Act 4: Sin Is Confessed

[Aaron] will lay both of his hands on the goat’s head and confess over it all the wickedness, rebellion, and sins of the people of Israel. In this way, he will transfer the people’s sins to the head of the goat.   Leviticus 16:21

The people saw the goat being slaughtered, and then all they could do was wait as the high priest went into the Most Holy Place to sprinkle the blood on the atonement cover. Now, a second goat was brought to him.

The high priest was charged with confessing all the sins of Israel while laying both hands on the head of this live goat. That would have been a long prayer! While he was unable to confess the details of every individual sin, the high priest prayed in such a way that the people recognized there were specific sins that needed to be dealt with. If you had been standing in the crowd listening, eventually you would have thought, That sin is one of mine.

When the high priest confessed the sins of the people, his hands on the head of the goat, a transfer took place. God moved the guilt of these sins onto the goat. He regarded these sins as placed on the goat’s head and carried by the goat.

Now God says to us, “That is what I want you to do. I want you, in an act of faith, to lay hold of the Lord Jesus Christ. I want you to confess your sins, and when you do, this is what will happen: your guilt will be transferred to Christ. It will be laid on him and included in the sin for which he died.”

Have you done that? Christ, the perfect High Priest, has appeared. Atonement has been accomplished in his death. The question is whether that atonement has been applied to your sins. That happens when you lay hold of Jesus Christ in faith and confess your sin to him. When faith has laid its hand on Christ and confession has been made, then guilt is transferred and you can look back to the cross and know that your guilt and your sin were dealt with there.

For further reading, see 1 John 1