The Day of Atonement is the centre-point of the Pentateuch. This is the moment of re-entry into the presence of God. On this day a new Adam, the High Priest, passes by the cherubim (woven into the curtain guarding the Most Holy Place) and back into the Garden of Eden (i.e. the Holy of Holies). The high priest entered the Holy of Holies with the blood of the sacrifice in an act of cleansing from the inside out. The eastward movement of the blood-cleansing ritual from the inner sanctum outwards is significant. The movement is not from the outside in but from the inside out; it is from God to us, not from us to God. In the first five chapters of Genesis humanity is driven eastward, by degrees, away from the presence of God. Now the cleansing ritual moves eastward through the tabernacle out towards the people. The people are not reaching God, as they tried to do with the tower of Babel. God is reaching his people. In the end the people are reconciled with God and blessed as the scapegoat takes their sin eastward into the desert. It is as the psalmist says: “As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us” (Psalm 103:12). This is a culminate moment, but it was still just a symbol of what is fulfilled in Christ. Jesus, our divine High Priest, having offered his own blood, brings salvation to us. He moves ever outward to seek and save the lost and to draw us back into the presence of God. Every day is a day of atonement.
Give thanks to God and pray for friends and family who have not yet trusted in Christ.
Read Leviticus 16
