Tuesday | 23 December 2025
The first implication of Christ’s yoke is that we embrace our fellowship in His death. Christ’s death has two elements, symbolised by the scapegoat and the Lord’s goat, which were offered as part of one sin offering on the Day of Atonement under the Law Covenant. Lev 16:7‑10.
‘The scapegoat’ represents the dimension of Christ’s death in which sin is destroyed. In the distress and mess of life that belongs to our weariness and discouragement, we accept our yoke to this aspect of Christ’s death as we acknowledge that we are under God’s judgement. As we judge ourselves in this way, we are illuminated to see that Christ is dying with us under the condemnation that belongs to our sin. We begin to fear the Lord and to cease from being a victim of our circumstances. Judging ourselves this way, we reckon ourselves dead to sin as we acknowledge our self‑righteous judgements and the pursuit of self‑satisfaction that belongs to the thorns that are growing up in our life. Rom 6:11. In Christ’s death, we can put these off. As we judge ourselves in this manner, our sufferings are commuted from judgement to chastening, which is bringing us to maturity as a son of the Father. 1Co 11:31‑32. Heb 12:6‑7.
‘The Lord’s goat’ represents the death of emptying through which life is multiplied in the fellowship of Yahweh. This is the death that we die as a new creation, as we lay down our life, through offering, to reveal another. This expression of love is contrary to the motivation of the other law (which is self‑centred) and the pursuit of the cares of this world, typified as ‘thorns’. It is the expression of the seed life of which we are born. By the mercies of God, we are to present ourselves for this expression of love in the contexts of life in which the Father has placed us, including our families, the church, and the broader community. Rom 12:1‑2.
Further Study:
Romans 6
References:
Lev 16:7-10
He shall take the two goats and present them before the LORD at the door of the tabernacle of meeting. Then Aaron shall cast lots for the two goats: one lot for the LORD and the other lot for the scapegoat. And Aaron shall bring the goat on which the LORD’s lot fell, and offer it as a sin offering. But the goat on which the lot fell to be the scapegoat shall be presented alive before the LORD, to make atonement upon it, and to let it go as the scapegoat into the wilderness.
Rom 6:11
Likewise, you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
1Co 11:31-32
For if we would judge ourselves, we would not be judged. But when we are judged, we are chastened by the Lord, that we may not be condemned with the world.
Heb 12:6-7
For whom the Lord loves He chastens, and scourges every son whom He receives. If you endure chastening, God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom a father does not chasten?
Rom 12:1-2
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. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.