Leviticus; The Law of Holiness and Grace

Vicarious Atonement

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Pentateuch

Genre: Lessons with Q & A

Lesson: 29

Track: 29

Dictation Name: RR172Q29

Date: Early 70s

Let us worship God. Our help is in the name of the Lord who made Heaven and earth. The Lord is nigh unto all them that call upon Him, to all that call upon Him in truth. He will fulfill the desire of them that fear Him. He also will hear their cry and save them. “Where two or three are gathered together in My name,” saith the Lord Jesus Christ, “there am I in the midst of them.”

Let us pray.

Oh Lord our God, we come into Thy presence, mindful of all Thy past and present mercies. We come unto Thee mindful of the greatness of our need, to pray for our loved ones, to pray for Thy kingdom, to pray for our country, that it may be cleansed, and made a new people; to pray, oh Lord for Thy triumph in the midst of the nation. Thou art our hope and therefore we turn to Thee, our Father, that by Thy grace, we may again be a people of freedom and grace, of righteousness and of truth. Bless us to this purpose in Christ’s name. Amen.

Our scripture is Leviticus 16:11-28, our subject is “Vicarious Atonement.”

“11 And Aaron shall bring the bullock of the sin offering, which is for himself, and shall make an atonement for himself, and for his house, and shall kill the bullock of the sin offering which is for himself:

12 and he shall take a censer full of burning coals of fire from off the altar before the Lord, and his hands full of sweet incense beaten small, and bring it within the vail:

13 And he shall put the incense upon the fire before the Lord that the cloud of the incense may cover the mercy seat that is upon the testimony that he die not:

14 and he shall take of the blood of the bullock, and sprinkle it with his finger upon the mercy seat eastward; and before the mercy seat shall he sprinkle of the blood with his finger seven times.

15 Then shall he kill the goat of the sin offering that is for the people and bring his blood within the vail, and do with that blood as he did with the blood of the bullock, and sprinkle it upon the mercy seat, and also before the mercy seat:

16 and he shall make an atonement for the holy place, because of the uncleanness of the children of Israel, and because of their transgressions in all their sins: and so shall he do for the tabernacle of the congregation that remaineth among them in the midst of their uncleanness.

17 And there shall be no man in the tabernacle of the congregation when he goeth in to make an atonement in the holy place, until he come out, and have made an atonement for himself, and for his household, and for all the congregation of Israel.

18 And he shall go out unto the altar that is before the Lord, and make an atonement for it; and shall take of the blood of the bullock, and of the blood of the goat, and put it upon the horns of the altar round about.

19 And he shall sprinkle of the blood upon it with his finger seven times, and cleanse it, and hallow it from the uncleanness of the children of Israel.

20 And when he hath made an end of reconciling the holy place, and the tabernacle of the congregation, and the altar, he shall bring the live goat:

21 and Aaron shall lay both his hands upon the head of the live goat, and confess over him all the iniquities of the children of Israel, and all their transgressions in all their sins, putting them upon the head of the goat, and shall send him away by the hand of a fit man into the wilderness:

22 and the goat shall bear upon him all their iniquities unto a land not inhabited: and he shall let go the goat in the wilderness.

23 And Aaron shall come into the tabernacle of the congregation, and shall put off the linen garments, which he put on when he went into the holy place, and shall leave them there:

24 And he shall wash his flesh with water in the holy place, and put on his garments, and come forth, and offer his burnt offering, and the burnt offering of the people, and make an atonement for himself, and for the people.

25 And the fat of the sin offering shall he burn upon the altar.

26 And he that let go the goat for the scapegoat shall wash his clothes, and bathe his flesh in water, and afterward come into the camp.

27 And the bullock for the sin offering, and the goat for the sin offering, whose blood was brought in to make atonement in the holy place, shall one carry forth without the camp; and they shall burn in the fire their skins, and their flesh, and their dung.

28 And he that burneth them shall wash his clothes, and bathe his flesh in water, and afterward he shall come into the camp.”

The Law of God makes very clear, and especially Leviticus, that sin is no casual matter, also is a very costly matter. The sinner had to do two things. First, he had to make restitution to God. He had to do this by means of confession and sacrifice. Taking the cost of the bullock, in terms of today’s prices, it would mean depending on the size, that he would be paying $300-500. Similarly, for the sheep he would be paying a little less, but it would still not come cheaply. In other words, the monetary price of sin apart from all other costs was a considerable one. Then second, he had to make restitution to man, which had to be between two-fold and five-fold. This meant that sinning was very expensive! By the time you made restitution to God and then restitution to man, you had paid a high price for your sin. The sad fact is that since New Testament times, both Judaism and Christianity have cheapened the meaning of sin.

Now, what is said here about the cost of sin is only the personal side, the monetary side. Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 28 tell us much about the social cost; the impact on society.

Moreover, there is another aspect. The Old Testament has five different Hebrew words to describe what is translated into English by one word, ‘transgression.’ The New Testament has four words which are translated as transgression or five if we count ‘anomos’ or ‘anomia,’ as two words. Transgressions, as used here in verse 16 for example, is a Hebrew word used regularly by the prophets to describe Israel’s sin. It means ‘rebellion.’ It refers to a personal break, a personal action against a personal God. It means a violation of His Law, but with the implication that God’s Law is a very personal fact, because it expresses the being, the holiness and the justice of God.

On the Day of Atonement, the high priest entered into the most holy place, or the Holy of Holies. {?}’s comment here is very revealing in that he gets to the heart of the matter. “On the Day of Atonement, the priest who approaches with the blood of atonement must envelop himself in a cloud of incense when he raises the curtain. This expresses the fact that full communion between God and Man is not to be realized even through the medium of the atonement to be attained by Old Testament sacrificial institutions. That, as is said in Hebrews 9:8, ‘as yet the way to the Heavenly sanctuary was not made manifest.’ The kaphara rests on the Ark, which are the Tables of the Law, the testimony. This means that God {?} sits enthroned in Israel on the ground of covenant of Law which He has made with Israel. The testimony is preserved in the Ark as a treasure, a jewel. But with this goes a second consideration. While the Law is certainly in the first place a testimony to the will of God toward the people, it is also a testimony against the sinful people, a continual record of accusation, so to speak, against their sins in the sight of the holy God. And now when the kaphara is over the table, it is declared that God’s grace, which provides an atonement or a covering for the iniquity of God’s people, stands above His penal justice.” I think that says it powerfully. It is an unhappy fact that the Church today has forgotten; that the Law to the faithful is a treasure, a jewel.

Among other things in this passage, {?} calls attention to the relation, first, between law and mercy. Law is given as covenant law. It is God’s grace to His people. In the Law, God gives to covenant man, the way of life. God declares a little later on, in Leviticus 18:4, 5, “Ye shall do my judgments, and keep mine ordinances, to walk therein: I am the Lord. Ye shall therefore keep my statutes, and my judgments: which if a man do, he shall live in them: I am the Lord.” Again, in Deuteronomy 4:1, God says concerning His laws, ”…do them, that ye may live…” So, the Law is not given as a burden, but it is a burden to all rebels against God. The Law is given as a blessing.

Then second, the Law is a treasure, as we’ve noted, to God’s covenant people. Hence the Law is in God’s most holy place: the Ark. The cover of the Law is atonement, expiation. So the Law is given as an act of grace, and mercy continues to flow to the people of the covenant. To be brought into grace and salvation is to be made a part of the realm of mercy. The Law People, thus, live under grace, under mercy.

Then third, the Law is judgment against those who despise it, for to despise the Law is also to despise God’s mercy. The mercy seat is on the Ark of the Covenant. Its treasure is the Law. And it is the great and supreme judge of all creation who gives mercy, not an anti-judge who is hostile to the Law.

Then, fourth, all the iniquities of the covenant people on the Day of Atonement are confessed by the high priest on the head of the goat to be sent away, the scape goat. The word ‘iniquities’ in the Hebrew means, “Crookedness; willful departures from the Law of God; evasiveness;” trying to get around something. The ordinary sacrifices did not include presumptuous high-handed sin. But the Day of Atonement purged away all sin. Atonement affects our total lives. It is our entrance into the Kingdom.

There is a remarkable aspect of the ritual, one which in varying degrees is common to most sacrifices. But here, the very altar in the Holy of Holies is covered by sprinkling it with blood seven times. The altar must be covered by atonement. The altar of burnt offering is un-sinned, as it were. The atonement is the beginning of the reconstitution of all things, visible and invisible, physical and spiritual. So this ritual of the un-sinning, the cleansing, the atonement of the altar says that—the modern attitude is all wrong which sees atonement purely as affecting the individual person. The whole of creation, things animate and inanimate are to be made new; are to be removed from a fallen to a reconstituted and atoned-for universe.

In verse 21 in the ritual of the scapegoat, there is the laying on of hands. Now, this implies here, an identification and judgment, the death of the sacrificial animal is accepted as one’s own deserved death penalty. It is also the transfer of sin and guilt. At other times, the laying on of hands can mean the transfer of power, of station, and of office. Two parties are involved. Those transferring, and those receiving, so that the recipient is not a mere double of the one who makes an offering, it is a second person. What we have here is vicarious atonement.

Now, few subjects are more offensive to modern man than vicarious atonement. Modern man likes to see himself in god-like isolation, as owning nothing to anyone else, and having the freedom to live unto himself. But the vicarious concept has a large place in the kingdom of God on earth—in fact, in all of life. Involuntarily, or voluntarily, we continually suffer for others and others for us. We bear the consequences of other people’s sins, of other people’s hurts, of other’s people’s sicknesses. We suffer with them.

Moreover, we may be against every president that we’ve been old enough—since we’ve been old enough to vote. But we bear the sins of those men! We suffer because of their mistakes. We are suffering for the sins of presidents committed before we were born, or when we were minors. Vicarious suffering is such an obvious fact, that it requires a madness on the part of man to deny the validity of vicariousness. It’s a constant factor of life. So much of our grief, so much of our suffering is vicarious. So to deny, as is regularly done by those hostile to scripture, the fact of vicariousness, is insane. We may hate the economic belief. We may hate the economic practices of this century. But we bear the burden of those sins all the same. Vicarious suffering is a commonplace, every day fact. No one can escape it.

But the uniqueness of our faith is that it tells us there is something no one else can give: vicarious atonement. Vicarious atonement. And the consequence of atonement is freedom. It is deliverance from sin and guilt. It is being made a new creation, and only then can we forge the future truly. Only with the atonement is Romans 8:28 possible for us. “All things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose.” So that once we are the people of the atonement, all things begin to work together for good, for us, in Christ.

The goal of atonement is that sin be exterminated form the covenant people and from the land. Psalm 103:12 says, “as far as the east is from the west, so far hath He removed our transgressions from us.” In Micah 7:19, we read, “Thou wilt cast all their sins into the depth of the sea.” The purpose of atonement in these and many other verses is the freedom of man and the earth from sin to become God’s kingdom, to manifest God’s justice, to work for the dominion of righteousness. Vicarious atonement, our vicarious righteousness, our justification, our freedom now to become Christ’s righteousness and members of His justice, is to bring about His dominion of justice and truth in all the earth.

We cannot escape God’s order. It is inherent in all of being. Where ever we turn, we find that God’s order is around us. God’s order is an inescapable order. To deny or to rebel against that order is to invite judgment and reprobation.

Atonement is central to God’s order, and men cannot escape its force. Men may seek atonement on Humanistic terms, which means either sadism (laying one’s sins on someone else), or masochism (trying to make atonement and assuming everybody’s sins to yourself). Other things have been tried. But men ultimately come back to sadomasochistic things if they do not go to Christ and His atonement.

It is interesting that at the time of the French Revolution, there was a tremendous burst of belief that a Humanistic millennium was about to begin. This was very apparent in the English poets for example. William Blake was most vocal in expressing them, not that he was alone in having them. But at first, he believed that it was to be Man’s liberation from every restraint—political restraint, sexual restraint, the restraint of clothes, the restraint of pruning things—give the world total freedom, and paradise would begin. He took it very literally. He did not even prune the grapevine. Well, many people agreed with him. Wordsworth said, “Dawn was it. Bliss was it, in that dawn, to be alive.” But very quickly, they were disillusioned. And so, they went to other ideas, and Romanticism, which gave birth to these hopes, became deeply involved in sadomasochism. Mario Praz, in his book, The Romantic Agony, deals with this increasing absorption with the perverse because of this. With regard to William Blake, one scholar, M.F. Schulz, has said, “For Blake, the point to keep in mind is that self-annihilation represents an alternative to the hated doctrine of atonement. In demanding of every individual the exercise of self-less love, the principle of self-annihilation brings the sacred hierarchy of the Christian mystery within the grasp of every person. It reduces fully exclusivity to the scale of humanity.” And this, Schulz found to be common not only to Blake, but so many at his time—and since. As the alternative to what is described by Schulz as ‘the hated doctrine of the atonement,’ every individual, by what amounts to a parallel doctrine to Kenosis, is going to annihilate himself, negate himself, and so bring about the freedom of man in a brave new world.

Well, self-annihilation and Kenosis is a form of it, accomplishes only a sustained defeat. The alternative to what they call the hated doctrine of the Atonement is simply death. Man either finds atonement in God’s appointed way, or he finds death.

Let us pray.

Oh Lord, Thy Word is truth, and as men today deny Thy Word, and deny the atonement of Jesus Christ, it is self-annihilation that they affirm and seek, and the whole world is today, caught up in self-annihilation. Oh Lord, our God, we look unto Thee, we thank Thee that we have received the atonement of Jesus Christ, and we pray, our Father, that the work of Christ may spread, may encompass men and nation, and peoples and the earth find atonement in Him and be made anew. Grant us this; we beseech Thee, in Christ’s name. Amen.

Are there any questions now?

[Audience] Well, the idea of {?}

[Rushdoony] What was that?

[Audience] The idea of punishment is very unfashionable.

[Rushdoony] Yes. And with the pagan individualism of our time, anything vicarious is hated. It’s not surprising then, that self-annihilation is affirmed. I was very interested a couple of days ago, to read that according to a reporter that asked in Japan, their reaction to what’s going on in Congress today, the contra-gate, and Iran gate, and they had one word to sum it up: suicide. Only, they didn’t use “hara-kiri,” which is an honorable form of suicide in their eyes, it was just stupid suicide.

That is what results when people deny the atonement.

Yes.

[Audience] In German, the word is “self-murder.”

[Rushdoony] Um-hmm. Yes. Well, that’s very much a popular thing today, and its sway the world-over will only increase if people reject Christ.

Are there any other questions or comments?

Yes.

[Audience] Well, we also succeed vicariously. We also progress vicariously, on other people’s innovations and contributions.

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Audience] It works both ways.

[Rushdoony] Very good point. Very good point. But the word is like a red flag to a great many people. The hostility to it is intense. But that is very true, and of course that’s true of Christ’s atonement. It has both a relief, and a positive aspect.

Any other comments or questions? Well if not, conclude with prayer.

Our Father, it is good for us to be here. Thy Word is truth; Thy Word speaks to the heart of every matter. Grant, oh Lord, that by Thy grace and by Thy Spirit, men and nations may know that Thou art the Lord, might turn unto Thee and know that their way is futility and death, and Thy way is mercy, life, and peace. Make us ever zealous in Thy service. And now go in peace. God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost bless you and keep you, guide and protect you, this day and always. Amen.