Yom Kippur

This evening marks the start of Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish year. It is the Day of Atonement, the day on which (in biblical times) God commanded that the High Priest of Israel would enter the Holy of Holies to make atonement for the national sins of Israel. He did this by sprinkling the blood of sacrifices on the Ark of the Covenant (where God’s presence rested). One of these sacrifices was a goat. There was also another goat, upon which would be transferred the sins of all Israel. This was known as the Azazel, or scapegoat. Each year this would be repeated so that the Israelites could come before God with clean hearts and consciences.

Modern Jewish tradition (a tradition which really only goes back as far as the Middle Ages) teaches that on Yom Kippur God will inscribe the name of each individual in His book of Life or His book of Death for the coming year. Observant modern Jews will spend all of tomorrow in synagogue, fasting in praying in the hope — not the certainty — that God will forgive their sins and inscribe them in the book of Life. In other words, they will leave the synagogue not really knowing for sure if God has forgiven their sins.

As a Jewish believer in Jesus, I have certainty that my sins have been forgiven, through the sacrificial death of Jesus on the cross. His was a sacrifice unlike the scapegoat, which could only last for a short time. Jesus’ sacrifice was a final atonement for sin. Interestingly, there is evidence outside of the Bible for this. The Talmud (a collection of the lore of Jewish sages and rabbis) records that on the Day of Atonement a scarlet thread would be hung outside of the Holy of Holies. If the scapegoat, the sacrifice for sin, was accepted by the Lord the thread would turn from scarlet to white, making real the words that the prophet Isaiah had spoken 700 years before the time of Jesus:

“Though your sins are scarlet they shall be white as snow.” (Isaiah 1:18)

The Talmud goes on to record that each year on the Day of Atonement the thread might turn white or might not, reflecting the changing spiritual state of the nation of Israel. This continued for many years, until 40 years prior to the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem, after which the thread never turned white. It remained scarlet every year, until the Temple was destroyed in 70 A.D. This ancient Jewish document bears evidence to the fact that somewhere around 30 A.D. – the approximate date when Y’shua, Jesus was crucified – the animal sacrifices offered by the high priest of Israel were no longer accepted by God! This is because the blood of bulls and goats could never atone for sin for more than a short time. They were only shadows of a final sacrifice, a once and for all atonement for sin – the sacrifice of our Messiah Y’shua on the cross. Jesus is the fulfillment of Yom Kippur, as both our great high priest and a sacrifice for all of our sin. In Him our sin is truly forgiven and our consciences cleansed. Hallelujah!

Tonight Kat and I will go to a Yom Kippur service. Tomorrow we’ll follow the tradition of fasting, albeit not a fast from food (neither of us are allowed to fast from food for 24 hours due to medical issues, so we will be fasting from the use of the computer). Why do we do this, if we know that we’ve already achieved atonement? We do it to honor my Jewish heritage, and we do it to acknowledge and honor what our Messiah went through to atone for our sins. The solemn gravity of Yom Kippur has taken on for us a great joy as well, because we know that our sins are forgiven and that we have eternal life through Jesus.