JESUS THE PASSOVER FEAST
JESUS THE PASSOVER FEAST
JESUS THE REAL SHEAF OF FIRSTFRUITS
JESUS IS THE PURE WORD OF THE FEAST OF UNLEAVENED BREAD
Sunday, March 25, 2012
Pastor Carolyn Sissom
The Feast of Passover is the foundation of our whole Christian faith.
Our first meeting with Jesus took place at the foot of the cross. There we received forgiveness of sins through His BLOOD (Eph. 1:6-7). The Holy Spirit convinced us of our nature as sinners and our need of a Savior. The Passover Lamb was slain for us and we experienced our beginnings in God.
Ex. 12:2: “This month shall be unto you the beginning of months; it shall be the first month of the year to you.”
The Feast of Passover is the first month. (Lev. 23: 4-5)
1 Cor. 5: 7-8: “Get rid of the old yeast that you may be a new batch without yeast---as you really are. For Christ, our Passover Lamb has been sacrificed. Therefore let us keep the festival, not with the old yeast, the yeast of malice and wickedness, but with bread without yeast, the bread of sincerity and truth.”
1 Pet. 1: 18-19: “For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your forefathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, a Lamb without blemish or defect.”
We have been saved. Out spirits have been saved and have passed from death to life. We have been translated (transferred) out of the kingdom of darkness into the Kingdom of God (Col. 1: 9-13). We, the church of the firstborn have been delivered by the BLOOD of the Passover Lamb.
With the coming of the Passover festival, the head of the house would cleanse his house of all leaven. For seven days no leaven was to be seen in his house. All in the house must eat of the unleavened bread from the 1st day to the 7th day. Anyone found with leaven would be cut off.
It began the evening of the 14th day and lasted seven days. There was a complete separation from all things that are leavened:
1. Leaven of Herod Worldliness (Mk. 8:15; 6: 14-28)
2. Leaven of Sadducees Modernism (Mt. 16: 6-12; Mt. 3:7; Mk. 12:18)
3. Leaven of Pharisees Hypocrisy (Mt. 16: 6-12; Lk. 12:1; Mt. 23:3)
4. Leaven of Corinth Sensuality (1 Cor. 5: 1-13; 4: 18-19; 5:2; 8:1)
5. Leaven of Galatia Legalism (Ga. 5:9; mixture of law and grace)
We are to keep this feast in two ways (1 Cor. 5: 6-8):
- In sincerity---in clearness, purity; the opposite of the corrupting influences of impurity and hypocrisy. (Honesty)
- In truth---Truth; the opposite to lying and deceit. The opposite to the leaven of “malice and wickedness.”
To eat the unleavened bread is to eat a pure word:
- We keep this Feast when we put away all evil doctrine and evil practices. The sanctified (separated) life is the unleavened life, not allowing secret or corrupting influences of evil to puff up the believer in any area of his relationship to Christ, both Head and Body. (Gal. 5: 19-26; Eph. 4: 17-32; Col. 3: 1-17).
- We keep this Feast when we keep the Lord’s Supper (1 Cor. 10-11; Jn. 6). There is now a restoration of pure truth to the Body, causing us to live in genuine fellowship and communion with all the saints as we recognize and submit to one another (no sour-dough).
- For Israel, the keeping of the Feast meant a complete separation from Egypt’s (the world’s) gods, religion, bondage, food, works, and slavery, as well as its glory, wisdom and might. The putting away of leaven is the practical separation from all known evil, and all that has corrupting influence in the life of the believer.
The Feast of Unleavened Bread was an integral part of the Feast of Passover; so much so, that their titles were used interchangeably or almost synonymously.
There is no servile work in this Feast (we are sons). There will be no time for our bread to leaven if we leave Egypt in haste and press on to grow up into Him in all things.
The final part of the Feast of Passover is the Feast of the Sheaf of Firstfruits. It is fulfilled in 1 Cor. 15: 20-23 and speaks of the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
1 Cor. 15: 20-23: “But now Christ is risen from the dead, and became the firstfruits of them that slept. For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ all shall be made alive. But every man in his own order: Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ’s at his coming.”
Christ is the “Head” of the church, the “firstfruits” of them that slept. John revealed Him as the beginning (“chief”) of the new creation (Rev. 3:14). Our risen King is the antitype of the Old Testament “Sheaf of the Firstfruits” (Lev. 23: 9-14). This representative sheaf was a “forerunner” sheaf (Heb. 6: 19-20). Waved before the Father in His resurrection and ascension, Jesus was accepted for us (Jn. 20: 16-17); Eph. 1: 6-7). The Father gave His “best” when he gave Jesus. Our Savior is the “choice vine”. The apostle Peter described His Lord as “a living stone, disallowed indeed of men, but chosen of God, and precious” (1 Pet. 2:4).
When Israel eventually entered into the Promised Land, they were commanded to keep the Feast of Firstfruits (The Feast couldn’t be kept in the wilderness). It involved the Harvest period under Passover and Pentecost.
One lone sheaf was brought from the standing harvest (barley and wheat) and was called “the sheaf of the firstfuits.” The priest waved this sheaf before the Lord in His house on the “morrow after the Sabbath”. Burnt, meal, and drink offerings were also made. No one could eat of the bread or the roasted grain of the corn harvest until the sheaf of the firstfruits had been offered and accepted.
Jesus is the sheaf of the Firstfruits and a type of the overcomer.
There is a Leaven of the Pharisees teaching throughout churches today concerning the subject of firstfruits. Charlatans and profiteers are teaching people the firstfruits offering is to give them their first paycheck of the New Year or the first profits on a new business.
The Church is a called-out people for His name, the firstfruits of His creation (Acts 15: 14-18). The term “firstfruits” also speaks of the resurrection power of the new creation manifested as believers arise to walk in newness of life (Rom. 6:4). After the resurrection of Jesus (as recorded in the Book of Acts), 120, then 3,000, then 5,000 persons soon followed their heavenly Head and passed from death unto spiritual life (Jn. 5:24; Col. 1: 9-13).
The Sheaf of the firstfruits waved as part of the Passover feast is not the same as the Harvest of firstfruits of Pentecost. (Ex. 23:1`6; 34:22) or that which took place under the Pentecost harvest, for this sheaf was a forerunner sheaf.
This representative Sheaf was soon followed by others. (Mt. 27: 52-53). The term firstfruits also speak of the resurrection life and power of the new creation walking in newness of life.
There were offerings that accompanied the Sheaf of the firstfruits: (1) a lamb for a burnt offering; (2) flour mingled with oil; (3) the fourth part of a hin of wine.
The Lamb (His death) and the Sheaf (His resurrection); also, the bread and wine, typifying the Lord’s Supper in which the believer remembers Jesus’ death and resurrection.
Israel could not partake of the fruit of Canaan until after the Sheaf had been waved. We cannot partake of the blessings of God apart from the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ (death, burial, resurrection, ascension).
We refer to the Harvest as “Bringing in the Sheaves”.
The New Testament experience was described by Paul as the “firstfruits” of the Spirit and the “earnest” of our inheritance (Rom. 8:23; Eph. 1: 13-14). Believers are to tithe their substance (Mal 3: 8-12), bringing unto the Lord the “firstfruits” of all their increase (Prov. 3:9). God’s end-time church will be full of overcomers, the “firstfruits” unto God and the Lamb (Rev. 14: 1-5).
“That which matures early; the choice part; the tithe”. The green ears of Lev. 23:14 reveal a need of further maturity. We must not stop with these first three Feasts. There is more:
The Feast of Pentecost: The Holy Spirit—Jesus fulfilled the Law; He is the anointed One; filled with the Holy Spirit; Church in His Body; we must discern the Body of Christ.
The Feast of Tabernacles: The Glory of God
(a) The Feast of Trumpets---Jesus was the clear sounding living Word. Leaving Pentecost to enter tabernacles; the call to maturity (high calling); the call to grow up and do warfare in the heavenlies, a decision day. Anointed ministries in the church announce the preparing of God’s army. The beginning awareness of the third dimension (the Holy of Holies and the fullness of God).
(b) The Feast Day of Atonement---Jesus is the High Priest who atoned for man. He is the Scapegoat and the Lord’s goat; He put away sin, sickness, poverty, and death. The Baptism of fire; stepping beyond the rent veil by a firstfruits company of sons. A time of great sifting and testing for the church; prepare to experientially put away sin, sickness, poverty, and death.
(c) The Feast of Tabernacles. --- The Glory of God; Jesus in all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. He is Lord in this feast; He intercedes for this great day of unity. He was the Booth in which the Father lived and moved and had His being; the full adoption and the redemption of the body; a full grown son of God in the image of Jesus; a tabernacle for all the fullness of God; the entering of the rest of God; the fullness of the Kingdom of God’s people ruling and reigning with Jesus Christ; the appearing of Jesus Christ (Second Coming); walking and ministering in resurrection life (immortality); The Tabernacle of God is with men and God has come to dwell with them (Rev. 21: 1-3).
The Church of the Firstborn has been delivered by the BlOOD of the Passover Lamb which is the foundation of the Christian faith, but there is more.
Carolyn Sissom, Pastor
Eastgate Ministries, Inc.
Scripture from K.J.V.; Text from Principles of Present Truth from Leviticus by: Kelly Varner.