Channels, Spring 2018

Channels • 2018 • Volume 2 • Number 2 Page 3 atonement.” 7 Because God atones for His people’s sins only on the basis of their right sacrifices from a right heart, a perfect and complete atoning sacrifice is necessary. This perfect substitutionary sacrifice is found in the work of Jesus on the cross. Jesus’ willing sacrifice on the cross is the perfect atonement that completes the sin offering on the Day of Atonement. Hebrews 9:13-14 testifies to the better sacrifice of Christ “for if the blood of goats and bulls, and the sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer, sanctify for the purification of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God.” The author of Hebrews draws Day of Atonement terminology as he presents the perfected atoning sacrifice of Christ. “The sin offerings presented on the Day of Atonement, or at any other time, had no effect on the consciences of those on whose behalf they were brought; they served merely in an external and symbolical manner to counteract the defilement of sin.” 8 The blood of goats and calves was only made atonement to the extent that it “purge the pollution rather than removed sin.” 9 However, the perfect atoning sacrifice of Christ is able to clear the guilty conscience and purify the sinful heart. Animals are not moral creatures; the unblemished condition of those victims offered up was merely external and superficial in character for the purposes of ritual symbolism…By contrast, Christ, the Incarnate Son, is a fellow human being, partaking of our own human nature (Heb. 2:14), and therefore, as man, fully qualified to stand in for us as our substitute, and, as one without blemish, that is, as a man morally perfect with an undefiled conscience before God (Heb. 4:15;7:27), competent to offer up the completely efficacious sacrifice of his own unblemished person in satisfaction for our sins and for the purifying of our consciences. Jesus’ own body, a perfect and willing human sacrifice, was the only type of sacrifice that could fulfill the Day of Atonement offering. The Mosaic Covenant sets up this sacrificial system while displaying an immediate need for a new one, with a better and complete sacrifice to atone for the perpetual sins of the people. This better sacrifice is found under the New Covenant through the atoning blood of Christ. 7 Michael G. McKelvey, “Leviticus” A Biblical-Theological Introduction to the Old Testament: The Gospel Promised (Wheaton: Crossway, 2016) p. 97 8 F.F. Bruce, “The Epistle to the Hebrews” The New International Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 1990) p. 214 9 John H. Hayes, “Atonement in the Book of Leviticus” Interpretation 52, no. 1, (January 1998): 8