Word of Salvation – Vol.40 No.08 – February 1995
The Day Of Atonement
Sermon by Rev. M. Flinn on Lord’s Day 4
Scripture Reading: Leviticus 16
Congregation.
Today we come to Lord’s Day 4 of the Heidelberg Catechism. In terms of the way the document is structured, this is the final section of Part 1, which deals with the subject of man’s sin and misery. If you refer back to Lord’s Day 1, you can see that the question is asked: What must we know in order to live and die in the joy of the comfort of belonging to Christ. And the answer is in three parts:
Part 1: the knowledge of sin and misery;
Part 2: how we can be set free from our sin and misery;
Part 3: how we are to thank God for our deliverance.
So before us today is the final statement of Part 1. In Lord’s Days 3 and 4, the Catechism has looked at the function of God’s law in bringing us to an understanding of our need; it has spoken of the holy character of God and the moral corruption that is in our hearts. “Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity and in sin did my mother conceive me,” is the way David expressed it. When we sin against God, we are expressing what is natural to us all after the fall of man. We might lament that, we might wish it is not so, but we have to face biblical facts. This is our natural state and condition.
But now this immediately raises a problem, doesn’t it? If God is holy and He cannot look upon wickedness with favour, if He cannot suppress or violate His justice, then how can we escape the divine punishment which is warranted because of our sinful state? How can there be any salvation? And how can a holy righteous God live in the midst of a sinful people without compromising Himself and His truth?
Well, I don’t think we would be overstating the case if we said that this is the major problem of the entire Old Testament period, and if we are going to appreciate the significance of Christ’s saving work on our behalf, we have to see it against the background of the answers to these questions supplied by God to this people centuries before Jesus was born in Bethlehem to Joseph and Mary.
Therefore, what I want to do today is focus our attention on this passage in Leviticus 16 which deals with the annual ritual in Old Testament Israel referred to as the Day of Atonement. In verse 29 we read that this was to be a permanent statute for the people. Every 7th month on the 10th day of the month this day was to be set aside for the activities prescribed here. This was the one day of the year in which the high priest, according to God’s specific command, was to go into that place in the tabernacle called the Holy of Holies, where God was understood to dwell.
And let me suggest that what took place on that day is particularly instructive for us. I want to highlight two points in particular.
The first is this: detail after detail is calculated to demonstrate the distance that exists between God and His people. Let me show you what I mean. In verses 1 and 2 we have this: “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 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, because I appear in the cloud over the atonement cover.”
The reference in verse 1 to the two sons of Aaron who died goes back to Leviticus 10, where we read that Nadab and Abihu made an incense offering that was not commanded by God. They took it into their own heads to come into God’s presence as priests when they thought it was appropriate and the result struck fear into the hearts of the people. We are told that fire came out from the presence of the Lord and devoured them.
Now you can imagine what that did to Aaron, not only as a parent, but also in his function as the high priest. What sort of a God is this? These are God’s own people and just because they offer an offering that does not measure up to the precise details of His standards, He strikes them down with the fire of His judgment.
Put yourself in his shoes for a moment. How would you like to be responsible for going into this Tabernacle and making offerings on behalf of the people? If you would have some degree of hesitation, you surely wouldn’t be the only one. And the Lord, far from watering down the situation for Aaron himself, tells him point blank that at no time is he to go into the holy place behind the curtain, the place that contained the ark of the covenant with its lid of pure gold called the mercy seat over which were stretched the wings of the golden angelic figures called cherubim. No, that was the place where God would appear in the cloud over the mercy seat. It is strictly out of bounds. Aaron, you may be the high priest, but if you come into my presence uncalled for, what happened to your sons will happen to you.
The passage goes on to give details as to the procedure to be followed on the one day of the year in which Aaron was to go into the Holy Place. In verse 4 we read that he had to cleanse his body with water, put on clean linen garments according to divine specification. He had to sacrifice a bull as a sin offering for himself and his household, we are told in verse 11.
We are also told in verse 13 that he had to put incense on the fire before the Lord, so that the cloud of incense may cover the mercy seat that is on the ark of testimony so that he would not die. We can just imagine the cloud of smoke that enveloped the ark and the cherubim. What was the point of this? Well, this was the place where God dwelt. And when Aaron drew aside that curtain once per year and approached the Ark of the Covenant, those most holy things, associated as they were with the presence of the God of the heavens and the earth, had to be hidden from his sight. No man can look upon the face of God and live.
Yes, even the other aspects of the tabernacle furniture, the two altars, the golden candlestick, the table of showbread, these things had to be purified as well. We read about that in verses 16-18. Since the children of Israel had come into contact with them, atonement had to be made for them too. And brothers and sisters, we have to appreciate that if any one of these prescriptions had not been fulfilled to the letter, Aaron would have been struck down just as surely as his two sons Nadab and Abihu.
Why did God do this? Why the object lesson and why these details which must have struck fear and trepidation into the hearts of Aaron and the others? Simply because the Lord wanted it understood that there was an immense gulf between Himself in His holiness and His people in their sin.
The essence of holiness, brothers and sisters, is not just high morality (God is more righteous than I on the scale of good and evil); it is separation. God is distant from us. And until we appreciate that, we will never appreciate what Christ is as Immanuel, God with us. And we will never understand what He has done for us in breaking down that veil that leads to the Holy of Holies so that we can live with this God in peace and harmony. And until we understand this, brothers and sisters, we will never appreciate what it is to respect God for who He is and to love Him for what He has done.
The casual, “she’ll be right” chumminess with God that is a feature of much modern Christianity, would never have been a feature of the worship of God in the days of Moses and Aaron. And, frankly, we ought not to stomach it. Our God has not changed. He is exactly the same person today as He was then. There is a distance between Him in His holiness and us in our sin.
That leads me to the second point that I want to make, and it arises directly from the last. Because of this fact, there is an absolute necessity for substitutionary sacrifice. How can a God who is so holy have anything to do with the likes of us? Someone has to stand in for us and take our place, facing His anger on our behalf. And this is what the principle of sacrifice in the Old Testament is all about.
In Leviticus 17:11 we read this: “For 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.” Now let me read it again, more literally this time: For the soul of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you on the altar to cover your souls; for it is the blood by reason of the soul that is a covering. The lifeblood of the sacrificial animal is to be identified with the principle of its being, its soul, if you will. But it is your souls that I am concerned about. It is your souls that need covering over. So the animal will stand in for you.
Have you ever wondered why God required the shedding of blood – animal sacrifices? Well, the answer is right here. It is not that God is some bloodthirsty deity whose passion for blood is only satisfied when He sees animals slaughtered and blood strewn all around. No, you read of those deities in pagan mythology and modern fantasy literature. But that is not the God of the Bible. Neither is it the case that the animals were given as gifts and that appeased Him as He consumed their flesh. That’s not the God of the Bible either. God does not get hungry and He does not need animals as gifts or anything else for that matter.
But God is holy and separate. He is distant from us and yet He wants a relationship with us. He wants to live with us, and therefore someone has to stand in for us. His justice has to be satisfied; our souls have to be covered. And therefore it matters not how the animals were slaughtered, with what sharp instrument or in what position. All that is irrelevant. What matters is that the blood of the animal, the ‘nephesh’, the soul, was sprinkled on the mercy seat, the place where God dwelt.
And the suffering and death of that animal was understood to cover over the people and satisfy the demands of God’s holiness. No sacrifice, no relationship with God. It was as simple as that. But once the sacrifice is made, the way is clear for God to deal with His people as people who were cleansed from sin.
This is perhaps seen most clearly in the two goats that were offered on that day. They were both a sin offering. We are told that in verse 5. But the one was killed and its blood brought into the most holy place. The other was sent into the wilderness. But not before hands were laid upon it and the transgressions of the people were confessed. On the basis of the sacrificial death of the one, the sins of the people could be symbolically transferred to the other and sent away from them. God was telling them that their sins would be removed but only on the basis of substitutionary sacrifice.
My friends, I want to close today with words from Hebrews 10. Reflecting on the sacrificial system of the Old Testament period, the writer says the priests would offer these sacrifices year after year but they could not take away sins. The blood of bulls and goats would not satisfy. It only pointed forward to the coming of Jesus Christ, the high priest who would offer Himself as a sacrifice that would end all sacrifices. By one offering, he says, he has perfected for all time those who are sanctified.
And now we have confidence to enter the holy place by the blood of Jesus by a new and living way which he inaugurated for us through the veil, that is, His flesh. It is the blood of Christ that has been sprinkled at the mercy seat, the throne of God. It is Christ who has taken our sins upon Himself and removed them to a faraway place so that the holy God can interact with us as people who are cleansed. God can live with us and we with Him, but only on the basis of the sacrifice of Christ.
If you do not know Christ, if you have not trusted in Him from the heart; if you do not believe, then I tell you that you cannot come into the presence of the holy God. You may not like that and you may wish to change it but you cannot change the God who is there. I remind you of what happened to Nadab and Abihu and I remind you of the procedures that God put in place for Aaron on the Day of Atonement.
If we are going to have anything to do with God, we must do so on His terms, not ours. But in pointing you to the Day of Atonement, I also give you the assurance, that if you trust in God’s appointed sacrificial Lamb, the Lord Jesus Christ, then your sins will be removed and the holy God will live with you. He will take you for His own. He has not left us helpless and hopeless. He has provided for us the way of escape.
Is this a matter of life and death? Yes it is. Is this a matter of your soul and its eternal state? Yes it is. Hear the Word of God and be saved.
Amen.