The Day Of Atonements

“YOM KIPPUR” – the Day of Atonement – IS NOT, as most people assume, JEWISH.

It is commonly believed that YOM KIPPUR is a Jewish holy day. Even though revered as such by the Jews it is never designated in scripture as a “Jewish” holy day. The bible reveals something totally different!

In Leviticus 23 when listing the holy days scripture makes it indisputably clear that all sacred Sabbaths, including Yom Kippur, are Yehovah’s sacred assemblies for his people, at all times, everywhere!. Nobody -- no church nor nation -- can take what is God’s and claim it as their own!

Scripture states quite categorically: “Yehovah spoke to Moses, saying: Speak to the children of Israel, and say to them … the feasts of Yehovah, which you shall proclaim [Hebrew: properly call out, mention, or preach by name] to be holy convocations [assemblies, meetings], even these are my feasts” [Leviticus 23:1-2].

Rabbinic Judaism hijacked the sacred annual holy days, appropriating them as their exclusive national religious treasure. They admit that much by, inter alia, stating: “The sanctity of the festivals depends upon an act of man. It is man who fixes the calendar and thus determines on which day of the week a festival will come.” [Heschel, The Sabbath, p 82. Author's emphases throughout.]

Heschel, internationally renowned Professor of Ethics and Mysticism at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, operates from the false premise that the festivals are a Jewish heritage and is subject to man-made [Rabbinic] rules and regulatory decision making. These sacred convocations existed centuries before any Rabbi ever trudged through the dusty pavements of Jerusalem.

So convinced are the Rabbinate that the holy days are theirs to manipulate according to their pleasure [with Hillel’s permission, of course] that they IGNORE THE FACT that “The sanctity of the festivals depends upon an act of [God]" – not man! The Eternal decided when His festivals should occur. He did so by a special day of creation -- the fourth day -- in an awesome manifestation of orbital adjustment of the sun, the earth, the moon, and the stars, visible to this day.

It is God who fixes the calendar for man by His creative determination. He, by heavenly design, determines when His festivals are to be observed, “in their season”. After he revealed HIS SPECIAL HOLY DAYS to Moses He instructed Moses to declare them, command them, and teach them to Israel [Lev 23:44]. It was not declared to Jews. Jews did not exist at the time of Moses as an independent national entity. This is another hijacking by Judaism. They "absorb" the entirety of Israel -- all 13 tribes -- declaring all to be "Jewish". The tribe of Judah was but a mere 1/13th of the Israelite polity to whom the Eternal gave His Words of Truth at Sinai. And, believe it or not, no "JEW", NOR RABBI YET EXISTED!

Since Yom Kippur, as part of the Eternal's annual festival cycle, existed BEFORE JUDAISM came into being, the Jews cannot claim it as “Jewish”.

Here is a deep mystery, a secret little known outside Rabbinic and scholarly circles. YEHOVAH declared His sacred days to Moses within about the first seventy days, from Aviv 1 (the New Moon of the first month) through to Shavuoth (Pentecost), generally around Sivan 6-10.

Contrastingly, it took the Jews about six centuries after Hillel II declared it in 359 AD TO ARRIVE AT A COMPREHENSIVE "HEBREW CALENDAR". This calculated calendar which the Rabbis fallaciously call the "Hebrew Calendar", pretending it to be God’s true sacred calendar, is, as admitted by THE JEWISH AUTHORITIES, only a MATHEMATICAL approximation of the TRUE ASTRONOMICAL CALENDAR THE ETERNAL REVEALED TO MOSES. The calculated Jewish calendar is not the true calendar of Yehovah.

It is admitted by the Jewish authorities that the "calendar of Hillel II is to be modified in accordance with the requirements of astronomy and the Torah" [Spier, The Comprehensive Hebrew Calendar, Behrman House, Inc.] In other words, the current Jewish Calendar does not comply with the original astronomical design instructions of Yehovah as imparted to Moses. It is thus imperative to determine when the Eternal's sacred days fall out in the calendar to ensure one honors the Creator on the correct days, AND NOT HILLEL II ON THE WRONG DAYS! The Jewish calendar is out of sync with the ETERNAL'S ASTRONOMICAL CALENDAR most years by several days -- sometimes even up to a month!

The TRUE Yom Kippur – the day [yom] of covering [kaphar], meaning covering or forgiving ALL sins – was declared as one of Yehovah’s SACRED ANNUAL HOLY DAYS on the tenth day of the seventh month of the sacred luni-solar calendar, specially SET IN ORDER [created] by the Eternal on the fourth day of creation [Gen 1:14].

“And Aaron shall make an atonement [singular, Hebrew kaphar] upon the horns of it [the altar] once in a year [on Tishrei 10th] with the blood of the sin offering of atonements [plural, Hebrew kippur]: once in the year shall he make atonement [singular, kaphar] upon it throughout your generations: it is most holy unto Yehovah” [Exodus 30:10].

Yom Kippur is plural because there are five distinct atonements on that day, the 10th of Tishrei, to COVER [KAPHAR] ALL SINS committed by Israel during the previous year. ALL sins are COVERED SO AS NOT TO BE SEEN BY THE ALMIGHTY, indicating total forgiveness.

The five distinct atonements are:

First: A bull was slaughtered as a sin offering for the high priest and his priestly family. This cleared him, ceremonially, as a person, from all sin, allowing him to enter the holy of holies and officiate as a “sinless” intercessory high priest symbolically representing Christ in His future official position as intermediary before the heavenly Father on an eternal basis. Equally his family who also officiated in some sacerdotal ceremonies of the day were purified to perform their several duties [Lev 16:6 and 11].

Second: A goat was offered as sin offering to atone for the sins of the people [Lev 16:15].

Third: The blood of the bull and the goat, used as sin offerings for the priests and for the people respectively, were then used to purify the holy of holies.

Fourth: The blood was applied to The Tabernacle as a whole to sanctify the whole of the Holy Place which became polluted by the nation's sins during the year previous.

Fifth and last application was the purification of the altar upon which the sacrifices for sins were offered. [See Leviticus 16:32-33.]

THE RABBIS have no scriptural right to appropriate the day as an exclusive Jewish holy day. The fact that the Jews observe YOM KIPPUR does not make it an exclusive Jewish holy day. There are literally hundreds of thousands of NON-JEWISH believers in Christ who OBSERVE Yom Kippur. These believers observe the fast not because it is Jewish but because, just as the weekly Sabbath, it is divinely appointed for mankind [Isaiah 56:1-7].

Additionally these Christ-believers keep the sacred festivals of the Eternal because as the reality of the typology of the spring feasts [Passover and Pentecost] have already been fulfilled in Christ and in the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, so the autumn feasts [Trumpets, Atonement, Tabernacles and the Last Great Day] will yet find fulfilment through Christ. His second coming is represented by the feast of Trumpets on Tishrei 1st. The following feast, on Tishrei 10th, is the Day of Atonement when a regathered remnant of all the literal tribes of Israel – NOT JUST JEWISH PEOPLE – will be ATONED by the Kingdom High Priest, Yeshua Messiah Himself.

Israel’s FUTURE NATIONAL ATONEMENT will be followed by the official inauguration of the kingdom rule of Christ over ALL ISRAEL and the Gentile nations. This is Messiah’s millennial reign, represented by the Feast of Tabernacles.

Present day true Christ-followers keep the Day of Atonement NOT BECAUSE THEY ARE YET TO BE ATONED AFTER CHRIST’S RETURN as do the physical remnant of Israel. The true Christians have already been atoned by accepting the Passover sacrifice of Christ. Rom 5:11 states emphatically: “We also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement.”

However, Christ-followers keep the Day of Atonement and the other festivals in faith-obedience, anticipating the establishment of all these feasts for all nations by Christ in the Millennium, knowing that the same laws apply equally to both Israel and Gentiles. [See Numbers 15:15-16; Zech 14:16.]

The Eternal does not have double standards! Should Calvin and Luther be in the millennial earthly kingdom of Christ they will have to keep the Law and the Sabbaths which they hated, denigrated, disparaged, maligned, slandered, and passionately vilified with gleeful intellectual abandonment! Luther would then discover how much James’ straw weighs! And Calvin, who approved the murder of religious opponents, might just feel the fire to which his Genevan sycophants had subjected the Sabbath teacher, Servetus, which he passionately persecuted in vengeful hatred of God’s law! [Just a thought for our Reformers and Protestants to consider.]

In faith-obedience true believers submit to the Law in respect to the calling the Father extended to them by divine election in and through Christ. They know that although Christ fulfilled all ceremonial and sacrificial demands associated with the law, the moral laws -- the Ten Commandments -- have not been abolished [Matthew 5:17].

The Churchian ministers present a vacuous argument regarding the "abolishment" of the Sabbaths, weekly and annual, because they present the false argument that these Sabbaths have been abolished because the sacrifices offered on them were abolished. If that be the case it follows, foolishly, that every single day of the year is, by the same token, also abolished” because every day of the year had sacrifices offered on it – both in the morning and at evening. Clearly the argument is absurd!

All Torah-keeping Christians know that neither justification nor salvation is by means of the Law – despite the scurrilous attacks by the ill-informed and ignorant. We know that it is impossible “that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins” – even those offered on the Day of Atonement [Heb 10:4]. Only our Savior’s blood is efficaciously spilled as the atonement for all human sin.

And as Christ and the apostles kept the Sabbath Day [Mark 1:21, 2:26-27], the Passover and the Days of Unleavened Bread [1 Cor 5:8], Pentecost [Acts 2; 20:16], the Feast of Tabernacles and the Last Great Day [John 7], they also observed Yom Kippur, the FAST [ACTS 27:9].

These sacred days [mo'edim] were appointed and fixed by the Creator in the heavens, not on a piece of paper by Hillel and two priests from Babylon and then further adjusted and manipulated for centuries thereafter. The true festival days have been kept by God’s faithful people for millennia, and they will be kept in the millennium by all obedient and God-fearing humanity. This truth is stated regarding Passover at Luke 22:18; about the Feast of Tabernacles at Zechariah 14:17-18.

By what scriptural process, doctrinal design, imperial decree, historic protest or reforming eruption, can any sacred day – Sabbath or Festival – or any law of God be abrogated when Christ said:

“Think not – DON’T THINK IT, THEREFORE DON’T TEACH IT!! -- that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. [Teach the spiritual intent of the law in addition to the letter.] For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled. Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, [that false teacher] shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven [i.e., he won't be there!]: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I say unto you, That except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven” [Mat 5:17-20].

There are some extremely brave and ignorantly foolish souls operating as “teachers of the law” who know not [nor keep] the law of the God they profess to worship [1 Tim 1:7]. Maybe during these so called ten days of “awe” [another Jewish tradition for repenting during the ten days between Trumpets to Atonement, or Yom Teruah to Yom Kippur] such folks can rethink their oppositional stance toward the Eternal.

Yom Kippur is not designed as a once-a-year special day of repentance for Passover-keeping followers of Christ. Christ’s disciples repent on a regular basis, because they sin regularly! [1 John 1:7-10.]

However, it would be instructive for all of us to consider Leviticus 16:29-31 and, with the upcoming fast, examine ourselves as we do before the Passover. To pray, repent [if we have neglected 1 John 1:7-10], and ensure forgiveness for all sins is always good. We trust and accept anew the mercies of Christ available to us by humbly, in sincerity and truth, give constant diligence to make our calling and election sure. Peter says that if we do this we shall never fail nor fall [2 Peter 1:10].

The self-examining, pious and repentant way of life consolidates our “overcomership” through Christ. For overcomers will be allowed to eat of the tree of life and the hidden manna. Christ will write their name in the Lamb’s book of eternal life; clothe them in pure white garments of righteousness; seat them with Him in His throne, and grant them power to rule over the nations! [See Revelation 2 and 3.]

Observing the Feasts of the Eternal gives boundless insight into the Father’s great and wonderful plan of salvation historically embedded in the blood-sacrifice of Christ [Passover] and His victorious return to the earth [Trumpets – very soon now!]; something the currently blinded Jews cannot share in due to their blasphemy of and rejection of Yeshua the Messiah. But He will be merciful to the whole house of Israel and bring about the great restorative Yom Kippur to Remnant Israel [Romans 9-11] and grant the true Christ-followers and spiritual overcomers the opportunity to help those lost souls into the eternal Kingdom of our Master and Savior.

Hope to see you there, soon!

[R20/06/2022.]