The Cleansing of the Sanctuary

Notes

1. To cleanse from sin was in the type to make an atonement for sin. The word atonement signifies at-one-ment. The person whose sins are atoned for, is "at-one" with the Lord.

2. The people brought their offerings to the sanctuary during the entire year till the day of atonement, or the tenth day of the seventh month. Those making offerings day after day confessed their sins upon the head of the sacrifices. The offering thus consecrated was then slain, and the priest did with it according to prescribed rites in each case. In some instances the blood was taken into the sanctuary, and the body was "burned without the camp." In other cases some of the blood was sprinkled on the horns of the altar of burnt-offerings, and the remainder poured out at the bottom of the same altar. The sins thus confessed are represented as defiling the sanctuary. They were lodged there until the day of atonement, when the sanctuary was cleansed.

3. The goat chosen by lot as the Lord's goat, represents Christ. The scapegoat represents Satan. See Lev. 16:8, margin, "Azazel." This is an ancient name for Satan among Eastern peoples. As the Lord's goat was slain, and its blood offered in the typical sanctuary for the sins of the people, so was Christ slain, and His blood is offered in the true sanctuary for the sins of the people. All the sins which had been confessed in connection with the sanctuary service during the entire year, were, at the close of the typical day of atonement, laid upon the head of the scapegoat, which was sent by the hand of a fit man into the wilderness to perish. This also meets its fulfilment in the antitype. Christ is our High Priest. Through the merits of His blood those who confess their sins are redeemed and washed from all sin. As the closing act in His work of cleansing the sanctuary, He will lay these sins for which He has atoned upon the head of their originator—Satan. He will carry them, not as a Saviour, but as a scapegoat from the sanctuary into the wilderness—the earth in its chaotic condition—to be destroyed when the Lord cleanses the earth by fire from all sin.

4. Christ in His sacrifice died for all. He is as a lamb slain from the foundation of the world; therefore, every offering made by faith from the beginning of the world until the death of Christ was made as an expression of faith in the one great offering for sins. That offering is the offering of Christ, made without the gate (Heb. 13:11, 12). He is now making the true atonement in the real sanctuary in heaven by virtue of His own blood. He makes the atonement for the transgressions of all believers under both the old and the new covenant.