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  • From: "Harold R. Holmyard III" <hholmyard AT ont.com>
  • To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Yom Kippur
  • Date: Sun, 22 Aug 2004 14:43:40 -0500

Dear Yigal,

While I might have stated some of it differently, the above is certainly a
faithful, if simplified, representation of Jewish tradition. As far as your
second question below, my understanding is that Christianity sees itself as
"supplanting" Israel's special covenant relationship with God and Christ's
crucifixion as replacing the sacrificial cult, including that of Yom
Kippur - as well as most other commandments of the Torah (post-Temple
rabbinic Judaism sees personal prayer and repentance as replacing the
sacrifices). But I'm sure that others will have a different view on this.

HH: Christianity does see Christ's death as supplanting the sacrificial system, but in the sense that Christ is the reality of which the sacrificial system was the type. He inaugurated the new covenant that Jeremiah promised:

Jer. 31:31 "The time is coming," declares the LORD, "when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah.
Jer. 31:32 It will not be like the covenant I made with their forefathers when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt, because they broke my covenant, though I was a husband to them," declares the LORD.
Jer. 31:33 "This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after that time," declares the LORD. "I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people.
Jer. 31:34 No longer will a man teach his neighbor, or a man his brother, saying, 'Know the LORD,' because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest," declares the LORD. "For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more."

Christianity teaches that the blood of goats and bulls could never take away sin:

Heb. 10:1 ΒΆ The law is only a shadow of the good things that are coming - not the realities themselves. For this reason it can never, by the same sacrifices repeated endlessly year after year, make perfect those who draw near to worship.
Heb. 10:2 If it could, would they not have stopped being offered? For the worshipers would have been cleansed once for all, and would no longer have felt guilty for their sins.
Heb. 10:3 But those sacrifices are an annual reminder of sins,
Heb. 10:4 because it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.

HH: But when Christ came, he offered the sacrifice towards which the animal sacrifices could only point. As for the sins forgiven in the OT through the sacrificial system, Paul said:

Rom. 3:25 God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood. He did this to demonstrate his justice, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished -

HH: One problem that arises with prayer and repentance replacing the sacrifices is that prayer and repentance already existed when there were sacrifices, and God still considered the sacrifices necessary.

Yours,
Harold Holmyard






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