East to West

 

Last week I wrote about David instructing his soul to worship God. Now I would like to point out a different thought from that same psalm (103). I absolutely love that David wrote, “As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us (v.12).” 

 

This is a wonderful thought about God’s forgiveness. He has removed our sin from us if we have put our trust in Him. The idea of removing sin was borrowed from levitical language. In Leviticus 16 Aaron was instructed to take a young goat and symbolically transfer the sins of the nation to the kid by laying his hands upon its head. The goat was then bearing the sins of Israel, as it was sent off into the wilderness, never to be seen again. That gesture was God’s way of demonstrating that the people would not have to bear their own sin if they called upon Him. 

 

David only had an elementary understanding of forgiveness, however. The king was grateful that God would remove his sin and send it off into the wilderness, but that didn’t fully satisfy sin’s demands. It was not until Jesus went to the cross as the Lamb of God that sin could finally be once and for all dealt with. Instead of symbolically putting our sin on the scapegoat, God put our sin on His Son. In this way, our sin can be forever removed from us.

 

How far away is our sin sent? David said it is as far away as the east is from the west. According to author Max Lucado, east and west become farther away from each other as one travels. If you leave your house and head east, you can spend the rest of your life going east, and with every step, west becomes farther away from your starting point. The same is true for the person heading west. However, that is not true for the person heading north or south. If you leave your house and head north, you will eventually reach the North Pole, and then you are automatically going south; if you head south, you will eventually reach the South Pole and then be heading north. 

 

North and south are only separated by just over 12,440 miles; that is the distance between the Poles. But east and west have no such dimensions. If they did, Satan could pack a lunch and a GPS, track down our sin, and bring it back to us. That is now impossible because God put our sin on the back of Jesus, and He has carried it away as far as the east is from the west.    

 

The Importance of Pitch

Pitch is very important. No, I’m not talking about hitting the right note with your voice or instrument. And no, I’m not talking about the person on the mound trying to get a fastball past a batter. I’m talking about the asphalt-like substance found in the Bible. 

Pitch is found in connection to Noah’s ark. In Genesis 6:14 God instructed Noah this way: “Make yourself an ark of gopherwood; make rooms in the ark, and cover it inside and outside with pitch.” The word pitch in Hebrew literally means to cover, specifically with bitumen. Bitumen was an ancient asphalt used by many different people groups in the Middle East similar to our cement and mortar. Since the word meant to cover, it was used figuratively for covering a debt, as in forgiveness or appeasement. 

The same Hebrew word translated as pitch in Genesis 6:14 is translated as atone or atonement throughout the Old Testament. This is incredible. The reason the ark was covered in pitch was to ensure that water did not come in the cracks and spoil the vessel. Remember, the floodwaters were part of God’s judgment on man’s sin, so the pitch, or atonement, kept Noah and his seven relatives safe from God’s judgment. In a similar way, Moses’ mother used pitch to cover the basket that she placed her young son in (Exodus 2:3). 

That bitumen used as pitch covered Noah and his family from God’s wrath, and animal sacrifices were later made for the same reason. Leviticus 17:11 says blood makes atonement for the soul. In the Old Testament atonement was made to cover sins, but sin could not be forgiven because the blood of goats and bulls is not sufficient for that task. In this regard God’s wrath was appeased, but a better covering was needed. 

In the New Testament atonement carries the idea of man being reconciled to God, but that is only possible because of the death of Jesus. Pitch—whether covering a boat, a basket, or a believer—was only a foreshadowing of what Jesus would do once and for all at Calvary. Moses and Noah were covered; so were all who trusted in God’s sacrificial system. The only question now is, have you been covered by the blood of Jesus?