Jesus: the Perfect Alter

An alter told one of Jake’s alters:

You exist as a separate part of Jake because Jake was pushed beyond human endurance. Then you come along like a lifeboat. You were loaded up with pain and set to sail. So was I. It wasn’t our fault.

This almost exactly describes the role of a scapegoat. The term “scapegoat” has entered everyday speech via the Old Testament. It has surprisingly much to tell us. Once a year, to atone for sin, two goats were chosen. One of them was sacrificed, paying the ultimate price for the nation’s sins.

Of course, most of the nation’s sins were essentially average and yet in the final analysis each sin took no less than the death penalty for the blame to be fully resolved and extinguished. The remaining goat – called the scapegoat – stayed alive. Like the other goat, it was utterly innocent of any human sin, but after the sacrificial death of the other one, the sins of the entire nation were symbolically placed on its head and it was driven into the desert, symbolically taking the sins away from the people, never to be seen again (Leviticus 16:5-22).

Animal sacrifices, though hopelessly inadequate to resolve our guilt problems, were divinely instituted to point prophetically to the one sacrifice that can meet our souls’ deepest needs. The sacrifice to end all sacrifices would have to be human, since it is humans who are blameworthy. But to end all blame, the perfect sacrificial victim would, like the goats, have to be utterly blameless.

Unless he had absolute moral perfection – like no other human the world has ever seen – a human sacrifice would be worthless. Since anyone who sins deserves to die, if any of us were to volunteer as a sacrifice we would only be suffering what we ourselves deserve, not suffering for the sins of others. The only perfect sacrifice is the One of whom John the Baptist said, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world.”

The entire Old Testament sacrificial system was ordained by God to prepare his people for the Saviour of the world so that they would understand what our Lord achieved by dying on the cross. He is the embodiment and fulfilment of the whole Jewish sacrificial system. So when God instituted the use of a scapegoat, he was helping his people understand Jesus, who is the ultimate scapegoat.

That two goats were needed to atone for the nation’s sins – one dying and then the other released alive – points not only to the removal of our sins but to the death and the subsequent resurrection of Jesus. Not just Jesus’ death but also his resurrection were needed to resolve utterly the guilt and eternal consequences of humanity’s offenses. Just as Jesus rose to a new life, so he has the power to give us a new life, after fully extinguishing all of our blame and shame.

Humanity’s only true Innocent took upon himself all the blame, letting himself be stripped naked and abused to death so that you could have his peace and purity, and rise with him to a breathtakingly new life that begins here and now. I am frequently deeply moved by the selfless, sacrificial way in which alters voluntarily take hurts and rejection upon themselves in order to protect the rest of the person. Like the perfect alter, Jesus wants to take upon himself all the guilt, all the horror, and all the shame you have ever suffered. He wants every trace of filth and pain and rejection to be dumped on him until it kills him, because in killing him, its power to hurt you is also killed.

If you were living in ancient Israel, it would not just be your sin that was symbolically placed on the scapegoat, but the sins of the entire nation. Even more astounding, the sins of the entire world were actually placed on Jesus when he agonized on the cross. This is significant. Usually, alters hurt, not because of their own sin, nor even the sin of their host, but because of the sins of an abuser or some other cruel person.

There is no need even to work out exactly who is at fault and to what degree, however, because all the sin and all the blame and shame were put on the ultimate Scapegoat. Alters do the best they can but no alter can totally remove all blame, shame and pain. The host still feels some of it. And even if an alter could perfectly achieve full peace for the host, what about the alter? What can be done to relieve the alters' own suffering?

We have noted that the pain an alter bears is almost never the alters' fault. The source of the hurt is the sins of others, and he/she bears the pain, sacrificing his/her own well-being for the sake of the host. This is Jesus’ role. Being God, he – and he alone – can do it to perfection. And he does it for all of humanity. For an alter to hold on to the pain is to suffer unnecessarily (which would break God’s heart) and to render Jesus’ torturous death a waste, as far as both the alter and host are concerned.

Dumping pain upon an innocent alter is an act of desperation that can keep a person alive until he/she finds God’s perfect remedy: Jesus. Asking an alter to bear pain is at best an emergency measure only. Like putting chewing gum on a leaking fuel tank, it could save someone temporarily, but something more effective needs to be done as soon as possible. It is vital that alters be relieved of their pain as quickly as possible, both for their sake and so that their hosts can receive full healing.

Jesus is the alter par excellence; literally the alters' alter. For both the host and all alters, Jesus bore all the horrific consequences of sin, completely removing all the blame, pain and shame, destroying it all by his own death, so that none of it could ever come back to hurt the host or any of the alters.

Please don’t let familiarity with the following Scripture rob you of its full impact. Read slowly and prayerfully what it says of Jesus, the perfect alter:

Isaiah 53:3-6 He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed.

Jesus took upon himself full punishment for every sin that has ever been committed. He was betrayed, disowned, spat on, stripped naked, made a public spectacle of, shamed, laughed at, degraded, slapped, punched, flayed alive, spiritually cursed (Galatians 3:13), rejected by his people and by God (Mark 15:34), tortured to death for you. He bore your rejection, your heartache, your humiliation. For you, he took the pain, the shame and the blame. God’s plan has always been that we offload our pain on to him, not upon an alter.

1 Peter 5:7 Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.

Psalms 55:22 Cast your cares on the LORD and he will sustain you . . .

When alters were formed, the host did not understand the implications of this truth, but now it can be explained to alters so that they can be relieved of all their torment by handing over to the Lord their pain, distress, and secrets, letting the Lord of glory, who lovingly volunteered to be humanity’s scapegoat, bear it all on the cross and annihilate it with his own death. Then alters can be free to enjoy life and can help hurting parts of their host, not by personally bearing hurts and secrets, but by encouraging fellow alters to lay all their pains and burdensome secrets upon the crucified Lord and rise in the triumphant new life of our resurrected Lord.

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