Jewish Feasts: (4) Pentecost (Feast of Weeks), Shavuot

Leviticus 23:15–21 (RSV)
15 “And you shall count from the morrow after the sabbath, from the day that you brought the sheaf of the wave offering; seven full weeks shall they be, 16 counting fifty days to the morrow after the seventh sabbath; then you shall present a cereal offering of new grain to the Lord. 17 You shall bring from your dwellings two loaves of bread to be waved, made of two tenths of an ephah; they shall be of fine flour, they shall be baked with leaven, as first fruits to the Lord. 18 And you shall present with the bread seven lambs a year old without blemish, and one young bull, and two rams; they shall be a burnt offering to the Lord, with their cereal offering and their drink offerings, an offering by fire, a pleasing odor to the Lord. 19 And you shall offer one male goat for a sin offering, and two male lambs a year old as a sacrifice of peace offerings. 20 And the priest shall wave them with the bread of the first fruits as a wave offering before the Lord, with the two lambs; they shall be holy to the Lord for the priest. 21 And you shall make proclamation on the same day; you shall hold a holy convocation; you shall do no laborious work: it is a statute for ever in all your dwellings throughout your generations.


• Special thanks to Arnold Fruchtenbaum, MBS062, The Feasts of Israel
• References
• Four OT passages (Exo 23:16; Exo 34:22; Num 28:26; and Deut 16:9-12)
• Three NT passages
• Acts 2:1-4 the Holy Spirit begins His work of Spirit baptism. The church is born on this day
• Acts 20:16 Paul desired (not required) to be in Jerusalem to observe this feast
• 1 Cor 16:8 Paul mentions that he would be in Ephesus until this feast
• Names for the feast
1. Called the "Feast of Weeks" because it occurs 7 weeks after the Passover
1. Shavuot is Hebrew for Weeks
2. Called the "Feast of Harvest" because it marked the end of the Spring harvest
3. Called the "Day of Firstfruits" to distinguish it from the "Feast of Firstfruits"
1. The firstfruits of the summer harvest are offered on this occasion
2. The firstfruits of the spring harvest are offered on the previous feasts
4. Called the "Closing Festival" because it marked the end of the first cycle of Festivals
5. Called the "Closing Season of Passover" for same reason
6. Called the "Season of the Giving of the Law" because by tradition, the Mosaic Law, particularly the ten commandments were given on this occasion (also forms an interesting contract to the NT event on this day)
7. Called the "Feast of Pentecost" from the Greek term meaning "fifty" because it occurs 50 days after Passover
• Biblical Practice
1. Two wave offerings on a single sheet
2. The loaves of bread were leavened (only festival where leaven was permitted to be added to the sacrifice)
3. The sixth day of the month of Sivan (seven weeks plus one day after the second day of Passover)
• This would not always be Sunday (only once every several years)
• Jewish Observance
• The book of Ruth is read
• Part of the story of Ruth occurs in this time
• Ruth was a Gentile who became a convert to the Law. And Rabbis taught that the Law was given on this occasion
• Jewish tradition is that King David was born during the Feast of Weeks
• One stays up all night in order to study the Mosaic Law. Reason: there was  thunder and lightning at the time the Law was given and this kept the Jews awake all night
• Jews eat kreplach, a form of Jewish ravioli, consisting of meat, garlic, and onions enclosed in pasta. It is served fried or in chicken soup. Ravioli is in the form of a triangle
• Three patriarchs: Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob
• Three divisions of the OT: the Law, the Prophets, and the Writings
• Moses was the third of the three children
• Three days were necessary in the preparation of receiving the law
• Another Jewish food custom is the eating of cheese. Also, cheese blintz, closely resembling a crepe suzette, a very think pancake, filled with cream cheese and folded in a rectangular form. Two are served side by side representing the two tablets of the Law


Acts 2:1–4 (RSV) When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. 2 And suddenly a sound came from heaven like the rush of a mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. 3 And there appeared to them tongues as of fire, distributed and resting on each one of them. 4 And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.


• Key point #1: The feast of Weeks is fulfilled by the first of the church
• The coming of the HS was not new
• The baptism of the HS was a new ministry
• The OT covenant was characterized by the Law
• The NT covenant is characterized by Grace and the Baptism of the HS
• Ephesians 1:13–14 (RSV)  In him you also, who have heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and have believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, 14 which is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory.
• Baptism seals us into the church, the body of Christ
1 Corinthians 12:12–13 (RSV) 12 For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. 13 For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit.
• The Church is composed of both Jews and Gentiles, slaves or free. There is not distinction
• We all baptized into ONE body
• Key point #2: the two loaves were offered on a single sheet in the biblical practice of the feast. Also, both loaves were leavened
• Two different people, Jews and Gentiles, are represented by the two loaves
• Both groups are sinners, represented by the leaven
• Key point #3: The day is also called the day of "firstfruits." On that day when the HS Spirit came, 3000 people came to faith and these Jewish believers were truly the firstfruits
Acts 2:37–42 (RSV)
37 Now when they heard this they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Brethren, what shall we do?” 38 And Peter said to them, “Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. 39 For the promise is to you and to your children and to all that are far off, every one whom the Lord our God calls to him.” 40 And he testified with many other words and exhorted them, saying, “Save yourselves from this crooked generation.” 41 So those who received his word were baptized, and there were added that day about three thousand souls. 42 And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.
James 1:16–18 (RSV)
16 Do not be deceived, my beloved brethren. 17 Every good endowment and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. 18 Of his own will he brought us forth by the word of truth that we should be a kind of first fruits of his creatures.


APPLICATION:
1. The Church is the application of the feast of firstfruits. We are the two leavened pieces of bread
• The church body is an important part of the plan of God. We do not live our Christian lives in isolation but in community and fellowship
• We need to be a part of the body. We need to serve in the body. We need to exercise our gifts as a part of the body
2. Grace supersedes law
John 1:17 (RSV)  17 For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.
• Rules can be useful, but they don't produce meaningful change in our hearts
• We need to focus on changing the heart and mind (the inside) not on following rules
• God is pleased not with following rules but on our character …
Hosea 6:6 (RSV) 6 For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice,
the knowledge of God, rather than burnt offerings.
Matthew 12:7–8 (RSV) 7 And if you had known what this means, ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned the guiltless. 8 For the Son of man is lord of the sabbath.”
Micah 6:8 (RSV)
8 He has showed you, O man, what is good;
and what does the Lord require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
and to walk humbly with your God?

Jewish Feasts: (3) Feast of Firstfruits, Hag Habikkurim

Leviticus 23:9–14 (RSV)
9 And the Lord said to Moses, 10 “Say to the people of Israel, When you come into the land which I give you and reap its harvest, you shall bring the sheaf of the first fruits of your harvest to the priest; 11 and he shall wave the sheaf before the Lord, that you may find acceptance; on the morrow after the sabbath the priest shall wave it. 12 And on the day when you wave the sheaf, you shall offer a male lamb a year old without blemish as a burnt offering to the Lord. 13 And the cereal offering with it shall be two tenths of an ephah of fine flour mixed with oil, to be offered by fire to the Lord, a pleasing odor; and the drink offering with it shall be of wine, a fourth of a hin. 14 And you shall eat neither bread nor grain parched or fresh until this same day, until you have brought the offering of your God: it is a statute forever throughout your generations in all your dwellings.


• This is the only passage in scripture where the feast is explained
• When does it occur? From the context, the last thing mentioned is the seven days of Unleavened Bread. It is the first Sabbath, so it will depend on when the 14th (Passover) and the 15th (Start of the Feast of Unleavened Bread) occurs
• In AD33, for example:
• Passover, 14 Nisan, was Friday (started on the evening of Thursday, the 13th)
• Feast of Unleavened Bread, 15 Nisan, was Saturday (the Sabbath)
• Feast of Firstfruits was therefore 16 Nisan, Sunday. It is always on Sunday, the first day of the week, but not always the 16th
• Other names:
• Reshit Ketzivchem means "the firstfruits of your harvest"
• Also called the "Feast of Omer"
• And called the "Feast of the wave-sheath"
• So what was it the firstfruits?
• The barley and grain harvests
• There was a one-sheaf offering
• It is the day after the Sabbath
• It marks the beginning of the two-month Spring harvest (in other words, the feasts of firstfruits and weeks bookend the Spring harvest)
• Practice or observance
• Not practice for most of the time since AD 70
• Jesus predicted the punishment of AD 70 for not recognizing the time
• Feast was primarily agricultural
• Jews not allowed to own land because of Gentile law
• Today, there are some observances of the old feast
• What was the offering?
• One lamb, bread, and wine
• Waiving of one sheaf (the first fruits of the spring harvest)


1 Corinthians 15:12–26 (RSV)
12 Now if Christ is preached as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? 13 But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not been raised; 14 if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. 15 We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified of God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised. 16 For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised. 17 If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. 18 Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. 19 If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all men most to be pitied.
20 But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep. 21 For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. 22 For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. 23 But each in his own order: Christ the first fruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ. 24 Then comes the end, when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power. 25 For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. 26 The last enemy to be destroyed is death.


• In context, verse 20 is referring to what?
• The resurrection
• The surety of the resurrection
• The absolute necessity of the resurrection for salvation
• Key point: Christianity is not based on blind faith but on established fact. The records and the eyewitnesses validate the most important fact in history
• Jesus is described as ____________ of ______________
• Jesus is the first fruits of those who have died
• Jesus is also compared to who and why?
• Death came through a man (Adam, a type of first)
• Resurrection of the dead came through a man (Jesus, also a type of first)


1 Corinthians 15:51–57 (RSV)
51 Lo! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, 52 in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. 53 For this perishable nature must put on the imperishable, and this mortal nature must put on immortality. 54 When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written:
“Death is swallowed up in victory.”
55 “O death, where is thy victory?
O death, where is thy sting?” 56 The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. 57 But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.


• Is Jesus the first person to come back from the dead? No. So why is Jesus' resurrection from the dead different?
• Because he is the first person to not die again
• This is the first time we see death defeated


1 Thessalonians 4:14–18 (RSV)
14 For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep. 15 For this we declare to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, shall not precede those who have fallen asleep. 16 For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the archangel’s call, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first; 17 then we who are alive, who are left, shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air; and so we shall always be with the Lord. 18 Therefore comfort one another with these words.


• So what group is the second in a series of resurrections?
• The church alive at the time of the rapture
• The dead in Christ
• What groups remain?


Daniel 12:2 (RSV)
2 And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.


Daniel 12:13 (RSV)
13 But go your way till the end; and you shall rest, and shall stand in your allotted place at the end of the days.”


Hosea 13:14 (RSV) 14 Shall I ransom them from the power of Sheol?
Shall I redeem them from Death?
O Death, where are your plagues?
O Sheol, where is your destruction?
Compassion is hid from my eyes.


• What is the next group to be resurrected?
• The OT saints
• And the last group?


Revelation 20:4 (RSV)
4 Then I saw thrones, and seated on them were those to whom judgment was committed. Also I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for their testimony to Jesus and for the word of God, and who had not worshiped the beast or its image and had not received its mark on their foreheads or their hands. They came to life, and reigned with Christ a thousand years.


• The last group to resurrect are the tribulation saints. This concludes the first resurrection. You want to be a part of the first resurrection. There is a second resurrection at the end of the millennial years


ONE LAST THOUGHT RELATED TO RUTH


Perhaps the most significant of these feasts for this study, in light of the prominent agricultural motif, is the Feast of Firstfruits. The wave offering at that feast signified Israel’s recognition of her need of divine provision. It was a wave offering of a sheaf of raw barley (Lev. 23:11). Surely the reader would see the significance of Ruth’s gleaning among the sheaves of barley (she was certainly in need of divine provision) at the very time Israel celebrated a feast that focused on the nation’s need for divine provision. And this is not to mention Naomi’s earlier request to the Lord that He deal kindly with Ruth and Orpah (i.e., give them husbands, a home, and rest; Ruth 1:8–9). Of significance is the difference between the attitude that should have been expressed according to Leviticus 23 and the attitude expressed by Naomi. Leviticus 23 enjoins an attitude of acknowledged dependence coupled with faith that the Lord will provide, that He will remain faithful to His covenant promises by giving His people a full harvest. Naomi lacked the component of faith. She definitely recognized her need for divine assistance, and she recognized that that assistance was available for Ruth and Orpah (Ruth 1:8–9)


Grant, Reg. “Literary Structure in the Book of Ruth.” Bibliotheca Sacra 148 (1991): 429–430. Print.


APPLICATION:
• Jesus resurrection fulfills the feast of Firstfruits for us
• God has provided everything we need now for eternal life (punishment for our sins and future resurrection of a new body)
• Firstfruits reminds us that God is our divine provider -- everything we have is from his hand
• Firstfruits reminds us that the next resurrection occurs at the rapture, where the church is taken from the earth in preparation of marriage to the lamb
• Do we recognize our need for divine dependence? Through prayer?
• Do we exercise our need … by prayer and handing over our worries to God?

Jewish Feasts: (2) Unleavened Bread, Hag Hamatzah

Genesis 19:2–4 (RSV)
2 and said, “My lords, turn aside, I pray you, to your servant’s house and spend the night, and wash your feet; then you may rise up early and go on your way.” They said, “No; we will spend the night in the street.” 3 But he urged them strongly; so they turned aside to him and entered his house; and he made them a feast, and baked unleavened bread, and they ate. 4 But before they lay down, the men of the city, the men of Sodom, both young and old, all the people to the last man, surrounded the house;


• This is the first mention of unleavened bread
• It set in contrast to the first destruction of a city since the flood
• Sin was not just sexual, but also greed and narcissism
• Unleavened bread is used in a number of feasts, cereomonies, and offerings (Lev 2:4-5;  Lev 6:16; Lev 7:12)


Exodus 12:14–18 (RSV)
14 “This day shall be for you a memorial day, and you shall keep it as a feast to the Lord; throughout your generations you shall observe it as an ordinance for ever. 15 Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread; on the first day you shall put away leaven out of your houses, for if any one eats what is leavened, from the first day until the seventh day, that person shall be cut off from Israel. 16 On the first day you shall hold a holy assembly, and on the seventh day a holy assembly; no work shall be done on those days; but what every one must eat, that only may be prepared by you. 17 And you shall observe the feast of unleavened bread, for on this very day I brought your hosts out of the land of Egypt: therefore you shall observe this day, throughout your generations, as an ordinance for ever. 18 In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month at evening, you shall eat unleavened bread, and so until the twenty-first day of the month at evening.


• This is the first mention of the Feast of Unleavened Bread
• I may have misspoke last week if I said Passover was given prior to Mt Sinai
• Passover and unleavened bread were both described by God during the Exodus
• What would be the purpose or reasoning for unleavened bread as it relates to the Exodus?
• It was the day they started moving out of Egypt (out of slavery)
• The people were on the move, no time for bread to rise
• The trip to Mt Sinai took 44 days Exodus Route Map , but the probably slowed down once they were 7 days out of Egypt


1 Corinthians 5:6–8 (RSV)
6 Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? 7 Cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, as you really are unleavened. For Christ, our paschal lamb, has been sacrificed. 8 Let us, therefore, celebrate the festival, not with the old leaven, the leaven of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.


Matthew 16:5–6 (RSV)
5 When the disciples reached the other side, they had forgotten to bring any bread. 6 Jesus said to them, “Take heed and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees.”


• Most scholars directly link leaven with sin. The NT is much more pronounced with many suggestive passages symbolically equating leaven with sin


Leviticus 23:6–8 (RSV)
6 And on the fifteenth day of the same month is the feast of unleavened bread to the Lord; seven days you shall eat unleavened bread. 7 On the first day you shall have a holy convocation; you shall do no laborious work. 8 But you shall present an offering by fire to the Lord seven days; on the seventh day is a holy convocation; you shall do no laborious work.”


• Here are some additional details
• Eat unleavened bread for seven days
• A holy convocation on the first day and the seventh day (no work to be done)
• There is an offering by fire
• Not said and practiced
• You could eat anything allowable under Mosaic law, just no leaven in it
• Six other passages reference the feast


First Passage:
Numbers 28:16–25 (RSV) 16 “On the fourteenth day of the first month is the Lord’s passover. 17 And on the fifteenth day of this month is a feast; seven days shall unleavened bread be eaten. 18 On the first day there shall be a holy convocation: you shall do no laborious work, 19 but offer an offering by fire, a burnt offering to the Lord: two young bulls, one ram, and seven male lambs a year old; see that they are without blemish; 20 also their cereal offering of fine flour mixed with oil; three tenths of an ephah shall you offer for a bull, and two tenths for a ram; 21 a tenth shall you offer for each of the seven lambs; 22 also one male goat for a sin offering, to make atonement for you. 23 You shall offer these besides the burnt offering of the morning, which is for a continual burnt offering. 24 In the same way you shall offer daily, for seven days, the food of an offering by fire, a pleasing odor to the Lord; it shall be offered besides the continual burnt offering and its drink offering. 25 And on the seventh day you shall have a holy convocation; you shall do no laborious work.


• What is added in the first passage?
• Offering by fire
• 2 young bulls
• 1 ram
• 7 male lambs one year old
• 3/10 of an ephah for a bull
• 2/10 of an ephah for a ram
• 1/10 of an ephah for each lamb
• 1 male goat for a sin offering
• Entire list each of the seven days, the food of an offering by fire
• Why? What is the purpose of all these sacrifices?
Hebrews 9:24-28, 10:3–4, 8-11,  (RSV)
9:24 For Christ has entered, not into a sanctuary made with hands, a copy of the true one, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf. 25 Nor was it to offer himself repeatedly, as the high priest enters the Holy Place yearly with blood not his own; 26 for then he would have had to suffer repeatedly since the foundation of the world. But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the age to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. 27 And just as it is appointed for men to die once, and after that comes judgment, 28 so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him.
…
10:3 But in these sacrifices there is a reminder of sin year after year. 4 For it is impossible that the blood of bulls and goats should take away sins.
…
8 When he said above, “Thou hast neither desired nor taken pleasure in sacrifices and offerings and burnt offerings and sin offerings” (these are offered according to the law), 9 then he added, “Lo, I have come to do thy will.” He abolishes the first in order to establish the second. 10 And by that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.
11 And every priest stands daily at his service, offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. 12 But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, 13 then to wait until his enemies should be made a stool for his feet. 14 For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are sanctified.
• The feasts and even the futility of them should point people to Jesus
• If we believe we need the feasts then we don't understand what Jesus did for us


Second Passage: Deut 16:3-8 emphasizes the necessity of NO leaven


Third Passage: 2 Chron 29:23-27 records how the feast was restored by Hezekiah


Fourth Passage: Ezra 6:21-22 records how Ezra restores the feast after the dedication of the temp


Fifth Passage: Ezek 45;21-24 describes Passover, Feast of Unleavened Bread, and Feast of Tabernacles as feasts used as memorials of God's work in the millennial kingdom


Sixth Passage:
Mark 14:1–2 (RSV)
1 It was now two days before the Passover and the feast of Unleavened Bread. And the chief priests and the scribes were seeking how to arrest him by stealth, and kill him; 2 for they said, “Not during the feast, lest there be a tumult of the people.”


• Clearly, it was still celebrated in Jesus' day


• Messianic Significance:
• We have read part of Heb 9:11-10:18
• The passage clearly states that death of Jesus fulfilled Passover
• His sinless life and our redemption from slavery fulfills Unleavened bread


1 Corinthians 5:6–8 (RSV)
6 Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? 7 Cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, as you really are unleavened. For Christ, our paschal lamb, has been sacrificed. 8 Let us, therefore, celebrate the festival, not with the old leaven, the leaven of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.


• Why can Paul say "you really are unleavened?"
• 2 Corinthians 5:21 (RSV) 21 For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
• In the great exchange, we receive Jesus' sinlessness (in God's eyes) while Jesus receives our sin to be paid for on the cross
• In God's eyes we are righteous or unleavened
• Two additional points:
• As Romans made clear we still fight against the old flesh, and that is a worthy battle
• In God's eyes we are righteous -- we can't do any better than that
• We can earn spiritual rewards for our future life by how we live on earth
• Those rewards are measured by our CHARACTER, not our performance of rituals
1 Corinthians 3:10–15 (RSV) 10 According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation, and another man is building upon it. Let each man take care how he builds upon it. 11 For no other foundation can any one lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. 12 Now if any one builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw— 13 each man’s work will become manifest; for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. 14 If the work which any man has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. 15 If any man’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire.
• Our work is not rituals
Colossians 2:13–23 (RSV) 13 And you, who were dead in trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, 14 having canceled the bond which stood against us with its legal demands; this he set aside, nailing it to the cross. 15 He disarmed the principalities and powers and made a public example of them, triumphing over them in him.
16 Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a sabbath. 17 These are only a shadow of what is to come; but the substance belongs to Christ. 18 Let no one disqualify you, insisting on self-abasement and worship of angels, taking his stand on visions, puffed up without reason by his sensuous mind, 19 and not holding fast to the Head, from whom the whole body, nourished and knit together through its joints and ligaments, grows with a growth that is from God.
20 If with Christ you died to the elemental spirits of the universe, why do you live as if you still belonged to the world? Why do you submit to regulations, 21 “Do not handle, Do not taste, Do not touch” 22 (referring to things which all perish as they are used), according to human precepts and doctrines? 23 These have indeed an appearance of wisdom in promoting rigor of devotion and self-abasement and severity to the body, but they are of no value in checking the indulgence of the flesh.
• The legal demands (of the law) have been nailed to the cross
• Festival, new moons, or sabbaths SHOULD NEVER be an issue of judgment between people
• Submitting to rules and regulations DOES have an appearance of wisdom, BUT usually is INEFFECTIVE in changing our lives
• Secondly, it is possible that Jewish believers (and Gentiles) were celebrating the fasts -- depending how you read 1 Cor 5:6-8
• Paul did celebrate many of the festivals
• But when you read his reasoning, it was primarily done so that he would not be a stumbling block to his own brothers
• It is the same argument regarding meat sacrificed to idols. The only good argument is so that you don't hurt someone else


• APPLICATION:
• Jesus has clearly fulfilled the feast of unleavened bread for us
• He made us righteous in God's eyes by his death
• He set us free from slavery to sin
• Having said that, we still need to remove leaven from our earthly bodies. Why?
• Because it ruins our witness
• It does not affect our salvation but could affect our ability to share the gospel with others

Jewish Feasts: Background Part 2

The major passages on the annual feasts of ancient Israel are Ex. 12, 23, 34; Lev. 23; Num. 28–29; and Deut. 16. (Kickasola, Joseph N. “Leviticus and Trine Communion.” Ashland Theological Journal Volume 10 10 (1977): 6. Print.)


Ex 23:14-17
14  "Three times in the year you shall keep a feast to me. 15  You shall keep the Feast of Unleavened Bread. As I commanded you, you shall eat unleavened bread for seven days at the appointed time in the month of Abib, for in it you came out of Egypt. None shall appear before me empty-handed. 16 You shall keep the Feast of Harvest, of the firstfruits of your labor, of what you sow in the field. You shall keep the Feast of Ingathering at the end of the year, when you gather in from the field the fruit of your labor. 17  Three times in the year shall all your males appear before the Lord God.


• So the way I read this, the three times does not include Passover (which would explain Jesus and his disciples eating it in Bethany)
• Feast of Unleavened bread
• Feast of Harvest
• Feast of Ingathering


• Similarities / Differences
• Five of the seven feasts include specific prohibition from work (the longer feasts are not every day)
• Two of the feasts do not include a prohibition from work: passover and feast of firstfruits
• The feasts differ according to the offerings
• Groupings
• You can group the feasts in two groups (a spring group and a fall group) with a summer feast separating the two seasons
• The summer feast is 4 months before the harvest (a phrase that Jesus used to refer to evangelism)
• The first three represent a holy season as do the last three
• Also note the first three feasts
• Passover focuses on the blood
• Unleavened bread focuses on the body
• First fruits focuses on the resurrection. Jesus is the first person resurrected
• Passover occurs on 14th, Unleavened bread starts on 15th, and Firstfruits is celebrated on the 16th (the day after the sabbath, the first day of the week)
• So we see the marvelous fulfillment wrought by Jesus Christ, …, who in Passion Week fulfilled the three feasts of the first month by giving His BLOOD to the altar of Golgotha on Good Friday (Passover, the 14th of Nisan), by giving His BODY to the tomb in the sleep of death on Holy Saturday (Feast of Unleavened Bread, the 15th), and on Easter Sunday by rising from the dead in RESURRECTION power of the first order (Feast of First Fruits, the day after the sabbath, the 16th of Nisan). (Kickasola, Joseph N. “Leviticus and Trine Communion.” Ashland Theological Journal Volume 10 10 (1977): 8. Print.)



Firstfruits

Wave offering Burnt offering Meal offering Drink offering

Sheaves Yearling male lamb without blemish Two-tenths ephah of fine flour, mingled with oil, made by fire Fourth of a hin of wine

Hui, Timothy K. “The Purpose of Israel’s Annual Feasts.” Bibliotheca Sacra 147 (1990): 152. Print.