Today’s Scripture: Leviticus 16:22

“The goat shall bear all their iniquities on itself to a remote area.”

The greatest scapegoat in all of history is the Lord Jesus Christ.

The word is never used of him in the Bible, but it is used of a male goat in the Old Testament sacrificial system which pictured the one great sacrifice of Jesus in his death. Each year this elaborate system of sacrifices reached its climax on the great day of atonement, when two male goats were selected.

One was to be killed and its blood sprinkled on and before the mercy seat in the Most Holy Place where God symbolically dwelt (Leviticus 16:15-19). This goat’s death as a sacrifice to God symbolized our Lord’s propitiatory sacrifice for us on the cross.

The priest would lay his hands on the head of the second goat “and confess over it all the iniquities of the people of Israel, and all their transgressions, all their sins.” Then the goat would be led “away into the wilderness,” never to be seen again. This goat was called the scapegoat because all the guilt of the people was symbolically transferred to it, and their sins carried away into the desert (verses 20-22).

The death of the first goat symbolized the means of propitiating the wrath of God through the death of an innocent victim substituted in the sinner’s place. The sending away of the second goat set forth the effect of this propitiation, the complete removal of the sins from the presence of the holy God and from his people.

Since both goats represented Christ, we may say Christ became our scapegoat, bearing the guilt of our sins in his propitiatory sacrifice and by that act bearing them away from the presence of his holy Father. (Excerpt taken from The Gospel for Real Life)

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