sermonette: Understanding the Azazel Goat

God's Removal of Sin
David C. Grabbe
Given 11-Apr-17; Sermon #1372Bs; 22 minutes

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Today, we are going to continue with Leviticus 16, so please begin turning there. Uh, you may be thinking that the two goats are unusual for unleavened bread but the subject is actually not incongruous. It overlaps very nicely with this week, and especially with what Richard brought out this morning as we will see. Uh, previously we saw that the two goats together make up a single offering for sin. Jesus Christ was the goal of the law, and thus he was the object of the whole system of sacrifices. Every sacrificial animal of an unblemished, substitutionary offering that found its fulfillment in Christ's life or death. We also saw that lots were calf, so the priest would know which goat was to fulfill which role of determined by God. The first goat was for the Lord, meaning that it was to satisfy His justice as a payment for sin. It had a specific purpose, as you can see here in verses 15 through 19. I will not read it, but to summarize, its purpose was to provide a covering of blood for the holy place, the tabernacle, and the altar because of the sin of the people. It was used to purify the holy objects that were used in approaching God, even though the Israelites did not have access to the sanctuary. It was still considered defiled by the sinful nation. God's holiness required purification of those things used to access Him even before Israel's sins were removed. And most of what happened with the first goat and its blood was out of view of the congregation. What was more meaningful to them was what happened with the goat of departure which they could watch as it carried their sins out of sight. So we will see what happens with the live goat beginning in verse 20. And when he had made has made an end of atoning for the holy place, the tabernacle of meeting, and the altar, he shall bring the live goat. Earn shall lay both his hands on the head of the live goat, confess over it all the iniquities of the children of Israel and all their transgressions concerning all their sins, putting them on the head of the goat, and shall send it away into the wilderness by the hand of a suitable man. Now verse 22. The goat shall bear on itself all their iniquities to an uninhabited land, and he shall release the goat in the wilderness. Remember, the first goat symbolizes the payment for sin, and especially for the most holy place, was purified. The second goat shows the complete removal of sin. To understand why the payment for sin only solves part of the problem. Think about what happens when a man breaks a civil law. The state's justice may be served through fines, incarceration, or capital punishment. However, a record of the infraction remains, and the felon's name is tainted. Assuming that the guilty man is not executed, he will face significant challenges from society even after his debt to society is paid. In addition, the fines or jail time will do nothing to truly heal the pain that he has caused others, let alone to cleanse his own conscience. If he happens to receive a pardon so he doesn't have to pay the full penalty, there will still be a cloud over his head and lingering suspicions about his character. And therefore, what is needed is a complete expunging, so that the failures are not only paid for but are also purged or caused to depart from all awareness. Now we can apply this to the breaking of God's law. Christ did not stop with simply cleansing the sanctuary and giving us access to the Father. Imagine having the way opens to the presence of the most high God, but then having to stand before His transcendent radiant purity in all of our shameful defilement. And so our Savior also removes our sins from us as far as east is from the west. He cleanses our evil consciences. Because of Christ's work, we can draw near to God with a true heart in full assurance of faith. Now here in verse 21, Aaron places his hands on the young goat's head. He confesses all the iniquities of the people, putting the sins on the head of the goats. The live goat is a substitutionary sacrifice, taking the place of the nation. Without this, the nation would have to bear its own guilt, but this substitute is used, for the nation can be spared. And verse 22 repeats that the Azaz will bear on itself all the iniquities of the people and remember of the people here. Now in the Messianic prophecy in Isaiah 53, we find a clear fulfillment of the bearing of sins that the live goat did. Please hold your place here and turn with me to Isaiah chapter 53. These are well-known verses. Isaiah 53:1 verse 4. Says surely he has borne, it's the same word borne our griefs and carried our sorrows, yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. I'll drop to verse 11. He shall see the labor of his soul and be satisfied. By his knowledge. My my righteous servants shall justify many, for he shall bear their iniquities. Again, same word. Therefore, I will divide him a portion with the greats, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong because he poured out his soul unto death, and he was numbered with the transgressors, and he bore the sin of many and made intercession for the transgressors. Now the bearing that the Messiah does is also described as acceptance, forgiveness, and pardon. The Hebrew word means to lift up, to carry, and to take away. It is tied to forgiveness because it is as if the sins are being picked up and carried out of sight and out of mind. Christ's bearing of sins goes beyond paying the penalty, and it fits perfectly with one of the meanings of the word azazel, which is complete removal. And that's why here in verse 12, the bearing is linked with intercession. They're not actually the same thing, but the parallel, the parallelism shows that there is an active work in carrying sins until they are completely removed from view. We see the same thing in the New Testament. First Peter 2:24 says, Jesus himself bore our sins in his own body on the tree. Not only did he bear the sins, but it says he did it himself. He did not share that role with anybody. And similarly, Hebrews 9:28 says Christ was offered once to bear the sins of many. His single and singular sacrifice both clenched the sanctuary and bore the sins, the sins of many. Now before he turned back to Leviticus 16, notice verse 8. Isaiah 53:8 says the savior was cut off from the land of the living. Now turn back to Leviticus chapter 16. In verse 22, it says that the goat shall bear on itself all their iniquities to an uninhabited land. The Hebrew word for uninhabited land means a land cut off. The goat bear of the sins to a place that is excluded and empty, and where figuratively they pass from consciousness. The root of the word is used as a description for death and lamentations chapter 3. Remember Isaiah 53 said the Messiah was cut off from the land of the living. Also, Psalm 88 describes the Messiah as being cut off, as well as being put into, it says, a land of forgetfulness. This is all figurative language for the grave where there is no thought or memory where there is no knowledge or device. Christ took our sins to a land cut off, a land of forgetfulness. In our culture, the word forget usually indicates an activity in the mind. However, in Hebrew thought, forgetting goes beyond the mental realm and into the realm of action. In other words, forgetting contains an action that demonstrates that the forgotten thing is no longer a factor. The Hebrew words for forget mean to ignore, neglect, forsake, or willfully disregard. And so regarding the sins that are taken to the land of forgetfulness, God makes a conscious choice to ignore them and to forsake their occurrence, as it were. He disregards them. His actions are not swayed by those past failures. There may still be other effects, but as far as God is concerned, he no longer looks at us through the lens of those transgressions. They have been borne away. Looking again at verses 21 and 22, the scriptures are as plain as day, that the sins being dealt with here are human sins. There is no ambiguity at all. And yet there is a line of thinking that the sins mentioned here are actually Satan's sins, and they are symbolically placed back on his own head. Now that idea is based on the assumption that all sin is ascribed to Satan. However, if we are going to assert that Satan is responsible for all human sin, then all that sin has always been on his head. There is no need for a ceremony to show a transference taking place. In addition, there is no concept of the death penalty being portioned out between different parties. A person is either guilty of a sin or he is not. There is no partial guilt or partial death penalty any more than there is partial pregnancy. It's either one or the other. Now think about this in terms of money. We each incur our own debt when we sin, and the debt is not shared, no matter how it was incurred. If a generous benefactor pays our debt for us, then we are in the clear. But the canceled debt is not transferred to the Flick salesman who suggested that we take on the debt in the first place. The deceiver is responsible for his lies, and we are responsible if we listen to him and make ourselves indebted. Symbolically, the substitutionary animal has sins placed on it that are not its own in order to stand in the place of the guilty party. Satan obviously has his own guilt, so he cannot be a substitute for any one else, nor can he force anyone to sin. The Bible says these are human sins, and it is unnecessary to try to explain away these clear statements. Now please turn with me forward to Colossians chapter 2. Colossians 2 and verse 8. Paul warns against being led astray through philosophy, deceit, and the traditions of men. In Colossians 2:10, he says that we are complete in Christ. The fact that we are considered complete means that we are not waiting for a future event before atonement is finally complete. Atonement has been made for us, which is why we are in Christ, why we are unleavened, and why we have access to the very throne of God. In the future, atonement will also be made for the rest of the world. And it will be made in the same way, just as our atonement did not hinge on Satan being bound, for the atonement of the rest of mankind is also not dependent on Satan's binding. There is only one way of atonement, only one way of salvation. Now, in verses 13 and 14, It says in you being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, he has made alive together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses. Having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us, he has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross. Notice how thorough the wording is here. If it were just a matter of payment being made, that handwritten note of infractions could simply have a check mark next to the ones that had been paid for. And yet the list itself would still be a testimony of what we had done. But Jesus Christ completely wiped it out. Other translations say he erased it, blotted it out, or destroyed it. The record is completely obliterated in God's reckoning. Verse 14 says that Christ has taken it out of the way. If you look up the word for taken, you will discover that it means exactly the same thing as the Hebrew word used for bearing. The live goat lifts up, carries, and takes away the sins that are put on it. And here Jesus Christ lifts up, takes away, and expiates the sins that were against us. It is an exact match to what is said about the good of departure. The bearing of sins and the atoning for sins are what the savior does by the very definition of the word rather than what the adversary does. Please turn with me to Hebrews chapter 9. Hebrews gives the most complete explanation of the sacrificial law. And chapters 9 and 10 are specifically about the Day of Atonement, as we heard. If there were to be any support for Satan being part of man becoming one with God, we would expect it to be found in this explanation. And yet Satan is absent here as well. If the author believed the Izazel was a type of Satan, leaving him out of these chapters would be an incredible oversight. But the only mention of him in this book is in chapter 2 and verse 14, where it simply says that the devil has the power of death. Rather chapters 9 and 10 resound with Christ's work, and it is here that we find even more evidence of Christ's fulfillment of the Azazel. So here in chapter 9, the first few verses describe the earthly sanctuary and its contents. Verse 7 begins to include Leviticus 16 with the mention that the high priest went into the most holy place once a year and always with blood. Verses 11 through 15 show Christ's fulfillment of that cleansing and how he entered the most holy place with His own blood. Verses 22 and through 25 also refer. To purification of the sanctuary by his blood and for lining this up with Leviticus 16, the sanctuary has been cleansed. We are finished with the first goat, and next in the ceremony is the goat of departure. And now look at what the author focuses on beginning in verse 26. He then would have to suffer once since the foundation of the world, but now once at the end of the ages, he has appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. If it is appointed for men to die once, but after this, the judgment, so Christ was offered once to bear the sins of many. To those who eagerly wait for Him, He will appear a second time apart from sin for salvation. So we've moved beyond the purification of the sanctuary, and the very next theme is that Jesus Christ put away sin. The word translated put away means to cancel, and it can also be translated as disinnu. The root of this word has some familiar meanings. It means to neutralize, and it can be translated as cast off, despise, and bring to nothing. And so in addition to cleansing the sanctuary, Jesus Christ's sacrifice put away sin. It cancels the sin and brings it to nothing for those who repent and come under Christ's blood. Verse 28 says that the sacrifice was for the sake of bearing the sins of many. It also says that he will appear a second time apart from sin. If we put ourselves in the sandals of an ancient Israelites, we would be horrified to see that young goat wander back into the camp, because it would signify that all of our sins had come back into view. And yet spiritual Israelites have confidence. That those sins have been completely removed and therefore when our Savior who has fulfilled the Izozel appears again, it is not to bring those sins back into view but to bring salvation. It is a very encouraging verse. I'll continue in chapter 10 verse 1, for the law, having a shadow of the good things to come and not the very image of the things, can never with these same sacrifices which they offer continually year by year make those who approach perfect. For then they would not, for then would they not have ceased to be offered, for the worshippers once purified would have had no more consciousness of sins. But in those sacrifices there is a reminder of sins every year. For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and goats could take away sins. The author is continuing the explanation of the completeness of Christ's sacrifice, and he says that part of the problem with the animal sacrifices was that a consciousness of sins remained. The Israelites went through the ceremony, but spiritually nothing was happening. So he points out that Christ's sacrifice includes the removal of sins from consciousness, which is implied in the role of the Izozel but was not actually accomplished. Along these lines, the author says 3 times that Christ's sacrifice cleanses our conscience. You can find that in chapter 9, verses 9 and 14, and chapter 10, verse 22. Now Hebrews 10:4 uses very significant wording, where it talks about taking away sins. The Greek word there also has familiar meanings and implications. Its basic meaning is to remove, and it can also be translated as cut off. If you're catching this, the author deliberately used terminology that exactly describes the Izazel. The Azazel is the goat of complete removal, and it bears the sins to a lands that is cut off. Of course, nothing involving animals can truly do that, but Jesus Christ's sacrifice was both necessary and entirely sufficient to deal with sin. He became sin for us and was cut off. He paid the death penalty, giving us access to the Father as well as bearing the sin into forgetfulness and cleansing the consciences of those who accept him. If you take the time to read through chapters 9 and 10, I believe that you will be impressed once again with all that Jesus Christ has accomplished for us, and you might also recognize the astounding incongruity of allowing Satan to be inserted anywhere in God's solution for sin. I will leave you with this. There is no biblical justification for blaming Satan for our sins. There is a deafening silence in scripture regarding Satan bearing human sins in any way. And there is also not even a whisper as to why such a task would be given to the devil. The only reason Satan has even a toehold in Leviticus 16 is because of the tradition that says Azazel is the name of a fallen angel. And yet the inspired scriptures are completely devoid of any support for Satan being a part of the atonement for sin, while they give abundant, unimpeachable witnesses of Jesus Christ.