Yesterday was the Day of Atonement—a.k.a. Yom Kippur—which is the most solemn day of the year in the Jewish calendar. What is atonement, and why should you care?

Imagine a teenager out shopping with her friends while swiping her father’s credit card. Each transaction demands a payment, right? The credit card doesn’t make the payment; it only makes the promise that the debt will be paid in the future. If you don’t make the payment, eventually, the reality of debt and bankruptcy will come crashing down on your head. The sacrificial system in the Bible was given as a promise that our sin-debt would be paid off by a future transaction.

Why Animal Sacrifices?

While the Israelites were roaming in the desert, God gave them instructions to build a temporary sanctuary. The book of Hebrews says that the sanctuary and the offerings made in it were only a “copy and shadow of what is in heaven” (8:5). Again, later on, it says, “the Law…has only a shadow of the good things to come” (10:1). The entire legal and cultic system was designed to serve as a blueprint or a connect-the-dots outline of what Messiah would look like.

So, how did the Day of Atonement specifically point to Messiah? The annual Day of Atonement was a cleansing of sins of the priesthood and a sending away of the sins of the people. Leviticus 17:11 states, “The life of a creature is in the blood, and I have given it to you to make atonement for yourselves on the altar; it is the blood that makes atonement for one’s life.” [Atonement literally means “to cover.”] Though it may sound archaic and barbaric to our modern ears, the blood of the sacrificial animal acted as a substitutionary death to temporarily cover our sin debt. This animal sacrifice acted as a temporary swipe of the credit card with a future promise of full payment for the sins of God’s people.

Maybe you and I wouldn’t have selected such a gruesome method, but God has his reasons; he was showing us that Messiah’s death on a cross was payment for our sin. Sin is not cheap, and we racked up a lot of debt on our account. The once-and-for-all-time payment God would make for sin was very costly—a life for a life.

When Messiah Jesus came, he offered his body as the atonement sacrifice that covers our sins with his payment. “Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many people” (Hebrews 9:28). His payment covers all our sin-debt, past, present, and future.

Forgiveness and Not Condemnation

Today, many people still worry that their sins are being held against them. Their conscience testifies that they are guilty of violating justice. The repentant cry out to God for him to forgive them and write their names in his book of life. As believers in Jesus, we take sin very seriously. That’s the point. We don’t deserve forgiveness; that’s true. And yet, not by our own merit, but by God’s great compassion, he has paid for our sin and has cleansed our record. We are reassured that the payment Jesus Christ made for all our sins was sufficient. There is no more accusation we must answer, not from Satan, lies from the world, family members, or even our own stricken conscience. Yes, we’ve done wrong. But oh, how Christ has forgiven us.

The first disciples of Jesus taught that anyone could receive God’s forgiveness. How? “Repent and be baptized, each of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins” (Acts 2:38). We don’t have to live in constant fear that God is disappointed with us or that he is going to destroy us, or hold our sins against us. God promised through the prophet Jeremiah, “For I will forgive their iniquity and never again remember their sin” (Jeremiah 31:34). Isn’t that a wonderful promise? It is through Jesus Christ’s sacrifice that he made that possible.

God is not eagerly waiting to catch us in our failures, and he does not want our sin to come crashing down on our heads. He eagerly desires to set us free from the shame of our failures and the lies we’ve believed and to help us live a new life in Jesus. If you’d like to read more scriptures on the topics of salvation, God’s love for you, or new life in Jesus, click here to read our scripture booklet!

Tags: sin, grace, atonement, forgiveness, salvation, debt, condemnation, lies, yom kippur, day of atonement