On the Transfer of Guilt

“He is to lay his hand on the head of the burnt offering, and it will be accepted on his behalf to make atonement for him. He is to slaughter the young bull before the LORD, and then Aaron’s sons the priests shall bring the blood and sprinkle it against the altar on all sides at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting.” Leviticus 1:4-5 
“He is to lay both hands on the head of the live goat and confess over it all the wickedness and rebellion of the Israelites – all their sins – and put them on the goat’s head.” Leviticus 16:21 
“God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” 2 Corinthians 5:21 

Essential to our salvation is the transfer of guilt for sin to a substitute. If our guilt cannot be transferred and borne away from us in the sight of an omniscient and perfectly holy God, we shall die in our transgressions and sins under his just wrath. Some years ago, theologian NT Wright was taking issue with the concept of justification taught for centuries since Luther and the Reformation. He objected to the idea of imputation, of righteousness being transferred from Christ to a sinner:

If we use the language of the law-court, it makes no sense whatever to say that the judge imputes, imparts, bequeaths, conveys, or otherwise transfers his righteousness to either the plaintiff or the defendant.  Righteousness is not an object, a substance or a gas which can be passed across the courtroom.

He would therefore have objected just as much to guilt be transferred in the same way from the sinner to Christ the substitute. But 2 Corinthians 5:21 makes it plain that God in some way imputed or credited our sins to Christ, the sinless substitute, and in the same way imputes or credits Christ’s righteousness to the believing sinner.

“Essential to our salvation is the transfer of guilt for sin to a substitute. If our guilt cannot be transferred and borne away from us in the sight of an omniscient and perfectly holy God, we shall die in our transgressions and sins under his just wrath.”

The transfer of guilt to a substitute is the essence of the animal sacrificial system as acted out for centuries by the Jewish Aaronic priests. It is especially symbolized by the laying on of the priest’s hands on the head of the animal. This gesture was first commanded in Exodus 29:10 at the ordination of Aaron as High Priest, and it is reiterated multiple times in Leviticus (1:4; 3:2; 3:8; 3:13; 4:4; 4:15; 4:24; 4:33; 8:14; 8:18; 8:22). This gesture is never explained, just commanded… until we get to Leviticus 16:21. There an additional phrase is added, explaining all the times this gesture is commanded: “He (the Priest) is to lay both hands on the head of the live goat and confess over it all the sins of the Israelites…and put them on the goat’s head.” In that case, the goat is not slaughtered but led outside the camp to a distant desolate place and released, a picture of the later Bible verse, “As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.” (Ps. 103:12) But the essence of Leviticus 16:21 is the idea of the transfer of guilt… the hands laid on the head of the animal represent the placing onto it all the sins of the people.

So also, God transferred the guilt of all of Christ’s people onto him at the cross that we might become as righteous as God through faith in him. As the hymn-writer put it, “My sin, O the bliss of this glorious thought! My sin, not in part but the whole, is nailed to the cross and I bear it no more! Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul!”