Many people think that Pentecost was a brand-new Christian event that started when the Holy Spirit was poured out on Jewish believers visiting Jerusalem for some reason. But this is not the case. Pentecost is an Old Testament feast that has existed since the time of Moses. Pentecost commemorates the wheat harvest in ancient Israel.
Pentecost occurs 50 days after the Sabbath which occurs during Unleavened bread. When we read about Pentecost in the book of Acts, which was 50 days after Christ was crucified, we are essentially reading about the first fruits of the harvest of Calvary. On the first Pentecost of the Christian era, 3,000 people received the gift of the Holy Spirit and were baptised into Christ.
And Calvary itself fulfilled the Old Testament Passover because the Lamb of God, Christ, was sacrificed, and he was sacrificed right on Passover. And that was very intentional.
Of course, most Christian traditions celebrate Christ's sacrifice on the cross with the communion service. However, often these same people don't understand that the communion service is the memorial of the original Passover. Communion is not something that takes the place of the Passover, it is the memorial of Passover.
So here we have the first two Jewish feasts of the year which are actually kept within Christianity. Every tradition celebrates the Communion Service, which is the memorial of Passover, and some traditions also celebrate Pentecost.
The coming of Christ and Christianity does not do away with these Old Testament feasts. Christ fulfils these festivals, but he doesn't abolish them, because we can quite clearly see from the New Testament that his disciples kept these feasts after his crucifixion. His disciples kept them in the Christian era to commemorate Christ's death on the cross and his sending of the Holy Spirit to begin the harvest of souls that he talks about in his parable of the harvest.
The first four Spring feasts of the Jewish year are the Passover, the Feast of Unleavened Bread, the First Fruits, and the Feast of Pentecost.
Passover, Unleavened Bread, and Firstfruits fall close together. Passover takes place on Friday, Unleavened Bread takes place the next day (Sabbath, and lasts for a week), and Firstfruits takes place on Sunday. Pentecost takes place seven weeks after Passover.
When we come to the last three feasts of the Jewish calendar, the Autumn feasts, which occur after a time gap of several months, we find that Christ has fulfilled some of these, but he did not abolish them.
The beginning of the second tranche of feasts is the Feast of Trumpets, followed by the Day of Atonement and finally the Feast of Tabernacles. Actually, the Day of Atonement is the opposite of a feast, being a famine or fast rather than the joyful occasion of a feast.
OT Feasts & the Christian Church
As I said earlier, many think that Christians no longer keep the OT feasts. After all, the Ceremonial Law was abolished, wasn't it?
Firstly, I will say that there is no such thing as a Ceremonial Law in Scripture. We dreamed that idea up to distance the Ten Commandments, especially the Sabbath, from the other biblical commands.
Secondly, Jesus, just as he never abrogated the Sabbath, never abolished the seven Feasts established in the Torah. Leviticus 23 lumps both the Sabbath and the seven annual feasts together as ‘moadim’, that is, divinely “appointed times” with a prophetic significance.
You may be surprised to learn that different Christian traditions do actually celebrate at least five of the OT feasts, just not at the correct time and way. Does anyone want to have a stab at which feasts other than Passover and Pentecost we celebrate?[1]
Here are all seven of the feasts:
1. Passover. In Adventism, we celebrate this, incorrectly, every quarter. We didn't know what to do with it, and since we didn't make a strong connection between Passover and Communion, we decided, arbitrarily, to celebrate it four times a year instead of celebrating it as scripture teaches, once a year, on the anniversary of the original Passover. Other churches celebrate it every week or every day, according to the Catholic tradition.
2. Unleavened Bread. We start to celebrate this feast, by using unleavened bread in the communion service, but then we don’t continue for the next seven days. But many churches celebrate the next feast in the calendar,
3. First Fruits. The wet winters and dry summers of a Mediterranean climate mean that planting occurs in late Autumn and harvest begins in early summer. This is how it is in the Riverina region of Australia, where I lived and farmed. We have the same climate as Israel, except the seasons are reversed in the southern hemisphere. The main crops in ancient Israel were wheat, barley, legumes, figs, grapes and olives. But there were also many other crops like vegetables, herbs, pomegranates and dates. So it was this produce that Israelites gave back to the Lord in thanksgiving.
How do we celebrate this feast today? We place our garden produce at the front of the church once a year in Spring as a thanksgiving offering. Perhaps the American Thanksgiving holiday has some of its origin in this OT feast as well.
4. Pentecost, as we have noted, coincided with the beginning of the wheat harvest, so the first-fruits of the wheat harvest were given in offering. The Jews called it the Feast of Harvest or the Feast of Weeks. Two leavened loaves were to be offered, in contrast to Pesach (Passover) when the bread was to be unleavened.
Pentecost is one of the great feasts in the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Catholic Church, as well as a festival in Lutheran Churches and a principal feast in the Anglican Communion. Many Christian denominations provide a special liturgy for this holy celebration. But we don’t celebrate it in Seventh-day Adventism, nor, strangely enough, do Pentecostal churches celebrate the feast that gave them their name!
5. The Feast of Trumpets, as far as I am aware, is not celebrated in any way within Christianity. It was instigated to prepare Israel for…
6. The Day of Atonement. Again, we don't celebrate this feast. The book of Hebrews clearly tells us that Jesus fulfilled the entire sacrificial system, which sacrifices were certainly abrogated by Christ’s death. We can use it today as a reminder of Christ’s supreme atonement for us and as a forewarning of the Judgment accompanying the Second Coming of Christ.
The feast of Trumpets and the Day of Atonement are partly fulfilled in Christ’s death. You will remember that at the Passover the trumpet was sounded because that was the day Christ made Atonement for us and suffered judgment for us, no doubt about it.
However, Trumpets and the Day of Atonement are partly future in that Christ’s Second Coming, which brings the executive judgement, is heralded by a great trumpet blast, just as on the Day of Atonement.
The Day of Atonement for believers was when Jesus was judged and made atonement for us all. However, the Second Coming is the day of executive judgment for all unrepentant sinners, when they receive the just rewards of their unbelief. Whoever does not accept the great salvation from Christ, receives the judgment for their own sins. Whoever accepts Christ's death for their sins, does not come into judgment, because they are accounted judged when Christ was judged. It is a great day of positive judgment for all believers, when the gift of salvation and eternal life is bestowed on us.
I’m not sure about other traditions, but in Adventism we do celebrate the last feast,
7. The Feast of Tabernacles. How might we celebrate this feast in Seventh-day Adventism? Yes, the annual camp meeting. We build temporary structures (tents, caravans, camping trailers, even cabins) to celebrate the end-time when Jesus will tabernacle among us on the New Earth.
So, we have the Passover, First Fruits, Pentecost, and Tabernacles, four feasts out of seven, and we partly celebrate the feast of Unleavened Bread. So you see, we attempt to keep several of the annual feasts, just not how and when Scripture stipulates. And there is another very important aspect of one of these which we attempt to keep, again not at the right time, but we will come to that shortly.
Why did Christianity stop keeping these feasts, or at least break the association with the OT feasts? Did Jesus Abolish them? No, not to my knowledge. Jesus kept the feasts, and his disciples kept them, both before and after the crucifixion.
The reason is the same as the reason many Christian traditions stopped keeping the Sabbath; Christianity became divorced from Judaism, and Christians became divorced from scripture and married pagan festivals instead, following medieval Christian practices.
So, yes, Jesus did blow up all of the Old Testament feasts in the sense that he fulfilled them all in one way or another, but in doing so, he did not do away with them. Like the Sabbath, they are still applicable to the Christian church. Yes, of course, we need to modify them by divesting them of any animal sacrifices and such, but they are all very beneficial to our Christian walk today, just as they were to Israel in the distant past.
How & When to Keep the Feasts in the Christian Era?
It would appear that some feasts might be more difficult than others to keep today. There is no doubt that some OT feasts need to be modified for the Christian era. This is because, as Hebrews makes crystal clear, Christ’s death has done away with the sacrificial system entirely. So for Passover and the Day of Atonement there can be no animal sacrifice, previously one of their key components.
Each of these feasts should be kept once a year, according to the timetable set down in Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers. We don’t have to guess when to keep them. We are not supposed to keep Passover four times a year, as in Adventism, 52 times a year, as in some other denominations, or 365 days of the year, as Catholics do. Scripture stipulates keeping Passover once a year on the anniversary of the original Passover. Nothing too hard about that!
The Annual Calendar of Feasts
Now I am going to throw up a diagram of the annual biblical Feasts, and you will notice that the creators of this have stated that the Spring feasts are fulfilled at Jesus’ first coming and the Autumn feasts are to be fulfilled at the Second Coming of Christ. Even a scholar like Samuel Bacchiocchi repeats this. Now, this is partly correct, but what they don’t say is that Trumpets and the Day of Atonement also have a fulfilment at Jesus' first coming, as we noted earlier. Bacchiocchi says,
On the Sabbath, the Israelites acknowledged God as their Creator (Ex 20:11) and Redeemer (Deut 5:12-15). At Passover, they especially praised God as their Deliverer from Egyptian oppression (Deut 16:1; Ex 12:13). At Pentecost (Feast of Weeks), they thanked God for being their Provider of the material blessings of the harvest (Lev 23:10, 18, 19). At the Feast of Trumpets, they acknowledged God as their Judge who would decide their destiny ten days later on the Day of Atonement (Num 29:7; Lev 23:29). On the Day of Atonement, they would celebrate the fact that God was their Vindicator and Restorer who had forgiven and cleansed them of their sins (Lev 16:14-15, 21). At the Feast of Tabernacles, they rejoiced that God had been their Protector throughout their pilgrimage to the Promised Land (Lev 23:43).[2]
The Spring Feasts
The Passover is not difficult to keep because Jesus showed us how to keep it when he broke bread and drank the wine during the Passover before his crucifixion. He specifically instructed us to keep it this way, “until he comes.” We simply omit sacrificing the lamb and painting the doorposts with its blood, and the emblems of Passover that Christ gave us are bread and wine.
His death allows the judgment we deserve to pass over us, just as the angel of death was to pass over the houses whose doorposts had been smeared with the blood of the Pascal lamb, in Egypt.
Paul makes an unmistakable reference to Passover and the feast of Unleavened Bread when he says in 1 Corinthians 5:7,
"Cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, as you really are unleavened. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed."
The unleavened bread represents Jesus’ sinless life; he is the only perfect sacrifice for our sins. In John 6:35, Jesus boldly states that he is the bread of life, almost certainly a reference to the feast of Unleavened Bread. Not only does he remove our sins, he gives us salvation. The leaven, as Paul suggests, represents sin in our lives, and so we are reminded to remove it from our lives as we remove it from our homes in this feast.
Passover celebrates the deliverance from the bondage of sin offered to us through the sacrifice of our Paschal Lamb. At the same time, the Feast of Unleavened Bread typifies the removal of sin in our lives through sanctification. Passover, the feast of our redemption from sin, demands a new way of life typified by the Feast of Unleavened Bread.[3]
Finally, the Christian Passover will have a consummated fulfilment at the future Messianic banquet, as Jesus suggested when he told us to keep it until he eats it with us in the coming kingdom.
The Feast of Unleavened Bread should not be hard to keep since it simply requires staying off yeast bread for the seven days following Passover, and reminding ourselves why we do that.
The Firstfruits and the Resurrection of Christ
The first sheaf of the barley harvest was waved before the Lord as a pledge of the full harvest that was to follow. This marked the countdown of the fifty days to Pentecost. The Spring grain harvest lasted about seven weeks until Pentecost (Lev 23:9-14).
Although they didn’t know it at the time, the children of Israel were celebrating what would become a pivotal day in salvation history. Because as Paul was to later say,
1 Corinthians 15:14 (NRSV) — 14 …if Christ has not been raised, then our proclamation has been in vain and your faith has been in vain.
The early Israelites had no idea this festival would commemorate something as fundamental as the resurrection of Christ.
And also in
1 Corinthians 15:20–23 (NRSV) — 20 But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have died. 21 For since death came through a human being, the resurrection of the dead has also come through a human being; 22 for as all die in Adam, so all will be made alive in Christ. 23 But each in his own order: Christ the first fruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ.
The Feast of Firstfruits is easy to keep in the old way, as we can readily present produce that we have grown (or bought with the labour of our hands), during a church service in thanksgiving for our Lord’s great blessing of physical sustenance. However, in the Christian era, Firstfruits will become a major festival celebrating the resurrection of Christ, and taking the place of Easter in the Christian calendar. Christ was crucified on Passover, and on the Sunday following was resurrected. So this is exactly when we should celebrate his resurrection with joyous thanksgiving.
When Christ rose from the dead on that Sunday, so too did a representative sample of believers rise with him.[4] In relation to the End, the New Testament sees the fulfilment of this typology in the resurrection of all the redeemed at Christ’s Return.
Easter, as some will know, takes its name from the fertility god Ishtar, which is rooted in paganism. Hence the popular emphasis on Rabbits and Easter eggs. So we don’t want to promote this festival at all in Christian circles.
The other major Christian festival most churches observe, and which we are never instructed to observe in the Bible, is Christmas! Now, probably, celebrating the incarnation of Christ is not such a bad thing, but we are not instructed to in Scripture, so we must be very aware of that and the fact that this festival also arose from a pagan background.
Pentecost & the Holy Spirit
Pentecost was actually another firstfruits of the harvest, being the first of the wheat harvest. The first Pentecost after the crucifixion was the gathering in of the first fruits of the great eschatological harvest, when 3,000 souls received the Holy Spirit and were baptised. Paul says, “We ourselves who have the first fruits of the Spirit…” (Rom 8:23). Pentecost should be kept because it commemorates the coming of the Holy Spirit and evangelism, since the time of Acts.
Prior to Christ’s death, Israelites were equally unaware that Pentecost would eventually herald the pouring out of the Holy Spirit on thousands of believers who would then take the Christian message all over the known world.
The Autumn Feasts
Trumpets
The Feasts of Trumpets is a feast heralding the coming judgment. It tells us that God will intervene in judgment on the last day and that we must be prepared for this. In the Christian calendar, the feast of Trumpets anticipates the Second Coming of Christ, which is always associated with a trumpet blast. Look at,
1 Corinthians 15:51–52 (NRSV) — 51 Listen, I will tell you a mystery! We will not all die, but we will all be changed, 52 in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed.
And again in,
1 Thessalonians 4:13–18 (NRSV) — 14 For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have died. …16 For the Lord himself, with a cry of command, with the archangel’s call and with the sound of God’s trumpet, will descend from heaven, and the dead in Christ will rise first. 17 Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up in the clouds together with them to meet the Lord in the air; and so we will be with the Lord forever.
So, there is a clear connection between the Feast of Trumpets and the Second Coming of Christ.
The Feast of Trumpets escalates in the Book of Revelation into the seventh and culminating angel blowing his trumpet and crying in the midst of heaven to announce to mankind the beginning of the rule of Christ and the time of final judgment.
Revelation 11:15, 18 (NRSV) — 15 Then the seventh angel blew his trumpet, and there were loud voices in heaven, saying, “The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Messiah, and he will reign forever and ever.” …18 The nations raged, but your wrath has come, and the time for judging the dead, for rewarding your servants, the prophets and saints and all who fear your name, both small and great, and for destroying those who destroy the earth.”
The Day of Atonement
The observance of the Day of Atonement involved the sacrifice of animals as the High Priest entered the Holy of Holies. Jesus entered the Holy of Holies, the presence of the Father, directly at his ascension, following his resurrection. The author of Hebrews says in no uncertain terms that,
He did not enter by means of the blood of goats and calves; but he entered the Most Holy Place once for all by his own blood, having obtained eternal redemption. Hebrews 9:12 (NIV)
Keeping the Day of Atonement in a Christian context may pose a degree of difficulty since, as Hebrews clearly tells us, sacrificial services have been abolished. Since a lamb is no longer slain, what would we do? I suppose we would do something similar to what we do on Passover, celebrating the lamb of God having been slain already. We celebrate it by remembering why the Lamb of God was slain and what will happen at the judgement. Of course, at Passover, we eat bread and drink wine, but during the DoA, we fast. It was a day of fasting and reflection about judgement and the atonement God had made provision for in Christ.
However, like Israel of old, we Christians today need the reassurance of the Day of Atonement: the reassurance of God’s provision for the cleansing of sins and the restoration to fellowship with Him through Christ’s atoning sacrifice.[5] Many theologians correctly point out that 'atonement' means in essence, at-one-ment with God.
The Day of Atonement is a famine about judgment, and Trumpets warns us of this judgment to come. But Jesus's death on Calvary was also the Day of Atonement in advance. On this day, Jesus was judged, and all who choose him as their saviour date their judgement to his crucifixion. As Jesus put it to us,
John 12:31–32 (NRSV) — 31 Now is the judgment of this world; now the ruler of this world will be driven out. 32 And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.”
John 5:24 (NRSV) — 24 Very truly, I tell you, anyone who hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life, and does not come under judgment, but has passed from death to life.
What wonderful promises.
The Jewish leaders condemned Jesus, and he — burdened with the sins of all mankind — was led out of the city to be crucified.
“He himself is the sacrifice that atones for our sins — and not only our sins but the sins of the world” (1 John 2:2).
Like Israel of old, we Christians today need to hear, for example, the annual wake-up call of the Feast of Trumpets [and Day of Atonement] to repent and forsake our sinful ways… We need to be reminded periodically that “we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive good or evil, according to what he has done in the body” (2 Cor 5:10). The Feast of Trumpets [and DoA] provides this much needed wake-up call to prepare oneself to stand before God’s judgment by seeking for His cleansing grace.[6]
Finally, We Come to the Feast of Tabernacles.
The Feast of Tabernacles celebrates God’s provision and protection for the people of Israel during their 40 years of wandering in the wilderness. During the seven days of the feast, people live in temporary structures as they did in the wilderness. The Lord himself was with the Israelites in the desert, in a tent called the Tabernacle, so the feast also celebrates his presence as he tabernacles with us now.
Jesus tabernacled among us when he came as our saviour and promised to tabernacle with us again on the new earth, as these texts say.
John 1:14 “And the Word became flesh and tabernacled among us, full of grace and truth; we have beheld his glory, as of the only Son from the Father.”
Revelation 21:3 (NIV) — 3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Now the [tabernacle] of God is with men, and he will [tabernacle] with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God.
He promised that there would be no more death and suffering and that he would wipe away every tear from our eyes (Revelation 21:4). His return is the final answer to the hope we’ve carried our entire lives. What a day that will be!
Jesus is the living water (John 7:37-38) typified by the water ceremony of the Feast of Tabernacles. He is also the light of the world (John 8:12) typified by the night illumination of the Temple during the feast.[7]
The prophet Micah looked towards the future that the feast of Trumpets pointed to when he penned this magnificent portrait of the triumphant kingdom of God.
Micah 4:1-4 (NIV) In the last days the mountain of the Lord’s temple will be established as chief among the mountains; it will be raised above the hills, and peoples will stream to it.
2 Many nations will come and say, “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob. He will teach us his ways, so that we may walk in his paths.” The law will go out from Zion, the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.
3 He will judge between many peoples and will settle disputes for strong nations far and wide. They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore.
4 Every man will sit under his own vine and under his own fig tree, and no one will make them afraid, for the Lord Almighty has spoken.
Let me repeat myself on the Feasts. Yes Jesus did blow up all of the Old Testament feasts, in the sense that he fulfilled them all, but in doing so he did not do away with them. Jesus is Lord of the Sabbath, but that doesn’t mean he abolished it. Quite the opposite, by saying this he put his imprimatur on it, he blessed it, so that it is still a great blessing to the Christian church. Yes, of course, we need to modify the Feast days for the Christian era, especially by divesting them of animal sacrifices and pagan backgrounds. Still, they are all beneficial to our Christian walk today, just as they were to Israel in the distant past.
[1] [Passover (Communion), Unleavened Bread (Communion), Firstfruits (Thanksgiving), Tabernacles (annual Campmeeting)]
[2] Bacchiocchi, Samuele. God's Festivals in Scripture and History: Part 2: The Fall Festivals . Biblical Perspectives. Kindle Edition.
[3] Bacchiocchi, Samuele. God's Festivals in Scripture and History: Part 2: The Fall Festivals . Biblical Perspectives. Kindle Edition.
[4] For “many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised” (Matt 27:52).
[5] Bacchiocchi, Samuele. God's Festivals in Scripture and History: Part 2: The Fall Festivals . Biblical Perspectives. Kindle Edition.
[6] Ibid.
[7] Bacchiocchi, Samuele. God's Festivals in Scripture and History: Part 2: The Fall Festivals . Biblical Perspectives. Kindle Edition.
Comments