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Join us in this enlightening episode as we delve into the Christian understanding of Yom Kippur, also known as the Day of Atonement. Discover how Christians approach this sacred day with a deep dive into Leviticus 23 and 16, highlighting the ceremonies and the vital role of the high priest. Journey with us as we explore the symbolism of the two goats, a key element of the Atonement festivities, offering a glimpse into the profound theological meanings behind these ancient practices.
SPEAKER 01 :
It must seem strange to a Jew that there are Christians who observe Yom Kippur. The few occasions I’ve had in my life to talk to Jews about it, they have always kind of had this puzzled expression on their face. They have no way of kind of sorting out in their mind why it is that we do this or how we come to do it. They have a long history and a very, very deep tradition of Yom Kippur. However, it differs remarkably from ours because it was developed without a full knowledge of what it was all about or what it would come to be about. They had a theology of all the Holy Days that were developed without a personal Savior. which makes a huge difference. Oh, there was a Savior. God, you know, Jehovah, Yahweh of the Old Testament was their Savior indeed, but not in the sense that you and I think of a Savior, not in the sense that the New Testament presents to us a personal Savior in the way that Jesus did, and was not in their theology any idea of a God who would walk in human flesh and would know what it was like to be man and who would sacrifice himself. I give them credit when it comes, they were faced with a challenge down through generations of families of explaining to their children what the meaning of these days was. And really what they had to work with was Israelite history. You know, where God had been with them, what he had done with them, how he had saved them out of the land of Egypt and all the things that they had done. They did a pretty good job of developing a tradition to explain to their people what it meant to them as a nation. However, they had no frame of reference whatsoever to lay Christianity alongside this tradition. And the strange thing is that Christianity down through so many generations didn’t either. They didn’t really understand how the Christ, our Savior, related to the Savior of the Old Testament, how he was the Savior of the Old Testament, and how all these holy days related to him. But beyond what the Scriptures say about the Day of Atonement, Judaism has little to offer to the Christian in terms of understanding because their development, their tradition was developed in the absence of a knowledge of Christ. Tradition and the oral law simply have no binding authority, certainly not on Christians. Scripture, though, is another matter altogether. Once we come up against Scripture, Jesus said, you know, don’t think I’ve come to destroy the law of the prophets. Until heaven and earth pass away, not one jot, not one tittle shall pass from the law until everything has come to pass. Heaven and earth still being here, then I have to consider if it was in the Scriptures, that is in the written law with jots and tittles intact. that indeed it is still in effect and we are still responsible for it. Now, my own track on this has not followed Jewish tradition at all. I can’t see that any extra-biblical tradition has much to say to me about this day. But Christian tradition has a lot to say about the Day of Atonement and adds a whole new dimension to it from anything the Jews have ever thought about, as far as I can tell. For me, the trek to understanding began with that wonderful chapter on the appointed times of God, Leviticus 23. It’s a chapter which, if you’ve been sitting in front of ministers who’ve done their duty all these years, you should be very familiar with from start to finish because we are supposed to proclaim these days in their seasons. And I’ve tried to do it for all these many years now. I suddenly realized next year, not this year, But 2008 will be our 50th Feast of Tabernacles. Long time of actually observing these days. I think probably, as far as the observance of the Day of Atonement, this Day of Atonement is probably my 50th that will be this coming week. In Leviticus 23, verse 27… On the tenth day of the seventh month, there shall be a day of atonement. It shall be a holy convocation to you, and you shall afflict your souls. That is, you shall fast and offer an offering made by fire to the Lord. The Hebrew word for atonement is kippur. From a root, it means to cover. And actually, it’s the cover of the ark, which is often translated in your Bible, the mercy seat, is a cover, a lid for the ark. And this is all from the same root, so there is a relation between them. That it’s a holy convocation means it’s an assembly. This is not a holy day. You keep it home all by yourself. You get up and go somewhere where you can assemble together with God’s people. For Israel, it meant the temple. For us, it means wherever we can get enough of us together that God says, wherever two or three of you are gathered in my name, I’m there. Okay, you shall do no work in the self same day. It is a day of atonement to make an atonement for you before the Lord your God. For whatsoever soul it shall be that shall not be afflicted in that same day, he shall be cut off from among his people. That’s pretty severe. Failure to fast, as I understand this, is then breaking covenant. The expression to be cut off from your people means that you are no longer a part of a people that is in the name of or joined to or in covenant with God. You’ve broken covenant, you’re cut off from the people. That would be a very severe thing to have happen to you in the wilderness out there. Whatsoever soul it be that does any work in that same day, the same soul I will destroy from among, or he will destroy from among his people. Doing work, that is something overt, actually calls for physical removal. You could, I guess, be out of covenant and still be in your tent among the Israelites. But if you get out and do any work, you’re going to be physically removed from the camp. You shall do no manner of work. It shall be a statute forever throughout your generations in all your dwellings. It shall be unto you a Sabbath of rest. You shall afflict your souls in the ninth day of the month. At even, from even, to even shall you celebrate your Sabbath. And, of course, it’s always made very clear that it’s the 10th day from the 9th at evening to the 10th at evening. That’s when the Sabbath is. I’ve always found it interesting the way the Sabbath is delineated on this occasion. On other occasions, it just gives you a date, 15th day of the first month. But this time, it’s very specific from the evening of the 9th to the evening of the 10th. Any idea why we’re so specific? Well, don’t you want to know when you can eat again? With some precision? It’s serious because of the total absence of work. And because you’re not eating, let’s be specific and let’s don’t fudge the boundaries. We can easily understand why someone might do that. There was a ceremony on this day. and it’s of special interest from a Christian point of view. The ceremony is found in the 16th chapter of Leviticus, and I’d like to take you back there to walk our way through some aspects of what actually the priesthood was required to do. Leviticus 16, verse 1. The Lord spoke to Moses after the death of the two sons of Aaron when they offered before the Lord and died. Now, if you’re not familiar with this, what happened was these two sons of Aaron decided on their own initiative to go up to the temple and offered what was called strange fire. There’s nothing particularly strange about it except the fact it was not specified by God. It wasn’t a part of the ritual. It wasn’t a part of what they were told to do. They just came up with a little initiative, a little creativity. And here what we’ll do is we will use this for incense and we will offer fire in a way, in a circumstance, in a time that’s not been specified. Why do we have to do it that way? Sort of a typical teenage response sometimes. Why do I have to do that for? I can do it my way instead of this way. That’s what they thought. So here they came up before the temple and as they approached it, fire came rolling out of the door, out of the tabernacle, devoured both of them where they stood and left them as smoldering lumps of on the ground. They wrapped them up in their coats, took those two smoking bodies out and buried them. Aaron was ready to start lamenting and Moses told him not. God said, don’t let him do that because they did the wrong thing. Now, after that, the Lord said to Moses, speak to Aaron, your brother, that he come not at all times into the holy place within the veil before the mercy seat upon the ark, that he die not. Because I will appear upon the mercy seat. Now again, the expression Hebrew for the mercy seat is just the cover or the lid of the ark. I will appear there. The implication of this, and I think the implication of what happened with these two boys is, the presence of God, the actual, literal presence of God in his glory is something that no human being can survive. There is simply way too much power in that. And so consequently, for something physical to come close to it means he’s going to die. He will be burnt. So you don’t come in here any time. You don’t come in here your own way. You don’t come in here on impulse. You do it this way and at this time. There were specified sacrifices, washings, specified clothing. Everything had to be done just so. And I imagine by this time Aaron and the rest of his family had that clear. That was the 2020 vision. We will do this exactly like we’re told. He shall take of the congregation of Israel two kids of the goats for a sin offering and one ram for a burned offering. Now, an assumption I have heard made on this is that the two kids of the goats were for a sin offering means both lambs, our kids, were actually for a sin offering. I don’t take it that way. I think one of them was a sin offering and one of them was for something else. We get two from which we will have a sin offering. And I think it’s clear enough in the context as we go on. First, as he goes along, he gives us an overview. And Leviticus 16 is kind of odd this way because as you read through it, you can almost find yourself shaking your head saying, wait a minute, didn’t we just say that? And the answer is yes, you did. He first of all gives an overview, then he goes back step by step as to what had to be done. He shall take the two goats and present them before the Lord at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation. And Aaron shall cast lots upon the two goats, one lot for the Lord, the other lot for the scapegoat. Now, a couple of things to comment about here. The casting of lots is indistinguishable from a simple appeal to chance. It could be a flipping of a coin. It could be throwing of dice. You could have any number of things that you would do to decide one of two alternatives. There is an implication in this that however this was done, it was more of an appeal for God to choose than for man to choose. But to an observer, it would have been simply a random choice. One goat to be used for this, the other one to be used for that. Aaron shall bring the goat upon which the Lord’s lot fell and offer him for a sin offering. Notice that one of the goats, the one that received the lot for the Lord upon that one, he took that one and that was the sin offering. There seems to be no reason to think that the other goat would be a sin offering because in fact it was not killed at all. And I don’t see how it’s possible for it to be a sin offering if it isn’t killed and burnt. But the goat on which the lot fell to be the scapegoat shall be presented alive before the Lord to make an atonement with him and to let him go for a scapegoat into the wilderness. Scapegoat. Hebrew literally is azazel. And literally what it means is the goat of departure. That’s not terribly imaginative. This is the goat that goes away. That’s going to be taken off into the wilderness. Okay. Before anything else could be done in this though. The priest had to prepare himself and his environment. So first of all, it tells us what he is going to do. Now as he gets ready to do it, he must prepare himself. He has a sacrifice to make, to make an atonement for himself. He has to make an atonement for his family. He has to make sure that ceremonially he is clean and prepared for what he is about to do. For in Christian tradition, the priest represents Christ and the work that Christ had to do. Now there’s been, I don’t know, for years, I don’t know where the idea first came from many years ago, that one of these goats represented Christ dying for our sins, the other represented Satan who was bound and carried away upon whom all our sins were confessed on before he was carried away. It goes back so far that I’m sure I don’t know where this idea originally came from. But the fact is the Azazel has been represented as being… The devil, the other goat, represented as being Christ. I think it’s a better way to approach this, though, is that the high priest represents Christ in the Day of Atonement ceremony. Neither goat. The goats represent things that Christ has to do. One of those things is to die in our place. The other one, and his blood be shed for us as a sin offering. The other one is to see to it that our sins are carried far away from us. You know, one of the things that I have often puzzled over in the Day of Atonement service is why there is this two-step thing that needs to be done. Because I have always tended to think that whenever Christ died for our sins, our sins were just gone. You know, as of the moment that he died in our place, or as of the moment as I accepted his sacrifice, as I went under the waters of baptism and I came up, I am free from sin. then why do we have this later laying of hands on the other goat and him being led away by a fit man and let go, not killed, in the wilderness? The problem with comparing that goat to Christ and that Christ is our sin bearer is this would present Christ as bearing our sins out there and not dying. You know, you have to think these things through pretty carefully, and even then… We can’t be absolutely certain God’s intent on all these things. We have to kind of be sure we understand what happened. We have to understand and remember what was said and to have an overall view of what’s going on here. But it’s interesting to me. I think probably most of us in this room have long since been baptized. We’ve been forgiven of our sins. God no longer imputes our iniquities to us. We stand free before him. The question is, why do we still sin? We do, don’t we? I do. And having sinned, what then? The thing I think we have to understand is that it’s almost like God said to Cain, you know, if you do well, you’d be blessed. But if you’re talking about the fact that his offering was not accepted, he says, if you’re not accepted, it’s because sin lies at the door eager to be at you. And once we have committed sin, we have opened a door into our life. And that sin and the effects of that sin don’t necessarily go away in the waters of baptism. The forgiveness is there. God will no longer hold it against you. But I’ve used it so many times I’ve probably worn it out. But if you drive drunk and you have an accident, And as a result of that driving drunk, they take you to court and they sentence you to X number of years in prison for manslaughter. You will be forgiven of your sin by God and you will serve your time in prison. If you have an accident and lose your arm, you will be forgiven for driving drunk. But you will never get your arm back in this life. I think this is one thing we need to understand, and that is that sin is an ongoing presence in the world, in our lives, and that therefore the final liberation from sin depends on an act of Christ as much as the initial liberation from sin did. There’s not a one of us who can free himself from sin. We just can’t. We can try, but to try to paint ourselves as righteous is self-righteousness. We can’t make ourselves that way. And to say that we would overcome our sin and the effects of sin, frankly, takes far too much unto ourselves. Because when you are a Christian, when you understand Christian theology, you will come to understand that the only way you can be liberated from sin is by the ministry, the work, the sacrifice, and the ongoing work the ongoing work of Jesus Christ. You can’t do it. We try to keep the law. We try to be obedient. We do our best with it. But all of our best and all of our obedience and all the things that we do are for us. They don’t add anything to God. They don’t make us any brownie points. He don’t give us stars on the wall because all we’re doing is what we are required to do. It is only in Christ that we are able to find the strength, the power to finally overcome sin. And I don’t think we have done that yet in any of us, nor all of us. So, having first of all prepared himself, and here we have now flashed back just a little bit to the beginning of the actual ceremony. Then he shall kill the goat of the sin offering for the people and bring his blood inside the veil and do with that blood as he did with the blood of the bullock and sprinkle it upon the mercy seat and before the mercy seat. And there’s some interesting things in here. This, by the way, gets extensive treatment in Seventh-day Adventist theology because of their approach to the cleansing of the sanctuary. He said he shall make an atonement for the holy place because of the uncleanness of the children of Israel and because of their transgressions and all of their sins. The implication is that even the holy place, because it is in the midst of the camp of Israel, is unclean because of their uncleanness and because of their sins. And he’ll do it for the tabernacle of the congregation, the tent of meeting. It all has to be cleansed because of their uncleanness. There shall be no man in the tabernacle of the congregation when he goes in to make an atonement in the holy place until he comes out and has made an atonement for himself, his household, and all the congregation of Israel. He has this whole thing he has to do to put everything back in place with God. Even the tabernacle, even the Holy of Holies, everything has to be put back in place with God. And how is it finally done? Through the blood of Christ. No other way. He shall go out to the altar. Now, this has been an interesting thing. And the whole pattern of this is not that hard to follow. If you’re following it with Christian theology. On the morning after his resurrection, Jesus first appeared to Mary Magdalene and spoke to her. And he said, don’t detain me. I’ve got to go to my father. Tell my brethren I will come back and I will see them. He actually, as far as we are able to tell, on this day, ascended to the father and was accepted for him and came back and finished his work with his disciples. Not his final ascension, but his initial ascension. And this seems to be the moment when, in the ceremony, the high priest walks into the Holy of Holies and sprinkles this blood on the mercy seat to be accepted for the children of Israel. It was necessary that Christ as high priest take his blood before the Father and to present it to him to make an expiation, to make a covering, to make an atonement for all of us. Now, what we’ve always looked at as well, that then there comes a time when he will return, not just the initial return, but the major return that he does. He will go out to the altar before the Lord and make an atonement for the altar. He shall take the blood of the bullock, the blood of the goat, and put it on the horns of the altar round about. He has to sprinkle the blood upon it with his finger seven times and cleanse it and hallow it from the uncleanness of the children of Israel. So even the altar is corrupt. In the course of a year, just the physical presence among the Israelites, but also that altar has all manner of burnt offerings made upon it because of sin. Sin has come to this altar again and again and again and again. Almost there’s an accumulation of sin in God’s eyes that must be cleaned out. And the whole idea, and it’s a wonderful thing to consider, the Day of Atonement in every way seems to point to new beginnings. A clean start. A fresh start. The wiping out of things that have gone before, looking forward to things that are yet to come, to give you another shot at life. Wouldn’t be surprised if the idea of New Year’s resolutions comes from this idea of a clean start. Well, when he has made an end, verse 20, of reconciling the holy place, the tent of the meeting, the altar, then he brings the live goat. And Aaron shall lay both his hands upon the head of the live goat and confess over him all the iniquities of the children of Israel, all their transgressions and all their sins, putting them upon the head of the goat and shall send him away by the hand of a fit man into the wilderness. And the goat shall bear upon him all their iniquities into a land not inhabited, and he shall let go the goat in the wilderness. You know, I wouldn’t be surprised if even in this congregation, somebody in here has issues with somebody else in here. Somebody else in here has done something that you don’t really approve of, don’t like, or does hurt you or cause some problem one way or the other. If you were standing before the tabernacle when the priest came back out, they led this live goat up, and he put his hands on the head of this goat and confesses all the sins of all the children of Israel upon the head of this goat. And our fit man puts a little rope around his neck, snugs him up, and begins to walk off in the wilderness with this goat. Are you prepared to realize that your nemesis sins, the person who has hurt you, are on that goat right alongside of yours. And then when that goat disappears out of view, you no longer have any right to hold anything against that guy or anybody else for that matter. Because yours went with it, remember? There are none of us that can say we are above sin. There are none of us that can say we’re clean before God’s eyes. And we are as dependent upon that goat keeping going as is our friend over here who has hurt us or harmed us in some way. The Day of Atonement is a day not only of personal atonement and reconciliation with God. It is a day of community reconciliation, of community forgiveness, of community realization and granting of fresh starts to everybody on the Day of Atonement. It is, in a sense, a communal atonement that takes place and a forgiveness of one another. which I be cast to go along with it. This shall be a statute forever unto you. In the seventh month, on the tenth day of this month, you shall afflict your souls and do no work at all. One of your own country, a stranger that sojourns among you. For on that day the priest shall make an atonement for you to cleanse you so you can be free from all your sins before the Lord. And because it’s communal, that means your enemy gets his sins forgiven too. And I don’t think it’s smart based upon what Jesus taught us for us to hold something against a man that God no longer holds against him. That, I think, is clear in Jesus’ teaching. I shouldn’t even have to turn to it. It shall be a Sabbath of rest to you. You shall fast by statute forever. Now, there’s another mention of atonement in Leviticus that I think is kind of important to understand in the same vein. It’s in Leviticus 25. And I don’t know if this often makes its way into atonement services, so I’ll take advantage of this opportunity to bring it in. Leviticus 25. The Lord spoke to Moses in Mount Sinai, saying, Speak to the children of Israel and say to them, When you come into the land which I give you, Then you shall keep, shall the land keep, a Sabbath to the Lord. Six years you shall sow your field. Six years you shall prune your vineyard and gather in the fruit thereof. But in the seventh year shall be a Sabbath of rest to the land. A Sabbath for the Lord. You don’t sow your field. You don’t prune your vineyard. You don’t do anything out there to it. Just let it alone. Let it lie. What a remarkable idea. The land? Rest? What’s really interesting about this is that in the modern time, people have learned, they call it nowadays crop rotation, that you can’t afford to just keep on growing the same stuff on your ground every year. You’ll wear it out. Some things worse than others, which we have witnessed in Texas from over farming of cotton in years gone by. You’ll have to ask some of the old timers to explain that to you because it was a problem here. Anyway, you’re to keep the Sabbath of the land, that which grows of its own accord. You are not to reap nor gather the grapes of your undressed vine. It is a year of rest to the land. Now, you weren’t allowed to reap. What this basically means is you don’t get out there with all your crew and with all your implements and take everything off the land. You can eat it, though, as needed. It’s permitted. It says, the Sabbath of the land shall be food for you, for your servant, for your maid, your hired hand, the stranger that is sojourning among you, for your cattle, for the beast. The increase of your land shall be food for everybody, but you can’t harvest it. People have to go out there and get what they need and what they want for today. can’t reap a bunch of it and take it off and sell it that’s not allowed you can only go and get what you need for the day this is a wonderful thing to see happening and of course what it means to the poor and people who otherwise might not have enough to eat kind of kind of nice to know whatever comes up volunteer out here i can walk out into my friend’s field and i can eat it He goes on to say, You shall number seven Sabbaths of years unto you, seven times seven years. In the space of seven Sabbaths of years shall be to you forty-nine years. Then you shall cause the trumpet of the Jubilee to sound on the tenth day of the seventh month. In the day of atonement you make the trumpet to sound. Now that’s really interesting. I would have sort of thought the Feast of Trumpets was the time when we’d blow the trumpet and we would declare the Jubilee starting on that day. That’s the day the civil year normally would start. But no, it’s on the Day of Atonement. Why would that be? Well, he goes on to say, you shall hallow the 50th year. and proclaim liberty through all the land to all the inhabitants thereof. It shall be a jubilee to you. You shall return every man to his possession, every man to his family. Do you know what that means? You could not sell your patrimony for life to anybody. The land was divided by lot and it was handed down by strict rules of inheritance in Israel during the time. If you were the firstborn son of your father, you inherited whatever your father had in terms of land. You could sell it But you couldn’t sell it forever. You could only sell it leasehold. I didn’t really know what that meant until I went to England and realized how much of the property over there belongs to the Crown. And you don’t buy it permanently. You buy it on a 99-year lease, and at the end of that 99-year lease, it reverts to the Crown. Well, that’s the way it worked here, except it didn’t revert to the Crown. It reverted to the lot holder permanently. the one who held the original lot that was handed down, and then the inheritance laws that passed it right on down through the line. Now, what is interesting about this, this whole thing is, it is a time of a declaration of complete liberty. All debts are canceled. All prisoners go free. Everybody gets a clean start. And what day do we do that? On the Day of Atonement. And that’s why that day that will be coming up on next Sabbath becomes so crucial to us personally. But it also, in addition to meaning so much to us in terms of atonement, it has to put a real responsibility on our shoulders to grant a clean, fresh start to other people as well. Whether they deserve it or not. Whether they appreciate it or not. The obligation is not theirs. The obligation is yours. You could lend a person money, but you couldn’t lend it to him for longer than seven years. You could buy a person’s property, but you couldn’t buy it from him for more than 50. And you had to calculate the price as the number of years that had passed since the last jubilee to the next jubilee. That’s how you actually calculated the value of a piece of property was how many years you’d be able to take stuff off of it. Okay, a new start takes place then. You shall howl the 50th year, proclaim liberty through all the land to the inhabitants thereof. It shall be a jubilee to you. And that’s one of the reasons when you read this that I have always suspected, this is not a doctrine, I have suspected that the year of Christ’s return will be a jubilee. Now, it may not necessarily be a jubilee from back in these days. He may just declare it one because after all, he’s God. He can make it whenever he wants to. But it is a setting free. It is a clearing of the decks. It’s starting fresh. It’s giving everybody a new chance at whatever it is they’re going to do. The idea of second chances, of fresh starts is so Christian. And I think it’s really a wonderful thing if we could just get our mind around our own responsibility to being willing to let other people have it as well as taking it for ourselves. All right. He says in the year of the Jubilee, verse 13. Every man gets to go back to his possession. If you sell anything to your neighbor or buy anything of your neighbor’s hand, you shall not take advantage of one another. According to the number of years after the Jubilee, you shall buy of your neighbor, and according to the number of years of the fruits, he shall sell it to you. Now, let’s suppose you and your neighbor made a deal. You say, I know about the Jubilee, and you know about the Jubilee, but I don’t want to ever come back to this land. I hate this land. What will you give it to me for in perpetuity? Well, I’ll give you this and you guys cut the deal and you sell it. Well, a little later, your son comes back and wants that land back. And they come before the courts. How were the courts to decide? What do you think? It goes back to the original lot holder and his son and his grandson and his great-grandson. It goes back where it belongs. That’s what you as a group of elders sitting in the gate would be required by law to decide. Whatever kind of an agreement these two guys made doesn’t mean a thing to you. According to the multitude of the years, you shall increase the price thereof. According to the fewness of the years, you shall decrease the price. You shall not, therefore, take advantage of one another. You shall fear the Lord your God. Now, I found something interesting. The expression, the trumpet of the Jubilee in Hebrew is the shofar of the teruah. The teruah is the word for trumpet in Leviticus 23 about the feast of trumpets. So it’s a feast of teruah, or clamor of noise. And basically, it is the shofar that is blown on this day. It is the shofar of teruah. The word for jubilee is the word for trumpets in Leviticus 23 for the feast of trumpets. The day of atonement then begins the release and the return. It is a day of fresh starts. It also has a lot to do with interpersonal relationships. We are forgiven together. Thus, no man can hold a debt or a sin over another man’s head. I’ve already said that. There are a lot of Christian principles, by the way, to be found in the Jubilee and in its beginning on atonement. But the most interesting commentary on the Day of Atonement comes in the book of Hebrews in the New Testament. In Hebrews 9, verse 6… When these things were thus ordained, the priest went always into the first tabernacle, that’s the outer room of the tent, accomplishing the servants of God. But into the second, the Holy of Holies, went the high priest alone once every year, not without blood, which he offered first for himself and then for the errors of the people. It’s the ceremony we were just reading in Leviticus 16. Now, what did it mean? Well, Paul says the Holy Spirit, this signifying that the way into the holiest of all was not yet made manifest while the first tabernacle was still standing. In other words, as long as that was there, the way into the true holy of holies was not made manifest to men. It was a figure for the time and then present in which were offered both gifts and sacrifices that could not make him that did the service perfect as pertained to his conscience. Well, no, we really couldn’t because we would, within the next 24 hours, be sinning again. It stood only in food and drink and washings and carnal ordinances imposed on them until the time of reformation. But Christ being come and high priest of good things to come, by a greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, not this building, neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us. It’s not an annual thing anymore. The annual thing only symbolized, because it was only once in a year, that meant once in eternity, this would take place. And that when it was done, it would be permanent. And that is the joy that we can carry forward. For the blood of bulls and goats and the ashes of a heifer sprinkling to the unclean, if it does. How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God? Purge your conscience. You know, that’s a difficult thing to do. And it’s difficult because of us. And we have an awfully hard time allowing our conscience to be purged. And that’s why so many times that we wake in the middle of the night in a cold sweat over something we’ve done that was wrong, and we know we’ve prayed about it and asked for God’s forgiveness, and we believe that he has forgiven us, and yet for some reason the guilt just sits on our shoulders and nags at us again and again and again. Basically, it is a matter of coming to trust the grace of God in order for that to go away. And I guess we must have trouble with that sometimes. in that we fear God and we’re afraid he’s going to hold us accountable for this thing when we have said we were sorry, when we said we won’t do it again, and we haven’t, and we’re trying our best to be faithful to him. You know, there comes a point in time when you have to go to God and say, Lord, I know I’m a sinner. I know that I have done some things that are awful. I know I’ve done things I wish I hadn’t done. Please forgive me. And I am going to trust in your grace that I won’t have to face this again. That’s the prayer to pray and to remember. The trust in his grace. Because that may be where some of us have our trouble. Is that we just maybe don’t really believe him. That he’s willing to let it go. And of course somebody once asked, well, if our sins are all washed away and We cause something to cause them to be brought back. How do they get brought back? Because God says he won’t remember them anymore. Well, God won’t remember them. That’s not the problem. The problem is you do. And so if God ever needs to look for your sins, guess where he has to look? In your own heart, in your own mind, when you won’t let him go. Well, anyway, that’s another sermon for another day. For this cause, verse 15, he is the mediator of the new covenant, that by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first testament, they who are called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance. Which, that’s the symbolism of the giving of the land by lot. That it’s an eternal inheritance. Never to be taken away from your family. And that symbolism points down to the inheritance that we have in Christ. Paul never refers to the second goat in that ceremony. The remission of sin is accomplished by the first goat. And as I’ve said, that being the case, what’s the point of the second goat? There’s one other place where Paul refers to the process of justification as atonement. It’s Romans chapter 5. There’s much more in these scriptures what I’ve given you today. You may want to take the time to read them when you have time and put your feet up, think about them, pray about them, stare out the window. Romans 5, he says, Therefore, being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand and rejoice in hope of the glory of God. justified by faith not by works not by any acts we have done even on the day of atonement when we come before god fasting fasting isn’t something we do it’s something we don’t do i mean we are helpless and just as the israelites did on the day of atonement they came before god and did nothing the priest did everything They only fasted as a sign of humility, of mourning, and of regret for their own sins that they had done. That’s all. A sign of repentance. And so, they were justified by faith, just as we are. And it was the work of the high priest, Christ, who actually justified the Israelites of old. He said, not only that, but we glory in tribulations also, knowing that tribulation works patience. Patience, experience. Experience, hope. And hope makes not ashamed, because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit which is given to us. It’s a wonderful thing to have a consciousness of the love of God and of the grace of God. For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely would a righteous man would anyone die. Maybe though for a good man someone would even dare to die. But God commends his love toward us in that while we were sinners Christ died for us. We didn’t even have to get ourselves resolved on sin before he died for us. Now sooner or later we got to repent for this to ever mean anything. But nevertheless it wasn’t because we were good people that he came down and died for us. because we were sinners. Much more than being justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him. If when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his son, much more being reconciled, we should be saved by his life. It’s a wonderful thing to consider. Justification by his blood, saved by his life. And I take that to mean that Not his life as we live it, but his life as he lives it, making intercession for us, strengthening us, carrying us forward day by day, that our salvation depends on him. Not only so, but we also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement. And that is the Christian idea, that through Christ, through his blood, which was pictured by that poor little goat, innocent goat that was killed for the sins of a nation of a people, his blood was sprinkled before the altar of God. So the slain lamb, Jesus Christ, was presented before the throne of God in heaven to be a propitiation for all of us so we could be forgiven. As by one man sin entered the world and death by sin, so death passed upon all men because all have sinned. For until the law, sin was in the world. But sin is not imputed when there is no law. Nevertheless, death reigned from Adam to Moses, even those who had not sinned after the similitude of Adam. It wasn’t just Adam’s transgression. All of us have sinned with all kinds of ways down through time. But the offense is not like the free gift. For if through the offense of one many be dead, much more by the grace of God and the gift of grace by one man, Jesus Christ, has abounded to many. And you know, when I read through these scriptures like this, and this one is so inspiring, the realization that there was not a thing in the world I could have done to save myself. There was nothing I could have done to have gotten rid of my sin or my guilt. I had one place and one place only to go, to Christ. And when it comes to unburdening myself and really being free from it, I still have only one place to go. To Christ. I still have only one thing I can trust. His grace. Because it is that grace that really sets us free from the sins, from the penalties, from the frustrations, from the fear that come upon us in the night because of the kind of lives we’ve lived. And it’s amazing when one thinks about it from the beginning of the Bible all the way to the end. These themes are repeated over and over again. And what a shame it is that men have lost touch with the law of God. For that law of God began to paint this gorgeous, beautiful portrait from the beginning. One which we had to wait all too long before we understood.
