to His promises, and continue to search the Scriptures, and
patiently wait and watch to receive further light.

23. WHAT IS THE SANCTUARY?

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The scripture which above all others had been both the foundation and the
central pillar of the advent faith, was the declaration, "Unto two
thousand and three hundred days; then shall the sanctuary be
cleansed."(667) These had been familiar words to all believers in the
Lord's soon coming. By the lips of thousands was this prophecy repeated as
the watchword of their faith. All felt that upon the events therein
foretold depended their brightest expectations and most cherished hopes.
These prophetic days had been shown to terminate in the autumn of 1844. In
common with the rest of the Christian world, Adventists then held that the
earth, or some portion of it, was the sanctuary. They understood that the
cleansing of the sanctuary was the purification of the earth by the fires
of the last great day, and that this would take place at the second
advent. Hence the conclusion that Christ would return to the earth in
1844.

But the appointed time had passed, and the Lord had not appeared. The
believers knew that God's word could not fail; their interpretation of the
prophecy must be at fault; but where was the mistake? Many rashly cut the
knot of difficulty by denying that the 2300 days ended in 1844. No reason
could be given for this, except that Christ had not come at the time they
expected Him. They argued that if the prophetic days had ended in 1844,
Christ would then have returned to cleanse the sanctuary by the
purification of the earth by fire; and that since He had not come, the
days could not have ended.

To accept this conclusion was to renounce the former reckoning of the
prophetic periods. The 2300 days had been found to begin when the
commandment of Artaxerxes for the restoration and building of Jerusalem,
went into effect, in the autumn of B.C. 457. Taking this as the
starting-point, there was perfect harmony in the application of all the
events foretold in the explanation of that period in Dan. 9:25-27.
Sixty-nine weeks, the first 483 of the 2300 years, were to reach to the
Messiah, the Anointed One; and Christ's baptism and anointing by the Holy
Spirit, A.D. 27, exactly fulfilled the specification. In the midst of the
seventieth week, Messiah was to be cut off. Three and a half years after
His baptism, Ch