*Editor’s note: This is part 2 in Dr. Brandon Rhea’s blog series on “The Day of Atonement.”
Read part 1 here: https://cbtseminary.org/the-day-of-atonement-foreshadowing-jesus-our-high-priest-brandon-rhea/
Read Part 3 here: https://cbtseminary.org/the-day-of-atonement-foreshadowing-jesus-particular-atonement-brandon-rhea/
Read Part 4 here: https://cbtseminary.org/the-day-of-atonement-foreshadowing-believers-baptism-brandon-rhea/
Read Part 5 here: https://cbtseminary.org/the-day-of-atonement-foreshadowing-repentance-and-faith-brandon-rhea/
The Day of Atonement: Foreshadowing Jesus Our Propitiation and Scapegoat
Leviticus 16:15-22
Brandon Rhea
Intro
In 1783, the British Parliament had to decide whether to give an allowance to the Prince of Wales, King George III’s oldest son. The prince would be turning twenty-one, and it was custom to give a yearly allowance starting at this age. Through this means, he could set up his own household. To make the decision more difficult, the prince had accumulated a debt of £29,000 through lavish spending. Parliament, along with the King’s advice, therefore, gave him an allowance of £62,000 plus a one-time payment of £60,000 to pay off his debts and to fix up his new residence. Even though the prince had mismanaged his money, his father and the nation bailed him out. They paid off his debt. As is common with young men who do not suffer consequences for their poor decisions, the prince went into debt again. In a few short years, he owed nearly £150,000 from overspending on his new residence.[1]
Every human is like the Prince of Wales. We have an enormous debt which we have incurred through foolish and sinful choices. How many times have you sinned in your life? How many days have you sinned? It cannot be counted. Do you have the righteousness needed to pay off your debt? Once the debt is paid off, can you live a perfect life to incur no more debt? Of course not! What hope do we have of being forgiven of our sins and having the guilt removed from us? We need a surety! We need a King to pay the debt off for us and give us an inheritance.
We now will continue our blog series on the Day of Atonement. Last time we learned that the Day of Atonement foreshadows Jesus’ atonement because Jesus enters the Holy Place of Heaven as a representative for His people and Jesus is the Holy High Priest and the sacrifice. We now will answer this question: How does the Day of Atonement foreshadow Jesus’ atonement for His people? How does the yearly sacrifice portend Christ’s redemption for His elect?
Point 1
Our first of two points is this: The Day of Atonement foreshadows Jesus’ atonement because Jesus is the propitiation for our sins. The yearly sacrifice portends Christ’s redemption because Christ satisfies God’s wrath on the cross.
Once a year, the Lord invited the High Priest to offer a sacrifice for the people in the Holy of Holies. No one else could make the sacrifice, and the High Priest could not go into the Holy of Holies any other day lest he die. Being a sinner, the High Priest had to kill a bull and apply the blood to cover his iniquities and the iniquities of his house. Hence, the High Priest is not intrinsically holy. Since the sacrifice had to be performed yearly, it shows its ineffectiveness. God requires a greater sacrifice by a greater High Priest. Jesus Christ is that sacrifice and is the Great High Priest. Now we will turn to how Christ’s sacrifice atones.
In verses 15-19, God commands Aaron to offer a goat for the people. He will kill the goat as a sin offering which is meant to purify the worshiper. Then he carries the blood into the Holy of Holies and applies it to the mercy seat. This act atones for the Israelites in two ways. First, it removes their uncleanness which comes from breaking the ceremonial laws. Second, the sacrifice removes their transgressions. This word means rebellion. These are high handed sins by the people. Numbers 15:22-31 describe these sins. In giving the sacrifices in Leviticus 1-7, God made no provision for high handed sins. None of those sacrifices were meant to atone. Only on the Day of Atonement could a sacrifice be offered to atone for deliberate rebellion against God.
The Bible uses the same word for transgression or rebellion elsewhere. Isaiah 1:28 says, “But rebels and sinners shall be broken together, and those who forsake the Lord shall be consumed.” The Lord warns us of the consequences for remaining unrepentant. Moreover, in Isaiah 48:8, God describes Israel. “For I knew that you would surely deal treacherously, and that from before birth you were called a rebel.” The people had forsaken God and had broken His law. Despite God’s call to repent, they remained in their sins while worshiping false gods. To symbolize their rebellion, God had the Ten Commandments placed in the ark. On top of the ark rested the mercy seat. Thus, when the High Priest placed the blood on the mercy seat, it represented the need for blood, because the people had broken the Ten Commandments.
We must not water down the sinners’ iniquity. They did not make mistakes; rather they committed mutiny against God. When the Senators of Rome schemed to overthrow Julius Caesar on the Ides of March, they committed treason. They called him to their meeting, formed a parameter, and took out daggers. Instead of defending Caesar, they killed him to save the republic.
In the same way, every sinner lives in rebellion against God before being converted. Ephesians 2:3 calls them “children of wrath like the rest of mankind.” To the Gentiles who bathed in their sin like a pig in the mud, Romans 1:28 teaches, “And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done.” Even though they knew that God existed, they did not acknowledge nor submit to His rule. They continued following their evil desires which flowed from their idolatry. They worshiped creatures instead of God. Consequently, God did not stop them but gave them up to their wickedness. Even the Jews who had the law rebelled. Romans 2:5 says, “But because of your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed.” The Jews judged the Gentiles for their wicked deeds, but they too broke God’s law. They knew God’s Word but they did not do it. God, therefore, set His wrath upon them.
Why is rebellion against God serious? It ends in death. God warned Adam and Eve in Genesis 2:17, “but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” God kept His Word. Adam and Eve died along with their offspring. In Genesis 5, the genealogy lists the offspring from Adam and Eve. Almost all of the offspring except for one ends in the phrase, “he died.” Romans 1:32 also confirms this truth. “Though they know God’s righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.” The debased mind knows that their deeds deserve death, but due to their lusts, they celebrate the sin and encourage others to do the same. It is like a cult who encourages everyone to commit suicide.
While the High Priest performs the ceremonies for the Day of Atonement, no one else may be in the tent of meeting according to verse 17. The High Priest may have no assistants nor observers while he carries out his duties.
In addition to making atonement for the people, the Lord orders the High Priest to make atonement for the tent of meeting and the altar. If the High Priest symbolizes Adam’s return into the Garden of Eden to fellowship with God, then the tent of meeting represents creation. Through man’s sin, mankind has polluted the universe. Paul makes this argument in Romans 8:19-21. “For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. 20 For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.” Due to Adam and Eve’s sin, creation has not fulfilled its ultimate purpose. Currently, it groans to be redeemed, but it has hope for a future restoration. When Jesus returns to raise His people from the grave and to give them resurrected bodies, then Jesus will transform creation too. He will remove the pollution of sin from the universe.
The goat sacrifice on the Day of Atonement foreshadows Christ’s atonement. It made propitiation for us. Jesus satisfied the wrath that sinners rightly deserve through His crucifixion. He paid the debt for His people. Since we have broken God’s law, we deserve death. Being a holy God, He must punish us. Yet, Christ satisfies God’s wrath according to Romans 3:24-25: “and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, 25 whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith.” In addition to this passage, one can look to Hebrews 2:17, 1 John 2:2, and 1 John 4:10 to discover this theological truth. Christ came to be the sacrifice which would satisfy our requirements for breaking the law. Propitiation is the Greek word for “mercy seat” which the Septuagint uses in Exodus. At the mercy seat, God’s divine justice is satisfied. Jesus Christ is the mercy seat, and He applied the blood. How? He is holy and lived a holy life. He alone has the perfect life as the God-man to save us. Without His sacrifice, God’s divine justice would not be satisfied. No one would live. Every sinner would die in his sins and go to hell.
To pay our sin debt, Christ acts as our surety. Hebrews 7:22 says, “This makes Jesus the guarantor of a better covenant.” The KJV translates “guarantor” with the word “surety.” A surety is a second party who promises to pay off a debt if the first party defaults. For example, a young man buys a car. Since he does not have credit, he needs someone to co-sign to get the loan. If his parents co-sign, then they act as a surety. If the young man defaults on the payments, then the parents will be legally required to pay off their son’s debt. Jesus Christ is our surety. Through our sins, we have an unpayable debt to God. We have defaulted and will be sent to hell. Jesus Christ, however, co-signs on His people’s debt. He made Himself legally responsible for paying it off. Then He paid it in full on the cross with His blood. In contrast, the Old Covenant did not have a surety who could pay the debt. Every person had their own debt to pay but it could not be paid through sacrifices or through obedience to the law. In the New Covenant, Jesus Christ is the surety.
This topic leads us to an interesting question: Could God have atoned in any other way? The Socinians, a group of heretics in the 17th and 18th centuries who denied the Trinity and the deity of Christ, said “yes.” They believed that God’s plan for salvation was arbitrary. He could have decided anyway to save. It did not matter. When we look at Islam, Muslims think Allah can overlook sins without them being paid for by a substitute. If this is true, then God is not just, and God is partial. He overlooks some individuals’ sins and not others. Moreover, a good man could not pay for our sins, because even so-called good men are sinners. They could not save themselves let alone others. Angels also could not atone for us. Why? They do not have human bodies which could spill blood and die. Only the God-man, therefore, through the shedding of His blood could pay for our sins. Christ crucified is not an arbitrary decree of God, but it is the only way God could pay our debt and uphold His justice.
For instance, we see an example of a surety who will pay a debt in Paul’s relationship with Onesimus. Philemon, a Christian leader in Colossae, had an unbelieving slave named Onesimus. Onesimus escaped to Rome and found Paul. Through his interactions with the Apostle, God saved him. Now Paul is sending Onesimus back to Colossae with this letter for Philemon. What does he say? “So if you consider me your partner, receive him as you would receive me. 18 If he has wronged you at all, or owes you anything, charge that to my account.” If Onesimus has stolen anything from Philemon or cost him money, Paul will pay for it. He will assume Onesimus’s debts. He will pay it off in full, so that nothing will stand in the way of them being reconciled now as brothers in Christ.
Friends, do you understand your sin debt to God? You are not just guilty of mistakes or omissions. You did not forget or have a foggy brain. You are not just a product of your DNA or your environment. You also are not in need of more education to reform you. Our society thinks that more education will change a person’s behavior because bad behavior flows from a lack of knowledge. According to society’s logic, a person’s lack of knowledge is not his fault. Society, therefore, cannot hold them accountable.
What does the Bible say? Every sinner has committed treason! An unbeliever’s life is characterized by constant rebellion. You are disobeying the King’s commands. If you were at the tower of Babel, you would have joined the mob to build a tower to dethrone God. If you were alive with the Pharisees, you would have plotted with them to kill Jesus. Why? Rebels follow the example of the first rebel—Satan. Our depth of sin cannot be fully understood. It is deeper than the Grand Canyon. It is larger than our national debt. It also smells worse than a hog confinement with a strong head wind.
Since these statements are true, what hope is there for salvation and not death? Friends, only the holy God could pay the debt that you owe. Jesus Christ bore the sin debt as a substitute sacrifice to satisfy God’s wrath for all who believe in Him. 1 Peter 2:24 says, “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed.” Do you see that only in Christ can God’s wrath be satisfied and in no other? No other name can make you white as snow. Do you trust in Christ right now to pay for your sins or are you trusting in your religious deeds and right living? The way you answer that question will determine your eternal destiny.
If you do trust in Christ, then rejoice! You are forgiven once and for all. You have the guarantee from the King of Kings and Lord of Lords that you have been forgiven. The faithful God has paid it in full. The God who cannot lie says that your debt is gone. Praise God for this gift!
Point 2
Our second and last point is this: The Day of Atonement foreshadows Jesus’ atonement because Jesus is the scapegoat who carries away our guilt. The yearly sacrifice portends Christ’s redemption because Christ is the expiation for our sins. Let’s read verses 20-22.
After sacrificing one goat, the High Priest takes a second goat which he has chosen by lot to live. In verse 21a, Aaron then confesses the sins of the people over the second goat. He places both hands on his head. In contrast, Leviticus 1-7 commands for the worshiper to only place one hand on the goat. Now the High Priest places two hands to show the transference of unintentional and sins of rebellion to the goat. Consequently, the goat now bears the guilt of those sins.
In verse 21b, the High Priest sends the goat away. Another man takes the goat into the wilderness. This location symbolizes the place of the unclean. The camp was the place of the clean, and the temple was the location for the holy. The goat, therefore, bears the people’s iniquities according to verse 22. They no longer carry the guilt of these sins. The goat has carried them away from the camp, so that they will be clean. Their names are no longer associated with the guilt of these sins. The scapegoat now bears them.
To prepare us for the coming Messiah, the scapegoat is a shadow of the coming reality. Christ is our scapegoat and performs expiation on our behalf. This theological term means “the removal of objective guilt under the law…all our legal liability to rejection and punishment is removed.”[2] God does not consider the offender to be guilty.
What is the difference between propitiation and expiation? Propitiation satisfies God’s wrath by paying the debt owed. God upholds His justice, because Christ suffers the penalty for our sin. Thus, we avoid hell. Expiation, on the other hand, removes the guilt from the party. God does not associate that person’s name with those sins. Those transgressions have been removed from the record. To illustrate the point, let us look at a prisoner. If a man embezzles money and is convicted, he will have to serve time in jail and pay back the money. After his three-year sentence, the prison released him early for good behavior. He has paid his debt to society. He has satisfied the justice under the law. Society, however, still considers him to be guilty. He has a record. When he goes to apply for a job and the business runs a background check, his crime will be flagged. The guilt remains. He will not be able to hold positions which handle money, because companies will not trust him due to his previous conviction. He has made propitiation, but expiation has not taken place. Do you now see our need for both to be saved?
Hebrews 13:11-12 shows us Christ’s expiation. “For the bodies of those animals whose blood is brought into the holy places by the high priest as a sacrifice for sin are burned outside the camp. 12 So Jesus also suffered outside the gate in order to sanctify the people through his own blood.” The author of Hebrews references the sacrificial system. After the priests offered the animals on the altar, they would dispose of them outside the camp. Jesus too suffered outside the camp. He became a curse for us through His crucifixion on the tree. He died outside of the city of Jerusalem. He spilled His blood in the wilderness to make the unclean holy. In the same way, lepers had to suffer outside of the camp until they became clean.
As the scapegoat bore the people’s sins and headed out into the wilderness, Christ bore His people’s sins and guilt. Isaiah 53:6 which prophesies of Christ says, “and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.” 2 Corinthians 5:21 also teaches, “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” Hence, the sinless Lamb of God bore the penalty and guilt of our sins even though He never sinned. He took away the guilt for our transgressions so that all who believe in Christ have a clean record. Moreover, He has replaced our guilt with His righteousness. Our name is no longer associated with all of the sins including treason and rebellion against the Holy Lord.
Imagine if the world had a computer database which listed all of your sins from birth. Some of you may wear a watch which tracks your steps, calories, and sleep. Then you can track that information for months and years. Imagine if you had a device which kept track of your sins. Also, anybody could access that information to see your sin record. Wouldn’t that be embarrassing? Wouldn’t you cringe at the thought of having that information made available to the public? On the great Judgment Day, the books will be opened, and every unbeliever’s sins will be exposed for all. Yet, for the one who has repented of his sins and trusted in Christ, Jesus has highlighted all of those sins and deleted them from the database. Furthermore, He goes to His account which has no sins, but instead has a track record of perfect obedience. He copies those righteous acts and pastes it to your account. His righteousness is now yours. He has removed the guilt and replaced it with His obedience. God no longer treats you as a rebel but as a holy son or daughter.
Friends, do you feel guilty? Do you feel dirty? Do you feel unclean? You have two options before you. First, you can spiral downhill into depression. If you do not come to the Lord Jesus Christ, then you have no hope for atonement. You cannot be clean. You will remain guilty. You also have no hope of going back to the past to change all your actions. The record remains permanent. You also cannot do enough good from this point onward to overcome your sins. You are guilty and cannot change it on your own. Without hope for cleansing, you will go into a deeper and deeper depression. The Lord has struck your conscience, but you have not looked to Him for hope.
Martin Luther very well could have died without hope. For years, he grieved over his sin. He, however, found no relief, because he thought forgiveness came by faith and works. When he judged his works, he always saw fault. He kept confessing his sins including the small ones to the priest of the abbey. If he forgot one, he would immediately go back to confess it. He lived a life of bondage to a guilty conscience which could not find relief. Until one day, he read Romans 1:16-17, and the Holy Spirit made the text come alive. “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. 17 For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.” Before this day, he tried to provide the righteousness necessary to please God. Now he understood that God provides the righteousness that we need to please Him through His Son. By faith in Christ, our guilt is removed, and we are made holy.
Imitate Luther my friends. Believe upon Christ and be forgiven. Psalm 32:1-2 says, “Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man against whom the Lord counts no iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit.” How can a man go from being cursed under God’s law to being blessed? How can he go from being depressed under a guilty conscience to having joy? He must look to Christ. Then he will have God’s promise of forgiveness. He will be the blessed man who has no iniquity and no guilt. How? Christ was made a propitiation and a scapegoat. Through Him, we are saved and live.
[1] Andrew Roberts, The Last King of America: The Misunderstood Reign of George III (London: Viking, 2021).
[2] Joel Beeke and Paul Smalley, Reformed Systematic Theology, vol. 2 (Wheaton, IL: Crossway), 1015.
Brandon Rhea (Ph.D. Historical Theology at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary) is a pastor and an ACBC certified Biblical counselor. He met his wife, Karise, while doing pulpit supply in 2013-14. In April 2016, he accepted the call to pastor at Faith Baptist Church in Kirksville, Missouri. He loves history and has a heart for street preaching and evangelism. He is the author of “Spurgeon’s Forgotten Sabbatarianism” and teaches “Spurgeon on the Law & Sabbath” for Covenant Baptist Theological Seminary.
