Yom Kippur

Yom Kippur - The Day of Atonement

Leviticus 23:26-32

The Caveat

First, allow me to get one thing out of the way, so you can focus on the ultimate goal of this sermon. Please turn to:

· Colossians 2:16-17 HCSB Therefore don't let anyone judge you in regard to food and drink or in the matter of a festival or a new moon or a sabbath day. (17) These are a shadow of what was to come; the substance is the Messiah.

The Siniatic law was only a shadow of the good things that were coming - not the realities themselves. For this reason it can never make perfect those who draw near to worship by repeating the same sacrifices endlessly year after year.[1] However, that does not mean that there is no place for Halakha in Adonaists’ life. It simply means that observing the festivals has no part in our salvation.

Even discounting salvation, Adonaists don’t believe that observing any of the feasts (other than Passover) are required. As long as I am an elder in this church, no one will ever tell you that your attendance to a feast is required for church membership - much less salvation. However, as long as they are not maleh (which means fulfilled, cancelled or abrogated), we enjoy observing many of them for the many spiritual lessons they can teach.

The Role of Feasts in God’s Timetable

Some of you who have been raised your whole life in culturally Christian churches may doubt the importance of holy days in the mind of God. May I point to a few significant holy days in the New Covenant and demonstrate how God used them to teach us spiritual truth?

Aviv 10 - Procession. Do you recall the account of Jesus’ triumphant entry into Jerusalem? Did you ever wonder where all the people with the palm branches came from? According to the Hebrew calendar it was Aviv 10. [2]That means that just prior to His descent from the Mount of Olives into the city, the annual procession of the national Passover lamb was taking place. The lamb, which would be taken to the temple in Jerusalem to be the nation’s public sacrifice on Aviv 14, was led into the city from the east. The lamb was met by crowds of people waving palm branches and joyously singing Psalm 118 as they remembered God’s miraculous delivery of their ancestors from the clutches of the Egyptian Pharaoh.

Psalm. One passage sung was, “Oh Lord, please save us, Oh Lord, please save us. Oh Lord, send us prosperity, Oh Lord, send us prosperity. Blessed is He that comes in the name of the Lord,” which was an expansion of the psalmic verses,

· Psalms 118:25-26 HCSB LORD, save us! LORD, please grant us success! (26) Blessed is he who comes in the name of the LORD. From the house of the LORD we bless you.

Following the procession of the Passover lamb, Jesus came down from the Mount of Olives, riding a donkey indicating that He was coming humbly and peacefully. It was also done in order to fulfill Zechariah’s prophecy which was supposed to point out the promised Righteous King.

· Zechariah 9:9 HCSB Rejoice greatly, Daughter Zion! Shout in triumph, Daughter Jerusalem! See, your King is coming to you; He is righteous and victorious, humble and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.

He followed exactly the same path to the temple that the Passover lamb had just taken. The crowds of people, who previously had witnessed Jesus’ great miracles, placed more palm branches on the pathway in front of Him (thus, the name “Palm Sunday”) and shouted to Him as He passed,

· Matthew 21:9 HCSB Then the crowds who went ahead of Him and those who followed kept shouting: Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest heaven!

By the way, “Hosanna” or Hoshana means “Deliver us!” This was an interesting turn of the phrase, don’t you think, considering what was about to happen?

Examination. For four days, the Pesach’ lamb was kept in public view at the temple for everyone to examine to make sure that it was perfect and without defect.

During the same four days, the chief priests, elders, Pharisees, and Sadducees interrogated Jesus; but He always left them speechless, because they could find no fault with His impeccable logic and character.[3] Moreover, after Jesus was arrested, Pilate (governor of Jerusalem) and Herod (governor of Galilee) could find no evidence against Him nor fault with Him.[4] This is because Jesus was perfect and without defect,[5] just as the Passover lamb was expected to be.

Time of death. The national Passover lamb for Israel was to be killed in the temple on Aviv 14 at “twilight”[6], or at the “twain of the evening.” In Hebrew, this is translated, bain haarbayim, or “between the evenings.” The last half of the daylight hours (from about noon to 6:00 p.m.) was further divided into two parts: the minor evening oblation (noon to 3:00 p.m.) and the major evening oblation (3:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m.). Thus, “between the evenings” means between these two periods, or about 3:00 p.m. This was the time midway between the beginning of the sun’s descent into the west (about noon) and its setting (about 6:00 p.m.). So the Passover lamb was killed at about 3:00 p.m. on Aviv 14.

According to Bible historian Joseph Good[7], the Passover lamb in the temple was bound to the altar at about 9:00 a.m. Similarly,

· Mark 15:25 HCSB Now it was nine in the morning when they crucified Him.

Some of your Bibles may put it “It was the third hour when they crucified [Jesus]” but that is an archaic way of saying it was the third hour of daylight, or about 9:00 a.m.

Darkness came over the land which was not explainable by a solar eclipse, because there was a full moon rather than a new moon. This took place from about the sixth to the ninth hour (noon to 3:00 p.m.); and it was about 3:00 p.m. that Jesus died[8] —the same time that the sacrificial Passover lamb in the temple was slaughtered.

Final statement. As the high priest killed the lamb, he would have announced, “It is finished.” It is no accident that, on the cross a few miles away, Jesus’ last words also were, “It is finished”,[9] which literally meant, “Paid in full.”

Pentecost. We could go on, demonstrating how it was on the day of Pentecost, the culmination of the counting of 50 days when the Spirit was given.

Aviv 17. We could point out the parallels of Aviv 17, the day when

· Noah landed on Mount Ararat[10], emerging alive from certain death due to the Lord’s rescue;

· when the Israelites emerged alive from the Red Sea[11], escaping certain death due to the Lord’s rescue;

· When Jesus rose from the dead emerging alive from the grave, due to the Spirit’s rescue.

All this serves to illustrate the point that there is much to be learned from God’s holy days; much more than can be gotten by stubbornly holding to our cultural Christian ways.

Yom Kippur As Originally Intended (Leviticus 23:26-32, 16:5-34)

Yom Kippur foreshadows a massive and complete spiritual cleansing.

Under the Old Covenant, regular sacrifices were made for daily UNINTENTIONAL sins. According to Leviticus 15:21, on the day of Yom Kippur atonement was made for ALL sins.

It was a day of repentance and fasting[12] and was marked by the annual entrance of the High Priest into the room of the tabernacle or the temple called the most Holy of Holies. On that day the priest offered a bull for his own sins. Then he offered two goats for the people. One was sacrificed and the other was called the “scapegoat.” That one was sent outside the camp to the wilderness and Azazel,[13] carrying all the people’s sins and losing them out there where they could not be recovered.

Yom Kippur and the cross

In Jesus’ sacrifice we find both goats represented. He was the sacrificial offering and he was the scapegoat cast out of the city, bearing our sins into the wilderness to be lost forever.

The book of Hebrews describes Him in 4:14-15 and 9:14 as both priest and sacrifice.

Just as man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgment, so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many people. He will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him; not as the meek Lamb but as the Lion of Judah; not as the Suffering Servant but as the Great King.

Jesus’ death was so much better than all the sacrifices our people ever offered up to God. Jesus death was not just an atonement, a mere covering, but a removal….and not just from ritual uncleanness, but the removal of sin from our souls.

Let me ask you, “How were people saved before the Messiah came?” Many of you have been taught that the Old Covenant is strictly about salvation by works and the New Covenant introduced a better way – a way characterized by faith and grace. I would like to argue that God does not change. If it’s salvation by grace through faith now, then it has ALWAYS been so because God is immutable. He does not change.

Take a look at:

· Job 19:25-27 HCSB But I know my living Redeemer, and He will stand on the dust at last. (26) Even after my skin has been destroyed, yet I will see God in my flesh. (27) I will see Him myself; my eyes will look at Him, and not as a stranger. My heart longs within me.

Our brother Job was saved by his faith in a coming Messiah.

As we saw last week in the sermon “No More Human Sacrifices”, father Abraham also believed in a coming sacrificial Lamb.

· Genesis 22:8 HCSB Abraham answered, "God Himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son." Then the two of them walked on together.

Concerning Old Covenant saints Paul tells us,

· Hebrews 11:39-40 HCSB All these were approved through their faith, but they did not receive what was promised, (40) since God had provided something better for us, so that they would not be made perfect without us.

For them, Yom Kippur foreshadowed a massive and complete spiritual cleansing. That cleansing took place on Mount Golgotha.

The Scarlet Thread

A tradition grew around Yom Kippur, that after the High Priest had performed the service on the Day of Atonement, they used to fasten a scarlet thread on the door of the Temple court on the outside. If it turned white the people would rejoice because it meant that their sins had been forgiven. If it remained scarlet, they knew that their offerings had been rejected. The Talmud records,

“For forty years before the destruction of the temple the thread of scarlet never turned white but it remained red.”[14]

The Temple was destroyed in 70 AD. Can someone tell me what happened about forty years before, around 30 AD? The crucifixion. Moreover, in the book of Matthew we read:

· Matthew 27:25 HCSB All the people answered, "His blood be on us and on our children!"

Small wonder the scarlet thread failed to turn white. The Talmud records other things happening during those forty years. The lot for Azazel’s goat was no longer supernaturally determined for one thing. For another,

...the western candle in the candlestick in the sanctuary refused to burn continually while the doors of the Holy Temple would open of themselves...[15]

There is another saying of the Rabbis in the same Tractate of the Talmud:

Why was the first Holy Temple (Solomon’s) destroyed? Because of three things: idol worship, adultery, and murder.

But in the second Temple in which time the Jewish people were occupied studying the Torah and doing good deeds and acts of charity, why was it then destroyed?

The answer is: It was because of hatred without a cause. In order to teach you that hate without a cause is equal to these sins and that it is as serious a crime as the three great transgressions of idol worship, adultery, and murder.[16]

The Talmud does not answer the question, "Whom did we hate without a cause?" If we hated the Romans, surely there was cause for it, as they were pagans bent on destroying us physically, spiritually, and morally. Could the quotation in the Talmud be a veiled allusion to the One who gave His life for our salvation?

Yom Kippur continues to foreshadow a massive and complete spiritual cleansing.
Yom Kippur and END-TIME Israel (Zechariah 12:9-13:1)

For those of you who are new to our congregation, I must say that I do not hold to a pre-tribulational rapture. I used to be pre-trib, but after six months of intensive study about eight years ago, I changed to what I feel is a position that more fully accounts for all the prophetic literature in Scripture. That position is commonly known as “pre-wrath”.

Now I don’t want to get into a long derash on eschatology. That’s for another day. I just wanted to make sure we were all on the same page as I focus on one particular event that will take place in those critical last days.

The Holy Spirit, through the prophet Zechariah predicts:

· Zechariah 12:8-10 HCSB On that day the LORD will defend the inhabitants of Jerusalem, so that the one who is weakest among them will be like David on that day, and the house of David will be like God, like the Angel of the LORD, before them. (9) On that day I will set out to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem. (10) "Then I will pour out a spirit of grace and prayer on the house of David and the residents of Jerusalem, and they will look at Me whom they pierced. They will mourn for Him as one mourns for an only child and weep bitterly for Him as one weeps for a firstborn.

Notice that David’s house will be represented to the people as God? Also notice who will be that representative: the Angel of the Lord. Someone please tell me who the Angel of the Lord is? Yes. Jesus the Messiah.

And how is that confirmed? Look again at verse ten. “They will look at Me whom they pierced. Notice further the dichotomy. “Me whom they pierced...mourn for Him.” Who was both God and with God? The Living Word of God according to John 1.

Paul has this to say on the matter:

· Romans 11:25-27 HCSB So that you will not be conceited, brothers, I do not want you to be unaware of this mystery: a partial hardening has come to Israel until the full number of the Gentiles has come in. (26) And in this way all Israel will be saved, as it is written: The Liberator will come from Zion; He will turn away godlessness from Jacob. (27) And this will be My covenant with them, when I take away their sins.

There is coming a day when there will be one last Yom Kippur.

· Zechariah 13:1 HCSB "On that day a fountain will be opened for the house of David and for the residents of Jerusalem, to wash away sin and impurity.

In fact there is coming a day when EVERY knee, including the Devil’s, will bow before the Lordship of our King Jesus. But listen to me carefully. On that day it will be too late. Those who sorrow for their sins on that great and awesome Day of Judgment will be cast into the Lake of Fire.

How can we be cleansed?

Yom Kippur is called in English the Day of Atonement. To atone means to cover one’s sins by paying a penalty. You will never be holy enough to pay for your own sins for all have sinned and fallen short of the glorious holiness of perfect God.[17] Fortunately, Yahweh Yeshua has paid the penalty for us.

Do you remember the scarlet thread hung on the door of the Temple? If it turned white it meant that forgiveness was available? It’s rather reminiscent of the prostitute Rahab’s hanging of the scarlet cord outside her window, identifying both her sin and her willingness to trust in Israel’s God.[18] She and all those in her family who also trusted Yahweh were the only one who escaped Jericho’s destruction.

Listen to the prophet Isaiah as he speaks on Yahweh’s behalf:

· Isaiah 1:18 HCSB "Come, let us discuss this," says the LORD. "Though your sins are like scarlet, they will be as white as snow; though they are as red as crimson, they will be like wool.

If you would like to escape the coming destruction, recognize and confess your sins, and choose Israel’s God – the representative of the House of David; the coming King; the Angel of the Lord; Jesus the Mashiach’.

[2] Talmud Pesachim 64; Josephus, Wars, 2:280; also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korban_Pesach

[4] Matthew 26:59-60; 27:23a; Luke 23:4, 14-15; John 19:6c

[7] Good, Joseph. Rosh HaShanah and the Messianic Kingdom to Come. (Port Arthur, TX: Hatikva Ministries, 1991)