The question of course is, how the majority of Christian believers can affirm the present reality of forgiveness, and yet deny that Christ has consummated the atonement process through his parousia. This is a huge issue!
The bottom line is that you cannot, consistently and logically, affirm that forgiveness is a reality now, in Christ, and yet, affirm that the believer does not enter the Most Holy Place. You cannot affirm the reality of forgiveness and deny the reality of the parousia. You cannot affirm that the faithful child of God must go to Hades and await judgment, without thereby affirming that the Mosaic Covenant, with its animal sacrifices, remains valid and binding today.
On the other hand, what does it mean to affirm that the faithful child of God does enter the Most Holy when they die? Well, it certainly means that the atonement is completed, that man is genuinely forgiven, and that there is nothing to keep man from the presence of God. It affirms that everything that the old world symbolized and prophesied has now become a reality. The High Priest's work is finished. The atonement is finished, and man can now enter into its benefits.
However, if the atonement is completed, and man can enter the Most Holy Place, then this demands that Christ's coming, the second time, "apart from sin, for salvation" has occurred. Remember, the atonement was not completed until the High Priest came out of the MHP and signified the acceptance of the atonement sacrifice.
To help see the relationship between the end of the Old Covenant Age, the consummation of the atonement, and the relationship with the end of the seventy weeks of Daniel, we need to take a closer look at the idea of entering the Most Holy Place.
As we have seen, in Hebrews 9, the writer posits the access and entrance into the Most Holy Place at the end of the Mosaic world, when all that it typified and foreshadowed was fulfilled, i.e. at the time of reformation. So, the time when all that the Old Covenant anticipated, the realization of Israel's eschatological and soteriological hopes, would be when the system that stood only in animal sacrifices, carnal washings and ordinances, reached its terminus through fulfillment. In other words, the time of reformation - when man could enter the MHP - would come at the end of the Mosaic Covenant world! This is not only time we find this motif.
In Luke 21, Jesus predicted the fall of Jerusalem (v. 7f). He tells the disciples that when they see Jerusalem surrounded they are to know her desolation is nigh (v. 20-24). He describes the fall of Jerusalem, "These be the days of vengeance, in which all things that are written must be fulfilled" (v. 22). Jerusalem's fall would be the consummation of God's vengeance. Furthermore, in the events of those days, they were to "look up, for your redemption draws nigh," and to know that the kingdom of heaven had drawn near (Luke 21:28-31). Thus, in the destruction of the temple and removal of the cultus, the saints were to see the fulfillment of all things that are written, the coming of their redemption, and the arrival of the kingdom!
Note also that in Revelation 15, John sees a vision of the temple in heaven, and remarkably, the veil is gone, and the Most Holy Place is open (Revelation 11:19; 15:8)! This signified that man could now approach God - but there was a problem. No man could actually enter the Most Holy Place until, "the seven plagues of the seven angels were completed" (15:8). Man could not enter the Most Holy Place until the wrath of God was consummated, and God's wrath would be completed when judgment fell on Babylon (Revelation 16:17f). Therefore access to God would be opened when God's vengeance was completed against Babylon.
We cannot develop this at length here, but suffice it to say that Babylon of Revelation was none other than Old Covenant Jerusalem. It is the great city, where the Lord was slain (Revelation 11:8), the city that killed the prophets (16:6f), and the city guilty of shedding the blood of the apostles and prophets (18:20-24), and all the blood shed on the earth. Compare Jesus' words in Luke 11:49f and Luke 13:33f.
So, here is what have in Revelation.
John saw the Most Holy Place open, but no man could enter until God's wrath was completed in the outpouring of the Seventh Vial.
But, God's wrath would be finished in the outpouring of wrath against Babylon (Revelation 16:17f).
Babylon was Old Covenant Jerusalem.
Therefore, entrance into the Most Holy Place would be opened when God's wrath was completed in the judgment of Old Covenant Jerusalem.
The chart will help visualize the comparision of Luke 21, Hebrews, and Revelation, and the concept of entering the MHP.
1.
Luke 21 Fall of Jerusalem (v. 20f)
Hebrews 9-10 End of Old Covenant System (v.6)
Revelation 15-19 Judgment on Babylon (16:7f) (Jerusalem)
2.
Luke 21 Days of Vengeance fulfilled (v. 22)
Hebrews 9-10 Time of Vengeance (10:26-37)
Revelation 15-19 Completion of God's Wrath (15:8; 16:7f)
3.
Luke 21 Coming of Redemption, Kingdom (v. 28, 32)
Hebrews 9-10 Entrance into Most Holy Place (9:6f)
Revelation 15-19 Entrance into Most Holy Place (15:1,8)
4.
Luke 21 At Coming of the Lord (v. 26f)
Hebrews 9-10 At Coming of the Lord (10:37)
Revelation 15-19 At Coming of the Lord (chapter 19)
5.
Luke 21 In Jesus' generation (v. 32)
Hebrews 9-10 In a very, very little while (10:37)
Revelation 15-19 "Behold I come quickly" (22:12,20)
In Luke, the judgment against Jerusalem would fulfill God's vengeance, and bring redemption. Hebrews (10:26-37) depicts the removal of the Old Covenant system, (at the time of Christ's coming in judgment), as opening the way to the Most Holy Place . In Revelation, God's wrath is consummated in the judgment against Babylon, resulting in access to the Most Holy Place! The parallels positively demonstrate that the time when entrance into the Most Holy Place would be opened was at the end of the Mosaic Covenant world, with the removal of the City and the Temple.
Daniel 9 said that "seventy weeks are determined for your people, and for your holy city, and the end of that vision would bring the atonement, the putting away of sin, and the arrival of everlasting righteousness. It would bring in the realization of the hopes of Israel. But, the end thereof would be with an overwhelming flood. The arrival of the new world of righteousness would signal the end of the old world of sin, death, and futility. Or as Eusebius stated it, "It is quite clear that the seven times seventy weeks ... was therefore the period determined for Daniel's people, which limited the total length of the Jewish nation's existence."
Unless Luke, Hebrews and Revelation were anticipating the arrival of a totally different salvation fulfillment of Israel's promises, then we must see that their referent to "the time of reformation," the time of redemption and the kingdom (Luke 21), and the time when man could enter the Most Holy Place (Revelation), as the same identical time. All three of them posit the arrival of these blessings as the parousia of Christ, as the chart shows. Those blessings would arrive at the time of the parousia- and thus the resurrection.
So, if they were in fact anticipating the fulfillment of Daniel's prophecy, that meant that Daniel's seventy weeks were not completed previously, but that they would be filled up at the cataclysmic removal of the cultus that had stood as a barrier to man for 1,500 years. And, this means, without doubt, that the parousia and resurrection belong inseparably to the coming of Christ at the end of the seventy weeks of Daniel 9, when Christ came and brought that old system to an end in the "overwhelming flood" of destruction of A.D. 70.
Finally, the millennialists have a severe problem in regard to their fundamentally important gap theory, the making of the atonement, and the death of Jesus. There is no question that Daniel was told "seventy weeks are determined, to make atonement for sin." As we have seen, this involves not the subjective appropriation of the atonement, but the objective process of making atonement. Boutflower well notes that the Hebrew word that is translated here in Daniel 9, is the identical word, "that occurs so frequently in the Book of Leviticus." (Daniel, 183). His point is that the making of atonement does not refer to an event divorced from the process of atonement. It is in fact the process of making the atonement that is the focus. In other words, it involved Christ fulfilling the typological high priestly atonement practices! That means his death, the offering of the his blood in the MHP, and his parousia. But, this is where the difficulty comes in.
The millennialists tells us the death of Jesus does not belong to the seventy weeks of Daniel 9! They point out, correctly so, that the death of Jesus would be after the 69th week, and while that would seem to demand that his death occurred in the pivotal 70th week, it is insisted that the death of Jesus actually postponed the prophetic countdown! Thus, Jesus' death, which is for the atonement, does not, per the millennialists, belong to the seventy weeks at all! Exactly how the atoning death of Jesus does not actually belong to the seventy week countdown the millennialists do not explain. Indeed, some even argue that the words "make reconciliation for iniquity," "seems to be rather clear picture of the cross of Christ in which Christ reconciled Israel as well as the world to himself (2 Cor. 5:19)." However, Walvoord and other millennialists insist the application of what Christ did on the Cross still awaits the parousia, and so, it is argued, the consummation of the seventy weeks has been postponed.
Don K Preston