Leviticus 16
Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement)
(This message is the printed form of the radio transcript by the same title. Please note that the dates recorded within the text were current for the year when the message was first aired. For the correct dating of Rosh Hashanah today, see the Jewish Calendar link.)
Peace and love be to you! The Hebrew Christian Witness which presents this program at this same time and day of the week is a non-denominational, unaffiliated, and independent work to make known to Jewish people first the full truth of the Jewish Bible which includes the revelation that the God of the Jewish Bible can be known personally by us today! The Hebrew Christian Witness never charges for its services. It does not solicit. It has nothing to sell. It is a friend of the nation Israel, and of Jewish people wherever located. The official mailing address of the Hebrew Christian Witness is: Post Office Box 2, San Bernardino, California, zip 92402. Telephone number: 909-883-3910. You are welcome to write to us, or to phone us direct or collect.
The Hebrew Christian Witness believes the Bible to be composed of both the Jewish Bible and the New Testament. The Bible as such is believed to be the divine Word of the God of Israel, who said, “O Israel, you have destroyed yourself, but in me is your help. (Hosea 13:6)
Sephardic Hebrew, the dialect of Israel, and Jewish (Yiddish) shall be spoken in this radiocast.
The subject of this message is The Day of Atonement. What is regarded as the holiest day of the Jewish religion, the Day of Atonement shall be observed, God willing, from sundown October 5th through sundown October 6th.
No day on the Jewish calendar is more awesome, fearsome, and meaningsome to religious Jewish people than this High Sabbath of Sabbaths. It is regarded as the Day of Reconciliation between God and man, and between man and man!! IT is a day of fasting – twenty-four hours of total abstinence from food and drink. Prayer is offered to Jehovah, for forgiveness of sins with the resolution that in the future the person shall strive to live more piously, honorably, and nobly to God and to man!! Our Jewish Bible, in the Book of Leviticus, chapter twenty-three, beginning with verse twenty-six, says that the day should be observed in the following way, quote: “Jehovah said to Moses, the Day of Atonement shall be for you a time of holy convocation, you shall afflict your souls, and present an offering made by fire to Jehovah. You shall do no work on this same day, for it is a day of atonement, to make atonement for you, before the Eternal Being, your God. Whatever soul that shall not be afflicted in that same day, shall be cut off from among his people. You shall do no manner of work. It is a statute forever throughout your generations in all your dwellings; it shall be to you a Sabbath of solemn rest, and you shall afflict your souls. End of quotation.
Three times, in this very brief section of sacred Scriptures from the Law of Moses, the One God states that a Jewish person shall not work – shall do no business! During the hours of the Day of Atonement, the penalty for violating the commandment is death!! Although no direct mention of fasting is made in this portion of Holy Writ, from the time of Moses, compliance to the command to “afflict the soul” was in part accomplished by fasting. The penalty of violating the commandment to afflict the soul is death!! Complete and proper obedience of the Law, demands that there be an offering made by fire to Jehovah. In the sixteenth chapter of the Levitical section of the Law, this offering is described in detail. For the sake of time, the passage shall be read only in English, quote: “Jehovah said to Moses, ‘Thus shall Aaron come into the holy place: with a young ox for a sin offering and a ram for a burnt offering…He shall take from the congregation of Israel two male goats for a sin offering. Aaron shall offer the ox as a sin offering for himself and shall make atonement for himself and for his house. Then shall he take two goats, and set them before Jehovah at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation. Aaron shall cast lots upon the two goats, one lot for Jehovah, and the other lot for the scapegoat. Aaron shall present the goat on which the lot fell for the Lord and offer it as a sin offering, but the goat on which the lot fell to be the scapegoat shall be presented alive before Jehovah to make atonement with it and to let him go for a scapegoat into the wilderness. Then he shall kill the goat of the sin offering which is for the people, and bring its blood within the veil, sprinkling it on and before the mercy-seat. He shall present the live goat and shall lay both his hands upon the live goat, and confess over him all iniquities of the people of Israel, all their transgressions and all their sins…and send him away into the wilderness…on this day shall atonement be made for you to cleanse you from all your sins: you shall be clean before Jehovah. End of quotation.
Leviticus 17:11: The life of the flesh is in the blood and I have given the blood upon the altar to you to make an atonement for your souls, for it is the blood that makes an atonement for the soul.”
This perpetual sacrifice could and must be performed only in the holy temple in the holy city of Jerusalem by the High Priest without any on-lookers!! After the destruction of the second holy temple in seventy a.d. , to Jewish traditions was added the one known today as slinging kaparot. As a substitute for the required atoning sacrifice, now religious Jewish people seeking to comply with this eternal command do as follows: The male Jew takes a rooster, the Jewess takes a hen, and each person swings the fowl three times overhead while repeating a prayer that their sins be placed upon the fowl!! Another method is to substitute a coin, swing it overhead three times, and then give the coin to charity. Still other ways of seeking to adhere to the sacred command of God are to regard study of the Talmud, suffering of the righteous, and death as suitable substitutes. Each one of the following is invalid, illegal, and unholy: unbiblical, unsanctioned, and sin!! Would that our Jewish people would hearken to the Talmudic section of the Day of Atonement, in yoma (herein the rabbis wrote, quote: “There is no atonement except by blood.” End of quotation. And that blood must be of animals described in our Jewish Bible, placed upon the holy altar of the holy temple in Jerusalem, Israel!!
What about the fact that for more than 19 centuries our people have been without the holy temple, holy priest, and holy sacrifice?? God of Israel permitted the destruction of the holy temple, the cessation of the holy priesthood, and the interruption of the animal sacrifices that Jewish people might see that the animal sacrifice was a type, a picture of a person who would be the personal fulfillment of the sacrifice!! Our Jewish prophet, Isaiah, spoke of a person when inspired of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God, He wrote, “All we like sheep have gone astray: we have turned everyone to his own way: and Jehovah has laid upon Him the iniquity of us all: surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows: He was wounded for our transgressions: He was bruised for our iniquities: the punishment of our peace was upon Him: and with His stripes we are healed. Jehovah let befall Him the guilt of us all. He was cut off out of the land of the living: for the transgression of His people was he stricken. He poured out His soul – His life’s blood – unto death; He bore the sin of many.” End of quotation.
The scapegoat of the sacrifice required by the Law of God, was a shadow of the personal scapegoat described by our Jewish prophet Isaiah. The description of the personal scapegoat – the personal substitute – the personal kaporah, the personal korban was a shadow of the person known to the people of the world for almost two thousand years as Jesus the Nazarene! The
Orthodox Jew, Saul of Tarsus, who became the Orthodox Jewish Christian, Paul the Preacher, said of Jesus: “He, who knew no sin, became the sin offering for us that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.” Peter, another Orthodox Jew who became a zealous protagonist of Jesus the Nazarene, writing under the direct and divine inspiration of the Holy Spirit of the substitutional death of Jesus, said: “He personally bore our sins in His own body on the cross that we might live unto righteousness.” Referring to Jesus as the Jewish Messiah, Paul wrote under the direct and divine inspiration of the Holy Spirit: “Messiah died for our sins…He was buried…but He rose from the grave on the third day.” End of quotation. Thus, the Jewish Bible tells of the death, burial, and resurrection of the Jewish Messiah who would be the sinbearer and the scapegoat for all Jews, Jewtiles, and Gentiles – for the human race!!
The Holy New Testament, promised by God through His holy prophet Jeremiah, records that Jesus the Jewish Messiah, after arising from the grave was seen to ascend into heaven from which place He shall return with power and great glory to establish Israel as the servant nation of God and the head of all nations!!! With Jerusalem as its’ capitol!!
In a special letter written to us Jewish people found in the New Testament Book of Hebrews regarding Jesus, our Messiah, it is written: “Now Messiah has come…the High Priest of the good things which were to come…the Law, possessed only a dim outline of the benefits Messiah would bring…It was not with goats’ or calves’ blood, but with His own blood that He entered once for all into the Holy of Holies, having won for us eternal reconciliation with God…Christ, the Messiah is consequently the administrator of an entirely new covenant, having the power, by virtue of His death, to redeem transgressions committed under the Old Covenant, and to enable those who obey God’s call to enjoy the promises of the eternal inheritance. So by virtue of the blood of Jesus, and you and I, my brother-Jews, may now have courage to enter the Holy of Holies, by the way of the One who died and is yet alive, by virtue of that one offering, He has perfected for all time every one whom He makes holy. The Holy Spirit Himself, endorses the truth for us when He says, first: ‘This is the covenant that I will make with them…I will put my laws in their heart and upon their mind also will I write them…and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more. Where God grants remission of sin there can be no question of making further atonement…and without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sin.’”
All of your sins, all of your iniquities, all your transgressions can be forgiven! You can know in your heart that they have been forgiven! Your conscience can be made clean! Your questions about life here and hereafter can be settled! You can know that you have the right answers! You can know that your name is inscribed in God’s Book of Eternal Life!! You can know that you believe exactly as the One, True, and Living God, wants every person to believe! How can you know these things?? Simply by accepting the atonement that Jesus made about two thousand years ago in Jerusalem, when He voluntarily went to a cross, and when Yehovah, His Father, placed upon Him, sinless Son of Yehovah, all of the sins, the violations of God’s commands, by all Jews, Jewtiles, and Gentiles of all time, and he shed His sinless blood unto death, laid in a borrowed tomb for three days, arose out of it, was seen on at least twelve different occasions, and then was seen to ascend into heaven where He is now alive, sacred Scripture says, that He might hear your call for the salvation of your eternal soul. When you call, He will give you faith to believe that you have received the greatest of the gifts of God, salvation, and that your name is inscribed in God’s Book of Eternal Life! Through prayer right now, please ask the only Living Savior-God, Jesus, to be your Savior!