Best of Broadcast: Can There Be Atonement without Blood Sacrifice?

Can there be atonement without blood?

And is Dr. Michael Brown? The Day of Atonement This is Michael Brown. It is Thoroughly Jewish Thursday. Many, many confessions in the special prayer book for this day and the special prayer services. And you confess corporately every kind of sin and even beat your breast at certain point in a symbolic way of saying, I'm sorry for these sins.

So your sins, the sins of the people of Israel as a whole. And yet something happens when God's Spirit makes us aware of our sinfulness, when we get a glimpse of His holiness and become undone like Isaiah was in Isaiah six, when he saw the Lord and suddenly saw himself as a man of unclean lips dwelling in the midst of a people of unclean lips. So there is this recognition of God's holiness, which deeply uncovers our sin, makes us more aware and makes us aware of our need for atonement. That atonement has been definitively provided for us.

I'll come to that in a little while. But let's start with the question, can there be atonement without blood? A few days ago, a colleague sent me this article asking for my response to it is on the orthodox Jewish website, ultra-orthodox Jewish website, chabad.org. It is an answer to a question, Shmuel Kogen answering the question, and it is atonement in the absence of sacrifices?

Question mark. So I want to read through some of this article with you, and then I want to look at the specific references that they bring from scripture to say, yes, there can be atonement without blood sacrifice. I want to show you why these arguments fall terribly short of the mark and why we need blood sacrifice, ultimately the Messiah's blood.

So let's start with the article. Question. Please help me to understand if the foundation for God's forgiveness and atonement was initially the sacrifice on the altar, neither the tabernacle or later the temple. How does one now find forgiveness and atonement since the temple and physical sacrifices no longer exist? Obviously, if the temple did exist, Jews would be offering sacrifices to this day, but it has not existed in Jerusalem since the year 70.

So here's the answer. You ask an excellent question. Are we at a loss with regards to ability to attain forgiveness from God due to the loss of our temple? And the writer says, I'd first like to point out that this question isn't specific to sacrifices. There are many mitzvot commandments that we cannot perform today because of our exiled state.

They give a reference to that. Among the other mitzvot we cannot observe today are pilgrimage to the temple for the festivals, many tithes and many laws associated with ritual purity and impurity. While we are deprived of these many mitzvot, God gave us alternative ways to realize the benefits that these mitzvot afforded us, albeit not in their most ideal form, otherwise we could always have always made do with the alternatives. Let us use sacrifices and atonements as an example. So the rabbi answering this says, okay, there are many things that we cannot do fully that the Torah commanded, but God gave us alternatives.

Is that true? And is the inability to offer sacrifices perhaps bigger than some of these other things that we could not do if we were seeking to follow the Sinai covenant? So the author continues, some have claimed that atonement can be attained only through blood sacrifice.

This cannot be the case. After all, one of the offerings brought by a sinner was the korban mincha, which was made up of flour. So if you could not afford an animal sacrifice, you would bring a flour sacrifice.

And there's a little end note there. When you click on it, it brings you over to the book of Leviticus, and sometimes you'll find a difference in some of the numbering between the Hebrew and the English, but the verse is the same. So let's go over to Leviticus chapter 5, verse 11 in the Torah, Leviticus 5, 11 in Hebrew. Yet if he cannot afford two turtle doves, or two young doves, then he shall bring us his sacrifice for sin, one tenth of an ephah of fine flour for sin offering. He shall not put oil over it, nor shall he place frankincense upon it, for it is a sin offering. He shall bring it to the kohane, the priest, and the kohane shall scoop out a fistful as its reminder, and cause it to go up in smoke on the altar upon the fires of the Lord. It is a sin offering, thus the kohane shall make atonement for his sin, that he commit it in any one of these cases, and it shall be forgiven, and it shall belong to the kohane like the meal offering. So it says specifically in Hebrew that this is put, Elishe Adonai, on the fire offerings of the Lord. First, there has never been a doctrine in Judaism that flour is a substitute for blood, that all you need is flour, that wherever you are in the world, if you just offer up some flour to God, there'll be atonement.

No, that's never been taught, obviously. The whole point is that you don't have the money to participate in the blood offerings on the altar. Elis, why are you putting flour on the altar?

It's not an animal that you're cooking or burning. Why are you putting flour on the altar? Putting flour on the altar to participate in the atonement powers of the altar. Maimonides in the 12th century called it Mizbakh kapara, the altar of atonement.

So this was your way of participating. You've got the sacrifices there, you've got the blood offerings there. Now you're too poor, you can at least put flour, and the flour is now joined in and mingled together with the fire offerings of the Lord.

This is not an independent doctrine. There's nowhere ever where you just brought flour to the altar where the priest did that as some independent rite and burned it on the altar, and this was now in place of blood. And on the Day of Atonement, there's no bringing of flour, or again, Jews around the world will just bring some flour and offer it up to God. No, this was your way of participating in the fire offerings. This was your way of mingling your flour with the blood offerings on the altar, and it was only there that there was efficacy, that that thing became a sin offering as it's now joined together with the fire offerings of the Lord. So this idea that you don't need blood is completely bogus.

You're putting the flour on the very blood offerings. Okay, so that's one argument. So let's dismiss that one. That goes out the window. Now let's go to the second argument. Back to the article. We also find in the Torah that both incense and monetary donations served to atone for the people.

So let's click on the link about incense, alright? And it takes us to Numbers chapter 17, verses 11 and 12. Again, you're going to have a differentiation in the Hebrew and the English.

So this is in Hebrew, Bamidbar, or in English, Numbers. So there's a plague that's broken out because of the grumbling of the people and their failure to reverence God and accept the leadership that he's put in place with Moses. A plague has broken out. Verse 11, Moses said to Aaron, take the censer and put fire from the altar top into it and put incense. Then take it quickly to the congregation and atone for them, for wrath has gone forth from the Lord and the plague has begun. Aaron took it just as Moses had said, and he ran into the midst of the assembly, and behold, the plague had begun among the people. He placed the incense on it and atoned for the people. He stood between the dead and the living, and the plague ceased.

Okay, three or four observations on this text. Again, nowhere has Judaism ever taught in general terms that incense atones for sin. And the Talmud commenting on this says that it atoned for the sin of gossip, so it's something specific. But there's no teaching anywhere where we want to have the temple restored so that we can offer up incense for atonement. No one was ever told to bring incense to make atonement. So this is a specific instance.

That's number one. Number two is that the Hebrew likha pair to atone can also mean to turn away wrath, and that's the main thing that is happening here, to turning away the wrath of the plague. But even if we just say, fine, translate with atone, look once again, take the censer and put fire from the altar top into it. They took the fire from the altar of atonement. They took the fire from the very place where the blood sacrifices were offered, the central place of atonement for Israel. Why not just burn incense?

Why not just say, somebody come here, just light this up. Why go specifically to the tabernacle and specifically to the altar and get fire from the altar? It's because that's the place of atonement. And it's from there that they take it and take the power of that through incense to bring atonement to the people. They take the blood away, there is no altar of atonement. Take the blood away, there's no altar of atonement for the flower or for the incense. So we're going to look at some more of this article.

But you see the first two objections raised disappear, I should say like smoke, like incense. Just disappear because this is the central truth. This is the central truth. The foundation of the atonement system in ancient Israel was blood atonement. The foundation was substitutionary atonement.

The innocent victim for the guilty party. Life for life and the life of the flesh being in the blood, so now you offer that life up as a substitute for the life of the guilty. And central to the atonement system in Israel was Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement.

And central on that day were blood sacrifices and then the scapegoat which symbolically carry the sins away. You take away the blood, you have no atonement system. It's like you take away the roots and you take away the trunk and you take away the branches.

The little twigs on the end are not going to do it. So whatever extension you come with, flower with incense, that is all flowing from the foundational system of blood atonement. Just read the Torah. Don't take my word. Read the Torah and notice dom, dom, dom, dom, blood, blood, blood, blood, blood. Why?

Because the life is in the blood, the blood is the substitute. We'll be right back. It's the line of fire with your host, Dr. Michael Brown, your voice of moral, cultural and spiritual revolution here again is Dr. Michael Brown. Welcome friends to Thoroughly Jewish Thursday. This is airing right now in the midst of Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish calendar, Jews around the world fasting, praying for forgiveness. My prayer is that they'd receive revelation from God of the depth of their sin, the depth of all of our sin outside of Messiah's grace, outside of God's love. They'd receive recognition of the depth of their sin and the depth of God's love for them through Messiah Yeshua, that eyes would be opened if there is no atonement outside of his sacrifice on our behalf.

So let me get back to this article. If you've got a Jewish-related question, we'll be getting to them soon, 866-344-866-3487-884. According to this article on the highlyinfluentialchabad.org website, we also find in the Torah that both incense and monetary donations served to atone for the people. So we've seen it's completely bogus to say that you could have flower offerings outside of blood or incense offerings outside of blood that atoned. What about this idea of monetary offerings? You have it in Exodus and in Numbers. The clearest passage that addresses this as part of a legal regulation is in Numbers, so Shemot in Hebrew.

Let's take a look at that. It's Exodus 30, verse 15, and it says this, that there will be a tax on the people, alright? The rich shall give no more and the poor shall give no less than a half a shekel with which to give the offering to the Lord to atone for your souls. You shall take the silver of the atonements from the children of Israel and use it for the work of the tent of meeting. It shall be a remembrance for the children of Israel before the Lord to atone for your souls.

Alright. I'm just saying that money atones. In other words, if you give, that that'll atone for sin. Now, of course, there's something very troubling about that notion that you can give money to pay for sin. What about the super-poor?

I mean, how does that work? Do the rich get more atonement because they can pay more? I mean, obviously, no one in Judaism would believe that.

No traditional rabbi would believe that. I'm just saying where that thinking could lead, nor has there ever been a movement, okay, we just need to, you know, everyone just gives because that's atonement and we don't need a temple. We don't need sacrifices. Why pray for the rebuilding of the temple and the offering of the sacrifices again unless there's a recognition that something is missing? Even as Chabad said, if the alternate forms were as good, then you wouldn't have needed the original. If you've got all these other alternatives, why pray daily for the rebuilding of the temple?

Why mourn over the destruction of the temple if it's not that big a deal in terms of atonement, which was a central function of the temple because of the sacrificial offerings? What about this notion? What about what we read in Exodus 30?

Well, several issues here, and you'll find the same with the parallel in Numbers 31. First, it's in the context of numbering the people, and there was a concern that when you would number the people for certain reasons, it could bring them under judgment and a plague. And this was a way to avert the plague. That's the focus here. If you'll read the surrounding context, it is averting the plague.

That's the first thing. The second thing is that the money went to what? It went towards the work of the tent of meeting. And one of the possible explanations for this given by Rashi, the foremost biblical commentator in Judaism in the 11th century, was that the atonement came through support of the work of the priests in the sacrificial service, that this is one of the possible meanings of it. And again, nowhere do you see in the rest of the Bible any reference to offering up flour or incense or money for atonement.

So we need to understand these in context. Again, these are twigs coming out from the branches or the tips of the branches, whereas the whole substance of the atonement system over and over and over. Just read Leviticus 1 through 7 to start. It's blood. It's blood. It's blood. And then Leviticus 17 and 11 explains why. Because the life of the flesh is in the blood. That's why God gives it for atonement on the altar.

And you say, yeah, but there are many other forms outside of that. The question is, what are they? Now listen. Volume 2 of Answering Jewish Objections to Jesus. If you don't have it and you're interested in the subject, please do get it. I spent a tremendous amount of time working on this, the entire five-volume set, to benefit you to help you to dig deeper.

If you're a traditional Jewish person listening after Yom Kippur, I strongly encourage you to get this. If I could press a button and download the information into everyone's brain, I would do it in a heartbeat. Because we go through all the questions. What about the role of repentance? And what about verses that seem to say that through good deeds there can be atonement? Or what about the exile atoning and concepts like that? And what did Daniel do in the exile? All these are dealt with in depth in Volume 2 of Answering Jewish Objections to Jesus.

I'm giving you overview, simplified answers, but that are truthful, accurate answers. So let's go back now to the Chabad article and see what's written there. We've seen the idea that flour in itself atones, or incense in itself atones, or money in itself atones, or misunderstandings of what the Scriptures say. The article continues, it should be noted that nowhere in the Torah is it stated that atonement can be found only through sacrifice, never mind blood sacrifice, except it does explicitly say in Leviticus 17, 11, that it's given on the altar to atone for a sin. And we've seen how atonement flows out of the altar.

Take away the blood, you take away the atonement. It says, in temple times, an important part of atonement was normally a sacrifice brought to the temple. But where does it leave us today with no temple and no possibility to sacrifice? Let's look to the Torah, they mean the whole Old Testament, for a precedent. In the book of Jonah, the people of Nineveh had sinned and God was going to punish them. When Jonah showed them the error of their ways, they fasted and prayed and were forgiven. The same thing happened in the book of Esther, well actually it doesn't say anything in Esther about praying and it doesn't say anything about atonement. Living in Persia between the first and second temples, they fasted, regretted their sins and were forgiven.

None of that's mentioned in Esther. These historical examples show that when there's no temples in Shuvah, repentance is all that God demands. Actually, in the days of Jonah, there was a temple standing. There was a temple standing and it was part of Israel's role to make atonement for the nations. Israel was the priestly nation. The people of Nineveh were called to repent. The people of Israel were called to repent and perform the sacrifices. That was their role as a priestly people.

In fact, during the celebration of Sukkot Tabernacles, 70 bulls were offered up and this was symbolic of the 70 nations of the world and it was understood that Israel was praying for the atonement of the nations. So you can't apply what happens to Nineveh, to Jewish people. And the temple was standing in Jonah's day in Jerusalem. Now look at this.

In fact, they argued this was always part of the system. King Solomon himself in his speech dedicating the first holy temple already anticipates the possibility of Israel being denied access to the holy place. Actually, it's a misreading. If they sin against you, this is Solomon's prayer, for there's no man who does not sin then you will be angry with them and deliver them to the enemy and their captors will carry them away captive to the land of the enemy far and near where they bethink themselves in the land where they were carried captive and repent make supplication to you in the land of their captors saying, we have sinned and done perversely, we have committed wickedness when they returned to you with all their heart with all their soul in the land of their enemies who led them away captive and pray to you toward their land which you gave to their fathers to the city that you've chosen the house which I've built for your name then you shall hear their prayer their supplication in heaven your dwelling place and uphold their cause. So in other words, we're exiled, we don't have access to the temple, it's been destroyed but we pray towards the temple and you forgive.

No, no, no, no, no. Solomon is not countenancing the destruction of the temple, he's countenancing a functioning temple while some of the people of Israel are in exile. How do I know it? Look in 2 Chronicles chapter 7. This immediately follows the prayer. So let's take a look, 2 Chronicles chapter 7 and let's look at what that says, Devre ha-Yamim in Hebrew, 2 Chronicles 7, God says to Solomon there, the Lord appears to him at night and said, I've heard your prayer and I have chosen this place, the temple for myself, for what, Beit Zevach, alright, a house of sacrifice, this is how God describes the temple.

Why? Because that's the central function of it, the offering up of sacrifices. God says this, if I shut up the heavens there be no rain, if I command locusts to devour the land, if I send pestilence, you know the passage, if you repent you turn to me then God will have mercy, forgive our sin, heal our land, right? Now, so he's saying, okay, if you sin, I bring judgment and you repent, I'll forgive. Now my eyes will be opened, my ears are tempted to the prayers of this place and now I've chosen and consecrated this house that by name be there forever, my eyes and heart will be there all times. And then he goes on, if you walk before me as your father David did, I'll bless. If we scroll down, we see that as it continues, it says this, God says, but if you and the people disobey, all right, look in verse 19, if you revert and forsake my statutes and my commandments which I placed before you and you go and worship strange gods and prostrate yourselves to them, I shall uproot them from my land which I gave them. This house which I have consecrated my name, I shall cast from before me, I shall make it a proverb and a byword among all peoples and this house which was exalted, every pastor by will be astounded and they'll say, why has the Lord done this to this country and this temple?

What's that text saying? The text is saying that if Israel crosses a certain line, God will bring judgment, exile and destroy the temple. In other words, there is no national atonement. Israel's under judgment. Israel's under judgment. That's the whole message and it's during the exile, during this time with the temple that God gives the revelation to Daniel in exile about the Messiah's atoning work. And it's during this time that much of the teaching of Isaiah is circulating about the servant of the Lord who will die for our sins. God is now planting these seeds in the heart and mind of his people.

No, you don't come up with alternatives. When the temple is destroyed, that means something is fundamentally and terribly wrong. The Beit Zevach, the house of sacrifice, the place to which God would respond has been destroyed in judgment either there is no national atonement for Israel, none at all. Or God has poured it out through the Messiah. Thank God he has. All of us have gone astray like sheep. Each one has turned to his own way, but the Lord have laid upon him, our Messiah, the iniquity of all of us. Thank God. Thank God. It's the line of fire with your host, Dr. Michael Brown, your voice of moral, cultural, and spiritual revolution.

Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. Friends, on Thirdly Jewish Thursday, which happens to be right now in the midst of Yom Kippur, the holiest day on the Jewish calendar, join me in praying for God's mercy to be poured out on Jewish people worldwide, that they have a revelation of their need for God's mercy beyond the prayers and confessions of Yom Kippur Day of Atonement, that they'd recognize there is no atonement without the blood, and they would recognize that God sent the Messiah to die for our sins and rise from the dead, to assure us of forgiveness of sins once and for all. 866, three, four truths for your Jewish-related questions.

I'm going to the phones momentarily. I just want to draw your attention to Hosea 14.3, you'll find a verse difference between the Hebrew and the English. This is often cited by traditional Jews to say, look, when you don't have the temple, you just, you bring your prayers and the prayers substitute for, for the blood sacrifices. So one traditional translation reads, take words with yourselves and return to the Lord. Say you shall forgive all iniquity and teach us the good way. Notice the words, the and way are in brackets.

Why? Because it's not there in the Hebrew. And let us render four bulls the offering of our lips. So four is in brackets and the offering of is in brackets, meaning that you've got to really read something into the Hebrew to come away with this. Otherwise you'd say, and let us render bulls our lips.

What does that mean? Many scholars argue that the right reading here confirmed by the Septuagint, the Jewish translation into Greek a couple hundred years before the time of Jesus, that it should, it should read instead the fruit of our lips. Let us pay the fruit of our lips. In other words, we will keep our vows to you, O God. And the whole argument that when there's no temple, this is what's prayed. Well, this was written in the days of Hosea. Yes, he's in the north, but Israelites from the north could come to the temple.

They were not forbidden from coming to the temple or even migrating south. So that, that argument doesn't, doesn't work. One traditional translation says we will substitute, you know, the words of our lips for bulls, but the Hebrew says shalem does not mean to substitute, it's to repay or to pay a vow. So this verse is one of the weakest that could be used really.

And the Hebrew does not say what others have made it to say, hence the brackets or even the new JPS translation, which leans in this direction, it still says the Hebrew is uncertain. Again, I get into it in depth in volume two of Answering Jewish Objections to Jesus. With that, let's go to the phones. We'll start with Todd in southern Mississippi. Welcome to the line of fire. Good afternoon, Dr. Brown. God bless you, sir, and thank you so much for your great teaching. We're so grateful for you answering the Spirit's call. My question has to do with the children of God, especially as we look into eternity. And we know that there's the church, Israel, and the bride of Christ. Especially as we look into eternity, are those three entities the same thing?

Or are they different? And if they are different, where does someone like you fit into as a Christian who's a Jew? Yeah, so there's a difference between Israel and the church in that the church, the ekklesia, the messianic community, consists of believing Jews and believing Gentiles. So from Abraham to Moses to Paul to me, that we'd be part of the ekklesia as well as part of Israel.

And then all of the Gentile believers, from Ruth to Billy Graham to you, would be part of the ekklesia. So you have Israel and the nations. And out of Israel and the nations, all believers through history from Israel and the nations are part of God's messianic community, part of his ekklesia, the church. And that community is the bride of Messiah. So I would say that the church, the ekklesia, and the bride of Messiah are one and the same. But that Israel represents a national entity, not all who've lived in Israel through history or who are part of the people of Israel are believers. So just like you'll have some Americans are saved and some are not, some Jews are saved and some are not. So eternally we're one family, eternally we're one people that God has for himself. Believing Jews, believing Gentiles from around the world make up the ekklesia, Messiah's body, also called the bride of Christ.

Oh yes sir. Well there's another question that kind of leads into that and thank you so much for that clarity. I never really looked at it like that and this wasn't something that pestered me for so long. But also in Jeremiah 33 it talks about, the prophet talks about Levite who will always be in the presence of the Lord offering sacrifices and serving the Lord. But didn't our Lord Christ come to be both the chief priest and our king? Yes, so it's a fascinating passage there in Jeremiah 33 because it speaks of the continuity of the line of David and the continuity of the line of Levi.

To that I would say a couple of things, Todd. First is that there are, through history, Levites who have worshipped God and who continue to worship God now through the Messiah. In other words, that has never stopped. The book of Acts records a large number of priests and Levites coming to faith in Yeshua. So I believe God has kept that promise through the ages, first as long as the temples were standing to have Levitical priests offering up sacrifices and offerings, and now through this age on a spiritual level to be offering up spiritual sacrifices and offerings as both Levites and followers of Yeshua.

So that's how you have that continuity all this time, that's one thing. The second thing is that we all partake now spiritually, it doesn't displace the physical. So this is in addition to the physical, every believer in Jesus becomes a priest and therefore of the larger tribe of Levi. Spiritually speaking, I'm not saying in a linear way, in an ethnic way, no, no, no, absolutely not. But I'm saying spiritually we all take on that priestly role through the Messiah to offer praise and worship and adoration to Him. In fact, Hebrews 13, 15 quotes from Hosea 14, the verse that we just looked at, about offering up the fruit of our lips as praise to God. So this is our spiritual ministry. There are those physically from the line of Levi to this very day who have continued as followers of Messiah offering up praise to God.

God has preserved the people and among them, a remnant that believe in Jesus Yeshua. Hey Todd, thanks for the kind words and the questions. Much appreciated. 866-34-TRUTH.

Let's go to Orlando in Greensboro, North Carolina. Welcome to the Line of Fire. Hey, how's it going, Mr. Brown?

Doing very well, thank you. Thank you for taking my call. My question deals with about the Feast of the Lord, since Jesus died in Passover, you know, buried and unleavened bread, resurrected on first fruits, came as a spirit in Shavuah. Now there being today's Yom Kippur, and they have the trumpet right before, is there a trumpet in the Bible, like I know the Thessalonians and Revelation talks about the last trumpet, is that the last trumpet that they blow right before Yom Kippur, like yesterday, right before sunset, is that the kia gadol, is that the last trumpet that appears on the Bible, or am I going the wrong way? You're certainly going in the right direction in terms of, let's start with the symbolism, but we know chronologically Jesus actually dies, rises, sends his spirit in exact conjunction with Passover first fruits and Shavuah at Pentecost. We know, at least spiritually, that his second coming will line up with first trumpets, which is the first day of the seventh month, not the tenth day with Yom Kippur, but that is known as Yom Teruah, that is the day of the sounding of the trumpet, of the shofar blast. And you mentioned some of the passages, but Matthew 24, the Messiah comes with the blast of the trumpet, and 1 Corinthians 15, it's the last trumpet, 1 Thessalonians 4, he comes with the sound of the trumpet, and Revelation 11, it's the seventh of seven trumpets when the kingdoms of this world become the kingdom of our God. And then that follows with atonement for Israel, and then blessing for the nations, so hence Yom Kippur's atonement for Israel, and then finally the Feast of Tabernacles, which is the nations coming to worship God in Jerusalem. So symbolically, for sure, the Lord's return is in conjunction with these things.

I would just associate the trumpet blast with the first day of the seventh month, not immediately before Yom Kippur, but rather the sounding of the trumpet on Yom Teruah. Does that mean that he will come specifically on that day? Well, what makes it unlikely is the idea that no one knows the day or the hour, right? And therefore, we could just say, okay, it's really, really close, it's got to be on this day. But at the very least, symbolically, it absolutely is pointing to that.

And Paul uses language, I believe, like that, and Jesus does, quite intentionally, to tie us back in to the biblical calendar. So you're definitely on the right track with your thinking. Thank you very much, Dr. Brown. You are very welcome.

86634, truth. By the way, by the way, and I'll come back to your calls momentarily, there is this idea that Rosh Hashanah, which becomes the traditional new year, or Yom Teruah in the Bible, first day of the seventh month, was known as the holiday where no one knows the day or the hour because it's the only holy day on the calendar that started on the first day of the month, and you needed confirmation with the moon, so no one knew the day or the hour, and that's what Jesus was referring to, and he said no one knows the day or the hour. It's bogus. It's bogus. I have checked every Jewish source I could find, rabbinic sources, those talking about the festivals, the customs. I have asked the most learned rabbis I know, who would certainly know if it existed.

Nowhere have we found such a reference that Yom Teruah, or later Rosh Hashanah, was known as the day when no one knew the day or the hour. Bogus, according to everything I know. Hey friends, just a reminder, we got a break, then we come straight back to your calls. Just a reminder to visit vitaminmission.com, meet our new sponsor, Dr. Mark Stengler, find out about some of the best health supplements money could buy from strengthening your immune system to multivitamins to whatever. I'm thrilled to get the opportunity to tell you about them because I've used these for years and they supplement my healthy lifestyle. You get a 10% discount when you go there as friends of our ministry, and then Dr. Stengler in turns gives a donation from every purchase back to our ministry.

So it's a threefold blessing beginning with your own health. So check out vitaminmission.com or just go to our homepage, sdrbrown.org. The info is there. Your voice of moral, cultural, and spiritual revolution. Get into the line of fire now by calling 866-342. Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. Thanks friends for joining us today on the Line of Fire.

This is Michael Brown. Welcome to Thoroughly Jewish Thursday. In the midst of Yom Kippur, the holiest day on the Jewish calendar, this for me is a way of doing priestly ministry, a way of calling for prayer, a way of opening up the Scriptures.

So as Jewish listeners and viewers either today or in days ahead, if they're fasting, praying today, and staying off social media, they'll be able to look at this teaching and see what the Bible really says about atonement without blood. All right, without further ado, we go back to the phone starting with Arthur in Des Moines, Iowa. Welcome to the Line of Fire. Thank you, Dr. Brown. Thank you for taking my call and bless you for your ministry.

Thanks. I have a question I've had for a long time about, I believe it's Daniel 9 and the Jewish people, where it said that the Messiah will be cut off before Jerusalem falls, which is so in 70 AD. How do they get around that and how do you address it to them? Yeah, so the first thing is they would say there's no reference to the Messiah in the text at all. It just references a Mashiach. It doesn't say Hamashiach, the Messiah, but rather just references a Mashiach, an anointed one. In fact, they would point out, it talks about two separate anointed ones separated by a period of centuries, neither of which is the Messiah, and that it's just giving us chronologically about someone who will die at an earlier time in the rebuilding of the temple, etc., and someone who will die later before the second temple was destroyed. And there's no big deal. And they'd say when Christian translations say the Messiah, they're being dishonest because the Hebrew doesn't add the word the.

So that's how they would get around it. And they would say that Mashiach in the Old Testament, in the Hebrew Bible, is almost never used, or someone would say it's never used specifically for the Messiah. It could be talking about an earthly king, it could even be talking about a pagan king like Cyrus, etc. And that would be the argument. My counterargument is, number one, look at the momentous things that must take place before the second temple is destroyed based on Daniel 9.24, which include bringing in atonement for sin and everlasting righteousness. So something of momentous historic importance must take place. I have no problem saying that the text speaks of two different anointed ones.

That could be the case, depending on how you divide the Hebrew. But it does specifically say that an anointed one will be cut off, but ain't low, and either not for himself or have nothing. And this is part of the significance of the question is, well, who is that one? And why is his death mentioned? What's the importance of it? And how does it tie in with the rest of the passage?

So that's how I would push back. But I would argue for the messianic interpretation of it based on the largeness of what's promised in Daniel 9.24. As to the Jewish argument that it doesn't say the Messiah, it's true.

It doesn't say the Messiah, it speaks of a Mashiach, and it's up to us to make an argument that that Mashiach is Jesus. All right. All right, thank you for your question, sir. You got it. 866-34-TRUTH. Let's go to Samuel in the Bronx, New York. Welcome to the line of fire.

Hello, how are you doing, Dr. Brown? Thank you for taking my call. You're welcome. So my question is about sins of mission. So I was wondering if there's any birth in the Old Testament where it says that when the priest goes to the temple to make sacrifice for the whole Israel on Yom Kippur or a daily sacrifice. I was wondering if there's any birth in the Old Testament that will cover for your sins of mission. In fact, there's a group of people telling me that there's no need for sins of mission.

You just need to turn back. They usually use the story on Jonah where they just, Jonah tells the kin of Nineveh and the people to just turn back, but there's no sacrifice for their sins, so that's my question. Yeah, so earlier in the show I dealt with the issue of Jonah simply because this was not Israel. Israel was the one with the temple. Israel is the one with the sacrifices. Israel was the priestly nation, so there was not the requirement for the foreign nations to offer sacrifices. Their requirement was to repent, and the sacrifices were made at the temple in Jerusalem by the Israelite priests in accordance with the law.

Some of this was for the nations as well, so the Jonah example doesn't fit at all. But in point of fact, yes, it is quite explicit in Leviticus chapter 16, so this is the passage you want to go to, Leviticus chapter 16, which is on this very day, the Day of Atonement, and it specifically says that the high priest is to confess the sins of the nation, including all of their rebellion, so rebellion speaks of willful sin, and that is to be done on this day. And let me just scroll down, and this specifically, Aaron, in the offerings that he offers up in the temple with the first goat, this is part of it, but then specifically with the second goat, the goat that is sent off into the wilderness, it says this, Leviticus chapter 16 verse 21, Aaron is to lay his two hands on the head of the live goat and confess over it all the iniquities of the Israelites and all their transgressions, those are rebellions, in regard to all their sins, and thus he is to put them on the head of the goat and send it away into the wilderness by the hand of a man standing ready. So you have the blood sacrifices being offered, which include sin offerings and guilt offerings, all kinds of offerings for all kinds of sins, and then explicit confession over the transgressions of the nation over the head of this other goat that's sent away, which then carries the sins away. So absolutely, and then also the end of Leviticus, the sixth chapter, it talks about if you defraud your neighbor or do certain things, there is a sacrifice, the asham, the guilt offering to offer. So folks are misinformed when they claim that there was no sacrifice for intentional sins.

It is clearly there, especially on the Day of Atonement. So thank you for your question, sir. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Have a nice day. All right. You too. You too. All right. Let's go over to Coeur d'Alene, Idaho.

Welcome to the Line of Fire. Thank you, Dr. Brown, for taking my call. Can you hear me okay?

Yes, I can. You know, Carl, I was so concentrating on trying to get the name of your occasion, right? I didn't introduce you by name. I apologize.

But Carl, thank you. Yeah. Yeah.

People stumble on Coeur d'Alene. Yeah. Anyway, blessings on you, I'm looking forward to you. I have a question that I tried to get in a couple weeks ago, but there's a brother, a Jewish brother, who lives in Israel. He has a following over here in the States. He does conferences and visits churches, and he's a pre-Trib guy, okay? And pre-Trib rapture guy. And he was talking about the Ezekiel Lord, chapter 38 and 39, and, you know, talking to people and saying that it's imminent, because he believes it comes before the pre-Trib rapture.

So I always was troubled by the verse, and I don't know exactly which verse, but it's in 38, I believe, where it says that Israel would be dwelling in peace, in a land without walls, no bars, no gates. So how do you, you know, square that circle? Right. You know? Yeah, so first thing, Carl, as you know, I'm not pre-Trib myself, but either way, your question remains.

Nor am I. So let's just say that this is something that could soon be on the horizon and would be part of the final events of the age and part of the Tribulation. So it reminds me of 1 Thessalonians 5, when everyone is saying peace and safety, then sudden destruction comes. So it would appear, Carl, if this text is giving us literal information, or it follows on the dry-bones vision, but it seems to now be giving us history in advance, you know, it's telling us the literal story in advance, my understanding is that things will shift significantly enough in the Middle East that the fence slash wall that divides Israel right now from some of the so-called occupied territories, that that will come down, that there will be peace accords with other nations, and that it will seem like everything is okay, and then sudden destruction comes, and sudden battle, and of course, God delivers his people from it.

That's what I would personally expect based on that. Can I make a comment on something that came up to me that I thought was something to think about? Yeah, go ahead. Another Jewish brother, I just heard this in passing a year or two ago, he said that that scripture pertaining to peace and no bars, no gates, no walls, he said he didn't think that that could be fulfilled until the millennium. And at the end of the millennium, I just read this today, in fact, in my Bible reading, it talks about Satan coming and gathering from the nations, Gog and Magog. And Revelation 20.

Yeah, so let me just jump in, only because we're out of time. That's a possible reading of this, that this is at the end of the millennial period, where there is peace and so on, and now this is part of Satan's hordes and rebellion that now come, you know, Satan is released from captivity and leads the nations in rebellions against God. Well, where they come to attack, well, obviously Jerusalem and the Jewish people, and that's why Revelation mentions Gog and Magog. It could be, it is possible. It's also possible Revelation is destroying on the imagery without the chronology, which it frequently does, but definitely something to chew on. May the blessing of the Lord be yours. If you don't know that your sins are forgiven, go to God earnestly, find out what the Messiah has done, and find peace with God today.