THE FEASTS (3)
THE FEASTS (3)
The feasts were special occasions of Israel drawing nigh to God, but they are instruction for us in the ways of God. They indicate as to the moral teaching contained in them the course of the Spirit of God with us, leading us on to access to God. They open up the ways of God in connection with the earth. We see Christ risen in the sheaf of first-fruits, then the church in the two wave-loaves.
[p. 266] The day of atonement speaks of reconciliation and the feast of tabernacles of the consummation.
In verse 22 we have the Spirit of grace; the two wave-loaves were a pledge and token of the harvest. The church has that place. All the harvest is on the principle of resurrection. After the church there is a suspension in God’s ways, and the first day of the seventh month is the resumption of God’s dealings with Israel. They then come to the tenth day of the month, to the day of atonement, in which they have to afflict their souls, and then comes the rejoicing in the feast of tabernacles. A Jew is saved now on the principle of ‘whosoever’. There is no special mission to the Jews now.
All is now established in Christ risen, the power of God began to be set forth in the resurrection of Christ. In the death of Christ there was the declaration of the love of God — His power is declared in resurrection. In the Lord’s supper we announce the Lord’s death till He come, but when He comes, everything will be maintained on the same principles, He will bring in all that which has been declared in His death.
The blowing of trumpets refers to God’s ways with Israel in the future. Most christians have reached as far as the two wave-loaves, and there they stop. You get the good of the new covenant in the house of God; people do not get further than the two loaves because they come under the influence of earth and its links. The blowing of trumpets signifies that God is demanding attention, and that leads to what is connected with the day of atonement, that is reconciliation, then you come on to the feast of tabernacles and new creation. The day of atonement is very important, but it brings with it that which we do not like, we must afflict our souls. It is the acceptance of death, not as relief, but as the putting off the body of the flesh. It is the refusal of yourself and of all that ministers to the flesh. You cannot get to the feast of tabernacles any other way. It is the end of God’s ways, and it is the end at which we are to arrive; we get [p. 267] in John 7 full satisfaction, rivers of living water flowing from a full heart. The great point is to get to God’s end. There are three grades of christians: (1) those who have reached the court of the tabernacle, (2) those who have reached God’s house, (3) those who understand what it is to be of the company of Aaron and his sons. They serve the living God. Philippians 3 answers to the feast of tabernacles for us, “our commonwealth has its existence in the heavens”. We reach the feast of tabernacles there. The apostle reached that point through affliction — the day of atonement — we see this in the early part of the chapter, verses 7 - 10. Hence Paul could say, “our commonwealth has its existence in the heavens”, in the full sense of the power and glory of the Lord; he had come to that point in his experience when flesh and everything but Christ was gone. For a long time Paul clung to the Jew, now all was gone. We have to suffer the loss of things here, as Paul did, that we may reach the reality of reconciliation. A man will never consent to the putting off of the body of the flesh until he has learnt what the flesh is, the terrible contrariety that he finds in himself to what is of God. Look at the order in John 6 and 7. You have first the fellowship of Christ’s death, and then the apprehension of His glory. Stephen had an apprehension of the feast of tabernacles, but he was prepared for it by death; rivers of living water flowed out from him.
The feast of tabernacles came when the vintage was over as well as the harvest; the vintage is the judgment on what has borne the name of God on earth. What marks the present time is that God is veiled, but in the feast of tabernacles the glory of the Lord fills the earth, it is displayed. The millennium will be the feast of tabernacles in outward display. We have to learn the lessons of the feasts now. Anyone who has not learned them knows really little of access to God; there is no other way of learning it. How can anyone approach God who is not rejoicing? Nor can rivers of living water [p. 268] flow out from a man if he is not rejoicing. Stephen’s face was as the face of an angel. You can reach rejoicing in no other way than by the day of atonement, and that means affliction of soul.
The new covenant is the bearing of God towards us; reconciliation carries with it the thought of what we are in Christ to God. It brings us to the rejoicing over the prodigal; they began to be merry, and we never hear of their leaving off. It is a wonderful thing when you see the heavens opened and the glory of God and Jesus, and have no sense of the flesh which encumbers. The glory of God and Jesus fills the universe of bliss. When you apprehend the glory of God and Jesus, you apprehend all God’s ways, there is nothing beyond; Stephen saw it. Stephen’s address (Acts 7) showed how everything had failed that God had been in down here, but he saw the glory of God and Jesus — a Man who could abide the glory. The “world to come” is a foreshadowing of what will abide, we have the Spirit of God to bring us into the good of it now. Stephen reached that point; afterwards Paul carries on the ministry from that point. Paul declared it and maintained it. The disposition ever since has been to drop down from that level — the glory of God and Jesus, and the flesh all gone for God. God is waiting for the display of His glory; He has to veil it till He has that which is according to His glory.
The first great thought is that God has a Man who can abide His glory; then comes the church — the heavenly city, and that is of Himself — His own work, and thus it will abide His glory. There is glory to God in the church in Christ Jesus. The church is the medium for the display of the glory. The great point connected with the heavenly city is that it has the glory of God. No flesh can enter there, it is all glory.
Mount Zion represents the sovereign mercy of God, when man had forfeited all. When the ark was taken Israel’s link with God was broken, but when the ark was brought back to mount Zion they say, “O give [p. 269] thanks unto the Lord; for he is good: for his mercy endureth for ever”. As children we come under discipline but in sonship there is no discipline; when we know the place of sons, we have come to the place of rest.