Day of Atonement

“ The Day of Atonement is the keystone of the sacrificial system of post-exilic Judaism. In the belief that the great national misfortunes of the past were due to the people's sins, the Jews of post-exilic times strove to bring on the Messianic period of redemption by strictly and minutely guarding against all manner of sin. The land being defiled by the sin of the people, the pollution must be removed lest the Divine Presence withdraw from among them. ”

“ Yet both Sifra and the Mishnah teach that the day avails nothing unless repentance be coupled with it (Yoma viii. 8) . Repentance was the indispensable condition for all the various means of atonement. Repentance must unquestionably accompany a guiltor sin-offering (Lev. v. 5; Maimonides, "Yad," Teshubah, i. 1) . Penitent confession was a requisite for expiation through capital or corporal punishment (Sanh. vi. 2; Maimonides, ib.) . "The Day of Atonement absolves from sins against God, but not from sins against a fellow man unless the pardon of the offended person be secured" (Yoma viii. 9) . ”

“ The great day of atonement, and the sacrifices, rites, and ceremonies prescribed for it, were commanded to be solemnized by the Jews through the whole of their dispensation, and as long as God should acknowledge them for his people: yet in the present day scarcely a shadow of these things remains; there is no longer a scape-goat, nor a goat for sacrifice, provided by them in any place. They are sinners, and they are without an atonement. ”

“ What should the man do? Should he pronounce the benediction over the goblet on the day preceding the Day of Atonement before dusk, he would then and there usher in the Day of Atonement, and as is well known, he must not eat or drink on that day. ”

“ Our atonement shall be a sweet offering, the performance of our duties. Let us bear all that may be put upon us like men bound to the sacrifice, without one thought of the results. Each day has its weight of troubles. ”

“ Is it not designed to be a day on which every other voice and sound is to be hushed, in order that the silver trumpets may proclaim atonement for sinners? Nay, it is understood to be a day wherein God himself stands before the altar and pleads with sinners to accept the Lamb slain, from morning to evening. ”

“ The rabbinical interpretation is obviously harmonistic (see Rashi on verses 2 et seq.) ; yet there are dissenting voices (see Lev. R., § 21; Ex. R., § 38) which maintain that, while entering the Holy of Holies is obligatory on the Day of Atonement, the high priest may go in at all times provided he carry out the ceremonies prescribed. Observe also the repetitions in verses 6 and 11a; hence the duplicated confession in the Mishnah,verses 29a and 34a. ”

“ Everywhere friends and neighbours were asking one another how they were bearing the fast, exhibiting their white tongues and generally comparing symptoms, the physical aspects of the Day of Atonement more or less completely diverting attention from the spiritual. ”

“ Atonement Evening Prayer
Atonement Day—evening pray’r—sadness profound.
The soul-lights, so clear once, are dying around.
The reader is spent, and he barely can speak;
The people are faint, e’en the basso is weak. ”

“ The statute defining the great day of atonement is absolutely decisive that the day begins with evening, and that the night is a part of the day. Lev. 23:32. “It shall be unto you a Sabbath of rest, and ye shall afflict your souls: in the ninth day of the month at even, from even unto even shall ye celebrate your Sabbath.” 5. That evening is at sunset is abundantly proved by the following scriptures: Deut. ”

“ No matter how much else has fallen into desuetude, so strong is its hold upon the Jewish conscience that no Jew, unless he have cut himself entirely loose from the synagogue, will fail to observe the Day of Atonement by resting from his daily pursuits and attending service in the synagogue. With a few exceptions, the service even of the Reformed synagogue is continuous through the day. (see image) Jews Confessing Their Sins in the Prayer "Ashamnu" in a New York (East Side) Synagogue. ”

“ But the Sabbath is not mentioned from Moses to David, a period of five hundred years, during which it was enforced by the penalty of death. Does this prove that it was not observed during this period? [41] The jubilee occupied a very prominent place in the typical system, yet in the whole Bible a single instance of its observance is not recorded. What is still more remarkable, there is not on record a single instance of the observance of the great day of atonement, notwithstanding the work in the holiest on that day was the most important service connected with the worldly sanctuary. ”

“ All the light that has come into the world, and that lights every man that comes into the world, has come by reason of the atonement. It is an event that all Christian societies commemorate more or less, or at least they did in former times. They are getting more lax now since the devil and his angels have given so many revelations against the atonement.
The Roman Catholics, about 532 years after Christ, set apart a day called Christmas, which they no doubt believed at that time was the day of the birth of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. ”

“ On the contrary, on the great Day
of Atonement, for instance, the ceremonial of which the author has
chiefly in view, the sins of the people are transferred by the
laying-on of hands, not to the goat which is sacrificed, but to the
other which is driven into the wilderness (Lev. xvi.) . ”

“ Now he prays that this may be set forth and directed before God as the incense which was daily burnt upon the golden altar, and as the evening sacrifice, which he mentions rather than the morning sacrifice, perhaps because this was an evening prayer, or with an eye to Christ, who, in the evening of the world and in the evening of the day, was to offer up himself a sacrifice of atonement, and establish the spiritual sacrifices of acknowledgement, having abolished all the carnal ordinances of the law. Those that pray in faith may expect it will please God better than an ox or bullock. ”

“ Ex. xxix. 38 et seq.) and performed the ordinary morning rite of dressing the lamps, which was accompanied by an offering of incense (Ex. xxx. 7) . Next in order was the festival sacrifice of a bullock and seven lambs (Num. xxix. 7 et seq.) . Then began the peculiar ceremonies of atonement, for which the high priest put on special vestments of linen (Lev. xvi. 4) . With his hands placed on the head of a bullock (contributed from his own means) , he made confession of his own sins and of those of his nearer household (verse 6, see Rashi) . ”

“ For the silent rising of naked, paint-daubed Indians from out of the ground, the quick closing in of the cordon, similar to the turn of a lariat around a snubbing-post when a pony weakens for a moment, is calculated to shake the nerves of the strongest of Indian-fighters.
In the breathing-space which the Apaches had given them Jack, who had resigned himself to die, took a new grip on life. His dream of atonement had worked out better than he had planned. Selling his life bravely fighting in a good cause was far, far better than ending it by his own hand. It was a man's death. ”

“ In his eagerness to tell Dick the way he had solved the problem, Jack spoke nervously and quickly. "No, it isn't too late. There's one way out of this—one way in which I can atone for the wrong I've done you both, and I stand ready to make that atonement. It is your right to kill me, but it is better that you go back to her without my blood on your hands—"
"Go—back—to her?" questioned Dick, as the meaning of the phrase slowly dawned upon him.
"Yes," said Jack, holding out his hands. "Go back with clean hands to Echo Allen. It is you she loves. There's my horse up yonder. ”

“ But we need not on Good Friday, or perhaps at any other time, trouble our minds with the unfathomable questions, How did Christ’s sacrifice take away our sins? How does Christ’s blood purge our conscience?
Mere ‘theories of the Atonement,’ as they are called, have very little teaching in them, and still less comfort. Wise and good men have tried their minds upon them in all ages; they have done their best to explain Christ’s sacrifice, and the atonement which he worked out on the cross on Good Friday: but it does not seem to me that they have succeeded. ”

“ Accordingly the liturgy of holy-thursday bears the impress both of sorrow and of gladness: it is not unlike a fitful day of April in our northern climes, when the sun now bursts from the clouds which had concealed his brilliancy, and now once more the sky is shrouded in murky gloom—an apt emblem this of the over-changing state of man, who at one moment quaffs the inebriating cup of earthly joys, and yet a little, and it is dashed from his grasp; and sickness, sorrow and death are his portion. ”

“ This is Trinity Sunday, on which we think especially of the name of God. A day which, to a wise man, may well be one of the most solemn, and the most humiliating days of the whole year. For is it not humiliating to look stedfastly, even for a moment, at God’s greatness, and then at our own littleness; at God’s strength and at our own weakness; at God’s wisdom, and at our own ignorance; and, most of all, at God’s righteousness, and at our own sins? ”

“ But keep the Sabbath, and the Lord’s day festival; because the former is the memorial of the creation, and the latter of the resurrection. But there is one only Sabbath to be observed by you in the whole year, which is that of our Lord’s burial, on which men ought to keep a fast, but not a festival. For inasmuch as the Creator was then under the earth, the sorrow for Him is more forcible than the joy for the creation; for the Creator is more honourable by nature and dignity than His own creatures. ”

“ Only Love with his arms wide extended, Penitence wee ping and praying; the Will that is tried, and whose gold flows Purified forth from the flames; in a word, mankind by Atonement Breaketh Atonement's bread, and drinketh Atonement's wine-cup. But he who cometh up hither, unworthy, with hate in his bosom, Scoffing at men and at God, is guilty of Christ's blessed body, And the Redeemer's blood! To himself he eateth and drinketh Death and doom! And from this, preserve us, thou heavenly Father! Are ye ready, ye children, to eat of the bread of Atonement? ”

“ Is there a human eye that knows not tears? Oh! how many things one day contains. It may be a prodigal child brought back; an upright life sanctified by sacrifice, a martyrdom, a consecration to God. It may be an overflowing of evil and impiety, and, on the other hand, prayer poured out in floods before the altar. A great church-festival, a first communion, a far-distant island conquered to the Gospel, a battle gained over the enemies of the faith—these, these are a day! ”

“ Sunday was obliterated; infancy entered the world without a blessing; age left it without a hope. On every tenth day a revolutionary leader ascended the pulpit and preached Atheism to the bewildered audience. On all the public cemeteries the inscription was placed, ‘Death is an eternal sleep.’”
I should not like to shock your ears or to leave with one of our twilight gatherings such memories as would haunt you, were I to continue my quotation; so I have only given a faint glimpse of a country without a Sabbath and its gracious Giver. ”

“ The voluntary observance of memorable days. In the Christian church, almost from the beginning, men voluntarily honored the fourth, the sixth, and the first days of the week, and also the anniversary of the Passover and the Pentecost, to commemorate the betrayal, the death, and the resurrection, of Christ, and the descent of the Holy Spirit, which acts in themselves could not be counted sinful. ”

“ It is the Sabbath-day: Creation sleeps
Cradled within the arms of heavenly love!
The mystic day, when from the vanquish'd grave
The world's Redeemer rose, and hail'd the light
Of God's forgiving smile. Obscured and pale
Were then the plumes of prostrate seraphim,
Then hush'd the universe her sphere-born strain,
When from his throne, Paternal Deity
Declared the Saviour not in vain had shed
His martyr'd glory round the accursed cross,
[Pg 407] That fallen man might sit in Paradise,
And earth to heaven ascend in jubilee. ”

“ God says 'every thing on its day,' 'from even unto even shall ye celebrate your Sabbath;' 'the evening and the morning was the first day.' He is an exact time keeper! I say then, in the name of all that is holy, heavenly and true, and as immortality is above all price, let us see to it that we are found fearing God and keeping his Commandments, for this, we are taught, 'is the whole duty of man.' The proof is positive that the seventh day Sabbath is included in the commandments. ”

“ The Atonement Proved by Evidence.—"It is often asked: 'How is it that through the sacrifice of one who is innocent salvation may be purchased for those under the dominion of death?' We observe in passing that what should most concern man is not so much how it is that such is the case, but is it a fact?... To that question the blood sprinkled upon a thousand Jewish altars, and the smoke that darkened the heavens for ages from burnt offerings, answer yes.... Even the mythology of heathen nations retains the idea of an atonement that either has been, or is to be made for mankind. ”

“ And therefore Good Friday, Easter Day, Ascension Day, are set as great lights in the firmament of the spiritual year,—to remind us that we are not animals, born to do what we like, and fulfil the sinful lusts of the flesh, the ways whereof are death; but that we are moral and rational beings, members of Christ, children of God, inheritors of the kingdom of heaven; and that, therefore, I say it again, like Christ our Lord, we must die in order to live, stoop in order to conquer. They remind us that honour must grow out of humility; that freedom must grow out of discipline ”