Note: This message was presented by Pastors Pat Damiani and Dana Yentzer
Pat:
This morning we’ll continue with our examination of the three fall Jewish feasts that began last week with our look at the Feast of Trumpets. Once again, Pastor Dana is going to describe the historical background of the feast and how it is celebrated today and I’ll be addressing how Jesus will fulfill the feast at His second coming and the implications for us as followers of the Messiah, Jesus.
HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
Dana:
Let’s take a brief moment to review and put the Day of Atonement in its proper context.
There are a total of seven feasts that God gave to His people to observe. The feasts are broken down into three main seasons. The Spring feasts – Passover, Unleavened Bread and Firstfruits coincide with the barley harvest and were fulfilled by Jesus at His first coming.
The Feast of Weeks coincided with the completion of the wheat harvest and, as was fulfilled by Jesus by the giving of the Holy Spirit which inaugurated the church age in which we now live. And, as we saw last week, that church age represents an interlude in God’s direct dealings with Israel – a period also known as the “time of the Gentiles.” God is using this time to make Israel jealous in preparation for the time when she will repent and recognize Jesus as the Messiah and be restored.
The final three feasts – the Feast of Trumpets, the Day of Atonement and the Feast of Tabernacles - occur in the Fall, and they will be fulfilled in full by Jesus at His second coming.
Last week, we looked at the Feast of Trumpets, which will be literally fulfilled by Jesus when He returns to this earth accompanied by a loud trumpet blast. This morning we’ll move on to the second of the fall feasts – the Day of Atonement.
As with all the feasts, we find the primary instructions for the observance of the feast in Leviticus 23:
And the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, “Now on the tenth day of this seventh month is the Day of Atonement. It shall be for you a time of holy convocation, and you shall afflict yourselves and present a food offering to the LORD. And you shall not do any work on that very day, for it is a Day of Atonement, to make atonement for you before the LORD your God. For whoever is not afflicted on that very day shall be cut off from his people. And whoever does any work on that very day, that person I will destroy from among his people. You shall not do any work. It is a statute forever throughout your generations in all your dwelling places. It shall be to you a Sabbath of solemn rest, and you shall afflict yourselves. On the ninth day of the month beginning at evening, from evening to evening shall you keep your Sabbath.”
Leviticus 23:26-32 (ESV)
Before we proceed any further this morning, we need to take a moment to define the word “atonement”. It is one of those religious terms that we use frequently, but perhaps without completely understanding its meaning. In Hebrew, the Day of Atonement is known as Yom Kippur, and the Hebrew word ‘kippur” which is usually translated into English as “atonement” comes from a Hebrew word which means “to cover”. There are two crucial aspects to the concept of atonement:
• It is the provision of a “covering” or “satisfaction” for sin
• It provides reconciliation between two parties that have been estranged
In fact, these two aspects have their genesis, their beginning, in- well actually- the Book of Genesis!
Back in chapter 3, in the account of Adam & Eve’s sin in the Garden, they discovered they had sinned against God; they then tried to hide from God, and further more cover their shame with fig leaves which was not adequate to cover their sin. God graciously provided the proper “covering” by taking the skins of an innocent, sacrificed animal. (v 3:21) By God’s “covering,” Adam & Eve’s sin was atoned for, and their fellowship with God was reconciled.
As a sidebar, so, too, with Moses while he was a prince in Egypt- when he killed an Egyptian task-master, Moses tried to “cover” the act by hiding the dead body in the sand, yet it was not sufficient to hide Moses’ crime. This is a reminder that all of our sins, whether against God or man, are never hidden.
Here is how we have arrived at the word “atonement when William Tyndale was working on his English translation of the Bible in the early 1500’s, he couldn’t find an English word that adequately conveyed both those ideas, so he coined a new word – literally “at-one-ment” – a word that describes how we are made to be at one with God through this process. In a broad sense, atonement actually describes the overarching theme of Scripture – the reconciliation of God and man through Jesus, the Messiah. Jesus both covers, or satisfies, our sins and he reconciles us to God.
The Day of Atonement occurs on the tenth day of the month of Tishri. This year, it will begin at sunset tonight and conclude at nightfall tomorrow night. As we pointed out last week, this day concludes a ten day period that begins on Rosh Hashanah that is known as the ”High Holy Days” or the “Days of Awe”. This feast is Israel’s most solemn holy day.
As we have found with all the other feasts, there are additional instructions regarding the observance of the feast elsewhere in the Scriptures. In this case, the instructions for the Day of the Atonement, which are found in Leviticus 16, are far more extensive than those for any of the other feasts. Because of the length of that passage, we aren’t going to read it in its entirety this morning, but we certainly encourage all of you to do that on your own this week. For time’s sake, we’ll just be summarizing some of the more significant aspects of the feast that were prescribed by God.
Once a year, on the Day of Atonement, the high priest would engage in a prescribed series of purification rites and sacrifices. He would begin by taking part in a washing and then put on the priestly garments. He would then come before the people with a bull, a ram and two goats. He would sacrifice the bull to atone for his own sins and the sins of his household. He would take some of the blood of the ram inside the Holy of Holies and sprinkle it on the altar. He would then exit the Holy of Holies.
Next, two identical goats were brought before him and the high priest would cast lots. One goat would be designated “for the Lord” and the other “for Azazel”. The goat that was chosen by lot “for the Lord” was then killed by the high priest and he re-entered the Holy of Holies to sprinkle some of the blood on the altar to atone for the sins of all Israel.
After that, the other goat, the one chosen for Azazel, was brought before the high priest who would lay his hands on the goat and confess all the sins of Israel. That goat was then released into the wilderness to symbolize that God had carried away the sins of the people until the ceremony was repeated the following year.
This is the only time that anyone was ever permitted inside the Holy of Holies in the Tabernacle, and later in the Temple. Only the high priest could go behind the veil which separated the Holy of Holies from the Holy Place, and even he could only do that once a year on the Day of Atonement.
As you would expect, with the destruction of the Temple in AD 70, the Jews have had to greatly modify the way they observe the feast since they can no longer make the prescribed sacrifices. In modern rabbinical Judaism, sin is now atoned for through prayer, repentance and good deeds. Many of the practices that have been adopted are related to this verse in Leviticus 16:
And it shall be a statute to you forever that in the seventh month, on the tenth day of the month, you shall afflict yourselves and shall do no work, either the native or the stranger who sojourns among you.
Leviticus 16:29 (ESV)
Notice the words “afflict yourselves”. That exact phrase is used only five times in the Bible and every time it refers to the Day of Atonement. The idea here is one of one humbling himself before God. By the time of the second Temple, this had evolved into the practice of fasting and of denying oneself physical needs. So today, the Jews participate in a complete fast, not even drinking water for a 25 hour period that begins at sunset on the day before the feast and ends at nightfall on Yom Kippur. Other additional restrictions, such as not wearing cosmetics or leather shoes, have also become traditional.
Most of the day is spent in the synagogue, in prayer. In Orthodox synagogues, services begin early in the morning and continue until about 3:00 p.m. People then usually go home for an afternoon nap and return around 5 or 6 p.m. for the afternoon and evening services, which continue until nightfall.
In rabbinical teaching, the Day of Atonement is also considered to be the day on which God’s individual judgment on each person is sealed. As we saw last week, on Rosh Hashanah each person’ name was assigned to one of three groups, the righteous, who had their names written in the book of life, the wicked, who had their names blotted from that book and who were appointed to death and those in between who had an additional ten days before the Day of Atonement to repent and be counted among the righteous. But on the Day of Atonement that judgment was considered to be sealed once and for all. The Yom Kippur services end with a ceremony called Neilah, which pictures the closing of the gates of heaven. That part of the service ends with a final blast of the shofar, which indicates that the opportunity for repentance has ended and that each person’s judgment has been sealed.
So, as we mentioned in our last Thursday night series, it is not surprising that the Book of Jonah serves as the text for the afternoon service on Yom Kippur. Since the theme of Jonah is repentance and God’s forgiveness for all those who genuinely repent, it reinforces many of the themes that we have already highlighted.
FULFILLED BY JESUS
Pat:
This has been a really exciting week for me because as I have studied the prophetic implications of the Day of Atonement, God has used that time to begin to give me some more clarity about the timing of many of the end time events that we see revealed in both the Old Testament prophets and in Revelation. But at the same time, it has also been quite frustrating because it’s been almost impossible to narrow down what I’m going to present to you in the short time we have together this morning. Once again, my prayer is that this will just whet your appetite to search out these things on your own. And we will also have the opportunity to re-visit some of the prophetic aspects of this feast in more detail as we continue in our study of the Old Testament prophets and Revelation.
There are two major aspects of the way Jesus fulfilled and will fulfill this feast. I’ll comment briefly on the past fulfillment and then we’ll spend most of our time examining the future fulfillment.
• At His first coming
The entire text of chapters 8 and 9 in the Book of Hebrews deals with how Jesus fulfilled the Day of Atonement at His first coming. That passage reveals that the tabernacle, and later the temple, as well as the sacrifices made on the Day of Atonement, were merely meant to be a picture of how Jesus would more perfectly provide a way for our sins to be covered and for us to be reconciled to God. Since we can’t even begin to look at that entire passage this morning, I’ve picked out a couple of verses that summarize very well the overall theme of that section of Scripture:
But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come, then through the greater and more perfect tent (not made with hands, that is, not of this creation) he entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption.
Hebrews 9:11, 12 (ESV)
Jesus is not only our high priest, but He is also the sacrifice. Both of the goats involved in the Day of Atonement sacrifices are pictures of Jesus. The goat designated “for the Lord” clearly pictures the blood of Jesus which he shed on our behalf in order to atone for our sins. But the goat designated “for Azazel” also is a picture of what Jesus did for us as He carried our sins away into the wilderness where they will never return, or as the Psalmist describes it: God, through Jesus, has removed our sin “as far as the east is from the west”. [Psalm 103:12]
But unlike the Day of Atonement, which had to be observed year after year, Jesus’ death on the cross made atonement for our sins once for all, as the writer of Hebrews confirms at the end of Chapter 9:
And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment, so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him.
Hebrews 9:27, 28 (ESV)
That verse is also the perfect segue into our primary focus this morning, as it refers to the time when Jesus will return, not to deal with sin, but to save those who are eagerly waiting for Him. So let’s look at how Jesus will fulfill the Day of Atonement…
• At his second coming
Language that clearly refers to the Day of Atonement occurs frequently throughout the Old Testament prophets when they are writing about the end times. There are numerous references to “sprinkling” that refer to the blood of the goat that was sprinkled on the altar on the Day of Atonement by the High Priest. Paul provides us with a good framework for all these passage in His letter to the church at Rome:
Lest you be wise in your own sight, I want you to understand this mystery, brothers: a partial hardening has come upon Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. And in this way all Israel will be saved, as it is written,
“The Deliverer will come from Zion,
he will banish ungodliness from Jacob”;
“and this will be my covenant with them
when I take away their sins.”
Romans 11:25-27 (ESV)
As we pointed out last week, the purpose of the age of the Gentiles, which is synonymous with the church age, is to make Israel jealous so that she will one day return to God and be saved. And the Bible is clear that there will be a day in the future when that will occur and throughout the Scriptures that time is clearly connected with the Day of Atonement. Notice in this passage that Israel will be saved when Jesus returns to “take away their sins”.
One word of caution before we proceed. When Paul writes here that “all Israel will be saved”, it is clear from the surrounding context, as well as the rest of the Bible, that he is only referring here to those who, by faith, accept Jesus as the Messiah. That will become quite clear in the other passages that we’ll look at this morning.
This event is described by a number of the Old Testament prophets, including Isaiah, Jeremiah and Daniel. We even saw hints of it in both Joel and Amos. But it is Zechariah who paints the most complete picture. Let’s begin with this passage:
On that day the Lord will protect the inhabitants of Jerusalem, so that the feeblest among them on that day shall be like David, and the house of David shall be like God, like the angel of the Lord, going before them. And on that day I will seek to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem. And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and pleas for mercy, so that, when they look on me, on him whom they have pierced, they shall mourn for him, as one mourns for an only child, and weep bitterly over him, as one weeps over a firstborn.
Zechariah 12:8-10 (ESV)
According to Zechariah, there will come a day in which God will pour out His Spirit on Israel to that they will recognize Jesus as the Messiah, and they will mourn over the fact that, as a people, they were responsible for the shedding of His blood. We find that both Jesus and John both refer to such an event as well:
Then will appear in heaven the sign of the Son of Man, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.
Matthew 24:30 (ESV)
Although as followers of Jesus, we often picture the return of Jesus as a time of great joy, Jesus made it clear that it would be a time of mourning. This mourning seems to be clearly connected to the words of Zechariah which explain that the reason for our mourning will be our role in the crucifixion of Jesus. And every one of us, whether we are Jew or Gentile, is responsible for the shed blood of Jesus, which was necessitated by our sin.
Behold, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, even those who pierced him…
Revelation 1:7 (ESV)
Again, this verse, like almost every verse in Revelation, has roots in the Old Testament, in this case the words of Zechariah. And although the focus is primarily on Israel here, there is still the sense that all of us have pierced Jesus because he died for our sins.
If you’ve been paying close attention so far, the logical question you should be asking now is: “How do we know that the events described by Zechariah are connected with the Day of Atonement?” Certainly, there is the overall theme of atonement that runs throughout these verses. But just a few verses later, at the beginning of chapter 13, we find a more direct connection:
On that day there shall be a fountain opened for the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, to cleanse them from sin and uncleanness.
Zechariah 13:1 (ESV)
Zechariah is still referring here to the same day he described earlier in chapter 12. And his audience would have clearly understood that this was a reference to the Day of Atonement, since that was the only method by which the sins of the people could be cleansed.
As we discovered last week, there is a clear connection between the Feast of Trumpets and the return of Jesus. But just as there is a ten day period between the Feast of Trumpets and Yom Kippur for the purpose of repenting and turning to God, there will also be some events which occur between the return of Jesus and the time when Israel will return to God and be saved. As Zechariah continues in chapter 13, he describes those events:
In the whole land, declares the Lord,
two thirds shall be cut off and perish,
and one third shall be left alive.
And I will put this third into the fire,
and refine them as one refines silver,
and test them as gold is tested.
They will call upon my name,
and I will answer them.
I will say, ‘They are my people’;
and they will say, ‘The Lord is my God.’”
Zechariah 13:8, 9 (ESV)
The period between the return of Jesus and the salvation of Israel will be a time of testing and refining. This is certainly consistent with what we’ve already seen in Joel and Amos and what we saw pictured in the account of Noah. As we have consistently pointed out, the purpose of tribulation is to identify the righteous in Jesus, and that is clearly what is occurring here. And the result is that only one third of the people of Israel are going to pass the test and say “The Lord is my God” and be recognized by God as His people. It is that one-third that Paul is referring to in Romans when he writes that “all Israel will be saved.”
IMPLICATIONS FOR US
This morning, rather than leave you with several principles, I’m going to share just one principle with you. But it is a principle that has three distinct aspects that I’ll cover individually and then come back and tie them all together.
1. We must approach God on His terms…
As we discussed the Day of Atonement in our men’s Bible study on Tuesday morning, we noted just how detailed all the instructions concerning the observance of the feast were, especially in Leviticus 16. And what became really apparent out of all that detail is that it was God, and God alone, who determines the means by which we might come to Him.
But we now live in a day where we are constantly told that there are many ways to God and that we can just choose whichever path we want. In a well-publicized television show from 2008, Oprah Winfrey, without a doubt the most popular advocate of that approach said, among other things: “There are many paths to what you call God…If it brings her to the same point that it brings you it doesn’t matter whether she called it God along the way or not...There couldn’t possibly be just one way…”
Moses and Aaron didn’t sit down and devise a means by which their sins and the sins of the people might be atoned for and then present it to God for His approval. That would have been ludicrous, wouldn’t it? But that is exactly what Oprah, and every other person who thinks they can choose their own way to God are doing. In effect, they are playing God.
When God gave Moses and Aaron the instructions about how to atone for their sins, it couldn’t have made a whole lot of sense to them. But they didn’t argue with God or present their own plan, or go their own way, they just obeyed God.
Frankly, it doesn’t really make a whole lot of sense to me that the way I’m made right with God is because Jesus died on a cross nearly 2,000 years ago and came back to life. That’s certainly not how I would have chosen to do it. But I’m not God, so I just have to be obedient to Him when Jesus speaks and says, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” [John 14:6]
But even those of us who have been made right with God on His terms, through faith in Jesus, still have a tendency to try to approach God on our own terms, both individually and corporately. How often do we make our own plans and then we bring them before God and ask Him to bless them? Or we decide what we think we need or want, and then we go to God and ask Him to provide us with those things. Which brings us to the second aspect of our application:
2. Which requires repentance…
We throw the word “repentance” around a lot. Perhaps the most common picture that we use to describe repentance is a “U-turn”, usually in connection with our sin. And there is nothing wrong with that because when we sin, at least part of the process of repentance is to not only be sorry for that sin, but to make a “U-turn” and not continue in that sin.
But repentance is really much broader. In the Old Testament, the primary Hebrew word for repent, when it deals with man’s repentance, is a word that means to “turn back” or “return” and it is always in the context of turning back or returning to God. We see that in connection with both the Feast of Trumpets and the Day of Atonement. Remember for the 30 days of the month of Elul prior to the Feast of Trumpets, the people spend that time searching out god and returning to Him and then the primary focus of the ten day period from Rosh Hashanah to Yom Kippur is also to repent and turn back to God.
The concept of repentance is developed much more fully developed in the New Testament. The Greek word used there is a compound word that literally means “to perceive afterward” and which came to mean “to change one’s mind.” While the term certainly applies to our sin, it actually has a much broader meaning. It signifies a change in our thinking from being self-centered to being God-centered. It is the process that Paul described in this well-known passage:
Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.
Romans 12:2 (ESV)
True repentance means that I change my mind and that I view everything from God’s perspective, rather than my own. It means that I see sin from His perspective, not mine. It means that I deal with that sin according to his plan, not mine. And it means that I need to adjust my life to His Word, not His Word to my life.
And that leads us to the third aspect of our application:
3. Which must be practiced continually
It’s interesting that the Jewish people still read the Book of Jonah in connection with the Day of Atonement since that account demonstrates this principle so clearly. When Jonah went into Nineveh and preached, the people repented, at least for the moment. And as a result, God postponed His judgment on them.
But it wasn’t long until the people returned to their own ways. They no longer saw the need for repentance. And in 612 BC the Babylonians attacked Assyria and completely destroyed Nineveh.
Repentance must be an ongoing process. When Paul commanded us to not be conformed to the world and to be transformed by the renewing of our mind in the passage we just read in Romans 12, he used present tense imperative verbs. That has double significance for us. First, the verbs are imperatives. That means they are commands and not options. Secondly, and more significant to this aspect of our application, they are present tense verbs, which, as we have seen many time before, indicate continuing action. We could accurately translate this passage:
Do not keep being conformed to this world, but be constantly being transformed by the renewal of your mind…
In other words this process of changing our mind and making it God-focused is not to be a onetime event; it is to be a lifestyle.
So how do I do that in practical terms? How do I approach God on His own terms, which requires repentance, and practice that continually? By saturating my life with His Word and being obedient to the commands of Jesus. Jesus said:
Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.
John 14:21 (ESV)
