The Great Controversy The Great Controversy | Page 486

Thus will be realized the complete fulfillment of the new-covenant
promise: “I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no
more.” “In those days, and in that time, saith the Lord, the iniquity of
Israel shall be sought for, and there shall be none; and the sins of Judah,
and they shall not be found.” Jeremiah 31:34; 50:20. “In that day shall
the branch of the Lord be beautiful and glorious, and the fruit of the earth
shall be excellent and comely for them that are escaped of Israel. And it
shall come to pass, that he that is left in Zion, and he that remaineth in
Jerusalem, shall be called holy, even everyone that is written among the
living in Jerusalem.” Isaiah 4:2, 3.
The work of the investigative judgment and the blotting out of sins is
to be accomplished before the second advent of the Lord. Since the dead
are to be judged out of the things written in the books, it is impossible
that the sins of men should be blotted out until after the judgment at
which their cases are to be investigated. But the apostle Peter distinctly
states that the sins of believers will be blotted out “when the times of
refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord; and He shall send
Jesus Christ.” Acts 3:19, 20. When the investigative judgment closes,
Christ will come, and His reward will be with Him to give to every man
as his work shall be.
In the typical service the high priest, having made the atonement
for Israel, came forth and blessed the congregation. So Christ, at the
close of His work as mediator, will appear, “without sin unto salvation”
(Hebrews 9:28), to bless His waiting people with eternal life. As the
priest, in removing the sins from the sanctuary, confessed them upon
the head of the scapegoat, so Christ will place all these sins upon Satan,
the originator and instigator of sin. The scapegoat, bearing the sins of
Israel, was sent away “unto a land not inhabited” (Leviticus 16:22); so
Satan, bearing the guilt of all the sins which he has caused God’s people
to commit, will be for a thousand years confined to the earth, which will
then be desolate, without inhabitant, and he will at last suffer the

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