And so the scapegoat bore the sins of the people into the land of separation. Leave it there, and come to Calvary.
We seem to see the Scapegoat of the human family led by the hand of the "fit man." We read in the Epistle to the Hebrews that the Lord Jesus Christ, "hy the eternal Spirit" offered Himself to God. That same Spirit of God that led Him
1 W. H. M. H. Aitken.
364 THE SCAPEGOAT
alone into the wilderness, not that He might find comfort, but that He might meet with temptation, has led Him right up to Jerusalem. He set His face like a flint to go ; but still the Spirit led, and still He pursued His leading, until He finds Him- self in Gethsemane. The terrible darkness is beginning to gather round Him, and the agony to oppress His soul ; but the Spirit of God leads on, and the Scapegoat continues to follow. He finds Himself all alone in the judgment hall, separated from those who were dearest to Him, and not one friendly voice raised up on behalf of the dying Son of God : but the Spirit still leads on, and the Scapegoat must still follow. He finds Himself nailed to the cross, and His lips are parched with thirst, and His body quails in agony. Will He not now pause and call for the ten legions of angels? Might He not raise those languid, dying eyes, and demand a draught of the sparkling waters of life from His Father's hand ? But the Spirit still leads on ; and the Scape- goat must follow. Deeper and deeper, into the darkness ; down into the solitude of sorrow, down into the desolate land not in- habited; and, by and by, from the breaking heart, there rings throughout God's universe the cry of " the Forsaken," " My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken me?" The Scapegoat has found the land of separation at last, all alone in the darkness. The isolating influences of sin have done their work. He is shut out from the light of His Father's eye, or to Himself He seems to be : the joy, the delight of His life is gone : the blessed fellow- ship seems broken : there is a horrible sense of loneliness within His heart, and a terrible desolation within His guiltless souL So He sinks. He staggers, He dies : Jesus, " the Forsaken."
And so He bore our sins into the land not inhabited. No witnessing spirit can find them there ; no denizen of those dreary regions can rediscover them. They are left amid the wastes of desolation; they are sunk like a stone into the depths of the vast ocean of infinite love. They are lost sight of by man ; the very devils of hell cannot rediscover them ; the angels find them obhterated from their view, and God Himself has turned His back upon them, and left them in the land of separation.^
*Now have I won a marvel and a Truth;"
So spake the soul and trembled, "dread and ruth
Together mixed, a sweet and bitter core
Closed in one rind; for I did sin of yore,
But this (so said 1 oft) was long ago;
So put it from me far away, but, lo !
With Thee is neither After nor Before,
» W. fl. M. H. Aitkea.
LEVITICUS XVI. 22 365
O Lord, and clear within the noon-light set
Of one illimitable Present, yet
Thou lookest on my fault as it were now.
So will I mourn and humble me; yet Thou
Art not as man that oft forgives a wrong
Because he half forgets it, Time being strong
To wear the crimson of guilt's stain away;
For Thou, forgiving, dost so in the Day
That shows it clearest, in the boundless Sea
Of Mercy and Atonement, utterly
Casting our pardoned trespasses behind.
No more remembered, or to come in mind;
Set wide from us as East from West away:
So now this bitter turns to solace kind;
And I will comfort me that once of old
A deadly sorrow struck me, and its cold
Euns through me still ; but this was long ago.
My grief is dull through age, and friends outworn,
And wearied comforters have long forborne
To sit and weep beside me: Lord, yet Thou
Dost look upon my pang as it were now ! " ^
' Dora GreenwelL
Comb with U&
Literature.
Aitken (W. H. M. H.), Mission Sermons, i. 164.
Banks (L. A.), On the Trail of Moses, 192.
Black (H.), University Sermons, 259.
Black (J.), The Pilgrim Ship, 73.
Boyd (A. K. H.), Sermons and Stray Papers, 184.
Brooks (Q.), Five Hundred Outlines of Sermons, 123.
Burrell (D. J.), A Quiver of Arrows, 42s.
„ The Religion of the Futu/re, 66.
Little (J.), The Day-Spring, 23. M'Cheyne (R, M.), Additional Remains, 95. Maclaren (A.), Expositions : Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers, 314
„ The Secret of Power, 251.
Meyer (F. B.), Moses the Servant of God^ 148. Perren (C), Revival Sermons, 145. Price (A. C), Fifty Sermons, i. 353. Raleigh (A.), From Dawn to the Perfect Day, 123. Rankin (J.), Cluiracter Studies in the Old Testainent, 86. Spurgeon (C. H.), Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, xvi. No. 916ii Talmage (T. de W.), Sermons, vi. 68. Wood (H.), God!8 Image in Man, 226. Biblical W<yrld, xxx. (1907) 70 (Fullerton). Christiam, World Pulpit, Ixvii. 65 (Black). Uomxtttic Review^ xx. 33 (Hunting Lou).