There is a we who have a high
priest. I want to be among the we who
have this high priest, this particular high priest. If you turn back
with me in John's Gospel, I want us to see why I've been drawn
to spend some time looking at Leviticus in this last My studies
in these last few weeks, I've always loved the picture of the
atonement in the book of Leviticus and I've seen so much in it today. This last week I feel as if I
never knew anything much about it at all, but such is the Word
of God. It's living and active and the Lord Jesus Christ has
come to this place and just a few days beforehand he came to the
upper room with his disciples and I just love that description
of what he was doing there in John chapter 13 verse 1. Having
loved his own which were in the world, he loved them unto the
end. In John 19 we have something
of that end when he declared that it is finished. And throughout
that upper room discourse, the Lord Jesus Christ, the great
high priest, was declaring the things that must come to pass,
the things concerning himself and the glorious promise of the
Holy Spirit who will convict the world of sin and righteousness
and judgment and will reveal the things of the Lord Jesus
Christ to his people. And then in John 17, he prays
that high priestly prayer. It's just the most remarkable
passage of scripture in my mind. I just love thinking about it. I love the fact that he's praying.
He prayed 2,000 years ago for us today, and he lives now interceding
for us in heaven right now. and if he's going to be interceding
with us it's along the lines of what he's praying in John
chapter 17. And he introduced the Last Supper and he introduced
it in the terms of this is the new covenant, this is the eternal
covenant that's always new, the new covenant in his blood, the
new covenant in his body. And then in the garden he takes
from his father a cup And when he looks into that cup and holds
that cup in his hands, he's overwhelmed and his heart is broken and great
drops of blood are shed on the garden, on the soil in the garden
of Gethsemane. And with that cup in his hands,
figuratively, he is then taken before Pilate where his back
receives the stripes by which we are healed and he is mocked
and treated in the most extraordinarily shameful ways. And they spat
on him and they plucked out his beard. And then in John chapter
19, the Lord Jesus Christ is taken to Calvary in verse 17. He, bearing his cross, went into
a place that's called the place of the skull, which is called
in Hebrew Golgotha, where they crucified him. They crucified
him. It's extraordinary isn't it?
So much is tied up in those three words. And above him there's
a title written, Jesus of Nazareth. He is the prophet who speaks
the word of God. He is the anointed word of God. He is the anointed King of God. In all of this the scriptures
must be fulfilled. The Lord Jesus Christ is reigning
and ruling over everything all of the time. But on the cross
of Calvary he enters into this glorious priesthood where he
bears the sins of all his people in his own body on the tree.
And in the other gospel accounts, they keep saying they beheld
him there. I want us to behold him there,
but I want us to behold him there in light of what the High Priest
does on the Day of Atonement. This is the High Priest going
to the Day of Atonement. It is the hour for which he came,
the hour where he must go to the Cross of Calvary. He must
suffer and he must bleed and he must die. before we can worship him. in peace of conscience and liberty
of heart, we must know on the authority of God's Word and by
the power of God's Spirit, the entire question of sin has been
forever settled by the blood of the divine sin offering. All of God's claims and all of
our necessities as ruined guilty sinners have been forever answered. This gives perfect peace and
in the enjoyment of this peace we worship God. This Day of Atonement
where the High Priest went in was a day for people to worship
God. We worship God because we have
a perfect sacrifice. We have a perfect conscience. So I want to do this in two parts
after we've sung. I want to look through Leviticus
chapter 16 and just try and pick some of the highlights out there.
There are a lot of verses there and we can't deal with them all
in great detail. And then after we've had a break
I'd like us to look at the end of Leviticus 16 in verse 29. In verse 30 it speaks of the
fact that this is a statute forever. It's a statute forever. For on
that day shall the priest make atonement for you to cleanse
you that you may be clean from all your sins before the Lord. I love thinking about that. If
you are going to stand before the Lord, there's only one way
to stand before him. It's to be, that word cleanse
means purified. That's exactly what is typified
in the work of the high priest and then exemplified in the most
extraordinary way by the death of the Lord Jesus Christ on the
cross of Calvary. So if you turn back with me in
your Bibles to Leviticus chapter 16, and I want us to, there's
the Lord allows for us to behold the Lord Jesus Christ in all
of these, the wonder of these verses before us. What was typified
in him and particularly typified in the high priest on the Day
of Atonement is fulfilled in such an amazing way. by the Lord
Jesus Christ fulfilled. I love what Romans 3 says. I love how the Lord describes
the work of the Lord with the Lord for his people. He says,
we're being justified, Romans 3, verse 23, for all have sinned
and come short of the glory of God, being justified freely by
his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. whom
God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood. God set him forth. On the cross
of Calvary, there was a transaction between God the Father and God
the Son. Isaiah 53 makes it abundantly
clear. God the Father was pleased to
bruise him. God the Father made him who knew
no sin to be sin for us. God set him forth through faith
in his blood to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that
are passed through the forbearance of God. To declare, I say, at
this time his righteousness, that he might be just and the
justifier of him which believeth in Jesus. This is the work of
our great High Priest. I want us just in preparation
to look at the points that I think are just so evident as we go
through these verses. The Day of Atonement, this particular
day, was ordained and initiated by God Himself. This wasn't any
human invention. In fact, the Jubilee trumpet
was to sound on this Day of Atonement. The Day of Atonement was set
for a specific time each year, the 7th day of the 10th of the
month. It was set, fixed, appointed
and determined by God himself. He set forth his Son. He set
forth his Son in type and promise in the Old Testament. Nothing
is left to chance in the economy of our God. and nothing is left
to the will of man. There was one day of atonement
each year and our Lord Jesus Christ was to make one offering
for sin. Just one offering for sin. Now once at the end of the world
hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. Christ was offered once to bear
the sins of many. This is the hour for which he
kept saying, my hour hasn't come, my hour has come, now my hour
has come. This is the high priest of all priests. The sacrifices
offered on the Day of Atonement were only typical. They pictured
what the Lord Jesus Christ was doing on the Cross of Calvary.
Hebrews 10 makes it really clear they could never take away sins.
All of these sacrifices from Genesis through to Malachi, all
of them just pictured what the Lord Jesus Christ and he must
do alone. All those typical ceremonial
sacrifices were fulfilled by Christ and have ceased. There is no need, there is no
more, Hebrews 10, 18, there's no more offering for sin. He has done it all. And all that
was done on the Day of Atonement was done for a specific chosen
people. It was the people of Israel.
The rest of the world didn't have a clue what was going on. And it resulted in God's blessing
upon all of those people. The wonder of what we'll see
is the high priest did it all. The high priest did it all. The
congregation, they watched and did no work and were caused by
God to afflict their souls. And we'll look at that later
on. And most of the work of the high priest was actually hidden
from view. When he went into the Holy of
Holies and took that incense into the Holy of Holies and sprinkled
that blood on the mercy seat, The high priest did it all alone.
And if you were outside in that huge congregation that was watching
on, you couldn't see it. God's people walk by faith and
not by sight. And all of the blessings which
come as a result of this accomplished atonement come because of the
finished work of another. God's blessings come to them
because of the work of a high priest. All their sins taken
away and there is fellowship with God. So let's turn in our
scriptures to Leviticus chapter 16 and begin reading. And I want
us to initially see how the Lord lays the most serious, serious
warning upon this right from the very beginning. He says in
verse 1 of chapter 16 in Leviticus, And the Lord spake unto Moses
after the death of the two sons of Aaron, when they offered before
the Lord, and died. And then the Lord said to Moses,
this is what you do. So if you turn back with me quickly
to Leviticus chapter 10, you will see if you have time to
go and read it, you'll see in Leviticus chapter 9, there was
remarkable declaration of the glory of God in the temple. And
in verse 24, there came a fire out from before the Lord and
consumed upon the altar the burnt offering and the fat, which when
all the people saw, they shouted and they fell on their faces.
And two of them didn't fall for very long. They just fell in
a very fleshy way, and listen to what goes on here. And Nadab
and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, took either of them his censer,
and put fire therein, and put incense thereon, and offered
strange fire before the Lord, which he commanded them not. So there are two elements to
the incense being acceptable before God. One is that the incense
has a very, very particular mixture and it's used for this purpose
and no other purpose at all. Any other incense not made according
to that particular recipe is not acceptable before God and
God's not going to play games with people who come into his
presence. The other thing is that the fire had to come from
the altar. It's all speaking of the Lord
Jesus Christ. These two men, after all that
they had been through and all they had seen, thought that they
could approach God bypassing the Lord Jesus Christ and not
honouring the Lord Jesus Christ. And they went out far from the
Lord and devoured them, and they died before the Lord. Then Moses
said unto Aaron, This is it that the Lord spoke, saying, I will
be sanctified. I will be set apart and declared
as one who is holy in them that come nigh me and before all the
people I will be glorified and Aaron held his peace. In fact Aaron was told you're
not to mourn for these boys at all. God says if you come near him
You will only be in his presence if he is sanctified and he is
set apart as glorious as he is. This notion that we can do business
with the man upstairs or march into the presence of God without
reference to the glory and the finished work and the blood of
the Lord Jesus Christ It's so common that it's frightening. And yet everything in the scriptures
says you cannot come into the presence of God like that. You
come into the presence of God in and by and with and through
and because of the Lord Jesus Christ. Or you come into his
presence and he's a consuming fire. And he remains so today. Nadab and Abiyu are typical,
but let's go back to Leviticus chapter 16 and see how the Lord
brings this glorious day of atonement where there are some people who,
sitting out there in that crowd, as there are amongst all of us,
some people who have just been as wicked as Nadab and Abiyu,
and yet they'll find that this is the way they can be cleansed. Leviticus 16 verse 2. And the Lord said unto Moses,
speak unto Aaron thy brother that he come not at all times
into the holy place within the veil before the mercy seat which
is upon the ark, that he die not. You don't die as your sons
have just died. For, I just love this, isn't
it? I will appear in the cloud upon
the mercy seat. How do you get into the presence
of God? In the cloud on the mercy seat. That's where God meets with people
under this Old Testament dispensation. I will appear. Then we have these instructions
of how Aaron is to come into the presence of God Almighty
and how he is to come on the basis of sin being exposed and
sin being dealt with. And we'll just read it and I'll
make some comments as we go along and Lord willing here we'll will
be our guide and our instructor. Thus shall Aaron come, verse
three, into the holy place with a young bullet for a sin offering
and a ram for a burnt offering. As I said earlier, Aaron acted
alone. All the nation, all of Israel,
which typified all of the chosen elect children of God, were entrusted
into the hands of one representative man. God has laid help on one
that is mighty. But Aaron must do something for
his own sin. The high priest must be holy. The high priest must be perfect. So listen to what is now said. Thus shall Aaron come into the
holy place with a young bullock for a sin offering and a ram
for a burnt offering. And he shall put on the holy
linen coat. If you go back in Leviticus and
in Exodus, you'll see that Aaron was robed in the most magnificent
robes of the high priest. and he wore that ephod and on
the front of the ephod close to his heart were those 12 stones
with each one a name of the tribe of Israel. He held close to his
heart all the elect of God and their names were written on his
shoulders and he carried the Urim and the Thummim in there,
the lights and perfections of God Almighty. It was a magnificent
Last week we looked at the robe of the Lord Jesus Christ, that
robe of righteousness that he wore, that robe. that had no seam, no stitches
of man's work in it at all. holy linen garments. The Lord
Jesus Christ put off the royal robes of glory and he put on human flesh.
He emptied himself, didn't he? He came as a servant. He was so much a man that people
couldn't see that he was God and yet at times so God-like
that you couldn't see that he was human. He put off the royal
robes of his glory in heaven and he put on human flesh to
be made like unto his brethren. These robes were woven by man. They speak of the glorious, perfect
righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. And then he speaks of
these goats, and we'll look at them a bit later on in the chapter.
He shall take of the congregation of the children of Israel two
kids of the goats for a sin offering and one ram for a burnt offering. And Aaron shall offer his bullock
for a sin offering which is for himself, to make atonement for
himself and for his house. Only a perfect high priest, only
a holy high priest, can meet with God in the Holy of Holies.
Everything must be perfect to be accepted. Aaron must do something
for his own sin before he can bring the offering of the sins
of the people before God. God must do something for God
before he can bless us. God must be appeased before he
can then bless his people. Verse 7, And 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 for
the two goats, one lot for the Lord and the other for the scapegoat. God decides. God chooses which
is which. It's not the will of man and
it's not the will of flesh. And Aaron shall bring the gate
upon which the Lord's lot fell and offer him for a sin offering. The Lord Jesus Christ is represented
in both these gates. He bears in his own body the
sins of all of his people and he bears all of their sin. He made his soul an offering
for sins and those sins in that scapegoat are carried away to
a place of separation where they can never be seen again. Verse 10, 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 let him go for a
scapegoat into the wilderness. Taken into the wilderness, the
place of separation, the sins were laid on him. Verse 11, an
hour and shall bring the bullock of the sin offering which is
for himself and make atonement, shall make atonement for himself
and for his house and shall kill the bullock of the sin offering
which is for himself. The high priest must bear in
his own body the sins of his own house. And verse 12, and
he shall take a censer full of burning coals, a fire from off
the altar before the Lord, and his hands full of sweet incense
beaten small, and bring it within the veil. This incense speaks of the intercession
and the prayers of the Lord Jesus Christ. that great high priestly
prayer. As I said earlier, this incense
is a very particular and very exclusive kind. It's to be used
by no other person. It's to be used by no other place.
And if anyone makes anything like it, or uses it in any other
way, they have to be killed. That's how serious God is about
the intercession of his dear and precious Son. God's people
are accepted in the Beloved, alone and exclusively. The incense
comes after the Atonement. Because of the atonement, the
prayers are acceptable. Bring it within the veil, and
he shall put the incense upon the fire before the Lord, that
the cloud of the incense may cover the mercy seat that is
upon the testimony, that he die not. That mercy seat is where
that blood covers the broken law. And it now is covered by
the prayers of our Lord. Christ prayed his high priestly
prayers before he shed his blood to atone. I love what that word atone means.
It means to purge, to reconcile, to forgive, to cleanse, to disannul,
to pardon. and appease. It's exactly the
same word which was used for the covering of Noah's Ark when
the wrath of God fell on Noah's Ark. Noah's Ark was pitched,
it had atonement covering on the outside of Noah's Ark and
it was pitched within. God's children are protected
by the atonement of God from the wrath of God which fell on
the Lord Jesus Christ. and Christ in you, the atoning
Christ in you is the hope of glory. And he shall take, verse
14, he shall take the blood of the bullock and sprinkle it with
his finger upon the mercy seat eastwards, and before the mercy
seat shall he sprinkle the blood with his finger seven times.
The blood on the mercy seat was the covering to hide God's broken
law. Where is the unbroken law of
God? Where is the only place the unbroken
law of God is? It's in the Lord Jesus Christ
who is the Ark. It was, this blood was the propitiation,
that wrath absorbing and removing which cancelled the sins of these
people. It was there to reconcile and unite God to his chosen. The Lord Jesus Christ is our
mercy seat. Verse 15, then shall he kill
the goat of the sin offering that is for the people and bring
his blood within 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. Aaron brings blood in for his
own sins that when he brings this blood which represents all
of the sins of all the people, he can be accepted. And he shall
make atonement for the holy place because of the uncleanness of
the children of Israel, and because of their transgressions in all
their sins, so shall he do for the tabernacle of the congregation
that remaineth among them in the midst of their uncleanness. Why do we need atonement? uncleanness. All of their uncleanness. A love that the high priest bore,
according to Exodus 28, he bore the iniquity of the holy things. Holiness is in the Lord Jesus
Christ and in Him alone. All their cleanness is in Christ
alone. Verse 17, and there shall be
no man in the tabernacle of the congregation when he goeth to
make atonement in the holy place. We read earlier in Hebrews chapter
8 that the Lord Jesus Christ went into the holy of holies
in heaven. Everything that Moses made was
a pattern of what happened in heaven and all of this that we're
reading here is a picture of what the Lord Jesus Christ did
in the real holy of holies when he entered into that holy place
with his own blood. There shall be no man in the
tabernacle of the congregation. Christ does it all, brothers
and sisters. Christ does it all. All the congregation
watched on. They sat and they did absolutely
no work whatsoever. There'll be no man in the tabernacle
of the congregation when he goeth in to make an atonement in the
holy place until he come out and have made an atonement for
himself and for his household and for all the congregation.
of Israel, and he shall go out unto the altar that is before
the Lord, and make atonement for it, and shall take of the
blood of the bullock, and the blood of the goat, and put it
on the horns of the altar round about. When to God in the Holy
of Holies atonement is made, he then comes out and he shall
sprinkle it, verse 19, he shall sprinkle of the blood upon his
fingers seven times to cleanse it and to hallow it from the
uncleanness of the children of Israel. Even this typical altar
needed to be cleansed. Seven times speaks of the number
of completeness and perfection. Verse 20, and when he hath made
an end of reconciling the holy place and the tabernacle of the
congregation and the altar, he shall bring the live goat. And I just love this. 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, and all
of their transgressions in all of their sins, putting them upon
the head of the goat. And he shall send him away by
the hand of a fit man. into the wilderness, into the
land of separation. This speaks in the most wonderful
and clear ways of the fact that in the work of the Lord Jesus
Christ, there is a complete transfer of sins. God made him sin. God made him sin. Who knew no
sin? He made him sin for us that we
might be made the righteousness of God in him. There is, as he
put his hands upon the head of that goat, there is a transfer
of sin to the goat. And then that goat was sent away
into the wilderness. It means and speaks of the complete
removal of all of their sins. Verse 22 goes on to say, And
the goat shall bear upon him all their iniquities into a land
not inhabited, and he shall let the goat go in the wilderness. How did John the Baptist begin
the declaration of the Lord Jesus Christ to this world? Behold! You look upon him and you gaze
upon him. Behold the Lamb of God who takes
away the sin of the world. He takes away not just the punishment
of sin, but He takes away the sin itself. That's what the Scriptures
are saying again and again throughout the book of Leviticus. When there
was a laying on of hands, there was a complete transfer of sin. Pictured, of course, and typified,
of course, but it's a picture of exactly what the Lord Jesus
Christ did. The Lamb of God who takes away
the sin of the world. How far are the sins removed?
As far as east is from west. You try and figure that out.
If you go north-south you'll get to the North Pole and then
you can go south again. Where does east finish? Where
does west finish? The picture is that they are
removed infinitely. What did Zechariah, speaking
of the Lord Jesus Christ, say? I will remove the iniquity of
the land in one day. What was he manifested to do,
1 John 3.5? He's manifested to take away
our sins. The goat was never to be seen
again. Complete transfer and complete
removal. Because the Lord Jesus Christ,
the Lamb of God, died in the place of his people, bearing
their sins in his own body, suffering all of the terror and wrath of
God's law, his holy law and his justice against our sins, until
God says it's finished, he says it's finished, he'll see the
travail of his soul and he'll be what? Satisfied. Our God is satisfied with the
substitution of the Lord Jesus Christ. The guilt, the sins are
gone. The guilt of sin is gone, Hebrews
10.14. The punishment of sin is gone.
The memory of sin in God's court is gone. They'll be sought for. Jeremiah 50.20 says they'll seek
for the sins of Israel and they won't be there. They won't find
them. They're gone in the Lord Jesus Christ. The sin itself
is gone for chosen redeemed sinners. in their eternal union with the
Lord Jesus Christ. He's covered them as with a dark
cloud. He's put them in the bottom of
the sea. They're gone. That's what the
scapegoat is speaking. And the goat shall bear upon
him all their iniquities. Listen to it. All their iniquities
into a land not inhabited and he shall let the goat go in the
wilderness never to be seen again. It's just a picture, isn't it?
But what a glorious picture of the finished work of the Lord
Jesus Christ. He bore our sins in his own body
on the tree. And Aaron shall come into the
tabernacle of the congregation and he shall put off the linen
garments which he put on when he went into the holy place and
he shall leave them there. And he will now be dressed in
the robes of his glory, just as the Lord Jesus Christ. left
that robe that he had worn in his earthly ministry and he left
those grave robes in the tomb and now he dons the robes of
resurrection glory. Verse 24, and he shall wash his
flesh with water in the holy place and put on his garments
and come forth and offer his burnt offering and the burnt
offering of the people and make atonement for himself and the
people. And the fat of the sin offering
shall he burn upon the altar. We saw last week Hebrews 13 says
that the Lord Jesus Christ is our altar. We have an altar.
We have an altar. An altar upon which God accepts
the sacrifice of his Son. And he that let go the goat for
the scapegoat shall wash his clothes and bathe his flesh in
water and afterwards come into the camp. Those who bring the
good news of sins removed wear new robes and are washed in the
blood of cleansing. And they're declaring, aren't
they, what the scapegoat has done. It's finished. They're
gone. I've taken them away. I'll never see them again. You'll
never see them again. But I've touched that which was
defiled and I'll be washed before I come back into the camp. And
the bullock for the sin offering and the goat for the sin offering,
whose blood was brought in to make atonement in the holy place,
shall one carry forth without the camp, and they shall burn
in the fire their skins and their flesh and their dung. Such is
the sinfulness of sin. You take it outside the camp
and you burn it. burn it all away. I'll read these
next few verses and then we'll come back after a break and look
at them again. Verse 29, and this shall be a
statute forever unto you, that in the seventh month, on the
tenth day of the month, you shall afflict your souls and do no
work, whether it be one of your own country or a stranger that
sojourneth among you. For on that day, the priest,
shall the priest make an atonement for you to cleanse you that you
may be clean from all your sins before the Lord. It shall be
a Sabbath of rest unto you, and you shall afflict your souls
by a statute forever. What a glorious picture we have
of the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ and the ongoing
work that he does in his people. I want to be cleansed. I want us to go from here cleansed.
I want us to go from here rejoicing in the Lord Jesus Christ who
bore all of our sins in his own body on the tree. and that they
were born so far away they can't ever come back, nor can they
be remembered. They have been atoned for. That's what this day is about,
that these people had to have as an everlasting statute among
themselves. We'll come back and look some
more at it after the break, so let's stop.