This chapter of Leviticus is distinguished
from the rest of the book, by the fact that it surveys the typical year of
Israel’s fasts and feasts, and sets forth, so far as the people of Israel and
those associated with them are concerned, the purpose of the ages. A reading of the chapter impresses one with
the important sabbatic principle that underlies the whole purpose. The chapter opens with a reference to the
weekly Sabbath (verses 1-3), and then proceeds to outline the feasts and fasts
that occupy the first seven months of the year.
It will be remembered that at the Passover,
first instituted in Exodus xii., a change was made in the calendar, and Abib
became “the beginning of months”. The
seventh month, therefore, and the twelfth month of the respective reckonings
would overlap, and so, for the purposes of typical teaching, Israel’s year is
limited to the first seven months, the remaining months being allowed to run
their course unnoticed.
The
sabbatic principle.
The sabbatic principle is not confined to
the written revelation of God. It is
found throughout the works of His hand.
All are familiar with the seven-hued rainbow, and most know that in the
diatonic musical scale there are seven notes, the sequence being repeated at
the eighth or octave. Turning to the
observations of men of science we may mention the periodic law of the
elements. Sir William Crookes said of
this law:--
"I am convinced that whoever grasps
the key to the periodic law will be permitted to unlock some of the deepest
mysteries of creation."
Dr. E. J. Pace, in his book The Law of the
Octave, shows by a series of diagrams, too complicated to describe and
perhaps unnecessary so far as we are concerned, that the elements composing the
universe all obey this law of the seven sequence. Dr. Ethelbert W. Bullinger’s Numbers in Scripture will supply further information
of interest. We are, however, more
concerned with the presence of the number seven in the typical and
dispensational foreshadowings of Scripture.
We find that there are seven features, developed in an orderly sequence — a seven of days, a seven of weeks, a seven of months, a seven
of years, a seven times seven of
years, a seven times seventy of
years, and a period of seven times.
Here we have orderly and regular
progression.
The only passages that may be questioned
in this series are Daniel ix. and
Leviticus xxvi. That Daniel ix.
implies a period of years we show in the series dealing with Daniel’s
prophecy. That the term “times” is
prophetic of a period we discover by studying its usage in Daniel. Leviticus.xxvi.33,34 suggests that the “seven times” of Israel’s
punishment is co-extensive with the period of Gentile dominion (the seven times
of Nebuchadnezzar’s madness). These
questions are dealt with more extensively in the series on Daniel. It is sufficient for our present purpose that
we recognize this sabbatic principle at work.
This series of sevens leads up to the
octave, the new beginning, the new heaven and earth “wherein dwelleth
righteousness”. So that we find the
seventh feast of the year expanded, and prominence given to one part of it — “the
eighth day” (Lev. xxiii. 39). In this
last phase we see, in type, Israel’s wonderful restoration — the steps leading
up to it being set out, as we shall see, in strictly historical order.
The
feasts mentioned in Leviticus
xxiii. are the following: The weekly Sabbath, Passover, Unleavened
Bread, Pentecost, Trumpets, Day of Atonement, Tabernacles, and the Eighth Day
of the Feast. Their interrelation may
be demonstrated as follows:--
In the series dealing with the Second
Coming of Christ, the expression, “The sunteleia of the age”, used by
the disciples in Matt. xxiv. 3, is shown to correspond to the feast of
ingathering. Three of these feasts have
been fulfilled; four await
fulfillment. And just as those that have
been fulfilled have been fulfilled literally and in historic sequence, so we
may confidently expect the remainder to be fulfilled in the same way when the
appointed time comes.
The Passover.
No reader of the four Gospels, who is
taught of God, can fail to see that Christ Himself was the true Passover
Lamb. He was the Lamb of God (John.i.29; Exod. xii. 3-5). He was
without spot or blemish (Heb. ix.
14; I.Pet.i.19; Exod. xxii. 5). And He
was most severely scrutinized as was the
passover lamb from the 10th to the 14th day of the month (Luke xxiii. 4,
15, 22, 41, 47).
The passover was slain “between the two
evenings”, and Lev. xxiii. 32 makes it clear that a day began and ended
with an evening — “from even unto even”.
It was therefore possible for the Lord to partake of the passover lamb
and Himself be offered upon the 14th Nisan — an impossibility had the Jewish
day begun at midnight.
I Corinthian v. 7 makes it perfectly clear that Christ
fulfilled the great type of the passover:
“For even Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us”. And the typical meaning of the feast of
unleavened bread was entered into by the believer: “Therefore let us keep the feast . . . . .
with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth” (I Cor. v. 8). Pentecost, too, was fulfilled to the exact
day, as Acts ii. demonstrates.
It is interesting to see that the feasts
of Israel are all recognized in the epistle to the Corinthians:--
PASSOVER.—“Christ our Passover” (I Cor. v. 7).
FEAST OF WEEKS.—“Let us keep the feast” (I Cor. v. 8).
“On the
first of the Sabbaths” (I Cor. xvi. 2).
THE
FIRST-FRUITS.—“Christ the First fruits” (I Cor. xv. 23).
PENTECOST.—“I will tarry . . . . . unto Pentecost” (I
Cor. xvi. 8).
After Pentecost comes the long interval
which spans the whole of the period from Israel’s rejection to the sounding of
the trumpet that ushers in the day of their ingathering. One critic has objected to the statement made
by the writer that the parable of the sower covers the whole time period from
the day of the Lord’s earthly ministry to the future day of the Lord, on the
ground that this would include the dispensation of the mystery. But we must realize that if Matthew xiii.
or Daniel ix. or any other prophecies leap over the present
interval, they must necessarily include the actual period now occupied by the
manifestation of the mystery. These
prophecies, however, contain no indication of the revelation to be made known during
this uncharted period. So, while it is
true that the dispensation of the mystery was never a subject of O.T. prophecy,
we can nevertheless see, now that the revelation has been made, that the gap
between Pentecost and the seventh month leaves provision for the present
dispensation. The rest of the
dispensational purpose as foreshadowed in Israel’s ceremonial year will be
fulfilled as surely as were the four feasts from Passover to Pentecost.
Trumpets.
“He shall send His angels with a great sound
of a trumpet, and shall gather together His elect from the four winds, from one
end of heaven to the other” (Matt. xxiv. 31).
“We shall be changed, in a moment, in the
twinkling of an eye, at the last trump” (I Cor. xv. 51, 52).
“For the Lord Himself shall descend from
heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of
God” (I Thess. iv. 16).
“In the days of the voice of the seventh
angel, when he shall begin to sound, the mystery of God should be finished, as He
hath declared to His servants the prophets” (Rev. x. 7).
Day of atonement.
“Ye shall afflict your souls” (Lev. xxiii.
27).
“I will pour upon the house of David and
upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications; and they shall look upon Me Whom they have
pierced, and they shall mourn for Him, as one mourneth for his only son . . . .
. the land shall mourn, every family apart” (Zech. xii. 10-12).
“Behold He cometh with the clouds; and every eye shall see Him, and they also
which pierced Him, and all the tribes of the land shall wail because of Him”
(Rev. i. 7).
“Christ has . . . . . entered into heaven
itself . . . . . and unto them that look for Him shall He appear the second
time without sin unto salvation” (Heb. ix. 24-28).
Tabernacles.
“I will remove the iniquity of that land
in one day. In that day, saith the Lord
of Hosts, shall ye call every man his neighbour under the vine and under the
fig tree” (Zech. iii. 9, 10).
“They shall beat their swords into
ploughshares . . . . . they shall sit every man under his vine and under his
fig tree; and none shall make them
afraid” (Micah.iv.3,4).
“I will go up to the land of unwalled
villages, I will go to them that are at rest, that dwell safely, all of them
dwelling without walls, and having neither bars nor gates . . . . .” (Ezekiel
xxxviii., xxxix.).
The
Ingathering.
“The feast of the ingathering, which is in
the end of the year, when thou hast gathered in thy labours out of the field”
(Exod. xxiii. 16).
The LXX
here reads: “the sunteleia” where
the A.V. reads: “the feast of the
ingathering”. This is referred to by the
disciples in Matthew xxiv.: “Tell us when shall these things be? And what shall be the sign of Thy coming, and
of the sunteleia of the age?”.
The
Eighth Day of
the Feast.
“In the last day, that great day of the
feast, Jesus stood and cried saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto Me
and drink. He that believeth on Me, as
the Scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living
waters. But this He spake of the Spirit”
(John vii. 37-39).
There is a reference here to several
prophecies, such as Ezekiel xlvii. The last feast is therefore parallel with
Pentecost and an expansion of it. What
Pentecost foreshadowed was not the church of the mystery, but the ingathering
of Israel and the pouring out upon them of the Spirit as a life-giving stream. Here, therefore, given to the people of type
and shadow, was a sacred calendar, a period of seven months in which was
foreshadowed, so far as the earthly side was concerned, the unfolding purpose
of the age.
The creation week, with its six days of
work and one of rest, the fact that Heb.
iv. 9 speaks of a rest or Sabbath
keeping for the people of God, the fact that the sabbatic principle underlies
the whole scheme, lends colour to the Rabbinical view that the ages will
conform to the same principles. The
Rabbis taught that the world was two thousand years without the law, two
thousand years under the law, and two thousand years under the Messiah. The Revelation tells us of the thousand years
of glory at the close. The world draws
near to the end of its sixth day.
It is folly to attempt the computation of
the time of the end, for at least two reasons.
It transgresses the evident prohibition of Acts i. 7
& Matt. xxiv. 36, 44; and it assumes that chronology since Christ
is trustworthy. At the best we can only
say that this present year of grace is approximately A.D.1932. There is no proof — and we believe the
uncertainty to be of God.
The church of the mystery finds no
exposition in Leviticus; its hope is
entirely separated from the hope of Israel.
This does not, however, clash with the obvious deduction, that if the
hope of Israel draws near to its realization, how much nearer must our hope
be? Grace now; and glory soon. What manner of persons ought we to be?
No comments:
Post a Comment