Leviticus 16:29-34 - Homiletics

The annual reiteration of the purification made on the Day of Atonement

testifies to the imperfections of the Law. "For the Law can never with those sacrifices which they offered year by year continually make the comers thereunto perfect. For then would they not have ceased to be offered? "( Hebrews 10:1 , Hebrews 10:2 ). Had they done their work perfectly, a repetition of them would not have been required, "because that the worshippers once purged should have bad no more conscience of sins" ( Hebrews 10:2 ). There was a triple imperfection—in the priest, in the victim, in the effect of the sacrifices. The Levitical priesthood was formed of sinful men, as was testified by the sin offering which the high priest had first to offer for himself before he could offer one for the people: here there was no perfect mediator. The victims were a bullock and a goat; but "it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins" ( Hebrews 10:4 ): here there was no perfect sacrifice. The atonement had to be repeated annually: here there was no perfect result from the offering made. By its very imperfection the Law points forward to and awakens the desire for a better covenant, with a priest after the order of Melchisedec, "holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners" ( Hebrews 7:26 ), with a sacrifice which could sanctify ( Hebrews 10:10 ), and which is and can be only "once offered," because it is "a full, perfect, and sufficient Sacrifice, Oblation, and Satisfaction for the sins of the whole world" (Service for Holy Communion).