When God freed Captive Israel from bondage in Egypt, He gave them 7 yearly Feasts to follow. These would picture for Israel, God’s deliverance from bondage into freedom.
Let’s look at each Feast and the particulars of that Feast to see what spiritual meaning lies within it, and how Jesus Christ was the fulfillment of 4 to date, and will also fulfill the 3 remaining Feasts that are yet unfulfilled.
God’s calendar is based on a 360 day year and is therefore different than the calendar we use today. His dates remain unchanged and it is how He reckons time.
Leading up to the beginning of the first Feast, on the 10th of Nisan, every Israelite family would select a sacrificial lamb for the Passover meal. It would have to be a spotless lamb.
***On the 10 of Nisan, Jesus rode into Jerusalem and allowed the people to select Him as their King. He didn’t allow it when it was tried before but on this day it was allowed because it was a fulfillment of prophecy. They didn’t realize that they were selecting THE Passover Lamb of God which the Feast has been foreshadowing for thousands of years.
This was a fulfillment of Daniel 9 to the very day.
Passover:
This is a 7 day Feast according to the scriptures. Israel has many added traditions today which are a distortion of the scriptures. The church, most of the church, has done the same thing. As a result, the original meaning and patterns have been lost. We are strictly looking at God’s instruction found in the scriptures.
I highly recommend this site for a more detailed explanation of that issue: www.preparetheway.com
The Passover Feast is celebrated on the 14th of Nisan, not the 15th. This year, 2018, the first night of Passover is on March 30th at sundown (which is actually 14th of Nisan). This is the end of the day for the rest of the world but it begins the 14th of Nisan on God’s schedule. God’s days are sunset to sunset, one day…not morning to evening, one day.
So on this day, the Passover lamb is to be slain and served at the Passover meal, which is to be held that night at sundown. God is adamant about that.
***Jesus will not only celebrate the Passover meal with His disciples at sundown on the 14th of Nisan when all of Israel would also have slain their lambs and gathered to eat their Passover meal, but He will BE the slain Lamb on the following day at 3:00 pm, still the 14th of Nisan.
Now Israel was instructed in Exodus and we see again in Deauteronomy 16:6, to slay the lamb on the 14th of Nisan at evening, at the going down of the sun.
***This is fulfilled and still allows Jesus to both celebrate the Passover and to BE the Passover Lamb. When He was crucified, the sun went dark for 3 hours while He hung on the cross. All of this to fulfill prophecy. So He was the Lamb slain at the setting of the sun on the 14th of Nisan.
***Jesus would be dead for 3 days and 3 nights because the Bible prophesies it and Jesus Himself states it (Matthew 12:40). It wasn’t 2 days or 2.5 days but 3 days and 3 nights. This would ensure that He would be resurrected on the 3rd day, the Feast of Firstfruits…presenting Himself to the Father, being our High Priest, as the Firstfruits of THE harvest of all mankind. He could not have been crucified on that Friday, therefore Good Friday is a tradition of man. It had to have been the day before on the 14th of Nisan, then 3 days and 3 nights would have fallen on Sunday, the Feast of Firstfruits.
The Firstfruits offering was the very first and best of a great harvest to come. He was the first and best resurrected, with a promise of the great resurrection to come.
Now before He was raised on the 3rd day, on the Feast of Firstfruits, the 17th of Nisan, which is April 2nd this year, another Feast began on the day after the Passover meal. So on the 15th of Nisan, the Feast of Unleavened Bread was to begin. Israel, today, has confused the Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread. They skip the 14th of Nisan and celebrate on the 15th. This is because they did not recognize that Jesus was the Messiah who was the Passover Lamb and therefore they have no Lamb. Their righteousness is works based, which the scriptures say is no righteousness at all. This was clarified to me as I read the terrific article at preparetheway.com concerning the confusion of the two days. I agree whole heartedly.
The Feast of Unleavened Bread represents the sin-paid-for-life of a believer who now lives as an unleavened lump before God (1 Corinthians 5:7). It is not done by works but by the power of the Holy Spirit who now indwells all those who have received Jesus Christ as their Savior. He has paid for our sin, is our Passover Lamb.
This is a 7 day Feast where all the leaven (sin, leaven is always sin in the Bible) is swept out of the house.
***This represents first of all the sinless body of Christ and that His death paid our sin debt and will remove sin from the world ultimately. Oh death where is your sting? It also pictures the believers walk after salvation, purifying his heart by dying to sin day to day.
We see that when Jesus celebrated the Passover meal with His disciples, He never called it a last supper. That is nowhere in the word. Rather, He said He would not celebrate it again until we all meet again in the Kingdom of God when He returns. But that we as a church are to celebrate it in remembrance of Him until He does (Luke 22:19).
He said that with the Passover meal we are to proclaim His DEATH till He returns (1 Corinthians 11:26).
While the church is to rejoice and live daily in both the death and resurrection of Jesus, we are instructed only to celebrate with the Passover meal, the DEATH of Jesus Christ, until He returns.
There is no life (resurrection) without His death. This is why His death is to be celebrated. It was a victory, an accomplishment.
Isn’t it amazing that as the church has failed to celebrate His death, to proclaim His death, we see the crucifixion being forsaken. The problem of sin and repentance for the remission of sins is unpalatable today. Few are being saved, just like He said of life: “straight is the gate and narrow is the way and few find it” (Matthew 7:14).
In no way am I saying that if we don’t celebrate Passover that we aren’t saved. I am saying that the fact that the church has gotten lost in traditions of men, which have neglected or negated the word of God, is symptomatic of the fact that few there are that will be saved. Jesus said that.
We are not saved by anything we do but by Who we have received by faith…Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, Who is coming again as the King of Kings and the Lord of lords.
To the whole world, who will believe:
“…for even Christ, our Passover, is sacrificed for us: therefore let us keep the Feast, not with the leaven of malice and wickedness; but with the unleavened “ness”of sincerity and truth” (1 Corinthians 5:7-8).
Do we have to keep any feast? No. For the born again believer, Jesus is celebrated in the heart every day and not on any particular day. But why not? As it stands now, the actual day of His crucifixion goes by unnoticed by almost everyone.
More next time…