Moses gives us information on the feasts of Israel in Leviticus chapter 23. There are seven feasts. Seven is a very important number. There were seven realms of spirit before the throne of God in Revelation chapter 1. You pass through each realm as you are ascending spiritually to the throne room. Each of these realms is a season and a season is an appointed place in the spirit. That also coincides with Genesis chapter 1, the seven days in the creation of the many-membered Christ. It is amazing how all this fits together. Paul wrote to seven churches and there is also the seven churches of Revelation chapters 2 and 3 along with the seven seals, seven trumpets; there are sevens everywhere in the Scriptures.
The feasts are grouped with three together, then one, and then three together for a total of seven. The first three are Passover, Feast of Unleavened Bread, and the Sheaf of the First Fruits. Fifty days later there is the Feast of Pentecost which is one day. In the seventh month of the Jewish calendar, there are three feasts together again – Feast of Trumpets, Day of Atonement, and Feast of Tabernacles.
Leviticus 23:2-4 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.
3 Six days shall work be done: but the seventh day is the sabbath of rest, a
holy convocation; you shall do no work therein: it is the sabbath of the Lord in
all your dwellings.
4 These are the feasts of the Lord, even holy convocations, which you shall
proclaim in their seasons.
The feasts were holy convocations, not just a casual gathering on Sunday mornings and evenings for a service. These are holy convocations, which you shall proclaim in their seasons. Proclaiming them means you are to speak them, proclaim them into being, make them work so they will accomplish what they are supposed to.
Leviticus 23:5 In the fourteenth day of the first month at even is the Lord’s Passover.
The fourteenth day of the first month is the day the Israelites came out of Egypt. At the Passover, the Israelites put the blood on the doorposts of their houses. The death angel passed over and anyone who did not have blood on their doorpost, the firstborn died of every family, every beast and animal. This is the Passover. If your dwelling had blood on it, you were protected. That was your salvation. This is what it is talking about when Jesus Christ shed His blood on the cross. That is your first experience becoming a Christian.
Leviticus 23:6 And on the fifteenth day of the same month is the feast of unleavened bread unto the Lord: seven days you must eat unleavened bread.
What is unleavened bread? We use yeast for leaven today. When baking, the cook puts leaven in the dough and kneads it. It permeates all through until the whole thing becomes leavened. That is what makes the bread rise. The leaven represents sin, which makes your flesh nature rise. So in this feast one will partake of unleavened bread, bread that has no yeast/sin in it. Jesus Christ is your Passover. He is the Passover lamb that sheds His blood. He is also the unleavened bread, so you will partake of Him in whom there is no sin.
During the Feast of Unleavened Bread, they would sweep out all the leaven out of their houses because they have been baking bread with leaven. That is symbolic. After you become a Christian and had your Passover experience, then a work begins of getting sin out of your life, a separation from sin. On the first day in Genesis God says, “Let there be light.” This is the first day of your Passover as you come to the Lord. The second day in Genesis chapter 1 God separated day when the waters above are separated from the waters below. So your second day of the Passover is your separation day from sin. Each one of the feasts corresponds to the seven days in Genesis chapter 1.
Leviticus 23:9-10 And the Lord spoke unto Moses, saying,
10 Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, When you come into
the land which I give unto you, and shall reap the harvest thereof, then you
shall bring a sheaf of the firstfruits of your harvest unto the priest.
This is the barley harvest. It is ready at this time; the wheat harvest is not ready yet. It is just coming in so they would go out into the field and get a sheaf, a handful of grain.
Leviticus 23:11 And he shall wave the sheaf before the Lord, to be accepted for you: on the morrow after the Sabbath the priest shall wave it.
The waving of the sheaf before the Lord typifies the resurrection of Jesus Christ and His ascension, His being raised up into heaven. These feasts build one upon the other. We realize that each one of the feasts not only speaks of Christ, but they speak of the many-membered Christ and how it partakes of each one. Passover represents Christ shedding His blood. It also represents the many-membered Christ and the laying down of its life. Any prophecy you find in the Scriptures that is fulfilled in the Lord Jesus Christ is also fulfilled in the many-membered Christ.
Leviticus 23:12 And you shall offer that day when you wave the sheaf a he lamb without blemish of the first year for a burnt offering unto the Lord.
We won’t get into all the offerings at this time. The third feast of waving the sheaf (the resurrection of Christ) also speaks of the third day in Genesis, which is the day of resurrection. That is your first three feasts. Now let’s look at the next one.
Leviticus 23:15-17 And you shall count unto you from the morrow after the
Sabbath, from the day that you brought the sheaf of the wave offering; seven sabbaths shall be complete:
16 Even unto the morrow after the seventh sabbath shall ye number fifty days;
and ye shall offer a new meat offering unto the Lord.
17 You shall bring out of your habitations two wave loaves of two tenth deals:
they shall be of fine flour; they shall be baked with leaven; they are the firstfruits unto the Lord.
Fifty is the number of Pentecost. The meat offering is a grain offering. Anything they ate is considered meat because it is nourishing for life. Now this is the Day of Pentecost. It is different from the feast of Unleavened Bread. The feast of Unleavened Bread had no leaven in the bread. Here on the Day of Pentecost there are two loaves of bread and they are leavened. That is because these loaves of bread don’t represent Jesus Christ. They represent us who have human nature in us which is sin. The two loaves of bread are Christ in us and we are baked with leaven which means that we are not yet sinless.
The Feast of Pentecost is seen in Acts chapter two. The sheaf of firstfruits is when Jesus ascends; the Feast of Pentecost is when He descends into us. Now we are two and not one – two loaves of bread.
Leviticus 23:24 Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, In the seventh month, in the first day of the month, shall ye have a sabbath, a memorial of blowing of trumpets, a holy convocation.
This is the Feast of Trumpets of the seventh month; it is the blowing of trumpets. The trumpet represents a prophetic Word. Numbers 10 speaks of the silver trumpets and what they were used for. They would blow the trumpets and the people would gather for a convocation or a meeting. They would blow the trumpets and the people would know to go to war. There were several reasons for blowing the trumpet and each time they would blow them in a different way. According to the blowing of the trumpets the people would know what to do, whether to gather or scatter.
Here the blowing of the trumpets means there is a new Word being spoken, a Word that is gathering the people together. It is the blowing for an assembly. I think it is quite interesting that the whole thing about Pentecost centers on the Word. The first Pentecost was at Mt. Sinai. The children of Israel left Egypt at Passover. Fifty days later they were at Sinai. God appeared on the mount at Sinai when He spoke to Moses. God said, “If you will indeed obey My voice, then you shall be…,” but the whole thing centered around His voice. What happened on the Day of Pentecost? It was centered on the voice of those speaking in other languages. Peter stood up and began to bring his first sermon when he said, “This is that which Joel the prophet spoke of….” It is the speaking of the Word.
On the Day of Trumpets, that which was begun at Pentecost comes into full blossom, a full production of the blowing of the trumpets, a Word to gather the people. That is the first day of the seventh month – one day. So you blow your trumpet and get it done.
Leviticus 23:27 Also on the tenth day of the seventh month there shall be a day of atonement: it shall be a holy convocation unto you; and you shall afflict your souls, and offer an offering made by fire unto the Lord.
Four days before they would put the lamb or goat aside that would be used for sacrifice. Then on the Day of Atonement, they had the sacrifices ready. What is this Day of Atonement all about? If sin was forgiven at Passover and dealt with at the Feast of Unleavened Bread, why is there a sacrifice for sin again on this Day of Atonement? It is quite simple. Atonement is at-one-ment. What is that? The Day of Atonement has to do with bringing us into one. What is the sin that it deals with? The sin that is dealt with on the Day of Atonement is all the different kind of sins that would keep the Body of Christ from becoming one.
There were two sacrifices – one was a sacrifice unto the Lord and the other was called the scapegoat. It was sent into the wilderness to become a nothing. That was Azazel. It is another word for Satan which is your flesh nature. Satan means adversary. Your adversary is your flesh nature. Our flesh nature is that which keeps us from becoming one with the Lord and with one another. That is what atonement is all about. That flesh nature is sent into the wilderness never to be seen again. That is pictured by the scapegoat.
Leviticus 23:34 Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, The fifteenth day of this seventh month shall be the feast of tabernacles for seven days unto the Lord.
To the Jews the Feast of Tabernacles was the big ingathering when they brought all the crops in, the wheat harvest and any other harvest that was ready. There was great rejoicing. They would live in lean-tos, booths, little small tabernacles that commemorated the time when they were in the wilderness. To the Christian it is the big ingathering of God’s people. It speaks primarily of the Lord dwelling in us or us in Him. The oneness has been created and we are dwelling together. We are in Him and He is in us.
The very last day of the Feast of Tabernacles is called the Great Day of the Feast. We find that in John 7:37: In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto Me, and drink. Listen, I know there were seven seasons for these seven feasts. At particular times of the year they took place. But we have learned something new in the revelation the Lord has given us. Time has to do with realms in the Spirit. As in Genesis, some people are moving into their third day while others are just coming into their first day. Everybody is not on the same day at the same level. So here Jesus says, If any man thirst, let him come unto Me, and drink. In other words, you don’t have to wait until a particular time in the year to have your Feast of Tabernacles or your Great Day of the Feast. Any time that you come unto Him and begin to drink, you can do it.
He that believes on Me, as the scripture has said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. But this spoke He of the Spirit, which they that believe on Him should receive: for the Holy Ghost was not yet given; because that Jesus was not yet glorified. John 7:38-39. This is what happens on that Great Day. As you partake of the Lord on this great day of the feast, what you partake of flows out of your most inner being, out of your spirit flows the living water.
You can have your feasts whenever you are ready. If you haven’t had your Passover yet, enter into it. If you haven’t had your Feast of Unleavened Bread, now is the time to start getting that leaven out. If you haven’t waved your Sheaf of Firstfruits, you can do it. We are talking about the experience of the believer from start to finish. That is what these seven feasts do – it gives you the journey from nothing to everything.
Copyright © 2008 by Henry DuBose