CHAPTER XXIII.
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.
We have already remarked that the Sabbath occupies quite a unique and independent place in this chapter. This is evident from the wording of the fourth verse, where the Lord seems to begin afresh with the expression, "These are the feasts of the Lord," as if to leave the Sabbath quite distinct from the seven feasts which follow, though it be, in reality, the type of that rest to which those feasts so blessedly introduce the soul.
"These are the feasts of the Lord, even holy convocations, which ye shall proclaim in their seasons. In the fourteenth day of the first month at even is the Lord's passover." (Ver. 4, 5.) Here, then, we have the first of the seven periodical solemnities—the offering of that paschal lamb whose blood it was that screened the Israel of God from the sword of the destroying angel on that terrible night when Egypt's first-born were laid low. This is the acknowledged type of the death of Christ, and hence its place in this chapter is divinely appropriate. It forms the foundation of all. We can know nothing of rest, nothing of holiness, nothing of fellowship, save on the ground of the death of Christ. It is peculiarly striking, significant, and beautiful to observe that, directly God's rest is spoken of, the next thing introduced is the blood of the paschal lamb. As much as to say, There is the rest, but here is your title. No doubt labor will capacitate us, but it is the blood that entitles us, to enjoy the rest.
"And on the fifteenth day of the same month is the feast of unleavened bread unto the Lord: seven days ye must eat unleavened bread. In the first day ye shall have a holy convocation: ye shall do no servile work therein. But ye shall offer an offering made by fire unto the Lord seven days: in the seventh day is a holy convocation: ye shall do no servile work therein." (Ver. 6-8.) The people are here assembled around Jehovah in that practical holiness which is founded upon accomplished redemption; and while thus assembled, the fragrant odor of the sacrifice ascends from the altar of Israel to the throne of Israel's God. This gives us a fine view of that holiness which God looks for in the life of His redeemed. It is based upon the sacrifice, and it ascends in immediate connection with the acceptable fragrance of the Person of Christ. "Ye shall do no servile work therein; but ye shall offer an offering made by fire." What a contrast!—the servile work of man's hands, and the sweet savor of Christ's sacrifice! The practical holiness of God's people is not servile labor; it is the living unfolding of Christ through them, by the power of the Holy Ghost. "To me to live is Christ." This is the true idea. Christ is our life; and every exhibition of that life is, in the divine judgment, redolent with all the fragrance of Christ. It may be a very trifling matter in man's judgment, but, in so far as it is the outflow of Christ our life, it is unspeakably precious to God. It ascends to Him and can never be forgotten. "The fruits of righteousness which are by Jesus Christ" are produced in the life of the believer, and no power of earth or hell can prevent their fragrance ascending to the throne of God.
It is needful to ponder deeply the contrast between "servile work" and the outflow of the life of Christ. The type is very vivid. There was a total cessation of manual labor throughout the whole assembly; but the sweet savor of the burnt-offering ascended to God. These were to be the two grand characteristics of the feast of unleavened bread. Man's labor ceased, and the odor of the sacrifice ascended; and this was the type of a believer's life of practical holiness. What a triumphant answer is here to the legalist on the one side, and the antinomian on the other! The former is silenced by the words, "no servile work;" and the latter is confounded by the words, "Ye shall offer an offering made by fire." The most elaborate works of man's hands are "servile;" but the smallest cluster of "the fruits of righteousness" is to the glory and praise of God. Throughout the entire period of the believer's life there must be no servile work—nothing of the hateful and degrading element of legality. There should be only the continual presentation of the life of Christ, wrought out and exhibited by the power of the Holy Ghost. Throughout the "seven days" of Israel's second great periodical solemnity there was to be "no leaven;" but instead thereof, the sweet savor of "an offering made by fire" was to be presented to the Lord. May we fully enter into the practical teaching of this most striking and instructive type.