Scapegoat

“Then delivered he Him therefore unto them to be crucified. And they took Jesus, and led Him away.” (John 19:16)

This descriptive short verse is very symbolic. Two phrases are of importance and have significance, “He was delivered or surrendered” and “...led Him away.”  To understand why these phrases are important one has to know about the scapegoat. “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.” (Leviticus 16:5) Aaron was then to present both goats before the Lord and cast lots, one for the Lord and another for the scapegoat. The one on whom the Lord’s lot fell was sacrificed for a sin offering. (Leviticus 16:9) “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.” (Leviticus 16:10) The people of that time understood that that the scapegoat would take their sins, thereby being the guilty goat, the scapegoat. “ And Aaron shall lay both his hands upon the head of the live goat, and confess over him all the iniquities of the children of Israel, and all their transgressions in all their sins, putting them upon the head of the goat, and shall send him away by the hand of a fit man into the wilderness:” (Leviticus 16:21) And the “guilty” goat is led into the uninhabitable land, free to wander with the sin of the people never to be found again. (Leviticus 16:22) We can see lots of references to the atonement.

In order to understand this, there is the example of when we go out to dinner and one offers to pay what is owed, he may say, “I’ve got this covered.”  Well Jesus covered our debt owed for sin. “Saying, Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered.” (Romans 4:7) This was represented by the Lord’s goat which was sacrificed for sin. “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.” (2Corinthians 5:21) The other goat, the guilty goat full of sin is let free of the punishment for sin. But more, that goat goes to the uninhabitable land with the sin never to be found. Jesus is the innocent one surrendered to the Lord and led with our sin away to the cross, our sin never to be found again. Jesus is the sacrificed goat for sin and the scapegoat also taking our sin away never to be found again. “And their sins and iniquities will I remember no more.” (Hebrews 10:17)

It's said all things in the Old Testament point to Jesus. The Lord God in the institution of the sacrifices was pointing the people to Jesus, their Messiah Who would take their sin away, never to be remembered again. Pilate let Barabas, the guilty one let go free.  He represents us, the guilty ones, free of the punishment for our sin. The first time I heard about Barabas and many times after before I was saved and knew the importance of the crucifixion of Jesus, I thought how unfair and unjust that it is to let the guilty go free and crucify Jesus who was innocent. Barabas represents us, the guilty and sinful that were set free. “Being then made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness.” (Romans 6:18)