Roy Gane: The sanctuary and the two-phase atonement. Soteriological applications.

Different kinds of Israelite sacrifices performed at the ancient Israelite sanctuary prefigured various aspects of Christ’s once-for-all sacrificial death, from which all atonement flows. Purification offerings (so-called “sin offerings”) remedied relatively minor sins and physical ritual impurities and resulted in transfer of residual symbolic defilements to the sanctuary in a first phase of atonement. Some defilements from rebellious sins also automatically defiled the sanctuary from a distance. The ritual defilements borne by the sanctuary, representing God’s administration, represented problems of theodicy for him when he forgives and cleanses faulty but loyal people or condemns the disloyal. These defilements were ritually removed from the sanctuary on the annual Day of Atonement in a second phase of atonement. This ritual cleansing on Israel’s day of judgment between the loyal and the disloyal signified that God is just and right in the ways that he treats people who accept or reject his sovereignty and the mercy that he offers through sacrifice. Following Christ’s death and ascension, he applies the benefits of his sacrifice as our high priest in two ways that were typified by the two-phase atonement at the Israelite sanctuary: forgiving sins and then justifying the retention of that forgiveness for the loyal in an end-time judgment between loyal and disloyal individuals among his nominal people.