Two Goats of the Atonement

Reading:   Leviticus 16

I always find it exciting when I discover the origin of a word.  I have discovered several since I began  my daily scripture study/blog posting (can't for the life of me think of any at this moment but I know I have written about a few).  Today I came across the word "scapegoat" and discovered its literal meaning...

LEVITICUS 16:8-10, 22

8    And Aaron shall cast lots upon the two goats; one lot for the Lord, and the other lot for the scapegoat. 

9 And Aaron shall bring the goat upon which the Lord's lot fell, and offer him for a sin offering. 

10 But the goat, on which the lot fell to be the scapegoat, shall be presented alive before the Lord, to make an atonement with him, and to let him go for a scapegoat into the wilderness. 

22 And the goat shall bear upon him all their iniquities unto a land not inhabited: and he shall let go the goat in the wilderness. 

One goat would be sacrificed and the other would take upon him the sins of the people and be set free in a faraway land.  The ceremonial scapegoat represented a leaving of sin, or a loss of sin, meaning all the sins were carried upon the goat and no man knew where the goat, or their sins, were - sins were gone, taken from them, lost.

In terms of defining the word today, Dictionary.com states the definition of scapegoat as: A person or group made to bare the blame for others or to suffer in their place.  The curious thing, in regards to the definition, is the obvious lack of the sacrificed goat.  Who takes on that role?  If a person or group is made to bare the blame or sins of others where is the offered goat, the goat that does suffer, even death.  There were two goats, the offered and the escaped, we tend to place both meanings on the word today; a person is given the blame and suffers for the blame.

All of the offerings and laws under Moses and Aaron were fulfilled in the mortal ministry of Jesus Christ, inluding that of both the scapegoat and sacrificial goat.  The Savior has been referred to as the ultimate scapegoat but I would submit that he also filled the role of the ultimate sacrificial goat as well.  Let me explain...when Jesus knelt alone in the garden of Gethsemane...

  He suffered so much pain, "indescribable anguish," and "overpowering torture" (John Taylor, The Mediation and Atonement (1882), 150) for our sake. His profound suffering in the Garden of Gethsemane, where He took upon Himself all the sins of all other mortals, caused Him "to tremble because of pain, and to bleed at every pore, and to suffer both body and spirit." (D&C 19:18) "And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly," (Luke 22:44) saying, "O my Father, if this cup may not pass away from me, except I drink it, thy will be done." (Matt. 26:42)~James E. Faust, The Atonement: Our Greatest Hope (October General Conference, 2001 - Saturday morning session).

This act, willingly suffered, fulfilled the sin offering to God as the sacrificial goat.  The second act, being raised upon the cross, fulfilled the role of the scapegoat as a visual offering for man.  Jesus, willingly, died upon the cross for all to see.  He took upon him the sins of the world and died for them (in a sense, he and the sins of the world were lost, taken from the sight of man) this was the act of the second goat, the scapegoat, witnessed by all and likewise celebrated as the visual depiction of the atonement (as attested by the symbolic use of the cross and statues in cathedrals everywhere).

The difference in this act, and all sacrifices offered to this point, was the willingness of the Savior to suffer both on the cross and in Gethsemane.  He accepted the call of his father, he accepted the sins of the world, he accepted the suffering and accepted his mortal demise willingly.  No other sacrifice did so of their own volition!  If asked, I'm sure none of the various animals would have accepted their untimely bloodletting and yet the Savior did just that - suffered for all willingly.  He was indeed the ultimate scapegoat and sacrificial goat.

~Kipling