A Survey of the Old Testament Law--Leviticus (Part 4)

Now, let’s go back to Exodus, specifically Exodus 23, even more specifically Exodus 23:14-17. God gives Moses the command that all the males of Israel should come to the place where God causes His name to dwell, in order that they may keep three feasts: Unleavened Bread (אֶת־חַג הַמַּצֹּות (chag hamatzot)), Firstfruits (רֵאשִׁית קָצִיר (Reshit Katzir)), and Ingathering (or Tabernacles (סֻכּוֹת (Sukkoth)). Exodus 23:14-17—“14 Three times you shall keep a feast to Me in the year: 15 You shall keep the Feast of Unleavened Bread (you shall eat unleavened bread seven days, as I commanded you, at the time appointed in the month of Abib, for in it you came out of Egypt; none shall appear before Me empty); 16 and the Feast of Harvest, the firstfruits of your labors which you have sown in the field; and the Feast of Ingathering at the end of the year, when you have gathered in the fruit of your labors from the field. 17 Three times in the year all your males shall appear before the Lord GOD.” If God says something once, it’s important. If he says it twice, it’s even more important. If He says the same thing twice within a span of about thirty seconds—you better pay attention. Twice, in four verses (verse 14 and verse 17), God tells the people, “Three times all your males shall appear before Me.” I think God was pretty emphatic about this regulation.

And since Christ was God in the flesh, do you think He was pretty adamant about keeping these feasts? And if so, why? Well, since we know that the Law was meant to point us to Christ, and that the feasts and sacrifices pointed to Christ (see Galatians 3:23-25), and since Christ was born under the Law (Galatians 4:4), then Christ knew that he must fulfill the righteous requirements of the Law (Romans 8:3), which is why He was so steadfast about going to Jerusalem during the Feast of Unleavened Bread. Matthew 26:1-4—1 Now it came to pass, when Jesus had finished all these sayings—that is, after instructing His disciples concerning the signs that would accompany the Great tribulation and His eventual return—when Jesus had finished all these sayings, He said to His disciples, “2 You know that after two days is the Passover, and the Son of Man will be delivered up to be crucified.” 3 Then the chief priests, the scribes, and the elders of the people assembled at the palace of the high priest, who was called Caiaphas, 4 and plotted to take Jesus by trickery and kill Him. Does this passage not show the utter foolishness of men? We humans think we have everything all figured out; we think that our plans are foolproof and that we are so wise. And yet, while the elders and chief priests are plotting ways to destroy this Man from Nazareth, who has brought forth good news to both Jew and Gentile, making all their plans under cover of darkness and in their inner rooms, God knew all they were plotting, and far from being surprised, or caught off guard, or having to change His plans, this was in fact happening in the exact way that God had planned. Acts 2:22-23—“22 Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a Man attested by God to you by miracles, wonders, and signs which God did through Him in your midst, as you yourselves also know—23 Him, being delivered by the determined purpose and foreknowledge of God, you have taken by lawless hands, have crucified, and put to death.” Adam Clarke— 

“It was necessary to show the Jews that it was not through Christ’s weakness or inability to defend himself that he was taken; nor was it through their malice merely that he was slain; for God had determined long before, from the foundation of the world, to give his Son a sacrifice for sin; and the treachery of Judas, and the malice of the Jews were only the incidental means by which the great counsel of God was fulfilled.”

And only by dwelling within a tabernacle of flesh could the Son of God taste death. After all, how could He die if he had come in all of His glory, all of His eternal Godhood, all of His unchangeableness? If God had not become man, then He could not have been a sacrifice. If He had not kept the Law—not just the Ten Commandments, but the entirety of the Law given to Moses by God—He could not have been a perfect sacrifice. Therefore, so that He might be that perfect sacrifice, not only did Jesus comply with all the rules and ordinances and regulations of His everyday life, He complied with those commands that “Three times in the year all your males shall appear before the Lord GOD”. And because of His perfect obedience to the Father in obeying all of the statutes contained in the Law, we who are imperfect and fallen and sinful and rebellious and—fill in your own synonym here—even though it is impossible for any man to fulfill the Law no matter how hard he may try (Galatians 2:16, Romans 3:20), we can be counted righteous by the obedience of our Lord and Savior (see Romans 5:12-19). Let us keep the feasts, with clean hands and a pure heart, by our faith in Christ as our substitute who died so that we may live (1st Corinthians 5:8).

Finally, there is an end-times application for (סֻכּוֹת (Sukkoth). Turn to Zechariah 14. There are really two prophetic words in this chapter of Zechariah that refer to events that will happen sometime after Christ returns. And these predictions really throw a monkey wrench into people’s amillenial doctrine. The first prediction is Zechariah 14:1-4—1 Behold, the day of the LORD is coming, and your spoil will be divided in your midst. 2 For I will gather all the nations to battle against Jerusalem; the city shall be taken, the houses rifled, and the women ravished. Half of the city shall go into captivity, but the remnant of the people shall not be cut off from the city. 3 Then the LORD will go forth and fight against those nations, as He fights in the day of battle. 4 And in that day His feet will stand on the Mount of Olives, which faces Jerusalem on the east. And the Mount of Olives shall be split in two, from east to west, making a very large valley; half of the mountain shall move toward the north and half of it toward the south. There are some in the amillenial camp who will say that this prediction was fulfilled in the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple in Jerusalem in AD 70. However, there are some details in this word that did not come to pass during that fateful period. For one thing, who would come against Jerusalem? All the nations—not just the Romans. Second, what does the word say will happen after this tragic event? Then the LORD will go forth and fight against those nations. Did God go into battle against ‘those nations’? No. Third, and most obvious, His feet did not stand on the Mount of Olives so that mountain was split in two. Unless there was some great, cataclysmic event that was never recorded in history. Since these events have not taken place, then this prophecy is still be left to be fulfilled.

The second prophecy in Zechariah 14 relates to (סֻכּוֹת (Sukkoth)). And this prophecy flows from the same thought stream as the passage we just saw. It’s all one long passage, and look what happens after those things we just read. Zechariah 14:13-17—13 It shall come to pass in that day that a great panic from the LORD will be among them. Everyone will seize the hand of his neighbor, and raise his hand against his neighbor's hand; 14 Judah also will fight at Jerusalem. And the wealth of all the surrounding nations shall be gathered together: gold, silver, and apparel in great abundance. 15 Such also shall be the plague on the horse and the mule, on the camel and the donkey, and on all the cattle that will be in those camps. So shall this plague be. 16 And it shall come to pass that everyone who is left of all the nations which came against Jerusalem shall go up from year to year to worship the King, the LORD of hosts, and to keep the Feast of Tabernacles (סֻכּוֹת (Sukkoth)). 17 And it shall be that whichever of the families of the earth do not come up to Jerusalem to worship the King, the LORD of hosts, on them there will be no rain. OK folks, you know the question: Are all the nations which came against Jerusalem going up to Jerusalem to worship the King, the LORD of hosts, and to keep the Feast of Tabernacles? The answer, of course, is a resounding……NO! None of the things contained in this 14^th chapter of the burden of Zechariah have come to pass. And since God is not a lira, that means that there must be some future fulfillment, and the things that Jesus spoke of in the Olivet Discourse, and which Paul wrote about in parts of his epistles, have not come to pass, and thus the amillenial position is severely weakened. From the Jamieson, Fausset and Brown Commentary—

“The other two great yearly feasts, Passover and Pentecost, are not specified, because, their antitypes having come, the types are done away with. But the Feast of Tabernacles will be commemorative of the Jews’ sojourn, not merely forty years in the wilderness, but for almost two thousand years of their dispersion. So it was kept on their return from the Babylonian dispersion (Nehemiah 8:14-17). It was the feast on which Jesus made His triumphal entry into Jerusalem (Matthew 21:8)…The feast on which Jesus gave the invitation to the living waters of salvation (“Hosanna,” save us now, was the cry, Matthew 21:9; compare Psalm 118:25, Psalm 118:26) (John 7:2, John 7:37). To the Gentiles, too, it will be significant of perfected salvation after past wanderings in a moral wilderness, as it originally commemorated the ingathering of the harvest. The seedtime of tears shall then have issued in the harvest of joy [Moore]."

 Let us keep (סֻכּוֹת (Sukkoth)), for now, in our hearts, rejoicing that God the Son left His throne to tabernacle among us, to invest His glory within a tent of flesh, to become weak for our sakes, that we may be made mighty through Him. And let us also rejoice that our earthly tabernacle will one day be made as His glorified body, spotless, blameless, sinless and eternal, never decaying, never becoming sick, never again subject to the bonds of death. For we shall reign with Him, we shall be His people, and He shall be our God.

 

Jesus Christ is Lord.

Amen.

A Survey of the Old Testament Law--Leviticus 23 (Part 1)

We come now to the 23^rd chapter of Leviticus. And in this section of Scripture, God commands the people that they are to hold several feasts, each of which celebrates some aspect of the goodness of God. Some of these we have already covered, so we will simply read the passage and move on. Others we will take a little more time to cover, since they find their fulfillment in either the first coming of Christ, or which will be fulfilled in His second. So, let’s go ahead and get started.

Leviticus 23:1-2—1 And the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, “2 Speak to the children of Israel, and say to them: ‘The feasts of the LORD, which you shall proclaim to be holy convocations, these are My feasts.’” Whose feasts are they? They are God’s feasts. What is their purpose? To remind the people that God is God; that He is the One who delivered them from Egypt; that He is the One who makes the crops grow; that He is the One who leads them and protects them and that if they do things His way He will bless them. Is God perfectly just and righteous in laying out certain regulations for the how these feasts are to be conducted? Absolutely. They are, after all, His feasts and if He says “Do things this way”—then we are to do things that way. Are they our feasts? No. Then we have no right to quibble with God and say, “Yeah, that sounds like it might be a good idea—but I’ve got this really cool idea that would get the people excited and would bring even more people into the camp of Israel!” God does not accept just any kind of worship. He does not want people worshiping Him because they think it’s the cool thing to do. He will not accept the worship of people who say, “Oh, God’s the cool thing to do! I think I’ll do that!” God is to be worshipped in reverence, and in holiness. 1^st Chronicles 16:29—Give to the LORD the glory due His name; bring an offering, and come before Him. Oh, worship the LORD in the beauty of holiness!

And yet, just to continue the rant I started in the last chapter, what do we see so much today? We see churches dumbing things down, trying to make Jesus look “cool” in order to appeal to a people that would want nothing to do with Him otherwise. Giving people a “rocking good time” in order to satisfy their senses and tickle their ears. Preaching from (what they call) a pulpit whilst wearing t-shirts that say something like “Jesus is my DJ” or “Jesus is my Homeboy.” Scoot up to the screen and read carefully—Jesus is NOT your entertainer! Jesus is not your homeboy or your boyfriend or your BFF or any other nonsensical notion of Him that you or someone else may have invented. Jesus is LORD!!! And if He is not your Lord then He is nothing! You either worship Him as though He were verily in your presence—or you do not worship him at all. Can we enjoy Him, and can we laugh and cry and express our emotions about our God? Absolutely. He has given us emotions so that we can experience all that God is—our defender who saves us from the enemy; our comfort in times of need; our shelter from the storm; our bright and morning star; our hope, our refuge, our King. But when we fail to see Him even in the rain and in the storm and in the valleys and the contrary tides, and when we only want Him for what He can do for us—then we have truly forgotten the God that he is, and it is in those times when people’s true motives come out, and perhaps they only worshipped an idea about God, that He was supposed to protect us from those calamities and He wasn’t supposed to let us go through these things. But that is not God. He does allow us to go through valleys and deserts so that He may show us that He is God. 2^nd Corinthians 12:10—Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in needs, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ's sake. For when I am weak, then I am strong. So let us partake of all the feasts of God, giving thanks in them for making us the people He wants us to be—not just in times of bounty, but in times of distress.

Leviticus 23:3—“‘Six days shall work be done, but the seventh day is a Sabbath of solemn rest, a holy convocation. You shall do no work on it; it is the Sabbath of the LORD in all your dwellings.’” We have already talked at length about the sabbath, so we will move on to the next passage, Leviticus 23:4-8—“‘4 These are the feasts of the LORD, holy convocations which you shall proclaim at their appointed times. 5 On the fourteenth day of the first month at twilight is the LORD's Passover. 6 And on the fifteenth day of the same month is the Feast of Unleavened Bread to the LORD; seven days you must eat unleavened bread. 7 On the first day you shall have a holy convocation; you shall do no customary work on it. 8 But you shall offer an offering made by fire to the LORD for seven days. The seventh day shall be a holy convocation; you shall do no customary work on it.’” And we have also talked at length about the Passover, so we will move on to the next passage. And before we do, I want to make a distinction. Many times we read these feasts as being “feasts”. But it is more appropriate to call them “appointed times.” Because they are to take place at certain times of the year, and in fact on a certain date during the year. These days, we celebrate some days on a specific date (July 4^th, January 1^st), some on a certain day of a certain week in a certain month (4^th Thursday in November, last Monday in May). And why do we set aside those particular days for those particular remembrances? Well, really, many of them are purely arbitrary. What is so significant about November 11^th in our country’s history ? Well, that was the day the Armistice was signed ending World War I. What is so significant about the last Monday in May in our country’s history? Nothing, really. But it does give everybody an opportunity to remember those who have fallen in defense of this country. However, when God set aside certain “appointed times” he had a very particular purpose in mind, and we will see that more as we go along.

Leviticus 23:9-14—9 And the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, “10 Speak to the children of Israel, and say to them: ‘When you come into the land which I give to you, and reap its harvest, then you shall bring a sheaf of the firstfruits of your harvest to the priest. 11 He shall wave the sheaf before the LORD, to be accepted on your behalf; on the day after the Sabbath the priest shall wave it. 12 And you shall offer on that day, when you wave the sheaf, a male lamb of the first year, without blemish, as a burnt offering to the LORD. 13 Its grain offering shall be two-tenths of an ephah of fine flour mixed with oil, an offering made by fire to the LORD, for a sweet aroma; and its drink offering shall be of wine, one-fourth of a hin. 14 You shall eat neither bread nor parched grain nor fresh grain until the same day that you have brought an offering to your God; it shall be a statute forever throughout your generations in all your dwellings.’” This is what many call “The Feast of Firstfruits” or what was called, more appropriately, the “Day of Firstfruits” (Hebrewיֹמ הַבִּכּוּרִים  (yom habikkurim)). That term is used interchangeably with the phrase רֵאשִׁית קָצִיר (Reshit Katzir), or “Beginning of the Harvest.” The word (reshit) meaning “beginning” as in the first Hebrew words in the Bible being בְּרֵאשִׁית בָּרָא אֱלֹהִים (reshit bara Elohim), or “In the beginning God created.” And when it says the sheaf was to be waved, don’t think it means what you probably think it means. They did not bring the actual stalks of barley. The word translated ‘sheaf’ is עֹמֶר (omer). They would pluck the heads from the stalk, gather the heads into baskets, and then bring an omer of barley (roughly a little less than a gallon) to the priest, who would wave it before YHVH.

Now, the timing of when this omer was waved is very significant. This is another one of those places where people show their ignorance by saying something like, “what good is it to study all that Old Testament Law anyway?” Because this is very important in understanding how Christ fulfilled that Old Testament Law. Specifically, the way He fulfilled it in His resurrection. And it is by seeing this fulfillment in His resurrection that we can correct some mistaken beliefs that we hold—beliefs which have been ingrained in us by hundreds of years of mistaken belief. What holiday do we celebrate during the spring? Hint: it falls on Sunday, and moves between March and April from one year to the next. Many people call it “Easter”. I prefer to call it “Resurrection Sunday.” Now, there is a certain day that comes just a couple days before Resurrection Sunday, and what day is that? “Good Friday.” And why do people remember Good Friday? Because, they say, Christ was crucified on Friday. And we are about to see why that is wrong.

A couple things to start with: What day of the week did Christ come out of the tomb? Sunday. Before the sun rose on Sunday morning, he was out of the tomb. Second, how many days did He say He would be in the ground? Matthew 12:38-40—38 Then some of the scribes and Pharisees answered, saying, "Teacher, we want to see a sign from You." 39 But He answered and said to them, “An evil and adulterous generation seeks after a sign, and no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. 40 For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.” The popular misconception that Christ died on Friday and rose on Sunday falls apart very quickly when we (1) reckon time properly, (2) take into account that the Old Testament appointed times pointed to Christ, and (3) count backwards from His resurrection to His crucifixion.

First, let’s reckon time like an old covenant Jew, shall we? To do that, you need to do one thing: strip away every idea you know about when our days start and end. Do away, temporarily, with the Gregorian calendar, which is based on the earth revolving around the sun, and instead adopt the Jewish calendar, which reckons a day as starting at sundown. So then, by doing that, the first day of the week begins at sundown on (what we call) Saturday. But really, for us, Saturday night (from sundown on) will now become Sunday night—the beginning of the first day of the week. That said, our time will be reckoned thus, in order:

Sunday night (our Saturday night)—Sunday day (1^st day of the week)

Monday night (our Sunday night)—Monday day (2^nd day of the week)

Tuesday night (our Monday night)—Tuesday day (3^rd day of the week)

Wednesday night (our Tuesday night)—Wednesday day (4^th day of the week)

Thursday night (our Wednesday night)—Thursday day (5^th day of the week)

Friday night (our Thursday night)—Friday day (6^th day of the week)

Saturday night (our Friday night)—Saturday day (Sabbath)

Now, we know that Christ rose from the tomb before the sun rose on Sunday. John 20:1-2—1 Now the first day of the week Mary Magdalene went to the tomb early, while it was still dark, and saw that the stone had been taken away from the tomb. 2 Then she ran and came to Simon Peter, and to the other disciple, whom Jesus loved, and said to them, "They have taken away the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid Him." So then, Sunday night (our Saturday night) is one night. And if Jesus was telling the truth, and He was to be “in the heart of the earth” for three days AND THREE NIGHTS, counting backwards, we have Him in the tomb Sunday night (our Saturday night), Saturday night (our Friday night), and Friday night (our Thursday night). The “Jesus was crucified on Friday” falls apart already, simply because of the fact that if He died on Friday, and if He meant what He said “in the heart of the earth three days AND THREE NIGHTS”, then even if we reckon time in a Gregorian manner, at best he was in the tomb Friday night and Saturday night—ONLY TWO NIGHTS, not three. For a visual aid, I give you this from Zola Leavitt:

 

How to Read this Chart

First it is vital to understand that the Jewish day begins at sundown and ends at twilight the following day... The chart above therefore indicates the following chronology:

1. Yeshua was crucified and buried on Nisan 14, a Thursday afternoon (i.e., 1/2 day). This was also the "Preparation Day" for the Sabbath of Passover that would begin after sundown that same day.
2. He was in the tomb Nisan 15 (from sundown until twilight Fri. = 1 day)  and
3. He was in the tomb Nisan 16 (from sundown until twilight Sat. = 1 day)  and
4. He was also in the tomb on Nisan 17 (i.e., after sundown Sun. = 1/2 day)  BUT
5. He later rose from the dead that day Nisan 17 (i.e., before sunrise Sun. morning)

(Zola Leavitt Ministries, Reshit Katzir - Messiah as the Beginning of the Harvest, http://www.hebrew4christians.com/Holidays/Spring_Holidays/First_Fruits/first_fruits.html).

So then, now counting forward, we see He died on Thursday day. He was in the ground by sundown Thursday (1 day). Then at sundown Thursday comes Friday night (our Thursday night) (1 night), then Friday day (2 days). Then Saturday night (our Friday night) (2 nights), and Saturday day (3 days). Then Sunday night (our Saturday night) (3 nights)—and He is out of the tomb before the sun rises Sunday morning. Three days. Three nights. (You may need to read this a couple times to understand it, since our Gregorian calendar reckons days differently)

Now, what does all this have to do with רֵאשִׁית קָצִיר (Reshit Katzir)? I'm glad you asked! When was Christ arrested? Thursday night (our Wednesday night). The night of Passover Seder. Mark 14:12—Now on the first day of Unleavened Bread, when they killed the Passover lamb, His disciples said to Him, "Where do You want us to go and prepare, that You may eat the Passover?" This was the 14^th of Nisan. Leviticus 23:5—“On the fourteenth day of the first month at twilight is the LORD's Passover.” Now, you may be asking “But the Feast of Unleavened Bread started the 15^th of Nisan?” True, but the 14^th was the start of the eight-day span when they would eat no bread with leaven. Even though the 15^th of Nisan was the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, the 14^th was the first day they would avoid eating leavened bread. The lambs were killed during the day on Thursday. As was our Lord. Then, the 15^th of Nisan was the Feast of Unleavened Bread. Leviticus 23:6—“And on the fifteenth day of the same month is the Feast of Unleavened Bread to the LORD.” This was Friday. So he was arrested Thursday night (our Wednesday night), died Thursday day, in the ground Friday night (our Thursday night), Friday day was the Feast of Unleavened Bread. Then at sundown began the Sabbath (Saturday night, our Friday night), followed by Saturday day. He came out of the tomb before Sunday day came, and guess what was special about that Sunday day following that Sabbath following the Passover? Leviticus 23:11—“He shall wave the sheaf before the LORD, to be accepted on your behalf; on the day after the Sabbath.” On the first first-day-of-the-week after the first Sabbath after Passover came the רֵאשִׁית קָצִיר (Reshit Katzir). On the first first-day-of-the-week after the first Sabbath after Passover our risen Lord appeared! What does Paul say in 1st Corinthians 15:20—But now Christ is risen from the dead, and has become the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. Oh and one more thing: Matthew 27:50-53—50 And Jesus cried out again with a loud voice, and yielded up His spirit. 51 Then, behold, the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom; and the earth quaked, and the rocks were split, 52 and the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised; 53 and coming out of the graves after His resurrection, they went into the holy city and appeared to many. On the day of our Lord’s resurrection, He offered to His Father not only a Lamb without spot or blemish (Leviticus 23:12), but also an omer of the harvest that was to come—an offering of His own “firstfruits.”

But hey, why do we study all that Old Testament Law stuff anyway? It doesn't have anything to do with us!!