The spring festivals of YHWH and their significance for 2012

UNLEAVENED BREAD

The Festival of Unleavened Bread begins on the fifteenth day of the first month and ends on the twenty-first day of the first month (Ex 12:15-20).

¹⁵ Seven days YOU are to eat unfermented cakes. Yes, on the first day YOU are to take away sourdough from YOUR houses, because anyone eating what is leavened, from the first day down to the seventh, that soul must be cut off from Israel. ¹⁶ And on the first day there is to take place for YOU a holy convention, and on the seventh day a holy convention. No work is to be done on them. Only what every soul needs to eat, that alone may be done for YOU.

¹⁷ “‘And YOU must keep the festival of unfermented cakes, because on this very day I must bring YOUR armies out from the land of Egypt. And YOU must keep this day throughout YOUR generations as a statute to time indefinite. ¹⁸ In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month, in the evening YOU are to eat unfermented cakes down till the twenty-first day of the month in the evening. ¹⁹ Seven days no sourdough is to be found in YOUR houses, because anyone tasting what is leavened, whether he is an alien resident or a native of the land, that soul must be cut off from the assembly of Israel. ²⁰ Nothing leavened are YOU to eat. In all YOUR dwellings YOU are to eat unfermented cakes.’”

You shall eat nothing leavened and you shall have no leaven within your dwellings. This festival lasts a complete seven days. The first and the last days being holy days upon which no work may be done.

Israel went out of Egypt on the fifteenth day of the first month, the first day of this festival. This day is a memorial of the coming forth from Egypt. Israel journeyed six days and came to the Red Sea. On the sixth day they passed through the Red Sea, upon dry land, while the armies of Egypt were all drowned. The six days of creation reveal a completed physical creation in Genesis, while the seventh day was a Sabbath of peace in the presence of God. Even so, the six days of Unleavened Bread reveal a six thousand year process of the spiritual creation of the Firstfruits of the New Covenant. While the seventh day celebrates a millennium, a Sabbath of peace in the presence of God. The leaven represents sin and for six thousand years God is putting sin out of and purifying His firstfruits!

SYMBOLISM

Israel as a type of God's firstfruits, was called out of Egypt even as the firstfruits have been called out of this world. The first six days of unleavened bread represent six thousand years that God is calling out His firstfruits and purging from them the leaven of sin…

⁸ However, let this one fact not be escaping YOUR notice, beloved ones, that one day is with YHWH as a thousand years and a thousand years as one day. (2Peter3:8)

From righteous Abel through Noah, Moses, Elijah, Joshua, Daniel, Job, David and Isaiah to John, Paul and the thousands of others called to this way of the eternal God. The first day is holy because it marks the beginning of God's plan for humanity, His plan to qualify a people to be reborn as the spiritual children of God. For six thousand years the task continues. The seventh day is holy because it represents a millennium, a Sabbath of rest, in the presence of God.

On the sixth day, Israel was baptized in the Red Sea…

Now I do not want YOU to be ignorant, brothers, that our forefathers were all under the cloud and all passed through the sea ² and all got baptized into Moses by means of the cloud and of the sea (1Corinthians10:1-2)

Baptism washes away sin, through Christ…

¹⁶ And now why are you delaying? Rise, get baptized and wash your sins away by your calling upon his name (Acts22:16),

…thus Israel symbolically fulfilled a role, as a type of the called of the new covenant. Baptism is a figurative death of the old sinful nature and the begetting of a new nature in Christ. It is a type of death and resurrection! As Israel was baptized in the sea near the end of the sixth day, so spiritual Israel shall either rise from death in a resurrection of the firstfruits or start to rule with Christ on the end of the sixth day of the Festival of Unleavened Bread! At the end of six thousand years, God will complete the process of calling out and purifying His firstfruits and raise them up in the resurrection or make them to kings! Total victory through the power of God will be achieved over the god of this world, even as total victory was granted to Israel at the Red Sea. The sixth day pictures the firstfruits, unpolluted by the leaven of sin, through the application of the sacrifice of the Lamb of God, resurrected and given victory over Satan. The seventh day pictures a Sabbath, a Millennium of rest for the people of God…

⁹ So there remains a Sabbath resting for the people of God. (Hebrews4:9)

It has often been taught that Israel went through the sea on the seventh day. There is nothing in scripture to support this error.

THE FESTIVAL OF FIRSTFRUITS

After passing through the Red Sea, Israel continued their journey to the Mountain of God. On the fiftieth day after the day on which in the future the Wave Sheaf offering would be made, and about forty-five days after crossing through the sea they entered into a marriage covenant with their God. They agreed to obey Him in all things and He agreed to love and bless them. This was the Festival of Firstfruits or Festival of Weeks or Festival of the Covenants. This journeying of Israel shows the first aspect of this festival.

The second aspect is shown by the command that when they enter the land, they are not to begin the spring harvest or eat of any new crop until a sheaf of the new harvest has been presented to God…

¹⁰ “Speak to the sons of Israel, and you must say to them, ‘When YOU eventually come into the land that I am giving YOU, and YOU have reaped its harvest, YOU must also bring a sheaf of the firstfruits of YOUR harvest to the priest. ¹¹ And he must wave the sheaf to and fro before Jehovah to gain approval for YOU. Directly the day after the sabbath the priest should wave it to and fro. ¹² And on the day of YOUR having the sheaf waved to and fro YOU must render up a sound young ram, in its first year, for a burnt offering to Jehovah; ¹³ and as its grain offering two tenths of an e´phah of fine flour moistened with oil, as an offering made by fire to Jehovah, a restful odor; and as its drink offering a fourth of a hin of wine. ¹⁴ And YOU must eat no bread nor roasted grain nor new grain until this very day, until YOUR bringing the offering of YOUR God. It is a statute to time indefinite for YOUR generations in all places where YOU dwell.

¹⁵ “‘And YOU must count for yourselves from the day after the sabbath, from the day of YOUR bringing the sheaf of the wave offering, seven sabbaths. They should prove to be complete. ¹⁶ To the day after the seventh sabbath YOU should count, fifty days, and YOU must present a new grain offering to Jehovah. ¹⁷ Out of YOUR dwelling places YOU should bring two loaves as a wave offering. Of two tenths of an e´phah of fine flour they should prove to be. They should be baked leavened, as first ripe fruits to Jehovah. ¹⁸ And YOU must present along with the loaves seven sound male lambs, each a year old, and one young bull and two rams. They should serve as a burnt offering to Jehovah along with their grain offering and their drink offerings as an offering made by fire, of a restful odor to Jehovah. ¹⁹ And YOU must render up one kid of the goats as a sin offering and two male lambs, each a year old, as a communion sacrifice. ²⁰ And the priest must wave them to and fro along with the loaves of the first ripe fruits, as a wave offering before Jehovah, along with the two male lambs. They should serve as something holy to Jehovah for the priest. ²¹ And YOU must make a proclamation on this very day; there will be a holy convention for yourselves. No sort of laborious work may YOU do. It is a statute to time indefinite in all YOUR dwelling places for YOUR generations. (Leviticus23:10-21).

This was to be presented on the day after the Sabbath, which comes after the Passover. The Wave Sheaf Offering must be presented during the Festival of Unleavened Bread. If Passover happens to fall on a Sabbath, then the Wave Offering must be made on the first cay of Unleavened Bread, since the next, “day after the Sabbath”, one week later would fall outside the Festival of Unleavened Bread! After this first harvest sheaf was presented to God, seven Sabbaths were to be counted and the day AFTER the seventh Sabbath was proclaimed the Festival of Firstfruits. Seven Sabbaths are seven weeks or forty nine days. The next day, the fiftieth day, represents a new beginning, being the first day after seven cycles of seven! The wave sheaf begins the spring harvest and the festival of Firstfruits or Pentecost, celebrates an expansion or an increase. One sheaf was presented to God on “wave-sheaf-day”. Two leavened loaves were presented with a sin offering on the Festival of Firstfruits, the fiftieth day. The leaven shows imperfection while the sin offering covers and atones for this imperfection. Advancing from one to two loaves provides the inescapable element of addition or increase.

In fact, Jesus presented the value of his life, his soul, to God and symbolically ‘waved’ it before him Thus he became the first of the firstfruits and fulfilled the Jewish type.

Jesus said that if he did not complete His mission the comforter would not come…

Nevertheless, I am telling YOU the truth, It is for YOUR benefit I am going away. For if I do not go away, the helper will by no means come to YOU; but if I do go my way, I will send him to YOU(John 16:7)

It was absolutely necessary for Him to make atonement for sin and justify the faith of the Father in him or the plan would have ended, right there. Once He had been sacrificed and resurrected and had been presented to the Father, the plan for an atonement for sin was completed.

Christ's disciples were to remain in Jerusalem until Pentecost because. God would demonstrate with tongues of fire, to everyone that He was leaving the temple building to dwell in men so that they would become, exclusively, His new temple, thus declaring the Mosaic covenant to be over and to publicly demonstrate that He would pour out His spirit upon ALL FLESH (not all sorts of flesh) on this day in the future. Now this event at Pentecost 33AD was the fulfillment of the words of the prophet Joel….

²⁸ “And after that it must occur that I shall pour out my spirit on every sort of flesh, and YOUR sons and YOUR daughters will certainly prophesy. As for YOUR old men, dreams they will dream. As for YOUR young men, visions they will see. ²⁹ And even on the menservants and on the maidservants in those days I shall pour out my spirit. (Joel2:28)

But the fact that this quote appears again in the Holy Writings, in Acts 2:18 means, that there has to be an even greater fulfillment of those events in the future, yes a fulfillment of the words of Peter himself!

SYMBOLISM

The engagement period for the saints ends with the resurrection and changing on the sixth day of Unleavened Bread. Made spirit, the marriage covenant with Christ is completed and they celebrate the wedding festival, after which they return with Christ to serve mankind on the Festival of Pentecost. Just as God publicly poured out His spirit upon those called and gave a physical foretaste of his coming Kingdom on the Festival of Pentecost, so he will pour out that same spirit and give a physical evidence of the reality of his Kingdom on the same festival. The New Covenant is a covenant for a kingdom. These Firstfruits are espoused to the lamb and are probably all sealed! On the Festival of Pentecost it will become obvious that they are now married to the Christ and have started to exercise authority as kings with him.

The wave sheaf beginning the spring harvest represented the resurrected Christ being accepted by the Father as the first of the harvest of souls. Pentecost pictures the expansion of the calling into the New Covenant to include his bride.


THE 1290 & 1335 DAYS

From the time that the abomination is set up, there shall be 1290 days, according to Daniel 12:11. Blessed is he that waits and arrives at the 1335 days according to Daniel 12:12. Those faithful who endured to the 1335th day are now happy or blessed, they will be save under the protection of the returned saints for the remaining 265 days making the total of the 1600 days of God’s wrath.

When the abomination that causes desolation is first set up, there shall be 1290 days until the resurrection of the saints of the New Covenant, forty-four days more will come up to the 1335th day. Daniel and his fellow saints will stand in their lot (receive their reward, responsibility, inheritance) 1335 days after the abomination has been set up and all with faith are blessed.

It is now great to see that the saints will stand for their lot, receive their inheritance, at the end of the days, that is on the 1335th day (on the 45th day after the completion of 1290 days). We know in faith that God's Word is precise.

The Kingdom of God and the resurrection will come, during a year in which there are 45 days from the sixth day of the Festival of Unleavened Bread until Pentecost. This does not occur very often but in 2012 the sixth Day of Unleavened Bread falls on April 12 and the Festival of Pentecost falls on 27 May, exactly 45 days later, precisely fulfilling this schedule and permitting a new beginning on the 45th day after the heavenly investiture, exactly on the Festival of Pentecost! Counting back 1335 days from the Festival of Pentecost in 2012 brings us to 30 September 2008!

Michael