THE FULLNESS OF THE 7 FEASTS/SET TIMES OF GOD  

(How they represent REDEMPTION and REST) 

The Feasts are emblematic representations of the prophetic set or appointed times of God for the complete Redemption and Rest for the two Peoples of God. The Feasts are chronologically to be fulfilled or filled with similar meaning, but on two different time lines, one for Christians (or the New Man) and one for Jews. 

In typology, Christians have received the Messiah’s (1) Passover and (2) Unleavened Bread Feasts, having been translated out of the kingdom of darkness into His light. We are now to purge out sin. “Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened. For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us: Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness; but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.” [1st Corinthians 5:7–8] Christians recognize the (3) First Fruits offering to be Jesus Christ with active hope of their having a part of an additional future First Fruits offering of the man–child which will be caught up to God (Revelation 12:5, 14:4), or of the First Resurrection offering…. “But every man in his own order: Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ’s at his coming.” (1st Corinthians 15:23, Revelation 14:20:4-6) Christians acknowledge the historical  

(4) Pentecost as being the outpouring of the Spirit’s sanctifying Power in the calling of the two leavened loaves (Jew and Gentile to the one New Man) throughout the World unto God. “But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth.” [Acts 1:8, 2:16] These 4 Spring Feasts of the appointed times of God, all are fulfilled or filled with meaning as it relates to that one people of God; the New Man. The New Man looks forward to the fulfillment of the fall Feasts that will fill the Heavenly Calling with Millennial glory and purpose. (5) Trumpets represents the worthy gathered into the heavenly places unto Jesus Christ. (6) The Day of Atonement being the realization in the glory of At-One-Ment with Him. (John 17:21, Revelation 19:7) (7) Tabernacles not only has in view to be with Him in the heavenly tabernacle, but the promise of an eternal habitation prepared by the Father in New Jerusalem. That which begins with the “sowing” ends with the reaping and separating of the wheat from the tares. TABERNACLES is the final result of what Christ had set forth in the parables of prophesies in the 13th chapter of Matthew. 

THE FEASTS THE PROPHETIC CALENDAR OF ISRAEL 

Let’s look at how the Feasts are God’s appointed set times are emblematic of the future restoration and rest for Israel specifically. They are all prophetic representations of certain chronological events concerning Israel, yet future. The Jewish perspectives on these Feasts are but very dim in the ignored light of the Messiah’s Revelation. Scripture details the final and greatest destruction of all time on future Israel, which will be the death of 2/3rds of its inhabitants, and another great dispersion (Zechariah 13:8), with world–wide persecution. It is only then that the appointed times of the Feasts will finally be set in motion and filled with their true meaning.  

Spiritually speaking, Israel shall then be shaken awake from their religious and secular stupor towards the end of Daniel’s prophesied 490 years of Gentile authority. This started when God took away Israel’s authority and gave it to Nebuchadnezzar. It ends at the end of the suspended 7 years of time (which had been suspended in time after having crucified the Lamb of God) at which time they will repent and apply the Blood. This dynamic will eliminate the long hot summer between the Spring and Fall, that time appointed to call out a people for His Name (Acts 15:14), and put the remaining 6 feasts in close proximity in time. Excluding the 7th and last Feast of Tabernacles, the emblematic 5 Feasts; Unleavened Bread, First Fruits, Pentecost, Trumpets, and Atonement Day are representative of critical events for Israel’s eternal Redemption and Rest which are to be fulfilled within the 75 days allotted in Daniel 12:11–12 before the Millennial Tabernacles. (This is the period of both 45 and 30 days discussed in Daniel, with the biblical measure of a month being 30 days.) 

When we speak of the Set Times of God, including the Set Times reflected in the Feasts, we are speaking about Prophecy. And Biblical Prophecy has covered 6000 years of history. That God has extended the set times over these past 6000 years establishes the unquestionable impossibility of any contrivance within the fulfilling of all these hundreds of prophetic happenings. Along with the number of different prophets, prophesying in the minuteness of detail, the unique technique being naturally unpredictable, and wisely given without the possibility of man being able to duplicate or manipulate, but yet completely recognizable upon completion. In that some 3400 years ago, Moses came on the prophetic scene to record the Words of God. And Moses wrote the first Prophetic Words in Genesis 3:15. “And I will put enmity between thee and — the woman, and between thy seed and — her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.”  This epic battle is what all Prophecies and Set Times of God rest upon. This verse, reaching back to nearly 6000 years ago, gives the subject matter, and lays the groundwork for all Scripture. There are two main characters and their destinies contemplated by God that all Scripture will now focus upon. (1) The Messiah and His two-part Atonement; that of suffering and Glory. (1st Peter 1:11, Isaiah 53, Revelation 5:12-14) And (2) satan and his temporary success (1st Corinthians 2:7,8) ending in his abject defeat. (Revelation 20:10) These are the two characters contemplated in the heel of Man being hurt but finally crushing the head of the Serpent. Within these first few Words of prophecy, we discover there the true meaning and outworking of all history to date, and we may then confidently view all unfulfilled prophecy in Scripture through this lens. 

Scripture goes on to illuminate the existence of an unseen World of spirits, all of which at one time harmoniously lived in the Kingdom of God. Lucifer, being a chief spirit, rebelled against God and by reason of God casting him out of that Kingdom, he has established his own. Now these two unseen Sovereigns and their unseen Kingdoms extend into and over the material realm wherein man was created and appointed by God to rule. Satan usurped that authority in this material realm by deception through Adam’s fall. God then pronounced, in the verse contemplated, that man, though fallen and thereby cursed, shall yet prevail over satan and rule over this realm again.  

The unique miraculous birth and bruising in His First Coming laid out in this first verse of prophecy, are given in many more detailed prophesies over thousands of years. They were finally fulfilled in both the birth and the sufferings of the Messiah Jesus, as well as in His foretold murder at the hand of this World’s sovereign the Serpent. Although those hundreds of prophesies recorded associated with His sufferings, death and resurrection having been unerringly realized, there are still left all of those many prophecies of His Second Coming and of the crushing of the authority of satan and his kingdom and the establishing of His eternal Kingdom in Glory. So it is that the seven Feasts are broken into: 4 in the Spring and 3 in the Fall. The 4 in the Spring represent the fulfillment of prophecy in the First Coming of the Lord as the Suffering Servant whose heel was bruised. Whereas the 3 in the Fall represent unfulfilled prophecy of the Lord’s triumphant Second Coming as Beloved and Exalted King of kings. So it is that the Feasts are the set times of God and prophetic calendar of Israel.    

It should be understood that Israel has not been a sanctified/set apart Nation under God since Nebuchadnezzar took them into exile some 2600 years ago. Thus it is reckoned in Scripture that the next ingathering of Jews unto Israel shall be the Second Time. “And in that day there shall be a root of Jesse, which shall stand for an ensign of the people; to it shall the Gentiles seek: and his rest shall be glorious. And it shall come to pass in that day, that the Lord shall set his hand again the second time to recover the remnant of his people, which shall be left…” [Isaiah 11:10-11] In verse 11, the two peoples shall be gathered and enter into their respective Millennial Rests shadowed in the Feast of Tabernacles, and is to be accomplished by the Messiah at His Second Coming. 

2000 years ago, the possibility for the re–establishment of that Nation, under the Mosaic Covenant for the Second Time, died with their killing of the Messiah/Lamb on Passover… “and the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it in the evening…..” [Exodus 12:6] (Matthew 27:25) It was the evening of the 483rd year towards the fulfilling of the set time, which would have left 7 years before Daniel’s prophesied 490 years of Gentile rule were to be completed, before Israel’s Second and Final Restoration and Rest was/is to be. Those Jews 2000 years ago and their children in every generation since, are guilty of the innocent shed Blood of Christ (falling under the laws concerning the man–slayer – read Numbers 35), and thereby they are in enforced exile. Leaving that one week of 7 years in God’s determined calendar now set aside for “…the consumption decreed in the midst of all the land.” (Isaiah10:22–23) That consumption is then to be realized within the midst of that 7 year covenant/pact with the dark prince of Daniel 9:27. The exact time and circumstances are further revealed by Isaiah. “Wherefore hear the word of the Lord, ye scornful men, that rule this people which is in Jerusalem. 

Because ye have said, We have made a covenant with death, and with hell are we at agreement; (pact with the Anti-Christ) when the overflowing scourge shall pass through, it shall not come unto us:for we have made lies our refuge, and under falsehood have we hid ourselves: Therefore thus saith the Lord God, Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation a stone, a tried stone, a precious corner stone, a sure foundation: he that believeth shall not make haste. Judgment also will I lay to the line, and righteousness to the plummet: and the hail shall sweep away the refuge of lies, and the waters shall overflow the hiding place. And your covenant with death shall be disannulled, and your agreement with hell shall not stand; when the overflowing scourge shall pass through, then ye shall be trodden down by it. From the time that it goeth forth it shall take you: for morning by morning shall it pass over, by day and by night: and it shall be a vexation only to understand the report. For the bed is shorter than that a man can stretch himself on it: and the covering narrower than that he can wrap himself in it. For the Lord shall rise up as in mount Perazim, he shall be wroth as in the valley of Gibeon, that he may do his work, his strange work; and bring to pass his act, his strange act. Now therefore be ye not mockers, lest your bands be made strong: for I have heard from the Lord God of hosts a consumption, even determined upon the whole earth.” [Isaiah 28:14-22]  

This one week of 7 years which remains (the last week of Daniel’s 70 weeks) must first be fulfilled before the Jews’ Redemption and Rest may be finally realized. (This Rest is foreshadowed in the Feast of Tabernacles.) Thus the times of the Gentiles to rule in the Earth (490 years) is laid out prophetically in the 70 weeks of years of Daniel 9:24-27, since the cutting off of the Messiah. That one week of 7 years remains and will now be manifest in that pact of 7 years. Before, they rejected the Christ, and now they will have covenanted with the Anti-Christ, the end time Beast. So it is in the terror of that final Week allotted to Gentile power in the earth, shall the consumption determined on Israel and the whole earth, be fully satisfied.  

That one week of 7 years having been suspended now for 2000 years, we are in the long hot summer between Feasts, as the people of Israel, spiritually speaking, remain “Lo-ami” (not my people and I will not be your God. See Hosea1:9) that is to say, no longer a sanctified people in that they have broken Covenant with God. That is to say broken as it relates to the Mosaic Covenant. It was the Mosaic Covenant that the people of Israel forsook, so it is that the Covenant “…which decayeth and waxeth old is ready to vanish away.” [Hebrews 9:13] As the Jews have broken the Old Covenant due to unbelief, its a New Covenant (after the completion of the 490 years) that is in view by the Author of Hebrews. (*Note: It is one thing that a Covenant be broken and thereby done away with/annulled, but it is entirely something different to say that the holy laws of that Covenant are done away with/annulled. Though they broke the Mosaic covenant, they are still in covenant with God via the other covenants God made with His People. More on this to follow….) Although the Mosaic Covenant is broken and abolished on the one hand (2nd Corinthians 3:13) in that its blessings are forfeited and its declared curses enforced, it is vanishing as it relates to diminishing relevance on the other hand. Yet the wayward and Lo-ami Jews are yet impacted by its ancient declarations in word and types. Nevertheless the Jews of today are not without Covenant, as they are still under those remaining Covenants God made with Adam, as already intimated, and as being to Noah and his seed after him (Genesis 9:9), and to David and his seed, and most specifically and exclusively the Abrahamic Covenant and its now irrevocable promises to his seed, none of which have ever been annulled or passed away. They are are in full force.  

Having shed the Blood of the Passover Lamb, the Jews are exiled from the Land spiritually and then also physically; and albeit even though they now occupy today a portion of the ancient Land, they are yet in spiritual and physical exile. So they must remain in Covenant exile, in the antitype of Exodus 12:6 where the Lamb’s Blood has been poured out, but the day of their application of the Blood is still foreign to them today. It is understood then that the Blood of the Passover Lamb must be applied by Israel before they may be Redeemed from that end-time Pharaoh; the great Assyrian King and the last days’ Beast of Daniel. And then in that appointed set time, “… they shall take of the blood, and strike it on the two side posts and on the upper door post of the houses.…” On that Day that they apply the Blood, it will be the Day on “which they will look upon” the Messiah (Zechariah 12:10) and they shall sorrowfully awake in the understanding of their having Crucified their Messiah, and God shall mercifully receive them again as His People to wed. (Hosea 2:14-23) 

After which Christ will receive them in New Covenant (Matthew 24:31) and shall gather them “the second time” back unto the Land, never to be exiled again. And as in the type when Israel was redeemed from Egypt, so in the future anti-type it shall be fully realized…. “Shall the earth be made to bring forth in one day? or shall a nation be born at once?” [Isaiah 66:8] This verse not only refers to when God brought Israel out of Egypt, but when Messiah brings them into the Land in one day, after His Return. Then with the 70th week of Daniel being complete, the determined consumption past, Israel Redeemed, and Restored in New Covenant to the Promised Land, then the 7th Day Rest of that which the Feast of Tabernacles of today has in view, will begin. 

Now the Feasts of set times of Leviticus 23 must be fulfilled as it relates to Israel in chronological order. It is unable to begin to be fulfilled until the Jews’ corporate recognition… 

1st of Jesus Christ’s Passover Blood. 

2nd the Feast of unleavened bread, that is to say the removal of sin from the house of Israel (which follows immediately after the Passover), specifically having their sin of having slain their Messiah and the sorrowful consequences that followed laid bear before them. They repent and put away their sin. This is beautifully typed in Joseph and his brethren’s restoration of Genesis 44 & 45.  

3rd the set time of the First Fruits which follows and awaits its fulfillment in the First Resurrection of the faithful Old Testament First-fruits of the promised earthly Kingdom of the Messiah. (Ezekiel 37:1-14) 

4th Feast of Pentecost which follows and has to do with the Baptism of the Holy Spirit upon the repentant and redeemed Jews, in sanctifying power to fulfill the mediation call to the Gentile Nations in the final Millennium. That early rain in 33AD being witness to that which will transpire immediately after the First Fruits Resurrection of the Old Testament saints. (Joel 2:18-32, Acts1:8, 2:38) 

5th the Feast of Trumpets which follows and has to do with the future set time of re-gathering of all the Tribes back into the Land of Israel by the Messiah. “And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.” The sounding of the Trumpet follows not only Israel’s conversion, but the resurrection of the Jewish dead as well. (Matthew 24:31, Exodus 13:19, Ezekiel 37:15-25)  

6th Day of Atonement The culminating of all that has preceded, the repentance and application of the Passover Blood, the putting away of the sin of the man–slayer (*for it is now the dawn of the 7th day cleansing sprinkling of the num 19:19 with a view to the 8th Day. They “…shall be clean at even.”) The resurrection of the Old Testament Saints, the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, and the restoration into the Land, the covenant of peace and the placing of His Tabernacle in their midst (Ezekiel 37:26-28) now all constitute Atonement (at-one-ment) Day, in that the High Priest offering has been accepted and acknowledged in the abiding Presence of God’s Glory. (Ezekiel 43:1-6)  

7th Feast of God’s Appointed Times Tabernacles This is the Millennial Rest of Israel that many prophecies point towards. It is that which God had promised Abraham’s seed, as mediators of God, having preeminence in the Earth, teaching and guiding all the nations of the earth into the full knowledge of God through the New Covenant Torah. The Gentile nations will then be required to observe this Feast with Israel throughout the Millennium (Zechariah 14:16-21). What the 7th day is to the rest of the week; a rest, so the 7th month to the 6 months of the Cycle of Israel’s calendar is a rest. And so the 7th Millennium to the 6000 years of work preceding is a Day of Rest in Israel; it is a Day of Rest being Holy unto the service of the Lord.

*Also in the fifteenth day of the seventh month, when ye have gathered in — the fruit of the land, ye shall keep — a feast unto the Lord seven days: on the first day shall be a sabbath, and on the eighth day shall be a sabbath.” (The 8th Day being after the millennium.) So the 7th Day Tabernacles of 1000 years ends in the antitype of Leviticus 23:39 with Numbers 19:19 “…clean at even.” Sundown on the Millennial 7th Day of Rest will have seen these Words fulfilled. “Then cometh the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when he shall have put down all rule and all authority and power. For he must reign, till he hath put all enemies under his feet. The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death. For he hath put all things under his feet. But when he saith all things are put under him, it is manifest that he is excepted, which did put all things under him. And when all things shall be subdued unto him, then shall the Son also himself be subject unto him that put all things under him, that God may be all in all.” [1st Corinthians 15:24-28] 

The final declaration of all “cleansed” cannot be declared until at the end of the 7th Day when satan and all of his be cast into the Lake of Fire. (Revelation 20:10) Then the resurrection of all remaining dead, who were not found worthy to share in Christ’s Millennial Kingdom Rest, will be judged and then those condemned along with Death and Hades are also cast into the eternal Lake of Fire. The consummation of all things being complete, all things are declared cleansed. The end of the 7th DAY restoring of the earth has arrived, ready for the Baptism in Fire. (spoken of in 2nd Peter) The Eighth Day is dawning, a new heavens and a new earth and a new eternal chapter for all found “cleansed” and appointed to their part in His eternal Kingdom according to worthiness found in their individual works recorded. This is when New Jerusalem will come down from heaven and God shall Tabernacle with His “people” now forever. (1st Corinthians 15:24-28, 54, Revelation 20:14, 21:1-4)