8 The Red Heifer a Type of Christ
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Types of Christ on Yom Kippur
1Understand and rejoice children, the Lord has predicted all things to us beforehand, so we can give thanks and praise Him. 2If then the Son of God, who will judge the living and the dead, suffered that His stripes might give us life, we should understand He suffered for our sake. 3Moreover, when He was crucified they gave Him vinegar and gall to drink. 4The priests of the Temple prophetically foreshadowed this.
Yom Kippur Fast Commanded
5There is a commandment in Scripture that says,
“Whosoever shall not observe the fast [of Yom Kippur] shall surely die” Based on Leviticus 23:29
7The Lord commanded this because He was about to offer His body as a sacrifice for sins, to fulfill the prophetic type of Isaac being offered on the altar.[i] 8The Scripture also reveals a prophetic type based on the goat sacrificed on the Fast of Yom Kippur. 9Look carefully at how it was eaten,
“At the end of the Yom Kippur fast, let them eat the goat offered for their sins. Let all the priests alone eat the entrails unwashed with vinegar.” Based on an unknown source
11Why? Because Christ knew when He would offer His flesh for the sins of His new people, He would be given gall and vinegar to drink. 12Notice the priests, who are a type of Christ, eat this while the people are fasting in sackcloth and ashes, showing that it was necessary for Him to suffer for sinners.
The Two Goats
13God commanded on Yom Kippur, that two identical goats be offered to the high priest. The high priest will take one of them and offer it as a whole burnt-offering for sins. 14What did he do with the other one? It was cursed. Understand how this was a type of Jesus. 15It was spit upon, goaded, a scarlet wool cord was tied to its head, and it was cast into the wilderness. 16At this point, a priest appointed for this task took the goat to a special place in the wilderness called Rachia. He then removed the scarlet cord and tied it to a shrub and cast the goat over a cliff. 17The berries of this plant are normally bitter, but at that place when the goat is killed, the berries are made sweet. 18Listen carefully to what this teaches us. One goat was for the altar and the other was accursed. 19The accursed one was crowned with a scarlet cord. They will see Him on that day wearing a long scarlet robe around His flesh and say, “Is this not He who was rejected, spit upon, pierced, and crucified? Truly He is the Son of God!”
The Two Comings of the Messiah
20The goats are identical so they will understand there is only one Messiah, destined to come twice; once as the suffering Messiah and at His Second Coming, to rule as King Messiah. 21The scarlet wool cord placed on the bush represents what the church must endure. Anyone wanting to take the wool had to endure being stuck by thorns. 22Jesus taught us that whoever desired to see Him and attain to His kingdom must come though suffering and trials.
Commentary
Chapter 7 teaches the ritual of the Day of Atonement, or Yom Kippur, typologically shows Jesus would suffer and die on the cross, and that we will suffer for Him in this life. (This teaching is also found in Philippians 1:29 and Acts 14:22). It also teaches that there would be two comings of the Messiah. Some of the details given here are not found in Leviticus 16, but some are given in greater detail in the Mishna, Moed, Yoma 6.
The sacrifice of Isaac is a typological prophecy of Jesus. Isaac willingly submitted to his father Abraham to be sacrificed, and he may actually have been 33 years old, the same age as Jesus when He submitted to His father’s will by dying on the cross. In this passage Abraham said, “God will provide Himself a sacrifice,” meaning Jesus, who is God incarnate, would sacrifice Himself. Abraham also called the place where he offered his son, “Jehovah Jirah,” which means, “the Lord will be seen.” Abraham’s sacrifice and Jesus’ sacrifice took place on the very same mountain, Mount Moriah!
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