PASSOVER – ASCENSION – PENTECOST – TRINITY
SPRINGTIME starts a New Year. The Passover and Resurrection herald New Beginnings and they are of course the start of the religious New Year. Just as Tabernacles begins the civil New Year. Easter in particular demonstrates this in the flowers and the bursting of buds on the almond and fruit trees. Nature confirms and demonstrates resurrection power, and this year has been no exception.
It is the prophetic aspect of these Feasts and Festivals which require our careful study. They were national events; the whole nation participated in them; even in their dispersion, Israel, in large numbers returned to Jerusalem to keep them, and the church today observes them in the calendar. Eastertide is a week of preparation, observance, and, on resurrection morn, rejoicing. But without its Old Testament background the story is incomplete. We must understand Passover’s origin, when, in Israel’s dark background of servitude and bondage, God delivered them. They had to ready themselves. They must prepare the lamb, must kill it and sprinkle the blood on the doorposts and lintels of their homes, and when the angel of death saw the blood it passed over that dwelling. They were also to be ready for the journey, having partaken of unleavened bread. Then followed three days of marching before deliverance with an impassable sea in front and a relentless Egyptian army behind. But deliverance was at hand when the waters parted for a safe crossing and closed to destroy the Egyptian hordes. Once safely across they could partake of the first-fruits of the land when they dwelt in booths.
Similarly Christ is our Passover. It is His shed blood that saves us. He is the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. He is the Lamb of God which taketh the sin away, and He became this on Palm Sunday when He entered Jerusalem riding on an ass, demonstrating the lion-like quality of the Lamb. The Feast of Unleavened Bread was kept four days later at the Passover Supper, after which He and His disciples went to the Garden of Gethsemane. There He could say in His prayer to the Father,
“I have finished the work Thou gavest Me to do.”
Then followed His three days and nights’ after which He burst the bonds of death. On Resurrection morn He became ‘The Resurrection and the Life and the First Fruits of them that slept’. Israel had been fed on Manna during their wanderings, Christ announced Himself as the Bread of Life. Israel had to learn to trust Him; Christians, too, have to cast all their cares on Him developing the Christian way of life as they seek first the Kingdom.
A very valuable contribution comparative to the study of this analogy has been written and published by Mr V.A. Proposch (Senior Vice President, Melbourne Branch, Australia) which introduces the various papers of the late David Davidson showing the third great cycle of deliverance, yet to come, when modern Israel in the nations of Christendom, experience their deliverance from the bondage of the present world economy.
To revert to the analogy: Our Lord ascended on the 40th day after His resurrection with the promise that He would return and the restoration of the Kingdom of Israel would take place. It was on the 40th day of Israel’s occupation of the Promised Land that a league of kings blocked their way. Gibeon, a somewhat fainthearted ally was vacillating. Joshua, in a brilliant manoeuvre, succeeded in severing their forces, but needed an extra day to make his victory complete. This long day, now scientifically attested for those who need such help, demonstrated Israel’s God who gave the victory. Just as, years earlier, Israel’s army fighting against Amalek found success as long as Moses stood praying to the Lord with his arms held high. We are told that as Moses tired, Aaron and Hur upheld his arms and God gave Israel a great victory over Amalek.
As a result Israel could continue their journey and four days later arrived at Mount Sinai. As Mr Proposch tells us, the date was Sivan 1. On Sivan 6 Moses ascended the mountain on what Jewish authorities called Pentecost, to receive the Laws! This is also known as The Feast of Weeks. So Passover Exodus is followed by Pentecost Law. The First-fruits of the Barley Harvest which Our Lord fulfilled at His Resurrection is now repeated at Pentecost, some seven weeks later by the first-fruits of the Wheat Harvest, or the ingathering of the harvest and the formation of the church. With this difference — the first was unleavened bread, the second was two loaves baked with leaven. Our Lord was sinless – the church is not.
Our Lord had stated to His disciples that the cup was the New Covenant in His Blood which was shed for many, and the New Covenant was, as Jeremiah and as the Epistle to the Hebrews confirm, to the House of Israel and to the House of Judah.
“I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts; I will be their God, and they shall be My people. No more shall every man teach his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying ‘know the LORD’ for they all shall know Me from the least of them to the greatest of them.” – Jeremiah 31:33-34
There is evidence that Our Lord kept the Feast of Weeks, or Pentecost, during the first year of His Ministry. Certainly God the Holy Spirit did, as Acts 2 describes so vividly. There are two Pentecosts in the Old Testament; one when the Spirit descended on the 70 judges, who, as a result prophesied as told in Numbers 11 and the second when the Spirit descended on the monarchy under Saul, and he prophesied.
The Triune God (Isaiah 48 – known as the Trinity Chapter) His Spirit, and Jesus who is Spirit, all comprise the Sovereign God of Creation who spake Worlds into existence, and spake the laws of Creation “ … And God spake all these words, saying …” He spake them also unto Moses, at the Mount Sinai Pentecost, and Our Lord confirmed them during His earthly ministry. God the Holy Spirit seals them to our hearts at our national and individual Pentecosts.
It is suggested that national Israel today will experience a great national Pentecost – and very soon. Surely the prophets indicate a change of heart and Ezekiel records a time when the dry bones of Israel will come to life with the Spirit of God entering them, just as the ‘two witnesses’ of Revelation 11 experience.
What a time of rejoicing it will be when we are freed from our bondage! What a thrill to take part in a national deliverance! But what an even greater blessing to know, even now, that we are in safety, because of His shed blood. “In the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit”. Amen.
