It is recommended that you read the study on The Rapture before "The Feasts".

LESSON TWENTY-TWO

by Steve and Terri White

"That your trust may be in the Lord, I have made known to you this day, even to you. Have not I written to you excellent things in counsels and knowledge, that I might make you know the certainty of the words of truth; that you might answer the words of truth to those who send to you?" Prov. 22:19-21

The word excellent, as used here, is the Hebrew word shalish meaning three-fold, or weighty. It is most interesting to note that Young's literal translation renders it, "Have I not written to you three times with counsels and knowledge?" A free translation would run, Have I not written unto you three-fold things? Three-fold things are the excellent things of God, things that have depth upon depth upon depth in their meaning. This three-fold principle is revealed again and again in scripture, unfolding the truth appointed for His overcoming Bride.

God has promised to meet with man in three dimensions. As we will see in our study of the Feasts, He has already met man in the first and second realms, and is preparing to meet with us yet a third time. The Old Covenant pattern is clear: "Three times in a year shall all your males appear before the Lord your God in the place which He shall choose; in the Feast of Unleavened Bread [Passover], and in the Feast of Weeks [Pentecost], and in the Feast of Tabernacles: and they shall not appear before the Lord empty" (Deut. 16:16). God says that He will meet with man three times in the three great Feasts of the Lord. To "appear before the Lord" designates not only an action on our part, but a reciprocal action on God’s part. Not only must we appear, but He must appear! It is a joint-meeting in which we appear before Him, or as Paul explained, "When Christ, who is our life shall appear, then shall you also appear with Him in glory" (Col. 3:4). The Feasts were but types and shadows of those things that were yet to come. They were a shadow (type/pattern) of God’s plan for this world even to the very end of the ages. An Old Testament type is literally a word picture or an object lesson that pre-figures that which is to come; it is an exact shadow of that which does not yet exist. Paul spoke of those things which happened to Israel in their wilderness journey, "Now all these things happened unto them for examples, and they are written for our instruction, upon whom the ends of the world [age] are come" (I Cor. 10:11).

Together, these three feasts foreshadow the New Covenant. The first two, Passover and Pentecost, have been fulfilled and are still being fulfilled in the Body of Christ today. The last Feast, Tabernacles, still waits a future fulfillment that will begin at the completion and maturity of the ‘Corporate Christ’ at the end of this age. Because of their typical nature, the Feasts have many times been overlooked as to their great significance in the proper interpretation of Bible prophecy.

In order to understand the Feasts, it is helpful to trace the origin of the word itself. When we speak of a feast, we are prone to picture a banquet of rich foods and an evening of entertainment. That, however, is not the original concept of the word. Festival more accurately expresses the thought. It suggests gala attire, parades, singing, dancing – a holiday spent in celebrating some new event or in commemorating one in the past. From the earliest times it was the custom of heathen peoples to observe certain festal days. Primarily these seasons were for the purpose of worshiping or appeasing their idol gods. The occasion gave them an opportunity to openly display their beliefs, by various forms of art and ceremony, and thus to instruct all who witnessed the celebration in the tenets of their religion.

The Hebrew word translated feast is chag, and it refers to a sacred feast, not an ordinary meal given for entertainment. Its original meaning is a procession, a dance, or a public dramatization of some event accompanied by eating and drinking. It is significant that the Israelites’ feasting began with their deliverance, and that the idea originated with the Lord and not the Israelites. He desired to take His people into the wilderness so that they might worship Him and keep a Feast with Him. He revealed His will through Moses: "And Moses said, We will go with our young and with our old, with our sons and with our daughters, with our flocks and with our herds will we go; for we must hold a Feast unto the LORD" (Ex. 10:9). How precious it is that we have a God who deeply desires to feast with His people – a God who from the beginning has tried to show us that His greatest delight is not in showing His authority, but in enjoying an intimate relationship with His children (koinonia). The Feast means that God and man are brought together; the Lord appears to man to associate intimately with him. Christ comes in three Feasts, three unique and wonderful relationships between Himself and His people.

Memorial: They were done in memory of something; they pointed back to something God had done. The Feast of Passover was kept in memory of Israel's deliverance from slavery and bondage in Egypt. The Feast of Pentecost was given in memory of the giving of the Law at Mount Sinai as the children of Israel passed through the desert on their way to the land of promise. The Feast of Tabernacles was kept in memory of their entering into the land of promise and into their full inheritance and possession. So each of the Feasts were instituted as a memorial to something grand and glorious that God had done for His people.

Prophetic: Not only pointing to the past as a memorial, but they also pointed to the future. They foreshadowed something that God was going to do for His people. The prophetic aspect of the Passover was that the slaying of the lamb foreshadowed Christ’s death on Calvary as the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world. The Feast of Pentecost was prophetic of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit by which the Law of God, written at Sinai upon tablets of stone, would be finally written by the Spirit of God upon our hearts. The Feast of Tabernacles points to that "perfect man . . . the fullness of Christ" (Ephesians 4:13) – Christ fully glorified in His Bride.

Experiential: Each Feast finds its fulfillment in our personal, progressive walk in God. In Passover we see a picture of our justification. In the Feast of Pentecost we have a picture of our baptism with the Holy Spirit, the ‘firstfruits’ of our inheritance. In the Feast of Tabernacles we find a picture of our glorification, our entrance into the fullness of our inheritance and possession in God, even all the wisdom, knowledge, life, victory, nature, and power of the Almighty. 

A feast involves an appointed day, a public assembly at a fixed time or season. The feast days were occasions when Israel kept divine appointments, times when they assembled before the Lord in great joy and festivity. All their worship centered around these three major religious festivals. Our Redeemer has also set some appointments for us, and He expects us to keep them. Only by keeping these divine appointments can we meet with Him or know and experience Him in His ‘comings and appearings’. The sublime truth is not merely that we are called to appear before Him in the Feast, but that He comes to the Feast. He appears in the Feast: in Passover we meet the Son; in Pentecost we meet the Spirit; and in Tabernacles we meet the Father. God in Christ comes to us in three dimensions in the Feasts. Furthermore, there is a complete salvation that God has ordained for man in spirit, soul and body, and these three Feasts provide for it all. 

"For the earth yields crops by itself: first the blade [Passover], then the head [Pentecost], after that the full grain [Tabernacles] in the head." (Mark 4:28)

This feast was instituted while the Hebrews were still in Egypt. Before the tenth plague brought death to every first born, God provided a means for the death angel to pass over the home of those who obeyed Him, and to prepare them for a new life as a separated and holy nation. The faithful observance of the rites and ceremonies connected to this event would mean the preservation of Israel in the hour of God’s judgment upon the land of Egypt, and the beginning of a new era for the people of God. On the tenth day of the first month, they were to select a lamb without blemish from the flock, and they were to keep it until the evening of the fourteenth day. Then it was to be killed and its flesh was to be eaten. Its blood was to be applied on the lintel and the two doorposts on all their houses. This was the means of their salvation in view of the coming judgment that night. The Lord’s promise to them was, ". . .when I see the blood, I will pass over you. . ." (Ex. 12:13) 

In the New Covenant, Jesus is our ‘Passover Lamb’. He laid down His life without complaint, was wounded for our transgressions, and was bruised for our iniquities. When a sinner repents and surrenders to the Lord, Jesus’ blood is applied to his heart, bringing forgiveness and birthing him into the Body of Christ. He is redeemed (Eph. 1:7), justified (Rom.5:9), has peace with God (Col. 1:20), and experiences restored fellowship with our heavenly Father (Eph. 2:13). Indeed, the Passover experience is a brand new beginning – a new life – for the child of God. Old things begin to pass away, and all things begin to become new. The bondage of the world and sin, the old lifestyle of serving the lusts of the flesh is left behind, giving way to a new walk in the Spirit of God. 

Jesus died on Calvary long ago, but He appeared to you personally as your sin offering in the here and now, and you beheld Him in spirit hanging upon a tree for you. Historically He came as the Passover Lamb two milleniums ago, but by the Holy Spirit, He appeared to you as that same Jesus, and brought His death into your present, in a manner more real and wonderful than it was to those who stood gazing in shocked anguish at the foot of the cross that day at Jerusalem. When He appeared to you as your Passover Lamb, you beheld Him in the spirit. It was not the shadow of the Man of Galilee that you saw, but the One who was slain in the realm of the spirit from the foundation of the world. He became manifested in power in your life in the true Feast of Passover, not in the shadow, but in the substance. He came to you as the Lamb, in the eternal and infinite power of His blood, in the authority of His life, and a new and glorious day dawned for you, a new beginning. 

Historically and experientially the death of Jesus Christ was the first step in the process of producing a spiritual kingdom of people who would eventually rule and reign with the Lord over the earth and all things. Jesus spoke of the fruit of His death in this manner: "The hour is come that the Son of man should be glorified. Verily, verily, I say to you, except a grain of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abides alone: but if it dies, it brings forth much fruit" (Jn. 12:23-24). Jesus died that through His death He might become the firstfruit of a vast family of sons of God who would follow Him. 

The Feast of Pentecost was the second of Israel’s three annual Feasts, celebrated in the third month, and was called many names – the Feast of Harvest, the Feast of Weeks, the Feast of Firstfruits of Israel’s Labor, and the Feast of Pentecost, meaning ‘fiftieth’ (the Feast began on the fiftieth day after the Passover Sabbath, Lev. 23:15-16). This, of course, parallels exactly with the fulfillment of the type in the New Covenant. When Christ arose from the dead, He continued with the disciples forty days, "speaking of the things pertaining to the Kingdom of God" (Acts 1:3). Then He departed into heaven, and after ten days (at the time of Israel's Feast of Pentecost), He sent the Holy Spirit upon the waiting disciples. 

The Feast of Pentecost was a feast kept in remembrance of an historical event in Israel recorded for us in Exodus 19 - 23. Fifty days after the Israelites had been delivered from the bondage of Egypt by the blood of the Passover lamb, they came to Mount Sinai. It was at this moment that the presence of God came down in a way that God’s people had never known before. It was a new manifestation of God’s power and glory. The Bible says that Mount Sinai was shaking and on fire and the voice of God was heard out of the midst of the fire in an awesome way. The words God spoke on Mount Sinai were the Ten Commandments and various other commandments given to Moses for the people. God commanded the people of Israel to keep the Feast of Pentecost to remind them of their experience at Sinai. 

While all the details of the Feast of Pentecost pointed back to the power and glory of God when He met with His people at Mount Sinai and to the Law given to them at that time and place, it also pointed forward in time. It was a shadow of something to come – the New Covenant manifestation of God’s power and nature. In Acts 2 while the Jews were keeping the Feast of Pentecost fifty days after Passover, the disciples of Jesus were experiencing its fulfillment fifty days after the Passover Lamb had been slain on Calvary. God spoke with His people in an altogether new way from Mount Sinai. Just as God’s presence came down in fire upon Mount Sinai and God spoke audibly, "there appeared to them divided tongues as of fire, and one sat upon each of them" and the 120 "began to speak in other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance" while receiving the outpouring of the Holy Spirit in their lives. God wrote His Holy Law on tablets of stone on Mount Sinai, but at the spiritual Pentecost, He inscribed His Law upon men's hearts by the transforming power of His indwelling Spirit (Ezek.36:26,27). "Behold, the days come, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel... not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord; I will put My Laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people" (Jer. 31:31-34; Heb. 8:8-10). 

It is important that the Feast of Pentecost occurred at a separate point in time from the Passover and was different from the previous Feast. This Feast, like the first, was also associated with the harvest. Whereas Passover was held at the time of barley harvest, Pentecost was held at the beginning of wheat harvest (Ex. 34:22). Therefore, as the Feasts were associated with a progression in harvest, in the New Covenant they speak of the ongoing process of spiritual maturity in the life of the believer. There is a continuous process of sowing and reaping throughout the believer’s walk with the Lord. We do not receive the life of our Lord in full measure at the time of our conversion at the Feast of Passover, but we continually "put on the Lord Jesus Christ" (Rom. 13:14; Eph. 4:24). We are to be progressively transformed into His image from glory to glory until finally we arrive at the measure of the stature of the fullness of the Christ (II Cor.3:18; Eph.3:19;4:13). That’s the heart-cry of God in this hour. He wants to mature a people and fill them with all His fullness. 

In Israel of old the Feast of Pentecost was the feast of the harvest, the firstfruits of their labors (Deut. 16:9-12; Ex. 23:16; 34:22). Celebrated at the beginning of the harvest, each family brought a sheaf of the firstfruits of their harvest to the priest (Lev. 23:10). In the New Covenant it is fulfilled spiritually as "the firstfruits of the Spirit" (Rom. 8:23). As believers we experience Christ’s coming in the Feast of Pentecost by the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, receiving a guarantee [down payment] of the Spirit – a deposit or first installment (II Cor. 1:22; 5:5). The balance must follow. The fullness is guaranteed by the first installment. In other words, He is coming again to pour out all His glorious and eternal fullness in great power and glory! 

The Spirit-filled believer anticipates the fullness of God on the basis of this humble beginning. The firstfruits of the Spirit is at once a possession, a rich, blessed, and unquestionable reality – an initial endowment. As an initial gift, it stands in direct line with the expectation. The baptism in the Holy Spirit is the guarantee of our full inheritance (Eph. 1:14). "Who has also sealed us, and given the Spirit in our hearts as a deposit" (II Cor. 1:22). This scripture tells us that a down payment has been made to us by God. When we put something in lay-away at a store, we have to put down a certain percentage of money on the purchase. That money is the same thing as a deposit (guarantee/earnest). Partial payment is given in anticipation of the complete fulfillment of the transaction. We have earnest expectations or foretastes of the Kingdom as we see it now on its very smallest scale, but we are encouraged to "gird up the loins of your mind, and be sober, and hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ" (I Pet. 1:13). 

Scripture predicts a time to come when the Lord will move mightily by His Spirit. At that time the Lord will restore that which was lost all through the ages past and the long night of man’s rebellion against God. There is an event soon to take place which will overshadow all former, lesser manifestations of God’s glory and power in the earth. The glories of this great event will bring to fulfillment the restitution of all things. The grandeur, the splendor, the glory, and the great power of God to be manifest at the time of this great event is impossible for us to comprehend presently, for we are still living and moving, for the most part, under the economy of the firstfruits of God’s Spirit. The grand and glorious event to which we refer is the coming of Christ in the Feast of Tabernacles (or Feast of Ingathering, Exodus 23:16). 

Passover has come, Pentecost has come, and Tabernacles must come, for each is a part of God’s great plan for His people (Ezek. 47:1-9). Sadly, however, men seek to postpone the last Feast to some future age, give it to the Jews, or relegate it to heaven, and consequently the real spiritual meaning of the Feast of Tabernacles is completely obscured and lost. The grand truth is that like the others, the Feast of Tabernacles will be fulfilled in the Body of Christ right here on earth. It will be fulfilled in the New Covenant Age, it will be fulfilled in us individually, and it will be fulfilled in us as the Corporate Man – the Body of Christ. ". . . in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us through Christ Jesus" (Eph. 2:7; see also Eph. 1:10,21-23).

The Feast of Tabernacles speaks to us of two things: abundance of fruit and rest from our labors when the harvest is complete. What sets the Feast of Tabernacles apart from the others is the abundance enjoyed during the Feast. It’s the full harvest. At the celebration of Tabernacles, not only had the barley and wheat been harvested, but also all other grains, fruit of trees, olives, grapes, all that could possibly serve as food or drink. The harvest was complete. Spiritually, this reveals the beautiful unfolding of God’s purpose, the manifestation of Himself throughout the New Covenant, right up to the present time. There shall yet come, however, the ultimate, the total, and the complete revelation of Jesus Christ - not a narrow, limited thing, not just to get a number of people saved, filled with the Spirit, healed, blessed, and used. The Kingdom of God will come as an expression and a manifestation of God in His total capacity with no limitations, with all the power, all the glory, all the might, all the majesty, all the authority, so that nations will be swept into the Kingdom of God, creation delivered, and the last enemy, even death, destroyed from the face of the earth forever. What bright and glorious prospects loom before all who press on to the Feast of Tabernacles! (Zech. 14:16; Rev. 15:4; Eph. 1:10,23; 2:7; Rev. 21 & 22) 

Since the Church’s birth, almost every generation has known something of an outpouring of the Holy Spirit. Most of these moves would have to be characterized as something less than worldwide. They swept cities, states, even nations at times, but few were global. But now, even beyond the strength and influence of the celebration of the Feasts of Passover and Pentecost, there has been released from heaven in the last several years an even greater sense of expectancy. It is the expectancy that all heaven is about to break loose in the midst of the Lord’s elect on a worldwide basis. God is raising up voices everywhere to say that the earth is about to see the glory of God in a most remarkable way. "And the glory of the Lord will be revealed, and all mankind together will see it" (Isa. 40:5). What we are proclaiming is that there is a third experience in God. There is a visitation, an appearing, and a coming of the Lord called Tabernacles that is going to come to pass in the Church, right here on this earth, and the implications of this Feast go far beyond anything we could possibly imagine. 

God is speaking to His people today and saying to us as He said to Israel at Mount Sinai, "You have kept this Feast of Pentecost long enough . . . you have enjoyed this realm to the fullest. It is time to move. Pack up your tents and begin to move. Leave this realm; embrace the experience and use it, but move on in Me." I think there are more movements built around the Pentecostal mountain than any other experience from God. We have the "tongues" group, the "prophecy" group, the "revival" group, the "Jesus’ Name" group, the "healing" group, the "deliverance" group, the "New Testament Church" group, the "praise" group, the "Word" group, the "faith" group, the "shepherding" group, and many others. There is nothing wrong with each of these experiences and revelations when they are kept in balance. We need them working in our lives. But when we shift our bearings from God Himself and place them on any of these experiences and continue to go around and around them as though these were the ultimate, we are in serious trouble. These various experiences are not our inheritance, but merely a means by which we come into the Lord’s fullness. God will plead with us to move on, He will urge us onward for a season, but if the call is not heeded, He will move on. Those who will not heed His call will march around and around their little mountain until they die in that terrible wilderness. 

Though we find deep satisfaction in the sweet communion that we have with Him now as He journeys with us through the wilderness, how our hearts long for a closer relationship with our precious Lord. No words can express the joy that is ours when we walk and talk with Him by the way, but we yearn for His fullness when all veils and limitations of earth shall forever pass away. There are times when He makes Himself so real that our small capacity can hardly stand the strain of such revelations. It is as though we were bringing a pint cup to receive the waters of Niagara; even the earthen vessel is almost carried away. But the day is coming when our capacity shall be so enlarged that we can receive the full unveiling of our Lord and the glories that are His. He will give us such revelations of the Father that we shall indeed enter into His joy and glory. Then we shall see Him face to face, and shall behold all things clearly, with nothing between to obscure the vision. This mortal shall have put on immortality, and this corruptible shall have put on the incorruptible I Cor. 13:12; 15:53; I Jn. 3:2). The Father’s name will be written in our foreheads (Rev. 22:4) on this earth. 

The Feast of Tabernacles took place on the 15th day of the 7th month (around October) and lasted seven days. (The number 7 means fullness, perfection.) Just as Jesus fulfilled the Feast of Passover during Passover season, and the Holy Spirit was poured out during the Feast of Pentecost, we expect that the Bride of Christ will be dramatically birthed on this earth in a blaze of earth-shaking supernatural power and glory during the Feast of Tabernacles time. They will be the firstfruits that will enter into His fullness, the total incarnation of God upon earth. When the Lord comes in a mighty way at the Feast of Tabernacles, all flesh shall see the salvation and glory of the Lord. Whatever the year may be, the manifestation of the sons of God will take place when the Feast of Tabernacles is ‘fully come.’ The greatest of all spectaculars the world has ever witnessed will be when He erupts from within His many-membered body in the fullness of which Pentecost has been only a foretaste. The inhabitants of the earth will know that this is no natural phenomenon, no traditional religious service, and deep within the Voice shall witness: truly, this is the Son of God! The effulgence of His Person shall appear upon His chosen ones – the intensity of His brilliance – equating to that of seven suns, shining through the undulating ‘garment’ composed of tens of thousands of glorified saints, a star-studded, super-spectacular, seven times the power of Pentecost. The likes of which has never been witnessed by man since the dawn of creation. (II Thes.1:7-11; I Cor. 15:44-57; Rom. 8:17-23; I John 3:2; Ezek. 47:5-9) 

The spiritual Feast of Tabernacles is the full manifestation of God IN His sons (Eph. 1:10; 4:13-16 Amplified Bible). There is coming a day, the glory of which is indescribable, when the Christ shall be manifested in an all glorious manner, and the source of His highest triumphs will be what is seen in the saints. His main honor, when He comes in the Feast of Tabernacles, will not be the outward splendors, nor the angels which will accompany Him, nor the display of His power over the elements and all laws of nature, but His main honor will be the saints who have been made one in Him, and through whom He will be revealed ("His inheritance in the saints" Eph. 1:18). He will then be admired and glorified in His true body – the Body of Christ – to a total and ultimate degree. 

There is a Church, His Body, "which is the fullness of Him that fills all in all" (Eph. 1:23). The Church is the fullness of Christ. Fullness is a word not easily explained in our language; it is like a full blown rose with every petal seen. The Church – the rose – is here in a visible way upon earth, and in the Feast of Tabernacles, all that God is comes out through His Body. Christ is the fullness of God, and the Church is the fullness of Christ. Nothing, therefore, can be clearer than the fact that the Body of Christ, notwithstanding that it has manifested much carnality, weakness, blundering and failure through this age, will come out in the end as the magnificent exhibition of all the beauty of God’s Christ. The saints shall be the expression of the full glory of the incomparable Son of God, for they are His fullness. 

The three Feasts are the New Covenant. They are a progressive revelation that leads us to the fullness of God, the fulfillment of all things. "But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord" (II Cor. 3:18). God’s purpose in the first two Feasts has not been to deliver the whole creation, but to take out a people for His name (II Cor. 6:16) in order that He might display in the ages to come the transcendent riches of his grace (Eph. 2:7). Having accomplished His purpose in Passover/Pentecost, the Lord will then use the finished product from Tabernacles – a company of sons in His own image – to be the deliverers of creation (Rom. 8:19). Not only does God restore all that was lost in the Garden, but he far surpasses that given to Adam in the Covenant of Creation. ". . . The first man Adam became a living being. The last Adam became a life-giving spirit. . . as we have borne the image of the man of dust [Adam], we shall also bear the image of the heavenly Man [Jesus]" (I Cor. 15:45-49).  Through His 'Body', God will fill the earth with His glory and He will be all in all (I Cor. 15:28; Numb. 14:21; Ps. 72:19; Is. 6:3).

NOTE: It is the ‘koinonia cross’ that births the expression of the ‘corporate Christ’ -- the collective Body of Christ. God’s vision is not centered so much on the individual as on the Church; nor are His mighty works done through a single member, but through the Body. The truth of the Vine-branch relationship, however, must first be an individual experience before the believer can participate in the wider corporate implications. It is in the Feast of Tabernacles that this glorious expression of the ‘corporate Christ’ will be manifested, ushering in the full harvest.

Once you begin to see this glorious revelation of God's intention to fully manifest Himself in/through His Body, you will see it all throughout the Bible expressed in many different ways.  The following are just a few examples: 

• Tabernacle in the wilderness 

• First, second, & third day

• Harvest principles: [a] early rain, summer rain, latter rain; [b] blade, head, full grain

• Sonship process: child, tutoring/maturing, adoption (full inheritance)

RECOMMENDED READING:

THE UNKNOWN GOD

THIRD DIMENSION

SAVIOR OF THE WORLD SERIES

GROW IN GOD 

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