Blog #8 Pictures of Pentecost
The Lord gave eight Feasts of Israel, or holy convocations, to the nation of Israel through Moses. In Leviticus 23, God says to Moses, “These are My feasts.” And He gives instructions for how to follow each of them: Sabbath, Passover, Unleavened bread, First Fruits, Pentecost (all for the spring), and the fall feasts were Trumpets, Day of Atonement and Tabernacles. Sabbath was declared a day of solemn rest celebrated each week beginning on sundown on Friday and lasting twenty-four hours. Passover, unleavened bread and first fruits were fulfilled with the first advent of Christ in His death, burial and resurrection, as was the Feast of Pentecost when the church was revealed to the world in Acts chapter two. Next to Passover, Pentecost is the most important feast in the Old Testament that had a literal fulfillment in the New Testament. In the Jewish tradition, Pentecost represents the time, fifty days after the Jewish nation came out of Egypt and God met them at Mount Sinai where He gave the law to Moses and the people.
The New Testament reveals that Christ has become our Passover (1 Corinthians 5:7). He proclaimed Himself to be the bread of life (John 6:35,41,48 &49). He was without sin (2Corinthinans 5:21) and as leaven represents sin in the Bible, even so, Jesus was sinless, and when we put our faith and trust in Him, He takes away our sin, our leaven, and we become unleavened and our sins are removed in Christ. Therefore, Jesus fulfills the feast of unleavened bread.
Likewise, Christ has fulfilled the feast of first fruits: 1 Corinthians 15:20 proclaims, “But now Christ is risen from the dead, and has become the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep.” When we are “in Christ” we also enter in and celebrate the feast of first fruits as His resurrection from the dead fulfilled this feast (1 Corinthians 15:23).
This brings us to the feast of Pentecost. This feast first occurred on the fiftieth day after the children of Israel came out ot slavery in Egypt. On this day, the law was given to Moses on Mount Sinai. The finger of God wrote the law on the tablets of stone (Exodus 31:18). When the church was birthed, some 1440 years later, the Holy Spirit was poured out and the law was written on the hearts of man (2 Corinthians 3:2-3).
When the first Pentecost occurred at Mt. Sinai, it was a fearful experience for the people of Israel. We are told that there was thundering and lightning, a thick cloud on the mountain which the Lord descended on in fire, and the sound of the trumpet was very loud and all the people in the camp trembled (Exodus 19:16). When Moses spoke, the voice of God was also heard. The word for voice is plural and according to rabbis, there were seventy nations in the earth at that time and the voice of God went our in the languages of those seventy nations so that the law of God was proclaimed to all the nations of the earth.
In a similar fashion, when the Holy Spirit came on the day of Pentecost, there was a sound from heaven, as of a rushing mighty wind, and divided tongues of fire rested on each person and each one began to speak with other tongues, or other voices as the Spirit gave utterance (Acts 2:2-4). All of the nations represented at the feast heard the word of God in their own tongue. They heard of the wonderful works of God (Acts 2:11). Sixteen nations are listed in the verses given so that the word of God was proclaimed to each nation that was present.
Even so, in this day and age in which you and I live, the Holy Spirit is still being poured out on all who will put their faith and trust in the finished work of Christ and receive, by faith, the Holy Spirit of promise. Luke 11:13 states, “If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him.”
The apostle Paul, in his letter to the church of Galatia instructs his readers that, “Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us in order that the blessings of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles in Christ Jesus, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith” (Galatians 3:13-14) for the just shall live by faith (Galatians 3:11b).
Even as we receive Christ and His salvation by faith, it is also by faith that we receive the Holy Spirit in our lives that we may be established in our faith and that we become empowered to proclaim that Jesus is Lord, to the glory of God the Father (Philippians 2:11). As one pastor put it when asked about receiving the Holy Spirit, “You pray and wait and keep praying believing in faith that you will receive in God’s timing.” When we open our hearts to the Lord and His word, He is faithful to keep His promises and to reveal Himself to each of us in the power of His Spirit.