SUMMARY:
BE A BEREAN — Ed. I have known Peter Lindop for several years. I cannot fault his teaching in the above article, which is good typology.
We disagree with suggestions that some are making that believers in Christ should keep the Jewish feasts.
This leads to Judaism and is to be rejected. God willing we plan to publish the amazing story of what happened when some in the World Wide Church of God became evangelical.
What happened is as far as we can discern the exact opposite of what has been happening with the “Catholics and Evangelicals” and the “Mormons and Evangelicals” unity movements.
TO say that the Bible is a book of prophecy is an understatement. Christians down the centuries have studied it looking for prophecies that related to their time.
This has resulted in many strange predictions and the growth of sects that based their existence on a particular interpretation of certain scriptures. Most have quoted Amos 3:7 to support their view: “Surely the Lord GOD will do nothing, but that He reveals His secret to His servants the prophets”.
The unusual ideas that have troubled the church might have been avoided if only the Bible had a profile.
I believe there is such a profile in the Festivals of Ancient Israel.
Christ warned us against setting dates, but a profile showing the major steps in God’s dealing with mankind will guide us as we try to make sense of the Bible prophecies that relate to the end time (Matt 24:10-12; 2 Peter 1:19-21; 2 Peter 3:10-13).
God gave Israel, under the Old Covenant, commands to keep a number of festivals on an annual basis.
These all look back to commemorate what God had done for His people.
But some of them also have an obvious forward-looking focus — e.g. Passover, Pentecost and the Feast of Tabernacles or Booths.
Do the other festivals also have a predictive side to them?
Are they part of God’s promise?
“Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure” (Isaiah 46:10).
We need to know firstly what these festivals are and what happened on those days.
Then, most importantly, we need to look at what the New Testament has to say about these events.
Overview
The calendar used by Israel from the days of Moses was lunar with the New Year beginning in about March-April. We will note the approximate time references to our calendar as we refer to these festivals.
All of them are summarised in Leviticus 23 (and a few other places). God’s instructions for each began with the overarching proclamation: “These [are] the feasts of the LORD, [even] holy convocations, which you shall proclaim in their seasons” (Lev 23:4).
The Passover:
On the fourteenth of Nisan (the first month of their sacred calendar) all Israelite families were to kill a lamb (Exodus 12:6) and after daubing the doorposts and the lintel of their houses with the blood (v7) were to roast it whole (v9) and eat it in the evening (v6). They were to eat fully dressed with their shoes on and their staff in their hands (v11). The Passover was sacrificed in the spring around March-April.
The Feast of Unleavened Bread:
This festival lasted for seven days when unleavened bread was to be eaten (i.e. bread made without yeast). The first and the seventh day were ‘holy convocations’. The first of these seven days started on the morning after the Passover. There is special significance to the number seven. It will crop up on a regular basis. During these seven days (on the day after the Sabbath i.e. on a Sunday) there was a ‘wave sheaf offering’. This marked the beginning of their first harvest season.
The Feast of Weeks:
On the fiftieth day after the weekly Sabbath that falls within the days of unleavened bread was another festival that is known by several names: Feast of Weeks, Feast of First fruits and Day of Pentecost. There is no fixed date for this festival; the name Pentecost actually means ‘count fifty’. It occurs in May-June.
Memorial of Blowing of Trumpets:
This was a particularly special day when both the Shofar (ram’s horn) and the temple’s silver trumpets were blown. It marked the beginning of the civil (as opposed to sacred) calendar. It was the day when Israelite kings were crowned. This day falls on the first day of the seventh month, i.e. September-October.
The Day of Atonement:
This occurs on the tenth day of the seventh month. It was a day of fasting, i.e. they didn’t eat or drink (the actual wording is “afflict your souls”).
It was so solemn that anyone who didn’t fast was to be “cut off from among his people”, i.e. be killed.
On this day two goats were presented in the temple, one for sacrifice and the other to be led into the wilderness by a fit man and released.
The Feast of Tabernacles or Booths:
Positioned at the end of the summer harvest, this was the most joyous of all the festivals (Exodus 23:16).
Its customs have their origins in the wilderness where the children of Israel lived in booths or temporary dwellings.
This was kept for seven days starting on the fifteenth day of the seventh month and even today, in Israel, many live outside their homes in temporary dwellings to commemorate the way their forefathers lived during the forty years in the wilderness.
An unnamed festival sometimes called
“That Last Great Day of the Feast”:
This was held on the day after the finish of the seven-day feast of tabernacles (Num 29:35).
The above completes the list of the days that were to be holy to Israel.
There are seven in all (the Passover not being a full day as the others, although thought of as part of the days of unleavened bread).
It would be extraordinary if all these special days only looked back to the event of the exodus when we clearly see some forward-looking elements in at least some of them.
It would be even more unusual if some mention of them were not made by Jesus Christ, the apostles and Paul that “Hebrew of the Hebrews; as touching the law, a Pharisee” (Philippians 3:5).
Indeed, they did say something.
Paul said that the events affecting Israel were “a shadow of things to come” (Colossians 2:17) and the writer of the book of Hebrews, in saying that “the law having a
shadow of good things to come, [and] not the very image of the things, can never with those sacrifices which they offered year by year continually make the comers perfect” (Hebrews 10:1) implies that these things do, in fact, foreshadow wonderful future realities.
Now that we have introduced what Israel was commanded to keep, let us look closer and discover the reality of these “shadows”, and see if they do in fact provide a framework that we can “hang” prophecy on enabling us to better see an overall picture of God’s plan of salvation.
The Passover
One thing that most Christians commonly practise is the Lord’s Supper. All the gospel writers mention this event, some in more detail than others: “And he sent Peter and John, saying, Go and prepare for us the Passover, that we may eat” (Luke 22:8).
So Christ Himself called the event “the Passover”. From this we can assume that the phrase “the supper being ended” (John 13:2) implies that the ordinary Jewish Passover meal was finished. What followed, the bread and wine, was therefore especially for the Christian church, which has taken it over with its new meaning. On what day did this take place? Was it the evening of the First Day of Unleavened Bread or the previous night?
Paul said: “For I have received of the Lord that which I also delivered to you, That the Lord Jesus the [same] night in which he was betrayed took bread:” (1 Corinthians 11:23) Obviously “that night” was previous to the day of His trial and crucifixion. Two scriptures show that He died on the afternoon prior to the First Day of Unleavened Bread.
John 19:30-31— “When Jesus had received the vinegar, He said, It is finished: and He bowed His head, and gave up His spirit. The Jews therefore, because it was the preparation, that the bodies should not remain upon the cross on the Sabbath day, (for that Sabbath day was a high day,) besought Pilate that their legs might be broken, and that they might be taken away”.
And Luke 23:53-54 — “And he took it down, and wrapped it in linen, and laid it in a tomb that was hewn in stone, where no one was ever laid before. And that day was the preparation, and the Sabbath drew near.”
The “preparation day” was the day prior to the Sabbath, in this case a “high day”; the term is not limited to the day before a Saturday. So these two scriptures tell us that Christ died on the afternoon, and Matthew 27:46 says it was about 3pm. All of this happened prior to the First day of Unleavened Bread and prior to the evening on which the Jews observed the Passover, which commenced at sunset.
So it was on Christ’s own authority that the New Testament Passover was brought back a day, in fact to the beginning of the 14th of Nisan instead of after the close of the 14th of Nisan (see also John 13:1). This meant that Christ died on the cross at the same time that the lambs were being sacrificed in the temple.
Now having established that, what can we learn from it?
Christ’s death was a sacrifice that was willingly made, “Christ our passover is sacrificed for us:” (1 Corinthians 5:7) and His body was whole with no bones broken as was the lamb sacrificed for the Passover (Ex. 12:46), shown by the fact that the guards did not break his legs (John 19:36).
Just as the children of Israel were under the protection of the blood (the Pascal lamb being a type of Christ) and therefore they didn’t die as they left Egypt, so we as Christians are protected from the curse of the second death that our sin brings upon us because of the protection we have in “the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot” (1 Peter 1:19).
There was only one sacrifice that gave them freedom, as it is for us Christians: “By that will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once [for all]” (Hebrews 10:10).
The Passover sacrifice in Egypt was made while they were still in bondage, and so with us: “you [he made alive], who were dead in trespasses and sins” (Ephesians 2:1)
The memorial we keep is an ongoing event that looks forward also to something yet future: Jesus said, as he offered His disciples the cup, “Truly I say to you, I will drink no more of the fruit of the vine, until that day that I drink it new in the kingdom of God” (Mark 14:25).
No doubt all of this is familiar. The Passover in Egypt prefigured the true redeeming sacrifice of Christ. But as we move on we come to the less familiar.
As I have mentioned earlier, the Passover took place during the early evening at the start of the Day of Unleavened Bread. At the exodus, unleavened bread was eaten for seven days because the Israelites didn’t have time to wait for their dough to rise (Ex. 12:34). Then at Sinai this period of seven days from the 15th Nisan until the 22nd Nisan became formalised as one of the “feasts of the Lord” (Leviticus 23:2).
Days of Unleavened Bread
And on the fifteenth day of the same month is the feast of unleavened bread to the LORD: seven days you must eat unleavened bread. In the first day you shall have a holy convocation: you shall do no labour in it. But you shall offer an offering made by fire to the LORD for seven days: in the seventh day is a holy convocation: you shall do no labour in it — Leviticus 23:6-8.
There are four things to note here:
- 1. The holy convocation lasted for seven days (the number seven signifies completeness).
- 2. Throughout the whole seven days no leavened bread was to be eaten.
- 3. There were holy convocations on the first and seventh days, thus giving this period a clear beginning and end.
- 4. During the week, “on the day after the Sabbath” a special ceremony was to be held. “Speak to the children of Israel, and say to them, When you come into the land which I give to you, and shall reap the harvest there, then you shall bring a sheaf of the first fruits of your harvest to the priest: And he shall wave the sheaf before the LORD, to be accepted for you: on the day after the Sabbath the priest shall wave it” (Leviticus 23:10-11).
This week (see point 2 above) takes its name from the prohibition against leaven (yeast). When Paul wrote to the church in Corinth he equated leaven with sin and told them to, “Purge out the old leaven, that you may be a new lump, as you 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” (1 Corinthians 5:7-8).
It would seem from this that the Christians in Corinth were recognising this festival of unleavened bread in some form, or were at least very familiar with the custom.
The Passover itself is not a festival (it was kept in the evening only). Paul also had told them (chapter 11) that they were to have their normal evening meal at home first, thus leaving only the emblems of the bread and the wine to be taken that evening.
But what is the connection between Passover and the Days of Unleavened Bread apart from the fact that they were generally regarded as a continuous whole?
As the feast lasted for seven days (signifying completeness), it shows God grants to His people complete repentance and that in turn means that the Christian can be in the sight of God sinless or righteous.
“The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom you slew and hanged on a tree. God has exalted Him with His right hand to be a Prince and a Saviour, to give repentance to Israel, and forgiveness of sins” (Acts 5:30-31).
Christ at His death took upon Himself the sins of the whole world: His sacrifice covers all of our debt completely: “Knowing this, that our old self is crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin. For he that is dead is freed from sin” (Romans 6:6-7).
Another extraordinary piece of fulfilment (point 4 above) is in the wave-sheaf. Leviticus 23:10-11 informs us that the priests were to go out early on that Sunday morning and cut a single sheaf, which was called the First of the First fruits, and take it back to the Temple and there “wave it”, or in other words, offer it to God.
It was the First of the First fruits because, “You shall eat neither bread, nor parched grain, nor fresh grain, until the same day that you have brought an offering to your God: it shall be a statute for ever throughout your generations in all your dwellings” (Leviticus 23:14).
It marked the official beginning of a harvest and no harvesting could begin until this ceremony was completed.
So, how did Christ fulfil this? To begin with, let’s note two significant passages:
The first day of the week Mary Magdalene came early, when it was still dark, to the tomb, and seeing the stone taken away from the tomb. …Jesus said to her, Mary. She turned herself, and said to Him, Rabboni; which is to say, Master. Jesus said to her, don’t touch me; for I am not yet ascended to my Father: but go to my brethren, and say to them, I ascend to my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God” — John 20:1,16-17.
Later,
And as they went to tell His disciples, behold, Jesus met them, and greeted them. And they came and held Him by the feet, and worshipped Him — Matthew 28:9.
The difference between these two encounters is that in John’s gospel Christ met Mary Magdalene on her own and did not allow her to touch Him, as He had “not yet ascended to” His Father. But later (in Matthew) Christ met His disciples and allowed them to hold “Him by the feet”.
The significance of this should be clear.
In the first instance He had not ascended to His Father, which is what He told Mary, whereas in the second He had.
Only one sheaf was gathered. This shows that what was offered was the First of First fruits.
It wasn’t until the Father had accepted Him that the rest of the soul-harvest could begin; the harvest of First fruits that was to follow.
What a perfect type!
These seven days prophesy completely the coming of the Messiah and His work in preparing for the gathering of His First fruits, the Church.
The Feast of
Pentecost
In Israel at that time there were two harvests — the first and smaller one in the spring, and the later main harvest in the autumn. The feast of Pentecost came at the conclusion of the spring harvest. The festival itself, as noted before, has several names: Feast of Weeks, Feast of First fruits and Feast of Pentecost. Again, we must refer to Leviticus to discover the date when it was to be celebrated. It always falls on a Sunday. During the time of Christ the Sadducees seem to have used another method of determining the day, but this is beyond the scope of this article. I have followed the counting method described by Rev. Dr Edersheim in his book The Temple.
And you shall count from the day after the Sab-bath, from the day that you brought the sheaf of the wave offering; seven Sabbaths shall be complete. Even to the day after the seventh Sabbath you shall count fifty days; and you shall offer a new grain offering to the LORD — Leviticus 23:15-16.
Note that our counting is connected directly to “the sheaf of the wave offering”, which we know is Christ. Just as the seven days of unleavened bread were complete in themselves in regard to the sacrifice and forgiveness of sin, so we see in this seven times seven, a picture of perfect completion; what the wave sheaf began is completed in the Day of Pentecost. What is begun in the First of the First fruits is completed in this day celebrating the inauguration of the Church of First fruits.
That His disciples would be together on this day was therefore very important to Christ; so important in fact, that just before He ascended to heaven He instructed His disciples to “Wait in the city of Jerusalem, until you are endued with power from on high” (Luke 24:49).
This was stated on the day Jesus ascended, ten days before the festival day.
Leviticus 2:11 says that no leaven is to be used in the normal sacrifices while Amos 4:5 refers to it being present in the thank offerings. The offerings on this festival day included instructions to: “Bring out of your habitations two wave loaves of an ephah: they shall be of fine fiour; they shall be baked with leaven; they are the first fruits to the LORD” (Leviticus 23:17).
There obviously is something different, and yet special about these wave loaves because of the inclusion of leaven. James 1:18 refers to “a kind of first fruits”, which links us into the offering of that day.
That God would accept the unacceptable, points to the grace that we sinners have received (Ephesians 2:4-22), by which the barriers between us and God and each other have been removed. He, in the sacrifice of His Son, has united Jew and Gentile as one people; as His people (1 Peter 2:9-10).
Jewish tradition informs us that it was on this day, the feast of weeks, that the law was given to Israel on Mount Sinai and that this was the start of the Old Covenant and the founding of their nation. But what God did on that day shows that its reality, to which the original looked forward, was the giving of the New Covenant and the founding of a new “nation”, this time a holy one.
That there was to be a greater reality than the Jews of Jesus’ day knew is implied in Jesus’ words: “Therefore I say to you, The kingdom of God shall be taken from you, and given to a nation bearing the fruit of it” (Matthew 21:43).
Peter speaks of the Church in similar terms, saying “But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession; that you should show forth the praises of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvellous light” (1 Peter 2:9).
God said this about Israel shortly before the Ten Commandments were given: “And you shall be to me a kingdom of priests, and a holy nation...” (Exodus 19:6).
At Sinai God appeared to His people in a wondrous way: “And mount Sinai was all in smoke, because the LORD descended upon it in fire: and the smoke ascended as the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mount quaked greatly” (Exodus 19:18).
Whereas at the later Pentecost God came down to them in the form of a “mighty wind and divided tongues as of fire” (Acts 2:3).
With the shadow, those who formed the whole nation at the start were present and so it is with the reality; they were there “with one accord” (Acts 2:1) in Jerusalem that day, as Jesus had commanded.
We cannot dismiss these festival days as not predictive, since the instructions for them were given about fourteen hundred years before Christ, and yet they clearly, on the evidence we have seen, look forward to the work that God would accomplish in His Son Jesus.
Even today they are an exact statement of the church.
Thus far we have covered only the first three of the days.
There are four more and these also have a special message for a time far into the future … but more of that next time.
PETER LINDOP has been an ordained minister of the Worldwide Church of God for nearly twenty-five years.
Founded in the early 1930’s by Herbert W Armstrong, this church was locked into a form of legalism, part of the study of which related to the days given by God Almighty to the children of Israel.
Starting in about 1987 God opened the eyes of the church to its shortcomings and by grace brought them out, so today it is a part of the evangelical group of churches. Nothing is wasted with God, so while the church was studying the Old Testament commands to Israel, many interesting connections were made with the later revelation in the New Testament. These confirm the truth most of us know, adding some very interesting detail. When the shadow turns to the future it remains consistent but challenges some deeply held beliefs. This first article deals with the Passover, the Days of Unleavened bread and the Day of Pentecost, which were held in the spring. The second article will deal with the remaining days that were all observed in the autumn.
About the Author...
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Appeared in Issue CETF 34 November 2005
"...contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints" -- Jude v3
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Monday, October 09, 2006
