Through the Bible Study — Leviticus 16

to worship you in song, to study your word, Father. Father, would you do your work in our hearts tonight. Give us a heart of yielding to you, Lord, knowing that you are working in us both to will and do of your good pleasure. We thank you for that opportunity, Lord, that we have to trust you, to know that you are working in our lives, Lord. And so, Father, we ask that you would bless each one here tonight, Lord,

as we worship in song and study your word.

You took it on yourself.

I ask that we're seeing all that sin on your shoulder right then and there for us, Lord.

You may be seated.

Just as we are, give us hearts to trust.

Your blessing. We continue our worship service. As we do. We have a time of your word. Father, so we'll flow this place with your Holy Spirit, Lord. Fill us afresh by the power of your Holy Spirit to bring forth your word with your power. Speak to them by your Holy Spirit tonight as you minister to hearts. May we be built up and edified in the faith, and in turn be that which you'd have us be amongst others.

In Jesus' name, amen. God bless.

Good evening. Welcome to Calvary Chapel tonight. If you would, please open up in your Bibles to the book of Leviticus, chapter 16. Leviticus 16.

We come tonight to what is potentially one of my favorite chapters in the Bible. And I don't say that tongue-in-cheek in the least. It genuinely is. This particular chapter has probably been as influential on my life as just about any other section of Scripture. So it means a lot to me. Tonight we look at the Day of Atonement. We said that as we moved into this last half of the book of Leviticus,

we said that it was about sanctification, walking with God. And so we first of all looked at walking in holiness. What we look at tonight is walking in freedom. You may remember that as we ended last week, we talked about the fact that there was two really big things that we learned. Number one, that we are very unclean and very unholy, and God himself is incredibly holy.

Well, that's really highlighted for us tonight as we come to chapter 16 of the book of Leviticus because this Day of Atonement represents the holiness of God and really how unapproachable he is by man in our own way, in our flesh, and the sinfulness of man and our need for a blood sacrifice in order for us to be able to come into the presence of God. And so as we come to chapter 16, I want to first of all spend time, looking over the chapter with the instructions for the offering, but then I want to bring together the fulfillment of Jesus with this Day of Atonement in the New Testament. So we pick up in chapter 16, verse 1, and this is what it says. Now the Lord spoke to Moses after the death of the two sons of Aaron

when they had approached the presence of the Lord and died. And the Lord said to Moses, Tell your brother Aaron that he shall not enter at any time into the holy place inside the veil before the mercy of God. Now the first thing that we take note of is there's a little bit of historical context that's given to us here. If you remember, and you can just reference it to the side in your Bible if you need to if it's not a study Bible.

In Leviticus chapter 10, we saw that Nadab and Abihu, those two sons of Aaron, offered strange fire before the Lord. We spent some time talking about what that strange fire was, what it might have been, what the issue potentially was, but here what we understand is that they approached God in a way that God did not prescribe. And because of that, because God is holy, and they came to God in a way that was not prescribed by God, they had to be dealt with. Now that brings a really good reminder to us because what God says is on that day, after this death took place, God talked to them about the importance of how they approached God.

Now it made me think a little bit about our culture today and the way that sometimes people tend to approach God because they're not going to be able to approach God. Because while we don't have to come to God through a blood sacrifice of a goat or a bull or through a high priest, there is a prescribed way that we approach God, but most of the world doesn't want to approach God that way. As a matter of fact, kind of like we talked about on Sunday, if you talk to most people that aren't saved, that don't attend a church, they won't be able to tell you what they believe. They'll give you a whole mixture of different things, but they're all different approaches to God.

Approaches that God does not approve of, and because of that, they can never really come into his presence. Some people would approach God by the use of some other religion. They've blended together some grouping of religions or they say, hey, don't we really all just kind of believe the same thing because we're really just all worshiping the same God and I can approach God any way I want to because it's all really the same thing. I remember having a discussion in the ground shop where I used to be a groundskeeper and we were talking about religion.

We love to talk about the things you're not supposed to talk about at work, religion and politics. And so we were talking about religion and I remember one of the guys saying, you know, quite frankly, I think we pretty much all believe exactly the same thing just in different ways. And I looked at him and I said, that's actually not true. I don't think we believe the same at all.

Needless to say, the discussion didn't go any further after that. The whole room got quiet and we moved on with life. But that's the way most people believe right now. But beyond the fact that there are some people who believe that they can approach God in any religion they want to because after all, isn't he the same God? There are some people who approach God

in their own self-righteousness. And they think, as long as I can be a pretty good person, as long as my good can outweigh my bad, then I'm gonna be okay. And what God says is, you can't come just any old time you want to. There is a prescribed way. In the Old Testament, this was the prescribed way that they approached God. Now, of course, we have the fulfillment of this

in Jesus Christ. And so if we approach God now, it has to be through the blood of Jesus Christ. And so on this day that Nadab and Abihu died, or shortly thereafter, the Lord says to Moses, tell your brother Aaron that he shall not, he shall not enter at any time into the holy place inside the veil before the mercy seat, which is on the ark, or he will die. For I will appear in the cloud over the mercy seat.

Essentially what he says is, what you need to understand about the holy place is you can't come in there just any old time that you want to. You can't just come inside of this holy place. And we should know that in Leviticus chapter 16, when it says the holy place, what it's referring to is, is that holy of holies beyond the veil where the ark of the covenant was. He says you can't come in there just any time that you want to.

Why? Because I dwell in a cloud above that ark. And you can't be in the presence of God and live. Therefore you can't come just any old time that you want to. And so what God is about to lay out is the way that Aaron as the high priest can approach God and make atonement for the people. And so the first thing that he does as he does so is he gives some instructions on this offering.

And the first instructions he gives are for Aaron. Notice what it says in verse three. It says Aaron shall enter the holy place, with this, with a bull for a sin offering and a ram for a burnt offering. He shall put on the holy tunic and the linen undergarments that shall be next to his body. And he shall be girded with a linen sash and attired with a linen turban.

These are holy garments. Then he shall bathe his body in water and put them on. Now the instructions for Aaron are this. Just for Aaron, there was to be a bull that was brought as a sin offering and a ram for a burnt offering. This is besides what he's going to offer for the people because this first offering that he's going to bring, which we'll discuss more in a minute,

is the offering that will cover his sin as the high priest, qualifying him to be able to make atonement for the sins of the people. The second thing that we pay attention to is that his garments looked different on this particular day. He was not to wear all of the outer garments with all of the jewelry and ornately ordained and all those kinds of things. He was supposed to come in what?

His linen clothing. Why was he supposed to come in just his linen clothing, if you will, his undershirt and his sweatpants? Why was he supposed to come in those? Because he was supposed to show up as a humble servant, not as the ornately decorated high priest. And then the third thing that he was supposed to do is he was supposed to wash his body with water,

which of course spoke of ceremonial cleansing. Those were the instructions for Aaron. Now there was also an offering that was to be brought for the people on this day. It says, verse five, he shall take from the congregation of the sons of Israel two male goats for a sin offering and one ram for a burnt offering. Then Aaron shall offer the bull for the sin offering,

which is for himself, that he may make atonement for himself and for his household. He shall take the two goats and present them before the Lord at the doorway of the tent of meeting. Aaron shall cast lots for the two goats, one lot for the Lord and the other for the scapegoat. Then Aaron, shall for the goat on which the lot for the Lord fell, shall make it a sin offering.

But the goat on which the lot fell for the scapegoat shall be presented alive before the Lord to make atonement upon it to send it into the wilderness as the scapegoat. Now, these are the rest of the instructions for what the people are supposed to have. So we know what Aaron's supposed to have. Now for the people, he's supposed to bring again three different animals.

Two of them are to be male goats that are spotless. One of them is to be a ram for a burnt offering. The two male goats were for the sin offering. The one male ram was for the burnt offering. Now, when these goats were presented at the tabernacle, they were supposed to cast lots. Essentially, flip a coin for lack of better terms. One of them would be the goat for the sacrifice.

The other one would be what's referred to as the scapegoat. Now this scapegoat's gonna play a really interesting role and quite frankly, in my life, my understanding of the scapegoat is that my understanding of the scapegoat is that my understanding of the scapegoat is that my understanding of the scapegoat is that my understanding of the scapegoat has completely changed my understanding of what God did with our sins. The word scapegoat here literally means e-scapegoat or goat of departure. The idea is completely taken away.

And so we'll explain a little bit more about that scapegoat in just a moment. But they'd flip the coin. One would be the goat for the sacrifice. The other would be the goat for, that was the scapegoat. So hopefully you've painted this picture of what's going on. Aaron's going to first of all make atonement for his own sin. And then with these other animals,

he'll make atonement for the entire congregation of the nation of Israel. Now let's see how he's supposed to do this. Verse 11. Then Aaron shall offer the bull of the sin offering which is for himself and make atonement for himself and for his household. He shall slaughter the bull of the sin offering which is for himself. He shall take a fire pan full of coals

upon the fire of the altar before the Lord. And two handfuls of finely ground incense and bring it inside the veil. He shall put the incense on the fire before the Lord that the cloud of incense may cover the mercy seat that is on the ark of the testimony. Otherwise, he will die. Moreover, he shall take some of the blood of the bull and sprinkle it with his finger

on the mercy seat on the east side. Also in front of the mercy seat, he shall sprinkle some of the blood with his finger seven times. Seven times. Then he shall slaughter the goat of the sin offering which is for the people and bring its blood inside the veil and do with its blood as he did with the blood of the bull and sprinkle it on the mercy seat and in front of the mercy seat.

Now, these are the actions that he's supposed to take. Hopefully, you kind of followed a little bit what took place. I know sometimes as we read, it's like, do what? So here's what's supposed to happen. Aaron brings first of all that bull that was to make atonement for his own sin. And what he would do is he would first of all slay the bull. Now remember, when an individual offered a sacrifice,

especially in this situation, the sacrificer was the one that actually slaughtered the bull. So what he would have done is he would have taken his knife and he would have cut the throat of the bull and allowed the blood to begin to drain out. And as he did so, the first thing that he was supposed to do is he was supposed to take that fire pan, the golden censer, and he was supposed to scoop some of the coals off of the altar that sat in front of the tabernacle. He was supposed to scoop those into the golden censer.

And then he was to take his handful of incense and sprinkle it on that fire of those burning coals and he would carry that inside of the tabernacle. If you will, what would take place is it would then fill the inside of the tabernacle, both the holy place and the most holy place, with this cloud of the incense. What did we say that incense represented? It represents prayer.

Not only the prayer of the saints, but I think more adequately here, the intercessory prayer of Christ for us. And so, that's the first thing he would do is he would go in with that golden censer that was burning and burn incense inside there. Then what he was to do is he was to take a handful of that blood and he was to then carry that inside of the holy place, go past that veil that separated the holy place from the most holy place. He was to dip his fingers into the blood and that seat that sat on top, remember, that had the cherubim facing each other, that mercy seat, he was to take blood and he was to sprinkle it seven times on top of that mercy seat.

Why? Because he was making atonement for his sins. We all know what the word atonement means. If not, the word atonement means this. It simply means covering. The Hebrew word is kofar. He's making a covering for his sins. The law inside of the ark of the testimony represented God's holiness. The judgment seat is where God sat in judgment and the blood. Covered over that righteous requirement of the law,

standing between him and God's holiness. Then he was to take and sprinkle it seven times on the ground in front of that mercy seat, preparing the way to the mercy seat. That was what he was supposed to do for his own sin. And then what he would do is come outside. Remember, we've already flipped the coin and we've chosen which would be the sacrificial goat for the congregation of the people

and which would be the scapegoat. So the lucky loser of those two goats with that innocent little look on his face would stand there and get slaughtered. And he would do the exact same thing that he did with the bull. He didn't need to go in with the golden censer this time because that had already been done. This time again, he takes a handful of the blood

and he goes in and he takes and he sprinkles it seven times on top of the mercy seat. And then he sprinkles it seven times in front of the mercy seat. This is a bloody situation. Is it not? Can you imagine how filthy his hands are? How covered in blood his hands are? Can you imagine this white linen tunic that he's wearing and how much blood is getting sprinkled all over

this white linen tunic that he's wearing? It paints an interesting picture for us, does it not? I don't know how you picture Jesus when he was crucified, but I'm pretty sure he had blood sprinkled all over him. And so as he would do so, we're told in verse 16 why he did it. It says, and he shall make atonement for the holy place because of the impurities of the sons of Israel

and because of their transgressions in regard to all of their sins. And thus he shall do for the tent of meeting which abides in the midst of their impurities. And when he goes in to make atonement to the holy place, no one shall be in the tent of meeting until he comes out that he may make atonement for himself, for his household, and for all, the assembly of Israel. Did you take note in verse 16 of the three reasons he needed to do this?

There were three reasons, there were three things that he was making a covering for. The first one was for the impurities of the people. What is that talking about? Well, exactly what we talked about last week. Those are the impurities of the people. The fact that they came in contact with the tabernacle on a daily basis in the impurity that is the unholiness of who we are,

not because of anything that we've done, but simply because we're sinners, came in contact. We're sinners with that tabernacle, and it needed to be atoned for. So he atoned for the impurities of the people. But did you take note of the second word that was used? He atoned for the transgressions of the people. In other words, those sins with knowledge. And then the third thing that he atoned for

was for the sins of the people. In other words, just their general aspect of sinfulness that led them into the impurity and the transgressions. Those were the things that he atoned for inside the tabernacle. But then I want to point out one more detail that's going to come into really important play when we bring all this together at the end and talk about Jesus.

Did you notice who all was supposed to go in there with him? No one. He had to go by himself. No one else could be with him while he was making this atonement. Now, as we move on from there in verse 18, it says this. Then he shall go out to the altar that is before the Lord and make atonement for it. And he shall take some of the blood of the bull and of the blood of the goat

and put it on the horns of the altar on all sides. And with his finger he shall sprinkle some of the blood on it seven times and cleanse it from the impurities of the sons of Israel, consecrate it. When he finishes atoning for the holy place and the tent of meeting in the altar, he shall offer the live goat. Now, the last thing that he was to do with the blood is he was supposed to take what many commentators refer to as a mixture of both the blood of the bull, which was for him, and the goat, which was for the congregation.

And he was supposed to take it outside to that altar, the altar that sat right in front of the tent of meeting. Remember, that altar had four horns on it. And he was first of all supposed to take some of that blood and smear it on all of the horns of the altar. And then as he did with the mercy seat, he was to take the blood and he was to sprinkle it on the altar to make atonement for it and to consecrate it because the blood is what set it apart.

Now. So that this blood sacrifice for sin was made atoning for the holy place, the tent of meeting and the altar. Now came the job of the scapegoat. So verse 20, when he finishes atoning for the holy place and the tent of meeting, he shall offer the live goat. Then Aaron shall lay both his hands on the head of the live goat and confess over it all the iniquities of the sons of Israel,

all their transgressions in regard to all their sins, and he shall lay them on the head of the goat and send it away into the wilderness by the hand of a man who stands in readiness. The goat shall bear in itself all their iniquities to a solitary land and he shall release the goat into the wilderness. I'm going to have to hold back here because I want to give you all of the awesomeness of this particular part, but I'll wait till the end so we wrap it all up at the same time. All right.

All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. Paint the picture for what's supposed to happen here. As Aaron is spattered with all of the blood and as he's got it all over his hands because of everything that he has to do, he now has to take those bloody hands and he has to place them on top of the head of this goat.

This goat that's referred to as the scapegoat or literally the goat of escape because this scapegoat was going to do a very important thing in the process of the atonement of the people. And as he would lay his hands on the head of this scapegoat, he would begin confessing all of the sins of the people. Can you imagine how long that would have taken? I don't, and I'm being 100% serious here, I don't think this was a quick process.

As a matter of fact, as we get towards the end of the chapter, we'll see that there was really not very much happy about this day. This was to be a day that you spent in reflection and fasting. It was to be a day where you searched your heart to find out what was evil in you so that you could confess those sins. And as he laid his hands on the head of the goat, he would begin confessing all of the sins of the people.

He would begin confessing everything that had been done wrong. All of the things that they had, all of the sins that they had committed, all of the sins that they had omitted, all of the thoughts that people had had, perhaps even some of the things that people didn't know about him that he just confessed because all of those sins were figuratively being transferred onto the head of that goat. Why? Because that goat had one job and one job only.

That goat's one job was to run as far and as fast, fast as it could. Because that goat, and I love the imagery of this verse 22, it says, because that goat shall bear on itself all their iniquities to a solitary land and he shall release the goat into the wilderness. In other words, that goat is going to carry all of the sins of the people into an uninhabited land never to be seen again for the rest of that year. That's what the scapegoat would do.

Now, there's a lot of legends that surround this aspect of the scapegoat. There are some traditions that say that there were men placed in certain areas in the wilderness to make sure that the goat kept running. There are some legends that say that what they would do is they would stand at the top of a mountain and they would watch to make sure that the goat kept running and they would continue watching until the goat was completely out of sight. There's some that say that in order for the goat not to return, someone would follow it into, into this wilderness, this desolate place and then kill it while it was in the wilderness so that it would never return.

But I think my favorite Jewish tradition, my favorite legend is this one. What they would do to show that God had forgiven their sins is they would put a scarlet rope tied around the neck of the goat. Not so much that it choked it off, just enough for identification. And then as the goat would run into the wilderness, someone would stand at the top of the mountain and they knew that God had forgiven their sins for another year when the scarlet rope turned white.

And they said it did that every year until the year that Jesus was born. Now this is Jewish tradition, so I don't know that I can historically say 100% that that's the case, but that's a pretty cool thought, isn't it? And so they would send out this scapegoat. Now verse 23 says, because he's not done yet, then Aaron shall come, into the tent of the meeting and take off the linen garments which he put on when he went into the holy place and he shall leave them there and he shall bathe his body with water in a holy place and put on his clothes and come forth and offer his burnt offering and the burnt offering of the people and make atonement for himself and for the people.

Now I found it kind of interesting that a lot of commentators just kind of skipped over this, but I thought it was an important point because the Lord really, I felt like, pointed out to me, something interesting here because Aaron now goes in and he puts back on the clothes that he would have normally worn as the high priest because now that sin has been atoned for, remember, what was the goal of the burnt offering? The goal of the burnt offering was to show consecration, wholehearted consecration unto the Lord because it was a whole burnt offering and you know as well as I do that it's very hard to live a life dedicated to the Lord until my sin is first dealt with. That the thing that keeps me from living a life that is not a sin,

that is not a sin, that is wholeheartedly devoted to the Lord is the fact that sin holds me back. What is the one thing that can separate me from God? It's sin. But once the sin has been atoned for, then I can once again offer myself completely to the Lord and that's exactly what Aaron does. He offers both the ram for himself and the ram for the people as a burnt offering.

Verse 25, then he shall offer up in smoke the fat of the sin offering on the altar. The one who released the goat as the scapegoat shall wash his clothes and bathe his body with water. Then afterward he shall come into the camp. But the bull of the sin offering and the goat of the sin offering whose blood was brought in to make atonement in the holy place shall be taken outside the camp and they shall burn their hides, their flesh, and their refuse in the fire.

Then the one who burns them shall wash his clothes and bathe his body with water. Then afterward he shall come into the camp. So the sin offering, the sin offering was continued as it was prescribed earlier on in the book of Leviticus like we talked about. They would burn the entrails as a burnt offering to the Lord and then all of the hide and everything would be taken outside the camp, burned outside the camp.

And then the one that messed with the scapegoat, the one that burned the hide and Aaron himself, they would all bathe so that they could come back and be ceremonially clean and once again be among the people. Those are the instructions for the sin offering. The sin offering was continued the offering of the day of atonement. But now there's some final instructions that God's gonna give.

Notice what it says in verse 29. It says, This shall be a permanent statute for you. In the seventh month, on the tenth day of the month, you shall humble your souls and not do any work, whether the native or the alien who sojourns among you. For it is on this day that atonement shall be made for you to cleanse you. You shall be clean. From all your sins before the Lord.

It is to be a Sabbath of solemn rest for you that you may humble your souls. It is a permanent statute. So the priest who is anointed and ordained to serve as priest in his father's place shall make atonement. He shall thus put on the linen garments, the holy garments, and make atonement for the holy sanctuary and shall make atonement for the tent of meeting and for the altar.

He shall also make atonement for the priests and for all the people of the assembly. And so as God's giving these final instructions, he says, first of all, this is when you need to do it. He says it will be on the seventh month of the year, on the tenth day of the month. And on that day, they were supposed to do something. Did you take note of it? It says, you shall humble your souls.