Introduction

This paper provides an brief overview of the early historical development of the doctrines of the sanctuary and the Sabbath and their linkage in the Three Angels’ Message. This linkage gave the Sabbath eschatological importance and called Seventh-day Adventists to world evangelism in light of the gospel and the soon coming of Jesus.

The Millerite Background on the Heavenly Sanctuary Understanding

The Seventh-day Adventist Church traces its roots to the eschatologically focused Millerite movement and the world-wide Advent awakening of the early nineteenth century. The focus on the prophecies of Daniel and Revelation from a historicist perspective led many people to anticipate the soon coming of Jesus. These various individuals and groups are well documented by historians, theologians, and other writers.¹ The 2300 days or years of Daniel 8:14 and the 1260 days or years (variously described in Daniel 7:25; 12:7; and Revelation 11:2, 3; 12:6, 14; 13:5), were connected directly to fulfillments in history.

William Miller, and most of those connected to his movement, identified the cleansing of the sanctuary in Daniel 8:14 with the glorification of the saints and the destruction of the earth with fire at the Second Coming of Jesus. Miller concluded after he identified seven sanctuaries in Scripture:

Not the first, Christ, for he is not impure. Not the second, heaven, for that is not unclean. Not the third, in Judah, for literal Judah is cut off, and is no more a people. . . . Not the fourth, the temple, for that is destroyed Neither the Holy of Holies in the temple at Jerusalem, for that too was destroyed with the temple Then there are but two things more, which may be called a sanctuary, which may, or ever will require cleansing; and those are the EARTH and the CHURCH: when these are cleansed, then, and not till then, will the entire sanctuary of God be cleansed, and justified.²

While Miller did identify heaven as a sanctuary, he failed to connect texts to an active heavenly sanctuary where Jesus was the high priest. Thus the 2300 days was linked directly to the Second Coming of Jesus and not an investigative judgment in the heavenly sanctuary in preparation for the Second Coming. Hence the disappointment when Jesus did not come in 1844.

It should be noted that Josiah Litch, a close associate of William Miller, and a leader in the movement did connect the heavenly judgment of Daniel 7:9-10, 13-14 with a heavenly investigative judgment just before the Second Coming of Jesus. He saw the judgment as having two parts--the “trial” phase and the “retribution” or “execution” phase. The first occurred before the second coming of Jesus and the second at the resurrection. In 1842 he wrote,

No human tribunal would think of executing judgment on a prisoner until after his trial; much less will God. He will bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good or evil This is the trial of the dead in the invisible and spiritual world, before Jesus Christ comes in the clouds of heaven. The only evidence on which the trial proceeds, is, the books and the book of life. To tell the whole story, and we must abide the issue of the trial on that testimony. The dead, as the dead, were judged. Then follows the penal judgment, in connection with the resurrection.³

One year later in 1843, Apollos Hale mostly copied Litch’s idea of the two phases of the judgment--trial and execution. He had obviously integrated this idea into his scheme of the end.⁴ Other Adventists also made reference to an end-time judgment. The heavenly judgment usually was connected to the biblical idea of the close of probation before the Second Coming of Jesus. For Millerites, the parable of the ten virgins in Matthew 25, and the shut door described there, was an important link to this heavenly judgment.

Millerite Adventists who presented the pre-advent heavenly judgment did not connect it to a heavenly sanctuary ministry of Jesus. This link would be established after the 1844 disappointment by those who would later become Seventh-day Adventists. But attention was drawn to the idea of a heavenly sanctuary by Samuel Snow in the months before the October 22, 1844, expectation.

William Miller had connected the 2300 days to Passover and the spring Jewish festivals and thus looked for Jesus to come by the spring of 1844. The anticipated date was March 21, 1844, but before the date arrived, further calculations following the biblically-based Karaite calendar shifted the expectation to April of 1844.

After the spring 1844 disappointment, it was during the Exeter, New Hampshire, USA, Millerite camp meeting held between August 12-17, 1844, that Samuel Snow made his important presentation and the various “influences met, mingled into one great movement, and rapidly spread through all the Advent bands in the land.”⁵ Snow dramatically shifted focus to the Day of Atonement. Thus it was that October 22, 1844 (using the Karaite time reckoning), became the great day of expectation. Snow wrote:

Now the important point in this type is the completion of the reconciliation at the coming of the high priest out of the holy place. The high priest was a type of Jesus our High Priest; the most holy place a type of heaven itself; and the coming out of the high priest a type of the coming of Jesus the second time to bless his waiting people. . . .
Our blessed Lord will therefore come, to the astonishment of all them that dwell upon the earth, and to the salvation of those who truly look for him on the tenth day of the seventh month of the year of jubilee: and that is the present year, 1844.⁶

It is important to note, that Snow did not argue for a heavenly sanctuary but maintained Miller’s idea of heaven as the sanctuary. Snow’s emphasis was the finishing of the atonement on the “same day” as the Day of Atonement. Thus, his emphasis remained on the Second Coming of Jesus.

Nevertheless, Snow’s widely circulated paper, The True Midnight Cry, predisposed people to think about Daniel 8:14 in terms of the Day of Atonement and the sanctuary. This prepared the way for the post-1844-disappointment linking of “then shall the sanctuary be cleansed” in Daniel 8:14 to the Most Holy Place heavenly sanctuary ministry of Jesus.

O. R. L. Crosier and the Heavenly Sanctuary

It was O. R. L. Crosier who linked Daniel 8:14 to the heavenly sanctuary ministry of Jesus. He connected the typical system of the earthly sanctuary to an anti-typical heavenly sanctuary. He first presented this idea in the first issue of the Day-Dawn in March 1845.⁷ A few weeks later he emphasized that the Day of Atonement according to the type must last longer than just one day as Samuel Snow had presented.

We have had the Jubilee trumpet this year, but not in one literal day. The finishing of it on a particular day would not answer to the type, for they were to cause it to sound on the day of atonement. Therefore as the antitypical Jubilee has occupied more than a literal day in sounding, the antitypical atonement day in which it must sound or break the type cannot be in a literal day of 24 hours, but a year.⁸

Throughout the remainder of 1845, Crosier continued to develop his typological understanding comparing the earthly sanctuary to the heavenly sanctuary.⁹ His matured presentation was published on February 7, 1846, in a lengthy, Day-Star, Extra.¹⁰ There were aspects of Crosier’s views that did not entirely connect to later Sabbatarian and Seventh-day Adventist sanctuary theology. Still, the fundamental idea of the typological comparison of the earthly sanctuary service to the true heavenly sanctuary ministry of Jesus was a profoundly important theological contribution.

During 1845, Samuel Snow continued to argue a one-day atonement on October 22, 1844, and hence a theologically firm close of probation or shut-door view. “The point of time arrived, on the 10th day of the 7th month,” wrote Snow, “when the atonement or reconciling was completed, and of course no more were to be reconciled.”¹¹ Jesus ceased His work as priest and began to reign as a King.

O. R. L. Crosier’s view of an extended atonement had Jesus continuing as a high priest. Though the shut-door view was held by most Adventists who continued to believe in the October 22, 1844, date, Crosier’s view theologically led away from shut door which was originally developed by William Miller and others before the 1844 disappointment.

The three principle founders of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, Joseph Bates, James White, and Ellen White, all accepted Crosier’s understand. Ellen White received a vision in February 1845, sometimes referred to as the “Bridegroom Vision” where she saw Jesus “a great High Priest.”¹² She also had a confirming vision that Crosier had “the true light, on the cleansing of the Sanctuary.”¹³ Ellen White’s early visions also theologically pointed away from a shut door view.

This brief overview of the Millerite and early Sabbatarian Adventist development of sanctuary theology prepares the way for an examination of the Sabbath. It is historically clear that O. R. L. Crosier is the person who biblically developed the theological idea of an extended atonement high priestly ministry by Jesus in the Most Holy Place of the heavenly sanctuary. This was connected to the investigative judgement idea already developed by Josiah Litch and others before the 1844 expectation.

Before we can explore the integration of the Sanctuary doctrine and its linkage with the Sabbath, it is necessary to briefly examine the development of Sabbath understanding.

Sabbath Developments

The idea of Saturday, or the seventh day, as the Sabbath of the Bible was a minority view within the Millerite movement before the 1844 disappointment, through the influence of Seventh Day Baptists. Unlike conditionalism that had George Storrs and Charles Fitch as leading proponents, Sabbatarian sentiment lacked Millerite leaders to develop the view in print.

During the early 1840s Seventh Day Baptists in the United States made a considerable shift from their historically passive approach in sharing the Sabbath with other Christian groups.¹⁴ In 1842 they established the Sabbath Tract Society and began to publish tracts promoting the Sabbath in print.¹⁵ The only group that responded positively to them were some from within the Millerite movement. The first issue of the Sabbath Recorder which became the Seventh Day Baptist church paper recorded this interest:

We learn from several sections, thatconsiderablenumbers of those who are looking for the speedy appearance of Christ, have embraced the seventh day, and commenced observing it as the Sabbath Now the believers in the speedy Second Advent, stand in a position where they do not feel bound by any creed, and having sufficient self-denial to lead them to practice according to their convictions of duty, are just the persons to understand the requirements of the Word of God in this matter Now, althoughwe do not feel at liberty to fix any time for the coming of the Lord, we do feel at liberty to suggest, that the best preparation for that event is to be found in a love for the truth, and obedience to it.¹⁶

Among those who shared the Sabbath with Millerites was the mother of a school teacher in Washington, New Hampshire, USA, named Rachel Oaks. She convinced Frederick Wheeler on the Sabbath during the early spring of 1844.¹⁷ T. M. Preble lived in the nearby town of Nashua, New Hampshire, and he accepted the Sabbath in August 1844.¹⁸ The next year Preble would play an important role in promoting the Sabbath when he published an article and tract during February and March of 1845.¹⁹ Though Preble never adopted the sanctuary understanding of Crosier, his publications influenced those who later became Seventh-day Adventists. Preble’s most important convert was the future Sabbatarian Adventist leader, Joseph Bates.²⁰ Unfortunately, for Sabbatarian Adventists, Preble abandoned his view on the Sabbath in the late 1840s.²¹

During 1845 Sabbatarian views within Bridegroom or Shut-Door Adventism became theologically complicated. Preble had presented biblical Seventh Day Baptist arguments for the Sabbath based on Creation, the Ten Commandments, and the practice of Jesus. He additionally added his own Restorationist orientation. When he accepted the Sabbath, Bates essentially followed Preble’s Seventh Day Baptist approach. But during 1845, Adventist extremists including some who spiritualized the Second Coming of Jesus picked up the Sabbath and redefined its importance based on what they called the “ordinances of the Lord.” They linked the seventh-day Sabbath to the salutation kiss, baptism, and foot washing and became fanatical.²² This caused Bates to waver for a time in his convictions regarding the Sabbath and is perhaps responsible for the early caution of James White and Ellen Harmon regarding the Sabbath.²³

Thus, the Sabbath first came to Millerite Adventists through the influence of Seventh Day Baptists and following the October 1844 expectation, it was the early 1845 publications of T. M. Preble that influenced Joseph Bates who then published on the Sabbath and gave it an enduring emphasis. The most important development though was the integration of the Sabbath and the sanctuary doctrines, which provided the theological basis for the launching of the movement that would become the Seventh-day Adventist Church.

The Sabbath-Sanctuary Link Begins a Movement

After the extremist Adventists abandoned their position by the summer of 1846, perhaps only a few dozen people remained who still held to both the significance of the October 1844 date and a literal Second Coming of Jesus. Among them were the three principal founders of Sabbatarian Adventism and the Seventh-day Adventist Church, Joseph Bates, James White and Ellen Harmon (soon to be White). All three had actively opposed spiritualizing and other fanatical views in print and had adopted O. R. L. Crosier’s typological understanding of the earthly sanctuary as it related to the heavenly sanctuary ministry of Jesus and his extended final “Day of Atonement” ministry in the Most Holy Place.

In August 1846 Bates published his biblically based Sabbath tract titled, Seventh Day Sabbath a Perpetual Sign.²⁴ He used largely Seventh Day Baptist arguments for the Sabbath including Genesis 2 and the Sabbath in creation; and Exodus 20 and the Ten Commandments. He further added Restorationist perspectives drawn from his own Northern New England Christian Connexion background and from arguments used by T. M. Preble.²⁵

James and Ellen White were married at about the time Bates published his tract. They studied the Bible with the help of Bates’ tract and adopted the seventh-day Sabbath. In the fall of 1846, Bates accepted the legitimacy of Ellen White’s visions after observing a vision with astronomical insights.²⁶ These changes brought the three founders into closer connection. They were ready for the next crucial theological development that would launch a worldwide movement.

It was in November 1846 that Bates travelled to western New York, USA, and shared the Sabbath with Hiram Edson, Crosier, and others who were gathered at Hiram Edson’s farm in Port Gibson. These sanctuary doctrine proponents accepted the Sabbath through Joseph Bates’ presentations from his Sabbath tract. Sometime while at Edson’s home, or shortly afterwards, Bates connected the Sabbath to the sanctuary message. He returned to his home in Fairhaven, Massachusetts, USA, where he wrote and then published in January 1847, a second edition of his tract.²⁷ He presented “additional light” in the idea that the Sabbath had eschatological importance because of Jesus’ end-time work in heaven.

Using Revelation 11:19 and Revelation 14:12 he argued that the Sabbath had eschatological significance and contemporary urgency. He showed that Jesus was in the heavenly temple with the Ark of the Covenant containing the Ten Commandments. Because God’s people are described as keeping the commandments and the Sabbath is the one commandment that identifies God as the Creator who is worthy of worship, it has special end-time significance. Bates initially linked the heavenly temple of Revelation 11:19 to the New Jerusalem, but it was soon directly linked to the Most Holy Place of the heavenly sanctuary.²⁸

After publishing the second edition of his tract, Bates received key support through visions from Ellen White. On March 6 and April 3, 1847, she received similar confirming visions. These were the first visions that Ellen White had received on the Sabbath. Both she and her husband had already been keeping the Sabbath based on reading Bates’ first Sabbath tract and their own Bible study for more than half a year.

It was Ellen White’s second vision on the Sabbath that was published. On Sabbath April 3, 1847, in Topsham, Maine, USA, at the home of Stockbridge Howland, a group had gathered and Ellen White, who was nearly five months pregnant with her first child, was soon “wrapped in a vision of God’s glory.” An angel swiftly carried her “from the earth to the Holy City” where she “saw a temple.” What she shared was a representation and visual expansion on the Temple interlude of Revelation 11:19. After entering the temple, in vision, she passed through the first and second veil into the “Holy of Holies” where she saw Jesus standing by the ark of the covenant. She then described the heavenly sanctuary scene:

On each end of the ark was a lovely Cherub, with their wings spread out over it. Their faces were turned towards each other, and they looked downwards. Between the angels was a golden censor. Above the ark, where the angels stood, was an exceeding bright glory, that appeared like a throne where God dwelt. Jesus stood by the ark. And as the saints’ prayers came up to Jesus, the incense in the censor would smoke, and He offered up the prayers of the saints with the smoke of the incense to His Father. In the ark, was the golden pot of manna, Aaron’s rod that budded, and the tables of stone, which folded together like a book. Jesus opened them [the tables of stone], and I saw the ten commandments written on them with the finger of God. On one table was four, and on the other six. The four on the first table shown brighter than the other six. But the fourth (the Sabbath commandment), shone above them all; for the Sabbath was set apart to be kept in honor of God’s holy name. The holy Sabbath looked glorious—a halo of glory was all around it. ²⁹

She then was guided by God to present that there was an evangelistic element for the world in light of the eschatological importance of the Sabbath. She wrote: “I saw that God had children, who did not see and keep the Sabbath. They had not rejected the light on it. And at the commencement of the time of trouble, we were filled with the Holy Ghost as we went forth and proclaimed the Sabbath more fully.”³⁰

Bates was so impressed that he published her April vision in a broadside.³¹ The next month it was republished in A Word to the “Little Flock”. This tract became the first Sabbatarian Adventist statement of faith and contained material from James and Ellen White and Joseph Bates. It established the theological baseline for Sabbatarian Adventism and provided a chronological and theological progression of events from 1844 to the new earth. The core theological concepts were in place to launch the movement that would become the Seventh-day Adventist Church.

James White further developed the eschatological understanding of Sabbath in A Word to the “Little Flock” and connected it closely to the third angel’s message. “As the patient waiting time has been since the 7th month 1844,” wrote White, “and as the class that keep the Sabbath, etc. have appeared since that time: it is plain that we live in the time of the third angel’s message.”³² He explained the connection to the Revelation 11:19 with these words.

And the temple of God was opened in heaven and there was seen in his temple the ark of his testament.” Rev. 11:19 I must believe that the heaven in which is the Temple of God, is the New Jerusalem. Old Jerusalem, and its Temple are types of the New Jerusalem, and God’s Temple which is in it. The ark containing the tables of stone, on which God wrote the ten commandments with his own finger, were put into the Holiest. When John had a view of the opening of the New Jerusalem Temple, he saw the ark in the same place in the anti-type, that it was in the type. Therefore it is clear that Old Jerusalem, its Temple, and the furniture of that Temple, have distinct antitypes in Paradise.³³

This important theological connection would quickly lead to active evangelism. The very next year, in 1848, the evangelistic Sabbath Conferences begin what James White called the “gathering time.” According to him, by 1852 the number of believers in New York alone, had grown from about 20 to nearly 1,000.³⁴ The Sabbath Conferences of 1848 brought further consolidation of the movement as the early leaders presented and studied the Sabbath in connection to the seal of God. It was at the conference in Dorchester, Massachusetts, USA, held in the home of Otis Nichols over November 17-18, 1848, that Ellen White had a vision that encouraged James White to begin to publish a paper. She saw that the Sabbath through publication would be like “streams of light” going around the world.³⁵ This led to the publication of Present Truth beginning in July 1849 and then the Advent Review and Sabbath Herald in November 1850.

Concluding Thoughts

In the years after 1844, those who would become Seventh-day Adventists, found a renewed mission to the world as the heavenly sanctuary understanding explaining the true meaning of Daniel 8:14 and the end-time judgment. As the sanctuary understanding unfolded, the Sabbath also grew in importance. It was in the late fall and winter of 1846-1847, that the sanctuary and the Sabbath became linking and provided the powerful impetus for evangelistic effort. The Sabbath conferences of 1848 were followed by evangelistic publications to spread an understanding of the Sabbath.

The title of the papers reflected their emphasis. Present Truth, which was published during 1849 and 1850, emphasized the truth that the Sabbath had end-time or “Present Truth” importance. The Advent Review and Sabbath Herald, which began publication in 1850 reviewed the prophecies and Millerite experience with new understanding on the heavenly sanctuary. But in the title was the point of emphasis—the heralding of the Sabbath. A perusal of the first years of the Review and Herald reveals that most of the articles were on the Sabbath and the law of God.

The Three Angels’ Message were understood to have unfolded with the first angel’s message being the proclamation of the judgment hour in the Midnight Cry leading up to 1844. The second angel’s message was the warning of the fall of Babylon which was understood to include those churches both Catholic and Protestant that had rejected the message of the soon coming of Jesus before 1844. The third angel’s message began after 1844 with the new emphasis on the Sabbath. It warned against the mark of the beast and revealed the patience of the saints who keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus. It seamlessly connected the urgent proclamation of the Sabbath to the end-time sealing of God’s people through Jesus’ work in the Most Holy Place of the heavenly sanctuary. This necessitated that everyone on earth would receive the gospel message, allowing for the close of probation and the Second Coming of Jesus.

Seventh-day Adventist understanding of the Three Angels’ Messages has grown throughout our history. This paper has only addressed the beginning of that understanding. The first and second angels’ messages are not limited to the period before 1844. They apply in a broader way to the proclamation of the gospel right down to the end of time. The Sabbath is brought to light in the first angel’s message as well as the third angel’s message. All three messages must go as God calls everyone that dwells on the earth—“every nation, kindred, tongue, and people” to “worship God who made heaven and earth, the seas and the fountains of water.” The Sabbath is integrally connected to the gospel of salvation through faith in Jesus. The saints are patient in keeping the commandments and the faith of Jesus.

A gospel-centered proclamation of the Sabbath during the final investigative judgment continuing in the heavenly sanctuary, is the imperative theological foundation of the Seventh-day Adventist message and mission both historically and eschatologically. It points us to the soon coming of Jesus. It would be well for each Adventist to keep it clear and present, in both mind and heart, as well as central to the evangelistic mission of the Seventh-day Adventist Church.