Questions and AnswersQuestion: Would you pleasecomment on two publications byVance Ferrell? They come fromPilgrims'Res; and are titled His-toric Adventism and HebrewsNine.

C., Sacramento, California.

Answer: Rarely have I seen any-thing posing as scholarly so bla-tantly inaccurate. The writer ar-gues that the Greek ta hagia (andits genitive form ton haglon)does not refer to the secondapartment of the sanctuary. It re-fers, he says, only to the ftrst (seePart Two, page 4, second andthird columns, and throughout).

The end of the ftrst of the two-part series says:

Hebrews 9:3 is the onlytime in that book where the"second apartment" is found.Does that seem strange? Whyshould it. Paul wrote this bookabout A.D. 65. By that time,Jesus had been in the firstapartment of the heavenlySanctuary for 34 years. It wouldbe another 1,779 years beforeJesus went into the secondapartment.Thus the author keeps the di-

vine Savior from the heart ofheaven and the presence of theFather for nearly 2,000 years!

The second article begins withthe assertion that Paul "under-stood that-in his time in his-tory-Jesus was in the ftrst apart-ment of the heavenly Sanctuary."

There is not a Greek scholarin the whole world who wouldagree with such statements! (I'mspeaking of scholars recognizedby the Christian churches asscholars.) Observe the followingparallels in Hebrews itself:

But into the second wentthe high priest alone once ev-ery year, not without blood(Heb 9:27 KJV).

But only the high priest en-tered the inner room, and thatonly once a year, and neverwithout blood (Heb 9:7 NN).

Neither by the blood ofgoats and calves, but by hisown blood he entered in onceinto the holy place [tonhagion], having obtained eter-nal redemption for us (Heb9:12 KJV).

He [Christ] did not enter bymeans of the blood of goatsand calves; but he entered theMost Holy Place one for all by

his own blood, having obtainedeternal redemption (Heb 9:12NN).

The high priest entereth intothe holy place [ta hagia] everyyear with blood of others (Heb9:25 IqV).

The high priest enters theMost Holy Place every year withblood that is not his own (Heb9:25 NIV).

Having therefore, brethren,boldness to enter into the holi-est by the blood of Jesus, by anew and living way, which hehath consecrated for us, throughthe veil, that is to say, his flesh(Heb 10:19-20 KJV).

Therefore, brothers, since wehave confidence to enter theMost Holy Place by the blood ofJesus, by a new and living w~yopened for us through the cur-tain, that is, his body (Heb 10:19-20 NIV).Comparing these verses makes

it perfectly clear that the secondapartment of Hebrews 9:7 intowhich the high priest entered oncea year is identical with the ta hagiaof Hebrews 9:12 and 25. In otherwords, ta hagia is the secondapartment. It is the place "witWnthe veil" (see 6:19 and 10:19). Ittypilled Christ's return to the heav-enly Holy of Holies after makingthe atonement on the cross.

The Seventh-day Adventist BibleCommentary says [Volume 7, page437] that the phrase "within the veil"always means, in the Greek OldTestament [LXX], "the most holyplace." As a rule, when Hebrewsquotes from the OT it is the GreekOT it quotes, not the Hebrew. Allacknowledged New TestamentGreek scholars (and this includesSDA scholars) understand the veilhere to be the one that sep<tratesthe ftrst apartment from the sec-ond apartment.

By speaking of the Wgh priest,and once a year, the writer of He-brews makes it clear that it is theDay of Atonement that is underdiscussion. That was the one dayin the year when one man only-the high priest-entered the sec-ond apartment. The writer says re-peatedly that what the high priestdid typically once a year, Christdid by his death-resurrection-as-cension act of redemption (6:19;9:8, 12, 25j 10:19-20).

In harmony with this, the NTdeclares twelve times that Christascended to "the right hand of

God." Such is the chief messageof Hebrews, and every classicalcommentary on Hebrews, over thecenturies, has said just that.

It is sad to say, but it must besaid to protect the uninformed, thatthe writer of these two articlespublished by Pilgrims' Rest doesnot know what he is talking about.His ignorance is abysmal.

I hope Vance Ferrell will takethe time to search and see--thenwrite a retraction. That is theChristian thing to do.

This weird sectarian apologiais consistent with much that ema-nates from Pilgrims' Rest. Sometime ago, Mr. Ferrell implied tohis readers that he had a compre-hensive understanding of histori-cal, exegetical, sociological, andecclesiastical facts concerning mydoctoral work at Manchester Uni-versity in England. As is usual withEnglish doctorates, I wrote a dis-sertation, but took no classes. Mydissertation was read and acceptedby F.F. Bruce.

As I read the Pilgrims' Restcomments on this, and other top-ics, I reflected wryly, "If one werenot a Christian, one could sue thewriter and retire on the awardeddamages."

We wish that those who idol-ize a well-known Adventist writerwould heed her words that "agedoes not make error into truth,"and "truth can afford to be fair"(CW35). She lamented on anotheroccasion that many would-be re-formers do not seem to possesshigh standards of morality (5TI44).[I apply this with reference totruthfulness, not impurity.] Manycurrent writings by would-be re-formers only prove her words.

Interestingly enough, as earlyas February 1845, Ellen White ap-plied "within the veil" to the sec-ond apartment (See EW55).

The whole NT pictures Christas fulfLlling the Day of Atonementtype by his sacrillce and ascen-sion to God. The four Gospels, aswell as Hebrews, make this quiteclear.

For the sake of the giraffesamong our readers, we includequotations on this topic from cer-tain of the best Greek scholars:

Ton hagion ... hagion of 9:3.In 9:2, 3, the outer part of thetabernacle is called hagia, theinner hagia hagion, but verse 8is conclusive proof that hagiawithout addition was used for

the holiest place (Marcus Dads,"Hebrews," The Expositor's GreekNew Testament (EGT), 4:21).

... our author's repeated des-ignation of the wilderness holyof holies as ttl hagia (9:8, 12, 24,25; 10:19; 13:11; in 9:2 it is usedof the holy place; d. also tohagion in 9:1 and hagia hagionin 9:3). It can hardly be doubtedthat this usage, within the imme-diate context, in which Jesus isconceived as having entered asour High Priest into the heav-enly holy of holies, determinesthe authentic understanding ofthe expression here [in 8:2] (P.E.Hughes, Hebrews, p. 281).

The simple plural ttl hagia,which our author also uses ...probably corresponds with thesimple singular to hagion, foundin Lev. 16:2, 3, 16, 17, 20, 23, 27.Such an expression, which in it-self is more general and less em-phatic, is shown by the contextto relate specillcally to the holyof holies (Ibid., p. 309).

The very existence of a veilhanging between the outer andinner sanctuary was interpretedas a proof that access to God'spresence was as yet imperfectlyrealized. The highpriest [sic] car-ried once a year inside the veilthe blood of victims slain out-side it; that was all. Jesus, on theother hand, sheds his own bloodas a perfect sacrillce, and thuswins entrance for us into thepresence of God. Only, insteadof saying that his sacrillcial deathmeant the rending of the veilOike the author of Mk 15:38),i.e., the supersession of the OTbarriers between God and man,he allegorizes the veil here asthe flesh of Christj this had to berent before the blood could beshed, which enabled him to enterand open God's presence for thepeople (James Moffat, A Criticaland Exegetical Commentary onthe Epistle to the Hebrews, p. 143).We are aware we have spoken

strongly in this answer. If there werea scintilla of gospel in the articlesfrom Pilgrims' Res; we would havebeen more gentle. But the gospelis lacking. Legalists are bindingburdens grievous to be borne; im-posing a yoke warned about byPaul in Galatians 5:1. We think thewarmth that Christ evidenced inMatthew 23 is needed. We need towarn erring souls.

-Desmond Ford

13