There are Two Goats - Part II

II. Application of Atonement
The thing about the Day of Atonement is that the blood of the animals could not put to death sin in the flesh. It could not propitiate or remove God’s wrath and it could not expiate or wash away our sin. All of this is a foreshadowing of the coming of Christ. It was very important, because it is how God had told them to demonstrate their faith in the messiah. But it was just a picture of the atonement of Christ; his sacrificial, penal, propitiation, and mediation, substitution, & expiation. Just like for Israel, there is both a general and particular picture here. Christ died for the sins of the world, but what was done by the High Priest for the whole is only active in the individual by grace through faith in Christ, alone.
Only by rightly understanding the function of the Two Goats is the atonement fully appreciated, and this is not just theological word-sparring. I fear that many of you struggle with the reality of your sin and the sins of others because you lack this right understanding and appreciation.
A. Christ Died for your Guilt
Guilt - We are guilty of sin. We need to understand the reality of sin. God is angry because He hates sin. He hates it so much He was willing that His Son die in order to overcome it. The Bible never says that God hates the sin and loves the sinner, as if the two can be entirely separated. It was the Hindu Gandhi who coined the phrase “Love the sinner but hate the sin” in his 1929 autobiography, where he also said, “Jesus’ death on the cross was a great example to the world, but that there was anything like a mysterious or miraculous virtue in it my heart could not accept.” There is no wisdom in any of that. It is like saying, “God loves rapist but hates rape,” as if the two were entirely different things. God hates sin and apart from Christ we can not please God. However, in Christ we no longer have to live with the guilt of our sin, or the sin of others against us. Christ died to take that guilt away.
Wrath - God is not mad at us, He hates sin. Romans tells us that the Gospel is the power of God unto salvation particularly because the wrath of God is already revealed toward sin, the payment for sin is death. The death payment was paid by Christ to satisfy the justice of God. That is the only reason why there is now no condemnation for those who believe.
Anger - To be angry but to not sin is to understand that Jesus satisfied the anger of God, and while we should be angry when God is angry, we are to leave justice to Him, for He is the only just one. It breaks the command of God to want grace for ourselves and justice for those who sin against us. When we do wrong to another person, we feel guilty. But when someone does wrong to us, we feel bitter. Bitterness is by definition our response to someone else’s sin against us. The hurt of sin leads to anger. When we can not or do not do anything about the hurt, it settles into bitterness, an intense resentment marked by animosity, hatred, cynicism and contempt. It is cold, raw, destructive misery.
Revenge - Jesus did not just die for your sins, but to satisfy your wrath toward those who sin against you. When we are injured by the sin of others, it is right to want blood. That is the payment God requires. Fortunately for us, Jesus has already spilt all the blood necessary, so we do not have to. Romans 12:19 says, “Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God's wrath, for it is written: "It is mine to avenge; I will repay," says the Lord.”
Bill - “My Dad used to beat me.” God’s view of his sin is the view He must have of his Dad’s.
B. Christ Died for your Shame
Shame - Our sin is despicable. We can not be clean alone. Christ died to take away our shame. In fact the Bible says in Hebrews 12 that Jesus endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. It is to our shame that we have turned our hearts from God. Jesus, as our mediator has taken our shame upon himself and removed it from us, so that hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. (Romans 5:5) We no longer have to live in shame.
Separation - Just like Adam, our sin causes us to hide from God and cover ourselves. The result of the shame of our sin is that we are separated from God, even if we do not recognize it. Many of us live, even as believers, covered by the shame of our sin. However, Ephesians 2:13 makes clear that, “now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.” We no longer have to live in isolation as a consequence of our shame.
Defilement - Jesus did not just die for your sin, but to scorn your shame and take away the defilement of the sin committed against you. There are many of us who have been sinned against in a way that leaves us feeling defiled and living in the filth of the sin of those who sinned against us. Many will tell you that someone else’s sin does not make you unclean. The reality is that those who have experienced rape, or other abuse, do feel unclean. They feel defiled by the sin of the one who sinned against them.
Jesus did not have to kill a bull to atone for his own sins before He could serve as our High Priest. He had no sin of His own. Yet, He died for the sins of those who sinned against Him. He took on the defilement of all of the world’s sin, so that we could be washed white as snow from the filth of not just our sin, but the sin committed against us. We no longer need cleansing.
Filth - We are a dirty people and we live among a nation of dirty people. The filth of our sins and the sins of those around us leave us feeling like scum. The Jesus of the cross was covered in dirt, blood, spit and garbage. He was humiliated, and He willingly bore our guilt and our shame. With it He bore the wrath of God and for the first time in all of eternity he was separated from the Father, the community and fellowship of the godhead was broken. He took our guilt and wrath and gave us His righteousness. He spilled His blood for God’s anger toward your sin and yours toward those who sin against you and others against whom you have sinned. He took our shame and filth and gave us His glory as sons through our adoption as brothers in Christ. He spilled His blood to wash away our sin and the sins of those who sin against us.
III. Two Goats:
We were born in sin and live in sin. Until we are dead to sin and alive to righteousness in Christ, we are in desperate need of two goats, propitiation and expiation, forgiveness and cleansing. As believers who have been made dead to sin and alive to righteousness in Christ, we need to live both under the blood and under the water. We need to live in the truth that there is now no condemnation and that God has, “blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him.” (Eph. 1:3-4) “And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him, if indeed you continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard.” (Col. 1:21-23)