Cleansing of the Bath

The Japanese have their sentō, while Koreans called theirs a jjimjilbang. The Islamic world has their hammam. Romans called theirs a thermae, while the Greeks a balneae. The Nahuatl natives in North America had their temazcal. The Western world is more familiar with the Swedish term sauna. Sometimes a steam room, sometimes a public bath, these facilities are found throughout the world where water and heat are utilized for cleansing and bathing the body. Many cultures tout their hydrotherapeutic health benefits, but they also have become places of socialization and relaxation.

One unique practice at some public baths is a full body scrub. After soaking in hot water, the skin is exfoliated, removing dead skin cells, cleansing every pore, and encouraging blood circulation. One can see dead bits of the epidermal layer roll off the body like eraser bits. Those who have never had this experience may be lugging around pounds of dead skin cells.

Everyone who comes to the bath is dirty. After a skin scrub, everyone who leaves the public bath is clean—squeaky clean. And at the end of the day there is only one thing that remains dirty: the bath itself.

The sanctuary in heaven has been described as God’s house, as a temple, or as a throne room from which the decisions for the universe are made. But in a certain sense it is also like a public bath. The main attendant of this public bath welcomes all those in the camp to a spiritual cleansing. Through the medium of blood, sin is transferred from the sinner into the sanctuary. Every step of this transfer (from the lamb, to the blood, the priest carrying the blood, and the veil of the sanctuary) points to and represents Jesus’ death and ministry in removing sin away from the sinner. In turn, every sinner who comes by faith to the entrance of the sanctuary is cleansed by the blood, death, and ministry of Jesus Christ. What remains is the composite record of sin in the sanctuary.

The composite record of sin in the sanctuary is removed forever.

Like the public bath at the end of the day that needs to be cleansed, the sanctuary is also cleansed once. While every other day of the year saw sins come into the sanctuary by the ministry of the priests in the holy place (also known as the daily), on one special day the sins were taken out of the sanctuary by the ministry of the high priest in the most holy place (also known as the yearly; see Lev. 16:16). Just like an announcement indicating that at 23:00 hours the public bath shall be cleansed, Daniel 8:14 prophesied that in 2,300 years “the sanctuary shall be cleansed.”

In other words, the composite record of sin in the sanctuary is removed once and forever. Whereas evangelical Christianity is concerned with the justification of the individual sinner, Adventist Christianity is concerned with Christ’s justification of every sinner on earth who desires so. Whereas sacramental Christianity is concerned with an earthly church as the means by which individuals are sanctified, Adventist Christianity is concerned with the sanctification of the saints by the ministry of Christ in the heavenly sanctuary.

Not only is everyone who experiences the bath clean, but this public bath is the means by which all creation becomes restored and restituted. “Sin and sinners are no more. The entire universe is clean. One pulse of harmony and gladness beats through the vast creation.”[*]

A cosmic and critical event happened in October of 1844. The cleansing process for the entire universe was led out by our High Priest, Jesus Christ, to remove sin once and for all. Yes, great; but no, not a disappointment at all.

[*] Ellen G. White, The Great Controversy (Mountain View, Calif.: Pacific Press Pub. Assn., 1911), p. 678.