Seven Yearly Feasts of the Lord - Part 1A

Greetings!!!

Today's newsletter is the first of a three-part introduction to what are commonly called the Annual Feasts of the LORD. By the grace of our Almighty Father and the direction of His blessed Holy Spirit, we shall be digging deep into Scriptures to examine what Jehovah had in mind for His chosen people for ALL times when He instructed His servant, Moses the prophet, to inaugurate the feasts.

In more than one instance, the Holy Bible informs us the Christians of today that we are the elect of God. If so, what then is the significance of these seven feasts to the New Testament Israel, the Church of Christ? This all important question is what this series is set to address. Let us begin, shall we?

The twenty-third Chapter of the Book of Leviticus (KJV) opens with these two Verses, “And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, Concerning the feasts of the LORD, which ye shall proclaim to be holy convocations, even these are my feasts.”

The next thing the Lord did, at once in Verse 3, was to give succinct instructions as to how the Weekly Sabbath must be observed in all their dwellings, that is, wherever they resided. We observe that the weekly Sabbath is in itself a holy convocation-- a weekly feast.

A Holy Convocation, in essence, is a public meeting or assembly. Another phrase used for it in Scriptures is ‘Solemn Assembly’; a time for the males of Israel to gather in one (or rather, a specific) place. By males, we refer to those that are twelve years and above. Verse 3 also informs us that a day of Holy Convocation MUST be a day of rest, during which no servile work should not be undertaken by anyone.

Now Verse 4 reads, “These are the feasts of the LORD, even holy convocations, which ye shall proclaim in their seasons.” What this verse is actually saying is this: certain days in the Jewish religious calendar year were to be set aside for public or national celebrations during which there would be holy convocations, that is, Special or High Sabbaths.

It is important to note at this point that High Sabbath is not a normal Sabbath; though the High Sabbath has the trappings of an ordinary Sabbath which is observed on the sixth day, approximately Saturday in our modern calendar; the high Sabbath could fall on any day of the week, according to the times and seasons.

Reading through the whole of Leviticus 23, we notice that the LORD proceeds to name the yearly holy feasts, SEVEN of them, and also the holy rituals to be observed during the celebrations. We also discover that God uses the phrase, “It shall be a statue forever throughout your generations in all your dwellings,” or variations of it [emphasis mine].

The major objective of the post, is to introduce us to the discussion of these Seven Feasts of the Lord in such a manner that we build a solid foundation, then we can confidently proceed to examine the holy feasts one after the other.

Another fact we can draw out from Leviticus Chapter 23 with the help of the information in Exo.23:14-16, is that the seven holy feasts were, in a manner of speaking, divided into THREE groups, that is, three Festival Seasons."Each year you must celebrate three festivals in my honour.” Exo.23:14 (NLT); which can be rendered as, “Three times a year you are to celebrate a festival to me.”

From this point forward, we shall be relying heavily on the theological work of Ralph Mahoney on this subject matter in the valuable book, ‘The Shepherd Staff’ [© World MAP; Ca., USA, 1997 Ed. Revised].

THREE FESTIVE SEASONS

We have already mentioned that Three Major Festivals were to be observed annually. In order of one to three: Passover, Pentecost, and Tabernacles.

The first, Passover, and the third, Tabernacles (also called Booths or Temporary Shelters) each had Three Minor Festivals observed at the same time-one after the other. The second, Pentecost, came up fifty days after Passover, and had no minor festival associated with it.

The following outline summarizes the Seasons, Names and Parts of the Festivals:

      1. April [corresponding to the Jewish religious month of Abib or Nisan]  – Passover (followed by Unleavened Bread, and the Firstfruits Sheaf Offering). These three are observed in the same season, same gathering. (Exo.12; and 23:14-17)

     2. June [corresponding to the Jewish religious month of Sivan] – Pentecost (Exo.23:16; Lev.23:15-21)

     3. Sept./Oct. [corresponding to the Jewish religious month of Ethanim] – (Trumpets and The Day of Atonement preceded the) Tabernacles (Exo.23:16; 34:18-22; Lev.23:33-44)

CALENDARS USED FOR REFERENCE

Before we proceed, take note that the Jews have two calendars-- the Jewish Religious Year having seven months, and the Jewish Civil Year having twelve months. The months of the former in order of first to seventh are: Abib (or Nisan), Zif, Sivan, Tammuz, Ab, Elul, and Ethanim.

These months in terms of position corresponds to the seventh, eighth, ninth, tenth, eleventh, twelfth, and first months of the Jewish Civil Year. Relating these seven months to our Modern Calendar, we get April through to October. Out of the seven religious months, there were no Festivals in the months of Zif (second), Tammuz (fourth), Ab (fifth), and Elul (sixth).

SABBATHS REVISITED

We already know that apart from the Seven Holy Feasts of the Lord, there is also the weekly Sabbath, which is a feast in itself.

Say, we ignore the High Sabbaths that are observed in the course of the annual feasts, there are basically THREE kinds of Sabbaths. In the twenty-fifth Chapter of Leviticus, we meet with the “Seven-Year Sabbath” and the “Fifty-Year Sabbath” Exo.23:10-11, Lev.25:2-7, and Lev.25:8-16.

At this point, let us arrange the Sabbaths and annual feasts in their groups, and check what they speak to us of. According to Willmington’s Guide to the Bible (H.L. Willmington © 1984 Tyndale Publishers, USA), we have the following:

• Sabbaths = Weekly Sabbaths + Seven-year Sabbath + Fifty-year Sabbath. These THREE together speak of God’s FIRST great work, that of creation. The twenty-four elders of Rev.4:11 say, “Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created.”


• Annual Feasts = Passover + Pentecost + Tabernacles. These SEVEN together speak of God's SECOND great work, that of redemption. The twenty-four elders sing, "...Thou art worthy to take the book, and to open the seals thereof: for Thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation." Rev.5:9

Thus, the Sabbaths and the Feasts present a picture of God's entire Program of salvation. I trust you will agree with me when I say there is nothing God does, or think, or say that is meaningless and without significance.

We shall stop here for now, and continue the discussion in the next post: Seven Yearly Feasts of the Lord – Part 1B; coming next.




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Shalom!!!