The Two Goats: The Terrible and Glorious Atonement Text: Leviticus 16:1-10
Introduction: The Shadow of Holy Fire
We come now to the very heart of the Old Testament, the Holy of Holies of the Levitical code. This is the Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur. This is the one day in the entire year when one man, the high priest, could pass behind the veil into the direct, localized presence of the all-holy God and not be incinerated. And the reason we begin here today is given to us in the very first verse. This chapter opens under the shadow of a funeral pyre. It opens with the memory of divine judgment.
Yahweh spoke to Moses "after the death of the two sons of Aaron." We remember this from chapter 10. Nadab and Abihu, newly consecrated priests, decided to innovate in worship. They got creative. They offered up "strange fire," which the text defines for us with terrifying simplicity. It was fire "which he commanded them not." They were not sinning by violating a direct negative command, but rather by adding something to worship that God had not required. They assumed they could approach the living God on their own terms, with their own enthusiasm, their own inventions. And fire came out from the presence of the Lord and consumed them. They learned the hard way that God is not to be trifled with. He is a consuming fire, and His holiness is not a metaphor. It is the most concrete reality in the universe.
This is the necessary backdrop for the Day of Atonement. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and it is most certainly the beginning of worship. Our generation has forgotten this entirely. We treat worship like a consumer activity. We want to be entertained, to have our emotions stoked, to feel a certain vibe. We approach God as though He were a cosmic buddy who is just glad we showed up. But the lesson of Nadab and Abihu, and the central lesson of this entire chapter, is that you cannot approach a holy God unless you come in the way that He Himself has prescribed. Any other approach is strange fire, and strange fire always invites holy fire. This chapter lays out, in meticulous, bloody detail, the only way a sinful people can be reconciled to a holy God. It is a terrifying and glorious picture, and every detail of it is a photograph of the Lord Jesus Christ.
The Text
Now Yahweh spoke to Moses after the death of the two sons of Aaron, when they came near the presence of Yahweh and died. And Yahweh said to Moses: “Tell your brother Aaron that he shall not enter at any time into the holy place inside the veil, before the mercy seat which is on the ark, so that he will not die; for I will appear in the cloud over the mercy seat. Aaron shall enter the holy place with this: with a bull from the herd for a sin offering and a ram for a burnt offering. He shall put on the holy linen tunic, and the linen undergarments shall be next to his body, and he shall be girded with the linen sash and attired with the linen turban (these are holy garments). Then he shall bathe his body in water and put them on. And he shall take from the congregation of the sons of Israel two male goats for a sin offering and one ram for a burnt offering. Then Aaron shall bring near the bull for the sin offering which is for himself, that he may make atonement for himself and for his household. And he shall take the two goats and present them before Yahweh at the doorway of the tent of meeting. And Aaron shall cast lots for the two goats, one lot for Yahweh and the other lot for the scapegoat. Then Aaron shall bring near the goat on which the lot for Yahweh fell, and he shall offer it as a sin offering. But the goat on which the lot for thescapegoat fell shall be presented alive before Yahweh, to make atonement upon it, to send it out into the wilderness as the scapegoat.
(Leviticus 16:1-10 LSB)
The Fearful Restriction (v. 1-2)
The instructions begin with a stark warning, grounded in recent, tragic history.
"Now Yahweh spoke to Moses after the death of the two sons of Aaron, when they came near the presence of Yahweh and died. And Yahweh said to Moses: 'Tell your brother Aaron that he shall not enter at any time into the holy place inside the veil, before the mercy seat which is on the ark, so that he will not die; for I will appear in the cloud over the mercy seat.'" (Leviticus 16:1-2)
God does not want Aaron to make the same mistake his sons did. The default setting for man is "no entry." The way into the Holiest of All is closed. This is a direct consequence of the fall in Genesis 3, when God drove Adam and Eve out of the Garden and placed cherubim with a flaming sword to guard the way to the tree of life. That flaming sword is still there. Access to God's presence is not a right; it is a gift, and a highly restricted one at that.
Aaron is told he cannot enter "at any time." He cannot come whenever he feels like it, whenever the mood strikes him. He can only come on this one day, in this one prescribed way. Why? "So that he will not die." The baseline assumption is that if a sinful man enters the presence of a holy God, the man dies. This is not because God is moody or vindictive. It is a matter of spiritual physics. A 10,000-volt power line is not evil, but if you touch it, you will be vaporized. God's holiness is infinitely more potent. The mercy seat, the very place of atonement, is the place where God's glorious presence, the Shekinah, will appear in a cloud. This is the epicenter of God's holiness on earth, and to approach it wrongly is to commit suicide.
The Priest's Preparation (v. 3-6)
Before Aaron can represent the people, he must first deal with his own sin and be properly attired for the solemn work.
"Aaron shall enter the holy place with this: with a bull from the herd for a sin offering and a ram for a burnt offering. He shall put on the holy linen tunic... (these are holy garments). Then he shall bathe his body in water and put them on. And he shall take from the congregation of the sons of Israel two male goats for a sin offering and one ram for a burnt offering. Then Aaron shall bring near the bull for the sin offering which is for himself, that he may make atonement for himself and for his household." (Leviticus 16:3-6)
First, notice the sacrifices. Before he can even bring the goats for the people, he must bring a bull for his own sin and a ram for his own burnt offering. The high priest himself is a sinner. He is not exempt. This is the great weakness of the Levitical priesthood, as the author of Hebrews points out. The priest must first offer sacrifices for his own sins, and then for the sins of the people (Heb. 7:27). Our great High Priest, Jesus, had no need of this. He was without sin, separate from sinners, and therefore could offer Himself once for all.
Second, notice his clothing. On this day, Aaron does not wear his glorious, ornate garments of blue, purple, and scarlet, with the golden bells and the breastplate of precious stones. He strips all that away and puts on simple, plain, white linen garments. Why? Because this is a day for dealing with the filth of sin. This is not a day for glory and majesty, but for humility and cleansing. The linen garments speak of purity and righteousness, but their simplicity speaks of a setting aside of status. In this, Aaron is a magnificent type of Christ, who, though He was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant (Phil. 2:6-7). Christ set aside His glory to be clothed in the simple linen of human flesh in order to deal with our sin.
He must also bathe his body in water. This is a total cleansing, a picture of the regeneration and purification necessary to stand before God. Only after he has been cleansed and has made atonement for himself can he then take the animals from the congregation.
The Two Goats and the Divine Lot (v. 7-10)
Here we come to the central ritual of the day, the selection and designation of the two goats.
"And he shall take the two goats and present them before Yahweh at the doorway of the tent of meeting. And Aaron shall cast lots for the two goats, one lot for Yahweh and the other lot for the scapegoat. Then Aaron shall bring near the goat on which the lot for Yahweh fell, and he shall offer it as a sin offering. But the goat on which the lot for the scapegoat fell shall be presented alive before Yahweh, to make atonement upon it, to send it out into the wilderness as the scapegoat." (Leviticus 16:7-10)
Two goats are brought, but they constitute one sin offering. They represent two distinct but inseparable aspects of the one work of atonement that Christ would accomplish. You cannot have one without the other. This is not a multiple-choice quiz; it is a compound truth.
Notice how their roles are determined. Aaron does not choose. He casts lots. "The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from Yahweh" (Prov. 16:33). This is a crucial point. The atonement is God's work from start to finish. There is no human sentiment, no arbitrary choice involved. God sovereignly determines every aspect of how sin will be dealt with. This removes all human boasting and demonstrates that salvation is of the Lord.
The first lot is "for Yahweh." This goat is destined for sacrifice. Its purpose is to satisfy the demands of God's holy justice. This is the doctrine of propitiation. The wrath of God against sin is real, personal, and just. It must be dealt with. This goat's blood will be shed and carried inside the veil to be sprinkled on the mercy seat. It is a payment made to God. It satisfies His holy character. This is the God-ward aspect of the cross. Christ died to satisfy the justice of His Father.
The second lot is for the "scapegoat," or in the Hebrew, for Azazel. This goat is not killed. It is kept alive. The sins of the people will be confessed over its head, and it will be led away into the wilderness, into a land of separation, bearing their iniquities away from them. This is the doctrine of substitution, or more precisely, expiation. This is the man-ward aspect of the atonement. It demonstrates what happens to our sin. It is removed. It is carried away. It is taken to a place where it can no longer be found. "As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us" (Psalm 103:12).
One Atonement, Two Pictures
These two goats are two sides of the same golden coin of our salvation. They must be held together. The first goat, the goat for Yahweh, shows us the cost of our forgiveness. God does not simply wave His hand and say, "All is forgiven." His justice must be satisfied. A price must be paid, and that price is blood. Without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness (Heb. 9:22). This is what Christ did on the cross. He was the sacrifice "for Yahweh." God made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, and God poured out the full cup of His righteous wrath against our sin upon His own Son. This is the terrible foundation of our peace.
The second goat, the scapegoat, shows us the result of that payment. Because God's justice has been fully satisfied, our sin can be fully removed. It is not just covered over; it is carried away. It is not just ignored; it is exiled. This is what Christ accomplished for us. He not only took God's wrath in our place, but He also bore our sins away. When God looks at a believer, He does not see their sin. It has been taken away, borne by our substitute into the wilderness of God's forgetfulness.
Some people want the scapegoat without the goat for Yahweh. They want a God of love who just forgives and removes sin without any need for a bloody, wrath-absorbing sacrifice. But this is sentimental nonsense. It makes God unjust. How can a holy God simply ignore sin? He cannot. That is why the first goat had to die. Others might focus only on the wrath-bearing aspect and forget the glorious freedom that comes from the sin-bearing aspect. But the gospel is both. Christ died, satisfying God's justice completely. And therefore, our sins are removed, carried away, gone forever.
This is the great exchange. Our sin was put on Him, the goat for Yahweh, and He was slain. His righteousness is put on us, and we, like the scapegoat, are led out into a new life, into the glorious freedom of the children of God, with our sins left far behind in the wilderness. This is the heart of the gospel, pictured here in blood and dust. This is the only way to approach the holy fire of God's presence and live.