YOM KIPPUR — A DAY,
BUT IS THERE ATONEMENT?

On Thursday, September 26, 2001, thousands of Jewish people in the greater Indianapolis area will attend services for Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement. What does atonement mean and how does a Jewish person receive it?

According to Jewish tradition on Rosh Hashanah Eve, the Jewish New Year, which falls this year on Tuesday evening, Septemer 18, 2001, God will open the Book of Life and begin a process of examination of each individual Jew. Ten days later, on the actual Day of Atonement, God then supposedly seals the Jewish person’s name in that book. To obtain God’s pardon the Jew must repent and be forgiven of his/her sins.

Now, how does a Jew know if those sins are really forgiven? Must the Jew fast, afflict one’s soul, give money to charity, and say prayers in the synagogue? For me personally, If I am to be judged by a holy God, I want to know that what I am doing is really commanded by God in the Bible. I don’t want to guess about matters so important to my eternal destiny.  Do you know what the Bible, and not tradition, actually says?

The Bible teaches that all Jews and gentiles will one day, when they die, stand before God to give account of themselves. In view of this day wouldn’t you like to have absolute assurance that you have been found righteous or acceptable in His sight? I would!

What is it, then, that God requires of the Jew before He can give this divine pardon. I will give the surprising answer to this most important question — "How does a Jewish person find peace with God?" in Part II.

    ATONEMENT? What is it, why do you need it and how do you get it? The probing question is this - "What does God require of the Jew before He will pardon and inscribe his or her name in the Book of Life?"

     According to Jewish tradition, once a year on Yom Kippur, The Day of Atonement, which this year begins Wednesday evening at sundown, September 26, 2001, it is said that God seals the name of every repentant Jew in this legendary divine record book.

    Does the Jewish Bible confirm such a practice? To answer that question we must turn to the ancient Jewish Scriptures themselves.

    The Bible records that Aaron, Israel's Kohen Ha-Gadol, (the Great High Priest) was commanded once each year to kill a goat and then sprinkle its blood upon an altar in a sacred area of the Temple called The Holy of Holies. The Bible emphatically states, "It is the blood that makes atonement for the soul." (Lev. 17:11)

     The Bible also instructed Aaron to lay hands upon a live scapegoat, confess Israel's sins over that goat, and then send it off into the wilderness.

    We learn 4 things from this practice: (1) Aaron made atonement for the people, indicating that the people needed a mediator to represent them before God, (2) An innocent victim, in this case and animal, had to be killed for them - represented by the sprinkled blood, (3) A scapegoat was designated to symbolically take away their sins and, (4) Each Jew had to put their faith in this procedure in order to receive atonement. (Read Leviticus, Chapters 16 & 17).

    I pose two simple questions - "Where is the blood today?" and "Who represents as a mediator my Jewish people to God?" The usual answer is that after the Second Jewish Temple was destroyed by the Romans in 70 C.E.,  the Rabbis decided to restructure Judaism without a sacrificial system and thus arbitrarily substituted fasting, prayer, charity and repentance to take the place of the blood sacrifice. But has God abandoned substitutionary sacrificial atonement as the basis by which a Jew receives forgiveness of sins?

     Isaiah, a Jewish prophet, writing around 720 B.C.E., predicted that a suffering servant would one day die for Israel's sins. Isaiah wrote: ". . . he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities . . . we all, like sheep, have gone astray and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all . . . he bore the sin of many and made intercession for the transfressors" (Isaiah, Chapter 53)

    A humble Jewish rabbi 2000 years ago was that servant and fulfilled the prophecy! He voluntarily became the innocent victim who died for the sins of his people. He was the Kohen Ha-Gadol who mediates redemption to the Jewish soul. He claimed both divinity and that he was the Messiah of Israel. He was raised from the dead and promised to return a second time to this world! His name is: Yesua HaMashiach (Jesus the Messiah).

    Why speculate any more about whether your name has been inscribed in the Book of Life? The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob really loves you and offers eternal life and the forgiveness of sins only to those who trust that Jesus' death was the final Yom Kippur, the last Day of Atonement.

    Jesus said, "I am the way, and the truth and the life. No one come to the Father but through me." Won't you come to Him today and receive ETERNAL LIFE?