The book of Leviticus is filled with detailed instructions for making atonement. Sin causes damage to our relationship with God. The process for fixing that damage is called atonement. Reading through Leviticus makes it clear that this is no easy process, nor can it be taken lightly.
There are different kinds of sacrifices to accomplish different purposes. There are different festivals to highlight key events in Israel’s history and help them remember 1) God’s great power to deliver them (the Passover), 2) God’s great blessing to provide for them (Pentecost / First fruits) and, 3) God’s great mercy to forgive them (the Day of Atonement).
The image above comes from this helpful article. It shows the symmetrical design of the book of Leviticus and how the Day of Atonement was not only central to the book, but central to the Jewish calendar and faith.
Notice how beautifully the sacrifice system points ahead to Jesus.
- Like a burnt offering, Jesus was consumed entirely in the fire of God’s just wrath.
- Like a sin offering, Jesus’ blood was shed to open the way into the Most Holy Place of God’s presence and his body was carried outside of the city to bear the sin and uncleanness of the people.
- Like a peace offering, Jesus body is to be consumed by those who believe in Him as a sign of our reconciliation with our merciful God.
- Like the high priest, Jesus is our holy mediator, interceding for us and presenting Himself as the all sufficient sacrifice for our sins!
“Thus it was necessary for the copies of the heavenly things to be purified with these rites, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these. For Christ has entered, not into holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true things, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf. Nor was it to offer himself repeatedly, as the high priest enters the holy places every year with blood not his own, for then he would have had to suffer repeatedly since the foundation of the world. But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment, so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him.” Hebrews 9:23-28 (ESV)