Blog 100: The Atonement Arrangement within Sacred Time
In Blog 2, I showed that the creation week (Genesis 1-2:3) bore time signatures on day 1, day 4, and day 7. On creation days 2 and 3, God created inhabitable spaces supporting life, reversing tohu. God filled the spaces with life on creation days 5 and 6, reversing bohu. Situated at the center, day four’s lamps in the raqia divided the day from night and established the solar and lunar calendar’s annual festival cycle, signs of days and years. While the Creator’s ultimate goal is the seventh day’s universal sacred time, the mid-week annual Feasts signs are the thematic focus, the key to understanding the turning point of the creation literary unit1. The firmament’s two lights rule (Psa. 19:1-4) by serving to call, qara, His image bearers to the light of the Creator’s Presence in worship at appointed sacred times that proclaim His name. Through weekly and annual set festival worship of God, humanity learns how to rule on earth to subdue and bring all creation into the knowledge and praise of the living God (dividing light from darkness). When all that is anti-life has been subdued, the King and His images shabbat on thrones, ruling together, giving perpetual light to the earth.
Genesis 1:14-18’s chiastic structure2 reveals that God fixed the two lamps, the sun and moon, to rule over the day and to rule over the night as the core of the five verses. Marking weekly Sabbaths and yearly months of worship unites the Creator’s will in heaven with His desire done on earth through His images. So, God said, “Let there be lights in the sky”…, and “God made two lights” (Gen. 1:14, 16) for the purpose of achieving a Sabbath without end.
A. To divide the day from the night (14a)
B. for signs, for feasts, for days and years (14b)
C. to give light on the earth (15)
D. the greater to rule the day (16a)
D’. the lesser to rule the night (16b)
C’. to give light on the earth (17)
B’. to rule the day and the night (18a)
A’. to divide the light from the darkness (18b)
Interestingly, the boundaries dividing day and night are marked with the Tabernacle’s daily evening and morning sacrifices. Day by day, communing and engaging with God feeds us discernment and wisdom to govern life. (Recall the word in Genesis 1:6, 14-18 for divides is the verb of bdellium, H0914, הַבְּדֹ֖לַח = 49, 72, “creating a distinction between night and day,” used for making a distinction between clean and unclean, and for the dividing of priests, tribes, and nations for holy use, see Blog 87: The Seventh New Moon). The morning and evening daily sacrifices were blameless (tamim, 490, 72 × 10) animals, the overarching condition one must be to enter the holy tabernacle of meeting (numerically said by 72, seven Sabbaths times the entire amount, 10). Humanity’s connecting with God in worship is the axial point of creation that guarantees the complete fullness of His images with abundant life in His holy Presence. We cannot underestimate the value of YHWH’s Feasts by paying insufficient attention to the center of the creation’s chiastic structure.
The last blog showed how the Day of Atonements, Leviticus 16, is the center of the Pentateuchal chiasmus and YHWH’s center Leviticus command. How does day four’s center position in the week coincide with the timeline of the Feasts of YHWH and the Torah’s Day of Atonements axis?
Looking again at the Pentateuch’s core three scrolls, Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers, we find a time signature in journeying on either side of Leviticus. Exodus has six mentions of travel time before Sinai, and Numbers has six mentions of travel time before the Promised Land3, making a 6 + 1 = 7 equation, which, when increased in power, 62 + 12 = 37, YHWH’s name constant and number of divine speeches in Leviticus. Further, each journey began with mentioning sacred time, the Passover and Unleavened Bread4. Mount Sinai is central to Israel’s trek to the Land, and Leviticus’s Atonement happens at Mount Sinai. YHWH came down upon Mount Sinai at the Feast of Weeks, and the Feast of Trumpets is a memorial of that event’s trumpet blowing announcing the King’s arrival. On the festival timeline, Pentecost and Trumpets form the dual center (matching the two lamps of Day 4), and when considered as one day, the festival timeline adjusts, pulling the Eighth Day into the cosmic Sabbath rest.
But what about the Day of Atonements on the tenth day of the Seventh month? In Israel’s ancient agrarian culture, trumpets were blown to announce the first day of the new moon and its atonement sacrifices, purifying Israel and the Land until the next new moon. However, in the seventh month, there are ten days before the Day of Atonements. Mount Sinai announced God’s coming to dwell in the fire and cloud with His people. The memorial of blowing, Yom Teruah, announces the same. In prophetic literature, Yeshua’s first and second comings merge, attaining the goal of creation to gather all things to the Presence and praise of God. He opened the door for His images to achieve their created purpose through an intimate oneness between them and their Creator (the Way of tamim). Without God in our lives, we lose our identity and purpose. Humans became unholy, contaminated with sin and death, so to be in the Presence of the holy, life-giving God, Yeshua bought us and purified us with His blood. Leviticus is about how to be pure and approach a sacred God. Atonement is central to the Pentateuch. When the chronographic time waves are overlayed (see Blog 88, Ap. 42, letter B), the Day of Atonements falls on Pentecost, the dual center with the Feast of Trumpets. So, in effect, atonement happens at Yeshua’s return, when He will provide atonement for His land and His people (Deu. 32:43), purifying the space and the inhabitants.
Takeaway:
Creation week is a template of God’s work and telos, the overcoming of tohu and bohu through engagement and worship daily, weekly, and annually. The annual Feasts are paired with ruling the day and the night, dividing light from darkness, discerning the borders between life and death. Aligning the center of creation week with the center of God’s feasts and the center of the Pentateuch reveals the Creator’s most essential part to entering into His rest. The center is Sinai, and Sinai’s center is atonement, YHWH dwelling with His people so they might know His names and Torah. If we, His images, live in God’s Presence, absorbing Him, we worship Him. It is He who fills us full of His glory. We become as He is, proclaiming His holy name to all creation.
Fun Factors:
The number of days Israel spent at Mount Sinai receiving the Law and building the Tabernacle was 371, 7 × 53, 53 is the numeric value of “garden” and “Oholibah” (Jerusalem’s symbolic name, meaning “My Tabernacle is in her”). The Eighth Day’s name of YHWH is YHWH-Shammah, “YHWH dwells there,” a numerical sum of 371 (Gen. 2:8; Ezk. 48:35)
Footnotes:
1 Morales, L. Michael. 2015, Who Shall Ascend the Mountain of the Lord? InterVarsity Press, Downers Grove, p. 44, modifications mine
2 Ibid., p. 44, modifications mine
3 Ibid., p. 35
4 Ibid., p. 35