Faithful is He
Faithful is He
The festal celebrations given to Israel by God (Lev 23), are very much more than religious memorials and traditions. They are massive testimony to the Lord's absolute faithfulness, and incredibly powerful, contemporary prophecy.
In Moses' day, God gave His People seven "appointed feasts of the Lord which you shall proclaim as holy convocations." (v2) They are,
1) Passover (14/1 according to the Jewish calendar)
2) Unleavened Bread (15-21/1)
3) Firsts Fruits (16/1)
4) Pentecost (6/3)
5) Trumpets (1/7)
6) Atonement (10/7)
7) Tabernacles (15-21/7)
In the crudest outline possible, God's beloved Jewish People observe and celebrate,
1) Passover (Pesach).
Their miraculous deliverance from slavery and national exodus from Egypt.
2) Unleavened Bread.
The annual spring-clean, to ensure that every home is a leaven or yeast-free zone...recalling The Exodus night's hasty flight.
3) First Fruits.
The presentation to the Lord with gratitude of the earliest fruit, at the very beginning of harvest time. (I.e. the new corn.)
4) Pentecost (Shavuot).
Thanksgiving for the general harvest in full-swing, and for God's gift to Israel of the Law, atop Sinai.
5) Trumpets (Rosh Hashana).
A season routinely punctuated by trumpet blasts, to wake up the Jewish People to prepare for the great and solemn Day of Atonement. The time to ponder being "brought to judgement before the supreme King of kings."
(The first day of Trumpets is also the Jewish New Year. The approach of the End, is signalled by the beginning of the new?)
6) Atonement (Yom Kippur).
The "holiest" day of all; the one and only day of the year (while the Temple stood and functioned in Jerusalem) when Israel's high priest entered the holy of holies to pray and "wipe the slate clean". (Heb 9.7)
7) Tabernacles (Sukkot).
The seventh and final feast, lasting seven days. Jewish People living outdoors in little, temporary huts, celebrating their journey, safely into the Promised Land, and the complete ingathering of the summer's harvest (of vine and tree).
When the Lord Jesus Christ said, "I have not come to abolish (the law and the prophets) but to fulfill them" (Mt 5.17), He meant that He would keep and complete each of God's "appointed times" (divine appointments), made in every one of these seven feasts. Thus, it is said,
"These (festivals) are only a shadow of what is to come; but the substance belongs to Christ." (Col 2.17)
("These were but shadows cast by future events...the One foreshadowed is Christ.")
Therefore, we ought not to be even slightly surprised nor amazed when the Bible tells us,
A) That the Lamb of God kept Pesach with His disciples "on the first day of Unleavened Bread, when they sacrificed the PASSOVER lamb"; then, he went out to die, and to shed His precious blood for us, "like that of a lamb without blemish or spot". (Mk 14.12, 1 Pe 1.19)
And thus Paul is able to give to us his apostolic testimony that, "Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed" (1 Co 5.7), thereby both keeping and fulfilling the feast and God's divine appointment.
B) Immediately before His death on the Cross to purge and to take "away the sin of the world", Jesus took UNLEAVENED bread, and "blessed, and broke it, and gave it to the disciples and said, 'Take, eat; this is my body." (Jn 1.29, Mt 26.26)
Hence Paul could exhort the Church at Corinth to "cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, as you really are unleavened...Let us, therefore, celebrate the festival (Passover), not with the old leaven, the leaven of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth." (1 Co 5.7-8)
C) He who laid down his life for us, took it up again "on the third day" (Lk 24.46)...or FIRST FRUITS. As Israel looked expectantly for evidence of a new harvest coming out of the ground, the Lord Jesus Christ rose up "from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep." (1 Co 15.20)
D) Fifty days later (7x7 days), Jerusalem was awash with Jewish pilgrims from all over "the world", come to celebrate the gift of the Torah "from above", and harvest time too.
We ought not to marvel that it was at this moment, "when the day of PENTECOST had come...they were all filled with the Holy Spirit." (Ac 2.1-4)
At the very hour when Jerusalem rejoiced over the gift of the Law, the Law-incarnate "exalted at the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit...poured out this, which you see and hear." (Ac 2.33)
Thus, God's ways with Israel and all men were forever revolutionized, "You are a letter from Christ delivered by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts." (2 Co 3.3)
(Note: "There were added that day - Pentecost - about three thousand souls." Harvest time, to be sure!)
And just as these four fulfilled Feasts are towering testimony to God's unshakeable faithfulness, so the remaining three grant us unerringly accurate, prophetic insight and information.
E) Jesus Himself is even now keeping TRUMPETS; a season during which He faithfully disturbs us into an ever-deepening and serious-minded consciousness that history is now entirely and altogether about preparing for the Return of the King.
Prophecy is Him speaking..."a loud voice like a trumpet"; making sure we hear clearly what's on His heart and in His mind...for "the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy"! (Rev 1.10 & 4.1, 19.10)
During the past 30 plus years, there has been an impressive and concerted "awakening" to the importance and seriousness of the Church's prophetic role and responsibility. Tragically some of this restoration's fruit has been lost or dissipated by religious and human lust for fame, fortune and "feel-good". Nevertheless, the Lord has been faithful and keeps this Feast, ensuring the "trumpets" are blown, and shall continue to be heard for our discombobulation, right up and into The Day.
"Immediately after the tribulation of those days...they will see the Son of man coming...he will send out his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect." (Mt 24.29-31)
"We shall be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet." (1 Co 15.51-52, 1 Th 4.16)
"Then I saw the seven angels who stand before God, and seven trumpets were given to them...Then the seventh angel blew his trumpet, and there were loud voices in heaven, saying, 'The kingdom of the world has become the Kingdom of our Lord, and of his Christ, and he shall reign for ever and ever.' " (Rev 8.2, 11.15)
F) King Jesus will keep the Feast of ATONEMENT on an actual Yom Kippur, when as our high priestly Sovereign, He will "enter" the site of the Jerusalem Temple's holy of holies, and there be enthroned! On that Day "all Israel will be saved", and the Head and the Body will be physically united...the ultimate at-one-ment!
"The Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple; the messenger of the covenant in whom you delight...he will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver...Then the offering of Judah and Jerusalem will be pleasing." (Mal 3.1-4)
"It shall come to pass in the latter days...out of Zion shall go forth the law...He shall judge between nations...neither shall they learn war any more." (Isa 2.1-4)
G) Our enthroned King will keep TABERNACLES, when from His Throne on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, He reigns over all the nations on earth for a period of "1000 years"!
"The Lord will be King over the whole earth. On that day there will be one Lord, and his name the only name...Then the survivors from all the nations that have attacked Jerusalem will go up year after year to worship the King, the Lord Almighty, and to celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles." (Zec 14.9 &16, Eze 37.24-28)
With His holy sceptre, King Jesus will punish rebellion and reward obedience, thus putting all that has been wrong with this sin-soaked world, right!
"I have set my king on Zion, my holy hill...I will make the nations your heritage, and the ends of the earth your possession. You shall break them with a rod of iron, and dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel." (Ps 2.6-9)
"Then a throne will be established in steadfast love and on it will sit in faithfulness in the tent of David one who judges and seeks justice and is swift to do righteousness." (Isa 16.5, Ac 15.16-17)
God our Messiah has already unequivocally and historically "kept" four of the seven Feasts. He is going to "keep" the remaining three.
"He who calls you is faithful, and he will do it." (1 Th 5.24
