02/20/18 Carried into a Desolate Place

READING: Leviticus 15-18

“The goat will carry all their iniquities into a desolate land.”

Leviticus 16:22

The picture is a dramatic one – one that we could envision the cinematic world portraying with great drama. On the Day of Atonement, one goat was sacrificed as a sin offering, and another live goat was sent into the wilderness as the “scapegoat.” The first animal dies, shedding his blood as a means of atonement for the sinner. The second animal, on whose head the priest symbolically transfers the sin of the people, wanders away “into a desolate land” (Lev. 16:22). Though scholars differ on the meaning of the scapegoat, this animal is a reminder that God “carries away” our sin from us when we turn to Him. As one writer has described it, “In the Day of Atonement ceremony the first animal pictures the means for atonement, the shedding of blood in the sacrificial death. The scapegoat pictures the effect of atonement, the removal of guilt.”*

Indeed, the Bible uses various images to show us what God does when He forgives us:

1. He has separated us from our sin an immeasurable distance: “As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us” (Psalm 103:12).
2. He has dropped our sin to the bottom of the ocean: “You will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea” (Micah 7:19b).
3. He has blotted out our sin: “It is I who blots out your transgressions for My own sake” (Isaiah 43:25b).
4. He remembers our sin no more: “For I will forgive their wrongdoing and never again remember their sin” (Jeremiah 31:34b).
5. He has cleansed our sin: “Though your sins are like scarlet, they will be as white as snow; though they are as red as crimson, they will be like wool” (Isaiah 1:18).
6. He has cast our sin behind His back: “for You have thrown all my sins behind Your back” (Isaiah 38:17).
7. He has forgiven and covered our sins: “How joyful are those whose lawless acts are forgiven and whose sins are covered!” (Romans 4:7).
8. He does not count our sin against us: “That is, in Christ, God was reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them” (2 Corinthians 5:19).
9. He laid all our sin upon His Son: “We all went astray like sheep; we all have turned to our own way; and the Lord has punished Him for the iniquity of us all” (Isaiah 53:6).
10. He takes away our sin: “The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, ‘Here is the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!’” (John 1:29).**

While we were yet sinners, God atoned for our sin and carried it away through the death of Jesus, the ultimate sacrifice. Worthy is that Lamb!

ACTION STEPS:

• Read the list above, and thank God for each description of what God does with our sin.
• Praise Him for establishing a plan by which we can be restored to Him in the first place.

PRAYER: “God, I am amazed at what You do with my sin. I want to live in victory today for Your glory.”

TOMORROW’S READING:  Leviticus 19-22

*Rooker, M. F. (2000). Leviticus (Vol. 3A, p. 221). Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers.

**List first appeared at www.chucklawless.com.