A Difference Between Bulls and Goats
While religious Jews the world over look forward to the Atonement Day, Christians view the sacrifice of Jesus Christ as the beginning of that day. The purpose of that day is to make atonement with the LORD.
On the annual Atonement Day of the Jewish Age, the high priest was to offer first a bullock {1} as a sin-offering to make atonement for himself and his house. Then he was to take one of two goats and offer it as a sin-offering to make atonement for the people. (Leviticus 16:6,27) Then the high priest confessed the iniquities of the people upon the head of the goat rejected for sacrifice, and it was let loose in the desert (verse 21). Finally, he offered a burntoffering each for the two animals accepted for sacrifice (verse 24).
Where did these animals come from? The two billy-goats were to be taken from the children of Israel, as was just one burnoffering ram. But the bullock and its burntoffering were not; they were brought by Aaron. (Leviticus 16:3) {2} Why were the two sets of animals from different origins?
We may first consider what the significances are for the two sacrifices and the live atonement. Hebrews 13:10-12 speaks of the Day of Atonement. (1) ‘We have an altar, {3} whereof they have no right to eat that serve the tabernacle. For the bodies of those beasts whose blood is brought into the holy place by the high priest as a sin-offering, are burned {4} without the camp. Wherefore Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people through his own blood, suffered without the gate [of Jerusalem].’ Hebrews 9:28 adds (2), ‘Christ also, having been once offered to bear the sins of the many, shall appear a second time, apart from sin- offering, to them that wait for him, unto salvation.’ Romans 3:25 says (3) God sent forth Christ Jesus ‘to be a propitiation, through faith in his blood, to show his righteousness because of the passing over of the sins done aforetime.’ Thus, Jesus (1) is foreshadowed in the bullock, (2) the church (‘them that wait for him’) are pictured in the high priest or in his house, and (3) the sin-offering was to cleanse from all past sins (both in shadow and in reality).
EZEKIEL TESTIFIES
Of what is the departing goat {5} a shadow? Of which it is commanded, ‘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, even all their sins; and he shall put them upon the head of the goat, and shall send him away… and the goat shall bear upon him all their iniquities unto a solitary land’. (Leviticus 16:10; 20:22) Ezekiel 44:10-14 identifies this shadow in detail. ‘But the Levites that went far from me, when Israel went astray, that went astray from me after their idols, they shall bear their iniquity. Yet they shall be {6} ministers in my sanctuary… Because they ministered unto them before their idols, and became a stumbling block of iniquity unto the house of Israel… and they shall bear their iniquity. And they shall not come near unto me, to execute the office of priest unto me… but they shall bear their shame, and their abominations which they have committed.’ By implication, many Christians during the Gospel Age cause people to worship idols of organizations and great leaders (good or bad), but these will bear the iniquities they have caused others to commit. (Those sins which they have caused others to commit will not remain on the heads of people who in ignorance committed them.) Thus are these Christians rejected for sacrifice, although they have this secondary role in atonement. (cf. Leviticus 16:10) [There is here a lesson for each of us: Do I, through fear or band-wagon emotion, urge others to bow down to even the best of Christian leaders or organizations? Cooperation is good, but it should be based on in-common looking to the Lord for direction.]
What, then, of the Lord’s goat, which had a common origin with the goat rejected for sacrifice, but a common destination to be sacrificed as the bullock? Both the little flock and the great multitude come from the world of Adamic sin, but the former sacrifice, following in the footsteps of their master, continually applying the fullers’ soap to each new stain in the imputed robe of Christ’s righteousness. (Malachi 3:2) {7} These are the faithful priests, ‘the sons of Zadok {8} that kept the charge of my sanctuary when the children of Israel went astray from me, they shall come near to me to minister unto me; and they shall stand before me to offer unto me the fat and the blood, {9} saith the Lord GOD’. (Ezekiel 44:15-16) Walking in His footsteps, then, as Jesus suffered without the literal gate, ‘Let us therefore go forth unto him without the camp, bearing his reproach’. (Hebrews 13:13)
It remains to ask, What merit is shown in the blood offered in the Most Holy? The Atonement Day shadow by itself does not answer that question; we look to the New Testament for an explanation. In that Jesus Christ offered up himself ‘once for all’, (Hebrews 7:27) he must be the source of the merit. And ‘all our righteousnesses are as a polluted garment’. (Isaiah 64:6) Thus, the church’s part in the sinoffering may be likened to a pauper’s daughter, who marries a wealthy king; she brings no wealth to the wedding, but she thenceforth joins the king in bestowing the benefits of the treasury on behalf of the subjects of the kingdom.
ANOTHER 1-2 SHADOW
There is a parallel to one fatted bullock from one source and two skinny goats from another source. In the Feast of Weeks, (Leviticus 23:9-21) on the first Sunday after the Nisan 14 Passover, the firstfruits were to be offered with one loaf of meal-offering (unleavened, as would be expected). But on the Sunday seven weeks later (the 50th day, hence called Pentecost) the later-crop firstfruits were to be offered with two leavened loaves of meal-offering. The LORD demonstrated the fulfillment of the type with the raising of Jesus from the dead on the first Sunday (AD 33 April 3) after Passover, and with the Holy Spirit given to the disciples on Pentecost (May 24), which began the Gospel Age of the church. Jesus, who inherited his rights from his father, God, was unleavened; but we, who inherited our rights from father Adam who sinned, are indeed leavened.
The principal lesson to be seen in the typical Day of Atonement is that it leads to atonement between God and man, for the priesthood (i.e., the faithful heavenly bride of Christ), for the Levites (i.e., the erratic, but ultimately overcoming, heavenly great multitude), and for all the people (i.e., ultimately the whole world of mankind). A second lesson is also manifest: Atonement is to be accomplished in two stages, the Gospel Age for the church, and the Millennial Resurrection Kingdom for the whole rest of Adam’s fallen race. Thus, if we keep in mind our own fallen nature in the present Day of Atonement, we will continue to appreciate our need of Jesus Christ as our Redeemer, we will ‘work out our own salvation with fear and trembling’ (and not with overconfidence), and we will be patient even now with those who miss the mark as Christians, and with the unregenerate world, looking ahead to their day of redemption.
– James Parkinson
{1} Literally, a young bull, a son of plowing horned cattle (or oxen).
{2} Perhaps from the flocks of the priesthood. Jewish tradition has it that the priests bred a pure unblemished strain which was used exclusively for the tabernacle services.
{3} Most offerings were to be for the priesthood to eat of, (Leviticus 7) and even of some sin-offerings, but the Atonement Day sin-offerings were not to be eaten by anyone.
{4} The expression ‘without the camp’ can mean either beyond the tents of Israel or in the buffer zone between the tabernacle and the tents of the Levites; context and common sense should decide in each case.
{5} Or, goat for Azazel, or, goat for removal (or, for departure).
{6} The non-priests of the sons of Kohath, and Gershom and Merari, so served the tabernacle. (Numbers 3)
{7} The latter group, to be ‘the great multitude in heaven,’ must ultimately fully wash ‘their robes, and make them white in the blood of the lamb’. (Revelation 7:9, 13-17; 19:1)
{8} The name means ‘Righteous.’
{9} The fat and the blood were both offered in the sin-offerings of the Atonement Day, (Leviticus 16:14,15,25) but the bodies of the sin-offerings (bullock and LORD’s goat) were burned without the camp.