What the Day of Atonement Really Pictured — Finally Explained

Hello, and welcome to Through the Bible with Les Feldick. An Oklahoma rancher and farmer, Les Feldick has been teaching homestyle Bible classes for 20 years in Iowa, Oklahoma, and Texas. Les Feldick's unique style of Bible teaching has made the books of the Bible come to life. When Les is teaching, it's so interesting that people say time just seems to fly by. And now, here is Les Feldick. And again, it's good to have everybody back with us. And for those of you joining us on television, once again, in case you're seeing us for the first time, we've started back in Genesis 1-1 almost two years ago. We have all the past programs available on videotape. You write to us, the number will be on the board, or call us on our 800 number and we will get them to you. Also, as a result of so much inquiry and almost a demand, we have also been fortunate enough to have a young lady take this off the VCR tape and put it in print. And so all the programs are also going to be available now. We have the first 12 lessons ready to start sending out. So if you'd be interested in a copy of this, the first, oh, let's see, it'd be about the first three chapters of Genesis, I guess. And it'd be the correlation of the very first six-hour tape. Again, you write to us and we're going to send them out free. But for those of you who are capable, they're going to cost us around five bucks. So if you can help us in that way, we're not doing this as a gimmick whatsoever, but in order to give it to those who can't afford to spend $5, for those of you who can, we'll appreciate any help you can give us. Now, for those of you here in the studio audience and for those of you joining us on television, again, we trust you've got your Bible open to where we left off last week. I hate to do that, and I think it's the first time I've ever done it, just let you hanging by a string. But we left you in John's Gospel, chapter 20, and we're still talking about the tabernacle and we're getting ready to go to the Day of Atonement. And I thought it was appropriate that we look at how Christ Himself fulfilled the role of our High Priest, that He went into the very throne room of heaven and accomplished for eternity what the High Priest had to do every year. All right, so pick up with me again then in John's Gospel, chapter 20, where Mary and she supposing Him, verse 15, to be the gardener said unto Him, Sir, if Thou hast borne Him hence, if you've taken the body away, tell me where Thou hast laid Him, and I will take Him away. And Jesus said unto her, Mary, now I've made this so plain over the years as I teach this, how many times have you heard the voice of maybe a famous character from radio or television or movies coming over your television, maybe out of sight in the next room, and immediately you know who it is, without seeing them, only by what? By voice. And the same thing here. Now, you want to remember that Mary was so close to the Lord Jesus during His earthly ministry, and she had probably heard Him call her Mary many, many times. And as soon as He speaks the word Mary, she knows who it is. Even though she can't recognize Him, yet she knows who it is. And I'll pick it up then in verse 16. And she turned herself and said unto Him, Rabboni, which is to say, Master. Now what do you suppose she was ready to do? Oh, she was ready to just give Him a bear hug, an enthusiastic one. But look what he says in verse 17. And Jesus said unto her, what? Touch me not. Now, that's unusual, because just a few verses down the line, you get down to verse 27, which is probably a little later in the day. He says to Thomas, verse 27, reach thither thy fingers, and behold my hands, reach hither thy hand, thrust it into my side. What's that? That's touching. He was for real. But yet to Mary, He says immediately, touch me not. Now look at the reason. Come back to verse 17. Touch me not, for I am not yet, what's the next word, ascended to my Father, but go to my brethren, that would be to the eleven, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father, and your Father, to my God, and to your God. Now I call this the first ascension. The second ascension, of course, would be in Acts chapter 1, when He left from the Mount of Olives, as the disciples watched Him go. Now let's flip over to the book of Hebrews, and I think this is the complete record then of what took place early that Sunday morning, in time, and yet also in eternity, as Jesus left the confines of this earth. And in Hebrews chapter 9, drop all the way down to verse 11. Now those of you who have been with me ever since Genesis 1, you remember that when we got to about Genesis chapter 17, that Abraham had a confrontation after having defeated the kings that had overrun Sodom. He had a confrontation with a man who came from the little known village of Salem, or Shalom, the city of peace, which was what we call Jerusalem. Who was it? Melchizedek, the high priest. Now remember that Melchizedek was a high priest forever, and that Christ was a high priest after the order of Melchizedek, and not after Aaron, because as I showed way back there in Genesis, that Melchizedek was not a priest under the law. He was not a priest of the tribe of Levi, but he was a priest of all. He covered the whole spectrum of the human race. And Christ is not a high priest after the order of Aaron, but after the order of Melchizedek. Now that means that he is not just the high priest of the Jew, but he's the high priest of whomever we might be. Now you've got Hebrews chapter 9. So I think that early that Sunday morning, when Jesus would not let Mary touch him, he still had to immediately go into the very presence of the Father. He said he was. He's going to ascend to the Father, to the God of Mary. And now verse 11 of Hebrews 9, But Christ became a high priest of good things to come by a greater and more perfect tabernacle. Now those of you who were with us a couple, three lessons back, you remember that when Moses was instructed by Jehovah up there in Mount Sinai to build this tabernacle, what did he give him? A pattern of the tabernacle in heaven. Don't lose sight of that. The tabernacle here built at Sinai was patterned after the very floor plan that's up in glory. Now here it is again, that he went into a greater, a more perfect tabernacle. And here's the secret to the whole context. This tabernacle wasn't made by Jewish craftsmen. This tabernacle was untouched by human hands. That is to say, not of this building. Now if you've got a Bible with marginal helps, that word building should have better been translated what? Creation. So this is not on the earth. This is not of this creation. It's in heaven. Now go into the next verse. So neither by the blood of goats and calves as the high priest of Israel did, but by his what? His own blood. He entered in not once a year as the high priest of Israel. He entered in how often? Once. See? And that's the key word through the book of Hebrews, the word once. For this he did once, having obtained eternal redemption for us. For this he did, that is in this verse, for this he entered in once into the, where? The holy place. What's the holy place? The very presence of God at the mercy seat of God and there he sprinkled, he presented his own blood. Now I know the first thing was Abraham, but wait less. It ran down Golgotha's hill. It ran down that old rugged cross. Now wait a minute. Is anything impossible with God? Granted, it ran down to the earth and I think the picture there is that it was taken up by that which was cursed, but is it hard for God to bring that blood back into a container that he could present in glory? I don't think so. And my own idea is that after he presented his blood there in the very throne room of heaven, it's going to be for all eternity. And every time one of us may be confronted, I doubt if we will be, but if we were to be confronted, well why are you here? And somebody may ask me that. Why are you here? They may ask you, why are you here? You know what our stock answer is going to be? There sits the blood. There sits the blood. It's going to be an eternal testimony of why we're going to be in glory. You know a lot of people may go to a funeral of a believer and they come away almost disgusted that maybe the pastor preached as if he knew that this man is going to be in heaven. And they come away, hey, how in the world could he say that? Nobody knows. That's not what the book says. The book says you are to know. And the reason we can know is not based on what you and I do in good works or anything else. It's based all upon that finished work of Christ. The fact that he is my propitiation. He is your propitiation. He is the one who was the sacrifice. He was your brazen altar. He is your labor of cleansing. He is your candlestick all the way through. He's not only the mercy seat, but he's the blood of the mercy seat. He's not only the God of mercy, he is the sacrifice. So that's what I like to put on that word propitiation, that everything that was ever pictured in type here in the tabernacle was all to the last jot and tittle fulfilled by Christ who became then our high priest. He presented his blood. And now is that verse we saw in our last session in 1 John 1-9 where it says that if we sin, we have an advocate with the Father who Jesus Christ the righteous, and the moment we sin, God expects us to just simply confess it. You don't have to beg for forgiveness. I've told people now for 20 years, quit putting that cliche at the end of your prayer. That's all it is, a cliche. It's there by habit. You don't have to ask God to forgive us all our sins. They are forgiven. But what does he want us to do? Confess them, confess them, call it what God calls it. And the moment we confess it, the Lord Jesus, the advocate, points to that blood and says, Father, he's under the blood, she's under the blood. And nobody, Paul says, there accuses. It's for that reason. All right, now then let's go back and pick up Leviticus chapter 16. I had you turn to it, I guess, already a program or two ago, but now we're going to come to it. And the only reason I want to touch again the Day of Atonement is because it so beautifully pictures just exactly what we saw from John's Gospel and from Hebrews, how that Christ fulfilled in every detail this Day of Atonement. Now I think it's unfortunate that our translators called it the Day of Atonement because it was not a Day of Atonement for Israel. There was no atonement until Christ died. This should have been called the Day of Covering. And the word in the Hebrew is kaphar, K-A-P-H-A-R, which meant to cover. And I think it's unfortunate, but we're going to have to stick with it because it's the term that we've all become acquainted with, and I think that even the theologians who know better of doing just what I'm doing, they'll keep on using it rather than upset any apple carts, but it is really a misnomer. All right, now then in Leviticus chapter 16, let's drop down to, oh, I guess we might as well start with verse 1, where the Lord spake unto Moses after the death of the two sons of Aaron when they offered before the Lord and died. Remember, they took strange fire. And the Lord said unto Moses, Speak unto Aaron, thy brother, that he come not at all times into the holy place, that is, the one behind the veil, which is upon the ark of the mercy seat, which is upon the ark, that he die not, for I will appear in the cloud upon the mercy seat. Now remember, what's under the mercy seat? The law, the demanding law. And there's no mercy in the law. Always remember that. The law has no mercy. The law can do nothing, as I've emphasized for weeks and from some of you now for years, the only thing the law can do is condemn you. That's all. The law can't save anybody. All the law can do is condemn. Now then, verse 3, Thus Aaron shall come into the holy place with a young bullock, a young male bull or a steer, for a sin offering, and a ram for a burnt offering. And he shall put on the holy linen coat. He shall have the linen breeches, that is, the underclothes upon his flesh, freshly washed. He shall be girded with a linen girdle, and with a linen miter shall he be attired. These are all holy garments. Now we skipped over them because of time, not because they weren't important. And therefore shall he, here it comes again, before he could begin that day of atonement, how did he have to start? He had to wash. He had to wash and wash and wash. In fact, when you get into, I think it's in Leviticus, they had to wash in running water, much the same as I've said so many times before, almost as surgeons do, preparing for surgery. It's very much the same. But it had to depict a complete physical cleansing. And then he could put on those linen undergarments, and then he'd put on the holy garments. And then he was, verse 5, to take of the congregation of the children of Israel, two kids of the goats, two young goats, one for sin offering and a ram for burnt offering. And then verse 6, here we come to the details now, and Aaron shall offer his bullock of the sin offering, which is for himself, and make an atonement for himself and for his house. In other words, even though he was a high priest of Israel, he was what? He was a sinner. And he sinned just as well as anybody else. So in order to even begin this role of the high priest, and here again is where Christ, of course, went in sinless, even though he took our sin upon himself, yet Aaron had to kill this first sacrificial animal for himself and his family. All right, now then, as he would take the blood of that offering, he would again make his way, and he would no doubt stop at the labor of cleansing. He would come on through. And you remember at one time, he had to take the coals from off, not the labor here, he'd take the coals from off of here. And he would bring them in and put them on the altar of incense, and then the smoke of that would more or less be his protection, his covering, I guess you'd say. And he'd come all the way through the sanctuary, and now once a year, he would come behind the veil, and he would sprinkle the blood of his sacrificial animal, the bullock, upon the mercy seat. He would make his way back out, and now let's pick it up again in the next verse. And then he should cast lots upon the two goats. Now he starts with three animals. He has the bullock and two kid goats. He has used the bullock for his own sacrifice, himself and his family. And now he comes to the two goats, and he casts lots. In other words, I guess we'd say he drew straws to see which goat would be killed and which one would be left alive. So he casts lots, verse 8, upon the two goats, one for the Lord and the other for a, what, scapegoat. You know, we still use the word today, don't we? A scapegoat is somebody who takes the blame for somebody else. Now it continues, "...offer him for a sin offering, and the goat on which the lot fell to the scapegoat shall be presented alive before the Lord to make an atonement with him and to be let go for a scapegoat into the wilderness." Now, he takes then the goat that is designated by lot to be put to death, and I should have used the bullock the first time. And now he takes the blood of the goat, and he goes through this same process, and he again comes behind the veil, and he sprinkles it upon that beautiful, golden mercy seat of the cherub. Now, I know a lot of people think, well, that must have been just almost filthy with dried blood. Well, now listen. They didn't just sprinkle gobs of blood around. You know how they did it? They took their finger and dipped it in the basin and just touched on it so that there wasn't gobs of blood upon that gold. So, I've had that question come up more than once. But he would just simply take his finger and thereby present the blood. Then after he had presented the blood of the goat on behalf of the children of Israel, he would make his way back out, and now then we pick up his act on the scapegoat where he lays his hand upon it. And come down now to verse 21. When he has finished the work in the Holy of Holies—now again, I've got to make a comment. I've had so many questions. I bet you've all heard that the high priest went in with a rope tied to one of his feet, and that in case he died, they could drag him out. Well, now listen. That may be according to legend, but it's not in this book. Now he did have bells around the bottom of his garment. And if the bells stopped tinkling, then Israel would have known he was in trouble. But there's nothing in the record that a high priest ever lost his life behind the veil. But it was serious business. Had they done anything one bit wrong, God would have stricken them dead. Had anyone other than the high priest tried to go behind the veil, he wouldn't have come out alive. And so the high priest actually did have bells around the hem of their garment, and as long as those bells were tinkling, why, those outside knew that he was still getting along okay. But all right, now he comes away from all that, and he comes back to this goat that's been left alive, down to verse 20. And when he had been making an end of reconciling the holy place and the tabernacle of the congregation—in other words, he'd finished all the ritual within that little tent—he shall bring the live goat, 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. Now don't lose sight of the fact, who is pictured in even this scapegoat? Christ is. See? He has become not only our sacrificial goat, the one whose blood was sprinkled, but now he becomes the scapegoat. Now there's a tremendous lesson here, because you see—I always have to stop and think that a hymn writer is in Scripture—no, it's a hymn—buried he carried our sins where? Far away. Well, the hymn writer picks it up here from the scapegoat. Now I'm racing against time again. Let's read on. And so he shall lay his hands upon the head of the live goat, confess over him all the iniquities of the children of Israel, and all their transgressions, and all their sins, putting them upon the head of the goat, and shall send him away by the hand of a fit man. Where? Into the wilderness. Into the wilderness. Where there was no record, where there was no geographical pinpoint, he was sent back. Now I think that's a picture of exactly what Christ did when he died. Now very few people are aware of this. When he died, or when he was on the cross, let me put it that way, while he was on the cross, there were three hours of time in which nothing was spoken. Now he made several statements from the time he was put on the cross until high noon. Then at high noon, what happened? Absolute darkness fell upon the earth. And then at three o'clock in the afternoon, he speaks again the final statements from the cross. The final ones. And that's when he gave up the ghost, then, of his own volition, and he died. But what happened in that three hours? Absolute silence. The earth is enveloped in darkness. Well, I think that is when Christ took our sins as far, as the Scripture says now, as far removed as east is from the west. They have been buried in the what? The deepest sea. And I think in that three hour period of time, not in time, but perhaps in the eternal state, he literally suffered all the hell, all the judgment that every human being deserved. And after stepping out of eternity back into time now on the cross, he can say what? It's finished. You know, I love to teach kids. I got a few 14-year-olds and had one of them come up the other night. We were talking about this very same thing. He went, now, last he said, I like this. I mean, this shows their thinking. He said, you know, he said it's finished from the cross, but he said it wasn't really finished until he was resurrected. And I said, young man, you're thinking, you're true. But I said what Jesus was really referring to was the business of obliterating our sin, of suffering the sin penalty that was finished. And naturally, our salvation could never be complete until he rose from the dead. See, and that's why I'm always emphasizing is that's why you'll hear me speak so much about Paul and his writing, because Paul says, we know only Christ what? Crucified and risen from the dead. And remember, that's our gospel. Oh, so many people are hanging on Jesus' earthly ministry. A great book came out a while back by a famous author, The Gospel According to Jesus. And the minute I heard the title, I knew the guy was out in left field, because you cannot be saved by the gospel according to Jesus tonight, because that is speaking of his earthly ministry. We have salvation only by virtue of his death, burial, and resurrection. See, that's our gospel. And all you people know it, but there are a lot of people out there that don't know that. They just can't comprehend that there is a difference. Well, anyway, the high priest then fulfilled or he pre-typed that which Christ fulfilled as our high priest. And remember, as I've pointed out now in all the aspects of the tabernacle program, those priests were human. They died. There had to be others coming in and take their place. It was exercised year after year after year. But the finished work of Christ, the word in Hebrews, as I've said so often, is what? Once. For this he did once. And he obtained what? Eternal redemption for us. Oh, never lose sight of it. And help your friends and neighbors who may know nothing of this to understand. Come back with me for just a moment that's left to that verse we looked at earlier in Romans chapter 3. Because I think once you get the picture how that all the aspects of tabernacle worship, it was for the children of Israel a burden. It was a yoke. I mean, everything had to be done just exactly right. But oh, I want people today to understand how free we are from all that because Christ has done it all on our behalf. And now coming back to Romans 3 in just a few seconds, we've got left verse 26 and 27. We're now after showing that he is our propitiation if we'll just believe it. And now he says to declare at this time his righteousness. He's done it all. He's the whole tabernacle that he might be just as well as the justifier. See, he's done it all from both directions. He is not only the just one who was the perfect sacrifice, who fulfilled all the demands of a holy God, but he's also what? The holy God, see? And then he says, the justifier of him who believeth now in Jesus, or as Paul normally puts it, in Jesus the Christ, the resurrected one. Thank you. Thank you for watching Through the Bible with Les Feldick, a weekly Bible study. If you would like more information about the Les Feldick Ministries, a Bible study in your area, or about this program, write to Les Feldick Ministries, Route 1, Box 760, Kinta, Oklahoma, 74552. That's Route 1, Box 760, Kinta, Oklahoma, 74552. Through the Bible with Les Feldick is viewer supported, and your gift is appreciated. Thank you, and be sure to tune in next time for Through the Bible with Les Feldick.