Feasts

Here we go again; for the second straight week, I started writing my column only to have the Holy Spirit nudge me in a different direction. As the book of Leviticus nears its end, we come to chapter 23 where God declares seven feasts for Israel to keep. These feasts are grouped three in the spring, three in the fall and one standing alone in a month spaced between the others. Picture a menorah with seven lights on one lamp stand. Three lights on the right, three lights on the left with one light in the middle of the lamp stand. Basically, what some scholars believe is that the first three feasts were prophetic of the Messiah’s first appearance; the last three were prophetic of His second coming and the middle light of the menorah represents the Feast of “Weeks” or “Pentecost” symbolizing the church age.

Read what Dr. Chuck Missler wrote: “The seven feasts instituted in the Torah are not only historically comemmorative, they also have a prophetic role.¹ The first three are in the first month, Nisan, and speak of Jesus' first coming; the last three are in the seventh month, Tishri, and point to His second coming; and the one in between, the Feast of Shavout (Pentecost), anticipates the Church.”

It’s really easy to look back at Exodus chapter 12 and see the parallel between the Passover lamb and Jesus Christ as He becomes the world’s final sacrifice. But what is not so obvious, is the fact that just as the Passover lamb was to be taken into the home on the 10^th of the month and kept until the 14^th of the month, Jesus also presented Himself as the Passover Lamb as He rode into Jerusalem on a donkey. It was the 10^th of Nisan and He would be sacrificed on the 14^th when He went to the cross. God arranged this to take place on the very same days as the Passover Feast as outlined in the book of Exodus.

The Feast of Unleavened Bread was a reminder to Israel of the haste at which they left Egypt. They left in such a hurry they didn’t let their bread rise. Yeast has always been used by God to describe sin in both the Old Testament and the New Testament. Leaven is a word picture for sin because it corrupts by puffing up. It’s the idea that a little leaven, when introduced into a small amount of dough, leavens the whole lump. Pride  is an incredibly destructive sin which leaves behind a wake of destruction. 

When you study Leviticus 23:9-14, Deuteronomy 26:1-11, and Joshua 4:19, you can extrapolate that God planned for the Feast of Firstfruits to be celebrated 3 days after the Passover lamb was sacrificed, as Israel crossed over the Jordan River into The Promised Land. The parallel here is that Jesus Christ died on Passover, and rose from the dead three days later on the exact day of the Feast of Firstfruits. In 1 Corinthians 15:20-23 it states that Christ has become the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.

The last three feasts represent the second coming of the Messiah. The Feast of Trumpets starts off the month of Tishri, followed by the Day of Atonement and ending with The Feast of Tabernacles. The Day of Atonement is where the High Priest sprinkled the blood of the Lord’s goat on the Mercy Seat and the scapegoat is freed out into the wilderness. The last feast in the month of Tishri is Succoth, or The Feast of Tabernacles. This is where Israel makes makeshift dwellings outside to stay in for 8 days. Many scholars look at these feasts as representing the gathering together of the saints to live with Jesus for a thousand years in the Millennial Kingdom here on earth.

In the middle of each group of three feasts was one that stands alone, The Feast of Pentecost. It was to begin fifty days after The Feast of Firstfruits, which we discovered is also when Jesus rose from the grave. In the book of Acts 2:1 The Holy Spirit was given to all believers on the Feast of Pentecost, which is when the church was born. In the feast of Pentecost, yeast is not excluded but specified by God to be included. If yeast or leaven is a symbol for sin, what does it have to do with the church?

Yeast is a reminder that sin would be present in the church. Jesus told His disciples that the wheat and the tares would grow together until the harvest. The tares weren’t really believers but were just masquerading as parts of the body of Christ. So we have three feasts predicting the first coming, the church age in the middle with the last three feasts predicting the Messiahs return and order restored to the earth. All in the first five books of the bible.