The Day Of Atonement
Sermon Notes
Introduction
We’re going to teach from the book where most “read the Bible in a year” plans go to die. That’s right, we’re in Leviticus. In fairness, Leviticus is a tough and sometimes confusing book to read as a 21st century Christian. We see all of these different laws about things like diet, clothing, and hairstyles. Apparently shrimp, pork (insert Louis BBQ reference), polyester, and tight fades are out according to Leviticus. We also see some very different ideas of worship, as far as our church goes, we haven’t killed an animal, burned something, or wave a cut off leg of a sheep over our heads during a worship service. But these are common occurrences throughout Leviticus.
We will see in our time today why we don’t follow some of these specific laws or rituals today. They were intended to point to something in their time. Now that they have been fulfilled, we interact with God in our world in a different way. But this gives us another clear picture of the one long story that all of the separate Biblical stories are actually telling.
Now as we read about all of these sacrifices and specific laws in Leviticus, all the ways that we sin and need to be forgiven of it, this should shift our focus to our own sinfulness and need for this kind of law and sacrifice on our behalf.
Context
The book of Leviticus gives the various laws that would identify the people of Israel as a unique nation dedicated to the worship of the one God, I AM, or Yahweh. It’s various instructions from God to Moses and his brother Aaron about what God is like, how He wants to be worshipped, and how those that follow Him are to live in response to Him and what He has done for them. (God even established this before the Ten Commandments) The book reaches its climax in chapter 16 as we learn about the most Holy Sacrifice and religious day in Israel, the Day of Atonement or Yom Kippur. Now there’s so much that we can dig into in this passage, I’m going to focus on a few key takeaways today. BIG IDEA: We desperately need atonement from God, and He is gracious to provide it.
Sermon Text
The first truth we learn from Leviticus 16 is: We have no hope of approaching God on our own. (Repeat) We see this in verses 1-5.
The Lord spoke to Moses after the death of two of Aaron’s sons when they approached the presence of the Lord and died. 2 The Lord 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.
So, there’s a lot of information to explain there. We hear about Aaron’s sons dying, the Holy Place, the veil, and the mercy seat and ark. I’ll give you some background quickly. The reference to Aaron’s sons death is from an event in Leviticus 10. Aaron’s sons were named Nadab and Abihu, they served as priests underneath their father Aaron as high priest. Lev. 10 tells us that one day the brothers tried to offer unauthorized or strange fire before the Lord in Tabernacle. So they tried to do a religious ritual that God did not approve of, and God killed them with fire instantly. Now that sounds harsh to us, but it was God firmly teaching a lesson to his budding young nation that He is to be worshipped according to his own terms. This is why we have the 2nd and 3rd Commandments of the 10 Commandments (explain). God knows that left to our own devices, our supposed worship of Him will become worship of ourselves or of what we think God should be. You see a similar reaction to Ananias and Sapphira in the book of Acts. So, God is telling Moses and Aaron how He is to be approached so that this doesn’t have to happen again.
It also helps to understand the construction of the Tabernacle and eventually Temple when we read this verse. Tabernacle architecture: Courtyard made by curtain wall perimeter (altar and wash basin here), then the Tent of Meeting made of 2 sections: the Holy Place (only priests and Levites entered here) and the Most Holy Place (separated by 4 inch thick curtain and containing the Ark with Mercy Seat)
That sets the scene for us. Verses 3-5 tell us what the High Priest needs to do now on the Day of Atonement. He needs to bathe really well, he puts on never worn white linen, and he brings a total of 5 animals with Him for various rituals and sacrifices. He has a bull and ram for his own sins and the sins of the priesthood. He also brings 2 goats and another ram to account for the sins of the people of Israel. This would be the only day of the year that anyone would enter the Holy of Holies. Further down in the passage (12-13) it gives instructions that the Priest is supposed to burn incense at various times so that the cloud would block out God’s presence on the mercy seat enough that it didn’t kill the priest. And we also see in verse 16 that one of the major reasons for this sacrifice is to cleanse the Holy Place and Tent itself from the filthy sin of the people. That’s a lot of steps to take to make sure that he can rightly approach God and gain atonement for sin.
We do ourselves a huge disservice when we think that our sin is primarily against other people or that God is somehow lucky that we follow Him or are willing to sacrifice for Him. We may not say it out loud, but we are definitely tempted when hard times come to think that God owes us for all the years of faithful service. When in reality, we only approach and relate to God because of the work of someone on our behalf. The OT Priests give us a picture of this, but it is the work of Jesus that gives our true relationship with God. He is the way, the truth, and the life that no one comes to the Father without. He is the great high priest always making intercession for us. While we have no hope of approaching God on our own, thankfully we do not have to.
The second truth we can see here is this: Our sin causes a huge mess (repeat). Take a look at verse 15.
“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. 16 He will make atonement for the most holy place in this way for all their sins because of the Israelites’ impurities and rebellious acts. He will do the same for the tent of meeting that remains among them, because it is surrounded by their impurities. 17 No one may be in the tent of meeting from the time he 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. 18 Then he will go out to the altar that is before the Lord and make atonement for it. He is 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. 19 He is to sprinkle some of the blood on it with his finger seven times to cleanse and set it apart from the Israelites’ impurities.
Now this is obviously something of a continuation of the first point, but I just wanted to point our something that always strikes me about passages like this. First of all, we see the word “impurities or uncleannesses” used 3 times in these verses alone. Sin isn’t just a bad choice or a misstep, it is something that makes us unclean, and that is a tragedy as we try to worship and follow a Holy and pure God. Something has to be done to clean all of this up. And we know from Romans 6:23 that the “wages of sin is death.” Something has to die for your and my sin. It’s either gonna be you and me for our own sin or someone on our behalf. On the day of atonement this was symbolized by the death and blood of these animals. We sometimes think of the Temple or Tabernacle as interesting old architecture that would have been cool to see in their splendor during their day. It could be like visiting an old cathedral or a huge mega-church building.
I think the reality would actually horrify us. Look at how much blood is being thrown around in this passage. It’s being sprinkled and thrown on things all over the place. Aaron would be covered in the blood of both a bull and a goat and so would all the beautiful parts of the tent and altar. The Tabernacle would look much more like a slaughterhouse than a place of worship to our eyes. And keep in mind, these are only the specific sacrifices for the Day of Atonement. People were bringing personal sacrifices to be killed and burned on a daily basis, this was happening all the time. The priests were glorified butchers and their special clothes were more like surgical smocks than a choir robe. And this is only one part of the sacrifice. The sin offering animals would then be skinned and cut up meticulously along with the animals for the burnt offering so that they could be burned in specific ways.
So, this begs the question as we read this in 2022, why all the blood and gore? Why is God so blood thirsty? Why turn his temple into a bloody mess? The Bible tells us the answer. The blood isn’t for God’s benefit, it’s for ours. God says throughout the rest of the Old Testament when Israel is disobedient but continues the various sacrifices that He is not pleased by the blood of bulls and goats and that their burnt offerings done in vain make him nauseous. The writer of Hebrews goes as far to say this in Hebrews 10:11-14.
11 Every priest stands day after day ministering and offering the same sacrifices time after time, which can never take away sins. 12 But this man, after offering one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down at the right hand of God. 13 He is now waiting until his enemies are made his footstool. 14 For by one offering he has perfected forever those who are sanctified.
It’s the one-time sacrifice of Jesus that provides the forgiveness that people from all time need, not the frequent sacrifice of various animals. We’ll dig into this more in a second (as you hopefully knew we would at a Christian church service). But for Israel, all of this blood was a signpost pointing forward to what Jesus would do. It also served as a constant reminder of the severity of sin. You would be hard-pressed to walk by the Tabernacle hearing the dying cries of animals, smelling the smoke of their burning, and seeing the blood everywhere and convince yourself that sin wasn’t really a big deal. You would look in and see what was necessary for you to be forgiven and made right with God. It’s a testament to the sinfulness of Israel that they had all of this in place and still continued to struggle nationally with sin against God. But just so we don’t take ourselves off the hook, it’s equally galling that we can look back at the blood shed by God himself as a man on the cross and still take sin lightly. We’ll confess the sins that get us some nods and back pats during a small group (I don’t read my Bible enough, I’m too much of a perfectionist, I struggle with pride, I struggle to raise my kids in a godly way) but we’ll hold back our more shameful sins or tell ourselves that we can have a pet sin or temptation that we can manage. We can see what was needed to forgive our sins and still play fast and loose with sin when we choose to.
To sum up these two points: Our sin problem is far worse than we can even imagine. Thank God we don’t have to stop there.
Thankfully we also see a third truth in this text: There is more grace in God than sin in us (Repeat). We’ll take a look at those two goats mentioned for this. Let’s start in verse 7
7 Next he will take the two goats and place them before the Lord at the entrance to the tent of meeting. 8 After Aaron casts lots for the two goats, one lot for the Lord and the other for an uninhabitable place, 9 he is to present the goat chosen by lot for the Lord and sacrifice it as a sin offering. 10 But the goat chosen by lot for an uninhabitable place is to be presented alive before the Lord to make atonement with it by sending it into the wilderness for an uninhabitable place.
While we see that sin and burnt offerings were normal parts of worship in Israel, it’s this 2 goats ritual along with the high priest entering the Holy of Holies that are unique to the Day of Atonement. Both of the goats are going to serve a purpose in the atonement of God’s people’s sin. The priest would choose between the two by casting lots. He would actually carry these things called the Ummin and Thumin around his neck at all times that would be used to cast lots. It was their way of trusting God to settle between two seemingly equal choices. And then the word for “uninhabited place” may be Azazel in your translation. Azazel is a word that scholars debate about. It could be a compound word essentially meaning scapegoat, it could be a reference to a specific place in the wilderness, or it could be a general term for a place of sin or evil. The exact definition doesn’t really affect what is meant by the ritual. One would be used as the sin offering. It would be killed and have its blood sprinkled on the Mercy Seat and around the Tabernacle to pay for the guilt of Israel’s sin. This is the principle of redemption that we call Justification, that the debt of sin is justified or paid off (Jesus tetelestai on the cross). If sin requires death, the death of the goat stands in the place of the sinner. Again, we know that it is ultimately the blood of Jesus that serves this function for all people, but the sin offering goat symbolizes this function. Let’s look at more detail on the second goat now.
20 “When he has finished making atonement for the most holy place, the tent of meeting, and the altar, he is to present the live male goat. 21 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. 22 The goat will carry all their iniquities into a desolate land, and the man will release it there.
There’s so much that we learn about the forgiveness and grace of God in this passage. What’s illustrated by this ritual is that of Cleansing, Removal, or Sanctification of our sin. All the sins of the people were laid on or imputed to this goat and it was led away to never be seen again (traditionally someone made sure it died). So not only is sin paid for, it is completely expunged from the record. What a beautiful truth to live by, and one that we often struggle with. We can understand that there is forgiveness, but we hold on to the guilt and shame of our sin. We tell ourselves that if people actually knew what we’ve done, they’d reject us. Or we think that we have too much baggage to be of real use to God. But this should relieve us of that delusion. And it’s a common theme throughout scripture.
Psalm 103:12 tells us that God has removed our transgressions as far as the east is from the west
Micah 7:19 tells us that God casts our sins into the depths of the sea
The Book of Hebrews says in multiple places that God forgives sin and remembers them no more
That’s incredible news for us.
What I also want you to see are the clear ways that Jesus fulfilled the day of Atonement through his life. Isaiah 53 gives us a clear image of Jesus doing so.
ESV Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. 5 But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed. 6 All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
2 Corinthians 5:21 For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
We get to look back and study the inauguration of the yearly Day of Atonement with the privilege of knowing that Jesus has already fulfilled it completely. It is Jesus’ blood that provides the perfect payment for sin, it is Jesus’ shoulders that bore the weight of all our sin and cast it away from us, it was at Jesus’ death that the veil blocking the Holy of Holies from the sinful uncleanness of the people was torn from top to bottom. Hebrews describes Jesus as our ultimate high priest, because He can constantly approach God. He has no need to offer sacrifices for his own sin as Aaron and the priests did. And His personal sacrifice reaches through all time and never has to be repeated.
Conclusion
The question you and I must answer today is simple. How do you respond to this offer of Atonement from God? When you look at your life and see the damage that sin has caused (I don’t care if you’ve been a Christian for 50 years or you’re not a Christian at all today, you know sin has caused a huge mess in your life), what are you going to try to do? The verses that end of this chapter establish the Day of Atonement as a yearly holiday for the nation of Israel. And they talk about how someone receives the forgiveness displayed on the Day of Atonement. Let’s close by looking at a couple verses from there again.
30 Atonement will be made for you on this day to cleanse you, and you will be clean from all your sins before the Lord. 31 It is a Sabbath of complete rest for you, and you must practice self-denial; it is a permanent statute.
Will you strive to fix your sin all by yourself to your own failure and pride or will you rest in the work done on your behalf? When you rest in the atoning work done on your behalf you get to respond to God in the right way. You get to respond with a life that is grateful and empowered instead of anxious or embittered.