This chapter has a deeper meaning than the instruction for the various feasts; it gives an outline of God's dispensational dealings from the death of the Lord Jesus to the eternal day of rest.
First of all you get the Sabbath, which is marked off from the feasts that follow, which were yearly; this was weekly. We are quite safe in saying God's rest in creation was broken by man's sin; and you do not get the Sabbath again for 2,500 years, when we have it again in connection with the giving of the manna—a lovely type of the Lord Jesus, the One in Whom God could rest.
The Jews accused the Lord of violating the Sabbath. It was given again under the law, and if the Israelites had valued grace they would not have put themselves under law. They said, “All the things the Lord hath commanded us we will do and be obedient,” —presumptuous, ignorant man! When they accused the Lord He said, “My Father worketh hitherto and I work.” God's holiness precluded His resting in a state of sinfulness, and His mercy prevented His resting in a state of misery.
No doubt there was a Sabbath—a rest that nothing could touch quite apart from God's rest in creation. The great thing in the Sabbath is that it is a type of Christ. God finds His rest in Him, and we do too.
It has been pointed out that in the six days of creation we get an outline of all God's dealings until the day of millennial rest, and this is true also of the seven biographies of Genesis; of which that of Joseph prefigures the millennium.
The first annual feast is the Passover, and we have not to speculate about its meaning. The Holy Spirit declares it to us in 1 Cor. 5. By that Passover we have been sheltered from the stroke of judgment. “Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world.” There is the One Who does it, and the new heavens and new earth will witness to it, where “dwelleth [abideth uninterruptedly] righteousness.”
In the institution of the Passover we have the first mention of the blood in connection with sacrifice. The first occurrences in Exodus are very remarkable. In Abel's lamb the fat had prominence; in the ram on Moriah, the horns; in the passover, the blood. Inside the blood-sprinkled doors they fed on the roast lamb, but that did not add to their security. The blood, and that alone, sheltered them from the stroke of judgment. Another thing is very comforting. It does not say the strong in faith had more security than the weak, it was the blood that formed the security. And we are told in Eph. 1 “In whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace.”
For seven days after the Passover—a complete cycle—is “the feast.” It would take up the whole of a Christian's life. “Therefore let us keep the feast, not with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth” (1 Cor. 5). Our standard must be “That ye sin not.” Do not let us lower the standard. There should be the absence of evil thought and deed from the Christian's life. He is regarded as dead, and it is said of him, “Seeing ye have put off the old man with his deeds,” ——that is once for all. It is done with, as God views it. What is true of Christ is viewed of God as true of us. “Put off therefore all these.” There must be no allowance of evil.
Following the Passover (ver. 9) on the first day of the week, when the Lord rose from the dead, the priest waved that sheaf in the temple. If we turn to Joshua, when Israel crossed the Jordan, the river was full, it overflowed its banks all the time of harvest; and they then kept the passover. That was the beginning of harvest, and we learn from Ruth it was barley harvest. So we get the death of Christ, and His resurrection; and we are “a kind of firstfruits” too. Among all the offerings connected with the wave sheaf, there was no sin offering. Is not the Lord the Holy One? Only sweet savor offerings were offered with it. That wave sheaf had to be offered first; and when the disciples plucked the ears of corn, it says it was “the second sabbath after the first.” The literal translation is “the second first sabbath.” It is connected with this. It was the week after, and the Lord shelters them, for this had been offered first.
After this, they had to count fifty days till Pentecost—the assembly of God, where all earthly distinctions disappear. But I think the “two loaves” would be adequate testimony to the presence of the Holy Ghost. And the baptized body was composed of those 120 gathered together when He descended. If you have not the Holy Spirit you do not belong to the assembly; but when God seals the work in a man's soul he is thereby brought into the “one body.” There was leaven in the two loaves-a recognition of the sin in us. As to our conscience, we are perfected in perpetuity, without a single break (Heb. 10:14). In the same chapter it says “having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.” These loaves in Leviticus were baken with leaven, so you not only get the sweet savor offerings, but “one kid of the goats for a sin offering.” So in His grace, God has provided for it, and the evil is atoned for. These loaves too were waved, but they were not burnt on the altar.
No leaven was ever burnt there. The meal offering would be offered there and the priest would take his handful and burn it. That represented Christ, and no leaven could ever be allowed in the representation of Him, the ever holy and undefilable One.
Well, the harvest comes, and the Lord gathers into His barn, and has a harvest. If we turn to Matt. 13 we shall see what was done with the tares and wheat. “Christ the firstfruits"; now we are waiting to be gathered in before the great ingathering of Israel. There is for us no looking for events, or signs; but the personal coming of the Lord Jesus for all His own in the blessed way in which He has presented it in John 14:3.