Leviticus 4:13

"And if the whole congregation of Israel err, and the thing be hid from the eyes of the assembly, and they have done any of the things which Jehovah hath commanded not to be done, and are guilty; when the sin wherein they have sinned is known, then the assembly shall offer a young bullock for a sin-offering, and bring it before the tent of meeting. And the elders of the congregation shall lay their hands upon the head of the bullock before Jehovah; and the bullock shall be killed before Jehovah. And the anointed priest shall bring the blood of the bullock to the tent of meeting: and the priest shall dip his finger in the blood, and shall sprinkle it seven times before Jehovah, before the veil. And he shall put of the blood upon the horns of the altar which is before Jehovah, that is in the tent of meeting; and all the blood shall he pour out at the base of the altar of burnt-offering, which is at the door of the tent of meeting. And all the fat thereof shall he take from it, and burn it upon the altar. Thus shall he do with the bullock; as he did with the bullock of the sin-offering, so shall he do with this; and the priest shall make atonement for them, and they shall be forgiven. And he shall carry forth the bullock without the camp, and burn it as he burned the first bullock: it is the sin-offering for the assembly."

With regard to the guilt here said to be incurred by the congregation, or assembly, and the possibility of their remaining ignorant of the guilt incurred raises the question of how such a thing was possible. Perhaps an example may be seen in the case of the unwise and sinful covenant the people made with the Gibeonites (Joshua 9), a sin into which the people were deceived and tricked by the strategy employed by their enemies. Also, a whole people can be involved in sin by the actions of their corporate leaders, ancestors or government. Through the sin of Adam, all people are guilty.

"The priest shall make atonement for them, and they shall be forgiven ..." (Leviticus 4:20) All forgiveness and atonement under the Old Covenant was accommodative, provisional, and typical of the ultimate atonement and forgiveness which came through Christ alone. Any notion that the blood of bulls and goats could actually take away sin is untenable. "For it is impossible that the blood of bulls and goats should take away sin" (Hebrews 10:4). "In those sacrifices there is a remembrance made of sins year by year. (Hebrews 10:3). Despite this, there was a definite release from guilt for those who honored God's commandments by their obedience. Although not final and complete, the forgiveness they received was sufficient, for God merely "passed over" their transgressions until the final and Great Atonement would appear at that time, when, "In one day" God would remove iniquity (Zechariah 1:9), that Day, of course, being the Day HE DIED on Calvary! Prior to that day, the sins of God's people were merely "passed over" until the true atonement was achieved by Jesus Christ (Romans 3:25).

Those with any true spiritual discernment, even under the Mosaic covenant, must surely have been aware that animal sacrifices could not remove sin, and that there had to be a Greater Offering, foreshadowed and typified by the bloody sacrifices, which would finally achieve a release from sin which those sacrifices only typified. As Meyrick explained it:

"The ceremonial cleansing of the sinful Israelite by the sin-offering in the old dispensation foreshadows the effect of baptism in the new dispensation, for as Calvin noticed in his commentary, `All sins are now washed away by baptism, so under the Law also sacrifices were expiations, although in a different way'."[11]