I gotta have my orange juice.

I wrote recently about one way in which the cross is a type of the day of atonement.

My friend Al writes about another way in which the resurrection is a type of the day of atonement:

. . . In John 20 the stone on which they laid Jesus at this death is empty when Mary visits on the first day of the week. But on either side of the empty bed is an angel. It seems intentional that John wants us to see this place, the resurrection place, as a new mercy seat; the resurrection bed of Jesus is the new place of covering for the law.

He was raised for our justification . . .

Ezekiel experiences a vision in which an angel shows him a meticulously measured temple and city. One of the fascinating aspects of this vision is that we are told exactly how we are to meditate on it:

As for you, son of man, describe to the house of Israel the temple, that they may be ashamed of their iniquities; and they shall measure the plan. And if they are ashamed of all that they have done, make known to them the design of the temple, its arrangement, its exits and its entrances, that is, its whole design; and make known to them as well all its statutes and its whole design and all its laws, and write it down in their sight, so that they may observe all its laws and all its statutes and carry them out. (Ezekiel 43:10-11)

We are to see the careful measurements and reflect on the rectitude of our lives and God’s church.

Ezekiel’s visionary temple was never intended to be built, but to reflect the spiritual situation at the return from exile, where God planned for Israel to have a greater influence on the spiritual life of the nations. Consider Nehemiah and Esther, the synagogues that appear throughout the Roman empire in Paul’s day, and the Gentile God-fearers in Acts.

Another interesting thing we learn in Ezekiel’s vision is that the angelic-spiritual cubit is one and a half human cubits:

And behold, there was a wall all around the outside of the temple area, and the length of the measuring reed in the man’s hand was six long cubits, each being a cubit and a handbreadth in length. . . (Ezekiel 40:5)

These are the measurements of the altar by cubits (the cubit being a cubit and a handbreadth): its base shall be one cubit high and one cubit broad, with a rim of one span around its edge. . . (Ezekiel 43:13)

In the book of Revelation, John receives a vision of the new-covenant people of God. The dimensions of the new covenant far exceed those of the restoration covenant. But John also emphasizes that the relationship between human and angelic measurements has changed:

He also measured its wall, 144 cubits by human measurement, which is also an angel’s measurement. (Revelation 21:17)

Why the change? There are a few things we can say about this progression. Psalm 8 and Hebrews 2 indicate that man was made “a little lower than” the angels, but that Jesus and his people are now, instead, “crowned with glory and honor,” exercising dominion over the whole world. Under the old covenants, we were under the tutelage of a law delivered by angels, but in Jesus we have now entered into maturity (Gal. 3-4, Heb. 2). Once it was cherubim that guarded the way to God’s throne, but now the keys to the kingdom have been given to the church (Matthew 16:19), and we are enthroned with Jesus (Eph. 2:6, Rev. 20:4). It is even the case that the church will judge angels (1 Cor. 6:3).

What is happening in the new covenant is that heaven and earth now kiss. Today that takes place spiritually every Lord’s day when we stand before the throne (Heb. 12:22ff); one day that will be a physical reality. Earth will be so fully remade after the heavenly pattern that all earthly measurements conform to heavenly ones; the permanent dwelling place of God will no longer be with the angels:

And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God.” (Revelation 21:3)

In Exodus 28, God instructs Moses in the creation of “holy garments for Aaron your brother, for glory and for beauty.” The innermost garments are linen undergarments, and upon them are layers of more glorious garments. Ordinarily the high priest wore all these garments for his duties. But on the day of atonement (Leviticus 16), he was to enter into the most holy place dressed only in linen: undergarments, coat, sash and turban. “These are the holy garments” (emphasis added).

The white linen of holiness serves as the precondition — the foundation, the root — of the color and sparkle of glory and beauty. (Equally, we might add, does a blood sacrifice serve as the precondition of glory and beauty.)

How else can we speak of what grows from this root of holiness? The fruit of the holy Spirit is “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control” (Galatians 5). This is how you measure glory and beauty.

Israel’s yearly day of atonement ritual included the offering of two goats. One was offered on the altar, and the other was sent into the wilderness:

Aaron . . . shall take the two goats and set them before Yahweh at the entrance of the tent of meeting. And Aaron shall cast lots over the two goats, one lot for Yahweh and the other lot for destruction. And Aaron shall present the goat on which the lot fell for Yahweh and use it as a sin offering, but the goat on which the lot fell for destruction shall be presented alive before Yahweh to make atonement over it, that it may be sent away into the wilderness to destruction. . . .

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. (Leviticus 16:6-22)

James Jordan comments that this ritual has two complementary images. First, it reflects the double work that Jesus’s death accomplishes for us: like the first goat, Jesus’s blood covers our sins; and like the second goat, Jesus’s death removes our sins. But this ritual also reflects the reality of limited atonement, the fact that Jesus is a dual redeemer-avenger: those who trust in Jesus have their sins covered by his blood and enter into his throne room, but those who reject Jesus’s sacrifice will go to destruction.

Jesus died at the time of Passover, and much of the imagery surrounding the cross has to do with a Passover-exodus. But there is one key event that calls to mind the ritual of the day of atonement:

Now at the feast the governor was accustomed to release for the crowd any one prisoner whom they wanted. And they had then a notorious prisoner called Barabbas. So when they had gathered, Pilate said to them, “Whom do you want me to release for you: Barabbas, or Jesus who is called Christ?” . . . Now the chief priests and the elders persuaded the crowd to ask for Barabbas and destroy Jesus. The governor again said to them, “Which of the two do you want me to release for you?” And they said, “Barabbas.” Pilate said to them, “Then what shall I do with Jesus who is called Christ?” They all said, “Let him be crucified!” And he said, “Why, what evil has he done?” But they shouted all the more, “Let him be crucified!” (Matthew 27:15-23)

We see two men presented just as with the goats in Leviticus 16. By the will of the priests and elders (Mark also takes pains to say that the chief priests were involved), one man is put to death and one is released. Because of this atonement, the way into the holy of holies is opened:

And behold, the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. And the earth shook, and the rocks were split. (Matthew 27:51)

However, this is an ambiguous day of atonement. It is necessary to accept the sacrifice, but many rejected Jesus:

The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” . . . . After this many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him. (John 6:52,66)

It is also necessary to confess your sin over the scapegoat and repudiate your sin. But many did not repent from their spiritual pride. John 18 describes Barabbas as a robber or brigand, using the same word that Jesus uses in Matt. 21 and Luke 19 to describe what had become of his house. Far from sending the sin of Barabbas into the wilderness, the priests welcomed his sin into God’s house. And so, since they did not send their own sin to destruction, destruction itself came to Jerusalem in AD 70, Jerusalem that had become Babylon, the ultimate apostate church (Rev. 11:8 taken together with Rev. 18:10ff).

Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven, holding in his hand the key to the bottomless pit and a great chain. And he seized the dragon, that ancient serpent, who is the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years, and threw him into the pit, and shut it and sealed it over him, so that he might not deceive the nations any longer, until the thousand years were ended. After that he must be released for a little while. (Revelation 20:1-3 ESV)

If you are an amillennialist or a postmillennialist, this verse poses a little problem. How can it be that Satan is bound, and yet he also “prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour” (1 Pet. 5:8)?

The answer is that, especially for a spiritual being like Satan, binding may refer to something other than total physical restraint. In Satan’s case, it refers to a sort of covenantal or legal restriction placed upon Satan by God. He is not allowed to “deceive the nations” while the church undertakes to disciple the nations, but he may still “prowl around.”

Consider Romans 7:2, which uses the same word but in this legal or covenantal sense:

For a married woman is bound by law to her husband while he lives, but if her husband dies she is released from the law of marriage.

In this sense, it is proper to speak of ourselves as bound to God, and even to speak of God as bound to us. Calvin writes of God’s “mutually bind[ing] himself to us without having to do so.”