If the Messiah paid the price on the cross once and for all, why should we care about the Day of Atonement?
For starters, it’s one of God’s holy days. Why wouldn’t we remember it? Every year Christians want to remember the death, burial, and resurrection, but they don’t give a second thought to the Day of Atonement. Did you know that the Passover sacrifice is not what saves you? Neither does the resurrection. It’s the Day of Atonement that washes your sins away. On that Passover day in 30 AD, the Messiah hung on the cross and was not only the Passover Lamb, but he was the sacrificial goat that paid for our sins.
The Passover lamb does not take away sins. The lamb is a substitute. In the case of the first Passover, the lamb was sacrificed in place of the firstborn of the house, providing that the blood was applied to the doorposts. And that’s an important distinction. The blood had to be applied or the lamb’s sacrifice was for nothing. As the Passover Lamb of God, the Messiah is our substitute, providing the blood is applied to our lives. But that still doesn’t take our sins away. The Lamb took the death that we deserved. It’s the Day of Atonement that takes away our sins.
In the telling of the Passover story in Exodus 12 and the list of the Feasts in Leviticus 23 and in the Deuteronomy account, the Passover lamb is never said to take away sins but only to be eaten as instructed as a remembrance of what God did in Egypt. But for the Day of Atonement, God said, “it is a Day of Atonement, to make atonement for you before the Lord your God.” (Leviticus 23:28).
The Messiah was our substitute on Passover day, but on the Day of Atonement is when He takes our sins away. And that day hasn’t happened yet.
The appointed days of God all point to the Messiah. The first three are Passover, Unleavened Bread, and First Fruits and coincided with His death, burial, and resurrection. The fourth is Pentecost and was fulfilled with the giving of the Spirit. The last three are Trumpets, the Day of Atonement, and Tabernacles. They represent the future events of His coming, the Day of Judgment, and the Millenial Kingdom. It’s at the Day of Judgment that the Day of Atonement will be fulfilled when the sins we committed against God are read, and if we have the blood of Yeshua applied to our lives, then His blood will wash our sins away and the handwriting of ordinances against us will be forever erased and we’ll be as white as snow.
That’s why we should care about the Day of Atonement. It’s a shadow of something that is yet to come, and it will be a glorious day to be washed clean by the blood of the Lamb.
Now I know that some people get uptight about trying to keep the Day of Atonement because His sacrifice is all we need. What they fail to realize is that no one in the land of Israel had anything to do with sacrifices on this day. It was solely up to the High Priest to present the sacrifice. And that’s exactly what our High Priest did. He was our sacrifice, and just like Hebrews chapters, 7-9 say, His was a more perfect sacrifice because He didn’t have to cleanse Himself because He was already perfect, and He didn’t offer an animal on the altar but offered Himself.
On an interesting note, because Yeshua offered Himself as the perfect sacrifice on the Day of Atonement, God could no longer accept the Day of Atonement sacrifice offered in Jerusalem. And it is recorded that for the forty years leading up to the destruction of the Temple in 70 AD, the Day of Atonement sacrifice was rejected by God. That’s one of the reasons why we know that the crucifixion was in 30 AD.
In conclusion, we don’t keep the Day of Atonement to offer sacrifices. That’s not our place anyway. We keep the day because it’s commanded by God and because it’s a reminder of what is to come. It’s a day of fasting. It’s a day of rest. It’s a day to remember.
Shalom