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The Daily Word of Righteousness
Seven Steps to the Rest of God, #23
And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying, also on the tenth day of this seventh month there shall be a day of atonement: it shall be an holy convocation unto you; and ye shall afflict your souls, and offer an offering made by fire unto the LORD. (Leviticus 23:26,27)
The Day of Atonement
We have come now to the sixth feast of the Lord. The number six symbolizes the day in which man is created in the image of God.
The saints, the brothers of Christ, have been predestined to be changed into the image of Christ (Romans 8:29). Therefore the workings of the Divine redemption will not cease until we have been made perfectly in Christ's image and have been brought into restful union with Him. The second Adam and His wife are the fullest expression of the declaration: "male and female made he them."
The term atonement has many shades of meaning. Perhaps the term reconciliation best sums up the various meanings. The Day of Atonement may be thought of as the Day of Reconciliation.
The Divine atonement consists of much more than a covering of the sinner or a forgiving of his sin or the appeasing of God's wrath. The Divine atonement contains all the provisions necessary to bring a human being from bondage to Satan all the way to union with God through Christ.
The Divine redemption has not accomplished its work in us until we are completely in the rest of God.
The salvation that is in Christ includes the forgiveness of our sins. However, forgiveness of sin is not the unique feature of the new covenant for sins were forgiven also under the sin offerings of the old covenant. The outstanding aspect of the new covenant is that our sins are removed from us and we become a new creation in the Lord.
Each human being is in need of redemption from guilt, from spiritual death, from sin's power, from disobedience, and from bodily corruption and death. Each of these five aspects of redemption is included in the Divine atonement.
The Day of Atonement, of Reconciliation, is set forth in the sixteenth chapter of the Book of Leviticus. Two goats figure prominently in the ceremony.
One goat was slain and its blood was sprinkled upon and before the Mercy Seat as a sin offering for the children of Israel.
The living goat bore away the iniquities of Israel into the wilderness (Leviticus 16:7-22).
Here are two dimensions of the Divine redemption: one, the forgiveness of the guilt of our sins; and two, the removal of sin itself from us.
The slain goat appeased God concerning the guilt of sin. The living goat symbolically removed the sins of the people.
The slain Lord Jesus satisfied the justice of God concerning the guilt of our sins. The living Lord Jesus, the King, has come now to remove the power of sin from us. Such removal is possible and lawful because the atonement made by Jesus authorizes both forgiveness and cleansing.
The Lord Jesus has come to His Church in our day for the purpose of removing our sins from us. He is ready to break the power of the devil in our personalities. The sin that is part of us must be removed before we can be raised into bodily immortality.
To be continued.