All right, the greatest of all
days. Let's look at, just jump right
into it, Leviticus 16, verse one. I'm not gonna read all these
verses. There are, what, 34 verses in
this chapter, and we're gonna cover the mainstay of it. But the first few verses I'm
going to be reading, it says in verse one, and the Lord spoke
unto Moses after the death of the two sons of Aaron when they
offered before the Lord and died. Now that's a reference back to
Leviticus chapter 10 concerning Aaron. He had two sons, Nadab
and Abihu. You probably are familiar with
those names. And back in Leviticus 10, I think it's verse 13, it
says that Nadab and Abihu offered strange fire before the Lord. Now you know in the ceremony,
in the service of the tabernacle, The fire that they're talking
about was the fire that the Lord accepted. The fire was taken
off the brazen altar. When the Lord sent down fire
from heaven and consumed the sacrifice off the brazen altar,
and the priest would take those coals and that fire, and he'd
take them into the holy place and put them in the golden censer.
And that fire, the smoke going up from the golden censer represents
the intercessory work of Christ and the prayers of his people.
Well, Nadab and Abihu, which were of the priestly family,
they brought fire, but it wasn't from off the brazen altar. And
that's why it's called strange fire. In other words, it was
fire that God had not commanded and rejected. You see, that burnt
offering, the fire and the altar, the incense, They were all pictures
of salvation accomplished by the Lord Jesus Christ. And the
fact that there's one mediator between God and men, the man
Christ Jesus, and what Nadab and Abihu, they came their own
way. They're like Cain. You know, Cain brought an offering,
but it was the wrong offering. And it wasn't the offering that
God had prescribed that typified the blood of the Lamb of God.
Well, Nadab and Abihu did that with the fire, and judgment fell
upon them. They died. And so this was the
punishment. So he starts off with that, showing
that whatever he's going to say about atonement, about the pictures
and the types and the ceremonies, it has to be God's way. It can't
be your way, my way, his way. You know, everybody says, we
got many ways to God. No, sir, there's one way. It's
the way of the cross. It's the way of righteousness.
And so then it says in verse two, 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. He
can't just come here anytime he takes a notion or anytime
he feels holy or religious. or feels like he's in need. No,
it's not up to him. This is God's prescribed way.
He said, which is upon the ark. He said, you can't tell Aaron,
don't come just at any time, that he die not. Now there's
the penalty. And of course, that penalty may
seem harsh to people, but it's a picture of this. If we seek
God's presence or God's audience in prayer or worship, or we come
to God for blessing, for communion, apart from Christ, apart from
the blood of Christ, in any way, it'll be, eventually, if we die
in that state, it'll be eternal death. But he says, for I will
appear in the cloud upon the mercy seat, and that's God's
glory. there, descending. His glory is both a just God
and a Savior. He says, thus shall Aaron come
into the holy place, this is verse three, with a young bullock
for a sin offering and a ram for a burn offering. Now this
is on the day of atonement, this one day a year, that the high
priest, whoever he was, it began with Aaron, and then the succession
of high priest, Aaron died, and then one of his descendants,
was appointed to be the high priest and then just went on
down through. And that high priest, on that day, he was to perform
these elaborate rituals to atone for the sins of the people. It
was called the Day of Atonement. And it had to be repeated every
year because this ritual involved the blood of bulls and of goats. and did not actually put away
sin. You remember over in Hebrews chapter 10, it talks about the
blood of bulls and goats can never take away sin. These things
were pictures. They were ceremonies. And they
did accomplish something. The book of Hebrews chapter 9
tells us that. They did accomplish a physical,
now listen, a physical, a temporal, and a ceremonial covering of
the sins by which God had determined that this is going to be the
way that he would work with this people, national Israel, during
this covenant. God determined that I'm gonna
work with them. Most of them were not true believers. Most of them were just rebels.
But God joined himself to them as a nation, and he determined
to do it on the basis of these ceremonial offerings. this old
covenant. But it was not a perfect redemption from
sin, and it was not a perfect eternal union with God in salvation. It was a picture of that, you
understand. And the main reason, there are
many reasons we could say that God did this, but the main reason
that God did this with this nation, even though most of them were
not believers, the main reason he did it is because it was through
that nation that he was gonna bring Christ through, according
to his providence. And that's what happened. Well,
these things did not accomplish eternal, spiritual forgiveness
of sins. These things did not accomplish
righteousness that we need in order for God to be just to justify
the ungodly. And again, you can read about
all this in the book of Hebrews. The book of Hebrews is a great
commentary on all this. especially when you get to Hebrews
chapter 7 talking about the priesthood. We're going to look at a passage
over there in just a moment. And then when you talk about
Hebrews 8 which talks about the abolishment of all of this because
Christ, our great high priest, Christ our surety, our substitute,
our redeemer, our intercessor, how he came and he fulfilled
it all by his one offering on that one day. And that's when
I titled this message, The Greatest of All Days. I'm really not talking
about the Day of Atonement that had to be every year. I'm talking
about the Day of the Cross. That's the greatest of all days
in redemptive history. Because that's what all this
means. That's what all this Day of Atonement means, one time
a year. Now, so the fact is that this ritual, having to be repeated,
showed that it did not accomplish eternal redemption. And it showed
also that while these things were in force, Christ had not
yet come. But when he did come, he said,
it's finished, and the veil was ran into in the temple from top
to bottom. And so we see that everything
that we're talking about here points to the one sacrifice for
sins for God's chosen people, his elect, spiritual Israel,
the sins that God had imputed to Christ, that he put away,
and we'll talk about the scapegoat too, because that's part of this.
A fit man taking it off into the wilderness, never to be seen
again. But this is a picture of the complete purging away
of all the sins of God's people out of every tribe, kindred,
tongue, and nation by the blood of Christ. Hebrews 10, 14 summarizes
it. For by one offering, not many. See, there were many offerings
here. There were weekly offerings, daily offerings, monthly offerings,
but this offering was one time a year, but there were still
many, 1500 years about. But by one offering, Christ,
by his one offering, he hath perfected There was no perfection
here, Hebrews 9 tells us that. But by his one offering, he hath
perfected forever, not to be repeated, but by one offering,
perfected forever them that are sanctified. And that's the glory
and the power and the majesty of what we have in Christ. And even believers back then
had it, they just looked forward to his coming, though there were
few. So Aaron and all the high priests descended from him during
that old covenant was enforced. They were to go into the Holy
of Holies behind the veil with the blood. And the people were
to understand that atonement for sin was done God's way. And
over the years, there were several men who tried it another way.
Nadab and Abihu was just one of them. Later on, we read about
King Uzziah during the times of Isaiah, how he went in basically
to offer strange fire. He became, he was a king. You
know, he was a very successful king in the southern kingdom. And he got puffed up with himself. He became proud. I don't need
those guys to go in for me. I'll go in and offer it myself.
Boom, he was struck with leprosy. remained a leper the rest of
his day and died. And that's, you remember what
Isaiah said, in the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord
high and lifted up, holy, holy, holy. I found out I'm a man of
unclean lips, I'm cut off, I'm a sinner. I need a sacrifice,
I need a substitute, I need a surety, a qualified one, not King Uzziah
as great as he was. I need Christ, and that's what
we see. So all this points, this Day
of Atonement points to the day of the cross, the day of Christ. And that's the greatest day of
all redemptive history. That was the day that eternity
centers around. Because God justified his people
even in the Old Testament based upon that day that Christ would
come in the fullness of the time. God sent forth his son made of
a woman, made under the law to redeem them that were under the
law. So on that day, and we celebrate that day when we celebrate Christ. I think it's next week I'm gonna
talk about the feast days, and I call it celebrating Christ. It's what we're doing here this
morning. As we're worshiping, we're celebrating Jesus Christ
and him crucified and risen from the dead. Well look at verse
four. He said, and now in verse three
he talks about a young bullock for a sin offering and a ram
for a burn offering. Now remember that these had to
be unblemished animals in the prime of their life. Young, he says a young bullock
and a ram. See Christ was cut down in the
prime of his life as far as his humanity is concerned. So these
had to be unblemished animals. Aaron couldn't bring the blood
of a sick or spotted calf or whatever, couldn't do it. And
that pictures Christ in his impeccability. Well, verse four, he shall put
on the holy linen coat, and he shall have the linen breeches
upon his flesh, And he shall be girded with a linen girdle,
and with the linen mitre shall he be attired. Now, I didn't
do a message on the clothing or the attire of the priest.
We have that in the book of Leviticus. But all of this clothing that
the priest wore in some way points to some aspect of the person
and work of Christ. The linen coat, that picture's
the righteousness of Christ. and all of this in some way. But I won't go into that. These
are holy garments. These are garments that God sanctified,
set apart to be used by the priest. In other words, you just couldn't
go in and just pull anything off your closet. This had to
be, and you remember on his breastplate, he had the names of the 12 tribes
of Israel on his amulets, on his shoulder he had the names.
On his miter, he said, holiness unto the Lord. You see, every
bit of that has something to do with the glory of Christ as
our high priest, as our sacrifice and our mediator. And it says,
therefore shall he wash his flesh with water and so put those clothes
on. So on the day before he entered
the Holy of Holies, he had to wash him, he had to take a bath.
thorough bath, and put on these special garments that God had
ordained. And this typified the purity,
the holiness, the perfection, the impeccability of Christ in
the glory of his person, he who is sinless. That's what this
picture. Now you know that water in a
bathtub cannot wash away sin, you know that. They knew that,
but I think some people in their sick minds, when I say sick minds,
I'm talking about the depraved mind, they may have eventually
come to think that this washing of water had some significance
for true holiness. Because I thought about this,
you know, when the Pharisees jumped onto Christ's disciples
for not washing their hands, they weren't the clean police. I mean, it wasn't about environment
and germs and all that. It was about their ceremony.
So they had turned that into a ceremony which they thought
really had some kind of a spiritual significance in the physical
act, but it didn't. You can take a, you can bathe
yourself every hour and you're not gonna wash away one sin.
What can wash away my sins? Nothing but the blood of Jesus.
But he had to do this ceremonially because it pictured and typified
the perfection, the cleanness of Christ. Our high priest is
the spotless Lamb of God, unblemished. unaffected in the sense of corruption
and contamination of our sins. There was no sin in him. There
was no sin put into him. There was no sin transferred
to him in some kind of a mysterious way that contaminated him. No,
sir. He's the spotless, clean, pure,
sinless Lamb of God. But sin was imputed to him. Sin was charged to his account
and they became his sins. But I'm getting ahead of myself
here a little bit, but listen, what this pictures is Christ.
And look at verse five. He says, and 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 burn offering. Now, on
this day, Aaron, the high priest and the others, they went into
the Holy of Holies a few times. But it was only on this one day
that they could do that. And here's the, we'll see that
in just a moment. He said, it says here that Aaron,
in verse six, and Aaron shall offer his bolik of the sin offering,
which is for himself, and make atonement for himself and for
his house. And then verse seven says that
he shall take the two goats. Now these two goats, one was
sacrificed, one was a scapegoat. And it says, he shall take the
two goats and present them before the Lord at the door of the tabernacle
of the congregation. One of these goats was to be
sacrificed for the sins of the people. So you understand what's
going on here? Aaron had to take the blood of
a bullock and go in and atone for his own sins and the sins
of his family. Then he came out and took the
two goats, they cast lots over the two goats, and the one the
lot fell on was, well, let's see. I can't remember, but one
of them was sacrificed, the other one was the scapegoat. We'll
get to that in just a moment. And that was for the congregation
of Israel. Aaron had to offer sacrifice
first for himself and his family. Why? Because he and his family
were sinners. He was just a sinful man. He
represented one who was sinless, but he himself was sinful. And
the reason I emphasize this is because there's a lot of people
who erroneously apply this part of the type to Christ himself,
claiming that Christ had to first offer sacrifice for his own sins
and redeem himself and then offer sacrifice for the people. Have
you heard that? I've heard several preachers preach that. That's
not so, folks. That's heresy. That's what my
former pastor used to call trying to make a type stand on all fours. And you just can't do that. You
can't take every aspect of a type and somehow apply it. You can
only use what the Bible says about this type. But that's heresy,
Christ had no sins of his own for which to atone. Now the proponents,
those who believe this, that Christ had to go in first for
his own sins and then for the people, they claim, they use
this kind of logic. And I've got this in your lesson
here. There are passages, especially in the Psalms, which are called
messianic psalms. Now I personally happen to believe
that every psalm is a messianic psalm, because they're all about
Christ. But there are some that are so
closely connected to Christ as the Redeemer that they call them
messianic psalms. One of them is like Psalm 22.
It starts off, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? That's
David speaking, but he's speaking of himself, but he's speaking
typically of Christ. And that's like a, they call
that the psalm of the cross, Psalm 22. Well, there's another
psalm like it, it's Psalm 69, where it's a messianic psalm,
it's like Christ speaking, David speaking, but Christ, he's speaking
typically. of Christ. And there's a statement
in that psalm. It's Psalm 69-5. I've got it
spelled out here on your lesson. And those who say, well Christ
had to go in first for his own sins and redeem himself and then
redeem the people, they'll use this psalm. Psalm 69-5 where
it says, It says, oh God, thou knowest my foolishness and my
sins. Now he says, my sins are not
hid from thee. Now, if you apply that to Christ,
how in the world could you say, how in the world could he say
my sins if he was not made sin in some mysterious way that they
were contaminating him or corrupting him? That's the logic they use. Now, that's what I'm trying to
tell you. I hope I'm making myself clear on that. That's not true. It's heresy, but I read in Brother
Mahan's commentary on this, and he says this. He says, David
might truly say this, but not of our Lord. David could talk
about his sins, But David could say this, but not our Lord, unless
David refers to our sins imputed and laid to his charge. He was
made to be sin for us, 2 Corinthians 5.21. Now, here's my point. If
I've confused you, I don't mean to. But here's my point. Christ, as he went to the cross
for the sins of his people, he could honestly call those sins
his own. He could say my sins, not because
he committed them, not because they contaminated him, but because
he took legal responsibility for them, put it on my account,
they were imputed to him. So he could say it that way,
but only that way. He did not become a sinner. He
was not corrupted. And if you will, turn to Hebrews
chapter seven. I want to show you this now. In Hebrews, it's talking about
this very thing, about the high priest of Israel. And you know what Hebrews does.
Hebrews is all about the greater glory and effectiveness of Christ. over all those types and pictures
in the Old Covenant. There was a priesthood in the
Old Covenant, and it was something to see, but there's a greater
priesthood, a greater glory, and that's Christ. Look at verse
22. By so much was Jesus made a surety
of a better testament. That's the new covenant, the
everlasting covenant of grace. And they truly were many priests.
Under the old covenant, there were many high priests, down
through the ages, because they were not suffered to continue
by reason of death. Why did there have to be many
high priests during the 1500 year period of the old covenant?
Because they died. Aaron died. Somebody had to take over. God
had ordained that covenant to last until Christ come. So as
one priest died, another one took their place. And so there
were many under that covenant, you see. And he says in verse
24, but this man, Christ, because he continueth ever. Now he died,
but he arose again. He lives. We serve a risen Savior,
a living Savior. He's not like Buddha. He's not
like Confucius. He's not like Muhammad. who are
dead in the grave, he arose from the dead because he accomplished
redemption, salvation, righteousness. So he continued to ever hath
an unchangeable priesthood. Now the priesthood of Aaron was
changeable. It changed at the time of Reformation. And that's
the time when Christ came. And it says in verse 25, wherefore
for this reason Christ is able also to save them to the uttermost
that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth, to make intercession
for him. That's what he's doing right
now, he's making intercession for us. Verse 26, for such an
high priest became us, who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate
from sinners, and made higher than the heavens. Can it get
any clearer there? Holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from us? Verse 27, who needeth not daily
as those high priests to offer up sacrifice, first for his own
sins and then for the people. For this he did once when he
offered up himself. He didn't have to do like Aaron.
Aaron had to go in first for his own sins and make it done. Then he had to go back in for
the sins of the nation. Christ didn't have to do that.
He didn't have to go in for his own sins because he had no sin.
But our sins became his by imputation and he went in one time and settled
the matter by the shedding of his blood unto death. Isn't that
powerful? Why would anybody want to deny that? Think about that. Why would you
even want to challenge that? I'll tell you why, it's because
you don't think as much as you ought to about this person and
this sacrifice. Exactly right. Well, go back
to Leviticus 16, verse seven. He says, he shall take the two
goats and present them before the Lord at the door of the tabernacle
of the congregation. Now, here's the two goats. And
they had to be unblemished. in the prime of youth, and Aaron
shall cast lots upon the two goats, one lot for the Lord,
and the other lot for the scapegoat." Now, believe it or not, as crazy
as this world is, there have been people who've gone to verses
like that to try to okay their gambling habits. We're going
to cast lots. The Bible doesn't say anything
about gambling anyway, did you know that? If you gamble money
that you don't have and can't afford, you're foolish anyway.
So, I mean, that's the bottom line. But why are they casting
lots? I'll tell you why. It's because
God's the one who's going to make the choice here. He didn't
leave it up to man to choose. They cast lots, and that's in
the hands, as all things are, that's in the hands of God. And
so they cast lots, one lot for the Lord. In other words, one
goat was to be slaughtered for the Lord, the blood. the other
for the scapegoat. And verse nine says, and Aaron
shall bring the goat upon which the Lord's lot fell, and offer
him for a sin offering. He had to be killed, blood had
to be shed, and the blood had to be taken in. Verse 10, but
the goat on which the lot fell to be a scapegoat, the scapegoat,
shall be presented alive before the Lord to make an atonement
with him, and so, and to let him go for a scapegoat into the
wilderness. There's the scapegoat. One where the lot fell was to
be sacrificed for the people, blood sprinkled on the Ark of
the Covenant on the mercy seat. And you know what that picture
is, Christ and his death. His redemptive blood. And then
Aaron, now you can read the rest of this chapter, it goes into
a lot of detail, but Aaron, what he would do after that blood
was presented before the Lord of that goat that the lot fell
on, they'd take the scapegoat and Aaron would place his hands
on its head, confessed over it the sins of the Israelites, and
sent the goat out with a fit man to be released into the wilderness,
never to be seen again. Look over verse 20. It says,
this is Leviticus 16, 20. 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. Now listen to this. Verse 21. And 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 their transgressions
and all their sins, putting them upon the head of the goat. Do
you see that? He put him on the head of the,
what's happening here? And he says, shall send him away
by the hand of a fit man. That's a man appointed into the
wilderness. Now he's putting these sins on
the head of the goat. What's going on here? Did Aaron,
what did he do? Did he go around to all the children
of Israel with a big bag and say, now put your sins in this
bag and I'm gonna carry him over here and put them on the head
of this goat. Is that what he did? Well, that's crazy. Did he pour him into a bottle?
Well, that's not what sin is. Sin is not a substance, it's
not a liquid, it's not a solid, it's not a gas, it's not even
a germ running around in your body. If you've got some deadly
germ running around in your body, or I've got one in my body, that's
the consequence of sin. But that's not what sin is. Sin
is sometimes typified by a disease like leprosy. Isaiah typified it that way.
In Isaiah 1, he talked about, I've got sores from the top of
my hand to the bottom. He's not talking about literal
sores. He's talking about how sin has
affected us. So what does it mean when he
says he put them on the head? You know what that is? That's
a picture. That's a type of the grand and glorious doctrine of
imputation that so many people hate today. What does it mean? That's picturing how the sins
of God's elect, the sin debt, was laid, charged legally upon
the head of Christ. And having atoned for those sins
by his blood, those sins are taken away, never to be seen
again. What does that mean? That means God will never charge
us with our sins. He never has, because they were
charged to Christ. It means that God said, I will
remember their sins no more. What does that mean? Does that
mean God forgot something? No, he never changes. But he
will never hold them or account them against us in the record
of his law books. Blessed is the man to whom the
Lord imputeth not iniquity. Who shall lay anything to the
charge of God's elect? And that's what Christ did. On
this greatest day of all, he died on that cross, satisfying
completely and forever, perfecting the justice of God. He took them
to the grave with him, like the scapegoat, never to be seen again. And he arose from the dead and
is ascended unto the Father, ever living to make intercession
for us. You see that picture? Isn't that great? Doesn't that
give you some assurance and confidence of salvation, knowing that Christ
by his one offering have perfected fully forever them that are sanctified,
those whom God set apart. Okay.