Brother Paul
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In the time of Moses, we see even more 1rst and 8th day connections to Messiah. Surely one of the most apparent Messianic connections we know of comes to us as part of the story of the Passover. Messiah Himself being our Lamb of sacrifice, who‘s blood being applied causes the condemnation of God to pass us over. In most Jewish homes, they recognize Passover as a sort of eight day feast. The first day is Passover proper, and it is a day of rest (a shabbat), and a day of holy convocation, a day memorializing death to that darkness which held them bound, and an introduction into newness of life, i.e., a new beginning, a redeemed relationship with God. The blood symbolizing the satisfaction of the demand for death as the price of sin (Romans 6:23). The lamb becomes an atoning sacrifice that the entire family, in fact one the entire household partakes of (whosoever will may come). Bitter herbs were eaten in memory of the bitterness of bondage. As a day of unleavened bread, the afikimon, a specially appointed bread, is broken for us, wrapped in a cloth and buried or hid in a linen cloth, and when this bread is resurrected from it’s burial, a shared “cup of redemption” or blessing is to follow!
The next day is also a type of first day. It is the official first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, and is also a day of rest, and a day of holy convocation, and is likewise a day of new beginnings, a chance to enter into God‘s promise of Messiah the unleavened (sinless) bread of life. For only He was without sin in this world (unleavened). We as Messiah-folk partake of this unleavened bread, called the Eucharist, as symbolic of the memorial (zachor) of the sacrifice of the Lamb of God, and of the wine in remembrance of the blood that was shed for us. Together within us they become as the risen Christ. Only those who would pass through the waters of the Red Sea and were circumcised, in our congregations being the baptized, we are allowed to partake of this Bread.
The Feast of First Fruits follows, which is thus also a 1st day following a 7th sabbath, when the sheaves are waved and is the same day upon which Messiah rose from the dead. In the time of Jesus this was a first day/an eighth day, as pertains to the days of a weekly cycle, just as it was in the time of Moses.
Finally the eighth day of the feast of unleavened bread, is also counted as a day of rest (shabbat), and a day of holy convocation. Herein, the eighth day, which is a first day, is also a shabbat, as was the first day, and both days, are days of Messianic importance, and reflect yet another way that God has represented Himself as being “with” us (God with us being a shem or name that Messiah will be known by). Messiah’s second and further post resurrection appearances to His disciples all occurred on 1st days.
The first day of the counting of the Omer, or sheaves, begins on the Feast of First Fruits, on the day following after the Passover, and Unleavened Bread sabbaths. When this was first instituted, it was instituted to take place on a first day. In the 8th week following the shed blood of the lamb at Passover, having passed through the waters of the Red Sea, the Torah was given on a 1st day of the week. The LORD was again “with them“ at this time as well. This is significant because it places the giving of the Law, i.e., the coming light as it was written in stone, as coming around the same time as Shavuot, or Pentecost, the latter First Fruits and was later the same day the Spirit anointed the Church as His communal body (Jew and Gentile one in Messiah), This was also on the 1st day of the 8th week following the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ.
In the Law of the Omer, the Lord commanded the children of Israel, and all that went out with them, to count 7 cycles of 7 Sabbaths, and on the first day of the eighth week, which was also an eighth day, the day following the seventh 7th day Sabbath, the Church arrived at Shavuot. The Christians have named it "Pentecost" meaning 50! As indicated, it is also a type of later First Fruits (thus a type of the Reusurrection), that of the wheat, and in the New Testament, Messiah is the fulfillment of the earlier Feast of First Fruits, while on this latter date, after the shedding of the blood of God's Lamb, accompanied by the initial outpouring of the Spirit, referred to elsewhere as a fountain of living waters (John 7:37,38) upon the 120 disciples in the upper room, is the celebration of the first fruits of the Church. This 50th day, like the giving of the Law for Israel, represents for the birth, or 1st day, of the Church. It was the 1st day of a new order. With the outpouring and infilling of the Holy Spirit (a new life), the Torah's light was now being written on our hearts, and through our baptism by the Holy Spirit we were incorporated into the body of Messiah. Messiah, and the children of faith forever became echad (one), and from then on “God” was/is “with us” in a whole new way. This remembrance and celebration of Pentecost memorializes that a movement into a new beginning for mankind, “in Messiah“, has occurred! We each have entered into a new order of being (eternal and yet temporal) through the Lord's second Adam. This is no less than the Eternal Himself entering into the realm of temporal time, and is our initiation into a restored relationship with God the Father (adoption as His children), an officiating of redemption for our sin obtained by the giving of the Son, and a liberation from bondage to the dead letter of the Law, and an entrance by the Spirit of the Law, into the ‘promised land’ of the Kingdom of His dear Son, even eternal life, and much, much more, having occurred in shocking fulfillment of the Law and the Prophets on this yet other significant 1st day. Hallelujah! What a mighty God we serve!
The importance of this idea of a ‘new first following a seventh day’ theme is reiterated in the Feast of Tabernacles as well. The feast of Tabernacles, or Booths as it is sometimes called, is also an 8 day long observance of Messianic significance. First it represented a time when the children of Israel dwelt in booths in the wilderness, while the Glory of God (the Shechinah) was "with them". Therefore, it is likewise yet another celebration of “God with us“, which again is the Shem of the Messiah (Isaiah 7:14), and a thanksgiving for His provision in the latter Harvest. When the actual Tabernacle (Mi'shkan) proper was being constructed, there were included eight spices to be displayed, eight poles (two for the Ark, two for the table, two for the golden altar, and two for the copper altar), there were eight musical instruments which included human voice (for the sacrifice of our lips), and there were eight days to the feast. There were seven days of dedication and preparation and, then on the 8th day (Shemini Atzeret, a type of 1st day), the Kevod-YHVH (the Glory of God) would appear (the Shekinah), and tabernacle or dwell (shakan) among them, and on the 8th day, God was indeed "with“ them. Now the Scripture tells us that the first day of the feast, as well as the eighth day, which is also a type of first day, are days of rest (shabbat), and days of holy convocation unto the Lord. Messiah Y’shua, as revealed in John 1, is the very Creator (the Memra of the Targums rendered Logos in the Greek) “tabernacling” among us (the word “dwelt” in the Greek is “Skeenoo” which is to pitch tent). Messiah being the brightness of His Glory, the visible image of the invisible God, the fallen Tabernacle of David restored, raised up as it were makes Jesus the Tabernacle of God not made with hands, in who’s image we are made, God dwelling in each of us.
Brother Paul
Posts: 235 | From: Cambridge, MA | Registered: Dec 2009
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