“And when he hath made an end of reconciling the holy place, and the tabernacle of the congregation, and the altar, he shall bring the live goat: And Aaron shall lay both his hands upon the head of the live goat, and confess over him all the iniquities of the children of Israel, and all their transgressions in all their sins, putting them upon the head of the goat, and shall send him away by the hand of a fit man into the wilderness...” (Leviticus 16:20-21)

The scape-goat is called in Hebrew, azazel, that is, the goat gone away, and was so called because he escaped alive; representing Christ Jesus alive in His Divine nature, though put to death in His human nature, or alive after He rose again from the dead…And so the he-goat was sent into the wilderness, or land not inhabited, which the Greek calls abaton, wayless, or inaccessible: figuring the utter abolishing of our sins by Jesus Christ, both from the face of God, that so they may not appear before Him against us, to condemn us, or be imputed or charged upon us, nor have any dominion or power over us.

They were to confess upon the head of the goat of all their iniquities…By this, it appears that as the killed goat figured Christ killed, or put to death for our sins, so this living goat figured Him also: who bore our griefs, our offenses, but also to rise again for our justification. Because these two things could not fitly be shadowed by one beast, which the priest having killed, could not make alive again, therefore God appointed two, that in the slain beast Christ’s death and in the live beast His life and victory might be shadowed.