In one of Jesus’ parables, He contrasted a Pharisee with a tax collector, both of whom went to the temple to pray. Pharisees were highly regarded by the people. And when in his prayer he thanked the Lord he is not like other men, everyone hearing Jesus’ story would have agreed that the Pharisee was not like the others. The tax collector, however, was viewed by the people as a sinner. Yet, unlike the Pharisee, the tax collector prayed, “Lord have mercy on me, a sinner.” Jesus said it was the tax collector who went home justified, and not the Pharisee.
The climax comes when John the Baptist pointed to the Lord Jesus Christ and said, “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29). Jesus Christ is the culmination of the revelation, the one who embodies everything that all the sacrifices symbolized and the one to whom all the sacrifices pointed.
What sets the Day of Atonement apart from the other holy days? The important difference to note here is that it was on this day that sacrifices were made for the entire nation. All the other sacrifices we’ve looked at (and we’ve looked at quite a few of them), were individual sacrifices: one worshiper making a sacrifice for his sin. Sometimes it was a burnt offering, sometimes a sin offering, sometimes a peace offering, but it was always for an individual’s sins or the sins of his family. The Day of Atonement is the only time in the year when sacrifices were offered for the sins of the entire nation.
It’s impossible to overestimate the importance of Leviticus 16 in the religion of the Old Testament. Its teaching about the Day of Atonement is absolutely central to the book of Leviticus. Leviticus contains the instructions for the priests and the sacrifices. And because the sacrifices are the very heart of how one becomes right before God, prefiguring the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, this chapter is more important than anything we have studied thus far.
