This week we conclude our four part series on the unique doctrine belonging to the Seventh-day Adventist church known as the investigative judgment. However, going beyond the limited light in which the church teaches on the judgment of the dead we will include the eminent judgment for the living which is only found in the original writings of the Shepherd’s Rod message. Tract No. 3 entitled “The Judgment and the Harvest” is where the content presented below comes from and where the serious student of scripture can go to investigate further this most marvelous presentation in testimonies, parable, ceremony, and number. You can download a digital scan of the original publication at the link listed above. May God bless your search for truth as for hidden treasure.
“Since this fearsome truth, as here revealed, finds its counterpart in Christ’s parable of the wheat and the tares, the parables must necessarily therefore teach the investigative
Judgment Among The Living.
“Let both grow together,” commands Christ, in regard to the commingling of the wheat and tares, “until the harvest: and in the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, Gather ye together first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them: but gather the wheat into My barn.” Matt. 13:30.
Here the Lord is parabolically teaching that a time of investigation will come, and that then the angels will remove the sinners from “the congregation of the righteous.” Ps. 1:5
“Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto a net, that was cast into the sea, and gathered of every kind: which, when it was full, they drew to shore, and sat down, and gathered the good into vessels, but cast the bad away. So shall it be at the end of the world: the angels shall come forth, and sever the wicked from among the just.” Matt. 13:47-49. {TN3: 42.4}
In both of these parables, Christ is sounding the forewarning that the investigative judgment will take place in the time called “harvest,” which is the end of the world — the time in which the 2300 days culminate, just as the angel declared: “Understand, O son of man: for at the time of the end shall be the vision.” Dan. 8:17. “…shut thou up the vision; for it shall be for many days.” Dan. 8:26. “…for yet the vision is for many days.” Dan. 10:14.
Pointing directly to the time that the investigative judgment shall take place among the living, Malachi parallels both parables in his prophecy:
“…the Lord, Whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to His temple,…But who may abide the day of His coming? and who shall stand when He appeareth? for He is like a refiner’s fire and like fuller’s sope: and He shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver: and He shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousness.” Mal. 3:1-3.
As the cleansings called for in the parables and in Malachi’s prophecy have never taken place, the investigative judgment of the living is obviously, then, yet future. This investigative work is therefore occasioned by the work of separation in the earthly sanctuary (church), as brought to view also in Ezekiel 9:
“And, behold, six men came from the way of the higher gate, which lieth toward the north, and every man a slaughter weapon in his hand; and one man among them was clothed with linen, with a writer’s inkhorn by his side: and they went in, and stood beside the brasen altar. And the glory of the God of Israel was gone up from the cherub, whereupon He was, to the threshold of the house. And He called to the man clothed with linen, which had the writer’s inkhorn by his side; and the Lord said unto him, Go through the midst of the city, through the midst of Jerusalem, and set a mark upon the foreheads of the men that sigh and that cry for all the abominations that be done in the midst thereof.
“And to the others He said in mine hearing, Go ye after him through the city, and smite: let not your eye spare, neither have ye pity: slay utterly old and young, both maids, and little children, and women: but come not near any man upon whom is the mark; and begin at My sanctuary. Then they began at the ancient men which were before the house.” Ezek. 9:2-6.
Here the people are shown to be in a mixed state (tares and wheat commingled), with the time just ahead of them when on the one hand those who have sighed and cried for the abominations in their midst shall receive the mark of deliverance, while on the other hand those who have not sighed and cried shall be left without the mark, to perish (in their sins) under the angels’ slaughter weapons.
From this separation — the one in the church — come forth the first fruits.
Then follows the separation from among the nations, as seen in the parable of Matthew 25, prophetically describing Christ’s coming, though not the one viewed in 1 Thessalonians 4:16, 17, for at the time of the latter, “the dead in Christ shall rise first: then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air”; whereas at the time of the former, “when the Son of man shall come in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him, then shall He sit upon the throne of His glory [the kingdom-church, which up to this point consists only of the first fruits].
“And before Him shall be gathered all nations: and He shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats: and He shall set the sheep on His right hand, but the goats on the left. Then shall the King say unto them on His right hand [these being the second fruits], Come, ye blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world….Then shall He say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from Me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels.” Matt. 25:31-34, 41.
From this separation — the one among the nations — come forth the second fruits.
The angels who are round about the throne in the heavenly sanctuary during the judgment of Daniel 7:9, 10 and of Revelation 5:11 shall, as the parables explain, descend with “the Son of man” when He comes “to His temple” (His church) to separate by judgment “the wicked from among the just,” and to purge as gold and silver those “who may abide the day of His coming…that they may offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousness.” Mal. 3:2, 3.
In graphic demonstration that He will come to earth with all His angels to execute judgment upon the living, the Lord revealed Himself prophetically to Ezekiel as being brought enthroned to earth by four living creatures just before the slaughter of the hypocrites in the church takes place. And as each of the living creatures has the face of a lion, the face of a calf, the face of a man, and the face of an eagle (Ezek. 1:10), — the same judicial insignia as have the beasts who are before the throne in the heavenly sanctuary (Rev. 4:7) in the time of the judgment of the dead, — and as they descend to earth, they thereby symbolically show that the work of the mediatorial-judicial throne which convenes and presides over the judgment of the dead is extended to earth. {TN3: 46.3}
This extension, so far as we are able to know now, must take place at the opening of the seventh seal (Rev. 8:1), for at that time the celestial voices, which opened the judgment of the dead, cease in the heavenly sanctuary and begin, after the half hour’s silence, to sound on earth. In other words, just as in heaven at the opening of the judgment of the dead, there were “lightnings and thunderings and voices” (Rev. 4:5), likewise on earth at the opening of the “judgment of the living,” there are “voices, and thunderings, and lightnings, and an earthquake.” Rev. 8:5.
With the judgment of the dead, however, the work of separation takes place in the books in the heavenly sanctuary; whereas with the judgment of the living, the separation takes place among the people in the church as well as among their names in the books in the heavenly sanctuary, thus showing that both sanctuaries will finally be cleansed.
Inescapably, therefore, the Lord’s coming to His temple (Mal. 3:1-3), His coming with all His angels (Matt. 25), and His coming enthroned above the living creatures (Ezek. 1), — all three representing the same event as has been shown, — take place at the beginning of the judgment of the living: the time in which the judicial activities of the heavenly sanctuary extend to the earthly sanctuary — the church.
“And I looked, and behold a white cloud,” exclaimed John the Revelator, envisaging the same coming variously described by Malachi, Matthew, and Ezekiel, “and upon the cloud One sat like unto the Son of man, having on His head a golden crown, and in His hand a sharp sickle. And another angel came out of the temple, crying with a loud voice to Him that sat on the cloud, Thrust in Thy sickle, and reap: for the time is come for Thee to reap; for the harvest of the earth is ripe. And He that sat on the cloud thrust in His sickle on the earth; and the earth was reaped.” Rev. 14:14-16.
This coming of the Son of man is plainly, therefore, not when the resurrected and the living righteous are caught up together to meet Him in the air: for verses 17-20, following the ones quoted in the paragraph above, reveal that after He came and reaped the earth, “another angel…having a sharp sickle” came and reaped a second harvest before the wrath of God — the seven last plagues (Rev. 15:1) — was poured out upon the wicked.
Thus again and for the fourth time it is seen that there are two different comings of the Son of man: the one to “sever the wicked from among the just” in the church (Matt. 13:49), and then immediately to call the just from among the wicked in Babylon (Rev. 18:4); the other to take the saints, both the resurrected and the living, to the mansions which He has prepared for them (1 Thess. 4:16; John 14:1-3).
At the former coming of the Son of man, the stone which smote the great image was cut out without hands (without man’s aid, and by the Lord Himself) because, as the Lord says, “there was none to help; and I wondered that there was none to uphold: therefore Mine own arm brought salvation unto Me; and My fury, it upheld Me. And I will tread down the people in Mine anger, and make them drunk in My fury and I will bring down their strength to the earth.” Isa. 63:5, 6.
This work of separation, or cleansing, brought to view in the parable of Matthew 13:30 and again in that of Matthew 13:47-49, also in the prophecy of Malachi 3:1-3 and in that of Ezekiel 9, as well as in Revelation 14, is directly applicable to the judgment day for the living; but the cleansing of the sanctuary at the end of the 2300 days according to Daniel 8:14 and Daniel 7:9, 10 applies directly to the
Judgment Among The Dead.
Though the cleansing of the sanctuary, as has already been seen from Daniel’s prophecies was to take place after 1844 A.D., yet since the living righteous are still commingled with the sinners in the church, and since Daniel saw the Ancient of days sit in judgment, not to slay those who had “the mark,” but to judge from “the books” which “were opened,” obviously his vision of the judgment is in respect to the dead.
As to the cleansing of the church on earth, it is to be accomplished first by casting out the abomination, second by restoring the truth, and third by taking away the tares. But as to the cleansing of the sanctuary above, it is now being accomplished by removing from the Book of Life the names of those who are found wanting; then by placing them in the book which contains the names of those who are to come up in the resurrection of the wicked after the thousand years (Rev. 20:5); thereby leaving in the Book of Life the names only of those who have gained the victory over sin, and who thus are waiting to come up in the resurrection of the just (Rev. 20:6). John, accordingly, “saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the Book of Life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works.” Rev. 20:12.
Beyond the reasons already adduced, there are still
Further Reasons For Both Judgments.
As the cleansing of the heavenly sanctuary is a work of cleansing the books by blotting from them the names of both the backsliders and the tares, and as at the “time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation,” the only ones who “shall be delivered” are those whose names are found written in the book, the cleansing of the books, therefore, obviously takes place before the resurrection, and before the time of trouble such as never was. Thus the unfaithful dead will be left in their graves at the first resurrection, and the unfaithful living will be left without deliverance from the coming trouble. But were their names allowed to remain in the books, then according to the records either the wicked dead would have to be resurrected with the righteous, and the living wicked delivered with the living righteous or else both the righteous dead and the righteous living would have to be forsaken with them — alternatives both of which, of course, are impossible; thus again making mandatory an absolute separation, as instanced in type in Joshua’s time:
“There is an accursed thing,” said the Lord, “in the midst of thee, O Israel: thou canst not stand before thine enemies, until ye take away the accursed thing from among you….And Joshua and all Israel with him, took Achan…and all that he had:…and all Israel stoned him.” Josh. 7:13, 24, 25.
From this bulwark of evidence in proof of the cleansing of the church on earth and of the books in heaven, towers forth the impregnable truth that the living who, continuing faithful to the end, retain their names in the Book of Life, shall, in this time of separation, receive God’s mark, or seal, of deliverance, while those who do not shall be left without it, to perish in their sins. And, correspondingly, the dead whose names are retained after the judgment, in the book of the dead, shall come forth in the first resurrection (Rev. 20:6), while those who were unfaithful in life wait until after the thousand years, to come forth with all the wicked in the second resurrection (Rev. 20:5).
So while it is necessary in the congregation of the dead to separate the wicked from the righteous now awaiting the resurrection morning, it is just as necessary in the congregation of the living to separate the wicked from the righteous now preparing for deliverance from the coming trouble, and awaiting the second coming of Christ — His visible coming to wake the dead saints and to take up both them and the living.
There are therefore two separations, one among the righteous dead and the other among the righteous living, the dead being appointed to resurrection and the living to translation.
Those, on the other hand, whose names shall be blotted out of the books are those who shall have failed to put on the “wedding garment.” Matt. 22:11. At the Master’s command (Matt. 22:13), they shall be cast out, never more to be among the wedding guests.
This cleansing of the Book of Life is further seen to be necessary in order to enable the angels rightly to select the saints, for when the Son of man comes with all His angels, He shall send them “with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together His elect [the resurrected] from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other” (Matt. 24:31), and take them to join the living.
The concentrated light now shining forth from the prophecies herein viewed in their correlative connection, shows that both the sanctuary in heaven and the one on earth were polluted, not by the political and military conquests of heathen powers, but rather, first, by some of its converts’ not enduring (Matt. 10:22); second by Satan’s bringing in the tares while men slept (Matt. 13:25); and third, by the exceeding great horn’s casting out the “daily,” treading down the truth, and bringing in the abomination that maketh desolate: thus involving both the earthly and the heavenly sanctuaries.
This startling revelation shows conclusively that the cleansing according to Daniel 8:14 is first of the sanctuary in heaven, and second of the sanctuary on earth.
Important as it is, any who would fail to make a diligent and careful study of the nature and significance of this great work of God’s investigating the guests who have come in for the wedding are simply indifferent to the prospects of eternal life — “so great salvation.” For when a person’s judgment is pending, and he is unaware of the fact, he will be unprepared and unable to stand when his case is investigated. To this all-important subject “therefore we ought to give the more earnest heed.” Heb. 2:1.” – Tract No. 3, pp. 42-54.
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