THE FEASTS OF ISRAEL / PASSOVER
Lev. 23
God has established a meaningful and profound prophetic system through His choices of the seven Holy feasts. These feasts were to be observed each year by the Chosen People, and the dates, proper observances and instructions are given in Leviticus 23.
The events of the NT, the future of the church and the Jews, all of God's plan are revealed through the nature and the timing of the seven annual feasts. Through this study I want you to become aware that we are existing, as it were, between two feasts, and that it is important for you to understand God's calendar.
I want you to notice that God is very efficient in instruction of the feasts; it is all in one chapter. Now these feasts are mentioned else where, but the vital fundamental requirements of the Old Covenant were gathered together in simplest form so that no one would over look them. If there is one chapter of the OT that a faithful Jew would remember, it is this one here.
If there were just one error in the celebration of the Day of Atonement, the sixth feast, it would result in banishment from the Chosen People.
The feasts today are celebrated today in altered forms by the Jews who wish to follow the Old Covenant as close as possible. Since the major feature was sacrifice, and since sacrifice is impossible without the proper Temple of God in Jerusalem, the original meaning of the feasts has been completely lost. Without a proper knowledge of the NT, even the fulfillments of the feasts are lost.
Now believers in Christ are not required to keep the feasts, but a knowledge of them will enhance your faith. Jesus kept everyone of them without fail, even celebrating Passover on His last earthly night.
We will examine each feast individually, giving the verses from Lev. 23. I hope we will then see and understand the fulfillment in the NT as indicated by the number of the feast.
PASSOVER
The festival year for the Jew begins with Passover, to be held at the beginning of spring. Leviticus 23:5 (read)
Month of Nisan is the 1st month of the religious year. (April) For the Passover families would provide themselves with a lamb (Paschal Lamb) on the 10th day of Nisan. The would kill it on the eve of the 14th, dip hyssop branch in the blood, apply it to door posts, roast the animal and eat. They would eat it with bitter herbs and unleavened bread. When they ate they were dressed for a journey, they ate in haste, and they ate in a standing position. They did this to commemorate the exodus, and because they had been slaves. Later they began to sit to eat celebrating their freedom. In the Paschal dinner no fewer than 10 could eat together. Jesus observed all this because there was 13 in His company. At least two had to prepare the dinner, and Jesus sent Peter and John to prepare Passover supper. Then last and not least the supper had to be eaten in Jerusalem, which Jesus did.
The Lord gives a single verse to the direction of the Passover since the Children of Israel had in essence had just celebrated it. Exodus 12 and the following chapters give us the story of national liberation from Egypt. This marked by the 10th plague. God merely just assigns Passover its date, but here is a fascinating concept.
God's calendar is a lunar calendar based on the phases of the moon rather than the sun's revolutions around the sun. Each month starts with a new moon, reaching a full moon in the middle of a 28 day cycle.
So Passover always falls on a full moon, the 1st full moon of the spring. The 28 day cycle of the moon is in harmony with all the rest of nature from the tides of the seas to the menstrual cycle of the female. The moon makes for a better calendar than the sun because it changes every night.
Those who are familiar with a lunar calendar can estimate on a clear night what day of the month it is. The sun however does not change daily, and God may have chosen not to use the sun because the Egyptians worshiped the sun god Rae. It seems that irreverent men are fascinated and captivated by the magnificence of the sun. In Hebrew reckoning, the day begins at sundown, or at moon rise. This seems to be God's plan all along. Gen. 1:5 …and the evening and the morning were the first day.
The almond trees and the cherry trees bloom at the end of winter with very noticeable blossoms. This encouraging act of nature is alluded to in the Scriptures. We should appreciate that even if we couldn't read or even comprehend a calendar that the Jew would not omit Passover; all he had to do was notice the blooming of the almond tree. The next full moon was the 1st feast. All the feasts are based on Passover.
Passover is the feast of salvation. On this day, because of the blood of the lamb the Hebrew nation was delivered out of bondage. Ex. 12:5 Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male…
Clearly in both the OT and the NT the blood of the Lamb delivers from slavery; the Jew from Egypt and the Christian from sin.
It is no coincidence that Jesus was crucified on the Passover. At His meal Jesus clearly stated in Matt. 26:27 For this is my blood of the New Testament, shed for many for remission of sins.
John the Baptist clearly marked out the person of Jesus Christ as a blood sacrifice when he stated in John 1:29 …Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.
The Christian celebrates Passover in effect by participating in the sacrifice of the Lord. Back in Egypt the Jew marked their door posts with the blood of the lamb. Today the Christian marks his house; the body is the temple of God, with the Blood of Christ.
The Angel of Death will certainly pass over each on of us that is saved just as he passed over each of the Israelites in Egypt. Because as Christian's death has no hold on us, we are living already our eternal lives it's just in a physical sense right now. For the lost man death still has a hold and there is no victory just separation.
The fulfillment of Passover on the exact day gives us a principle which we will be able to see in the next feasts that we will study. Jesus fulfilled each feast on its appropriate day with an appropriate action up to the point we have now reached in His prophetic plan.
We will see that each of the feasts in the prophetic picture have either been fulfilled, or are prophesied to be fulfilled, with reference to their exact meanings.
Passover represents our salvation. We do not keep the feast in remembrance of the exodus from Egypt, because that was just a shadow of a greater redemption that was to come. Jesus Himself instructed us to …do this in remembrance of Me.
Pastor
Brandon Dona
709 Union
Bonham, TX
903-583-4716
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