Jesus: Our Scapegoat
Leviticus 16

Baxter T. Exum (#1781)
Four Lakes Church of Christ
Madison, Wisconsin
April 27, 2025

Good morning and welcome! We are glad to have you with us this morning, and if you are visiting with us today (either here in person or online or on the phone), we’d like to ask that you fill out a visitor card – either online or on a card from the pew in front of you. And we also invite you to pass along any questions or prayer concerns in that way.

As we get started this morning, I need your help! For many years, I have asked for input concerning the sermons I preach every week. One of the most difficult aspects of preaching is deciding what to preach on week after week, month after month, year after year. The Bible is a huge book of 1,189 chapters. It is impossible to cover everything, and so I need your help in narrowing our focus a bit. As usual, I have tried to give a card to everybody here today. If I have missed you, there are extras on the wall in the entryway, and you can also send an email to fourlakeschurch@gmail.com. But I am asking: What do we need to study in sermon form? Do you have a favorite passage, a challenging passage, a favorite book of the Bible that we haven’t studied for a while? Are there topics we need to consider? What are you struggling with right now? If you were to bring a friend with you to worship, what would they need to hear? Is there a scripture you disagree with? I’m hoping to head toward either a Bible class or a sermon series on marriage, so I’ve included that on here as well. So, what do we need to study concerning marriage?

And then, in addition to this, Caleb talked to me last week, asking that we collect song requests. An awesome idea! In our discussion in the entryway last week, I think we were guessing that we may only sing maybe around 20% of the songs in our book. And then we have others available in the Beaver Creek Bible Camp songbooks, and we have an unlimited number of songs available to us online. So, we would invite you to flip through the Beaver Creek books (under the back pew), and if you have a favorite song, let us know. There’s actually a song request feature on our website. If you are a member of the congregation, you should have an account on our website, and this is in the member section under the “Song Tracker” heading. All of the songs in the Praise for the Lord books and in our Beaver Creek books are right there in a pull down menu in alphabetical order, and you can request a song right there.

But especially on the sermon side of this, I would ask you to at least get something to me this morning. I know that if I don’t get these back today, there is a slim chance of ever seeing these again. I’ve learned this in over 30 years of preaching. Give me something now, and if you’d like to think about it, take another card or message me later. I am asking for your name on these. I will never say, “John requested today’s lesson,” unless, of course, I ask John’s permission to share that, but I can’t even imagine that scenario. However, I would appreciate knowing who you are: 1.) I may not be able to read your handwriting, 2.) I might like to clarify something, 3.) I might try to reschedule a lesson if I know you’ll be out of town, and 4.) If it’s something that’s too in-depth for a Sunday morning lesson or if the question is important to you but of such narrow scope that it may not apply to too many people directly, I may be able to share some resources privately. But, your questions have definitely shaped my preaching over our past 25 years together, and I would really appreciate your input going forward. Thank you in advance!

As we get started this morning, we have the awesome privilege of sharing the good news that God loves us and sent his only Son to this earth to save us. He died on the cross in our place, he was buried, and he was raised up on the third day. We obey this good news by believing it, by turning away from sin, by confessing Jesus as the Son of God, and by calling out to God for a good conscience in the act of baptism, an immersion in water for the forgiveness of our sins. At this point, we are born into God’s family, and we are raised up to live a new life from that point forward. And as our custom has been, we are sharing what this looks like, starting today with an update from a “Dr. Thomas” who lives in Freeport, New York. Dr. Thomas posted these pictures this week, and he says, “Welcome Akera to The Way! She said yes to Jesus! The Gospel saves!!!”

Due to time constraints, I’ll just share one more this morning, but it’s actually several. This comes to us from the Warm Springs Road congregation in Columbus, Georgia. They posted this week, and they say that, “God is working behind every wall. After an extended time of study and sharing the gospel, our Deacon of Outreach, Daylen Stone, baptized six young men at the Muscogee County Youth Detention Center yesterday. These young men made the decision to put on Christ in baptism after weeks of learning, questioning, and growing in faith. Please keep them in your prayers as they begin this new journey in Christ. Heaven is rejoicing!” That is awesome, and we share this as our invitation: If you are ready to respond to God’s love as we have been instructed in scripture, and if we can help with that in any way, we invite you to get in touch. You can send a message to info@fourlakeschurch.org, you can give me a call or send a text to 608-224-0274, or you can simply pull me aside after worship this morning, and we would love to help in any way possible.

I don’t know whether you have noticed this, but we have had some goats in the news lately here in Madison. Last September, I actually saw this myself. On my way over here to worship just after 5 a.m. last September 8, I was coming up Stoughton Road, and when I crossed Buckeye, I saw some cops surrounding the Kwik Trip. No surprise there! But I thought I saw some creatures milling around the car wash. Well, those creatures were goats! They use goats to deal with the vegetation in the nearby park, and those goats had escaped and were hoping for the Ultimate Wash down at Kwik Trip. The cops got involved and helped coral the goats in and around the car wash.

This morning, as we pay special attention to the Lord’s Supper, I’d like to invite you to turn with me to Leviticus 16 as we study a rather unusual part of the Law of Moses concerning an animal that we now describe as a SCAPEGOAT. And today, we may not understand the origin of this term, but most people do understand the concept. A scapegoat is someone who takes the blame for something. When we fail at something, we tend to want to blame somebody. And this goes all the way back to the Garden of Eden. Adam blamed Eve, and Eve blamed the serpent. So also today: Yes, I know I missed this deadline at work, but that guy over there didn’t get his part of the project done on time. Politicians are really good at this. If there’s a scandal of some kind, somebody’s getting fired, and it may not the person who is truly responsible, but often the blame will fall on a scapegoat.

Well, the concept of a scapegoat goes all the way back to Leviticus 16, and it’s tied to the Day of Atonement, the most holy day in the Jewish calendar, and it was the day that all sins for an entire year were forgiven all at once. I would encourage you to turn with me to Leviticus 16, but to summarize, the people were to assemble together, and Aaron (the high priest) had to start by sacrificing a bull for his own sins. Aaron had to approach God to sacrifice for the people in the Most Holy Place (the back room of the tabernacle), but Aaron had sinned, so before he could sacrifice on behalf of the people, Aaron had to start by dealing with his own sin.

Some of you know that I helped our daughter with some yard work this week, and in the process, I ran into some poison ivy. I was cutting up some pallets to burn, I was going at it with a Milwaukee M18 circular saw, sawdust and sweat was flying everywhere, and lo and behold I looked around and I was surrounded by leaves of three! I whipped out the phone and identified the plant on Google, and there was an 85% chance that I was in trouble. Well, how do you wash poison ivy off of one arm when it’s all over your other arm? That’s quite a predicament. Well, so also, Aaron was in a predicament. We have a sinner offering a sacrifice for the sins of the people. This is like getting work done by an unlicensed electrician. This is like learning to drive from somebody who doesn’t know how to drive. So, before offering a sacrifice for the sins of the people, Aaron first had to wash himself and put on a simple linen garment, he had to offer some incense so that the Most Holy Place would be filled with smoke, he had to slaughter this bull and sprinkle the blood in various places, and all of this was to deal with his own sin. Then, at some point in this process he had to select two goats for the people.

At this point, I’m wondering: Why goats and not sheep? Often sheep were sacrificed (for personal sin), but on the Day of Atonement, Aaron was to find two goats (for the sin of the entire nation). Sheep and goats are similar, but slightly different. Goats are a bit more independent. Goats are more curious and more likely to escape from a pen and to wander. We think about Jesus’ picture of the judgment in Matthew 25, where he speaks of separating the sheep from the goats. The sheep represent the saved, and the goats represent those who are lost: sheep to the right and goats to the left.

Well here, Aaron is to find two goats. And notice (in Leviticus 16:15), “Then he shall slaughter the goat of the sin offering which is for the people, and bring its blood inside the veil and do with its blood as he did with the blood of the bull, and sprinkle it on the mercy seat and in front of the mercy seat.” This first goat, then, was a “sin offering...for the people.” The blood of this first goat covered the sins of the people. The blood of this first goat made the people “at one” with God. Remember: This was the “Day of Atonement,” or the “Day of At-One-Ment,” as we sometimes say. The blood of this first goat satisfied God’s wrath (in a sense) for another year.

But what about the second goat? If sin has already been atoned through the sacrifice of Goat #1, then why the need for Goat #2? Well, the second goat is just as important as the first, and here’s why (in Leviticus 16:21-22). God says through Moses, “Then Aaron shall lay both of his hands on the head of the live goat, and confess over it all the iniquities of the sons of Israel and all their transgressions in regard to all their sins; and he shall lay them on the head of the goat and send it away into the wilderness by the hand of a man who stands in readiness. The goat shall bear on itself all their iniquities to a solitary land; and he shall release the goat in the wilderness.” The way I see it, the sacrifice of the first goat was somewhat private (taking place in the tabernacle), but what happens here with the second goat is incredibly public. So, yes, the sins have been forgiven (through the blood of the first goat), and the people are okay with God for another year, but this second goat seems to relieve not the PUNISHMENT for sin, but the GUILT of sin. You know, sometimes we may do something against somebody, and we may be forgiven for it, but don’t we sometimes still feel guilty because of it? The way I see it, the second goat, the scapegoat, was intended to illustrate God removing the guilt of sin. I’m thinking of Psalm 103:12, where David says that, “As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us.” So, it’s not that our transgressions are removed from GOD here, but it’s that God has removed our transgressions from US. So also the scapegoat symbolically removes the sins of the people and takes those sins out into the wilderness.

By the way, there’s been some really bizarre speculation concerning what this goat is called, and some of you may have some footnotes on this in various translations. And part of the challenge is that the word is only found three times and all three are right here in Leviticus 16, so we have nothing to compare it to. In Hebrew, the word is “AZAZEL.” Some have suggested that this is the name of a place out in the wilderness somewhere. Others have suggested that this is the personal name of some kind of demon goat god, and it just gets weirder from there. However, the word “scapegoat” (in English) was basically invented by William Tyndale, and it’s a shortened form of “ESCAPE GOAT,” because in Hebrew, that word “AZAZEL” is a compound word coming from the word “goat” and the the verb “to go away.” So, we are really talking here about the “go away goat,” or the “scapegoat.”

As we noted in Leviticus 16:21, Aaron was to lay his hands on the head of this goat, and he was to confess the sins of the entire nation over and onto this “go away goat.” And this was public. Aaron would confess out loud, the sins of the people: Adultery, and murder, and theft, and profanity, and hatred, and greed, and jealousy, and lust, and covetousness, and every way that anybody had ever offended God over the past year. And this goat was to then be led out quite publicly into the wilderness, never to be seen again.

Conclusion:

So what? What does this really mean for us? I hope we understand that Jesus perfectly fulfills the role that both of these goats played back in Leviticus: 1.) Jesus paid the penalty for our sins, and 2.) Jesus also takes our sins away (he removes the guilt of our sin). His blood atones for our sin before God, but his sacrifice also carries our sins far away, “as far as the east is from the west.” Yes, Jesus died on the cross for our sins, but to get there he was led away outside the city gates. In fact, in John 19:15, as Jesus stands before Pilate, do you remember the first thing the crowd cries out? Pilate says to the crowd, “Behold, your King!” How did the crowd respond to that? You may say that they cried out “Crucify Him!” And they did, but before that, they first cried out, “Away with Him! Away with Him!” I can’t help but wonder whether those who were familiar with Leviticus 16 would have thought about the scapegoat, “Away with Him! Away with Him!” No wonder so many of the priests obeyed the gospel in those opening chapters of Acts. They knew! They knew that Jesus was God’s scapegoat. Just as that goat was led from the tabernacle, through the crowds, and into the wilderness, so also Jesus was led from the temple, through the crowds, and outside the city gate to the cross, not only to face the wrath of God, but also to take away our sin.

As Paul says in Ephesians 5:2, we are to “...walk in love, just as Christ also loved you and gave Himself up FOR US, an offering and a sacrifice TO GOD as a fragrant aroma.” Christ sacrificed himself “for us,” but he also offered himself up “to God.” He was the sacrifice, but he was also the scapegoat, as John said in John 1:29, he is “...the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!”

This morning, then, as we pay special attention to the Lord’s Supper, Caleb plans on leading us in a series of songs where we sing about Jesus not only bearing our sins, but also taking our sins away.

    • Living, He loved me; dying He saved me;
      buried, He carried my sins far away.
    • ‘Till on that cross as Jesus died,
      the wrath of God was satisfied,
      for every sin on Him was laid;
      here in the death of Christ I live.
    • A wonderful Savior is Jesus my Lord, he taketh my burden away.
    • Taking my sin, my cross, my shame, rising again I bless your name.
    • O Lamb of God, sweet Lamb of God, I love the holy Lamb of God!
    • Behold the Man upon the cross, my sin upon His shoulders.
      Ashamed I hear my mocking voice call out among the scoffers.
      It was my sin that held Him there until it was accomplished.

Following these songs, Hans will read Isaiah 53 for us, written roughly 700 years before Jesus was born, predicting that Jesus will be a “Man of sorrows.” And in that context, Isaiah will say, “Surely, our griefs he himself bore, and our sorrows he carried,” and “He himself bore the sin of many.”

This morning, we’ve come together to worship the only One who can take our sins away. As we prepare for the Lord’s Supper, let’s remember what he’s done for us. Before we sing, let’s go to God in prayer:

        Our Father in Heaven,

Thank you for loving us and for making a way for us to be released from not only the penalty of sin, but also from the guilt of sin. We come to you this morning, confessing our sins and asking for your forgiveness. We are thankful for Jesus, who bore the weight of our sins and took those sins away.

We ask all of this in Jesus’ name. AMEN.

To comment on this lesson: fourlakeschurch@gmail.com