Lexicon--
be cleansed
tsadaq (tsaw-dak')
to be (causatively, make) right (in a moral or forensic sense) -- cleanse, clear self, (be, do) just(-ice, -ify, -ify self), (be turn to) righteous(-ness).
Pasted from
Made right.
Be justified.
Be turned to righteous.
Shall be cleansed.
On an earthly level there had been set up a very special day to cleanse all the people and the sanctuary. One day out of a year God's people were to afflict their souls while the High Priest went about a very lengthy, very involved, very thorough cleansing ritual that when all was said and done- all the people and all the sins they'd committed throughout the entire year would be cleansed from the sanctuary.
Remember this…
'Goat for Azazel The Kohen Gadol left the Haichal and walked to the east side of the Azarah (Israelite courtyard). Near the Nikanor Gate, he leaned his hands (Semikha) on the goat “for Azazel” and confessed the sins of the entire people of Israel. The people prostrated themselves when he pronounced the Tetragrammaton. While he made a general confession, individuals in the crowd at the Temple would confess privately. The Kohen Gadol then sent the goat off “to the wilderness.”'
Pasted from
Let's read it directly from our Bibles-
Lev 16:5 And he shall take of the congregation of the children of Israel two kids of the goats for a sin offering, and one ram for a burnt offering.
Lev 16:6 And Aaron shall offer his bullock of the sin offering, which is for himself, and make an atonement for himself, and for his house.
Lev 16:7 And he shall take the two goats, and present them before the LORD at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation.
Lev 16:8 And Aaron shall cast lots upon the two goats; one lot for the LORD, and the other lot for the scapegoat.
Lev 16:9 And Aaron shall bring the goat upon which the LORD'S lot fell, and offer him for a sin offering.
Lev 16:10 But the goat, on which the lot fell to be the scapegoat, shall be presented alive before the LORD, to make an atonement with him, and to let him go for a scapegoat into the wilderness.
First the High Priest had to offer a sin offering from himself - making an atonement for himself and his house.
Then there were two goats. Lots were cast upon them. One lot for the LORD's goat and one for the scapegoat.
The LORD's goat was offered for a sin offering.
The scapegoat was sent into the wilderness alive.
Sin offerings, the daily offerings for the people of Israel involved a sacrifice, the shedding of blood. Where there is no shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.
Heb 9:22 And almost all things are by the law purged with blood; and without shedding of blood is no remission
Mat 26:28 For this is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.
Yet here we have a scapegoat offered for an atonement. A scapegoat that would be left to live. A scapegoat that would be led out into the wilderness far, far away never to return. And that living sacrifice symbolized what exactly? He was offered for an atonement, yet his blood wasn't shed. He was led into the wilderness to wander but not required to be killed according to scripture.
Lev 16:10 But the goat, on which the lot fell to be the scapegoat, shall be presented alive before the LORD, to make an atonement with him, and to let him go for a scapegoat into the wilderness.
Presented alive before the LORD.
Presented alive to make an atonement WITH HIM.
To let him go for a scapegoat into the wilderness.
Not sacrificed. The whole entire sacrificial service performed daily revolved around daily sin offerings. The lambs would be killed. The lambs would be sacrificed. Never was a sin offering made without the offering being sacrificed. A live offering was not allowed to live- the live offering was sacrificed. And all this sacrificing symbolized the fact that sin causes death.
Gen 2:17 But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.
In the day of disobedience to God's command death would enter. Flesh that had been made to be incorruptible, immortal, was now subject to death- cut off from its source of sustenance- the Tree of Life given by God.
Death entered with sin. And death could only be conquered by the death of the Innocent Lamb of God. Symbolically man was taught this through the sacrificial system. Man offered animal sacrifices- innocent animals were killed after the sin was symbolic transferred to them. God's people knew that every day as sin offerings were brought to the temple they were seeking the forgiveness of God. The hope was one day all sin would be done away with and God's people would be fully restored to Him. This would only occur through the greatest sacrifice of all. Jesus Christ.
The day of atonement had a LORD's goat and another goat - an escape goat, a scapegoat, ‛ăzâ'zêl.
The LORD's goat would be offered as a sin offering- killed, it would die for the sins of all the people.
The other goat would be offered as an atonement and taken out into the wilderness no longer to ever be a part of God's people. That goat would go off, left to live and die of its own accord, but NEVER be reconciled to God's people. There is a STARK contrast between the two goats.
Why the wilderness?
Zep 2:13 And he will stretch out his hand against the north, and destroy Assyria; and will make Nineveh a desolation, and dry like a wilderness.
Mal 1:2 I have loved you, saith the LORD. Yet ye say, Wherein hast thou loved us? Was not Esau Jacob's brother? saith the LORD: yet I loved Jacob,
Mal 1:3 And I hated Esau, and laid his mountains and his heritage waste for the dragons of the wilderness.
Amo 2:10 Also I brought you up from the land of Egypt, and led you forty years through the wilderness, to possess the land of the Amorite.
Led THROUGH the wilderness, not LED to and left in the wilderness, but let THROUGH.
Hos 2:3 Lest I strip her naked, and set her as in the day that she was born, and make her as a wilderness, and set her like a dry land, and slay her with thirst.
Make her as a wilderness- dry, waterless- death inducing.
Eze 20:21 Notwithstanding the children rebelled against me: they walked not in my statutes, neither kept my judgments to do them, which if a man do, he shall even live in them; they polluted my sabbaths: then I said, I would pour out my fury upon them, to accomplish my anger against them in the wilderness.
The wilderness is NOT symbolic of God's love but rather being brought THROUGH the wilderness is symbolic of God's love. Having the wilderness changed into something life sustaining reveals God's love. Being condemned to the wilderness forever was a death sentence. The wilderness did not symbolize God. It did symbolize a testing ground, even Jesus went into the wilderness.
Mat 4:1 Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil.
The wilderness is NOT symbolic of good.
Psa 107:4 They wandered in the wilderness in a solitary way; they found no city to dwell in.
Psa 107:5 Hungry and thirsty, their soul fainted in them.
Wilderness wandering is NOT a good thing by any reckoning. So here we have a goat that is used to make an atonement- making an atonement meant making a sacrifice, a blood sacrifice, a death sacrifice, and yet another aspect to making an atonement was what?
You couldn't make an atonement if you didn't confess and repent of your sins. When sin offerings were made, when daily sacrifices were offered they were made and offered with the intention of a sin being forgiven, a confessed sin. Once the sin was confessed and repented of and a sacrifice was slain for that sin it was forgiven. We are only forgiven by the sacrifice that our Savior made for us. If we don't confess and repent we are not forgiven of Jesus any more than a person was forgiven of their sins when an animal sacrifice was made if they didn't confess their sin putting it onto that animal.
They were symbolically putting their sin on that animal and that animal would then die for them so they could live in a forgiven state, an atonement was made by that sacrifice. When we offer a living sacrifice we are doing so with our Savior as our Sacrifice and He did not live, He was NOT symbolic of the goat led off to the wilderness.
Our Savior died, He was sacrificed for us and then He rose to life again and He was NEVER led off to the wilderness, banished there to be seen no more, not ever. The goat wasn't being taken to the wilderness temporarily, but permanently. The goat wasn't being sent off as a testing period to see if it could survive the wilderness onslaughts. The goat was once and for all, forever led to the wilderness to go and perish, to die in the wilderness, left without any resources for survival. A goat brought up and tended to by people. A goat given water and food so it could live was now taken to the wilderness to fend for itself. And lest people believe any animal could be taken to the wilderness and some how manage to survive by instinct alone, that's a fallacy. An abandoned animal does NOT always find a way to survive and it sickens me to think about it but…it's true. This goat…
' But the goat, on which the lot fell to be the scapegoat, shall be presented alive before the LORD, to make an atonement with him, and to let him go for a scapegoat into the wilderness. '
…this goat was presented before the LORD to make an atonement with him -- yet where was the atonement? There was no sacrifice as there was with the sin offering. Where was the atonement? Was it made? It was to make an atonement with. The sins were confessed upon this goat and then it was sent off into the wilderness. What was being symbolized here? That sins live on? That sins that were placed over the year upon the temple- sins that were confessed to God, sins that had been covered in the blood of sacrifice, were being CLEANSED from the sanctuary, but truly if those sins for all the entire year for all the people were being cleansed by just another sacrifice aren't they being placed right back on the sanctuary?
So that they aren't being placed right back on the sanctuary they have been placed on this wilderness appointed goat so that symbolically the goat is taking the sins away and EVERYTHING, everyone is pure in that moment. The sanctuary is pure in that moment as all sin is taken away.
When in our beliefs, in the word of God, is sin taken away completely from everyone to no more rise again?
Rev 20:14 And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death.
Rev 20:15 And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.
Death- the result of sin is gone forever and ever and ever, never more to be. Sin is gone. The world is freed from sin and all its results. The devil is destroyed, burned up, gone forever to be no more. All the sins that ever existed from the moment sin entered the world by the father of lies is once and for all - gone. All those sins that stem from the father of sin, all those sins that resulted from Satan are wiped out. Sinners, sin, the father of sin all of it is gone and forever more, for eternity, for a time without end there will never be sin again- it's gone. That sin hasn't been covered up by blood, but that sin has been destroyed. There is no more a need for another sacrifice, the sacrifices made were sufficient and the blood covered sins put upon Satan so that the world can be cleansed and made perfect, were all destroyed- gone forever.
That goat that was sent out into the wilderness to disappear forever, that goat had no sacrifice made for it as it carried symbolically the sins of all God's people. It was left to carry those sins off into the wilderness and perish there. The sanctuary was cleansed and it was cleansed through a day long process, not by one act. The cleansing took time. And as we are told in Daniel 8:14- 2300 days (years) then shall the sanctuary be cleansed… then shall that process of cleansing begin. It didn't say 2300 years and then the sanctuary is cleansed. It's -SHALL the sanctuary BE - denoting action to be taken- cleansed. The final cleansing of sin was being made. The process by which sin will once and for all be taken away was under way. This cleansing process was not being done on earth in an earthly sanctuary but where did the temple stand? In heaven. The temple that we would NO longer need ONLY when the earth is made new and new Jerusalem comes down from heaven to earth. Until that happens that temple is there to serve a purpose- it is NEEDED. If something is needed then it is serving a purpose beyond mere show. The heavenly temple was not a mere symbolic place to gaze upon and think of Jesus there with His Father. The temple would NO longer be needed one day. There had to be a reason it would be needed up until that point, to think otherwise would be to believe that God is just a show man putting on a fancy show and my God is not like that at all! My God came up with a plan of salvation and that plan was enacted. That plan included an earthly sanctuary based upon the heavenly sanctuary. When the earthly sanctuary was no longer in effect the heavenly sanctuary became the place we were to look to. In that heavenly sanctuary our Savior has ascended from earth and for a purpose. If all were accomplished- then there would have been NO need for earth to continue on with sin ruling under Satan, but it did continue because all hadn't been finished, that temple in heaven was still needed for a purpose.
Daniel was told that His vision would be closed for a long, long time- but that it would be opened. It's been opened for those who are not too blind to see, for those not caught up in the deception of Satan.
In 1844 the cleansing began and when that cleansing is finished, when sin is no more, when death, hell, and Satan are destroyed never to be again, that is when our new life begins without any need for a temple whatsoever!
We are told to watch and pray. We are watching and we are praying. We know that God sees the long view and offers us glimpses into that view. Will we be alive when it is finished? Only God knows. But we, as with all that are His, understand that being prepared for Him whether or not we are privileged with that blessing- that gift of immortality without tasting the first death- is a must. That a life spent with our gaze heavenward is the life we are called to.
By His amazing grace and love!
More tomorrow on that once a year cleansing of the sanctuary, and by the Lord's grace and through the Holy Spirit's enlightenment may we see His plan for us more clearly.
Amen!
No comments:
Post a Comment