Leviticus 16: Coram Deo; Life in God’s Sight #4

The author, John Steinbeck, once said, “I have never smuggled anything in my life. Why then do I feel an uneasy sense of guilt on approaching a customs barrier?”

Now I’m sure that Steinbeck’s story resonates with us all. It tells us something about human nature, namely, that it doesn’t take much for our inner sense of guilt to surface. Stand in front of an authority figure and instantly we feel insecure, worried, guilty!

Guilt is a universal problem. It is basic to who we are. We all face it. The question is how do we deal with it? Some of us just quietly live with our guilt, in shame and self loathing, feeling the memory of our misdeeds poison us slowly over time.

Others try to alleviate guilt by redefining sin. All over Britain we are busily engaged in redefining ethical boundaries. Sex outside of marriage is not sin, homosexual relationships are not sinful, abortion, drug abuse, social security fraud, tax evasion…all hurt no-one, they are victimless crimes, we say to ourselves. We try to redefine the norms and reinvent what is right and what is wrong, so that we need not feel guilt any more. ‘Guilt’ we tell ourselves, ‘is a tyrannical weapon in the hands of those who want to control us and manipulate us. We are free to define the good and the bad. We decide what is culpable and what is not.’

Nevertheless, for all our attempts to bury guilt and redefine the moral absolutes that hold us accountable, we need only approach the customs desk at the airport to uncover a nameless sense of guilt and shame welling up within us  that we’ve not yet been able to exercise, as John Steinbeck found out.

Whatever we do to bury our guilt, it just will not let go of our consciences, fundamentally because we not are ultimately accountable to ourselves, nor to the legislature of our country, we are accountable to Almighty God whose standards remain unchanged despite our best efforts to the contrary.

This week as we turn to the fourth in our series on Leviticus, we come to the theological core of the whole book, the ritual known as the Day of Atonement. And the key idea in the Day of Atonement ceremony is dealing with guilt. Not just guilty feelings, but the objective guilt that is ours when we break God’s law. God wants to show us in this chapter how Atonement deals both with feeling guilty and being guilty.

In particular it teaches us four things about Atonement.

1. Atonement satisfies God’s wrath. This has been called the principle of propitiation

2. Atonement removes our guilt. This is the principle of expiation.

3. Atonement triumphs over Satan.

So first of all let’s look together at how atonement satisfies God’s wrath.

The Chapter begins with some instructions to Aaron about making sacrifices for his own sin, then it moves on, in verses 7-10, to the heart of the Day of Atonement ritual.

Aaron is to take the two goats that the community of Israel were to present for the purpose, and he is to bring them to the entrance to the Tabernacle (vs.7).

We’re told what happens to the first goat in verses 15-19, in a ceremony that is designed to teach us the principle of propitiation.

‘Propitiation’ is really the Biblical term that describes the effects of the atoning sacrifice on God. It satisfies God’s justice and wrath on our sin.

After the priest actually atones for his own sin in 11-14, he is to make atonement for the nation by slaughtering the first goat and taking its blood behind the curtain (vs. 15) that separates the general interior of the Tabernacle and the Most Holy Place. There he sprinkles the blood on what is called the ‘atonement cover’ and atones for the uncleanness and rebellion of the people (vs.16).

Now notice that according to verse 17 ‘no-one is to enter the Tent of Meeting from the time Aaron goes into the Most Holy Place until he comes out having made atonement for himself his household and the whole community of Israel.’ The blood is taken behind the curtain that separates the Most Holy place from the rest of the sanctuary, where none but the High Priest may go, and when he enters the Most Holy Place no-one is allowed to enter the whole Tabernacle.

In other words, the actions that make atonement take place solely before God. No-one but God sees what the priest does with the blood of the first goat. This sacrifice is all about God, it is done in His sight alone. It has reference to Him.

And notice that Aaron is to sprinkle this blood upon the ‘atonement cover and in front of it’ (vs. 15). Now the atonement cover was a platform set on top of the Ark of the Covenant. The Ark of the Covenant was the special symbol of the presence of God in the midst of Israel. It was the physical emblem of the Lord, and applying blood to the Atonement cover above the ark was a symbolic application of blood to God Himself.

The blood of the first goat symbolically did something to God. It satisfied the justice of God. That is what propitiation means. It’s a sacrifice that satisfies the wrath and anger of God that burns against our sin.

Now in the New Testament the Greek word for atoning sacrifice, for propitiation, ‘hilasterion’, is the same word that is used in the Greek version of the Old Testament, (the version the New Testament writers used), for the ‘atonement cover’, the place where blood was sprinkled by the High priest in the Most Holy Place on the Day of Atonement.

 To describe the effects of the blood of Christ shed on the Cross the New Testament goes to Leviticus 16.

So for example, Paul, speaking of the redemption that came by Jesus Christ in Romans 3:25 says, “God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement (literally ‘hilasterion’- a propitiation) through faith in His blood.” In vs. 26 Paul says that in sending Christ to be our propitiation, God was enabled to be both ‘just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus’.

How can God be holy and save sinners? How can God uphold his own justice and hatred of sin and save rebels nevertheless? The answer, says Paul, is that He has sent Christ to satisfy the demands of his justice for all who believe in Him. That way God can be both just, having the demands of His law fully met, and the justifier of believers.

Likewise the Apostle John, in 1 John 2:1-2, says, “If anyone does sin, we have one who speaks to the Father in our defence- Jesus Christ the Righteous One. He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, (‘atoning sacrifice’ here, is again the word propitiation. ‘He himself is the propitiation for our sins’) and not only for ours, but also for the sins of the whole world.”

Do you see what John is saying? God’s law suit against us will certainly condemn us for our guilt and sin, but then Jesus Christ the righteous one speaks on our behalf. And on what basis does he make His plea before the Father?

He argues that He has made atonement; he is the propitiation for our sins. He has fully satisfied the wrath of God due to us. There is no debt outstanding in our account. There is no sentence left for us to serve. He has paid our debts. He has served our sentence. He is the propitiation for our sins.

And, ‘not for our sins only’, he says, ‘but for the sins of the whole world’. Every category of human beings are now included among those for whom Christ takes away God’s wrath. This morning if you are not a Christian, God’s wrath burns against you. But Jesus is the propitiation for the sin of the whole world. Whoever you are, there is atonement for you in Jesus Christ.

You may remember that Jesus told a story that points the way to receiving the benefits of Christ’s propitiating sacrifice for ourselves in Luke 18: 9-14.

Two men are praying. One is a self righteous Pharisee. The other is a tax collector who knows himself to be a sinner.  Of him Jesus said, “he stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God have mercy on me a sinner.’

Now what he actually said was ‘God be propitious to me the sinner’. The word ‘merciful’ (‘God be merciful to me a sinner) is the same word that Paul uses in Romans 3, and that John uses in 1 John 2, to describe the atoning sacrifice of Christ.

This sinful man was in the temple. And he is praying for mercy and forgiveness. And his whole basis for praying rests on the sacrifices offered there to propitiate God’s wrath and satisfy His justice. He is probably thinking especially about the blood sprinkled on the atonement cover on top of the Ark of the Covenant.

And the message of the rest of the New Testament is that the sacrifice, on which such men really rest, is the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. The true blood that propitiates is the blood of Jesus Christ. All the other sacrifices were symbolic of him.

And the man in Jesus’ story did not say ‘God be merciful to me a sinner’ as in our translation. What he said was, ‘God be merciful to me the sinner.’ The only sinner in this man’s sights was himself. He was the sinner, as though there were no others. In his view he was the sinner par excellence. The chief of sinners, so keenly did he feel sins reality and ugliness in his own life.

He was in these few brief words, making a full confession of His guilt and eyeing the one sacrifice that could make him acceptable in God’s sight. It was this man, not the Pharisee, says Jesus, who went home justified, declared righteous and forgiven before God.

How do you benefit from the propitiation accomplished by Christ? Say with this poor man, ‘Oh, God be propitious to me the sinner’. Eye the Cross with faith, confessing your sins, not mechanically, but fully and from the heat. Agree with God that you are guilty and deserving of hell. Then make the One who endured Hell in the place of sinners your only plea at the bar of God’s justice.

Say, ‘I am guilty as charged, but there is One who has already paid for my crimes. If your wrath were to rest on me it could never be satisfied. It would consume me forever, but one has come who was able to drink to the dregs the cup of your wrath on my sin and quench its flames. I am worthy of condemnation, but there is One who was condemned for me.’

If you will reject the self justifying, sin excusing, arrogance of the Pharisee, and adopt the self deprecating stance of the tax collector, and entrust yourself only to the One who has made propitiation for your sins, Jesus Christ, then you too, like this poor man, will go home justified, right in God’s sight.

So that’s the first thing, atonement satisfies God’s justice. The secondly notice that atonement removes our guilt.

It has been said that “guilt is the gift that keeps on giving”. Once guilt takes hold it never lets go. And guilt has two sides to it, doesn’t it? There is objective guilt; being guilty of sin. And there is subjective guilt; feeling the guilt of our sin. Before God we feel guilty because we are guilty.

And the ritual of the scapegoat is an ancient Old Testament lesson in dealing, God’s way, with being and feeling guilty.

Look at verse 20-22. After Aaron returns from the Most Holy Place where the first goat was sacrificed, he was to take the second goat, the one called the scapegoat in our translations and in plain sight of the people, he was to place his hands on its head and confess their sins. Clearly the meaning of this strange act was to symbolically, ‘Put their sin on the goats head’ (vs. 21). Israel’s sin was transferred to the goat as their and then in the sight of all the people the goat was sent away into the wilderness, and released.

And look at the contrast with the other goat. The first goat was slaughtered and its blood made atonement, out of sight of the people, only God saw. The second goat had all the sins of the nation laid on it in plain view of the people, and it was sent away, carrying their sin, alive into the wilderness.

The first goat was about God. It dealt with God’s wrath. It was an act of propitiation. This goat is about the people and their sin and guilt. It is an act of expiation, of removing guilt and taking away sin.

The people stood and listened as their sin was recounted before them and transferred to the head of the scapegoat. Then they watched their sin being carried away into the wilderness. It is now gone and removed from the camp of Israel. God has removed their guilt and sin.

 And what more beautiful image have we of the work of Jesus for us? He bore our sin away. “God made him who knew no sin to be sin for us.” Corinthians 5:21.

He takes our sin away. Our guilt is removed by Jesus Christ! It is all transferred to his account. Just as the Israelites watched the scapegoat being led away, and saw in it their sin being taken out of sight into the wilderness, so we see in Jesus, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world our guilt and sin being taken forever out of God’s sight!

And some of us may need to hear that again. We have long trusted in Christ to save us, but we still find it hard to accept that we are really forgiven. We can’t help but wonder if somehow something of our former guilt still sticks to us.

But let Leviticus 16 remind you. Your sin is gone. It has been forever lost in the wilderness. Jesus Christ has born it away and it shall never return. When God looks on you, however much your life still falls short of his perfect holiness and glory, he sees only purity. There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus!

Atonement satisfies God’s wrath. Atonement removes our guilt. Then thirdly, atonement triumphs over Satan.

Look again at verse 8-10. In verse 8 we are told that Aaron is to, “cast lots for the two goats; the one lot is for the LORD and the other for…” and then comes a Hebrew word that is used only in this chapter in the whole Bible, and scholars are unsure what it means, but our Bibles translate it as a ‘scapegoat’; ‘the other lot is for the scapegoat’.

But that translation completely misses the symmetry of the text. Most commentators on the difficult Hebrew of this verse see two personal names here set in parallel to one another; the name of the LORD, and another name, ‘Azazel’. (And if you look at verse 8 in the NIV, there is a footnote reference that offers that as an alternative reading).

Azazel is the Hebrew word the NIV translates ‘a scapegoat’. But when you leave it as a name, Azazel, the symmetry of the text is quite clear. One lot is for the Lord the other lot is for Azazel. One goat goes to be sacrificed to God, the other goat we’re told in vs.10 is to be released into the desert for Azazel (same word again).

Now in the Book of Enoch, a Jewish book written between the Old and New testament, and in the Talmud, a book that record many of the ancient Rabbi’s teachings, Azazel was the name for a demon, or for the devil.

And here, I think, is what we are to see in the ritual of the goat for Azazel. The goat is sent into the wilderness, a place symbolic of dereliction, and chaos, and death, to Azazel, there to show that the sins of God’s people have been removed, and all his schemes and accusations against them have come to nothing!

The devil schemes to destroy God’s people. He longs to see their sin stick. He wants them to fall under the wrath and curse of God, and he has been working all year round to sow seeds of rebellion and disobedience to the Law of God. But once a year God had ordained, to demonstrate to him that all his schemes have come to nothing. A goat is sent alive into the wilderness, to Azazel, bearing Israel’s sin away. Instead of Israel obliterated because of their sin, here is their representative, alive, and carrying their sins far from them!

It was a symbolic declaration of the victory of God over evil. Azazel, the devil, the accuser of the brethren, has been defeated. Israel’s sins have been removed. This living goat, not a dead nation clearly proclaimed that Israel has been forgiven. Instead of death here is life. Instead of sin sticking to Israel’s account, here is their representative and substitute carrying it away.

Now in the New Testament, the theme of God’s victory over Satan is related specifically to the work of Jesus Christ. Colossian 2:13 says Jesus ‘disarmed the powers and authorities, and made a public spectacle of them’. 1 John 3:8 tells us that Christ was, ‘revealed to destroy the works of the devil’. Hebrews 2:14 says that Jesus died in order that by his resurrection he should ‘defeat the one who holds the power of death’.

Christ our sin bearer faced Satan’s temptations in the wilderness, bore our guilt away at the cross, and triumphed over death with life eternal in the resurrection. In them all, Jesus, the true scapegoat, faced Azazel, the Devil, bearing all the accusations of the enemy of our souls. And still today the Accuser does his worst to bring us low, but he cannot make our sin stick any more, for our scapegoat has borne our sins far from us, and confronts Satan as a living sin bearer. As one preacher put it, in the scapegoat of Leviticus 16, we see a picture of Jesus Christ who “stands in the presence of Satan, resurrected and alive, not dead. The accuser of sinners is answered by the living substitute who conquered sin and death.”

So atonement satisfies God’s wrath. Atonement removes our guilt. And atonement triumphs over the devil.

Well, what are the implications of all of that for us?

1^st.  Marvel at the all sufficiency of our Saviour. In the rituals of the Day of Atonement we see the many facets of the work of Jesus Christ. What required many rituals and symbols to depict, required only the God-man to fulfil. He is perfectly and completely fitted to be your all sufficient saviour. He can deal with your guilt and your shame. He can satisfy God’s justice and overcome the devil. There is nothing lacking in Jesus to meet your every spiritual need.

What a perfect object for our trust. Are you in need of forgiveness? Through Christ forgiveness has been bought and paid for. Do you long for your sin to be taken away? Christ had them all placed upon his head, and has fled with them into the wilderness, there to leave them out of sight forever. Do you suffer from the constant accusations of Satan, that you are somehow a fraud and a hypocrite and a shameful, hateful, failure? Jesus Christ has confronted Azazel, the Devil, with his life of sin bearing and victory. Satan’s accusations all fall to the ground as the empty threats of a desperate creature, because before God, in Jesus Christ, we are acquitted and made clean!

Trust in this Christ and God’s wrath is gone. Trust in this Christ, and all your sin is gone. Trust in this Christ and Satan’s power to condemn is gone!

2ndly. If God’s wrath is gone, and our guilt is gone, and Satan’s power to condemn is gone, because of what Christ has done, how careful ought we to be to live lives of daily thankfulness and careful obedience? What trial will be too great to endure if we grasp the greatness of what Christ has done for us? What sin will be too precious to us to root out and destroy when we find it lodged in some corner of our lives?

Let’s take care to calculate the sufficiency of Christ to save to the uttermost all who come to God by him, and trust him to do it, and worship him for it, and live for him in the joy that it brings.

Atonement satisfies God’s wrath, it removes our guilt and it triumphs over the devil. May it do so for you this morning.

Amen