“The tenth day of this seventh month shall be the Day of Atonement. It shall be a holy convocation for you; you shall afflict your souls…And you shall do no work on that same day, for it is the Day of Atonement, to make atonement for you before the Lord your God” (Lev. 23:27,28)
In the “copies of the true” in the sanctuary service made visible, the round of service was completed annually. The cleansing of the sanctuary was the finishing of that figurative, annual service. This was the taking away from the sanctuary all “uncleanness of the children of Israel…because of their transgressions, for all their sins” (Lev. 16:16)
In that day, which was the Day of Atonement, whosoever of the people did not take part in the cleansing of the sanctuary by searching of heart, confession, and putting away of sin, was cut off forever. Thus the cleansing of the sanctuary extended to the people as truly as it did the sanctuary.
And this was all “symbolic for the present time” (Heb. 9:9), or “the time then present” (KJV). That sanctuary was a figure of the true, which is the sanctuary and ministry of Christ. And the time of this cleansing of the true is declared in the words of the Wonderful Numberer to be “ for two thousand and three hundred days; then the sanctuary shall be cleansed” (Dan. 8:14), which is the sanctuary of Christ.
Indeed, the sanctuary of which Christ is the High Priest is the only one that could be cleansed because it is the only sanctuary of which Christ is the High Priest and Minister, the true tabernacle “which the Lord erected, and not man” (Heb. 8:2)
The finishing of the mystery of God is the ending of the work of the gospel, first, the taking away of all sin and bringing in of everlasting righteousness-Christ fully formed- within each believer; and secondly, the destruction of all who shall not have received the gospel, for it is not the way of the Lord to continue men in life when the only possible use they will make of life is to heap up more misery for themselves.
Jones, The Consecrated Way, pp. 81-84
