OUR SUBSTITUTION by Pastor Scott Henry

“Aaron shall lay both his hands on the head of the live goat, confess over it all the iniquities of the children of Israel, and all their transgressions, concerning all their sins, putting them on the head of the goat, and shall send it away into the wilderness by the hand of a suitable man. The goat shall bear on itself all their iniquities to an uninhabited land; and he shall release the goat in the wilderness” (Leviticus 16:21-22).

The Day of Atonement, described in Leviticus chapter 16, foreshadows, in great detail, the substitutionary work of our Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus was both the sin offering, who cleansed His people with His blood, and the scapegoat upon whom the sins of His people were imputed.

On the cross, Jesus was the One banished far into the uninhabited, spiritual wilderness in order to redeem His people from their sins. That’s why Jesus is called the spotless and blameless Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world (2 Peter 3:14; John 1:29), and it’s also for this reason that believers can have the blessed assurance that their sins are cast as far as the east is from the west, never to be remembered against them again. Why? Because on a Friday afternoon, over 2,000 years ago, Jesus Christ became our sin offering and our scapegoat in order that God’s holy and just wrath might be turned away from us, and we might become favorable in God’s sight. That’s the truth we embrace as we remember the work of our Savior, Jesus Christ, on Good Friday.

Is your trust in Jesus Christ as the only One who can wash away your sins by His atoning work? Scripture is very clear … “There is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men, by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12). Therefore, as the Scripture declares, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved” (Acts 16:31).