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Day of Atonement

Typological treatment in the corpus

The Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur, Lev. 16), with its ritual of the high priest, two goats, and blood on the mercy seat, is identified by Jones and Warnock as a type of Christ’s atoning work and — for Warnock — of the still outstanding experimental cleansing of the church. Jones emphasizes the connection with the Jubilee: the Day of Atonement inaugurates the liberation of the Jubilee year.

Biblical anchoring

ReferenceContext
Lev. 16:1-34Ritual of the Day of Atonement: high priest, two goats, blood on mercy seat
Lev. 25:8-10Jubilee trumpet blown on the Day of Atonement in the 50th year
Heb. 9:12Christ entered the heavenly Holy of Holies with his own blood
Heb. 9:22”Without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness”
Heb. 10:12-13Christ seated at God’s right hand, waiting until his enemies are his footstool

Typological interpretation by author

Jones

Jones treats the Day of Atonement extensively in The Laws of the Second Coming as a double redemption structure. He emphasizes that its true meaning is not fasting but liberation:

“The true underlying purpose of the Day of Atonement is not so much a day of fasting from food, but a day of setting people free and feeding the hungry. In other words, it is the Jubilee — to set the captives free.”1

In the Jubilee year the Day of Atonement was transformed from mourning to joy:

“Once every forty-nine years the Day of Atonement was superseded by the blowing of the Jubilee trumpet. Instead of mourning and fasting, it was to be a day of joy and jubilation.”2

Jones describes Christ’s heavenly high-priestly work as the fulfillment of the first phase of the Day of Atonement:

“Jesus Christ — our High Priest — entered the Holy of Holies in heaven to sprinkle His own blood on the Mercy Seat. By faith (as with Abraham) we can appropriate this provision, whereby righteousness is ‘imputed’ to us.”3

The two goats of Lev. 16 represent two phases of the redemptive work corresponding to the two comings of Christ:

“As for the two goats in the rite of the Day of Atonement, these do not deal with the death question, but with the sin question. Again there are two phases by which our sin is eradicated. The first goat covered our sin; the second will take it away.”4

Jones programmes this eschatologically: “Even as Passover, the sheaf offering and Pentecost were fulfilled at the first coming of Christ, so also the Feast of Trumpets, the Day of Atonement and the Feast of Tabernacles prophesy of events surrounding the second coming of Christ.”5

Warnock

Warnock treats the Day of Atonement in The Feast of Tabernacles as an outstanding eschatological reality for the church as a body. The historical atonement is complete, but the experimental appropriation of it has not yet been achieved by the church corporately:

“That full and complete Atonement was made for the whole human race by Jesus Christ on the Cross, there is no doubt whatsoever. But it is only too evident, as we consider our own individual lives, as well as that of the historical Church, that we have never really appropriated any real measure of the great atoning work of the Cross. And it is this experimental appropriation of the Atonement that the Church must now enter into.”6

The typological Day of Atonement pictures for Warnock the cleansing of the church before the full fulfillment of the Feast of Tabernacles:

“The sin and carnality of the Church’s long career must be taken away from her midst before she can enter into the full blessing and power of the Feast of Tabernacles.”7

On the basis of Lev. 16:30-31 Warnock concludes:

“Thank God for the Day of Atonement, when God’s people shall be made free, and free indeed, from all their sins.”8

The blood of Christ is the only ground of this atonement:

“There is positively no acceptance for any man before God except by the shedding of the precious blood of Christ. It is the blood that maketh atonement for the soul, and ‘without shedding of blood is no remission.’ (Heb. 9:22).”9

  • Connected: jubilee (Day of Atonement as the starting point of the Jubilee; inseparably linked)
  • Connected: feast-of-tabernacles (Day of Atonement precedes the Feast of Tabernacles as a cleansing phase)
  • Via number symbolism: 50 (Jubilee number, blown on the Day of Atonement)

Footnotes

Footnotes

  1. Jones, b4 (The Laws of the Second Coming), ch. 3 (“The Day of Atonement and Jubilee”). ↩

  2. Jones, b4 (The Laws of the Second Coming), ch. 3. ↩

  3. Jones, b4 (The Laws of the Second Coming), ch. 10 — Christ as High Priest (on Heb. 9:12; Rom. 4:22-24). ↩

  4. Jones, b4 (The Laws of the Second Coming), ch. 10 — two goats as double redemption structure. ↩

  5. Jones, b4 (The Laws of the Second Coming), ch. 3 (feast structure prolegomena section). ↩

  6. Warnock, b1 (The Feast of Tabernacles, 1951), ch. 7 — experimental appropriation of the atonement. ↩

  7. Warnock, b1 (The Feast of Tabernacles, 1951), ch. 7. ↩

  8. Warnock, b1 (The Feast of Tabernacles, 1951), ch. 7 (citing Lev. 16:30-31). ↩

  9. Warnock, b1 (The Feast of Tabernacles, 1951), ch. 2. ↩

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