The ritual was a familiar one to the people of Israel—once a year, the High Priest would select one bull and two goats—innocent animals. The bull he would sacrifice as atonement for his own sins and the sins of his household. Then he would slaughter one of the two goats, take its blood inside the veil of the tabernacle, and sprinkle it on the mercy seat as an offering for sins of the people.
Finishing this task, he would leave the tabernacle and go to the other goat. According to Leviticus 16:21, he would “lay both of his hands on the goat’s head and confess over it all the sins and rebellion of the Israelites. In this way, he will lay the people’s sins on the head of the goat.” Then this goat—called the “scapegoat”—would be led away by a man previously appointed to the task to a distant area of the wilderness, there to be released, to live and die and never again to be seen by the people of Israel. Why was this done? Again according to Leviticus 16, “the goat will carry all the people’s sins upon itself into a desolate land.”
What does a billy goat in the wild have to do with me? Well, more than you might think! This scenario, which took place yearly on the Day of Atonement, illustrates the twin truths of Ephesians 1:7, where we find “redemption” equated with “the forgiveness of sins”. Last week, we talked about the fact that redemption means that we are released from the bondage of sin by the means of a payment of a ransom price. Whereas the goat had to be sacrificed yearly, Christ once-and-for-all paid the price for our sin when He died on Calvary (Hebrews 10:1-10).
Let’s look at the other billy goat, for he shows us what happens to all of the sins that we commit (Hebrews 10:17-18). In the second goat, God was saying by visual example, ‘all your sins are forgiven, and I will remember them no more!” But this raises an immediate question of those of us who are paying close attention: how can an all-knowing God not remember my sins? I mean, I sure do, and you do too, right? Is His memory faulty? Is He blind to our sin? Unaware? Unconcerned about my sin?
• Can I tell my neighbor off, and God won’t care?
• Can I pitch in the towel on my marriage and have God treat that with flippancy?
• Does God’s forgiveness give me a license to cheat on my taxes, sleep around, cuss out the kids, surf the ‘Net for porn, kick the dog, or go into debt to buy things I don’t need with money I don’t have to impress people I don’t like?
Paul answers this for us in Romans 6:2, when he says, simply, “God forbid!” Taking a laissez-faire attitude toward sin in my own life is contrary to the work of the indwelling Holy Spirit, and if a person can treat sin with blissful unconcern, rationalizing that “well, God has forgiven me”, it’s time for some serious inventory! A Christian growing in grace has a desire to please God—but all will stumble, fall, fail, sin. Yet, the Bible says that God no more remembers our sins. How is this so?
• Not that He “forgets”
• Not that He’s unaware
• Rather, He sees me, as it were, thru “Rose Colored Glasses”, stained red by the blood of Jesus
He removes from Himself the memory of our sin in the sense that He does not in any way, shape, or form hold our sin against us; it is as if it had never been committed. In this sense, He forgives and forgets, if you will. Romans 8:1 tells us that “there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” Forgiveness has been purchased with the blood of Jesus Christ; it only remains for the sinner to in faith appropriate that purchase for himself.
Stop there for a moment: do you believe that that is true? Do you believe that the forgiveness of your sins is complete through the work of Jesus Christ on the cross? Or do you beat yourself up because of the memory that you have of the sin that God the Father says He will not hold against you? Every now and again you’ll hear someone say, “I just can’t forgive myself”. ‘Scuse me, but who told you that you had to? Where did you ever get the idea that you need to, or even can, “forgive yourself”? Well, I know, of course: that’s what you’ll hear from Dr. Phil and Oprah and many preachers. Go to a site called “allaboutgod.com”, and you’ll find these words: “forgiving yourself is essential”; then, in the next paragraph, come these words: “forgiving yourself is not specifically addressed in the Bible.” Get that? It’s “essential”, and yet the Bible somehow neglects to mention it! Maybe because it’s not only not essential to “forgive yourself”, but because it’s not even possible!
What must I do instead? Believe that God is telling the truth. Take God at His Word. He says that He’ll remember our sins no more, that they’ll be removed as far as the east is from the west, and that is infinite, because you can keep going east round and round the world and never reach a place where you can stop. The cure isn’t to forgive yourself; it’s to accept that God has forgiven you in Jesus Christ!
What do you think of when you hear the word, “forgiveness”? When I think of the word, and its meaning for my life, one word stands out above all others, and that is the word, “freedom”. Isn’t this the yearning of man, to be truly free? People will go to great lengths, risk their lives, in order to win freedom for themselves and others. Our Statue of Liberty describes these as “huddled masses, yearning to breathe free.” The very freedom that we take for granted so often is that which is coveted most by so many around the world, by people living under the tyranny of madmen and tinhorn dictators.
Did you watch 17 years ago? I did…unbelievable, unreal events, events we dared not even dream that they’d happen in our lifetimes; in fact, I doubt that there were many outside of Ronald Reagan who envisioned the tearing down of the Berlin Wall, and yet we watched. With tears in my eyes, I watched as that wall was dismantled brick by brick, fueled by the pent-up energy of East Germans who had lived, in many cases, all of their lives under the freedom-smothering thumb of the Eastern bloc of the Soviet empire. And again we watched as one incredibly brave young man stood before a line of tanks in Tiananmen Square, the beat of the desire for freedom pounding in his chest. I get a lump in my throat when I hear the strains of “God Bless America”, for I’m reminded of the freedoms that we take so much for granted, that despite our many, many flaws, America is still the land of the free.
But even in a free nation, we may not live as free people. Political freedom is a blessing and a benefit, yes, but we can still live in bondage despite the freedom of our nation. Real freedom, I believe, lies in knowing that we are forgiven; real bondage lies in a soul that is bound up with guilt and shame. Karl Menninger, to whom I referred last week, the man (not a Christ-follower, by the way), who wrote the book, Whatever Became of Sin, also stated that 75% of the people in our mental hospitals would walk away changed and cured, whole people, if they could see themselves as forgiven people. And according to Ephesians 1:7, “the forgiveness of sins” is ours according to the riches of God’s grace.
Forgiveness Brings Freedom
1. To Live without Worry
How many Christians battle worry? How much good does our worry accomplish? Someone said that worry is like a rocking chair: it’ll give you something to do, but it won’t get you anywhere.” I’m reminded of Mickey Rivers, a less-famous “Mickey” who patrolled centerfield for the New York Yankees for many years; Mick was a bit of a philosopher, and when it came to the subject of worry, Mickey Rivers had an answer (I’ll try to put it in his more colorful, rather than the queen’s, English): “Ain’t no sense worrying about things you got control over, because if you got control over them, ain’t no sense worrying. And there ain’t no sense worrying about things you got no control over either, because if you got no control over them, ain’t no sense worrying.” In a skewed way, that really makes a whole lot of sense…the bottom line is, “ain’t no sense worrying!”
Worry saps us of time and strength and, sometimes, health—but it accomplishes nothing at all (well, except perhaps for keeping the antacid manufacturers happy!).
• To know that I am forgiven, that come what may, I am in the hand of Almighty God, is to free me from worrying about eternity.
• To know that I am forgiven, that I am a child of God, is to be confident of Father’s loving care, to free me from worrying that no one cares about me.
• To know that I am forgiven, and that my Heavenly Father is sovereign, is to free me from worry that something will come along that I can’t possibly deal with.
• To know that I am forgiven, and that my Forgiver is my Provider, is to free me from worry about whether or not there’ll be groceries and the necessities of life.
• To know that I am forgiven, and to know that God knows the past and the future, frees me from worry that something will happen that is a surprise to Him, that He can’t handle.
Forgiveness frees me to live without worry, if I will only trust Him!
2. To Serve God out of Love Rather than Fear
The theme of the entire book of Galatians is this: we are saved by the grace of God, through our faith in Christ Jesus. In the book of Titus, we read that it is not by the good works that we have done that we have salvation, but according to the mercy of God. Salvation by works is uncertain; it is terrifying to think that I might not be good enough for God, that I might in all my supposed goodness be a day late or a dollar short. There are millions of Jehovah’s Witnesses worldwide, but their doctrine of works salvation teaches that there will only be 144,000 of them that will make it to God’s heaven. Their merit, their own goodness, their works and deeds, play a role in their understanding of salvation, and I’ve often wondered about whether or not we ought to pity poor #144,001; just a tad short of glory! See, if we are saved by our works, then we could never have any assurance at all that we had done enough to earn our way to God, that we’d met His holy standard of righteousness.
Do we serve God because we are terrified of His wrath, that we might experience it if we are not good enough? I serve God (or at least I can serve God) out of love, which is the motive He desires. As parents, there’ve been times when we’ve used the rod of correction applied to the seat of learning in order to discipline our children away from what is wrong and toward what is right, when we’ve used spanking as a means of correction and of getting our kids to mind. But fear of punishment is not the motive that I really want my children to respond to; rather, I want them to do what is right because it is right, and because they love me as their father!
And so it is with God: forgiveness frees me from terror in order that I might serve God in love, and out of gratitude.
3. To Have Unimpeded Access to God’s Throne
In the Old Testament, an elaborate system of sacrifices had to be made prior to entrance into the Holy Place. In the New Testament dispensation, however, the sacrifice has been made; forgiveness has been accomplished; worship can take place anywhere, because buildings and places of worship are no longer holy, we are…I am the temple of the Holy Spirit of God! At any time, I have access to God; I am urged to come, not cowering like a whipped pup, but boldly to the throne of God (Heb. 4; cf. Heb. 10:19-22).
I’m forgiven; I am His and He is mine; He says, “come!”
4. To Forgive Others
When I begin to understand the depth of my sin and the scope of God’s forgiveness, I’m free to forgive others. Jesus, in the Model Prayer, instructed His disciples to include this: “forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us”. In other words, it is the normal, expected, should-be-automatic thing for the forgiven child of God to extend that same forgiveness to others—and when that is not taking place, then there is something wrong in our lives, something that needs to be dealt with before God. How can I receive God’s forgiveness, with a clear conscience, and then hold someone else’s sins against them? C.S. Lewis said, “to be a Christian means to forgive the inexcusable because God has forgiven the inexcusable in you.” "And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive him, so that your Father in heaven may forgive you your sins." (Mark 11:25)
We cannot have the luxury—if you want to call it that—to harbor grudges/bitterness/unforgiveness/resentment willfully and stubbornly, and yet claim to be serving God. If you are holding onto unforgiveness, you are not living in the victory that has been provided for you through the cross of Jesus. As a Christian, I don’t have a choice as to whether or not to forgive—but I’m free to forgive in Jesus!
How is that so? The world says, “Get even!” “Exact revenge.” “Give him what’s coming to him!” But I do not march to the world’s drummer; I am free to bless those who curse me (Romans 12).
Clara Barton, the founder of the Red Cross, was reminded by a friend of a cruel thing that another person had done. Miss Barton seemed not to recall the offense at all. “Don’t you remember?” “No”, she said, “I distinctly remember forgetting it.”
When we think of a billy goat, roaming abandoned in the wilderness, we can hear God say of our sin, “I distinctly remember forgetting it!”
