THE LETTER VS. THE SPIRIT - NEVER MORE CLEAR THAN AT THE FEAST OF WEEKS.
THE FEAST OF WEEKS CELEBRATES THE GIVING OF THE INSTRUCTIONS IN THE OLD COVENANT AND THE GIVING OF THE INSTRUCTOR IN THE NEW COVENANT.
The letter of the law kills... but the Spirit gives life. 2 Corinthians 3:6
Let's face it without the Holy Spirit leading and guiding us from within, as humans we always default towards the 'letter' of the law. Only with the Holy Spirit leading us can we grasp the 'spirit' of the law.
The Letter Kills
At Mount Sinai, the law (Instructions) was inscribed by the finger of God onto tablets of stone that God Himself carved with His own hands out of the mountain. Once completed He placed these tablets into Moses' hands.
This was the ultimate expression of the letter of the law, they were engraved into stone tablets, by the finger of God therefore they were rigid, unbending, and literally set in stone.
The letter of the law kills... but the Spirit gives life.
This story was no different, on the day of the the Feast of weeks, Moses received the written instructions of God for his covenant people.
And when He had made an end of speaking with him on Mount Sinai, He gave Moses two tablets of the Testimony, tablets of stone, written with the finger of God. Exodus 31:18
And Moses turned and went down from the mountain, and the two tablets of the Testimony were in his hand. The tablets were written on both sides; on the one side and on the other they were written. Now the tablets were the work of God, and the writing was the writing of God engraved on the tablets. Exodus 32:15-16
Moses came down on the Day of the Feast and found the people dancing around their golden calf-god, an idol that they had cast out of the earrings taken from their Egyptian masters on the night they left.
The people had already broken the second law that had just been engraved in stone by the finger of God.
“You shall not make for yourself a carved image—any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them nor serve them. Exodus 20:4-5
Moses in his hot anger cast the tablets to the ground, breaking the laws written by the finger of God. That same day 3,000 souls were killed by the Levites who went through the camp with swords purging the camp as commanded by Moses.
The letter of the law kills.
The Feast of Weeks - Shavuot
In the book of Acts, we read about another gathering of Jews on that same day but centuries later, the Feast of Weeks, this time they were not at the foot of the Mountain of God waiting for Moses to come back down from 40 days and nights of being with God. They were waiting 10 days in the upper room in Jerusalem for another comforter to come down in Jesus' place as promised by Jesus before He left.
On this same feast day centuries later the tongues of fire and the sound of a mighty rushing wind came through the place where they were. They began talking and everyone heard them in their own language. Peter preached a sermon even though they were guilty of crucifying the Messiah. God responded by bringing 3,000 souls into eternal life.
But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you. Romans 8:11
The Spirit indeed gives life.
Not only in the present age, but this promise is also for the future fulfilled some year on the Feast of Trumpets when the dead in Christ will be bodily resurrected to immortality.
Various writings from the past
The Road Not Taken
At Home In MN
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