A Devotional on Leviticus 16 & Hebrews 9–10 – On the finished work of our Great High Priest

He shall lay both his hands on the head of the live goat, confess over it all the iniquities of the people of Israel… and send it away into the wilderness.Leviticus 16:21

The Shadow

A Problem Too Big for Any Animal

Once a year, Israel held its breath. The High Priest disappeared behind the curtain — the one place on earth where God’s presence was concentrated — and the entire nation waited to see if he would come back out alive. Every year, the ritual had to be repeated. Every year, the same animals. Every year, the same blood. The very repetition was an indictment: this is not enough. This is not the end.

The two goats of the Day of Atonement told a story in picture form. One was slain, its blood carried inside the veil to make atonement before God. The other was brought forward, and the priest laid both hands upon it — confessing every sin of the nation — before sending it into the wilderness, never to return. Together they said: sin must be paid for, and sin must be removed. What they could not say was: it is finished.

The Substance

The Priest Who Was Also the Sacrifice

Then came Jesus.

He fulfilled what no goat ever could. As our High Priest, he entered not a tent made with human hands but the true heavenly sanctuary — and he entered it not with the blood of another, but with his own. He needed no annual return. He needed no atonement for himself. He sat down, and in sitting down he declared what Aaron’s trembling hands could never declare: the work is done.

He was also the scapegoat. He was led outside the city gate — outside the camp, to the place of the cursed and the cast-out — and there he bore in himself every sin, every shame, every weight of every soul who would ever trust him. The hands laid on him were not Aaron’s. They were the hands of divine justice, and what was transferred to him was the full, unabridged guilt of a broken humanity.

He went into that wilderness. And he did not come back the same way — he came back as the risen Lord, and our sins were not with him.

What the Day of Atonement enacted year after year in shadow,
Christ accomplished once,
in reality, forever.

The Invitation

Draw Near — the Curtain Is Gone

The curtain that separated the Holy of Holies from the rest of the world — the curtain that said you cannot come in — was torn from top to bottom the moment Jesus died. Not from the bottom up, as if a man had torn it. From the top down. God tore it.

This means you are invited. Not to approach with the careful terror of a priest carrying a censer, wondering if you will survive. But with confidence. With open hands. Hebrews says: draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith. The God who dwelt behind that curtain is your Father, and the way in is permanently, irreversibly open.

The Call

Go to Him Outside the Camp

The scapegoat was sent to a place of exclusion — outside the boundaries of the community, into the wild. Jesus occupied that place. And the letter to the Hebrews, having painted this entire picture, draws a startling conclusion: go to him outside the camp, bearing the disgrace he bore.

The finished work of Christ is not only a comfort to receive — it is a pattern to follow. He who was cast out calls us to join him in the place of lowliness, of rejection, of costly love. We are freed from guilt not so we can settle into comfort, but so we can give ourselves away without fear — just as he did.

How Then Shall We Live

• Receive the freedom. Your sins have gone into the wilderness. Stop retrieving them. There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
• Draw near without fear. The distance is gone. Pray boldly, worship openly, come as you are — the veil is torn.
• Take sin seriously. What required such a remedy is not trivial. Grace is not permission; it is power to live differently.
• Follow him outside the camp. Bear the reproach of identifying with the crucified. Comfort is not the goal; he is.
• Worship. Let every other response overflow into this one. The Lamb was slain — and lives. That is enough.

A Closing Prayer

Lord Jesus — you are the priest and the sacrifice, the altar and the blood, the one who bore our sins away and now sits enthroned in the presence of God on our behalf. We have no righteousness but yours. We have no access but through you. Teach us to live in the freedom you purchased, to draw near without shame, and to follow you — even outside the camp — for your glory and our joy. Amen.