Exodus 34:18 ¶ The feast of
unleavened bread shalt thou keep. Seven days thou shalt eat unleavened bread,
as I commanded thee, in the time of the month Abib: for in the month Abib thou
camest out from Egypt. 19 All that
openeth the matrix is mine; and every firstling among thy cattle, whether
ox or sheep, that is male. 20 But
the firstling of an ass thou shalt redeem with a lamb: and if thou redeem him
not, then shalt thou break his neck. All the firstborn of thy sons thou shalt
redeem. And none shall appear before me empty. 21 Six days thou shalt work, but on the seventh
day thou shalt rest: in earing time and in harvest thou shalt rest. 22 And thou shalt observe the feast of weeks, of
the firstfruits of wheat harvest, and the feast of ingathering at the year’s
end. 23 Thrice in the year shall all
your men children appear before the Lord GOD, the God of Israel. 24 For I will cast out the nations before thee, and enlarge thy borders: neither
shall any man desire thy land, when thou shalt go up to appear before the LORD
thy God thrice in the year. 25 Thou
shalt not offer the blood of my sacrifice with leaven; neither shall the
sacrifice of the feast of the passover be left unto the morning. 26 The first of the firstfruits of thy land thou
shalt bring unto the house of the LORD thy God. Thou shalt not seethe a kid in
hismother’s milk. 27 And the
LORD said unto Moses, Write thou these words: for after the tenor of these
words I have made a covenant with thee and with Israel.
The
Feast of Unleavened Bread with the Passover was explained earlier.
Exodus 12:1 ¶ And the LORD
spake unto Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, saying, 2 This month shall be unto you the beginning of months: it shall be the first month of the year
to you. 3 Speak ye unto all the
congregation of Israel, saying, In the tenth day of this month they shall take to them every man a lamb,
according to the house of their
fathers, a lamb for an house: 4 And if
the household be too little for the lamb, let him and his neighbour next unto
his house take it according to
the number of the souls; every man according to his eating shall make your
count for the lamb. 5 Your lamb shall be
without blemish, a male of the first year: ye shall take it out from the sheep, or from the
goats: 6 And ye shall keep it up until
the fourteenth day of the same month: and the whole assembly of the
congregation of Israel shall kill it in the evening. 7 And they shall take of the blood, and strike it on the two side posts and on the
upper door post of the houses, wherein they shall eat it. 8 And they shall eat the flesh in that night,
roast with fire, and unleavened bread; and
with bitter herbs they shall
eat it. 9 Eat not of it raw, nor sodden
at all with water, but roast with
fire; his head with his legs, and with the purtenance thereof. 10 And ye shall let nothing of it remain until
the morning; and that which remaineth of it until the morning ye shall burn
with fire. 11 And thus shall ye eat it; with your loins girded, your shoes
on your feet, and your staff in your hand; and ye shall eat it in
haste: it is the LORD’S
passover. 12 For I will pass through the
land of Egypt this night, and will smite all the firstborn in the land of
Egypt, both man and beast; and against all the gods of Egypt I will execute
judgment: I am the LORD.
13 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. 14 And this day
shall be unto you for a memorial; and ye shall keep it a feast to the LORD
throughout your generations; ye shall keep it a feast by an ordinance for ever.
15 Seven days shall ye eat unleavened
bread; even the first day ye shall put away leaven out of your houses: for
whosoever eateth leavened bread from the first day until the seventh day, that
soul shall be cut off from Israel. 16
And in the first day there
shall be an
holy convocation, and in the seventh day there shall be an holy convocation
to you; no manner of work shall be done in them, save that which every man must eat, that only may be done of you.
17 And ye shall observe the feast of unleavened bread; for in
this selfsame day have I brought your armies out of the land of Egypt:
therefore shall ye observe this day in your generations by an ordinance for
ever. 18 In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the
month at even, ye shall eat unleavened bread, until the one and twentieth day
of the month at even. 19 Seven days
shall there be no leaven found in your houses: for whosoever
eateth that which is leavened, even that soul shall be cut off from the
congregation of Israel, whether he be a stranger, or born in the land. 20 Ye shall eat nothing leavened; in all your
habitations shall ye eat unleavened bread.
Luke 22:1 Now the feast of
unleavened bread drew nigh, which is called the Passover.
The firstborn male of every animal and of people born of the
Hebrews that came out of a womb, the
matrix, belonged to God for this reason;
Numbers 3:13 Because all
the firstborn are mine; for on the day that I smote all the
firstborn in the land of Egypt I hallowed unto me all the firstborn in Israel,
both man and beast: mine shall they be: I am the LORD.
The domesticated ass, or donkey, was a vitally important method of
transport in ancient times. An ass is likened to a man and can be redeemed by a
lamb, as Christ, the Lamb of God, redeemed mankind.
Job 11:12 For vain man
would be wise, though man be born like
a wild ass’s colt.
The donkey must have a master to control it for it to be of any
use. This animal plays its part in Christ’s first advent.
Matthew 21:1 ¶ And when
they drew nigh unto Jerusalem, and were come to Bethphage, unto the mount of
Olives, then sent Jesus two disciples, 2
Saying unto them, Go into the village over against you, and straightway
ye shall find an ass tied, and a colt with her: loose them, and bring them
unto me. 3 And if any man say ought unto you, ye shall say,
The Lord hath need of them; and straightway he will send them. 4 All this was done, that it might be fulfilled
which was spoken by the prophet, saying, 5
Tell ye the daughter of Sion, Behold, thy King cometh unto thee, meek,
and sitting upon an ass, and a colt the foal of an ass. (referring
to Zechariah 9:9)
Again, the seventh day as a day of rest is spoken of. I think it
is worth repeating what I’ve said previously on this subject as it was
mentioned before this back in chapter 23’s comments.
The
Hebrews were also to have a sabbath for the land, not harvesting in the seventh
year and permitting the poor and animals eat freely. This also applied to
grapes and olives.
Leviticus
25:1 ¶ And the LORD spake unto Moses in
mount Sinai, saying, 2 Speak unto the
children of Israel, and say unto them, When ye come into the land which I give
you, then shall the land keep a sabbath unto the LORD. 3 Six years thou shalt sow thy field, and six
years thou shalt prune thy vineyard, and gather in the fruit thereof; 4 But in the seventh year shall be a sabbath of
rest unto the land, a sabbath for the LORD: thou shalt neither sow thy field,
nor prune thy vineyard. 5 That which
groweth of its own accord of thy harvest thou shalt not reap, neither gather
the grapes of thy vine undressed: for it is a year of rest unto the land.
6 And the sabbath of the land shall be
meat for you; for thee, and for thy servant, and for thy maid, and for thy
hired servant, and for thy stranger that sojourneth with thee, 7 And for thy cattle, and for the beast that
are in thy land, shall all the increase thereof be meat.
The
sabbath of rest for the seventh day of the week is a day of rest also for
animals, servants, and foreigners who worked for the Hebrews, as well.
There
were three important feasts they were to keep in a year; the feast of
unleavened bread that ended in Passover, the feasts of weeks, of firstfruits of
the wheat harvest, and of ingathering at year’s end. These three times in the
year all males were to appear before God in a place appointed and to keep a
feast.
The feast of weeks is also called the feast of harvest.
Exodus 23:16 And the feast
of harvest, the firstfruits of thy labours, which thou hast sown
in the field: and the feast of ingathering, which is in the end of the year, when thou hast gathered in thy
labours out of the field.
The feast of ingathering, when everything is
brought in, is also called the feast of
tabernacles.
Deuteronomy
16:13 Thou shalt observe the feast of
tabernacles seven days, after that thou hast gathered in thy corn and thy wine:
Deuteronomy
16:16 Three times in a year shall all
thy males appear before the LORD thy God in the place which he shall choose; in
the feast of unleavened bread, and in the feast of weeks, and in the feast of
tabernacles: and they shall not appear before the LORD empty:
There
are specific instructions given for these feasts. It is interesting to note the
three feasts, the three times they were to come before the Lord. Three times in
the Bible the phrase come up hither, meaning
‘come up here,’ is used in different contexts.
Proverbs
25:7 For better it is that it be said
unto thee, Come up hither; than that thou shouldest be put lower in the
presence of the prince whom thine eyes have seen.
Revelation
4:1 After this I looked, and, behold, a
door was opened in heaven: and the first voice which I heard was as it were of
a trumpet talking with me; which said, Come up hither, and I will shew thee
things which must be hereafter.
Revelation
11:12 And they heard a great voice from
heaven saying unto them, Come up hither. And they ascended up to heaven in a
cloud; and their enemies beheld them.
Three
times in one verse the pre-Flood patriarch, Enoch’s, translation from earth to
God’s presence is mentioned.
Hebrews
11:5 By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see
death; and was not found, because God had translated
him: for before his translation he
had this testimony, that he pleased God.
It
is interesting to imagine that the translation
of the church, popularly called ‘the rapture’, a word not found in the Bible,
takes place in three steps with Christ and those who were resurrected at His
resurrection being first.
Matthew
27:52 And the graves were opened; and
many bodies of the saints which slept arose,
And
then two more times mentioned in Revelation of the pre-Tribulation saints and
then of those who come to Christ during the Great Tribulation. Three
resurrections of believers, three raptures, two in Revelation itself.
Several
early church “fathers” like Hermas, Cyprian, Victorinus, and Ephraim the Syrian
spoke of the church being removed before God’s wrath is poured out at the end
of time.
Christians
today who do not believe in the translation
of the church, popularly called ‘the rapture,’ will say that preacher of the early 1800’s, John Nelson Darby,
invented the doctrine. He did popularize it in opposition to a world that
regarded evolutionary progress as truth and that mankind and Christians in
particular were headed toward a ‘golden age’
of righteousness and peace.[1]
But,
he obviously did not invent the doctrine, merely gave it his own twist. As John
Reeve wrote two centuries before
Darby’s, in the 1600’s, “Then shall the Elect, by the Decree or Voice of Jesus
Christ, the Archangel, first appear
out of the Graves, and, in the twinkling of an Eye, with all the Elect that are
then living, as one Man, with a glorious Shout, shall, with distinct immortal
Bodies, like unto their God, ascend to meet the Lord in the Air, and with him
and his mighty angels, as swift as Thought, enter into that vast new Heaven and new Earth above the Stars….[2]
My
intent here is not to approve of any preacher’s particular doctrines or
idiosyncrasies or even personal opinions or heresies but simply to show that
the doctrine was not invented by Darby, as some would say. Only the timing of
when it would happen, before the Great Tribulation mentioned in Matthew and
Revelation, during, or at the end of it were in contention among those that
believed in it. Although I have not read his work there is supposedly another
pretribulation rapture commentator named Morgan Edwards from the century prior
to Darby.
Other
references to the idea of the church being physically removed are from such
diverse preachers and commentators as Jesuit priest, Francisco Ribera, in 1590,
Puritan Cotton Mather in the 1600s, and John Gill in the 1700s.[3] In the first decade of the 1700s Matthew
Henry even uses the phrase, “rapture in the clouds,” in his commentary on
1Thessalonians 4:17 which is so commonly free on the internet I don’t need to
give you directions here.
Darby’s
view was that what he called “the rapture” must take place before the return of
Christ. The Bible says that then there is the thousand-year reign of Christ and
the general judgment follows.
My
point in bringing all of this up is to only say that a doctrine can exist in
the Bible and either be misunderstood, not be known by most believers, or that
those against it or for it may misrepresent it to justify their own beliefs.
The Jews believed that Israel would be restored to its past greatness, not
seeing the Cross or the Resurrection of their Messiah. Many Christians of the
1800s, the age of the so-called great revivals, were Postmillennialists and
believed they would turn the world over to Christian principles and values
without Christ present so, no rapture and Christ’s rule coming after we had
perfected the world. We must always remember that our understanding is
incomplete until we stand before our Saviour.
God
promised protection and supernatural at that when the males went up to appear
before Him. No one would want their land while they were gone. There is an
important promise to note in the Bible regarding such things.
Proverbs 16:7 When a man’s
ways please the LORD, he maketh even his enemies to be at peace with him.
Leaven
is once again forbidden. Leaven here represents God’s insistence not to mix
pagan elements that He has forbidden in with His worship. It is interesting to
consider the use of the word leaven
by Christ. Leavened bread was a symbol for Christ of the pollution of the
Pharisees, the religious elite of His day on earth, of God’s commandments in
Luke 12:1.
Leaven
is something added to dough, typically yeast, to make it ferment and rise. It
would be something added to Biblical doctrine, for instance, missing the point
of God’s commandments and making being slavishly ritualistic.
Matthew
23:23 Woe unto you, scribes and
Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have omitted
the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith: these ought ye to
have done, and not to leave the other undone.
It renders faith
meaningless to God. For instance, in prescribing long prayers to feel
spiritual.
Matthew
6:7 But when ye pray, use not vain
repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for
their much speaking.
It
includes things that may have their uses but makes them a sign of your
faithfulness to God when they are not something He required.
Mark
7:1 ¶ Then came together unto him the
Pharisees, and certain of the scribes, which came from Jerusalem. 2 And when they saw some of his disciples eat
bread with defiled, that is to say, with unwashen, hands, they found fault.
3 For the Pharisees, and all the Jews,
except they wash their hands oft, eat not, holding the tradition of the elders.
4 And when they come from the market,
except they wash, they eat not. And many other things there be, which they have
received to hold, as the washing of cups, and pots, brasen vessels, and of
tables.
For
instance, wearing a business suit to church may satisfy a man’s conviction to
dress his best when he comes to church but when he makes it a doctrine for
proof that another Christian who does not share that belief is not genuinely
committed to worshipping God he, like a Pharisee, mingles leaven with God’s
words.
There
are many other things that can be included in this comparison like certain
rituals, church words, ceremonial observances, and demands on time and money
that would have been impossible for early Christians. The most striking leaven,
though, would be to add something to the simplicity of Biblical Salvation in
order to distinguish your doctrine from other people’s worship. You are
probably about to add leaven after you say or think something like, “If they
were real Christians they would…..”
Early
eighteenth century Bible commentator, Matthew Henry, reported, apparently from
older Jewish authorities, that it was common for the Gentiles to boil (see
Ezekiel 24:5 for seethe as to boil) a kid (goat) in its mother’s milk and
sprinkle that over fields to ensure a good harvest in the future. God forbade
such magical nonsense. What is important here is that God has set up
[1] J.N.
Darby, “The Rapture of the Saints,” in The
Heavenly Hope, or, What is the Hope of the Christian? What is the Hope of the
Church? (Dublin: Dublin Tract Repository, 1844).
[2]
John Reeve, “An Epistle to a Kinsman,” in Joyful
News from Heaven (London: Francis Cosinet, 1658), 60.
[3] Mal Couch, ed., Dictionary of Premillennial Theology (Grand
Rapids, MI: Kregel Publications, 1996).
No comments:
Post a Comment