Digging Deeper: Jesus the Scapegoat

Digging Deeper:

Jesus the Scapegoat

I am sure, just like me, all week you have been hearing about the three days of Easter and the events that revolve around them.  They are great stories filled with great imagery and majesty as they should be, but today I want to take a different approach on Easter.  I want to talk about the why’s of Easter and the symbolism involved therein; more specifically I want to talk about Jesus as the scapegoat.

Before I begin with the symbolism, I need to define what a scapegoat is.  Dictionary.com defines scapegoat as “a person who is blamed for the wrongdoings, mistakes, or faults of others, especially for reasons of expediency.”  In a broader scope, a scapegoat is someone that is punished for what others do, sound familiar? If not it soon will.  We begin in Leviticus chapter 16 where this concept comes about.  We must remember every ritual and practice in the old testament has a main purpose, that main purpose is to point to Jesus, the scapegoat is no exception.  We will begin in verse 5 where Moses begins to instruct Aaron on how to perform the ceremonies for the day of atonement.  Verses 5-10 read; “5 And he shall take from the congregation of the people of Israel two male goats for a sin offering, and one ram for a burnt offering.

6 “Aaron shall offer the bull as a sin offering for himself and shall make atonement for himself and for his house. 7 Then he shall take the two goats and set them before the LORD at the entrance of the tent of meeting. 8 And Aaron shall cast lots over the two goats, one lot for the LORD and the other lot for Azazel. 9 And Aaron shall present the goat on which the lot fell for the LORD and use it as a sin offering, 10 but the goat on which the lot fell for Azazel shall be presented alive before the LORD to make atonement over it, that it may be sent away into the wilderness to Azazel.”

In these verses, we see Aaron given instructions on atoning first for his sins, then the sins of everyone else.  The bullock (Le 16:3) and the goats were for sin offerings and the rams for burnt offerings. The goats, though used in different ways, constituted only one offering. They were both presented before the Lord, and the disposal of them determined by lot, which Jewish writers have thus described: The priest, placing one of the goats on his right hand and the other on his left, took his station by the altar, and cast into an urn two pieces of gold exactly similar, inscribed, the one with the words “for the Lord,” and the other for “Azazel” (the scapegoat). After having well shaken them together, he put both his hands into the box and took up a lot in each: that in his right hand he put on the head of the goat which stood on his right, and that in his left he dropped on the other. In this manner, the fate of each was decided.

 I’m sure at this point you may be scratching your head and even thinking, OK, but what does this have to do with Easter? I’m going to summarize Holman’s Concise Bible Commentary on these verses for better clarity.  What we are seeing in these verses is the greatest act of purification involving the entire nation of Israel. We are witnessing the sacrifices for not only the people of Israel but the sacrifice for the one; whom through seven days of purification is pictured as outwardly perfect.  Once this ritual was performed, the priest then slaughtered one goat as a sin offering for all the people and expelled another goat (the scapegoat) from the camp as a symbol of the removal of sin from the community. Following a whole burnt offering, the camp was purified of the blood and animal remains by ceremonies of bathing and burning outside the camp.

Now to understand how this ties in with Easter we must do a little thematic exposition or the art of tying scripture together with other scripture.  The writer of Hebrews developed images from the Day of Atonement to stress the superiority of Christ’s priesthood (Heb. 8:6; 9:7, 11–26). Hebrews 13:11–12 uses the picture of the bull and goat burned outside the camp as an illustration of Christ’s suffering outside the Jerusalem city walls. According to one interpretation of 2 Corinthians 5:21, Paul alluded to the ritual of the Day of Atonement by speaking of Christ as a sin offering.  Hebrews 9-10 give us an understanding of the parallel between the Day of Atonement and the ministry of Christ. In Hebrews we see the roles of Christ as eternal high priest, perfect animal sacrifice, and his blood's perpetual purging of sin and corruption of the heavenly Tent of Meeting by the sprinkling of his own blood based on the one-time act of his death and ascension into the heavenly throne room of God (Heb. 9:1-10:18).  So, where does the scapegoat come in you might say?  Le 16:20–22: “20 “And when he has made an end of atoning for the Holy Place and the tent of meeting and the altar, he shall present the live goat. 21 And Aaron shall lay both his hands on the head of the live goat and confess over it all the iniquities of the people of Israel, and all their transgressions, all their sins. And he shall put them on the head of the goat and send it away into the wilderness by the hand of a man who is in readiness. 22 The goat shall bear all their iniquities on itself to a remote area, and he shall let the goat go free in the wilderness. “.   By the high priest placing his hands on the head of the goat and confessing the sins of Israel, the priest symbolized the transference of the people's sin to the goat (vv. 20-22). Together the goat sacrificed (Jesus's death on the cross), and the living scapegoat (Jesus is forsaken because of our sins (Mathew 27:46)) is the finality of the Easter holiday. 

I want to finish by talking about why Jesus had to be the scapegoat.  The why can be found all over the Bible, but I want to focus on Galatians chapter 3:10-14:  “10 For all who rely on works of the law are under a curse; for it is written, “Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law and do them.” 11 Now it is evident that no one is justified before God by the law, for “The righteous shall live by faith.” 12 But the law is not of faith, rather “The one who does them shall live by them.” 13 Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree”— 14 so that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promised Spirit through faith.”.  We see Paul making the case that if it was up to us if it was up to our ability to follow the Law of God, we could not do it perfectly (vv. 10-12).  It is for this reason Jesus had to be the scapegoat.  God's Law requires perfection, God cannot be in the presence of sin, therefore Jesus, the only perfect human to ever exist had to take on our sin (vv.13-14).  In theology, we call this the “great exchange”.  The whole of Easter culminates in this one act, Jesus taking the blame for our sins and placing His righteousness, His ability to follow the Law on us.  This is the symbolism of the scapegoat, as Israel’s sin was placed upon the scapegoat and then forced away from the Israelites, so too was our sin placed upon the perfect Lamb of God and then that Lamb was separated for a time from God for our sake. Without Jesus the Scapegoat there is no Easter.