Act 5: Guilt Is Removed

As the goat goes into the wilderness, it will carry all the people’s sins upon itself into a desolate land.   Leviticus 16:22

What happened next on the Day of Atonement is a marvelous picture of how God deals with our sins when they have been confessed and atonement has been made.

Picture yourself in the crowd. The high priest has finished confessing your sins. Your guilt has been transferred to the goat, and now someone leads the goat away.

You watch him weave in and out between the tents and then outside the camp and into the desert. You watch until the man and the goat are only a dot on the horizon, and then you can no longer see them at all.

Apply this picture to your own life. When atonement has been made for your sin and your sin has been confessed, then your guilt will be removed. It will be taken out of sight.

Can you see your sins laid on Jesus, as you lay hold of him by faith and confess your sins to him? Can you picture your sins being taken away into the distance and out of sight? Can you believe that through the finished work of Christ your guilt is removed, that “he has removed our sins as far from us as the east is from the west” (Psalm 103:12)?

The Day of Atonement was a series of visual aids in which God was teaching us: 1) We need a priest who will lay aside his dignity and come as a servant to make atonement for us. 2) A man with his own sins cannot atone for the sins of others. 3) Atonement can be made only by the shedding of blood, satisfying the justice of God and releasing mercy. 4) When sin is confessed, its guilt is transferred. 5) When atonement is made and sin is confessed, then guilt is removed.

This five-act drama was like a dress rehearsal for the real performance that took place when Jesus Christ came into the world. It told us what to look for and what to expect when he came.

Fast-forward fifteen hundred years, and you move from the dress rehearsal to the opening night, from the preview to the main event, featuring Jesus Christ in the role of the High Priest.

For further reading, see Hebrews 10