The recent understanding that the second goat of the Atonement offering—the one sent “into the wilderness by the hand of a suitable man” (Leviticus 16:21)—represents not Satan the Devil but our Savior Jesus Christ generates some observations and questions.

We can see the governing principle for this subject in a quote from the article, “Seven Keys to Understanding the Bible,” written by Herbert W. Armstrong, that appeared in the December 1984 The Good News magazine:

For generations men have been putting human interpretations upon God’s symbols. An important KEY, therefore, is that these symbols are interpreted in plain language in the Bible itself, if not in the context, then elsewhere, and we must search for God’s own interpretation, never apply our own. (Emphasis in the original.)

One observation is that the new understanding of the azazel goat’s symbolic identity highlights God’s ability to delay His revelation of certain truths, even for long periods. Note the verses that point to who bears our sins, even as the azazel goat bore the sins of Israel:

» [S]o Christ was offered once to bear the sins of many . . .. (Hebrews 9:28)

» [W]ho Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree . . .. (I Peter 2:24)

» And the LORD has laid on Him the iniquity of us all. (Isaiah 53:6)

» For He shall bear their iniquities. (Isaiah 53:11)

» And He bore the sin of many . . .. (Isaiah 53:12)

In terms of the former view, how many verses show that Satan bears human sins? None.

To illustrate how common it is for people—even professing Christians—to miss obvious truth lying in plain sight, two more examples appear in well-known verses:

» . . . He who is the blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone has immortality . . .. (I Timothy 6:15-16)

» For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 6:23)

Church members reading this article see the evident truths God reveals in these verses: Respectively, Jesus Christ alone among humans has been raised to immortality, and human beings do not have an immortal soul but must be given eternal life as a gift from God. Yet, having read these verses numerous times, most in nominal Christianity still believe they have an immortal soul and what they earn for sin is not death but eternal life in a place called hell. They have believed faulty men and religious tradition rather than God’s plain, unambiguous statements of truth.

Truth in Plain Sight

What accounts for the human ability to miss obvious truth in plain sight? Notice this explanation in I Corinthians 2:10-11, 14:

But God has shown us these things through the Spirit. The Spirit searches out all things, even the deep secrets of God. Who knows the thoughts that another person has? Only a person’s spirit that lives within him knows his thoughts. It is the same with God. No one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. . . . A person who does not have the Spirit does not accept the truths that come from the Spirit of God. That person thinks they are foolish and cannot understand them, because they can only be judged to be true by the Spirit. (New Century Version [NCV])

According to Scripture, the understanding of spiritual truth comes from revelation through God’s Spirit, not human intellect. One can have an Einstein-like brain, but it will prove useless in understanding spiritual knowledge. God reveals truth through His Spirit, and He reveals those truths at a time of His choosing (Daniel 12:9; Acts 1:7). Until God intervenes, people are left trying to understand the Bible through inadequate human intellect. Jesus Christ is the Word, the words of God personified (John 1:1, 14). One cannot know the Word by human effort, only by revelation (Matthew 16:15-17).

But the truth is not revealed in one fell swoop, as noted by Herbert Armstrong on page 28 of his “Personal from Herbert W. Armstrong” in The Good News of December 1976:

I did not say ten years ago—twenty years ago—forty years ago—that God had revealed THE ENTIRETY of His TRUTH to me instantaneously, even before he conferred on me His GREAT COMMISSION. Always I have said, “God has revealed His TRUTH, little by little, a single bit of truth at a time.” Always I have said, “I am HUMAN—subject to MISTAKES.” Every man God ever chose and used was the same. David was a man after God‘s own heart BECAUSE he confessed errors, mistakes and sins—REPENTED, and turned from the wrong to what God showed him was right. (Emphasis in the original.)

God is working with very fallible men. Human beings can be quite thick-headed in overcoming habits, traditions, and biases developed over many years and need heavy persuasion to change their minds, especially over serious matters like doctrine. But God works with astounding patience in revealing His truth—even truths that should be obvious—to the church, spurring understanding by His Spirit when the time is right.

Human Inadequacy

The recent revelation of the azazel goat’s identity raises another observation: Not all we believe is entirely accurate, no matter how long we have held our beliefs. Every human being, including an apostle or other church leaders with God’s Spirit, as Mr. Armstrong noted above, can be mistaken in both belief and practice until God chooses to reveal the truth.

Herbert Armstrong warned us of human inadequacy when he stated: “Don’t believe me—BELIEVE YOUR BIBLE—BELIEVE GOD!”

Consider his experience. After adamantly preaching a Monday observance of Pentecost for nearly forty years, he changed—basically turning on a dime—to keep it on a Sunday as soon as God lifted the veil. He saw he had misunderstood the Hebrew meaning of a single word. That minor tweak was all it took to make God’s intention clear. Mr. Armstrong followed his own advice—an example all should note—and believed the Bible rather than himself. For him, the Bible—the Word of God—overruled his teachings, thoughts, and traditions, no matter how long or firmly held.

Because we are flawed human beings, I Thessalonians 5:21 instructs us, “Test all things; hold fast what is good.” Paul wants his instruction to warn us that our knowledge is not perfect. Otherwise, we would not need to test. This verse encourages us to be sure that what we believe has a solid foundation. That foundation is the one Herbert Armstrong pointed to: God and the Bible. As we have learned from the decades-long misunderstanding of the azazel goat, starting anywhere else leads to error.

If we allow the Bible’s plain language to interpret itself, it is obvious who the second goat represents. Here is a truth that vain man overlooks: God’s truth comes from revelation, not human wisdom or intellect. Because God had not yet chosen to unlock the truth about the azazel goat, all we had to rely on in our struggle to find an answer was human reasoning discovered in ancient Jewish texts, apocryphal literature, fictional Jewish works, and even Arabic/Islamic tradition. These works of imperfect men and traditions tainted by opposition to God proved to be poisoned wells, sources full of the knowledge of good and evil.

Why Now?

Why is God unveiling this knowledge of the azazel goat’s identity now and not sooner? Why has God left it obscure, perhaps since the time of the early church? God must have a purpose for the timing. Ecclesiastes 3:11 (NCV) states, “He does everything just right and on time, but people can never completely understand what he is doing.”

A possible reason for the timing is that He may be using it to test where our loyalties stand as we near the end. Are they with God and His Word, no matter what, or are they with tradition and human reasoning? Or, like ancient Israel, are we stubbornly doing what is right in our eyes (Judges 17:6)?

Another possibility is that God wishes to humble us. He may desire to remind us that truth comes not by our human intellect, might, or power, but only by revelation through God’s Spirit (Zechariah 4:6). It comes as a blow to a person’s intellectual pride to realize he has deeply believed a lie for decades, thinking and even declaring he knew “the truth.” Only profound humility allows an individual to repent of such vanity.

Another reason could be as a sober warning that even the elect can believe a lie if we are not vigilant in testing the foundation for our beliefs and then hanging on to the sure foundation. Christ warns His disciples in Matthew 24:24 that, “if possible, even the elect” can be deceived. In I Corinthians 10:12, the apostle Paul also warns, “Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall.”

It seems the end-time events predicted in the Bible have already started. To weather the coming storms, Christ provides us with the knowledge of how to withstand them:

Therefore whoever hears these sayings of Mine, and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on the rock: and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it did not fall, for it was founded on the rock. (Matthew 7:24-25)

The storms of deceit have already descended on this world. We can endure them if our beliefs and conduct are founded on the Rock—Christ and His Word. If we once misunderstood who the azazel goat represents, it can warn us to redouble our efforts to check our foundation on all we believe and practice. Is it on the Rock?