1. “The goat on which the lot for Azazel fell shall be made to stand alive before Jehovah to make expiation over it, that it may be sent away for Azazel into the wilderness”; “Aaron shall lay both his hands on the head of the live goat and confess over it all the iniquities of the children of Israel and all their transgressions, even all their sins; and he shall put them on the head of the goat, and shall send it away into the wilderness...Thus the goat shall bear away all their iniquities on itself to a solitary land” (Lev. 16:10, 21-22).
Christ solved the problem of our sinful record by bearing our sin in His body, but sin itself was sent back to the devil for him to bear forever. When Christ dealt with our sin, He did not place our sin on us for us to bear. Since sin comes from the devil, originates with him, and was passed on to us, it should be sent back to him for him to bear. God wants the devil to be responsible for sin. This can be seen in the type of the sin offerings made on the Day of Expiation in the Old Testament.
On the Day of Expiation, God commanded the children of Israel to use two goats to expiate their sins. One goat was killed as an offering to God, and the other was sent alive into the wilderness for Azazel. The goat that was killed and offered to God typifies Christ being killed for us, redeeming us from our sins, and being offered to God. The living goat being sent into the wilderness for Azazel signifies that Christ, through the efficacy of the cross, sent sin back to the devil, Azazel, who is the source, the origin, of sin. The goat was sent back to Azazel, who typifies the devil. Since the goat was sent to the devil, it did not need to be killed; rather, it was sent back to its source in the wilderness, which is the place where the devil is, and it will be with the devil forever in the lake of fire. The goat that was killed bore the sins of the children of Israel before God to deal with their sinful record before God. It had to be killed and its blood shed in order to satisfy the requirements of God’s righteousness to redeem them from their sins. The living goat then took the sin of the children of Israel back to its source. When the high priest, who represented the people, laid his hands on the head of this goat, he confessed the sins and transgressions of the people in order to place them onto this goat. The sins and transgressions of the children of Israel were put on the goat so that it could carry them into the wilderness to the devil, who is against God. On the one hand, our sinful record was resolved before God by Christ, who died and shed His blood for us, according to God’s righteous requirement, and on the other hand, sin itself was given back to its source, the devil, for him to bear forever. Christ redeemed us from our sinful record before God through His death and through the shedding of His blood to accomplish redemption according to His righteous requirement. We are no longer condemned before God or enslaved to sin. Through the efficacy of the cross, our sins were also sent back to the devil. We no longer need to carry our sins or be burdened with sin. God’s way of dealing with sin is surely complete! We should worship and thank Him. We should receive the redemption that Christ accomplished for us to escape condemnation and to be released from our sins, and we no longer need to bear the sin that the devil put into our being. Since Christ accomplished redemption for us, we should not continue to be companions of the devil, bearing sin. We should let him bear the sin that comes from him. Those who are unwilling to receive Christ’s redemption will be the devil’s companions and will be forced to help him bear sin for eternity.
The preceding points concerning sin can be summarized in six simple statements.
These six statements cover the main items related to this topic.