Chapter 5

The Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur) and Its Christological Significance

"For on this day shall atonement be made for you to cleanse you. You shall be clean before the LORD from all your sins." — Leviticus 16:30 (ESV)

Introduction: The Holiest Day of the Year

If you wanted to understand the entire Old Testament sacrificial system in a single event, you could do no better than the Day of Atonement. Known in Hebrew as Yom Kippur — from yom (יוֹם), meaning "day," and kippur (כִּפּוּר), meaning "atonement" or "covering" — this annual ceremony was the climax of Israel's worship calendar, the one day each year when the deepest problem between God and His people was addressed head-on. All the regular sacrifices we surveyed in Chapter 4 — the burnt offerings, sin offerings, guilt offerings, and fellowship offerings — dealt with individual sins committed throughout the year. But Yom Kippur went further. It dealt with the accumulated weight of an entire nation's sin. It cleansed the sanctuary itself. And it did so through a ritual so vivid, so dramatic, and so theologically rich that the New Testament writers would look back on it as the single most important foreshadowing of what Jesus accomplished on the cross.¹

In Chapter 4, we examined the Levitical sacrificial system in broad terms — the various types of offerings, the theology of blood, the laying on of hands, and the concept of substitution woven throughout. Here, we narrow our focus to the pinnacle of that system. Leviticus 16 gives us the detailed instructions for the Day of Atonement ritual, and when we read those instructions carefully, something remarkable emerges. The dual ceremony of the sacrificed goat and the scapegoat provides a comprehensive, two-sided picture of what atonement means: sin is both purged through the shedding of blood and removed through substitutionary bearing. These are not competing images. They are two halves of a single reality — and both of them find their ultimate fulfillment in Christ.

My thesis in this chapter is straightforward: the Day of Atonement, described in Leviticus 16, represents the climax and summit of the Old Testament sacrificial system. Its dual ritual of the sacrificed goat and the scapegoat provides a comprehensive picture of atonement — expiation through blood and the removal of sin through substitutionary bearing — that finds its ultimate fulfillment in Christ. Understanding Yom Kippur is not optional background material for understanding the cross. It is essential.

We will work through the Day of Atonement ritual step by step, examine the theological significance of each element, explore the debated question of the mysterious "Azazel," and then trace the connections forward into the New Testament, where the authors of Hebrews, Romans, and other books interpret Christ's death through the lens of this extraordinary ceremony. Along the way, we will engage with scholars who challenge the penal and substitutionary reading of this ritual, and I will explain why I believe they fall short of the text's own testimony.

The Ritual of Leviticus 16: A Step-by-Step Walk-Through

Let us begin by reading the key sections of Leviticus 16 and walking through the Day of Atonement ceremony as it would have been experienced in ancient Israel. The full chapter is lengthy, but every detail matters. God did not leave the design of this ritual to human creativity. He prescribed it in exacting detail — a fact that signals its immense theological importance.

The Setting and the Need

Leviticus 16 opens with a sobering reminder of why this ceremony is necessary. "The LORD spoke to Moses after the death of the two sons of Aaron, when they drew near before the LORD and died" (Lev 16:1, ESV). Nadab and Abihu had offered "unauthorized fire before the LORD" and had been consumed (Lev 10:1–2). Their deaths are a stark reminder that the holy God cannot be approached casually. Sin creates a barrier between God and His people — a barrier so serious that unauthorized entry into God's presence results in death. The Day of Atonement exists precisely because this barrier must be dealt with. Something must be done about sin if fellowship between God and His people is to continue.²

God tells Moses: "Tell Aaron your brother not to come at any time into the Holy Place inside the veil, before the mercy seat that is on the ark, so that he may not die. For I will appear in the cloud over the mercy seat" (Lev 16:2). Even the high priest — the holiest man in Israel, from the holiest family — could not approach God's presence whenever he wished. Only on this one day, through this one prescribed ritual, could anyone enter the Most Holy Place and live. The need for atonement could not be stated more powerfully.

The High Priest's Preparation

Before the ceremony could begin, the high priest had to prepare himself. He removed his ornate official garments — the richly colored ephod, the golden breastplate, the turban with its gold plate reading "Holy to the LORD" — and instead dressed in simple white linen: "He shall put on the holy linen coat and shall have the linen undergarment on his body, and he shall tie the linen sash around his waist, and wear the linen turban. These are the holy garments" (Lev 16:4). The change of clothing was deeply symbolic. The high priest set aside his garments of glory and beauty and clothed himself in the simple dress of a servant — a picture of humility and repentance before God. We cannot help but notice the parallel with what Paul would later describe in Philippians 2:6–8, where Christ Jesus, "though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant."³

The high priest also had to bathe his entire body in water before dressing (v. 4b) — a ritual purification emphasizing that even the mediator between God and the people was himself a sinner who needed cleansing before he could approach God on anyone's behalf. This is a critical detail. The human mediator was compromised by the very problem he was appointed to address. He could not simply walk into God's presence and announce that all was well. He himself was part of the problem. Later, the author of Hebrews would seize on this very point as evidence of the Old Testament system's insufficiency: the Levitical priests "are obligated to offer sacrifice for their own sins just as they do for those of the people" (Heb 5:3). Jesus, by contrast, "has no need, like those high priests, to offer sacrifices daily, first for his own sins and then for those of the people" (Heb 7:27). The imperfection of the human mediator pointed forward to the need for a sinless one.

The Bull Sacrifice for the Priest's Own Sin

The high priest's first sacrificial act was to offer a bull as a sin offering for himself and his household (vv. 6, 11). He slaughtered the bull and collected its blood. He then took a censer full of burning coals from the altar, along with two handfuls of finely ground incense, and brought them inside the veil — into the Most Holy Place itself, into the very presence of God. He put the incense on the fire "before the LORD, that the cloud of the incense may cover the mercy seat that is over the testimony, so that he does not die" (v. 13). Even after all his preparation, the high priest needed the protective cloud of incense between himself and the unveiled glory of God.

Then came the critical moment: "And he shall take some of the blood of the bull and sprinkle it with his finger on the front of the mercy seat on the east side, and before the mercy seat he shall sprinkle some of the blood with his finger seven times" (v. 14). The blood was applied to the kapporet (כַּפֹּרֶת) — the golden lid of the Ark of the Covenant, usually translated "mercy seat." This Hebrew word is derived from the same root as kipper (כָּפַר, "to atone" or "to cover"), which, as we noted in Chapter 4, occurs sixteen times in Leviticus 16 alone.⁴ The mercy seat was the place where God's presence dwelt between the cherubim, directly above the stone tablets of the law that lay inside the ark. In symbolic terms, the blood of the sacrifice was placed between God's holy presence and the broken law — covering the evidence of human transgression with the evidence of substitutionary death. This image is stunning in its theological precision, and as we will see, Paul appears to draw directly on it in Romans 3:25 (cross-reference Chapter 8).

The Two Goats: One Sacrifice, Two Dimensions

After dealing with his own sin and the sins of his household through the bull sacrifice, the high priest turned to the sins of the entire nation. For this, he took "two male goats for a sin offering and one ram for a burnt offering" from the Israelite congregation (v. 5). What follows is the most theologically significant part of the entire ceremony.

"And Aaron shall cast lots over the two goats, one lot for the LORD and the other lot for Azazel" (v. 8). The casting of lots — a method of discerning God's will in the ancient world — determined the fate of each goat. One goat was designated "for the LORD" and would be slaughtered as a sin offering. The other was designated "for Azazel" and would be sent away alive into the wilderness. But here is the crucial point that many commentators rightly emphasize: the two goats together constitute one sin offering. Leviticus 16:5 says Aaron shall take "two male goats for a sin offering" — singular, not plural. The two goats are not two separate sacrifices but two complementary aspects of one atoning act.⁵

As John Stott observed, some commentators make the mistake of driving a wedge between the sacrificed goat and the scapegoat, "overlooking the fact that the two together are described as 'a sin offering' in the singular." Thomas Crawford, Stott noted, was right to suggest that each goat embodied a different aspect of the same sacrifice — "the one exhibiting the means, and the other the results, of the atonement."⁶ This observation is theologically profound. Together, the two goats present a complete picture of what atonement involves: the means by which sin is dealt with (sacrificial death and shed blood) and the result of that dealing (sin is removed, taken away, gone forever).

The First Goat: Slaughtered as a Sin Offering

"Then he shall kill the goat of the sin offering that is for the people and bring its blood inside the veil and do with its blood as he did with the blood of the bull, sprinkling it over the mercy seat and in front of the mercy seat" (v. 15). The first goat died. Its blood was taken into the Most Holy Place and applied to the mercy seat, exactly as the bull's blood had been. This blood purified the sanctuary from the contamination of the people's sin and provided the means of expiation — the covering and cleansing of transgression through the death of a substitute.

"Thus he shall make atonement for the Holy Place, because of the uncleannesses of the people of Israel and because of their transgressions, all their sins" (v. 16a). Notice the comprehensive language: "uncleannesses," "transgressions," "all their sins." Nothing was left unaddressed. And notice that atonement was made not only for the people but also for the sanctuary itself. Sin is so serious, so contaminating, that it defiles even the place where God dwells among His people. The blood of the sacrifice cleanses everything that sin has polluted.⁷

The high priest also applied blood to the altar outside, "because of the uncleannesses of the people of Israel" (vv. 18–19). The tent of meeting, the Holy Place, the altar — everything connected with Israel's worship was cleansed through sacrificial blood. William Lane Craig rightly emphasizes that the description of Yom Kippur differentiates between making atonement for inanimate objects (purging them of ritual contamination) and making atonement for persons (expiating their sins), but both dimensions are present and both require blood.⁸

The Second Goat: The Scapegoat and the Removal of Sin

Now comes the second half of the ceremony — one of the most dramatic and visually unforgettable rituals in all of Scripture:

And when he has made an end of atoning for the Holy Place and the tent of meeting and the altar, he shall present the live goat. And Aaron shall lay both his hands on the head of the live goat, and confess over it all the iniquities of the people of Israel, and all their transgressions, all their sins. And he shall put them on the head of the goat and send it away into the wilderness by the hand of a man who is in readiness. The goat shall bear all their iniquities on itself to a remote area, and he shall let the goat go free in the wilderness. (Lev 16:20–22, ESV)

This is extraordinary language. The high priest lays both hands on the goat's head — not one hand, as in the regular sin offering described in Leviticus 4, but both hands, suggesting a more emphatic, more complete identification and transference.⁹ He then confesses "all the iniquities of the people of Israel, and all their transgressions, all their sins." Again, the threefold repetition — iniquities, transgressions, sins — emphasizes totality. Nothing is held back. Every kind of wrongdoing is named and placed upon this animal.

And then the text says something that should stop us in our tracks: Aaron "shall put them on the head of the goat." The sins are transferred. They are placed on the animal. This is not merely a vague identification with the animal, nor a symbolic gesture of goodwill. The text describes a genuine transference of the people's guilt onto the goat. As David Allen observes, the scapegoat bears "not only the guilt of the people but also the sin of the people; and it does so via substitution, bearing the guilt and sin in place of the people."¹⁰

The goat is then led away "into the wilderness" — into an uninhabited, desolate place — carrying the sins of the entire nation on its head. It never returns. The sins are gone. They have been removed from the community, carried far away to a place from which they cannot come back. The psalmist later captures this same theology in beautiful language: "As far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us" (Ps 103:12).

The Azazel Debate: What Does It Mean?

One of the most debated questions in Old Testament scholarship concerns the meaning of the Hebrew word azazel (עֲזָאזֵל), which appears four times in Leviticus 16 (vv. 8, 10 [twice], 26). The goat is sent "for Azazel" — but what does this mean? Three main interpretations have been proposed, each with scholarly defenders.

View 1: A Place Name — "A Remote Area"

Some scholars take azazel as a geographical reference — either a proper name for a cliff or rocky terrain in the wilderness, or a general term meaning something like "a rugged, remote place" or "a place of complete removal." The ESV's translation "a remote area" in verse 22 reflects this reading. On this view, the scapegoat is simply being sent to a desolate, uninhabited location, and the emphasis falls entirely on the removal and disappearance of sin. Later Jewish tradition (recorded in the Mishnah, Yoma 6:6) describes the scapegoat being pushed off a cliff in the wilderness, which may reflect an ancient association of azazel with a specific rocky precipice.¹¹

View 2: A Descriptive Term — "Complete Removal"

Others take azazel as a compound word derived from ez (עֵז, "goat") and azal (אָזַל, "to go away"), giving the meaning "the goat that goes away" or "the goat of removal." This is essentially the origin of the English word "scapegoat" — from William Tyndale's translation, the "escape goat," the goat that goes free, taking sin with it. On this view, the term simply describes the function of the animal: it is the goat that carries sin away. This interpretation has the advantage of focusing attention on the theological purpose of the ritual rather than on any external referent.¹²

View 3: A Desert Demon

A third interpretation — widely held in modern scholarship — takes azazel as the name of a desert demon or supernatural entity. In the pseudepigraphal book of 1 Enoch (chapters 8–10), Azazel is the name of a fallen angel who taught humanity forbidden arts and was ultimately bound in the desert as punishment. On this reading, the scapegoat is being sent to the demonic realm — sin is being returned to its source. The sin that the devil has instigated is sent back to him in the wilderness, the symbolic domain of evil and chaos.¹³

Jacob Milgrom, one of the foremost scholars of Leviticus, argued that this is the most plausible explanation. Craig notes that on Milgrom's view, "the most plausible explanation is that 'Azazel' designates a desert demon, an interpretation which goes back to the third century B.C."¹⁴ If this reading is correct, it adds a Christus Victor dimension to the Day of Atonement — sin is not merely removed from the people but is sent to the domain of the evil one, representing triumph over the forces of darkness.

Which view is correct? I think certainty is impossible here, and the theological significance of the ritual does not ultimately depend on resolving this question. What matters is what happens to the sins: they are confessed, transferred to the goat, and removed permanently. Whether azazel names a place, describes a function, or identifies a demonic figure, the result is the same — sin is taken away from God's people and will never return. If the demon interpretation is correct, it adds an intriguing layer of meaning: the defeat and reversal of evil's work. But even without this layer, the substitutionary bearing and permanent removal of sin are unmistakably clear in the text.

It is worth noting that the early church found all three interpretations fruitful for understanding Christ's work. If azazel refers to a place of desolation, then Christ bore our sins into the desolate wasteland of death and the grave. If it means "complete removal," then Christ accomplished exactly that — removing our sins so utterly that God remembers them no more (Jer 31:34; Heb 8:12). And if it refers to a demonic power, then Christ's sin-bearing was simultaneously a victory over the forces of evil — He entered the enemy's domain, bearing the weapon of sin that the enemy wielded against us, and thereby disarmed the principalities and powers (Col 2:15). On this reading, the scapegoat ritual already contains seeds of the Christus Victor theme that would flower in the New Testament. Once again, we see that the atonement refuses to be confined to a single category.

The Theology of Yom Kippur: What It All Means

Now that we have walked through the ceremony step by step, let us draw out the major theological themes that the Day of Atonement teaches us about the nature of atonement itself.

1. The Seriousness of Sin

The elaborate, carefully prescribed nature of the Yom Kippur ritual is itself a theological statement about the seriousness of sin. If sin were a trivial matter, no such ceremony would be needed. God could simply wave His hand and declare the slate clean. But the Day of Atonement says something different. It says that sin is so serious, so deeply contaminating, that it pollutes not only the sinner but even the sacred space where God dwells. It says that dealing with sin requires death — the death of a substitute. It says that only one person, one day a year, through one divinely prescribed ritual, can enter God's presence to address the problem. As we argued in Chapter 3, a right understanding of God's holiness and justice makes the necessity of atonement intelligible. Yom Kippur embodies that understanding in ritual form.¹⁵

2. Substitution: The Heart of Atonement

The substitutionary logic of Yom Kippur is unmistakable. In the scapegoat ritual, the sins of the people are placed on the animal, and the animal bears them away in the people's place. As Allen puts it, "When a person lives who otherwise would have died, and an animal dies that would otherwise live, substitution is necessarily entailed."¹⁶ The point is worth pausing over. If substitution is present in the supreme Old Testament ceremony for dealing with sin, then substitution is not a peripheral or dispensable concept in biblical atonement theology. It is central. It is the mechanism God Himself designed.³⁷

The laying on of hands — semikah (סְמִיכָה) — reinforces this point. As we noted in Chapter 4, scholars debate what precisely this action signifies: identification, designation, or transference. But in the Day of Atonement context, the meaning seems hard to avoid. The high priest lays both hands on the goat's head, confesses the people's sins over it, and the text explicitly says he "shall put them on the head of the goat" (v. 21). Whatever else semikah may involve, here it clearly includes the transference of sin from the people to the substitute. The people's iniquities go from them to the animal. This is substitutionary sin-bearing in its most vivid Old Testament expression.¹⁷

3. Expiation and Propitiation Together

As we noted in Chapter 4, the Hebrew word kipper (כָּפַר) carries a range of meanings: to cover, to cleanse, to ransom, and to avert wrath. All of these dimensions are present in the Day of Atonement. The blood of the sacrificed goat cleanses the sanctuary (expiation — the removal of sin's defilement). But the blood is also applied to the kapporet, the mercy seat where God's presence dwells, and the result is that God's just response to sin is satisfied and fellowship is restored (propitiation — the satisfaction of divine justice). Allen rightly argues that the word kipper "includes the notions of propitiation, expiation, purification, and reconciliation."¹⁸

This is important for the broader argument of this book. Some scholars, especially those critical of penal substitutionary atonement, try to drive a wedge between expiation (sin is cleansed) and propitiation (God's justice is satisfied), arguing that the Old Testament sacrifices were only about the former. But the Day of Atonement resists this dichotomy. The blood both cleanses and satisfies. The ritual both removes defilement and restores a broken relationship with a holy God. You cannot have one without the other.¹⁹⁴⁰

4. The Comprehensiveness of Atonement

One of the remarkable features of Yom Kippur is its extraordinary range. The Day of Atonement covered "all the iniquities of the people of Israel, and all their transgressions, all their sins" (v. 21). Craig observes that this trifold description echoes the language of Exodus 34:7, where God describes Himself as one who forgives "iniquity and transgression and sin."²⁰ Every category of wrongdoing is addressed. Furthermore, only on Yom Kippur could sins committed "with a high hand" — deliberate, defiant sins — be atoned for sacrificially. The regular sin and guilt offerings dealt with unintentional sins (Lev 4:2, 22, 27), but the Day of Atonement reached further. It addressed the full spectrum of human rebellion against God.

This comprehensiveness finds its ultimate expression in Christ. When the New Testament declares that Jesus died "for the sins of the whole world" (1 John 2:2), it is making a claim even grander than Yom Kippur — not one nation's sins but the sins of all humanity, not one year's accumulation but the entire weight of human sin from beginning to end.

5. The Insufficiency of the Shadows

For all its theological richness, the Day of Atonement was, by design, insufficient. It had to be repeated every year. The blood of goats and bulls could not ultimately resolve the problem of human sin. The author of Hebrews states this with blunt clarity: "For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins" (Heb 10:4). The annual repetition of Yom Kippur was itself a testimony to its inadequacy — a reminder, year after year, that the real solution had not yet arrived. "For the law, having a shadow of the good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with these same sacrifices, which they offer continually year by year, make those who approach perfect" (Heb 10:1). The Day of Atonement was a shadow — real, meaningful, divinely appointed — but still only a shadow. The substance it pointed to was Christ.²¹

Responding to Critics: Was the Sacrificial System Really Penal?

Before we turn to the Christological fulfillment, we need to address an important objection. Some scholars argue that the Old Testament sacrificial system — including the Day of Atonement — was about purification and cleansing, not about bearing penalty. On this view, the sacrifices were expiatory (removing sin's contamination) but not penal (bearing the judicial consequences of sin). If this objection holds, it would undermine one of the key pillars of penal substitutionary atonement by severing the connection between Old Testament sacrifice and the concept of punishment.

Vee Chandler presses this argument with vigor. She contends that the Hebrew term kipper should be understood as a pictorial synonym for forgiveness — "to wipe or smear away" sin — rather than as implying the satisfaction of divine justice or the bearing of penalty. On her reading, the Septuagint translators deliberately stripped the Greek word hilaskesthai (ἱλάσκεσθαι) of its pagan connotations of appeasing an angry deity and invested it with the Hebrew sense of wiping away sin. Chandler argues that neither in the Septuagint nor in the New Testament does the context of the hilask- word group speak of God's wrath being placated. Rather, the emphasis falls on God's act of disposing of sin and guaranteeing mercy to the sinner.²²

I appreciate Chandler's careful attention to the lexical data, and I agree that there is a real danger in importing pagan notions of appeasement into our understanding of biblical sacrifice. The God of Israel is not a capricious deity who needs to be bribed or manipulated. But I believe Chandler's argument, while raising valid concerns about caricatures, ultimately overcorrects in a way that leaves key aspects of the biblical data unexplained.

First, consider Leviticus 17:11 — the foundational verse for the theology of blood sacrifice: "For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it for you on the altar to make atonement for your souls, for it is the blood that makes atonement by the life" (ESV). The blood makes atonement "for your souls" — in other words, the animal's life is given in place of the worshiper's life. This is substitutionary language, and it implies that something is owed — a life is required, and the animal's life is given instead. This goes beyond mere purification. Purification does not require a substitute death. You cleanse a contaminated object by washing it. But atonement for sin requires the giving of life — blood. The death of the substitute is not incidental; it is the mechanism by which atonement is accomplished.²³

Second, the scapegoat ritual itself involves what can only be called the bearing of judicial consequences. The sins are placed on the goat — they are transferred to it — and the goat bears them away. If the goat is carrying the people's sins, it is carrying the very thing that separates them from God, the very thing that brings God's just judgment. When Leviticus 16:22 says the goat shall "bear all their iniquities," the Hebrew verb nasa (נָשָׂא) is the same word used in passages like Numbers 14:34, where Israel is told it will "bear your iniquity forty years" — meaning they will suffer the consequences of their sin. The verb carries connotations of both bearing and suffering the weight of guilt. As Allen observes, the scapegoat bears not only the guilt of the people but also the sin — and it does so via substitution, in the people's place.²⁴

Third, the fact that kipper includes the notion of averting wrath cannot be so easily dismissed. Allen notes that the word can refer to "the averting of God's wrath," and that the related noun kopher (כֹּפֶר) means "ransom" — a price paid to avert a threatened penalty (Exod 30:12). In the Day of Atonement ritual, the life of the animal is substituted for human lives. If no ransom dimension were present, the concept of substitutionary death would be inexplicable. Why does the animal have to die if only cleansing is in view? Washing achieves cleansing. Death achieves something more — it satisfies a demand, it pays a cost, it bears a penalty that would otherwise fall on the offerer.²⁵

I am not arguing that the Levitical sacrifices were only penal. The expiation dimension is real and important. The Day of Atonement genuinely cleanses the sanctuary and removes contamination. But expiation and propitiation are not mutually exclusive. They are complementary dimensions of a single atoning act. The sacrificial blood both purifies (expiation) and satisfies (propitiation). Insisting that it must be one or the other creates a false dichotomy that the text itself does not support.

It is also worth observing that the entire structure of the Day of Atonement assumes something more than mere purification is happening. Consider the scapegoat ritual again. If the sacrificial system were purely about cleansing contamination — like disinfecting a dirty surface, to use Chandler's own analogy — then why would sins need to be confessed over the goat and placed on its head? You do not confess moral transgressions over a bottle of disinfectant. Confession presupposes guilt. Guilt presupposes a standard that has been violated. A violated standard calls for a response — not merely a cleanup but a settling of accounts, a reckoning, a dealing-with. The confession of "all the iniquities of the people of Israel, and all their transgressions, all their sins" over the scapegoat's head (Lev 16:21) is not a purification ritual. It is a judicial transfer. The guilt that belongs to the people is placed on the substitute, and the substitute bears it away. This is the logic of penal substitution embedded in the very heart of Israel's most sacred ceremony.⁴³

Furthermore, we should not overlook the broader canonical context. The Day of Atonement does not stand in isolation. It sits within a sacrificial system that includes the asham (guilt offering), which required not only sacrifice but also restitution — the payment of a penalty plus twenty percent (Lev 5:16; 6:5). The guilt offering was explicitly about making reparation for wrongs committed, which is a thoroughly judicial concept. And as we will see in Chapter 6, Isaiah 53:10 describes the Suffering Servant's death as an asham — a guilt offering — directly connecting the Servant's vicarious suffering to the penal and reparative dimensions of the sacrificial system. The attempt to remove the penal dimension from the sacrifices requires ignoring not just isolated proof texts but the entire interlocking logic of the Levitical system as it connects to the prophetic interpretation in Isaiah.

Yom Kippur and Christ: The New Testament Fulfillment

We turn now to the most important question of all: how does the Day of Atonement find its fulfillment in Jesus Christ? The New Testament authors, particularly the author of Hebrews and the apostle Paul, draw extensively on Yom Kippur imagery to interpret the meaning of the cross. We will trace these connections in overview here, noting that Chapter 8 will provide the full exegesis of Romans 3:21–26 and Chapter 10 will provide the full treatment of Hebrews.

Hebrews: Jesus as High Priest and Sacrifice

The Epistle to the Hebrews is the most sustained New Testament engagement with Day of Atonement theology. The author's argument is both simple and profound: Jesus is simultaneously the perfect high priest and the perfect sacrifice — He is both the One who offers and the One who is offered. Everything that Yom Kippur foreshadowed, Christ fulfills and surpasses.

Consider Hebrews 9:11–12:

But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come, then through the greater and more perfect tent (not made with hands, that is, not of this creation) he entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption. (ESV)

The parallels to Yom Kippur are unmistakable. Like the high priest on the Day of Atonement, Christ enters the Most Holy Place. But unlike the earthly high priest, Christ enters a heavenly sanctuary "not made with hands." He brings blood — but not the blood of animals. He brings His own blood. And the result is not temporary atonement that must be repeated next year but "eternal redemption" — a once-for-all dealing with sin that never needs to be supplemented or repeated.²⁶

The author continues: "For if the blood of goats and bulls, and the sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer, sanctify for the purification of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God" (Heb 9:13–14). The "how much more" logic is striking. If animal blood accomplished ceremonial purification, then the blood of Christ — offered voluntarily, through the eternal Spirit, without any blemish or deficiency — accomplishes infinitely more. It purifies the conscience itself. It deals with the root of the problem, not merely its symptoms.

And then the decisive contrast: "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" (Heb 9:25–26). The annual repetition of Yom Kippur testified to its inadequacy. The once-for-all sacrifice of Christ testifies to its sufficiency. What the shadows could only point to, Christ accomplishes in reality.²⁷

Hebrews also identifies Christ with the scapegoat: "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" (Heb 9:28). The language of "bearing the sins of many" echoes both the scapegoat of Leviticus 16 and the Suffering Servant of Isaiah 53 (which we will examine in Chapter 6). As Stott observed, the author of Hebrews "has no inhibitions about seeing Jesus both as 'a merciful and faithful high priest' (Heb 2:17) and as the two victims, the sacrificed goat whose blood was taken into the inner sanctuary (Heb 9:7, 12) and the scapegoat that carried away the people's sins (Heb 9:28)."²⁸ In Christ, both goats find their fulfillment. He is the sacrifice whose blood purges sin, and He is the sin-bearer who carries our transgressions away forever.

Romans 3:25: Christ as the Mercy Seat

Paul's most concentrated atonement theology appears in Romans 3:21–26 (which Chapter 8 will exegete in full). For our purposes here, the key verse is Romans 3:25: "whom God put forward as a propitiation [hilastērion, ἱλαστήριον] by his blood, to be received by faith" (ESV).

The Greek word hilastērion is the same word used in the Septuagint (the Greek translation of the Old Testament) to translate the Hebrew kapporet — the mercy seat. This is an extraordinary claim. Paul may be saying that Jesus Christ is the new kapporet, the true mercy seat — the place where God's holy presence and the blood of the atoning sacrifice meet. If so, Paul is interpreting the cross directly through the lens of the Day of Atonement. Christ is what the mercy seat pointed to: the place where God's justice and God's mercy converge, where the blood of the perfect sacrifice covers the guilt of human sin, and where fellowship between a holy God and sinful humanity is restored.²⁹

Chandler herself, while rejecting the penal interpretation, argues strongly for the "mercy seat" translation of hilastērion. She contends that Christ is "the new covenant mercy seat," and that this translation is supported by both the Septuagint usage and the Day of Atonement context. On this point, I find myself in substantial agreement with Chandler. Where we differ is on what the mercy seat means. For Chandler, the mercy seat imagery emphasizes God's gracious removal of sin. For me — and, I believe, for Paul — it also includes the satisfaction of divine justice. After all, the very next verse says that God put Christ forward as the hilastērion "to show his righteousness" and so that "he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus" (Rom 3:25–26). The mercy seat is not only a place of mercy; it is a place where justice is satisfied. God can be both "just" and "justifier" precisely because the blood has been applied.³⁰

Christ as Both Goats: The Complete Atonement

When we step back and look at the full picture, the Christological significance of Yom Kippur comes into breathtaking focus. Jesus fulfills every element of the Day of Atonement ceremony:

He is the high priest who enters the true Holy of Holies — not an earthly tent but the very presence of God in heaven (Heb 9:24). Unlike the Levitical high priest, He does not need to offer a sacrifice for His own sins first, because He is sinless (Heb 7:26–27). He is the sacrificed goat whose blood is shed for the purification and expiation of sin — "the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin" (1 John 1:7). He is the scapegoat who bears the sins of the people on His own body and carries them away forever — "He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree" (1 Pet 2:24). And He is the mercy seat where God's presence and the atoning blood meet — the place where justice and mercy kiss (Ps 85:10).

This convergence of roles is unique to Christ and explains why the Day of Atonement required multiple elements — a human mediator, a sacrificial victim, a sin-bearer, and a sacred location — while Christ encompasses all of them in His single person and His single act of self-offering. The fragmented typology becomes unified reality in Him. Richard Averbeck makes the fascinating observation that if we take Romans 3:25 as a reference to the mercy seat, then in the New Testament we have Jesus represented as a vicarious sacrifice, a vicarious sacrificer, and a vicarious place of sacrifice — a "combination of motifs which bears a great deal of meaning for Christian theology."³⁵ The Day of Atonement needed separate elements to portray what Christ accomplished in one seamless act.

Cyril of Alexandria, one of the greatest theologians of the early church, saw this typology clearly. Commenting on the two goats of Leviticus 16, Cyril wrote that one goat was sacrificed as a figure of Christ who "became sin for us" and was "counted among the lawless," while the other goat was released, symbolizing that through Christ's sacrifice "we might be released and utterly quit of death and corruption." Cyril explicitly described the scapegoat ritual as involving the forensic transfer of sin to the innocent victim — what he called the transfer of "what was our due" onto Christ, so that the punishment for sin "was expressly applied to Him so that we might be set free of guilt and punishment."³¹ This is striking testimony from a fifth-century Eastern Father — testimony that the penal substitutionary reading of the Day of Atonement is not a modern Protestant invention but a reading deeply rooted in the patristic tradition (as we will demonstrate more fully in Chapters 14–15).

Cyril was not alone among the Fathers in this reading. As Schooping documents extensively, Cyril described the scapegoat typology in his Glaphyra on the Pentateuch in terms that are unmistakably forensic: "A male goat served here as a figure of Christ, who, as I said, became sin for us. For he was counted among the lawless, was crucified with thieves, and was also called a curse." Schooping rightly identifies this as "precisely a description of forensic imputation, the legal transfer of sin to the innocent victim, which results in a penal atonement."⁴² The significance of this for our broader argument should not be missed. The claim that penal substitutionary atonement is a Western invention unknown to the Eastern Fathers simply cannot survive careful engagement with what Cyril actually wrote about the Day of Atonement. The typological connection between the scapegoat and Christ's substitutionary sin-bearing was recognized in the East long before the Reformation. Even Athanasius, in his On the Incarnation, argues that the Word became incarnate precisely so that He could offer His body as a sacrifice on behalf of all, fulfilling the debt owed to death — language that presupposes the substitutionary logic we see in the Day of Atonement.³⁹

The Scottish theologian T. F. Torrance also appreciated the necessity of both goats for a complete understanding of atonement. He wrote that the piece of ritual involving the scapegoat "has ever since haunted the memory of Israel throughout its generations" and that it "made it clear that both kinds of sacrifice were needed to help people understand what God was about in making atonement for sin." Rutledge, drawing on Torrance, develops the point that Jesus really entered into human sin, functioning as both the sacrificial victim and the scapegoat who was "driven into the wilderness" or "outside the camp" carrying the burden of sin and exposed to the full assault of the demonic powers.⁴⁵ The scapegoat's journey into the wilderness — desolate, alone, bearing the weight of an entire nation's guilt — is a haunting image that anticipates Christ's own experience of bearing sin in the darkness of Calvary, and perhaps even His cry of dereliction, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" (Mark 15:34; discussed in Chapter 11).

The Uniqueness and Finality of Christ's Sacrifice

One more theological point demands our attention before we conclude. The Day of Atonement, for all its power, had a fundamental limitation: it had to be repeated. Every year, the high priest went through the same ritual again. Every year, the blood of new animals was shed. Every year, a new scapegoat was led into the wilderness. This annual repetition was not a sign of the ceremony's success but of its incompleteness. As Hebrews 10:1–4 makes clear, the law was "a shadow of the good things to come" that "can never, with the same sacrifices that are continually offered every year, make perfect those who draw near."³²

But Christ's sacrifice is different in kind, not merely in degree. "He has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself" (Heb 9:26). The Greek word translated "once for all" is ephapax (ἐφάπαξ), and it carries the emphatic sense of "once and never again." What Yom Kippur could only achieve temporarily and partially, Christ achieves permanently and completely. His blood does what goat's blood could never do: it actually takes away sin (Heb 10:4, 11–12). His single offering "has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified" (Heb 10:14).

Fleming Rutledge captures the contrast between the Levitical system and Christ's sacrifice beautifully. She notes that the author of Hebrews understood the Old Testament sacrifices as "expiatory in intention, if not in reality," and that Christ's self-sacrifice was "truly expiatory" in a way that animal blood could never be. The New Testament writers, she observes, "did not think of Christ on the analogy of a bloodless scapegoat or grain offering" but rather focused on the blood sacrifices, culminating in the emphatic declaration that "without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins" (Heb 9:22).³³

This finality is good news of the highest order. The Christian does not live in annual anxiety, wondering whether this year's atonement will hold. The problem of sin has been dealt with — fully, finally, and forever. The high priest does not need to enter the sanctuary again. The blood has been applied to the true mercy seat. The scapegoat has carried our sins away to a place from which they will never return. "As far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us" (Ps 103:12).

There is something profoundly comforting about this finality, and we should not rush past it. Under the old covenant, the people of Israel experienced a cycle: sin accumulated, the Day of Atonement came, atonement was made, the slate was wiped clean — and then the cycle began again. Year after year after year. There was never a moment when the problem of sin was finished. But when Christ entered the heavenly sanctuary with His own blood, He broke the cycle. Hebrews 10:14 declares, "For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified." The verb tense is significant: Christ "has perfected" (past tense — it is accomplished) those who "are being sanctified" (present tense — the effects continue). The objective work is done. The ongoing application flows from a finished reality.

This is also why the New Testament never commands Christians to observe an annual Day of Atonement. We do not need one. We remember the cross, yes — in the Lord's Supper, in preaching, in worship — but we do not reenact the sacrifice because there is nothing to reenact. The sacrifice is complete. As the author of Hebrews puts it with powerful finality, "Where there is forgiveness of these, there is no longer any offering for sin" (Heb 10:18). The entire Levitical system — including the magnificent Day of Atonement — has been fulfilled and rendered obsolete. Not because it was wrong, but because it achieved its purpose: it pointed to Christ, and Christ has come.³⁶

The Multi-Faceted Nature of Yom Kippur: Multiple Motifs in One Ritual

Before concluding, I want to draw attention to something that supports the broader argument of this book. The Day of Atonement is not a one-dimensional ceremony. Within its single ritual, we find multiple atonement motifs woven together: substitution (the goat bears the people's sins), expiation (the blood cleanses the sanctuary), propitiation (God's holy justice is addressed through the blood on the mercy seat), reconciliation (the barrier between God and His people is removed), and even hints of victory (if the Azazel demon interpretation is correct, sin is sent back to its demonic source, defeated). Craig notes that the blood of the sacrificial goat atones for the sins of the people while the driving out of the scapegoat symbolizes the efficacy of the sacrifice in expiating sin.³⁴

This multi-dimensional quality of Yom Kippur supports the multi-faceted model of the atonement that this book argues for. The Day of Atonement is not only about substitution, though substitution is central. It is not only about cleansing, though cleansing is real. It is not only about the removal of sin, though removal is its dramatic climax. All of these dimensions work together in a single, unified act of atonement — just as we will argue that penal substitution, Christus Victor, expiation, reconciliation, and other motifs all find their proper place in a comprehensive understanding of the cross, with penal substitution at the center (see Chapter 24).

Joshua McNall has argued persuasively that the Day of Atonement ritual itself integrates multiple atonement motifs — substitution, purification, removal, and victory — in a way that supports an integrated "mosaic" model rather than a single-theory approach.⁴¹ I agree with McNall's observation, though I would press the point further than he might. The reason these multiple motifs can be integrated is that they all operate within a framework where penal substitution provides the underlying logic. Why is blood needed? Because sin incurs a death penalty and a life must be given in place of the sinner's life (Lev 17:11). Why must sin be removed? Because the just God cannot simply coexist with unaddressed guilt. Why is the sanctuary contaminated? Because sin is an offense against God's holiness that demands a judicial response. Strip away the penal and judicial framework, and the other motifs lose their coherence. What is there to cleanse if no offense has been committed against God's justice? What needs to be removed if sin carries no penalty? The multi-faceted nature of Yom Kippur actually depends on the penal substitutionary foundation, even as it extends beyond it.³⁸

Conclusion: The Shadow and the Substance

The Day of Atonement stands as the most theologically rich ceremony in the entire Old Testament. Its carefully prescribed ritual — the high priest's humble preparation, the bull sacrifice, the blood applied to the mercy seat, the slaughtered goat, the scapegoat bearing the people's sins into the wilderness — all of it points forward to the cross of Christ with stunning precision.

We have seen that Yom Kippur teaches us the seriousness of sin, the necessity of substitution, the complementary nature of expiation and propitiation, the comprehensiveness of God's atoning provision, and the fundamental insufficiency of the old covenant sacrifices to accomplish what only Christ's sacrifice could achieve. We have engaged with scholars who deny the penal dimension of the sacrificial system and found their arguments wanting — not because expiation is unimportant, but because the text itself refuses to let us separate cleansing from the satisfaction of divine justice.

And we have traced the New Testament connections: Christ as the true high priest who enters the heavenly sanctuary, Christ as the sacrificed goat whose blood purges sin, Christ as the scapegoat who bears our iniquities away forever, and Christ as the mercy seat where God's justice and mercy meet in the shedding of blood. The early Church Fathers, including Cyril of Alexandria, recognized these connections and described them in explicitly substitutionary and even penal terms — a point we will develop further in Chapters 14–15.

The Day of Atonement was the shadow. Christ is the substance. The shadow was glorious in its own way — divinely designed, rich in meaning, essential for Israel's relationship with God. But the substance surpasses the shadow beyond all comparison. What Yom Kippur accomplished temporarily and provisionally, Christ accomplished eternally and completely. "But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come... he entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption" (Heb 9:11–12).

In our next chapter, we turn to the single most important Old Testament passage for atonement theology — Isaiah 52:13–53:12, the Fourth Servant Song — where the themes of substitution, sin-bearing, and sacrificial death that we have traced through the Levitical system find their most concentrated and powerful expression in the portrait of the Suffering Servant.⁴⁴