Discovering the New Covenant by Greg Taylor - exAdventist Outreach

DISCOVERING THE NEW COVENANT
enters the Most Holy Place every year with blood of
another—He then would have had to suffer often since
the foundation of the world; but now, once at the end of
the ages, He has appeared to put away sin by the
sacrifice of Himself. And as it is appointed for men to
die once, but after this the judgment, so Christ was
offered once to bear the sins of many. To those who
eagerly wait for Him He will appear a second time, apart
from sin, for salvation. Heb. 9:23-28
Hebrews makes it so plain that Jesus’ work of
atonement was completed at the Cross. He went straight to
the Father’s side to minister there for us. The Day of
Atonement imagery had been fulfilled, the penalty paid.
When our lives come to an end we will face the judgment
based on whether or not we received the gift of grace. There
is no gap implied here. No waiting for 1844 to roll around.
No, the Day of Atonement was the Cross! The old system
was just a shadow, not the reality itself. Jesus was a better
sacrifice!
For us, the sanctuary doctrine was weak at best. The
scriptural evidence was in no way compelling unless there
was a vested interest in making it work. Even then, honest
scholarship must admit the weakness of the position. In light
of the problems with the authority of Ellen White and the
issues associated with the investigative judgment, we
launched into our study of the Sabbath. Even though we had
to face fears that had been ingrained into us by the teachings
of the church and specifically by Ellen White’s writings, the
challenge of the Scriptures to test or prove all these things
required careful study to see if these things are true or not.
So with the very real threat of losing our livelihood, the
respect of the community we had served for many years,
family relationships and friendships, we started to study the
authenticity of the seventh-day Sabbath.
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