The Day of Atonement:
The Holy Day That’s Not a Feast
Act 3, Scene 2
Also the tenth day of this seventh month shall be the Day of Atonement. It shall be a holy convocation for you; you shall afflict your souls, and offer an offering made by fire to the LORD. And you shall do no work on that same day, for it is the Day of Atonement, to make atonement for you before the LORD your God. For any person who is not afflicted in soul on that same day shall be cut off from his people. And any person who does any work on that same day, that person I will destroy from among his people. You shall do no manner of work; it shall be 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; on the ninth day of the month at evening, from evening to evening, you shall celebrate your sabbath. (Leviticus 23:27-32 NKJV)
The next day in the sequence of Holy Days is the Day of Atonement, or Yom Kippur in Hebrew. Technically it cannot be called a feast day because the instructions for the day include the command to “afflict your souls”. That term means to “humble yourselves” and is translated so in Ezra 8:21 in the NKJV. (The King James translates it “afflict ourselves”). The passage in Ezra identifies the term with fasting.
The writer of Hebrews addresses what happened in the temple on the Day of Atonement. In chapter 9 of that book, we read that the high priest went “behind the veil” into the Holy of Holies (or “Holiest of All” – NKJV) alone once a year. That happened on the Day of Atonement, where the priest made a special sacrifice for himself and for the people’s sins. In verses 11 & 12 we read, “But Christ came as High Priest of the good things to come, with the greater and more perfect tabernacle … not with the blood of goats and calves, but with his own blood He entered the Most Holy Place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption.”
Clearly, this day points to Jesus Christ and his sacrifice for our sins. It portrays the atonement, or covering, that the blood of Christ provides for our sins. But herein is an apparent conundrum. The very first Holy Day (Passover) depicted this very same event in salvation history. Yet the Day of Atonement seems to depict the same thing, only it occurs much later in the year and shortly after the Day of Trumpets, which depicts the return of Christ. Thus the Day of Atonement, at least on the surface, seems to be wholly out of place.
But the day is not out of place, for it reveals another aspect of the sacrifice Jesus made at Calvary, the importance of which will be apparent to the unsaved world only after his return.
The Lesson from Jonah
For whatever reason, the Book of Jonah is read in synagogues on the Day of Atonement. I believe that this is not by accident. People often think of the story of Jonah and the Whale merely as a children’s story with a moral lesson. God tells Jonah to warn the pagan city of Nineveh about coming destruction unless they repent. Jonah balks at this because Nineveh is the sworn enemy of Israel and the last thing Jonah wants is for that city to repent. Good patriot that he is, he wants to see the enemies of his nation destroyed, and he is afraid that the city would repent at his preaching and be spared, leaving them free to conquer his people. He tries to run away from his responsibilities, but through a series of miracles Jonah ends up in Nineveh, preaches God’s warning to them, and sure enough they humble themselves and fast before God, after which God decides to spare them.
So what does this have to do with the Day of Atonement? The key is found in the very last verse of the book, where God says, “Should I not pity Nineveh, that great city, in which are more than one hundred and twenty thousand persons who cannot discern between their right hand and their left?” (Jonah 3:11)
In effect, God is saying that he felt sorry for these people because they just didn’t know better! Now let’s go back to Hebrews 9 and read more closely verse 7 and what it says about the sacrifices to be made on the Day of Atonement: “But into the second part the high priest went alone once a year, not without blood, which he offered from himself and for the people’s sins committed in ignorance.” (Hebrews 9:10 NKJV, Emphasis added. So also the NIV and the NASB. The King James sadly obscures the full force of the meaning of this verse).
The sacrifice at the cross forgives sins that we know are sins, but it also provides a covering for sins even if people don’t know that they are sinning. That certainly does not imply that sins committed in ignorance are harmless, but it does echo what Jesus once said: “That servant who knew his master’s will, and did not prepare himself or do according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes. But he who did not know, yet committed things deserving of stripes, shall be beaten with few. For everyone to whom much is given, from him much will be required; and to whom much has been committed, much will be required.” (Luke 12:47 – 48 NKJV) All sin is serious business, but it appears that God looks at people differently if they don’t know better.
The timing of this Holy Day depicts a time after the return of Christ, and as such it is a day of hope as much as a day of humility. It depicts a time when God takes off the blinders that so many are wearing. People will no longer be deceived and as such have an opportunity to repent and accept the blood of the Lamb. Indeed, deception will end for the great deceiver, Satan, who no longer be free to deceive the world (Revelation 20:1-3). Curses brought upon ourselves because our ignorance will be a thing of the past, for there will be no devil to spread the lies that have cursed the world since the Garden of Eden.
The Two Goats
In Leviticus 16 God gave a most curious ritual to be associated with the Day of Atonement. Two goats were to be set aside, one to be sacrificed and the other was to have all the sins of the people placed on its head. This second goat (referred to as the “scapegoat”) was brought into the wilderness where it was allowed to “escape”. In Hebrew, the word translated scapegoat is azazel, and literally means “goat of departure”.
Some quarters of the ancient Jewish world taught that Azazel was a proper name for one of the desert demons, and from this the treaching grew that Azazel represents Satan. The ritual of confessing the people’s sins over its head and then forcing that goat into the wilderness would thus represent the placing on Satan’s head his responsibility for our sins (he deceives the whole world and thus bears some of the responsibility for the mess the world is in.) The goat is then sent into the wilderness, even as Satan will be bound for a thousand years in the bottomless pit. Under this understanding, the first goat that is sacrificed represents Christ.
Others teach that both goats represent two different facets of the sacrifice of Christ.
This writer leans toward the first explanation.
In any case, there is one final aspect about this day that is not readily apparent, but fits nicely with the timing of this holy day and rituals surrounding it.
Remember that the ritual surrounding Passover originally was a family event. Every household was to sacrifice a lamb. Every individual was intimately involved in the event and personally took part. But the sacrifices and rituals of the Day of Atonement were the purview of the priesthood and especially the high priest on behalf of the people (Hebrews 9:7, Leviticus 16:15, 14, 33).
While Passover shows us that Jesus died for each and every one of us and that our salvation is a very personal thing, Atonement seems to point to our corporate sins as a nation and a people. Whereas the Old Covenant was made with a nation, the New Covenant as it stands today is made with us as individuals (not with a physical nation but with called out ones from all backgrounds and ethnicities). How fitting that God will forgive our sins not only as individuals but as a people and will one day make a covenant with the nations of the world. (Isaiah 2:1-4, Zechariah 14:16-21)