Notes to download: Day of Atonement - Prophetic Yom Kippur
We have studied the festivals of the Lord, and shown how Yeshua first fulfilled this spring feast of Passover, Unleavened Bread, and First Fruits. Pentecost was fulfilled on its day by the coming of the Holy Spirit and the empowering of the disciples.The long summer has passed for us as the church. Now wait for Trumpets, Atonement and the Feast of Tabernacles, which are the fall feasts. We have discussed how the Feast of Trumpets, is related to the coronation of the King, the Resurrection of the Saints, and the Marriage of the Bride.
Yom Kippur: Names, Themes, and Idioms
1. Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement)
2. Face to Face – The High Priest at Mercy Seat.
3. The Fast and The Day
4. The Great Shofar – Shofar HaGadol
5. The Jubilee Year is announced
Spiritual Understanding of the Day of Atonement
The Day of Atonement was the most solemn of all the feast days. It was the day of cleansing for the nation and for the sanctuary. On this day alone, once a year, the high priest entered into the holiest of all, the Holy of Holies in the temple, within the veil of the temple, with the blood of the Lord’s goat, the sin offering. Here he sprinkled the blood on the mercy seat. The blood of the sin offering on the great Day of Atonement brought about the cleansing of all sin for the priesthood, the sanctuary, and Israel as a nation (Leviticus 16:29-34).
1) Yom Kippur The Day of Atonement
1. Yom Kippur is a day of fasting and affliction of the soul (Leviticus 23:27,29; Numbers 29:7). This day was set aside as a day of national fasting. Fasting is mentioned in Joel 1:14-15; 2:12-18; and Ezra 8:21. The spiritual understanding of fasting for us is given in Isaiah 58:1-12.
2. It is the tenth day of the seventh month (Leviticus 23:27; Numbers 29:7). The number 10 is used to represent the government or a nation (Daniel 7:24; Revelation 17:12). To the Jewish people, the number ten represents a legal congregation known as a “minyan.” The congregation is one body that can represent a group. So, the number ten represented the nation or the congregation of Israel (Leviticus 16:2-3,17,19). Notice also that the blood is sprinkled for the nation (Leviticus 16:19). Look at Isaiah 52:13-15 and Ezekiel 36:24-26.
On the 10th day of the seventh month is the day of atonement. Leviticus 16 v 30 for it is on this day that atonement will be made for you, to cleanse you, and you shall be clean from all your sins before the Lord. It shall be a Sabbath of solemn rest for and you will make atonement or the holy sanctuary. You shall make an atonement for the tabernacle of the congregation, and for the altar, and you shall make an atonement for the priests, and for all the people of the congregation.
Leviticus 16 v 6 – 8 and Aaron shall offer his sin offering, which is for himself and he shall make an atonement for himself, and his house. And he shall take the two goats, and present them before the Lord at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation. And Aaron shall cast lots upon the two goats, one lot for the Lord, and the other lot for the scapegoat.
2) Face to Face
The high priest could only go into the Holy of Holies once a year (Leviticus 16:2; Hebrews 9:6-7). (God issued a warning that no man could see His face and live (Exodus 33:20). But because on the Day of Atonement the priest could be in God’s presence (Leviticus 16:2), another term for the Day of Atonement is “face to face.”
By the time of the Second Temple, this ritual [the high priest’s ceremony] had been somewhat elaborated, and one crucial element had been added to it. That element was that on three separate occasions, in a grand crescendo, the high priest appeared before the people, and three times, he recited a formula of confession in their hearing.
· The first confession was for his own sins and those of his household;
· The second, on the account of the priestly tribe of Levi;
· The third, on the account of the whole people.
On this occasion only, in the entire year, the confession included the priest’s saying aloud the name of God embodied in the Hebrew letters YHVH (called the Name of God (YHVH)). This was the name that God gave and explained to Moses at the burning bush, the name that was a kind of distillation of “I am, Who I am,” the name that was not a name in the sense of a label by which God could be called, and therefore the name that could not be said aloud. It was, therefore, all year long euphemized by saying, whenever YHVH appeared in the text, invocation, Adonai, The Lord, or The Name. Only on Yom Kippur was the name said, aloud, in all its original awesomeness.
In each confession, when the high priest reached the recitation of the name, the whole people would prostrate themselves and say aloud, “Blessed be the Name of the radiance of the Kingship, forever and beyond.”
