Leviticus 16:1-34 – The cross means… At-one-ment

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The reading is Leviticus, chapter 16:1 to 34, and it can be found on page 118 to 19.

The Lord spoke to Moses after the death of the two sons of Aaron, who died when they approached the Lord. The Lord said to Moses, tell your brother Aaron that he is not to come whenever he chooses into the most holy place behind the curtain in front of the atonement cover on the ark, or else he will die, for I will appear in the cloud over the atonement cover. This is how Aaron is to enter the most holy place. He must first bring a young bull for a sin offering and a ram for a burnt offering. He is to put on the sacred linen tunic with linen undergarments next to his body.

He is to tie the linen sash around him and put on the linen turban. These are sacred garments, so he must bathe himself with water before he puts them on. From the Israelite community He is to take two male goats for a sin offering and a ram for a burnt offering. Aaron is to offer the bull for his own sin offering to make atonement for himself and his household. Then he is to take the two goats and present them before the Lord at the entrance to the tent of meeting.

He is to cast lots for the two goats, one lot for the Lord and the other for the scapegoat. Aaron shall bring the goat whose lot falls to the Lord, and sacrifice it for a sin offering. But the goat chosen by lot as the scapegoat shall be presented alive before the Lord to be used for making atonement by sending it into the wilderness as a scapegoat. Aaron shall bring the bull for his own sin offering to make atonement for himself and his household, and he is to slaughter the bull for his own sin offering. He is to take a censer full of burning coals from the altar before the Lord and two handfuls of finely ground fragrant incense and take them behind the curtain.

He is to put the incense on the fire before the Lord, and the smoke of the incense will conceal the atonement cover above the tablets of the Covenant law so that he will not die. He is to take some of the bull's blood and with his fingers sprinkle it on the front of the atonement cover. Then he shall sprinkle some of it with his fingers seven times before the atonement cover. He shall then slaughter the goat for the sin offering for the people and take its blood behind the curtain and do with it as he did with the bull's. Blood, he shall sprinkle it on the atonement cover and in front of it.

In this way he will make atonement for the most holy place because of the uncleanness and the rebellion of the Israelites, whatever their sins have been. He is to do the same for the tent of meeting, which is among them in the midst of their uncleanness. No one is to be in the tent of meeting from the time Aaron goes in to to make atonement in the most holy place until he comes out, having made atonement for himself, his household, and the whole community of Israel.

Then he shall come out to the altar that is before the Lord and make atonement for it. He shall take some of the bull's blood and some of the goat's blood and put it on all the horns of the altar. He shall sprinkle some of the blood on it with his finger seven times to cleanse it and consecrate it from the uncleanness of the Israelites. When Aaron has finished making atonement for the most holy place, the tent of meeting and the altar, he shall bring forward the live goat. He is to lay both hands on the head of the live goat and confess over it all the wickedness and rebellion of the Israelites, all their sins and put them on the goat's head.

He shall send the goat away into the wilderness in the care of someone appointed for the task. The goat will carry on itself all their sins to a remote place, and the man shall release it into the wilderness. Then Aaron is to go into the tent of meeting and take off the linen garments he put on before he entered the most holy place, and he is to leave them there. He shall bathe himself with water in the sanctuary area and put on his ordinary garments. Then he shall come out and sacrifice the burnt offering for himself, the burnt offering for the people, to make atonement for himself and for the people.

He shall also burn the fat of the sin offering on the altar. The man who releases the goat as a scapegoat must wash his clothes and bathe himself with water. Afterwards he may come into the camp. The bull and the goat, for the sin offerings whose blood was brought into the most holy place to make atonement must be taken outside the camp. Their hides, flesh, and intestines are to be burnt.

The man who burns them must wash his clothes and bathe himself with water. Afterwards he may come into the camp. This is to be a lasting ordinance for you. On the 10th day of the seventh month you must deny yourselves and not do any work, whether native born or a foreigner residing among you. Because on this day atonement will be made for you to cleanse you.

Then before the Lord you will be clean from all your sins. It is a day of Sabbath rest and you must deny yourselves. It is a lasting ordinance. The priest who is anointed and ordained to succeed his father as high priest is to make atonement. He is to put on the sacred linen garments and make atonement for the most holy place, for the tent of meeting and the altar, and for the priest and all the members of the community.

This is to be a lasting ordinance for you. Atonement is to be made once a year for all the sins of the Israelites. And it was done as the Lord commanded. Moses, this is the word, thanks be to God.

Well, thank you, Francesca. Wow, what a mammoth. You did very well. Well, what did you make of that, I wonder? To many of us, mention of sacrifice of animals just sounds so primitive, doesn't it?

You know, we live in totally. We don't do that sort of thing these days. What on earth are we spending time looking at this for? Or perhaps you are an enthusiastic Christian. And as we know from the New Testament readings and the songs we've been singing, Jesus, death and resurrection brings in a new era, a new covenant.

And that was so much better than the old day of atonement. What's the point of looking at this? Well, if you can please try and resist turning off for the next 20 minutes and hopefully you will realise that Jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever. And he's gathered us here today because he wants to teach us something about what Jesus achieved on the cross. And it will help us to understand how that whole idea of atonement began.

And we read about that in Leviticus 16. If we begin to really grasp with Leviticus 16, our lives are going to be changed and will never be the same again. So as we start, let me pray. Father God, you tell us that all scripture is valuable for nourishing the spiritual life and well being of your people. Open our minds this morning to see ever more clearly the deadliness of sin and the life giving power of your grace.

Amen.

I was in conversation this week with my son, who's done a master's in theology no less, and I was telling him what I was doing preparing for today. I said, dad, that's really interesting. You know, have you heard the idea of the overall structure of the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Old Testament, the law, the Torah. And we went on to discuss this idea that there is an overall shape and pattern to the Pentateuch, and it is something called a chiastic structure, where the most important thing is like a mirror in the middle. And so you start at the beginning and then you find that what happens at the end, a mirror image of that.

And as you go through the book, the things you come to, as you get to the centre, are mirrored as you go out. And the whole purpose of this is to draw your attention to the most important thing in the whole of the Torah, and that is Leviticus, chapter 16. Wow, that sounds amazing. If that's true, this is really important now. It's certainly true.

This day, the day of atonement, was important to the priests and people of Moses day. He told them three times in the last verses of chapter 16, this is to be a lasting ordinance for you. Why? Because atonement is to be made every year for all the sins of the Israelites.

Now, if you have your Bible open, look at verse 32. Things stand out. First, it tells us what atonement is. There's reams of things written about atonement, but it's very simple. In this verse, it's all about cleansing people from their sins.

Sin contaminates. Atonement cleanses.

Now, this is something far deeper and more significant than sorting out good public health. Lots of people look at the Levitical things and think, oh, yeah, this is to make sure people don't get food poisoning and everybody's kept healthy and this sort of thing. It's striking to me. If that is the case, why does it say nothing about urine and excrement and vomit and how to keep good public sanitation? You see, the cleansing Leviticus talks about is not primarily to do with good, healthy sanitation and public health.

The point is brought home. You see, when we're told what God instructs the priests to do, the cleansing they offer is achieved by sprinkling sacrificial blood.

I don't think I've ever heard anybody talk about this, but it strikes me that is incredibly messy. Take it from me, I've had a nosebleed or two and I know when blood is outside the body, it's a mess.

But we're not talking about cleansing the physical body.

Blood is used in cleansing because what God tells us, Leviticus 17:11, he says, the life of a creature is in the blood, and I have given it to you to make atonement for yourselves on the altar. It is the blood that makes atonement for one's life. That is why the people of Israel were not allowed to eat meat with blood in blood was very precious and special. And the cleansing offered in Leviticus 16 is the cleansing of sin, that thing, that rebelliousness that leads people into death. Now, we're going to think about that more shortly, but for now, let's keep in verse 30.

Atonement is a cleansing from sin. And on this day of atonement, it's a cleansing of all the people's sin. Now, you see the burnt offerings and sin offerings. Ben mentioned them last week in chapter 14. We're told about them in at the beginning of Leviticus, chapters 1 and 4.

At the beginning of Leviticus, it sort of gives you the building blocks of what's used and talked about through the rest of the book. And if you look in those chapters, you'll see those sacrifices only cleanse people from unintentional sin. On the day of atonement, something more is done so that all the sins, unintentional sins, intentional sins, all is cleansed from them. And from the tabernacle, even from the holy of Holies, you see, sin according to the Lord in this chapter contaminates people. It also contaminates places.

Without total cleansing of the tabernacle, God would no longer dwell amongst his people.

The atonement God instructs his priests to carry out is a work they're to do for the benefit of the people, cleansing them from their sin and to keep the Lord present amongst them by cleansing the place.

And people cannot do this work of atonement for themselves. It's just too dangerous, you see. So they're banished from the tabernacle for this day of atonement. We're told that in verse 17, we know the priest's work is dangerous because of the way the chapter opens. It takes us back to chapter nine.

Two days before this day of atonement. This first day of atonement was the very first day of Aaron's priestly ministry. And on that day, a great tragedy happened. Heartbreaking. Aaron's two eldest sons were killed because they approached God in the wrong way.

They didn't have due care for personal preparation. They had offered no sacrifice of atonement for their sin.

The clear message at the beginning of our chapter is that unatoned sin brings death, and atonement must be made in the right way.

We can't just do our own thing. So to avoid further tragedy, the Lord sets out in chapter 16 all that he required to atone for sin in the right way. Now we just need to pause for a moment and reflect. We need atonement from sin because sin leads to death. It's the warning God gave the first people in his perfect world.

However, as we know, they chose to ignore his warning and we live with the consequences. When Adam and Eve sinned by spurning God's love and disobeying him, they were not immediately physically struck down. They must have thought, oh, so much for God's promises then. But they did die spiritually. And we know that because the Bible tells us without God's intervention in our lives, we are dead in our sins.

And we need spiritual rebirth if we're ever to be restored in relationship with God. Adam and Eve died spiritually as soon as they sinned and they were banished from God's presence. They were taken outside of the garden and the garden was guarded. And eventually they did physically die.

If you're like me, you tend to live life as if you're going to live forever. When you get older, you begin to realise that might not be quite as long as I was expecting. But without God's intervention, we're destined to die because of sin. We are contaminated by death. So to cleanse us from sin, we need God's cleansing, atonement and gift of new life.

And Leviticus 16 introduces us to the way he brings life cleansing to his sinful people. As we read this introduction, we need to remember this is God's introduction to atonement. It was significant and it was his chosen way at the time, the time of his unfolding story of salvation. But we know from the New Testament, in Christ he offers something bigger and better. So immediately a question pops into my mind.

Well, why didn't he just bring Christ in at the beginning? Why wait? Why do something different? Well, he had to put other things in place first. Not least, he offered the Day of Atonement to his people as a working model so they could gain a greater appreciation and understanding of what Christ's superior work would achieve.

Do you remember the good old days when you watched films on DVDs? We've still got some. And the great thing about them is you get little extras. And there's a film by Tom Hanks called the Terminal. Really great film if you ever got a chance to see it.

It's about a guy who's flying to America and in the course of his flight, something happens in his country and he lands and his passport is no longer valid. So he is marooned in this terminal and it's his life living in the terminal. It's a really fascinating film. And in this little extra in the dvd, it turns out it wasn't a terminal of an airport at all where it was filmed. It looked like it was, but it was actually a film set.

It was a working model to tell a story. And that is what this day of atonement is like. It's a working model to tell a story.

He's doing it to prepare us for the real thing. And I think he had to do this because his way of atonement shocks our sensibilities.

It involves taking life.

And in Leviticus, God establishes the principle of taking life to give life and to be effective in an enduring way. Atonement for human sin would eventually require the taking of human life. To save human life, a like for like sacrifice is necessary. The day of atonement, the day of dealing with sin is a sharp reminder of the deadliness of sin.

To cleanse us from it, we need the shedding of blood and the taking of life. I wonder, are you conscious of the seriousness of sin and what it takes to cleanse you from your sin?

The day of atonement starts with careful preparation. And it's all described in verse, verses 4 to 11. I wonder how Aaron's heart was pumping as Moses gave God's instructions. You see, he had to venture into the most holy place. And that's the very place where two days before his eldest sons were struck down by the Lord because of their lack of preparation.

It would have made Aaron, I think, hyper aware of all the instructions, you see, because he was a great sinner. He was the man in charge down the bottom of the mountain. When Moses was up the mountain getting the ten commandments from God. Aaron is the man who made the golden calf that the people of Israel worshipped and led people into great sin before the Lord. He was a dead man.

Was it not for the prayer of intervention and interceding of his brother Moses? So on the day of atonement, imagine the meticulous way he must have chosen the animals for sacrifice. Were they really free from blemish? Would they be good enough? Would they be acceptable to God?

Think how carefully he bathed his sinful body and dressed in these special clothes. How cautiously he took fire and coals and put them in a censer and took some incense in his other hand and then ventured behind the curtain. Would he ever come out alive? Was the smoke going to give enough protection from God? Think of how he averted his eyes as he tried to get draw Close to the Ark of the Covenant, that box that contained the stones with the law written on it that condemned him as a sinner.

Wow. He had to approach that and sprinkle sacrificial blood on the ark and around it. Having done that, creep out, keeping his eyes averted, only to have to go back in and do it again. To atone for the sins of the people, taking blood from their sacrifice, venturing in and sprinkling blood.

Now, all this was going on in the tabernacle and in the Holy of Holies, and people weren't allowed in there. So this was a day for them of knowing stuff was going on that was really significant, but they couldn't see it. Must have been frustrating. So what happens Next in verses 20 to 22 was an illustration God gave them so that everybody could see the impact this atonement was going to make on their sin. And it's an illustration that shows that instead of the sinner being banished from God's presence, it's the sin that's banished from God's presence, presence.

It points to a new beginning, another chance to live life a new way, away from sin, free from sin. And to do this, Aaron took a goat. And it's a goat that was selected for being pure and spotless. And it was one of two. The first one that fell to a lot was used in the sacrifice for the atoning blood.

This particular one was saved from that fate, but was brought in and he would pray over it. He pressed his hands on it and he would pray. And symbolically, he places the sins of the people onto the goat. And it was then driven out into the wilderness in charge of somebody, taken away from the people and away from God.

See, the scapegoat is a memorable illustration of the psalmist's words. Psalm 103 says this. As far as the east is from the west, so far he removed our transgressions from us. When the people of God receive atonement, their sin was removed and banished from them from God. And what was true for the people in the old covenant was true for the people under the new covenant and true today in Christ.

There is no condemnation because our sins are banished.

The day of atonement finished with Aaron bathing and changing into garments, making even more sacrifices, and then disposing of remains of sacrificial creatures.

Most of the Instructions in Leviticus 16 are for the priests, but the final verses are for the people and what they are to do. Let me read you verses 29 to 31. On the tenth day of the seventh month, talking to the people. You must deny yourselves and not do any work with a native born or a foreigner residing among you. Because on this day atonement will be made for you to cleanse you.

Then before the Lord you will be clean from all your sins. It is a day of Sabbath rest and you must deny yourselves. It is a lasting ordinance.

This is really significant for us, you see, because to benefit from the priest's atoning work, the people must dispute, deny themselves and refrain from their usual work. For them it was to be a day of drawing away from their busyness of life and drawing close to God in Sabbath rest and reflecting on what God was doing for them. God does atonement. Will they receive it? So it was a time for personal reflection on the seriousness of their sin and the graciousness of God.

You see, the downfall of Aaron's sons was their presumption of sinless purity. They thought God would welcome them in any way they chose. But they were wrong.

And if, like them, we are ambivalent to the way our sins are cleansed, we too will not benefit from the new life God graciously offers to people.

So let me suggest something for us to do. Good Friday is the 18th of April, just about four weeks away. So you have time to plan like the day of atonement. In this country it's still a public holiday, so why not take that day as a day of Sabbath rest? Why not deny yourself, stop your usual work and give time to reflect on Christ's atoning sacrifice and give time to lament over your sister that caused it.

To help you do that, there's a meditation in church. Come spend time around the cross thinking about Christ's greater work of atonement. Sin remains deadly, but in Christ we can have new life. And his work of atoning salvation is greater than Aaron's. There are lots and lots of reasons and I was listing them out and I thought this is just going to overwhelm people and you're going to turn off.

But there are two that stick in my mind because they're sort of new ones that have come to me and I've heard, so I share them with you. Aaron began his work of atonement as a sinner and he had to bathe in recognition of his cleansing.

Christ began his work of atonement sinless.

He chose to bathe his disciples feet in recognition of their need cleansing.

And Aaron finished his work of atonement incomplete.

And so he had to set aside his linen priestly garments for another day.

Christ finished his work of atonement complete. And so he set aside his linen priestly robes in the tomb to show that his work was finished. Let's pray.

Father God, we approach you with caution because of our sin.

And yet you in Christ are so generous.

Your love and mercy is overwhelming you. Give your life that we might have life.

Keep us from complacency, Keep us from forgetting what you have done. Help us to see more clearly, day by day, the deadliness of our sin and the wisdom and wonder and power and graciousness and awesomeness of your atoning work. Because you want us to have new life and you offer it. Help us to take hold of it and be blessed as we deny ourselves and trust in you. Amen.