The Seven Feasts of Jehovah

Everything that God did or revealed in the First Testament was given as a shadow or an example of His finished plan of redemption. Nothing in the Bible is an afterthought or a new thing, but all of His actions or words was the acting our of a preordained drama. It can best be called the "Drama of Redemption." Seven major feasts are the prophetic picture of Jesus Christ and His redemption accomplished. The actual feasts are the simple rehearsal of that accomplishment and were used to allow Israel to receive the benefit of the Father’s eternal plan.

Our God does nothing for its dramatic effect, but if He did, these "Seven Feasts" would transcend the greatest masterpieces of human existence. They are breathtaking in both design and message. Each feast foreshadows a unique part of God’s redemption story. Each feast is a complete message in itself, yet fits into the total picture in such a way that it would be incomplete to let it stand alone. Indeed the seven feasts together are God’s redemption drama and the world will be His kingdom when the last curtain of the Feast of Tabernacles is lifted.

The Feasts of Jehovah
These seven feasts must not be called the Feasts of Israel, but the Feasts of Jehovah. Moses stated clearly what these feasts were to represent. "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. Six days shall work be done: but the seventh day is the sabbath of rest, an holy convocation; ye shall do no work therein: it is the sabbath of the LORD in all your dwellings. These are the feasts of the LORD, even holy convocations, which ye shall proclaim in their seasons." (Leviticus 23:2-4).

When Jesus was present in the flesh to be the Messiah, the Jewish nation had changed the Feast of Jehovah to the Feast of the Jews. Instead of a Feast of Revelation, they had become the Feast of the People and tied to the nation, instead of the promises of God. Listen to the Apostle John speak of these feasts in the Jewish terminology of his time. "And the Jews’ passover was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem." (John 2:13). "Now the Jews’ feast of tabernacles was at hand." (John 7:2).

No wonder Isaiah had said the following when he noted the backslidden state of Israel. "Ah sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a seed of evildoers, children that are corrupters: they have forsaken the LORD, they have provoked the Holy One of Israel unto anger, they are gone away backward." (Isaiah 1:4).

The First Testament Foretold God’s Plan
The New Testament writers were ordained by the Holy Spirit to simply unveil what was contained in the First Testament. Nothing in the New Testament was new. The First Testament was their tutor to enable them to see all that Jesus Christ represented. All the things of God are higher than the wisdom of the wisest. Yet, God had chosen to teach by shadows, types, and simple events so that the New Testament writer or believer could grasp the depth of His wonderful works.

Let’s look at several New Testament Scriptures that show plainly what we are saying. Jesus said, "Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled. Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I say unto you, That except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven." (Matthew 5:17-20).

Often the word fulfilled is misunderstood in the way Jesus used it. It means complete. Jesus did not fulfill to eliminate but to complete. The First Testament was the shadow and Jesus came to show that which was only dimly visible before. He eliminated nothing but the shadow and then established the finished product.

The Apostle Paul adds a beautiful dimension to this same truth. He said, "For whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope." (Romans 15:4).
Remember, the only Scripture that the apostle could refer to was the First Testament. The Second or New Testament was in the process of being written, but was not canonized or accepted yet as an official document. The Old (First) Testament was their only approved Scriptures. The total message preached by the early church was based on the lessons and inspiration of the Law, the Torah or prophets and writings of the Jewish Scripture. Consequently, everything in the New Testament is Jewish and based on the anointed truths of their Scripture.

The Law Was a Tutor (School Master or Teacher)
It’s amazing to see the rebellion in today’s church against the laws of God. When you begin to see that the Law was God’s ordained schoolmaster and that it was the exclusive route by which the Father would bring us to His Son, then the Law becomes beautiful rather than restrictive. Rebellion against anything is always in the mind of the rebellious. What one man rebels against is the protection of another.

Look at Apostle Paul’s description of this breathtaking truth. "Is the law then against the promises of God? God forbid: for if there had been a law given which could have given life, verily righteousness should have been by the law. But the scripture hath concluded all under sin, that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe. But before faith came, we were kept under the law, shut up unto the faith which should afterwards be revealed. Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith. But after that faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster. For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus." (Galatians 3:21-26).

We are not to become lawless because the tutor finished its job. We are to move up to the higher level of the Lawgiver Himself that now abides in our life to effect the Law by grace instead of works. The Law is our teacher to bring us to Christ. The feasts were his object lessons to show us the dramatic effect of His Law. Every truth in the Law was to manifest itself in the feasts so that the Jewish people would have a witness of the fulfillment when it occurred.

The Jewish leaders and people allowed the feasts to become rituals instead of revelations and because of that they rejected the fulfillment or completion of the first four feasts. How did they miss seeing Jesus as their Passover Lamb? Everything that the Passover Lamb suggested or typified, He fulfilled. As we look at the life of Jesus Christ and His death and the numerous perfect expressions of the Passover Feast, we are amazed at such precision. But, remember they missed it because of ritualism and we see it because of revelation. This is a spiritual fact in all truth that never fails.

The Apostle Paul adds a kind of finished expression to the thought of the First Testament shadows becoming their light to the brighter day of Christ’s coming. Paul said, "Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holy day, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days: Which are a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ." (Colossians 2:16-17).

It would appear that the Jews were certainly free to continue their feasts days as a remembrance of God’s lessons. It is also clear that there is absolutely no spiritual life in those feasts because Christ has come. To place confidence in a communication of grace by any shadow of the First Testament is to revert back to the Law and its powerlessness to save. The glory of the shadow was only in its hope of the promise. Once the promise is completed, it is futile to trust in a shadow. The church must study the values of revelations afforded the First Testament worshipper and then quickly move into the glory of revelations fulfilled.

If the ritualism of the Jews so clouded their vision that Jesus Christ was totally rejected then for the church to return to those rituals suggest the same blindness all over again. All of us have probably heard the clear expression of how the two testaments relate to each other. I repeat it for all our benefits. The New Testament is in the First Testament concealed, while the First Testament is in the New Testament revealed.

The Calendar and Its Importance
The scheme of events in the Seven Feasts of Israel demands some understanding of our present calendar as well as ancient calendars. Each of the Seven Feasts occur on a specific day of the month in the Jewish calendar. The three months out of the regular twelve that these feasts occur are Nissan, Sevan, and Tishri. The first three feasts are in the first month, Nissan, the middle or fourth feast is in Sevan, and the last three are in Tishri, the seventh month. The Jewish calendar has twelve months, plus a strange sequel of a leap year of thirteen months. The leap years are the third, sixth, eighth, eleventh, fourteenth, seventeenth, and nineteenth. Then, they start over again.

All ancient calendars were made up of 360 days until 701 BC. At that time something happened in the universe that started the process of change until the 365 1/4 day calendar was finalized in 1582 AD by Pope Gregory XIII. The Jewish day also begins at sunset and ends at sunset according to the account in Genesis. "And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day." (Genesis 1:5). The Jewish calendar is set annually by determining the full moon. This keeps the feast days at their precise location in the pattern set by Holy Scripture.

Feast Days Set by God Himself
The Father Himself set the feast days in the pre-ordained scheme as they will be finally acted out in the divine drama of completed redemption. Please notice the Biblical design given to Moses. "And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying, 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." "These are the feasts of the LORD, even holy convocations, which ye shall proclaim in their seasons." (Leviticus 23:1-2, 4).

These seven feasts are His holy convocations. They are designed to proclaim His glory to Israel and to set God’s appointments for the future. The word feast comes from a Hebrew word mowar that suggests to "keep an appointment." In other words these were God’s appointments or God’s plan and they were to keep them in obedience to His redemptive purpose. They could not have understood how they would be finally fulfilled. A few godly men that sought the face of God did receive some revelation. Isaiah, in his great book, laid out the passover lamb’s death and possibly saw it as a completion of the passover sacrifice.

Another wording used for the word feast in our English translation is the words "holy convocation." These words, holy convocation, is one word, migraw, in Hebrew. It means "rehearsal." Again, the plan of God was beautiful. God’s chosen people by whom Christ would be born were actually rehearsing the drama of redemption. They were acting out in their feast what God would perform in His Son. Nothing was by accident. The whole scheme must be perfectly prefigured in the preparation of a people by whom He would be born of the "Seed of Woman." The Jewish people were actually redeemed by their strict obedience to God’s feast. It was redemption in the process as well as redemption in the future.

The Pattern of the Seven Feasts
Even the pattern of these feasts was prophetic and designed to accurately rehearse what was to be accomplished. From the first coming of Christ as the Passover Lamb, until He would return in His glory to establish His kingdom is all prefigured in the Seven Feasts and in exact order. A seven curtain drama could be enacted to manifest the plan and in reality that is what occurred in the actual feast. The many present day departures from Biblical eschatology could be avoided if the order of these feasts was clearly understood. I want to name the seven feasts in this introduction.

• Passover – This feast occurred on Nissan 14 and is a perfect foreshadow of Christ’s death and the redemptive values of His sacrificial blood. It establishes God’s perfect plan that nothing can be redeemed but by sinless blood.
   
• Feast of Unleavened Bread – The Feast Of Unleavened Bread begins the next day after passover (Nissan 15) and prefigures the unique idea of a spiritual diet on the Word of God. Redemption is more than a spiritual experience. It is a totally new lifestyle. For seven days the worshipper partook of unleavened bread. A secondary name for this feast could be the Feast of Sanctification.
   
• Feast of Firstfruits – This feast is within the seven days of the Feast of Unleavened Bread. Whatever day in the seven in which the normal Sabbath occurred, the next day was the Feast of Firstfruits. It was actually an eighth day feast always falling on the first day of the week. The shadow of this feast is cast toward the resurrected life of Jesus Christ and His victory over death. It also establishes a New Testament covenant day of worship, called the Lord’s Day. Christ’s first and second appearance to His disciples were both on the first day of the week.
   
• Feast of Weeks (Pentecost or Harvest) – This feast was the shadow of Pentecost or the outpouring of the Holy Ghost. It also occurred on the first day of the week fifty days after the regular Sabbath, which occurred after Passover.
   
• Feast of Trumpets – The sounding of the trumpet was one of the most frequent and compelling events in the life of Israel. The Feast of Trumpets suggested a time of hope and deliverance. This feast prefigures the glorious day when the trumpet shall blast and the Rapture occur. This fifth feast, as well as the sixth and seventh are the three feasts that have not yet seen their New Testament glory.
   
• Feast of Atonement – On this feast the children of Israel were to solemnly seek cleansing and purification. The broken laws had to be propitiated by shed blood. The future fulfillment foreshadows the coming seven years of tribulation, called Jacob’s Trouble. It is literally the time of atonement in preparation for the King of Kings to return and establish the Kingdom of God on earth.
   
• Feast of Tabernacle – This seventh feast was a time of rejoicing. Solomon dedicated the temple on the Feast of Tabernacles. The prophetic picture is the 1,000 years of the millennium on earth. Consider that the seventh feast could actually begin in the early years of the seventh millennium from creation. It would certainly be a perfect finishing of the Drama of Redemption.

The Seven Tier Menorah
The menorah is a beautiful picture of the Seven Feasts Of Jehovah. There are three Spring feasts on the left, a center feast, which constitutes the break between Spring and Fall, and three Fall feasts on the right. The Spring feasts were fulfilled in Jesus Christ, the center feast provides the glorious span of Jehovah’s Bride (church) and her years of preparation. It also prefigures Israel’s years of being cut off. The Fall feast is both the time of hope of the church and Israel. The Drama of Redemption is clearly visible in this seven tier menorah.
The First Testament Comes Alive

The Old (First) Testament is a breathtaking book. It is easy to see how Israel became so engrossed and satisfied with their Bible that they forgot to watch for its completion. They allowed the dramas of this book to take on a ritualistic presence and, because of its tantalizing effect, did not see the Messiah in His revelation. They rejected Him and missed their glory of presenting Jesus Christ to the world of the unsaved. Soon, they will see Him whom they pierced and rejoice in His revelation. It will be one of the brightest days in human experiences.

Zechariah prophesied of the glory of their coming vision of the returning Christ.

"And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications: and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him, as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn." (Zechariah 12:10).

They will ask Him about His wound and will hear His answer of forgiveness. "And one shall say unto him, What are these wounds in thine hands? Then he shall answer, Those with which I was wounded in the house of my friends." (Zechariah 13:6).

His answer reveals His words on the cross. "Then said Jesus, Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do. And they parted his raiment, and cast lots." (Luke 23:34).