Leaving aside the Sabbath (which stands on its own), there are
seven feasts in Leviticus 23. As is often the case with the number
seven, these feasts can be divided into four and three. The opening
four (vs 5–22) took place in the first three months of the Jewish
calendar. There was then a gap of three months when there were no
feasts (apart from the weekly Sabbath), followed by three more
feasts in the seventh month. Of the first feast, the NT tells us
plainly that “our passover, Christ, has been sacrificed” (1 Cor. 5:
7). The fulfilment of the feast of unleavened bread is in the
communion of the Lord’s table (see 1 Cor. 5: 8; 10: 16). For the
feast of first–fruits, 1 Cor. 15: 20 tells us that “Christ is raised
from among [the] dead, first-fruits of those fallen asleep”, while
the descent of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2: 1–4)
is an explicit fulfilment of the feast of weeks.
Now just as there was a gap in the calendar of Leviticus 23, so
there is a gap in the prophetic calendar of which it is a picture.
Although a remnant of Jews entered into the good of the first four
feasts (see Rom. 11: 5), Israel as a nation rejected
the message of blessing from the ascended Christ. In the present
time then, “blindness in part is happened to Israel” (v25), while
blessing has gone out to the nations. This period fits in the gap in
Leviticus 23.
However, Romans 11 also tells us that the blindness of Israel is
only temporary “until the fulness of the nations be come in; and so
all Israel shall be saved” (vs 25, 26). Now the fifth feast or feast
of trumpets (see Lev. 23: 23–25) was on the
first day
of the seventh month, indicating a new start for Israel—and so it
will prove to be. Isaiah tells us of a day in which “the great
trumpet shall be blown” (Is. 27: 13) and that the children of Israel
will gathered out of all the nations to which they have been
scattered by the judgment of God. Ezekiel says “I will take you from
among the nations, and gather you out of all the countries, and will
bring you into your own land” (Ezek. 36: 24). There are many similar
prophecies. However, a mere return of the Jews to their ancestral
lands (as happened in 1948) will not do for God—which is why
the feast of trumpets is
followed by the Day of Atonement in Leviticus 23.
The details of the Day of Atonement are given in Leviticus 16. The
high priest sprinkling the blood of the sin–offering on the
mercy–seat before God, working alone and unseen (see Lev. 16: 17) is
a picture of the Lord Jesus dealing with sin in the three hours of
darkness (see Matt. 27: 45). When the high priest came out again, it
was then (and then only) that the scapegoat was taken
up. Another goat had already been slaughtered as a sin–offering (see
Lev. 16: 15) and its blood taken within the veil, but the scapegoat
was kept alive. Upon its head the high priest placed the sins of the
children of Israel, and then sent it sent out into the desert never
to return (see v21). Now the last view that Israel, as
a nation, had of the Lord Jesus was on the cross. In the type, this
answers to the high priest going into the presence of God on the Day
of Atonement. They have not yet seen Him come out.
However, just as the high priest came out of the sanctuary having
dealt with the question of sins for another year, so Christ “having
been once offered to bear the sins of many, shall appear to those
that look for him the second time without sin for salvation” (Heb.
9: 28). This is the long–awaited second coming of Christ. He will
come out of the presence of God, and Israel “shall see the Son of
man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory”
(Matt. 24: 30). At this juncture, the command to “afflict your
souls” (Lev. 23: 27) in connection with the feast will take on its
full reality as the Jews “look on me whom they pierced” (Zech. 12:
10). And yet He comes “for salvation” (Heb. 9: 28), and so answers
their repentance by taking away and never remembering their sins any
more (see Rom. 11: 27; Heb. 10: 17)—the wonderful filling out of the
type in which the living goat, with the sins of Israel upon its
head, was sent out into a “land of forgetfulness” (Ps. 88: 12).
How fitting then is the place of the Day of Atonement in the
seven feasts of Leviticus 23! Yes it is the death of Christ that
is in view, but it is that death as bringing about the national
repentance of His earthly people—a repentance that will
eventually result in their entrance into the millennial joy set
out in the feast of tabernacles (see Lev. 23: 33–36; Zech. 14:
16).
