The Two Goats
It is a wonderfully blessed thing to know that God has been pleased to bring us who believe into nothing but favor; if it were not so, even after pardon, we should be lost over and over again. But salvation is a condition that attaches to the believer through his course; and how is this marked? That there is, not only propitiation to meet the character of God, that He may proclaim His love in Christ to every creature; but also substitution to secure an absolute cleansing of all the sins of every believer. The two things are purposely put in juxtaposition to give an adequate view of the difference between propitiation and substitution, which together constitute the atonement set forth by the two goats.
There is a continual tendency in the different classes, even of believers in Christendom, to ignore one or other of these truths. Take for instance those zealous that the gospel go out to every creature. It is notorious that most of these deny God's special favor to the elect. They overlook or pare down any positive difference on God's part toward His own children. They hold that a man throughout his course may be a child of God to-day and not to-morrow. This destroys substitution. They hold propitiation, and there they are right, and quite justified in preaching the gospel unrestrictedly to every creature, as the Lord indeed enjoined. But how their one-sidedness enfeebles the proper portion of the saints! They cannot but reduce to a minimum the rich unfolding of divine love in the settled relationships of faith, as He has revealed in the apostolic Epistles generally, whence they try to cull out appeals to the unconverted, or attenuate what is meant for God's children, if they do not dangerously extend their privileges to the unsaved.
But look now for a moment at the opposite side, which holds that all God has done and reveals is in view of the elect only, that all He has wrought in Christ Jesus is in effect for the church, and that He does not care about the world, except to judge it at the last day. This may be put rather bluntly; for I do not present such grievous narrowness toward man and dishonor of God and His Son in as polished terms as those might desire who cherish notions so unsavory and unsound. But it is true that a certain respectable class around us do see nothing but the elect as the object of God. Their doctrine supposes only the second goat, or the people's lot. They see the all-importance of substitution, but Jehovah's lot has no place as distinct.
How came the two contending parties of religionists not to see both the goats? The word of God reveals both. Why is it that those, who rightly urge that the message of God's grace should freely go out to every creature, fail to hold the security of the believer too? Oh what a blotting-out of Christ's love to the church! Such is the inevitable result of taking up one part of the truth and setting it against another. Thus we see the importance of holding, not merely a truth, but the truth. Here plainly there are two goats. The goat of propitiation is to provide in the fullest manner for the glory of God, even where sin is before Him. In fulfilling it, what was the consequence? Christ was forsaken of God that the believer should never be forsaken. He bore the judgment of sin that God's glory might be immutably established in righteousness. Thus grace in the freest way can and does now go out to every creature here below.
But there is much more. Besides opening the sluices that divine love might flow freely everywhere, we also find another line of truth altogether: the fullest and nicest care that those who are His children should be kept in peace and blessing. They had been guilty or indifferent as others to God. They were children of wrath and served Satan truly as the worst of those who refuse the gospel. And see how God has provided for their evil, when we come to the goat of substitution. “Aaron shall lay both his hands on the head of the live goat, and confess over him all the iniquity of the children of Israel, and all their transgressions in all their iniquities.” Language seems almost to fail, in order to express the provision of grace in securing relief to the people, whatever their sins and iniquity. God took care, not only to indicate His own glory and nature, but to give them knowledge of salvation by the remission of their sins. The sins are all out to be borne away.
Even the type demonstrates, it is evident, that we require these two distinct truths to maintain the balance of God's truth. It is a blessed thing to hold the outgoing of God's grace to every creature, but not at the sacrifice of the security of those who believe. Thus only is manifested in any measure of truth that firm rock on which the elect stand. Their salvation is as sure as the message of grace is free. Supposing one blur the difference between the two goats, and crush them up, so to say, into one indistinguishable mass—the dead and the live goat—and deny any difference between them, what is the effect? Either that you become simply devoted to the gospel that God sends to every sinner under heaven, or that you become shut up to think only of the elect and their salvation. The worst is that each in his shortsight virtually makes out God. to be such a One as himself. It is plain that these two things are each of exceeding importance if not taken up exclusively. But, as parts of the truth, they are admirably held together; they compose God's truth. It is quite true that in the first goat God has secured His majesty, and His righteous title to send forth His message of love to every creature. Again, in the second goat He has equally cared for the assurance of His people, that all their sins, transgressions, and iniquities, are completely borne away. How could the truth of atonement be more admirably shown by types beforehand?
Only let us preserve the order of the subjects as far as possible. Therefore must one point out the way in which the blessed truth of atonement exceeds the type of both goats. It may seem hard for some to admit such a possibility; but it will be a privilege to be shown that there is an advance in truth connected with “the bullock.” This has its own peculiarity for those who are the object of that great offering; and its perfect answer and solution are given in the N. T. But the general distinction between the two goats, I trust, has been sufficiently cleared, and the necessity seen for them both. Let me confirm it by drawing attention to a verse given rightly in the Authorized Version, with a grievous defect in the Revised Version. It is no recondite point, nor open to serious doubt nor of any real difficulty. Being intimately connected with the subject before us, it claims a notice here.
In Rom. 3:2222Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference: (Romans 3:22) we read these words, “Even the righteousness of God, which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all, and upon all them that believe.” There we have the principle of the two goats, or the truth which answers to them. “The righteousness of God unto (εἰς) all” is what corresponds with Jehovah's lot. God is not the God of Israel only, as the Jews always sought to make out. Is He not the God of Gentiles also? It is exactly what the apostle says in this chapter a little farther on, “Yes, of Gentiles also, seeing God is one, who shall justify the circumcision by faith, and the uncircumcision through their faith.” But here we have it in the form, “The righteousness of God, by faith in Jesus Christ unto all,” after which words there ought to be a comma to make it strictly correct.
Next comes in the answer to the second goat, “and upon (ἐπὶ) all them that believe.” Here is implied the security of the believer. It is not “unto all them that believe.” “Unto” thus distinguished is a tendency or direction; and, even when meaning more, it may not reach all. This is exactly what the gospel is— “unto all.” The gospel addresses itself to every creature; as also every soul is bound to receive the testimony of God's grace, which puts upon them the responsibility of bowing in their hearts to it as from God. As it is “unto all,” he who does not preach it “unto all” misunderstands his duty as a herald of the gospel. On the other hand, the righteousness of God is not merely “unto all them that believe,” but “upon” them. What does “upon” represent here? The effect produced; which is not upon all mankind, but only “upon all that believe.” We have therefore to distinguish two objects in this verse: the universal aspect of the gospel in going out to every creature; and the positive effect upon all those that believe.
Here the A. V. exactly gives the truth; what of the R. V.? The revisers, oblivious of a mistake common even in ancient copies (of which some of the company seemed almost idolaters), followed the favorites blindly. Wherever a word is followed by the same word, perhaps in the next phrase one of the commonest slips (by writers to-day, as with early scribes) is to skip over the words between the two. The old copies, Ν A B C P, with two juniors and some ancient versions, would ordinarily have the greatest weight; but here they appear by a merely clerical blunder to have passed from the first “all” (πάντας) to the second with the fatal effect described.
That later copyists could have invented the admirably correct and comprehensive distinction, which the common text intimates, is too much to conceive. The distinction is also especially Pauline; which none of the copyists even understood, any more than some modern commentators. Theodoret may interpret unwisely, but he writes unhesitatingly about two clauses; as indeed they are attested by ancient versions older than any existing MSS. But a real conflation is ever feeble, if not false.
A slip might naturally ruin a nicely poised and fully stated truth, entirely beyond mediaeval mind to construct. The effect of the slip is, “The righteousness of God unto all them that believe.” Such is the form in which it is given in the Revised Version. What is the consequence? That they give us an unscriptural platitude. They unwittingly take from scripture its edge and fullness. “They have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid Him.” They have mixed up the two forms of the truth, so that one cannot get at either. The hotch-potch of both destroys the exact sense of each.
The change means that there is not a word “unto all” sinners as such, whilst all believers receive a mere offer of the gospel. “The righteousness of God is unto all believers,” if they like to accept it. Thus is effaced the effect of the gospel upon all that believe, while the mercy to unbelievers vanishes away, because His righteousness is only “unto all them that believe.” If the words omitted be read, the double truth is given in perfection. This the revisers virtually treat as a blunder of the scribes. But when did mere man ever invent so nice and full a statement of the truth? The change leaves not the smallest ground here for preaching the gospel to the unconverted; while the safety of the believer thereby and equally disappears. Yet this mutilated and emasculated sense is given, as if a perfectly adequate authority sustained it, although any one easily sees, when it is once pointed out, how readily the intervening words might be omitted. The twofold truth of God is marred in the passage, and we are deprived of that which answers in the antitype to both the first goat and the second. (concluded)