Leviticus 16:18

Go out unto the altar. Having purified the most holy and thus completed his ministry there, Aaron was to do the same for the “tabernacle of the congregation,” that is, for the holy place (v. 16). Then he was to “go out unto the altar,” that is, the altar of burnt offering. Here he was to take some of the blood of the bullock and of the goat, and with it purify the altar from all “the uncleanness of the children of Israel” (v. 19). According to Jewish tradition the blood of the goat and the blood of the bullock were here mingled in one vessel. The fact that the two samples of blood are spoken of as “it” tends to confirm this view.

Besides putting the blood on the horns of the altar — where the blood of the sin offerings had been placed — the high priest was also to sprinkle the blood upon the altar itself, where the blood of the burnt offerings and the trespass offerings had been sprinkled, as well as the blood of the evening and the morning sacrifice. In doing this, the high priest cleansed and hallowed the altar “from the uncleanness of the children of Israel.”

We can readily understand the need of cleansing the two altars of the sanctuary on earth, for the blood of the burnt offerings and the sin offerings had been sprinkled on them (chs. 1:5, 11; 4:7, 18, 25, 30, 34). In the case of burnt offerings and trespass offerings the blood had been sprinkled on the altar itself (chs. 1:5, 11; 5:9); and in sin offerings it had been put on the horns (ch. 4:7, 18, 25, 30, 34). Of the altar of incense this is said: Aaron “shall make an atonement upon the horns of it once in a year with the blood of the sin offering of atonements” (Ex. 30:10). Of the altar of burnt offerings this is said: “He shall go out [of the sanctuary] unto the altar that is before the Lord . . .; and shall take of the blood of the bullock, and of the blood of the goat, and put it upon the horns of the altar round about. And he shall sprinkle of the blood upon it with his finger seven times, and cleanse it, and hallow it from the uncleanness of the children of Israel” (Lev. 16:18, 19; cf. v. 20).

The temple on earth is a pattern of the temple in heaven; the cleansing on earth is merely a type of the cleansing in heaven. Of this Daniel speaks when he says that at the end of the 2300 days, “then shall the sanctuary be cleansed” (see on Dan. 8:14). But does the heavenly sanctuary need cleansing? Has there been defilement in heaven that makes such cleansing necessary? Paul answers: “It was therefore necessary that the patterns of things in the heavens should be purified with these [sacrifices of animals]; but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these” (Heb. 9:23).