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Leviticus 16: Day of Atonement

About This Episode

Why do we want to be in God's presence? What is the meaning of the scapegoat (goat for Azazel)? How does Leviticus help us know we're saved? Seth and David talk through the high point of the Torah in Leviticus 16.

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The Day of Atonement: How Leviticus 16 Points to Jesus

Show Notes

David and Seth from the Spoken Gospel podcast tackle Leviticus 16, the passage they call the literary mountaintop of the entire Torah. This chapter describes the Day of Atonement, the one day each year when the high priest entered the Holy of Holies to make atonement for himself and for all of Israel. What unfolds is a richly layered ceremony involving four animals, a smoke screen of incense, and a mysterious figure named Azazel, all of which find their surprising fulfillment in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.

The Peak of the Mountain

Leviticus 16 occupies the center of both the Torah and the book of Leviticus itself. In the Hebrew literary imagination, this placement is intentional. The Torah is structured like a chiasm, a literary X-shape where the most important content sits at the very center, and Leviticus 16 is the bullseye. The entire narrative arc of Scripture up to this point has been building toward a single question: how can sinful human beings dwell in the presence of a holy God? Humanity was exiled from God's presence in Genesis 3, and every chapter since has been an attempt to close the gap. Now, for the first time, someone is given instructions for entering the Holy of Holies, the innermost room of the tabernacle where the Ark of the Covenant, God's footstool, sat. This was the "droplet" from which all holiness radiated outward, through the inner court, the outer court, all of Jerusalem, all of Israel, and ultimately the entire world. The chapter opens with a jarring reminder of the stakes. It begins by recalling the death of Aaron's sons, Nadab and Abihu, who brought unauthorized fire into God's presence and were killed. The message to Aaron is clear: if you want to enter God's presence and not die, here is exactly what you must do.

Aaron's Preparation and the Linen Garments

Aaron is instructed to gather four animals: a bull, a ram, and two goats. This is surprisingly modest compared to the volume of animals used in his priestly consecration. The Day of Atonement is not distinguished by the quantity of sacrifice but by what the sacrifice accomplishes and where the blood goes. Aaron must also change out of his elaborate priestly garments, the ones adorned with 12 gemstones representing the tribes of Israel, gold, and royal ornamentation, and instead put on plain white linen. This outfit was closer to what an Egyptian priest or a servant would wear, designed to deflect attention rather than command it. The reason is significant: up to this point, Aaron has functioned as a kingly representative of the people before God. But when he enters the Holy of Holies, he is no longer representing the people to God; he is a servant of Yahweh in Yahweh's own court.

This detail echoes powerfully in the New Testament. The Gospel of John takes great care to describe Jesus' garment at his crucifixion as a seamless undergarment. The ancient Jewish historian Josephus, who had no incentive to flatter Christian claims, recorded that the linen priestly garment described in Leviticus was commonly woven from a single piece, seamlessly. Many commentators see John's description as a deliberate signal that Jesus is identifying himself as the high priest of Leviticus 16, sacrificing himself while wearing the linen of a slave. Philippians 2 reinforces this by describing Jesus as one who took the form of a servant and became obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

Another striking feature of this ceremony is that Aaron performs much of it alone. He slaughters the animal, collects the blood, and sprinkles it with no one watching except God. This stands in sharp contrast to the spectacle of pagan sacrificial systems, where the act of worship was inherently public and performative. The privacy of the Day of Atonement underscores that these sacrifices are ultimately between the priest and God. Sin is primarily an offense against God, which is exactly what David declared after his sin with Bathsheba: "Against you and you alone have I sinned" (Psalm 51:4).

The Smoke Screen and the Presence of God

Before entering the Holy of Holies, Aaron takes a censer full of burning coals from the altar and places incense on the fire so that a thick cloud of fragrant smoke fills the room. The text says the purpose of this cloud is to "cover the mercy seat, so that he does not die" (Leviticus 16:13). The smoke functions as a barrier for Aaron's eyes. Just one book earlier, in Exodus, God told Moses that no one could look at his face and live. The smoke screen prevents Aaron from gazing directly at the manifested presence of God.

This raises a fascinating observation about the role of clouds throughout Scripture. God's presence is frequently associated with clouds: the pillar of cloud in the wilderness, the cloud that descended on Mount Sinai, and Daniel's vision of the Son of Man coming "with the clouds of heaven" (Daniel 7:13). Clouds are not merely a symbol of God's presence; they also serve as a mediating barrier that protects fragile human beings from the overwhelming fullness of divine glory. In the same way, Jesus as the "cloud rider" may be understood as the mediator who stands between humanity and the raw, unshielded presence of God, the one who allows us to ascend into God's throne room without being consumed.

This also raises an important distinction about what "God's presence" means. God's omnipresence, his immensity and sovereign awareness over every cell and star, is different from God's localized, manifested presence, so tangible and concentrated that looking at it means death. The tabernacle is not merely a symbol. God was actually there, in a way that demanded a smoke screen for the high priest's survival. Understanding this distinction is what makes the tearing of the temple curtain at Jesus' death so explosive. That tiny crack through which one man, in the highest office, squeezed through once a year for a split second was ripped wide open from top to bottom when Jesus died. God's manifested presence was no longer contained. It came out to us. And through the Holy Spirit, God now enters the human heart. As 2 Corinthians 3:18 says, his presence lives in us so that we might be "transformed into that same glory," increasingly becoming like the God who now dwells in us.

Why the Old Priesthood Was Never Enough

The bull Aaron sacrifices first is a sin offering for himself and the other priests. This detail is theologically loaded. A priest who must first atone for his own sin cannot perfectly represent or impart innocence to the people. And the fact that this ritual had to be repeated every single year was itself a witness to its inadequacy. As the Book of Hebrews argues, the annual repetition should have been a built-in reminder that these sacrifices were not God's permanent solution. Every time Aaron walked into the tabernacle, he should have been confronted by the insufficiency of the moment, of himself, and of the sacrifice. If God had truly forgotten Israel's sins, why did the blood need to be brought in again?

This is precisely why Jesus is such a better high priest. He does not need to offer a sacrifice for himself. He can perfectly take on the guilt of the nation and perfectly give back innocence. He offers himself as the spotless sacrifice one time, and it is enough. When Jesus died and the temple curtain was torn, it was the signal that the cycle had ended. The blood of bulls and goats could purify temporarily and locally, but Jesus' blood purifies the whole earth and any heart willing to receive it. It can cleanse not just the mercy seat but the human conscience itself. Hebrews 10:19-22 draws the connection explicitly, telling us that through the "new and living way" Jesus opened through the curtain of his own flesh, we can draw near "with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience." Assurance of salvation is not arrogance; it is the intended result of the Gospel. Where the Israelites had to wait each year to see the smoke rise from the Day of Atonement before they could rest, we can look to Good Friday every single day and know that our salvation is secure, not because of what we have done, but because Jesus did it right for us.

The Mystery of Azazel

One of the most debated passages in all of Scripture surrounds the two goats and the figure called Azazel. Lots are cast over two goats: one is designated "for Yahweh" and the other "for Azazel." The goat for Yahweh is sacrificed. But the goat for Azazel has the sins of all Israel confessed over it by the laying on of hands and is then sent away into the wilderness, never to return. This is the origin of our English word "scapegoat," though that translation, introduced in the King James Version, obscures much of what is going on.

There are two major interpretive traditions. The first holds that Azazel is a personal name for a demonic being, a territorial fallen angel who rules over the wilderness. The literary structure supports this: one goat is "for Yahweh" (a personal name), so the parallel implies the other is also "for" a personal being. The intertestamental Book of Enoch (8:1, 9:6) names Azazel as a prince of demons. And the wilderness is consistently portrayed in Scripture as the haunt of evil spiritual forces, the same place where Jesus himself faced Satan after his baptism. Leviticus 17:7, the very next chapter, commands Israel to stop making sacrifices to "goat demons," implying they had been doing exactly that. The goat for Azazel, then, could be understood as God's way of saying: do not appease the demons with sacrifices. Just send the sin back to where it came from. God alone is the one to whom sacrifices are owed.

The second tradition reads Azazel not as a personal name but as a descriptor: "a place of cutting off" or "a place of total destruction," referring to a rocky cliff. The Mishnah records that later Jewish practice involved leading the goat to a cliff's edge and backing it off, where it would die on the rocks below. This interpretation preserves the sacrificial framework by implying that the goat did die outside the camp, consistent with every other atoning sacrifice in Leviticus.

Regardless of which view one takes, the underlying symbolism is the same: the sins of the people are removed completely. They are taken so far away they can never be found again, as far as the east is from the west. However, one critical theological guardrail must be maintained. Jesus' atonement is not a payment made to Satan. Satan is not the lord of hell who holds humanity's ledger and demands a ransom. He is the first one thrown into the lake of fire in Revelation. He is not the chief torturer; he is the chief tortured. The medieval idea that Jesus descended to hell to buy humanity back from Satan, dramatized famously in C.S. Lewis's The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, reflects a common historical misunderstanding, not the teaching of the New Testament.

Jesus as Both Goats and the Final Ram

What the New Testament does show is that Jesus fulfills the role of both goats. At his baptism, a baptism for repentance that he did not need, Jesus symbolically took on the sins of the people. He then went out into the wilderness, the very place where sin and its author dwell, and was tempted by Satan himself. Yet he did not sin. He went to the most unholy, impure place imaginable and remained perfectly holy. He left the sins there and came back. Then he became the goat for sacrifice as well, offering himself on the cross as the sin offering that purifies the Holy of Holies of the human heart. He is both goats: the one who carries sin away into oblivion and the one whose blood is sprinkled on the mercy seat.

And he is the final ram. After the private ceremonies were finished, Aaron would change back into his royal priestly garments, representing the people, and offer a ram as a burnt offering. The entire animal was consumed on the altar, and the smoke rising in public view signaled to all of Israel that the Day of Atonement was complete. It was the period at the end of the sentence. For us, Jesus on the cross is that final, public, all-consuming sacrifice. We can look to it and know that we have been purified, made holy, and given peace with God. Not for one year but forever. Every day becomes the Day of Atonement. Every day can be a day of solemn rest, not because we earned it, but because one priest offered one sacrifice once for all.

Transcript

Intro: [gentle music] Welcome to the Spoken Gospel podcast. This is our attempt to speak the gospel out of every corner of scripture. We believe every part of the Bible, Old Testament and New, is about Jesus, and this podcast is our experiment to publicly test that belief. Let's jump in. [upbeat music]

David: Well, hey, everyone. Welcome to the Spoken Gospel podcast. We're very glad that you are with us today.

Seth: We are indeed.

David: We are indeed. Um, we're, we're gonna struggle today.

Seth: We are.

David: S-

Seth: I've, I'm new baby mode.

David: Yep. Six, six weeks.

Seth: Six, six, six weeks in.

David: Yeah.

Seth: Six weeks tomorrow in, and, like, it's... the sleeplessness is stacking-

David: Yeah

Seth: ... on top of each other. Also-

David: It has a, it does have a compounding effect.

Seth: It does, and then two hours of not sleeping last night between 1:45 and 3:45.

David: Yep.

Seth: It's great.

David: Yeah.

Seth: It was a great time of just being angry at my beautiful daughter.

David: Oh. [laughs]

Seth: Just go to sleep. [laughs]

David: I think I could, I could hoard mass amounts of loots in the bags under your eyes, so.

Seth: Oh, thank you. Oh, gosh.

David: Is that a poetic way of-

Seth: [laughs] No

David: ... slamming you?

Seth: That's just really sad.

David: [laughs]

Seth: I was like, "I don't think I look that bad."

David: You know, I just really wanted to say something about that.

Seth: That's why this is a podcast.

David: That's right.

Seth: You know, podcast face.

David: Yeah, that's right. I was... God gave us faces for radio.

Seth: [laughs]

David: Yeah, and then I am sick, so I apologize if you hear me turning away from the microphone and coughing periodically throughout this episode. But-

Seth: What do you have?

David: ... we are here. I don't know. I have no idea what I have.

Seth: Mm.

David: My wife is gonna listen to this and go-

Seth: Could it be-

David: ... "I told you to go to the doctor 1,000 times."

Seth: Could it be cleansed by one of the offerings here in Leviticus?

David: It definitely could be, um, especially if it's-

Seth: Since Jesus bore our sins

David: ... yeah, Jesus bore our sins and our iniquities-

Seth: Sicknesses

David: ... and our sicknesses, so. We prayed before, so hopefully by the time I get through this episode, I'll be 100% clean.

Seth: 100% clean.

David: That would be great.

Seth: Your, uh, Levitical rap album.

David: That's right. 100% Clean-

Seth: [laughs] 100%

David: ... my s- David raps Leviticus.

Seth: [laughs] It's lit.

David: It's lit.

Seth: Like the-

David: Like the altar of incense [laughs]

Seth: ... altar. [laughs]

David: Oh, anyway.

Seth: Anyway.

David: But Seth and I are here, present conditions aside, because we have been waiting so long to-

Seth: To talk about the David's Testament

David: ... to talk about the, the David's Testament, Leviticus 16.

Seth: The mountain of-

David: That's right

Seth: ... the Torah.

David: We've talked about it a couple times. We'll mention it again. Um, the whole Torah forms a mountain peak literarily, and so we're, we've been climbing and climbing and climbing the mountain, wondering how on earth can we get into God's presence. We've been exiled from it at the very beginning of page one of the Bible, and we've been trying to get back in, trying to get back in, and now finally someone is about to be told how they can get into God's presence. Um, and so that's the high point of, of the Torah here. It sits pretty much in the middle of the Torah. And then in the book of Leviticus itself, it also sits in the middle, and so-

Seth: Right. Yeah

David: ... in the Hebraic mind, they think in chiasms, little X's.

Seth: Little X's.

David: And, uh, at the very center of this X, the bullseye of the target, is Leviticus 16.

Seth: Both the top of the mountain and the bottom of the valley.

David: Mm.

Seth: That's an X.

David: That's an X.

Seth: Right.

David: There you go.

Seth: I don't think that means anything. [laughs]

David: I don't, I don't think that is helpful in understanding, uh, how chiasms work, but that's fine.

Seth: That's exactly what a chiasm is.

David: [laughs]

Seth: The top of a mountain and the bottom of a valley.

David: They come together.

Seth: They come together.

David: I see. All right.

Seth: See?

David: Still unhelpful. [laughs]

Seth: [laughs]

David: Oh, man. Okay, so anyway, so a few things to note, um, at, at the, at the top of this one.

Seth: It starts seriously.

David: It starts very seriously.

Seth: It's like, "Remember when your sons died?"

David: [laughs] Oh my gosh.

Seth: Let's start there.

David: Let's start there.

Seth: Let's start there.

David: But it's very, it's very important because we've gone through all these clean and unclean rules of, like, what, what, what happens when someone has a leprous disease or this kind of oozing sore, and we don't want you to forget, as you're reading, the seriousness of what's about to happen, that a, a man is about to go into God's presence, not, not just the altar of burnt offering, not just inside the, uh, the, uh, the, the inner court where the showbread is-

Seth: Right

David: ... and the incense is. For the very first time, someone is about to go into the Holy of Holies, where-

Seth: Yeah

David: ... the mercy seat is, which is, like, uh, it's the Ark of the Covenant.

Seth: God's footstool.

David: God's footstool. It's the footstool of his throne where God says, "That's where I'm actually gonna be." Everything else radiates from that. Like a, like a, like, you know, when you drop a little droplet of water in a-

Seth: Yeah

David: ... in a-

Seth: Ripples

David: ... uh, ripples.

Seth: Ripples.

David: The, the, the, the middle is the, is the actual, is God's presence.

Seth: What, what is... Is it just a droplet and ripples, or is there, like, a scientific name-

David: Oh, I don't know

Seth: ... for the thing that, that, the water droplet that starts a ripple?

David: It would be helpful, 'cause I kept going, "The, the, the, the"-

Seth: The, the, [laughs]

David: "... the, the noun thing that I need."

Seth: The, the droplet.

David: The droplet.

Seth: The droplet just sounds so anticlimactic.

David: Yeah. But anyway, uh, who knows? Megan knows, I think.

Seth: Megan knows?

David: Megan, what is-

Seth: What's the name?

David: The ripple effect. The ripple effect. That's the whole process.

Seth: Oh, that's... Uh, like, what's the droplet named?

David: Yeah. I, uh- The droplet. The droplet.

Seth: The droplet. [laughs]

David: We're try- we're overcomplicating it. For those of you who don't know, uh, there, Megan Thomas sits in this podcast studio with us pretty much every single week and films the things that you see on social media.

Seth: Yeah.

David: So.

Seth: She's got a good job.

David: Yeah. So she's, she's, she's been sitting here-

Seth: It's what her beautiful podcast is

David: ... gesticulating to me-

Seth: [laughs]

David: ... going like, "I have the answer, the ripple effect and the droplet." So Jesus, or God's presence-

Seth: [laughs]

David: ... is the droplet, right? [laughs] Seth's losing it.

Seth: Continue.

David: Okay. God's presence is the droplet, and the holiness rings that go out, the inner court, the outer court, all of Jerusalem-

Seth: Israel

David: ... is the ripple effect.

Seth: And then the rest of the world.

David: Yeah, is the ripple effect. But we're about to go into the center, the droplet, the, the, the very presence of God, and so the whole thing kicks off with, "Hey, Moses, remind Aaron," [laughs] like, or, or kind of we're being reminded-

Seth: We're reminded

David: ... as the reader. Like, this happened just after Aaron's sons died for being, bringing unauthorized fire into God's presence.

Seth: Right. And so, "Aaron, if you wanna go into my presence and not die, here's what you need to do."

David: Right.And so, um, what, what does he need to do? What's the very first thing we're talk- we're told to, to do?

Seth: He has to gather a small farm of animals [laughs].

David: A small farm of animals.

Seth: He has to gather a bull, um, a ram, and two goats. And this is-

David: Okay

Seth: ... this is very-

David: It's a very small farm

Seth: ... it's a very small farm.

David: Yeah.

Seth: I mean, it's the farm I would have if I had an acre of land.

David: Right. I mean, this is, this is a lot less volume of animals than, um, even his consecration as a priest. They had way more animals to sacrifice.

Seth: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

David: So the Day of Atonement is not necessarily important because of how many animals are sacrificed, but because of what the sacrifice does and where the sacrifice goes.

Seth: Yes.

David: Because so far, um, all the sprinkling that's been taking place, you know, you remember, like, every t- uh, pretty much every time there's a sacrifice, something is done with the blood.

Seth: Yeah, something-

David: Whether-

Seth: ... is burned.

David: Yeah.

Seth: And then the blood's taken and it's sprinkled, smeared-

David: Yep

Seth: ... placed.

David: It can... We've seen it on-

Seth: Dabbed

David: ... people's ears and toes. We've seen it on the altar of burnt offering. We've even seen it in, in the most dire of circumstances. Whenever the priest sins, we've seen the blood taken inside the tabernacle, all the way to the curtain of the Holy of Holies, and sprinkled on the curtain.

Seth: Yep.

David: But we've never seen the curtain opened and some, and blood taken into the Holy of Holies and put on the mercy seat-

Seth: Right

David: ... God's footstool. We've not seen that yet, and that's what this day is for.

Seth: Yeah.

David: Because he says that one day a year, you've gotta remember that all this uncleanliness that we just unpacked from chapters 11 to 15, which we've talked about, like, was a lot of even accidental uncleanliness, or just the normal routines of being a human make you unclean, and that pollutes this area that God wants to dwell in.

Seth: Right.

David: And so once a year, there's a day when you need to take this purifying blood all the way into God's presence.

Seth: Or more accurately, God already dwells in the land-

David: That's right

Seth: ... of Israel.

David: Yep, yep.

Seth: And it's becoming polluted, and it must be cleaned. Otherwise, it will be judged, like-

David: That's right

Seth: ... Moab and Abihu.

David: Yes.

Seth: So God's already present.

David: That's good.

Seth: And if we are uncare- uncareful? [laughs]

David: Uncareful.

Seth: Uncareful.

David: Careless.

Seth: Careless. [laughs] Like, that pollution continues to spread-

David: Right

Seth: ... and we are in danger of God's holiness breaking out, in one sense.

David: Right, which happens in the next book-

Seth: Right

David: ... in Numbers.

Seth: Yes.

David: Right, yeah. And so, um, we, we, this, this blood goes into God's presence, into the deepest place, and, um, and a, a man actually has to bring it in there.

Seth: Right.

David: It's a very serious thing.

Seth: Yeah, so Aaron has to put on a special outfit, a holy linen coat.

David: Yeah, which is really interesting-

Seth: Yeah, he-

David: ... because-

Seth: It's, it's special all the way up to the end.

David: Right.

Seth: He keeps that on, and, and then he puts his old clothes on after the scapegoat-

David: Right

Seth: ... leaves.

David: But, but what's strange about this outfit is it is very different from what he would wear any other time. What he would wear every other time is explained at the end of Exodus.

Seth: With the, with the four, the 12 gemstones.

David: Yeah, gemstones-

Seth: And turbans

David: ... and, like, crazy ornaments.

Seth: Yeah.

David: And, like, he was dressed like a king-

Seth: Yeah

David: ... in, uh, in his normal sacrificing, you know, priestly roles.

Seth: He has a, he acts like a representative of the people of Israel.

David: Yep.

Seth: He has the 12-

David: That's right

Seth: ... stones, each representing one.

David: But now, he dresses like a, more like a slave. He dresses in plain linen clothes. He does-

Seth: Is that what you're supposed to think of, is slaves?

David: Yes, yeah. It's very, very boring, normal, um, uh, outfit. It, it, it's closer to... I think we talked about this in the Exodus podcast about the priest garments. Um, it's-

Seth: Oh, the Egyptian what?

David: The Egyptians.

Seth: Yeah.

David: It's what the Egyptian priests wore. They just wore, like, clean linen stuff to not draw attention to themselves, and that's closer now to what Aaron is wearing. And the reason is, is because so far he has been the kingly priest of the people, acting, uh, you know, as an intermediary for them. But now he's going into God's court-

Seth: Mm-hmm

David: ... and he is, he is a servant of Yahweh.

Seth: Yeah, to offer a sacrifice, particularly at the beginning, for himself.

David: Right.

Seth: So he has to clean himself and then offer a sacrifice for his own sins. And this is really important. The Book of Hebrews will pick b- back up on this. He is offering a sacrifice for himself as a priest.

David: Yeah.

Seth: And he's offering a bull, which is interesting. It's called a bull here, but when this is, uh, first talked about back in Exodus, chapter nine... Or sorry, no, back in, uh, Leviticus, chapter nine-

David: Mm-hmm

Seth: ... it's called a calf. That's important, because back in Exodus, the high priest, Aaron, made a god of a calf. Like, he made-

David: Oh, right

Seth: ... a golden calf.

David: Yep.

Seth: And so, like, in the sacrifice, there's a reminder of his sin, and so he's coming in and offering-

David: Hmm

Seth: ... the thing that he, um, he, he sinned with previously-

David: Right

Seth: ... asking God for forgiveness, for him in particular-

David: Right

Seth: ... but for all priests as well. And this will get picked up again in the next chapter, which we won't talk about today, but when the pe- people are supposed to offer a goat, because they're worshiping goat idols.

David: Right.

Seth: So anyway, yeah. [laughs]

David: [laughs] And we see Jesus wearing linen, a linen cloth, right, at his crucifixion.

Seth: Yes.

David: Right.

Seth: Well, he, we, we're told it's a undergarment.

David: Okay, yeah.

Seth: And I think we're supposed to assume it's linen-

David: Yep

Seth: ... because it's told that, we're told that it's a seamless garment.

David: Mm-hmm.

Seth: John takes really great pains to say that it was a seamless garment and that it was the, the, the-

David: The centurions

Seth: ... the centurions who divide it up and cut it up.

David: Right.

Seth: And I think that's because in, Josephus talks about how the priest garment-

David: And Josephus was-

Seth: He's this ancient Jewish-

David: ... a Jewish historian

Seth: ... historian. He was actually antagonistic to Christianity-

David: Right

Seth: ... so he would [laughs] no how, have no reason to, like, want it to be more beautiful than it actually is.

David: Right.

Seth: He says that it was very common for this linen garment being described here in Leviticus-

David: Uh-huh

Seth: ... to be made seamlessly out of one piece. So for John, a lot of commentators say, like, this is John's way of saying Jesus is being, is identifying himself as the priest in Leviticus.

David: Mm-hmm. Right.

Seth: He is sacrificing himself, and he's wearing the linen of a slave-

David: Yes

Seth: ... like he's supposed, like the high priest is supposed to when he goes into the Holy of Holies.

David: Right. And Philippians 2 even calls Jesus that, that he, he was a slave, and that he became obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

Seth: That's exactly right.

David: So we're supposed to see Jesus as the new high priest who, uh, wears the linen outfit and, and, and ends up being all these sacrifices we're about to, to see, um, on the cross. So, uh, let's jump in and kind of look at the different sacrifices and what they do, each in turn.

Seth: So one thing I think is really interesting about-

David: Mm

Seth: ... this whole thing that Aaron does, is that he does it alone.

David: Yeah, that's true.

Seth: Why does he do it alone?

David: I mean, other than the man fit for duty who takes the goat for Azazel out, which we'll talk about.

Seth: Right, right, right. He-

David: Other than that.

Seth: But he, when Aaron comes in-

David: Yep

Seth: ... he is killing an animal alone.

David: Yep. Uh-huh.

Seth: He's slaughtering it, slicing up the liver and everything else alone.

David: Uh-huh.

Seth: He takes the blood alone. He pours out the blood alone. Nobody else is seeing this. No, the, all of-

David: Oh, right

Seth: ... the nation of Israel wa- waiting and watching, they just assume-

David: It's happening

Seth: ... it's happening on the other side.

David: Right.

Seth: So who is this for?

David: Oh, well, I mean, definitely we know that the first part of it is for Aaron-

Seth: Yeah [laughs]

David: ... because he needs to, atonement for himself.

Seth: Right.

David: Um, I don't know.

Seth: I always, well, I, I, I, I was, I think it's just God's watching.

David: Yeah.

Seth: It's like, it's a really... If you go to any other temple, there's always hundreds of people-

David: Mm

Seth: ... surrounding and watching, and, like, part of the act of sacrificing is being observed by other people being faithful, right? Even, like, the Pharisee in, uh, the Gospels was like, he's going up and praying before the, uh, the Wailing Wall or wherever he is.

David: Right, yeah.

Seth: He's like, "Thank God I'm not like these other people over here praying." Like, part of it's, like, the spectacle. And so I think part of what's supposed to be, um, powerful here is that the person who sees all these sacrifices is God alone. God is the one who, um, is watching.

David: Mm-hmm.

Seth: And he is the one who's providing a way of atonement, and he's also the one being satisfied by the way of atonement. Like, all these sacrifices are for the Lord.

David: Yeah.

Seth: And that's why they're alone. Like, you don't need other people, because it's not necessarily the sins Aaron has done against other people, although they are.

David: Right.

Seth: It's the sin, it's the fact that he's primarily sinned against God, which is what David says after he sleeps with Bathsheba.

David: Yeah, "Against you and you alone-

Seth: You alone

David: ... have I sinned."

Seth: Even though that there's clearly he has sinned against Uriah and Bathsheba-

David: Yeah [laughs]

Seth: ... and everybody else. But I think it's like an enacted picture. Like, David is picking up on the heart of Leviticus here.

David: Yeah.

Seth: It's-

David: And it's cool that, that you get both. You know, you have, in the first half, uh, so what we have here is we have basically four sacrifices, um, or four animals, I should say.

Seth: Yeah, four animals.

David: Four animals. Uh, the first is you have a bull for a sin offering, and that's for Aaron. That's kind of the one we're talking about here.

Seth: Right.

David: And that one was-

Seth: And it's called a sin offering

David: ... a sin offering. Right.

Seth: And but if you rewind back to our table of contents, sin offering is particularly for, um, sin that we have done.

David: Right.

Seth: We have committed unintentionally or intentionally.

David: Yep.

Seth: Right.

David: And then, and that one is probably the one you're talking about, where it's like this one's more private. It's just Aaron and God-

Seth: Yeah

David: ... doing business.

Seth: Yes.

David: Um, and then we have two goats in the middle.

Seth: Mm-hmm.

David: And there's lots that are cast. One goat will be for the Lord.

Seth: Lots like dice.

David: Lots like dice, and one dice would have etched onto it, "For the Lord." The other would have, "For Azazel," and we'll talk about what that means.

Seth: Okay.

David: Um, and-

Seth: Am I supposed to imagine, like, a six-sided dice?

David: Nope.

Seth: I've always thought about this.

David: It's just, it's just two... So they would, what they would do is they would take those two etched die, and, and they, they-

Seth: And they'd just have two sides?

David: Yeah, they could even just be, like, coins or, like, you know.

Seth: Like, okay, two coins.

David: Yeah. And they would put them in a jar.

Seth: Yeah.

David: Shake up the jar. It's like drawing names from a hat.

Seth: Yeah.

David: The priest would put a hand in and be like, "This one's for the Lord." Or like, you know, "This one, goat one."

Seth: Oh, yeah, yeah.

David: "This is goat one. Here we go."

Seth: Yeah, yeah.

David: And, and he'd pull out the, and-

Seth: I always imagined-

David: Yeah

Seth: ... it being two.

David: Mm-hmm. Yep.

Seth: And, like, they have, like, you know, for Azazel. One, like, one side's black, one side's white.

David: Gotcha.

Seth: And it's like, "Goat one," and that they're both black.

David: Oh.

Seth: Then, then it's for Azazel.

David: Right.

Seth: But if they're both white, it's for the... If it's mixed, like, nope, that's not what the Lord has. [laughs]

David: [laughs] Yeah. So at least what I read is that there would be these two-

Seth: Yeah

David: ... coins or dice.

Seth: And then they just draw.

David: And they'd draw, "Okay, goat one, here we go. Oh, all right, that's for the Lord. Oh, this one's for Azazel," right?

Seth: Got it.

David: So you have these two, and one, um, i- is more private. You know, the first, the, the goat for the Lord is, is still kind of lean, more leaning towards private.

Seth: Yeah.

David: Um, that not everybody would see what was going on. But then we shift, and as we get to the other two, the last two animals, it does become more public. And the goat for Azazel is sent outside the camp. Everyone would've seen that happen.

Seth: Yeah.

David: And then the final, uh, is a ram for a burnt offering. That's for Aaron and all the people.

Seth: Yeah.

David: And they would've seen the smoke go up from that. And so it is kind of interesting that we get both. We get the private, just for God and Aaron kind of things that you've been talking about, and in the second half we get the public assurance ones that are like, okay, the day of atonement has been completed, the, the rituals have been followed, the-

Seth: Yeah

David: ... the, the people of God have been atoned for.

Seth: In verse 12, I thought this was really fascinating. And af- so after Ar- uh, Aaron makes a sacrifice for himself-

David: Yep

Seth: ... he's supposed to burn it, and then he's supposed to take a censer, like a, a plate of coals-

David: Right

Seth: ... from the altar that he's just burned the sacrifice on-

David: Yes

Seth: ... and bring it into, uh, put incense on the fire-

David: Uh-huh

Seth: ... and bring it before the Lord, "So that the cloud of the incense-

David: Yes

Seth: ... may cover the mercy seat, so that he does not die."

David: Yes.

Seth: So why is a cloud necessary? [laughs]

David: Uh-huh. Oh, it's so good.

Seth: Okay, tell me about this.

David: Okay. So, so yeah, so m- so Aaron is, or whoever the high priest is at this time, you know, at, at-

Seth: Right, right, right

David: ... throughout history, w- would, like you said, take this coal and this incense to create a smoke screen-

Seth: Okay

David: ... in the Holy of Holies. So-

Seth: Yeah, but a bunch of hot coals and incense would be just, like, s-

David: Oh, just-

Seth: ... like potpourri kinda thing.

David: Uh-huh.

Seth: You throw it on and it creates smoke.

David: Uh, smelly good smoke.

Seth: Okay.

David: Yeah.

Seth: Right.

David: Smelly good smoke, and it would be a ton, right?

Seth: Yeah, yeah.

David: And so, like, um, as he enters through the curtain of, uh, of the Holy of Holies, he enters in, all he can see is the smoke. You know, it's like whenever you're cooking and, like, you open the oven and smoke-

Seth: Right

David: ... just comes out.

Seth: Hopefully just steam.

David: Steam. [laughs] Sorry, steam.

Seth: [laughs]

David: Yeah, sorry, not smoke. Steam comes out. I have glasses, right?

Seth: Oh, right, right, right.

David: And so when, when steam comes out of the oven, I cannot see what I'm cooking-

Seth: Right

David: ... for a good, like, 10 seconds.

Seth: Yeah, that's true.

David: I have to wait for it to clear. It's kinda like that. Like, smoke screen is just covering his eyes while he goes in.

Seth: So you should imagine him just holding it in front of him.

David: Holding it in front of him. He doesn't lay it down or anything like that.

Seth: Okay, okay.

David: You know?

Seth: 'Cause that's what my first thought was, like, he lays it down and it's like, phew.

David: Yeah, and maybe he does-

Seth: Everywhere

David: ... maybe he puts it down so he can do, you know, some stuff-

Seth: Right

David: ... with the blood that he has to do.

Seth: Does he have, like, oven mitts, like holy oven mitts?

David: Maybe.

Seth: 'Cause I was like, also, I was like-

David: Holy oven mitts

Seth: ... that, that, that bull's gotta get hot if it's got coals in it.

David: Right.

Seth: Anyway.

David: It's very possible.

Seth: That's also what I thought about. [laughs]

David: And so, um, he goes in and, and, the whole point of this is that he does not look at the actual presence of God. Because if you remember just one book back in Exodus, we have the smoke of God coming down on Mount Sinai.

Seth: Right.

David: Moses asks to see the, the glory of God, and God says, "I will show you some of my glory, my backside."

Seth: Right, right, right.

David: "But you cannot look at my face and live." And so he, it says here that he has the censer and the smoke so that he doesn't die.

Seth: Mm.

David: What are we told about the presence of God and death, like in Exodus?

Seth: Yeah.

David: It's, you can't look at God and live. And so the point of the smoke is to create a barrier for Aaron's eyes so he doesn't look at God and die.

Seth: Okay.

David: Because man can't look at God and live. And so that's the whole thing, is like, there's this smoke screen that keeps Aaron from actually looking at the divine presence, which is crazy when you think about it, because it makes it even more real that it's like, God was actually in there.

Seth: Right, right, right, right, right.

David: Like, that is crazy to me.

Seth: I was also thinking about, I'm, I'm studying Daniel right now, so I was thinking about the, this cloud rider, the Son of Man-

David: Oh, the cloud rider, yeah

Seth: ... who comes with the clouds of Heaven.

David: Behold, he comes, riding on the clouds.

Seth: I never thought about... I forgot about that song. [laughs]

David: Yep.

Seth: Uh, it's like he comes riding on clouds.

David: Oh.

Seth: And throughout the Bible, like, God is described as the one who comes on the clouds-

David: Right

Seth: ... or he's, like, coming with the clouds, or his presence is, like, marked by clouds. But I've always assumed that, like, clouds equal God's presence.

David: Mm.

Seth: But here it's like clouds actually protect you from too im-

David: Oh

Seth: ... too much immediate access from God's presence.

David: That's interesting.

Seth: And so I was ju- I was just, I don't know what that means.

David: That's cool. Yeah. Maybe the smoke, vapor from the clouds is a picture-

Seth: Or even, like, Jesus as the cloud ri-

David: ... of another smoke screen

Seth: ... as the cloud rider-

David: Yeah

Seth: ... is the mediator between us and God's presence. He comes with the clouds-

David: Right

Seth: ... and allows us to ascend to our thrones with him-

David: Yeah

Seth: ... as rulers-

David: Yeah

Seth: ... alongside him.

David: Like, like Aaron in the midst of the vapor smoke of the censer.

Seth: Yeah.

David: Interesting.

Seth: Interesting. Yeah.

David: That's cool. Um, and so yeah, I'm, yeah, that's a really cool thing that happens. And so, uh, Aaron has a sin offering, uh, which is a bull, and he takes the blood from this bull not just to the curtain, like we talked about earlier. He actually goes inside the curtain with the censer, the smoke screen, and s- and sprinkles the, the blood of that sin offering on the actual mercy seat, so that way-

Seth: Seven times

David: ... so that way he can make atonement for it, right?

Seth: Well, that's the next thing that happens. So he c- after that, he... I don't, it doesn't really say where. So it's on the mercy seat.

David: Yeah.

Seth: But it doesn't say that he, it's for atonement until the next thing-

David: Oh, okay

Seth: ... when it's the goat.

David: Yeah.

Seth: So I didn't know about that either.

David: I think it's all, I mean, or it-

Seth: So-

David: ... it's for purification.

Seth: Yeah.

David: You know, it's, I mean, the same, it's the, it's, it, I don't want to say it's the same thing. It's not the same thing. I think this p- first part's for purification, is what most people say, and it's to purify the Holy of Holies from all the sin that has taken place, both by the priests and by the people.

Seth: It's like to make it a blank slate.

David: Yep.

Seth: And then when he comes in with the goat and slaughters the goat, and makes atonement for the mercy seat and atonement for the Holy of Holies, he's, like, adding to it God's light and life.

David: Yeah. That's-

Seth: Right?

David: ... that's helpful.

Seth: Right.

David: Yeah, 'cause we've talked about that, um, something can be, in the, in the book of Leviticus, something can be clean, but not holy.

Seth: Right.

David: Right. Uh, uh, so you have clean and unclean, and you have holy and common.

Seth: Yeah.

David: And something can't, can, can only be holy if it's clean, but just because it's clean doesn't make it holy. [laughs]

Seth: Right.

David: Right.

Seth: Well, it's, or even, like, in our experience, like, we can be cleansed from sin-

David: Yep

Seth: ... but we actually need to be righteous.

David: Yep.

Seth: We need to be-

David: Atoned for

Seth: ... we need to be atoned for, we need to be full of God's life and light and-

David: Yeah

Seth: ... goodness before we can approach his presence.

David: Right.

Seth: It's not enough that we're morally neutral before God.

David: That's right.

Seth: Well, we must be given his righteousness.

David: Yeah.

Seth: We must be given his goodness, his perfection, his light and life.

David: Yeah.

Seth: And we see that even here in the, the tabernacle.

David: Yeah.

Seth: Yeah.

David: That's really good. And so, um, I know Hebrews picks up on this idea that the priest had to make atonement for himself. Um, so since that's this sacrifice, we should probably talk about it. Um, right, Hebrews 10?

Seth: Yeah, Hebrews 10.

David: Yeah.

Seth: Hebrews 10 talks about all the... Like, what's great about...

David: [laughs]

Seth: If you are confused about this, just go read Hebrews chapter 10.

David: Yeah.

Seth: And-

David: Or 9 through 13 if you want to be thorough.

Seth: Yeah, yeah. If you just... Or the book of Hebrews.

David: Or just go read Hebrews.

Seth: It's great.

David: All of it.

Seth: It's really good. It explains a lot of the [laughs] Old Testament.

David: Yes.

Seth: But essentially, what He- what Aaron should've been thinking the entire time he's in there is that this isn't enough. Aaron, as a priest, and every priest after him, should've been going to the temple saying, "I know that this isn't God's permanent solution."

David: Right.

Seth: Like, he should've known, like, "Oh, I have to do this again next year? That means that God hasn't forgotten our sins."

David: Right.

Seth: Like, the fact that I have to clean myself every time means that I'm not really the best person to be doing this. How can I perfectly represent or impart or give perfect innocence back to the people of God if I have to be always sacrificing for myself, too?

David: Yeah.

Seth: Every time that Aaron went into the temple on the Day of Atonement, he should've been, like, confronted with the inadequacy of the moment-

David: Mm

Seth: ... of himself-

David: Right

Seth: ... and the sacrifice. Like, this shouldn't be working. And so he should know as he's walking into the ta- into the tabernacle that this is not enough, which is exactly what Hebrews says.

David: Yep.

Seth: Hebrews says that the, that that should've been in the Hebrews' mind, but oftentimes it wasn't, and people started misplacing their trust in God with trust in sacrifices.

David: Mm-hmm.

Seth: But at the same time, like, since A- uh, Aaron had to offer a sacrifice for himself, and because he had to offer it over and over again, it was incomplete.

David: Right.

Seth: That's why Jesus is such a better high priest.

David: Mm.

Seth: He does not have to make an offering for himself. He can perfectly take on the guilt of the nation, and he can also g- per- give back perfect innocence.

David: Mm.

Seth: And at the same time, he offers a sacrifice one time, himself, perfect. The spotless goat, the spotless bull. [laughs] He doesn't-

David: The spotless ram. He does it all.

Seth: Well, he doesn't have to do a bull because he's the...

David: No.

Seth: No reason.

David: Oh, that's right.

Seth: No reason to.

David: That's true. Right.

Seth: But he's the perfect lamb-

David: Yep

Seth: ... which is not mentioned here, which I think is fascinating.

David: Yep.

Seth: There's no lamb here, but he's the perfect goat.

David: Yep.

Seth: You know?

David: The lamb, when he's called the lamb, that's a reference-

Seth: The Passover

David: ... like the Passover, yeah, nexus.

Seth: Yeah.

David: Yep.

Seth: So it's like he does what Aaron-We should have always been thinking wasn't enough. Jesus becomes enough in the, in the... Like, he becomes the perfect way in which we can have access with God.

David: Right, and that's what's so cool about when Jesus does die, right? Something happens at this spot in the, in the temp- in the temple.

Seth: Yes.

David: Right? Something happens at the curtain in the Holy of Holies.

Seth: Right.

David: And, like, it's prefigured by the priest, you know, with the censer in his hands.

Seth: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

David: You know, maybe holding on one holy oven mitt on the censer-

Seth: [laughs] Yeah

David: ... using the right hand that has a little bit of sin offering blood in it, and-

Seth: It's a lot going on, like-

David: Yeah, there's a lot going on. He's got a lot to juggle. And he, he puts one hand on the curtain to the Holy of Holies and moves it back and splits it open just a crack, enough to sneak in-

Seth: Mm

David: ... and get in there-

Seth: Yeah

David: ... to do his business and get out before he dies, right? That tiny crack that's made for one person once a year to be the- in there-

Seth: Mm-hmm

David: ... for, like, one second, you know, is, is, is the prefigurement of what happened when Jesus died. What happened to that curtain? It was completely split open from top-

Seth: Yeah

David: ... to bottom, permanently rend, permanently ripped, completely open, and what's amazing is now not only does one person in the highest office once a year get to go in for a split second, right? Now, God's presence itself comes out of the tabernacle and comes to us.

Seth: Yeah.

David: Because that's... And that's amazing. That's the story of Jesus, too.

Seth: Yeah.

David: Right? Because what, what's so important for us to see here in Leviticus is the presence of God that was on top of Mount Sinai that everyone was afraid of-

Seth: Right

David: ... and, like, that was so holy that he made the whole mountain holy. He's like, "If you touch it, you die."

Seth: Yeah, yeah.

David: You know, that kind of thing. Um, uh, that mountaintop presence has come down into a tent.

Seth: Right. Right, right.

David: And like, right, and this whole thing i- is here, yes-

Seth: So maybe pause here for a second-

David: Yeah

Seth: ... 'cause we keep saying something. We keep saying that actually, God's presence is everywhere-

David: Oh, sure

Seth: ... all the time.

David: Yep.

Seth: But we're actually saying it's also located in a particular place.

David: Yep.

Seth: And so, like, let's talk about the difference, what we mean by God's presence.

David: Oh, sure.

Seth: Because I think that's gonna be hel- that's helpful for me always, like, people are like, "It's all about the presence."

David: [laughs]

Seth: Like, but we always live in God's presence.

David: Sure.

Seth: We always are interacting with God's holiness. Even into eternity, God's presence will be, holiness will be everywhere all the time, always.

David: Yep. But we'll experience it differently.

Seth: And we'll experience it differently, [laughs] right. So, like, what are we talking about here when we're talking about God's presence everywhere-

David: Yeah. Well-

Seth: ... but also his presence going out-

David: Yeah, sure

Seth: ... from someplace?

David: So o- one thing we have to, have to, have to remember [laughs] is when we talk about God's omnipresence, right, His presence everywhere, we are not talking about God, God's being and God's person being everywhere.

Seth: Okay.

David: We are talking about God's actions being everywhere. We are talking about a few things. So one, we're talking about God's immensity, so first off, that God is so big that the universe could not contain him.

Seth: Right.

David: And so, um-

Seth: Right

David: ... He, He, He, He-

Seth: And big here doesn't mean, like, size.

David: Right.

Seth: It's just, like-

David: Yeah. Uh, it, he's outside of s- of space and time-

Seth: Right

David: ... so much so that he covers all of it.

Seth: Yeah.

David: Like, um, in, in my first book, When God Isn't There, I talk about this, and I talk about, like, the whole cosmos, the whole universe is like a wiffle ball.

Seth: Okay.

David: And God is an ocean, and if you put the wiffle ball in the ocean-

Seth: [laughs] Yeah

David: ... it completely surrounds and consumes it, going in the pores-

Seth: Right

David: ... and everything like that. The ocean doesn't cease to be the ocean, and the wiffle ball does not become the ocean, but-

Seth: Right

David: ... the wiffle ball's completely consumed by the omnipresent ocean.

Seth: Right.

David: Okay, so that's God's immensity. He's the ocean. We're the wiffle ball.

Seth: Got it.

David: But then, more importantly, um, is the ideas of, of God's sovereignty and, and, like, superintendence, his omnipotence. So it's that God is aware of everything in all places at all times. He upholds all things in all places at all times.

Seth: Right.

David: He's in control of all things in all places at all times. And so when we talk about God being omnipresent, we mean that there is not one star or cell that is outside of his superintendence.

Seth: Right, that, uh, outside of his awareness of, knowledge of-

David: Yep

Seth: ... control of.

David: Yes.

Seth: Right, like, he's-

David: Right.

Seth: Yeah.

David: But there's a difference between God being so large that he's the ocean, we're the wiffle ball, and there's a difference between God being so powerful that he knows and controls everything. There's a difference between those things and God manifesting himself and being actually present in one locale, so much so that he could be seen, experienced, so much to the point of if you looked at it, you would die.

Seth: Mm.

David: Like, there's a difference between-

Seth: Right, right, right

David: ... those two things.

Seth: It's n- this is a terri- this is not as good as the wiffle ball analogy, but I'm thinking, like, if you have an author or someone that you've admired.

David: Yep.

Seth: Like, you can read about their work. You can read about everything that they've done. You can read a biography, watch movies about their life.

David: Yep.

Seth: You can know them and the influence they've had on society-

David: Yes

Seth: ... intimately well, but that's different when he's standing in the room.

David: Exa- exactly right.

Seth: And so, like, what here, like, God is standing in the room, and what you're saying is when Jesus dies, instead of us going into him through the crack-

David: Yep

Seth: ... to be in a room with him-

David: Yep

Seth: ... God walks out-

David: Yes

Seth: ... of the temple.

David: Right.

Seth: And he walks in, like, he opens up our hearts-

David: Yes

Seth: ... and he walks [laughs] through the crack and lives in us.

David: In, in us. Exactly right.

Seth: Yeah.

David: And what, and the only way that's possible is because we have this, we have this prefigurement of the incarnation. We have the God who is on the mountain came down the mountain to live among his people in the tabernacle.

Seth: Right, right, right.

David: Right? And then in Jesus, we have the God who is on the actual Mount Zion at the, in the peak of heaven-

Seth: Right

David: ... in the temple of God.

Seth: Right.

David: He left that high, holy mountain of heaven and came down and tabernacled among us. He put on flesh and blood.

Seth: That's like, that's like 1 John.

David: It's John 1, yeah.

Seth: Yeah, yeah.

David: John 1, yeah, and he-

Seth: First John, John 1.

David: Yeah, 1 John.

Seth: Yeah. [laughs]

David: Yeah.

Seth: Numbers, letters, numbers.

David: And he, he actually lived among us, right? And so, like, that is what's happening here, is the holy presence of God has come off the mountain to come be with us, and when he died and his body was ripped open, when he was the perfect offering for us, the presence of God was able to go out from the tabernacle, was no longer constrained, because Jesus' blood was so perfect, his sacrifice was so efficient, so effective, so correct, that it w- purified the whole earth. It could purify any heart. It could purify any person, and God's presence could come and actually live with them.

Seth: So why would I want to be purified?

David: Like, right, yeah.

Seth: Give me, give me c- give me a reason why I should want God's purifying presence in me, because purification seemed a little, like, doesn't seem like good news yet.

David: Right.

Seth: So, like, why, and, like, because partly because the fact that God killed Nadab and Abihu from, like, approaching him-

David: Mm-hmm, right

Seth: ... incorrectly doesn't quite sit with me. But if I, let's just assume for a second, like, I get it. I can't be in God's presence without being purified.

David: Uh-huh.

Seth: And God has some, in a miracle, in Jesus on the cross, a lo- purified me in such a way that I can be with him.

David: Mm-hmm.

Seth: Well, what happens then? Like, after God lives with me, why is it increasingly good news that he lives with me, and not just that I can be in his presence? 'Cause I think that's one thing, like, I'm in his presence-

David: Yeah

Seth: ... and we can stand by, side by side, that's good news, that's great news, that's unprecedented news, is, in the history of the Bible.

David: Yeah.

Seth: What happens next?

David: Right. Well, okay, so the reason why it's such good [laughs] news-

Seth: [laughs]

David: ... and you've, you've taken a few things away from me. I can't talk about the fear, right?

Seth: Okay.

David: Because you said, like-

Seth: Right

David: ... "Okay, I get it, that I can't come into God's presence or, un- unless I'm pure, or I would die." So apart from self-preservation-

Seth: Right, right, right

David: ... and not wanting to die, and then apart from the, uh, what Psalm 16 would say is the best pleasure and goodness in the universe, which would be living with God.

Seth: Yeah.

David: So you've taken away those two things.

Seth: [laughs]

David: So now I have to come up with another-

Seth: No, I'm not, I'm not trying to-

David: No, no, I, I'm, I'm gonna answer it.

Seth: You, you, I'm not trying to diminish those things.

David: No, yeah.

Seth: Like, yeah, 16:11, "At the right, God's right hand-"

David: Yeah

Seth: ... "there are pleasures forevermore."

David: Pleasures forevermore. Yeah, no, I'm with you. Take, so let's, let's put those on the shelf. We've answered those.

Seth: Yeah.

David: But that's the good news of being and in his presence.

Seth: Yeah.

David: You're asking, what's the good news of God's presence, not me coming to it and being in it, but it coming to me and living in me.

Seth: Yes.

David: Okay, 2 Corinthians 3, right? 2 Corinthians 3 talks about the presence of God that Moses saw on the mountain, right?

Seth: Yes.

David: Which we've just talked about. It's come down in the tabernacle. Uh, and what it says is that it comes and lives in us for a very specific reason. It's so that we might be transformed into that same glory, right?

Seth: Yes.

David: It's so that we might become like the God that's in the tabernacle.

Seth: Hm, yeah.

David: Like, and this should blow our freakin' minds, because the wh- like, this is, this is 2 Corinthians 3:18.

Seth: It sounds like heresy.

David: It sounds like heresy.

Seth: This is what we tried to grab in the Garden of Eden.

David: Yes.

Seth: Like-

David: Exactly.

Seth: Yes.

David: He made us in the image of God, and then there's this tree of the knowledge of good and evil. I could actually, and, and like Satan said, "If you eat this, you'll be like God," and that's what we want. That's what all of us want. We wanna be like God.

Seth: Yeah.

David: And the, the good news of Jesus sprinkling his blood on our hearts, coming and living in us, making us the new Holy of Holies in which he lives, is that we actually will be transformed, one degree after the, after the other, one, year after year-

Seth: Right

David: ... trial after trial, suffering after suffering, you know, like-

Seth: Right

David: ... day after day, into, through eternity, we'll look more and more and more like God Almighty.

Seth: Yeah. Al-

David: Which is, it sounds like heresy every time I say it.

Seth: Right.

David: But it's all over the New Testament.

Seth: It's like we, the story of the Old Testament so far is like, "I think I can be God on better terms than God has decided on."

David: Right.

Seth: "I can't trust God at his word that he's good for me in his rules, so I'm gonna try to take God's promises and power, whatever else, for myself." And the promise here is that, no, if you obey God, if you submit to his will and to his laws, he will give you precisely the thing that you've been trying to steal from him.

David: Yeah.

Seth: He will make you like God.

David: Right.

Seth: Trust him.

David: Yep.

Seth: Trust the process, and he'll do it.

David: Yeah.

Seth: And then Hebrews tells us one other thing that, another benefit, is that we can be confident that it will happen. It's called assurance of salvation.

David: Yes.

Seth: Like, assurance that God has these purposes for us.

David: Right.

Seth: And says in, uh, verse 20, "By the new and living way that Jesus opened up for us through the curtain,"

David: Mm-hmm

Seth: "... that is, through his flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our heart sprinkled clean from an evil conscience." It's like, what, why is he sprinkling everything? Like, what does that mean for us? It means that we can know that everything we just talked about is true, and will be true, and will always be true, not because we were able to do it right.

David: Right.

Seth: But because Jesus did it right for us.

David: Yep.

Seth: We talked about it w- a couple weeks ago, like, where are your hands?

David: Yep.

Seth: Like, if your hands are on Jesus, you can know for a fact that you are saved, that God is making you like him, that you have all that you need in him, that his pleasures are yours forevermore, and that your life is secure.

David: Right, and, and, like, this Day of Atonement, you can picture the people of Israel. They were told to make it a day of solemn rest, to not do any work, and, uh, and to focus on what was happening. Why? Because all through the year, their sins have been piling up. They've been wondering if they were gonna be able to stay in God's presence. You know, they were wondering if they were gonna be judged, if, if, if God was gonna abandon them, if they were actually saved, to use our language here. And you can see, like, through this whole process, the blood's being sprinkled, the sacrifices are being made, and the people can have assurance, because the blood is, the blood has gone into the holy place, that for another year they're safe. And for us, it, we have this better promise that if Jesus died, my salvation is sure. Right?

Seth: Yeah.

David: It's not one time that happens, uh, every, every year, and I've got, "Okay, well, I gotta re-up this year," right? [laughs] It's the same faith that you had at the beginning, is the same faith that saves you today. And so it's like, any time you, you, you just, you, you are wondering about, "Am I saved? Do I have assurance of my salvation?" We did a little Q&A podcast about this.

Seth: Right.

David: But you just go, "Where are your hands?"

Seth: Yeah.

David: If Jesus died, then your conscience can be clean.

Seth: Yeah.

David: And you can know that you are perfectly saved, not because of what you've done, but because Jesus has died for you.

Seth: Yeah. [upbeat music]

David: Okay, time for one of the most controversial and debated sections of the whole Bible.

Seth: The goat demon, Azazel. [laughs]

David: The goat demon. [laughs] So we talked about this a second ago. There's two goats that they're, that they're supposed to getLots are cast. One is for the Lord, the other is for Azazel.

Seth: Yeah.

David: And so, um, the one for the Lord-

Seth: And all we know about Azazel is that the pri-- Well, we know a lot about this. The thing surrounding Azazel, the priest places his hands on the goat.

David: Right.

Seth: He confesses-

David: Confesses the sin

Seth: ... the sins of Israel.

David: Yep.

Seth: All the sins. And it says all, like, four times.

David: Yeah.

Seth: I'm like, "What the hell?" [laughs]

David: Does, does he have a ledger? [laughs]

Seth: What, what is happening there? And then it's-

David: They probably tweeted them in.

Seth: That's right.

David: #sins-

Seth: [laughs]

David: ... 2019.

Seth: # negative, Yom Kippur 2019. [laughs]

David: [laughs] I like that.

Seth: Yeah.

David: Anyway.

Seth: [laughs]

David: He confesses all the sins over the goat for Azazel.

Seth: And then they kinda kick it out of-

David: Right

Seth: ... the camp, and it goes off to the wilderness.

David: Yep. Yes.

Seth: And, uh, w- it's hopefully forgotten. [laughs]

David: Yes.

Seth: And it's called the scapegoat in, uh, King James.

David: Yeah, so-

Seth: Which is why we have the term scapegoat in our English today.

David: Yes. If you have, if you, if you have the word scapegoat or you're familiar with the word scapegoat, that's what this is talking about. But that's a terrible translation.

Seth: Yes.

David: Uh-

Seth: It's, it's in our modern English because King James in 16-whatever decided it should be.

David: Well, not King James. He wasn't, he didn't, he didn't have anything to do with this translation. Anyway.

Seth: He just paid for it.

David: He just paid for it. [laughs]

Seth: We get it.

David: We get it. We get it.

Seth: We get it, David.

David: Okay.

Seth: Okay.

David: Yeah.

Seth: So who's Azazel?

David: Well-

Seth: And what's Azazel? Where's Azazel?

David: Or, yeah, there's a lot of things going on here. Uh, and so there's, there's a couple of main theories that I wanna unpack for us.

Seth: Okay.

David: Um, and-

Seth: So again, the symbolism here-

David: Yeah

Seth: ... the idea is this-

David: There's one underlying, uh, un- there's one underlying idea we need to make sure we come out of here with

Seth: ... it's that the sins are c- are, are confessed over the, the animal, and the animal's taken outside the camp, and the sins are separated as far as the east is from the west.

David: That's right.

Seth: And taken out of the presence of the Lord.

David: Yes.

Seth: Forgotten.

David: Yes.

Seth: That's what we're supposed to see.

David: No matter, no matter what we end up thinking about what or who Azazel is-

Seth: Yeah

David: ... that this still, this is still the idea, that this goat is a, is a symbol that our sins are taken away from us. They are, they are gone. They are far from us. They no longer have residence.

Seth: Right.

David: Like, it's good news.

Seth: The impurification-

David: Yeah

Seth: ... that we have, it's just far away.

David: It's far away.

Seth: We don't know where it went, and more than likely, like, literally, they would never find that goat.

David: That's right.

Seth: Right? It's like-

David: Yes

Seth: ... you couldn't find it if you wanted to.

David: If you wanted to.

Seth: Right.

David: That's right. Yeah, there's-

Seth: No

David: ... no return.

Seth: Yeah.

David: Yeah, that's the whole idea. Okay. So, uh, the f- the, there, there's two main ideas here. The first I'll talk about is the demon.

Seth: Okay.

David: Okay. So, um-

Seth: Goat demons are about to be in the next chapter.

David: Uh, yep, in, in, in chapter 17, verse 7, we do hear about goat demons, and we're, the, we're told that they must stop making sacrifices to goat demons.

Seth: Yeah.

David: Okay? But, uh, is... Anyway, we'll, we'll, we'll f- we'll get there. [laughs] So, um, one idea is that there is this, there's, there's geographical fallen angels-

Seth: Yeah

David: ... over different parts of the world, and in the wilderness, especially in this region, that overlording fallen angel demon-

Seth: Was called Azazel

David: ... was called Azazel.

Seth: Okay.

David: Um, we, uh, and so... And the whole idea is that this goat would, with its sin-

Seth: Right

David: ... on it, would go back to where it came from, okay? So-

Seth: Get that thing back where it came from

David: ... back where it came from.

Seth: [laughs]

David: Lord, so help me.

Seth: [laughs]

David: Must sync. That was great. Oh, so good. Oh.

Seth: That was-

David: Man, I love that.

Seth: That was good. [laughs]

David: And so it would go back where it came from. Uh, it would go back to the wilderness, uh, back to the demons, back to the author of sin.

Seth: Okay.

David: Okay. Um, the, the, the way they get there is three ways.

Seth: Was that a common interpretation throughout Israel's history? So as they move locations, like to the Promised Land or to exile in Babylon, do they have different gods that they sent out that thing to?

David: No.

Seth: Okay.

David: Yeah, it-

Seth: That's why that may not be super convincing.

David: We'll, we'll get there. There-

Seth: Okay

David: ... we... We'll get there.

Seth: Okay.

David: So number-

Seth: Tell me when to go

David: ... so number one, here's how they get, here's how we get there today [laughs] with this interpretation. One, um, is, is the names for these goats. One is for Yahweh, the other is for Azazel.

Seth: Okay.

David: So people think it would be strange to have for the personal name of God, and then for some place or-

Seth: Okay

David: ... non-personal being.

Seth: Right, right, right, right.

David: So, like, by comparison, you would think that it would be one is for this person, one is for this person.

Seth: Right. So-

David: So that's, that's just more of a l- um, a literary argument, okay?

Seth: Yeah, that, that, that makes a little bit of sense to me.

David: Yep.

Seth: And, like, Azazel just could be a name lost for the evil one, you know, that we don't have.

David: Yeah, exactly.

Seth: Yeah.

David: Right. Uh, two is probably the strongest. Enoch, so, uh, it's an intertestamental book in the Apocrypha.

Seth: The Book of Enoch.

David: The Book of Enoch, uh, in chapter-

Seth: Not the Enoch mentioned in j- early in Genesis.

David: No.

Seth: Okay.

David: Not that one.

Seth: Okay.

David: Um, although it could've been named after him.

Seth: Hmm.

David: But no. Anyway. [laughs] Uh, Enoch 8:1 and 9:6 call this, there's a prince of demons, and he is named Azazel.

Seth: Okay.

David: So that's interesting. So there-

Seth: So it could-

David: We have a demon named Azazel in Enoch.

Seth: Right.

David: Okay.

Seth: So something around this time, there was a tradition of calling some sort of sp-

David: Not around this time-

Seth: Oh, okay

David: ... in Leviticus. This is way later.

Seth: Okay.

David: Way, way, way, way, way, way, way later.

Seth: So maybe it's more like Enoch looking, "Oh, there's a thing here called Azazel."

David: Uh-huh.

Seth: "And maybe we should name that... That's the prince of demons." So he's obviously bought into the first idea-

David: Right

Seth: ... that you just had-

David: Right

Seth: ... and wrote a book about it.

David: Uh-huh. But if, yeah, and but if, if you have the, the author of Enoch thinking that Azazel is a name for a, a demon-

Seth: Right

David: ... then, I mean, you kind of, okay, maybe that was the widespread view-

Seth: Right, right, right, right

David: ... was Azazel was a demon.

Seth: Yeah.

David: Okay? Uh, and then number three is the wilderness is constantly referred to in the Bible as the haunt for demons. Like, this is where-

Seth: Yeah

David: ... they live.

Seth: Yeah, yeah.

David: Is out in the wilderness. We even see Jesus run into Satan himself out in the wilderness-

Seth: In the wilderness

David: ... after his baptism to be tempted.

Seth: Yeah.

David: Okay? Um, so that, that's kind of the, the layout there. Now, people who, who subscribe to this, and I haven't written it off entirely. I really haven't.

Seth: Okay.

David: Um-

Seth: So all the theories are really surrounding the idea, like, not just, they're not just theories, they're all pointing the same direction. It's like-

David: Yep

Seth: ... the idea is weighted towards the fact that there is a personal evil force that the sin is going back to.

David: That's right.

Seth: Okay.

David: Yeah, it doesn't belong where God is.

Seth: Right.

David: Right? This is where holiness and purity are. Take all the sin and give it back to its owner.

Seth: Right.

David: The demons, the fallen ones, right? Uh, and that's, they have to lean on that. People who, who ascribe to this view alone have to lean into the fact that this is not a sacrificial goat. Right. Because-

Seth: Right

David: ... we are, you don't need to make sacrifices to demons.

Seth: Right.

David: They're not the ones who actually punish sin. They don't... And, and then even-

Seth: Yeah

David: ... and then like you said-

Seth: And so it kind of makes sense

David: ... in chapter 17-

Seth: Yeah

David: ... verse seven, we are commanded right after this not to make sacrifices to demons.

Seth: So it would kind of make sense potentially then that this is some sort of personal evil force, and the Israelites trying to shortchange or, like, short-circuit, do what Cain did, do what Adam and Eve did, and get into God's good graces by their own means, on their own power, on their, their own, own ideas. It's like, "Oh, let's just sacrifice directly to the goat god-

David: Right

Seth: ... and then are, we'll be forgiven."

David: Yep.

Seth: So they're short-circuiting God's plan if they believe that Azazel is some kind of entity.

David: And that, that they need to appease.

Seth: Okay.

David: Right, but-

Seth: Got it

David: ... God's like, "Nope, don't kill it. Just set it free. Let it return back. I'm the one to whom you're accountable. I'm the one to whom sacrifices need to be made-

Seth: This is make-

David: ... not some demon."

Seth: This is making more and more sense to me, just knowing the structure of the Torah as well. Because after the Ten Commandments are given, Moses comes down off the mountain, and the priest, Aaron, is worshiping a golden calf, and he's incorrectly worshiping the God who's just revealed himself in his presence on the mountain. And here again, we have God revealing himself through specific commands in the temple, and now the people are responding by worshiping something else inappropriately.

David: Mm.

Seth: And they're supposed to... And they, there's also, it's a goat. [laughs] You know, it's like there's-

David: Sure

Seth: ... goat, calf, calf, you know, bull-

David: Right

Seth: ... being offered. So I, that makes a little more sense to me as well.

David: Right. So what, what you're saying, I think, is we know from Leviticus 17:7, that's about to come up, that the people have been making sacrifices to goat demons.

Seth: Right.

David: Because he says, "You must no longer."

Seth: Right.

David: So they've been doing it.

Seth: Right.

David: And so perhaps this goat for Azazel and not killing it is a way for them to understand that the demons and the, the, the evil forces of, of the spiritual realm don't need appeasing.

Seth: Right.

David: Just send it back to where it came from.

Seth: Yeah.

David: Uh, I'm the one to whom all sacrifices must be made-

Seth: Yeah

David: ... as Yahweh. Okay.

Seth: And that's more of a literary argument too.

David: Yep.

Seth: Saying, like, the structure of the Torah is like sin, new laws, sin, new laws.

David: Yes.

Seth: And this feels like a parallel to what happened back in Exodus.

David: Right.

Seth: Yeah.

David: Okay. The other argument, right? And I'm, I'm very curious if there, if there's a synthesis here.

Seth: Okay, okay, yeah.

David: I think there's, I think there's some kind of synthesis that can be made. The other argument is that this is more of a noun, i- that Azazel is not necessarily... A proper noun, you know, like a, a-

Seth: Right

David: ... or a personal noun, I should say.

Seth: Like a place.

David: Like a, a person. Uh, but it-

Seth: Right

David: ... it's more of a, a place-

Seth: Yeah

David: ... or even a descriptor, right? And so, um, because it's very similar to a few other words. So it's the place of cutting off.

Seth: Okay.

David: Uh, which, which really gets close to another one of its synonyms, which is a flinty place or a rocky place.

Seth: Okay.

David: And what was used to cut off foreskin?

Seth: A flint.

David: A flint.

Seth: Okay.

David: Okay? So it's a place of, a rocky crag.

Seth: It's a play on words.

David: Uh-huh.

Seth: Yeah.

David: Right? Uh, b- and then it's also very close to a place of total destruction.

Seth: Okay.

David: So it's this, this place that's cut off, where you're totally destroyed by rocks.

Seth: Right.

David: Okay? And the Mishnah, right?

Seth: Yeah.

David: And what's the Mishnah?

Seth: Mishnah is the collected teachings, the collected discussions of the rabbis-

David: Uh-huh

Seth: ... on the Torah.

David: Right.

Seth: Yeah.

David: So how did rabbis think about this text?

Seth: Right.

David: How did Jews interpret this text? The Mishnah records that later Jews would actually take the goat to a cliff, the goat of Azazel, to a cliff and kind of, like, back it up, like, up against the cliff until it fell off, where it was cut off from the people, and it would die on the rocks below.

Seth: Yeah. In verse 26, it says, "And he who lets the goat go to Azazel shall wash his clothes," assuming that it's not Aaron.

David: That's right.

Seth: 'Cause Aaron's the one-

David: It's not Aaron. It's, it's-

Seth: Aaron's putting the sins on him

David: ... one fit for duty.

Seth: And then there's another guy-

David: Yep

Seth: ... who's letting it go to, so, like, guiding it towards Azazel.

David: Exactly.

Seth: Okay.

David: So it's very possible that this person who's fit for this job was someone who could, you know-

Seth: A Levite who was-

David: Yeah

Seth: ... yeah

David: ... who could wrangle a goat-

Seth: Yeah

David: ... and take it to the place of cutting off in the wilderness in a rocky crag area to where it would actually die.

Seth: I've, I've been watching a lot of Bear Grylls recently. [laughs]

David: Oh, good.

Seth: He's, he gets lost in all these, like, slot canyons.

David: Oh, yeah.

Seth: You know what a slot canyon is?

David: No.

Seth: It's, it's like [laughs]-

David: Like most people, I don't know what a slot canyon is.

Seth: If, like, if you go to Utah, uh, and you see the, y- the Mount Zion National Park.

David: Oh, yeah.

Seth: Funny, Mount Zion. Anyway, it's those huge, like-

David: Oh

Seth: ... deep crevices.

David: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Seth: James Franco gets his arm cut in one.

David: Yeah, 127 Hours.

Seth: Yeah. So, like, they're-

David: Spoiler alert.

Seth: Spoiler alert. Uh, that's like the first 10 minutes of the movie. [laughs]

David: [laughs]

Seth: 127 Hours is the rest of the movie. The, uh, so slot canyon is essentially, it looks flat, and then they're just hundreds of feet down. And so you can get lost in-

David: Yeah

Seth: ... they're just a maze. So I can imagine, like, a place like this existing in Israel. It's like, "Okay, I'm gonna lead the goat to these, this maze of slot canyons, and we will never find it again."

David: Right.

Seth: Yeah.

David: But-

Seth: Or a cliff.

David: Yeah, I think here what we're arguing for is less that and more there's a rocky place that they would take them to that you could probably find in any dem- in any geography.

Seth: Yeah, yeah.

David: And you would back them up against a cliff. They would drop down.

Seth: Mount Scott here in Oklahoma.

David: Mount Scott, you know. Uh, and so that's very interesting. Um, and, uh, a, a few other things. So one, you did mention the guy who c- has to come back and wash his clothes, which is the same thing that has to happen for people to go and make sacrifices outside the, the, the tent, or outside the, the, the camp.

Seth: Yeah, yeah.

David: Um, and then every other time atonement is made, and, and we're told that this goat is for atonement, um, there's death involved of the animal.

Seth: Right.

David: Except here, well, maybe not.

Seth: Yeah, maybe.

David: Maybe he was taken to a place of cutting off-

Seth: Okay

David: ... and he was, he was killed in total destruction. Um, and then there's similar, there's similar commands that are made outside the camp, and it, it's always sacrifice.

Seth: Okay.

David: Uh, anyway, so it's like there are, there are good arguments for-

Seth: To say that

David: ... to say that this is, that this goat was taken away and killed outside the camp, but not even by someone's hand.

Seth: Yeah, and then it would even make more sense, too, if people are sacrificing outside the camp-

David: Yep

Seth: ... to goat demons.

David: Goat demons.

Seth: They're, like, approximating this thing as closely as they can-

David: Right

Seth: ... o- outside the Day of Atonement. So it makes sense, again, like, if they're breaking the commands that God has just revealed about entering into his presence, just like Moses broke the commands about entering into God's presence, that they're doing it as clo- like, in this very similar way.

David: Right.

Seth: That makes sense.

David: Yeah.

Seth: Okay.

David: Okay, so how do we see Jesus in this? [laughs] Because in a few, like, in a very literal way-The New Testament never says that Jesus is the new and better goat of Azazel.

Seth: No.

David: Okay.

Seth: We're, he... And even if we say it's some personal spiritual being, Go- Jesus is never, like, given back to the devil.

David: No.

Seth: Like-

David: Well, so, but, which, what's interesting is, um, people have this view of, um, redemption and atonement that Jesus goes... Like, so I was, I was just in Africa.

Seth: Yeah.

David: And, uh, and we heard a sermon about... It, it was East- we were there for Easter, and we, and, and we... It, it was a, a phenomenal sermon, actually.

Seth: Yeah, yeah.

David: Except for this one part of how atonement is achieved.

Seth: Okay.

David: And it's that, that Jesus went down into hell.

Seth: Yeah.

David: He descended into hell.

Seth: Correct.

David: Apostle-

Seth: Apostle's Creed.

David: Yeah, right.

Seth: Nicene Creed.

David: Yeah, n- yeah.

Seth: Which one?

David: Apostle's Creed.

Seth: Apostle's Creed.

David: Yeah. And, um, ascended into, descended into hell, and Satan was there, and he had to be bought out.

Seth: Mm.

David: And Satan's the lord of the underworld.

Seth: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

David: And he has everyone's ledger, and he's like, "What right do you have to free these people?" And Jesus is like, "I died. Here's my blood."

Seth: This is what C.S. Lewis did in, uh, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, so I'm gonna spoil it because-

David: [laughs]

Seth: ... I think it's been out for decades.

David: Yeah.

Seth: But, like, the witch has this leverage on Aslan-

David: Right

Seth: ... because of this magic before the dawn of time, where you can replace somebody, but you have to... Like, Aslan, like, the witch is owed somebody's blood.

David: Yes.

Seth: Yeah.

David: Right.

Seth: With the... So, like... Yeah, yeah.

David: And so Aslan pays it-

Seth: Yeah

David: ... right, with his own death. But that is not the gospel. [laughs] Satan does not need anything. Like, he is not the one to be paid.

Seth: He's being punished.

David: He's be- he's, he's the first one thrown into hell in Revelation.

Seth: Yeah, he's the ultimate cast out one, like.

David: He is not... Satan is not i- the lord of hell.

Seth: Right.

David: He is not, he's not the chief torturer. He is the chief tortured, okay?

Seth: Yeah.

David: Like, he, he-

Seth: Yeah, yeah, yeah

David: ... is not the one getting the whips and the irons out, like, right. He... That's not-

Seth: Little pitchfork.

David: Yeah, no.

Seth: He's got no pitchfork.

David: He's got no pitchfork. He's the one getting pitchforked, okay?

Seth: [laughs]

David: Like, we need to fix this in our brains. And so Satan is not the one that there has to be payment made to. And so that's why a lot of, uh, uh, we, we need to be careful with this, this, uh, goat for Azazel thing, that we don't try to set a precedent that the New Testament doesn't answer.

Seth: Right. I mean, it, and it's a historical inaccuracy. The reason why C.S. Lewis wrote it into The Chronicles of Narnia, because it was a common medieval misunderstanding.

David: Right.

Seth: Well, it's, and actually just a lot of medieval theology books.

David: And he was a medieval-

Seth: He was, that's what-

David: ... nerd

Seth: ... that's what he did. [laughs]

David: Yeah. [laughs]

Seth: Like, he just read medieval literature-

David: Yeah. [laughs]

Seth: ... for, for a living.

David: Yes. [laughs] And so, um, but nevertheless, there is something going on here with Jesus, um, and this goat to Azazel. Um, Alistair Robert, Roberts.

Seth: Alistair Roberts.

David: Yeah.

Seth: Yeah, yeah.

David: Uh, he, he had a, a, a great blog post on this, and, uh, he actually made some, as he always does, he, he was the co-author of Echoes of Exodus with Andrew Wilson-

Seth: Yeah

David: ... who we've ha- who we've had on the podcast. He's so good at seeing patterns throughout scripture.

Seth: Oh, we should have him on.

David: I know. He's amazing. Alistair, if you're listening. No, he's not listening. [laughs]

Seth: He's not listening.

David: But, um, uh, anyway, uh, he, he even showed that li- there's, like, there's two goats, uh, throughout Genesis a couple times. Like, there's, there's two goats, uh, in the story of, um, Jacob and Esau, and then in, in a certain sense, Ishmael's the goat for Azazel sent out into the wilderness.

Seth: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

David: And Isaac is the goat for sacrifice that's almost sacrificed by Abraham.

Seth: Yeah, yeah, yeah. PC, yeah.

David: So he does this all throughout the Old Testament, and then he gets to the New Testament, and we have, we have Jesus at his baptism, right, and he comes out of ba- of baptism-

Seth: Right, right, right, right

David: ... and he goes into the wilderness. He's the goat that goes into the wilderness.

Seth: Yes.

David: Right? But he comes back, having-

Seth: Mm

David: ... not been tempted-

Seth: Right

David: ... having not fallen to sin, uh, after taking our sin on himself. This was a baptism for the repentant, for the mi- remission of sin, the, or repentance of sin-

Seth: Right, right, right

David: ... that he went under, took our sins out into the wilderness.

Seth: Left them there.

David: Left them there, came back, and then was the other goat as well, the goat for sacrifice.

Seth: Mm. Whoa.

David: Yeah. It's pretty cool.

Seth: That's pretty cool.

David: Thanks, Alistair Roberts, for that one. And so in some sense there, the, I feel like the New Testament is seeing Jesus as both goats.

Seth: Yeah.

David: That, that Jesus does go out into the wilderness, sees Satan himself, interacts with him, conquers the temptation. He doesn't pay him off. There's no-

Seth: Right.

David: He just, he, he just doesn't sin.

Seth: He just doesn't sin.

David: Right. And so he's able to bring pure- purity and holiness and sinlessness both in the camp and outside of the camp.

Seth: Yeah.

David: He's able to cleanse the whole world, right?

Seth: Right, right, right, right.

David: He's able to make everything holy Israel.

Seth: I wonder if how, if that, th- that Jesus helps us reinterpret a little bit, too.

David: Mm.

Seth: Leviticus.

David: Yeah.

Seth: Like reading our Leviticus in the light of Jesus. Like, if Je- if Jesus is the second goat that goes out and his, the, our sins are supposed to be lost, like, and Jesus goes out and loses them-

David: Yep

Seth: ... and then comes back.

David: Yeah, I, I think I, I think I see what, what you're getting at here. Uh, it's kind of like, so we, we saw the wilderness in Leviticus as the place where sin goes. It's the most sinful place. That's where if we are gonna go with the Azazel demon, you know-

Seth: Right

David: ... s- uh, idea, that's where s- the author of sin lies and the, the prince of sin is. It's the most sinful place.

Seth: Not that he's, like, collecting sin.

David: No, no, no, no, no.

Seth: But, you know what I mean? But, like-

David: That's just where-

Seth: ... sinfulness goes there

David: ... that's, yeah. And it's like, it just, and it kind of just keeps going there and keeps going there. It's the most sinful, most unholy, most impure place, and that's where Jesus chooses to go, and yet he is tempted by the chief tempter, and yet does not sin. He goes to the most sinful place and doesn't sin. He goes to the most unholy place and remains holy. He goes to the most impure place and remains pure, and then he comes back to us and says, "You can do this, too." Right? And so it gives-

Seth: Mm-hmm

David: ... it gives even more weight, I think, to what the author of Hebrews says when he says that he was tempted in every way as we are, and yet-

Seth: Yeah

David: ... was without sin.

Seth: Yeah.

David: Is that he did it in the worst possible place where sin lives.

Seth: Right.

David: And yet did not sin.

Seth: Like geographically, like-

David: Yeah, yeah, yeah

Seth: ... imaginationally. But, like, in another sense, like, Jesus c- like we're Azazel.

David: Oh, yeah.

Seth: Right? Like, we are where sin lives.

David: Yes. It's in us.

Seth: And Jesus comes to us.

David: Yep.

Seth: Takes our sin and moves it away-

David: Yeah

Seth: ... and turns our wilderness into the Garden of Eden.

David: Yes.

Seth: Right? Like, he's remaking us in His image.

David: Mm-hmm.

Seth: New creation works.

David: Yeah.

Seth: Because we were Azazel, and now we are the new heavens.

David: Right, and there's even, um, a spiritual element to that, that we, we followed the prince of the power of the air, as Ephesians-

Seth: Right

David: ... 2 talks about, right?

Seth: Yeah.

David: We were slaves to, uh, uh, the demon Azazel.

Seth: Right.

David: We were slaves to Satan. We were slaves to sin, slaves to the evil forces in the spiritual world, and yet, when Jesus came, he conquered that throne of our hearts, and-

Seth: He conquered Satan in the wilderness.

David: That's right.

Seth: And he conquered Satan in our hearts too.

David: In our hearts, exactly.

Seth: Yeah.

David: And he dethrones him, and he becomes Lord of our hearts.

Seth: Mm-hmm.

David: Like, no demonic oppression, no, no possession, no sin d- domineering over us. Jesus comes and beats all the spiritual forces that control us and constrain our wills. He comes, and he is, he, he conquests the wilderness of our hearts and becomes the Lord of those as well.

Seth: Okay, and there's one last-

David: Oh, yeah

Seth: ... quick sacrifice before the end. It's the, it's, it's the ram.

David: Right.

Seth: And what's fascinating here, Aaron takes off the s- the linen slave clothes-

David: Mm

Seth: ... and he puts back on-

David: Oh, yeah, his more royal garments

Seth: ... his priestly, royal garments representing the people, and he kills the ram-

David: Mm-hmm

Seth: ... for atonement of Israel.

David: And it's a burnt offering. The whole thing's burnt up.

Seth: Whole thing's burnt up.

David: And that's, that is-

Seth: And re- remind me, what's the pur- like, remind us, what's the purpose of a burnt offering back-

David: Right

Seth: ... like, it's for-

David: Well, yeah, it's for a lot of things, is what we said. Remember, the table of contents tells us-

Seth: Right

David: ... what it is, not what it's for.

Seth: So what is it for here?

David: So what it's for here is, it says, to make atonement for Aaron and all the people. And so, so far, we've made atonement for Aaron. We've made atonement for the Holy of Holies and the tabernacle, but we've yet to then make a once yearly sacrifice for Israel itself, herself.

Seth: Right.

David: And that's what this is for. This is to say, in the most public way ever, take this big old ram, put it up on the altar of burnt offering, set the whole thing on fire with the fire of the Lord, and the smoke rises up. All the people are watching on this day of solemn rest, knowing that everything that's been accomplished on the Day of Atonement is done. It's, this is the full stop at the end of the sentence.

Seth: Mm-hmm.

David: This is the period at the, at the sen- at the end of the sentence that the Day of Atonement has been written.

Seth: Yeah.

David: That Israel is clean for another year, period.

Seth: "For on this day shall atonement be made for you to cleanse you. You shall be clean before the Lord from all your sins."

David: Yep.

Seth: "It is a Sabbath."

David: Yeah.

Seth: "It is a rest."

David: And so what we, what, what the good news for this for us is we have one final ram to look to, right? It's the most-

Seth: Burnt up

David: ... burnt up for us, all of him. We can look to Jesus on the cross, and we can see that we've been purified, that we've been made holy, and that we can take not a day of solemn rest. Our whole lives can be solemn rest because every single day is the Day of Atonement. We can look to Good Friday every single day and have rest from our work-

Seth: Mm-hmm

David: ... rest from our unclean consciences, rest from our guilt, rest from our shame, and we can know that we are saved, that we are at peace with God, that he lives in us, that we are pure and holy and blameless. And, uh, we can do that because there's been one priest who offered the one sacrifice once for all, and that was Jesus on the cross.

Seth: Amen. [upbeat music]

Outro: Thank you for listening to the Spoken Gospel podcast. Spoken Gospel is a nonprofit dedicated to creating free gospel-centered media that speaks the gospel out of every corner of Scripture. So to join us in our mission and view our resources, we invite you to visit spokengospel.com. [upbeat music]

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The Day of Atonement: How Leviticus 16 Points to Jesus

Show Notes

The Peak of the Mountain

Aaron's Preparation and the Linen Garments

The Smoke Screen and the Presence of God

Why the Old Priesthood Was Never Enough

The Mystery of Azazel

Jesus as Both Goats and the Final Ram

Related Resources

Introduction to Leviticus

View our devotional on Leviticus 1-3

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Listen to the Leviticus Introduction podcast

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Listen to the Leviticus 11-15: Unclean Foods, Diseases, and Emissions podcast

Listen to the Leviticus 16: Day of Atonement podcast

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Listen to the Leviticus 23 and 25: Sabbath, Festivals, and Jubilee podcast

Listen to the Leviticus 24 and 26-27: The Death Penalty, Curses, and Vows podcast