The Seven Feasts: May 2009
Table of Contents
Sharing God’s Rest
Rest of the saints in glory,
The laborer’s bright reward,
How constant sounds before me,
“Forever with the Lord”;
Rest, through the toil of Jesus,
For saints there does remain;
An endless rest and precious;
A rest from sin and pain.
My longing heart, now pillowed
On Jesus’ breast of love,
Has oft to me foreshadowed,
That blissful rest above;
But, O my soul, remember,
None shall be weary there;
The ransomed without number
God’s blessed rest will share.
His face in radiant glory,
With rapture they will see;
His wounds will tell the story,
To swell the jubilee!
The subjects of salvation
Will praise Him ever there;
While all the new creation
God’s endless rest will share.
Little Flock Hymnbook,
Appendix #30
The Stewardship of Money
The Feasts of Jehovah
The idea of these feasts is the gathering of the people around Jehovah for some cause, a “holy convocation.” The first holy gathering is the Sabbath, and it will be so when the true rest comes. Then follows the Passover, with the unleavened bread, together but still distinct, that is, along with the sacrifice of Christ, you have sin taken away practically. After this we come to the Firstfruits. It is not said exactly when this was to be, but it was when the wheat was ripe. On the morrow after the Sabbath it was to be waved. This is Christ’s resurrection, and here notably there is no sin offering. Then they were to count fifty days, seven Sabbaths complete, and to offer a new meat offering unto Jehovah, “two wave loaves . . . baken with leaven.” In this we have the church offered to God, but with leaven in the offering, so that it could not be burnt upon the altar for a sweet savor. The two loaves are an adequate witness. For the blowing of the trumpets we leap on to the seventh month, and then comes the first day of that holy month as the next appointed time. First, the trumpets are blown and gather Israel; then, on the tenth day of the same month, Israel enters into the Day of Atonement. And, finally, there follows the feast of tabernacles, seven days unto Jehovah. The first day is a holy convocation, and the eighth day a holy convocation, that is, an additional day. When the feast of tabernacles on earth is come, we shall get the heavenly things too.
J. N. Darby
Theme of the Issue
The Seven Feasts of Jehovah
The Three Groups of Feasts
When Jehovah delivered Israel from the bondage of Egypt, He brought them into relationship with Himself in a way that would teach them the cost of redemption and the importance of holiness. He gave them seven solemn feasts to keep these things in remembrance. They are divided into three groups of feasts corresponding with three annual celebrations when all the males were to go up to Jerusalem. These three celebrations reveal the Lord’s dispensational plan of blessing for the past, present and future. The first two feasts were celebrated along their journey through the wilderness, but the others were celebrated only after they arrived in the land of Canaan. These last feasts align with the spring harvest of barley and wheat and the fall harvest of olives and grapes. At that time they rejoiced together with Jehovah over the harvest of their fields. Though Israel did not at that time know the fullness of God’s plan, yet they rejoiced together with Him concerning similar things. God could celebrate with those who had faith and obedience in keeping His feasts. He with His foreknowledge could view them as a preview of Christ and His work. Now, after the full revelation of God’s purposes in Christ has been made known, we see how the first two feasts speak of Christ and His past work. We also can see what is being fulfilled in this present time as revealed in the second two feasts, and that which will be fulfilled in the future as portrayed in the last three feasts. May our hearts rejoice with Him in greater measure as we look into His revealed plan of blessing.
The Basis of Blessing
The first feast in each of the three groups is the basis of blessing for what follows. The offering of the Passover lamb is the beginning of all blessing to Israel. Through this Passover they were redeemed from Egypt and brought into relationship with Jehovah. The other feasts depend on this. The feast of unleavened bread was celebrated with the Passover. The eating of unleavened bread for seven days in connection with the Passover shows God’s desires to have His people dwelling with Him in holiness.
The first feast of the second group is that of the Firstfruits. It prefigures the resurrection of the Lord Jesus from among the dead. The Feast of Weeks followed fifty days later when the grain had been harvested. The resurrection of the Lord Jesus opens a new avenue of blessing not connected with the earth. The risen Man has entered heaven and is gathering a people to be with Him at His second coming. The two wave loaves pictured this. The saints are this “new [meal] offering” which was waved before the Lord Jehovah. They are a heavenly people.
The last group of three feasts was celebrated in the seventh month in connection with the fall harvest. These feasts are figurative of the earthly blessing the Lord will establish in His kingdom of righteousness, peace and joy. The close of this kingdom will usher in the eternal rest of God as pictured in the Sabbath of the eighth day.
The distinction between these two spheres of blessing, heavenly and earthly, is important to the proper appreciation of God’s plan. Let us now consider in more detail how each feast fits into the whole plan.
The Passover and
Unleavened Bread
The first two feasts came to pass as they left Egypt and began the wilderness journey. Afterward, Jehovah instituted them, giving them a new calendar (Ex. 12:12) while doing so, as a celebration of their deliverance from Egypt and how, in their haste to leave Egypt, they took no leaven with them on the journey. The feasts also looked forward to the future redemption that the Lord Jesus, the Lamb of God, would accomplish, bringing them into fellowship with Himself in holiness.
The feast of unleavened bread is connected with the Passover. Leaven in Scripture is always a picture of evil working. The children of Israel were to be physically separated from the unclean things of evil. The holiness of God requires separation from evil in order for us to have full fellowship with Him. The seven days of eating unleavened bread was a perfect period of separating themselves unto Jehovah who had called them out of Egypt. God desires to have a people in communion with Himself according to His holiness. The sacrifice of the Passover Lamb made this possible and should cause separation unto Him. This is the basis of fellowship with God.
Today we are to be morally separate from evil. In the celebration of the Lord’s Supper, which supersedes the Passover, we are told to “keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness; but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth” (1 Cor. 5:8). For Israel in times past the unleavened bread was called “bread of affliction,” as it was contrary to human nature. For believers in the present time it is called “the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth”; it is agreeable to the new nature, though not to the old.
The Feasts of Firstfruits
and Pentecost
The second group of feasts was connected with the wheat harvest and was not counted according to lunar months and solar days. It began on the morrow after the Sabbath when the first grain was ready to eat. None were allowed to eat of the grain of the field until a sheaf of it had been presented to Jehovah as a wave offering by the priest. The priest was to keep the sheaf of firstfruits until the first day of the week (the morrow after the Sabbath) when he waved it before the Lord along with its accompanying burnt offering, meal offering and drink offering. This was, no doubt, a reminder to Israel that a thanksgiving to the Lord Jehovah should be the first thing of the new harvest. There is much more in this celebration for us to see. The sheaf of firstfruits represents the resurrection from among the dead of the Lord Jesus Christ. “Now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept” (1 Cor. 15:20). As a man in resurrection life He has ascended into heaven. “He is the head of the body, the church: who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in all things He might have the preeminence” (Col. 1:18).
After the sheaf of firstfruits had been offered, fifty days were counted to culminate the Feast of Weeks. During that time the grain harvest proceeded. When the fifty days were fulfilled, all the males were to go up to worship the Lord in celebration of the harvest. At the Feast of Weeks, the priest waved two loaves of bread baked with leaven as an offering to Jehovah in the same manner as he had waved the sheaf of firstfruits. These loaves were a thanksgiving offering of the food of the harvest.
The two wave loaves represented not only the bounty of food for themselves, but the bountiful harvest for heaven in all believers who have that abundant life (John 10:10) through faith in the Risen One. The Lord Jesus ascended into heaven; He will gather a heavenly people to Himself at the close of this age. This is what we Christians await. The two wave loaves are a representation of these believers. For this reason, they were baked with leaven, a picture of sin, but the action of the leaven was stopped, and a sin offering for them was included in the other offerings. In the sheaf of firstfruits, no sin offering was made, for Christ was sinless.
The heavenly harvest began on the day of Pentecost as recorded in Acts 2, the Holy Spirit being sent down to accomplish this, on that very day of the Feast of Weeks. Through the preaching of the gospel in this present time, souls are born anew. Through faith in Christ, souls receive the resurrection life of Christ (John 11:25-26). The new bodies will be given at His coming, at the completion of the harvest when the Lord returns to take His heavenly saints home. “As in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. But every man in his own order: Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ’s at His coming” (1 Cor. 15:22-23).
The Gleanings Left in the Field
“When ye reap the harvest of your land, thou shalt not make clean riddance of the corners of thy field when thou reapest, neither shalt thou gather any gleaning of thy harvest: thou shalt leave them unto the poor, and to the stranger: I am the Lord your God” (Lev. 23:22). Souls saved during the present time, beginning with the day of Pentecost up until the rapture when the Lord comes, are not the only saints that participate in heavenly blessing with the Lord. There is a special allowance typified in the grain left in the field for others to participate in heavenly blessing. The saints martyred during the tribulation before the Lord’s earthly kingdom (Rev. 20:4) will participate in the heavenly sphere. Once the heavenly harvest is complete, only earthly blessing is left for those who are faithful to the Lord. With them He will establish His kingdom on earth.
Those participating in the heavenly sphere include the Old Testament saints, though it was not made known to them. “Now they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly: wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God: for He hath prepared for them a city” (Heb. 11:16). Although the Old Testament saints do not have the same relationship with Christ, they do have a heavenly portion, and heavenly blessing is superior to earthly. The Lord told His disciples in John 14, when He first revealed the heavenly things, “In My Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto Myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.”
The wheat harvest takes place four months before the fall harvest and is representative of those who will dwell with God in heaven. Scripture consistently uses the sowing and harvest of wheat in reference to the heavenly portion, and it is so in the parables of the kingdom. The Lord reminded the disciples of this when He said, “Say not ye, there are yet four months, and then cometh harvest? behold, I say unto you, Lift up your eyes, and look on the fields; for they are white already to harvest” (John 4:35). The Lord desired the harvest for heaven before the earthly harvest. As the wheat harvest is heavenly, so the harvest of grapes (the vine) and olives is representative of the earthly time of blessing. The last three feasts of Jehovah take up this subject.
The Last Three Feasts
It is significant that the last three feasts return to the lunar calendar. They are prophetic of the “times and the seasons” which have to do with this earth. On the first day of the seventh month Tishri there was to be a memorial day of blowing of trumpets. This first day of Tishri was originally the beginning of the new year before Jehovah instituted the Passover as the beginning of months. The Jews’ civil calendar begins the year on this day.
These last three feasts are prophetic of the preparation for and fulfillment of blessing on earth. Before this can take place, two things are necessary: The people of Israel must return to their land, and they must repent of the rejection and crucifixion of their Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ.
The blowing of trumpets by the priests is the call for Israel to return to their land. Though large numbers have returned since they became a nation in 1948, this cannot be considered a call from the Lord, for they have not as a nation owned Jesus as their Messiah. They are guilty of rejecting Him. During this time since their dispersion, the nations are given to Israel as a city of refuge while Christ is High Priest in heaven. Until that time is finished, as figured in Numbers 35:28, any that return are liable for the avenger of blood, being outside their place of refuge.
The Day of Atonement
After Israel is truly called to return to their land, they will realize their guilt of rejecting the Lord Jesus and will realize that He made atonement for them, as it says in Isaiah 53:45, “Surely He hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem Him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon Him; and with His stripes we are healed.” Though He made atonement long ago, yet they will realize it only when they mourn for Him in true repentance. “I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications: and they shall look upon Me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for Him, as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for Him, as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn” (Zech. 12:10).
The Feast of Tabernacles
The time prefigured in the seven days of the Feast of Tabernacles will follow upon their mourning and repentance. Israel will dwell in unwalled villages, every man sitting under his vine and fig tree, being protected by the Lord from all enemies (Mic. 4:4). Since the attacks of September 11, 2001, and other recent aggressive acts of terrorism in the world, this verse takes on increased significance. The Lord Jesus will bring in earthly blessing, fulfilling all the prophecies given to Israel and the other nations. In the millennial reign of Christ, He will bring the earth back into perfect order (Num. 29:1234). When this is completed, the eighth day of rest will be celebrated as the Lord gives all back to God in a perfect state, that God may be all in all (1 Cor. 15:28).
How wonderful to see that the teaching of these feasts fits together perfectly with the New Testament Scriptures. God, in His dispensation to man, will have His Son, the Lord Jesus, accomplish this, “that in the dispensation of the fullness of times He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth; even in Him” (Eph. 1:10).
D. C. Buchanan
The Feasts of Jehovah
The scriptures in Leviticus 23 bring before us the whole outline of the dealings of God with His people on earth. We will see, however, that while the feasts had a primary application to Israel, God was also looking forward, far beyond the existing state of His ancient people. The feasts served the purpose of gathering Israel around Himself, but they also anticipate that of a superior character—Christianity. God also removes the veil from the age to come, when He will establish the kingdom in glory. We will see God’s purpose in Christ to gather His own around Himself, and we shall be able to trace His dealings, not only for the earth, but also for heaven. God has already won the victory morally in Christ, and soon He will prove it before every eye.
The Sabbath
The Sabbath is mentioned first, introduced in a peculiar manner. In the beginning of the chapter, where the feasts are introduced generally, the Sabbath is named in particular; next, in verse 4, there is a fresh beginning which excludes the Sabbath. Why? Because the Sabbath has a character altogether peculiar to itself. All the other feasts were celebrated but once a year; the Sabbath, every week. There is, therefore, a distinct line of demarcation, and so the second beginning is justified. But still the Sabbath has the character of a feast, for it was of all importance that its twofold witness should be habitually before God’s people — the testimony to His work in creation, and the testimony of the great rest of God which His people are to enjoy at the end.
The rest of glory will be introduced after Christ comes, for “there remains then a sabbatism [sabbath-keeping] to the people of God” (Heb. 4:9 JND). There is a day coming when all creation shall rejoice, when the heavens and earth and all in them unite together. This will be the rest of God, and, when it comes, the Sabbath will again be the distinctive sign of God, which He will have observed and honored through the whole earth.
The Passover
Here we find God laying the foundation for all blessing. God had intervened to deliver His people from bondage, but if God delivers them, He must deliver them righteously. On that night He went through the land to avenge sin, but one thing stayed His hand, namely, the blood of the slain lamb. Wherever this was not on the doorposts and upper lintel, death reigned. Jehovah declared by that blood on the doorposts that only the death of a suited substitute could stay judgment.
The judgment of God falling on the Lamb explains what sin is and calls for. The sprinkling of the blood on the doors answers to the believer’s application of Christ’s blood by faith to his own case. God’s judgment fell on His Son, because He is His Lamb who was able to bear it. The blood of the Lamb is the witness of God’s judgment, but in the richest grace, because it fell on His Son. So 1 Corinthians 5:7 tells us, “Christ our passover is sacrificed for us.”
The Feast of Unleavened Bread
The Passover was followed immediately by the feast of unleavened bread, one being on the fourteenth, the other on the fifteenth, of the same month. As the feast of unleavened bread in the New Testament is treated as beginning with the killing of the Passover lamb, the immediate response of the Christian to Christ’s blood is to walk in holiness. Henceforth God will not have him to claim a single day to himself. At once he is called by the grace of God to own his responsibility to put away all leaven. We know from 1 Corinthians 5:7 that leaven is symbolic of corruption. “Even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us: therefore let us keep the feast.” What feast? That of unleavened bread.
This differs from the Passover, for one day was kept for the Passover and seven days for the feast of unleavened bread. Seven days was a complete cycle of time in connection with God’s people — a full period for men on earth. Keeping the feast of “unleavened bread” typifies the feeding on Christ in His purity, for the unleavened bread was their food through all the seven days. This involved the maintenance of personal holiness. No leaven must be found in their houses. So our walk and ways must be under the sense of responsibility, as separate to the Lord.
Leaven was to be banished from the house as well as from the individual, and this perhaps speaks of ecclesiastical purity. The Lord calls us to beware of allowing leaven anywhere. God wants us to please Him in every relationship, in what is collective as well as our individual walk. If the feast was to begin the first day after the Passover, it was to be continued the full seven days. To keep this feast is always our calling while here.
The Wave Sheaf
The wave sheaf is introduced as quite separate from the Passover and accompanying feast of unleavened bread. But in point of fact the wave sheaf was waved on the first day of the week that followed the Passover. So the Lord was crucified on Friday, lay in the grave on the Sabbath or last day of the week, and rose on the first day [or Sunday]. He was raised from the dead on the very day the wave sheaf was waved before Jehovah. The risen One had left the grave and broken its power for believers, and thus the type of the wave sheaf begins a new order of things, distinguished from all before.
In the wave sheaf we have prefigured Christ raised by God’s power and for God’s glory. It is certain that this typifies Christ’s resurrection, and none but His, for we see there was no offering for sin connected with it. Here we do have the two great offerings of sweet savor — the burnt offering and the meat offering, both speaking of Christ in His perfection.
The Wave Loaves or
Feast of Weeks
This feast only is marked out by seven sabbaths intervening. It is the feast of weeks, but the number fifty has given the name to this feast, which is therefore called Pentecost. What, then, was fulfilled when the day of Pentecost was fully come? The Father made good His promise, in the gift of the Holy Spirit. They were told on that day to offer a new meat offering, for the church was a new thing. At that day there began here below a thing so new that it was entirely without precedent.
In Leviticus 23:17, we read of two wave loaves. When God speaks of a witness, His regular way is by at least two. Christ was risen, the wave sheaf, but now the assembly as the two wave loaves is given as a witness of the power of His resurrection. The Christian company are witnesses to God’s grace in Christ risen from the dead.
Furthermore, the wave loaves were to be of fine flour baked with leaven. Fine flour speaks of Christ’s purity, but leaven speaks of sin. Here we have two seemingly incompatible things mingled in what typifies Christians — fine flour and leaven. Yet sad experience agrees with it, for the believer has two natures. Not that there is the least excuse for yielding to sin, but sin is there, set out by leaven, not working but baked in the bread.
The Feast of Weeks, then, is a distinct type of God’s grace to and ways with the Christian calling. What the feast spoke of was fulfilled on that very day of God’s sending down the Holy Spirit and beginning to gather together His scattered children in one.
The Feast of Trumpets
Here we find ourselves in the seventh month — the last month in which Jehovah instituted a feast. Here He brings to a completion the circle of His ways on the earth and for Israel. God is inaugurating a fresh testimony — “a memorial of blowing of trumpets.” The trumpet is clearly a loud summons from God to people on the earth. Here it is not merely a blowing of trumpets, but “a memorial” of blowing of trumpets. It is the recall of His ancient people on the earth. Thousands of years have passed since they stood before Him as His people, but they are yet to return to their land. Thus God awakens them, and the feast of trumpets is God’s taking up Israel afresh.
We can well rejoice in the future gathering of Israel. The fig tree is its figure, and “when his branch is yet tender, and putteth forth leaves, ye know that summer is nigh” (Matt. 24:32). They have had their long winter, and soon the Sun of righteousness shall arise with healing in His wings for them.
The Day of Atonement
Next, we come to the most solemn of all the feasts, the great day of atonement. On this atonement day Israel shall be brought under the propitiation of Christ. On the tenth of the seventh month, Israel will justly say, We are the guiltiest people on earth, for we despised and killed our Messiah. “Ye shall afflict your souls, and offer an offering made by fire unto the Lord” (Lev. 23:27). Joseph was rejected by his brethren and exalted to the highest place in Egypt, and when the true Joseph presents Himself to Israel, surely they will afflict their souls as did Joseph’s brethren.
But this is not all. In verse 28 we read, “Ye shall do no work in that same day: for it is a day of atonement, to make an atonement for you before the Lord your God.” Israel, of all others, boasted of their works, but the day of atonement will shut out everything but Christ, so that their self-loathing will be as complete as their abandonment of their own works.
These are the two effects of grace: on the one hand, affliction of soul in the confession of their sins, and, on the other hand, no mingling anything of their own with the work of Christ. This is repeated in verse 32: “It shall be to you a sabbath of rest, and ye shall afflict your souls.” The two moral realities, no work of man and true affliction of soul, mark the day of atonement for Israel.
The Feast of Tabernacles
Here we see seven days again mentioned. As there were seven days of suffering in grace, in the feast of unleavened bread, so now there are seven days of glory. This will be the feast of tabernacles for Israel on earth. “Also in the fifteenth day of the seventh month, when ye have gathered in the fruit of the land, ye shall keep a feast unto the Lord seven days” (vs. 39). It was when they had gathered in the produce of the land, when the harvest was past, and the vintage over. The harvest is that character of judgment where the Lord discriminates the good from the bad, while the vintage is where He will trample down wicked religion unsparingly. Both will be past when the feast of tabernacles is kept, in the millennial day.
We get something further in verse 39: “Ye shall keep a feast unto the Lord seven days: on the first day shall be a sabbath, and on the eighth day shall be a sabbath.” There will be a complete term of glory then on the earth as we are now going through a complete term of grace. But the feast of tabernacles stands distinct from all the others — it has an eighth day. The seven days are glory for the earth, but the eighth day opens heavenly and eternal glory! It has a beginning, but it will never have an end! The eighth day is the link with the heavenly places and alludes to the higher glory of resurrection, not of Christ now but of those who are His reigning with Him.
W. Kelly, adapted
The Feast and the Sabbath
The blood sprinkled on the doorposts of the houses of the Israelites in Egypt was not to deliver them from their bondage or from the power of Pharaoh. Rather, it showed them what was necessary to shelter them from God’s judgment, in their relationship with Him. If they entered as they were into judgment, there could be no more hope for them than for the Egyptians, for all were sinners, but God said, “When I see the blood, I will pass over you.”
The blood was God’s provision to shelter them, making “atonement for the soul.” It was His ordered way of delivering them from the judgment which fell on the Egyptians. He would have them feel in the depths of their souls that their deliverance was wholly due to His direct intervention on their behalf.
The Needed Remembrance
To maintain in their hearts the constant remembrance of this, God ordained for them a solemn feast, to be kept from year to year, in the first month — the Passover on the fourteenth day — which was followed immediately by the feast of unleavened bread, which lasted for seven days. The meaning of the unleavened bread is given to us in 1 Corinthians, and we will consider it presently. But for the moment let us look at another characteristic of this feast, one of the three special occasions on which all the males in Israel were ordered to appear before God (Deut. 16:16). It began and closed with a “holy convocation,” or assembling of the people, on which days it was ordained that “no manner of work” was to be done (Ex. 12:16; Lev. 23:58). Now the divine thought in this rest comes out more clearly in connection with the Sabbath instituted immediately after (Ex. 16) and carries us back to its origin after the work of creation was complete (compare Exodus 20:8-11).
Rest and Communion
There must be rest of heart in order that communion may exist. This is even true in earthly circumstances and relationships. How much more, when it is a question of having to do with a righteous and holy God and of drawing near to Him! The Lord said, “Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matt. 11:28). Let us then consider the place that “rest” was to have in the ordinances established of God for His redeemed people and gather up the instruction contained in these days of “holy convocation,” when all the people were to present themselves before God and when every work of service was absolutely forbidden.
Complete rest characterized these days. Its moral importance is shown shortly after the children of Israel left the land of Egypt. The people murmured against Moses, complaining that he had brought them into the wilderness to kill all the assembly with hunger. “Then said the Lord unto Moses, Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you; and the people shall go out and gather a certain rate every day, that I may prove them, whether they will walk in My law, or no. And it shall come to pass, that on the sixth day they shall prepare that which they bring in; and it shall be twice as much as they gather daily” (Ex. 16:45). On the sixth day the Lord explained to them this double provision, saying, “Tomorrow is the rest of the holy Sabbath unto the Lord: bake that which ye will bake today, and seethe that ye will seethe; and that which remaineth over lay up for you to be kept until the morning. . . . Six days ye shall gather it; but on the seventh day, which is the Sabbath, in it there shall be none [gathered]. . . . So the people rested on the seventh day” (Ex. 16:23,26,30). We find then that the “manna,” the heavenly food with which God supplied His people to meet their daily need, was made subordinate to the “rest” which He ordained for them and which surpassed every other consideration. The Lord says, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath” (Mark 2:27).
The Prominent Place
of the Sabbath
“Speak thou also unto the children of Israel, saying, Verily My Sabbaths ye shall keep: for it is a sign between Me and you throughout your generations; that ye may know that I am the Lord that doth sanctify you.” Ezekiel gives a similar thought: “I caused them to go forth out of the land of Egypt. . . . Moreover also I gave them My Sabbaths, to be a sign between Me and them, that they might know that I am the Lord that sanctify them” (Ezek. 20:10,12).
This shows us why the Sabbath held such a prominent place in the institutions of the children of Israel, and why one of the ten commandments is specially devoted to the observance of this day. Elsewhere it is added: “Whosoever doeth any work in the Sabbath day, he shall surely be put to death” (Ex. 31:15). The Sabbath was a perpetual sign between God and the children of Israel, and the rest was to be inviolable.
The Sabbath was the continual remembrance of the accomplished work of the Creator, and in this we get the explanation of its moral character as well as its perfection. God saw everything that He had made, and it was very good. He had ended His work, and He rested on the seventh day. God’s sabbath is thus the expression of His complete satisfaction with a perfect scene, where nothing is lacking that could add to the happiness of those creatures to whom He grants the enjoyment of it all in communion with Himself.
Sin, however, entered the world, ruined everything, and prevented man’s enjoying creation rest. Nevertheless, the rest in God’s thought and purpose remains, for God has established it, and the day will come when man too will enjoy it with Him. God has shown us, in the meanwhile, by His ways with the children of Israel, that the only possible ground on which man could enter into His rest in righteousness and holiness is that of accomplished redemption. Faith lays hold of this truth and enjoys beforehand what will be realized in glory. Redemption and its consequences, according to God’s purposes, have then to be maintained steadily before the soul, and this God did for Israel, first in connection with the Passover, and then in a more direct way by the institution of the Sabbath.
The Unleavened Bread
But we must not forget the unleavened bread, and 1 Corinthians 5 gives us the full explanation of it. It is written: “Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened. For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us: therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness; but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.”
The “unleavened bread” is then, first of all, an expression of what believers are before God by virtue of the work of Christ, whose blood purifies from all sin. It is said, “Ye are unleavened.” That is the divine standing of the believer, the result of Christ’s death, but then the conduct is to correspond in every particular with this perfect position. “Let us keep the feast with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth,” that is to say, let us walk before God in holiness — in a manner worthy of Him. Therefore, everything that is not in accordance with the truth of God must be “put away,” as the Israelites, on pain of death, were to put away all leaven from their houses. God requires a perfectly holy walk.
Holiness
This truth is clearly set forth in the history of the Israelites, for the law was summed up thus: “Ye shall be holy: for I the Lord your God am holy” (Lev. 19:2). This passage is quoted and applied to Christians —see 1 Peter 1:16. Faith accepts this established relation with God, as we see in the song of the Israelites after their deliverance from Egypt, on the other side of the Red Sea. They say, “Who is like unto Thee, O Lord? . . . Thou in Thy mercy hast led forth the people which Thou hast redeemed: Thou hast guided them in Thy strength unto Thy holy habitation” (Ex. 15:11,13).
Salvation is only of God. He leads us by the work of Christ into close relationship with Himself, giving us free access into His very presence by the blood of Christ. By His love He removes every fear, that love being made known on the ground of righteousness, and He gives us a good conscience by the assurance that all our sins are forgiven on account of the sacrifice which Christ has offered. Christ has entered into heaven itself, having obtained “eternal redemption” for us, and there it is that the believer will enjoy fully and forever that sabbath rest which remains for the people of God (Heb. 9:12; 4:9). It will be a scene of absolute perfection and perfect happiness, where God Himself will be satisfied in every way, and will lead His people into participation with His own joy in communion with Himself. One of the operations of the Holy Spirit is to cause us to enter by faith even now into the enjoyment of these things, that our hearts may overflow with joy and that we may have strength and courage for walking in holiness with God.
W. J. Lowe, adapted
The New Meat Offering
The waving of the sheaf of firstfruits was a prelude to the feast of weeks; it was the beginning of God’s harvesttime in the land of promise. No one could enjoy any of the fruit of the land until the sheaf and its accompanying offering had been presented. It is evident in this offering that we are altogether on new ground. In the Passover feast they were gathered on the ground of redemption, which could take place in the wilderness. The waving, too, of the Levites as a wave offering before the Lord by Aaron for service was on the same ground (Num. 8:10-11). But in the wave sheaf, man is presented to God, not for service in a worldly sanctuary, but in a wholly new way, as an offering to God in resurrection.
The sheaf was waved on the morrow after the Sabbath, even as “Christ the firstfruits” rose from the dead on the morning following the Sabbath, the first day of the week. The convocation of the day of Pentecost must accordingly be on resurrection ground. God’s gathering a people around Himself in the present time is based upon this wondrous truth. Christ tasted death that He might bring us, in the power of resurrection, into that wondrous place of nearness and acceptance in which He now is as the risen Man with His God and Father. The high priest, therefore, had to “wave the sheaf before the Lord, to be accepted for you,” or more correctly, “for your acceptance.” We have thus a new place of acceptance in resurrection made known to us, and on the ground of this, the assembling of the day of Pentecost takes place, for the fifty days were reckoned from the waving of the sheaf. The new meat offering then presented is said to be brought “in the day of the firstfruits” (Num. 28:26). It is called new, because no such meat offering had before been presented to God. A meat offering with leaven in it had never before been offered. The Levites had indeed been waved before the Lord and were given to Aaron and his sons for service, but that was not on resurrection ground, nor was it exactly the presentation of man to God; rather, it was their service based on redemption. But now that the day of the firstfruits has come, the wave sheaf having been offered for our acceptance — the day of Pentecost being fully come — this new ground of God’s gathering around Himself is disclosed.
Men having sin in them are shown to be accepted in Christ’s acceptance by the descent of the Holy Spirit upon them. This is like the time when the tabernacle of boards and curtains was set up, and the glory of the Lord filled and took possession of it. Now men assembled on the ground of resurrection are taken possession of and sealed by the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:24). Thus God has a new meat offering for Himself. His people gathered around Him are “a kind of firstfruits of His creatures” (James 1:18), according to His own counsel. The loaves baked with leaven are “firstfruits unto the Lord.” These are firstfruits of His creatures; the loaves are the firstfruit produce of His land.
The blessed Lord even while on earth was “the Son of Man who is in heaven.” Adam, the first man, is out of the earth, made of dust; the second Man is out of heaven. But now, we see further, “such as the heavenly [One], such also the heavenly ones” (1 Cor. 15:48 JND). These are firstfruits of His creatures, though there be leaven in them; they are of the same order as the wave sheaf; they are the produce of His land.
T. Reynolds, adapted
The Feast of Tabernacles
In John 7 we have the Holy Spirit sent down consequent on the exaltation of Christ, for what characterizes Christianity is the ministration of the Spirit. In the feast of weeks we get, in a certain sense, the coming of the Holy Spirit. Pentecost came in as a kind of annex to the feast of the firstfruits, only there was leaven in it. Then after the harvest and after the vintage came the feast of tabernacles, when they were to keep not only seven days, but eight, which brings in heavenly things. When Christ comes, the Jews will literally get their rest, and they will celebrate the grace which has given them all this blessing.
The unbelieving brethren of Christ wanted Him to show Himself. He says, “I cannot do that; I can die, but I cannot show Myself to the world; My time is not yet come; I cannot keep the feast of tabernacles in any true sense.” And so there is no such thing in the present time as keeping the feast of tabernacles; there is no antitype of it. Jesus says, “Go ye up unto this feast: I go not up yet unto this feast” (John 7:8). (That word “yet” should not be there.) He just goes up privately afterwards to teach the people. Then on the eighth day He says (for there was an eighth day), “If any man thirst, let him come unto Me and drink. He that believeth on Me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water” (John 7:37-38). This brings in the Spirit. He gives us the Spirit now instead of the feast of tabernacles — a full, flowing stream. This is our portion until He comes.
The Holy Spirit
Then, in view of all this, what is my responsibility? My responsibility is now that I should represent Christ. He represents me before God, and my responsibility is to represent Him before the world, and that is where failure comes in. I have to ask myself, Shall I be an epistle of Christ or not, in doing this?
“Out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water” — out of his inmost affections — out of what a man is in the bottom of his heart, as we say, shall flow streams of refreshment to others; the poor vessel is so full that it overflows. We cannot bring it out as it is in heaven, of course, but we can bring it out as the Holy Spirit brings it in to us here, and then we have the feast of tabernacles. When the Lord comes again, the feast of tabernacles will be literally come; there will be the harvest and the vintage, and then the full blessing, but, until it comes, we have the Holy Spirit instead of it, and our place is that of waiting for Christ. We are converted to wait for God’s Son from heaven.
Until then, what characterizes the Christian is that he has the Holy Spirit. He has made us the habitation of the Spirit; our bodies are the temples of the Holy Spirit, so that all that God is, in its right time and place and measure, flows out from us as refreshing streams in a dry and thirsty land where no water is. That is what a Christian is, and may God give us to walk faithfully and lowly and humbly with Him in it to His glory.
J. N. Darby, adapted from
Collected Writings, 34:351
Anticipating the Feast of Tabernacles
In Nehemiah and in Ezra we find the feast of tabernacles as an anticipation of the national resurrection to come. This same feast was also sketched out, as it were, with the branches and palms when Jesus entered Jerusalem when the crowds acknowledged Him as the Son of David and as King of Israel (Matthew 21:8; Mark 11:8; John 12:12). In Luke 19, we find neither palms nor branches; no doubt the disciples bless the king who is come in the name of the Lord, but they say, “Peace in heaven,” and not, “On earth peace” (Luke 2:14), and in Luke we see Jesus weep over Jerusalem (Luke 19:41). The true feast of tabernacles, the final feast, will not be celebrated until a time yet future, according to Zechariah 14:16, but at that time this feast will be preceded by the great day of atonement (Zech. 12:10-14), which we do not find in Ezra or in Nehemiah or in the Gospels.
In a sense, we, who are Christians, can celebrate the feast of tabernacles as being the anticipated joy of glory, a “very great gladness” (Neh. 8:17), or, as the Apostle Peter says, “Joy unspeakable and filled with [the] glory” (1 Peter 1:8 JND).
H. L. Rossier
The Eighth Day
There is something special connected with the feast of tabernacles which is not found in any other feast; that is, that after the feast runs its allotted seven days, an eighth day is mentioned. This brings before us another new beginning, and that without an end being mentioned. We may call the eighth day the day of eternity, or a hint that God will then bring in a new and final blessing.
P. Wilson, The Christian Truth