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The purpose of Yom Kippur is to prepare us to live with God. God wants to dwell in the midst of His people, but He can’t live with His people when they are in sin, so He created the rituals of Yom Kippur to close the gulf between His presence and humanity that started with Adam and Eve.
God seeks to heal the separation between humanity and Himself, first through Seth, then Noah, then Shem, and then Shem’s descendant Abraham, who God called to be His ambassador to the people of Canaan. Abraham’s demonstration of faith and trust in God is the blueprint that all who love God and want to be God’s friend will emulate. Abraham balance faith and action and it’s thought Abraham’s family that the Messiah Yeshua, who became flesh and tabernacled among mankind, as the Apostle John said in John 1.
Although God yearns to live with humanity face to face, God’s tabernacle was never a place where anyone could stroll in and hang out at any time. Only the High Priest could enter the Holy of Holies and that was only once a year, on Yom Kippur. Yom Kippur was the High Priest’s annual invitation to meet with God.
Hebrews 9-10 teach us that it’s only because of the Messiah Yeshua that we can approach God with boldness. However, don’t mistake boldness for arrogance or entitlement because the only reason that we can approach God “boldly” is because of reputation of Messiah Yeshua and our willingness to allow Him to mold and transform us into people that God would want to spend time with as friends, like Abraham and Moses were to Him. It’s the blood of Yeshua that transforms us, not any works we can do.
As John the Baptist proclaimed, Yeshua is the “Lamb of God Who takes away the sins of the world.” He described Yeshua in language that blends Pesach and Yom haKippurim together. (John 1:28–29).
The “Lamb of God” is a direct reference to the Passover lamb. The blood of the Pesakh blocked the wrath of God upon Mitsraim (Egypt) from harming those inside a home with the blood at the door.
The phrase “Takes away the sins of the world” is a reference to the Goat for Azazel, the scapegoat. The scapegoat was banished from the congregation with all the sins, transgressions and iniquities of the assembly. Just as the scapegoat died outside the city, Yeshua was crucified outside of the walls of Yerushalayim (Jerusalem).
Yom Kippur is a “shabbat” a day of rest, but the Torah refers to it in Leviticus 16 as a “Shabbat shabaton” which means, stop, stop, stop! In the Hebrew language, their way of linguistically bold facing or underlining something is to repeat the word twice with the various form and this is that form that it has in it.
Completely refraining from any work is not the only instruction given in Leviticus 16. Another instruction is to “humble your soul.” The Hebrew word for “humble” is anah, and the root verb of anah means “to reply” or “to answer.” The people who completely stop all regular earthly work are answering or responding to the work of the High Priest on their behalf in the Tabernacle.
To “humble yourself” or to “Afflicting the soul” has long been understood in Jewish tradition to mean fasting (cf. Ezra 8:21; Isa. 58:3, 5; Dan. 10:12). While Jews in the first century A.D. already had customary annual and weekly fast days, there was only one day known as “the Fast”, which is Yom haKippurim. Apostle Paul referred to “the Fast” as being just before the winter storm season (Acts 27:9).
““I hate your new moon festivals and your appointed feasts, They have become a burden to Me; I am weary of bearing them.”(Isaiah 1:14 NAS95)
Anti-Torah Christians enjoy quoting Isaiah out of context to justify throwing away the God’s feast to replace them with feasts and fasts of their own making. However the feasts of the Lord recorded in the Torah are not Israel’s feasts but God’s feasts. He is the one who commanded their commemoration so how can He hate what He himself ordained?
The point that God is making to His people through Isaiah is that although they were going through the motions of celebration His feasts, their hearts and souls were not in them. They were putting on a show and hope to receive a blessing from God just for showing up. They just wanted the participation trophy.
If you find yourself in a public place of any kind, you can tell if the people who are there actually want to be there or not. What you see throughout the book of Isaiah is that God sees the leadership and the common people gathering at the temple for the feasts, but He knows that for most of them, their hearts are elsewhere.
Ezekiel is even more explicit about how the leaders and priests were acting in the Temple during the Feasts of the Lord. Ezekiel gives you an actual cutaway into what’s going on inside the temple, showing what’s going on within the hearts of the priesthood. And what is inside are all kinds of detestable things. Everything that the Lord hates is actually inside the temple.The practices of the temple started to morph into the practices of the nations around. The priests and the elders were supposed to show the people what God is like. But no, what are they showing? They were teaching the people that God is just like the deities of the nations around them. That you can cajole Him and bribe Him and He will give you what you want. They said that as long as you just show up and what is required, that will be counted. But how do you compare such apathy with Abraham? He trusted God, and it was reckoned as righteousness. Quite a bit different.
A big hint about reading the letter of Hebrews is that the entire book is about the High Priest and what it would mean to be without a Temple and the High Priest. Hebrews unpacks much of what Yom Kippur is about, which is about the High Priest. For many Jews, Yom Kippur is a mystery, especially since there is no longer a temple and no longer a High Priest officiating within it.
Hebrews 1–2 talk about Yeshua, who is Heaven’s ultimate prophet and “ministering spirit”
• “because of the suffering of death crowned with glory and honor, so that by the grace of God He might taste death for everyone.” (Hebrews 2:9 NASB)
• “… since the children share in flesh and blood, He Himself likewise also partook of the same, that through death He might render powerless him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, and might free those who through fear of death were subject to slavery all their lives.” (Hebrews 2:14–15 NASB)
Just as the testimony of the true prophets and spirit messengers was trustworthy, so too, the testimony of Yeshua, the Son of God.
Hebrews 3:1–4:13 show us that Yeshua is Heaven’s ultimate deliverer to ultimate “rest”
• “consider Jesus, the Apostle and High Priest of our confession” (Hebrews 3:1 NASB)
• Some read about the “Sabbath-rest” in Hebrews 4 and conclude that the teaching is that the remembrance of the seventh-day rest, the Sabbath, has been transferred to the Messiah, Yeshua. Yet the context of the passage and the quotations in it relating to a pivotal event in the Torah point to the fuller meaning of personal peace and real “rest” that God provides. We keep Shabbat because Yeshua is our rest, we do not use Yeshua’s sacrifice as an excuse to discard the Shabbat and longer keep the Shabbat holy.
When going through the history of the Exodus, Massah and Meribah, as recorded in Ex. 17:1-7, is pivotal. What happened in the place is reflected upon in Psalm 95:7-11.
• Meribah means “place of strife.”
• Massah means “place of testing.”
The key part of the account is the question on the minds of the contentious, “Is God with us or not?” (Ex. 17:7).
What happens without a physical temple, a high priest, daily sacrifices, etc.? The people who originally read the letter of Hebrews probably visited the temple in the past. We only can visit its ruins. The question, “Is the Lord with us or not?” pops up over and over again. The question is how will we respond?
Bilaam prophesied of the coming Messiah but because of his actions, he became a byword, and did not enter into God’s rest.
Hebrews 4:14–5:10 tells us that Yeshua is Heaven’s ultimate priest, called like Aharon and Melkhitzedeq (Melchizedek)
“And having been made perfect, He became to all those who obey Him the source of eternal salvation, being designated by God as a high priest according to the order of Melchizedek.” (Hebrews 5:9–10 NASB)
“having been made perfect” in Hebrews 5:9 means “to bring to the end (goal) proposed” according to the Thayers Lexicon.
• Hebrews 5:11–6:12: Don’t walk away from God
• Hebrews 6:13–20: Oath of God to save
Hebrews 7 focuses in the of Atonement and Yeshua as Heaven’s High Priest, not connected to Aharon’s line.
Just as Melchizedek in Abraham’s time had enduring attributes of high priest and king of righteousness and of peace, how much more did Yeshua as the Son of God and the Messiah carry on that enduring priest-king legacy.
The teaching is that Melchizedek is a pattern — “shadow” — of the coming Messiah, as hinted in the Messianic prophecy of Psa. 110:4, quoted in Heb. 7:17.
If Mechizedek was a king — ruler — of peace and righteousness, how much more was Yeshua?
If Abraham, who God picked to be the father of a kingdom of priests, brought tithes to Melchizedek, how much more should the descendants of Abraham’s trust in God bestow honor on Yeshua?
A key to the understanding of Hebrews 7–10 is Heb. 7:11–12. What is the default setting without the Temple? The idea of no temple, no priesthood was an existential crisis for he Jewish people but the truth is that God is alway in control and He calls on His people to keep on keeping on. God will restore things in His time and as we pray towards Jerusalem, we are not praying toward a pile of rubble, but towards the promise of the New Jerusalem to come.
“Now if perfection was through the Levitical priesthood (for on the basis of it the people received the Law), what further need was there for another priest to arise according to the order of Melchizedek, and not be designated according to the order of Aaron? For when the priesthood is changed, of necessity there takes place a change of law also.” (Hebrews 7:11–12 NASB)
The Messiah is the purpose of the Law. He is the direction, the goal of the law. Perfection is “the condition in which men are acceptable to God.” The Messiah is the only way we are made acceptable to God.
The goal of the Tabernacle and Temple was to bring people close to God. This is exactly what King Solomon prayed for in 1st Samuel 8. God established the priesthood through Aaron’s descendants to bring the offerings of the people to God continually to cover — purge — sins, transgressions and iniquity, to express gratefulness to God and signify the reaching of a level of shalom with God. The people built the Tabernacle and then at the end of Exodus, He kicked all of them out. In Leviticus, we read about how people can re-enter His presence. The human priesthood was incomplete because it couldn’t fully bridge the gap between mankind and God.
And the Law was only intended to point out when people veer away from God’s ways, not to make mankind acceptable to God (Psalm 51; Isaiah 1; Rom. 3:19–20). Heaven is not pleased when we just show up, Heaven knows exactly what’s going on in our hearts at all times.
Yeshua’s High Priesthood is better than the Aharonic high priest because Yeshua doesn’t have to offer sacrifices for Himself. He has no sin to be covered. Rather, Yeshua covers sin, transgression and iniquity of the people of God (Heb. 7:26–28).
Hebrews 8 warns about the ‘Abomination of desolation’ happening all over again. This chapter expounds on the first time the Israel rebelled, the holy of holies was taken away, when they continued to rebel, the entire temple was taken away (Heb. 8:1–13). The phrase “Now the main point of what we are saying is this” (Heb. 8:1 NIV) in alerts us that this passage is the focus of Hebrews.
The point is that Yeshua as the ultimate high priest of God not only dwells in the Holy of Holies of original Tabernacle, the throne room of God, but sits at the right hand of the Father (Heb. 1:3–4). All of the Torah speaks about Yeshua. In remembering Yom haKippurim, we see Yeshua as the High Priest, the goat that was slain and the goat that was cast away.
Hebrews 9–10 tells us that Yeshua the Messiah carries away our past. These two chapters reassure us that the evidence against us is gone, thanks to the continual, superior priesthood and one-time offering of the Son of God.
The purpose of the Law in general and the offerings of the “first covenant” specifically is to be a continual reminder of the inadequacy of “the flesh” — human efforts — to solve the problem of deviation from God’s “ways,” God’s plan for human conduct. The truth is the interpreters inserted the phrase “Covenant” next to first. What this is actually referring to is the “first” priesthood, which with Yeshua, has been put out of work.
“Perfection” of the one bringing the offering to the Tabernacle involves clearing the conscience of record of the wrongdoing, both in memory and in inclination (Heb. 10:1–2). Just as God has forgiven us, we must forgive ourselves and others. The quotation from Psa. 40:6–8 in Heb. 10:5–7 points to the goal of the Tabernacle to clean the congregant on the inside.
Yom Kippur is a day of hope, it shows us where our true cleansing comes from. We ask God to cleanse and wash away our sins. Rather than keeping our sins, transgressions and iniquities to ourselves, we confess them, and give them to Him. It’s not about as good we are, but how great He is.
Summary: Tammy