Rabbi Schneider - The Day of Atonement and Jesus' Sacrifice
Today we're going to launch into a new appointed day of the Lord, the Day of Atonement, called in Hebrew "yom", meaning "day", or "kippur", meaning "covering". Why do we call it Yom Kippur, or the Day of Atonement, or the Day of Covering? Because in the Hebrew scriptures it was on this day during the seventh month of the year in God's sacred calendar, where the high priest would go into the Holy of Holies, which was a separate chamber. This chamber was first in the tabernacle, which was a portable temple.
The children of Israel were instructed in the book of Exodus 25 to build the Lord a tabernacle, and the Lord told them exactly how to build it, what type of furniture should be in it. And the Lord told them to build the tabernacle, because He said He was going to meet with them there. In fact, it's such an important scripture. Let me read for you from the book of Exodus 25:8. "Have them construct a sanctuary for Me, so that I might dwell among them. According to all that I'm going to show you, as the pattern of the tabernacle and the pattern of all its furniture, so you shall construct it".
So while the children of Israel were in the wilderness, they constructed a tabernacle. And why did they construct it? Because the Lord told them to. It was a sanctuary, and it was the place where the Lord would meet and dwell with His people. Every part of this tabernacle came from a divine blueprint. Every part of it meant something. Eventually, when the children of Israel got to Israel, they took the pattern of the tabernacle, and they built a permanent structure that we call today the temple. At the very back of the tabernacle and later the temple, was a chamber called the Holy of Holies. Inside the Holy of Holies was the Ark of the Covenant, where the Ten Commandments were kept.
The commandments that commanded Israel what they could do and what they couldn't do. And on top of the Ark of the Covenant, there was a golden covering. It was a big box, a rectangle box, all overlaid with gold. On Yom Kippur, the high priest would take in the blood of a bull and the blood of a goat and apply it on top of the Ark of the Covenant. The New Testament refers to this top of the Ark of the Covenant as the mercy seat. Then the Lord told us that when the high priest poured that blood on the mercy seat, that Yahweh, that Yud Hei Vav Hei (the Creator) forgave Israel for the sins that they had committed against Him, which were outlined in the Torah which were inside the Ark of the Covenant. And so we call Yom Kippur the day of covering, because it was on this day that the Lord covered His children's sin through the blood.
Now the book of Hebrews tells us that this blood that was poured on top of the Ark of the Covenant, of the blood of the bull and the goat, it was a shadow of the blood that would ultimately be spilled for the life of the world's sin through God's begotten Son, through the One that came from the Creator's very bosom, and then took upon flesh, came into the world, lived a perfect life, fulfilled the law. The innocent One, completely guiltless, then offered Himself up as a sacrifice for our sins, shedding His blood so that once and for all our sins could be forgiven. The key to the celebration, my beloved friend, of Yom Kippur, my brother and sister, is the recognition, the value, and the honoring as a supreme blood of Jesus above everything else.
This is the key that makes Christianity, that makes being a Christian, that makes being a follower of Yeshua so unique. That through Yeshua's blood, our sins are forgiven, past, present, and future once and for all. Let me read you now one of the most important verses in the entire Word of God. "For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you on the altar to make atonement for your souls; for it is the blood by reason of the life that makes atonement".
That is one of the most important verses in the entire Word of God. The gospel, my dear friends, is centered in the blood of Jesus. We have been redeemed by the precious blood of the Lamb. But I'm appalled today that I hear so little preaching about the blood of Jesus. I hear preaching about almost everything else. I hear preaching about every single type of comfort that God could give us, about how we could be at comfort with our finances, how we could be at comfort with our health, how we could have greater peace of mind, all these different things, how we could have better relationships, how we could have better marriages, how we could be more happy, how we could stop worrying, and on and on and on. But who's preaching about the blood of Jesus?
Beloved, all the other things are just benefits that we receive through the blood of Jesus. The blood of Jesus redeems us and forgives us of sin. This is the true gospel. And the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur) needs to be celebrated and remembered every year so that we can stay focused on what the gospel is really about. The gospel is not primarily a Christian self-help religion. How many churches today have made the gospel and turned it into a self-help philosophy, where people come week after week to learn how they can make life better? But the gospel, beloved, begins with Jesus shedding His blood so that we can be redeemed and forgiven of our sin. It's so important.
The Apostle Paul in communicating to us the gospel in the book of Romans, and the book of Romans is the greatest theological treatise in the entire Word of God. Paul, the greatest apostle of the New Testament takes us on a journey in the book of Romans as to why Jesus had to come, who Jesus is, what we have through Jesus. Paul begins in the book of Romans by causing mankind to understand through his writing that mankind is guilty before the Creator, that the entire world is separated from God, alienated from the life of God, living in darkness and not even knowing it, on a trajectory of hell, going into the outer darkness when they die, and that the only way out is through Yeshua.
The reason Yeshua is the only way out is because He shed His blood, gave Himself for us on the cross, died, buried, raised, ascended to heaven on our behalf so we could be given a new life, be separated from sin, no longer living for ourselves, but living life separate and holy unto our Creator, where it's not about us anymore, it's about Him. And it all begins, beloved, with appreciating, respecting, appropriating, honoring, acknowledging the blood of Yeshua of Nazareth. Yom Kippur reminds us of this every year.
This is why I was saying that God's appointed days remind us of the great themes of redemption. And the reason that we should remember them and celebrate them and appropriate them in our lives every year is because they keep us grounded in what true, authentic spirituality really is, what it really means to be a disciple of Jesus, to remember His blood, to remember that He's coming again, to remember to live holy, to remember to live lives of celebration and gratitude. All these things, beloved, are incorporated into God's holy days. But today in this teaching we're focusing on Yom Kippur. We're focusing on the blood.
I meet so many Christian people... and I remember just recently talking to a beloved Christian, and they can't believe that God would send people to hell. So many Christian people today they don't appreciate who Jesus is and what He said because they don't honor and respect and understand the blood. "The life of the flesh is in the blood, and I've given it to you on the altar to make atonement for your souls..." Without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sin. So how can a person be forgiven of their sin if they have not been covered by the blood of Yeshua of Nazareth? Yeshua said to the Jewish people of His day, "Unless you believe that I am He, you will die in your sin".
There is no other path to heaven. If you aren't convinced that Yeshua is the only pathway to God, if your mind is kind of this greasy grace, this sloppy agape, where you just believe God's a God of love and everybody's going to heaven, even those that don't follow Jesus, it's because you don't understand the precious blood of Jesus and that there is no way unto heaven but through His blood. Let's go back to Adam. Adam sinned, but God being merciful, what did God do? He covered Adam with an animal skin.
Now where did that animal skin come from? Do you think God just created an animal skin without creating an animal? I believe that God sacrificed an animal, that animal's blood was shed, which is a type of the blood of Jesus, a foreshadow, and then God took that animal skin and covered Adam's nakedness. The first instance, perhaps, of the truth that it's only through the shedding of blood that man's sin can be covered. An animal was put to death, the blood was shed, and Adam then was covered with that animal skin. And then from there, we go to Israel's redemption. We all know the story.
How was Israel redeemed from Egypt? They were redeemed, beloved, when they took the blood of the ancient paschal, or Passover lamb, and they put the blood of the lamb over the doorpost of their home. And when they put the blood of the lamb on the doorpost of their home, the angel of judgment, the angel that brought judgment on all of Egypt passed by their home, and they were not judged and delivered. Now, keep in mind that these ancient Israelites that took that blood and put it on the doorpost of their home, which resulted in their deliverance, the blood that they took, it was personal to them. When the Israelites put that blood over their doorpost, it was a personal decision. Every Israelite family had to get their own lamb.
Interestingly enough, they brought the lamb to their home. The lamb became, in a sense, a friend to them, one of them. And then they had to put the lamb to death and shed its blood. And when they put the lamb to death and gathered the lamb's blood, they gathered the lamb's blood in a basin. But it wasn't the lamb's blood in the basin that saved them and redeemed them. They weren't redeemed just because the blood was in the basin. They were only redeemed when each one personally took a hyssop branch, dipped that hyssop branch in the blood in the basin, and then applied it over the doorpost and lintels of their own home. They had to personalize it.
In other words, it wasn't enough just to believe, oh, the lamb's blood is shed, it's in the basin. That didn't save them. If they didn't personally take that blood and put it over their own house, the blood wouldn't have saved them. And so what about you and I? Are you just so now... Oh, I believe in Jesus. Oh, I believe in Jesus. How many that are watching right now even just give Him lip service, "I believe in Jesus. I was raised in church. Oh, I was baptized". You haven't opened a Bible in how many years? You haven't repented of sin? Your friends are worldly?
Jesus said, unless we pick up our cross, deny ourselves, and follow Him, we can't be His disciples. That's how we take His blood and put it over our life. We put His blood over our life so that we could be forgiven. When we believe He is who He said He was, that He's Lord, we confess that He's Lord. We believe that He is who He said He is, and God raised Him from the dead, and we repent. What does it mean to repent? It means we turn from our old way of living to exclusively follow the way of the master. To follow Him. And straight and narrow is the way that leads to life, and few there be that find it.
So my dear brothers and sisters, my friends, it's not enough just to believe in the blood from afar. It's not enough to believe that the blood's in the basin like the Israelites had it. We need to take that blood and put it over our lives by becoming personal disciples of Yeshua the Nazarene. Then when we get to heaven, we'll find that our names are written in the Lamb's Book of Life, the Lamb that shed his blood. So as we remember Yom Kippur this year, I want to ask you, have you fully given your life to Jesus?
Beloved, listen, this is not a one-time decision. I'm talking about are you waking up every morning to trying to put God first in your life, overcoming your flesh because of your obedience to Him by the grace of God? Are you personally taking your faith and saying, how can I treat my wife better? How can I treat my husband better? How can I be a better role model to my children or grandchildren? How can I put God first? How can I deny the lust of my flesh? How can I bring my eating habits into order so that I can glorify God in my body? Because our bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit. This is what it means, beloved, to be a disciple of Jesus through which we enter into a relationship with Him. And because we're in relationship with Him, His blood covers our life.
Some of you perhaps need to get on your knees right now and ask Him to forgive you. During this focus on the Day of Atonement, this is a day that the Lord has made. For those of you that are living in disobedience to get on your knees, to humbly ask him to forgive you, to cleanse you, to wash you, to cover you with His blood, to give you a new heart and a new nature that you'll rise up from that place committed to being His disciple and following Him. Jesus said, "Straight and narrow is the way that leads to life. Few there be that find it". Will you be one of those that find it if you have not already? Beloved, God bless you. This is Rabbi Schneider. I want to say to you I love you. I pray that God will use this message to strengthen you and to bring you and I into obedience and into the conformity of the image of God's only Son, Jesus the Christ, Yeshua of Nazareth.