LEVITICUS 23
“The set feasts of Jehovah ... my set feasts” are God’s appointed seasons; they make known what is in His mind. They are not voluntary (see verse 38), or obligatory because of sins like sin- or trespass-offerings. They are things which the people of God have to take up together for His pleasure. This gives them a very precious character. They were to be proclaimed as “holy convocations”; they refer to what has to be taken up collectively as God’s appointed seasons. It is not the thought of what springs out of our exercises or desires, but of what God appoints for His own pleasure.
Each of these feasts would bring all the people together, and if we think of what they typify we must see that they speak of things which would have the effect of bringing all the people of God together morally. No one can say, Mine is a different Passover from yours, or a different Wave-sheaf, or a different [p. 239] Oblation. They are fixed rallying points for God’s people in relation to Himself, that they may be brought together morally. To be brought together merely in an outward way would not be a “holy convocation”. It might be possible to get all the believers in a town together in one place, but if they all had different thoughts and views they would not be together morally.
What I understand by a “holy convocation” is that God’s people are called together in a real and spiritual sense. They are united in the same mind, and in the same opinion (1 Corinthians 1: 10). All were together outwardly at Corinth, but they were not together morally. Theirs was not a “holy convocation”, but the Apostle laboured that it might become one. We are all here in this room, but how far are we really united in the same mind and in the same opinion? God provides in His set feasts all that is essential to unify His people. If we go through these feasts, and keep them with God, we shall not have a divergent thought about anything. A company of persons together without a divergent thought, and every thought in harmony with God, is a “holy convocation”. Divergent thoughts are the result of entertaining things which lie outside what is appointed of God.
There can be no doubt that there will be a “holy convocation” at the rapture. If the Lord’s assembling shout rang out at this moment the whole assembly would be caught up without one divergent thought in all the myriads that compose it. The work of God goes on now to bring that about morally before it comes about by divine power at the rapture. He would have all His people to know what it is to have part in a “holy convocation” now.
It is instructive to see that “the sabbath of rest” comes first. It is not exactly one of the set feasts (see verse 38), but it comes in as preparatory to them all. It speaks of that restful spirit which God would have in the dwellings of His people. The sabbath was “an everlasting covenant. It shall be a sign between me and the children of Israel for ever” (Exodus 31: 16, 17). The thought of rest is essential to the covenant; it is very sweet that it should be so.
“The sabbath to Jehovah” is a complete cessation from our own activities, that we may contemplate in rest what God has done, and the character of His rest, and how He would have His people to share it. The “sabbath of Jehovah” is that God gives and appoints it; the “sabbath to Jehovah” is that His people regard Him in it. The words “to Jehovah” occur often in this chapter, and this shows how His pleasure in the feasts is a paramount thought. Elements of unrest brought in amongst the people of God break the sabbath of rest. We have to see to it that nothing takes us away from a restful attitude of soul God-ward; and this not merely in the meetings, but “in all your dwellings”. Persons in a perturbed state of mind could never be a “holy convocation”. If you are labouring and burdened — and I say this to my own heart — come to the Son of the Father, and He will give you rest. The sabbath is God calling men into communion with His own rest. But it is irksome to man, because the natural man does not care for communion with God; he prefers his own works to God’s rest in Christ. Our “dwellings” are where we live in a spiritual sense; there must be sabbath conditions there — restful conditions.
The thought of “the assembly of Israel” was first [p. 241] introduced in connection with the passover (Exodus 12: 3). “The assembly” is “the congregation looked at as a moral whole, a corporate person before God”. (Note to Exodus 12: 3 in the New Translation.) And if we consider the passover we shall see that it involves very real and practical oneness. One spotless Lamb has borne the judgment due to the sinful man, and His love in doing it is now the food of the sheltered. All that I was as a fallen natural man was under judgment, but Christ has borne the judgment in love, and I feed on Him now so as to live by Him. I have no longer before me the man after the order of Adam — the man in the flesh. I recognize that man as under judgment, but Christ has borne the judgment that I might live by Him. Is not this true for every believer on the face of the earth? Have we not all — in the light of Christ being sacrificed, and bearing the judgment due to us — the same divine estimate of ourselves, and the same precious thoughts of the worth of Christ, and of His sacrifice? As to ourselves we can only say that we deserved death and the judgment of God. As to Christ, we know that He has been sacrificed, and has borne the judgment due to us, that we might live by Him. Is there not perfect and universal accord throughout the whole assembly of God as to these divine realities? I am not — for the moment — speaking of the shelter and safety which the Passover secures (for that is not the thought in Leviticus 23), but of the unity which it establishes throughout the Israel of God.
Then “the feast of unleavened bread to Jehovah” follows immediately upon the passover. Indeed in the New Testament the two feasts are identified “the feast of unleavened bread, which is called the passover” (Luke 22: 1). They go together morally, and are therefore put in the same section of this chapter. If all that I was as a man in the flesh came under judgment in the sacrifice of Christ, how can I tolerate the leaven of self-importance, or any of those features which God has judged in the death of Christ? The one who has truly fed on the Lamb roast with fire has something inwardly in his moral constitution which gives ability to estimate things according to God; he discerns that what is of the flesh is “leaven”; it has a corrupting and inflating character.
“Seven days shall ye eat unleavened bread”. The unleavened bread is Christ. We see in Him a kind of humanity which had no corrupting or inflating elements in it. The temptation proved that He was unleavened. Adam had taken himself out of God’s hands in distrust and disobedience; he had coveted to possess what God had not given him; he had been allured by the prospect of being as God; he had dared to risk the pronounced penalty on disobedience. But Christ trusted in God; He would not act for Himself, or receive from the prince of this world; He would not leave for a moment the place of obedience and dependence; He would not tempt God by putting His word to the test. There was no corrupting or corruptible element there. Nor was there any inflation or puffing up, or anything in the slightest degree unreal. His prayer was “not out of feigned lips”; His thought went not beyond His word (Psalm 17: 1, 3). When they said, “Who art thou?” He answered, “Altogether that which I also say to you” (John 8: 25). He could speak of Himself as “a man who has spoken the truth to you” (John 8: 40.)
[p. 243] We may study every act of His, and every word, and we find nothing but “sincerity and truth”. That is “unleavened bread”; and it is to be eaten “seven days” — a perfect period, covering typically the whole of our life here.
One might say, I can never be like that! But can you eat it? Have you a taste for that kind of bread? If you eat it you will become unleavened. The “old leaven” is to be purged out that the assembly of God “may be a new lump, according as ye are unleavened” (1 Corinthians 5: 7). “Old leaven” would be something brought over from the old lump of dough, which corresponds with “our old man”. All that is corrupting, and tends to puffing up, and it has to be purged out. The “new lump” corresponds with “the new man, which according to God is created in truthful righteousness and holiness”.
In one sense the saints “are unleavened”, for they are in Christ Jesus by the work of God, and Christ Jesus is made to them “wisdom from God, and righteousness, and holiness, and redemption” (1 Corinthians 1: 30). God cannot own for His pleasure any life in believers but the life of Christ. Then how can we be in fellowship with God if we practically own the life of “our old man”? Indeed, the very term “our old man” implies that we are not going on with that man now. As saints in Christ we have put him off, and have put on the new man. And now we have to keep the feast of unleavened bread during the whole period of our life here. This is not done by looking to see how imperfectly others are doing it, but by each one in uprightness of heart, and with a good conscience before God, seeking to maintain an unleavened character himself. As we feed on Christ we [p. 244] are nourished and strengthened, and He becomes our life practically, so that we can refuse the old leaven, and the leaven of malice and wickedness — and have with us “the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth”. The whole Israel of God is to move on that line, and that is how assembly conditions and assembly unity are brought about. It is by each one refusing what is of the flesh, and giving place to that which is of Christ. This would bring us all together morally, would it not? Every day that we “celebrate the feast” of unleavened bread there is “an offering by fire”. We know from Numbers 28 that it consisted of “two young bullocks, and one ram, and seven yearling lambs” for a burnt-offering, and other offerings. But here it is not specified in detail; it is simply that there is what goes up as sweet odour. As the people of God refuse the flesh, and give place to what is of Christ, they acquire ability to minister to the delight of God.
A new section of the chapter begins at verse 9 and goes down to verse 22. It will be noticed that this is “When ye come into the land that I give unto you, and ye reap the harvest thereof, then ye shall bring a sheaf of the first-fruits of your harvest unto the priest. And he shall wave the sheaf before Jehovah to be accepted for you; on the next day after the Sabbath the priest shall wave it”. Christ risen is set forth in this deeply interesting type as the First-fruits of the land of divine promise and purpose. God’s thoughts as to the condition and blessedness in which He would have His people before Him have reached fruition in One who rose on “the next day after the Sabbath”. This speaks of a new beginning, but one which stands in relation to what preceded it.
[p. 245] There were promises made to the fathers, and ways of God with Israel which had in view the fulfilment of those promises, but every day of Israel’s history only made more manifest that none of those promises or those ways could come to fruition in connection with what they were as in the flesh. That history culminated in their rejection of the Promised One — the One in whom was embodied all “the truth of God” (Romans 15: 8). They had proved utterly unfaithful — breaking the law, disregarding the covenant, despising the promises, killing the prophets, and last, most terrible of all, betraying and murdering the Just One — so that on what was truly the greatest and most momentous sabbath in their history He was lying in Joseph’s tomb. The fact that the wave-sheaf would be a sheaf of barley, for barley harvest came before wheat harvest, might have some reference to the state of Israel as unfaithful, for barley only appears in the offerings in the jealousy offering of Numbers 5. It would suggest that Christ came in to take up the question of the unfaithfulness of those who have had a place as in relation with God. The exercise of having utterly failed as the people of God is a deeper exercise than the conviction of a man who has never professed to know God. Israel will have this exercise, and many of us have known the bitterness of it. But grace entitles us to know that Christ has borne the judgment due to our unfaithfulness. Israel will yet be brought to own that her unfaithfulness has been fully exposed, but that her suffering Messiah has taken it up, and borne the judgment due to it, and that as the Risen One He has become her acceptance. She will then enjoy without a disturbing element the land which Jehovah has given her, and [p. 246] eat its bread. Israel will start afresh with God on the ground of a risen Christ, and they will get “the sure mercies of David”.
But the Sheaf of the First-fruits is for us as well as for Israel. Christ has taken up everything that attached to us as a righteous liability, whether as ungodly sinners or as professing Christians, and He has met every divine claim, and has come forth in resurrection to be accepted for us. There is no question of any title that we might have in ourselves or of anything in which one might differ from another. God’s thought of acceptance for the whole of His Israel — for every believer on the face of the earth — is set forth in a risen Man. What a unifying power there is in the apprehension of this! There is one acceptance for us all, and it is that glorious Person, alive from the dead, in spotless and eternal suitability to the resurrection world which He has entered. In this world there may be a thousand differences between us, but with God we have a risen Christ — Christ only and wholly — for acceptance.
But then, this is not simply that Christ is our righteousness so that we have peace with God. It is an acceptance which sets us at liberty to eat the bread of the land which God has given us. He has prepared wonderful things for them that love Him, but they are not things which eye can see, or ear can hear, or which naturally come into man’s heart. They are spiritual things, the fruit of “that hidden wisdom which God had predetermined before the ages for our glory”. God has given us a wonderful land, the blessedness of which lies outside all natural ken, but is revealed by His Spirit, and entered into by spiritual persons. The “Sheaf of first-fruits” is [p. 247] Christ in relation to that land, and as accepted for us in view of our enjoying the “bread” of that land. With what supreme liberty of heart, then, can the people of God, as having kept this feast, enjoy their unseen and eternal portion in Christ! A risen Man is the First-fruits. This shows us plainly that all the after-fruits — if we may use the term — are after that order; they belong to a spiritual region which lies beyond death; they are “food which abides unto life eternal” (John 6: 27).
“Ye shall bring a sheaf of the first-fruits of your harvest unto the priest. And he shall wave the sheaf before Jehovah, to be accepted for you”. God would have the whole of His Israel to recognize a risen Christ as the First-fruits of what is in His heart for them. He would have them in spiritual intelligence to wave that blessed One before Him, as knowing that He is accepted for them so that in liberty of heart they may enjoy the bread of
“Life’s eternal home,
Where sin, nor want, nor woe, nor death can come”.
This begins a new period with God; it is “on the next day after the sabbath”. It stands in relation to a period that has closed; substantiating all the promises, securing all that the former ways of God had in view, but putting all now on the footing of resurrection. So that all the promises of God are Yea and Amen in Christ the risen One, and as substantiated in Him they are known as present realities. It is a new period marked by the enjoyment of spiritual realities of which the risen Christ is the First-fruits.
Then on the same day a he-lamb is offered as a burnt-offering, with its oblation and drink-offering.
[p. 248] Along with the blessed apprehension of Christ as the First-fruits in resurrection these various offerings have their place. Their import has come before us in considering the early chapters of this book, save that of the drink-offering, which is here mentioned for the first time in Leviticus. It is striking that what speaks of joy — for the drink-offering is of wine — should be introduced in this connection. And we may remember that the wine in the drink-offering is the same measure as the oil in the oblation. It speaks of “joy in the Holy Spirit” (Romans 14: 17). God has great delight in the joy of His people in Christ; the drink-offering was to be poured out “in the sanctuary”.
The next feast is of peculiar interest, for it brings before us what pertains to the present period — the “new oblation” of Pentecost. This clearly sets forth the assembly as “first-fruits” to God. This has a definite connection with the preceding feast, for the day of bringing and waving the sheaf of first-fruits is the starting point from which the “seven weeks” or “fifty days” are counted to the day of presenting the “new oblation”. The resurrection of Christ is the starting point of a course of divine exercise and education which results in the “two wave-loaves” being brought out of the “dwellings” of God’s people. I understand this to convey that what is in God’s mind to effect gets such a place with His people that they can bring it out of their dwellings in a definite shape for His pleasure. But this is the result of a “fifty days’” exercise following upon the apprehension of Christ risen as “First-fruits”. We know what filled those “fifty days” historically. The risen One was seen “during forty days” by those “to whom also he presented himself living, after he had suffered,
with many proofs”. He spoke to them “of the things which concern the kingdom of God”. He “assembled with them”, and “by the Holy Spirit charged” them; educating them by His own action to think of assembling, and of acting by the Holy Spirit. He led them to think of the Holy Spirit as the power which would come upon them to constitute them His witnesses to the end of the earth. Then He was taken up, and was beheld by them going into heaven, and they were told that He should “thus come in the manner in which ye have beheld him going into heaven”. Then there were another ten days during which they knew Him as having gone into heaven, and were characterised by going “up to the upper chamber”, which was an indication that they knew their relation to Him as in heaven. The eleven were there, the women, Mary the mother of Jesus, and His brethren. The true “Israel of God” was there; and it was not simply that they met there; they stayed there; it corresponded with the “dwellings” of Leviticus 23: 17. “Continual prayer” marked that dwelling, an enlightened subjection to the Holy Scriptures, and a zealous care for the witness and service which had been committed to them. “And when the day of Pentecost was now accomplishing, they were all together in one place. And there came suddenly a sound out of heaven as of a violent impetuous blowing, and filled all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared to them parted tongues, as of fire, and it sat upon each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and began to speak with other tongues as the Spirit gave to them to speak forth” (Acts 2: 1 - 4). It was out of that dwelling that the “two wave-loaves” were brought.
[p. 250] We have not in this type the truth of the assembly as one body; that, as we know, is symbolized by the “one loaf” (1 Corinthians 10: 17). The “two wave-loaves” would set forth rather the saints in their witness here to Jesus as made Lord and Christ in heaven. They are presented for God’s pleasure as “a new oblation”. They take the place of Jesus here under the eye of God, for He was the Oblation in all His perfection in the power of the Spirit. But now there is “a new oblation”, not unleavened as He was, but “baken with leaven” to intimate that it is composed of those in whom there has been a former working of sin, but in whom that working has ceased through the action of fire — self-judgment in the power of the Spirit. Jesus is no longer here personally, but He is maintained here in witness in the “new oblation” for the pleasure of God. The two loaves might have reference to the mutuality and sympathy which marked the relations of the saints one toward another, of which Acts 2:42-45; Acts 4:32 bear such blessed witness.
The “two wave-loaves” are “first-fruits to Jehovah”. This helps to define the aspect of the assembly which is set before us in this type. It is not the assembly in those heavenly relationships and privileges which are peculiar to it, but the assembly viewed as taking the place of Israel on earth, and maintaining in testimony here what will be brought forth for God in the great ingathering of the world to come. On the day of Pentecost the kingdom of God was here in the power of the Spirit, and there was adequate witness to the One who is made Lord and Christ in heaven. A witness not only in word, but in the manner of life and mutual relations of a company of men and women in this world. The substance of that witness was “fine flour” — the life of Christ in His saints, taking form through self-judgment, and through the spiritual influences and education of those wonderful “fifty days”, culminating in all being filled with the Holy Spirit. Such a result can only be brought out of “dwellings” that have the character seen in Acts 1 and 2. The “two wave-loaves” are the product of saints dwelling in the blessed conditions which are seen there. We have to know the power of those conditions in order to be true to the character of the assembly as set forth in the wave-loaves. Then the saints will be “first-fruits”; they will express the features of Christ in the interval between His being “taken up” and His coming again.
God would have His people to come unitedly to the apprehension of what the day of Pentecost means, and what is involved in the bringing forth of the “new oblation”. It raises the question of where we dwell, and what we can bring forth as “first-fruits”. God would have us to think much of the assembly as filling up in witness this present interval during the absence of Christ in heaven, and before He resumes His ways with Israel on earth. If we do not cherish it in our “dwellings” we shall not be able to bring it forth as having taken form. Those who are known as “high church” people train their disciples to think much of “the church”. But their “church” is the mustard tree or the leavened meal rather than the “treasure” or the “one pearl of great value” (Matthew 13). It is the public professing body, in which people are supposed to be born again because they have been baptized, and to maintain a vital link with Christ by sacraments. In that system all depends on the validity of so-called “orders”, so that it exalts a [p. 252] human priesthood to a place of supreme importance. And it makes all uncertain, for there is not a “priest” on earth who can prove the validity of his “orders”. The Anglican claims to have such; the Pope will not acknowledge that he has; and with the highest authorities in the “church” disputing about it, who can be sure? In contrast with all this, let us think much of the assembly as composed of all those who believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and love Him, and as indwelt by the Spirit are in His life, and are really “first-fruits” to God. Let us be more and more exercised that this should be brought forth in testimony here! We shall then be true churchmen! The tendency amongst some Protestants has been so to recoil from the pretensions of a corrupt church that they make individual blessing the great thing, and do not think enough of what is collective and corporate. Let us be good churchmen in a true and spiritual sense! God would bring His people into unity in regard to the assembly. Every true believer cherishes the thought of Christ; then let us cherish the thought of the assembly, for it is Christ’s. Paul says, “I speak as to Christ, and as to the assembly”. The assembly is of Christ, and for Christ.
Then with the bread are presented “seven he-lambs without blemish, yearlings, and one young bullock, and two rams: they shall be a burnt-offering to Jehovah with their oblation, and their drink-offerings”. The saints as having the Spirit have a remarkable capacity for the apprehension and appreciation of Christ. I believe that no company will ever have such apprehensions of Christ as the assembly. God delights that we should take up His perfections and bring them as “sweet odour”. There is a sin-offering,
[p. 253] and peace-offerings also. God would bring us into perfect accord in the appreciation of Christ, and give us “to be like-minded one toward another, according to Christ Jesus; that ye may with one accord, with one mouth, glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Romans 15: 5, 6). The “offering up of the nations”, as “acceptable, sanctified by the Holy Spirit” (Romans 15: 16) would be much like the wave-loaves.
The peace-offerings introduce the thought of the fellowship. The teaching of the apostles makes everything of Christ, and that forms the fellowship (Acts 2: 42). The fellowship derives character from the appreciation of Christ, and the refusal of all that is inconsistent with the life of Christ. Then we can get near to one another, and there are all the elements of a “holy convocation” in love and liberty, nothing “servile” about it; the saints by love serve one another.
This section of the chapter ends with a lovely touch of gracious consideration for “the poor” and “the stranger”. It shows the spirit of grace which God would have to mark His people; it is His own character reproducing itself in them. There will always be those who answer to “the poor” and “the stranger”, and they are always to be thought of when God’s people are reaping the rich harvest of their blessings in Christ.
Verses 23 - 25 are another section of the chapter, and this, and what follows, refers to what takes place “in the seventh month”. The “seventh month” brings things to spiritual completion; the set times or appointed seasons end in that month. Indeed it is definitely spoken of in Exodus 23: 16 as “the end of the year”. So that there is a very marked difference between the feasts we have been considering and those which now come before us. The passover, the feast of unleavened bread, the wave-sheaf, and the two wave-loaves presented fifty days later at Pentecost, are all in relation to the beginning of the year. But the seventh month has the end of the year in view. The one set of types has to do with the beginning of God’s ways, the other set with the end of those ways. To see this clearly is essential to the spiritual understanding of what is here set before us. All has a primary reference to Israel, but it is not confined to Israel, for the passover, the feast of unleavened bread, Christ risen as the wave-sheaf of first-fruits, are all seen in the New Testament to stand connected with the assembly. And the “new oblation” of Pentecost is clearly so also, though it does not regard the assembly in its own peculiar privileges, but as “first-fruits” of the great harvest which God is going to reap from the earth.
The “seventh month” brings us to contemplate the end of God’s year — the end of His ways with His people. His ways must reach the “expected end”, for His thoughts toward His people are “thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you in your latter end a hope” (Jeremiah 29: 11). As regards Israel God has not forgotten His ancient promises, and His gifts and calling are not subject to repentance. Israel is in the darkness of unbelief today. They broke the law, despised the promises, persecuted and killed the prophets, betrayed and murdered their Messiah, and refused the Spirit’s testimony to Him as risen and glorified. But the promises must be fulfilled; God’s end must be reached; and the time is drawing near when Israel will enter upon her “seventh month”, and come on the first day of that month as the new moon into the shining of Christ. What “a memorial of blowing of trumpets” will there be on that day! “Blow the trumpet at the new moon, at the set time, on our feast day” (Psalm 81: 3), will then be fulfilled. The Spirit of God will cause to sound afresh in Israel’s ears all that is connected with the promises and covenant of God, and all that depends on her long-rejected Messiah for its realization. What an awakening for Israel then, and for myriads of Gentiles, as the trumpets sound forth that Christ is in heaven, but that He is about to come back, and that the kingdom is almost immediately to be established!
Peter told them on the day of Pentecost that what they then witnessed was the very thing which the prophet Joel had said should be in the last days. The light of a risen and heavenly Christ was shining for Israel then, and the remnant came into it by God’s electing grace, and there was a wonderful “blowing of trumpets”. And wherever the apostles went “to the Jew first” they blew the trumpets, but the “joyful sound” fell on heedless ears save as there was “a remnant according to election of grace”.
But “in the seventh month, on the first of the month”, after the translation of the assembly, God will cause the light of a risen and heavenly Christ to shine again on a remnant in Israel, and the trumpets will sound to awaken Israel to the One who is coming in Kingly glory to His city and His land. God will have the end of His ways in view, and He will work effectively to bring that end to pass.
Now while the primary application of this is to Israel, we can see that there has been something [p. 256] analogous in the ways of God with the assembly. A long period elapsed from Pentecost during which things went from good to bad, and from bad to worse. There was a long course of declension and departure. But God never lost sight of the assembly’s heavenly portion and destiny, and I think we may say reverently that it was morally impossible for God to leave things in the state to which man’s unfaithfulness had brought them. He had His own end in view — the return of the Bridegroom, and the translation of the raised and changed saints. It was morally impossible — that is, it was unsuitable to God — that Christ should come without a people being prepared for the rapture. The “blowing of trumpets” will awaken the remnant of Israel to their coming Messiah-King. In principle the midnight cry of Matthew 25: 6 was a “blowing of trumpets” for the assembly.
If the assembly was no longer practically in the light of her glorious Head, nor answering to that light by an ungrieved indwelling Spirit, she must have what answers to the “seventh month” of revival, and of restored heavenly light and testimony. I have no doubt the “seventh month” in this sense began in those spiritual movements which preceded what men call the Reformation, and the light of Christ and the sound of the trumpets has been increasing ever since. And particularly during the last hundred years God has given a wonderful ministry of revival — a more glorious presentation of a risen and heavenly and coming Christ than has been known since the days of the apostles. How wonderful that God should have come in to give the assembly, as it were, a new start, in view of the end before Him! So that the saints might take up afresh the character which pertained to the beginning — “unleavened bread” and the “new oblation”. And that we might be prepared for the moment when “the Spirit and the bride say, Come!”
Then the next section of the chapter (verses 26 - 32) gives us “the day of the atonement”. This is “the tenth of this seventh month”. We might have thought that the month should begin with this, but that is not the divine order. It is an awakened and revived people who keep the holy convocation of the day of atonement, and afflict their souls. I have no doubt that it will be in the light of Christ in heaven, and in the grace of the Spirit as poured out on them, that the remnant of Israel will learn the marvellous reality and import of the death of their Messiah.
The day of atonement, as we have seen in considering chapter 16, gives a unique presentation of the death of Christ. It comes in as meeting the glory of God after the complete failure of that which had stood in relation to Him. It supposes the breakdown of everything according to the flesh in a people who had a place in relation to God. It meets the exercise awakened by a history of departure and corruption, and the ruin of the outward order as set up by God. We have to take things up now in the light of the departure and complete failure of the people of God and the priesthood. Such will be the exercise of an awakened and enlightened Israel, and such is ours today. Each one must “afflict” his soul, for each one has been involved in the common sin of a ruined profession. Not one of us can say that we are not involved in the sin of christendom’s departure from God. Most earnest christians will admit there has been, and is, great failure, but the remedy which is generally proposed is increased activity. It is thought [p. 258] that if christians were more earnest and energetic, things would be put right. But the case is too serious to be met that way. “Ye shall do no manner of work on that same day; for it is a day of atonement, to make atonement for you before Jehovah your God”. It has to be met by the solemn recognition that all on our side has failed and come to ruin. This is a humbling exercise, but it leads to a great appreciation of the death of Christ and of the Mercy-seat. Everything that is for God is the fruit of mercy, and stands in the value of the death of Christ. The remnant includes all that is for God, and such have to learn that all blessing is the fruit of God acting from Himself when every title to blessing has been forfeited by man. It was so at the beginning; God brought in blessing not because there was anything in man to deserve it, but because of what He was, and because of the delight He had in Christ, and because of the value of the death of Christ. Now at the end of His ways He brings in recovery on the same principle.
One cannot but be impressed by the fact that the Spirit of God has greatly magnified the death of Christ in the spiritual apprehensions of saints in these last days. The true import of that death could only be apprehended in the light of Christ glorified, and by giving place to the Spirit. One of the greatest spiritual gains of recent times is the enlarged and deepened understanding of that precious death in its varied aspects, in its wondrous results for God and man, in its blessed import as bringing to an end the history of the man after the flesh, and giving full expression to the holy love of God, and also disclosing all the perfections of Christ in the fullest way, and revealing [p. 259] His love for the saints individually and for the assembly. The way the Lord’s Supper has been restored, and the revived affections of the saints in relation to it, is a very striking feature of the present ways of God, and it has greatly served to magnify the death of the Lord before the hearts of His own.
The closing section of the chapter brings before us “the feast of booths”, which commenced on “the fifteenth day of this seventh month”, and lasted seven days. It is referred to in Exodus as “the feast of ingathering”, and here it is said, “when ye have gathered in the produce of the land”. It thus looks on to the time when all the promises will be fulfilled, and Israel will be in the enjoyment of their full fruition. The moon would be full on the fifteenth day of the month, which suggests Israel having come into full-orbed splendour in the light of the Sun of righteousness. They will then be settled in the land, but their generations are to know that Jehovah caused the children of Israel to dwell in booths when He brought them out of the land of Egypt. They have reached the consummation of the ways of God, but they are not to forget the former history of those ways. Jehovah will then have praise from Israel, not only for the millennial blessedness which they enjoy, but for all those wilderness ways of grace by which He led them, and in which He cared for them in the past. In the actual presence of those ways they were murmurers and rebels, but they will eventually give Jehovah the praise that is due to Him for His ways, and for the end to which they have led. The “beautiful trees, palm branches and the boughs of leafy trees, and willows of the brook” speak of the luxuriance of the land, and its restful shade, while reminding them of [p. 260] a care that was equally wonderful in wilderness conditions. This is pre-eminently the feast of joy. “Ye shall rejoice before Jehovah your God seven days”.
If the “feast of booths” brings us, in type, to the end of God’s ways with Israel it remains for us to ask if there is anything that corresponds with it as the end of His ways with the assembly? I have no doubt there is. The assembly has her own relation to the time which is prefigured by “the feast of booths”. She has had made known to her “the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he purposed in himself for the administration of the fulness of times; to head up all things in the Christ, the things in the heavens and the things upon the earth; in him, in whom we have also obtained an inheritance, being marked out beforehand according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his own will, that we should be to the praise of his glory who have pre-trusted in the Christ”. Then addressing Gentiles he adds, “In whom ye also have trusted, having heard the word of the truth, the glad tidings of your salvation; in whom also, having believed, ye have been sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is the earnest of our inheritance to the redemption of the acquired possession to the praise of his glory” (Ephesians 1: 9 - 14).
“The feast of booths” is typically that side of “the fulness of times” which relates to “the things upon the earth”. To get the side which relates to “the things in the heavens” we must read the epistle to the Ephesians. We see there the assembly’s part in Christ, and the inheritance which the saints of the present period have in Him. And the Holy Spirit of promise is the earnest of our inheritance. As sealed [p. 261] with the Holy Spirit we have the enjoyment now of the inheritance, for He is the “earnest” of it. He gives us some of the value and blessedness of it beforehand; we have some of the substance of it, so that it is even now an “acquired possession”, though we still await the actuality.
In God’s “great love wherewith he loved us (we too being dead in offences)”, He “has quickened us with the Christ ... and has raised us up together, and has made us sit down together in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus”. The rapture is thus anticipated in spirit; the saints, quickened, elevated, and seated, have reached in spirit the end which divine love has purposed. And this in order that God “might display in the coming ages the surpassing riches of his grace in kindness towards us in Christ Jesus”. We sit down under all the beauty of a heavenly Christ in what may be spoken of as “the eternal tabernacles”. This is the end of God’s ways and working with His saints, to which He would bring us in spirit even now. As the saints reach this by the work of God they are ready for the rapture, for they are already in spirit where the rapture will put them actually. They have reached God’s end spiritually; the rapture will bring them to it in actuality. They are fully ready, in concert with the Spirit, to say, Come!
Then there is a beautiful hint in the chapter before us of something even beyond the “feast of booths”. That feast lasts seven days, but at the end of it there is an “eighth day”. I believe the joy of the millennium will lead the saints on earth to desire and look for what is eternal, and I have no doubt they will reach “the eighth day” in the new earth, when the tabernacle of God will be with men, and God will be [p. 262] all in all. Indeed, as we know from Numbers 29, there will be a measure of decline through the seven days of the “feast of booths”. No actual departure, but a measure of decline, so that there will not be the same wealth in the affections God-ward at the end as at the beginning. The full moon of the fifteenth day — how true a figure of Israel! — will soon begin to wane. The flesh and blood condition was not God’s eternal thought for man, and I think He will manifest this to faith by allowing it to appear that man in that condition even in millennial circumstances is not able to maintain full or perfect response to God. This will make the “eighth day” necessary for faith, as it surely is for God. Its being “the eighth day” shows that it has a connection with what has gone before, but adds a perfection that could never be found while men continued in the flesh and blood condition. They will look for the new earth with its eternal conditions, and its abiding rest. There will be no decline there, for God will be all in all. Every vessel will be filled with God — God known in His eternal rest.
We, too, through infinite grace, know something greater than “the fulness of times”. Even the blessedness of the world to come must give place to God’s eternal day. And our characteristic day is “the first day of the week”. That is the beginning of what is wholly new, spiritual, and eternal. “In the last, the great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any one thirst, let him come to me and drink. He that believes on me, as the scripture has said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. But this he said concerning the Spirit, which they that believed on him were about to receive; for the Spirit was not yet, because Jesus had not yet been glorified”
([p. 263] John 7: 37 - 39). The Lord thus connected the “eighth day” with the gift of the Spirit, and with Himself glorified. This introduces what is eternal. “The great day of the feast” is typical of God’s eternal day.
It is by these wondrous things, which cover all the ways of God founded on redemption right on to His eternal rest, that God would bring His people together in unity. And this, as we have seen, not only in relation to His original thoughts, but — and this especially in our days — in relation to His blessed movements of recovery when all that He set up originally had been departed from. The “seventh month” speaks of recovery brought about by the renewed shining of Christ upon His people, by the sounding out of a special testimony, and by the exercises of the day of atonement, leading to the possession of that which God has given to His saints as their inheritance, and the ingathering of its fruits.
The unity of the people of God is brought about in a special manner in a day of departure. It is not only that God would have His people to be in unity as to the original basis of fellowship, but they are to be in unity as to the peculiar conditions of a day of revival and recovery. From Joshua’s day to Nehemiah there was no celebration of the “feast of booths”. In a day of recovery it was taken up by the returned remnant. We know how this history repeated itself in the assembly. The true end of God’s ways was kept before the saints in those victorious days of spiritual conflict when the apostles were led in triumph in the Christ. That answered to Joshua’s day. But for many centuries the “end” of God’s year was little thought of. But now that that end has drawn nigh [p. 264] He is bringing His people back from Babylonish captivity to build the house and the wall, and to keep the feast of booths. What a voice this has for those who have “ears to hear”!