The Perfect Scapegoat

Jesus pictured in Leviticus

Today's Through the Bible Reading: Leviticus 16 - 18

Abbreviated Reading: Leviticus 16

“The life of the flesh is in the blood.” Leviticus 17:11

Today's reading is all about the scapegoat. You may be wondering what a goat has to do with us?! EVERYTHING! This is an amazing picture of our sins being carried away - like Ps. 103:12 says, "as far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our sins."

We ALL need an alibi and God has given us the perfect scapegoat - literally! This is an encouraging study on the completeness of God's forgiveness. You can read "The Tale of Two Goats" here on our Weekly Bible Study page and see what these goats show us about God’s abundant mercy!

In Leviticus 16:7-10, the high priest was to cast lots (kind of like drawing straws) to select one of the two goats. The goat that drew “the short straw” was sacrificed for the sins of the people, and its blood was sprinkled on the mercy seat in the holy of holies. The other one became the scapegoat and was set free outside the city wall to symbolically carry the sins of the people far away.

As we’ve seen before, the entire Bible points to Jesus! Notice how the blood of the goat was sprinkled on the mercy seat, the lid that covered the ark of the covenant. The ark carried the Ten Commandments—the law—which we cannot keep. But God “covers” the law by His mercy, through the shed blood of Jesus. What an awesome picture He was painting with these two goats: the blood of the one goat covered the sins of the people and the other goat carried them far away. And that’s exactly what Jesus has done for us! He shed His blood to mercifully cover our failure to keep the law, separating our sins far from us (Micah 7:19; Ps. 103:12).

You see, Leviticus 17:11 declares: “For the life of the flesh is in the blood.” In those ten little words are the clearest explanation for a critical question about Christianity: “Why is it so bloody?” Simple, because life is in the blood - if you have blood, you have life. But, if you have no blood, you have death. So what did God do? He died in your place, giving His life blood for yours. And that, my friend, is the Gospel, pictured as powerfully and potently here in Leviticus as anywhere else in the Old Testament.

The Tale of Two Goats