Rabbi Schneider - Yom Kippur, The Difference with Christianity
The thing that separates our faith in Messiah Yeshua from every other supposed pathway to God is the blood of Jesus Christ. See, the Torah tells us in the book of Leviticus chapter 17, verse 11, "That the life of the flesh is in the blood. And I've given it to you on the altar," saith Yahweh, "to make an atonement for your soul. For it's the blood by reason of its life that makes atonement".
We are focusing today on the holiest day in God's sacred calendar called Yom Kippur or the Day of Atonement. I'm going to the Book of Leviticus chapter 23, and I'm reading verse 26. "The LORD spoke to Moshe or Moses, saying, 'On exactly the tenth day of the seventh month is the day of atonement...'" I want to Ten days from the Feast of Trumpets that happens on the first day of the seventh month on God's sacred calendar called the month of Tishrei, ten days into the month lands on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. "Yom" is the Hebrew word for "day". "Kippur" is "the day of covering". It's Yom Kippur or the day of covering-the day that the Lord covers the sins of His people through a blood atonement.
Now, during the days that the Hebrew scriptures were written before Jesus came, every year the high priest would go into the Holy of Holies, the most sacred space in the earth that first existed in the tabernacle, and then later was in the temple. Once the tabernacle entered the promised land, the tabernacle was built into a permanent structure called the temple. And in the very back of the temple or the tabernacle was a sacred space called the Holy of Holies. Inside the sacred space was an object called the Ark of the Covenant. It was laid over with gold. And inside the Ark of the Covenant were the ten commandments, the tablets that the Lord wrote on with His finger that contain the words that shape Western culture and the world's morality.
And on Yom Kippur, the high priests would bring in the blood of a bull and a goat. He would then take that blood and pour it on top of the Ark of the Covenant where the ten commandments were housed. And then when the Lord saw the blood on top of the Ark of the Covenant, which the New Testament refers to in the book of Hebrews as the mercy seat... In other words, the top of the Ark of the Covenant where the blood was poured was called the mercy seat. When the Lord saw the blood poured out, He overlooked the sins of Israel for the year.
That was simply this ritual that took place year after year on Yom Kippur where the high priests brought in the blood. That was simply a shadow of what would ultimately accomplish the salvation of God's people through the forgiveness of their sin, through the blood of Yeshua Hamashiach. That's why at Passover the last meal that Jesus celebrated with His disciples before going to the cross, Jesus took the Passover wine and He said to His disciples, "This is the blood of the covenant shed for you for the forgiveness of your sins". He was tying it back to Yom Kippur and was pointing to the fact that His blood would once and for all solve humanity's problem of sin.
This is what separates your faith in Jesus from every other faith in the world. There is no other message in the earth that promises forgiveness for sin through a blood atonement. All the other religions of the world somehow create a philosophy in which if you're a good enough person you'll go to heaven. Christianity, beloved one, teaches no such thing. Our faith teaches us that the wages of sin is death, and every man is guilty of sin. That no man goes to heaven because his good deeds supposedly outweighed his bad deeds. No. The Bible says, "The soul that sins, it shall die". That there's no one on the planet that is righteous before a holy God because of their outstanding lifestyle.
Rather, what the New Testament teaches is that all men are guilty before their Creator because of not only the things that they've done but because of the things that we've thought and the words that we've said, those things that have proceeded from our life, that are not in harmony with God's Spirit. Man is separated from God and guilty before Him. This is why Paul, in his letter to the Romans, begins his gospel by explaining that man is guilty and that there's only one remedy and that's the blood of Jesus.
Yom Kippur is the foreshadow in the Hebrew Scriptures that's pointing to Jesus. That's why much of the book of Hebrews in the Brit Chadasha, the New Testament, tells us that Jesus fulfilled this holy day called, once again, Yom Kippur. The blood of Jesus is the answer. That's why the book of Revelation tells us that those that are going to heaven go to heaven because they overcame by the blood of the Lamb and the word of their testimony. This is why Jesus said, "Unless you eat my flesh, receive me into your life," and he said, "Drink my blood, you have no life in yourself".
I want to say again, beloved, do not be deceived. I know that you've probably met many people in your life that are not believers in Jesus, they're not Christian people. And you look at them and you think, "But look how good of a person they are. Look how caring they are. Look how beautiful they are. Look how good of a spirit they have". And you think, "God wouldn't send them to hell". We might even think, "They're a better person than I am". We might think, "Wow, they're a better person than most of the Christians that I know".
But I want you to know, beloved ones, there is no way to heaven but through the blood of Jesus. And what we learn through studying the Hebrew Bible, in particularly today the Day of Atonement, is that no man can stand in God's presence blameless outside of a blood atonement. This is why, again, my favorite scripture in the Hebrew Bible, Leviticus 17:11, "The life of the flesh," the LORD saith, "is in the blood. And I've given to you on the altar to make an atonement for your soul. For it's the blood by reason of its life that makes atonement".
Without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness of sin. So regardless of what I see with my eyes... When I see moral people that are not believers in Jesus, I don't allow myself to be deceived. I don't allow myself to think, "Well, maybe you don't have to believe in Jesus to go to heaven. Maybe all paths lead to the same place". Whenever I started thinking thoughts like that, if I'm tempted because I see good people, caring people, good neighbors, I always bring myself back to the blood of Jesus, and I say, "No, the blood of Yeshua is the only answer".