Jesus is the completion of Israel's feasts

The gospel was pictured, or foretold, in the Old Testament in the three feasts that Israel was commanded to celebrate each year - Passover, Pentecost, and Tabernacles.

Three times you shall keep a feast to Me in the year: You shall keep the Feast of Unleavened Bread (Passover)... and the Feast of Harvest (Pentecost), the firstfruits of your labors which you have sown in the field; and the Feast of Ingathering (Tabernacles), which is at the end of the year, when you have gathered in the fruit of your labors from the field (Ex. 23:15-16).

Passover:

• This was a celebration of the deliverance from the Angel of Death that killed the first-born of the Egyptians when Israel was in slavery.

• This feast has been fulfilled in Christ and partaken by the church. Therefore purge out the old leaven, that you may be a new lump, since you truly are unleavened. For indeed Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us. Therefore let us keep the feast... (1 Cor. 5:7-8). The bread the Israelites ate as they were leaving Egypt was unleavened. (They did not have time to wait for the yeast to rise before they fled.)

• If you are saved, you have celebrated your Passover. Christ's blood has marked you for life.

Pentecost:

• Pentecost is the commemoration of the giving of the Law. The Law was given to the Israelites 50 days after the first Passover in Egypt, which explains the name "Pentecost," meaning "fifty."

• Acts 2 records the day of Pentecost as 50 days after the crucifixion of Jesus (Passover), when the Holy Spirit descended upon the church in a fulfillment of the Feast of Pentecost, just as the Lord descended in fire upon the mountain to give His Law.

• God had promised in Jer. 31:33, I will put my laws in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts.

• The New Law became a reality when the Holy Spirit descended on the 120 in the upper room, filling them with His power according to the New Covenant. He truly put His law in their inward parts.

• Exodus 23:16 calls Pentecost the Feast of Harvest of the Firstfruits. Christ fulfills the harvest, not just the firstfruits. Pentecost is only the firstfruits of that which God desires to do in fullness. It is not the complete harvest.

Tabernacles:

• This was also called The Feast of Ingathering, or the completed harvest.

• Deuteronomy 16:13-15 gives instructions for this celebration: You shall observe the Feast of Tabernacles seven days, when you have gathered from your threshing floor and from your winepress, and you shall rejoice in your feast, you and your son and your daughter...and all who are within your gates. Seven days you shall keep a sacred feast to the Lord your God in the place which the Lord chooses, because the Lord your God will bless you in all of your produce and in all the work of your hands, so that you surely rejoice. Leviticus 23:40-41 gives further instructions: And you shall take for yourselves on the first day the fruit of beautiful trees, branches of palm trees, the boughs of leafy trees, and willows from the brook; and you shall rejoice before the Lord your God for seven days. You shall dwell in booths for seven days.

• The Feast of Tabernacles is the key to God releasing fullness and maturity in the church. It is a feast of joy and release, bringing restoration. It is also a feast of humility, unity, and, ultimately, the ingathering of many lost people. It is the celebration of the harvest.

• The Lord chooses the place, signifying their - and our - dependence on Him.

• God directed them in Leviticus 23, to make and dwell in booths so that their generations would remember that He caused Israel to dwell as such when He brought them out of Egypt. Whenever His glory rested over the tent of Testimony (Num. 9), Israel camped at that place and did not journey further until the cloud moved.

• The first commandment of the Lord was that Israel should rejoice in this feast when they had gathered from their labors. God wants His people to rejoice. Because you did not serve the Lord your God with joy and gladness of heart, for the abundance of all things, therefore you shall serve your enemies, whom the Lord will send against you, in hunger, in thirst, in nakedness, and in need of all things... (Deut. 28:15).

From "Beyond Pentecost" by Robin McMillan and Steve Thompson, The Morning Star Journal, Vol. 4, No. 3, copyright (c) 1994. Used by permission of MorningStar Publications Inc. All rights reserved. Subscription price \$15.95 U.S., outside U.S. \$20.00, published quarterly. Send payment (U.S. funds) to MorningStar Publications, 635-K Pressley Road, Charlotte, NC 28217, phone: 1-800-542-0278 or 704-522-8111, FAX: 704-522-7212.

Robin McMillan is director of the MorningStar Fellowship of Ministries and the MorningStar Fellowship of Churches, as well as a member of the MorningStar ministry team. With spiritual roots in the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church, his heart is to see unity throughout the entire body of Christ. His goal for MFM and MFC is to connect and equip people, ministries and churches to advance the kingdom of God and do great exploits in His name. Robin and his wife, Donna, live in North Carolina with their four children.Steve Thompson is executive vice president of MorningStar Publications and Ministries in Charlotte, N.C., and is responsible for developing and overseeing the prophetic ministries of MorningStar Fellowship. He has traveled extensively throughout the United States and abroad as a conference speaker. Steve and his wife, Angie, live in North Carolina with their three children.