Leviticus chapter 23 provides a wonderful insight into God’s redemptive plan revealed through the symbols within the Jewish feasts. We can see they were provided to prepare the nation for the coming Messiah and we can appreciate the dramatic fulfillment of each of the feasts in Christ. Together the feasts reveal God’s faithfulness and mercy toward His people. The chapter begins, “these are My appointed feasts… which you are to proclaim as sacred assemblies“. The first feast “The Lord’s Passover begins at twilight on the fourteenth day of the first month“. The lamb was chosen and sacrificed reminding the Israelites how the blood of the lamb averted God’s judgment and freed the nation from captivity in Egypt. 1500 years later in Jerusalem, at the “last supper” which was the Passover meal, Jesus announced to the world that He is the Passover lamb and He established an entirely new covenant. No longer were the believers to look back at Egypt, or wait for the Messiah. Jesus declared, “This is My blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins” (Matthew 26:28). “On the Fifteenth day of that month, the Feast of Unleavened Bread begins” and lasted for seven days. Leaven (or yeast) is a symbol for sin, and this feast represented living without sin after the Passover sacrifice. It spoke of the righteousness we inherit when we accept salvation through Christ. The day after the Passover Sabbath was the time to give the first fruits of the harvest to God. “Bring to the priest a sheaf of the first grain you harvest“. It is only after we accept the sacrifice of Christ that we can present our lives as “living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God” (Romans 12:1). “Count off fifty days up to the day after the seventh Sabbath and present an offering of new grain to the Lord“. The Feast of Weeks, or Pentecost was the very day the Holy Spirit of God was poured out on the believers gathered in Jerusalem after the resurrection of Christ. “And when the day of Pentecost had come, they were all gathered together in one place… and they were filled with the Holy Spirit” (Acts chapter 2). This “new grain” symbolized the Gentile believers, and you and I became a new grain offering the moment we accepted Christ as Savior.
Interestingly, there is a long gap between the first four feasts and the next three feasts (almost 4 months). I believe the second group of feasts symbolizes the events surrounding the second coming of Christ. “On the first day of the seventh month you are to have a day of rest… commemorated with trumpet blasts“. According to 1 Thessalonians 4:16 at the rapture of the church, “The Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God“. Leviticus continues, “The tenth day of the seventh month is the Day of Atonement… anyone that does not deny himself on that day must be cut off“. It is during the great tribulation that the nation of Israel will come to accept Christ alone as Savior. Jeremiah 30:7 says of that time, “There will be none like it; and it is the time of Jacob’s distress, but he will be saved from it“. Finally the Feast of Tabernacles, “On the fifteenth day of the seventh month the Lord’s Feast of Tabernacles begins… Rejoice in the Lord for seven days“. This speaks of the millennium age, a time of peace on earth for the nation of Israel.
Jesus Christ was crucified on the Passover. His sinless body was laid in the tomb on the feast of unleavened bread. He was presented to all in Jerusalem as Savior on Pentecost as the first fruits of the church were accepted. The feast of trumpets is coming soon, are you ready? These festivals were given to Israel to prepare the nation for Messiah, but they are given to us today to prepare us for the day when Jesus will call His church to our home in heaven. Do not miss this because these symbols are for you.