How Do Atonement, Tabernacles & 8th Day Apply to YOU?
This is the second of two sermons I gave in the fall of 2000, at a United Church of God congregationThe English word "church" doesn't translate the Greek ekklesia — it derives from kyriakos, a pagan term for a building belonging to a lord. Ekklesia is a called-out, gathered people; the New Testament rarely leaves it bare but qualifies it — "the church of God" (whose it is, who called it) or "the church at Corinth" (which local gathering) — never a building. The Septuagint already used it for Israel's qahal, the congregation God called out and assembled (Acts 7:38). A spiritual organism, not an institution. Synonyms: ekklesia, ecclesia, called-out ones, assembly, congregation, kyriakos, qahal, edah.
See also: firstfruits. See A People, Not a Place More in Cincinnati — about twenty-five years ago, a month after the one on Trumpets. As with the first, I’ve left it close to how it was spoken and cleaned it up only enough to read. I see some of it differently now, and some of it was worded for the room I was in. But the heart of it holds, and there’s value in seeing where something started — understandingIn the New Testament this is synesis — a bringing-together: scattered pieces drawn into one cohesive whole, not a quantity of information accumulated. In plain terms it is connecting the dots — understanding is unification, not accumulation. Synonyms: synesis, unification, insight, discernment See The Importance of Understanding in Jesus Christ More develops. Take it as testimony from one place on the road, not the last word.
Good afternoon, and welcome to our guests — looks like we have a few today. It does seem the fall season is already upon us. It’s a beautiful day, but crisp; I’ve noticed a few leaves beginning to turn. And with it being the fall feast season — many of you were here about a month ago when I spoke on the Feast of TrumpetsThe common name obscures the Hebrew Yom Teruah — the Day of Blowing, or sounding. While trumpets were blown, they were also blown on every new moon; what distinguishes this feast is not the instrument but the act itself — breath, sound, something sent out. What that points toward requires a closer look. Synonyms: Yom Teruah, Day of Blowing, Day of Sounding. More, and more specifically how Trumpets applies to us today, not just to the second coming of ChristNot a surname but a title: the Greek Christos, rendering the Hebrew Mashiach (Messiah) — "the Anointed." The anointing that set apart Israel's kings, priests, and prophets all converges on the one person it was pointing to. Synonyms: Messiah, Anointed, the Anointed One, Mashiach, Christos. See also: Logos More out in the future. I went into that one in some depth. This time I’d like to take the remaining fall holy daysA specifically designated day within the Leviticus 23 feast calendar, distinct from the weekly sabbath. Annual holy days function as structural markers — points of demarcation that encapsulate the period preceding them and carry its meaning forward. Not merely a sacred calendar date but a hinge in the sequence of God's plan. Synonyms: appointed time, moed, sabbath, qadosh. More in a little more breadth than depth — to give you another grasp on applying the feast days, their meaning and significance, to our lives on the personal level.
The personal level doesn’t contradict the historical timeline — that great plan of God we’re all familiar with. It augments it. Though God deals with us as a whole people, as an entire world, He also deals with us individually. And this individual level is just another layer — a lower scale, another piece of the puzzle. If you’re familiar with music, you’ve got a C note here, and a C note here, and a C note here — they’re all C notes, but they come in at a different level. So let’s take a look at the remaining three feastsIn Leviticus 23, a feast is a designated period — not a single day but a span of time with its own structure and sequence. The Feast of Weeks spans seven weeks. The Feast of Tabernacles spans seven days. A feast may contain one or more annual holy days, but the feast itself is the full period, not any single day within it. Synonyms: festival, appointed time, moed. More, beginning with AtonementAn English construction — at-one-ment — coined by Tyndale, not a direct translation. The Hebrew behind it, kaphar, means to cover, sharing its root with kapporeth — the cover of the ark, the mercy seat. The Day of Atonement centers on the High Priest bringing blood to that cover. The act and the object are the same word pointing at the same reality. Synonyms: Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur, kaphar, kapporeth. More.
Atonement — Access to God’s Throne
Atonement was actually the feast that first struck me as very applicable on a personal level. In Hebrews 9, Paul writes:
Now when these things had been thus prepared, the priests always went into the first part of the tabernacle, performing the services. But into the second part the high priest went alone once a year, not without blood… the Holy SpiritFrom the Greek pneuma and Hebrew ruach — both meaning breath or wind: invisible in itself, known by its movement and effects. The theological debates surrounding personhood and the Trinity are later developments; the original words are grounded in something physical and immediate. Synonyms: Holy Ghost, pneuma, ruach, Spirit of God, breath, wind. More indicating this, that the way into the Holiest of All was not yet made manifest while the first tabernacle was still standing. — Hebrews 9:6-8
Death was the penalty for anyone who entered the Most Holy PlaceThe innermost chamber of the tabernacle, behind the veil, holding the ark and the mercy seat — entered by the high priest only once a year, on Atonement. At the cross the veil was torn top to bottom (Matthew 27:51); Hebrews names that veil Christ's flesh and the opening "a new and living way" into God's presence (Hebrews 10:19-20). Synonyms: Holy of Holies, behind the veil, paroketh, katapetasma. See Review of Some APPARENT Inconsistencies of The Cross More at any other time of year (Leviticus 16:1). Only on this one day was it allowed — and even then only one man, through a whole ritual. Then, at Christ’s sacrifice:
And behold, the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom; and the earth did quake, and the rocks rent. — Matthew 27:51
The veil that separated the holy place from the most holy place was removed. I found it striking that the fulfillment of the PassoverThe LORD's Passover, kept on Nisan 14 (Lev 23:5): the lamb slain and its blood marking the houses spared in Egypt (Ex 12). The New Testament presents Christ as the Passover lamb (1 Cor 5:7), making it the opening act of the feast year. Synonyms: Pesach. See Was the Passover a Sin Offering? — at the Cross More would, in reality, include a fulfillment of Atonement — the way into the most holy place opened. This isn’t only something in the future. Yes, we understand Atonement as when Satan will be bound, when the world will have greater access to God. But here, already, we have an access we didn’t have before:
Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of graceAmong the most loaded terms in Christian vocabulary — claimed so thoroughly by one side of the Law vs Grace debate that using it tends to import the entire framework rather than the underlying reality. The Greek charis — favor, gift freely given — is worth examining directly rather than through the accumulated weight of the English word. Synonyms: charis, favor, gift. See Nowhere on That Spectrum More, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need. — Hebrews 4:16
We have access to that mercy seat today.
Another thing about Atonement is that Satan is to be banished. In Luke 10, Christ says He saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven, and gives His followers authority to trample on the power of the enemy (Luke 10:18-20). He gives us power over Satan — today. We don’t have to wait for Satan to be bound from the world; we have that power now. But do we exercise it? The disciples once could not cast out a demon, and asked why. Jesus answered: because of your unbelief — and, this kind does not go out except by prayer and fasting (Matthew 17:19-21). It’s interesting that Atonement is a day of fasting. Even Christ spent forty days fasting in the wilderness before He confronted Satan (Matthew 4). Are we fasting and praying and exercising the power God has already given us? Being at one with God — at-one-ment — is something we can do today.
Tabernacles — A Pilgrim’s Journey
The next feast is Tabernacles. Peter speaks to our condition here: he begs us, as sojourners and pilgrims, to abstain from the fleshly lusts that war against the soul (1 Peter 2:11). And Paul writes of the ancient ones — and even those in the wilderness:
These all died in faithFaith (Greek pistis, Hebrew emunah) — trust and faithfulness, not mere belief or assent to doctrine. Scripture's own definition: faith is the substance of things hoped for (Hebrews 11:1) — the hypostasis, "that which stands under," giving the unseen its standing and reality. Synonyms: trust, faithfulness, assurance. More, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off… and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth… But now they desire a better, that is, a heavenly country. — Hebrews 11:13-16
The journey Israel made from Egypt to the promised land is very apt for our lives — for each of us as individual Christians. When we made the decision to leave Egypt, we entered the wilderness. And the wilderness is familiar to us — but Egypt is even more familiar. We have a tendency to want to go back there. Paul warns that what happened to them became our examples(Greek tupos) — Paul's own word: "these things happened to them as examples, written for our admonition" (1 Cor 10:11; cf. v. 6). Israel's recorded life is set down for us to learn from — largely as a warning; Christ is the example to follow (1 Pet 2:21; John 13:15). See also: Shadow. See: Through What Lens Do We View the Feasts? More, that we should not lust after evil things as they did; all these things were written for our admonition (1 Corinthians 10:5-11). They just couldn’t get their minds off Egypt. Somehow Egypt seemed better than the wilderness — maybe in some ways it was. But was it better than the promised land?
Is their journey only about the Millennium — or aren’t we on that journey today? There is a lot to be learned here. The lawFrom the Hebrew Torah — instruction, direction — rooted in yarah, to aim as an archer toward a target. Never primarily legislative. The stone tablets were hidden inside the ark, inside the most holy place, mediated by a priest. The promise was always to move that instruction from stone to flesh — from concealment behind a veil to working from within the person. Synonyms: Torah, nomos, instruction, teaching, commandment, mitzvah. More of the farm: it takes time, from the planting to the fruit. Of over a million who came out of Egypt, only two — Joshua and Caleb — entered the promised land in their lifetime (Numbers 32:11-13). So where should our vision be? On something we’re not yet familiar with: the Kingdom.
The Last Great (8th) Day
The last feast was, at first, not so evident to me as to how it applied to us individually — being last, I kept putting it off. But it finally hit me, and it’s almost obvious once you see it.
A good name is better than precious ointment; and the day of death than the day of one’s birth. — Ecclesiastes 7:1
Somehow the Bible elevates death, which seems unnatural to us. It is appointed for men to die once (Hebrews 9:27) — it’s inevitable. But should we fear it? Paul, facing death, says:
For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain… I am hard-pressed between the two, having a desire to depart and be with Christ, which is far better. — Philippians 1:21-23
Evidently he had a choice, and it wasn’t a hard one — he was more inclined to depart, to be with Christ, which he says is far better. Death, to Paul, was not to be feared; it was the end of the long journey between Egypt and the promised land. And Christ Himself, through death, destroyed the one who had the power of death — the devil — to release those who, through fear of death, were all their lifetime subject to bondage (Hebrews 2:14-15). Our fear of death is what limits us and keepsFrom the Hebrew shamar — to watch over, guard, protect, give attentive care to. A shepherd shamar the flock. The keeping the feasts and sabbath requires is the attentive, protective engagement that creates the conditions for seeing what they reveal — not external compliance with a schedule. Synonyms: shamar, observe, guard, watch over. More us in bondage. But death isn’t the end. It’s another beginning. Eight is a new beginning.
Now
So the feast days have meaning on different levels — on the global scale of God’s plan, maybe even a cosmic scale, on the church scale, and on the individual, personal scale. These days mean something for us today.
Atonement: we have access to God’s throne today — we can kneel before His mercy seat and find mercy now. And we have the power to bind Satan today, if we’ll use it. Tabernacles: a journey — and the question is which direction we’re going, whether our vision is on the goal or back on Egypt. The Last Great Day: death is not something most of us yearn for — but we do yearn for Jesus Christ, we yearn for the resurrection, and nothing will take us there faster. Death will have no permanent power over us; it is our path to the resurrection. Let’s run with endurance, all the way to the last day of our lives.