Tim Staples clarifies the meaning of the term scapegoat to explain why Scripture does not describe Jesus as such.
Transcript:
Host: Jason on Facebook wants to know, “In what you read in the Bible, you read Jesus as a scapegoat; or in reading another book or document, you found Jesus as a scapegoat. Is that–is that true that Jesus is a scapegoat?” And I think he wants an explanation of what that means.
Tim: No, I don’t–not in my understanding…the scapegoat would be the one that was let go, not the one that would be would be put to death. As far as I understand, I have not heard of Jesus being the scapegoat–although, I’m just thinking off the cuff here, perhaps maybe in a sense–and I’ve not read anything on this, so I’m just tossing out an idea that He’s the scapegoat in the sense that we’ve put everything–we put all of our sins on Him and and He takes them away for us. I suppose I could certainly see that. But again– But that’s not, that’s not an image that the Bible has given us. No– yeah, the scapegoat that the Bible gives us is the one that they let go.