VAYIKRA

And [He] called

10 But the goat, on which the lot fell to be the scapegoat, shall be presented alive before Yahweh, to make an atonement with him, and to let him go for a scapegoat into the wilderness.

The Scapegoat

àThe iniquity of all believers was laid upon him when crucified. He was then "the goat for the Lord;" but when raised from the dead, he became "the scape-goat presented alive before the Lord to make an atonement."

Being raised, his relations were changed. He then became the High Priest destined to enter alone into the Most Holy to make an atonement "for his own household" with his own blood.

He is there now; and will remain there, until all who shall constitute "his house" shall have come in and been reconciled. Till then no man can be where he is. When he shall have finished making atonement for his household, "He will come out," and "make an atonement for all the congregation of Israel."

"His house are we, if we hold fast the confidence, and the rejoicing of the hope firm unto the end."

The household of the Lord Jesus appears in the temple of the kingdom, "holy, unblameable, and unreproveable," as the sons of Zadok, performing service before the Lord as his priests.

But when the household of the Lord Jesus shall be reconciled, their judgment or acceptance, still remains to be pronounced, and the secondary reconciliation for the nation of Israel effected. These particulars of the Mosaic typical atonement are yet unaccomplished.

Some of us who believe the gospel of the kingdom are looking for him. We are anxiously waiting for him to come out of the Most Holy place that we may be clothed with salvation, and enter the kingdom with him. "After death the judgment." Judgment on the members of the king's household; and judgment on the nations.

Will the dead in Christ—will the living in him—be accepted, or shall we not? That remains to be seen. Who but God's High Priest can tell; for He only knows whose names are written in the Book of Life.

Until He come out of the Most Holy, the consummation of the reconciliation of the faithful dead, the living believers, and the Twelve Tribes, will be in abeyance. But when He appears in his kingdom, the first will rise, the next be changed, and reconciliation be made for the whole house of Israel, as described above, in the purging and purifying the altar, and the reconciling of the house, in the first seven days of the first month.

When this is accomplished, the Mosaic representative atonement will be lost in the substance. There will be no more remembrance of sins once a year. Therefore the atonement on the tenth day of the seventh month forms no part of the annual service of the temple in the Age to Come.

The Herald of the Kingdom and Coming Age, Sept 1851.

13 And he shall put the incense upon the fire before Yahweh, that the cloud of the incense may cover the mercy seat that is upon the testimony, that he die not:

Nadab and Abihu, Aaron's two sons, diverged so far from these directions, as to get the "burning coals of fire" somewhere else than from the altar of burnt-offering: and they were struck dead on the spot--a sharp lesson of obedience that was not soon forgotten. The spiritual significance of the incense we ascertain from Rev. 8, where John records having seen an angel with a golden censer, who took the censer, and filled it with fire from the altar:

"And there was given unto him much incense, that he should offer it with the prayers of all saints upon the golden altar which was before the throne. And the smoke of the incense, which came with the prayers of the saints, ascended up before God out of the angel's hand"

Prayer, then, is indicated by the presence of the golden censer in the Holiest of all. It is on this basis that mercy is dispensed: "the cloud of the incense" was to "cover the mercy-seat"--"that he (Aaron) die not". For a prayerless man there is no mercy.

But the incense had to be of the sort prescribed: prayer in harmony with the truth alone is acceptable. Prayer bawled out presumptuously in the utterance of things that are not true, and in the making of requests that are inconsistent with the revealed purposes of God...is not the sweet incense of the sanctuary, but the rank compound of heathenish art.

And the right incense had to be "beaten small"--not offered in lumps. Some people neglect God in daily habit, and seem to think they can make up for lost time by being specially religious at certain times. This must be as odious to God as intermittent friendship would be unsatisfactory to man. The will of God is that we "pray always" (Luke 18); "in everything give thanks" (1 Thess. 5:18), be exercised in His fear all the day long (Prov. 23:17).

The incense had to be vaporized by fire taken off the altar. The use of other fire brought death, as we have seen. There is a deep import in this. The altar is Christ (Heb. 13:10)--the fire, his sufferings.

...The employment of incense to symbolize prayer is a proof that prayer is a source of pleasure to God--provided the conditions are right.

...that "the great and the terrible God who made heaven and earth" should find pleasure in the feeble recognitions of mortal man, however sincere, is a revelation which we require. It is a revelation which we have received, "The prayer of the upright is his delight" (Prov. 15:8).

Law of Moses Ch 13

15 Then shall he kill the goat of the sin offering, that is for the people, and bring his blood within the vail, and do with that blood as he did with the blood of the bullock, and sprinkle it upon the mercy seat, and before the mercy seat:

Blood spinkled mercy seat in the Most Holy

The saints who constitute the antitypical Holiest of all, in the age to come, will have attained to their position through the shed blood of Christ. This is prominent in their song of glory as heard by John in vision:

"Thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood... and hast made us unto our God kings and priests" (Rev. 5:9-10).

The bloodstains on the pure gold coverlid of the ark find their antitype in the memory of the shed blood of Christ in the immortal hearts and minds of those who shall have attained to the golden state through

"the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world."

That this is no strained or unnatural interpretation will be apparent to all who can realize how essential an element in the joy of the perfect state--in regard to the Father, and Christ, and the Saints --must be the constant recollection and recognition of the means by which salvation has been accomplished.

If the angels veil their faces in the presence of Eternal Glory, how much more an assembly of men and women, who, though their equals, have to remember with a sense of humiliation that they were originally sinners under condemnation, and that they owe it entirely to the appointment of God's mercy in Christ that they stand there in the strength and honour and gladness of immortal life.

If the object of the Father's methods now is that no flesh may glory in the Father's presence, we may be sure that that object will be attained to its fullest then, and that consequently thanksgiving only, in the memory of a humiliating past, will be the sentiment inspiring the bosoms of those who ascribe

"Blessing, and glory, and wisdom, and thanksgiving to him that sits upon the throne, and to the Lamb for ever."

Law of Moses Ch 13

16 And he shall make an atonement for the holy place [within the vail before the mercy seat v2], because of the uncleanness of the children of Israel, and because of their transgressions in all their sins: and so shall he do for the tabernacle of the congregation, that remaineth among them in the midst of their uncleanness.

Sin in the Flesh

"What do you mean by 'sin in the flesh,' which some speak of as a fixed principle?".

Answer.—Job, speaking of "man that is born of woman," says,

"Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean?"

and David, by the Spirit, says, in Psalm 51:5:

"Behold I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me."

Furthermore, the annual atonement under the law (Lev. 16.) was appointed even "for the holy place," because of the uncleanness of the children of Israel, besides their "transgressions in all their sins."—(verse 16.)

"Sin in the flesh," which is Paul's phrase, refers to the same thing. It is what Paul also calls

"Sin that dwelleth in me" (Rom. 7:17),

adding,

"I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) dwelleth no good thing."

Now, what is this element called "uncleanness," "sin," "iniquity," &c.?

The difficulty experienced by some in the solution of this question, arises from a disregard of the secondary use of terms. Knowing that sin is the act of transgression, they read "act of transgression" every time they see the term sin, ignoring the fact that there is a metonymy in the use of all words which apply even to sin.

Suppose a similar treatment of the word death. Primarily, death means the state to which a living man is reduced when his life ceases. Now we read of one of the sons of the prophets saying,

"There is death in the pot."

Does this mean there was a corpse in the pot? No, but that which makes a corpse of any living man. "Death" literally meant "that which would lead to death." Again, "death hath passed upon all men," means the condition that leads to death. So, "Let the dead bury their dead," means, "Let those who are destined to be numbered with the dead, bury those who are actually dead." "Passed from death unto life," means, "Passed from that relation that ends in death, to that which leads to life." A disregard of metonymy and ellipsis in such statements, has led to most of the errors of the apostacy; and is leading some back to them who had escaped.

There is a principle, element, or peculiarity in our constitution (it matters not how you word it) which leads to the decay of the strongest or the healthiest. Its implantation came by sin, for death came by sin; and the infliction of death and the implantation of this peculiarity are synonymous things.

God's sentences are not carried out by hangmen's ropes and executioners' axes, but by the inworking of His appointed law. Because the invisible, constitutional, physical inworking of death in us came by sin, that inworking is termed sin. It is a principle of uncleanness and corruption and weakness—the word and experience conjoining in this testimony. For this reason, it is morally operative: for whatever affects the physical, affects the moral.

If no counterforce were brought into play, its presence would subject us to the uncontrolled dominion of disobedience, through the constitutional weakness and impulse to sin. The enlightenment of the truth helps us to keep the body under. Still we are not thereby emancipated. Our experience answers to Paul, and leads us to sympathise exactly with his exclamation,

"O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from this body of death."

The body of the Lord Jesus was this same unclean nature in the hand of the Father, that deliverance might be effected by God on His own principles and to His own glory. Condemnation has been called a cage; and it has been asked how one prisoner can liberate another? The answer is that God never allows His locks to be forced or His prisoners to be unlawfully set free.

The doors must be opened legitimately, and the opening of the prison must be for a reason among the prisoners as in the closing. God accepts no compromise. He provided a prisoner furnished with the key of obedience who could open the door for all who should name themselves after Him.

The Christadelphian, Feb 1874

21 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:

For the offerer, therefore, to "put his hand upon the head of the burnt offering" was to transfer himself to the sacrifice, as it were, and to acknowledge himself justly dealt with in whatever should befall the animal. He was then to "kill the bullock", and the priests were to sprinkle the blood upon the altar, and to cut up the body and place the severed pieces on the altar for consumption.

Paul says (Heb. 10:4): "The blood of bulls and of goats could not take away sin", but "it was a figure for the time then present" of the "one offering" that could and did, even

"the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all" (10:10)

memorialized in the breaking of bread'

"My body given for you ..... My blood shed for the remission of the sins of many".

We identify ourselves with "the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world" when we are "baptized into his death". We confess our sins, and offer ourselves to God in him, and are forgiven for his sake, in whose crucifixion "sin was condemned in the flesh" in the shedding of whose blood, "the righteousness of God was declared".

The testimony of the apostolic word is that it was so (Rom. 8:3; 25-26); and the fact that Jesus was the seed of David according to the flesh shows us how it could be so. Here we should rest in "faith in his blood". There is a danger of men reasoning themselves out of the verities of the Gospel by using their own thoughts as natural men against the appointments of God.

Law of Moses Ch 23.

34 And this shall be an everlasting statute unto you, to make an atonement for the children of Israel for all their sins once a year. And he did as Yahweh commanded Moses.

The Day of Atonement

"Behold, now is the Time of Acceptance; now is the Day of Salvation."

The day of atonement, its numerous sacrifices, and the various rites enjoined, all deserve our most careful attention; not only from the supreme importance attached to them under the Mosaic Law, but from their frequent mention in the New Testament, and from their typical bearing on the events of our own time, or those which will shortly come to pass.

By the Jews, it is called emphatically The Day.‭ ‬It is the day of condemning,‭ ‬avenging,‭ ‬and coverings of Sin yom hak-kiphpurim—a Day of Coverings: on it the sins of the whole Jewish nation were covered over; on it the High Priest performed all the functions of ordinary priests; and on this day only, he entered the Holy of Holies, or the most holy chamber, or division, of the temple beyond the Veil.

This day was considered as a Sabbath, or rest, a festival, and the strictest of fasts; and it concentrated in itself the solemnities proper to each of these, and it had a longer period of preparation preceding it than any other holy day required.

The High Priest performed all those services appointed for the Tabernacle—the daily, the sabbatical, and the festival services, as well as those peculiar to this day, and he finished by reading to the people.

Tisri was the first month of the Civil Year, and the seventh of the Ecclesiastical Year, and the 10th of Tisri was the Day of Coverings, termed in the English Version, "the Day of Atonement." From the first to the seventh are called days of conversion; because in them they turned to Yahweh in preparation for the 10th. The 8th and 9th were styled terrible days,

On these they clothed themselves with sackcloth, and began to afflict their souls. At sunset on the 9th Tisri, the fast began. No food was allowed, except in cases of extreme necessity, and even then the quantity was limited to what a date shell could hold.

Seven days before the fast, the High Priest took up his abode in the temple, purifying himself, and practising those various sacrifices, and other offices which he would have to perform on the 10th. On the 9th he fed sparingly, concluding before sunset; during the night he was attended by the younger priests, who read to him, and prevented his sleeping, lest his dreams should be unholy.

Others watched for the approach of day, and at the first streak of dawn, they roused the High Priest to the arduous duties of the day. There were fifteen victims which he must slay, divide, wash, and offer in sacrifice, as far as possible with his own hands.

He must wash his whole body five times; wash his hands and feet ten times; and change his garments six times during the day; and the fast must be as strictly observed by him as by the rest of the people. He went into the Holy of Holies four times during the day;

1. With the Incense;

2. With the Blood of the Bullock;

3. With the Blood of the Goat;

4. At the conclusion of the sacrifices to bring out the Incense.

When the Day of Coverings dawned, the High Priest put off his ordinary garments, immersed his whole body, and five times washed his hands and feet; he then put on the holy golden garments, and addressed himself to the service of the day.

He first slew the daily sacrifice, a lamb, burnt its members, offered the morning incense, trimmed the lamps, and went through the ordinary morning service. He then offered the bullock, and seven lambs, appointed for extraordinary significant days, and again washed his hands and feet. He then put off the golden garments, bathed himself, and put on the linen garments appropriate to the day—Lev. 16:4; and now began the service peculiar to it.

He first went to his own bullock, Lev 16: 6, which was between the temple and the altar, and putting both hands upon his head, confessed his sins. Leaving the bullock in the hands of a keeper, he went to cast lots for the two goats in the northeast quarter of the Court below the altar.

The lots were inscribed, the one "For Yahweh;" the other, "For Scapegoat." After drawing them, he tied a scarlet fillet on the horns of the Scapegoat, when it was taken to the east gate of the temple, which looked towards the Mount of Olives, whence it was to be sent into the wilderness in due time, the victim-goat remaining where it was.

He returned to his bullock, and confessing again over him his own sins, and those of the sons of Aaron and of the holy people, he slew the bullock, and gave the blood to a priest, who stirred it up to prevent coagulation.

He now took the censer, filled it with burning coals from the Brazen Altar; then took a handful of incense from a vessel which was brought to him, and threw it into another dish. He took the censer of coals in his right hand, the dish of incense in his left, and entering the first time into the Holy of Holies through the Veil, placed the burning censer in front of the Ark of the Covenant, poured the incense into his hand, scattered it on the coals, waited till the place was filled with smoke, and then came out backwards, his face being towards the Ark.

On reaching the Court of the Priests, he took the blood of the bullock, which had been kept stirred, and sprinkled it upon the Mercy Seat, eastward; and before it seven times. Coming out again from the Most Holy, he left the remaining blood in the Holy Place. He now went out, and slew the victim-goat, and going with his blood into the Holy of Holies a third time, sprinkled it also before the Mercy Seat.

Coming out, he set it down in the Holy Place, and sprinkled the blood of the bullock before the Veil, then the blood of the goat also. He then mingled both bloods in one vessel, and sprinkled the Golden Altar, and vessels of the sanctuary; and going out, poured the remaining blood under the Brazen Altar.

These things transacted, he next sent away the Scapegoat, having laid his hands on his head, and confessed the sins of the people. While the Scapegoat was being conveyed away, the High Priest went on with the service of the day.

He divided the bullock and goat he had slain, and whose blood he had taken within the Veil: he burnt their fat and inwards upon the Brazen Altar, but sent their carcasses to be burnt without the camp or city. By this time the Scapegoat had reached the wilderness, which event, they say, was known by the whitening of the scarlet fillet on the door-post.

The High Priest then read certain sections of the Law, recited eight prayers, washed his hands and his feet, put off the linen garment, bathed, put on his golden garments, and washed his hands and feet. He then offered a Ram for himself, another for the people, and seven lambs as extra oblations for this day.

At length he offered the daily evening sacrifice, washed his hands and feet, put off the golden garments, bathed, put on the linen garments, washed his hands and his feet, and going a fourth time into the Holy of Holies, brought out the censer and the dish, which he had left there at the beginning of the service of the day.

Washing his hands and feet, he put off the linen garments, bathed, put on the golden garments, washed his hands and feet, offered the evening incense, and trimmed the lamps. Then finally washing his hands and feet, he put off the golden garments, resumed his ordinary dress, and went home, followed by the people, and congratulated by his friends.

In solving the enigma of this Mosaic Day of Coverings, it should be remembered, that Christ's person, Christ's office, Christ's sacrifice, and one time of offering it, the Eternal Spirit in Flesh, or Christ alone could fill—to show forth any one of these, several types combined; and as each type requires its own time, there must be for each one of Christ's offices several times in the types.

The Christ, in his single person, embodies, the paschal lamb and its blood of sprinkling; the victims of the Day of Coverings and their blood of sprinkling; the bodies burnt without the camp; and the High Priest who entered the Holy of Holies.

All the types concenter in the Eternal Spirit Incarnate—the Christ; and therefore in applying them to him, we are under the necessity of giving our whole attention to the meaning of the emblem, not to its circumstances. We must stop, in our application of the types to Christ, at that point where they foreshow his person or offices, and not apply to the Great Antitype the various times, places, and circumstances which are only meant to give necessary locality to the several types.

But when the finished work of the Christ comes to be applied to the faithful, or to successive generations; or when we endeavor to trace out the course of his future manifestations, the time and order observed in the type become important features in our inquiry, and an attention to this distinction removes some difficulty in the case.

The Day of Coverings was a day of sacrifice in a preëminent degree—a day of death, of burning, and of blood—"A day of blood and fire, and cloud of smoke." It was a day also of confession of sin, tribulation, and pardon; so that it became "a time of acceptance, and a day of salvation." This was the character of the Mosaic Pattern; of a single day in every year of the Times of the Ages; and it foreshadowed a day of like character—"Now," which, Paul says, is the time of acceptance and the day of salvation—2 Cor. 6:2.

This Antitypical Day of Coverings has already continued for many centuries. Its preparation began with the entrance of the Eternal Spirit into its personal Temple (Jno. 2:21) when he descended on Jesus in the form of a dove; the slaying of the bullock and the goat; the burning of their carcasses without the camp; and the carrying of the burning censer into the Holy of Holies—has been fulfilled in the death and resurrection, and ascension of Jesus, who, like the Scapegoat is absent from the camp of Israel.

The handful of incense, the prayers of the little flock, still smokes before the Ark. The censer remains there; yea, and must remain there till the day is terminated, and its service complete. While it is smoking before the Ark, blood flows and the fire burns. Sin has been condemned in the flesh; and the household or sanctuary of the Eternal Spirit reconciled; but all its members have not yet been brought in.

When these are complete, "the Hour of Judgment," the last hour of the day of atonement will have come. The law will then be proclaimed from Zion by the High Priest in his golden garments. The Jubilee trumpet will sound, and Israel shall return. In this terrible crisis, Babylon falls, the harvest is reaped, the vintage gathered, the winepress trodden, and the times of the Gentiles fulfilled.

Their kingdoms become the kingdoms of Yahweh; Israel is pardoned; the nations blessed in Abraham and his Seed; the Day of Atonement consummated; and the Feast of Tabernacles, the feast of the 15th of Tisri, inaugurated to the joy of all the earth.

Herald of the Kingdom and Age to Come, Sept 1861