Leviticus; The Law of Holiness and Grace

The Scope of the Atonement

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Pentateuch

Genre: Lessons with Q & A

Lesson: 28

Track: 28

Dictation Name: RR172P28

Date: Early 70s

Let us worship God. Our help is in the name of the Lord who made Heaven and earth. Seeing that we have a great High Priest that has passed into the Heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us come boldly unto the Throne of Grace that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need. Let us pray.

Oh Lord our God, we come to Thee, mindful of the evil around us and the majesty of Thy kingdom. Oh Lord our God, the heathen nations take counsel together and rage against Thy kingdom, that Thou who sittest in the circle of the heavens doest laugh. Thou doest hold them in derision. Make us joyful in Thy rule. Make us joyful in the certainty of Thy Law and make us more than conquerors in Jesus Christ our Lord. In His name we pray, Amen.

Our scripture is from Leviticus 16:4-10, “The Scope of the Atonement.” Leviticus 16:4-10. “The Scope of the Atonement.”

“4 He” (Aaron) “shall put on the holy linen coat, and he shall have the linen breeches upon his flesh, and shall be girded with a linen girdle, and with the linen mitre shall he be attired: these are holy garments; therefore shall he wash his flesh in water, and so put them on.

5 And he shall take of the congregation of the children of Israel two kids of the goats for a sin offering, and one ram for a burnt offering.

6 And Aaron shall offer his bullock of the sin offering, which is for himself, and make an atonement for himself, and for his house.

7 And he shall take the two goats, and present them before the Lord at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation.

8 And Aaron shall cast lots upon the two goats; one lot for the Lord, and the other lot for the scapegoat.

9 And Aaron shall bring the goat upon which the Lord’s lot fell, and offer him for a sin offering.

10 But the goat, on which the lot fell to be the scapegoat, shall be presented alive before the Lord, to make an atonement with him, and to let him go for a scapegoat into the wilderness.”

The key part of the Day of Atonement ritual is the scapegoat. Calvin remarked that this was the only expiatory sacrifice in the Law without blood. However, the two goats are in essence to be regarded as one, accomplishing a common task of atonement. The scapegoat is involved in the shedding of blood by the other goat.

The term ‘scapegoat’ has passed from the Bible into common usage with a clear awareness of its meaning. A scapegoat is someone who is innocent but upon whom all the guilt and the punishment falls. The scapegoat is made the sin bearer for the sinning, for the guilty parties. Now, the word ‘scapegoat’ translates the Hebrew ‘azazel.’ And all kinds of fanciful and imaginative renditions have been given as to its meaning. But the word ‘scapegoat’ gives us clearly the meaning of what the goat was.

We are told in verse four that Aaron the high priest, except for his mitre, dressed on the Day of Atonement like every ordinary priest. On this day he was not the high priest as it were. Because the central focus was not on himself, but on atonement, on the sin bearer. In a sense, perhaps to foreshadow the fact that in the fullness of time, the great High Priest Jesus Christ would be the sin bearer. He began the day by bathing, which was always a prerequisite for all approaching the sanctuary. In many cultures, this has long been a tradition observed by all worshipers entering the sanctuary after bathing so that it is remembered in America as the Saturday night bath. But this is the origin.

Before beginning the ritual of the scapegoat, the high priest made sacrifices for himself and then for his people. Kellogg commented, “There are three fundamental facts which stand before us in this chapter which must find their place in any explanation which may be adopted. First, both of the goats are declared to be a sin offering, and the live goat no less than the other. Second, inconsistency with this. The live goat, no less than the other, was consecrated to Jehovah in that he was set alive before the Lord. Third, the function expressly ascribed to him in the Law is the complete removal of the transgressions of Israel, symbolically transferred to him as a burden by the laying on of hands with confession of sin.”

There is more on the ritual of the scapegoat in verses 20-28 of this chapter. In verse six we are told that the high priest’s sacrifices were for himself and his house; that is including his wife and his children. At this time, according to Hebrew tradition, he made a confession of sins. And I quote in the traditional account of the rites of the day, preserved in the Mishnah, the high priest made this confession, “Oh God I have sinned; I have committed iniquity. I have transgressed against Thee, I and my household. I beseech Thee by Thy name, grant Thou atonement for the sins and for the iniquities, and for the transgressions in which I have sinned and committed iniquity and transgressed against Thee, I and my household.” In his confession, the high priest used the ineffable name of God, the tetragrammatron in its true pronunciation, whereupon the assembled priest and people in the court prostrated themselves to the ground and exclaimed, “Blessed be His name whose glorious kingdom is forever and ever.” Confession is always tied to atonement in the Bible. Grace brings forth confession, because grace reveals to us clearly that we are sinners and that we have been lost.

There is a separation in this ritual, of sin from the people and also from the land. This is a fact that it is imperative to recognize. The application of the blood of the goat—the first goat, the one who was to be slain—to the second, made clear that the second was going to carry away the sins that are forgiven. The goat is sent away. Aaron’s hands are laid upon the live goat and all the sins of Israel are confessed over the scapegoat. And then the goat is sent away into the wilderness. The ground was cursed for Man’s sake, we are told in Genesis. Again and again, scripture speaks of the link between man’s sin and the land. In Leviticus 18:24-30, we read,

“24 Defile not ye yourselves in any of these things: for in all these the nations are defiled which I cast out before you:

25 and the land is defiled: therefore I do visit the iniquity thereof upon it, and the land itself vomiteth out her inhabitants.

26 Ye shall therefore keep my statutes and my judgments, and shall not commit any of these abominations; neither any of your own nation, nor any stranger that sojourneth among you:

27 (For all these abominations have the men of the land done, which were before you, and the land is defiled ;)

28 That the land spew not you out also, when ye defile it, as it spewed out the nations that were before you.

29 For whosoever shall commit any of these abominations, even the souls that commit them shall be cut off from among their people.

30 Therefore shall ye keep mine ordinance, that ye commit not any one of these abominable customs, which were committed before you, and that ye defile not yourselves therein: I am the Lord your God.”

At the very least, these verses tell us that there is a symbiotic relationship between the man and the land, and as a result, man’s sins recoil on him in a number of ways. It is not accidental, therefore, that every time of judgment has been a time when there have been plagues and epidemics; when there have been also natural disasters, droughts, floods, volcanic activities, and much, much more. This of course, is asserted by scripture. The land, when it is polluted by the sin of man, spews out its inhabitants. It works against the life of the people because their sin has worked against the life of the land.

Now this ritual of the scapegoat is very much in mind throughout the New Testament, although there is no explicit reference to it. However, once we recognize the meaning of the scapegoat ritual, we can see the reference to it, the priest’s supposition of it in the New Testament passages. For example, it is very plainly referred to by St. Paul in II Corinthians 5:21. It is the climax of a passage which begins in verse 17:

“17 Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature” (or, creation): “old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.

18 And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to Himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation;

19 To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation.

20 Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to Him.

21 For He hath made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.”

Now, note that last verse. Jesus Christ, says Paul, is our scapegoat. He is the one whom God as made to be sin for us: the sin bearer, the scapegoat, who was taken outside the camp, who was rejected and because He is our sin bearer, we are now justified.

And then we have one of the most amazing sentences in the Bible, which we take for granted, because we are so familiar with it. We have experienced this salvation that we might be made the righteousness, or the justice of God in Him. That’s a staggering thought! We, who were sin burrs, have had our sins imputed to Christ who takes the death penalty for us. We are made alive in Christ to become the righteousness of God; the justice of God in Him. The sin bearer or scapegoat removes our sin from us to make us God’s justice. We are a new creation. We are the justice people—God’s justice at work in the world, to right all things, to witness to the truth of God. There is an archaic English word that is most fitting in this context, a word for judges: ‘justicer.’ And this is what all Christians are to be—the justicers of God. The justice people; we have a work of reconciliation as ambassadors of Christ. We are to act in Christ’s stead, we are told and we are to summon all people to this cleansed and renewed status and to the ministry of reconciliation.

It must be stressed that this reconciliation is to God. It is God’s Law that we have offended. It is God against whom we, His creatures, have rebelled. Thus, we must be reconciled to Him and do His work on earth and become His justice; His righteousness in the world.

The iniquities of the people were laid on the head of the goat. The two goats were in a sense one goat with a common function and the sin of the people requires two things:

1.      The Death Penalty, to be executed on all sinners. This is done vicariously. The goat represents the people and dies for their sins.

2.      The living goat is separated from the land and from the people. We are made a new creation and are no longer the old man, but a new man in Christ. So the land is to be renewed, and the people are to be renewed. And the renewed people are to be the justice of God on earth.

George Knight, and Old Testament scholar, has pointed out that atonement is not a passive act. Quoting from his study, “The verb ‘to make atonement,’ (Kippur) describes an actual action, in the same way that the New Testament insists that Christ’s death on the cross was not a passive acceptance of the forces of evil, it was a deliberate action on Jesus’ part—an obedience to the Will of God.” It is thus a deliberate action with a deliberate end: a renewed people, and a renewed land. And as the renewed people, we are God’s justice on earth. We cannot limit the scope of the Gospel and of the atonement to Man. It is cosmic in purpose. The people who are justified thus have a calling: to be God’s justice people. For people who call themselves Christians to be indifferent to justice is to deny their justifier.

Thus, we can expect that at a time like ours, that because the people are unjust, because they have rebelled against God, that the earth is polluted. And when the earth itself is polluted, it spews out its inhabitants. In other words, it brings death to bear upon that culture. It does it in means that are natural in a whole configuration of natural disasters. All one has to do is to go to any record of the history of all kinds of natural disasters to see that in our century, they are beginning to accelerate, to become more commonplace than they were in the last century, or before World War I, or before World War II. And the records have been very carefully kept for some time. But there is a greater intensity, a more frequent incidence of natural disasters. The earth is bringing judgment upon its inhabitants. Hence it is all the more important for Christians to be God’s justice people, to bring atonement into this world, to the inhabitants thereof, and to the land, through Jesus Christ.

Let us pray.

Our Lord and our God, Thou hast called us to be Thy justice people, and Thy Church has withdrawn from its calling, has sheltered itself behind its walls, and retreated from the world and its task. Oh God our Father, have mercy upon us. Renew Thy Church and make it again strong in Thee, in Thy Law Word and in Thy righteousness, Thy justice. Make us Thy justice people. We thank Thee for Thy mercy unto us. We thank Thee that as we face all the vicissitudes of life, we have the assurance that greater is He that is in us and with us, than he that is in the world. And so, we come to Thee, to be empowered by Thee to do Thy will. In Christ’s name. Amen.

Are there any questions now about our lesson? Yes.

[Audience] Are there any other religions that have scapegoats?

[Rushdoony] None. There is nothing that even remotely resembles it. Anthropologists have tried to find parallels, but none of them are in any remote sense comparable. In fact, there tends to be, in pagan religions, a, atonement, as it were, to the devil; to make peace with the evil forces, rather than with God. So, it’s a reversal of the whole order of justice.

[Audience] So it’s propitiation, and not penance?

[Rushdoony] Yes… And of course, this is the direction of so much in our culture. Whom do we seek to please? Our courts are more favorable to the criminal than to the victims. Our foreign policy favors the Soviet Union more than it does us. So, we have followed the pagan method of propitiation to Satan, rather than to the Lord. And the result is increasing disaster, because if we don’t make atonement to God, we’re going to implement the exact reverse kind of action, with devastating results for ourselves and our culture.

One of the interesting side lights on that, is the extent to which, for example, the serpent is seen as the focus of power, and the divinity to be worshiped in many cults, and is seen symbolically to represent the real power of the universe, and how the pig very commonly in many pagan religions, believed to be the possessor of all kinds of evil power, is used as the communion meat in many religions. So that historically, the pig has had quite a religious role. So that, it’s almost as though there’s been a deliberate parody of the Bible at many of these points.

[Audience] Well, the Mayans did a lot to the {?}ology of the serpent. But their idea of the next world and of their god was that their gods were like the Greek, capable of trickery and treachery and had to be outwitted.

[Rushdoony] Yes, which is another way of saying, ‘They may be evil, but we can be more evil.’ The American Indians had a preference for the coyote, the trickster, one who was a conniver, and who could do it with a sense of humor. The wolf as a stronger and deadlier force, was also commonly worshiped, but the preference was for someone who could add cleverness to evil, so that while the wolf was recognized as in some respects more powerful, the coyote was preferred.

I remember one old Indian medicine man, who on occasion, shot a coyote. And he carried it around for a few days very proudly, because it demonstrated his superiority.

Any other questions or comments? Well if not, let us conclude with prayer.

Thy Word, oh Lord, is truth, and Thy Word is a light, a lamp upon our way, a joy to our hearts, and strength to our bones. Make us strong in Thy Word and make us Thy justice people. And now go in peace. God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost bless you and keep you, guide and protect you this day, and always. Amen.