Many grow pale when reading Heb. 10:26 because they think their struggles with sin leave them in a place where not even Yeshua (Jesus) can atone for them. A closer look at the context of this passage and the letter to the Hebrews itself will help us get a better picture of the annual memorial of Yom haKippurim (Day of Atonement), Yeshua’s continuing role in it and the danger of acting as if His role as High Priest isn’t God’s intent.
Author: Jeff
This is a 50,000-foot-high view of the fall “feasts to the LORD” (Lev. 23:2) — Yom Teruah (Trumpets, aka Rosh Hashanah), Yom haKippurim (Atonement) and Sukkot (Tabernacles). We’ll look at what they are and what meanings are stacked on top of each other as memorials of the actions of the Messiah past, present and future.
We pause before studying Yeshua’s Passover meal with the 12 to consider an account (Mt. 26:1–16; Mk. 14:1–11; Jn. 12:1–11; Lk. 7:36–50) so important that Yeshua said it must be recounted wherever the good news of the Kingdom of God and the role of God’s Mashiakh (Messiah) in healing the gulf between mankind and God is proclaimed.
The Spirit of God is our burglar alarm, our crash-detection system. We should be praying for the Spirit of God to show us where we are “asleep” or “drunk,” in other words, weakness. We live as people who are not afraid of death because we are “awake,” in a continual state of alertness.
We are to “regard one another as more important than yourselves” (Phil. 2:3). As the Messiah considered mankind more important than His standing with YHWH, so too, we should consider our brothers and sisters in faith worth our humbling ourselves. When God went to such lengths to make peace with us, we should be willing to go to great lengths to make peace and keep peace with others.
Last time, we discussed lashon ha-ra (evil tongue, i.e., gossip, slander and divisiveness) and how it is one of the latter-day plagues among God’s people.
In this excursus, we will explore a related principle taught in Torah by Yeshua and His apostles: proportionality. A number of Christians often consider “eye for an eye and tooth for tooth” an example of the “old covenant” not to live by anymore and quote Yeshua to that effect.
Rather, we’ll see that “eye for an eye” is a Bible parabolic idiom teaching proportionality. The point of justice is to restore the offender to the community, not extract a pound of flesh.
We’re taking an excursus from our exploration of Yeshua’s “apocalyptic discourse” in Matthew 24-25, Luke 21 and Mark 13 to explore one of the most pervasive sins among God’s people today. It’s not the Sabbath. It’s not sexual deviance. This is a study about kosher — distinguishing between “clean” and “unclean” — and God’s judgment on the Day of the Lord.
There is a deeper meaning of kosher and what God considers “clean.” Many are very concerned about Moses’ commands about eating kosher, but little concern about Yeshua’s command to speak kosher.
Apostle Ya’akov (James) wrote a lot about the essential matter of keeping control of what comes out of one’s mouth.