The Peace, the Release of Being Forgiven

Leviticus 16-17, Lesson 4

The Peace, the Release of Being Forgiven

You’ve heard this statement “To err is human, to forgive divine.” This is what we want to look at. All of us understand that to err is human. We are quick to say,“I am human. I err.” The Bible says all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. There is none righteous no not one. When we are honest with ourselves we know that we don’t measure up to the standard that we want to measure up to and what God wants us to measure up to. But I wonder ifas Christians we really understand (or as people whether we know the Lord or not) that to forgive is divine. Forgiveness has to come from a divine source.

Men and women that have rejected Jesus Christ haven’t understood that they need divine forgiveness. They were going to do it their way, they had concept,they hadtheir God or had no God, they were agnostic or atheist.

What was it like when people like that died? There is a pamphlet called“QuotationsfromFamous Infidels.”

"I would gladly give one hundred and fifty thousand dollars," said Charteres, "to have it proved there is no hell."

"Until this moment," said Sir Walter Scott, "I thought there was neither a God nor a hell. Now I know and feel that there are both, and I am doomed to perdition by the just judgment of the Almighty."

"I am suffering the pangs of the damned," exclaimed Talleyrand, the French statesman.

"I'm lost! Lost! Lost!" cried infidel Adams when dying. "I'm damned! Damned! Damned forever!" His agony was so great that he tore his hair from his head as he passed away.

"I am damned to all eternity!" said Edwards.

"O Christ!" cried Voltaire. "O Lord Jesus I must die -- abandoned by God and men." For his condition had become so frightful that his infidel associates were afraid to approach his bedside. After he passed away, his nurse said repeatedly, "For all the wealth of Europe I would never see another infidel die."

They understood that to err is human;they didn’t understand that they needed divine forgiveness. They thought they were alright with God.

"What argument is there now to assist me against matters of fact?" asked Sir Francis Newport. "Do I assert there is no hell when I feel one in my own bosom? That there is a God I know, because I continually feel the effect of His wrath. That there is a hell, I am equally certain, having received an earnest of my inheritance already in my own breast." Lest his friends should think he was going insane, he said to them, "You imagine me melancholy or distracted: I wish it were either, but it is part of my judgment that I am not. My appreciation of persons and things is more quick and vigorous than when I was in perfect health. O! That I was to lie a thousand years upon the fire that never is quenched to purchase the favor of God, and be reunited to Him again! But it is a fruitless wish. Millions and millions of years will bring me no nearer to the end of my torments than one poor hour! O Eternity! Eternity!" As death seized him, he uttered a groan of inexpressible horror and cried out, "O! The insufferable pangs of hell! O Eternity! Forever and forever!"

Whatdo you know from this testimony of hisdeath? You know that heknew there was a God; you knew he had been exposed to the word of God, to the truths of God, to the truths of the gospel, and had willfully rejected them.

I want to add two more statements (to “to err is human, to forgive divine”):

• To except forgiveness is to believe God and have Peace
• To give forgiveness is to obey God and have release.

This is what we want to look at over these next two weeks as we study the Day of Atonement. ~ As we see the peace, see the release and the abundant life that is ours, as we live in the light of the truth, as we study this week.

Book of Beginnings,Genesis 3 we see why to err is human, and to forgive divine:

Fallof mankind into sin; we also see that to forgive is divine. We see it in subtle ways when God kills an animal and uses the skin to cover Adam and Eve’s nakedness.

God has Noah to make an ark and preserves himwhen He plans to destroy the world.

God makes a covenant with Abraham and promises a seedand in that seed all the nations of the earth will be blessed.

When you cometo Genesis 22 you see apicture, a foreshadow, of the coming forgiveness of God. Abraham takes his son,Isaac, and offers him up as a burnt offering. (You understand burnt offerings having studied the first part of Leviticus);Who dies? Does anyone die in Isaac’s place as a burnt offering?It is a ram that is caught in the thicket;the ram is used as a substitute. What we see is the idea of a substitute for another.

InExodus we see over and over again that to err is human as we see the children of Israelmurmurings and grumbling against God saying, “Leave us alone, Moses. Don’t deliver us, this is too hard.”

Then we come,in essence, to the crown jewel of Exodus 12 where we have the blood of the Passover Lamb. There we have the fact that God is going to deliver them out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. But He is going to bring them out through the death of the first born. We see them taking a lamb on the fourteenth day of Nissan and slaying that lamb, and taking the blood and placing it over the door post of the houses. We see a picture of forgiveness. We see divineness as the angel of death passes over.

In the book of Leviticus, God shows His people that there is only one way to approach Him.

Leviticus 1-7shows them the offerings they are to make to allow them to come and have peace and fellowshipwith God and have their sins taken care of and the guilt that goes with sin.

Leviticus 8-9He shows us there has to be a priest as a mediator between the people and God, as God has a holy tabernacle and as God dwells over the holy of holies in His “Shekinah glory.”In the priest we see the picture of Jesus Christ. In the tabernacle we see the work of Christ. In the priests we see the picture of Jesus Christ our High Priest who ever lives to make intercession for us.

Leviticus 10 stresses the fact that there is a divine wrath. There is also divine forgiveness but if you refuse the forgiveness and refuse to approach God in God’s way,likeNadab and Abihu who are killed for offering strange fire, there is divine wrath.

Leviticus 11-15 Separation of God’s people from the clean and the unclean, from the holy and the profane. He shows how the separation works out in our lives.

Leviticus 16the crown jewel of truth as we look at the Day of Atonement. We see how we who are unclean, how we who error, how we as humans, such a sinful people, can be brought before a holy God. Not only brought before Him but how to have a fellowship with Him. We also see how this holy God inhabits the praises of His people and dwells over the ark of the covenant, how this holy God can be rightly approached by a sinful people.

Let’s walk through “the day of atonement.” Genesis isa small part of the picture. Exodus is an expansion of how God is going to forgive His people,but in Leviticus 16it is defined so clearly you can’t miss it. Leviticus 16 is a shadow behind the substance and that substance is the Lord Jesus Christ.

Leviticus 16:1Now the Lord spoke to Moses after the death of the two sons of Aaron, when they had approached the presence of the Lord and died.

They suffered the judgment of God (just like the stories of the infidels I told you about at the beginning).

Leviticus 16:2The Lord said to Moses: “Tell your brother Aaron that he shall not enter at any time into the holy place inside the veil, before the mercy seat which is on the ark, or he will die; for I will appear in the cloud over the mercy seat.

The high priest could not enter behind the veil anytime he wanted; only when God allowed it.

He couldn’t, but you can. You can! We are going to see this and what it means.

What is the mercy seat? It was the covering ~ the “kapporeth” (atonement) of the ark of the covenant.

Inside the ark of the covenant we have the 10 commandments. What do the 10 commandments show us? To err is human. If we are guilty, death awaits us.The pot of manna reminds man he needs to live by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.

You see the rod of Aaron that shows that there is a holy priesthood and there is a way to come to God and not any can come to God. Then you see the covering, the covering is the lid.

Mercy seat in verse 2 is kapporeth; also translated as propitiatory; means a satisfaction.

This mercy seat is where God’s holiness is satisfied so a holy God can forgive a sinful people.

You can only enter when God says enter. When he enters, how is he to enter?He is to enter only one day of the year. It is a specified day when he goes in. When he goes in, he is not like our priest the Lord Jesus Christ, but is a priest among man. He is a sinner. Before he can go into the presence of God, he has to have a sacrifice to take care of his sins.

Leviticus 16:3“Aaron shall enter the holy place with this: with a bull for a sin offering and a ram for a burnt offering.

He is going to need two animals. He is to take a ram (burnt offering) and a bull (sin offering). No other time is he to walk into the Holy of holies where God dwells among His people.

He has to wash himself and put on the simple linens. He doesn’t have garment with the bells or the breast piece. He goes in very humble attire, just pure linen as he goes in having washed himself. He is going in for himself and thenhe’s going to go in for the people. The people have to have a sacrifice: a sin offering (2 goats) and a burnt offering (ram).

What is the procedure?

Hebrews 9:22And according to the Law, one may almost say, all things are cleansed with blood, and without shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.

Leviticus 17:11For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you on the altar to make atonement for your souls; for it is the blood by reason of the life that makes atonement.’

1. The only way he can approach God now is to wash himself, put on linen garments and come into the presence of God.
2. get coals from the altar of incense,put them in a censor
3. 2 portions of incense and walk into the holy of holies with the censor
4. the incense will go up before God and cover the ark of the covenant
5. He takes the blood of the bull and sprinkles it on the mercy seat
6. Blood is put on mercy seat, on what is called “Hilasterion”the word for mercy seat, for propitiation for our sins
7. The minute that God sees the blood he is forgiven
8. Then takes the goats and lots are cast for the goat. One belongs to the Lord and the other is the scapegoat. The goat that belongs to the Lord is slain. The priest goes in for the people, and he takes the blood of the slain goat and does the same thing as he did before when he went into the holy of holies.
9. He has gone in 2 times, once for himself and once for the people. When he comes back out, he then takes the scapegoat (goat of removal) and he has laid his hands on the head of that goat, and the people have confessed their sins, then the goat is taken out in the wilderness and driven away.

And do you know what? In that truth, in the death of these two goats is where you are going to find forgiveness, peace,acceptance, and release.

Are you dealing with bitterness? Are you tormented by your past? Are your sins constantly before you? You confessed them and you tell God that you’resorry, butthey are still before you?There are always people to remind you of your failures as a mother, father, as a husband, a wife, as a child so these constantly come and bombard you. What do you do with them? We have the answer in the “Day of Atonement.” It is all here right in the Scriptures.

Day of Atonement in the New Testament:

Romans 3:23for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,

The glory of God is the true estimate of God; we are made in God’s image. But what happened? We sinned. “To error is human.” All have sinned and come short of the glory of God.

Romans3:24 being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus;

What does the word redeem mean? To buy a slave out of the market and setting that slave free. Where were the children of Israel? They were slaves in the land of Egypt. They were slaves to sin, and that’s what you and I are. We are born in sin, so I am the slave of sin:

John 8:34 Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is the slave of sin.

John 8:36 “So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.

So we are justified, we are declared righteous before God. To be justified before God is to be declared righteous. It is to be forgiven and only God can forgive you of your sins because it is against God and God only that you have sinned. God takes you and redeems you. How? This is the process in Leviticus 16 that shows us our redemption.

Romans 3:24 being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus;

What you are about to see is a gift, it can not be earned. Lyingon a bed of hot coals for a thousand years will not save you. You can not earn yourredemption; it can not earn you a rightful place with God. Nothing can. So what has to happen to you?You have to be redeemed. By what?A gift from God. It comes from God’s unmerited favor, by His grace.

Romans 3:25 whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in His blood through faith. This was to demonstrate His righteousness, because in the forbearance of God He passed over the sins previously committed;

Do you know what the word “propitiation” means? A mercy seat in His blood

Hilasterion- propitiation

When they took the word “mercy seat” in the Hebrew and translated it into Greek in the Septuagint, they translated it with this word “hilasterion.”“Hilasterion” (Greek)and “kapporeth”(Hebrews)both mean one in the same thing. There is a covering for your sin. There is a mercy seat for your sin,and there is forgiveness that is divine.

How? InHis blood. How?Through faith. He did it in his blood. Now the priest would enter in to the holy place. He would take the blood of the animalsacrificeand sprinkle it on the mercy seat. Then he would take the blood of the sacrifice and sprinkle it on the east side before the mercy seat seven times, the number of perfection, the number of completion. So what does this mean to us?

The word “propitiation” is only used in Romans and 1 John.

1 John 2: 1-2 my little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; and He Himself is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world.

Here the word for propitiation is “hilasmos.” He is the propitiation for our sins. What does propitiation mean? It means satisfaction; there is an adequate covering for your sins.

“And not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world.” Oh if there had been someone there thatwould have stepped up and had toldVoltaire, Thomas Pain,Adams and other infidels, there is a sacrifice for you. Yes to err is human, but there is divine forgiveness. You do not have to go to hell. There is an escape because we have a High Priest who has entered into the presence of God and has put His blood on the throne of God, on the mercy seat. And God has said “I am satisfied.” That blood covers not only our sins, but the sins of the whole world. That’s the hope we have. To accept this is to believe God and to receive peace. It goes far beyond that. It goes to the day by day living it out.

Living out of thisforgiveness, the living out of giving forgiveness for you not only want to have peace and need release, you do not want to be enslaved in bitterness towards others and your answer comes in understanding “The Day of Atonement.”

Are you weighed down by the constant memories of your sin? I want to take the Day of Atonement that you have studied, and I want you to see that your sins are forgiven. Now that there is redemption for your sins,andnow that God’s holiness has been propitiated, and been made for your sins, God’s holiness has been satisfied. You are not to have anymore consciousness of sin and neither are you to withhold forgiveness from others who have sinned against you.