Jesus, the Old Testament, and the Scapegoat
Jesus tells us in Matthew 5 that he did not come to destroy the law, but to fulfill it. Jesus not only fulfilled the law by keeping it perfectly, but he also fulfilled all of the types found in the Old Testament. In Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection the rituals, actions, and other elements of the Old Testament are shown to take on deeper meaning as types that point forward to Jesus and are fulfilled in him. One of these rituals is the scapegoat. So how does Jesus relate to the scapegoat?
The Ritual of the Day of Atonement
The Day of Atonement was a yearly ritual during which the sins of the nation of Israel were atoned for and the tabernacle (later the temple) was cleansed of all of the uncleanness of Israel (Leviticus 16:33-34). This was also the one day in the year during which the high priest was allowed to enter the holy of holies in the tabernacle. During the Day of Atonement rituals the high priest had to make various sacrifices on his own behalf and on behalf of the nation, while the nation as a whole was required to acknowledge the day with fasting and abstaining from work (Leviticus 16:31; 23:26-32).
While many elements of the Day of Atonement are similar to the standard daily sacrifices or to other holy feast days, there was one element that was completely unique to the Day of Atonement: the throwing of lots for the two goats. Two perfect goats were brought to the high priest who would then cast lots to determine which goat would become a burnt offering to the Lord and which would be sent to Azazel (the wilderness, a place of destruction). This second goat which was sent into the wilderness is commonly known as the scapegoat (Leviticus 16:9-10).
The Role of the Scapegoat
After offering the first goat on the altar as a burnt offering to the Lord, the high priest would then press both of his hands onto the head of the scapegoat and confess over it the sins of the nation of Israel. In doing so the high priest was, in a ritualistic manner, transferring the sins of the nation onto the scapegoat. The scapegoat was then taken out of the camp into the wilderness, presumably for it to die there Leviticus (16:20-22).
What may seem to some a strange ritual was for the people of God a necessary act in order for them to remain the people of God. For God to continue dwelling among His people, physically represented by His glory in the tabernacle, the sin of the people had to be removed. God is holy and those who would be his people must be cleansed from sin (Leviticus 16:30). This was the role of the scapegoat: to take on itself the sins of the people of God and to remove them from the camp. The sins, embodied in the scapegoat, were sent outside of the camp, into the wilderness to be destroyed.
The wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23), but God in His grace provided to His people a way for their sins to be removed from His presence. It is because of the scapegoat that the people could continue dwelling in the presence of God and could continue being the people of God.
Jesus, the Final Scapegoat
The Day of Atonement as a whole serves as a type and foreshadowing of Jesus. Jesus is the fulfillment of the Day of Atonement: he is the true tabernacle of God (John 1:14), our high priest (Hebrews 4:14), his blood cleanses once for all unlike the blood of animals (Hebrews 10:8-10), and he is also the final and ultimate scapegoat.
As the scapegoat was taken outside of the camp and into the wilderness, Jesus was taken outside of Jerusalem to be crucified. The high priest pressed his hands against the scapegoat and confessed the sins of the nation over it, transferring those sins to the scapegoat. We in faith, pressing ourselves against Jesus as it were, confess our sins and cast them upon Jesus (1 John 1:9). Because the scapegoat removed the nation’s sins from God’s presence, the people of Israel could continue dwelling with God’s presence in their midst. It is because Jesus takes our sins upon himself and cleanses us by his blood that we can live in the presence of God and, even more amazingly, the Spirit of God can dwell within us (Romans 8:11).
The New and the Old
We no longer need to send a goat into the wilderness every year – the old has passed away and the new is here (Hebrews 8:13). In the old covenant God instituted the ritual of the scapegoat to remove the sins of Israel. The new covenant does away with the scapegoat ritual because Jesus fulfills it completely and finally. In the new covenant God has provided a final scapegoat: Jesus Christ, who became sin for our sake, bearing the penalty of sin in himself so that we might become the children of God (2 Corinthians 5:21).
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