A WEEK of WEEKS
THE FESTIVAL OF WEEKS or PENTECOST?
FESTIVAL OF WEEKS is an appropriate name, because the word week means seven and a week of weeks is 7, 7s or 49 days so the next day after a week of weeks is fifty or Pentecost.
PENTECOST means 50.
Have you ever been standing near a corner you couldn't quite see around? Yet because the sun was behind them, you could see things approaching the corner by the shadows they cast. In other words you saw the shadows before you saw the reality.
In many ways prophetic words or 'signs' under the first covenant were just shadows of things coming around the corner later. The men who lived in those times could see the shadow of Christ coming, but they did not see the reality of it. The Book of Hebrews says about them, they longed to see the Promise but didn't.
The shadow of Pentecost was seen coming around the corner, all the way back in Exodus...
Just about six weeks (42 days) after the sudden miraculous Exodus from Egypt the Israelite people crossed through the Red Sea. The number 42 in the bible means arrival.
They walked 3 days into the Desert of Shur and across the wilderness of Sin and they had just arrived at the foot of Mount Sinai on the first day of the 3rd month. The children of Israel were camped out at the foot of the mount Sinai and The living God descended on the Mountain, God told Moses to tell the people to consecrate themselves today the first, tomorrow the second and on the third day to come before the Lord.
This Feast of Pentecost is traditionally thought of as the giving of the Torah, translated often as law in English, but in Hebrew it simply means Instructions.
At first the 'Law' or instructions were given verbally by God to Moses and then written out on tablets of stone by God. Moses ascended up the mountain and 40 days later he descended. At the end of the 40 days, Moses came down at God's instruction, to find the people dancing around a golden calf and in general they were breaking the first four instructions (commandments), even while they were still being engraved in stone tablets.
Moses got angry and threw the tablets down to the ground, and they were broken, just as the instructions written on them were broken by the community of Israel. In one day, at the giving of instructions 3,000 men were killed, because they were breaking the instructions of God.
The original set of tablets God had graciously carved out of the mountain for Moses. However, after Moses, in anger, broke the tablets that God had carved out with the written instruction on them, God instructed Moses to carve out two more tablets himself and then come up again on the mountain and God would again write on them. We are not told how many days that task took Moses to complete. Then Moses returns up unto the mountain again for forty more days to receive the law written by the finger of God on a new set of stone tablets.
This second giving of instruction was on tablets Moses provided, is another shadow of things to come, in the new covenant we must give God the tablets of our heart in order to receive the en-grafted word.
HOW DOES THIS FEAST FIT INTO THE NEW COVENANT?
It was on this same day of Pentecost many centuries later that God sent another comforter as Jesus promised, namely the Holy Spirit. You might ask what does the Holy Spirit coming have to do with Sinai and the giving of the Law?
It is a good question and I am happy to dive in and try to answer it.
Remember, how in Exodus, God came down on Mount Sinai as a fire and the earth shook and there was smoke around the mountain with a very loud blast of the trumpet from Heaven.
In Acts 2 the sound of a violent wind was heard throughout the city but it was coming from the upper room. Just like the masses heard the sound and were afraid at Sinai and backed away from the mountain and the presence of the Lord, this time they were afraid as well but they came towards the place where the sound came from and could not understand how they were each hearing about the wonderful works of God in their own native tongues.
HOW THEN SHOULD WE CELEBRATE THE FEAST OF PENTECOST?
PENTECOST - FESTIVAL OF WEEKS
Primarily we should be celebrating the goodness of God. He sent the Holy Spirit as the earnest or down payment of the fulfillment of God's truest desire, to (dwell) with his people forever, and to teach us his ways.
The coming of the Holy Spirit is the new covenant version of the giving of the law or instructions. In the first covenant the intructions were engraved on stone. In the second covenant they are placed in our minds and written on our hearts, by the HOLY SPIRIT. What was engraved on stone tablets is now written on our hearts. It is, as if our heart is made into a magnifying glass by the Holy Spirit and the first covenant instructions take on a magnified application. Jesus taught about this all through his ministry on the earth.
How the new covenant magnified the old covenant law. Scripture says, "you have no need for a teacher, for the Spirit Himself will instruct you," He will be the Instruction living in the midst of your heart. (He will guide you into all truth) In the book of John, Jesus says, this about the Holy Spirit...
The true gift of Pentecost is the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.
For the first time the inner voice of the Holy Spirit, is our guide, rather than hearing an outer voice. We are no longer, dependent on instruction coming solely through a leader, a parent, a police officer, a book.
Holy Spirit Thank you for coming to live on the inside of me, you are welcome in this place.
FESTIVAL OF WEEKS is an appropriate name, because the word week means seven and a week of weeks is 7, 7s or 49 days so the next day after a week of weeks is fifty or Pentecost.
PENTECOST means 50.
Have you ever been standing near a corner you couldn't quite see around? Yet because the sun was behind them, you could see things approaching the corner by the shadows they cast. In other words you saw the shadows before you saw the reality.
In many ways prophetic words or 'signs' under the first covenant were just shadows of things coming around the corner later. The men who lived in those times could see the shadow of Christ coming, but they did not see the reality of it. The Book of Hebrews says about them, they longed to see the Promise but didn't.
The shadow of Pentecost was seen coming around the corner, all the way back in Exodus...
They walked 3 days into the Desert of Shur and across the wilderness of Sin and they had just arrived at the foot of Mount Sinai on the first day of the 3rd month. The children of Israel were camped out at the foot of the mount Sinai and The living God descended on the Mountain, God told Moses to tell the people to consecrate themselves today the first, tomorrow the second and on the third day to come before the Lord.
On the morning of the third day there was thunder and lightning, with a thick cloud over the mountain, and a very loud trumpet blast. Everyone in the camp trembled. Then Moses led the people out of the camp to meet with God, and they stood at the foot of the mountain. Mount Sinai was covered with smoke, because the Lord descended on it in fire. The smoke billowed up from it like smoke from a furnace, and the whole mountain trembled violently. As the sound of the trumpet grew louder and louder, Moses spoke and the voice of God answered him. Exodus 19:16-20
This Feast of Pentecost is traditionally thought of as the giving of the Torah, translated often as law in English, but in Hebrew it simply means Instructions.
At first the 'Law' or instructions were given verbally by God to Moses and then written out on tablets of stone by God. Moses ascended up the mountain and 40 days later he descended. At the end of the 40 days, Moses came down at God's instruction, to find the people dancing around a golden calf and in general they were breaking the first four instructions (commandments), even while they were still being engraved in stone tablets.
Moses got angry and threw the tablets down to the ground, and they were broken, just as the instructions written on them were broken by the community of Israel. In one day, at the giving of instructions 3,000 men were killed, because they were breaking the instructions of God.
The original set of tablets God had graciously carved out of the mountain for Moses. However, after Moses, in anger, broke the tablets that God had carved out with the written instruction on them, God instructed Moses to carve out two more tablets himself and then come up again on the mountain and God would again write on them. We are not told how many days that task took Moses to complete. Then Moses returns up unto the mountain again for forty more days to receive the law written by the finger of God on a new set of stone tablets.
This second giving of instruction was on tablets Moses provided, is another shadow of things to come, in the new covenant we must give God the tablets of our heart in order to receive the en-grafted word.
HOW DOES THIS FEAST FIT INTO THE NEW COVENANT?
It was on this same day of Pentecost many centuries later that God sent another comforter as Jesus promised, namely the Holy Spirit. You might ask what does the Holy Spirit coming have to do with Sinai and the giving of the Law?
It is a good question and I am happy to dive in and try to answer it.
Remember, how in Exodus, God came down on Mount Sinai as a fire and the earth shook and there was smoke around the mountain with a very loud blast of the trumpet from Heaven.
In Acts 2 the sound of a violent wind was heard throughout the city but it was coming from the upper room. Just like the masses heard the sound and were afraid at Sinai and backed away from the mountain and the presence of the Lord, this time they were afraid as well but they came towards the place where the sound came from and could not understand how they were each hearing about the wonderful works of God in their own native tongues.
When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them. Now there were staying in Jerusalem God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven. When they heard this sound, a crowd came together in bewilderment, because each one heard their own language being spoken. Acts 2:1-6
HOW THEN SHOULD WE CELEBRATE THE FEAST OF PENTECOST?
PENTECOST - FESTIVAL OF WEEKS
Primarily we should be celebrating the goodness of God. He sent the Holy Spirit as the earnest or down payment of the fulfillment of God's truest desire, to (dwell) with his people forever, and to teach us his ways.
The coming of the Holy Spirit is the new covenant version of the giving of the law or instructions. In the first covenant the intructions were engraved on stone. In the second covenant they are placed in our minds and written on our hearts, by the HOLY SPIRIT. What was engraved on stone tablets is now written on our hearts. It is, as if our heart is made into a magnifying glass by the Holy Spirit and the first covenant instructions take on a magnified application. Jesus taught about this all through his ministry on the earth.
How the new covenant magnified the old covenant law. Scripture says, "you have no need for a teacher, for the Spirit Himself will instruct you," He will be the Instruction living in the midst of your heart. (He will guide you into all truth) In the book of John, Jesus says, this about the Holy Spirit...
“These things I have spoken to you while being present with you. But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach (instruct*) you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you. John 14:25-26Just as at Sinai in the first covenant the word is first spoken by God as a loud voice, and then was put into substance engraved in tablets of stone...
1 God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, 2 has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things...In the past God spoke in various ways and... But now He has spoken to us by HIS SON the fulfillment of the law (instruction) was displayed in the life of Jesus. But the substance in us, is the instruction, inscribed on our hearts through the indwelling Spirit of God.
The true gift of Pentecost is the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.
For the first time the inner voice of the Holy Spirit, is our guide, rather than hearing an outer voice. We are no longer, dependent on instruction coming solely through a leader, a parent, a police officer, a book.
- He will remind us of everything Jesus said,
- He will lead us into all truth.
- We have no need of a teacher
- Holy Spirit Himself will be our Instructor.
Holy Spirit Thank you for coming to live on the inside of me, you are welcome in this place.
Comments
Post a Comment
Thank you for commenting We appreciate your feedback.