Today is Yom Kippur. Leviticus 16:1 describes the Day of Atonement by referencing Yahweh‘s words to Moses about the deaths of Nadab and Abihu. He is told that “Among those who are near me I will be sanctified, and before all the people I will be glorified” (Lev 10:3). This holy God is revealed as a consuming fire, desiring glory from those created in His image.
Leviticus informs the reader that the development of the Tabernacle, establishment of the priesthood, and implementation of the sacrificial system are visual reminders of a loving God who sends Himself to covenant with Adam (Gen 3:8), Abraham (Gen 12:1-3), Noah (Gen 9:9), and Israel (Exodus 3:1-4; 19:5). The reader remembers these people did not seek Him; He comes to them.
Across generations, the optics of the Day of Atonement serves to remind the people of their sins and the God who atones and cleanses (Lev 16:30; Heb 10:3).
Leviticus communicates the Day of Atonement is to be a “time of holy convocation” and a day of self-abasement (Lev 23). It is to happen on the tenth day of the seventh month. No work is to occur by “either the native or the stranger who sojourns among you” (Lev 16:29).
The drama of the High Priest involves:
- Sacrificing a bull as a sin offering (and a ram for a burnt offering) for the sins of the priests, including those of the high priest
- Burning incense in the Holy Place, sprinkling the bull’s blood, and sacrificing a goat for the people
- Returning to the Holy Place with goat’s blood and making atonement for the Tabernacle and its artifacts
- Sending the scapegoat into the wilderness with the sins of the people
Every year both the people of Israel and the sojourner in the land remembered the gracious God who sent Himself with the message: “I will take you to be my people, and I will be your God, and you shall know that I am the Lord your God, who has brought you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians. I will bring you into the land that I swore to give to Abraham, to Isaac, an to Jacob” (Ex 6:7-8).
It was a day for all to draw near to the One who created everyone in His image–but only one person was allowed to go behind the veil.
Of course, the writer of Hebrews provided an explicit comparison and contrast of the Messiah and the high priest on the Day of Atonement (Heb 9:1-10:22). The sending of the Son to carry out the mission of God resulted in men and women being able to draw near to God in an unimaginable way.
And it was this act of appearing “once for all. . .to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself” that of the Son brought a fulfillment to the Day of Atonement (Heb 9:26). His was a deeply apostolic act that brought the good news. The blood of the One who did not have to make atonement for His sins was sufficient for covering a multitude of sins. He was made sin for us (2 Cor 5:21) and carried our sins to the cross (1 Peter 2:24), an impossibility for two goats.
Craig Ott and Stephen Strauss write that “Without the sending activity of the Trinity, there is no mission, for there is no gospel. The core of the gospel is that God the Father so loved the world that he gave—that is, he sent—his one and only Son into the world” (Encountering Theology of Mission, 74).
Yom Kippur was part of the outworking of the missio Dei. The event reigned for a time but foreshadowed a greater event to come. For it was impossible “for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins” (Heb 10:4). The ultimate act of the missio Dei would be revealed later when the Great High Priest would take His seat proclaiming “It is finished” (John 19:30).