For Jews, Yom Kippur, which ends Monday, Sept. 25, at sundown, is the Day of Atonement. Jews face their sins over the past year through worship and prayer.
But in Greek, Rabbi Jonathan Cahn says, Yom Kippur is known as apokálypsis—the removing of the veil—or the apocalypse. Instead of a day to be afraid, it will be a day of rejoicing.
"For so many people, they fear the apocalypse," says Cahn, author of the No. 1 bestseller, "The Josiah Manifesto." "But for us, the apocalypse is the removing; it's a wedding day. It's the day of the bride and groom. In Revelation, the bride has made herself ready and the bridegroom is coming.
"Strangely, Yom Kippur has a link in Jewish tradition to a wedding, to the Hebrew marriage. Sometimes the bride and grooms fast and they wear white. You wear white on Yom Kippur. On one hand, the Day of Atonement is about coming together. It's about man and God coming together. It's like a marriage. But what also happens on Yom Kippur is that the wedding veil is removed. The bride's veil is removed, and so again we go back to that apokálypsis."
Revelation 19:7 reads, "Let us be glad and rejoice and give Him glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come and His wife has made herself ready."
Cahn recalls a time when he and his father went to a Yom Kippur service. On the way, he encountered a sign in front of a church that read, "The blood of Jesus cleanses us from all sin."
"I'm thinking, wow, this amazing. It's Yom Kippur and in the synagogue, the rabbi says—and I'll never forget this—'the Jewish people don't need blood to be cleansed from sin,'" Cahn says. "I'm thinking, really? Have you ever read the Hebrew Bible, the Torah, the law of Moses? The whole thing is based on the atonement, and without the atonement, there's nothing else.
"So, you had the synagogue that had the Yom without the Kippur—the day without the atonement. And then I went to the church that had the Kippur without the Yom. I said, 'Why is this confusing?' But one day, this is all going to be together."
The problem within Judaism, Cahn says, is that the only way God made a way for forgiveness, or atonement, was sacrifice. And for 2,000 years, there had been no sacrifice.
"So, if you say you are going to go by the law of Moses, you need a sacrifice. If you say you don't need that, you're going against the law of Moses," Cahn says. "If you say that's not needed anymore, then you have to be saying that God made a cosmic change because only God can change the Covenant that He gave. If He changes a covenant or fulfills it, we must have a new covenant.
"So, the choice is either come up with the blood, or find the New Covenant. That's it. For 2,000 years, the Jewish people have been without the Messiah, without the atonement, and it just so happens that for the same 2,000 years, one came as the Messiah and as the atonement. When He comes, the New Covenant also comes.
"It was right after He came, the Temple just happens to disappear. The altar, the sacrifices, everything, Yom Kippur—the sacrifice disappears right after He comes. The rabbis record in their writings that the sign that would disappear was given before it disappeared right around the year 30 AD, which is right around the time that Messiah offered Himself up as the final atonement."
In doing so, Cahn says the rabbis actually bore witness to the book of Hebrews.
"Yom Kippur, the most central of all the days God gave, points to all these mysteries, and all these mysteries point to Messiah, only One, Yeshua, known to the world as Jesus," Cahn says. "But Yom Kippur also contains the mystery of what is yet to come.
"Yom Kippur, as it is the central day of the Bible, is going to be the central day of the end times. It is the day of the end."
Cahn says that, in the Yom Kippur prayer book, there is a passage that has existed for centuries. He says the Jewish people may not use it now, but it is there.
"It says, 'our righteous Messiah has left us,'" Cahn shares. "Left us? I thought you were waiting for Him to come the first time. 'We are horror stricken. We have none to justify us.' Messiah will justify us. The sins and the yoke of our transgressions, He carries. Who is wounded because of our sins? ... This is on Yom Kippur, from the rabbinical prayer book, the highest Holy Day. ...
"One, it admits Isaiah 53 is talking about the Messiah. Two, it speaks of Messiah who suffers for our sins. Three, it speaks about Messiah, who already came. Four, it speaks about a Messiah who separated from Israel. Five, it links it all together to Yom Kippur and the death of the sacrifice."
What happens on Yom Kippur, Cahn says, is that the veil barriers open up. When Messiah died, the veil was torn apart.
"On that final day, the day of days, the barrier is going to be broken when the Jewish people come back to Messiah," Cahn says. "The barrier between the Jewish people and God first, but even the barrier between the church and Israel will totally be gone. The veils are removed on that day. They will see Him face to face. The book of Revelation ... Yom Kippur is the day of [the apocalypse], the removing of the veil.
"At the end, they're coming to Messiah, they're coming to the altar, they're coming to the cross. ... When the priest comes to the altar, they're going to confess their sins and apply the blood. When the priest does it, the rest of the nation is blessed. When Israel does it, the whole world is going to be blessed. When the Jewish people, Israel, comes, the whole world is going to be blessed."
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Shawn A. Akers is the online editor at Charisma Media.
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