THE OVERCOMER'S FEAST

Looking at the THIRD festival of the Spring - the Festival of First Fruits
BEGINNING OF THE BARLEY HARVEST - the bread of affliction. 

After His death and resurrection, the writer of Hebrews discusses that Jesus first descended into the earth and then ascended into heaven. He wants us to know that He has filled all things, that Jesus is the first in all things, He is preeminent in all things. 
“When He ascended on high,He led captivity captive,And gave gifts to men.”(Now this, “He ascended”—what does it mean but that He also first descended into the lower parts of the earth? 10 He who descended is also the One who ascended far above all the heavens, that He might fill all things.)

  1. Just as Jesus fulfilled the law as the CHOSEN LAMB when he followed in the route of the Lamb on the day of selection.  
  2. Just as He died at the appointed time to become the final Passover Lamb
  3. Now He ascended into heaven, on the single lawful day and at the single specified hour to present Himself to the Father in the courts of Heaven as the first fruits of the kingdom over-comers. He rose from the ground on the day the sheaf of barley was taken from the ground. Then He ascended into Heaven just when the Barley sheaf was waved before God in the temple. He fulfilled all the law and the prophets in His earthly life. 
Scripture promises that many more will follow Christ in bodily resurrection, we shall all be changed from mortal to immortal and have eternal life. 

If the divine plan of salvation is revealed in all the festivals, why don't Christians see the festivals of the Lord, as anything significant enough to be observed? Not even in a casual recognition of the day on the calendar, much less using it to teach the plan of salvation. Most relegate these festivals to ancient times of and for the Jews exclusively. 

But we now see that they were only shadows of spiritual realities they later came in substance as they were fulfilled. So do they now belong more to the shadow, the first covenant, or more to the substance of the second covenant? 

While these festivals had their small shadowy beginnings in the first covenant they are clearly defining the substance of the New Second Covenant, that God has made with man in the Second Adam. We can again abdicate our position of authority, given to us by God, like the first Adam did in the garden...or we can take it up, now that it has been restored by the sinless life of the second Adam. 

These ends our discussion of the first three festivals grouped together as the spring festivals. In our next post, we will talk about the Feast of Weeks 49 days between the Barley Harvest and the Wheat Harvest. 













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