Paul Calvert finds out more

Colin Ross the Vice Principal of Makor Haticva School in Jerusalem

Leviticus 16: 6-10 says this:

"And Aaron shall offer the bull as a sin offering for himself, and for his house. Then he shall take the two goats, and set them before the Lord at the door of the tent of meeting: and Aaron shall cast lots upon the two goats, one lot for the Lord and the other lot for the scape goat. And Aaron shall present the goats on which the lot fell for the lord, but offer it as a sin offering; But the goat on which the lot fell, the scape goat shall be presented alive before the Lord to make atonement over it, that it may be sent away into the wilderness as a scape goat."

This Scripture is talking about the Day of Atonement or Yom Kippur in Hebrew, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar.

I spoke with Colin Ross the vice Principal of Makor Haticva School in Jerusalem and he explained more about this Jewish holiday.

"Yom Kippur is the Day of Atonement. It is the most holy day in the Jewish calendar.

"Many Jewish people in Israel and round the world fast on Yom Kippur. Even non religious Jews will fast because it is the traditional practice for the nation. They will go without food for 25 hours, not 24 hours, just in case they get it wrong they add on an extra hour to be sure. It takes place from sundown to the sundown the next day.

"Our school is situated next to a very busy road, but on Yom Kippur traffic will not be on the road. It will be silent. Not a car will move.

"If there was a danger of traffic there would be vigilante groups out throwing stones at vehicles who dared to break Yom Kippur. Many streets particularly in the religious area will have barriers up on the road any ways stopping people from passing through if they dared to drive in their car.

"The Old Testament talks about 2 goats being used on Yom Kippur. One of them would be a sacrifice in the temple and the other one went into the Holy of Holies. It was only on this day that the Priest went into the Holy of Holies he never went in any other time of the year.

"As part of the ceremony of Yom Kippur the High Priest confessed the sins of the nation with his hands upon the head of the goat; at this point another Priest would take the goat out of the temple and out of the city into the desert and the goat would be released as a symbol of the cleansing of the sins of the people.

"Today there is no sacrifice because there is no Temple, a lot of the Biblical pattern assumed a place to do the sacrifices but today there is no Jewish Temple.

"Since the destruction of the Temple in Ad70 there have been no systematic sacrifices. Judaism has become more domestic in the home, which is far away from the original commandment because there is no Temple.

"As a Messianic believer I believe Yeshua, or Jesus is the fulfilment of the Law and specifically Yom Kippur; it's so blatantly obvious that Jesus, who went to the cross and took upon himself the sins of the world is playing the part of that goat which was taken out into the wilderness.

"The goat was taken out into the wilderness once a year for that year, but Jesus has taken our sins once for all upon the cross; so the cross was if you like Yom Kippur, throughout history fulfilling what was to come, by taking away the sins of mankind and also doing in a real way what that goat had done symbiotically, prophesying throughout the century's of the mosaic law up to the time of Jesus. Jesus has fulfilled the atonement, we speak of him as our atonement, and we use the same terminology. It's so exciting to think that the Jewish people wish each other in a hopeful sort of way that there would be a freedom from sin, there's the annual greeting at this time of year "may your names be written in the book of life".

"We know that as believers in Jesus that our names are written in the book of life, but with the religious Jews today it's a tentative hope. We know as believers that it's already accomplished and my prayer for my people is that they would be released into that, they would see it and have revelation this Yom Kippur that Jesus their Messiah has actually done it, there is assurance for the forgiveness of sin."