Leviticus 16 - The Day of Atonement and Two Goats

Hello, and welcome back to Tabernacle Talk, the start of a new week. And we are beginning in Leviticus 16, looking at the Day of Atonement. Even to this day, this day, Yom Kippur in the Jewish calendar is the holiest of holy days.

This was a day that was so uniquely holy, and the actions that were taken on this day were so important that even though the Jewish people today do not observe the sacrifices that they once did, they still set aside this day as something most holy.

And we'll see why as we dive into it today. Leviticus 16 in verse 1 says this, Yahweh spoke to Moses after the death of two of Aaron's sons when they approached the presence of Yahweh and died.

And we detailed that, I believe it's in chapter 10, if I remember correctly, that God had said, all right, here's all of the steps that we go through so that you can enter into my presence and not be consumed, not die.

And these first two priests, besides Aaron, they go and they completely disregard God's law. And God immediately after they dies, then tells Aaron, hey, don't enter into my presence drunk.

And they specifically ignored God's law and just did whatever they wanted. And so we saw some of that. So God here is now speaking to Moses and and then he's going to tell Moses something to tell Aaron.

Most of the other chapters that we've seen recently have said, and then God said to Moses and Aaron. And right now he's just talking to Moses.

Verse number two, Yahweh said to Moses, Tell your brother Aaron that he may not come whenever he wants into the holy place behind the curtain in front of the mercy seat on the ark or else he will die because I appear in the cloud above the mercy

seat. God says this is where my presence is most tangibly on earth.

There's been a lot of connections made between the Garden of Eden and God's presence there and some of the specific things that were mentioned about the Garden of Eden that are also mentioned as being put into the Tabernacle, that tent of meeting.

That hey, here's these stones, here's this wood, here are these kinds of things.

Even here where he references the mercy seat is where there's like a carving of some of the cherubim, the throne room guardians that are in God's presence, one of which stood at the entrance to the Garden of Eden and prohibited Adam and Eve or anyone

else from ever entering the Garden again in kind of the pre-flood world. And so, it's like a new Garden of Eden and God says, hey, here's where my presence is and Aaron can't just waltz into my presence anytime he feels like it.

Verse number three, Aaron is to enter the most holy place in this way with a young bull for a sin offering and a ram for a burnt offering. So, both atoning for sin and saying like, hey, I'm all yours, God, this consecration.

Verse number four, he's to wear a holy linen tunic and linen undergarments are to be on his body. He is to tie a linen sash around him and wrap his head with a linen turban. These are holy garments.

He must bathe his body with water before he wears them. So, normally the high priest here, Aaron, later other ones that would be descended from him, they would have a very ornate clothing that would have jewels and all sorts of stuff.

But God says, when you're coming into my presence, your wardrobe changes. And instead of getting fancier when you go into the presence of God, he says you get simpler, that you're not going to impress me with your jewels or with any of that.

They're wonderful pictures of Eden and of all the good things that God made in his good world. But when you come into God's presence, God's not impressed. So he says, get simple, humble yourself before God with just these linen things.

Then verse 5, he is to take from the Israelite community, two male goats for a sin offering and one ram for a burnt offering. Aaron will present the bull for his sin offering and make atonement for himself and his household.

Next, he will take the two goats and place them before Yahweh at the entrance to the Tabernacle. So, here's now this very important time that Aaron can't enter in at any and all times. It's only during these specific times.

After Aaron casts lots for the two goats, if you will, if you're doing dice or something somewhat similar to lots, if it comes up with this number or dot, if we're using what we would say today, the day comes up with snake eyes, it's this, or if it

comes up with random smattering of numbers, it's this. It was more direct. The lots that would be cast normally referenced as the Urim and the Thumim. These would give yes or no answers, and you can see them referenced a ton in the Old Testament.

As we continue to dive into God's Word, once we get into first and second Samuel and first and second Kings, it shows up a few times, possibly some other places as well. So there's the lots that are being thrown.

So after Aaron cast lots for the two goats, one lot for Yahweh and the other for an uninhabitable place. So this is one of those areas of scripture that God hasn't made abundantly clear what it means.

It's a word that's not used a lot in the nations and the languages around Israel. And so it's a little unclear as to what it means. The kind of classic interpretation is scapegoat.

There's also a thought with some of the other things that are connected with the day. There's been thought that this might be a proper name, and the proper name would be Azazel. So there's two goats.

Lots are cast for them. One goat is for Yahweh, and the other goat is for Azazel, not as an offering to Azazel, but almost as in like a kind of an insult. And you're going to see why here in a second.

But whether it's, well, here, I'll say this. As we go further into this day of atonement, Yom Kippur, the one goat is sacrificed to Yahweh, and the other goat is sent far, far away out in to no man's land.

Here, the translation, the Christian Standard Bible and Uninhabitable Place is the translation that they use. So one is in God's presence and is and is punished for sin, for the sin of Israel.

And the other one is sent far away and bears Israel's sins way far away. When we come back to talk about how all this ties in with Jesus, it'll come very readily apparent the type of stuff that we're looking at. So I did want to mention that.

So for an uninhabitable place or for Azazel, it's the one that gets sent away. Verse number nine, Aaron is to present the goat chosen by Lot for Yahweh and sacrifice it as a sin offering.

But the goat chosen by Lot for an uninhabitable place is to be presented alive before Yahweh to make atonement with it by sending it into the wilderness for an uninhabitable place. I might just start saying Azazel.

An uninhabitable place is quite the tongue twister. Verse number 11, when Aaron presents the bull for a sin offering and makes atonement for himself and his household, he will slaughter the bull for his sin offering.

Then he's to take a fire pan full of blazing coals from the altar before Yahweh and two handfuls of finely ground fragrant incense and bring them inside the curtain.

So after the sacrifice has been made, he's both like positionally clean atonement, a covering has been made for his sin and he is dedicated to the Lord. Then he brings this incense and this fire pan of coals from the altar.

He brings them inside the curtain into the Holy of Holies. He's to put the incense on the fire before Yahweh so that the cloud of incense covers the mercy seat that is over the testimony or else he will die.

So he says, first thing that you do when you got to go in, you got to put this fire, got to put the incense on the fire before God that there's a covering over the mercy seat.

Verse 14, he's to take some of the bull's blood and sprinkle it with his finger against the east side of the mercy seat. Then he will sprinkle some of the blood with his finger before the mercy seat seven times.

That's the number of completion that Israel is completely atoned for. When he slaughters the male goat for the people's sin offering and brings its blood inside the curtain, he will do the same with its blood as he did with the bull's blood.

He is to sprinkle it against the mercy seat and in front of it. He will make atonement for the most holy place in this way for all their sins because of the Israelites impurities and rebellious acts.

So both the actual sins they've committed and the effects of sin that are just in the world around them. All of it is being covered by this sacrifice.

He will do the same for the tabernacle that remains among them because it is surrounded by their impurities that the tabernacle was while God's presence was there.

Sin was having a real impact and you can see that especially in the Book of Judges and then in First Samuel that that is made very readily apparent.

Verse 17, no one may be in the tent of meeting the tabernacle from the time Aaron enters to make atonement in the Most Holy Place until he leaves after he has made atonement for himself, his household and the whole assembly of Israel.

Then he will go out to the altar that is before Yahweh and make atonement for it. He has to take some of the bull's blood and some of the goat's blood and put it on the horns on all sides of the altar.

He has to sprinkle some of the blood on it with his finger seven times to cleanse and set it apart from the Israelites' impurities.

When he has finished making atonement for the Most Holy Place, the Tent of Meeting and the altar, he has to present the live male goat.

So first, sin is the fancy theological word is there's been a propitiation that there had to be punishment, justice for sin and justice was accomplished through the death of the sacrifice, the goat and the bull.

Now he's coming to the live male goat, the second one, the one that's going to the uninhabitable place. Aaron will lay both his hands on the head of the live goat and confess over it all the Israelites' iniquities and rebellious acts, all their sins.

He is to put them on the goat's head and send it away into the wilderness by the man appointed for the task. The goat will carry all their iniquities into a desolate land, and the man will release it there.

So here, basically, this goat we are saying is taking all of our sins, all of our impurities. He's taking them away.

So if the sacrifice in the Holy of Holies or the blood being placed on the mercy seat in the Holy of Holies, that's the propitiation for sin. That's justice being enacted, and God says all the justice has been meted out. There is no punishment.

There's no justice left to inflict on the children of Israel. This live goat is the expiation of sin, is the theological term. That is, that our sins are taken away.

There's a great old song. One day, and the group Casting Crowns did a like rewrite of the tune, kept all the same lyrics.

And the chorus goes like this, Living he loved me, dying he saved me, buried he carried my sins far away, rising he justified freely forever, one day he's coming, o glorious day.

And there's two lines there of dying he saved us, that's our propitiation, buried he carried our sins far away, that's that expiation of our sin.

Bet you didn't know that you were singing about Leviticus 16 when you were singing about Jesus and him taking our sins away, as this goat does.

Part of the interpretive difficulty with the word that I talked about earlier, the unenhanced, the uninhabitable place or scapegoat or a zazel, if it's the name of something, if it's the name of a type of place or if it's the name of a spiritual

being, possibly the very same one that's referenced in the rest of scripture as like Satan or the devil, the wicked one, is that it's almost like an insult to him to say, hey, you can't accuse God's people anymore, you're going to accuse this goat,

you're going to accuse this goat of sin because he's carrying all of their sins. And it's humorous. It's almost insulting that he's like, oh, great, you sent me this dirty sin laden goat. Thanks. It's not an offering to Satan.

It's an insult to him. So it's part of where the interpretive difficulties kind of come in of what's the point of this goat? But what is clear is that God has sent our iniquities far, far away, and they're not coming back.

I seem to recall at one point or another that I might have heard a story about people taking that scapegoat to, you know, like a cliff, someplace where they were very certain he wasn't going to wander back to the camp.

It's not one of those things that's specifically outlined in scripture. So it might have been something that they began doing. I'd have to look at some of the ancient Hebrew writing things like the Mishnah and things like that to see if it's factual.

So they have the goat that's sacrificed, the goat that's sent away. Now verse 23, then Aaron is to enter the tabernacle, take off the linen garments he wore when he entered the most holy place and leave them there.

He will bathe his body with water in a holy place and put on his clothes. Then he must go out and sacrifice his burnt offering and the people's burnt offering. He will make atonement for himself and for the people.

So now he's doing everything that he did when he went inside. Now he's doing it in reverse order. So he's got to make the offering.

He's got to go bathe in water. He's got to put on the linen clothes and stuff and then go into the Holy of Holies. And now he's kind of working his way back out in opposite order with all of those things.

Verse 25, he is to burn the fat of the sin offering on the altar. If you remember, all the fat belongs to the Lord. Verse 26, the man who released the goat to an uninhabitable place is to wash his clothes and bathe his body with water.

Afterward he may reenter the camp. So he took this goat that symbolically had this sin laid upon him. So he's got to wash before he joins up with everyone again so that he is ritually pure, that all of the sin is gone.

The bull for the sin offering and the goat for the sin offering whose blood was brought into the most holy place to make atonement must be brought outside the camp and their hide flesh and waste burned.

The one who burns them is to wash his clothes and bathe himself with water. Afterward he may reenter the camp. This is to be a permanent statute for you.

In the seventh month, on the tenth day of the month, you are to practice self-denial and do no work, both the native and the alien who resides among you.

Atonement will be made for you on this day to cleanse you and you will be clean from all your sins before Yahweh. It is a Sabbath of complete rest for you and you must practice self-denial. It is a permanent statute.

The priest who is anointed and ordained to serve as high priest in place of his father will make atonement. He will put on the linen garments, the holy garments and make atonement for the most holy place.

He will make atonement for the Tabernacle and the altar and will make atonement for the priests and all the people of the assembly. This is to be a permanent statute for you to make atonement for the Israelites once a year because of all their sins.

And all this was done as Yahweh commanded Moses. So I want to mention this and kind of put the cart before the horse just a little bit, or I should say a cart before the goat just a little bit. But this is what Jesus did for us.

He was our final day of atonement that when he died on the cross, those, you know, that that time before Easter, that as he died on the cross, he was all of our sins were placed on him, that the Jewish people grabbed him and gave him to the Romans.

And the Romans grabbed him and sent him out.

That is all the people of the world that just as the Israelites, as the high priest who stood kind of in the place for the people, as he would place his hands on the goat and say, hey, all of our iniquities, all of our wickedness, all of this is

going on this goat now. So it was that the priests, the Sanhedrin, that they, without knowing it, were part of God's plan in saying all of the sin and guilt of the world is going to be laid on Jesus.

And the Romans joined in on it, too, that they placed their hands on him. And so all the people of the world, Jew and Gentile, Jew and not Jew, God's people and those that were formerly not God's people, all of them said Jesus is this sacrifice.

And he died and he died for our sin. He died outside of the camp, just like this said that the goat and the bull and the ram, all of them, their hide, their carcass, all of that had to be taken outside of the camp.

And that's exactly what happened to Jesus, that he was crucified on Golgotha, on Calvary, outside of the city of Jerusalem. And Jesus, when he sprinkled his blood on the mercy seat, he did so not in the earthly tabernacle or in that time the temple.

He didn't do it in the earthly one. He did it in the heavenly one, which is what the Book of Hebrews would tell us, was that all these things that are in Leviticus or in Exodus, like these are pictures of what God's temple is like in heaven.

That is the design patterns and things that God lays out specifically to Moses, that he says, I want you to take this exact design, and this is how I want you to make the tabernacle, which later the temple would be patterned after as well.

That Jesus offered his blood to the Father in the holiest of holies, where God's presence actually is. And they are in front of the actual living cherubim, not just carved out pieces on the top of the Ark of the Covenant.

No, no, they're in front of the living cherubim, the ones that surround the throne of God and proclaim his holiness. There, Jesus made that propitiation for us.

That, man, you have no idea, if you know Jesus, you have no idea how forgiven you are, what gravity it is that the Son of God himself presented his wounds, his blood before our Father that he said, it is done, it's finished.

There is no more guilt for you to carry. There's no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus because he has made that propitiation for us. That just here, as the children of Israel knew, we're forgiven before God.

And it's not because we did enough and we earned enough. It was because of the sacrifice that God said to, hey, I want you to be in my presence. And so I've made a way through the sacrifice that I can be with you.

And through Jesus, how much closer that now we have the Holy Spirit living inside of us, that His presence does not destroy us. But it is a comfort. It's a blessing.

It calls out to God as our Father. What an incredible thought that Jesus has paid for all of our sin. Love the old hymn.

Jesus paid it all. All to Him I owe. Sin had left a crimson stain.

He washed it white as snow. Man, what an incredible truth. Jesus made that payment that was once for all.

These sacrifices were once every single year. It had to happen. But the writer of Hebrews would say, Jesus is so much better than the old high priest.

And Jesus is so much better than the old day of atonement because His sacrifice was once and for all. He says that the blood of beasts and of cattle, it couldn't really take away sin, which is exactly what Leviticus says.

That these are these temporary measures that are put up until God sends that deliverance, sends that great prophet, sends that serpent crushing seed of the woman. God's got a better plan. But Jesus was that plan in the meantime.

And then just as with the goat that was sent out of the camp, Jesus, as it's talked about in 1 Peter 3 and Colossians 2 and Ephesians 4, and I feel like it's one or two other places, Psalm 69, I think, if I remember correctly, that Jesus, after he

was crucified, he died. He went down into the grave and he rescued his people. He took all of those that had faith and belief in God in the Old Testament from the place that was called Abraham's bosom or paradise. He took all of them.

He preached condemnation to what we would know today as hell and basically gave them their sentencing.

As Colossians 2 would put it, he put the demons to an open shame, like ridiculing them, took the keys of death and hell and went and ascended to heaven and presented all of his people to the Father, having made a way for them that they could now go

into the Holy of Holies and could go into the very presence of God. That Jesus was both that propitiation goat, the one that was sacrificed for sin, and he was also the scapegoat, the one that sent to Azazel, the one that goes to Satan and says, you

lost, you cannot accuse these people anymore. These are my children. There is nothing more for you to bring against them. I have paid it all.

Man, I just want to read Romans 8 and verses 31 and on just to end this time today. What then are we to say to these things? If God is for us, who is against us?

He did not even spare his own son, but gave him up for us all. How will he not also with his son grant us everything? Who can bring an accusation against God's elect?

God is the one who justifies. Who is the one who condemns? Christ Jesus is the one who died, but even more has been raised.

He also is at the right hand of God and intercedes for us. Who can separate us from the love of Christ?

Can affliction or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword, as it is written, because of you, we are being put to death all day long. We are counted as sheep to be slaughtered.

No, in all these things, we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.

For I am persuaded that neither death nor life nor angels nor rulers nor things present nor things to come nor powers nor height nor depth nor any other created thing will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Child of God, you are forgiven forever. Rejoice! Be so thankful.

And tell someone else about the Jesus that died in their place, that though we deserved punishment because of our sin, Jesus took it all, he took it far away, and now he stands at God's right hand interceding for us.

Tomorrow we will look at Leviticus 17 and see what God has in store for us. Thanks for tuning in.