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No.7.
Cloven Tongues Like as of Fire
(Acts 2: 3).
pp. 25 - 30
The Lord Jesus Christ was "the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world"
(John 1: 29). He "who knew no sin" was made sin on account of us "that we might be
made the righteousness of God in Him" (II Cor. 5: 21). "The wages of sin is death" but
He received those wages on Calvary's Cross so that the "free gift of God, eternal life
through Jesus Christ our Lord" may be open to all (Rom. 6: 23). "Even the
righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all them that believe"
(Romans 3: 22).
Speaking of that great act, Paul said "Christ our passover is sacrificed for us"
(I.Cor.v.7). He fulfilled that passover which was instituted when the Israelites were in
Egypt many centuries earlier. As a last resort to make Pharaoh let the people of Israel go,
God was to strike dead the firstborn males in all the land but the Israelites were ordered
to sacrifice a lamb and to sprinkle its blood on the lintel and two side posts of the doors
of their houses.
"And the blood shall be to you for a token upon the houses where ye are: and when I
see the blood, I will pass over you, and the plague shall not be upon you to destroy you,
when I smite the land of Egypt" (Exod. 12: 13).
The people obeyed and in perfect safety fed upon the lamb whilst under the shelter of
the blood. After they had left Egypt and had crossed the Red Sea, the law was given to
them through Moses and part of this law was that they had to keep the Passover feast
(Lev. 23: 4-8). This was held on the fourteenth day of the first month, Abib--later
known as Nisan.
Leviticus 23: 15-21 records that fifty days afterwards there was the feast of weeks.
A new meat (meal) offering of two loaves baked with leaven was offered; also seven
lambs, one bullock and two rams for a burnt offering were to accompany the meat and
drink offerings, "even an offering made by fire, of sweet savour unto the Lord"
(Lev.xxiii.18). Also there was to be a kid of the goats for a sin offering and two lambs
for a peace offering (verse 19). It was proclaimed a holy convocation in which no servile
work was to be done. It was a day of universal rejoicing before the Lord (Deut.xvi.9-12).
Some commentators suggest that this feast marked the commencement of the ingathering
of the harvest but Deut. 16: 10, and other passages, imply that the harvest started just
after the wave offering of Lev. 23: 9-14 and so the feast of weeks marked the end of
that harvest.
A detailed study of Lev. 23: is most edifying as all the feasts described were
prophetic of some aspect of God's great plan centred in our Lord Jesus Christ. Some
have been fulfilled (e.g. Passover, Firstfruits/Wave offering, Weeks), others await
fulfillment (e.g. Trumpets, Atonement, Tabernacles).