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The two-day Feast of Pentecost (count fifty) falls on the Sabbath and the First day of the week in the Third month of the Sacred Calendar. During these 50 days from the Wave Sheaf Offering during the Days of Unleavened Bread, love and unity with the brethren and for God should grow for the receipt of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost.

The entire period of 21 days in the month of Nisan/Abib is one of sanctification – from the New Moon of the New Year (1^st Abib), the fast on the 7^th Abib for the sanctification of the Simple and Erroneous, and on to the 21^st day. To understand this whole period of sanctification, one has to keep the 21 days, as commanded. God requires obedience more than sacrifice (1Sam.15:22).

Thus the keeping of these days, leading up to Pentecost, commences the process to the receipt of the leaven of the Kingdom of Heaven, i.e. the Holy Spirit.

Christ said the Kingdom of Heaven is like leaven given to the woman (Mat.13:33) who placed it in 3 measures of meal. These 3 measures represent the threefold aspects of the Kingdom of God – King, Priest, and Prophet, which Christ embodied. See paper Jesus the Christ, King, Priest and Prophet (No. 280).

God ordered the 2 loaves at Pentecost to be leavened. This should have muzzled any inference or declaration that God was placing the symbol of sin (i.e. leaven, as misunderstood) in one of His Holy offerings.

By disobedience in not keeping every ordinance in connection with the first 21 days of Abib, understanding was blighted. Proverbs 16:3 says: "Give your ways to the Lord and He will establish your thoughts". Do as He commands and understanding follows.

The Holy Spirit works in the individual, bringing him into the Body of Christ, and develops each of us to become kings, priests and prophets, and as scribes we are instructed in the Mysteries of God. Thus the Church can bring out old and new from the treasures of Scripture (Mat. 13:52).

Christ spoke in parables, actually to protect people from understanding, and seeing and being saved before their time (Mat.13:13; cf. Isaiah 6:9,10). So over the 2,000 years the Church has survived persecution, by parables by slow release of information and from action of the adversary. Sometimes disobedient officers of the Church and the people have hindered. The Church is like the moon, waxing and waning in understanding over the centuries.

The old leaven of malice and wickedness must be put off, and the Feast kept in sincerity and truth, allowing the leaven of the Holy Spirit to develop and convert the person as a new functioning whole. The Holy Spirit (the spirit of truth) guides the Church into truth, and it grows in knowledge of God. Truth sets us free (Jn. 8:32) and truth is the foundation of the whole armour of God (Eph. 6:13-17).

We see there is a distinction between the normal carnal mind and the minds of the sons of God. We are made alive by the leaven of the Holy Spirit (Eph. 2:1,2). Our minds are enlightened and no more blinded by the leaven of the spirit of the adversary (2Cor. 4:4). "Many are called and few are chosen" (Mat. 22:14). These are they that hear and see and bear fruit as in the parable of the sower. (Mat. 13:1-9)

God addresses the Philadelphian Church, who loved one another, and though having little power, has worked diligently through the power of the Holy Spirit (Rev. 3:8). That power enables us to keep the commandments of God and the testimony of Jesus (Rev. 12:17; 14:12).

Upon repentance and baptism we receive the gift of the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:38). We keep the Holy Spirit by our obedience (Acts 5:32). Our robes are washed in the blood of Christ (Rev. 22:14).

The Holy Spirit enables us to hear and obey, and thus understand, and bear fruit by action (Mat. 13:10-23, 24-30). God becomes all in all and we then become elohim (see the paper The Elect as Elohim (No. 1)).

The elect are redeemed by Christ’s sacrifice as a body of kings and priests, and in them is handled the spirit of prophecy. Individuals in the Church are developed by the Holy Spirit with gifts according to the needs of the Church and the time.

Adhering to the faith is worth the effort for the salvation of us all (Jn. 16:21)

This woman, the Church of God, which is the Bride of Christ is persecuted by the adversary (Rev. 12:13,17).

The seed (Christ) and His Church triumph over the adversary and his system (Zec. 5:5-11).

We are rendered unclean by association with sin (Hag. 2:13) and Leviticus 22:4-6 instills in Israel the requirements of ritual purification. Sin requires repentance. In 1Corinthians 5:1-6 the sin of one member was permeating the whole congregation. This is the sense of leaven as a corrupting agent.

There are two competing leavens. Satan’s spirit seeks to make us unfit for the Holy Spirit which will withdraw from us if grieved (Eph. 4:30) and can be quenched (1Thes. 5:19), because of our disobedience and sin.

Read Matthew 13:34-58.

The use of "leaven" also concerns teaching and doctrine, and the Bible teaches that the leaven of the Kingdom of Heaven not only refers to the Holy Spirit as the Power of God extended to all mankind, but also to the truth it imparts. Matthew 16:6-12 shows that doctrine contrary to God is a leaven to be avoided. In 1Corinthians 5:6-8 leaven is called malice and wickedness. From these texts the concept of leaven as sin was formulated. It is the action of leaven that permeates the substance that has to be compared. Leaven as the spirit of Satan permeates the whole world with sin, whereas the leaven as the Spirit of God permeates the individual creating a new man, for the Kingdom of Heaven.

The leaven in the loaves at Pentecost represented a pure offering, symbolising the "pure" repentant hearts of Israel.

Leviticus 23:15-22: ….two wave loaves….shall be baken with leaven, for the first fruits unto Yahovah….the priest shall wave them with the bread of the first fruits for a wave offering before Yahovah….they shall be holy to Yahovah……

These are the loaves or Bread of the First Fruits. It is the plainest of symbols that the First Fruits, after Christ, is the Church of God and they are represented by leaven in the loaves. Both Christ and the Church are made into sons of God through the power of the Holy Spirit. Thus the bread at Pentecost becomes a leavened loaf.

We all sin and fall short of the glory of God. Repent and be sincere; overcome and be strengthened by the Holy Spirit.

Paul depicts the duality of the conflict between the leaven of Satan and the leaven of the Kingdom of Heaven, which is the Holy Spirit. It is thus that the kingdom can be among us (Rom. 7:14-25).

We are all corrupt carnal people. Yahovah searches the mind for the intent of what we do and think (Jer. 17:9,10)

We cannot overcome without the intervention of God through the Holy Spirit (Jer. 10:23,24).

God promises us through Isaiah 44:3 that He will pour out His Holy Spirit on the seed, which is the body of Christ as the Church, and symbolised by bread. The unleavened bread of Passover shows we have to remove the leaven of malice and wickedness. It is important that we keep the full eight days of Unleavened Bread, that we become de-leavened of former self and sin, and can proceed to Pentecost to receive the Holy Spirit and be leavened by the power of God.

The Sin offering made those who touched it holy (Lev. 6:24-27) and that was to indicate that Christ would atone for sin and make Israel, and eventually the whole world holy. Leviticus 6:28 – The earthen vessel used was broken; this means we lose our bodies and become spirit beings.

Numbers 8:7 shows the Levites had to be cleansed, and we must also be cleansed. The symbols of Christ being the means by which we access the Holy Spirit of God were given to us in the wilderness (Num. 20:8-11).

Nehemiah says they were given that food from heaven, so that they might inherit their birthright promises (Neh. 9:15). And that Rock was Christ (1Cor. 10:4).

And that was the well of the oath (Num. 21:16).

The Holy Spirit is also likened to the oil that fills the lamps of the elect (Mat. 25:1-13).

The Holy Spirit is also symbolised by water (Judg. 15:19; Jn. 7:37-39). Christ also extended that gift to the Gentiles (Jn. 4:10-15). We are baptised with the Holy Spirit (Mat. 3:11; Mk. 1:8; Luke 3:16) and that power fills us and makes us new beings. Ephesians 5:26 shows how sanctification occurs. The Holy Spirit is the fountain of the water of life (Rev. 21:6).

We must keep in mind these symbols as Jude 12 points out they can be usurped and perverted.

We shall be as angels and sons of God together with loyal host as spirit beings (Rev. 21:17).

We have been washed and sanctified and justified (1Cor. 6:11) and all made into one body for that Spirit is one (1Cor. 12:13).

In this we are one and brothers together, and brides of Christ, all of us. We are the leavened loaves of Pentecost with the heavenly host as first fruits unto God.