The scriptures in Leviticus 23 bring before us the whole outline of the dealings of God with His people on earth. We will see, however, that while the feasts had a primary application to Israel, God was also looking forward, far beyond the existing state of His ancient people. The feasts served the purpose of gathering Israel around Himself, but they also anticipate that of a superior character—Christianity. God also removes the veil from the age to come, when He will establish the kingdom in glory. We will see God’s purpose in Christ to gather His own around Himself, and we shall be able to trace His dealings, not only for the earth, but also for heaven. God has already won the victory morally in Christ, and soon He will prove it before every eye.
The Sabbath
The Sabbath is mentioned first, introduced in a peculiar manner. In the beginning of the chapter, where the feasts are introduced generally, the Sabbath is named in particular; next, in verse 4, there is a fresh beginning which excludes the Sabbath. Why? Because the Sabbath has a character altogether peculiar to itself. All the other feasts were celebrated but once a year; the Sabbath, every week. There is, therefore, a distinct line of demarcation, and so the second beginning is justified. But still the Sabbath has the character of a feast, for it was of all importance that its twofold witness should be habitually before God’s people — the testimony to His work in creation, and the testimony of the great rest of God which His people are to enjoy at the end.
The rest of glory will be introduced after Christ comes, for “there remains then a sabbatism [sabbath-keeping] to the people of God” (Heb. 4:99There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God. (Hebrews 4:9) JND). There is a day coming when all creation shall rejoice, when the heavens and earth and all in them unite together. This will be the rest of God, and, when it comes, the Sabbath will again be the distinctive sign of God, which He will have observed and honored through the whole earth.
The Passover
Here we find God laying the foundation for all blessing. God had intervened to deliver His people from bondage, but if God delivers them, He must deliver them righteously. On that night He went through the land to avenge sin, but one thing stayed His hand, namely, the blood of the slain lamb. Wherever this was not on the doorposts and upper lintel, death reigned. Jehovah declared by that blood on the doorposts that only the death of a suited substitute could stay judgment.
The judgment of God falling on the Lamb explains what sin is and calls for. The sprinkling of the blood on the doors answers to the believer’s application of Christ’s blood by faith to his own case. God’s judgment fell on His Son, because He is His Lamb who was able to bear it. The blood of the Lamb is the witness of God’s judgment, but in the richest grace, because it fell on His Son. So 1 Corinthians 5:7 tells us, “Christ our passover is sacrificed for us.”
The Feast of Unleavened Bread
The Passover was followed immediately by the feast of unleavened bread, one being on the fourteenth, the other on the fifteenth, of the same month. As the feast of unleavened bread in the New Testament is treated as beginning with the killing of the Passover lamb, the immediate response of the Christian to Christ’s blood is to walk in holiness. Henceforth God will not have him to claim a single day to himself. At once he is called by the grace of God to own his responsibility to put away all leaven. We know from 1 Corinthians 5:7 that leaven is symbolic of corruption. “Even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us: therefore let us keep the feast.” What feast? That of unleavened bread.
This differs from the Passover, for one day was kept for the Passover and seven days for the feast of unleavened bread. Seven days was a complete cycle of time in connection with God’s people — a full period for men on earth. Keeping the feast of “unleavened bread” typifies the feeding on Christ in His purity, for the unleavened bread was their food through all the seven days. This involved the maintenance of personal holiness. No leaven must be found in their houses. So our walk and ways must be under the sense of responsibility, as separate to the Lord.
Leaven was to be banished from the house as well as from the individual, and this perhaps speaks of ecclesiastical purity. The Lord calls us to beware of allowing leaven anywhere. God wants us to please Him in every relationship, in what is collective as well as our individual walk. If the feast was to begin the first day after the Passover, it was to be continued the full seven days. To keep this feast is always our calling while here.
The Wave Sheaf
The wave sheaf is introduced as quite separate from the Passover and accompanying feast of unleavened bread. But in point of fact the wave sheaf was waved on the first day of the week that followed the Passover. So the Lord was crucified on Friday, lay in the grave on the Sabbath or last day of the week, and rose on the first day [or Sunday]. He was raised from the dead on the very day the wave sheaf was waved before Jehovah. The risen One had left the grave and broken its power for believers, and thus the type of the wave sheaf begins a new order of things, distinguished from all before.
In the wave sheaf we have prefigured Christ raised by God’s power and for God’s glory. It is certain that this typifies Christ’s resurrection, and none but His, for we see there was no offering for sin connected with it. Here we do have the two great offerings of sweet savor — the burnt offering and the meat offering, both speaking of Christ in His perfection.
The Wave Loaves or
Feast of Weeks
This feast only is marked out by seven sabbaths intervening. It is the feast of weeks, but the number fifty has given the name to this feast, which is therefore called Pentecost. What, then, was fulfilled when the day of Pentecost was fully come? The Father made good His promise, in the gift of the Holy Spirit. They were told on that day to offer a new meat offering, for the church was a new thing. At that day there began here below a thing so new that it was entirely without precedent.
In Leviticus 23:1717Ye shall bring out of your habitations two wave loaves of two tenth deals: they shall be of fine flour; they shall be baken with leaven; they are the firstfruits unto the Lord. (Leviticus 23:17), we read of two wave loaves. When God speaks of a witness, His regular way is by at least two. Christ was risen, the wave sheaf, but now the assembly as the two wave loaves is given as a witness of the power of His resurrection. The Christian company are witnesses to God’s grace in Christ risen from the dead.
Furthermore, the wave loaves were to be of fine flour baked with leaven. Fine flour speaks of Christ’s purity, but leaven speaks of sin. Here we have two seemingly incompatible things mingled in what typifies Christians — fine flour and leaven. Yet sad experience agrees with it, for the believer has two natures. Not that there is the least excuse for yielding to sin, but sin is there, set out by leaven, not working but baked in the bread.
The Feast of Weeks, then, is a distinct type of God’s grace to and ways with the Christian calling. What the feast spoke of was fulfilled on that very day of God’s sending down the Holy Spirit and beginning to gather together His scattered children in one.
The Feast of Trumpets
Here we find ourselves in the seventh month — the last month in which Jehovah instituted a feast. Here He brings to a completion the circle of His ways on the earth and for Israel. God is inaugurating a fresh testimony — “a memorial of blowing of trumpets.” The trumpet is clearly a loud summons from God to people on the earth. Here it is not merely a blowing of trumpets, but “a memorial” of blowing of trumpets. It is the recall of His ancient people on the earth. Thousands of years have passed since they stood before Him as His people, but they are yet to return to their land. Thus God awakens them, and the feast of trumpets is God’s taking up Israel afresh.
We can well rejoice in the future gathering of Israel. The fig tree is its figure, and “when his branch is yet tender, and putteth forth leaves, ye know that summer is nigh” (Matt. 24:3232Now learn a parable of the fig tree; When his branch is yet tender, and putteth forth leaves, ye know that summer is nigh: (Matthew 24:32)). They have had their long winter, and soon the Sun of righteousness shall arise with healing in His wings for them.
The Day of Atonement
Next, we come to the most solemn of all the feasts, the great day of atonement. On this atonement day Israel shall be brought under the propitiation of Christ. On the tenth of the seventh month, Israel will justly say, We are the guiltiest people on earth, for we despised and killed our Messiah. “Ye shall afflict your souls, and offer an offering made by fire unto the Lord” (Lev. 23:2727Also on the tenth day of this seventh month there shall be a day of atonement: it shall be an holy convocation unto you; and ye shall afflict your souls, and offer an offering made by fire unto the Lord. (Leviticus 23:27)). Joseph was rejected by his brethren and exalted to the highest place in Egypt, and when the true Joseph presents Himself to Israel, surely they will afflict their souls as did Joseph’s brethren.
But this is not all. In verse 28 we read, “Ye shall do no work in that same day: for it is a day of atonement, to make an atonement for you before the Lord your God.” Israel, of all others, boasted of their works, but the day of atonement will shut out everything but Christ, so that their self-loathing will be as complete as their abandonment of their own works.
These are the two effects of grace: on the one hand, affliction of soul in the confession of their sins, and, on the other hand, no mingling anything of their own with the work of Christ. This is repeated in verse 32: “It shall be to you a sabbath of rest, and ye shall afflict your souls.” The two moral realities, no work of man and true affliction of soul, mark the day of atonement for Israel.
The Feast of Tabernacles
Here we see seven days again mentioned. As there were seven days of suffering in grace, in the feast of unleavened bread, so now there are seven days of glory. This will be the feast of tabernacles for Israel on earth. “Also in the fifteenth day of the seventh month, when ye have gathered in the fruit of the land, ye shall keep a feast unto the Lord seven days” (vs. 39). It was when they had gathered in the produce of the land, when the harvest was past, and the vintage over. The harvest is that character of judgment where the Lord discriminates the good from the bad, while the vintage is where He will trample down wicked religion unsparingly. Both will be past when the feast of tabernacles is kept, in the millennial day.
We get something further in verse 39: “Ye shall keep a feast unto the Lord seven days: on the first day shall be a sabbath, and on the eighth day shall be a sabbath.” There will be a complete term of glory then on the earth as we are now going through a complete term of grace. But the feast of tabernacles stands distinct from all the others — it has an eighth day. The seven days are glory for the earth, but the eighth day opens heavenly and eternal glory! It has a beginning, but it will never have an end! The eighth day is the link with the heavenly places and alludes to the higher glory of resurrection, not of Christ now but of those who are His reigning with Him.
W. Kelly, adapted