Should Christians be vegetarians or vegans in these final days of Earth’s history? And if so, than why didn’t the Bible clearly tell us so? An overview of the history of God’s instructions to His people regarding diet may be useful to see what He expects of us today. We might discover that in fact there are no real restrictions of our diet, but rather a blessing that God wants us to claim by following His superior knowledge of how the bodies He designed are fueled most efficiently.
In Genesis 1-2, Moses described the perfect creation in the Garden of Eden. No death or killing of any kind took place, as everything was immortal. All animals were vegetarian. And so were Adam and Eve. In Genesis 1:29 they were given plants for food rather than animals. They were in fact totally vegan. This was supposed to be forever, but sin occurred and that changed everything. (Genesis 3) Death became the dominant feature of our world, infecting everyone.
Did permission to eat animals occur immediately after the Fall? No. For nearly two thousand years, all those faithful to God remained at least vegetarian. They may have been vegan as well but we have no scriptural evidence one way or the other. Those who defied God’s will began to kill animals and this actually increased their bloodthirsty nature. (Patriarchs and Prophets 92) Eventually, wickedness became so great that the faithful were in danger of being wiped out and God started over with the Flood. (Genesis 6-7) Only eight survivors remained, along with the animals on the ark. (Genesis 8) With the land ruined and plant life destroyed, food became a critical issue. For the first time in the Bible, God gave permission for humans to eat animals for survival. (Genesis 9)
But how do we know meat-eating was only for survival? Key restrictions were imposed by God when He gave permission to eat meat. Only specifically listed “clean” animals could be eaten. This is mainly a health provision, but also limits what can be taken. But by far the most important rule is found in Genesis 9:4: “But flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat.” No blood was EVER to be eaten.
Why? Health again is a factor, as most of the diseases and contamination of meat comes with the blood.
But so does the flavor. Without blood, meat loses most of its appeal and becomes tasteless. It has been described as like eating cardboard.
This is crucial to our understanding of meat eating in Scripture. Meat eating was allowed only when there was nothing else available and was never supposed to be enjoyable. So it would appear logical to conclude that the removal of blood was a perpetual safeguard against addiction to meat. Many cultures in all ages since have had a justifiable need for meat, when better food was unavailable. Without refrigeration, fresh fruits and vegetables, and proper nutrition sources, people often can’t survive without some meat.
After the flood, another thousand years goes by with no further discussion of diet in the Bible. When the children of Israel were led out of Egyptian slavery by Moses, God had to start virtually from scratch in teaching them. At Mount Sinai, God gave them His eternal law and then spelled out specific details for daily life. (Exodus 20 and onward) He listed the clean and unclean animals for food, reinstating the restrictions already in effect for a millennia. (Leviticus 11) Blood eating was again completely condemned. (Leviticus 17:10-14) Eating of fat was also restricted, probably for health reasons as well. (Leviticus 3:17) For about the next 1500 years, faithful Jews could be recognized by their diet. If they ate any blood they were considered apostate. But often Israel turned away from worship of God to idol worship and sin. Ezekiel 33:25-26 lists the eating of blood with idol worship, murder, and adultery as Israel’s chief sins. This indicates how serious God considers this sin.
After Christ’s death and resurrection, the Jewish religion was rejected by those who followed Jesus. Soon important discussions began among the leaders of the new movement to decide which of the Jewish rules would be enforced in the new faith. An official statement was sent out as a result of their decisions: “For it seemed good to the Holy Ghost, and to us, to lay upon you no greater burden than these necessary things; That ye abstain from meats offered to idols, and from blood, and from things strangled, and from fornication: from which if ye keep yourselves, ye shall do well.” (Acts 15:28-29, repeated by Paul in Acts 21:25) The great moral law of the Ten Commandments was never questioned by Christ’s followers, as Jesus had told them that these laws were eternal. But of all the ceremonial and civil laws of Israel, only a few were carried over to Christianity. The key ones for us here are no eating of meat containing blood and no eating of strangled food (because no blood would be removed from a strangled animal).
This is a crucial fact of Christianity that is usually ignored. At no point in the history of Scripture, Old or New Testament, is permission to eat blood granted by God. During the centuries that followed, this was lost sight of and ignored, first by the Catholic Church and later by the various Protestant groups. This is a tragedy, since it has turned meat eating into a constant vice that is addictive and destructive.
One other point must be briefly mentioned, even though it could be studied in depth. People badly misuse Paul’s writings to defend indiscriminate meat eating. But meat-eating vs. vegetarianism was never discussed at all by Paul. He dealt with a controversy among early Christians about whether it was acceptable to eat any food that had been offered to idols. Paul, raised a strict Jew, would never have considered eating unclean meat or blood. Any other interpretation is a total misrepresentation of Paul’s meaning.
For the next 1800 years, God gave no new light on our diet. The Biblical principles were so badly mangled and forgotten that we look back on the Dark Ages with horror at the nonsense that was accepted and defended. Legalistic and temporary “sacrifices” like Lent were invented and silly ways of breaking the rules were immediately concocted. Lent’s rules prohibit meat but allow fish. So then everything that swims is called a fish, like seals and turtles and capybaras and beavers. It’s best not to dwell on the foolishness of man. There were bright lights throughout the darkness, vegetarians who made a point of trying to get back to the original diet of Eden. Examples include Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, Boniface, Origen, and John Wesley but there are actually hundreds of vegetarians famous enough to be remembered by history.
Then in the nineteenth century a new movement arose looking forward to the soon return of Christ.
Adventism emerged out of this movement and God provided a prophetic voice to help them draw closer to Him than ever before. Ellen White clarified Biblical principles that had been forgotten by the apostasy of centuries. At first diet was not addressed as there were even more basic issues of truth that had to be settled. Like the Protestant believers they emerged from, Adventists ate unclean meat and it was full of blood. Then in 1863 God gave a vision to Ellen White that revealed His will on diet for the end times.
Instead of any half way measures of meat without blood, God decided the time had come to live as close to the Eden ideal as modern food availability allowed. Meat was forbidden totally except when rare cases of need demanded. (Counsels on Diet and Foods 380-386)
Ellen White followed the directions given to her in vision, even though she personally struggled with her own addictions to meat. She mostly stopped eating meat herself but still allowed it on her table. Then in 1894 a convert from the Catholic faith confronted Ellen White with her support of animal cruelty by allowing meat eating in her house. This shocked Ellen, who realized she hadn’t seen it this way before, but that this was exactly what God had intended with the health message. (Testimony Studies on Diet and Foods 67) She removed cow and chicken meat from her table permanently, followed a few years later by all fish, and began to write extensively on the wickedness involved in animal abuse and how meat eating was a prime cause of abuse. Her later writings are very powerful statements of God’s will for His people to always oppose cruelty to both humans and animals.
Dairy and eggs were still allowed with the caveat that as disease increased and cruelty spread, these would eventually be dropped as well. (Counsels on Diet and Foods 384) Since the development of factory farming over the last century, the dairy and egg industries have become as contaminated and cruel as other products of the meat industry. It is now difficult to impossible to obtain meat or dairy that would have qualified as “clean” under Biblical standards. Even “cage-free” eggs and “grass-fed” beef are mostly marketing ploys that still support massive cruelty and waste. Eliminating meat, eggs and dairy is the current ideal laid before us as the best way to stay healthy and divest ourselves from supporting unnecessary brutality.
The ultimate future will be Heaven and the New Earth to come. (Revelation 21-22) There the model of Eden will be perfectly repeated, where no more death or cruelty will ever occur again. The tables of God will carry no animal corpses or their products, and everyone there will rejoice at the bounty provided. That is the ideal we strive toward now, for it is our great privilege to be given the opportunity to match it as closely as possible. And true science is showing that an animal free diet gives us better health and mental clarity, even now in our current sinful world. God designed our bodies to be fueled by plants, as we know from our digestive system, intestines, and teeth. When we stray from that pattern, our bodies fail and our minds suffer. Why would we want to do anything that damages the body temple we have been given? (1 Corinthians 6:19-20)
In this brief overview of diet in the Bible and Spirit of Prophecy, we see a new picture of meat eating. Not as a gluttonous convenience that destroys both the eater and the eaten, but as an unfortunate last resort for survival. And today, with all the food options and food preservation and meat substitutes available, meat eating becomes for the true Christian something to be abhorred, rather than defended. Only then will we approach as closely as possible to the Peaceable Kingdom described in Isaiah 11, where no one hurts anyone else and all live together in God’s love. As the only lifestyle that comes near to that now, veganism is a valid goal for all Christians to strive for. May that day come very soon where once again all are vegans like God’s creation was in Eden and will be in the New Earth to come.
When we look at nature, what do we see? Is nature a simple display of a few basic components that are all alike? Or is nature found to be far more complex than we ever dreamed possible? When God created the universe, He made a construction that we can only begin to comprehend with our limited knowledge. So perhaps we can focus on the Earth to try to understand one small speck of creation. When previous generations tried to comprehend our world, they found such intricacies that they often resorted to superstition to explain the mysteries. Modern science has delved deeply into the lives of plants and animals and the ways they interact. But instead of reaching the end of the mysteries, science has only uncovered new questions that lead to even more mysteries. In fact science is as far from solving the intricacies of nature now as it was centuries ago.
God made life more interlocked than seems possible. Plants and animals and the world that supports them are meshed together in a web of interactions. We have found that every form of life is dependent on another form. If we pluck one thread of life, we find it attached to the rest of creation. Plants require both animals and other plants. Animals require both plants and other animals. Both plants and animals require the minerals, gases, and weather that the planet provides.
And we have found the same is true of us. Humans are more dependent than we realize on the complex interactions of all life around us. Often we assume that we are so advanced in technology and civilization that we are now immune to what happens in nature. But with each new discovery and each new interaction found, we find that we actually depend on a great many other forms of life for our own existence. Rather than being impregnably secure, humans are actually on a knife-edge of survival, relying on a host of other organisms for our very existence. This is no surprise, as God has created all life to be dependent on other life.
So what are the interactions that we need to survive? Is it really true that without a particular animal, we would die? And if so, which ones? We would be well advised to discover and protect the animals we need to keep us alive. In this program, we will examine those processes God established on Earth that maintain human life, and the individual animals that make those processes work. We might be surprised which are the most important animals to our survival.
Of course, everything we see today on Earth is God's backup plan. The perfect world of Eden was a very different place than what we see now. No death, disease, danger, or competition existed. When sin began, almost every aspect of life had to change. God had to totally remake His original creation. Without drastic intervention, life on earth would likely have ceased to exist. So we should remember that the nature we study today is not God's original plan, but rather, His temporary way of dealing with the curse of sin. Also, it should be noted that everything I say here is a simplified version of the complexities existing in nature. To go into excessive detail would needlessly confuse the issue. There are exceptions and subtleties to every area we will examine.
POLLINATION
We will first look at the plant world. Without plants, the survival of most animal life is impossible. Plants produce the oxygen animals must breathe. No plants, no more breathing. But there is a second major service plants provide. Food! Without plants most life will starve. Even predators depend on plants to feed their vegetarian prey. So whatever keeps plants alive is obviously crucial.
Plants grow from a seed, reach maturity, and then reproduce the next generation. Plants usually reproduce by cross-pollination. This gives plants diverse genes that keep them healthy. Some plants, especially conifer trees, let wind blow their pollen randomly. But most plants use animals to spread their pollen to others of their species, including most food plants we eat. 70% of flowering plants need insects to pollinate them, including two thirds of our crops. Plants attract specific animals to their flowers, place pollen on animals, and gather pollen brought to them by animals. So now we will examine animal pollinators, as they must do the job of pollination or we will die.
Bats pollinate many desert and tropical plants. They drink nectar from night flowers and carry pollen on their fur. Birds that drink nectar do the same thing with day-blooming flowers. But relatively few birds or mammals pollinate. Of the other vertebrates, only some gecko species regularly visit flowers and carry pollen, especially in jungles. The vast majority of pollination is done by insects.
The insect pollinators are legion. Butterflies by day, moths by night. Bees and wasps either visit many varieties or are specialized for a single species. We all know that honeybees industriously drink from flowers, but native bees, usually small, are actually much more important in keeping plants thriving. Localized bee species are the backbone of healthy habitats. Some bees, such as bumblebees, vibrate their bodies at a specific frequency to loosen pollen grains for collection. Certain plants require this buzz-pollination for existence. Beetles come in so many forms that it's no surprise that a large group are pollinators. Tiny beetles are often abundant, all working hard feeding themselves and keeping their food source successful. We think of flies as biters and spreaders of disease, but only a few do so. Most drink nectar from all types of flowers. Flies have scent detectors on their head and large eyes with color vision to help them find flowers. Taste receptors on their legs and feet let flies taste the flowers. We know of over 1100 plant species pollinated by flies.
So when it comes to our food, clothing made from plants, and the very air we breathe, we depend on the great insect world in all its many forms. This is why pesticides have been so dangerous. For every harmful insect species killed, many more harmless and beneficial species are also destroyed. Every insect form lost will mean the plants that rely on them will be lost too. Areas in China that have lost insect pollinators now require humans to hand pollinate each individual flower. Do we really want to take on the arduous job of pollinating our food ourselves? Insects pollinate plants for free and are happy to do it! Temporarily reducing mosquitoes is not worth losing our food supply. In one case alone, 50,000 bumblebees were killed after insecticides were sprayed in trees to kill aphids. This was in a shopping center parking lot near Portland, OR. 50,000 bumblebees from one application of insecticides. Is killing a few aphids the easy way really worth it?
DECOMPOSITION AND WASTE REMOVAL
If pollination is the science of the continuation of life, then decomposition is the science of the end of life. Death is always a tragedy, never part of God's original plan, and will be eradicated when all is made new. But for now, death is an element of existence that we cannot ignore. At the time of the fall, God recreated a huge segment of the life He made to deal with the new reality of death. If He hadn't, nothing would have lasted for long, as we will see.
When a body dies, animal or plant, the cells cease to function, but they don't disappear by themselves. Other organisms are needed to physically break them down and recycle the nutrients for use again. Whole new kinds of life, unneeded in perfect Eden, became indispensable. Bacteria, which is neither animal nor plant, was tasked to do this on the microscopic scale. Fungi, another unique form of life, also became a force for decomposition, attacking both dead plants and animals. Fungi is incredibly diverse and has many beautiful forms. But the real work of fungi happens invisibly in the dead wood and soil and grass all around us.
Aiding these microscopic workers are the slightly more visible animals digesting dead plant and animal cells. Beetles are fantastic in this area, both as adults and larva. Munching away on dead wood, larva break wood down to even smaller parts that can be tackled by bacteria. Carpenter Ants grind up dead wood in bulk, turning it into sawdust. Dust mites live in our homes and devour the skin we shed constantly. Without them we would be wading through our own lost skin cells like snow.
Beetle larva also tackle animal corpses. Carrion beetles arrive from far and wide as soon as an animal dies. Dermestid or skin beetles are so efficient at stripping flesh from bone that museum curators use them to clean skeletons before mounting. Many flies lay their eggs on dead bodies, and their larva quickly eat it. Many adult wasps feed their young with flesh they have scavenged. Yellow jackets and other hornets are like small vultures, cleaning up tiny bodies before they rot. Normal vultures do the same on a much larger scale. They are among the many birds that scavenge, like Caracaras and Ravens and Marabou Storks. Many mammals do the same. Jackals, hyenas, and foxes all specialize in following other predators and cleaning up leftovers. Lobsters clean up the seafloor, removing decaying carcasses. Conch and whelk snails eat dead fish as well, using a long tube mouth to reach into small spaces. Water snakes eat dead and dying fish before bacteria can pollute our fresh water. Wolverines are as happy to scavenge as they are to hunt for live prey.
Why is all this important? Without plant decomposers, all dead plants would lock up the nutrients they had absorbed during life. With no nutrient recycling, the soil would become impoverished to the point of uselessness. Plus the heaps of dead plants would soon pile so high as to bury everything around them. Nothing new could grow and eventually all life on Earth, including us, would cease. But thanks to the decomposers, decaying plant cells release nutrients for reuse by the next generation of growth, and so life continues. Animal corpses have an additional complication. As they putrefy, corpses foster disease, and so need to be removed as quickly as possible. So all the varieties of scavengers are vital in maintaining a clean habitat, and preventing disease. Again, without scavengers, dead bodies would soon cover the landscape and make life unbearable.
There is one more related area that needs addressing. Waste removal. When vertebrate animals leave waste behind, it is a health hazard. Even when some animals, like cats, carefully bury their waste, that still doesn't solve the problem. Someone has to clean it up and prevent contamination from spreading. Many specialized insects are tasked with this important cleanup, but the most famous are the dung beetles. Found throughout the world in desert and grassland ecosystems, 6000 dung beetle species are vital in cleaning up the dung of many herbivores. By burying waste, they achieve soil aeration and fertilization, reduce fly and parasitic worm numbers, and plant seeds in safe growing spots. A beetle finds a fresh manure pile and goes to work, carving out a ball to lay her eggs on. Usually, she will need to move it to a proper place to bury it, and so the great backwards rolling expedition begins. She will push her treasure over every obstacle until she finds the perfect spot. She can roll a ball fifty times her own weight. They are the only insect proven to navigate by starlight, using the Milky Way as a guide. Star gazing beetles! How about that?
SOIL AND WATER PROCESSING
In order for plants to grow properly, soil needs to be well aerated and well fertilized with various nutrients. Enter the many species of humble earthworm. Feeding underground on soil, they break up compacted soil into much healthier loam, ready for plant germination. Also, soil goes in one end of the worm and fertilizer comes out the other end. A healthy earthworm population processes forty tons of dirt per acre every year. Other insect burrowers including ants, beetles, and millipedes process soil as well. Ants may even be the most essential in bringing minerals to the surface to replenish our topsoil. So we can thank these tiny hidden creatures for productive soil.
Clean water is mandatory to human existence. As water gets dirty, a cleanup system engages to purify it. Marshes and swamps clean the water that passes through them by filtering out toxins. God gave us wetlands to be a giant filtration system catching impurities in the water. As these habitats have been drained and filled with soil, the water flowing through does not get cleaned, resulting in polluted drinking water and poisoned animals. One of the key animals for cleaning water is the mussel. Found in flowing fresh water, mussels burrow into the mud and pump water through their bodies using powerful siphons. They filter out their microscopic food and in the process remove pollution from the water. One mussel can filter over 18 gallons of water every day. Amazingly, some mussels have been found to live over a century, never moving from their chosen spot. God certainly gave the mussel a supply of patience when He handed out gifts to His animals!
In salt water, oysters and clams and scallops do the same job cleaning out toxins from the water, storing them in their bodies in ever increasing amounts. In recent years, these animals have registered some of the most polluted bodies in the sea. Without them taking the brunt of our contamination, sea water would have deteriorated much faster and reduced our own survival.
PLANT HEALTH
Since we know how important plants are to our survival, any animals that care for plants are crucial as well. Many animals are gardeners, planting seeds for their own purposes. Ants are especially adept at this, tending both flowers and whole trees around the world. The Acacia Ant lives inside hollow thorns of acacia trees, driving away any animal or plant that threatens or competes with the tree. The acacia provides sweet ant nectar from wells as a reward for the ants to drink. With all their food and shelter needs provided for, the ants can focus on attacking any plant and animal that comes near their acacia home. Banana Slugs aid the sprouts of giant Redwood trees, by eliminating the competition. So slugs in their natural habitat can be helpful gardeners. Bats transport rainforest fruit seeds to new locations. Birds do the same in every warm habitat on Earth. They eat the seeds, the seeds pass unharmed through the birds system, and get dropped with a bit of fertilizer to get them started. In some cases, seeds can only grow after they have passed through the intestines of a specific mammal, such as African acacia seeds eaten by elephants.
Grass is an enormously crucial plant, relied on for food by many animals. It grows very fast from underground runners. Grasslands have been described as upside down forests, as most of each grass plant grows underground. When grazers eat the aboveground leaves, the underground stem allows instant regrowth. Fresh grass is more easily digested than old tough grass, so the faster grass is eaten, the more nutritious the grassland will be. Cows, antelopes, rhinos, sheep, horses and rabbits are all built to eat grass, keeping the grass renewed. But the most important grazers are not what we might expect.
Termites abound in every tropical grassland. There are a half-ton of termites for every human being on Earth! Each mound contains several million individuals, all working to maintain the colony. Grassland termite species feed on grass, clipping them down to the ground, letting new growth spring up. Grasshoppers do the same thing in temperate grasslands. Even before Bison were destroyed from the Great Plains, grasshoppers were as important as Bison in eating grass. Rather than being pests out to eat our crops, God designed grasshoppers to cycle nutrients to keep the habitat healthy.
Trees have mutual interactions with funguses that keep them healthy. Funguses attach to underground roots and enable them to absorb water and nutrients more efficiently. As new seedlings sprout, they bond with the funguses around them, giving them the best chance of survival. When clear-cutting removes the entire forest from a landscape, there are negative results. The sun dries and heats the exposed ground and kills the local funguses. If there are uncut forests nearby, the funguses can recolonize the newly planted seedlings. But when clear-cuts devastate too large an area, the fungus partners are lost and the regrown forests are crippled.
We now know that 80% of plant species have symbiotic relationships with funguses. So animals that maintain the fungus populations are very important. Principal among these in temperate forests are rodents such as voles, pocket gophers, and deer mice. They dig up truffles and other species and spread spores throughout the forest. The health of giant trees hundreds of years old, and the entire ecosystems they support, can ultimately be traced to the tiny mammals scurrying through the branches or undergrowth. God uses these humble creatures to maintain His special gardens.
When it comes to soil health and the grass and trees we depend on, there is an exceptionally complicated network of microbes, plants, animals, and funguses maintaining the whole. Most of these are still barely understood, and more interactions are being discovered constantly. As we cut down forests, spray pesticides and herbicides irresponsibly, and kill animals, we break connections and destroy vital processes God established long ago. Destroying the network we depend on is an unintelligent plan.
There is one more benefit that plants provide humans besides air or food. Modern studies have found that experiencing nature results in physical and mental healing. People heal better and faster in a country setting than a city one. Patients looking at visual scenes of flowers and flowing water and forests have a reduction of pain levels, even during surgery. Exercise experienced in a natural setting increases its effectiveness when compared to exercise experienced indoors or on city streets. God revealed this to His messenger over a century ago. "Nature is God's physician. The pure air, the glad sunshine, the beautiful flowers and trees, the orchards and vineyards, and outdoor exercise amid these surroundings, are health-giving—the elixir of life.... There are life- giving properties in the balsam of the pine, in the fragrance of the cedar and the fir. And there are other trees that are health-promoting. Let no such trees be ruthlessly cut down. Cherish them where they are abundant, and plant more where there are but few." Testimonies Vol. 7, p. 76-77.
Satan knows this and has tricked people into fearing nature as dangerous. Biophobia is a real mental disease that the devil inflicts upon many people. The same people that happily drive around cities in the death traps we call cars are scared to take a walk in the woods where they think animals are waiting to attack them around every corner. In the United States, an average of 40,000 people are killed every year in auto accidents. Around 88,000 die from drinking alcohol. And a staggering 500,000 die from tobacco use, including 50,000 non- smokers who are killed from secondhand smoke. Less than 100 Americans are killed by wild animals each year. And most of these deaths are allergic reactions to honey bee stings, not the extremely rare predator attacks overhyped by the media. Spiders only account for about 7 deaths, and snakes only cause about 5 deaths a year. No animal you can think of kills even a fraction as many people as car accidents, smoking, or poor diets. Satan fools people into fearing the activities in nature that will actually heal their mind and body. You should be far more terrified of the smoker you pass on the street than the snake in your backyard. The real danger to our health comes not from the wild but from civilization.
PREDATION
Animals feeding upon other animals is a complicated topic for a creationist. I examined this in depth in my presentation Red in Tooth and Claw, so will only summarize here. Without predators in our world, animals would overpopulate and soon starve. The animals that feed on other animals, the predators, are indispensable in maintaining other animal populations at healthy levels. When predators are eliminated by humans, their prey soon overpopulates, spread disease, and die in large crashes. So all predators are crucial to maintaining healthy ecosystems and all the life that depends on them, including us.
Predators come in all sizes and forms. Every type of animal has predators among its ranks. From the largest animal on Earth, the Blue Whale, to tiny insects such as assassin bugs, we find predators. They form an indispensable part of every ecosystem, land or sea, on Earth. Remove predators from any habitat and the system immediately begins to break down. Restore them and life begins to stabilize. For example, Gray Wolves reintroduced into Yellowstone National Park have changed the entire ecosystem for the better. Thanks to wolves reducing the overpopulation of Elk, many overgrazed areas are recovering. Surprisingly, wolves have aided species such as the Quaking Aspen, goldeneye ducks, and Grizzly Bears. Once the Elk numbers reached a healthier level, the damage caused by them was eliminated and the habitats revived, especially streamside areas.
Despite these proven benefits, wolves and all other predators are hated and destroyed savagely. Around the world, snakes and otters and seals have been senselessly slaughtered because of their diet. Hawks, owls, and eagles get the shoot on sight treatment as well. We poison predatory fish so that we can have more game fish for our exploitation. Around the Great Lakes, cormorants are being pointlessly destroyed at the whims of fishermen. All of this is a visceral reaction to systems we don't understand, as we eliminate the animals that keep these systems healthy.
Some of the most crucial predators are the insect eaters. For every human being on Earth, an estimated 200 million insects exist. Due to insects' enormous reproductive abilities, we need all the help we can get in keeping even the beneficial ones from taking over. Chief among our allies are the spiders. They are actually insect catching specialists. Some actively chase their prey, pursuing small insects and using their venom to subdue them. Wolf spiders are named for the large canines to illustrate their hunting prowess. Lynx spiders make up another group of often brightly colored ambush spiders. Night crawling spiders emerge after dark to hunt. Spitting spiders spit glue onto prey, gumming them down until they can be eaten. Jumping spiders have extremely diverse colors and forms, some very flamboyant. They leap upon prey like leopards, using the best vision that God gave to any spiders. They are the only spiders that will relate to us, turning curiously to watch us as we watch them. Many spiders use silk to make insect traps. Orb weavers lay out a large web that catches insects with sticky threads. Sheet webs are non-sticky webs that entangle prey long enough for the spider to seize it. Dozens of other web styles snare insects in different ways. Without spiders catching their food, we would be overrun with insects, and nobody wants that. Every time we crush a spider, we are allowing hundreds of insects to live and reproduce. Rather than an enemy, spiders are our allies that God has tasked in keeping insects controlled. The mosquito carrying the disease that will kill you can be caught and eaten by a spider first, but only if you don't kill the spider!
Spiders are classed as arachnids, but there are several other insect-eating arachnid groups besides spiders. They are some of the strangest looking life forms God ever created. Solifuges race after insect prey at up to ten miles per hour in deserts around the world. The hairs that cover them detect odors, vibrations and chemicals. When they catch a meal, they chew it up with their venormous jaws. Pseudoscorpions are micro predators that can live in many strange places, such as pinecones, caves, or even under the wings of beetles. Most carry their babies in a pouch and feed them a form of milk! Vinegarones subdue food by spraying vinegar-scented acid from their tail. They use their heavy front pincers to hold prey, and their delicate second pair of legs as feelers. Harvestmen tiptoe around trees and on the ground, sometimes gathering into dense clusters. Note that they are not spiders, as spiders have a body divided into two distinct parts. In humid tropics, tailless whipscorpions grab their quarry with long bent front legs that they can fold out of the way. They are so flat that they can live safely under loose tree bark. Scorpions use their venomous stinger to subdue their insect prey. Of all of these weird arachnids, only some of the scorpions pose any danger to man. The rest are all totally harmless, despite their fearsome appearances. Humans have invented artificial ideas of beauty and ugliness and condemn those animals which don't fit our prejudices. But as the writer Montaigne wrote, "Those which we call monsters are not so with God."
But we've only looked at the arachnids that feast on insects. There are many others that do this important job. Insect feeding bats are especially well designed for this, as one bat can catch 2000-3000 insects every night. A single colony eats hundreds of tons per night. Insectivore mammals like shrews eat their weight in insects every day. They scurry through the ground cover, pouncing on any small prey they can find. Some ant species raid in swarms, devouring all insect life in their path. Praying Mantis seize food with their strong, fast forearms. Chameleons snag insects with a long sticky tongue. A single bird captures thousands of insects to feed themselves and their chicks. 90% of birds feed on insects at some stage of their life. Anteaters slurp up tens of thousands of ants or termites with their enormously long tongue. Frogs sit by the water and eat mosquitoes as they emerge, before they can do any harm. Flycatchers dash out from a high tree perch and snag flying insects. Dragonflies and damselflies spend all day grabbing insects, while their young do the same underwater to aquatic insect larva. Fence and rock lizards pick off flies wherever they land. Swallows rake the air for the gnats and flies they need. Armadillos shuffle through soil and leaf litter as they smell their way to lunch. Even fish get in on the insect action by leaping above the surface to grab low flyers. This is only a tiny list of insect feeders. Every species contributes to the effort of maintaining insects below explosion populations. When predators are killed, deliberately or accidentally, the insects are able to increase, and this has often happened. When exploding insect levels eat our food supply, spread disease, or invade our homes, we often find that the controlling predators have been lost through our own carelessness or cruelty.
The entire system of predation is part of the intricate system called the food web. Many people think humans are at the center of the food chain. But in reality every animal and plant on Earth is part of this interconnected web, since life cannot exist apart from it. Plants are fed upon by herbivores, and predators catch both herbivores and other predators. Every animal is built to eat specific types of food, and cannot just change to another food source on a whim. In grasslands, birds are dependent on grasshoppers to raise their chicks. If the grasshoppers are destroyed, so are the birds. Prairie birds have starved many times after insecticides have destroyed their food.
Some animals eat many types of food. If they lose a critical food source at a key time of year, it won't matter if the rest of the year's food is abundant. For example, Grizzly Bears feed on grass, berries, meat, fish, and grubs, depending on the time of year. For the bears in Yellowstone National Park, for a few weeks each year bears climb the mountains and start overturning rocks where cutworm moths gather. A single bear eats 10,000-40,000 moths every day. In one month a bear will eat a fourth of his caloric intake for the entire year! If they miss their moth feast, they enter hibernation undernourished and may starve.
When any part of the food chain is lost, a ripple takes place that affects everything in the web. Lose enough pieces and the effect is magnified. Eventually a crash will devastate the local ecosystem, leaving very few working parts left. We depend on these systems as well, so when we lose them, we end up hurting ourselves.
Examples of this can be found around the world, but are especially obvious in the oceans. When the Newfoundland fishermen of Canada overfished the Cod, a collapse occurred that destroyed their industry. Over twenty years later, the Cod are still gone and are not coming back. To deflect criticism for their incompetence, the Canadian government and the fishing industry created a false scapegoat of the Harp Seal. They claim that seals are destroying the Cod, when in reality seals eat other fish that eat Cod. So now savage men slaughter hundreds of thousands of baby seals every year, hoping to exterminate them completely. Killing is done in the most barbaric, cruel conditions imaginable, and the ocean system continues to disintegrate. We are destroying our own life- support system by our stubborn foolishness.
Many pieces of many habitats have already been lost. Some have been lost for so long that we don't even realize what we are missing or how impoverished nature has become. When John Muir walked across the Central Valley of California a century ago, he described endless flower fields in pristine grasslands. None of that complex habitat has survived, and all the resident animals have disappeared. Too many species and habitats are following that route to oblivion as land is lost to development. We need the diversity of life far more than we need another Sprawlmart.
LESSONS TO BE LEARNED
We have looked at a few facets of life to see how they work together. We have only examined those areas that include living organisms. We haven't even touched non-living processes such as fire, weather, or the seasons. They are also extremely complex and have massive effects on our planet's life. But I have focused our study on the plants, animals, and other organisms to illustrate the God-given importance of life maintaining other life.
What are the lessons that can be learned from this examination of the natural world? And what are the effects on our daily lives? The first issue of critical importance is that Earth's system of life is so complex and interdependent that there is no way it could function except as a working whole. Remove part of the system and the rest will stop functioning. This means the evolutionary theory does not explain how the primordial Earth could have grown from a primitive ecosystem to the complex one we see now. There are so many working pieces in the system that the slowly increasing complexity that evolution demands is impossible to realize. No system we study becomes more complex as it develops. This is both logical and demonstrable, unlike the fanciful and scientifically unprovable claims of evolution. Without God's intervention, everything breaks down rather than improving. The evolution-killing concept of irreducible complexity applies just as well to our ecological system as it does to microscopic structures. Life could never have lasted long enough to diversify into a self- sustaining bionetwork. So the study of ecology is a study refuting evolution.
If we try to understand our world only using naturalistic scientific principles, we will fail. Unless we include God's overall role in shaping and reshaping the system, we will lose our way in endless philosophical quagmires. Ellen White described this perfectly. "Young men talk about science and are wise above that which is written; they seek to explain the ways and works of God to meet their finite comprehension; but it is all a miserable failure. True science and Inspiration are in perfect harmony. False science is something independent of God. It is pretentious ignorance." Testimonies Vol. 4, p. 584.
The second lesson of importance concerns the animals themselves. When we look at the animal life God has made, we find it to be overwhelmingly composed of invertebrates. Vertebrate mammals, fish, reptiles, amphibians, and birds compose only 3-4% of the total discovered species. And over half of those vertebrates are found in the fish world! One family of insects, the beetles, have over 350,000 named species, with many more waiting to be discovered. But there are only around 4000 mammal species, with relatively few left to be identified. And it is not only species diversity in which invertebrates dominate. The total number of individual invertebrates are millions of times greater than individual vertebrates, including us. If we add up the total weight of all the animals on land, we find insects by themselves reach 85-93% of the total weight. This is astonishing and completely turns our perceptions upside down.
If all vertebrates went extinct tomorrow, invertebrate animals would be disrupted and some would themselves go extinct, but many would settle out and continue to function normally. But if all invertebrates went extinct tomorrow, the vertebrates would quickly follow them into extinction. This includes humans, since we could not exist for even a few months without the ecosystem services maintained by invertebrates. This really shows how complex God has made our world. Life is not made of individual parts that can be casually destroyed with no consequences. Humans have been busily destroying many species of plants and animals for centuries. Some of the species lost have been of limited impact. Some lost species have had ripple effects that have resulted in other species also going extinct. And some lost species have had major impacts on the ecosystem. How many species can we lose in any local area without beginning a chain reaction of destruction? We never know...but many local ecosystems have already been destroyed in this way. On a worldwide scale, we are playing a global game of Russian roulette, where every lost plant or animal takes us another step toward disaster.
An unexpected side effect of this is that our value judgment of an animal's importance is usually way off. When we look at Giant Pandas or Whooping Cranes or White Rhinos, we are concerned about their rarity and are often willing to work to prevent their extinction. This is good, since they are wonderful animals that should be protected. But if any of them went extinct, the results to the ecosystem would be limited. But if a worm or beetle or shrimp or mussel is rare, we are indifferent and make no effort to protect them. When they go extinct, the damage to us is much worse than if a more charismatic bird or mammal is lost.
People wonder why I spend so much of my creation presentations talking about invertebrates, when there are so many pretty birds and cute mammals available for study. Not only does the Bible tell us to go to the ant in Proverbs, but Ellen White gives us a wonderful glimpse of God's view of life. "The perfection of God's work is as clearly seen in the tiniest insect as in the king of birds." Testimonies Vol. 4, p. 591. We must stop categorizing animals into good or bad, important or irrelevant, useful or disagreeable. We know too little most of the time to make value judgments of any species' worth. The most ignorant question asked by humans is, "What good is that animal?" ALL species matter to God, or He would not have created them as part of His plan.
This does not mean that there are not pests to be dealt with. Due to sin, some animals have been changed by Satan to directly cause humans problems. Parasites are clearly part of Satan's attack upon our wellbeing. Parasites serve no useful function to any other life, they only cause harm. Other animals compete with us indirectly as they eat our food or damage our homes. We must protect ourselves from injury from animals that harm us. But we must be careful to only control these animals that are actually problems. Too often we destroy every insect and spider for the high crime of being an insect or spider. We casually crush every small life form as if it is our duty to eliminate the creatures God has made.
Is it a sin to kill insects? No. Ellen White has made this clear. "Letters have come to me, asking in regard to the teaching...that nothing that has life should be killed, not even insects, however annoying or distressing they may be.... The Lord has never given any human being such a message. God has told no one that it is a sin to kill the insects which destroy our peace and rest." Selected Messages Vol. 1, p. 170. So we are not talking here about a moral issue. By contrast, it is a sin to kill animals for sport, for their fur, or for blood-filled meat, as we examined in my presentation Animals, Ethics & Christianity. Obviously, killing insect pests do not fit these categories. But do we really want to kill the invertebrates which aid us? Should we kill the insects that pollinate our food, that recycle our soil and forest nutrients, and that clean up pollution? If we look at the financial benefit of insects in the U.S. economy alone, insects save us fifty-seven billion dollars per year! And this amount is a conservative estimate.
We need a much better understanding of nature to know which species are harmful and which species are helpful. Then we can target more intelligently those species that really are a threat. We fear spiders, but of the Earth's 38,000 described species of spiders, less than 100 have a strong enough venom and bite to be dangerous. Of these, only two kinds are native to North America; the Brown Recluse and the Black Widow. The vast majority of spiders should be left alone to do the job God directed them to do. If we wanted to roughly estimate, maybe 80-90% of invertebrates are useful to us directly or to the ecosystem that we depend on. Only a tiny fraction actually cause us harm, so we should be educated as to which those are and leave the useful majority alone. This is not sentimental new age mysticism; this is self-interest and preservation of ourselves and the system God has established.
Our final important lesson is how careful we need to be with the life we depend on. As we have seen, human life depends on animal life to exist. So we need to protect all the pieces that keep the system functioning well. This seems obvious, but humans have a terrible record when it comes to protecting important creatures. If a moth or crayfish, mussel or frog becomes rare enough to need protecting, the usual reaction by people is anger and resistance. Anything that interferes with business or recreation or blood sports is fought viciously, especially if it is to protect some "worthless bug." So we let tiny and valuable creatures die and mourn them not, even though priceless and unique creations of God are lost.
The variety of life, called biodiversity, is one of the most valuable commodities in the world. It is the fiber that holds our life support system together. The greater the diversity, the stronger the system. Island ecosystems are more easily destroyed because they lack this diversity. When the inhabitants of Easter Island cut their forests and destroyed the native animals, they destroyed their own ability to survive. Their entire society imploded as resources disappeared. With no trees left to build boats, they had no way to escape and most of them died, some even turning to cannibalism. Our modern world is following the same path of self-destruction by degrading the network of life we rely on. Every day in the U.S., 6000 acres of natural habitat are destroyed, either paved or farmed for cow feed or strip mined. All the resident animals and plants in those acres are killed, since they have nowhere else to go. Does anyone think this is a good idea? Every day, another 6000 acres lost? Appalachian mountain tops destroyed for coal or farmland wasted on high fructose corn syrup or deserts paved for the next identical shopping center two miles closer to our house. Since 1970, the world has lost half its land and freshwater animals. Not species lost by extinction, but actual individuals of all animals both common and rare, destroyed for food, sport, greed or lost habitat.
Consumerism is the curse of our age, putting greed and fashion before health and sanity. Now don't misunderstand me. I did not say capitalism, which I totally support. I said consumerism, which is the endless buying of things we already have or don't need. We measure success by how much money we spend, how well we keep up with the Jones, and how many toys we die with. By buying the latest device, the hippest outfit, and eating the trendiest diet, we are funding the continued destruction of the natural world.
Inspiration condemned consumerism long before we even coined the term. "We see men eagerly striving to accumulate property. They put forth all their energies, tact, wisdom, and inventive powers to gain their object, in securing earthly treasures that they will not need, and cannot use for their own profit or for their children's benefit. These persons have not time to devote to prayer, or to seek God, or to place themselves on the side of Christ....It is most sad, indeed, when those who profess godliness exhibit to the world such a perversion of their powers....All their powers are employed in securing earthly possessions, and time and talents, consequently, are spiritually dwarfed." The Review and Herald, March 1, 1887.
Environmentalists talk about taking shorter showers, driving electric cars, and recycling. But they usually ignore the single greatest way of preventing destruction to nature, and that is our diet. Huge areas of forest and grassland are destroyed to raise farmed animals. 75% of all the grain grown and 50% of all the water used in America are wasted by the meat industry. A meat eater is responsible for this massive waste of natural resources. Farmed cattle alone consume enough grain to feed 8.7 billion humans. If meat eating ended, there would be enough vegetarian food available to feed the world's humans many times over. A meat eater is responsible for human starvation around the world. U.S. ranchers and farmers destroy competitors and predators by the millions, then slaughter 10 billion helpless livestock every year. A meat eater is responsible for this cruelty to both wild and domestic animals.
And someone who avoids eating dairy products and eggs saves even more lives and resources, since those industries are just as cruel and wasteful. 33% of America's raw materials and fossil fuels are wasted by the meat industry. In a vegan economy, only 2% of those resources would be used for food. A vegan driving a Hummer wastes less energy than a meat eater driving a Prius. It takes 25 gallons of water to produce a pound of wheat, but 2500 gallons to produce a pound of meat. A vegan can take a shower all day and use less water than a meat eater who never showers. A vegan can never recycle and save more resources than a meat eater who recycles everything they have ever used. Meat is the driving force behind virtually every area where we are destroying ourselves: deforestation, topsoil erosion, fresh water scarcity, air and water pollution, loss of biodiversity, social injustice, and the spread of human disease. To be a meat eating environmentalist is an oxymoron.
We need to make decisions about our priorities and how our actions affect the life around us. Killing animals because it is convenient or fashionable or profitable leads to the loss of those animals that keep us alive. Without animals we will die. Some of us will die sooner, and some of us later, but there are real and fatal consequences to losing species. The Endangered Species Act is the most important law ever passed to protect the diversity of life. It tries to restore rare animals and plants before they go extinct. It is hated beyond measure by industry and developers and has been attacked relentlessly for decades. The Endangered Species Act is actually a rescue net for humanity, by saving the animals and plants we depend upon. Until we learn to protect life rather than destroy it, we will continue to hurt ourselves by our shortsightedness.
We should always remember that we do not own the Earth or its creatures, as shown in Psalm 50:10-12. "For every beast of the forest is mine, and the cattle upon a thousand hills. I know all the fowls of the mountains: and the wild beasts of the field are mine...for the world is mine, and the fullness thereof." Thanks to sin, nature and animals suffer under the curse of sin. "For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now." Romans 8:22. But rather than blaming just Adam and Eve, God holds sinful humans of all ages responsible for the curse affecting the land and the animals. "How long shall the land mourn, and the herbs of every field wither, for the wickedness of them that dwell therein? the beasts are consumed, and the birds; because they [the people] said, He shall not see our last end." Jeremiah 12:4. The same thought is expressed in Isaiah 24:5 and Hosea 4:1-3. So humans, as caretakers of creation, can reduce the burden of sin by faithfully following all of God's directions as revealed by inspiration.
Often Christians feel that what we do to this world's creatures doesn't matter because Jesus is coming soon and will start over with a perfect world. Unfortunately, God has not allowed us the luxury of such selfishness. God gave all of us a duty of stewardship for His creation. At the second coming, God brings reward and judgment to the living and the dead. Those who ignore God's commands will have a reward not to their liking. "And the nations were angry, and thy wrath is come, and the time of the dead, that they should be judged, and that thou [God] shouldest give reward unto thy servants the prophets, and to the saints, and them that fear thy name, small and great; and shouldest destroy them which destroy the earth." Revelation 11:18. This is very serious and shows that God does not respect a "trash the world and get a new one free" attitude. Will the earth continue to be ruined by human greed and be eventually remade by Christ? Absolutely. Nothing we do will prevent that end result. But if we contribute to the continued death of life by our carelessness and selfishness, we will be held responsible for our choices. We are always accountable for our own actions, even when evil continues without our participation. Child abuse, pornography, and even slavery will all exist until the second coming, but our loyalty to Christ will always shun and oppose these vices in all their forms. Our stewardship of animals, plants, and the land itself is a vital aspect of faithful Christianity, one that we ignore at our own peril.
So when we look at the science of ecology, we find a wonderfully complex and important area of study. God has revealed Himself in Earth's living systems by their infinite complexity that evolution could never have produced. Chaos cannot produce complexity. It never has and it never will. Ecology is also a window into the wealth of species large and small that share our home. From the largest whale to the tiniest living speck, we find most creatures working together to bring praises to their Creator by doing the job God assigned them. As we fulfill our own role as God's representatives and stewards, we will stand as faithful witnesses to the wonder and glory of our infinite Creator.
Out in the wilderness of Sinai God began a unique program with a band of freed slaves. It was called the sanctuary system, and it was designed to teach Israel how God deals with sin and sinners. However, this sanctuary was but a children's model compared to the real sanctuary in heaven. The book of Hebrews gives us a little glimpse into the real thing in heaven. Hebrews 9:23,24 drives the point home. "It was therefore necessary that the patterns of things in the heavens should be purified with these; but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these. For Christ is not entered into the holy places made with hands, which are the figures of the true; but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us."
The earthly sanctuary was purified from sin by the blood of specified animals, but the heavenly sanctuary was purified by the atonement of Christ. Christ's work for sinners centered in the real sanctuary, in heaven itself. What we need to do is to look at what is happening in the real sanctuary and how it affects us today. I don't think that any of us has any concept of what that heavenly sanctuary is really like, with all the angels ministering before the King of the universe. The earthly sanctuary was just a teaching illustration of how God is dealing with sin and sinners in the real sanctuary. It is not an exaggeration to say that everything important that pertains to our earth's history and our future is centered in this sanctuary. It is just as true that the reasons for the existence of Adventism--what makes Adventism unique and gives it a legitimate role in this earth's history--is centered in this sanctuary.
The Final Atonement
In Patriarchs and Prophets, pages 357-358, is a significant statement. "The blood of Christ, while it was to release the repentant sinner from the condemnation of the law, was not to cancel the sin; it would stand on record in the sanctuary until the final atonement." Most Christians believe that sin is cancelled at the moment of forgiveness, but the sanctuary teaches us that while the sinner is freed from guilt and condemnation immediately, the record of sin is only transferred to the sanctuary, where it remains until something called the "final atonement." While the sinner stands free and clear, there is something about the sin itself that cannot be disposed of so quickly. In essence, Jesus has taken the responsibility for our sin. There has been a transgression of God's holy law, and even though Jesus died for the breaking of that law, that didn't finish dealing with the problem of sin.
"Then by virtue of the atoning blood of Christ, the sins of all the truly penitent will be blotted from the books of heaven. Thus the sanctuary will be freed, or cleansed, from the record of sin, in the type, this great work of atonement, or blotting out of sins, was represented by the services of the Day of Atonement--the cleansing of the earthly sanctuary, which was accomplished by the removal, by virtue of the blood of the sin offering, of the sins by which it had been polluted."
I am very, very grateful for the sacrificial atonement that took place 2,000 years ago. Without that, there would be no possibility of forgiveness or salvation or eternal life. But the sacrificial atonement was not the end of the atonement process. There was something yet to be done which the Old Testament calls the Day of Atonement and Ellen White calls the final atonement. If we do not understand these concepts clearly, we can have no understanding of why the Seventh-day Adventist Church exists. You see, the sacrificial atonement was in place and taught throughout the world for 1800 years before there ever was a Seventh-day Adventist. Adventism was called into existence because the final atonement was beginning, and this needed to be understood and taught throughout the world just as the sacrificial atonement had been. It is very tempting to join with the Christian world in focusing exclusively on the sacrificial atonement, while we lose sight of the final atonement. But without the final atonement, the sacrificial atonement cannot be brought to completion in dealing with sin and sinners. These two phases of the atonement of Christ are equally vital to the final removal of sin from the universe.
The final atonement is about the blotting out of all sins from the records of heaven. This is when sin and sins go out of existence. They must stay on record until something very important takes place during the final atonement. Once each year, during the Day of Atonement, Israel looked forward to the closing events of the great controversy between Christ and Satan, when the universe would he eternally purified from sin and sinners. We are now at that point 'in earth's history--the time for the final eradication of sin.
Ellen White tried to direct our minds to what is transpiring in the heavenly sanctuary. "The minds of all who embrace this message are directed to the most holy place, where Jesus stands before the ark, making His final intercession for all those for whom mercy still lingers." (EW 254) "Now Christ is in the heavenly sanctuary. And what is He doing? Making atonement for us, cleansing the sanctuary from the sins of the people. Then we must enter by faith into the sanctuary with Him, we must commence the work in the sanctuary of our souls." (Manuscript 8, 1888) Christ's final intercessory work is called "making atonement," and it involves the final purification of the sanctuary from all sin. Note that our relation to this final atonement involves a cleansing work in our own souls.
"All need to become more intelligent in regard to the work of the atonement, which is going on in the sanctuary above. When this grand truth is seen and understood, those who hold it will work in harmony with Christ to prepare a people to stand in the great day of God, and their efforts will be successful." (5T 575) Up to this date our best efforts have not been successful, so it might be well for us to take a good look at the "grand truth" of the final atonement, since that is the only way to success in finishing the great controversy.
It is significant that the word "atonement" comes from words put together that really mean at-one-ment." It means putting back together what has been separated, restoring unity between those who have been estranged. What Jesus did on the cross was the basis for "at-one-ment," because without the cross, no reconciliation would have been possible. But there is yet something to be accomplished to bring full unity between a holy God and a fallen race.
We have become afraid of the term "final atonement" because some have accused us of detracting from the glory and finality of the cross. We must be very clear here. The final atonement does not mean a new sacrifice, or say that the sacrifice of Christ was not sufficient. Christ's sacrifice was sufficient, it was complete, and it will never be repeated in any way. But the atonement process, ratified at the cross, is not complete. Major issues in the great controversy have not been settled. Sins are still on record in the heavenly sanctuary. Full unity has not been accomplished.
It may not be an exaggeration to say that the final atonement is the only contribution that Adventists have made in Christian theology. All of our other teachings we have recovered from the past, where they had become buried under church traditions and error. Will we now become embarrassed with this unique teaching? Many now believe that God's people will not be sinless until the second coming of Christ. But this teaching results in throwing out the doctrine of a cleansed sanctuary in heaven, a rejection of the final atonement in the most holy place, and a de-emphasis on the special sealing to take place in the minds of the 144,000. The truth is that we need to focus our attention on the final atonement now more than we have ever done before.
A Voice From Our Past
During the first half of the nineteenth century M. L. Andreason wrote a number of books, one of which was titled The Sanctuary Service. All of the following references are from pages 299-321 of that book.
The final demonstration of what the gospel can do in and for humanity is still in the future. Christ showed the way. He took a human body, and in that body demonstrated the power of God. Men are to follow His example and prove that what God did in Christ, He can do in every human being who submits to Him. The world is awaiting this demonstration. (Romans 8:19) When it has been accomplished, the end will come. God will have fulfilled His plan. He will have shown Himself true and Satan a liar. His government will stand vindicated.
Right now God's government has not been fully vindicated, in spite of the magnificent accomplishment of the Incarnation. In Christ was seen the full power of the gospel, but that power has not yet been seen in sinful humanity. The power of the gospel has not been fully demonstrated. We have only seen glimpses of this power in the lives of faithful individuals and groups in Christian history. The universe has not yet seen the full power of God's grace in the hearts of human beings. When the gospel--the plan of redemption will be fully demonstrated, then and then only will God's government stand completely vindicated from Satan's charges.
The plan of salvation must of necessity include not only forgiveness of sin hut complete restoration. Salvation from sin is more than forgiveness of sin. Forgiveness presupposes sin and is conditioned upon breaking with it; sanctification is separation from sin and indicates deliverance from its power and victory over it. The first is a means to neutralize the effect of sin; the second is a restoration of power for complete victory.
Do we understand that forgiveness with all of its love and grace is only a way of dealing with the effects of our past sins? It removes our guilt and condemnation, and allows us to stand innocent in the sight of God. But does forgiveness change the fountain out of which our sins flow? Does it change our habits and lifestyle? Satan's great argument against God goes something like this: "Sure you can forgive sinners. You can say, 'I won't hold you responsible anymore. Jesus died in your place. You are no longer guilty.' What's fair about that? Why not forgive me, too? I wanted to be reinstated to my position in heaven once. If you've forgiven these sinners who have done all these horrible things and have accepted them into your family, then accept me too, so I can go back into heaven."
Satan's argument cannot he brushed aside lightly. How can God just forgive and take people to heaven? Because salvation is more than forgiveness of sin. The old man with a rebellious heart must be changed into a new man with a giving, loving heart. Self-love must he exchanged for selflessness and love for others. Only then will God's mercy and justice be seen clearly. The gospel is about forgiveness and cleansing.
Thus it shall be with the last generation of men living on the earth. Through them God's final demonstration of what He can do with humanity will be given. He will take the weakest of the weak, those bearing the sins of their forefathers, and in them show the power of God. They will be subjected to every temptation, but they will not yield. They will demonstrate that it is possible to live without sin--the very demonstration for which the world has been looking and for which God has been preparing. It will become evident to all that the gospel really can save to the uttermost. God is found true in His sayings.
Will God be found true when He forgives sinner's, or when He shows that His forgiveness leads to victory over sin? It is when God shows--with the weakest of the weak--that His forgiveness has been given correctly, because it leads to victory over sin, that God's demonstration will be effective. We are clearly the weakest of the weak--garden variety Christians--with few heroes of faith among us.
It is in the last generation of men living on the earth that God's power unto sanctification will stand fully revealed. The demonstration of that power is God's vindication. It clears Him of any and all charges which Satan has placed against Him. In the last generation God is vindicated and Satan defeated.
Now we are coming to the focal point of the final atonement. Satan has argued that if God is so loving that He is willing to forgive sinners, then He has negated His law, because He has admitted that His law cannot be kept, so He will just forgive sinners for continually breaking His law. Satan says, "God, You can either have a law and then no one goes to heaven, or You can have grace and everyone goes to heaven, including me. You can't have it both ways. Grace and law are incompatible. You can have one or the other, but not both at the same time." It is God's difficult task to prove that grace and law are compatible, that justice and mercy can kiss each other and can work together in a safe and harmonious universe for all eternity. It is vital for us to understand that this is not easy for God to prove. How can He convince a watching universe that forgiveness and grace will protect the universe against someone, somewhere, trying the sin experiment all over again? Will He have to forgive again, perhaps a thousand times in the future, when His created beings do the same things all over again?
But if God can show that His forgiveness inevitably leads to victory over that which needed forgiveness, and that the gospel provides not only removal of guilt but removal of sin, then God is on the way to disproving Satan's charges. If He can change the hearts of rebels to loyal citizens, who will willingly give up their lives rather than transgress God's law in the smallest detail, then God has proved something about the connection between grace and law.
God's forgiveness, in and of itself, will never vindicate His character, because all it really proves is that God is loving. Forgiveness is just a halfway house, to get us out of slavery to sin, so that freedom is a genuine possibility. If God can show that forgiving grace can be completely replaced by enabling grace--grace for victory--so that the time will come when forgiving grace isn't even necessary anymore and can be dispensed with, because enabling grace has removed the need for forgiving grace, then God will have proved that He is not only able to love sinners but also able to transform them completely. When they are totally transformed, they will be safe to allow into a sinless universe with no threat that they will ever try the experiment of sin again.
The reality is that God has put Himself at great risk by forgiving sinners, because when we do the same things over and over again, and God has to forgive us countless tunes, it looks very much like obedience to God's law really is impossible, and the universe can never be completely safe from the deadly infection of sin. But if it can ever be demonstrated, not by angels in a perfect environment, and not just by Enoch or Jesus or John or Paul, but by a host of garden variety sinners who must live in Satan's world, harassed by a fallen nature and a lifetime of sinful habits, that forgiving grace leads directly to enabling grace, which removes the need for forgiving grace, then God will have proved Satan wrong, when he says, "God, You can forgive their sins, but You can't do anything about their sinning. They will always disobey You."
When grace and law are shown to be compatible, and when mercy and justice are shown to work together, then God's government and His plan of salvation will stand vindicated. The essential point here is that there must come a time when the entire universe can see clearly that forgiving grace has ended forever and has been totally replaced by enabling grace--and God's plan of salvation still works. The only way it can be clearly seen what happens when God's enabling grace has taken total control of God's people is by setting aside a period of time after the close of probation in which the rules change. No longer is forgiving grace available. The whole universe will watch as our High Priest steps out of His role of Forgiver. They will see Him cast down the censer of forgiveness to end that phase of His High Priestly ministry. Then they will see what will happen when only enabling grace will be offered from heaven.
This demonstration must be just this dramatic and universally understood, if God is to safely end the experiment of sin. Today we are still living during the time when forgiving grace and enabling grace work together, with some successes and some failures. But this epoch must come to an end. A demonstration must be made, and that is what the final atonement is all about.
The demonstration which God intends to make with the last generation on earth means much, both to the people and to God. Can God's law really be kept? That is a vital question. Many deny that it can be done; others glibly say it can. When the whole question of commandment keeping is considered, the problem assumes large proportions. God's law is exceedingly broad; it takes cognizance of the thoughts and intents of the heart. It judges motives as well as acts, thoughts as well as words. Commandment keeping means entire sanctification, a holy life, unswerving allegiance to right, entire separation from sin, and victory over it. Well may mortal man cry out, Who is sufficient for these things! Yet, to produce a people that will keep the law is the task which God has set Himself and which He expects to accomplish. When the statement and challenge are issued by Satan: "No one can keep the law. It is impossible. If there be any that can do it or that have done it, show them to me. Where are they that keep the commandments?" God will quietly answer, Here they are. "Here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus." Revelation 14:12.
Up to this point God has not been able to give this answer to Satan. He will not be able to say it until the final atonement has done its complete work. Only then will there be an entire generation who will keep God's commandments all of the time, and not just when it is convenient to do so. It is also crucial to understand what commandment keeping really involves. It involves the whole heart, including motives and feelings. The task is totally impossible for human beings with fallen natures and weakened wills to accomplish. This is God's task and He only can accomplish it. What is necessary for us is to be willing partners in this great demonstration. We must erect no barriers or rationalizations to prevent God from carrying out His task.
When God commands men to keep His law, it does not serve the purpose He has in mind to have only a few men keep it, just enough to show it can be done. It is not in line with God's character to pick outstanding men of strong purpose and superb training, and demonstrate through them what He can do. It is much more in harmony with His plan to make His requirement such that even the weakest need not fail, so that none can ever say that God demands that which can be done by only a few. It is for this reason that God has reserved His greatest demonstration for the last generation. This generation bears the results of accumulated sins. If any are weak, they are. If any suffer from inherited tendencies, they do. If any have an excuse because of weakness of any kind, they have. If, therefore, these can keep the commandments, there is no excuse for anyone in any other generation not doing so also.
We think that we are very intelligent and sophisticated because of our technology, but if we will dig just a bit beneath the outer veneer of civilized society, we will have to face a very unpleasant reality. There is more anger and violence and greed and cynicism and hedonism and immorality and just plain selfishness than ever before in human history. Our minds are more clouded with deceptions of all kinds than in the darkest of Dark Ages. We are definitely the weakest of the weak, and God is ready to face the ultimate challenge. Can He take this extremely unpromising generation and prove His case with them? God always delights in the seemingly impossible, and this generation is His ultimate challenge.
God is ready for the challenge. He has bided His time. The supreme exhibition has been reserved until the final contest. Out of the last generation God will select His chosen ones. Not the strong or the mighty, not the honored or rich, not the wise or the learned, but common, ordinary people will God take, and through and by them make His demonstration. Satan has claimed that those who in the past have served God have done so from mercenary motives, that God has pampered them, and that he, Satan, has not had free access to them. If he were given full permission to press his case, they also would be won over. But he charges that God is afraid to let him do this. "Give me a fair chance," Satan says, "and I will win out." And so, to silence forever Satan's charges; to make it evident that his people are serving Him from motives of loyalty and right without reference to reward; to clear His own name and character of the charges of injustice and arbitrariness; and to show to angels and men that His law can he kept by the weakest of men under the most discouraging and most untoward circumstances, God permits Satan in the last generation to try His people to the utmost. They will be threatened, tortured, persecuted. They will stand face to face with death in the issuance of the decree to worship the beast and his image. (Revelation 13:15) But they will not yield. They are willing to die rather than to sin.
Are we coming near to the place where we are obedient to God not because we want a place in heaven, but because God's character is important to us? That is the song of Moses and the Lamb. Moses and Christ served and obeyed God because they loved Him and were more concerned with His victory in the great controversy than with their own futures. Nothing mattered to them except God's good name. We need to learn that song, that we are serving God without reference to reward. We are obedient, not to earn a place in heaven, but to clear God's name and character of the charges of injustice and arbitrariness that have been brought against Him. This is why God permits Satan to turn loose his most persuasive deceptions on them, and to bring his most powerful pressure to bear on them. Satan will never again be able to claim that God restrained him unfairly. He will have exhausted every avenue of deception and coercion to prove that God cannot keep His promises.
Will they stand the test? To human eyes it seems impossible. If only God would come to their rescue, all would be well. They are determined to resist the evil one. If need be they will die, but they will not sin. Satan has no power--and never has had--to make any man sin. He can tempt, he can seduce, he can threaten; but he cannot compel. And now God demonstrates through the weakest of the weak that there is no excuse, and never has been any, for sinning. If men in the last generation can successfully repel Satan's attack; if they can do this with all the odds against them and the sanctuary closed, what excuse is there for men's ever sinning?
This is why the forgiving ministry of Christ from the heavenly sanctuary must come to an end before the end of earth's history. Satan's most powerful attacks must be matched up against God's enabling grace at a time when forgiveness is not an option. Does the gospel really work? Is God's grace more powerful than Satan's deceptions? Will the future be safe from another rebellion?
The matter of greatest importance in the universe is not the salvation of men, important as that may seem. The most important thing is the clearing of God's name from the false accusations made by Satan. The controversy is drawing to a close. God is preparing His people for the last great conflict. Satan is also getting ready. The issue is before us and will be decided in the lives of God's people. God is depending upon us as He did upon Job. Is His confidence well placed? It is a wonderful privilege vouchsafed this people to help clear God's name by our testimony. It is wonderful that we are permitted to testify for Him. It must never be forgotten, however, that this testimony is a testimony of life, not merely of words. "In Him was life; and the life was the light of men." John 1:4. "The life was the light." It was so with Christ, it must also be so with us. Our life should he a light, as His life was. To give people the light is more than to hand them a tract. Our life is the light. As we live, we give light to others. Without life, without our living the light, our words abide alone. But as our life becomes light, our words become effective. It is our life that must testify for God.
The issue--the only issue of importance--in the last days is the name of God. This must be the motivating factor for us who live at the end of earthly time. Our commission is to bring Satan's lies to an everlasting end, and the only way we can do this is to surrender our lives completely to the power of God. It is the way we live that will show whether our words mean anything. When our words and our lives match up, then our witness will he effective.
All this is closely connected with the work of the Day of Atonement. On that day the people of Israel, having confessed their sins, were completely cleansed. They had already been forgiven; now sin was separated from them. They were holy and without blame. The camp of Israel was clean. We are now living in the great anti-typical day of the cleansing of the sanctuary. Every sin must be confessed and by faith be sent beforehand to judgment. As the high priest enters into the most holy, so God's people now are to stand face to face with God. They must know that every sin is confessed, that no stain of evil remains. The cleansing of the sanctuary in heaven is dependent upon the cleansing of God's people on earth. How important, then, that God's people be holy and without blame! In them every sin must be burned out, so that they will be able to stand in the sight of a holy God and live with the devouring fire.
During the last twenty years we have heard much about Christ's work in the heavenly sanctuary since 1844. We have reviewed the prophetic evidence upon which the confidence of our Adventist pioneers was based, and we have found it to be sound. But there has been a deafening silence about the cleansing work in our hearts corresponding to the cleansing work in heaven. Perhaps the most important sentence of Elder Andreason's appeal is this one: "The cleansing of the sanctuary in heaven is dependent upon the cleansing of God's people on earth." Dependent on? The heavenly sanctuary cannot be cleansed from sin until our hearts are cleansed from sin? Exactly! The great cleansing in God's heavenly sanctuary cannot be completed until the work of final atonement is completed in my heart and yours. As long as there is a fountain of sins flowing from my heart, needing forgiveness, to the heavenly sanctuary, Jesus remains there, in mercy, to continue ministering His forgiving grace. He tarries long, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. But that means He must delay His replacing of forgiving grace with enabling grace until His people are ready for it.
It is only when the final atonement shows that God can stop the flow of sins from our hearts that God can justly remove our sins from the sanctuary above. Of what purpose would it be for God to wipe all the sins from the heavenly records and to say that that sanctuary is cleansed, when there is a constant flow of sins coming from my heart needing forgiveness? Satan would have proved his case that all God can really do is to forgive more sins, but He can't cleanse our hearts from all sin.
But if the heart sanctuary can be cleansed at the fountainhead so that rebellion and selfishness no longer flow from within, then the heavenly sanctuary can be legally and effectively cleansed also. The blotting out of sins in my life will be followed by the blotting out of sins in the heavenly sanctuary. Only in that way can Satan's charges be effectively answered. God will prove that enabling grace removes the need for forgiving grace, not because He arbitrarily does something in a sanctuary billions of miles from here, but because He does in the hearts of sinners saved by grace. Only in this way can there be a final end to the great controversy and full vindication of God's way of handling the sin problem. Ellen White puts it very succinctly. "There must be a purifying of the soul here upon the earth, in harmony with Christ's cleansing of the sanctuary in heaven." (Maranatha, p. 249)
So what is the final atonement? It is Christ's final ministry of grace in the heavenly sanctuary, as He replaces forgiving grace with enabling grace in my heart. It is His final process of at-one-ment. I am partly at-one now. I don't sin as often as I used to, but I still sin. I still interrupt the continuous connection I could have with the Holy Spirit. I am not totally at-one yet. The universe is not yet completely safe. Christ must demonstrate that the process of at-one-ment can be completed, so that even if He would leave us here on this sin-cursed earth for another hundred years, we would never sin once. Only then will the universe he totally safe from another attack of sin. God will demonstrate, not state, this incredible fact which Satan says can never happen. The final atonement is Christ ministering His blood, no longer in forgiveness, but in enabling power--power for victory over sin--and it will be seen in our lives.
The Day of Atonement
All of this was foreshadowed by the events during the Day of Atonement in the Old Testament. It was described in Leviticus 16:29-31. "And this shall be a statute for ever unto you: that in the seventh month, on the tenth day of the month, ye shall afflict your souls, and do no work at all, whether it be one of your own country, or a stranger that so journeth among you: For on that day shall the priest make an atonement for you, to cleanse you, that ye may be clean from all your sins before the Lord. It shall be a sabbath of rest unto you, and ye shall afflict your souls, by a statute for ever.
Do we understand the full meaning of this day? It is called making "an atonement." There had been sacrifices of atonement--forgiveness--all year long. This is something different. It 1s a cleansing atonement, with the end result being "clean from all your sins before the Lord." It is also important to note that the attitude of the people during this unique day was affliction of their souls. This was not yet a celebration of victory. It was a very serious, solemn day for God's people.
What does this Old Testament day teach us about our lives today? "We are in the great day of atonement and the sacred work of Christ for the people of God that is going on at the present time in the heavenly sanctuary, should be our constant study. We should teach our children what the typical day of atonement signified, and that it was a special session of great humiliation and confession of sins before God. The antitypical day of atonement is to be of the same character." (5T 520) Our lives today are being lived in the Old Testament Day of Atonement. Are we teaching the importance of this day to our children? Often questions are asked like "Why do we do this? Why can't we do that? What's wrong with this?' And we try to find some convincing proof text for our practices. Do we ever say, "We do it this way because we live in the Day of Atonement"? We must never forget that this was a day of "great humiliation and confession of sins before God."
"Let the churches who claim to believe the truth, who are advocating the law of God, keep that law and depart from all iniquity. Let the individual members of the church resist the temptations to practice evils and indulge in sin. Let the church commence the work of purification before God by repentance, humiliation, deep heart searching, for we are in the antitypical day of atonement--solemn hour fraught with eternal results." (2SM 378) The Day of Atonement is about purification, and departing from all iniquity. We are talking here about the highest level of obedience and loyalty to God ever seen in God's professed people.
People sometimes wonder why Seventh-day Adventists advocate "higher" standards than those found in the Bible, such as vegetarianism, and abstinence from alcohol, dancing, and jewelry. Are we just being Victorian, and should we abandon some of these outdated standards? The truth is, if we examine the Bible carefully, we can find several things that God permitted because of His mercy and because of the blindness of men's eyes. In other words, God adapted His ideal will for mankind to the less than ideal cultures in which He found His people. To put it simply, He permitted things that we are not comfortable with today.
God permitted and even blessed the practice of polygamy in the Old Testament. In fact, the twelve tribes of the chosen nation came directly out of a polygamous marriage. God allowed and even gave laws regarding the practice of slavery in the Old Testament. Today we view slavery with great abhorrence as a moral evil, but the Israelites kept slaves on a regular basis. God permitted and even encouraged the armies of Israel to engage in bloody battles, sometimes commanding that they destroy the enemy completely, right down to the livestock. If we wanted to find proof texts allowing us to do all of these things, we could easily find them.
The only way we know that these things were not God's ideal will is by studying the principles in the whole Bible, particularly in the New Testament. We see that God took His people where they were, sometimes in primitive cultures, and led them on gradually toward His ideal will. He revealed and commanded things only as His people were able to understand and respond to new truths. It would be a terrible mistake for us to ignore later revelations of God's will and go back to doing things which He permitted because of the hardness of men's hearts. Therefore we would not think of practicing polygamy, slavery, and warfare today.
This is the reason that we can find evidence that God allowed meat-eating, drinking, dancing, and jewelry in certain instances in the Bible. In all of these cases, we can also find evidence that these were not God's ideal will, but this is often ignored when people want to do certain things which the church opposes. It is relatively easy to find texts which will allow the practice of all these things.
The most important principle which should govern our choice of lifestyle today is the Day of Atonement principle. On this most serious day, in which we live, are we going to ask what is allowable? Are we going to ask what the minimum requirement is for being a Christian? Are we going to go back to the times of ignorance and primitive beliefs to determine our way of life? Or will we focus on the maximums rather than the minimums? Will we seek to live as close as is humanly possible in a world of sin to the way of life in the rest of God's perfect universe? Are we willing to let God's grace save to the uttermost, to do the most possible in human lives scarred by sin and ignorance of God's will?
There is an important principle in Ecclesiastes 3:1-4. "To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven: A time to he born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted; A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance." In other words, things are not always wrong in and of themselves, but they are inappropriate at certain times. There was a time for killing and breaking down, but now is the time for healing and building up. The real question for us is, On the Day of Atonement, when everything is on the line for us and for Gods name and His government, is this the time for laughing and dancing? Or is the appropriate time for such behavior when the great controversy is over, and God has refuted all of the false charges brought by Satan? There will be abundant time to laugh and dance on the sea of glass, when the victory is won, but that is not today. The issue is, very simply, what is timely and proper for the Day of Atonement. We read earlier that the Day of Atonement was a time to afflict our souls, to confess our sins, and to walk humbly before God. Is not weeping and mourning more appropriate spiritual behavior right now than laughing and dancing?
We have delayed Christ's coming for over one hundred years. Is that something to rejoice about? We have continued the suffering history of this earth for a hundred more years than God wanted it to continue. By our Laodicean apathy, we have contributed to the deaths of millions of Jews in the death camps of Hitler. Is this really a time of celebrating? Should we he praising ourselves for the great work the Adventist Church is doing throughout the world? Should we look hack on our past history with pride of accomplishment? Or is this a time to weep before the Lord because of our shared responsibility in the delay of God's plans?
Our responsibility in these matters should not lead us to useless self-flagellation, but to positive remedies for this situation. This is the time for us to make sure that all sin is really cleansed from our hearts. This is the time for us to show the world how God's government really operates. I am not talking about being long-faced, but about being repentant. There is a world of difference between those concepts. If we are really contrite and humble before God, we will do certain things as Seventh-day Adventists which were not even requirements during earlier periods of earth's history. This is the Day of Atonement. We are part of God's final demonstration to the universe of His ideal will for mankind. Do we understand these issues and are we teaching them to our children and youth? The superficial answers are not working any more. Why not get right to the real issue--God's final victory in the great controversy?
Our Reason For Existence
The Day of Atonement and the final atonement is the reason for our existence as Seventh-day Adventists. God's name is in jeopardy until He can demonstrate that His grace can produce people who will love Him completely, all of the time, with no questions or reservations, and no quibbling or rationalizing. They just love Him, because He first loved them. And they will prove, once and for all, that love always produces obedience, and for once, this love and obedience will be continuous.
Satan constantly throws our disobedience in God's face as evidence of the impossibility of complete obedience, but this has got to come to an end. The final atonement is God's method of destroying Satan's lies. First He will cleanse our soul temples, and then He will cleanse the heavenly temple of all sin. When that is accomplished, Adventism will have "finished the work" and we can all go home.
Satan is fighting very hard to remove this concept from the mind of every Seventh--day Adventist, because if he can destroy this concept, he can nullify God's calling of this people 150 years ago, and he can delay the coming of Christ much longer. And we must admit, Satan has succeeded to a great extent. Will he be successful with your' mind? Will he erase it from your consciousness, or will you defy him and make the final atonement the focus of your study, and the unifying core of everything you do from now until the second coming of Christ?
Perhaps it would he fitting to conclude this study with the thoughts of one whom God called to help Him complete the final atonement one hundred year's ago--A. T. Jones.
"The finishing of this work... for the sanctuary was likewise the finishing of the work for the people... The cleansing of the sanctuary extended to the people, and included the people, as truly as it did the sanctuary itself... .The finishing of the mystery of God is the ending of the work of the gospel.. .the taking away of all vestige of sin and the bringing in of everlasting righteousness--Christ fully formed--within each believer, God alone manifest in the flesh of each believer in Jesus... In the sanctuary itself, transgression could not be finished, an end of sins and reconciliation for iniquity could not be made... until all this had been accomplished in each person who had a part in the service of the sanctuary.... The sanctuary itself could not be cleansed so long as, by the confessions of the people and the intercessions of the priests, there was pouring into the sanctuary a stream of iniquities, transgressions, and sins... This stream must be stopped at its fountain in the hearts and lives of the worshipers, before the sanctuary itself could possibly be cleansed. Therefore the very first work in the cleansing of the sanctuary was the cleansing of the people. The sacrifice, the priesthood, and the ministry of Christ in the true sanctuary does take away sins forever, does make the comers thereunto perfect, does perfect "forever them that are sanctified." (The Consecrated Way, pp. 113-19)