Melchizedek of the ancient city of Salem.

11. (a) Into what new relationship did Jesus then enter, and by what was the state in which he was then walking pictured? (b) What then separated him from spirit life in the heavens?

¹¹ From that time on, John the Baptist spoke of the anointed Jesus as “the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world,” also as “the Son of God.” (John 1:29-51; Matt. 3:13-17) Because of this new spiritual relationship with Jehovah God in heaven Jesus Christ was, as it were, walking in that spiritual state pictured by the first compartment of the temple, called The Holy, even while he was carrying out his sacrificial course on earth. Like the curtain or veil that separated the Holy and the Most Holy of the temple, Jesus’ perfect flesh was the thing that separated him during his human life in the flesh from spirit life in the invisible heavens where God personally is. He passed beyond this “veil” by dying as a human and being raised as a spirit.

12. According to the manner of whom did Jesus Christ become a high priest, and what did the inner curtain of the temple picture?

¹² With regard to this, it was written to the Christianized Hebrews, the natural descendants of the patriarch Abraham: “In this manner God, when he purposed to demonstrate more abundantly to the heirs of the promise [made to Abraham] the unchangeableness of his counsel, stepped in with an oath [to back up the promise], in order that, through two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled to the refuge may have strong encouragement to lay hold on the hope set before us. This hope we have as an anchor for the soul, both sure and firm, and it enters in within the curtain, where a forerunner has entered in our behalf, Jesus who has become a high Priest according to the manner of Melchizedek forever.” (Heb. 6:17-20) “Therefore, brothers, since we have boldness for the way of entry into the holy place by the blood of Jesus, which he inaugurated for us as a new and living way through the curtain, that is, his flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us approach.”​—Heb. 10:19-22.

13. According to the testimony of 1 Peter 3:18, what kind of resurrection did Jesus have, and who are to share with him in that kind of resurrection?

¹³ That Jesus Christ was resurrected as a spirit creature because of having laid down his human life as a sacrifice in order to pass beyond the “curtain, that is, his flesh,” the apostle Peter testifies, writing: “Why, even Christ died once for all time concerning sins, a righteous person for unrighteous ones, that he might lead you to God, he being put to death in the flesh, but being made alive in the spirit.” (1 Pet. 3:18) Thus he left his flesh forever behind and ascended to heaven with the “blood,” that is, the value of his perfect human sacrifice. There, as a High Priest, he presented that ransoming merit before the person of God, hence in the antitypical Most Holy. All his dedicated, baptized footstep followers, those begotten with God’s spirit and anointed with God’s spirit, have the hope of sharing in Jesus’ resurrection and joining him in the spirit heavens as heirs of God and joint heirs with Jesus Christ.​—Rom. 8:14-17.

14. (a) Where are those anointed footstep followers pictured as walking? (b) Why can they be called an “army,” and also “the established place of his sanctuary”?

¹⁴ While still on earth in the flesh, these spirit-begotten Christians are serving as underpriests in that spiritual condition pictured by the first compartment, The Holy, of the temple. (1 Pet. 2:5-9) In this way, although still on earth, they are serving Jehovah God in his “holy place” or “sanctuary.” Because these spiritual underpriests will eventually number 144,000, they could be called an “army,” and also “the people made up of the holy ones.” Inasmuch as Jehovah God calls this earth his “footstool,” these 144,000 could be called “the established place of his sanctuary.” At least, they represent it, for they are the earthly subjects and representatives of Jehovah’s Theocracy.a Also, while in the flesh on God’s footstool, they are pictured as being in the temple’s inner courtyard for the priests, where the altar of sacrifice was located.​—Dan. 8:11, 24.

Writing concerning the four Hellenic Kingdom horns, Daniel says: “And out of one of them there came forth another horn, a small one, and it kept getting very much greater toward the south and toward the sunrising and toward the Decoration. And it kept getting greater all the way to the army of the heavens, so that it caused some of the army and some of the stars to fall to the earth, and it went trampling them down. And all the way to the Prince of the army it put on great airs, and from him the constant feature was taken away, and the established place of his sanctuary was thrown down. And an army itself was gradually given over, together with the constant feature, because of transgression; and it kept throwing truth to the earth, and it acted and had success.”​—Dan. 8:9-12.