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OUR SURE FOUNDATION 1
Passover . . . . . The Epistle to the Romans
The twenty-third chapter of the Book of Leviticus records the Seven Feasts of the LORD:
"These are the Feasts of the LORD, Holy Convocations which you shall proclaim at their appointed times. On the fourteenth day of the first month at twilight is the LORD's Passover. "
As the narrative continues on to the fifteenth day it can be seen that the Passover stands alone and distinct, having no other requirements to it for it is the LORD's day. All the remaining six Feasts require sacrifices and offerings to be made, and we can leave the reader of this Letter to see the significance of the numbers . . . Seven Feasts . . . the fourteenth day and the fifteenth day . . . for they all speak of the LORD's sovereign purpose being outworked in these Feasts of the LORD. However, in this Letter we are limiting our thoughts to three separate Feasts, Passover, Pentecost and Tabernacles, using these titles rather then the Hebrew titles of Pesach, Shavout and Sukkot. These three Feasts are also recorded in Exodus 23 with the command: `Three times you shall keep a Feast to Me in the year: The Feast of Unleavened Bread; The Feast of Harvest; and The Feast of Ingathering'. These are commonly called `The Three Pilgrim Feasts of Israel'. It will be noticed that Passosver is not mentioned in this command for the Passover is entirely the work of the LORD - the remaining two Pilgrim Feasts require man's offering towards the LORD - and thereafter these three Feasts of Passover, Unleavened Bread and First Fruits are recorded as The Feast of Unleavened Bread. It will also be noticed that the opening words of Leviticus 23 brings a mention of `a Sabbath of the LORD in all your dwellings' followed by `these are the Feasts of the LORD, Holy Convocations which you shall proclaim at their appointed times'. This background gives the reader of this Letter the first of `the three Pilgrim Feasts of Israel'. which all male Israelies are commanded to attend.
We are not intending to give a shortened study on the Feasts, for these are amply covered not only on our website but also by the many fine eisegesis by gifted Bible scholars. The first Pilgrim Feast, as with the two others, is concerned with the LORD of the Passover, Who is the Father of the Lamb of the Passover sacrifice. As Paul wrote of Jesus in his letter to his beloved Philippians: `Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made Himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness'. The first mention of a Sabbath Rest is found in Genesis 2 where after completing the work of Creation in six days:
" On the seventh day God ended His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done. Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made. "
The Sabbath has long been seen by the Rabbis as an Anointed Day, for on this `Seventh Day' God ended His work which He had done (in the preceding six days) and He rested on the Seventh Day from His work which He had done. Then `God blessed the Seventh Day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all the work which He had created and made'. The Rabbis, guided by the Holy Spirit, understood this Day was different and separated from the created six days for it was revealing an Anointed Person and the Anointed Rest in which He dwelt, It was sanctified and made holy, an Anointed Day of a Sanctified Person, the only Begotten Day of God - that is, One coming forth from God, of His own Essence and Nature. We read of this in chapters 3 and 4 of the Letter to the Hebrews where the writer quotes directly from Psalm 95: `So I swore in My wrath, they shall not enter My Rest'. It is therefore worth noting that Psalm 95 lays within a group of six Psalms, 92 through to 97, which are meant to be read as one Psalm. The opening Psalm 95 has an inscription `A Psalm (or Song) for the Sabbath Day', and this inscription is part of the Scripture. There are no separating inscriptions between the following five Psalms for they are one continuing Song of Praise for the Sabbath day - yet to come in its fulness of an Anointed Person and the rest He offers.
Psalm 97 ends this coming Rest with this certainty:
" The LORD reigns, let the earth rejoice.
Let the multitude of the isles be glad thereof. "
We should not wonder at the anger of the Jews against Jesus when He said, `For the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath' for this understanding is the beginning and the end of those Three Pilgrim Feasts of Israel'. First we have to accept the Lord of the Passover before we can enter His Rest in Tabernacles! Thus we have the Triune Nature of God: The Father Who begat His Son, and the Holy Spirit Who comes forth in essence and nature from the Father and the Son. It is that loving obedient relationship between the Triune God-Head that is at the heart of the Three Pilgrim Feasts of Israel.
First, we need to look for the Father before we can find the Son Who was to accomplish the LORD's Passover. This is the Oneness of the Triune Family of God Who dwells in Glory in Heaven, Who as Father sends His Son, God born as man, and sends His Spirit, God the Indwelling Sanctifying Life within those who believe - all three declared in the glorious Sh'ma of Israel: `Hear, O Israel, the LORD our God is One'. This is the fulness of the purpose of the Father - to begat, to bring forth His one and only Son as God born in human likeness, through Whom alone can we approach God the Father by His Spirit. As it is written in John's Gospel, `No-one comes to the Father except by Me' and that is through God the Holy Spirit! Again as Jesus Himself said: (John 16:13-15)
" When He, the Spirit of Truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth. For He will not speak on His own authority . . . . He will glorify Me, for He will take what is Mine and declare it to you. All things that the Father has are Mine, therefore I said He will take of Mine and declare it to you. "
`The LORD our God, the LORD is One' - indeed any separation between the oneness of Father, Son and Holy Spirit will leave us with the remote, unapproachable God of the philosophers. It needs to be said and understood that God as Creator gave a spirit of life to all humankind, also all kinds of natural life, reproduced continually through planted seed. The LORD God revealed Himself as more than a god of the surrounding pagan peoples to the
ancient Hebrews, and before that to Cain and Abel, for there was a clear choice and a separation for the people seen in the salvation of Noah and his family from the Flood. God's choice of a separated people came through the call and life of Abram and His Covenanted Promise of a son and descendants through Isaac, and Jacob who was renamed as Israel.
It is here we begin to see more clearly a Fatherhood and his children emerging separate and distinct from the surrounding nations. This is finally seen in Deuteronomy where the assembled Israelites were about to cross over the River Jordan into a land Covenanted to them by the LORD In chapter 14 we read:
" You are the children of the LORD your God . . . . You are a holy people to the LORD your God, and the LORD has chosen you to be a people for Himself, a special treasure above all the peoples who are on the face of the earth. "
If the Israelites were children, then God was revealing Himself as Father! They were chosen by Him to be His children, but not by natural birth! As a Father He asked only that they accept in obedience His authority, and in return He would give them protection and provision, caring for them as a Father, and as children they were called to honour, trust and obey Him.
Here we begin to find not only the Father but also His Son, Who in human form walked throughout His life on earth in obedience to what His Father told Him. However, within the `Old Covenant' people there was the sense of a God who could only be approached through a sacrifice - and that made by a separated priesthood once a year on the Feast of Atonement. The relationship of the Father to His children could only be one of respect, honour and obedience rather than love and affection. It is only in the Person of God the Son, Jesus, that we hear the affectionate cry of a Son to `Abba Father', Dearest Father. There is still respect and obedience for His cry in the Garden of Gethsemane reveals a deep loving affectionate relationship between a Father and a Son - the word `Abba' itself is not a name of Hebrew ritual but Aramaic, the language of home and family intimacy and very personal. It is here that all disciples of Jesus will be drawn by the Spirit to live with Abba Father in an affectionate and loving relationship of obedience, for they will know the Father.
So in finding the Father we understand more fully the purpose of the Son, Who in human form was sent to be the LORD's Passover Lamb and the Saviour of all who in acceptance of Him would also `walk as Jesus walked' in loving, trusting obedience to Abba Father through the indwelling life of the Holy Spirit. This is the promise of the Father, for the Spirit comes from the Father and the Son in His finished work on earth: (John 16:7-14)
" For if I do not go away, the Counsellor, the Spirit will not come to you. But if I depart I will send Him to you . . . He will take what is Mine and declare it to you; All things that the Father has are Mine, therefore I said that He will take of Mine and declare it to you. "
This is the relationship for all who have accepted Christ Jesus as Lord and Saviour, for as Paul writes in his Letter to the Galatians: `But when the fulness of time had come, God sent forth His Son . . . . to redeem those who were under the Law that we might receive the adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying out `Abba, Father'. This is the inheritance of all disciples of Christ Jesus, but it is only experienced as we open our hearts to the Spirit Who alone brings forth the cry `Abba, Father'. The Holy Spirit, a free Gift of God, makes real within His disciples what the Passover Lamb achieved: `For you are no longer slaves, but sons, and if sons then heirs of God through Christ'. However we need now to step back to look at that relationship of the Triune Godhead - of God the Father, His Son and the Holy Spirit - if we are to enter into that relationship of `heirs of Christ', for in that relationship of Father and Son there is complete dependence, one to the other, a shared life of Oneness.
As John writes: `No-one has seen God at any time', However the only Begotten Son, Who is in the bosom of the Father has revealed Him! The Father is seen in the Son only because the Son reveals the Father! The Father is God the Unbegotten! His Son is the only Begotten Son, brought forth from the Father! It is this shared dependence, one to the other, that brought forth the Son, manifest in human form and enabled by the Spirit to endure the `cross of shame' as the Passover Lamb of God. The walk of the Son lay not in His knowledge of Whom He was . . not in His ministry . . not in His gifting . . but because He lived in the knowledge of God as His Father! He knew Himself as He knew His Father, even though He was manifest in full human form! This is the inheritance of all, for as Paul wrote:
" Those planted into the likeness of His death certainly shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection . . . to the Glory of the Father . . . and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him that we may also be glorified. "
This, then, is the Fruit of the `Three Pilgrim Feasts of Israel' to which all Redeemed Israel must come, drawn by the Holy Spirit to enter into that relationship with God the Father so that we too may call to Him as Abba Father and follow as `co-heirs with Christ' on a walk of total trust and obedience to the Father's will, enabled by the Holy Spirit: `But now the Righteousness of God apart from the Law is revealed . . . even the Righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ to all and in all who believe'. Following his meeting with the resurrected Jesus Paul was given this revelation, `being witnesed by the Law and the Prophets'. His Epistle to the Romans is our `Passover Epistle' for it reveals our new life as children of God and co-heirs with Christ in obedient trust in Him Who reveals the Father so that we may walk as sons of God. Fears and discouragement, even the pain of persecution may follow, but:
" Nothing shall be able to separate us from the love of God,
which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen "
Selah
OUR SURE FOUNDATION
Pentecost . . . . . The Epistle to the Ephesians
Below we quote the words of a man who heads up a ministry caring for `disgarded' Jews living in Ukraine. These are not only children who have been abused or abandoned by parents who are unable to look after themselves, let alone their children, but also frail old people disgarded as having no value. This ministry seeks them out, cares for them and wherever possible enables them to make Aliyah to Israel. He wrote that for many years he gave regularly to Charities as part of his Christian life. Month after month he gave as a `disengaged giver', and duty done he could then return to his secular and Christian work. Personal circumstances changed his outlook and life:
" I never allowed myself to think about the pain the child was in who was receiving the cancer treatments that my donation helped to pay for. Who was this child filled with fear whilst suffering so greatly? What were their parents feeling as they prayed for their children's healing? Why wasn't I thinking about them or feeling any part of their pain? I was involved in helping their children, but to be honest over time my giving had become automatic."
He had become a `disengaged giver'! Why, then, are these opening remarks included in a Church Letter concerning `The Three Pilgrim Feasts of Israel', and in this section concerned with Pentecost? Our opening remarks give the answer to that question: Pentecost, and the other two Feasts in Torah, can so easily become a `disengaged' Bible study, but when it is linked to the corresponding Pauline Epistle it becomes personal. The Apostle Paul writes: `To the saints who are in Rome (or Ephesus or Thessalonica) and faithful in Christ Jesus'. If these Three Pilgrim Feasts of Israel become separated from the Sabbath Rest, Who is Christ Jesus, then we too can become disengaged disciples, seeking knowledge but not receiving the `Life' within the Scriptures we study.
In the first of these Three Feasts we have seen that all the Feasts recorded in Leviticus 23 are preceded by the `Sabbath Rest'. Following his revelation from Jesus, the Apostle Paul, a man steeped in Torah, the Propehts and the Writings, works through the Seven Feasts of Israel in writing his seven `Church Epistles, revealing the fulness of the Sabbath Rest in the Three Pilgrim Feasts for Israel within `the Seven Feasts of the LORD'. Within Rabbinical circles Pentecost is called `The Closing Feast of Passover', and so we see here their understanding was that Passover and Pentecost were one Feast, yet both beginning with `the Sabbath of the LORD. (This a true spiritual mystery . . . two actual Feasts, yet one Feast in the world's eyes.) According to Genesis 2 this is a Day `begotten, not made', a Day in which `God rested on the Seventh Day'. This understanding also appears at the Feast of Pentecost. Count off the days after the Sabbath, from the day of the Wave Offering (of the Passover cycle), seven Sabbaths, fourty-nine days, and on the fiftieth Day - this is also a Day `begotten not made', for man counts time in cycles of seven days and this fiftieth Day
is layered onto the last of the fourty-nine days and the first day of the followig Sabbath week, when `You shall make a new meal offering to the LORD'.
Here we see the Rabbinical understanding of Pentecost `The Closing Feast of Passover' for both Feasts are bound together by a Day begotten of God, not made. And so we return to the sovereign work between God the Father and God the Son, all enabled by God the Holy Spirit so we can more fully understand the Three Pilgrim Feasts for Israel, thus enabling them to enter into the Sabbath Rest. It is only in this relationship between God the Father and God the Son - so close in trust and obedience, one to the other - that we can enter this relationship which is impenetrable by man's efforts but made possible only through acceptance of and belief in the finished work of God the Son in the human form of Jesus, and then only made possible by the work of God the Spirit. In Paul's Letter to the Philippians we see the full humility of Jesus, `Who in very nature God . . . being made in human likeness . . . humbled Himself . . .'.
In those words we see that something totally unique had happened: God the Son had come into the lives of men, as complete in His Humanity as every human being who is born. What was new was that, this `complete Humanity' in the Person of Jesus came into the world perfect in every way and unlike any other who comes into the world as fallen humanity. The relationship and open communion between God the Father and God the Son, which is eternal, was now outworked in the `complete Humanity' of Jesus as He walked in trusting obedience to what He heard from His Father. It is this that Paul writes of in his Letter to the Romans, His `Passover Epistle': (Romans 3:21-22)
" But now a Righteousness from God, apart from the Law, is revealed, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets, even the Righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ to all and on all who believe. "
Later in his `Passover Epistle' Paul goes on to write: `For if we have been planted together in the likeness of His death, we shall be also in the likeness of His resurrection'. Further on Paul writes: (Romans 8:15-17)
" But you have received the Spirit of Adoption by Whom we cry `Abba Father'. The Spirit Himself bears witness to our spirit that we are children of God. And if children, then heirs; heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ. "
We can now move deeper into that relationship between Father and Son, and also more fully on that path of total trust and obedience that led to Passover and on to Pentecost, for as we have shown the two are inexorably joined as one. A Christian writing on `The Life of Paul' expressed this in very stark terms: `First the sword (cross), then the Glory' - for only the death of Jesus could release the Glory that was then open to all men. It is here that we by the Spirit within us can enter into that mystery of Passover and Pentecost, for we are looking into that trusting, obedient Relationship, One to the Other, the Father entrusting His work to His Son, and the Son in obedience offering Himself as the fulfillment of His Father's work. In this we are looking into such a Relationship that even the cherubim in the earthly Tabernacle covered the Mercy Seat with their wings, lest they see the very heart of God the Father outworking His love of His creation, entrusting it to His Son Jesus!
We must go to Passover before we can go to Pentecost, this Closing Feast of Passover, for it is here that once again we see the mystery of the One Triune Godhead and attempt to receive in our spirit the enormity of the Cross of Calvary, which is the pivotal moment of God's work of restoration of all He has created. It was here on the cross at Calvary the Perfect Passover Lamb was hung! It was here the Father abandoned His Son in the Person of Jesus to the full rigour of the Law, for `Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree' (as Paul writes to the Galatians), and in His obedience the Son accepted the punishment of sin and death. This was beyond mere abandonment! It was a severance in the Relationship of the One Triune Godhead! But three days later it was fully restored as the Father raised the Son from the dead and then the Father and the Son together sent forth God the Spirit so that all who accept the Son will know that same relationship with the Father. As Paul wrote earlier in that Galatian verse above: `Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law, having become a curse for us for . . .'. As we mentioned in our opening words to this Feast of Pentecost, we can so easily become `disengaged' from the emotional reality of what we read, and just as easily from the spiritual reality. As Jesus, the Passover Lamb of God, was hung upon that tree it was the act of Jesus towards His Father, for on our behalf He offered Himself in active obedience to His Father's will, and in passive obedience He accepted His Father's judgement against those who sin, `for all have sinned and fall short of the Glory of God' (as Paul wrote in his `Passover Epistle').
Surely a `Selah' is needed here, for it was not the physical agony of the cross, neither was it the humiliation and shame that had to be endured that caused Jesus to cry out. It was the total abandonment, the total severance of that Eternal Relationship with His Father that released that agonising cry of Jesus:
" My God, My God, why have You forsaken (abandoned) Me? . . . . .
And Jesus cried out again with a loud voice and yielded up His Spirit. "
In obedient trust He commended His life into His Father's hands and awaited His Father's judgement on it and then His resurrection back to the Glory of God. Should not we stand in awe at such a Mystery?
It is here that we move into Pentecost, The Closing Feast of Passover, where in the Book of Acts we find the joyful disciples reunited with their Lord and trusting for the establishment of the Kingdom of God . . . only to hear the words:
" It is not for you to know the times and seasons which the Father has set in His own authority. But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you shall become witnesses to me."
(How little today we understand the times and seasons the Father has set!) Now came that `Begotten of God Fiftieth Day' of Pentecost when, `they were all with one accord in one place'. And they were washed clean by the `Fire from Heaven', now ready as priests to proclaim the Living Passover Lamb of God `in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth'! The promised `New Covenant' was released by the Spirit to `all those who gladly received His Word'! Pentecost, joined to Passover, was now complete - and His Word is still continuing through those who follow on according to the `times and seasons of the Father'!
With that we can move to Paul's Letter to the Ephesians, his `Pentecost Epistle' for the second of The Three Pilgrim Feasts for Israel. As we read the Levitical account of the Passover and Pentecost Feasts we see there are significant differences between them in the offerings to be made, the first being at Passover, where `for seven days you must eat Unleavened Bread . . . and offer sacrifices . . . and bring to the priest the First Fruits of the Barley Harvest as a wave offering before the LORD'. At Pentecost they were told only to bring two loaves made of Leavened Bread as an offering of the First Fruits of the Wheat Harvest and offer sacrifices. It was granted to Paul, following the revelation given to him by the Risen Christ Jesus, to bring fulness to the Levitical Feast of Pentecost. First (as he wrote in Romans, his `Passover Epistle') there was the need to know and accept the `Unleavened Bread of Life' in the Person of Jesus, to be baptised into His death Who is the First Fruits of the New Life of the Barley Harvest of Passover, before we can be raised up in resurrection New Life to God's Glory. Paul writes of this in his `Pentecost Epistle' to the Ephesians:
" To the saints who are in Ephesus and faithful in Christ Jesus . . . . In Him we have redemption through His Blood, the forgiveness of sins according to the richess of His Grace . . . . having made known the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He purposed in Himself. "
Now came the revelation of the `mystery' of the two loaves of Leavened Bread:
" Remember that you, once Gentiles in the flesh . . . without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the Covenants of Promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus, you who once were far off have been brought near by the Blood of Christ (you, Jew and Gentile, are the First Fruits of the Wheat Harvest, waved before the LORD). For He is our Peace, Who has made both one and has broken down the middle wall of partition. "
As surely as we have been baptised into His death, so we have been raised to new life `in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing that our old life was crucified with Him'. In his `Pentecost Epistle' Paul continues to reveal this glorious resurrection of the First Fruits of the Barley Harvest Who is Jesus, as God `raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places'. He continues with the glorious resurrection of the new life of the First Fruits of the Wheat Harvest (Jewish and Gentile Believers) `and raised us up together and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus . . . for it is by Grace you have been saved, through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God'.
This, then, is the glorious fulfillment of the Closing Feast of Passover:
" But God, Who is rich in Mercy, because of His great love with which He loves us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (it is by Grace you have been saved) . . . . for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. "
Our good works? To live in His new life as witnesses to the redeeming Life of the Risen Christ Jesus and to proclaim Him who is `far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this Age but also in that which is to come'.
Selah!
OUR SURE FOUNDATION
Tabernacles . . . . . The Epistle to the Thessalonians
And so we come to the last and greatest of the Three Pilgrim Feasts that all men of Israel were commanded to attend each year. We say `greatest' in the sense that this Feast is the culmination, the climatic point of a `journey' spread over a Seven Month Harvest cycle within a natural twelve month year, and as can be easily seen within all the Feasts there is the recurring number Seven - pointing forward to that climatic point of God's Day of Rest. A further point is that all the Seven Feasts are called `Holy Convocations', each one beginning on a `High Sabbath' - these Feasts did not occur within the normal Sabbath cycle. (This title can be seen in John's Gospel, chapter 19:31: `Therefore, because it was the Preparation Day, that the bodies should not remain on the cross on the Sabbath - for that Sabbath was a High Day') The Hebrew word for holy is `Kodesh' meaning `something consecrated, sacred or hallowed' and does not speak of the high moral quality of a person. `Kodesh', when linked to the Hebrew word `Miqra', which means `convocation', gives us the understanding that a Holy Convocation is a day called for the Jews to be taught or taken through the rituals of the LORD's Covenanted Promises to His people. Today's Jewish people have lost much of this sense of a Holy Convocation, for as they have no Temple they cannot perform the prescribed rituals - and indeed they cannot because the Rituals have become Reality to rejoice and live in. Sadly, the Redeemed People of God, the Church, having appropriated Passover (Easter) and Pentecost (Whitsun), has turned them into yearly `Memorial Thanksgivings'. It has largely ignored Tabernacles, not knowing what to do with it, apart from perhaps calling it Harvest Thanksgiving, but in doing so it has entirely lost sight of that climatic Day of the LORD and of the promised Sabbath Day Rest.
And so we turn to the Feast of Tabernacles, the last of the Three Pilgrim Feasts to which all Israelite men were commanded to attend, a Holy Convocation when they would be taught through rituals the LORD's Covenanted Promises to them - and there will be one last time when they will be called to attend when the Day of Jacob's Trouble comes upon them! The last three Feasts, Trumpets, Day of Atonement and Tabernacles are all within the Seventh Month and open as a Holy Convocation on a High Sabbath:
" Speak to the children of Israel, saying: `In the seventh month, on the first day of the month, you shall have a Sabbath rest, a memorial of blowing of Trumpets, a Holy Convocation'. "
This was to be a sacred day to remind Israel of the day they were brought into a Covenanted Relationship with the LORD (Exodus 19). The blowing of the Shofar Horn would call the Isaraelites again to the `foot of the mountain' as a memorial and lead them ten days later to the Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur, which was the second Holy Convocation within this holy Seventh Month `to make atonement for you before the LORD your God'. As the Israelites responded to the call of the Shofar Horn and repented of their faithlessness to their Covenanted promises, this would lead on to the Fifteenth Day of the Seventh Month, the Feast of Tabernacles. In Scriptural terms this Fifteenth Day reveals the fulness of God's Grace towards His Covenanted people - the Feast of Tabernacles, the third Holy Convocation of this final Seventh Month, when for seven days the Israelites were commanded to make `an offering made by fire to the LORD'.
Clearly there were to be no Burnt Offerings of animals in this last Feast - and indeed in the two previous Feasts of Trumpets and Atonement - only Offerings made by fire, which indicates that those Offerings were Freewill Offerings, given with thankful hearts for what was offered them by a Gracious God. Only twice before in the Feasts of Unleavened Bread and First Fruits were Freewill Offerings made by fire mentioned, in open acknowledgement and thankfulness for what had been revealed in those Holy Convocations of something momentous being given freely to the Israelites. Here in Tabernacles those Freewill Offerings were to be made for seven days - and furthermore for those seven days `You shall rejoice before the LORD your God', with a final `Eighth Day, a Sabbath Rest'.
SELAH
And so it is to that final `Eighth day of Sabbath Rest' that we must turn. The Israelites now had a dilemama, for there was little instruction as to what to do on this Eighth Day other than it was a Holy Convocation - that is, a Sabbath High Day, a sacred Day set apart for the LORD - and as such they were commanded to offer up a Thanksgiving Offering made by fire, and it was to be a `solemn assembly of no customary work'. Clearly in Leviticus 23 there were Seven Feasts of the LORD, outworked over a Seven Month Harvest Cycle. Following the first four Feasts there was a long four-month wait through the long hot summer months until the last three Feasts were to be observed. The last of the three Feasts was the Feast of Tabernacles which lasted for seven days and completed the Seven Levitical Feasts of Israel. Thus this Eighth Day Solemn Assembly was a separate Feast of special significance for the Israelites, a High Day, a Sabbath Rest. No-one can doubt that these last three Feasts of the final Seventh Month were full of awe and solemnity - as, of course, were all the Feasts of Israel. However the last three had that sense of thanksgiving through the Freewill Offerings made by fire. Indeed the Israelites were told to `rejoice before the LORD your God for seven days', for there were to be seven days of rejoicing, as can be seen in the rituals and ceremonies of this last Feast. Tradition has continued this sense of rejoicing, and has increased the ceremonies of the additional Eighth Day which has become a Festival similar in form to a Wedding Celebration. Therefore may we suggest that the Holy Spirit has been very closely involved in the ongoing outworking of what may be seen by some as rather archaic rituals of a primitive desert people.
With these thoughts in mind we will turn to `The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave Him to show His servants things which must shortly take place' - indeed to the Book of Revelation, where in chapter 19 it is recorded:
" Let us be glad and rejoice, and give Him Glory. For the marriage
of the Lamb has come, and His Wife has made herself ready. "
Readers of a previous Church Letter entitled, `How does the city sit solitary that was full of people', will know that the Book of Revelation is entirely a Jewish Book in style, symbolism and numberings, and refers to the LORD's dealing with His Unredeemed Israel as He seeks to regraft them into the Olive Tree of their Messiah Jesus. The `Church', that is, the Bride of Christ, only comes into view within the last two chapters - `Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth'. That being so, the wording of verse 7 of chapter 19 refers to `Unredeemed Israel', who having been through `The Day of Jacob's Trouble' has `made herself ready'. Unfortunately modern usage of words can often hide spiritual truths from being seen and can cause great problems when reading Scripture. The Redeemed `Church' is called by its title, the Bride of Christ . . . the Greek word here is `Numphe', but the Wife of Revelation 19 is spoken of with the Greek word `Gune', which means `already a Wife but awaiting consummation'. This is an entirely different status to a Bride! the Redeemed Bride of Christ who has been `caught away' for consummation and now awaits her return as Wife in the New Jerusalem. His Wife `who has made herself ready' is at the centre of this `Eighth Day of Sabbath Rest' which tradition has already turned into a Wedding Feast!
Throughout these Three Pilgrim Feasts of Israel there has been one purpose, which is to show the Oneness of the Triune Godhead . . . the Father Who has entrusted all to the loving obedience of His Son . . . the Son, who humbled Himself and became in likeness a man, Who in trusting obedience offered Himself as a Sacrifice, enabled by the Holy Spirit to accomplish the Father's purpose, all of which is seen in the three Feasts of Passover, Pentecost and Tabernacles. And yet there is a further Eighth Feast - that glorious Wedding Feast of `the Marriage of the Lamb'.
SELAH
And so we turn to Paul's Epistle to the Thessalonians. However, in setting out the ceremonies and purpose of the Three Feasts, and before moving too quickly into the corresponding closing Epistle to the Thessalonians, we must never forget that these Feasts of Israel were in the very heart of the Eternal Triune Godhead, even before time began! This has been fully expressed in three of the Pauline Epistles, following what Paul received from the Lord Jesus Himself, and is centred on God's desire to restore to Himself His Family. The Father sent His only Begotten Son into the world as a Person to restore all things to Himself through the enabling work of the Spirit.
The first words of the Risen Lord Jesus to Mary Magdalen reveals this Divine Heart of the Father: (John 20:17)
" Go to My brothers and say to them: `I am ascending to My Father
and your Father, to My God and to your God'. "
A new relationship was now open to the disciples, and following Pentecost to all who believe and follow on. An adoption as sons by a Father takes place through belief in and acceptance of a Brother Who is the First Fruits of His finished work - which was seen at that Feast of Pentecost with the release of the promised New Covenant `with the House of Israel and the House of Judah'. The `First Fruits' of His Risen Life, that is, the children of God, would now be the people through whom the LORD would work to proclaim to `the ends of the earth' the only way into His Family. God's intent to bring the restoration of His Creation was now outworking itself in His faithful children, but within that Creation lay His people, the unrepentant and rebellious `House of Israel and House of Judah' whom He longed to bring into His Family.
As we have seen in the outworking of the Three Pilgrim Feasts there is a `progression of intent' culminating in the `inheritance' of an earthly Kingdom of God in Jerusalem for those now-repentant Jews who will come through the Great Tribulation. As the children of God, `heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ' we too have our `inheritance', for as Paul writes in his First Letter to the Thessalonians:
" For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the arch-angel, and with the Trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first, then we who are left alive and remain shall be caught up together to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall be forever with the Lord . . . . Therefore comfort one another with these words. "
The spiritual certainty of this is seen in the last of the Three Pilgrim Epistles for Redeemed Israel as we are called away at a coming Feast of Trumpets to face our `spiritual Day of Atonement' at the Judgement Seat of Christ and to be found righteous in God's sight. The inheritance of Redeemed Israel is to be with Him forever with hearts of thankfulness and joy - and, yes, `Redeemed Israel' will enter that final `Eighth Day'! John records that finally completed restoration of God's Family:
"And I heard a loud voice from heaven, saying, `Behold, the Tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people. God Himself shall be with them and be their God' . . . . Then He Who sat on the Throne said, `Behold, I make all things new' . . . . Come, I will show you the Bride, the Lamb's Wife'. "
This is not the Wife of Revelation 19 who is the earthly Wife of the Great King in Jerusalem in an earthly Kingdom. Here in Revelation 21 this Bride and Wife are still Israel, but an Israel of a heavenly calling in a new heaven and a new earth - for the first heaven and the first earth have passed away. John saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven. Thus this Bride and Wife of the Heavenly calling is both `Numphe' and `gune'. This glorious spiritual `Eighth Day' is the inheritance of all who have accepted the Lamb, and now in this new Heaven and new earth will tabenacle with Him forever! Indeed, Hebrews 11 speaks of it when referring to the past `great clouds of witnesses: `God, having prepared something better for us, that they should not be made perfect apart from us'.
" And the Spirit and the Bride (numphe, the Bride of Christ) say, `Come . . .' "
The Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with us all, Amen!
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