The Great Sacrifice of Judgment Day
Introduction: Judgment Day Is Also Known as “the Day of the LORD’s Sacrifice“
While many people are familiar with many of the doctrines from the Bible that pertain to “Judgment Day” and “Hell”, few people are likely to have been made aware of some of the more foreboding aspects of God’s declarations concerning Judgment day as well as the analogies that God presents concerning that Great and Terrible Day. One of those analogies is that God calls Judgment Day, “the day of the LORD’S sacrifice.” This is made clear in the following verses:
- Zephaniah 1:7&8, “Hold thy peace at the presence of the Lord GOD: for the day of the LORD [is] at hand: for the LORD hath prepared a sacrifice, he hath bid his guests. And it shall come to pass in the day of the LORD’S sacrifice, that I will punish the princes, and the king’s children, and all such as are clothed with strange apparel.” [Note: The “strange apparel” means that those who are to be punished do not have the Robes of Christ Righteousness, the “wedding garment” that we read about in Matthew 22:11-14, and Revelation 19:7-9]
- Isaiah 34:6-10, “The sword of the LORD is filled with blood, it is made fat (דָּשֵׁן (dāšēn))H1878 with fatness (חֵלֶב (ḥēleḇ))H2459, [and] with the blood of lambs and goats, with the fat (חֵלֶב (ḥēleḇ))H2459 of the kidneys of rams: for the LORD hath a sacrifice in Bozrah, and a great slaughter in the land of Idumea. And the unicorns shall come down with them, and the bullocks with the bulls; and their land shall be soaked with blood, and their dust made fat (דָּשֵׁן (dāšēn))H1878 with fatness (חֵלֶב (ḥēleḇ))H2459. For [it is] the day of the LORD’S vengeance, [and] the year of recompences for the controversy of Zion. And the streams thereof shall be turned into pitch, and the dust thereof into brimstone, and the land thereof shall become burning pitch. It shall not be quenched night nor day; the smoke thereof shall go up for ever: from generation to generation it shall lie waste; none shall pass through it for ever and ever.” (NOTE: Regarding the word that is translated as “pitch”, please also see: “Noah’s Ark versus Moses’ Ark“.)
- Ezekiel 39:17-21, “¶And, thou son of man, thus saith the Lord GOD; Speak unto every feathered fowl, and to every beast of the field, Assemble yourselves, and come; gather yourselves on every side to my sacrifice that I do sacrifice for you, even a great sacrifice upon the mountains of Israel, that ye may eat flesh, and drink blood. Ye shall eat the flesh of the mighty, and drink the blood of the princes of the earth, of rams, of lambs, and of goats, of bullocks, all of them fatlings (מְרִיא (mᵊrî’))H4806 of Bashan. And ye shall eat fat till ye be full, and drink blood till ye be drunken, of my sacrifice which I have sacrificed for you. Thus ye shall be filled at my table with horses and chariots, with mighty men, and with all men of war, saith the Lord GOD. ¶And I will set my glory among the heathen, and all the heathen shall see my judgment that I have executed, and my hand that I have laid upon them.” [NOTE: (מְרִיא (mᵊrî’))H4806 means in the original Hebrew “fat cattle” or “fat beasts“.]
- Jeremiah 46:10, “For this [is] the day of the Lord GOD of hosts, a day of vengeance, that he may avenge him of his adversaries: and the sword shall devour, and it shall be satiate and made drunk with their blood: for the Lord GOD of hosts hath a sacrifice in the north country by the river Euphrates.“
Note also the close similarity between Isaiah 34:10, “It shall not be quenched night nor day; the smoke thereof shall go up for ever: from generation to generation it shall lie waste; none shall pass through it for ever and ever.” and what we read in Revelation 14:9-11, “¶And the third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, If any man worship the beast and his image, and receive [his] mark in his forehead, or in his hand, The same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb: And the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever: and they have no rest day nor night, who worship the beast and his image, and whosoever receiveth the mark of his name.”
These verses can only be pointing to the ultimate sacrifice on Judgment Day when the people of the world (the strangers) are destroyed (typified by the fat) and the smoke of their torment goes up forever as a perpetual sacrifice to God and for God?
“Fat“ Is That Which Is Reserved for the Fire of Judgment, and “All the Fat is the LORD’s“
Leviticus 3:16&17, “And the priest shall burn them upon the altar: [it is] the food of the offering made by fire for a sweet savour: all the fat (חֵלֶב (ḥēleḇ))H2459 [is] the LORD’S. [It shall be] a perpetual statute for your generations throughout all your dwellings, that ye eat neither fat (חֵלֶב (ḥēleḇ))H2459 nor blood.”
Leviticus 7:23, “Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, Ye shall eat no manner of fat (חֵלֶב (ḥēleḇ))H2459, of ox, or of sheep, or of goat.“
“Fatlings” can be linked with Destruction
Back in Ezekiel 39:17&18, “¶And, thou son of man, thus saith the Lord GOD; Speak unto every feathered fowl, and to every beast of the field, Assemble yourselves, and come; gather yourselves on every side to my sacrifice that I do sacrifice for you, even a great sacrifice upon the mountains of Israel, that ye may eat flesh, and drink blood. Ye shall eat the flesh of the mighty, and drink the blood of the princes of the earth, of rams, of lambs, and of goats, of bullocks, all of them fatlings (מְרִיא (mᵊrî’))H4806 of Bashan.” The word translated into English as “fatlings” comes from the original Hebrew word מֵחַ (mēaḥ)H4220, meaning “fat ones“. There are only two places that “fatlings” (as translated from this Hebrew word מֵחַ (mēaḥ)H4220) are found in the Bible: Psalm 66:15, “I will offer unto thee burnt sacrifices of fatlings, מֵחַ (mēaḥ)H4220 with the incense of rams; I will offer bullocks with goats. Selah.” and Isaiah 5:17, “Then shall the lambs feed after their manner, and the waste places of the fat ones מֵחַ (mēaḥ)H4220 shall strangers eat.“
Interestingly, the word that is translated in English as “fatlings“ מֵחַ (mēaḥ)H4220 is derived from the root word מָחָה (māḥâ)H4229, which the King James Translators interpreted in the following manner: (blot, put, etc)…out (17x), destroy (6x), wipe (4x), blot (3x), wipe away (2x), abolished (1x), marrow (1x), reach (1x), utterly (1x). For example, Genesis 6:7, “And the LORD said, I will destroy (מָחָה (māḥâ))H4229 man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them.”
Conclusion: “the Day of the LORD’s Sacrifice” Is Judgment Day
God‘s Judgment is the primary focus. The salvation side of this, however, is that God‘s Judgment and Justice has already been appeased for the believers with the Sacrifice of His Dear Son, Jesus Christ. It is interesting to note that fat often refers to bone marrow fat, which can only come from animals that make blood. This clearly points to the fact that, without the shedding of blood with the appropriate sacrifice, there is no remission of sins. Jesus Christ, Who Is eternal God, had to become the sin bearer for all of His Elect, and the smoke of His torment for our sins satisfies the eternal aspect of forever and ever, as well. (The study of Jonah Chapter 2 makes this very clear.)
However, we also know that on “Judgment Day”, “The Great Day of the LORD”, “God’s Day of Vengeance”, and “the Day of the LORD’s sacrifice”…for all those whose sins are not covered by the Atoning shed Blood of Jesus Christ back on the Cross in 33AD will become part of that eternal burning fatling fat of the LORD’s sacrifice, where the smoke of their torment will go up forever and ever that will begin on Judgment Day. Judgment Day is real and coming soon and Hell is real.
Revelation 19:17&18, “¶And I saw an angel standing in the sun; and he cried with a loud voice, saying to all the fowls that fly in the midst of heaven, Come and gather yourselves together unto the supper of the great God; That ye may eat the flesh of kings, and the flesh of captains, and the flesh of mighty men, and the flesh of horses, and of them that sit on them, and the flesh of all [men, both] free and bond, both small and great.” and then Revelation 19:21, “And the remnant were slain with the sword of him that sat upon the horse, which [sword] proceeded out of his mouth: and all the fowls were filled with their flesh.” The One Who sits on the white horse is the LORD Jesus Christ, as we find stated clearly in Revelation 19:11-16, and the sword out of His mouth is the Word of God.
Hosea 9:5, “What will ye do in the solemn day, and in the day of the feast of the LORD?“
POSTSCRIPT: Another Description of Judgment Day
This post began with reference to Zephaniah 1:7&8 regarding the “LORD’S sacrifice” as another description of Judgment Day. But God provides us with more details when we read further in the same chapter. [NOTE: The reader must be aware that while it can be said that these verses were, in the first instance, a prophecy against Judah and Jerusalem in the days of Zephaniah of the destruction to come under Nebuchadnezzar from Babylon, nonetheless that destruction and desolation only served as a temporal prefigurement of the final Judgment Day that is yet to come.]
Zephaniah 1:12-18, “And it shall come to pass at that time, [that] I will search Jerusalem with candles, and punish the men that are settled on their lees: that say in their heart, The LORD will not do good, neither will he do evil. Therefore their goods shall become a booty, and their houses a desolation: they shall also build houses, but not inhabit them; and they shall plant vineyards, but not drink the wine thereof. The great day of the LORD [is] near, [it is] near, and hasteth greatly, [even] the voice of the day of the LORD:the mighty man shall cry there bitterly.That day [is] a day of wrath, a day of trouble and distress, a day of wasteness and desolation, a day of darkness and gloominess, a day of clouds and thick darkness, A day of the trumpet and alarm against the fenced cities, and against the high towers.And I will bring distress upon men, that they shall walk like blind men, because they have sinned against the LORD:and their blood shall be poured out as dust, and their flesh as the dung.Neither their silver nor their gold shall be able to deliver them in the day of the LORD’S wrath; but the whole land shall be devoured by the fire of his jealousy: for he shall make even a speedy riddance of all them that dwell in the land.“
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