Your ShelfYour Projects

THE SANCTUARY

5%

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Nov 16, 1876

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 48, No. 20.

Read the full edition

THE SANCTUARY.

By Uriah Smith

Fortieth Paper.—The Scape-Goat.

After the ministry in the most holy place was accomplished, one thing more remained for the priest to do, before the work was entirely finished. Having by presenting before the law in the ark the blood of the appropriate offering, released from the sanctuary the sins for which that blood made atonement, those sins were cancelled as related to the forgiven sinner, but were not by this act destroyed. The high priest having performed the ministry which took them from the sanctuary, they were left for him to dispose of in a manner plainly pointed out. He came out of the sanctuary, and laying both his hands on the head of the scape-goat, held in waiting at the door, confessed over him “all the iniquities of the children of Israel and all their transgressions in all their sins, putting them upon the head of the goat.” Lev. 16:21. This is a plain statement that the sins taken from the sanctuary were transferred to the goat. The goat with these sins upon him was then sent away into the wilderness, into a land of forgetfulness, implying probably the destruction of the goat, in the death of which the sins also perished.
The ceremony of thus sending away the sins of the people in the type, Lev. 16:20–22, has already been noticed. The question now arises, What service in the real ministry of Christ, in the more perfect tabernacle above, answers to this, and how is it to be performed?
The principal point to be decided here is, To what being shall we look as the antitypical scape-goat? When the typical goat, anciently, loaded with the sins of the people, went forth from the camp of Israel, to be heard of no more forever, what did it foreshadow to be fulfilled in this dispensation? Here again we are led to differ very materially from the views which have obtained on this subject.
The view very generally held is that the scape-goat typified Christ. Because John the Baptist said, John 1:29, “Behold the Lamb of God which taketh [margin, beareth] away the sin of the world,” and because it is said of the scape-goat that he “shall bear upon him all their iniquities into a land not inhabited,” it is, without further thought, concluded by some that the latter was a type of the former.
From such a view we dissent for the following reasons:—
1. If Christ, in bearing the sin of the world, fulfilled the antitype of the scape-goat, he must have filled this office at the time of the crucifixion; for Peter says of him, “Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree;” 1 Pet. 2:24; and this is the only time when, and the only sense in which, he is said to have borne our sins. But in the type the scape-goat did not bear away the sins of the people till after the cleansing of the sanctuary; hence the antitype of this work cannot take place till after the cleansing of the antitypical sanctuary, which work, as has been proved, did not commence till the termination of the 2300 days in 1844. Dan. 8:14; Heb. 9:23. It is therefore impossible to carry this work back to the crucifixion of Christ, which was even before he commenced his ministry in the Heavenly sanctuary at all. Christ cannot therefore be the antitype of the scape-goat.
2. The scape-goat, after being loaded with sin, was sent away by the priest. He could not therefore be the priest himself. But in this dispensation Christ is priest; he cannot therefore be the antitypical scape-goat to be sent away by the priest. Christ cannot send away himself. The conclusion is hence inevitable that the scape-goat must be some being whom Christ, after placing upon him the sins borne from the sanctuary, shall send away into a land not inhabited.
3. The scape-goat was sent away from Israel, into the uninhabited wilderness. If our Saviour is its antitype, he also must be sent away, not his body alone, as some suppose who refer it to his death, but in his entire being (for the goat was sent away alive) from, not to, nor into, his people; neither into Heaven; for that is not a wilderness, or land not inhabited. But instead of thus being sent away, Christ is to dwell in the midst of his people, the true Israel of faith, forevermore.
4. The scape-goat received and retained all the iniquities of the children of Israel; but when Christ appears the second time, he will be “without sin.”
5. It is impossible that two goats, one of which was chosen by the Lord, and is called the Lord’s, while the other is not so called, but was left to perform an entirely different office,—it is impossible that these both should typify the same person. But the goat on which the Lord’s lot fell, the blood of which was ministered in the sanctuary, did certainly typify Christ. Just as surely the scape-goat did not typify him.
Having thus proved by evidence which must be conclusive to every candid mind, that Christ cannot be the antitype of the Levitical scape-goat, the direct question, Who is the antitype of that goat? now presents itself for solution.
1. The definition of the word is sufficient to suggest an application. In the common acceptation of the word, the term scape-goat is applied to any miserable vagabond who has become obnoxious to the claims of justice; and while it is revolting to all our conceptions of the character and glory of Christ, to apply this term to him, it must strike every one as a very appropriate designation for a certain character whom the Scriptures style, the accuser, adversary, angel of the bottomless pit, Beelzebub, Belial, dragon, enemy, evil spirit, father of lies, murderer, prince of devils, serpent, tempter, seducer, &c.
2. We are not without direct evidence to the same purpose. The Hebrew word for scape-goat, as given in the margin of Lev. 16:8, is Azazel. On this verse Jenkins in his comprehensive commentary remarks: “Scape-goat. See diff. opin. in Bochart.” Spencer, after the oldest opinion of the Hebrews and Christians, thinks Azazel is the name of the devil; and so Rosenmire, whom see. The Syriac has, Azazel, the angel (strong one) who revolted.” These authorities unmistakably point out Satan. Thus we have the definition of the Scripture term for scape-goat, in two ancient languages, with the oldest opinion of both Hebrews and Christians, in favor of the view that the scape-goat is a type of Satan.
3. Chas. Beecher, in “Redeemer and Redeemed,” pp. 67, 68, says:—
“What goes to confirm this is, that the most ancient paraphrases and translations, treat Azazel as a proper name. The Chaldee paraphrase, and the targums of Onkelos and Jonathan, would certainly have translated it if it was not a proper name, but they do not. The Septuagint, or oldest Greek version, renders it by ἀποπομπαῖος (apopompaios), a word applied by the Greeks to a malign deity, sometimes appeased by sacrifices. Another confirmation is found in the book of Enoch where the name Azazel, evidently a corruption of Azazel, is given to one of the fallen angels, thus plainly showing what was the prevalent understanding of the Jews at that day.
“Still another evidence is found in the Arabic, where Azazel is employed as the name of the Evil Spirit. In addition to these we have the evidence of the Jewish work Zohar, and of the Cabalistic and Rabbinical writers. They tell us that the following proverb was current among the Jews: ‘On the day of atonement, a gift to Sammael.’ Hence, Moses Gerundinensis feels called to say that it is not a sacrifice, but only done because commanded by God.
“Another step in the evidence is, when we find this same opinion passing from the Jewish to the early Christian church. Origen was the most learned of the Fathers, and on such a point as this, the meaning of a Hebrew word, his testimony is reliable. Says Origen: ‘He who is called in the Septuagint ἀποπομπαῖος, and in the Hebrew Azazel, is no other than the devil.’
“In view then of the difficulties attending any other meaning, and the accumulated evidence in favor of this, Hengstenberg affirms with great confidence, that Azazel cannot be anything else but another name for Satan.”
On page 70, Mr. Beecher further says: “The meaning of the term [scape-goat] viewed as a proper name, was stated, in 1677, by Spencer, Dean of Ely, to be powerful Apostate, or mighty Receder.” Prof. Bush is also quoted on p. 72, as regarding Azazel as a proper name of Satan.
U. S.