Yom Kippur

Leviticus 23:27-32 appoints for Israel a national day of "afflicting your souls," person by person, family by family. Leviticus 16 outlines the labors of the high priest on that day. His work is solemn and bloody as he pours out the lifeblood of innocent animals into bowls in order to cleanse the Most Holy Place.  The Temple courtyard has been defiled over the year with the sins of the sons of Israel as they gathered for worship. The High Priest must put off the beautiful priestly garments he wears at all other times of the year and now wear simpke clean white linen garments and humble himself before God.

The tehth day of the seventh month is ablaze with the continuous fire of burnt offerings on the altar of sacrifice. A young bull, seven lambs and one ram follow the lamb which burns on the altar in the morning (Numbers 28:4-8; 29:7-11). The high priest trembles as he enters the Most Holy Place with the smoking scented coals from the altar of sacrifice. If his sins and the sins of his people have reached this holiest of sanctuaries, have they reached the Heaven of heavens? Is the cloud sufficient to shield him from the judging gaze of a holy God? Were the bullock and the goat whose blood he must sprinkle at the mercy seat truly unblemished? Is seven times enough for all the iniquity in Israel? Will this blood save Israel from receiving punishment? Mercy would be a blessing at this moment.

The outer courtyards are empty now; no one was permitted in the courts of the Tabernacle or the Temple while he labored alone before the God of Israel. They were waiting for him, reassured only by the sound of the bells on his hem as he moved about in the Most Holy Place. Would he live to discharge the live goat bearing the sins of Israel far from the gaze of God? As he returns from the Holy of Holies, he hears the collective gasp of relief rise from those who wait in hope outside. The live goat is led away to a wilderness reserved for the spirits of the damned, from which the goat would never return. The goat’s destination is insured by sending the most reliable servant available to attend it. His labors not yet complete, the high priest bathes, changes his garments, and prepares the ram to be the burnt offering for himself, his sons, and for all the people (Leviticus 16:24). This burnt offering is then followed with the regular evening burnt offering, and the high priest is then relieved by another. Scripture calls this a feast? Not a very festive picture, fasting and contemplating one’s sin. Add to that the gruesome spectacle of blood and fire and smoke, and the scene becomes macabre.

Appearances are deceiving in this case. Anyone who thinks upon the character and being of God, His holiness and gracious provision for the Covenant with Him, understands that Yom Kippur is not intended to be bitterly, uncomfortable, or grievous. Sin, however, is grievous because it separates people from knowing the God of all joy. The thought of separation from God ought to plague our souls with grief.

Nevertheless, while we are making unflattering, unpleasant discoveries about our being and character, yielding to God’s search for things that destroy the deep pleasure of relationship with Him is a true, if pungent, feast for the soul. The more we acquire a taste for God’s extraordinary character, the more often and eagerly our soul will pant for the strong savor of Yom Kippur. Mingled with the bitter tears of our self-exposure and confession, God offers the "Main Course" of His Holy Covenant: reconciliation through the blood of His appointed atoning sacrifice, offered by the priestly mediator of His ordination. If we perform 612 mitzvot and neglect this one, we are guilty of sin in all the other 612. The mitzvot are holy, but we are not holy.

Our mere performance of them does not change our character of unholiness in the gaze of a holy God. God alone is holy. He has given this "feast" to the unholy as the way to reconcile them to Him. There is no other way, for God has said: "...it is the blood that makes atonement for the soul" (Leviticus 17:11).

For Messianic believers, Yom Kippur carries the sweetness of Yeshua’s Great Atonement. While we submit to the searching gaze of the Spirit of God, we enjoy the counsel of the Ruach who testifies: "Messiah has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to do away with sin by the sacrifice of Himself" (Hebrews 9:26). And again, "Messiah came as High Priest of the good things to come, with the greater and more perfect tabernacle not made with hands, that is, not of this creation. Not with the blood of goats and calves, but with His own blood He entered the Most Holy Place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption. For if the blood of bulls and goats and the ashes of a heifer, sprinkling the unclean, sanctifies for the purifying of the flesh, how much more shall the blood of Messiah, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself with His own blood, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?"

For this reason Yeshua is the Mediator of the New Covenant, by means of His death, for the atonement of the transgressions, under the first covenant that those who are called may receive the promise of the eternal inheritance" (Hebrews 9:11-15). "There is now, therefore, no condemnation for those who are in Messiah Yeshua, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Ruach HaKodesh" (Romans 8:1).

For the Messianic believer, Yom Kippur is personally fulfilled in Yeshua’s atoning sacrifice offered at Pesach. Israel will enjoy her national atonement when she recognizes her Lamb on that final Yom Kippur to come (Isaiah 66:7Zechariah 12:10-14). Till then, Israel languishes without the Temple, without the altar of sacrifice, without the atoning blood. Till then, the rabbis impose innovations on the feast insisting that the red blood cells each man prevents by his fasting and his good deeds will serve as atonement for his own iniquity.

We who know the terror of that final Yom Teruah to come ought to share with our Jewish brethern about Messiah’s great atonement: that they might know Life in Yeshua!