The Blood Speaks of the Remission of Sins

The Remission of Sins
God’s Part

Part Two

What is the Remission of Sins?

The Greek Word αφεσις ,translated “remission” in most places in the New Testament, was primarily a medical term* (Vincents Word Studies) which is still used today of a disease going into remission. Luke the beloved physician uses this term more than any other writer in the New Testament. It comes from the Greek Verb ἀφίημι which primarily means to “send away from self” or “release”. Remission of sins is a transaction between two parties.

Remission of Sins
God’s Part

“And almost all things
are cleansed by blood according to the Law;
and apart from shedding of blood
no remission occurs”
Hebrews 9:22 (LITV)

Remission of sins begins with the Blood of the Lamb of God. There would be no possibility of the remission of sins apart from the blood. No amount of human effort, sacrifice or good works will ever affect the glory of this wonder apart from the blood of Jesus. The blood is the very fulcrum of God’s covenant; the sacrifices of the Old Testament are fully eclipsed by the power, the life and the total fulfilment of His Blood shed on our behalf. Yet in spite of this powerful truth we hear so little of the blood in our day. We hear of Christian “resources” being made available with strategies for depression and self-improvement; we see people more concerned with their physical health than they are of living and walking in the Spirit of God. There are seminars for “inner healing” and all kinds of workshops and conferences but to what end? The Power of God is in the blood. The power of God is released by a life of communion with Him; where we eat of His flesh and drink of His living blood (John 6:53) and in the personal carrying of our cross as we follow Him. The pouring out of His Life and His Blood on Calvary was and is God’s only offer to mankind.

The remission of sins begins with the blood and in the shedding of the blood the penalty for the sins of the whole world were paid in full.  There is no further offering for sin. When Jesus declared “it is finished” the offering was complete and God’s Holy Righteousness was fully satisfied. The “remission of sins” cannot occur until the penalty for sin has been paid.  Once paid God can righteously send away our sins forever from His remembrance. It is from this basis that the transaction of God, i.e., the remission of sins is proclaimed.

Remission of Sins
As Revealed in the Sin Offering
The Azazel
(The Goat of Departure)

“And he is to take the two goats and put them before the Lord at the door of the Tent of meeting. And Aaron will make selection from the two goats by the decision of the Lord, one goat for the Lord and one for Azazel. And the goat which is marked out for the Lord, let Aaron give for a sin-offering. But the goat for Azazel is to be placed living before the Lord, for the taking away of sin, that it may be sent away for Azazel into the waste land… Then let him put to death the goat of the sin-offering for the people, and take its blood inside the veil and do with it as he did with the blood of the ox, shaking drops of it on and before the cover of the ark…And Aaron, placing his two hands on the head of the living goat, will make a public statement over him of all the evil doings of the children of Israel and all their wrongdoing, in all their sins; and he will put them on the head of the goat and send him away, in the care of a man who will be waiting there, into the waste land. And the goat will take all their sins into a land cut off from men, and he will send the goat away into the waste land”
Leviticus 16:7-10, 15, 21-22

Contained within these scriptures is the Law of the Sin-Offering. We see the two goats set before the Lord. The one goat chosen by God to be sacrificed for the all the sins of Israel. This of course is the perfect picture of Him who would come in the fullness of time; the perfect One, chosen by God, to be the perfect ransom for all of our sins and iniquities. Not just for the small nation of Israel but for the sins of the whole world!

“And he is the propitiation for our sins:
and not for ours only,
but also for the sins of the whole world”
1 John 2:2

It is in the sacrifice of the first goat and the sprinkling of that blood we are justified by faith in the living God.

“Much more then, being now justified by his blood,
we shall be saved from wrath through him”
Romans 5:9

It is here we experience the power and the life of being justified by faith and are brought to a new place of standing before His presence with great joy. The salvation of God in Christ does not stop here for in the second goat (the Azazel; the goat of departure) God reveals the truth in picture form of His portion of the remission of sins.

“And Aaron, placing his two hands on the head of the living goat, will make a public statement over him of all the evil doings of the children of Israel and all their wrongdoing, in all their sins; and he will put them on the head of the goat and send him away, in the care of a man who will be waiting there, into the waste land”
Leviticus 16:21

In this illustration Aaron places his hands upon the goat of departure (Azazel) and confesses all the sins of Israel thereby transferring upon the goat the sins of Israel and sending it far away into a remote waste land typifying the total removal of their sins and their guilt!

This is the perfect picture of what the remission of sins means to those who are in Christ Jesus. As mentioned earlier “remission” in the Greek means “to send away from one’s self” and because the price has been paid for those sins God is now able to send them away forever; we no longer carry the stain and sorrow for them! When we see this “remission of sins” from God’s perspective we see the power of God moving on our behalf to give us newness of life, freedom from past failures and the ability to walk uprightly. It is in the two-fold work of God in Christ, the fulfillment of the sin offering, that we are able to defeat and overcome the accuser.

“O victory in Jesus,
My Savior, forever.
He sought me and bought me
With His redeeming blood;
He loved me ere I knew Him
And all my love is due Him,
He plunged me to victory,
Beneath the cleansing flood”

Brian Troxel
www.aword.info