While the high priest made atonement with the Lord’s goat and cleansed the sanctuary with its blood, the scapegoat stood bound near the altar, having had no part in the ritual. Its part came only after the atonement with the Lord’s goat had been completed (v. 20), and “an end” had been made “of reconciling the holy place, and the tabernacle of the congregation, and the altar” (v. 20).

The high priest, having cleansed the sanctuary of sin, now went forth with these sins to the door of the tabernacle where the scapegoat waited (PP 356; GC 422). He laid his hands upon its head and confessed over it these sins, thus transferring them from the sanctuary to this goat, who bore them away into the wilderness (PP 356, 258).

In the antitype Christ will finally cleanse the heavenly sanctuary, removing the confessedand forgiven sins of His people thence, and placing them upon Satan. He will be declared guilty of all the evil he has caused them to commit, and must bear the final penalty (GC 422, 485, 658). “The sins of those who are redeemed by the blood of Christ will at last be rolled back upon the originator of sin, and he must bear their punishment” (EW 178).

 How fitting that the closing act of the drama of God’s dealing with sin should be a returning upon the head of Satan of all the sin and guilt that, issuing from him originally, once brought such tragedy to the lives of those now freed of sin by Christ’s atoning blood. Thus the cycle is completed, the drama ended. Only when Satan, the instigator of all sin, is finally removed can it truly be said that sin is forever blotted out of God’s universe. In this accommodated sense we may understand that the scapegoat has a part in the “atonement” (v. 10). With the righteous saved, the wicked “cut off,” and Satan no more, then, not till then, will the universe be in a state of perfect harmony as it was originally before sin entered.

 Literally, “expel him.” The word thus translated is used of divorcing a wife (Deut. 21:14; 22:19, 22; Jer. 3:8). This is a strong word. As some objectionable or repulsive beast is driven off, so the scapegoat is sent into the wilderness (Heb. midbar). It may or may not have perished there, for the Hebrews pastured flocks in the midbar, which could mean an uninhabited land where wild beasts lived. The Talmud mentions a later custom of throwing this goat over a cliff, but even then its death played no part in the sacrificial ceremony. In contrast to the Lord’s goat, the scapegoat was sent away alive; its eventual death was not in any sense sacrificial or substitutionary.