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The Holy Days God gave to Israel are completely fulfilled by TLJC cont...

Since we are in the Easter Season that started with the vernal equinox on March 20 that was followed by the new moon on March 26, for the past several lessons we have been studying the Jewish Calendar and Holy Days that are Regulated by the Moon and Stars that are used to determine the time of our Lord's crucifixion, burial, and resurrection that we celebrate on Easter that is more accurately known as Resurrection Sunday.

We have seen that the Spring Feasts that relate to the First Advent of TLJC are:

Passover (Pesach): Nisan 14, this year is on Wednesday (April 8, 2009) (the crucifixion of TLJC)

Unleavened Bread: Nisan 15. This year is on Thursday (April 9, 2009)

First Fruits: Nisan 18. This year is on Sunday (April 12, 2009) (the celebration of the resurrection of TLJC)

Pentecost (Shabuoth): Sivan 6, this year on Sunday (May 31, 2009) (The Holy Spirit was sent, beginning the Church age)

Picking up where we left off last time where we were discussing the impeccability of TLJC as described by the Latin phrases "non pose peccare" and "pose non peccare" and the judicial imputation of the sins of the whole world to TLJC on the cross.

Our Lord's maintenance of His impeccability was absolutely necessary if He was to be qualified to be our substitute on the cross.

When our sins were imputed to Him because there was no antecedence he did not become a sinner Himself, but He was punished for our sins and those of the entire human race.

This punishment belonged to us but He voluntarily accepted this punishment in our place. These principles are stated with absolute clarity in Scripture:

1John 3:5; indeed, you know that He was revealed in order that He might carry our sins. In fact, sin is not in Him.

1Peter 2:24; It is Christ Himself who carried our sins in His own body on the cross, in order that we might die to sin and live to righteousness, for by His bruises (literal bruising at the trials and on the cross) you were healed (made free from the judgment of sin).

2Cor 5:21; For He (God the Father) made Him (Jesus Christ in His true humanity) Who knew no sin (impeccability) to become sin as a substitute for us (atonement-He became sin on our behalf) for the purpose that we might become once and for all the righteousness which belongs to God through Him (Jesus Christ).

Since Christ paid the penalty for sin, the justice of God, without compromising divine integrity is free to impute God's righteousness to everyone who believes, at the moment they believe in Jesus Christ.

This faith consists of the personal belief that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God as the Word of God reveals to us.

The substitutionary aspect of our Lord's work on the cross is brought out by a prepositional phrase that appears in a number of New Testament passages; the preposition: " huper " plus the genitive of advantage found in the object of the preposition.

This construction is substitutionary and we will include this grammatical rule in the translation of 2Cor 5:14; - Love for Christ ("he agape tou Christou": reciprocal love: the word in the genitive case Christ receives the action implied by the noun of action love) keeps on motivating us and sustaining us ("sunecho": to sustain; to be occupied with) because we have reached this conclusion, namely that if He died spiritually ("huper " plus the genitive plural of advantage from "pas " as a substitute for everyone, therefore everyone was spiritually dead

v15 In fact He died as a substitute for everyone in order that they who believe should no longer live for the benefit of themselves but for Him who died ("huper" plus the genitive plural of advantage from "autos ") as a substitute for them and rose again (the believer's reciprocal love for Christ motivates them to desire to serve and worship Him ).

v16 From now on we know no man after the flesh ( since Christ died as a substitute for all, reciprocity requires believers to have unconditional love for all mankind ). Though we have known Christ after the flesh ( from human standards ) yet now we know Him no more ( from human viewpoint ).

2Cor 5:17; Therefore, if anyone is in union with Christ, he is a new spiritual species ( baptism of the Holy Spirit into the body of Christ ). Old things ( spiritual death; negative righteousness; and slavery to the sinful nature ) have lost their power. Behold, new things ( the four spiritual mechanics of the spiritual life; God's perfect righteousness, and eternal life ) have come into existence.

v18 And all these things are from God, who has reconciled us ( removed the barrier of sin ) to Himself through Jesus Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation ( Our obligation as witnesses is to serve as ambassadors for Christ in the Devil's world by proclaiming the message of reconciliation: Christ has solved the sin problem resulting in peace between man and God ),

v19 namely, that God was, in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them, and he has committed to us the word of reconciliation.

Jesus Christ received the imputation and judgment of every sin, therefore, sin is not an issue. Faith alone in TLJC is the only issue since Personal sins are not imputed to anyone but Christ based on the doctrine of unlimited atonement.

2Cor 5:20; Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ...

(The perception of doctrine is the primary responsibility of the believer in their royal priesthood; the application of doctrine is the primary responsibility of the believer in their royal ambassadorship. Believers represent Jesus Christ on earth; He represents believers in heaven. As believers function in the spiritual life they are representing TLJC. )

...as though God were making His appeal through us (we are witnesses for Christ). We on behalf of Christ beg you to be reconciled to God!

v21 For He ( God the Father ) made Him ( Jesus Christ in His true humanity ) Who knew no sin ( impeccability ) to become sin as a substitute for us ( "huper" plus the genitive plural of advantage from "ego"; He became sin on our behalf ) for the purpose that we might become once and for all the righteousness which belongs to God through Him ( Jesus Christ ).

Since Christ paid the penalty for sin, the justice of God, without compromising divine integrity, can impute the righteousness of God to every believer at the moment of faith in Christ.

The impeccability of Jesus Christ and the imputation of divine righteousness to the believer are both antitypes of the unleavened bread.

The eating of the unleavened bread was a reminder that the true humanity of the Messiah was qualified to be the true Lamb of God that would take away the sin of the world.

Because of His impeccability, our Lord was able to perfectly execute the prototype spiritual life of the Incarnation and those who believe in Him receive through imputation, the righteousness of God because they have been redeemed by the substitutionary work of Christ on the cross.

The imputation of divine righteousness follows the pattern that was applied to Abram in: Gen15:6; Abram had believed in the Lord and the Lord imputed this faith to Abram for righteousness.

There are only four words in the Hebrew of Gen 15:6. First is the word that tells us Abram believed in Jesus Christ for eternal salvation:

The Hiphil perfect of the Hebrew word "aman" indicates that Abram had already believed prior to the events that are recorded in Genesis 15.

This means that Abram believed in his home country of Ur of the Chaldees and was then motivated by the Lord to leave his homeland and move out to a place God promised to reveal to him as recorded in Gen 12:1; Now the Lord said to Abram, "Go forth from your country and from your relatives and from your father's house to the land which I will show you.

The second word in Gen 15:6; is the proper noun for the Lord Jesus Christ as he was known in the OT "YHWH"

This is called the Tetragrammaton. It is translated from the Hebrew as Yahweh and transliterated into the English as "Jehovah" However, the Jews would not verbalize the name of God, therefore, when they encountered the noun Yahweh in Scripture they would pronounce it Adonai, which means, "Lord."

Next comes the key word of the passage the Qal stem of the Hebrew verb "chashav" that means to "to impute", "to make a judgment" or "to account"

The Hebrew verb "Chashav" refers to a judicial imputation whereby the sovereignty of God credits to the account of the believer His own perfect righteousness. This Righteousness is only imputed to those whose presalvation sins are forgiven as a result of faith alone in Christ alone.

Paul confirms this in: Rom 4:3: But what does the Scripture ( the Old Testament ) say? ( Gen15:6 ) "Abraham believed the Lord and it was credited to his account ( a judicial imputation ) as righteousness."

The final word in Gen 15:6; is the Hebrew word "sadeq" that means divine righteousness or that which does not deviate from the standard.

When applied to God "sadeq" refers to divine righteousness, which is the ultimate standard for conduct.

The Hebrew text of Gen 15:6; only contains these four words:

sadeq chashav YHWH Aman
to him He (God) in the He (Abram)
for +R. imputed Lord had believed


At the moment of salvation Abram received the judicial imputation of divine righteousness. In the Church Age believers are simultaneously imputed the operational spiritual life that was utilized by TLJC during the Incarnation.

With these assets and under the enabling power and mentorship of the Holy Spirit, the believer is enabled by God to execute the Christian way of life through the application of the divine standards revealed in Scripture.

The unleavened bread is therefore a type for the impeccability of the true humanity of Jesus Christ in the Incarnation and the imputed righteousness of the believer in the Church Age.

In addition, the unleavened bread also represents the perfection of our Lord's resurrection body as well as the perfection of the resurrection bodies of believers in every dispensation.

Therefore, the typology of Unleavened Bread applies simultaneously in two ways in two areas. It teaches the impeccability of our Lord's human body and His resurrection body and it refers to the imputation of divine righteousness to believers at salvation and the availability to them of the operational divine power system and their resurrection bodies at the Exit Resurrection or Rapture of the Church.

A good synopsis of these types plus an interesting additional insight are provided in the book entitled "The Feasts of the Lord" by Kevin Howard and Marvin Rosenthal. On pages 68-70:

Sin is often pictured as leaven in Scripture. Leaven is well-suited as a picture of sin since it rapidly permeates the dough, souring it, and contaminating it. In fact, this souring process (the first stage of decay) is operative solely because of the curse of death decreed by God when Adam sinned.

The prophetic meaning of the Feast of Unleavened Bread is found in the work of the Messiah. Passover pictures the substitutionary death of the Messiah as the Passover Lamb, the Feast of Unleavened Bread pictures the burial of the Messiah.

The Hebrew prophets foretold a day when the Messiah would be a sacrifice for sin. He would be the Lamb offered up by God as the once-for-all sacrifice. But the Hebrew prophets also spoke of Messiah's amazing burial. The Messiah was a pure, sinless (without leaven) sacrifice. He died not for His own transgressions, but for ours (He was innocent and impeccable), we are guilty.

There is further significance surrounding the burial of the Messiah in that His body did not return to dust. King David prophesied in: Psalm 16:10 - For You will not abandon My soul ( the Hebrew word nepesh ) to Sheol (the Hebrew word Sheol is equivalent to the Greek word "Hades" and in this context refers to the Paradise section of Hades where believer's souls went when they died before TLJC was resurrected), neither will You allow Your Holy One to undergo decay ( the Hebrew word "shahat" refers to decay in death).

David's body did decay (as has the body of every other person who has died in history), but the Messiah's body did not. The sons of Adam are sinners under the divine curse of Gen 3:19;b "For you are dust and to dust you shall return."

As a pure, sinless sacrifice, the Messiah was not under the curse to return to dust. Therefore, the Messiah came forth from the grave on the third day that is celebrated on Resurrection Sunday aka Easter.

The Messiah fulfilled the Feast of Unleavened Bread in that He was a pure, sinless (without leaven) sacrifice. The body of the Messiah was not permitted to decay in the grave (like dough soured by leaven), but was brought forth because He was not a sinner under the curse of death and decay.

The secondary application of the Feast of Unleavened Bread is also addressed by Howard and Rosenthal in their book "The Feasts of the Lord" on pages 70-72:

For believers who have, by faith, accepted the sacrifice of the Passover Lamb, Passover is past history. The deliverance by Messiah, the true Passover Lamb, has already been experienced in their lives.

They are now living in the Feast of Unleavened Bread where purity and separation from leaven are to be the rule for the believer's life.

Paul taught in Romans 6 that the believer is no longer under the power and dominion of sin referring to the OSN. It's power it has been broken. The believer is no longer a helpless slave to the OSN but rather chooses to sin when he is drawn away by his own lust.

The tragedy is that far too few believers realize this truth. They continue to be duped by the kosmos and the OSN into thinking and acting as if sin is still the evil taskmaster that they are obliged to obey.

In God's sight we are now unleavened or justified and pure because of the imputation of divine righteousness and are called to lives that correspond to that imputation.

When the Lord instituted the original Passover in Egypt He indicated that the Israelites were to continue to keep the evening meal as a memorial feast as a reminder of the event.

Exod 12:8; "They shall eat the flesh of the lamb that same night ( Nisan 15 ) roasted with fire, and they shall eat it with unleavened bread and bitter herbs."
v 14 "Now this day will be a memorial to you and you shall celebrate it as a feast to the Lord; throughout your generations you are to celebrate it as a permanent ordinance."
v 17 "You shall also observe the Feast of Unleavened Bread, for on this very day I brought your hosts out of the land of Egypt; therefore you shall observe this day throughout your generations as a permanent ordinance."
v 24 "You shall observe this event as an ordinance for you and your children forever.
v 25 "And it will come about when you enter the land which the Lord will give you, as He has promised, that you shall observe this rite.
Exos 12:26; "And it shall come about when your children will say to you, 'What does this rite mean to you?'
v 27 that you shall say, 'It is a Passover sacrifice to the Lord who passed over the houses of the sons of Israel in Egypt when He smote the Egyptians but spared our homes.'" And the people bowed low and worshiped.
v 28 Then the sons of Israel went and did so; just as the Lord had commanded Moses and Aaron, so they did.

The Israelites kept the first Passover feast on the Evening of Nisan 15, 1441 b.c. Inside their homes the blood of the substitutionary sacrificial lamb on the doorposts protected each first born that was inside.

The first recorded observance of the Passover meal following the Exodus is recorded in: Num 9:1; Thus the Lord spoke to Moses in the wilderness of Sinai, in the first month of the second year after they had come out of the land of Egypt, saying,
v 2 "Now let the sons of Israel observe the Passover at its appointed time (the Hebrew word "moed", the same word that we have seen in Genesis 1:14 ;where it is translated "seasons" )."
v 4 So Moses told the sons of Israel to observe the Passover.
v 5 And they observed the Passover in the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month, at twilight, in the wilderness of Sinai; according to all that the Lord had commanded Moses, so the sons of Israel did.

There is no other occasion recorded in the Pentateuch where the Israelites observed the Passover while they were wandering in the wilderness However, the Israelites of the second generation did keep it as soon as they entered Canaan. This observance was marked by the end of the Lord's divine provision of manna.

Josh 5:10; While the sons of Israel camped at Gilgal, they observed the Passover on the evening of the fourteenth day of the month on the desert plains of Jericho.
v 11 And on the day after the Passover, on that very day, they ate some of the produce of the land, unleavened cakes and parched grain.
v 12a And the manna ceased on the day after they had eaten some of the produce of the land.

The Passover was observed under the rulership of the Judges all the way down to Samuel. Following Samuel, there is no reference to it until King Josiah in 622 b.c.

2Chr 35:17; Thus the sons of Israel who were present celebrated the Passover at that time and the Feast of Unleavened Bread seven days.
v 18 And there had not been celebrated a Passover like it in Israel since the days of Samuel the prophet; nor had any of the kings of Israel celebrated such a Passover as Josiah did with the priests, the Levites, all Judah and Israel who were present, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem.
v 19 In the eighteenth year of Josiah's reign ( c. 622 b.c. ) this Passover was celebrated.

After the reign of Josiah we have no other Old Testament reference about the observance of the Passover in Judah until after the restoration of the Temple following the Babylonian captivity.
Ezra 6:19; The exiles observed the Passover on the fourteenth of the first month.
v 20 For the priests and the Levites had purified themselves together; all of them were pure. Then they slaughtered the Passover lamb for all the exiles, both for their brothers the priests and for themselves.
v 21 And the sons of Israel who returned from exile and all those who had separated themselves from the impurity of the nations of the land to join them, to seek the Lord God of Israel, ate the Passover.
v 22 And they observed the Feast of Unleavened Bread seven days with joy …

It can only be assumed that the Jews continued to observe the feasts at the newly completed Temple in Jerusalem down to our Lord's day since observances of Passover are recorded in the New Testament Gospels.

The Talmud, the rabbinic commentary on the Torah made up of two books, the Mishna and the Gemara records rabbinical instruction regarding its observance.

The Mishna is divided into six orders, each order organized into dissertations. The second order of Mishna is called Moed, "seasons" or "festivals." Its third dissertation, called Pesachim, deals exclusively with observance of the Passover.

In the Mishna and from first-century Jewish historian, Josephus, we find evidence that following completion of the second Temple the Jews were devoted to observing the Feasts until the nation was destroyed by Rome in a.d. 70.

However, once the Romans destroyed the Temple it was impossible to carry out the animal sacrifices according to the procedures found in the Mosaic Law. As a result, the Jews were faced with developing a method of observing the Passover without sacrificial lambs.

The way that the Jews eventually came to celebrate the Passover following the destruction of the city and the Temple involves a sequence of events that results in the present-day Seder meal containing hidden Gospel messages, which reveal Jesus Christ as their long-anticipated Messiah.

Given the types that are portrayed, it is useful for us to compare The Lord's Table with the Jewish Seder.

Information on this can be found in the book "The Feasts of the Lord" by Kevin Howard and Marvin Rosenthal. on pages, 51-62. and in "The Mystery in the Passover Seder." by Solomon Birnbaum, on pages , 1-3.

The Jewish Seder is served on the evening of Nisan 15. Passover will occur in the year 2009 in the evening of April 8. Remember that by Jewish time, the new day begins at sundown so the 15th day would start at sundown on the 14th.

As the family is seated, the father sits at the head of the dinner table. The youngest member of the family is seated to his right and to his left is the guest of honor.

The modern observance begins with the prayer of sanctification called the "Kiddush" followed by the first of four cups of wine. The prayer includes the following:

Blessed art Thou, O Lord our God, King of the universe, Who creates the fruit of the vine. Blessed art Thou, O Lord our God, Who has chosen us for Your service from among the nations. Blessed art Thou, O Lord our God, King of the universe, Who has kept us in life, Who has preserved us, and has enabled us to reach this season.

The Seder begins this way in every Jewish household that celebrates the Passover today but it is not based on the institution of the meal that is described in Exodus.

In the biblically ordained Passover there are only three elements: the roasted Passover Lamb called Pesach, the Unleavened Bread called matzo, and bitter herbs, called Moror.

From its institution in 1441 b.c. until the first century a.d. the Passover was never observed with wine.

However, at what the New Testament calls the Last Supper we do find wine, in fact there apparently were four cups drunk during the event described in the Gospels.

There was a cup drunk to start the meal just mentioned in association with the prayer of sanctification. The fourth was drunk at the end of the meal. The second and third were consumed during the meal.

Our Lord is recorded as the One who offered the Kiddush at the last Passover in:
Luke 22:17; And when He had taken a cup and given thanks, He said, "Take this and share it among yourselves."

 

© Copyright 2007, Michael Lemmon Bible Ministries. World Rights Reserved.  This document was created on 4/1/2009