Leviticus 16:20-22,26
“And when he hath made an end of reconciling the holy place, and the tabernacle of the congregation, and the altar, he shall bring the live goat: And Aaron shall lay both his hands upon the head of the live goat, and confess over him all the iniquities of the children of Israel, and all their transgressions in all their sins, putting them upon the head of the goat, and shall send him away by the hand of a fit man into the wilderness. And the goat shall bear upon him all their iniquities unto a land not inhabited: and he shall let go the goat in the wilderness. And he that let go the goat tor the scapegoat shall wash his clothes, and bathe his flesh in water, and afterward come into the camp.” -Lev. 16:20-22,26
Three times is the word " alive" connected with this goat, ver. 10, 20, 21, probably to convey to our minds the thought that the blessed Lord was in the full vigor of life when He presented Himself to God, to make atonement for our sins on the cross, according to His own words, "I lay down my life." "I lay it down of myself." John 10:17,18
Aaron having presented the scapegoat alive before the Lord to make an atonement with him, ver. 10, 20, next laid both his hands upon the head of the live goat, and confessed over him all the iniquities of the children of Israel, and all their transgressions in all their sins, putting them upon the head of the goat.
This was done in the presence and hearing of the congregation of Israel; the congregation for which he had previously made atonement in the holiest. The high priest's hands, both hands, which had previously been filled with sweet incense, were now, as it were, filled with sins, which he transferred to the head of the goat, whilst the assembly heard him confess over the goat all their iniquities and transgressions, and saw him " give" them upon the head of the goat.
The first occurrence of the word in respect to Israel as a nation, is when the Passover was established: "the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it in the evening." Ex. 12:6. Israel then for the first time was recognized by God as having a corporate, and national existence.
Thus the passover lamb, and the goat for the sin-offering were for the whole assembly as a corporate body.)
No mere man like Aaron has put our sins upon the Victim's head. Jehovah Himself " has laid upon him (Jesus) the iniquity of us all." No human high priest has confessed our iniquities, transgressions, and sins over a scapegoat; but the Lord Himself whilst hanging on the cross, made full confession of our iniquities, our folly, and our guilt; suffering under the judgment of them as if they had been His own. " Innumerable evils have compassed me about: mine iniquities have taken hold upon me, so that I am not able to look up, they are more than the hairs of mine head; therefore my heart faileth me." Psa. 40:12. "O God thou knowest my foolishness, and my sins (margin, guiltiness) are not hid from thee." 69:5.
Israel was constituted one assembly in redemption through the blood of the Paschal Lamb in Egypt. Though many lambs were slain, (" a lamb for an house,") yet they were considered as one lamb: " the whole assembly of the congregation shall kill it in the evening." Ex. 12:6. Israel subsequently met as sinners alike before the Lord on this day of atonement, and heard their various sins confessed over, and laid upon the head of the one victim.
" All we (in like manner) as sheep have gone astray: we have turned every one to his own way." Each of us has had his own path of self-willed sin and departure from God. Some of us have taken a religious way of our own in wandering from the Lord. Others of us have trodden paths of more open uncleanness and sin; but in either case iniquity, lawlessness, independence of God and His Word have marked our ways; and Jehovah has made these our varied iniquities to meet on Christ. We have each of us seen ourselves fully estimated by God as sinners, condemned and put to death in our substitute on that cross. Wonderful meeting place of our iniquities, and of wrath and judgment, which ever forbids one saying to another, " stand by, I am holier than thou." Each having been under " the same condemnation," and each therefore owning a " common salvation."
The assembly of Israel having thus heard their sins confessed, and having seen them transferred by Aaron to the head of the goat, next saw that goat sent away by the hand of a fit man into the wilderness. The victim with its load of iniquities disappeared from their sight. They knew that " a fit man," " a man of opportunity," had been selected for the occasion. And what rendered a man fit for this service? Surely his knowledge of the desolate places, the fearful pits and precipices of the wilderness. That wilderness is described as "-great and terrible"-" a desert land"-" a waste howling wilderness." Deut. 1:19;8. 15; 32:10. But the " fit man" had discovered some part of that desert of more than ordinary dreariness and fearful isolation; some deep " valley of the shadow of death" from which there could be no return.
" And the goat shall bear upon him all their iniquities to a land not inhabited and he shall let go the goat into the wilderness." Throughout this passage the word " scapegoat" does not occur; that remarkable expression is used in three other places in the chapter" the goat on which the lot fell, to be the scapegoat-to make an atonement with him to let him go for a scapegoat into the wilderness"-and, " he that let go the goat for the scapegoat," ver. 10, 26. Thus the goat was first selected to be the scapegoat by lot, and subsequently became the scapegoat when let go for the scapegoat into the wilderness; and that letting him go for a scapegoat was making an atonement with him.
The lot fell upon the Lord Jesus; He was elected of God to bear our sins. His entrance into the world was to that end. He partook of flesh and blood, " that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death." He was sent " in the likeness of sinful flesh " in order that God might condemn sin in'the flesh, when He made His own Son to be sin for us upon the cross. But our iniquities were not laid upon Him, nor did He bear them until He was nailed to the tree. He there became the antitype to the scapegoat.
The word azazel in the Heb., about which there has been much profitless discussion, is translated in the Septuagint apopompaios, (Lev. 16:8, 10,) and " eis teen apopompee," " to let him go for the dismissal," ver. t o; our rendering of it scapegoat, or goat sent away, seems to be a correct one. It was a victim dismissed into the wilderness, into a land uninhabited, a land of separation, where it would perish with the fearful load which had been laid upon it. It could never return, and therefore the iniquities laid upon its head would never reappear. The goat was banished into a place of utter desolation, where no sound of life could reach its ear, and where it could find no green pasture or still waters to sustain life: it was consigned to a waste howling desert, a place of darkness and of death. The people must have had confidence in the hand of him who let go the goat for the scapegoat, that he would provide against its ever returning.
God has laid on Christ our iniquity, and Christ " bare the sin of many;" " He shall bear their iniquities," " who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree." Isa. 53:11, 12; 1 Pet. 2:24. " Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many." Heb. 9:28. That tree of curse, the tree of judgment was chosen by God as the place and manner of His death.
It was the place of isolation, of fearful separation to which the Lord was led. He was lifted up there. The storm of judgment beat with unmitigated fury upon Him. We hear Him exclaiming, " Thou hast laid me in the lowest pit in darkness in the deeps. Thy wrath lieth hard upon me, and thou hast afflicted me with all thy waves." Psa. 88:6,7. " Save me, 0 God, for the waters are come in unto my soul. I sink in deep mire where there is no standing: I am come into deep waters, where the floods overflow me. Deliver me out of the mire and let me not sink: let me be delivered from them that hate me, and out of the deep waters. Let not the waterflood overflow me, neither let the deep swallow me up, and let not the pit shut her mouth upon me." Psa. 69:1-2, 14-15. " Deep calleth unto deep at the noise of thy waterspouts; all thy waves and thy billows are gone over me." Psa. 42:7.
Who can comprehend these deep utterances of the soul of Christ? The Spirit of God seems in the above passages to have selected emblems, gathered from the mighty deluge, as it rolled with increased fearfulness and noise over the buried world: and in the quotations which follow, imagery has been taken from the howling desert with its drought and deep desolate ravines, to express the experiences of the soul of Christ when He tasted death. For instance-" my life draweth nigh unto the grave. I am counted with them that go down into the pit: I am as a man that hath no strength: Free among the dead, like the slain that lie in the grave, whom thou rememberest no more: and they are cut off from thy hand. Shall thy wonders be known in the dark? and thy righteousness in the land of forgetfulness?" Psa. 88:12,3-5. " My heart is smitten and withered like grass. My days are like a shadow that declineth, and I am withered like grass." Psa. 102:4,11 " My strength is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue cleaveth to my jaws; and thou hast brought me into the dust of death." Psa. 22:15.
A land not inhabited," or according to the margin, " a land of separation," into which the scapegoat was led that it might perish, means a land of cutting of The same word in Hebrew is used in Isa. 53:8: " For he was cut of out of the land of the living; On the cross the Lord was cut off out of the land of the living. It was a place of far off separation, in distance from God, and it was a land of forgetfulness, so that God is able to say to the sinner who looks at the death of Jesus, " Thy sins and iniquities will I remember no more." In Christ on the tree God dismissed our sins and our iniquities from His memory, as regards all the wrath due to them.
But we have again a remarkable contrast between the shadow and the substance. Israel had the sins of a past year put away in the type we have been considering. On the very next day after the day of atonement, uncleannesses, iniquities and transgressions began afresh to accumulate, and rolled on until the seventh month again came round, and the service of the day of atonement was repeated. It would avail us nothing to have the sins of our past life blotted out; for we are daily and hourly contracting guilt and defilement, and that often unconsciously. The redemption therefore that Christ has procured for us through His death is eternal. Instead of there being a remembrance made of sins every year, the Spirit of God is a witness to us in the Word, that God remembers our sins and our iniquities no more: there is a perfect remission of them, and therefore " there is no more offering for sin." " There remaineth no more sacrifice for sins." Heb. 10:18,26.
The " once every year," " the sacrifices offered year by year continually," and the sacrifices offered " daily," (Heb. 9:7;10:1; 7: 27; 10:11;) were all " taken away" when the Lord Jesus offered Himself " once for all." This word " once" is the key note of the Gospel. " He died unto sin once." Rom. 6:10. Christ hath once suffered for sins." 1 Pet. 3:18. " Now once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself." " Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many." Heb. 9:26,28. " This he did once when he offered up himself," 7:27. " By his own blood he entered in once into the holy places having obtained eternal redemption," 9:12. " By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus once," 10:10.
The result of this one offering, once offered, is than " the worshippers once purged should have no more conscience of sins," 10:2. The death of Christ instead of standing as the sin-offering of atonement at the end of a year's sins; stands at " the end of the world;" or, as it might be rendered, at the end of the ages.
The ages of the world's history had rolled on to their climax when the Lord Jesus died. Man had been tested age after age under every variety of circumstances. He had fallen from innocence in the garden upon the very first temptation. He had manifested nothing but self-will, corruption, and violence, when left to himself in the ages before the flood. Notwithstanding the fearful judgment poured out in the deluge, self-will, pride of heart, and insubjection to God afterward were again fully displayed in the building of the tower of Babel. Dispersed from thence by the confounding of their language, men associated together according to their speech; thus forming distinct nations, giving themselves up to every species of idolatry.
A peculiar nation was then called out by God, and separated off to himself: placed in a land of peculiar fertility, and tutored under a law that was holy, just, and good. But the history of that nation is a history of ceaseless backslidings and departures from the living God. Whether dealt with in judgment, or in mercy; by warnings or pleadings of grace and pity-or whether spoken to by prophets or wise men, man proved himself incorrigible: age after age only increased his guilt. Sacrifices, priesthood and law, had availed nothing. But when the fullness of the time was come God sent forth his Son;" and, " now once in the end of the ages hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself."
Believers in the Lord thus recognize the cross as sentencing all that is past, and standing on the very brink of a glorious future; they see that any progress or improvement in man is hopeless. A crucified Christ proclaims " an end of all perfection." But there is a world to come " whereof we speak," which engages our thoughts, and which will be commenced when the kingdoms of this world will become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of His Christ. The Church itself having been previously raised to be forever with the Lord, to reign with Him gloriously over this future world.
It is important to distinguish between " no more conscience of sins," and "no more consciousness of sin." An " evil conscience," is a conscience not at ease with God: a conscience that thinks God has some demands, some requirements unsatisfied. And therefore he that has an evil conscience, has a conscience of sins which have not been, as he thinks, fully purged by the blood of Christ. Such an one cannot have the heart of a worshipper. He cannot have love for God. His heart is more or less the heart of a slave, dreading the demands of an austere master, instead of the heart of a child trusting a loving father. The believer is conscious of sin and imperfection in everything he does; and the longer he lives in this world as a child and servant of God, the deeper his acquaintance with his own unworthiness; and the more conscious he is of an evil heart within, and of the temptations of Satan which he has to keep under and resist. But this consciousness is not "a conscience of sins." He knows that " through the offering of the body of Christ," he has been sanctified and perfected, so that he can draw near to God with confidence; and he is a purged worshipper, never again needing to be re-sprinkled with the blood of Christ. His heart has been once for all, sprinkled from an evil conscience.
In the consecration of the priests of old, the blood was sprinkled outwardly upon their persons and garments. The precious blood of Christ is now sprinkled within, upon the heart. The Holy Spirit, applying the word of God touching the death of Christ to the heart of the sinner, sprinkles it from an evil conscience. The heart and conscience are intimately connected. If our hearts recognize the love of God in the gift of Christ, we cannot any more doubt the complete atonement made for sin. The heart and conscience will be at rest, because God is fully trusted.
The people gathered in holy convocation, looked on in silence at this scene respecting the scapegoat; they did nothing, they said nothing. They uttered no prayer, nor petition. The stillness was only broken by the voice of another confessing their sins, and laying them upon the head of the victim. From beginning to end, the work of atonement was accomplished for them, and not by them; they had no hand in it all. The only precepts laid upon them on this occasion were to afflict their souls, and to rest.
" This shall be a statute forever unto you, that in the seventh month, on the tenth day of the month, ye shall afflict your souls, and do no work at all: for on that day shall he make an atonement for you, to cleanse you, that ye may be clean from all your sins before the Lord. It shall be a sabbath of rest unto you, and ye shall afflict your souls, by a statute forever." Lev. 16:29-31.
" On the tenth day of this seventh month there shall be a day of atonement: it shall be an holy convocation unto you; and ye shall afflict your souls, and offer an offering made by fire unto the Lord. And ye shall do no work in that same day: for it is a day of atonement, to make an atonement for you before the Lord your God. For whatsoever soul it be that shall not be afflicted in that same day, he shall be cut off from among his people. And whatsoever soul it be that doeth any work in that same day, the same soul will I destroy from among his people. Ye shall do no manner of work: it shall be a statute forever throughout your generations in all your dwellings. It shall be unto you a sabbath of rest, and ye shall afflict your souls: in the ninth day of the month at even, from even unto even, shall ye celebrate your sabbath." Lev. 23:27-32.
" Ye shall have on the tenth day of this seventh month an holy convocation; and ye shall afflict your souls: ye shall not do any work therein." Num. 29:7.
These commands are very stringent-whatsoever soul was not afflicted should be cut off from his people; and whatsoever soul did any manner of work, God would destroy him from among His people. Affliction of soul and rest are remarkably associated together. Surely this is an eternal statute, which is still in force. All that God requires of the sinner is, to know himself to be a sinner; to do no manner of work as regards his salvation; but to see the whole work of the putting away of sin completed by another. Affliction of soul answers to the contrite heart.
" The Lord is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart; and saveth such as be of a contrite spirit." " He healeth the broken in heart, and bindeth up their wounds."
"The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and a contrite heart O God thou wilt not despise." Psa. 34:18; 147:3; 51:17.
" Thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is holy; I dwell in the high and holy place, with him that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones "
" Thus saith the Lord, the heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool: where is the house that ye build unto me? and where is the place of my rest? for all those things hath mine hand made, and all those things have been, saith the Lord: but to this man will I look, even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and trembleth at my word." Isa. 57:15; 66: 1, 2.
Wherever therefore there is real consciousness of irremediable sinfulness and helplessness, there the soul may at once trust in God for the remission of sins through the death of His blessed Son. But alas! we naturally attempt by some work or effort of our own to accomplish a salvation already finished, or to render ourselves fitting objects, when our very fitness for it really depends upon our total unworthiness and uncleanness.
Strange that when God commands us to rest we should be so unwilling to obey, and when God requires us to recognize our own worthlessness we should make so many attempts to improve ourselves. What would have befallen an Israelite if he had abstained on the day of atonement from coming to the tabernacle to hear his sins confessed, and see them borne away by the scape goat; and instead thereof had satisfied himself with going through a ceremonial of his own devising, seeking thereby to appease God? What will befall those who are not content to take God at His word; not assured that the death of Christ is all sufficient, but who seek to approve themselves to God, by some effort of their own, or mingle their own works with a kind of acknowledgment of the name of Jesus?
This day of atonement was also a time appropriated for a holy convocation. The people were called to assemble before God to witness the putting away of their sins. It is remarkable how all the holy convocations of Israel were feasts of the Lord, and how attached to them all is the command that no servile work was to be done. See Lev. 23:7,8,21,25,35,36; Num. 28:18,25,26;29. 1, 12, 35. The spirit of bondage can have no connection with worshipping the Father in spirit and in truth. In beautiful accordance with this we read in Heb. 10, first, of our own individual standing as purged worshippers, having confidence to enter into the holiest, and holding fast the profession of our hope without wavering, and then we are exhorted to consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works, and to meet as it were in holy convocation" not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together as the manner of some is, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as ye see the day approaching."
One beautiful contrast remains to be considered. Israel when waiting outside the tabernacle for the high priest to come out after he had presented the blood to God, were yet uncertain about the remission of their sins, and were not assured of it until the scapegoat had been sent away. Moreover it would have been destruction to them had the victim which had borne their sins reappeared. In contrast with this we look for our High Priest " who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree," to come again, to reappear, " Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time, without sin, unto salvation." This expression " without sin" has in this place no reference to the sinlessness of Christ -but to the fact of His coming again apart from all dealing with sin in the way of remission, or in the way of intercession. He has already sat down as far as the remission of our sins is concerned, and by His own offering on the cross He has perfected us as saints in the presence of God. He is now also in the presence of God for us, ever living to make intercession for us-preserving us in the fullness of our redemption standing before God, and keeping an unobstructed way open for our approach to God-unobstructed by our sins, failures, and shortcomings. But when He comes out from the holiest in a little while, He will appear unto our complete salvation-the salvation of our bodies as well as our souls-the redemption of our bodies. We are as believers in a strange and if we may so say, unnatural state-by grace already saved, and yet expecting salvation with perfect peace in our souls and rejoicing always, but groaning still within ourselves. Sons of God, heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ, with the spirit of sonship in us, enabling us to say " abba Father," and yet " waiting for the sonship, the redemption of our body." Not in the flesh but in the spirit-yet cumbered with the flesh and groaning for deliverance. We look not for death, and we fear not that which is after death, the judgment; for both death and judgment have been met in the one offering of Christ on the tree-but we expect Him, we look for Him, we shall see Him as He is, and we shall be like Him. As surely as He was seen at His first coming, when He came in order to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself, so surely shall He be seen by us at His second coming when He shall come not in weakness but in power-not in humiliation but in glory-not with a cry of woe from a cross of shame and curse, but with a shout of triumph and of gladness to quicken our mortal bodies, and to raise us up into Ells own likeness. We rejoice in hope of the return of our High Priest. God has raised Him from the dead proof of the complete putting away of our sins accomplished in that death.
The day of atonement effected no change in the state of an Israelite personally. There was not even a shadow of resurrection in the types of that day. But the reconciliation we have received; the justification we have through the blood of Christ, is a justification of life. We are born again-we are new creatures in Christ Jesus. Our place of worship, our place of rest and our citizenship are in heaven, "from whence also we look tor the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall change our body of humiliation that it may be fashioned like unto His body of glory, according to the working whereby He is able even to subdue all things unto himself " Phil. 3:20,21.