The Jubilee of Atonement

Thank you, Tomball, and to Megan, for the beautiful special music and the offertory. I certainly do appreciate. There's just something about music. It just has a way of reaching into you, and it's a beautiful thing. So thank you guys so very much. We've mentioned this a little bit already today, but the Day of Atonement is a critical step in the process of God's plan for mankind. Mr. Emery mentioned in his sermonette this idea of this bridge of reconciliation that was made possible by the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. We know that he entered that most holy place once and for all, and ultimately, we as humans could not possibly be reconciled to God without that bridge in place. It was that essential. It was that essential. There was nothing that we as humans could do to reconcile ourselves to God. Christ's sacrifice bridged that gap that was created through our sins, through our missing of the mark, through our transgression of God's law, and provided us with access to God the Father. In ancient Israel, on the 10th day of the 7th month, on the Day of Atonement, the nation came together to rehearse these events through ultimately a series of types. It was a series of types. They were a series of things that were looking forward to a fulfillment later on, on down through time, more fully. On this day, yearly, the nation collectively covered their sins with the blood of bulls and goats. It was not enough. It wasn't sufficient to expunge their sins. It only covered them from year to year. It covered them from God's sight from year to year, but it was not enough to expunge them entirely. Let's go to Hebrews 9. Hebrews 9 discusses this principle and gives us a little bit of a backdrop. I mean, essentially, the book of Hebrews really is a giant explanation of all these things that you were doing. Here's why you were doing it. Hebrews 9 is one of these locations. Hebrews 9, and we'll pick it up in verse 1. Hebrews 9 and verse 1 reads, Then indeed, even the first covenant had ordinances of divine service and the earthly sanctuary. For a tabernacle was prepared, the first part, in which was the lampstand, the table, and the showbread, which is called the sanctuary, and behind, the second veil, the part of the tabernacle, which is called the holiest of all, or we sometimes have heard it referred to as the holy of holies, which had the golden censer and the ark of the covenant overlaid on all sides with gold, in which were the golden pot that had the manna, Aaron's rod that budded, and the tablets of the covenant. Verse 5 of Hebrews 9, And above it were the caribim of glory, overshadowing the mercy seat. Of these things we cannot now speak in detail.

He goes on, Now when these things had been thus prepared, the priests always went into the first part of the tabernacle, performing the services. So he's getting at this idea that there was a separation in place, that there was a part of this tabernacle that they didn't go to but once a year.

He says, But into the second part, the high priest went alone. Once a year, he didn't go with people with him. He went on his own, once a year, on the day of atonement, not without blood, which he offered for himself and for the people's sins, committed it in ignorance. Verse 8, That the Holy Spirit indicating this, That the way into the holiest of all was not yet made manifest while the first tabernacle was still standing.

It was symbolic for the present time in which both gifts and sacrifices are offered, which cannot make him who performed the service perfect in regard to the conscience, concerned only with foods and drinks, various washings and fleshly ordinances imposed until the time of Reformation.

The way into the Holy of Holies wasn't made manifest during the time of the first tabernacle for the general public.

For the regular lay person of Israel, they did not have access to that part of the tabernacle at that time. It was symbolic. What was going on? What was happening on this day of atonement was symbolic. It was a shadow of things to come.

The high priest entered on behalf of the people, kind of again symbolizing that separation that was somewhat discussed as the need for a bridge, that kind of distance that needed to be bridged, that these sacrifices, these washings, these ordinances that were imposed, again, they only served to cover and to ceremoniously cleanse the individual, but they weren't capable of making that individual perfect with regard to the conscience. It just wasn't good enough.

Verse 11 goes on. Verse 11, But Christ came as high priest of the good things to come, with the greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is, not of this creation. Verse 12, Not with the blood of goats and calves, but with his own blood, he entered the most holy place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption. For if the blood of bulls and goats and the ashes of a heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifies for the purifying of the flesh, how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal spirit— Make sure I got the right word there. Yep. Thought I'd turned a couple pages. Through the eternal spirit, offered himself, without spot to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God.

And for this reason, he is the mediator of the new covenant, by means of death, for the redemption of the transgression under the first covenant, that those who are called may receive the promise of the eternal inheritance.

The events in ancient Israel on this day, on the day of atonement, all pointed forward to this.

It all pointed forward all the sacrifices and the washings and the process by which they had to go through all these very specific steps to be able to enter into the Holy of Holies. To be able to go and do these things, it was all scripted incredibly. In fact, you can see it lined out. I won't turn there, but in Leviticus 16, walks through the various things that had to happen in order for this day to proceed, as it did in Israel. But all of these things, all of them, were a type of a future fulfillment as a result of Jesus Christ and his sacrifice on our behalf.

Ancient Israel, again, rehearsed this day once a year to kind of help them to understand the coming sacrifice of Jesus Christ, and really to be able to connect what they did with what he was going to do in their lives, on their behalf.

That he would enter into that place with his own blood, once and for all.

One time, for everyone.

You know, there's another secondary aspect that is intertwined with this primary concept of this day, and that's the concept of the Jubilee.

That's the concept of the Jubilee.

You know, it seems strange to consider when you think of Jubilee, you don't tend to think of morning and fasting, right?

It's kind of odd to think about the concept of the Jubilee on a day that we're instructed to afflict ourselves, we're instructed to fast, we're instructed to deny ourselves.

But there's a concept of freedom that is integral to this day.

Into all of these machinations that happened during the time of ancient Israel, on into today, there is a concept of freedom that is implied within this day.

I'd like to take a look at that today. Let's go over to Leviticus 25.

Let's go over to Leviticus 25, and we're going to see where the instructions ultimately for this Jubilee are found, because it's important we understand a little of the background before we jump into it. So we'll build a little background here before we take a look at how Christ is involved in this process.

Leviticus 25, and we'll go ahead and pick it up in verse 1.

Leviticus 25 and verse 1.

Leviticus 25 and verse 1 reads, And the Lord spoke to Moses on Mount Sinai, saying, Speak to the children of Israel, and say to them, When you come into the land which I give you, so when you enter the promised land, then the land shall keep a Sabbath to the Lord.

Six years you shall sow your field, and six years you shall prune your vineyard and gather its fruit. But in the seventh year there shall be a Sabbath of solemn rest for the land, a Sabbath to the Lord. You shall neither sow your field nor prune your vineyard. What grows of its own accord of your harvest you shall not reap, nor gather the grapes of your untended vine, for it is a year of rest for the land.

And the Sabbath produce of the land, so whatever grew on that land during that year, could be food for you or shall be food for you, your male and female servants, your hired man and the stranger who dwells with you. For your livestock and the beasts that are in your land, all of its produce shall be for food.

And so we see there's this essentially this seven-year cycle involved in this process. There's two cycles of third-tide years that go through, third and sixth. So on the third year they kept a third tithe instead of their just original first and second or their regular first and second. They kept a third 10% back and that was intended for those that were struggling to care for themselves. Those that had difficulty being able to take care of themselves financially or were in need of food or whatever it might be. Typically that's the widows, the orphans, oftentimes it was even the Levites, so that those individuals could eat and be satisfied in the land. But it was a seven-year cycle. You had a third year and you had a sixth year. And then on that seventh year, just like man was intended to labor for six days and rest on the seventh, the land was intended to do the same.

It was intended to labor for six years and then rest on the seventh. And to lie in a state of rest for that entire year.

It was not to be cultivated. It was not to be planted. It was not to be otherwise worked. It was to be left alone, to lie fallow.

It could be gleaned of the produce that it produced to be eaten.

But the idea was you didn't go out and harvest the entire thing.

You used it for food. You used it for what your family needed. You used it for what your servants needed. You used it for whatever at that point in time. It was for your daily need. So if you skip down to verse 18 of Leviticus 25, verse 18, says, So you shall observe my statutes and keep my judgments and perform them, and you will dwell in the land in safety. God says, look, if you do what I ask you to do, if you follow my instructions, all will be well.

Everything will be fine.

It'll be great.

Says, if you do these things, if you observe my statutes, keep my judgments and perform them, you will dwell in the land in safety, and the land will yield its fruit, and you will eat your fill and dwell there in safety. And if you say, because we're human and we get a little, you know, freaked out sometimes about stuff, oh, what are we going to eat in the seventh year?

What does God say? He said, if you say, what shall we eat in the seventh year, since we shall not sow or gather in our produce, then I will command my blessing on you in the sixth year, and it will bring forth produce enough for three years, and you shall sow in the eighth year, and eat old produce until the ninth year, until its produce comes in, you shall eat of the old harvest. You know, God ensured that there would be a bumper crop on that sixth year.

That that sixth year would produce so much food, and so much abundance, that people could put it away and store it, and eat that food two and a half to three years later into the ninth year. Can you imagine that?

Can you imagine that? Having a crop large enough that you could store it up, and then eat from that crop for almost three years.

You know, that's pretty incredible. I really, it's incredible.

You know, you harvest the crops at the end of the sixth year, no planning or working the land for the seventh. You could plant again at the beginning of the eighth, and harvest at the end of the eighth year, but you would still be eating from that sixth year bumper crop during the ninth year, after you've already had another harvest beginning to come through. God says, look, don't worry about it. I got this. I've got this. Trust me. Do it. I'll take care of you.

And he did when Israel was faithful.

We know the rest of the story. We know how the Bible tends to cycle through in God saying, do this, and Israel going, we don't want to do that. God says, do this, and Israel goes, we don't want to do that. And so we know that Israel didn't fully obey God. There was a period of about 490 years during the time of the kings, in which they did not keep these land Sabbaths.

In fact, when God sent them into captivity in Babylon, the number 70 was not just pulled out of thin air. The number 70 was the number of years of land Sabbaths that had been missed, and that land would lie fallow for those 70 years while they were in captivity. They would, the land would have its rest.

So in this seven-year cycle, what we see is we see a seven-year cycle of first year, second year, third tithe, fourth year, fifth year, third tithe, land rest.

Seven years. And then it would just repeat. It would go through the cycle yet again. But there was something more. There was something more to this.

God had another Sabbath that he desired his people to keep that was used, was calculated, essentially, based off of the seven-year cycle.

After seven of those seven-year cycles, from the end of the 49th year into the 50th year, God gave his people a very special instruction. Bump back up in Leviticus 25. Leviticus 25 and verse 8, And you shall count seven Sabbaths of years for yourself, seven times seven years, and the time of seven Sabbaths of years shall be to you 49 years. So after seven of these seven-year cycles, you reach the end of the 49th year, that last land Sabbath is done with. God says, after the seventh one, verse 9, Then you shall cause the trumpet of the Jubilee to sound on the tenth day of the seventh month.

That trumpet of the Jubilee, that blowing of the ram's horn, was to occur on the day of atonement, on the fiftieth year, on the day of atonement.

And you shall make the trumpet to sound throughout all of your land. Verse 10, And you shall consecrate the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout all the land to its inhabitants.

It shall be a Jubilee for you, and each of you shall return to his possessions, and each of you shall return to his family. That fiftieth year shall be a Jubilee to you. In it you shall neither sow nor reap what grows of its own accord, nor gather the grapes of your untended vine, for it is the Jubilee. It shall be holy to you. It shall eat its produce from the field. In this year of Jubilee, each of you shall return to his possession.

And if you sell anything to your neighbor, or buy from your neighbor's hand, you shall not oppress one another. Verse 15, According to the number of years after the Jubilee, you shall buy from your neighbor, and according to the number of years of crops he shall sell to you. According to the multitude of years, you shall increase its price, and according to the fewer number of years you shall diminish its price, for he sells to you according to the number of the years of the crops. Therefore, you shall not oppress one another, but you shall fear your God, for I am the Lord your God.

We read earlier Isaiah 58, and the kind of fast that God desired to loose the bonds of wickedness, to relieve and release people from oppression and bondage.

Integral in this day is this concept of a lack of oppression.

You know, this Jubilee year was declared again on the day of atonement on the seventh day, or a tenth day, I'm sorry, of the seventh month.

The priests blew the trumpets throughout the land to consecrate the year, and liberty was to be proclaimed to all of Israel's inhabitants. Now, what is so unbelievably cool about the Jubilee year, I think it's so hard for us to fathom it today, people were released from their debts. Like, here you go, we're good, tear it up, throw it away. It no longer existed.

Any debt that they had incurred to that point was forgiven. If they'd sold themselves into servitude, because they didn't have money to take care of their family, if they'd sold themselves into servitude when that fiftieth year... Even if it was a day, or even if it was a year, you hit that fiftieth year, you're free. You're released. You get to go home. You get to go see your family again. If you had a family inheritance in a land holding that somebody had made a terrible financial mistake with, and managed to sell off, you know, two, three generations back, or maybe a couple generations back, get too far, we get outside of 50 years. At the 50-year mark, that land returned to its original owners. Families could return to their original inheritance that God had provided for them, because the land was His. Israel was tenants on God's land.

The land was His. But that ensured you didn't have future generations that had to pay for the mistakes of the previous generations. The Jubilee, very much like pushing a button, represented a hard reset on the economic system in Israel. A complete hard reset on the economic system. Again, can you imagine even what that might be like today? Okay, let's put ourselves in our modern glasses on here for a minute and think about it. If you owned land for 25 years, and you decided to sell it to somebody, you would have to price that land based on the number of years remaining to the Jubilee. You couldn't have an assessor come out and say, oh, your property's worth $300,000. It's only worth how many more years that guy gets to own it. At 50 years, it's done. It's yours again. So it's not like you could be like, oh, we got five years to go to the Jubilee. I'll get 400 grand out of this place. That doesn't work. That does not work. And so it's a situation where the value of your land is priced upon how much time is remaining. The buyer themselves know this as well. They know that the Jubilee is going to ultimately come and that they're not going to have that land. On the 50th year, your student loans are forgiven. Hopefully you're not paying on them for 50 years. You never know. It's getting more expensive, but your student loans are forgiven. You know, your loan on your home would be forgiven, which again, hopefully you're not paying for 50 years, but you would be released from your debts, the debts that you incurred.

And you know, it is so hard for us to fathom this and even think about what this looks like, because our economic system is built on debt. It's built on debt. It's built on the concept of taking on debt.

God's system, while there may have been debt in certain capacities, was based on a financial freedom and based upon liberty. The Jubilee represents freedom. It represents liberty. And Jesus Christ has fulfilled many of these aspects of the Jubilee, some of these things that are wrapped into this concept of the Day of Atonement. The title of the message today is the Jubilee of Atonement. The Jubilee of Atonement. Again, contradiction in terms. You're all fasting. And a lot of Jubilee going on. You're hungry. Maybe your head doesn't work right. Didn't have your morning coffee, right? But there is a Jubilee in Atonement that is implicit in this day. And so, with the time that we have left today, I'd like to take a look at what Christ has done and see how these aspects of the Jubilee have been fulfilled to a degree and in part in our lives as Christians today. The first thing that has been done is we have been freed from our bondage. We have been freed from our bondage. And we'll get into what that means here in a little bit. We have been released from our debts. Number two, we have been released from our debts. And the third point is that our inheritance has been returned to us. Our inheritance has been returned to us. So we have been freed from our bondage. We have been released from our debts. And our inheritance has been returned to us. Let's take a look at this concept of being freed from our bondage. Let's go to Romans 6. Started hearing Mr. Emery start saying Romans today and I got a little nervous. It's all right. He went all the way around where I'm going to be today. So it worked out really good. It wouldn't be a problem either either way. You know, reading it once, twice, three times, it doesn't matter. Let's go to Romans 6. Romans 6, in this particular area, you have this incredible treatise on sin. You have this treatise on law, grace, repentance, and honestly, some of the core doctrines of the Church of God are located in this section of Romans 6, 7, and 8. Some of these ideas of how these things all kind of intersect. This section in Romans 6, 7, and 8 is required reading during baptismal counseling.

Absolute required reading because it is absolutely all about how we interact with God, how we interact with Christ, how we interact with one another, how we deal with sin, how all of these things are in this section. And it really gives a pretty succinct explanation of the kind of predicament that we find ourselves in as humans and ultimately of God's final solution to the process, like how He's going to fix it.

Romans 6, we'll pick it up in verse 1, says, What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? Well, certainly not. How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it? Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? Therefore, we were buried with Him through baptism into death that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so, we also should walk in newness of life.

For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection. Knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin. So, he gets into this idea that we are in bondage, or were in bondage, so to speak, to sin.

Verse 7, for he who has died has been freed from sin. Now, if we also or if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more. Death no longer has dominion over Him. For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all, but the life that He lives, He lives to God. Likewise, you also reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus, our Lord.

Therefore, as a result of all the things above, do not let sin reign in your mortal body that you should obey it in its lusts. And do not present your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin, but present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law, but under grace.

Paul identifies sin as bondage, that it is a slavery of sorts, to be slaves to sin, he mentions. And this is not the only place that we see this symbolism. You know, this is not the only place we see this. We talk about this during the spring holy days when, you know, Israel came out of Egypt.

It was a type of us coming out of the bondage of sin. We become slaves to righteousness. We become slaves to Jesus Christ, more so a bond servant. We're kind of willingly signing ourselves up for this particular slavery. It's not like we got shanghaied and then sold on a block somewhere.

This is a situation of us willingly saying, I am putting myself before my Lord and Master, and willing to obey his every word. That's the type of bond servant in slavery that is being kind of addressed here when Paul, throughout his epistles, talks of being a bond servant to Jesus Christ. Verse 15 goes on, says, What then shall we sin because we're not under law but under grace? Well, certainly not.

You know, and Paul had a way of asking these sort of rhetorical questions and then quickly answering himself. I've heard him—well, anyway. I think, I believe it was Mr. New, actually—used to refer to Paul as the hot dog apostle. And because there was an old commercial on that used to ask whether hot dogs were made of meat or made of real meat or something along those lines, and the immediate response is, well, of course!

And so it's kind of the hot dog epistle here. But asking these questions and then answering himself, these kind of rhetorical questions, says, Do you not know that to whom you present yourselves slaves to obey, you are that one's slaves whom you obey, whether of sin leading to death or of obedience leading to righteousness? He says, But God be thanked that though you were slaves of sin, though you were slaves of sin, yet you obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine to which you were delivered.

And having been set free from sin, you became slaves of righteousness. He says, I speak in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh. For just as you presented your members as slaves of uncleanness and of lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves of righteousness for holiness.

For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regards to righteousness. But now, sorry, what fruit did you have then in the things of which you are now ashamed for the end of those things is death? But now, having been set free from sin and having become slaves of God, you have your fruit to holiness and the end everlasting life. Before Christ's sacrifice on our behalf, we were slaves to sin. After Christ died, after his blood was offered on our behalf, expunging our sins, after we willingly accepted that blood on our behalf and Christ became our Lord and our Master, we became a bondservant or a slave to Christ instead.

Now, that does not mean that we will live perfectly without sin. That does not mean that there will never ever, ever be another reason to repent or to come to God and ask for forgiveness. That's why grace exists, because we do fall short.

But it means that we are no longer slaves to sin in our life. That price has been paid, and we have the ability to willingly put ourselves under another yoke, because we've been redeemed.

You know, redeemed is a kind of a marketplace term. It's a kind of a financial term. If a person were to lose their field to a creditor, it could be redeemed, or it could be bought back by the family. As you might imagine, it's often a pretty steep price to redeem your field. I don't know if you've ever dealt with bankrupt properties and things like that. There's a rigmarole that has to be jumped through in order for that to all occur. But we've been ransomed. We've been redeemed. We've been bought back with the blood of Jesus Christ. That is what has been paid for us.

Not only have we been forgiven, not only have we been reconciled, we have literally been bought back from the enemy. The one that we willingly put ourselves to slavery under before we knew what we know now. Often we do that in our own ignorance. Sometimes we do it in our own willingness. But what it means is that we have to make a change in our lives as a result of that redemption. As a result of that price that was paid on our behalf. Turn over to 1 Corinthians 6.

1 Corinthians 6.

And we'll go ahead and pick it up in verse 18 of 1 Corinthians 6. 1 Corinthians 6 in verse 18 starts out with just a very, you know, adamant, you know, command, flee sexual immorality. It says, every sin that a man does is outside the body, but he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body. Verse 19, it says, or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? You are not your own. You are not your own. For you were bought at a price. Therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God's. The point that he's making here to the church in Corinth is you're not your own. Once you've been bought back, once you've been ransomed, you're not your own.

Doesn't mean you don't have free will. Doesn't mean you're an automaton that doesn't have freedom of choice. It means that there has to be a recognition in our hearts that we're living for a different purpose now. That we're living in a different way now than we were before.

That we've changed, that we're different. Once again, Hebrews 9 12 stated that with his own blood, he entered the Most Holy Place once and for all. He paid that price. He bought you.

He purchased you back from the enemy with that blood.

But it goes on to say that he went into that Most Holy Place once and for all, having obtained eternal redemption. Having obtained eternal redemption. Can you imagine that concept?

Eternal redemption. A redemption that doesn't have to happen year after year after year after year, but a redemption that goes on and on and on for eternity.

A life that allows us to be a part of God's family and a part of his kingdom. That blood redeemed us eternally and we have been released from our bondage to sin.

And that has been done through a fulfillment of this aspect of atonement, of him going into that Most Holy Place with his blood.

So it's on us to ensure that as we go forward from that point, that our thoughts and our actions, our words, the things that we do, that they're befitting the price that was paid for our life.

To be befitting the price that was paid to buy us back. And ultimately, that aspect is on us. You know, that aspect is on us. That's our decisions. That's our character. That's our, you know, both good and bad, our character. But we have been redeemed. We've been released from our slavery and we've become slaves to righteousness, which is certainly something worth rejoicing over. The second point today is that Christ released us from our debts.

That we've been released from our debts. We've built up an incredible debt going through our lives with our ongoing transgression, with our ongoing sins. We have each individually earned the death penalty for our sins. Romans 3.23 says all have sinned and fallen short. You know, if you ever meet somebody who says, I don't sin, you might want to step take a couple steps back.

Yes, they do. Yes, they do. You know, that's a dangerous attitude to have to think that we don't ever sin. Romans 3.23 states all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.

And then Romans 6.23 kind of tacks on to that and says, and the wages of that sin is death.

That we earn a death penalty as a result of our transgression of the law, of our missing the mark. God says, this is the standard and we're over here. That's a problem. God says, I need you here. I need you in the bull's eye, so to speak. What's fascinating about Romans 6.23, though, is that it doesn't just stop with the wages of sin as death. It goes on to say, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus, our Lord. Each of us have earned a death penalty that we cannot work our way out of. We can't work our way out of it. We can't like go to a labor camp and put in a certain amount of toil and say, okay, we're done. We're good. Thank you. I've paid my debt. That's not how it works. There's nothing that we can physically do, us, just us, to reconcile ourselves to God and pay that debt. That gap had to be bridged, and the gap was bridged by Jesus Christ. Let's go over to Colossians 2. Go ahead and start turning over there. Many of you have probably experienced a debt in your life at one point in time. Some of you might be thinking, yeah, more than one or two. I think we've all had debt at one point or another, whether it was a home purchase, you know, whether it was student loans, whether home improvement loans, whether, you know, whatever it might be, car loans, something along those lines. Or maybe we just borrowed, you know, 10-15 bucks from a friend and had to pay him back. We have probably all experienced debt to a certain degree.

And you've probably experienced the joy, and I say that in quotes, of making those payments to try to bring down that interest and that principle. You know, it's kind of fun when you play games that are financially based, like Monopoly and things, to watch your kids have the moment of, I have to do what? What do you mean I have to pay this? I don't want to pay this! There's a video I saw recently of a young kid who was just sobbing his poor eyes out because he had to pay taxes, and his parents videoed it because they're going, yeah, welcome to all of us. We feel the same way when it comes time to pay taxes. He was just like, why do they get my money? It's like, yeah, welcome to it. That's the way we all feel. But as you've made those payments, whether it was a five-year term or even a 15 or a 30-year term, when you finally pay that loan off, when you finally get that little statement back in the mail that says paid in full, how good does that feel? It feels pretty amazing. It feels pretty amazing. I remember when I paid my student loan payment off and I got that little paid in full down at the bottom. That is incredible to know that, now, wait a minute, I don't owe this person money anymore. There's a degree of freedom that is here today that was not here yesterday. That money can go someplace else. And it always does. It always goes someplace else. You know, you never quite know where sometimes, but it always goes someplace else. But it is an incredible feeling and, frankly, it is a relief to have that debt off of your shoulders, to have that burden off of your shoulders. The Bible talks about how the borrower is slave to the lender. The borrower is slave to the lender. That when you take a debt onto your shoulders, that we become a slave to the person who has lent us that money or whatever that debt may be. You know, as we saw kind of earlier, as we partake of sin and when we partake of sin, we become a slave to that lender as well.

We're indebted to the consequences of those sins and to the terms of that agreement, so to speak.

In Colossians 2, we're going to pick it up in verse 11. Colossians 2 and verse 11, it says, "...in him you were also circumcised with the circumcision made without hands by putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ, buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead." So this is talking about the conversion process, us getting to the point where we are cut to the heart to where we want to commit to God through baptism and then through what that process entails. Verse 13, "...and you being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, he is made alive together with him, having forgiven you all your trespasses." Or, forgiving you all trespasses. "...having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us, and he has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross." Now, some want to take this passage and they want to say, well, that's the law that God tacked to the cross. You don't have to do any of that anymore. It's gone. It's taken care of.

But it seems like there's vast tracts of Scripture that contradict that.

So that must not be the interpretation here. So what's it getting at? What was Paul telling the church in Colossae? Well, one first clue that we get of what's being discussed here is it should come from the term of contrary to us or against us. God's law is described as being holy, just, and good. It's described as being a blessing. It's not against us. What could be against us, though, from a standpoint of the law? What was against us and what Christ wiped out and removed talked about in the passage right above this was the record of our sin, the handwriting of requirement, so to speak. Like you incurred this debt. Ben Light dead. Messed up dead.

He wiped out that requirement, that handwriting, that debt, that record.

He wiped out the record of wrongs. He canceled the debt. He cleared the debt. He paid that price for us.

He gave up his life to provide us with the freedom of being released from the burden of that debt, being released from the consequences of that debt, taking it on to himself once and for all to provide us with the opportunity to be washed clean. Not just covered, not just cleansed, washed clean. Whiter than snow. Whiter than snow. We don't get a lot of snow here. We're back up in Spokane when it snows pretty frequently. You know, it is amazing how much cleaner the ground looks after a fresh blanket of snow. And light reflects off, I mean, it's like middle of the night, middle of the night, and it's brightest day sometimes with a full moon, just from the reflection.

Whiter than snow. Christ's sacrifice released us from our debts and gave us liberty in him.

Gave us liberty in him. So we've seen that we've had, ultimately, our debts have been released.

Okay? We've seen that God has, you know, taken care of the return, or will return us to our inheritance. My apologies. That's our next point. Return to our inheritance. You go back all the way to the Garden of Eden. You go back all the way to the Garden of Eden. God's intent was for mankind to be his children. That was the beginning. That was the process. In Genesis 3, go ahead and turn back there real quick. We see Satan become involved in tempting Eve, and both her and Adam sinning as a result of that temptation. Genesis 3, we'll pick it up in verse 1. Genesis 3 in verse 1.

Genesis 3 in verse 1 says, Now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, Has God indeed said, You shall not eat of every tree of the garden. And the woman said to the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden, but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, You shall not eat it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die. Then the serpent said to the woman, You will not surely die. For God knows that in the day you eat of it, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil. And so when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. She also gave to her husband with her, and he ate.

Verse 7, And the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked, and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves coverings. And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden of the cool of the day, and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. Adam and Eve bought the lie. They sold their inheritance, so to speak, for the chance to do something different.

Which, I'm sure, seemed great at the time. You know, at least food looked good. You know, it looked like it was desirable for food and would make one wise. Kind of makes you wonder, we don't really have a record of their thought processes after this event, but it kind of makes you wonder how much they kicked themselves going forward after having gone through this. You know, we don't really see that recorded, but you know, they were painfully human as well.

The sin occurred, they were removed from the garden, and as the Bible story unfolds, our inheritance from the beginning was designed to be with God. It was the way it was from the beginning. Now God knew how things were going to be. He understood that there would be a need for a Savior. But our inheritance from the beginning was designed to be with God, and ultimately it will again be with God in the kingdom. Revelation talks of this time when God will dwell with men, when kind of the fulfillment of the plan, part of the plan at least, that we're here to commemorate today is realized in full. But Christ's sacrifice is symbolized by the events of the Day of Atonement, enables us to become children of God. It enables us to return to our familial inheritance and to inherit, again, what was lost, what was kind of bartered away in previous generations, so to speak. Let's go over Romans 8. Romans 8. We'll go ahead and pick it up in verse 1.

Again, keeping in mind and thinking about the inheritance that ultimately man was created for, that it was God's goal that we be a part of his family, that we be a part of the kingdom, that we have that opportunity. And then as we see the story unfold, we see successive generations just bartering it away, just giving away our inheritance. Well, during the Jubilee, inheritances are returned. During the events of what we see on the Day of Atonement and on the Jubilee, these things are returned. Chapter 8 and verse 1 says, There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law could not do, and that it was weak through the flesh, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh on account of sin, he condemned sin in the flesh. So we see that he has redeemed us from this bondage. He's redeemed us and paid our debt. That the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. To be carnally minded is death, and to be spiritually minded is life and peace. Because the carnal mind is enmity against God, for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be. So then those who are in the flesh cannot please God. Verse 9, but you are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you.

Now if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not his.

Now when you have that question that occasionally will come up from individuals as to, well, I've lived this way of life my entire life, why do I have to get baptized?

Right there. Because God's Spirit dwelling in you is necessary.

It's important. And if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. But if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your immortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you. Verse 12, therefore, brethren, we are debtors not to the flesh to live according to the flesh, for if you live according to the flesh, you will die. But if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. Verse 14, for as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God. For you did not receive the Spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, Abba, Father. The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God. Now notice verse 17, and if children then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with him, that we may also be glorified together. We are heirs to the inheritance. We are heirs to be a part of the kingdom of God.

That was sold off a long time ago, you know, and a lot of things kind of happened down that road, but the events of the day of atonement, like the Jubilee, can result in that inheritance being restored. We are now heirs to the promise of eternal life with our great God. We are now children of God. We have been released of our bondage to sin. We've had that debt of death that has been paid for us, and ultimately our inheritance has been and is being restored.

God will see through these great promises that he has provided us that are wrapped into the meaning and the symbolism of his Holy Day plan. Shannon, I wish you both a wonderful remainder of your day of atonement, as well as a very meaningful and rewarding feast of tabernacles in eighth day, wherever you might be keeping it. I think we have folks getting on planes to fly to Jamaica here. Later this week, we have some folks heading to Italy and France and just over the mountains to Bend. We have folks heading all over the place. We wish you safe travels. We look forward to hearing about it all when you guys return and look forward to seeing many of you in Bend Round.