IV.

(Concluded from p. 167.)

The scapegoat, correctly interpreted, becomes the key to the understanding of the order of procedure in Lev. 16. The atonement made by sacrificing the bullock and Jehovah's goat and presenting their blood and the burning incense within the sanctuary-why should this be separated, by the intervening work of the scapegoat, from the offering upon the brazen altar of the rams of burnt-offering and the fat of the sin-offering, and from the burning of the bodies of the bullock and goat outside the camp ?

Because the type figures much more than the making of atonement. It pictures faith's acceptance of the work, and shows how the value of the Person and sacrifice of Christ are by God put to the account of a believing people.

In other words, the work of Christ is presented in two distinct aspects in Lev. 16. First, Christ's sacrifice is viewed as an offering unto God, glorifying Him by atoningly covering in His sight all sins and sin, so purging the heavens and the earth :it being the necessary demand of His nature in view of the creature's sin, irrespective of whether the creature himself be saved or lost.

Secondly, thus done, the work is offered as a perfect refuge for the guilty creature, if he will have it, becoming the righteous basis of the reckonings of faith in the believer, who regards all that he was as a sinner by nature and practice as crucified "with" Christ in the judgment at the cross, and himself now as a new man, quickened and risen "with " the risen One, and " alive unto God in Christ," through a divine work of new creation.

But let us briefly trace the order of the type, observing its beauty and significance.

1:The sacrificial death at the high priest's hand of the bullock and goat of the sin-offering and the rams of burnt-offering,* pictures Christ's sacrifice, Himself Priest and Victim, upon the cross :the endurance of death and curse by the incarnate Son of God-true God, true Man-whose infinite suffering for sins and sin, under an infinite outpouring of divine wrath, has by a righteous God been accepted at its true value, as a complete and glorious atonement for all evil. *In perfect accordance with what has been said, the sin-offering, peculiarly linked with the claims of God's nature, is prominent in the first part of 1he chapter; while the burnt-offering, characteristically for man's "acceptance" (Lev. 1:3, Heb.), is conspicuous in the latter part. Yet in each part both sacrifices appear, joined together. Since Scripture does not state when the rams actually were plain-whether with the bullock and goat, or just before the rams were offered on the altar, as from verse 24 we might assume -this point is immaterial. But the text is explicit in linking the rams with the bullock and goats (vers. 3 and 5), so as to associate every aspect of the fragrant death of Christ with this part of the ritual ; and Aaron was expressly commanded to enter the sanctuary with the ram as well as the bullock (ver. 3). He entered not alone with the bullock's blood, but with incense laid on coals from the altar (ver. 12), representing the burnt-offering as "an odor of rest."*

The bullock, goat, and rams, themselves innocent, were slain in the judgment of the sin of guilty
men, and thus figure the feature of substitution in the death of Christ. He, holy as these were innocent, died for the sins of His creatures.

2. Aaron's entrance into the sanctuary with the sacrificial blood and burning incense is doubtless typical of two things. It sets forth the immediate acceptance of Christ's sacrifice in the moment of His death ; the sprinkling of the blood, to "make atonement" for the tabernacle and other things connected therewith, expressing the instantaneous efficacy of our Lord's work in purging the universe from sin. Secondly, Aaron's entrance into the holiest also figured amid inevitable contrasts, Christ's entrance into heaven, after His resurrection, in the value of His sacrifice "to appear before the face of God for us" (Heb. 9:24).

3. Aaron necessarily came out of the sanctuary again to confess Israel's sins upon the scapegoat. But Christ fulfils this part of the type by His work as glorified and enthroned Saviour. For, atonement accomplished, He entered heaven, in virtue of it, as the great Melchisedek-Priest and Minister of the tabernacle, to dispense the eternal redemption He had secured, with its wealth of blessing. And this is what the scapegoat pictures-the removal of sins from guilty souls who, in faith, repentance, and confession, "come unto God by Him." If Heb. 9 gives us the doctrine of Christ's entrance into the heavenlies, having first purified them by putting sin away through His sacrifice (vers. 23-26), in Heb. 10, following, we have the doctrine of the purged conscience and the remission of the sins of the worshipers (vers. 1-4, 14-18); just as in the type, the sacrificial death and application of the blood of the victims, with Aaron's entrance into the holy places, is followed by the scapegoat service in removing sins from the people.* *In passing we may note the difficulty of some who correctly interpret the scapegoat as a picture of the removal of Israel's sins in a coming day, but question the application of the type to Christians. It is said, that for Aaron's house, figuring the holy priesthood of heavenly saints, there was no scapegoat.

But, surely, Aaron included his own and his sons' sins in his confession of Israel's iniquities upon the goat. Had the priests' sins been excluded, in the removal of sins to the "cut off" laud, the entire ritual would have broken down in its most vital point-the purging of the priesthood, which stood between God and the people. But this could not be, as a careful scrutiny of the inspired text makes clear.

In Lev. 16 :17, when the atonement made for Aaron and his house is distinguished from that for the rest of Israel, the people, apart from the priests, are styled the "congregation" of Israel. But in verse 19, where the altar is sprinkled with the blood, both of the bullock (the priests' offering) and of the goat (the congregation's offering) it is said to be hallowed from the uncleanness, not of the "congregation," but of the "children" of Israel, a term embracing all. Now on the scapegoat (verse 21) were confessed the iniquities, not of the "congregation," as excluding Aaron's house, but of "the children of Israel," explicitly including all, priests and people.

The true guide to interpretation, therefore, is not found in excluding Aaron's house from the service of the scapegoat, but in noting that the priests had no special scapegoat. Hence we infer that the special dispensational application of this feature is, indeed, to Israel, in a coming time, when God will "remove the iniquity of that laud in one day " (Zech. 3:9)-a collective application. In the present dispensation the application is not collective, but strictly individual, as each soul believes. And indeed, as we have just seen, Israel's new-covenant-blessing, of sins removed and remembered no more by God (Jer. 31 :33, 34), is expressly applied to Christians in Hebrews 10.*

4.Following the removal of the people's sins by the scapegoat, Aaron offers up the fragrant burnt-offerings upon the brazen altar, to "make an atonement for himself and for the people," and burns upon the altar "the fat of the sin-offering" (Lev. 16:24, 25). So is it in God's dealing with souls. The instant there is faith and repentance, God not merely remits sins, as figured in the scapegoat, but puts to the soul's account the full value of the sacrifice and person of Christ.

In Heb. 10, accordingly, we not merely find the blessing of remission, but also what answers expressly to the altar and rams upon it in the type:Christ come into the world (the Word become flesh, the copper and acacia wood of the altar) to accomplish God's will through sacrifice-the burnt-offering aspect of the cross (vers. 5-10). Moreover, it is our side-the burnt-offering presented to God for our "acceptance," or, more strictly, viewed as the working of God's will in accomplishing blessing for us righteously, that is, through sacrifice. "By the which will we are sanctified, through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once" (ver. 10).

Again, the altar, with its "continual " burnt-offering, especially figures Christ's sacrifice as, in His person, a perpetually abiding value before God; and this too, we find in Heb. 10:11-14. "For by one offering He hath perfected, in perpetuity, them that are sanctified." This, in principle, embraces the entire body of judicial reckonings, through identification with Christ in His judgment, death, quickening and resurrection, to which faith is entitled the moment it turns to Christ.

Briefly epitomizing what we have just looked at, notice how closely the interpreting epistle to the
Hebrews follows the order of the type. The heaven-lies are atoningly purified (Heb. 9), as were the tabernacle and sanctuary. Remission of sins and a purged conscience (Heb. 10) answer to the service of the scapegoat. The sanctification and perfecting of the worshipers (Heb. 10) corresponds to Aaron's service at the altar of burnt-offering.

Two beautiful consequences follow. There could be "no man in the tabernacle" until Aaron had completed the work of atonement (Lev. 16:17). But with the tabernacle purged, their sins removed upon the scapegoat, and the burnt-offering from the altar ascending to God for their "acceptance," Aaron's sons might freely enter the holy place and perform their priestly service through another year. And so, in just this connection, we find the exhortation in Heb. 10:19-22:" Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holy places by the blood of Jesus [the sacrifice], by a new and living way which He hath consecrated for us through the veil, that is to say, His flesh [His person, of which both altar and veil were types], and having a high priest over the house of God [in type, Aaron], let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water"-answering to the service of the scapegoat.

The other thing is linked with the altar. This, with its offering upon it, was the gathering center of Israel and their meeting-place with Jehovah. The fire upon the altar never went out, and the rams offered on the day of atonement were followed by lambs each morning and evening, so that the service at the brazen altar for the people's "acceptance " on the day of atonement was, in a sense, continued "in perpetuity." And " there," God had said, "I will meet with the children of Israel " (Ex. 29:43).

And so is the glorified Christ-Himself the living memorial of His sacrifice-the meeting-point and gathering center of His people, not in heaven alone, but on earth. The golden altar, within the tabernacle, pictures Him in heaven, the Sanctifier of His people and of all their gifts, identifying Himself with them and upholding them in their approach unto God in the holiest. But He is also the gathering Center of His people on the earth, is "in the midst," and is the Sanctifier of them and their gifts. "As He is, so are we in this world" (i John 4:17). It is of course, the same truth, in its earthward aspect, and represented by the brazen altar, with its sacrificial "odor of rest," in the outer court where the people gathered. And this, too, we find in Hebrews (13:10,15):"We have an Altar … By Him, therefore, let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually."

5. Lastly, in the type (Lev. 16:27), we have the burning outside the camp of the bodies of the bullock and goat, the sin-offerings. Altar and burnt-offering figuratively link our acceptance by God-sanctification, and judicial perfection with the sweet savor of Christ's person and sacrifice. But in the burning of the bodies of the sin-offering outside, found in this place in the type, we see how God puts to our account, for faith's appropriation, the substitutionary aspect of the cross-Christ made sin for us, and we crucified with Him.

This total consumption of the sin-offering by fire pictures an eternal abiding under God's judgment. In the judgment at the cross, Christ alone could emerge from divine wrath, for He only, being infinite, could exhaust it. But all that for which He stood, the evil judged in the judgment of Him for it, Scripture views as still left upon the cross, forever condemned, eternally crucified.

This is Scriptural substitution. Of itself, it slays, condemns, crucifies-does not save. "One died for all, therefore all have died" (2 Cor. 5:14, Gr.). If, by substitution, "our old man" were saved to live and torment us for ever, instead of being eternally crucified, where would we be? or how should "the body of sin" have been " annulled " (Rom.6:6,6 Gr.)? And what substitution does for me, as a child of wrath by nature, it does also for the whole world:" The cross of our Lord Jesus Christ by which the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world " (Gal, 6:14). This effect of substitution is far indeed from universalism!

On the other hand, we who believe-not the "world " -are indeed risen with Christ. But what is risen? That which is "quickened" with Christ, newborn of God, made partakers of the divine nature, a new creation in Christ Jesus! We are this new thing; and it becomes a boundless joy to learn that the cross has infinitely separated us from what we were, by the very fact that it has left "our old man" (our old self) under God's judgment forever ; whereas " we " (the new man "in Christ") are eternally before God's presence "unreprovable, in love."

But the cross which separates us from our old self and all its ways, separates us from " the world," religious or irreligious, by the same "gulf." This is the full lesson of the burning of the bodies of bullock and goat in the type; and this, again, we find in Hebrews (13:11-13); "For the bodies of those beasts, whose blood is brought into the sanctuary by the high priest as sacrifices for sin, are burned without the camp. Wherefore Jesus also, that He might sanctify the people with His own blood, suffered without the gate."

This"sanctification" is our eternal separation from our old selves and the world by the cross of Christ. Crucified to all the evil, He is risen, apart from it all. "Let us go forth therefore unto Him, without the camp, bearing His reproach. F. Allaben