Law – Leviticus 16-18

During the month of June some years ago, the RE students were brought out for an excursion. It was part of a Bible Camp (or Bible Seminar as we know it today) programme which was meant to let the students have a bit of fun together, as well as to learn something that would enrich and broaden their Christian worldview.

In that outing, the teachers and students paid a visit to a Jewish Synagogue, one of only two in our small country. We got to take a look at the worship hall, torah scrolls, and the menorah. It was quite an experience as all of us in the visiting group had never been to a Synagogue before. That trip was memorable for some reasons, and one of which was because of the intricate links that the Jewish faith has with our Christian identity. Putting aside the obvious differences in faiths, I am drawing upon this incident to make some inroad into our continued reading of Leviticus.

Today’s reading takes us to …

Bible Passage:  Leviticus 16 – 18

The three chapters today are noticeably disparate in their contents. The chapter contents of each deal with the following matters:

Lev 16 – Day of Atonement

Lev 17 – The Sanctity of Blood/Proper Method(s) in Offering

Lev 18 – Laws of Sexual Morality

For today’s blog, we will zoom in on Lev 16.

The Day of Atonement is also known as Yom Kippur to the Jews. It falls on the 10th day of the 7th month of the Jewish calendar. The significance of this Jewish festival is of high importance because of its very nature. As we have read in Lev 16, the Day was not just any ordinary day for sacrifice. God commanded that Aaron (i.e. the high priest) should not go into the Holy Place indiscreetly. This was a most sacred day for the atoning of the entire of Israel of her sins.

Symbolisms

There is a lot of symbolism involved in the process of Atonement. We pay particular attention to the two goats. Lev 16:8-10 tells us of the two goats and it is key to note that one of the two was the Lord’s goat. As with the dual tablets of the covenant, here once again, we find a duo of goats. Where the one tablet was God’s copy of the covenant, here we have the one goat that was the Lord’s, which was to be slaughtered for the people’s sins (cf. Lev 16:15).

The other goat was the scapegoat, in fact, the escape-goat who was the representation of the sins of Israel. The Hebrew word for scapegoat translates into ‘azazel’, meaning ‘a goat of departure’. This scapegoat, azazel, was to be put away in the wilderness, Sin was to be put away, so that Israel could be forgiven and start anew once again.

How do we make sense of all these metaphorical symbolism? It shouldn’t be too difficult to distinguish the sacredness of this Day when we can see it from the perspective of the New Testament. Reading Leviticus will leave us hanging with plenty of question marks ???????? if we don’t see the fulfilment with spiritual eyesight and wisdom. The parallel book to this would be Hebrews in which the author draws many comparisons and allows us to understand many of the mysteries of the Old Testament ordinances. Heb 9:11-14 clues us in to the sacrifice of Christ, once and for all, in the ultimate form of the Day of Atonement.

Flashback

With that, we now look back at the Day of Atonement in the OT and we understand better. That was a continual, annual affair whereby the high priest was a representation of what was to come. That was a shadow of the single, eternal sacrifice in which the Highest High Priest was also the Lamb that takes away sins. John the Baptist proclaimed rightly when we said, “Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” (cf. Jn 1:29). And now we understand the purpose for the two goats.

Flashing Back

The visit to the Jewish synagogue was not for us to be witnesses to any sort of sacrifices. None happened on that day. And none can ever take place again because it was done once and for all; through Christ, and by Christ. The visit to the synagogue however was an eye-opener because it allowed me to understand how close both faiths are yet being so divergent in the essence of salvation. And it all comes down to one thing – Grace.

How else can we in the True Jesus Church say we’re the chosen ones? How else can we say that we’re more blessed than the other faiths? The fact is so many of the other denominations see the fulfilment and equivalent of the Day of Atonement to be in the form of Good Friday. For us, we know the Holy Communion is the commemoration of Christ’s sacrifice for us. How else do we say that we’re blessed, but only because of God’s grace?

Today, many of us don’t get to see the sacrifice of the bulls and goats. The closest we get to that is during the Muslim festival of Hari Raya Haji. Because of the similarities involved in the sacrificing process, perhaps an eyewitness account of such an event can be useful in allowing us to understand the significance of Yom Kippur.

The Jewish synagogue was but a start in which my horizons were broadened. My insight into the Judaic practices were piqued and it allowed for me to take an interest in the OT even more. Today we can get so much more information from the web so we don’t really need to visit one to know God’s plans and the fulfilment of them. We just need to be holy as He is Holy, and draw near to Him and He will draw near to us with spiritual insight (cf. James 4:8).

Do we recognise that our body is his temple, atoned for by His sacrifice, and redeemed by His blood?