Christian Churches of God

No. 56z

 

 

Summary:

Keeping the Feasts

(Edition 2.1 19940917-20000209)

This paper deals with the background to the keeping of the feasts of Leviticus 23, which flow on from an understanding of the Fourth Commandment.

 

 

 

 

Christian Churches of God

PO Box 369, WODEN ACT 2606, AUSTRALIA

E-mail: secretary@ccg.org

 

(Copyright ã 1994 [edited 1997], 2000 Wade Cox

Summary by Patti Gambier, Ed. by Wade Cox)

 

This paper may be freely copied and distributed provided it is copied in total with no alterations or deletions. The publisher’s name and address and the copyright notice must be included. No charge may be levied on recipients of distributed copies. Brief quotations may be embodied in critical articles and reviews without breaching copyright.

This paper is available from the World Wide Web page:
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Keeping the Feasts

 

The feasts of the Lord are enumerated in Leviticus 23:1-44. These are commanded assemblies by God to His people, and are all inter-related, and in sequence, reveal His plan for mankind. As with the keeping of all the Ten Commandments, so all the Feasts need to be kept.

From Leviticus 1:1,2 the LORD reveals that these are the appointed feasts of the LORD, holy convocations, and His feasts. Any other celebrations by mainstream Christian organisations are something other than God’s own appointed feasts, and have no part in the sequence of the Plan of God revealed in His Feasts.

He leads off with the Sabbath as the first of His feasts, the fourth commandment, a time for spiritual prayer and contemplation. This time is also a holy convocation, so it is incumbent for people of the same mind to meet in assembly. This is a command for all feasts.

Following on in the verses of Leviticus 23, the feasts are to be proclaimed to all, and emphasis is put on keeping them on certain days (the correct days) according to the astronomical New Moons, otherwise the assemblies are invalid.

There is the Feast of Unleavened Bread, with the Passover ceremony as part of this time. Christ is our Passover, and that feast now commemorates His sacrifice, until He comes again. Also part of the Days of Unleavened Bread is the Wave Sheaf offering, on a particular day, at a certain hour, which again Christ fulfilled by His ascension to His Father and His God (who is our Father and our God) for acceptance, on the first day of the week following His resurrection, on the previous evening.

The feasts can be seen to be geared around the harvests of barley and wheat. Christ was the firstfruits of the harvest of souls, which continues in the elect and represents the general harvest in the last days.

Next comes Pentecost, when in Jerusalem in 30 CE the Holy Spirit was poured out on the assembled believers, and the Church of God was instigated. This is our harvest, during the 2000 years to the end time.

Later, on the New Moon of the first day of the seventh month of God’s calendar, the Feast of Trumpets is held. This is clearly representing the return of Messiah, when He comes at the sound of trumpets, and the last trump, to save us and establish His rule on this planet.

On the tenth day of this seventh month, God calls a fast from the evening of the 9th day to the evening of the 10th day, which He calls our Sabbath. This day is called the Day of Atonement in the line of feasts to be kept. It represents our reconciliation to God the Father, and the binding of Satan, the ruler and prince of this world at present, to 1000 years incarceration.

The Feast of Tabernacles represents this 1,000 years. Christ will be the ruler under the Law of God, and with His saints will bring peace and justice to the planet.

This is a seven-day feast to be kept joyously, helping and providing for the welfare of the less fortunate, and being instructed by teachers, revealing the whole Plan of God.

The New Testament Church, under the apostles, kept all of these prescribed feasts, as did Jesus Christ, during His life on earth. He kept the laws He had established at Mt. Sinai, as the Angel of the Covenant.

Indeed, all of these feasts will be again restored in the 1,000 year (millennial) reign of Christ, and the whole world will keep them. The punishment for non-compliance is dire, as Zechariah 14:16-19 indicates.

We need to keep the feasts now, because we wish to please our Father by obedience, and we need the assemblies to feed and nourish the Holy Spirit within us, and to grow in love and acceptance of our brethren.

The system of the world now under the direction of the prince of this world, Satan, is engineered to make it difficult for us to comply with God’s commandments, but He has made us great and powerful promises for doing His will.

And we can do all things by Him who strengthens us (Phil. 4:13).

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