Since Yom Kippur begins tonight at sundown, I wanted to write a little more on atonement.

You can read about the Day of Atonement in Leviticus 16 here. (I won't paste all of it here). But notice:

“Aaron shall offer the bull as a sin offering for himself and shall make atonement for himself and for his house." (v. 6, 11)

In verses 15-19, he kills the goat of the sin offering and sprinkles its blood over and in front of the mercy seat to make atonement for the Holy Place. He makes atonement for the tent of meeting and the altar. Then he confesses all of Israel's sins onto the live goat and releases it into the wilderness. After a ritual bathing, he makes atonement for himself and Israel. So, all in all, there was a whole lot of atoning going on. Or was there?

For since the law has but a shadow of the good things to come instead of the true form of these realities, it can never, by the same sacrifices that are continually offered every year, make perfect those who draw near. Otherwise, would they not have ceased to be offered, since the worshipers, having once been cleansed, would no longer have any consciousness of sin? But in these sacrifices there is a reminder of sin every year. For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.

Hebrews 10:1-4

Leviticus said it did. Hebrews said it didn't. If it did forgive sins, then Hebrews is wrong. So what happened?

The day of atonement was a shadow, a type, a picture. Think of it as a government pardon (after all, we are dealing with Law here). The government can offer you a pardon for a crime you have committed. It can clear your criminal record. But does that make you right with God? No, it doesn't. That's what the day of atonement did: it cleared you in a societal sense.

So, how did anyone get forgiven or saved? They were saved by grace through faith alone in the promises of God alone.

But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it— the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

Romans 3:21-26

You've got to realize that God's mercy in the Old Covenant was a massive violation of His justice. David sinned, but God forgave him. That was a major, major problem. How could God possibly be just and allow David to be forgiven? Christ had to be sacrificed to satisfy this violation of justice. In Christ, God is both supremely just and supremely merciful. Now we can look back, through Christ, and see that God was indeed righteous for forgiving those who believed in Him. They were not forgiven by the blood of bulls or goats. Those who believed in the promises of God were forgiven through the once-for-all sacrifice of Jesus Christ.

Read Hebrews 9:11-10:18 today and remember our once-for-all day of atonement.