Category: Atonement

Day of Atonement, or Yom haKippurim in Hebrew for “Day of Coverings”

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Appointments With God Atonement

Yom Kippur: Messiah reveals righteousness above the Torah

Yom Kippur: Messiah reveals righteousness above the Torah

Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement) is unique among the appointed times of the LORD. It’s the only holy day in which the people do very little, while one man, the high priest, does everything. Messiah Yeshua (Christ Jesus), our high priest, sacrificed Himself for us and carried our sins away too, as the symbols of Yom Kippur memorialize. All the people are asked to do is humble themselves, do no work and bring an offering to the Tabernacle/Temple.

Without a Temple, what can we bring to God? It’s not about following the Torah to the letter with a physically perfect abstinence from food and water, but as Yeshua taught us, it’s about caring for those around us as we want them to care for us.  The Torah is a covenant of life, not of death.

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Apostolic Writings Atonement Discussions Prophets and Writings Torah

Leviticus 16: Acknowledge the shame, then let Messiah remove it

Life is a terminal condition. The only hope to live forever is to avoid rebellion against the Source of all life, to repent when we do rebel against the God of Israel and to put oneself in the hands of the LORD’s Messiah always. The Torah reading אחרי מות Acharei Mot (“after the death,” Leviticus 16–18) centers on Yom haKippurim, (“Day of Coverings,” or Day of Atonement). We learn from Isaiah 53 and Hebrews 10 that we can’t accept the offering of Yeshua (Jesus) for our sins, transgressions and iniquities and for our salvation without acknowledging that we had a hand in the death of the Christ.

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Appointments With God Atonement

Yom Kippur: Afflict the former way of life to be reborn

La Résurrection des Morts (1870) by Victor Mottez.

Every mistake, goof up in our Torah walk can fall into one of three categories: sin, transgression or iniquity. Sin is missing the mark on accident. Transgression is doing something wrong when you know better. Iniquity is when you do something wrong as an act of rebellion.

Discover in this study why God blots out our sins, transgressions and iniquities, and why we want the Messiah to present us to God free of our long list of shortcomings.

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Apostolic Writings Atonement Discussions

Leviticus 16; Hebrews 1–10: Heaven’s High Priest is ‘exact representation of His nature’

Yeshua is the only one strong enough to carry way all our burdens. (Photo by Erica Law/Freeimages.com)

Forgetting that the high point of God’s calendar — יום הכפרים Yom haKippurim (Day of Atonement) — is all about the work of the High Priest and not of the congregant leaves one with the impossible, “terrifying” task of being his own sin sacrifice (Heb. 10:26–27). This study takes a whirlwind tour of the Letter to the Hebrews and what it tells us how Yeshua haMashiakh (Jesus the Christ) is the embodiment of the lessons and message of the “Day of Coverings.”

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Apostolic Writings Appointments With God Atonement Discussions Torah

Yom Kippur: Confidence before God under Messiah’s covering

When Yeshua died, the veil separating the Holy Place from the Most Holy Place was torn from top to bottom. Thanks to Yeshua, the separation between God and man has been bridged by Yeshua Himself. Photo by www.LumoProject.com via FreeBibleimages.org.

Some teach that the Day of Atonement (יוֹם הַכִּפֻּרִים Yom haKippurim, “Day of Coverings”) is a day when the people of God plead their case that their good will outweigh their bad on Heaven’s scale. Rather, God’s word teaches that we can have sober, humble, repentant confidence in what God’s Mashiakh (Christ) has done to cover and remove ours mistakes, disobedience and treason.

One of the key themes of the Bible book of Leviticus is the Tabernacle as Heaven’s way to bring those “far off” from God’s presence near by the spilled life of the substitute, the sin offering. This also is the key theme of the book of Hebrews, but it takes the message further in showing Who always has been doing the real work of reconciliation, with and without an earthly Tabernacle or Temple.

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Apostolic Writings Atonement Discussions Torah

Leviticus 16; Hebrews 4–10: ‘Because we have a great High Priest…’

Mosaic from the church of Sant'Apollinare in Clase, Ravenna, Italy, circa mid-6th century AD. Photo by Dick Stracke via Wikipedia Commons.

Here’s the lesson of Yom haKippurim (Day of Atonement): The LORD wants us to enter His “rest.” He wants our old way of life to be covered over and the guilt taken away, so we can enter His presence.

This study of the combined Torah reading אחרי מות Acharei Mot (“after the death”) and קדושים Kedoshim (“holinesses”), covering Leviticus 16–20, will be focusing on Hebrews 4:14–10:39. This which dives deep into the role of Yeshua (Jesus) as our High Priest, so we can learn Heaven’s lessons in the parables of the Tabernacle and Yom haKippurim.

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Appointments With God Atonement Discussions Prophets and Writings

Jonah 4: God does not desire the death of the wicked

Studies in Prophets and Writings

The primary lesson of the book of Jonah is this: God is willing to hear to remove sin, even for people you don’t like. God doesn’t want to kill anyone: Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist, whatever. God wants all these groups to be saved. When Yeshua (Jesus) said that the sign of His being the Messiah was the “sign of Jonah” (Matt. 12:39; 16:4; Luke 11:29), it was not only about the three days in the fish representing his three days in the grave. The entire book of Jonah is the “sign of Jonah” Yeshua references.