One of the most profound and comprehensive chapters in the inspired volume now lies before us, and claims our prayerful study. It contains the record of the seven great feasts or periodical solemnities into which Israel's year was divided. In other words, it furnishes us with a perfect view of God's dealings with Israel during the entire period of their most eventful history.
Looking at the feasts separately, we have the Sabbath, the Passover, the feast of unleavened bread, the first-fruits, Pentecost, the feast of trumpets, the day of atonement, and the feast of tabernacles. This would make eight, altogether; but it is very obvious that the Sabbath occupies quite a unique and independent place. It is first presented, and its proper characteristics and attendant circumstances fully set forth; and then we read, "These are the feasts of the Lord, even holy convocations, which ye shall proclaim in their seasons." (Ver. 4.)
So that, strictly speaking, as the attentive reader will observe, Israel's _first_ great feast was the Passover, and their _seventh_ was the feast of tabernacles. That is to say, divesting them of their typical dress, we have, first, redemption; and last of all, we have the millennial glory. The paschal lamb typified the death of Christ (1 Cor. v. 7.); and the feast of tabernacles typified "the times of the restitution of all things, of which God hath spoken by the mouth of all His holy prophets since the world began." (Acts iii. 21.)
Such was the opening and such the closing feast of the Jewish year. Atonement is the foundation, glory the top-stone; while between these two points we have the resurrection of Christ (ver. 10-14.), the gathering of the Church (ver. 15-21.), the waking up of Israel to a sense of their long-lost glory (ver. 24-25.), their repentance and hearty reception of their Messiah (ver. 27-32.), and, that not one feature might be lacking in this grand typical representation, we have provision made for the Gentiles to come in at the close of the harvest and glean in Israel's fields (ver. 22.). All this renders the picture divinely perfect, and evokes from the heart of every lover of Scripture the most intense admiration. What could be more complete? The blood of the Lamb, and practical holiness founded thereon; the resurrection of Christ from the dead, and His ascension into heaven; the descent of the Holy Ghost, in pentecostal power, to form the Church; the awakening of the remnant; their repentance and restoration; the blessing of "the poor and the stranger;" the manifestation of the glory; the rest and blessedness of the kingdom,--such are the contents of this truly marvelous chapter, which we shall now proceed to examine in detail. May God the Holy Ghost be our Teacher.
"And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, 'Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, Concerning the feasts of the Lord, which ye shall proclaim to be holy convocations, even these are My feasts. Six days shall work be done; but the seventh day is the Sabbath of rest, a holy convocation; ye shall do no work therein: it is the Sabbath of the Lord in all your dwellings.'" The place which the Sabbath here gets is full of interest. The Lord is about to furnish a type of all His dealings in grace with His people; and ere He does so, He sets forth the Sabbath as the significant expression of that rest which remaineth for the people of God. It was an actual solemnity to be observed by Israel, but it was also a type of what is yet to be when all that great and glorious work which this chapter foreshadows shall have been accomplished. It is God's rest, into which all who believe can enter now in spirit; but which, as to its full and actual accomplishment, yet remains. (Heb. iv.) We work now: we shall rest by and by. In one sense, the believer enters into rest; in another sense, he labors to enter into it. He has found his rest in Christ; he labors to enter into his rest in glory. He has found his full mental repose in what Christ has wrought for him, and his eye rests on that everlasting Sabbath upon which he shall enter when all his desert toils and conflicts are over. He cannot rest in the midst of a scene of sin and wretchedness; "he rests in Christ, the Son of God, who took the servant's form;" and while thus resting, he is called to labor as a worker together with God, in the full assurance that when all his toil is over, he shall enjoy unbroken, eternal repose in those mansions of unfading light and unalloyed blessedness where labor and sorrow can never enter. Blessed prospect! May it brighten more and more each hour in the vision of faith. May we labor all the more earnestly and faithfully, as being sure of this most precious rest at the end. True, there are foretastes of the eternal Sabbath; but these foretastes only cause us to long more ardently for the blessed reality--that Sabbath which shall never be broken--that "holy convocation" which shall never be dissolved.