The world's great Day of Atonement is the most exciting, the most joyous period of all the thousands of years of world history. Millions from past ages would have given anything just to live one day during this period of the cleansing of the heavenly sanctuary--what's happening right now. It's the time when the great High Priest, humanity's Savior, prepares the body of His people, His church, to be ready for the climax of the ages--His second coming in glory.
It's the time when the Bethlehem song of the angels at the birth of Jesus is finally realized: "good tidings of great joy ... to all people. .. On earth peace, good will toward men" (Luke 2:10-14). The word "atonement" means very simply "at-one-with." There is nothing mysterious or complicated about it. (To attach the word "eschatological" to it bewilders common people.) To be "at-one-with" is to experience the joy of reconciliation, which is sweeter than honey if you have known the pain of alienation.
It's "at-one-ment" first with God, which every human heart in the world craves. We are born in a state of being alienated, separated from Him. "The carnal mind [it's natural!] is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be" (Rom. 8:7). Imagine the life-long misery of being on the outs with God! You look through the windows into God's house and you see the light, the joy and merriment within, and feel yourself thrust out into outer darkness. You long to be in on the party, no longer alienated.
The world's Day of Atonement is when the High Priest, the Savior, takes the initiative to bridge that awful gap, to bring you in, to reconcile you. He performed this feat in Himself, when on the cross He drank down our bitter cup of alienation, crying, "My God why have You forsaken Me?!" Finally, on this great Day of Atonement, we learn to appreciate what He accomplished for us. We are at last "one" with Him. Simple! Yet profound.
From the "Dial Daily Bread" Archive: May 15, 2002.Copyright © 2011 by Robert J. Wieland.
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