Numbers 29:7-11--Offerings for the Day of Atonement

Numbers 29:7-11
English Standard Version
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Offerings for the Day of Atonement
7 “On the tenth day of this seventh month you shall have a holy convocation and afflict yourselves. You shall do no work, 8 but you shall offer a burnt offering to the Lord, a pleasing aroma: one bull from the herd, one ram, seven male lambs a year old: see that they are without blemish. 9 And their grain offering shall be of fine flour mixed with oil, three tenths of an ephah for the bull, two tenths for the one ram, 10 a tenth for each of the seven lambs: 11 also one male goat for a sin offering, besides the sin offering of atonement, and the regular burnt offering and its grain offering, and their drink offerings.

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We didn't actually talk much about the sacrifices offered as part of Passover, The Feast of Pentecost, or the Feast of Trumpets last time--I focused in more on the significance of those feasts and how the sacrifice that Christ made on the cross fulfilled those three feasts and give a summary of the gospel as something past, present and future for us as the people of God.

I'm going to again focus in more on the significance of the feat and the fulfillment of it in Christ than I will on the actual sacrifices.  Notice though that the seventh month is the month that was holy unto the LORD and there are many feasts and festivals that month.  It starts with the Feast of Trumpets on the first day of the month which was one of the pilgrimage feasts that required everyone to travel to Jerusalem.  I would assume that people would not make that trip and not also stay for this feast that was on the tenth day of the seventh month.  While it is not a pilgrimage feast, it is a high holy day--the day in which atonement was made for the nation of Israel (the people of God), first by atonement being made for the high priest who had laid all the sins of the people upon himself through his partaking in his portion of their daily, weekly, monthly, and other sacrifices and then for any unconfessed sin of the nation or sin for which no other sacrifice existed.  This seems to be the only day where the high-handed sins of the people could be dealt with according to the Law.

This definitely points to Christ as He took our sins upon Himself as our Great High Priest, but He did not first need to make atonement for Himself, because He alone was without sin.  The high priest was the only one allowed to enter the Holy of Holies and then only once a year on this special day to make atonement for himself and for the nation.  A couple verses from the book of Hebrews that I want to draw your attention to at this time:  https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Hebrews+4%3A14-5%3A10&version=ESV. Specifically I want to point you to Hebrews 4:16 which tells us that we may now all boldly approach the throne of grace (the Holy of Holies in the heavenly temple) because the barrier that was there to keep us out has been taken away--just like the veil was torn at the time of Christ's death from top to bottom.  Heaven itself removed that barrier.  The other verse that I want to point you to is Hebrews 5:3 (see my journal article on this passage from when I studied the book of Hebrews if any of what's said about Jesus' role as our Great High Priest is confusing to you), as this verse is the one that tells us how Jesus is better than Aaron and Aaron's sons who served in the Levitical priesthood because they could not make atonement for the people without first making atonement for themselves, but Jesus did not need to make atonement for Himself first making Him the only one who could be both priest and sacrifice by offering Himself as the sacrifice and then presenting that sacrifice to the Father on our behalf.

Another significant part of the day of atonement was that of the scapegoat.  The sins of the people would be transferred to the scapegoat (yes, this is where that word for us in English comes from) and that scapegoat would become unclean so that the people could become clean.  It would remove their shame and their guilt--not just their sin.  A bell would be tied around its neck so that people knew not to come near it and it was driven into the wilderness.  We've already talked about how Jesus paid the penalty for our sins, but He also took all of our shame and our guilt upon Himself.  This is important to many cultures that are still "shame cultures" (think of the Amish, Muslims, and any other community where the worst thing you can do is to ruin your family's name and reputation.  Jesus died a shameful death to take all of our shame upon himself.

Now, as to these individual sacrifices.  Imagine all the people of Israel individually needing to come to the Tabernacle or Temple on these holy days waiting to offer these sacrifices in addition to the sacrifices that the priests were commanded to make for the people on behalf of themselves and the nation.  How much blood was shed to make atonement and this must have always been before the priests and the people.  That's a lot of blood sacrifices offered by the people on these holidays.  Part of me wonders how there's enough time and enough priests to handle all of this.  We'll see our next feast is actually the only one to require sacrifices every day of the week.  We'll look at that one, The Feast of Tabernacles, next time.