Exodus (2)
Message Nine
Keeping Feasts unto God Three Times a Year Typifying the Full Enjoyment of the Triune God in Christ
Scripture Reading: Exo. 23:14-19a; 1 Cor. 5:7-8; 15:20, 23, 45b; Rom. 8:23; Acts 2:1, 4; Gal. 3:14; Rev. 21:2-3
I. "Three times a year you shall hold a feast to Me"—Exo. 23:14:
A. These times were the Feast of Unleavened Bread (Deut. 16:1-8); the Feast of the Harvest, that is, the Feast of Weeks (vv. 9-12), or the Feast of Pentecost; and the Feast of Ingathering, that is, the Feast of Tabernacles (Lev. 23:34; Deut. 16:13-15).
B. Keeping these feasts unto God three times a year typifies the full enjoyment of the Triune God in Christ—2 Cor. 13:14.
II. Keeping the Feast of Unleavened Bread (Deut. 16:1-8) typifies the purging away of all sinful things through the enjoyment of Christ as the sinless life supply—Exo. 23:15:
A. The children of Israel were to observe the Feast of Unleavened Bread for seven days as a continuation of the Feast of the Passover; actually, the Feast of the Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread are one—12:15-20; 13:6-7; Matt. 26:17.
B. No leaven was to be seen with the children of Israel; this signifies that we must deal with the sin of which we are conscious, with any sin that is manifested, that is seen—Exo. 13:7; 12:19; 1 Cor. 5:7a; Heb. 12:1-2a:
1. To deal with manifested sin is to keep the Feast of Unleavened Bread.
2. If we tolerate sin once it is exposed, we will lose the enjoyment of the fellowship of God's people—Exo. 12:19; 1 Cor. 5:13.
C. Christ is our unleavened bread, our sinless life supply of sincerity and truth, absolutely pure, without mixture, and full of reality—vv. 7-8:
1. The only way to eliminate sin is to daily eat Christ as the crucified, resurrected, and sinless life, signified by the unleavened bread.
2. The unleavened bread signifies the sinless Christ who is to be dispensed into us, His believers, as the unleavened (sinless) element; as the unleavened bread, Christ is the spiritual and divine food that makes us unleavened.
3. When we take Christ as our life—an unleavened life, a purifying life—this life purifies us.
D. The entire period of our Christian life (signified by the seven days), from the day of our conversion to the day of our rapture, should be a feast, the enjoyment of Christ as the rich supply of life—Exo. 12:16, 18-19.
E. As the unleavened bread, Christ is for us to live a pure church life—1 Cor. 5:7-8:
1. In the church there should be no leaven, which in the Bible signifies all negative things, such as wrong doctrines and practices, evil deeds, and sinful things.
2. We need to be a new lump (v. 7)—the church, composed of believers in their new nature.
III. The Feast of the Harvest—the Feast of Weeks, or the Feast of Pentecost—typifies the enjoyment of the firstfruits of the Spirit of the resurrected Christ—Exo. 23:16a; Rom. 8:23:
A. In the Old Testament type the firstfruits signify the resurrected Christ (1 Cor. 15:20, 23) offered to God on the day of His resurrection (John 20:17), typified in Leviticus 23:10-11 by the firstfruits offered to God on the day after the Sabbath, the day of Christ's resurrection (Matt. 28:1):
1. Romans 8:23 and 1 Corinthians 15:23 indicate that the firstfruits of the Spirit are Christ; the firstfruits typify Christ in resurrection, and this resurrected Christ is the Spirit.
2. The type in the Old Testament of the Feast of the Harvest indicates that as the fulfillment of this feast, the resurrected Christ is the Spirit.
3. The Spirit who came down on the day of Pentecost was the very Christ as the firstfruits offered to God:
a. Without the firstfruits in the Old Testament, there would have been no Feast of the Harvest, and without the Spirit in the New Testament, there would have been no Pentecost.
b. The Spirit who came on the day of Pentecost is the fulfillment of the firstfruits offered to God in the Old Testament—the resurrected Christ as the life-giving Spirit—v. 45b.
B. On the day of Pentecost, which was exactly fifty days from the day of Christ's resurrection, the Spirit as the full issue of the resurrected Christ was poured out on the church (Acts 2:1-4); this indicates that the resurrected Christ became the Spirit poured out on His believers for their full enjoyment (1 Cor. 15:45b; 2 Cor. 3:17).
C. The Feast of the Harvest typifies the enjoyment of the rich produce brought in by the resurrected Christ—Eph. 3:8; 1 Cor. 15:45b:
1. This rich produce is the all-inclusive Spirit of the processed Triune God, given by Him to His chosen people as the blessing of the gospel so that they may enjoy the all-inclusive Christ (the embodiment of the riches of the Triune God) as their good land—Gal. 3:14.
2. This signifies that the believers, by receiving the bountiful Spirit on the day of Pentecost, not only have entered into the good land but also have participated in the bountiful riches of the all-inclusive Christ (Eph. 3:8) in His resurrection and ascension, as God's full allotment in His New Testament economy.
IV. The Feast of Ingathering, the Feast of Tabernacles (Lev. 23:34; Deut. 16:13-15), is the consummation of the harvest—Exo. 23:16b:
A. The Feast of Tabernacles typifies, first, the coming millennium as a dispensational, joyful blessing for God's redeemed people, including the overcomers and the saved Israelites, to enjoy with God on the restored earth—Lev. 23:34, 39:
1. The millennium will come after the harvest of what God desires to obtain on earth through the three dispensations before the millennium—the dispensation before the law (from Adam to Moses—Rom. 5:14), the dispensation of the law (from Moses to Christ's first coming—John 1:17), and the dispensation of the church (from Pentecost to Christ's second coming—Acts 1:11).
2. The millennium, the age of the kingdom (Rev. 20:4, 6), will be the fourth and final dispensation of the old heaven and the old earth; it will usher in the new heaven and new earth with the New Jerusalem for eternity (21:1-3).
B. Ultimately, the eternal Feast of Tabernacles will be the enjoyment in the New Jerusalem, the eternal tabernacle (vv. 2-3), in the new heaven and new earth by all of God's people as the consummation of the harvest of their experience of God.
C. The Feast of Tabernacles, a feast of enjoyment and satisfaction, signifies the consummation of God's full salvation organically:
1. After the harvest of their crops from the good land, the children of Israel observed the Feast of Tabernacles to worship God and enjoy what they had reaped; their coming together was a picture of blending—Deut. 16:13-15.
2. The last yearly feast for blending was in the fall after the harvest for the children of Israel to enjoy their produce from the harvest of the good land in their praise to God with adoration, to bless God and speak well of God.
D. God ordained the Feast of Tabernacles so that the children of Israel would remember how their fathers, while wandering in the wilderness, had lived in tents (Lev. 23:39-43), expecting to enter into the rest of the good land:
1. This feast is a reminder that today we are still in the wilderness and need to enter into the rest of the New Jerusalem, which is an eternal tabernacle—Rev. 21:2-3.
2. The New Jerusalem is called the tabernacle, indicating that those who participate in the New Jerusalem are the real keepers of the Feast of Tabernacles for eternity with full enjoyment and satisfaction.
3. The word tabernacles in the title the Feast of Tabernacles implies the thought of remembrance—John 7:2.
4. The New Jerusalem, as the tabernacle of God, is a tabernacle of remembrance of how the overcomers, before the consummation of the New Jerusalem in the kingdom age, were still living in tents; they were not yet settled—Gen. 12:8; Heb. 11:8-10.
5. When the overcomers enter the New Jerusalem in the new heaven and new earth, they will no longer be dwelling in tents, but they will still call their eternal dwelling place the tabernacle in remembrance of what they experienced—Rev. 21:3:
a. When we are in the New Jerusalem, we will have many eternal and joyful memories of how we experienced God and of how God lived with us; we lived in tents, and He lived in a tabernacle—Exo. 40:34-35; Heb. 11:8-10.
b. Eventually, our Feast of Tabernacles will be the enjoyment of the New Jerusalem in the new heaven and new earth; this will be the real consummation of all the harvest of our experience of God—2 Cor. 13:14; Eph. 3:16-21.