77 Questions about the Atonement (Q&A #32)

 32.     What is the meaning of the scapegoat on the Day of Atonement?

The scapegoat ritual on Yom Kippur in the ancient Jewish festival cycle prefigured the release of Israel’s sins by their transportation into a wasteland of oblivion.  In other words, it revealed half the meaning of atonement—forgiveness.  The ritual with an identical goat, that was sacrificed, whose blood was poured out, collected, and spattered around the most holy/wholesome area in the sacred precincts, represented the other half—the dispersal of the payback from God Himself for the future wrongful slaying of the sinless existence of His Son, more specifically, the greatly increased pouring out of the Holy Spirit of immortal life via an eminently justified, honest-to-goodness Resurrection!  This dual procedure prefigured the single sacrifice of Christ in both its aspects—something only a resurrected sacrifice could actually fulfill in toto.

77 Questions about the Atonement (Q&A #31)

 31.     Weren’t the sacrifices of the Old Testament payments for sin?

No, such discourse is foreign to Scripture.  It could easily have stated that, but it simply never did.  The Law of Moses did not specify sacrifices as payments for sins.  That’s adding words without knowledge.  These sacrifices, though often costly, to be sure, foreshadow the priceless self-sacrifice of Jesus’ existence on the Cross as a ransom to Death in exchange for Life to all mankind—now greatly enhanced and powerfully augmented!—a recompense that God Himself undertook to repay His Son.  That deadwood Christ got hung on, bearing sins, hereby rejuvenated into the veritable Tree of Life, bearing prolific good fruit and therapeutic leaves for the abundant life and salutary healing of the nations of earth.

77 Questions about the Atonement (Q&A #24)

 24.       Weren’t the Levitical sacrifices intended to avert God’s wrath toward sin?

Not per se.  They were divinely appointed as prophetic shadows prefiguring God’s way of cleaning sin out of human hearts, because cumulating sins are what actually provoke his mounting anger.  Not the averting of divine wrath, but the more essential cleansing of human hearts from sin is what the mainstay of the sacrificial system depicts in shadowy detail.