Leviticus 6

Chapter 6. Fellowship As Illustrated in the Ancient FeastsLeviticus 23-25This also follows in natural order: redeemed, reconciled, cleansed, sanctified. We enjoy the divine communion, and sit down with our Father and His household in the blessed fellowship typified by the ancient feasts of the Levitical service. This is the flower and the fruit of the consecrated life. Very sweetly and gloriously is it foreshadowed in these ancient festal ordinances which made Judaism to a great extent a more joyous ritual, at least in its outward form, than the simpler worship of what we call Christianity. Although it was what was called the age of their minority and almost of servile bondage, yet it is astonishing how ample the provision that was made for the expression of gladness and the enjoyment of repose and recreation.

Section I: The Sabbatic Feasts

Section I—The Sabbatic FeastsThere were four of these altogether, reaching from the Sabbatic week to the Sabbatic week of years. The Weekly Sabbath

1. “There are six days when you may work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath of rest, a day of sacred assembly. You are not to do any work; wherever you live, it is a Sabbath to the Lord” (Leviticus 23:3). Already this had been instituted at creation, as the memorial of God’s rest from His finished works (Genesis 2:2). We find it observed by Abel (Genesis 4:3), and by Noah in the intervals of sending out the dove. It was recognized in the giving out of the manna (Exodus 14:22), as an institution already known and observed among them. It was reenacted in the fourth commandment, and recalled by the word “remember,” in that commandment (Exodus 20:8). It was recognized as a memorial of creation (Exodus 20:11), of their deliverance from Egypt (Deuteronomy 5:15), and as the sign of God’s covenant with His people (Exodus 31:13-17). It was to be kept not only with sacredness, but with joy as the symbol of rest from the bondage of the law. And so it already anticipated the spirit of the New Testament Sabbath, as a day of delight and triumph (Isaiah 58:13-14). Our Savior has reenacted the Sabbath (Mark 2:28) by declaring that “the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.” And He has given it a new significance as the Lord’s Day, and new prescriptions respecting its observance in the spirit of larger and holier liberty and love (Revelation 1:10; Mark 3:4). It has become to us the memorial of Christ’s resurrection, and so has passed from the seventh to the first day of the week, as was proper in an institution signalizing now the beginning of redemption rather than the end of creation. But the change of time involves no change in the essential principle of permanent application of the day and the ordinance. The Sabbatic Month
2. “Say to the Israelites: ‘On the first day of the seventh month you are to have a day of rest, a sacred assembly commemorated with trumpet blasts’” (Leviticus 23:24). The seventh month was the most sacred of all the Jewish calendar, and the crowning month of every ecclesiastical year, the remaining five months having been left blank, perhaps because they were to be filled with a more glorious future for Judaism which is yet to be revealed. This month began with the Feast of Trumpets, followed by the Day of Atonement, and reached the climax of rejoicing in the Feast of Tabernacles (Leviticus 23:24-44). The Sabbatic Year
3. The seventh year was also a Sabbath, and was exempt from all servile labor. The land rested from sowing and reaping, the previous year having produced double. All debts were suspended and the year was devoted to sacred convocations. A neglect of the Sabbatic year and its provisions was the sin of the later Jews, and the Babylonian captivity was sent in some measure because of this neglect, that the land might enjoy for 70 years the Sabbaths which the people had refused to redeem from their selfish avarice (Leviticus 25:1-8, Leviticus 25:20-22; Leviticus 26:25-35; 2 Chronicles 26:21). The Sabbatic Week of Years
4. The Sabbatic week of years, or the year of Jubilee, was the climax of this series, and the most imposing and joyous of all their feasts. Consecrate the fiftieth year and proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you; each one of you is to return to his family property and each to his own clan. The fiftieth year shall be a jubilee for you; do not sow and do not reap what grows of itself or harvest the untended vines. For it is a jubilee and is to be holy for you; eat only what is taken directly from the fields. (Leviticus 25:10-12) During this year forfeited inheritances reverted to their original owners, slaves received their freedom, gladness filled their hearts and homes, and the glorious age which Christ is yet to bring in the times of restitution of all things was sublimely prefigured. Christ’s earthly ministry began with the announcement of the year of Jubilee. The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach the good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor. … “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.” (Luke 4:18-19, Luke 4:21)

Section II: The Five Annual Feasts

Section II—The Five Annual Feasts1. The Passover (Leviticus 23:5-14) This came on the 14th day of the first month. It was also the Feast of Firstfruits, signified by the first sheaf, presented immediately afterwards (Leviticus 23:10). The Passover was typical of our redemption by the blood of Christ, therefore it was the beginning of their ecclesiastical year, as Christ’s death inaugurated the Church, and our acceptance of His blood is the initial act in the religious history of every soul. The single sheaf waved in connection with this feast 50 days before Pentecost, prefigured Christ the firstfruits. The Passover was thus not only a type of His death and resurrection before the Church was gathered through the Pentecostal outpouring, but it also prefigured the blessing which comes to the soul in the very moment of its acceptance of Jesus; the single sheaf of blessing is followed later by the fullness of the Spirit and all His abiding fruits. 2. Pentecost or the Feast of Weeks (Leviticus 23:15-21) This was called the Feast of Weeks because it came 50 days after the Passover. It was introduced by all the sacrifices. It was specially significant of the first, or grain harvest, but was also the anniversary of the giving of the law at Mt. Sinai. These two facts enable us to understand its spiritual significance; viz: the first ingathering of the church at Pentecost, and the coming of the Holy Spirit as the inner law of our Christian life instead of the mere letter written in stone. This is the second great chapter of the believer’s history. After he has received the Lord Jesus Christ in His atoning blood, the Holy Spirit becomes the personal occupant and indwelling presence of his inner life, the very law written upon his heart, the revelation of the divine will and also the power to obey it and the spring and source of all the fruits of Christian life. God’s own Word is the best commentary upon all this. “The time is coming,” declares the Lord, “when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant I made with their forefathers when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt, because they broke my covenant,…” “This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after that time,” declares the Lord. “I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people.” (Jeremiah 31:31-33) Because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death. (Romans 8:2) But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. (Galatians 5:22-23) 3. The Feast of Trumpets (Leviticus 23:23-25) This came on the first day of the seventh month. It ushered in the Sabbatic month. Perhaps it was typical of the idea of the permanent proclamation of the gospel which succeeded the day of Pentecost, and ushered in the Christian age. More especially it prefigured the wide diffusion of the gospel of the kingdom which is to usher in the last ages, the seventh month of time, and the advent of the Lord Himself. This gospel of the kingdom, our Savior tells us, must be preached among all nations, and then shall the end come (Matthew 24:14). It would seem that we are already in the beginning of this great evangel, and that the tongues of Pentecost are once more proclaiming on the mountain tops of earth that the Feast of Tabernacles and the year of Jubilee are close at hand. 4. The Day of Atonement (Leviticus 23:26-32) We have already examined in detail the spiritual significance of this great feast as it respects the great central truth of the gospel, and the experience of our Christian life. It occurred on the 10th day of the seventh month, and was typical of the reconciliation of the soul to God through the Lord Jesus Christ and His complete atonement. Its fullest meaning, however, can only be realized when this atonement has become effectual in the actual reconciliation of Israel and the children of God in all nations. Therefore it comes not in the first or second month along with Pentecost or the Passover, but away down in the seventh month, when God’s ancient people are to be brought nigh and their reconciliation is to be to the world as life from the dead (Romans 11:12-15). 5. The Feast of Tabernacles (Leviticus 23:33-44) This was the crowning joy of all the Hebrew year. It commenced on the 15th day of the seventh month and lasted through eight days, beginning and ending with the Sabbath. During this time the people dwelt in booths, constructed from branches of young trees, festooned with flowers and hung with fruits and decorated with palms and willows of the brook. It was designed to celebrate their wandering in the wilderness, and also the complete ingathering of all the fruits of the earth in the final harvest. In later times several beautiful ceremonies were added to its observance. Water was carried by a procession of priests from the pool of Siloam and poured out upon the altar in the temple, and great lights were hung up in the court of the women in the temple. It was to these that our Lord referred in His allusions in John 7:37-38 and John 8:12, when he cried: “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him.” And again: “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” Personally the Feast of Tabernacles voiced its fulfillment in the fullness of the Spirit’s indwelling and the fruits of love and service in our deeper Christian life. It expresses, generally, the idea of free salvation, of full salvation and of triumphant gladness. Its dispensational meaning, however, is still more glorious, as it points forward to the ingathering harvest of the Church and the world, the completing and homecoming of all God’s redeemed ones, both Jews and Gentiles, and the great rejoicing over which prophecy lingers with rapturous vision in such pictures as this: I looked and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands…. “Never again will they hunger; never again will they thirst. The sun will not beat upon them, nor any scorching heat. For the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd; he will lead them to springs of living water. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.” (Revelation 7:9, Revelation 7:16-17) We find in connection with this that the observance of the Feast of Tabernacles is mentioned by the prophet Zechariah, as one of the features of the millennial times. “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” (Zechariah 14:16). Spiritual Eras These great ancient feasts mark two important progressions. First, spiritually in our individual Christian life, we begin with the Passover and the cross of Calvary. Next we have the first sheaf, and the beginning of the fruits of faith and salvation. A little later we come to Pentecost, and the first rich harvests of spiritual life and blessing abundantly follow. But sometimes there comes a long interval of reaction. There are five blank months in the Hebrew calendar, and oh, how many Christians can remember a Pentecost which followed their earliest love, but which soon began to disappear like rivers in the desert, in the long, weary period of declension and barrenness that followed. Then comes the Feast of Trumpets. Does it not herald a higher stage of experience? Perhaps it tells of more than our blessing, even the blessing of service for others. This is the time when we begin to testify for God and lift up our voice like a trumpet to proclaim His grace and goodness. The Day of Atonement may be a type of that deeper reconciliation in which we learn the secret place of the Most High, and enter the house of God to lead henceforth a life of abiding fellowship which shall know no more reactions, declensions and mournful falls. This is followed by the Feast of Tabernacles, the full indwelling and fruition of the Holy Spirit, and a life of unceasing and overflowing joy, victory and service for others. It is not the water flowing in, now, but flowing out in rivers of blessing to the world. Our place henceforth is with palms of victory in our hands, and a continual gladness, for our sun shall no more go down nor our moon withdraw its shining. But, secondly, these five feasts tell of the order of the dispensations. The Jewish ecclesiastical year began with the Passover, and in ancient times they followed this order in their calendar. The civil year of the Jews, however, began with the Feast of Tabernacles, and was followed by the five silent months that immediately succeeded the feast. The modern Jews have adopted this later calendar, and consequently have inverted the order of blessing which God designed. They commenced with rejoicing and pride, and they got into darkness and sorrow all the weary centuries of their exile and retribution, and it is not until they come back in the order of the ages to the Passover month and accept the blood of redemption which their own hands shed on Calvary, that their year shall begin to roll in its cycle of blessing, and the Feast of Tabernacles shall come in its divine order. The divine order is the reverse of Israel’s calendar. Beginning with the Passover, which represents the cross of Jesus and is followed by Pentecost and the power of the Holy Spirit, and then by the great consummation of the seventh month as their religious year foreshadowed, their history would have been as blessed as their own ancient feasts. In this progression God is leading His own chosen Church; she has come to the blood of the cross, and received the descending fire at Pentecost; she has gone forth with the trumpet call to the nations; she herself has entered into the holy place, and is gathering the world in reconciliation to a reconciled God; and in a little while the last great feast shall come with all its rejoicing, and with Him, its chief joy, and the heavens and the earth shall unite to celebrate the glorious harvest of the ages and the triumphal march of the Lamb.