Name: Marsha
Question: In Leviticus 23 it talks about the feast days and that we are to observe them throughout our generations and teach them to our children. I know that Christ became our Passover. The Day of Atonement was 50 days after the Passover. We are told that 3 times a year we should observe them. The feast of trumpets, feast of Atonement, Feast of Tabernacles and the Last Great Day are all in the month of September.
What is our duty of the last generation to do? Keep them all or has some Statues and Ordinances been done away with?
Looking forward to your thoughts and God’s will.
Answer: Thank you for the question Marsha.
Note: The Day of Atonement is on the tenth day of the seventh month, (Leviticus 23:27). While Pentecost is 50 days from Passover, I think you understand that, (Leviticus 23:15-17).
There are seven feast days mentioned in Leviticus 23 and I believe this is a chapter everyone should take the time to read for themselves. God lays out each of the feast days and describes what actions should be taken on the part of the people. Each feast day requires an offering to the Lord. The Lord sums up what He asked for with respect to the feast days in verse 37.
The Feast Days Required An Offering To God
Please turn your Bible with me to,
Leviticus 23:37
These are the feasts of the LORD, which ye shall proclaim to be holy convocations, to offer an offering made by fire unto the LORD, a burnt offering, and a meat offering, a sacrifice, and drink offerings, every thing upon his day:
This is the entire point of all of the feast days to make an offering to the Lord in order to cleanse the individual, essentially to wipe away their sin, (Leviticus 1:1-4). You pointed out that Leviticus says we are to observe these feasts throughout our generations which is true. However, there is one big key point we need to take away.
The Feast Days Were A Statute
Please turn your Bible with me to,
Leviticus 23:14
And ye shall eat neither bread, nor parched corn, nor green ears, until the selfsame day that ye have brought an offering unto your God: it shall be a statute for ever throughout your generations in all your dwellings.
The Lord said four times in Leviticus 23 that we are to observe the feast days throughout our generations. However, the key point for us today is in each of these instances, God told us these were “statutes”. You can find these four instances in Leviticus 23:14, 21, 31, 41. The word “statute” is the same word as “ordinance”.
So what do we know about “statutes” and “ordinances”?
Jesus Became Our Offering
Please turn your Bible with me to,
Colossians 2:13
And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he quickened together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses.
How are we dead in our sins?
Through Jesus Christ who became our Passover Lamb, (1 Corinthians 5:7).
Colossians 2:14
Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross.
Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior took these “statutes”, these “ordinances” and nailed them to the Cross when He was sacrificed for us. Today, we no longer have to offer a sacrifice to God in order to be forgiven of our sins. All of those feast days were surrounded in blood sacrifice and offerings to the Lord. Jesus Christ became that offering for “once and all” time, (Hebrews 10:10).
God has, “Desired mercy, and not sacrifice; and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings”, (Hosea 6:6). Our Father simply wants our love. After all, we were created for God’s pleasure, (Revelation 4:11).
Blood Sacrifice Was A Shadow Of Christ
Turn your Bible with me to,
Colossians 2:16
Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holyday, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days.
Why?
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When Christ died on the Cross, He took away all things that were contrary to us.
Colossians 2:17
Which are a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ.
The feast days and sin offerings were merely a shadow, which means a precursor to Christ, and He simply came to fulfill these “statutes” and “ordinances”, (Matthew 5:17-18). I think we have laid the point, but we are going to take this just a bit further.
Without Sacrifice There Is No Remission Of Sin
“Almost all things are by the law purged with blood; and without shedding of blood is no remission”, (Hebrews 9:22). That was true then, and it is today, only Christ fulfilled this requirement for us, (see: Why Did Jesus Die For Us?).
Blood sacrifice was, “a figure for the time then present, in which were offered both gifts and sacrifices, that could not make him that did the service perfect, as pertaining to the conscience”, (Hebrews 10:9).
Why?
For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins.
Hebrews 10:4
They are simply animals. Only Christ’s Blood is worthy to wash away and cleanse us from our sins.
So why did our Father have blood sacrifice to begin with?
Blood Sacrifice Was Intended To Remind Us Of Our Sins
Please turn your Bible with me to,
Hebrews 10:1
For the law having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with those sacrifices which they offered year by year continually make the comers thereunto perfect.
Blood sacrifice was never intended to make one perfect.
Hebrews 10:2-3
2 For then would they not have ceased to be offered? because that the worshippers once purged should have had no more conscience of sins.3 But in those sacrifices there is a remembrance again made of sins every year.
Until it was time for Christ to lay His Life down for us, our Father had to have a way for people to put some price, some understanding on their sin.
By setting a date where the people had to stop their lives and actually take the best of their property, in this case, animals, and sacrifice them to the Lord, this stuck out in their mind and made an impression. Without some form of payment, the people would have no conscience of their sin.
Jesus Sacrifice Superseded All Sacrifice
Turn your Bible with me to,
Hebrews 9:14-15
14 How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?15 And for this cause he is the mediator of the new testament, that by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first testament, they which are called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance.
Christ’s sacrifice made is possible for all to obtain salvation.
Christ’s sacrifice removed the need for blood sacrifice. The sole purpose of the feast days was to set aside a day, where the people could offer a sacrifice to God in order to atone for their sins. Jesus Christ fulfilled all of that.
Hebrews 10:10
By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.
Amen.
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