Once for All: How Hebrews Ends the Day of Atonement

The Day of Atonement is here and various COG groups fast this day beleiving it is still required, but it is not a New Covenant command. The New Covenant does not demand fasting on this specific day or treat it as a binding annual ritual. Armstrongist groups continue the practice because it is central to their identity as keepers of "God's festivals," and in high-control settings it functions as one element of a larger legalistic system of required observances, financial demands, and loyalty tests.

Old Covenant ritual vs. New Covenant fulfillment

The Day of Atonement is detailed in Leviticus 16 and 23:26-32. It involved the high priest entering the Holy of Holies once a year with blood, two goats (one sacrificed, one sent away as the scapegoat), and the command to "afflict your souls," which later Jewish practice understood as a complete fast. It was the most solemn day of the Mosaic calendar. 

The New Testament treats this as a shadow fulfilled in Christ. Hebrews 9-10 is explicit: the annual ritual could never take away sins; Christ entered the true heavenly sanctuary once for all with His own blood and sat down, ending the need for repeated offerings. "Where there is forgiveness of these, there is no longer any offering for sin" (Hebrews 10:18). The tearing of the temple veil at Jesus' death further signals the end of restricted access that the Day of Atonement ritual represented. 

Colossians 2:16-17 groups festivals, new moons, and Sabbaths together as "a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ." The consistent mainstream Christian reading is that these calendar observances are no longer binding. Romans 14 and Galatians 4:8-11 likewise warn against making days a matter of obligation or judgment. 

Acts 27:9 mentions "the Fast" only as a seasonal time marker for dangerous sailing weather. Luke uses a well-known Jewish term for dating; it does not constitute a command that Gentile or Jewish Christians must keep the day. The early church fasted for specific purposes (commissioning workers, appointing elders), not as an annual atonement ritual.

 

Fasting under the New Covenant

Fasting appears in the New Testament as a voluntary discipline, not a mandated calendar event. Jesus assumes His followers will fast ("when you fast," Matthew 6:16-18) and predicts they will after He is taken away (Matthew 9:15), but He gives no required days, durations, or connection to the Day of Atonement. The only Torah-commanded fast was the Day of Atonement. Once that system is fulfilled, fasting is a matter of personal or congregational liberty for prayer and seeking God, not a requirement for atonement or covenant standing. 

Armstrongist groups (United Church of God, Living Church of God, Philadelphia Church of God, and others that retain Herbert W. Armstrong's teachings) disagree. They argue Leviticus 23 remains binding, the rituals of Leviticus 16 are fulfilled but the day itself is not, and Acts 27:9 proves the early church kept it. They treat the 24-hour complete fast as an enduring command that pictures both Christ's work and the future binding of Satan. 

How the practice functions in Armstrongism

Herbert W. Armstrong taught that true Christians must observe the seventh-day Sabbath and the annual holy days of Leviticus 23, including a full fast on Atonement as a precurser to the Feast of Tabernacles. These days were presented as pictures of God's plan of salvation and as tests of obedience. Failure to keep them marked someone as outside "God's church." This was paired with British Israelism, a hierarchical "government of God" through the ministry, rejection of the Trinity, and a multi-tithe system (first tithe to the church, second tithe for holy-day expenses and travel, third tithe every third year, plus extra offerings). The original Worldwide Church of God after Armstrong's 1986 death rejected these requirements and moved toward evangelical Protestantism (now Grace Communion International). Numerous splinter groups did not. In those groups the holy days, including Atonement, serve several practical functions:

They create a distinct identity separate from "apostate" mainstream Christianity.

They require time off work, travel to designated sites (especially the Feast of Tabernacles), and extra expense-reinforcing dependence on the organization.

The complete fast on Atonement is framed as humility and "afflicting the soul," which can be used to measure submission.

Combined with disfellowshipment threats, warnings about the unpardonable sin for questioning leadership, and the claim that only this remnant has the full truth, the observances become loyalty markers. 

Former members and critics have documented authoritarian structures, financial pressure, isolation from family who do not keep the days, and fear-based control. Not every congregation or individual minister operates the same way, and some members experience the days as meaningful worship. The pattern across many Armstrongist groups, however, is that required calendar observance plus exclusive claims plus top-down government produces high-demand religion rather than the liberty described in the New Testament. The New Covenant centers on Christ's finished work, the law written on the heart, and freedom from the ceremonial shadows. Treating an Old Covenant fast day as a continuing command for Christians reverses that order.

New Covenant Christians do not need to observe the Day of Atonement as a required practice. 

The annual ritual, including its commanded fast, belonged to the Old Covenant system that pointed forward to Christ. Once the reality arrived, the shadow no longer binds the people of God.

1. The New Covenant replaces the old sacrificial system. Jeremiah 31:31-34 promised a new covenant in which God would write His law on hearts and remember sins no more. Hebrews 8 quotes that promise and declares the first covenant obsolete. The Day of Atonement was the high point of the old system: one day each year the high priest entered the Most Holy Place with animal blood to cover the nation's sins. That covering was temporary and repeated. The New Covenant is built on a better priesthood, a better sacrifice, and a better promise. Christians live under the new arrangement, not the old one. 

2. Christ's single sacrifice ended the need for annual atonement. Hebrews 9-10 is the clearest New Testament commentary on the Day of Atonement. The high priest entered the earthly sanctuary every year "not without blood." Christ entered the true heavenly sanctuary once for all with His own blood and obtained eternal redemption. "He has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself." Because forgiveness has been secured, "there is no longer any offering for sin." Repeating an atonement ritual would imply that Christ's work was incomplete. New Covenant Christians rest in a finished work, not an annual reenactment. 

3. The holy days were shadows; Christ is the substance. Colossians 2:16-17 groups festivals, new moons, and Sabbaths together and calls them "a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ." The Day of Atonement pictured two things: the removal of guilt and the removal of the source of sin. Both are fulfilled in Jesus-the sacrifice and the scapegoat. Once the substance has come, insisting on the shadow as a requirement reverses the order of revelation. Believers are not to be judged regarding these days because the days themselves no longer function as covenant obligations. 

4. The New Testament never commands the church to keep the dayJesus observed the Mosaic calendar during His earthly ministry because He was born under the law. After His death and resurrection, the apostolic letters contain no instruction that Gentile or Jewish Christians must fast on the tenth day of the seventh month. Acts 27:9 mentions "the Fast" only as a calendar reference for the season. The early church fasted for specific ministry decisions, not as an annual atonement rite. The absence of any command is decisive: what God requires under the New Covenant He states plainly. He does not. 

5. Atonement is something Christ did, not something Christians repeat. Under the old covenant, the people "did" atonement by fasting, resting, and participating in the priestly ritual. Under the New Covenant, atonement is an accomplished fact. God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself. Believers receive that reconciliation by faith; they do not re-perform it each autumn. To treat the Day of Atonement as a continuing duty is to treat Christ's once-for-all offering as insufficient. The proper New Covenant response is gratitude, repentance as a way of life, and confidence of access to God at any time-not a 24-hour fast on a particular calendar date.

6. Fasting remains a liberty, not a law. Jesus assumed His disciples would fast, and the early church did so on occasion. That practice is voluntary and situational. It is never tied in the New Testament to the Day of Atonement or presented as a requirement for remaining in covenant standing. New Covenant Christians may choose to fast on any day, including the traditional date of Yom Kippur, as a personal act of devotion. They are not required to do so, and they are not more spiritual for doing so. Compelling the fast turns a gift of grace into a work of law.

7. The result is freedom, not neglect of holiness. Refusing to keep the Day of Atonement as a command is not antinomianism. It is fidelity to the New Covenant. Holiness now flows from the Spirit writing God's moral will on the heart, from ongoing confession of sin, and from looking to the finished work of the cross. Christians remember Christ's atonement every time they take the Lord's Supper, preach the gospel, or live in the good of forgiveness. They do not need an annual ritual to make that atonement effective again.

The old covenant Day of Atonement was a gracious provision for its time. The New Covenant has something better: a High Priest who sat down because the work was done. New Covenant Christians therefore do not need to "do atonement." They receive it.

Silent Pilgrim