The Sacrifice of Christ as Shown on the Day of Atonement

It shall be a Sabbath of rest unto you, and ye shall afflict your souls, by a statute forever. And this shall be an everlasting statute unto you, to make an atonement for the children of Israel for all their sins once a year.--Leviticus 16:31, 34

The tenth day of the seventh month was to be set apart every year as a "Sabbath" in which Israel was to afflict their souls, a Sabbath in which no work was to be performed, save that of the affliction of their souls (Leviticus 23:27, 28; Numbers 9:7). They were to keep themselves aware of their sinfulness and their need of atonement.

The sacrifices of this day, or any day, could not take away sin nor make the people perfect (Hebrews 10:1,2, 4); but they were a feature of the law of which not one jot or one tittle would pass away until all should be fulfilled (Matthew 5:18). These sacrifices were to be repeated yearly, keeping Israel conscious of sin (Hebrews 10:3) until the "better sacrifices." These are the sacrifices pictured by the bullock and the goat--Christ and his church, by which those sanctified by way of them, would be made perfect forever (Hebrews 10:14).

All the blood shed upon Jewish altars pointed forward to this great sacrifice for sin slain on behalf of both the church and, later, the entire human race.. The blood of bulls and of goats could never take away sin, only the antitypical sacrifice could do this, `the precious blood.' On this subject of the sacrifice for sins, see Hebrews 9:12, 10:10, Ephesians. 5:2, 1 Corinthians 5:7, 1 Peter 2:22-24, and 2 Corinthians 5:21 in the Diaglott.

This ritual was a part of the law and was intended to point to Christ (Galatians 3:19,24). At least some part of the fleshly seed might become the true "seed of Abraham" and "heirs according to the promise" (Galatians 3:29). In the typical sacrifices therefore, there was the remembrance of sin (Hebrews 10:3) which God did not want them to ever forget.

Then Jesus came to offer himself to God in absolute consecration and dedication to the Father's will. He made it possible to take away the "first" (the typical sacrifices for sin) and to establish the "second" (the anti-typical, the real sacrifice for sin), which would thoroughly and completely remedy sin, never needing any repeating (Hebrews 10:9).

Leviticus 16

In Leviticus 16 we have the divinely arranged picture of the Day of Atonement and its sacrificial work. The High Priest took a bullock, which was for himself and his house, and slew (sacrificed) it. The bullock represented our Lord during his ministry on earth. Later two goats were brought and tied at the door of the tabernacle. These were taken from the congregation, the people of Israel, and were typical of the household of faith, the Lord's consecrated people--two classes of them, the "little flock" and the "great company." The type shows that these do not have bodies especially prepared for sacrifice. This is particularly shown in the statement that the goats were taken for a sin-offering while no such statement is made respecting the bullock. Our Lord, by reason of his miraculous birth, was actually perfect--"holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners." Our imperfections are reckoned as covered by Christ's sacrifice--by the first part of his sacrifice--atoned for by the blood of the antitypical bullock, the blood of Christ.

The apostle points out that our Lord's sacrifice took place at the beginning of his ministry and was finished at its close. He could not be the sin sacrifice until his thirtieth year, the age a man could enter the priesthood according to the law (Numbers 4:3). It is written that just as soon as he became thirty he made the sacrifice: "Now when Jesus began to be about thirty years of age he cometh to John at Jordan to be baptized of him." We may be sure that he arrived in time to present himself in sacrifice to the Lord at the very earliest possible moment. He fulfilled the prophecy, "Lo, I have come, as in the volume of the Book it is written of me, to do thy will, O God. Thy law is written in my heart." "There," says the apostle, "he taketh away the first that he may establish the second." He began to set aside the typical for the "better sacrifices." The offering of himself was instantaneous, but the presentation of his body to the trials and difficulties of life continued throughout his ministry and finished on Calvary. He consecrated himself in a moment, to give up all, even life itself, in the Father's service. The actual giving of time, influence, strength, vitality, lasted three and a half years.

From his consecration at baptism he was considered dead as a human being and begotten of the holy spirit to a new nature. He was reckoned alive as a new creature. During the next three and a half years, his flesh was consumed and the new nature grew strong, developing in harmony with his Father's will. At the cross, the consumption of the sacrifice was completed. The new creature was riased by the Father's power, as a glorious spirit being, invisible to the dead world, but manifested to the disciples under various forms and under various circumstances to prove that he was no longer dead, that he was no longer the man Jesus, but the glorified spirit Jesus. Thus the apostle says, "He was put to death in the flesh, but quickened in the spirit." (In the Greek, the definite articles are supplied by the translators, making the text read "He was put to death flesh, but quickened spirit."

Many Overlapping Pictures

Not only was our Lord Jesus pictured in the sacrificed bullock, he was also pictured by the High Priest. The main distinction was the bullock represented the perfect man and the priest represented the new mind begotten of the Holy Spirit .

The High Priest was instructed to kill the bullock for a sin-offering. The fat, the kidneys and other life-producing organs were placed on the Brazen Altar in the court. Later, the hides and dung were taken without the camp (Leviticus 16: 27) and burned. He was also instructed to take a censer full of burning coals from off the brazen altar along with his hands full of sweet incense, bring it into the Holy and burn the sweet incense on the altar before the Lord. The incense yielded a sweet perfume which penetrated through the second veil into the Most Holy.

Compare the doings of Jesus with this prophetic picture of his work. When the man Christ Jesus had consecrated himself, he immediately, as a new creature and begotten by the holy spirit, took the sacrificed human life (blood of the bullock) to present it before God. Spirit begotten, he was no longer in the court condition, but in the first compartment of the tabernacle, the holy, where he must tarry and offer his incense upon the fire of trial. He must demonstrate his loyalty to God and righteousness by the things suffered as a begotten son before entering the Most Holy--the perfect spiritual condition (Hebrews 5:8).

The High Priest took with him (along with the blood) fire from off the altar and his two hands full of sweet incense to cause the perfume. The sweet incense beaten small represented the perfection of the man Jesus. The fire from the Brazen Altar represented the trial to which he was subject. Its being carried along with the priest signifies that our Lord must, by his own course of faithfulness, bring his persecutions upon himself. When the perfection of his being (incense) came in contact with the trials of life (fire), he yielded perfect obedience to the divine will, a sweet perfume. The sweet incense went before him and appeared in the presence of God before he finished his course at Calvary. His death upon the cross was the last crumb of incense falling into the fire, in the antitype.

While Jesus, as a new creature, was within the holy, enjoying the light of the golden candlestick, fed by the bread of truth, and offering acceptable incense to Jehovah, let us look out into the court and see another simultaneous work. There in the court on the Brazen Altar is a another fire burning away. The bullock has much fat. A cloud of smoke, called a "sweet savor to God," rises in the sight of all who are in this court. This represents how Jesus' sacrifice appeared to believing men. They saw the devotion, the self-sacrifice, the loving zeal (fat) ascending to God as an acceptable sacrifice. They knew the Father was well pleased with him.

While these two fires were burning a third one "outside the camp" smolders with a stench--the burning of the hides and dung, an apt picture of the view the world sees of Jesus' sacrifice. To the world it was a foolish waste of life. They did not appreciate the obedience to the Father or the daily sacrifices culminating at the cross. They did not see a hero or leader, only the elements of character which they despised as weak--he was despised and rejected by men. They blushed and hid their faces from him similar to the way the Israelites treated the burning carcass outside the camp.

The Blood

The blood of the bullock was caught in a basin in which it was carried by the High Priest into the Tabernacle of the Congregation (the Holy) where the priest, before entering into the Most Holy, offered incense upon the Golden Altar (Leviticus 16:12,13) to prepare the way for him into the Holiest of all--into the very presence of Jehovah. The incense having preceded him, he then proceeded with the bullock's into the Most Holy where he sprinkled of it upon and before the Mercy Seat. However, not all of the bullock's blood was thus disposed of. Some of it still remained in the basin to be subsequently used in connection with the reconciling of the Most Holy, the Tabernacle of the Congregation, and the Court (Leviticus 16:16,18). Before he could do this, the Lord's goat would have to be slain (Leviticus 16:15).

The blood of the goat was evidently caught in the same basin as had been the bullock's, or at the least the two bloods were mixed, to make up that which is designated "the blood of atonements" (plural--Exodus 30:10), i.e., the [commingled] blood of the bullock and the goat, which blood was then to accomplish the "reconciliation" of God's Sanctuary and Court (Leviticus 16:16,18). First the blood of the goat was carried through the Tabernacle of the Congregation (the Holy) where, however, no incense was offered this time since the priest continued right on through the Second Vail into the Most Holy where he now sprinkled it as he had previously with the bullock's blood, upon and before the Mercy Seat (Leviticus 16:15). As the bullock's blood was accepted for the priest and his house (Leviticus 16:6), so the goat's blood was accepted for the people (Leviticus 9:15; 16:5,9). Note that the blood now being used was in reality a commingled blood, as if to say the goat's blood is accepted because of its being commingled with that of the bullock. The sin-offering of the goat had merit only because of its association with the bullock. Anti-typically the merit of atonement represented in the church's sacrifice is merely that of Christ Jesus, since the church had no merit of its own.

After sprinkling this commingled blood upon the Mercy Seat, the priest went back into the Holy to reconcile it (Leviticus 16:16). This he did by putting of this blood of the sin-offering of atonements (Exodus 30:10) upon the horns of the altar of incense. What then remained of the blood he took into the Court to reconcile it.

It was the High Priest who sprinkled the blood of the bullock and who, later, sprinkled the blood of the goat as that of his own body. Individuality is lost as one becomes a member of the body of Christ and takes his name. He henceforth shares Christ's glory and his work. The participation of the church in the sin-offering for the world is not due to any necessity that has arisen, but is simply the divine arrangement which permits one to come in with Christ and share in his glorious higher nature and work. The matter of suffering is purely a matter of favor for the church and entirely unnecessary. Jesus' death alone is all that was necessary for the release of the world from the sentence of death.

It is highly important to keep clearly in mind the difference between the work of presenting one's body as a living sacrifice and the Lord's work, as the Great High Priest, in offering the individual sacrificially. The two matters are distinctly separate, as shown in the type. The goat was brought to the door of the Tabernacle and tied, picturing the covenant of sacrifice which we make. But the goat had not yet been offered and no one but the High Priest was qualified to make the sacrifice. (See Reprints 4747:5,6.)

Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many, the apostle says. The type shows us two offerings, yet the two were parts of one. The first represented the head and the second the body. The two sacrifices of the Day of Atonement were really one because the second was based upon the first (Reprints 4512:4).

Both of these animals represented the High Priest: the bullock, our Lord and Head, and the goat, his body, the church. When the High Priest sprinkled the blood of the bullock, it represented "his own blood," the merit of his own sacrifice. He applied it for the church, not for the world. Only believers have had the blessing secured by our Lord's sacrifice, thus far. The Christian's presentation of himself to the Lord was represented by the tethering of the goat at the door of the tabernacle. This acceptance was indicated by the killing processes. He ceased to be looked upon as a human, but was recognized on a new plane as a "member of the body of Christ," without any headship of his own. Consequently, when at the end of the Day of Atonement sacrificing the anti-typical High Priest shall make a further presentation of the blood of the goat upon the mercy seat, it will be "his own blood" in two senses of the word:

1. It will be his own in the sense that all the merit was originally his and appropriated to others so they might have the opportunity to share with him in sacrifice. His sacrificial merit merely passed through the church, "the Lord's goat" class. They were favored by the privilege accorded of "suffering with him that [in due time] [they] might be also glorified together with him." No more merit was necessary than that possessed by the Lord.

2. The blood which the Lord will apply as soon as the church shall have finished her share in his sacrifice will be "his own blood" in the sense that he accepted or adopted the church as his members. They lose their personality in the transaction in the same way a bride loses her name and her individuality at marriage. All that they have and are belong to the great bridegroom. They are delighted that he is pleased to count them in with himself in any sense of the word in connection with his sufferings of this present time and the glories that are to follow. (See Reprints 4493:2-4.)