Leviticus 23:26-43
The next feast is the day of atonement. It is beautiful to see in all this the perfect order we spoke of at the beginning. As soon as the Church is taken home to glory, God will then begin His dealings with Israel as a nation again. The coming of the Lord will first call us to heaven and then, as we mentioned last week, Israel will be called together “with the great sound of a trumpet” (Matt, 24:31) from. their place as scattered among the nations, and there will be a time of great national mourning and confession. It will be through the awful judgments of the tribulation period that they will finally be brought to the point where they will “afflict their souls” and own their guilt in crucifying their Messiah. They they will be broUght into the blessings of Christ’s atoning work; the value of which they have not seen as yet. Although the true “day of atonement” was when the Lord Jesus died on the cross, it will not be for them until the judgments of the tribulation bring them to repentance. We notice in our chapter that those who did not “afflict their souls” on that day were to be cut off from among the people. This would show us that those of Israel who do not, in that coming day, take the place of repentance and confession of guilt when Christ appears for their national deliverance, will be judged and cut off—not allowed to enter the blessings of the millennium on earth.
We now come to the last feast—the feast of tabernacles—which typifies the coming reign of Christ for one thousand years upon the earth. This is what we call the millennium. During this feast of tabernacles the children of Israel were to dwell in booths for seven days, just as in the millennium every man will sit down peacefully under his own vine and fig osee, (Micah 4:4). God will then cause them to rejoice under the blessings of His hand like the children of Israel were, in our chapter, to rejoice and praise God for all the blessings of the year that had just passed. In that wonderful time, which this feast typified, when the desert blossoms as the rose, and the earth yields her increase (Isaiah 35), when family life is happy and fruitful (Psalm 128), and when the people live in ease and abundance (Psalm. 45:7-17) without any sickness (Isaiah 33:24; 65:17-25), then, as never before, Israel will praise the Lord out of a full heart.
This feast then had an eighth day—the great day of the feast—and this day looks on to new creation. The eighth day begins a new week, and it is figuretive in Scripture of new creation. By the Spirit we now rejoice in this new creation, while faith looks on to “the day of God” when there will be a new heaven and a new earth where all will be suited to the mind and character of God forever—never to be ruined by sin again.
It is interesting to see the Lord Jesus at the Jews’ feast of tabernacles in John 7, standing up on that, eighth day and calling, “If any man thirst, let him come unto Me, and drink,” The Lord’s feast had become a feast of the Jews, but now Christ was there as the One who alone could satisfy the longings of the heart and bring the promised blessings. Perhaps there were some at the feast who were not satisfied with these feasts of the Jews who would turn to Him and find in Him the fulfillment of all that the feasts typified. He was, and is, the blessed Antitype of them all.
ML 05/13/1951