The Sin Offering, Scapegoat and The Eucharist (Communion)

The other day I had a chat with a couple of friends and we got to talking about Christianity and more so about Old Testament sacrifice. They began to talk about how both in the scriptures and historically sacrifice was just that, a sacrifice.

But the jews did not offer up a sacrifice for their sins This was seen from the very beginning with the sacrifices of Cain and Abel (Genesis 4:4-15). It seems that this began to be the mindset among the people however which is why God rebukes Israel saying:

I hate, I despise your feasts,
and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies.
Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings,
I will not accept them;
and the peace offerings of your fattened animals,
I will not look upon them.
Take away from me the noise of your songs;
to the melody of your harps I will not listen.
But let justice roll down like waters,
and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream (Amos 5:21-24).

And again he says:

What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices?
says the Lord;
I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams
and the fat of well-fed beasts;
I do not delight in the blood of bulls,
or of lambs, or of goats.

Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean;
remove the evil of your deeds from before my eyes;
cease to do evil,
17 learn to do good;
seek justice,
correct oppression;
bring justice to the fatherless,
plead the widow's cause (Isaiah 1:11,16-17)

Once more he says:

And now, O Israel, what does the LORD your God ask of you but to fear the LORD your Godby walking in all His ways, to love Him, to serve the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, (Deuteronomy 10:12)

and

He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God? (Micah 5:8)

How then are we to understand the sin offering?

Let us look to the scriptures.

Firstly let us remember that St. Paul has said: "All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work (2 Timothy 3:16)."

But let us also remember that we must look at the whole of scripture, rightly divided (2 Timothy 2:15). Christ has said: "You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me (2 Timothy 2:15)." And again we see after His resurrection: "And beginning at Moses and all the Prophets, He expounded to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself (Luke 24:27)."

And the two disciples said: "Did not our heart burn within us while He talked with us on the road, and while He opened the Scriptures to us? (Luke 24:32)"

We see then that it is through Christ that the scriptures are opened to us and it is only through Him that we can be equipped for every good work for apart from Him we can do nothing (John 15:5).

The scapegoat that was presented was that which bore the iniquities and was released into a foreign land (a prefiguring of Christ who was called out of a foreign land to bear our sins in Hosea 11:1.) by the priest (Leviticus 16:20-22). It specifically says in verse 22: "The goat shall bear on itself all their iniquities."

We see this as a prefiguring of Christ in Isaiah: "All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all (Isaiah 53:6). Peter echoes the same sentiment in his epistle: "He himself bore our sins in his body (1 Peter 2:24)."

Now why is it especially significant that Peter says "in his body?" Let us return once more to Leviticus. Moses was upset about Aaron and his sons not eating the sin offering and said "Why have you not eaten the sin offering in the place of the sanctuary, since it is a thing most holy and has been given to you that you may bear the iniquity of the congregation (Leviticus 10:17)."

This is important to note because in both the scapegoat and the goat offered as sin offering there is always one who must bear the sins; we saw this in Leviticus 16:21: "And Aaron shall lay both his hands on the head of the live goat, and confess over it all the iniquities of the people of Israel, and all their transgressions, all their sins (this is also the a prefiguring of the practice of confession in the church; commentary mine)." How is he able to do this? Because he has eaten the sin offering, and by eating has borne the the sins of the people.

We know that Christ is all things. He is the sin offering, "the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29)" as well as from above, seeing that he also is the one who bears the iniquities of the people.

So how does this relate to us and communion? Christ is also the priest that offers: "For it is witnessed of Him, “You are a priest forever, after the order of Melchizedek. (Hebrews 7:17, emphasis mine)." And he is the firstborn among many brothers and sisters (Romans 8:29). And we are called to be imitators of God (Ephesians 5:1).

Does this mean we are also to be sacrifices? Yes, for it has been said, " I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service (Romans 12:1)." And we are set apart to offer this unto God seeing as we have be accounted worthy to be a part of the this new royal priesthood established by Christ who is the first (1 Peter 2:9).

There is still one thing that is not adding up. What about communion. Are we to also offer our bodies up as Christ has done for food and our blood as Christ has done for drink if we are called to be imitators of God and living sacrifices? Yes, we are precisely to do this.

But how are we to do this? How do we offer ourselves in such a way? We do this because we are the church, His body. This is why it says in Hebrews that "by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified. (Hebrews 10:14)."

So if he has offered a single sacrifice once, why then must we "sacrifice?" We do not offer a different one than what has already been given to us out of love: But who am I, and who are my people, that we should be able to give as generously as this? For everything comes from You, and from Your own hand we have given to You (1 Chronicles 29:14)." For when we present ourselves as living sacrifices, it is a thing that must be enacted over the course of a lifetime.

We see also the references to the repetition of the practice of communion:

"Is not the cup of thanksgiving for which we give thanks a participation in the blood of Christ? And is not the bread that we break a participation in the body of Christ? Because there is one loaf, we, who are many, are one body, for we all share the one loaf. (1 Corinthians 10:16-17)."

"For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes. (1 Corinthians 11:26)."

There is still an elephant in the room. The drinking and the eating? What does this mean? Again we shall look to the scriptures to reveal this to us.

So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you (John 6:53).

Two things to note here. one he uses the Jewish figure of speech which denotes repetition by saying "truly truly." This is a way of placing special emphasis. Secondly, the word "truly here is actually properly translated as "amen," which means "in truth", so be it, "certainly" or could even mean something akin to "literally." So what is being said is either "in truth, in truth" or "certainly, certainly" or "literally, literally." 

We see this same repetition elsewhere when we speaks of communion as well:

"For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink (John 6:55)."

The word true here is "aléthés" in Greek which means: unconcealed, true, true in fact, worthy of credit, truthful. He speaks in such way to convey the difference between his hidden speech in parables and when He is speaking plainly, such as when He speaks of being born again (John 3:4).

He says after this:

"Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood remains in Me ,and I in him. Just as the living Father sent Me and I live because of the Father, so also the one who feeds on Me will live because of Me. (John 6:56-57)."

How can we in truth say that what he refers to is not to communion? For in what other way in all of the New Testament is the body and blood of Christ ever to be referred to?

And so here we see how these things relate. How the Old Testament is fulfilled in the new and how the new reveals what is in the old.

Glory to God for all things and how he has revealed Himself to us through the revelation of His Son.