THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES
THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES
CAC I thought we should continue what we have been looking at. We have considered:
- The passover and feast of unleavened bread.
- The wave-sheaf and feast of weeks.
- Tonight we might complete the subject by looking at The feast of ingathering, or tabernacles.
Rem I think you said that with regard to the day of Pentecost there was no limit stated as to its duration. Would you say that with the “blowing of trumpets” a new era or period is brought in?
CAC All that we have read of this evening stands connected with the end of the year. We see that in Exodus 23: 15, 16 where the three feasts are spoken of: unleavened bread, harvest, “and the feat of ingathering, at the end of the year”. The passover, the feast of unleavened bread and Pentecost are all at the beginning of the year. They are connected with the beginning of God’s ways. But the trumpets, the day of atonement and feast of ingathering are at the end of the year.
Ques What does “the year” convey to you?
CAC I thought it set forth the course of God’s ways.
Rem “The year of the Lord”. “And having rolled up the book ... he sat down” (Luke 4: 20).
CAC It is a definite cycle. The months run in cycle and begin again. The ways of God are like that. The feast of [p. 142] tabernacles or ingathering is the time when the harvest and vintage are gathered in — God’s goodness, bounty and favour gathered in and enjoyed. It is the finish. God’s ways end in bringing His people into the full purpose of His ways in Christ. The apostle John commences his epistle with “That which was from the beginning”, and the same apostle shows us the end. The beginning started in Christ and in the Spirit. The end is the full result of all the ways and purposes of God — the city coming down from heaven.
It is a great thing to know that we have to do with a God who begins and finishes. He finishes. There is a remarkable verse in Job 19: 25. The first part of the verse — “I know that my Redeemer liveth” — is well known to every Christian, but it continues, “and the Last, he shall stand up upon the earth”. That is a remarkable statement to be made by a man like Job. Firstly, “I know that my Redeemer liveth”; secondly, He is “the Last”. The Redeemer is going to have the last word. If God comes out as Redeemer it ensures the fulfilment of all He has in the purposes of His love. He has the last word.
Rem “The first and the last”.
CAC In Revelation 1 it is the Lord God who is the “Alpha and the Omega” (verse 8) — God the beginner and finisher of blessing. But in chapter 22 it is Jesus: “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end” (verse 13). Everything that God begins and ends, He begins in Christ and He ends in Christ. What a sense of security and rest it gives to see that. There is at the beginning of the year the passover, and at the end of the year the feast of ingathering — to be enjoyed. God wants us to know a little bit of that now.
Ques The Redeemer is the passover?
CAC Yes, and He is the Last; and whatever comes in between. Job learnt what a wretched being he was and repented in dust and ashes. God is the Last. You will find, certainly, that God will have the last word — a word of infinite blessedness — and His people will be put in the full enjoyment [p. 143] of it. We all believe that He is the First but He is going to be the Last. The passover is the first but the feast of tabernacles is the last. All is gathered up and enjoyed that God has given His people. These feasts show what God has made possible for us to enjoy here. We may enjoy it now by the Spirit. They are part of God’s ways, the unfolding of them, so that His people can enjoy them now.
God gave Israel a good start. They had the passover and the tabernacle amongst them, and were brought into the land. But they soon slipped away from it. They are not in the enjoyment of it now but are scattered for their sins. But is God going to leave it like that? No. “The seventh month” will come for Israel, all God’s purposes for Israel will be fulfilled. There will be the trumpets to gather them, the day of atonement when they will repent and then the feast of ingathering enjoyed in the land.
In principle, it is just what God has done with the assembly. Pentecost is how God started the assembly. It was a good start, with Christ and the Spirit. But we have departed from it. I think we would all admit that we have departed from the great blessedness of Pentecost. The whole assembly has departed, things have come in that are neither Christ nor the Spirit. There is a profession of Christ in the world but christendom has departed from Pentecost and not continued in Christ and the Spirit. Could God leave it like that? and would He leave it like that? No. The time for the fulfilment of His purposes draws near and “the seventh month” is brought in. The time is very near. The Lord is soon about to come and the assembly will be placed in glory, Israel gathered and the kingdom set up. It is very near now. In view of that God has blown a trumpet.
Ques “Behold, the bridegroom”?
CAC It answers, for the assembly, to that. It began with the Reformation; before that the assembly was in darkness and death but God sounded a “trumpet”, there was a “new moon”, the light of Christ shone afresh for the assembly. At “the new moon” the moon comes again into the light [p. 144] of the sun. It is only a silver crescent at first but it is in the light of the sun, and the crescent grows fuller and fuller each day. The Reformation answers to “the first day of the seventh month”. Since then the light of Christ has been shining more and more. It is a day of revival, this “seventh month”; the trumpets are sounding; we have readings and preachings and books are circulated, all bringing us light as to Christ and the assembly. Have they not sounded in these parts? Surely we have had our feast of trumpets. And what is the effect of it? It leads to deep self-judgment and we confess that we have not been faithful to the light and privilege of Pentecost, to what God set up at the start. We admit it. “It is a day of atonement” (Leviticus 23: 27 - 32) when the meaning and value of the death of Christ is brought home to us. God is now preparing us for the finish.
Ques As to verse 25, “And ye shall present an offering by fire to Jehovah”, what does that signify?
CAC In any movement God brings about, there is a result for Him. Whatever light and help we get, the question is, ‘What is there for God in this?’ Not ‘What is there for man’ but ‘What is there for God?’ It is a great thing to come under divine instruction as to the death of Christ. It is a question of the people of God; if we have departed as the people of God from Christ and the Spirit, if we have got mixed up with other things, we have to repent of it and own it. All that is not of Christ and of the Spirit is contrary to the truth. The full blessing of God can only come in through the death of Christ. It must come in through the day of atonement. When God begins to work it is to lead us into the sense of what the result of the death of Christ is. There is nothing to be done, we have to be still. “No manner of servile work shall ye do”.
I needed His death first as a needy sinner and second as having got away from the light and blessing of Pentecost.
Ques Would Isaiah 53 correspond?
CAC Israel will keep their day of atonement. It is the great value of Christ as the sin-offering. It has made it possible [p. 145] for God to fulfil every thought of His love. God would give us a deep sense of the death of Christ.
What is God’s answer to the Person of Christ? That He has raised Him from the dead and put Him on the topmost pinnacle of glory. What is God’s answer to the work of Christ? That every one of the redeemed is put in the full blessedness of the purpose of His love. That is His finish. He would have us come into it now and enjoy it now, here on earth.
Ques Do we come into it individually?
CAC We have to come into it individually and along with our brethren.
In the burnt-offering Christ secures for me a place in divine favour in the very spot where I was under God’s judgment, in that very place. But the sin-offering, oh! it is wonderful. It is infinitely great, greater than the burnt-offering. The blood of the burnt-offering was sprinkled “on the altar that is at the entrance of the tent of meeting”. But the blood of the sin-offering was put on the gold, on the mercy-seat, and on the ground of that we become “God’s righteousness in him” (2 Corinthians 5: 21). That is the result of Christ having become the sin-offering. We are eternally “the righteousness of God in him”. It secures the justification, reconciliation and glorification of every one who believes on His name. God would give us to think much of it. It settles every question for the guilty sinner and the failing believer. Now God can set us before Himself “holy and blameless”, “accepted in the Beloved”, “blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies in Christ” (Ephesians 1: 3 - 7). All the result of the death of Christ.
The question is, ‘Are we gathering up the harvest and the vintage?’ Are we gathering it up and enjoying it? Read Deuteronomy 16: 13 - 15. What a wonderful picture! God’s people made “wholly joyful”. It has come right out of the heart of God. “Blessed with every spiritual blessing ... in Christ”. It is for us then to gather it up; on the ground of repentance and of the death of Christ we can appropriate it [p. 146] all. The bondman, the handmaid, the Levite, the stranger, etc., everybody is taken in. It is a beautiful seven days. The seven days of the feast of unleavened bread speaks of a continued period of holiness. But this is joying in Christ, knowing that we are objects of delight to God. It is a fine thing when we just let God be true.
Rem I suppose John 7: 37 - 40 sets out the present enjoyment of it for us, in connection with the Spirit of God.
CAC The feast all subsists in Christ. “If any one thirst, let him come to me and drink”. Every thirst in the human heart is quenched. And from the one who drinks, “Out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water”. It is the feast of tabernacles for us.
Rem It brings before us the greatness of the Spirit.
CAC The Spirit is great enough to bring it in and to bring it in for those who have departed from Pentecost and been unfaithful. It is purely on the ground of God’s mercy. The truth of the assembly has been restored. Sects are an abomination to God. They are a direct contradiction of what He has set up. This feast of tabernacles was to be held “in the place which Jehovah will choose”.
Ques Would Philadelphia answer to that, following upon Thyatira and Sardis?
CAC Philadelphia shows how the Lord will secure a place at the end; we are brought back to it in mercy. That is the question for us, ‘Is there a place now’? “The place which Jehovah will choose to cause his name to dwell there”? There was a place in Israel, but it is a remarkable thing that the people were in the land over four hundred years before God chose a place where He could put His name. See Deuteronomy 12: 10 - 12, “Then there shall be a place ... thither shall ye bring ... your choice vows which ye shall vow” — not till Solomon’s time. David as the warrior, God’s anointed, came in first and dealt with every enemy. Solomon could say that there was “neither adversary nor evil event” (1 Kings 5: 3 - 5). As types of Christ, David is the great warrior [p. 147] and Solomon the great builder. The builder was needed before the “place” — the beautiful house — could be built. It was to be “exceeding magnifical”. The “place” was never there until the temple was made.
Rem “And on this rock I will build my assembly, and hades’ gates shall not prevail against it” (Matthew 16: 18).
CAC That is the place. It is where the revelation of God in Christ is known and responded to; it is only known and responded to in that house which Christ builds of living stones. It is a more wonderful house today than what Solomon reared on the threshing-floor of Ornan the Jebusite. There are many structures around us built by man, but there is only one built by Christ, and in that structure built by Christ, God has set His name and only there. Every sect in christendom arose with good intentions; men tried to improve on conditions that existed, but that is not good enough for God. What is built by the Son of God is divinely perfect; “Hades’ gates shall not prevail against it”. The revelation of His Father is put there so that it can be responded to and in that place the feast of ingathering can be kept, outside of all that is of man. The structures reared by man are all coming down but in finding our place in Christ’s structure we can rejoice and keep the feast of ingathering (see Leviticus 23: 40). What a beautiful sense of shelter and luxuriance these “beautiful trees” suggest — the luxuriousness of the land — as we think of the people sitting down under them. It is like the place that God would have us in now, sitting down and thinking of the contrast between the wilderness and the land. The wilderness is where we experience God’s care; it is in one sense as wonderful as the land, but it is not the place where God can rest, nor is it of rest for us. But the land is the place of His rest. He can rest and we can rest. He can rejoice over us with singing and rest in His love. God would bring us to it now in the blessedness of all that He has secured for Himself in Christ. “And ye shall rejoice before Jehovah your God seven days”. We can praise God for all the blessedness and [p. 148] wealth of Christ. Christ is the preciousness to us so that we can speak of it to God. “Spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God by Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 2: 5 - 7).
Rem The question should be with us, ‘Has God got His part?’ His joy among His people. We ought to consider seriously whether we are taking this up in a spiritual way. We shall be set in the full blessedness of God’s purpose in a moment when Christ comes, but what about now? Is God missing what is due to Him at the present moment? Let us leave everything that hinders this. We shall go in later on and come out in the heavenly city. It is all brought about through redemption and is as powerful now as then. We can come into all the blessedness now of what God has found for His own pleasure in Christ.