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The Tabernacle 286 offering, the holy Son of God became the sinner's Substi- tute. We shall not dwell further on these offerings here. But the ritual concerning the two goats was observed only on the Day of Atonement; and it is highly significant. The two goats were to be taken from "the congregation of the children of Israel" (verse 5); that is, they were to be purchased from the public treasury. Io other words, they represented the people. Aaron, the high priest, pre- sented them "before the Lord at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation," and "cast lots upon the two goats; one lot for the Lord, and the other lot for the scapegoat" (verses 7, 8) . The one was slain, and the blood sprinkled on the mercy seat in the Holy of Holies. The other was led into the wilderness, "unto a land not inhabited." But before the scapegoat was led away, Aaron laid his hands upon the head of the animal and confessed the sins of the people, symbolically transferring them to their Substitute, even Jesus, of whom the animal sacrifices were a type. This is made very clear in the commandment concerning the scapegoat: "And Aaron shall lay both his hands upon the head of the live goat, and confess over him all the iniquities of the children of Israel, and all their transgressions in all their sins, putting them upon the head of the goat, and shall send him away by the hand of a :fit man into the wilderness: and the goat shall bear upon him all their iniquities unto a land not inhabited: and he shall let go the goat in the wilderness" (Lev, 16:21, 22). How significant is all this ritual! The two goats repre- sent Christ dying for our sins, and bearing them away, to remember them no more forever. Even as the animals were purchased from the public treasury, so the thirty pieces of silver, given to Judas for selling the Lord Jesus, came out of the public treasury, from the officials of the Jews. For
The Tabernacle the sins of "the whole congregation" He died! Again, the casting of the lots, to determine which goat was to die and which was to be the scapegoat, reminds us that it was God who made this decision. Likewise, Christ was not the victim of circumstance; He came into the world to die, "delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God" (Acts 2: 23 ) . "I lay down my life, that I might take it again," He said. "No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself" (John I 0: 17, 18). The blood of the goat which was slain was brought by the high priest "within the vail," into the Holy of Holies sprinkled "upon the mercy seat, and before the mercy seat" (Lev. 16: 15). So also was the blood of the bullock for a sin offering. Thus the blood was sprinkled where God rested, and where man stood. God rests in the finished work of Christ, and man can stand before Him, resting also in Him, only on the merit of His finished redemption. "Christ being come an high priest of good things to come . . . by his own blood . . • entered in once into the holy place (even heaven itself), having obtained eternal redemption for us" (Heb. 9:11, 12). This is the heart of the message of the Gospel, my friend. It explains to us the meaning of the rent veil. Until Christ died, no man except the high priest dared enter the Holy of Holies where God dwelt in the Shekinah Glory; and even he went in only once a year, unot without blood." The veil shut the sinner out from the presence of God. Why? Because a full atonement had not been made for sin. The animal sacrifices were only "shadows of good things to come"; and sinful man could not stand in the presence of a holy God until the full atonement was made. But Christ came; He died; He shed His own pr~cious
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