Leviticus 16:3-34 Thus shall Aaron come into the holy place: with a young bullock for a sin offering, and a ram for a burnt offering.… They were of pure white linen. The ordinary "golden garments" were laid aside, for only the vestments of snowy purity must be worn when the high priest enters into the Holy of Holies. The most extraordinary care, too, must be taken to avoid defilement of every kind. Five times during the Day of Atonement must the priest bathe his whole body; ten times must he wash his feet; many times must he change his garments. These precautions, at first thought, seem to our modern views unnecessary and finical, but when we remember Him to whom all these symbols point, what type can express His purity who was holy, harmless, and undefiled; who lived among sinners yet without sin; who lived in leprous Judaea yet without spot or taint of leprosy? The sinlessness of Christ! What can typify it? The snow, perhaps we think, as it falls from the laboratory of the clouds, each flake a crystal of exquisite form and all covering with a fleecy mantle every brown, dirty, unsightly thing in the landscape. But the snow itself, when it touches earth, soon becomes defiled. The lamb washed in the running stream soon loses his purity; the high priest himself, even for a single day, could not keep his garments unpolluted, but must change them and wash his flesh over and over and over; but our High Priest came and lived among sinners for three-and-thirty years, and yet knew no sin. Pure as was the priest's linen robe, it is but a poor, faulty representative of the robe of righteousness of our High Priest. (F. E. Clark.) Parallel Verses KJV: Thus shall Aaron come into the holy place: with a young bullock for a sin offering, and a ram for a burnt offering. |
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