What It Means to be Filled with the Holy Spirit # 7

"And When The Day of Pentecost Was Fully Come" (continued)

In the Old Testament, the Day of Pentecost is called the Feast of Weeks or the Feast of Harvest or the Feast of Firstfruits, and it was to be celebrated and observed yearly by God's people (Exodus 23:14-17; Leviticus 23:15-22). In Leviticus 23, the Lord declared there were to be certain days and periods of time dedicated unto Him, and verse four states that these Feasts are the Feasts of the Lord:

"These are the Feasts of the Lord [the festal times of Jehovah], which ye shall proclaim to be holy convocations [holy meetings], even these are My Feasts [these are they - My appointed seasons], these are the Feasts of the Lord ... which ye shall proclaim in their seasons [at the times appointed for them]."

The Lord is saying, "These Feasts, these appointed seasons, are My Feasts; they are the Divinely appointed times and seasons which are sanctified unto Me." The three great Feasts are: 1. The Passover; 2. The Feast of Pentecost; and 3. The Feast of Tabernacles (or Ingathering). All the other yearly feasts were celebrated in connection with these three great Feasts of the Lord.

So the Word of God tells us that these Feasts were called "the Feasts of Jehovah" because the time and seasons were appointed and fixed by the Lord Himself. These feasts were not appointed because the feasts were to become a calendar event, or that they belonged to times regulated by the course of the moon, or by growing seasons, etc.; but these Feasts were called "the Feasts of Jehovah" because the Lord had appointed them as days, or times, which were to be sanctified to Him. Thus, they were called "My Feasts" because the Lord Jehovah, the Eternal One - He Who Was, and Is, and Ever Shall Be - appointed unto Him. And each Feast pointed to the "appointed time" in His Eternal Plan when they would be perfectly and completely fulfilled by Christ, and in Christ.

Now just as the Cross, the Resurrection, and the Ascension of the Lord Jesus took place in time, exactly at God's appointed time, so did "the Day of Pentecost" actually take place in time, exactly at God's appointed time. However, when the Word says, "And when the Day of Pentecost was completed," it was not only speaking of a day in man's way of marking time, but it was speaking of A Day In The Lord. It was speaking of a divinely appointed "Day" in God's Eternal Purpose, a "Day" that was appointed before time began. And on this Eternal Day, "the Day of Pentecost," the Lord completed one of the most important portions of His Plan: the Church was baptized in the Spirit. "...When the Day of Pentecost was fully come" the Church, the whole Church (past, present, and future), was empowered to become the Fullness of Christ.

Now the next thing we need to see is that "the Day of Pentecost" is not just a "Day" unto itself, an appointed time unto itself; for the "Day of Pentecost" is the fulfillment and the consummation of that which began with "the Feast of the Passover." "The Day of Pentecost" is the consummate result of The Passover - the Day of Pentecost is the Consummate result of the Cross, the Resurrection, and the Ascension of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

The very name "Pentecost" verifies this, for the word "Pentecost" means the fiftieth [day]; and the Day of Pentecost was so called because it was celebrated on the fiftieth day.The Day of Pentecost was calculated from the second day of unleavened bread, from the day of the offering of the sheaf, the wave offering, which prefigured the Resurrection of Christ. "The Day of Pentecost" gives the number fifty its fullest and greatest meaning in the Bible, for in its connection with "the Day of Pentecost" the fiftieth day means: the result of the perfect consummation of time.

~T. Austin-Sparks~

(continued with # 8)