God Forgives and Removes Sin

This was the Day of Atonement. In chapter 16 God used the word “atonement” 15 times as He spoke about that day. God gave Aaron rituals to make atonement for himself and his family (vv. 6,11,17), for the holy place (vv. 16,20), for the altar (v. 18,20,33), for the tent of meeting as a whole (v. 20), and for all the people (vv. 24,33). Why was atonement so important? We sin. Therefore, atonement for sin is necessary in order for us to be in God’s presence, and being in God’s presence is important. Atonement is doing what God says is necessary to reconcile us to Him. In the old covenant period God said to atone for sin through the sacrifices and ceremonies He prescribed.

Sacrificial atonement for sin is necessary because of God’s justice. Since God is just, He must punish sin. God commanded Israelite judges to be just, clearing the innocent and punishing the guilty (Exod 23:6-8; Deut 1:16-17). In one of King Solomon’s prayers, he expressed his confidence that God is just, “condemning the wicked man by bringing what he has done on his own head and providing justice for the righteous by rewarding him according to his righteousness” (1 Kings 8:32). A judge who lets a guilty person go free with no punishment for his wrongdoing is not a good judge; he is not upholding justice. However, God must let guilty people go free if He is going to save guilty sinners like us. God is merciful and loving, so He doesn’t want us to perish for our sin. So how can the justice of God and the mercy of God be reconciled?

Atonement for sin through sacrifice is God’s answer to the tension between His justice and mercy. God expressed His justice against sin in the death of the sacrifice, and God expressed His mercy to the sinner by allowing the sacrifice to substitute for the sinner. The sacrifice died, not the sinner. God’s penalty for sin was applied, but it was applied to the sacrifice, not the guilty. The old covenant sacrifices atoned for sin, they taught the world the meaning of sacrificial atonement, and they prepared the world for the sacrifice of Jesus. When Jesus died on the cross for our sins He provided the final, perfect, once-for-all sacrificial atonement for sin. Thank God, He offers us atonement for sin!

God Offers Removal of Sin

On the Day of Atonement, the high priest offered a bull and ram as sacrifices for sin. He also burned incense on the altar of incense. Third, he offered two goats as sacrifices—one was killed and the other remained alive. The living sacrifice was unique to the Day of Atonement. It appears only here in Leviticus 16. Verses 8, 10, and 26 have the word “azazel.” Azazel is the Hebrew word, and some English translations reproduce that word (HCSB, ESV, RSV, NRSV). The meaning of azazel is uncertain. Some interpreters take it as a place name—the goat took the sins of the people to Azazel (Rooker, Leviticus, 216–17). Others take the word as a name for a demon or the Devil himself—the goat took the sins of the people to Azazel, to the demonic, where sins belong (Gane, Leviticus, Numbers, 290–91). Some English translations have the word “scapegoat” (NASB, NIV, KJV, NKJV). The word scapegoat was introduced in William Tyndale’s English translation of the Bible in the early sixteenth century. Tyndale, along with some translators today, took the Hebrew word to mean something like “goat of removal,” or “goat that departs,” and in the context of the Day of Atonement the goat departed with sin; he removed sin from the camp (Rooker, Leviticus, 216).

We use the word scapegoat all the time to refer to somebody who takes the blame for wrongdoing. I once saw a comic strip that pictured two employees. The first employee had worked on a project that was a total failure, and the company suffered losses because of his blunder. He decided he was going to tell the boss that the second employee had caused the losses. The second employee confronted him and insisted on his innocence. The first employee told him, “I never said it was your fault; I said I was going to blame you!” He made an important distinction—fault and blame are not necessarily the same. In common conversation a scapegoat is someone who bears the blame but not fault. People blame him for something he did not do. The scapegoat received the sins of the people on the Day of Atonement. Verse 21 says the high priest would

lay both his hands on the head of the live goat and confess over it all the Israelites’ wrongdoings and rebellious acts—all their sins. He is to put them on the goat’s head and send it away into the wilderness.

The high priest put the sins of the people on the goat. The goat would bear the sins of others; he was a scapegoat. In verse 21 (NASB) God used all three of the primary words for sin in the Old Testament—iniquities, transgressions, and sins—as if to stack up all the wrongdoing God’s people had committed throughout the year. All of it was placed on the scapegoat when the priest laid his hands on his head. Verse 22 says that when the goat went away, he was carrying their sin, symbolizing the removal of sin from the people. What a beautiful symbol of a beautiful truth. God offers removal of sin.

I was 13 years old when I first put my faith in Jesus as Savior. The moment I trusted Him to save me and forgive me, I felt a burden lifted from my shoulders. The feeling was so real that it was almost a physical sensation. I knew that at that moment God had forgiven me of all my past sin. He took it away, off my shoulders. Many followers of Jesus attest to the same feeling—the wonderful sensation of God forgiving and removing sin.

Psalm 103, verse 12 says, “As far as the east is from the west so far has He removed our transgressions from us.” East and west are not locations; they are directions. If we started traveling in an eastward direction on a flat plane, conceivably we could keep traveling until we left the surface of the earth and started traveling through space. We could travel in that direction for billions of light years, and we could do the same thing if we traveled west. If two people traveled in opposite directions at the same time, the distance between them would be billions and billions of light years. That is removing our sin “as far as the east is from the west.” After God removes our sin, He no longer sees our sin when He looks at us. He has removed our sin as far as the east is from the west. Praise His name, God offers to remove our sin! Do we ask God to remove it?

Jesus Is God’s Offer of Atonement and Removal of Sin

God gave the ceremonies of the Day of Atonement to atone for the sin of His people who lived in the old covenant period. God also gave the ceremonies of the Day of Atonement to point to the final sacrifice of Jesus on the cross and to teach the meaning of His sacrifice.

The ninth and tenth chapters of the book of Hebrews describe in detail how Jesus’ death on the cross supersedes the Day of Atonement and all the old covenant sacrifices. Hebrews says that on the Day of Atonement the high priest offered the blood of animals; Jesus offered His own blood, and since He is eternal His atonement for our sins is eternal (Heb 9:12). The high priest entered an earthly tent; Jesus offered His sacrifice in the presence of God Himself (9:24). The high priest offered sacrifices for his own sins (Lev 16:6,11,17; Heb 9:7); Jesus had no sin so He was the perfect high priest and the perfect sacrifice (Heb 7:26-27). The high priest had to offer sacrifices repeatedly; Jesus offered Himself as a sacrifice once for all eternity (9:25-26; 10:11-12). The writer of Hebrews concluded that the old covenant sacrifices were “a shadow of the good things to come” (10:1), and Jesus has abolished the old covenant and established the new covenant in His sacrifice on the cross (8:13; 10:9).

Jesus is God’s offer of atonement and removal of sin. That is the teaching of the New Testament and it is the gospel the church has always preached. Throughout the history of Christianity, the theology of the church has been expressed in the songs we sing in worship. For example, in the song “The Power of the Cross,” Keith Getty and Stuart Townend express the biblical truth of the substitutionary atonement of Jesus on the cross. Substitutionary atonement means that Jesus died in the place of sinners, taking on Himself our sin and God’s righteous wrath against sin. As 2 Corinthians 5:21 puts it, “He made the One who did not know sin to be sin for us, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” As 1 Peter 3:18 says, “For Christ also suffered for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, that He might bring you to God.” Jesus died in our place for our sins. That’s worth singing about! God’s righteous wrath against our sin was satisfied through the death of Jesus on the cross. The New Testament word “propitiation” expresses the truth of the satisfaction of God’s wrath against sin. First John 4:10 says, “Love consists in this: not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” Thank God that He doesn’t compromise His holiness or His love, and He has expressed His perfect wrath and His perfect love on the cross so we can be free of sin and reconciled to Him! Jesus is God’s offer of atonement and removal of sin.

We Confess and Come to Jesus for Reconciliation with God

Leviticus 16:21 says part of the scapegoat ritual was confession of sin. The reason for the existence of the ritual was the existence of the sin of the people. To be free of sin they had to confess sin. So do we. The reason for the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross was our sin, and to be reconciled to God we confess our sin and our need for the salvation from sin Jesus offers. It seems strange, but many people are reluctant to confess sin to God. Voicing their sins in prayer to God makes them feel more guilty, not less. They sometimes choose to ignore their sin and attempt to forget about it so they will not feel as guilty. Yet, when we refrain from confessing we are refraining from the very thing that is necessary to free us from our sin and guilt.

When we sin, and all of us sin, what do we do to be reconciled to God? Many people ask that question, and no question is more important. To be reconciled to God we tell the Lord we have sinned and we know sin has separated us from Him. Thank the Lord that He loves us and has provided a way for our sin to be forgiven and removed! We tell Him that we believe He came as Jesus, God the Son, He died on the cross for our sin, He rose again on the third day, and He is alive today to save us. Then we ask Him to come into our lives, forgive our sin, and give us life abundant and eternal. Praise His name, He will do that!

To be reconciled to God we do not have to enlist a priest to go to God for us. In the old covenant period only the high priest could go into the most holy place only once each year, on the Day of Atonement. However, when Jesus died on the cross the veil that separated the most holy place from the holy place was torn from top to bottom, symbolizing the fact that in Jesus all God’s people have access to the very presence of God. So as Hebrews 4:16 puts it, “Therefore let us approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us at the proper time.” In this new covenant age, because of God’s grace in Jesus, He welcomes us into His presence not merely one day per year, but every day of our lives.

Reflect and Discuss