Aaron is to present the incense and the blood of the offerings on the Day of Atonement to the Lord in the Most Holy Place in the tabernacle while the congregation of Israel waits outside. After he completes his duties in the room that houses the Ark of the Covenant, he emerges from the inner room and anoints the altar of sacrifice in the courtyard.
"Then he shall come out to the altar that is before the Lord and make atonement for it. He shall take some of the bull's blood and some of the goat's blood and put it on all the horns of the altar. He shall sprinkle some of the blood on it with his finger seven times to cleanse it and to consecrate it from the uncleanness of the Israelites." (Leviticus 16:18-19) The altar is an inanimate object. It has committed no sins. But it requires consecration because offerings made for the sins of the people have been placed upon it. I think it would be safe to say that the altar receives heavier use (more wear and tear, if you will) than any other object inside the temple complex.
To use a modern example that may help us to understand why the altar needs extra attention, my own church moved into a newly constructed sanctuary in 2005. My pastor has mentioned several times that the first place in the building that needed an extra coat of paint was the altar---the short wall at the front of our sanctuary that stands between the area for seating and the stage where the pastor preaches. So many people knelt in prayer at that altar with their knees against the wall, or with the palms of their raised hands on the wall, or with troubled and tear-streaked faces resting against the wall, that it needed a fresh coat of paint far sooner than anything else in the building. Because the altar of the tabernacle receives such heavy use, Aaron anoints it with the blood of the sin offerings and "repaints it" and makes it fresh and new again.
Aaron has offered the bull for his own sins and the sins of his household. He has offered the goat whose lot fell for the Lord. The remaining goat, the scapegoat, is still standing there and now he turns his attention to it. "When Aaron has finished making atonement for the Most Holy Place, the tent of meeting and the altar, he shall bring forward the live goat. He is to lay both hands on the head of the live goat and confess over it all the wickedness and rebellion of the Israelites---all their sins---and put them on the goat's head. He shall send the goat away into the wilderness in the care of someone appointed for the task. The goat will carry on itself all their sins to a remote place; and the man shall release it in the wilderness." (Leviticus 16:20-22)
The goat continues its life somewhere else, far removed from the camp of Israel. Symbolically, the sins that were confessed over the goat are far removed from the people of Israel. But only until the next year. When the Day of Atonement rolls around again, the same rituals we've been studying in Leviticus 16 must be performed. Year after year after year the high priest has to make these sacrifices. Year after year after year the sins of the nation must be confessed over the scapegoat before it is sent into the wilderness. Why did it have to be this way? Because the sacrifice that is able to make us clean forever---and that carries our sins away forever---had not yet been made. Under the law (the old covenant) imperfect people offered imperfect sacrifices that were incapable of eternally separating them from their sins. "The law is only a shadow of the good things that are coming---not the realities themselves. For this reason it can never, by the same sacrifices repeated endlessly year after year, make perfect those who draw near to worship. Otherwise, would they not have stopped being offered? For the worshipers would have been cleansed once for all, and would no longer have felt guilty for their sins. But those sacrifices are an annual reminder of sins. It is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins." (Hebrews 10:1-4)
The blood of the sacrificial animals could not literally cleanse man of his sins, but what these sacrifices did was point toward the blood that could literally cleanse man of his sins. The sacrificial system of the Old Testament was "a shadow of the good things that are coming". The sacrifices made for thousands of years before the advent of Christ symbolized the sacrifice He would make at the time appointed by God. The people did not fully understand this but accepted on faith that these sacrifices stood for something. They accepted that God received their sacrifices every time they brought them and forgave their sins. And, since salvation has always been by faith, they received salvation in a time when Christ had not yet come. They obtained good standing with God because even though they didn't know what their sacrifices pointed toward, they believed there was a plan and a purpose for everything God asked them to do.
Aaron has successfully carried out his duties on the first Day of Atonement. But he will have to do the same things all over again the next year and the next and the next, until feebleness of body or death prevents him from further ministry. When that happens, his successor will take his place and make these same offerings year after year. This will continue until the destruction of the temple at Jerusalem in 70 AD, approximately forty years after the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ. We are living in an age where there is no need for us to bring sacrifices to a tabernacle or temple year after year. We don't have to have our sins confessed over a scapegoat before the scapegoat is sent out into the wilderness to carry our sins out of our sight until the next year when another scapegoat must carry our sins away.
When the Lord Jesus Christ hung on the cross, all of our sins for all time were placed on Him. "He was pierced for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon Him, and by His wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way; and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all." (Isaiah 53:5-6)
When the Lord Jesus Christ was buried in the tomb, He took our sins farther from us than they'd ever been taken before. The scapegoat could only carry them into the wilderness where they could not be seen; Jesus took our sins down to the grave, putting them to death. "Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death. For what the law was powerless to do because it was weakened by the flesh, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh to be a sin offering. And so He condemned sin in the flesh." (Romans 8:1-3) Sin, like a prisoner guilty of a capital crime, was condemned and put to death by Christ.
When Christ rose from the dead, He left our sins behind, buried forever. He came back in victory without them, glory to His name, and we will never be confronted by them again! We won't stand before a holy God and Judge someday and have a list of our transgressions read to us. They are dead and gone. Our old nature is dead and gone too, buried with them. "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! All this is from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to Himself in Christ, not counting people's sins against them." (2 Corinthians 5:17-19a) Because we have placed our faith in Christ, when we stand before God with our sins having been put to death by Christ and carried away from us into the grave, our God will say, "I see no sinners standing here. I see only saints. I see only precious souls that have been redeemed by the blood of My beloved Son."
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