The goat shall bear all their iniquities on itself to a remote area -Lev 16.22
According to Jewish tradition the scapegoat, after being escorted outside the camp and into the desert, was tossed off of a cliff so that he would not ever return. As such the carrier of the sins and grief of the people, and therefore the sins and grief themselves, are removed from them.
Surely you can see Christ in this type! Our glorious Savior was dispatched to Azazel to carry our sins and grief (Is. 53.4-6). His escort was not a selected Israelite but the Holy Spirit. He resolutely marched as the innocent one, bearing up under divine displeasure for us. He was thrust off of the cliff of rejection, abandonment and judgment that our sin might be forever removed (Ps. 103.12). Just as if the goat did not go into the desert then the old saints would not have smiled upon the Day of Atonement, so too if Christ had not set his face unto the desert of rejection and wrath we would have no reason to smile.
O’ the glorious Savior who fully bore our sins in his body upon the tree (1 Pet. 2.24). What is left to do but smile upon him with cleansed hearts full of joy.
