“On this day shall atonement be made for you, to cleanse you; from all your sins you shall be clean before the Lord.” (Lev 16:13, KJV)
For Christians the Day of Atonement is a spring of hope and encouragement because it reassures us that “the Day [is] drawing near” (Heb 10:25) when Christ “will appear a second time [like the High Priest appeared at the close of the Day of Atonement], to save those who are eagerly waiting for him” (Heb 9:28, Amp).
The profound eschatological meaning of the Day of Atonement highlighted by the author of the book of Hebrews presupposes that the day was observed in the Christian community, though, most probably not in a ceremonial, Jewish way. As with the Sabbath (Heb 4:1-10), the concern of the author is not to argue in favor or against the observance of such days, but rather to show their proper typological meaning in the light of Christ.
In the New Testament, the Day of Atonement is a generator of hope and confidence because it reassures us that Jesus has opened for us a free and direct access to God when He entered into the presence of God. In the Levitical Day of Atonement, only once a year the High Priest had access to the presence of God manifested in the Most Holy Place above the ark of the covenant. Now, all Christians have direct access to God ALL THE TIME – the veil through which the High Priest had to be translated on this day (more about this mystery later), had been torn from top to bottom.
The Book of Hebrews assures Christians that on the strength of two unchangeable things – God’s promise (Heb 6:15) and His oath (Heb 6:17) – they are guaranteed free approach to God through Jesus Christ, whose torn flesh was the torn veil (Heb 10:20). He calls this assurance “a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul” (Heb 6:19a). This anchor is “a hope that enters into the inner shrine behind the curtain where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf, having become a high priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek” (Heb 6:19b-20).
The challenge of the Day of Atonement to take an annual spiritual inventory of our lives and to acknowledge and forsake our sinful ways is most needed today when sin is excused, explained away, and relativized, rather than being acknowledged, confessed, and forsaken. “In a culture striving for permissiveness,” writes Irving Greenberg in The Jewish Way: Living the Holidays, “the self-critical mood of Yom Kippur strikes a note of jarring counterpoint. The tradition’s answer is that guilt in its right time and place is healthy; it is crucial to conscience. Moral maturity lies in a willingness to recognize one’s own sins … Concrete acts can be corrected; bad patterns can be overcome. Against the brokenness of guilt and the isolation of sin, Yom Kippur offers the wholeness of living …”
At a time when many are experiencing the crushing isolation of sin, the Day of Atonement has a message of hope. Such a hope gives us reasons to encourage “one another, and all the more as . . . [we] see the Day drawing near” (Heb 10:25) where we all will no longer miss our mark, but fulfill our destiny in the glory of the ever-presence of our Maker.
- Sela: Pray about the practicalities of the fulfillment of your calling.
- Lees: Deut 26; Jonah 4; Seph 1.
- Memoriseer: Seph 1:12
- Vir dieper delf: Read Samuele Bacchiocchi’s excellent book: God’s festivals in Scripture and history – the Fall festivals (Vol II.).
