The Scapegoat

By Andrew Bonar


      Published in The Sunday at Home: A Family Magazine for Sabbath Reading 3 March 1866 (No.618)

"And Aaron shall take the two goats, and present them before the Lord, at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation. And Aaron shall cast lots upon the two goats; one lot for the Lord, and the other lot for the scape-goat. And Aaron shall bring the goat upon which the Lord's lot fell, and offer him for a sin-offering. But the goat, on which the lot fell to be the scape-goat, shall be presented alive before the Lord, to make an atonement with him, and to let him go for a scape-goat into the wilderness. And the goat shall bear upon him all their iniquities unto a land not inhabited. " Leviticus xvi. 7-10, 22.

One of the most arresting and instructive ceremonies of the day of atonement was the presenting of the double sin-offering. This sin-offering (unlike any other, and resembling only the two birds in the leper's cleansing) consisted of the sacrifice of one goat and the sending away of the other out of sight for ever. It was a sin-offering, which purposely presented two sides or aspects of the truth, namely, how God can be satisfied in the case of a sinner, and next, how the sinner's guilty conscience is to be satisfied.

I. The first goat taught how God can be satisfied in the case of a sinner. Aaron laid his hand on the head of this atoning offering, to show thereby the laying on it the sin of those for whom he acted, and then slew the goat. This done, he carried its blood in a bowl into the most holy place, where, standing right in front of the mercy-seat, he sprinkled it again and again, until seven times. He then repeated his sprinkling upon the mercy-seat itself again and again, until seven times. And there the shed blood, the outpoured life of this victim, substituted in the room of Israel, was laid down before Jehovah in the most solemn manner, and was left there on the very mercy-seat, as well as in front of it, under the bright cloud of glory. Thus it was presented to the Lord, and lay all the year round under his eye, the glory resting over it, or, in other words, the God of glory accepting it, and saying, by that cloud resting over it, " I am satisfied; I am well pleased to take the substitute's death in room of the sinner, on whom lies the sentence, Thou shalt die."

By this type the sinner is taught that God accepts a substitute. Especially, it shows us how God, in all his truth, and holiness, and righteousness, is able to save a guilty soul to the uttermost, by taking a victim in his stead. The type thus proclaims God satisfied in the death of his beloved Son, whose blood it was that fulfilled all types. And so we have here an aspect of the truth, viz., the certainty that God is well pleased with Christ's being "made sin for us," in order that we might be made "the righteousness of God in him." (2 Cor. v. 21.)

II. The second goat (which we usually call the scape-goat, as in ver.8-10, etc.) was intended to teach how the guilty conscience of a sinner may be satisfied. If a holy and just God sees enough in the beloved Son, "made sin for us," to give him entire satisfaction, it is plain that a sinner's conscience, however deeply awakened, however sensitive and tender, may be satisfied on the same grounds. If only the sinner see in that sin-offering what God sees in it, the sinner could not help being satisfied, being persuaded that God had found all that vindicated his character, and showed him to be just, while justifying the ungodly who made his offering his plea.

The object of the scape-goat, therefore, was to make known to Israel the fact that God was thus satisfied. Everything connected with the scape-goat bore upon this aspect of the truth. It was (so to speak) a re-enacting before all the people of what had been enacted before Jehovah in the case of the first goat. Accordingly, while some of the blood of that first goat was to be "put upon the horns of the altar" (ver.18), that all men might see it as they stood in the courts, Aaron was directed to take the second goat and deal peculiarly with it. And thus it was: Aaron laid both his hands upon its head, confessing over it all the iniquities and all the transgressions of the children of Israel, in all their sins (ver. 21). The sins that have already been atoned for by the blood of the first goat are anew brought out to view, and all Israel hears what it was that Aaron atoned for, and what it was that the Lord accepted an atonement for, in the most holy place. It was, O Israel, every sin of thine, and every form of sin, - sin in all its aggravations, sin of crimson and and scarlet dye. Yes, listen, and you will hear that it was not thy merit or worth that Aaron carried in, but thy guilt and wickedness, thy sin, thy transgressions, thine iniquities, "which offend infinite majesty, despise infinite authority, affront infinite sovereignty, abuse infinite mercy, provoke infinite justice, oppose infinite holiness, hate infinite love." Aaron stands before all the people, both his hands resting on the head of the goat, to express the thorough and undoubted transference of guilt.

Abel

Discipline in the School of God: Chapter 2 

By J.B. Stoney


      Abel, as the first in faith on whom the penalty of sin was by birth entailed, must be one whose history we may expect to furnish us with outlines of that discipline, which a life eminent for faith would require. It is a mistake, and one which at times causes no little trial to the soul, to conclude, that because any line of truth or grace is strong in me, on that account nature is less assuming. The fact is the reverse ; for the more nature is made to feet its fall, the more will it assume ; and it is well to understand this. Had nature in its first estate been of any lower order than it was, although the fall could not have lowered it more than it has, yet its aspirations and assumption to escape from the effects of the fall would not have been so violent and daring as they are. The fact of man having been made in the image and likeness of God, gives nature ground for assuming what it has forfeited ; and the more it is pressed to feel the immensity of the fall from its once high state, the more it struggles for recognition and assumes importance wherever it can. Hence it is that souls who are really in earnest to deny nature any position are opposed by it at every step, and thus learn practically that they alone who have suffered in the flesh have ceased from sin ; that only the cross of Christ frees from the power and thraldom of nature and the world ; and to this great moral truth learning death in discipline gives effect through God's grace. We learn that we are dead through the death of Christ, and that we are before God in Him, freed from all that was judged in that death. Consequently, the Father's discipline is to lead us into the practical realisation of this our position in Christ; so that we are not only dead in Him, but we reckon ourselves dead, the latter being the practical effect of the former, and discipline is the instrument for accomplishing that effect. The soul that fully learns its acceptance with God, as righteous before Him, is taught it must not be dependent on the nature from that which it is delivered, and outside of which is its existence. The apostle could say that he died daily, bearing about with him the dying of Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in his body. If our acceptance be veritable-if it be truly a deliverance from our natural state, ought we not to afford moral and practical evidence of its effect? Nay, must it not be so? For acceptance in righteousness being entirely above and beyond our natural condition, the more the one is enjoyed and maintained, the more the other is lost sight of. And such is the only worthy acknowledgment of this our high position. Can we maintain our natural condition and yet rejoice in deliverance from it? If we rejoice in deliverance, must we not prove it by renunciation of that from which we are delivered?

If Abel be the first witness of acceptance in righteousness, we shall find also that he was the first witness who, as accepted of God, was deprived of his natural life. He was a witness in one as well as in the other. If he testified of acceptance to the joy and rest of his own heart, he by death also testified how true and glorious that acceptance was ; so that " he being dead yet speaketh." This is the first order of discipline: " Reckon yourselves to be dead indeed as to sin." This is consequent on our life in Christ; for if living in Him, we ought to be dead in ourselves; and discipline, in its simplest and primary lessons, instructs us in this. There is no saint but must learn what death is ; it may be in the slow process of a continual dropping of constant small trials, or through one overwhelming calamity, or perhaps through a last illness : but in one way or another death must be learned, in order to make good to our souls their deliverance from it. And without this there cannot be testimony. Abel's history is very scanty in details, but it presents, with a vividness and vigour not to be surpassed, the two grand points in a believer's life: namely, acceptance with God, and death to every natural tie and sense-the former being the easy action of faith, the latter declared not willingly, but through violence, consequent on an altered and fallen condition, in an evil world, from which death gave relief. God allows the violence of Cain to afford an opportunity for the display of all this. He thereby declared His own grace, and Himself as the giver of it, while His servant and witness, although disciplined therein as to himself, occupied the highest place of service in the gospel, even that of suffering for righteousness' sake.

Jesus and Sinners

By G. Campbell Morgan


      This man receiveth sinners. Luke 15:2

These words were uttered in condemnation of Jesus of Nazareth, and yet to us they contain an inclusive statement of the truth concerning Him as the Saviour of men. It is a very interesting thing to notice in the reading of the Gospel stories how the wonderful personality of Jesus transmuted things spoken in condemnation into declarations of commendation. Indeed, it may fairly be said that one might gather from these Gospel narratives a selection of passages which would constitute a fifth Gospel, and we might call that the Gospel according to the enemies of Jesus Christ. They said of Him, with disdain in every tone of their question, "Is not this the carpenter?" By which they meant, "We know all about Him. He is one of us. Who is He that He should set Himself up as a teacher in the Synagogue at Nazareth, where He has wrought at the carpenter's shop?" Today we are asking the same question about Him, in another tone, knowing that by the lowliness of the long years in the carpenter's shop He came into close comradeship with all toilers forevermore. They said of Him upon one occasion, "By Beelzebub the prince of the devils casteth He out devils," and thus came very near to the confines of unpardonable sin. Yet even that has come to be in some senses a truth, for He has overcome the prince of ill, and compels him into the service of perfecting the saints by testing. Said they of Him in that dark and overwhelming hour of His supreme agony, flinging the cruel taunt into His face when He was all alone in His sorrow, "He saved others; Himself He cannot save." In that sentence, all unknowingly, they uttered the deepest truth about that death. Had He saved Himself He never could have saved others; but because He could not save Himself He is able still to save all who come unto God by Him. Among all these statements none is more wonderful, because none is more simple, than this statement of my text, "This Man receiveth sinners."

Let us endeavor to understand this criticism. First of all, I pray you mark that it is a criticism. The first word of this chapter links it, and indeed the great and glorious threefold parable which follows, with all that immediately preceded. Jesus had been saying some strange and hard things in the listening ears of the multitude. I do not hesitate to say that they were strange and hard things. I do not hesitate to declare that many of you who are children of God never read these words without somehow, in the deepest of you, half wishing He had never said them. I do not defend the wish. I know that when my heart rises in half rebellion against some of the words I have read tonight it is because of some evil thing that abides in my life. Even today, though nineteen centuries have demonstrated the imperial dignity of the Christ, and though this whole worshiping congregation is prepared to acknowledge His Lordship, still, when He stands confronting us and says to us that unless we hate father, mother, wife, brethren, sisters, and our own lives, we cannot be His disciples, we are startled, we are afraid, we are half inclined to draw back from every attempt at discipleship. Yet Luke tells us of that strange thing, which has been repeated ever since, and is being repeated still, that when Christ said His severest things the greatest sinners crowded to Him. Severity which on other lips would have repelled, attracted, for there was something besides severity in the tone of His voice, something in Himself which, in spite of the fierce scorching fire of His severest word, drew men to Him. "Now all the publicans and sinners were drawing near unto Him for to hear Him." The Pharisees observed that when these people came to Him He received them, He received them in friendliness, He received them in the very spirit of comradeship. He did not stand aloof from them notwithstanding that He had said such severe things. He was even prepared to sit at the table and eat with them. "And both the Pharisees and the scribes murmured, saying, This Man receiveth sinners, and eateth with them." This exclamation of criticism was a revelation of their sense that His action was not in keeping with His teaching. The severity of His ethic did not seem to harmonize, as they looked at Him, with the looseness of His friendship for these men.

Eric Ludy - The Gospel

Job

By J.G. Bellet


James 5: 11.

"Behind a frowning providence
He hides a smiling face"

May surely be said, upon the reading of this deeply affecting story. Said, too, with peculiar fitness and fulness of truth, as though the thought of the Christian poet had been suggested by the tale of the inspired historian. The frown was specially dark and lowering, the smile behind it brilliantly beaming and happy. The veil was very thick, but the glory within very bright. The boastings of the Lord in His servant were above the noise of all the water-floods.

"The bud may have a bitter taste,
But sweet will be the flower"

may as surely be the motto for the story also. For let us wait only for a little, and the fruit of the travail will be precious beyond all expectation. Very bitter indeed was the bud, but very sweet indeed was the flower. It had to ripen under the pruning of the sprigs and the taking away of the branches (Isaiah 18: 5), but it tells, in the end, the skill and patience of its divine husbandman. I would, however, rather trace some of the principles of this beautiful Book, than thus at the beginning more largely anticipate the moral of it.

Resurrection, called by the Lord "the power of God," or, at least, one of the ways of that power (Matthew 22: 29), has been made known, through different witnesses, and in divers manners, from the very beginning. And connected as it is with redemption, the great principle of God's way and the secret of His purposes, it must have been so.

It was intimated in the creation of the beautiful scene around us, for the world itself was called forth from the grave of the deep. The material was without form, and darkness was upon the face of it, but light was commanded to shine out of darkness, and beauty and order were caused to arise. See Hebrews 11: 3.

It declared itself in the formation of Eve. Then again in the earliest promise about the bruised Seed of the woman. It was kept in memory in Seth given in the place of Abel whom Cain slew; and then again in the line of the fathers before the flood. But still more illustriously was it published in Noah. "Every thing in the earth shall die," says the Lord to him, "but with thee will I establish my covenant;" thus disclosing the secret, that the earth was to be established according to the purpose of God, as in resurrection, stability, and beauty.

So, after these earlier fathers, Abraham was to have both a family and an inheritance on the same principle. He and his generations after him were taught resurrection in the mystery of the barren woman keeping house. The covenant blessing was linked with the risen family. Ishmael may get possessions, and promises too, but the covenant was with Isaac.

And more marvellously still, not to pause longer over other witnesses of it, we see resurrection in the blessed history of "the Word made flesh." We might indeed have forejudged that it would have been otherwise. For in Christ, flesh was without taint. Here was a holy thing." But even of such we have now to say, Yea, though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we Him no more." Christ known by us now is Christ in resurrection. And this is enough to let us know assuredly, that resurrection is the principle of all the divine action, and the secret of the covenant.*

*All orders of His creatures in all places of His dominions witness Him as the living God; but in the history of redeemed sinners He is witnessed as the living God in victory. This is His glory; and resurrection should be prized by us as the display of it. The sepulchre with the grave-clothes lying in order, and the napkin which had been about the head, are the trophies of such victory. John 20: 6, 7. The history of redeemed sinners celebrates Him thus. To hesitate about resurrection is to betray ignorance of God, and of the power that is His. See Matthew 22: 29; 1 Cor. 15: 34.

Zion's Joy and God's

By Alexander Maclaren


      WHAT A WONDERFUL RUSH of exuberant gladness there is in these words! The swift, short clauses, the triple invocation in the former verse, the triple promise in the latter, the heaped together synonyms, all help the impression. The very words seem to dance with joy. But more remarkable than this is the parallelism between the two verses. Zion is called to rejoice in God because God rejoices in her. She is to shout for joy and sing because God's joy too has a voice, and breaks out into singing. For every throb of joy in man's heart, there is a wave of gladness in God's. The notes of our praise are at once the echoes and the occasions of His. We are to be glad because He is glad: He is glad because we are so. We sing for joy, and He joys over us with singing because we do.

God's joy over Zion.

It is to be noticed that the former verse of our text is followed by the assurance: "The Lord is in the midst of thee"; and that the latter verse is preceded by the same assurance. So, then, intimate fellowship and communion between God and Israel lies at the root both of God's joy in man and man's joy in God.

We are solemnly warned by "profound thinkers" of letting the shadow of our emotions fall upon God. No doubt there is a real danger there; but there is a worse danger, that of conceiving of a God who has no life and heart; and it is better to hold fast by this - that in Him is that which corresponds to what in us is gladness. We are often told, too, that the Jehovah of the Old Testament is a stem and repellent God, and the religion of the Old Testament is gloomy and servile. But such a misconception is hard to maintain in the face of such words as these. Zephaniah, of whom we know little, and whose words are mainly forecasts of judgments and woes pronounced against Zion that was rebellious and polluted, ends his prophecy with these companion pictures, like a gleam of sunshine which often streams out at the close of a dark winter's day. To him the judgments which he prophesied were no contradiction of the love and gladness of God. The thought of a glad God might be a very awful thought; such an insight as this prophet had gives a blessed meaning to it. We may think of the joy that belongs to the divine nature as coming from the completeness of His being, which is raised far above all that makes of sorrow. But it is not in Himself alone that He is glad; but it is because He loves. The exercise of love is ever blessedness. His joy is in self-impartation; His delights are in the sons of men: "As the bridegroom rejoiceth over the bride, so shall thy God rejoice over thee." His gladness is in His children when they let Him love them, and do not throw back His love on itself. As in man's physical frame it is pain to have secretions dammed up, so when God's love is forced back upon itself and prevented from flowing out in blessing, some shadow of suffering cannot but pass across that calm sky. He is glad when His face is mirrored in ours, and the rays from Him are reflected from us.

But there is another wonderfully bold and beautiful thought in this representation of the gladness of God. Note the double form which it assumes: "He will rest"--literally, be silent--" in His love; He will joy over thee with singing." As to the former, loving hearts on earth know that the deepest love knows no utterance, and can find none. A heart full of love rests as having attained its desire and accomplished its purpose. It keeps a perpetual Sabbath, and is content to be silent.

But side by side with this picture of the repose of God's joy is set with great poetic insight the precisely opposite image of a love which delights in expression, and rejoices over its object with singing. The combination of the two helps to express the depth and intensity of the one love, which like a song-bird rises with quivering delight and pours out as it rises an ever louder and more joyous note, and then drops, composed and still, to its nest upon the dewy ground.

The Fruit of the Lips

By J.C. Philpot


      Preached 20th August, 1843 at Providence Chapel, Eden Street, London

      "I create the fruit of the lips; Peace, peace to him that is far off, and to him that is near, saith the LORD; and I will heal him" Isa.57:19

The Lord had said in verse 16 of this chapter: "I will not contend for ever, neither will I be always wroth: for the spirit should fail before me, and the souls which I have made." As though the Lord saw, so to speak, the fruitlessness of contending with man that all his stripes were thrown away upon him; that his severest chastisements, unaccompanied by grace, did not bring him into submission and humility; that all his heaviest strokes could do would but wear the spirit out and make it fail before him, but that his contending in anger would never make him a partaker of godly sorrow, nor cause him to lie low at his feet. "For the iniquity of his covetousness was I wroth, and smote him: I hid me, and was wroth, and he went on frowardly in the way of his heart" (verse 17).

The Lord tells us here why he smote his people. It was for the iniquity of their covetousness; the word "covetousness" pointing out what the human heart is chiefly engaged upon. For we must not limit the expression merely to avarice after money, but consider it as embracing the going out of the heart of man after the things of time and sense, the insatiable desire of the carnal mind after earthly and sensual gratification. This covetousness God speaks of as iniquity, the iniquity of man lying in this: that he loves everything earthly and sensual better than God, that he seeks pleasure from every object but the Lord, that he wilfully and greedily runs into every base lust, making carnal things his delight and happiness. Now the Lord, provoked by the iniquity of his covetousness, smote him with stroke upon stroke, with disappointment upon disappointment, with affliction upon affliction, with trouble upon trouble. But it was all thrown away. It did not raise up in him a spiritual work, it did not bring him to the Lord's feet, it did not change his will; it did not renew him in the spirit of his mind, but it left him as it found him: earthly, sensual, and dead; or rather, it left him worse than it found him for his heart became more hardened and his conscience more stupefied than before. The Lord, therefore, adds: "I hid me;" as though he would try what that would do. He took no apparent notice of him. The Lord would not appear conspicuously in a way of providence. He shut himself up, as it were, in his own glory, and covered himself with a cloud, so that no ray should pass through. But that failed also. "I hid me, and was wroth, and he went on frowardly in the way of his heart." So obstinate, rebellious, wayward, perverse a wretch is man that no step which the Lord could take in a way of judgment or anger, independent of the Spirit's operations (for that is the point I am endeavouring to enforce) could ever have the least effect upon him. Now do not you parents often see this very thing in your children naturally? You sometimes cannot make anything of them; there is such a frowardness and perversity of disposition in them, that all your chastisements and every means you employ to make them better, only seem to make them worse. They go on frowardly in the way of their heart; and you cannot, with all the pains you take with them, make them one whit better. Now what children often are to their parents, such are we toward God. His stripes, his frowns, his hiding himself, his sharp afflictions, do not produce in us any spiritual good; but we go on frowardly in the way of our heart, muttering perverseness, full of rebellion, peevishness, and discontent; and though we may feel the rod of God upon us, yet there is no breaking down of heart, no submission of soul, no contrition of spirit before him. The Lord therefore says: "I have seen his ways." What a creature he is! What an obstinate, perverse, rebellious wretch, and that wrath and judgments will not mend him. It is, then, as though he added: "I will alter my plan altogether. I see that there is no use in smiting and afflicting him with these sharp troubles; he is only the worse for it; only the more rebellious, more perverse, more froward. I have seen his ways, and will heal him." The Lord speaks as though he would change his conduct towards him. If he could not frown him into obedience, he would kiss him into it. If, he could not by the manifestation of his anger, make him walk in a right way, he would do so by love, and as he could not bend the heart by trouble, he would break it by an overwhelming sense of grace, mercy, and pardon. In that way, then, does the Lord gain his point and bring about his blessed purpose, warming the soul into fruitfulness by summer suns, which wintry blasts could never produce, pardoning sin, and thus making it hateful; overcoming the soul with his goodness, so as to new model it into obedience; and by communicating a new heart and a new spirit, bring out of it freely and cheerfully that humility, submission, devotedness, and affection, which stripes and blows could never have extorted. This, then, is the connexion of the text. And this slight sketch of the context may, with God's blessing better prepare our minds to see and feel something of the sweetness and beauty of the text.