Hi Messianics,
This is something that I am very interested in learning.
What is the Jewish/messianic belief of atonement?
What was the OT belief in how atonement worked, and is that belief the same in the messianic's beliefs on Jesus' sacrifice?
I had researched this last year by reading some articles from the Jewish encyclopaedia on atonement and on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. Here are some excerpts.
Would you agree or disagree. And also here is the definition from a Catholic bible concordance on the word Atonement.
Expiation, in the sense of the Hebrew word Kapper of which it is a translation. To expiate was to perform those rites and actions which led to the elimination of the obstacles to intimacy with God created by sin.
The idea of expiation premeated Old Testament theology, as can be gathered from the importance to note that the expiation in the Old Testament is never aimed at God as though his anger could be appeased or his favor cultivated. The Jews expiated their sins, which were blocks put in the way of Gods unwithdrawn goodness to man, in which therefore had to be removed. The way to removing these obstacles was through the blood of the victims of sacrifice. According to Lev. 17:11, the life of the body was considered to be in the blood, and God said to have given blood so that the people could perform the rite of atonement for their lives at the altar: for it is blood, that atones for life. When a leader of the people or private individual inadvertently did something forbidden by the law, this was expiated by a victim, part whose blood was spared by the priest on the horns of the holocaust (lev,. 4:22). When however expiation must be made for the whole people, then the blood was also sprinkled on the Vail at the entrance to the inner sanctuary of the temple.
The rites clearly suggest that the victim and its blood were not intended to be substitutions for the sinner, in the sense that the victim was subjected to the punishment due to the sinners sin. Rather the life-blood of the victim was considered to have the power of purifying the altar and the tabernacle, the symbol of God and the place of his benevolent presence to man. With the pouring of the life-blood was removed all that impended the flow of Gods goodness to man.
Now what I basically wanting to know is what is the difference in the two? The act of atonement and what is done on the Day of Atonement?
http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=2093&letter=A&search=atonement
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). The two goats contributed by the people (verse 5) were placed before him, being designated by lot, the one for a sinoffering "for the Lord," and the other to be sent away into the wilderness "for Azazel" (verses 7-10). Once more the high priest made confession over his own bullock, for himself and his wider householdhis brother priests (verse 11a). After killing the animal (verse 11b) and receiving its blood into a vessel, he took a censer full of live coals from the altar of burnt offering (Ex. xxvii. 1-8) and two handfuls of fine incense into the sacred recess behind the curtain, the Holy of Holies; there he placed the incense on the coals, the cloud of incense enveloping the so-called "mercy-seat" (verse 12 et seq.), and offered a short prayer (Yoma v. 1). He returned for the vessel containing the blood of the bullock and reentered, sprinkling some of it with his finger eight times between the staves of the Ark (verse 14; Ex. xxv. 13-15). He then left the sacred compartment to kill the people's goat (marked "for the Lord"); with its blood he reentered the Holy of Holies, there to perform the same number of sprinklings in the same place (verse 15).
http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=2092&letter=A&search=atonement
The life of the victim was offered, not, as has been said, as a penalty in a juridical sense to avert Heaven's punishment, not to have man's sins laid upon it as upon the scapegoat of the Day of Atonement, and thus to have the animal die in his place, as Ewald thinks ("Alterthümer," p. 68), but as a typical ransom of "life by life"; the blood sprinkled by the priest upon the altar serving as the means of a renewal of man's covenant of life with God (see Trumbull, "The Blood Covenant," p. 247). In Mosaic ritualism the atoning blood thus actually meant the bringing about of a reunion with God, the restoration of peace between the soul and its Maker. Therefore, the expiatory sacrifice was accompanied by a confession of the sins for which it was designed to make Atonement (see Lev. v. 5, xvi. 21; Num. v. 7; compare Maimonides, "Yad," Teshubah, i. 1): "no atonement without confession of sin as the act of repentance," or as Philo ("De Victimis," xi.) says, "not without the sincerity of his repentance, not by words merely, but by works, the conviction of his soul which healed him from disease and restores him to good health."
Any thoughts????
This is something that I am very interested in learning.
What is the Jewish/messianic belief of atonement?
What was the OT belief in how atonement worked, and is that belief the same in the messianic's beliefs on Jesus' sacrifice?
I had researched this last year by reading some articles from the Jewish encyclopaedia on atonement and on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. Here are some excerpts.
Would you agree or disagree. And also here is the definition from a Catholic bible concordance on the word Atonement.
Expiation, in the sense of the Hebrew word Kapper of which it is a translation. To expiate was to perform those rites and actions which led to the elimination of the obstacles to intimacy with God created by sin.
The idea of expiation premeated Old Testament theology, as can be gathered from the importance to note that the expiation in the Old Testament is never aimed at God as though his anger could be appeased or his favor cultivated. The Jews expiated their sins, which were blocks put in the way of Gods unwithdrawn goodness to man, in which therefore had to be removed. The way to removing these obstacles was through the blood of the victims of sacrifice. According to Lev. 17:11, the life of the body was considered to be in the blood, and God said to have given blood so that the people could perform the rite of atonement for their lives at the altar: for it is blood, that atones for life. When a leader of the people or private individual inadvertently did something forbidden by the law, this was expiated by a victim, part whose blood was spared by the priest on the horns of the holocaust (lev,. 4:22). When however expiation must be made for the whole people, then the blood was also sprinkled on the Vail at the entrance to the inner sanctuary of the temple.
The rites clearly suggest that the victim and its blood were not intended to be substitutions for the sinner, in the sense that the victim was subjected to the punishment due to the sinners sin. Rather the life-blood of the victim was considered to have the power of purifying the altar and the tabernacle, the symbol of God and the place of his benevolent presence to man. With the pouring of the life-blood was removed all that impended the flow of Gods goodness to man.
Now what I basically wanting to know is what is the difference in the two? The act of atonement and what is done on the Day of Atonement?
http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=2093&letter=A&search=atonement
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). The two goats contributed by the people (verse 5) were placed before him, being designated by lot, the one for a sinoffering "for the Lord," and the other to be sent away into the wilderness "for Azazel" (verses 7-10). Once more the high priest made confession over his own bullock, for himself and his wider householdhis brother priests (verse 11a). After killing the animal (verse 11b) and receiving its blood into a vessel, he took a censer full of live coals from the altar of burnt offering (Ex. xxvii. 1-8) and two handfuls of fine incense into the sacred recess behind the curtain, the Holy of Holies; there he placed the incense on the coals, the cloud of incense enveloping the so-called "mercy-seat" (verse 12 et seq.), and offered a short prayer (Yoma v. 1). He returned for the vessel containing the blood of the bullock and reentered, sprinkling some of it with his finger eight times between the staves of the Ark (verse 14; Ex. xxv. 13-15). He then left the sacred compartment to kill the people's goat (marked "for the Lord"); with its blood he reentered the Holy of Holies, there to perform the same number of sprinklings in the same place (verse 15).
http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=2092&letter=A&search=atonement
The life of the victim was offered, not, as has been said, as a penalty in a juridical sense to avert Heaven's punishment, not to have man's sins laid upon it as upon the scapegoat of the Day of Atonement, and thus to have the animal die in his place, as Ewald thinks ("Alterthümer," p. 68), but as a typical ransom of "life by life"; the blood sprinkled by the priest upon the altar serving as the means of a renewal of man's covenant of life with God (see Trumbull, "The Blood Covenant," p. 247). In Mosaic ritualism the atoning blood thus actually meant the bringing about of a reunion with God, the restoration of peace between the soul and its Maker. Therefore, the expiatory sacrifice was accompanied by a confession of the sins for which it was designed to make Atonement (see Lev. v. 5, xvi. 21; Num. v. 7; compare Maimonides, "Yad," Teshubah, i. 1): "no atonement without confession of sin as the act of repentance," or as Philo ("De Victimis," xi.) says, "not without the sincerity of his repentance, not by words merely, but by works, the conviction of his soul which healed him from disease and restores him to good health."
Any thoughts????
anybody?
