Adventist Teaching: Yes
Biblical Teaching: No
In Seventh-Day Adventist theology, the sins of believers are transferred to a sanctuary building in Heaven where Jesus is doing a work of investigative judgement to see who is and isn’t worthy of the atoning benefits of His sacrifice. He is “cleansing the sanctuary” of sin in this process because this sanctuary became defiled by our sins. It is the blood of Christ in this work that transfers the sins there and His blood will also be what transfers them to Satan (though, they will say symbolically). They claim this is modeled after the Old Testament sanctuary service.
The Bible nowhere teaches this. The blood of Christ is never spoken of as defiling anything (Ephesians 1:7; 1 John 1:7; Colossians 1:20; Acts 20:28; Hebrews 9:14). Scripture nowhere states or alludes to Jesus’s blood, whether literally or symbolically, being a vehicle for transferring sin around. This is heresy.
Furthermore, Jesus is not dealing with sin anymore like the Levitical priest’s constantly were. He put sin away by the single sacrifice of Himself on the cross (Hebrews 9:26). He is seated in Heaven, something the Levitical priests never did because the work of dealing with sin was never finished (Hebrews 10:11-14). He is ruling and reigning as a Priest King while all of His enemies are made His footstool (Hebrews 10:12-13). The work of dealing with sin is over.
The Bible is also clear that one of the things that makes the new covenant better is that God remembers the sins of the people in the covenant no more (Jeremiah 31:34, Hebrews 8:12). They are not being stored in Heaven to be investigated.
