Statistics say every person in Bangalore creates an average of 21 to 1 kg of garbage; the whole city creates 3,500 tons. One ton is 1,000 kg, so that is 35 lakh kg of garbage in just one day. Imagine it for a month, and for a year it is 1,277,500,000—128 crores, more than 1.2 billion. That is just one city; imagine the whole of India as a nation—it would be huge. What a burden this is for the nation! Imagine if every person and every family were asked to keep their garbage within their house and could only dump it once a year. What a huge burden it would be for every person, every family, and the whole nation. If the garbage van doesn’t come for two days, we get so tense, and it becomes a burden. For one year… what a burden!
This is a dim example of the great burden every Israelite’s conscience felt. God made them realize how holy He is on one side, and on the other, from Leviticus 11-15, He made them realize the burden and guilt of sin, and the importance of maintaining a ritualistically clean life. The uncleanness from birth, surrounding land, water, air, animals, leprosy of the body, garments, houses, continuous bodily discharges, and every man’s household had accumulated tons and tons of uncleanness throughout the year in the eyes of God. Hour after hour, day after day, week after week, every Jew and every family accumulated uncleanness through daily violations of divine commandments. In size and weight, it would be an infinitely big mountain, a vast, shoreless ocean.
All accumulated burdens of moral impurity; massive, unmeasurable tons of garbage. We may even see in our mind’s eye, spiritually, an unmeasurably vast amount of unclean garbage on each man’s conscience burdening him—uncleanness that has been accumulated through the year, with the whole nation pressed down by the burden of their guilt, the accumulated weight of sin, and their unworthiness to stand before this God of burning holiness.
This is not just the problem of Israel, but every son of Adam’s problem. Created in the image of God, every breath and every atom of his being yearns for the face of his Creator. He was created to glorify and enjoy this God. The great hindrance on his part in coming to God is his own guilty, burdened conscience. Today, each of our greatest problems is a guilty conscience.
What does it do? The same thing it made Adam do. It makes you hide from God like Adam and Eve, and shift the blame to everyone else for all the wrongs you do, just as Adam blamed Eve and even God. The Bible describes the wicked as being like a “tossed sea, for it cannot be still”; it is the cause of all restlessness, constant inner turmoil, persistent feelings of unease, anxiety, fear, regret, tension, and an inability to find peace or rest. A guilty person may isolate themselves from others, feeling unworthy, failing to have or maintain any proper relationships with others, and becoming constantly irritable. Negative self-talk and self-criticism: always grumbling, saying negative, harsh things about themselves, feeling hopeless, thinking there’s no use trying anything, damaging all confidence, leading to despair, depression, boredom, loss of interest in activities, and difficulty concentrating. Insomnia and sleep disturbances make it difficult to sleep. Sometimes it even leads to self-inflicted punishment (in various forms that destroy the body, such as drugs and alcohol). Even as believers, we suffer from those feelings of guilt and unworthiness. These are all symptoms of a guilty conscience that is away from God’s face.
How can you be delivered from a guilty conscience and enjoy God’s face? How, then, shall men come to God? A person can try 1,000 ways, but cannot solve this problem. The only solution is God’s appointed way. He Himself devised the way, and He has taught it to us in this chapter. This is God’s appointed way of access to Himself for every man. God’s wise plan is to resolve this problem by two means: a high priest mediator and a sacrifice—the Mediator and His atonement.
This is a great chapter in the whole law of Moses because it treats a matter of the very highest importance to all of us… practically, even as believers, it teaches us how we can overcome the blocks sin creates in our lives to enjoy God… grasping this truth can teach us the way to enjoy constant, unceasing fellowship with God. Oh, may the Holy Spirit open our eyes to learn this lesson, so that we may enter into the fullest fellowship with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ, in God’s appointed way alone. Hebrews calls it “the new and living way.”
On this great day, if the people of Israel were to survive in the presence of holy Jehovah, all this one-year accumulation of garbage had to be atoned for, removed, and put very far away. That is what happens on the blessed Day of Atonement. We saw the wonderful High Priest mediator—appointed in humiliation, righteousness, atonement, and the entrance of the mediator. An amazing fact of the Day of Atonement is that all the work on this day had to be done by the High Priest: he alone. “There shall be no man in the tabernacle of meeting when he goes in to make atonement in the Holy Place.”
On other days, almost all the work of the temple was done by other priests; but on this Day of Atonement, no one else did any work. All the work—sacrificing, taking the blood, smearing it—was done by the High Priest alone. This is a beautiful type that our High Priest—He and He alone—would do the final work of atonement—alone and unassisted; alone in the garden, alone on the cross, where even the two worst thieves could not have helped in any way. No disciple was crucified with Him, no angel helped Him; He was alone. “I have trodden the wine-press alone.” Oh, bow down and adore Him! Give all the glory unto His holy name, for alone and unassisted He made full atonement for your guilt.
Aaron the priest is a dim shadow type of the perfect Priest who was to come, so he brought his own tons of sins to the tabernacle, as he needed to atone for his own uncleanness accumulated throughout the year. Thus, verse 6 says: “Then Aaron shall offer the bull as a sin offering, which is for himself, that he may make atonement for himself and for his household.” Now, having made atonement for himself, he turned away from the problem of his own personal defilement to face the heavy burden of the nation’s uncleanness. Aaron had to provide a bull for himself, while the congregation provided Aaron with two goats for their sin problem as a sin offering. When you read the chapter, it may look confusing because the bull and goats get mixed up; but if you remember that the bull was for Aaron and his household’s sins, and the goats were for the people’s atonement, things will be clear. So we will skip all references to the bull for Aaron and only look at what he does for the people—that is what Christ fulfilled. What he does for the people is the two-goat ceremony. Notice verse 5: “And he shall take from the congregation of the sons of Israel two male goats for a sin offering and one ram for a burnt offering.”
Today, I want to focus simply on the two-goat ceremony. These two goats typify and emblemize the God-prescribed remedy for the terrible problem of a guilty conscience:
- Selection and casting of lots
- Sacrifice of the first goat
- Deportation of the second goat
Selection and casting of lots: Verse 7 states: “He shall take the two goats and present them before the Lord at the door of the tabernacle of meeting.” How were these two goats selected? They would buy them. These two goats were purchased by the public treasury of the temple. Similarly, Jesus Christ was valued at thirty pieces of silver from the public treasury, and so He was brought to be offered.
Verse 8: “Then Aaron shall cast lots for the two goats: one lot for the Lord and the other lot for the scapegoat.” These two goats would have two strikingly distinct roles in the atonement. Which goat would take which role was decided by casting lots? It is like writing names on paper or tossing a coin today. Why? Could they not just decide one for this and another for that? No, God said to decide by casting lots. Why? Proverbs 16:33 says, “The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the Lord.” Who cast the lots? Men did. But who decided the outcome? It is the sovereignty of God that decided which goat would take which role. The lot was cast by human means, but the result was determined by an invisible hand. How marvelously we see this in the Gospels! Who decided to put Jesus on the cross? We might think it was men who held the lots. As the historical drama unfolded, the leaders, the Sanhedrin, and Judas came in the dark of night to the Garden of Gethsemane, seized the Lamb of God, and put Him on the cross. True, it was all carried out by human instruments, but it was by God’s appointment and decree, as Peter says in Acts 2:23: “Him, being delivered by the determined purpose and foreknowledge of God, you have taken by lawless hands, have crucified, and put to death.”
Okay, the lot is cast; one is selected as a sin offering to be offered, and the other as the scapegoat. To identify each goat and ensure they were not mixed up, they would tie a scarlet cloth on the horns or forehead of the goat upon whose head hands were to be laid before being sent into the wilderness, and a scarlet cloth around the neck of the goat that was to be offered to God by cutting its throat.
Sacrifice of the sin offering: The first sacrifice is the sin-atoning goat. This sacrifice is a satisfaction of Jehovah’s justice. There are two stages. First, in verse 15, we see it by a bloody slaughter. Aaron would take the sin-atoning goat, as verse 15 says: “Then he shall kill the goat of the sin offering, which is for the people, bring its blood inside the veil, and sprinkle it on the mercy seat and before the mercy seat.” Imagine in your mind’s eye: Aaron drags this goat, takes a knife, and cuts the throat of the innocent goat. Blood gushes forth, it immediately collapses, and you mark its agonies—struggling for life, thrashing back and forth. It would be a very horrible, pitiable sight… this is the sin offering.
Brothers and sisters, behold your Savior. Do you see Him there in your mind’s eye? Your Savior arrested, sentenced to be sacrificed, beaten, scourged, with a heavy beam placed on Him? Do you see Him staggering and collapsing under the weight of the crossbeam as He is on His way to Golgotha? His body placed on the beam, and spikes being driven into His hands and into His feet? Do you see Him suffocating as for hours He is outstretched on the cross? Do you see Him crying out in dereliction, “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?” This goat dying on the Day of Atonement foreshadowed all of that.
The Father’s sword of justice must be quenched in one of two places: either by sinners being judged on the day of judgment, or by being sheathed in the heart of His own Son. We see it here in this dying sacrifice—the sheathing of the Father’s sword in the heart of His Son. And behold, behold the blood flowing from His open side as the goat typically spilled its blood. So we have seen the sin sacrifice by bloody slaughter.
Now the second stage is by bloody sprinkling, which we also see in verse 15. Then the High Priest, in his humble dress of a white linen tunic—imagine!—sacrifices the goat in the outer court. Then the High Priest goes inside the Holy Place, crosses the thick veil, and, holding his breath, enters into the Holy of Holies behind the veil, standing breathlessly inside and sprinkling the blood on the mercy seat and in front of the mercy seat. Beneath that mercy seat, the tablets of the Ten Commandments cry out in wrath because we have violated them all our life—all ten commandments billions of times every second in our minds, hearts, words, and actions. Every second we have failed to conform to that law, failing to love God with all our heart, resulting in infinite wrath boiling in God’s heart against our sins. Oh, praise God… all wrath and judgment are appeased by this blood! This is appeasing blood. This is propitiating blood. This is wrath-satisfying blood, given that we have violated all the ten words in the two tablets below.
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! We can see that our High Priest, as our representative the Lord Jesus Christ, did far more than go inside the veil. By offering Himself and crying out, “It is finished,” He bowed His head and died. Where did He go? Where He entered—He said to the thief, “Today you will be with Me in Paradise.” So He entered heaven and sprinkled His blood on the mercy seat, completely satisfying the justice and wrath of God against all sins, and completely fulfilling all the demands of His holy law. That is why God didn’t wait until His resurrection; as soon as He died, what happened? The earth shook, and the veil was torn wide open! And then there was the resurrection on the third day—all pointing to a perfect atonement. There was a public display of satisfied justice.
You see, even that public display is shown in types here. So beautiful! What took place inside the Holy Of Holies was between Aaron and God; how did the people know? So we see in verses 18-19: “And he shall go out to the altar that is before the Lord, and make atonement for it, and shall take some of the blood of the bull and some of the blood of the goat, and put it on the horns of the altar all around. Then he shall sprinkle some of the blood on it with his finger seven times, cleanse it, and consecrate it from the uncleanness of the children of Israel.”
What is he doing? He is making public a private transaction—what took place in the secret of the Holy of Holies between the High Priest and a holy God—so the whole nation can grasp hold of its significance. A public spectacle is then made for the burdened nation. Imagine the whole nation standing, holding their breath: our representative High Priest, bearing all our sins, went inside. Will he come back or die like his sons before the burning, holy God? Oh, what joy when they see the High Priest coming back from the veil! They all watch him coming back from behind the curtain, out onto a public stage where the eyes of the entire nation are focused on him.
Notice verse 18: “And he shall go out to the altar that is before the Lord.” This is the altar in the outer court, which others could see. “And he shall make atonement for it, and shall take some of the blood of the bull and the blood of the goat, and put it on the horns of the altar on all sides.”
The horns of the altar were like its pulpit, with four horns coming out of each corner. These horns were a symbol of strength. This refers to the golden altar of incense, which represented the prayers of God’s people, and the bronze altar of sacrifice, where incense was burned daily.
What a wonderful picture! God’s people are able to see the transaction that happened inside the veil—that God has accepted the atoning sacrifice, and their sins have been atoned for by the smearing of the blood on these four horns of the altar. Now, the blood on the horns of the altar of incense tells us that this blood is so powerful: it not only cleansed our uncleanness, but it has cleansed even our most holy services, like our prayers. Sacred things are cleansed and accepted by God now because of the blood. God has not only cleansed us, but even our prayers are accepted by God. The blood purified the altar from the “uncleanness of the children of Israel.”
Verse 19 says: “Then he shall sprinkle some of the blood on it with his finger seven times, cleanse it, and consecrate it from the uncleanness of the children of Israel.” How beautiful! How many times? Seven times. What does it mean? A complete, perfectly finished atonement and complete cleansing by the blood from all uncleanness is displayed by the seven sprinklings.
So we have seen the sin-atoning goat. Now, we turn to the transfer on the scapegoat in verses 20 through 22: “And when he has made an end of atoning for the Holy Place, the tabernacle of meeting, and the altar, he shall bring the live goat. Aaron shall lay both his hands on the head of the live goat, confess over it all the iniquities of the children of Israel, and all their transgressions, concerning all their sins, putting them on the head of the goat, and shall send it away into the wilderness by the hand of a suitable man. The goat shall bear on itself all their iniquities to an uninhabited land; and he shall release the goat in the wilderness.”
The word “scapegoat” in Hebrew is called Azazel, as you will find in most English Bibles. It is a puzzling word that has multiple interpretations. Much explanation is given; some strongly say this goat is given to Satan—explaining verse 8 as one goat offered to God and another sent to the wilderness for Satan, giving the meaning of a desert demon, Satan, who supposedly lived there, as Satan also had to be appeased because he held us captive. Some good preachers also explain it by saying that Satan is the accuser, and the scapegoat announces to the accusing evil one that sin has been atoned for—that the goat is sent out to announce to Azazel, the devil, that sin has been taken care of. But all this has no biblical basis. You will find many explaining it that way, but that notion is totally foreign to Old Testament and New Testament theology. In both the Old Testament and New Testament, we find that God alone is the offended party. God alone is the one whose wrath needs to be appeased and propitiated.
I believe it means simply a desolate place, a desert, as verses 21 and 22 say. Azazel is best understood as a place of cutting off—a wilderness, a place far away from the camp, far away from God, far away from the people of God. Deep into the wilderness, out of sight, where there is no return, in a barren land beyond the camp of God’s people.
The first goat put away sin by sacrifice; the second goat carries it away into oblivion. The first goat satisfied God’s justice. But now the second goat shows another dimension, and that is the dismissal of sins.
It’s interesting that the first ritual was done inside the veil, but this sending away was fully done in public view. The whole nation—millions of people—stood and beheld each and every element of this ritual. This ritual shows the outcome or fruit of the Day of Atonement. If you ask what the benefit of the Day of Atonement is, what the effect is, God says, “I’ll tell you what the effect of the atonement to come is.”
It is shown in two acts. The first act is the laying of hands on the head. We see it in verse 21: “And Aaron shall lay both his hands on the head of the live goat, confess over it all the iniquities of the sons of Israel and all their transgressions in regard to all their sins, putting them on the head of the goat.” Hands on the head—we see here the High Priest who is the representative of that sin-burdened nation, those millions of people with heavy trucks of sin and uncleanness upon their backs.
We see this representative take both of his hands and press them down upon the head of this scapegoat. And what does he do there? He confesses all of the iniquity of the sons of Israel and transfers everything onto the head of this scapegoat. It would not be just a few minutes, maybe a long prayer. You can even picture him standing there and confessing sin after sin—confessing sins of presumption, sins of ignorance, sins of uncleanness, sins of omission, sins that are heinous and sins that are more heinous, and ceremonial neglect. It’s almost as if you can see standing behind him, one by one, every Jew coming and dropping off their heavy load—mountains of garbage accumulated from a year of sin—upon the back of that scapegoat. One after another, hundred after hundred, thousand after thousand, billions…
“Lord, we have broken all ten commandments; we have been idolatrous. Lord, we have blasphemed Your name. Lord, we have been Sabbath-breakers. Not only have we been picking up sticks on the Sabbath, deserving to be stoned, but we have made profit on the Sabbath. Lord, we have children who have not obeyed their parents. Husbands have not loved wives; we have been murderous in our hating. We have been adulterous in our lusting. We have robbed You of tithes. We have been deceitful in not telling the truth. We have been covetous in our discontentment.” As he would go on and on, rehearsing the sins of a nation,
and you can see, brethren, the mountain of wrath-deserving defilement being heaped upon the back of that scapegoat. What does the camp of Israel deserve because of their sin? They deserve to be cast far away from God and not receive any of His blessings… far away to destruction by fire and brimstone.
Look at the face of the poor goat… millions of truckloads and barrels of iniquity placed upon that goat. And what do we say, brethren? Oh, what a beast of burden! What a beast of burden was this substitute… poor animal… you should see its face…
Just keep watching him… suddenly, graphically… his face turns into the face of a man… do you see the face of… Oh, what a beast of burden is our Savior, our Lord Jesus Christ! As Isaiah 53:2-3 and 5-6 says: “He has no form or comeliness; and when we see Him, there is no beauty that we should desire Him… He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed.”
His face was not like a human face at all… why? God has caused the iniquity of us all to fall upon Him. “He was oppressed and He was afflicted, yet He opened not His mouth; He was led as a lamb to the slaughter…”
It was all transferred onto our scapegoat, Christ. He became our scapegoat… who bore not only a one-year truckload of household garbage, but a whole lifetime of infinite dirty garbage that kept flowing from birth… it was poured on Him one by one, until He who knew no sin became sin for us.
And not only your sin. When you think of the weight of the guilt that was placed upon Him on Golgotha, it was a mountain range of the sins of the elect. Barrels of sin from people—men and women from every age, from every tribe, from every tongue, from every kindred, from every nation. From Adam, the first believer, all the way to the last believer who will embrace the Lord Jesus Christ until He comes back. All of those heavy barrels of uncleanness were placed upon the back of our Beloved.
And as John the Baptist said, I say to you: “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” Transfer onto the scapegoat.
Now, the second act: the sending away of the scapegoat into the wilderness. After transferring all this guilt, see the face of the goat… will we feed and give water to the poor goat? No… most cruelly… and that is in verses 21b and 22, where it says: “And he shall send the goat away into the wilderness by the hand of a suitable man. The goat shall bear on itself all their iniquities,” all the oceans of garbage on its back to a solitary land, to the depths of the wilderness… he will go to a place of no return.
Now, what is all this? Brethren, this is a public visual aid for the burdened conscience of the ancient people of God. Burdened. They hear of the law of God. They hear of His moral law. They hear of His civil law. They hear of His ceremonial law. And they see they don’t keep the law as they sweep up, day by day, the sins of themselves and their families. They are burdened by how much they are violating the law of God. And when they come annually at the Day of Atonement, they are burdened in conscience by their sins.
But we see here, we see this visual aid as an appointed escort accompanies the goat deep out into the wilderness. It may be that a rope was tied around the neck of the goat and he led him miles and miles away to Azazel. He was to go so many miles that it was assured the goat would never find his way back. He was to go to Azazel, a place of removal, of being cut off… It is said they had different men placed at different locations to take it very far… so it could not be seen anymore.
All the people see the scapegoat carrying all their burdens going, going, going far, until after some time they lose sight of it. A suitable man goes with it, and they wait, and after a long time, the man returns back, signaling that the goat is gone. He says he can no longer see it; it has gone so far that it will not return. You should picture that moment. There would be a celebration of clapping hands, blowing of trumpets… for all these burdens of their nation’s sins are gone far away, and they will never come back. All these sins have been carried into oblivion.
Leviticus 25:9 says that once every fifty years on the Day of Jubilee: “You shall cause the trumpet of the Jubilee to sound on the tenth day of the seventh month; on the Day of Atonement you shall make the trumpet sound throughout all your land.” The sounding of the ram’s horn there on the Day of Atonement speaks of how the debts of God’s people have been canceled.
Jubilee was a year of deliverance. Whatever debts you owed to someone, if you were a slave or if you had sold your land, everything was returned to you every Jubilee year—every 50 years. Imagine what joy that brought to people who had gone into debt, who had to sell themselves into slavery, or who had lost their land and their house. On the Day of Jubilee, all debts were canceled. They were given back their land and their house.
When the signals came back and the report returned that our sins were gone, there was rejoicing! Then the horn was to be sounded, then came the celebration—now is Jubilee, for all the debts have been canceled! And we can see the blessed blasts sounding, speaking of liberty. Our sins are gone. Our debts are gone. Our sentence is gone.
Do you see the blessed theological drama found in these Old Covenant shadows depicting perpetual truths? Our scapegoat, the Lord Jesus Christ, has taken away our sins upon His head, just like the scapegoat, and He took them so far away from us—all past, present, and future—that they can never come back. He made them a non-entity in the eyes of God. Oh, soul, can you see your sins all gone? See that goat… keep looking at it… until you lose sight of it… rejoice that your sins are gone like that! They are utterly cast into the wilderness of forgetfulness, where they shall never be found against us anymore forever—not even on the day of judgment. But mark this: this goat did not sacrificially make the atonement—it was a type of the sins going away, and so it was a symbol of the outcome of the atonement. For as you know, since our sins are thereby lost, it is the fruit of the atonement, whereas the sacrifice is the means of making it.
Think of that burdened scapegoat: it would go far, far away, with no water and no food, burning in the hot desert, starving, alone, and dying. Oh, what a picture of what our Lord went through! He went far away… to the utmost place… and suffered… so far away that He had to cry out, “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?” Billions and billions of miles… He traveled… very far… carrying our sins to a place where they would never return… Praise His name!
Application
Blessed be God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ for the Day of Atonement!
Oh, suffering, guilty-conscienced sinners… even believers… may the Holy Spirit help us to grasp this truth… how can these mountain loads and oceans of pressing guilt be removed?
How can you be delivered from a guilty conscience? Behold the answer in these two goats: one by a suffering substitute who bears all the punishment and wrath for our sins, and then the scapegoat that carries our sin far away. Our Jesus Christ accomplished both of these works!
How can you and I participate in that work and experience a cleansed conscience? By doing what the High Priest did: by placing our hands on the forehead of God’s appointed scapegoat. That is the only way our sins can be removed from our conscience—the only means appointed by God. We must rest the full weight of our souls upon Him—the Lord Jesus, the scapegoat of God, the Lamb of God. There is nowhere else, sinner, nowhere else where you can unburden your guilt. It will not leave you through all this life or even in eternity…
God’s sword of justice will pierce in only one of two places: it must either be plunged into Christ on crucifixion day, or cut you to pieces on judgment day. Which will it be? There is no other place for the sheathing of that sword. This is the only means for the removal of our sins.
What must we do? We must have faith in Him. That is what the laying on of hands represents—the hands of faith. Grabbing hold of, placing weight upon. Faith is typified by the laying on of hands while confessing sin: “Lord, I am a wretched sinner. I have violated Your law. I have been ungodly in Your presence. I am unclean and unfit to be near You.” And then we have to rest the full weight of our hope upon Him. If we are to experience deliverance from a guilty conscience and enjoy the light of God’s face—for which our soul yearns—this is the divinely appointed means.
And our hope rests exclusively on His work alone. Now I ask you—I ask you who are sitting here—have your hands touched the scapegoat’s head? If not, your loathsome load remains, and your conscience will torture you all your life. There is no other way to rid your back of the heavy load. No way. Stagger, stagger now with all the weight of your sin to this Lamb and put your hands upon Him.
“Oh, I’ve been there before, Pastor; I’ve done this. But why do I feel guilty again… not happy?” You have to learn how to deal with guilt as a believer. Every time you feel guilty, and you haven’t learned to come back to this scapegoat, lay your hands on Him, confess it, repent, and send all your guilt far away. 1 John 1:9 says: “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”
What a visual aid is found here for our spiritually disabled souls! We are like mentally disabled children spiritually; it is so difficult to grasp theological truths, and then, once having grasped them, we have such a hard time remembering them. Therefore, God gives us visual aids here in the Old Covenant in dealing with His immature people. Every time you feel the burden of sin and do not feel the light of God’s presence, remember the two goats. Place your hands on the head… send your goat far away…
You will experience, like Pilgrim in The Pilgrim’s Progress, the big burden falling off. How much joy he felt! He said he felt glad and lightsome as it rolled away and was buried in a tomb, never to be seen again. “Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” What tranquility to muse upon and ponder these things!
Believe God’s promises! Psalm 103:12 says: “As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us.” It is an infinite distance; you cannot go from east to west. Brethren, our sin is profoundly irretrievable. Isaiah 38:17 says: “You have cast all my sins behind Your back.” That means out of God’s sight—it’s behind His back. Jeremiah 31:34 says: “For I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.” My sins are banished from Him, non-existent in the mind of God. God’s all-searching eye finds them no more. Isn’t that glorious? Micah 7:19 says: “He will again have compassion on us; He will subdue our iniquities. You will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea”—just as the scapegoat is sent out into the depths of the wilderness, sunken in the wilderness, never to be seen again. Oh, why does the Holy Spirit give such promises and pictures, if not to give assurance to a staggering, guilty conscience? May the Holy Spirit fasten it tight into your conscience so you won’t forget it!
What should be our response to the Day of Atonement? Hebrews 10 tells us the purpose of the great Day of Atonement:
Hebrews 10:19–22: “Therefore, brethren, having boldness to enter the Holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which He consecrated for us, through the veil, that is, His flesh, and having a High Priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.”
The great achievement of the Day of Atonement is that we should draw near to God by a new and living way. How? With boldness, full assurance, and a cleansed conscience.
First: We should have boldness, freedom, and liberty to enter God’s presence. When we realize Christ’s blood has been sprinkled on the mercy seat, all sins are atoned for, and the law is satisfied—if we truly believe that—it gives us bold access into the presence of God. The smearing of the blood on the altar not only removes our sins, but all our prayers, worship, and songs of service become pleasing and acceptable to God—not because they are perfect in themselves, no. Everything we do on our own is unholy; our poor prayers are unholy, for we have uttered them, and that which comes out of unholy lips like ours must be tainted. But ah! It is a prayer that has been sprinkled with blood, and therefore it must be a holy prayer—a most pleasing prayer, a most pleasing act of worship.
It is so pleasing… I told you He comes with incense, showing how pleased God is… so pleased! Do you know about Aaron alone in the Holy of Holies? You know God always has two other creatures with Him: the two cherubim, forged in gold. You see the presence of the cherubim in Revelation 4 and 5 always—four living creatures who are ever surrounding the throne, worshipping the living God. You see, the cherubim are a source of great delight in the presence of God. God delights in the eternal and perpetual worship of the cherubim. No one else was allowed to come so close to God’s Holy of Holies than these beings.
Do you know something? When we as sinners, because of the sprinkled blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, come before Him, we can now offer up to God in His presence, with bold access, worship that is as delightful to God as the worship of the cherubim! Think of it! In our prayers, we come into the presence of the living God. Our sin has been covered by the redemptive work of our Lord Jesus Christ. When we pray, our prayers are received as being so delightful to God—praise like that of the highest cherubim! God delights in them—oh, as delightful as the cherubim!
In the fullness of redemption… when we go to heaven… does God delight in our presence? Scripture says He will rejoice over us with singing. Oh, yes! It will be as delightful as the worship of the cherubim. Why? Because of the blood—the blood of this beloved Lamb, this goat who was offered and sprinkled on our behalf.
Secondly: You are supposed to draw near with full assurance of faith. You are supposed to draw near with assurance because your sins have been forgiven through Jesus Christ’s work. See that full assurance, without any doubt! Trusting God’s promise… draw near!
Thirdly: With a clean conscience. We should draw near to God with full assurance and a clean conscience. This enjoyment of a clean conscience should make us draw closer to God. In fact, it naturally happens: as soon as the conscience is cleansed, the peace of God that surpasses all understanding takes over, and one feels a strong pull to come to his satisfying Creator.
So the great achievement of the Day of Atonement is that we, as creatures yearning for God’s face, can now, because of Christ, draw near to God with boldness, with full assurance, and with a clean conscience.
Fourthly (verse 23): “Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering.” If the Lord has done this for you, if He has shed the blood of His own Son, hold fast without wavering! Don’t turn back, keep on going—persevere!
Fifthly: Look at verse 24: “And let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works.” Hebrews tells us to encourage one another to love and obedience. Encourage one another… stimulate one another to love and good deeds. That’s what we are to do. If Jesus has given this full and final sacrifice on our behalf, what should we do? Encourage one another to love; encourage one another to be like Him.
In verse 25, what are we supposed to do in response to this? “Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the Day approaching.” Isn’t that interesting? Don’t stop going to church! That’s the application that the author of Hebrews gives: because of the full and final sacrifice of Jesus Christ, we are not to forsake the assembling of ourselves together, as is the habit of some.
Because you can experience drawing near to God with boldness, full assurance of faith, and a clean conscience—and enjoy His grace—only through these means. So do not stop assembling together.