We turn to God's Word in that
chapter we read, Leviticus 16, reading again from verse 7, the
commandment that's given unto Aaron by Moses the Lord's servant,
verse 7, and he shall take the two goats and present them before
the Lord at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation. And Aaron
shall cast lots upon the two goats, one lot for the Lord,
and the other lot for the scapegoat. And Aaron shall bring the goat
upon which the Lord's lot fell, and offer him for a sin offering.
But the goat on which the lot fell to be the scapegoat shall
be presented alive before the Lord to make an atonement with
him and to let him go for a scapegoat into the wilderness. And then
again at verse 21. 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 into a land not inhabited, and he
shall let go the goat in the wilderness." And I want to address
the subject of the scapegoat in particular, the scapegoat.
and really taking more particularly the words that we have here in
verses 21 and 22. Last Lord's Day we were considering
that lament of the Lord Jesus lamenting over Jerusalem in Matthew
23, 37, O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets
and stone are same which are sent on to thee how often would
I have gathered thy children together as the hen gathers her
chickens under her wings and ye would not and we observed
the significance of the fact that the tense is changed from
the the third person to the second person there at the end of that
verse. Ye would not. The chapter is
one in which the Lord is very much addressing the scribes,
the Pharisees. A chapter of terrible woes that
are pronounced on those wicked men. And in seeking to preach
from that verse, I did in the evening take an allegorical interpretation
of the word Jerusalem in the light of what we're told in Galatians
chapter 4. The Jerusalem which now is, which
is in bondage with her children. and then to Jerusalem above,
which is Frey, which is the mother of us all. And I said that whilst
the Lord is addressing Jerusalem, the Jerusalem that now is, yet
we see something of the Gospel in the heart of the Lord Jesus,
especially in reference to those wings of the of the mother hen who would gather
her chickens together to protect them. We made some reference
then to the truth of the mercy seats with the cherubim and the
wings of the cherubim. stretched out over the mercy
seat. And that mercy seat is the great
place of meeting where God said he would come and commune with
his people and reveal himself to them from the mercy seat,
from beneath the wings of those cherubim there in Exodus 25. But not only is the mercy seat
that place where God says he will meet and commune with his
children, but it was also the great place where atonement was
established and secured, as we see in this 16th chapter of the
Viticus. The whole of the chapter, of
course, is taken up with the day of atonement, what the Jews
called Yom Kippur, and how it was to be observed as a perpetual
feast throughout all their generations they were to observe that particular
day. 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 whether
it be one of your own country or a stranger that sojourneth
among you. For on that day shall the priest
make an atonement for you to cleanse you that you may be clean
from all your sins before the Lord. The day of atonement then
that is established and secure there at the mercy seat beneath
the outstretched wings of those cherubim. But thinking, as I
said, in particular of this one aspect of the Day of Atonement,
what we read concerning this particular goat. Two goats were
chosen. Lots were drawn. One was to be
a sacrifice, a sin offering. The other was to serve as the
scapegoat. And so, As we consider these
words at verse 21, 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 goats in the wilderness. Now two matters that I want us
to consider concerning this goat first of all to say something
with regards to the doctrine of substitution and then secondly
to consider the truth of the separation first of all, the
substitution. And we see quite clearly here
the transfer of the sin and the guilt of the children of Israel.
There at the beginning of that 21st verse, 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 goats."
Now, this practice of the priest or the high priest putting his
hand upon the head of the sacrifice was of course common to the various
sacrifices that were required here in the book of Leviticus.
In the very first chapter we have mention of the burnt offering
and what was to happen with regards to that sacrifice. It's much
the same as we have here concerning the scapegoat. Verse 4 of chapter
1, He shall put his hand upon the head of the burnt offering
and it shall be accepted for him to make atonement for him. And what was true of the burnt
offering was also true of the peace offerings, as we see in
the third chapter, and then also it was true of the sin offerings,
spoken of in chapter 4. Sometimes the word is rendered
in unauthorized version to put other times to lay, but each
time the priest or the person who is bringing the sacrifice,
they place their hand upon the head of what's being sacrificed,
and the sins are to be confessed over that particular animal. Now, interestingly, it is the
same verb that we find being used by the psalmist in Psalm
88 and verse 7. The psalmist cries out in the
agony of his soul, Thy wrath lies hard upon me. The same words, to lay hard. The wrath of God. Here is the
psalmist under obvious conviction of sin and he cries out, Thy
wrath lies hard upon me. And do we not in that see something
of the significance in particular of the symbolism that we have
with that burnt offering. The sinner is one who feels wrath. It lies heavy upon him. But all that wrath of God that
he is feeling to be is just dessert. All that wrath is to be, as it
were, transferred to the animal. The man stands
there as one who is guilty before God and he feels it. But he comes
now and he lays his hand upon that sacrifice, makes his confession,
and then that animal upon which the hand has been placed is taken
and sacrificed as a burnt offering. And what is a burnt offering?
Why, the whole of the animal is to be consumed, burnt up. Here is that wrath, it lies so
hard and so heavy, that when it is transferred, how we see
what that wrath is, it burns up, it consumes all the sacrifice. And it is interesting to observe
the particular order with regards to the way in which the burnt
offering was to be offered. There, in chapter 1 verse 8,
the priest, heaven and sun, shall lay the parts of the head and
the fat in order upon the wood that is on the fire which is
upon the altar. But his inwards and his legs
shall he wash in water, and the priest shall burn all on the
altar to be a burnt sacrifice, an offering made by fire of a
sweet savour unto the Lord. But when we read of the way in
which the various parts were to be taken, Aaron's sons were
to lay the parts and the head is mentioned in the first place. That is the divine order. It
was upon the head of that animal that the confession was made. And here, of course, when we
come to this scapegoat, and this is not an animal that is going
to be sacrificed, But what a tremendous burden is laid upon this goat. 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. This is a great burden, a heavy
burden that is being placed upon the head of the scapegoat. There is a transfer then here,
as with all the other sacrifices, the transfer of sin and of guilt. And what lies behind this is
the great truth of substitution. It's substitution and it's a
remarkable type of the Lord Jesus Christ. Or we sang as our opening
praise those words of Isaac Watts, my faith would lay her hand on
that dear head of thine, while like a penitent I stand and there
confess my sin. Isn't this how we are to approach
our Lord Jesus Christ? As we seek by faith to lay hold
of Him, to lay our hands upon Him, to make our confessions
true. though all the sins of His people
has been transferred to Him. God hath made Him, we are told,
to be sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the
righteousness of God in Him. There is that precious truth
of substitutionary atonement, Christ in the sinner's place. Christ also hath once suffered
for sins, we're taught, the just for the unjust, to bring us to
God. He is that one who is just. We
are the unjust. He is that one who is holy. We
are those who have sinned. But that's the precious truth.
But what a figure this is, where the hands of the high priest
are laid upon the head of the live goat and the confession
of iniquities and transgressions and sins and all these words
are used here at the beginning of this 21st verse is to confess
over him all the iniquities of the children of Israel and all
their transgressions in all their sins now one word is wasted there's
no idle word anywhere in Holy Scripture It's all inspired of
God. It's verbally inspired. There's
an emphasis in upon the transfer of that sin of the people. And
it is a figure of the Lord Jesus Christ. And what is it a figure
of? It's a figure not of impartation. We're not to think that the sin
is being imparted to the animal. No, it's a figure of imputation. And there is a difference. And
we need to mark that difference. Well, people speak rather loosely sometimes
when it comes to the doctrine of substitutionary atonement,
when it comes to the doctrine of justification by faith, because
in both cases this word imputation is an important word. I remember
our late friend Sidney Norton used to say that every minister
of the gospel should be a theologian. which is a truth, but how few
of us really are able to think in that theological fashion.
We struggle with theology at times, and we have to, as he
went, have our minds stretched. But Sidney Naught went further
too. He used to say that every theologian should be a precisionist. We need to be precise, we need
to understand, and what we see here in this figure, I say again,
is not the imparting of the sin from the people to the goats,
but it's the idea of imputation. When the sins of his people were
laid upon the Lord Jesus Christ, in no way did the imputing of
those sins defile the Lord Jesus? In no way. He was never defiled
by sin. He was always holy, harmless,
undefiled, and separate from sinners, even when He made that
great sin-atoning sacrifice. The sin is imputed. It's not
imparted, and likewise in justification. Christ's righteousness is imputed
to the sinner. That doesn't make the sinner
holy. But what it means is that sinner
who is justified is accounted righteous because he is clothed
with the righteousness of Christ. It's completely objective, it's
not subjective. It's the righteousness of Christ
that is now reckoned to that sinner's account. And that's what we see here with
regards to the sin of the people. How by the high priest laying
his hands upon the head of that goat and making that confession,
there's the imputing, the reckoning of all their sins onto the sacrifice. Now, observe how there are two
goats. There are two goats, not one
goat. Verse 7, He shall take the two goats and present them
before the Lord at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation. And Aaron shall cast lots upon
the two goats, one lot for the Lord and the other lot for the
scapegoat. Why two goats? Well, one goat
is so inadequate to to be a type of the fullness
of the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. This is why there are
a multitude of sacrifices. As I said already, burnt offerings,
and peace offerings, and sin offerings. And here we see that
one goat is not sufficient. There must be two goats. We see
something very similar when it comes to the cleansing of the
leper. Back in the 14th chapter, when
that leper is brought to the priest, and remember, clearly
leprosy is a typical disease because The man who is suspected
of having this terrible disease is not referred to the physician,
he is to go to the priest. And the priest is to examine
him. It's a typical disease, it's
a type of sin. It's a type of sin when it's
been discovered. In a man's soul we know all the
sinners. But how many are leprous sinners? Though all are sinners
in God's sight, there are but few so in their own. But when
that leper is pronounced clean there are various sacrifices
that must be attended to. And in chapter 14 we see that
it was necessary to take two birds. There at verse 4 Then shall the priest command
to take for him that is to be cleansed two birds, alive and clean, and cedar wood,
and scarlet, and hyssop. And the priest shall command
that one of the birds be killed in a northern vessel over running
water." To be killed in a vessel that contains fresh water. As
for the living bird, he shall take it, and the cedar wood,
and the scarlet, and the hyssop, and shall dip them, and the living
bird, in the blood of the bird that was killed over the running
water. And he shall sprinkle upon him
that is to be cleansed from the leprosy seven times, and shall
pronounce him clean, and shall let the living bird loose into
the open fields. Interesting what happens here.
One bird is to be slain, just as here one goat is to be slain,
and there one bird is to be let loose, and here one of the goats
is to be taken as a scapegoat into the wilderness and released. But this is all type, and it's
wonderful type. What's the significance here
in chapter 14? Well, surely that sacrificed
bird is to us a type of the work of the Lord Jesus Christ, that
great work of redemption. When he dies as the substitute,
when he bears that punishment that was the just desert of his
people, but what then of that blood-stained burnt that is to
be released. Isn't that another type of the
Lord Jesus? And here we see the Lord Jesus
Christ rising again from the dead. Oh, it's a type there of
His death, yes, His substitutionary death, but also a type of His
resurrection, His ascension on high. He's going into the very heavens
of God. And likewise with the two ghosts.
One is to be sacrificed. Here and shall bring the goat
upon which the Lord's lot fell and offer him for a sin offering. We read there at verse 9. One
goat is to be sacrificed. Here is the justice of God. God's
can by no means clear the guilt. God is a holy God, a righteous
God, a just God. and he cannot and he will not
wink at sins, the punishment must be paid, the law must be
satisfied, the ransom price that the law requires then must be
given in. Here we see God's justice, and
God's justice being satisfied. But then what of the scapegoats? Verse 10, the goat on which the
lot fell, to be the scapegoat shall be presented alive before
the Lord to make an atonement. It's still part of the atoning
sacrifice, you see, although it's not going to be killed.
The scapegoat presented alive before the Lord to make an atonement
with Him and to let Him go for a scapegoat into the wilderness. And then again here at verse
22, our text. The goat shall bear upon him
all their iniquities unto a land not inhabited and he shall let
go the goats in the wilderness. What is this? It shows God's
mercy. All God's justice is satisfied. And so there is mercy for sinners.
The sinner is released now from all the guilt of his sins. Oh,
this is the great work of the Lord Jesus. Mercy and truth have
met together. And where have they met together?
In the cross of the Lord Jesus. Peace and righteousness have
kissed each other. This is the work of the Lord
Jesus Christ. It's a great work and so we see
when we come to this book of Leviticus and it's gospel. It's
an Old Testament gospel book. It's full. of the Lord Jesus
Christ. But what riches there are, what
different types and figures are scattered throughout the book
of Leviticus. But here we see that great truth,
and I want to emphasize out the doctrine of substitution, even
with regards to this scapegoat that he's not going to be sacrificed.
Now Aaron is to 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. But let us in the second place
say something more particular with regards to the truth of
separation the dismissal of sin and separation from sin. What is the consequence of our
sin? Doesn't sin bring separation from God? Or God created man and made him
in his own image, created him after his own likeness. It is
so obvious that man was created to enjoy God, to be in fellowship
with God. All that was made is for thyself
says Augustine. Our souls are restless till they
find their rest in thee. Men try to fill their lives with
all manner of things. The things of this world, materialism,
it's all around us. And yet when people come to leave
this earthly state, they can take none of those possessions
with them. All the things that are seen are temporal things.
It's the unseen things that are the eternal things. And what
can a man give in exchange for his soul? No man is made for God. And what
is sin, it's separation. And we see it, we made some reference
to it this morning there in In the account of the fall of our
first parents, in Genesis 3, when Adam and Eve sinned, what
do they do? God comes into the garden as is his will. It was
paradise, it was a place of communion with God and they sinned, they'd
broken God's commands. And they seek to hide themselves,
no more. No more do they want fellowship
with God. They're in a state now of alienation
from God. And that's the condition of all
men by nature, enmity. And then sadly right at the end
of that chapter of course we see how God puts them out of
the garden, drives them out of the garden. And he puts cherubims
at the gate of that garden. Those mighty angels, they're
there to ensure that man does not go and partake of that tree
of life. Man is banished now from God's
presence. That's what sin does. It brings
separation. Your iniquities have separated
between you and your God, and your sins have hid His face from
you. Surely, each of us must know something
of that if we know anything of the law. when we sin and we know
we've sinned oh how shameful it is how can we ever turn again
to God how can we ever enter into into fellowship with God
we feel our sin and it causes that awful sense of distance
God is away from us and we're away from God separation and
that is of course the experience of that sinner who has been awakened
there is a sense of separation when the sinner is awakened by
nature all are dead in trespasses and sins they have no thought of God They blissfully go on their way
in their ignorance, not realizing that they are culpable in all
their sins and that they will ultimately be called to give
account concerning their condition. God made man upright. They have
sought out many inventions. God is not the author of sin. No, the sinner is culpable. and he must ultimately give his
account on to God all but when the sinner is awakened when the
sinner is awakened we see it in the experience of Saul of
Tarsus and what a man was this he was a pharisee he was the
son of a pharisee he lived the life of a pharisee touching the
righteousness which is of the law he reckoned himself to be
blameless he was the most religious man But he was all of himself. It wasn't a work of God in his
soul. It was all of himself. It was all man-made religion.
And then we see that man as he's brought under conviction of sin.
And remember the words of the Lord Jesus there in Acts chapter
9. Saul, Saul, he says, Why persecutest
thou me? It is hard for thee to kick against
the pricks. All his conscience, you see,
is awakened. His conscience is goading him.
He's on the conviction of sin. There's no doubt about it. That's
what the Lord is saying. That's what the Lord is saying.
He was once unaware. He tells us how all have sinned
and come short of the glory of God. That's the writing of the
same man when he is Paul the Apostle. He knows what men are
by nature, that they're dead in trespasses and sins. How plainly
he speaks of these things. Those remarkable words that we
have at the beginning of Ephesians chapter 2. And he includes himself,
doesn't he? He says, he's writing to the
Ephesians of course, and he says speaks in the second person,
you at the quickened who were dead in trespasses and sins,
wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this
world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the
spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience, among
whom also we all had our conversation in times
past in the lust of our flesh fulfilling the desires of the
flesh and of the mind and were by nature the children of wrath
even as others." See how it changes? Now he speaks in the first person
and he includes himself, all of us. We all had our conversation
in times past in the lust of our flesh fulfilling the desires
of the flesh and of the mind and were by nature children of
wrath. That's what he was. Or he was a sinner. And what
is sin? Sin is of the creature. Sin is
of the creature. Adam and Eve, they sinned. But
the sense of sin, that's not of the creature. Where there
is that real sense of sin, it comes from God. It's the work
of God, the Holy Spirit. And that's why we sang those
words this morning in the 89th hymn. The sinner is a sacred
thing, the Holy Ghost has made him so. New life from him we
must receive, before for sin we rightly grieve. But where
there is that awakening, there is that grieving. All sin is
an awful burden. to the awakened sinner and how he feels it how his conscience
you see now is a tender conscience and that's what Paul was brought
to what was his desire I exercise myself he says to have always
a conscience void of offense before God and man every time the believer sins
doesn't he feel something of compunction in his own conscience Now we see it in the lives of
the godly as we have the record of their lives laid before us
here in Holy Scripture. When we read the Psalms, look
at David's language. My sin is ever before me, he
says. Against thee the only have I
sinned and done this evil in thy sight. Now he feels what
sin is, it's that that separates him. it separates him from God,
it separates God from him and though he had been guilty of
sin with Bathsheba and though he had sinned so wickedly against
Uriah he is the man who is guilty guilty of adultery, guilty of
murder but how he feels it in his conscience now is sin before
him and his sin is something that he has guilty of before
God, not before man. There is no soundness in my flesh,
he cries out, because of thine anger, neither is there any rest
in my bones because of my sin. Have we ever known that, to feel
sin in our very bones? It's so much part and parcel
of us. It's in our flesh, it's in our
bones, we can't escape it. Oh, it's that that is so bound
up with our own nature, is it not? In us that is in our flesh. There dwelleth no good thing. And we feel it. And we feel it
because it affects our relationship with God. It causes a separation. God's at a distance from us now.
Even believers. Even believers will know something
of that compunction. The guy in the hymn writer says,
it's so plainly to cease in smarts but slightly to own with lip
confession is easier still. But oh, to feel cuts deep beyond
expression. What do we know of that feeling
religion? And we feel sin to be such a
terrible thing. And yet it's a blessed feeling
The strange paradox of the Christian's life. Why? The more we feel what
sin is. And it's all about us in this
fallen world, but it's that sin that is within us that causes
us so much grief. But does it not make us long
and yearn for a better place? Heaven. That holy happy place
where sin no more defiles. Where God unveils his blissful
face and looks and loves and smiles. Or it makes us yearn
after heaven because sin won't be there nothing unclean can
enter into that blessed abode but sin is that that brings separation
but what do we read here concerning the scapegoat There has been
that imputing of the sin to the scapegoat as it was also reckoned
to the account of the sin offering, the goat that was sacrificed. This goat now is taken, sent
away by the hand of a fit man into the wilderness. And the
goat shall bear upon him all their iniquities into a land
not inhabited. and he shall let go the goat
in the wilderness. All other sin is removed. Now
how is this? Well it's because of the experience
of the Lord Jesus Christ when he was made sin for his people. Didn't the Lord Jesus Christ
in a sense know a separation? When he made that awful cry from
the cross My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? What a mystery. What a mystery
there is in the dying of the Lord Jesus Christ. Everything's
mystery. When we think of Christ, the
mystery of his birth. The great mystery of godliness. The God was manifest in the flesh. God contracted to a span incomprehensibly
made man but there's a mystery in his dying because although
God manifest in the flesh he is never anything less than the
eternal son of God there is never any division in the Godhead God
is one one in essence Oh yes, three persons, God the Father,
God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. But always one. And even when
the Lord makes that awful cry, My God, My God, why hast thou
forsaken me? There's a mystery there. Because
surely He experienced something of what's set before us with
regards to the consequence of sin, separation from God. And
yet by that experience, now all that separation, all the cause
of that separation between God and the sinner is gone. The sinner
is reconciled. All those sins have been dispatched,
removed. You know the language of the
Scriptures, Psalm 103 verse 12, as far as the east is from the
west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us. Oh,
that's infinitum. That's infinitum. As far as the
east is from the west, north and south, as we know, are fixed
points on the compass, but not east and west. You can't measure
the distance between the east and the west. And that's how
far God has removed all the transgressions of His people. They are separated
from their sins. For thou hast cast all my sins
behind thy back, says Isaiah. Isaiah 38, 17. Thou hast cast
all my sins behind thy back. They're gone. God no more sees
those sins. They're hid from His eyes. Again, in the language of Micah
7.19, they will cast all their sins into the depths of the sea. They're buried. Or they're buried
in the great depths of the oceans. They're gone. And then, there's
that remarkable statement that we find in the book of the prophet
in Jeremiah. Jeremiah chapter 50. and verse 20, one of those great
texts of Holy Scripture. In those days, and in that time,
saith the Lord, the iniquity of Israel shall be sought for,
and there shall be none. And the sins of Judah, and they
shall not be found, and I will pardon them whom I reserve."
Well, that's separation. That separation from all our
sins, they're all gone. They're all gone. And it's all typified here in
the escape. Now Aaron lays both his hands
upon the head of that live goat and confesses 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, it says. A fit
man, a strong man, a man who can take this animal far into
the wilderness and the goat shall bear upon him all their iniquities
into a land not inhabited and he shall let go the goats in
the wilderness. What is this land not inhabited?
Well, the margin tells us here the Hebrew literally means into
a land of separation. The goat shall bear upon him
all their iniquities into a land of separation. Gone. All they're
gone. What a wonder it is. And what
does it set before us in type? It sets before us that great
work of the Lord Jesus. We sang just now that hymn of
Top Ladies, that wonderful hymn on the atonement. And the last
verse, Turn then, my soul, unto thy rest the merits of thy great
High Priest, be peace and liberty, trust in his efficacious blood,
nor fear thy banishment from God since Jesus died for thee
or those for whom Christ died need fear no banishment why their
sins have been banished from them and banished from them forever
oh God grant that we might know that we we have an interest in
these great truths the doctrine of substitutionary atonement,
the precious truth of the separation of all our sins from us. Oh,
the Lord be pleasing to bless His Word to us tonight. Amen.