Spring Feasts Past and their Meaning

The prophetic sig­nif­i­cance of the feasts of Leviti­cus 23.

Struc­turally, the first four feasts are linked together, and the last three feasts are also linked — and there is a sep­a­ra­tion of time between these two groups of feasts.

The group of the first four feasts relate to the work of Jesus in His first com­ing, of His earthly ministry.

The feast of Passover clearly presents Jesus as our Passover (1 Corinthi­ans 5:7), the Lamb of God who was sac­ri­ficed, and whose blood was received and applied, so the wrath of God would pass us over.

The feast of Unleav­ened Bread relates time of Jesus’ bur­ial, after His per­fect, sin­less sac­ri­fice on the cross, dur­ing which He was received by God the Father as holy and com­plete (the Holy One who would not see cor­rup­tion, Acts 2:27), per­fectly accom­plish­ing our salvation.

We may regard the bur­ial (or actu­ally, entomb­ment) of Jesus as a small thing in God’s redemp­tive plan; but it was an essen­tial part of Paul’s gospel: For I deliv­ered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins accord­ing to the Scrip­tures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day accord­ing to the Scrip­tures. (1 Corinthi­ans 15:3–4)

The feast of First Fruits relates to the res­ur­rec­tion of Jesus, who was the first human to receive res­ur­rec­tion; He is the first­born from the dead (Colos­sians 1:18) and has become the First Fruits of those who have fallen asleep … Christ the First Fruits, after wards those who are Christ’s at His com­ing. (1 Corinthi­ans 15:20, 23)

The feast of Pen­te­cost obvi­ously is con­nected with the birth of the Church and the “har­vest” result­ing (Acts 2); sig­nif­i­cantly, in the cer­e­mony at the feast of Pen­te­cost, two leav­ened loaves of bread are waved as a holy offer­ing to God, speak­ing of the bring­ing of  Gen­tiles into the church. The Church (Jew Gentile)represented by Leaven for she contains sin.

Between the first set of four feasts and the sec­ond set of three feasts, there is a sig­nif­i­cant time gap — almost four months, which, sig­nif­i­cantly, was a time of har­vest in Israel; even as our cur­rent age is a time of har­vest for the church, until the full­ness of the Gen­tiles has come in. (Romans 11:25)

The sec­ond group of the last three feasts relate to events con­nected with the sec­ond com­ing of Jesus.

The feast of Trum­pets speaks of the ulti­mate assem­bly of God’s peo­ple at the sound of a trum­pet  (1 Thes­sa­lo­ni­ans 4:16–17), and of the gath­er­ing of Israel for the spe­cial pur­pose God has for them in the last days.

The Day of Atone­ment not only speaks of the ulti­mate, per­fect atone­ment Jesus offered on our behalf, but also of the afflic­tion — and sal­va­tion — Israel will see dur­ing the Great Tribulation.

It will truly be a time when the soul of Israel is afflicted, but for their ulti­mate sal­va­tion; as Jere­miah 30:7 says regard­ing that period: Alas! For that day is great, so that none is like it, and it is the time of Jacob’s trou­ble, but he shall be saved out of it

The feast of Taber­na­cles speaks of the mil­len­nial rest of com­fort of God for Israel and all of God’s peo­ple; it is all about peace and rest, from begin­ning to end.

Taber­na­cles is specif­i­cally said to be cel­e­brated dur­ing the mil­len­nium (Zechariah 14:16–19).  Sig­nif­i­cantly, there is good evi­dence that each of the four feasts rel­e­vant to the first com­ing of Jesus will see their  prophetic ful­fill­ment on the exact day of the feast.