The Gospel in the Law
Leviticus 16:15–22
The goat shall bear all their iniquities. Leviticus 16:22

The meaning of Christ’s sacrifice was made particularly clear in the instructions for the two sacrifices to be performed in Israel on the Day of Atonement. In the first sacrifice a goat was driven away into the wilderness to die there. That goat was first brought to Aaron or to a priest who succeeded him. The priest placed his hands on the goat’s head, thereby identifying himself and the people whom he represented with the goat. He confessed the sins of the people in prayer, thereby in a symbolic fashion transferring them to the goat. Then the goat was driven out into the wilderness. The description of that ceremony states, “The goat shall bear all their iniquities.” The sacrifice points to Jesus who, like that goat, “suffered outside the gate” in order to carry our iniquities away from us (see Heb. 13:12).

The other sacrifice was made in the courtyard of the temple, from which blood was then carried into the Holy of Holies to be sprinkled on the ark of the covenant. The place where the blood was to be put was symbolic, as was the whole ritual. It was called the mercy seat. Being on the lid of the ark, the mercy seat was between the stone tablets of the law of Moses (within the ark) and the space between the outstretched wings of the cherubim over the ark (symbolizing the place of God’s dwelling).

Without the blood, the ark with its law and cherubim paints a terrible picture. There is the law, which we have broken. There is God, whom we have offended. Moreover, as God looks down, it is the law broken by us that he sees. It is a picture of judgment, of our hopelessness apart from grace. But then the sacrifice is performed, and the high priest enters the Holy of Holies and places the blood of the innocent victim upon the mercy seat, which thus comes between God in his holiness and ourselves in our sin. There has been substitution. An innocent has died in the place of those who should have died, and the blood is proof. Wrath is averted. Now God looks in grace upon the sinner.

Who is that sacrifice? He is Jesus. We cannot say how much those who lived before the time of Christ understood about salvation. Some, like the prophets, undoubtedly understood much. Others understood little. But whatever the level of understanding, the purpose of the law was plain. It was to reveal the sin and then to point to the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ as the Savior. Before God can give us the gospel, he must slay us with the law. But as he does so, he shows us that the law contains the gospel and points us to it.