Leviticus 16:20-28
WE LEARN that the tabernacle was a pattern of things in the heavens (Heb. 9:23-28). There was the court, the holy place, and the holy of holies; Scripture speaks of heaven in which the birds fly, the firmament, the heavenly places where the angels, “the principalities and powers” are, finally, far above all, the throne and dwelling place of God.
Aaron is a type of the Lord Jesus, who having died and risen, has passed through the heavens. He is gone in, with His own blood, into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us.
One day soon He will come forth to lead Israel into the full results of His blessed work of atonement. They are waiting for Him to come out, as it were. In the meantime all believers are associated with Him, and we have boldness to enter into the holiest, by the blood of Jesus. There is but one way into God’s holy presence, and that is the blood-sprinkled way, which He has consecrated through the veil, that is to say, His flesh. Along that way countless thousands, millions, have passed. His one sacrifice is sufficient for all. Dear reader, are you treading that way? There is no other way to God and eternal blessing.
Having made an end of reconciling the holy place in the tabernacle, Aaron was to lay both his hands upon the head of the live goat and to confess over him all the sins and transgressions of the children of Israel. Then the goat was to be sent away by the hand of a fit man into the wilderness, unto a land not inhabited. The “fit man” points to no other than the Lord Jesus.
The congregation of Israel knew when they saw the goat led away that by the sin offering all their sins were thus removed from them. So after the Lord Jesus comes out from heaven, and is manifested in glory, and they see Him whom they pierced, then, not till then, will they know that He was their sin offering — that by His death and blood shedding on Calvary their sins had been cleansed.
“The land not inhabitated” is a land where their sins never can be found because there is no one there to look for them; “a land of forgetfulness” — where they will never be brought to remembrance again. How blessed this is, and what a comfort to God’s earthly people in that day when they enter into the truth of His own words, “As far as the east is from the west, so far hath He removed our transgressions from us.” Psa. 103:12. “Their sins and iniquities will I remember no more.” Heb. 10:17.
Thus through the work of the Lord Jesus, we, in our heavenly places shall enjoy with Him the eternal and unbroken rest; Israel on earth, all righteous, shall enter into their millennial rest, every man sitting under his own vine and fig tree, and Messiah reigning in peace and glory. All in heaven, and those blessed on earth, shall ascribe all their blessing to the precious death and blood shedding of Jesus, the Lamb of God.
ML-05/21/1972