Last Sunday we stood back to see how Jonah's landscape developed the theme of Christianity as painted by the Tabernacle in the Wilderness, which led us to see that the Messiah’s landscape is contained within Jonah

Once again we have to narrow our focus from the whole landscape down to a closer examination of the “sub-landscape”, if you will, of the Messiah, and how His landscape is reflected in the Feasts of the Jews, which, as Paul teaches, cast shadows that are to be seen in the future landscape of the Rapture, coming when the events locked up in Daniel’s prophecy are seen in time.

Paul’s teaching on the Rapture is part of Paul’s teaching about the Church to the first converts. It’s already recorded in scripture. There is nothing new. The Rapture isn’t the issue as it was part and parcel to the revelation of the Church. The mystery is the timing. The timing is kept sealed in the word of Daniel which will be seen only in it’s time.

The understanding of how God projects His intention for the Jews, into the landscape of the Church, which was grafted onto the root of their tree, Abraham, to receive the full benefit of His grace, in their place, as a reward for their trust in His word, is what it is to understand Substance and Shadow.

MESSIAH’S LANDSCAPE

Just as the Tabernacle painted the picture of Christianity by its construction, and its rituals symbolized the characteristics of the Messiah and His purpose, the picture painted in Jonah’s landscape illuminates the characteristics of the Messiah within Christianity so well, that Jonah was used as the only sign of the Messiah. Jonah wrote this book in 760 BC. So, God characterized the Messiah and His purpose to the Jews as early as then.

The Messiah willingly gave up his life to save the world from spiritual death; God resurrected Him after three days in the grave, where he was surely dead; He sent the warning to repent or suffer the wrath of God and then He ascended back to his divinity.

Jesus was the Messiah the Jews awaited, but they rejected Him, and so the Body of Christ on earth is revealed to, and preached by Paul to the Gentiles, as the recipient of the promises left unclaimed by the promised. Now, that’s who the Christians are. Christians get the promises made to the Jews that are fulfilled in Christ by His coming, prophesied in the old testament by the feasts of the Jews, and His leaving and coming again, as recorded in the Gospels and the New Testament. Reminiscent of the Son coming out of the Father, and in the world of Daniel’s Prophecy of the substitute deliverer Antichrist, (the toes) growing out of the feet.

The bridge between the Old and New Testaments is the Messiah. The promises were made in the Old Testament, and because of the rejection, they are delivered in the New Testament. Paul teaches us that the Feasts of the Jews contain the promises, and that the promises are projected by Christ into the Church’s landscape as a path to understanding how the end of the Age will occur. Follow that path and you arrive at the understanding. Once again God demonstrates that He is not the author of confusion, as we find His word rooted in simplicity.

In our second class we defined the meaning of the feasts, and what promise each signified. Jesus fulfilled the Sabbath, and He becomes our rest, as we rest in His work of salvation. Jesus was the Passover lamb as He dies on Passover to save mankind from spiritual death by His sacrifice. Jesus fulfills unleavened bread, and is our covering as He conquers corruption and evil, but not for himself. Jesus rises on First fruits fulfilling it as the promise of the full harvest yet to come, and He’s offered on Pentecost as Messiah to the Jews as the new offering of the completed works.

The feast of First Fruits lasts for 50 days, and ends on Pentecost. It opens with an omer of barley flour offered as the promise of the full harvest yet to come, and ends with the offering of a loaf of bread, the completed product of their work.

Each of the Spring feasts fulfilled by Jesus and their significance is passed along to the Christians of today in shadow form because the Jews as a nation chose not to accept Jesus as the Messiah, so they continue to await his coming to this day.

Now the shadows of the feast lead us only to Pentecost. There are three fall feasts yet remaining to be fulfilled by Jesus. The Feast of Harvests, Atonement and Tabernacles. These feasts are reserved for His second coming because there would have been no need for them had the Jews accepted the sacrifice at the time.

But, because they rejected, the direction of the fulfilled feasts was turned into promises of God to the Church. Those promises end with the completion of the Churches covenant. The Churches covenant ends at the Rapture, and there is no Jewish feast that celebrates the rapture. So, naturally there is no shadow cast for the Rapture from the feasts.

But, remember, that the substance casting the shadow is Jesus, and Jesus is the Messiah, so the Messiah landscape has more to it than just the feasts. I can say that because the Messiah landscape comes out of Jonah’s landscape, which requires a 40-day period of warning that ends with being saved from God’s destruction.

Now, the Feast of First Fruits, the promise of the full harvest yet to come was a feast that was held on the first day of the week, Sunday, after the first Sabbath, Saturday, after the first day of Passover, which could be on any day of the week, because it was always on the 14^th day of the month. Keep in mind that the Jewish day begins and ends at sundown. So the beginning of the first day of the week, Sunday, begins at sundown on Saturday night. In Hebrew, the word for dusk and dawn is the same, as they occur at the same moment.

Now, in order for Jesus to remain in the tomb (“belly of the whale”) for three days and three nights, one must count backwards from Sunday at dawn (Jewish time – sundown for three days to see what day Jesus was buried. Well, sundown on Wednesday until sundown on Thursday is day 1. Thursday at sundown to Friday at sundown is day 2, and Friday sundown to Saturday sundown, dawn Sunday, is day 3.

As a proof of Jesus’ Messiahship I offer the fact that this select happening can never happen again in history. Shortly after Jesus’ time, the celebration day for the feast of First Fruits was changed to the day following the first day of Passover. Never again can anyone be buried on Passover, remain in the grave for 3 days and nights and raise on First Fruits. That means that in the year that Jesus died, Passover would have fallen on Wednesday, which saw it’s dawn hours at sundown on Tuesday. Now, the Passover meal was to be eaten between the evenings, that is between Tuesday at dawn till Wednesday at sundown. He ate the Passover meal on Tuesday night, and was in His grave by Wednesday sundown.

But, on that day of First Fruits after Jesus rose, other saints came out of the graves that opened and went into the Holy City (Jerusalem) and were reported by Matthew (27:51-52) that many rose and were seen by many in Jerusalem.

Jesus is the First Fruits of resurrection and the many saints that followed Him out of their graves were the promise of the full harvest yet to come. Now Matthew doesn’t mention any more about these risen saints, but intuitive reasoning tells us what they are doing, and scripture tells us what happens to them.

We know that Jesus was going about visiting all of His friends and telling them of the resurrection and its meaning. I’m sure that those other folks were doing the same thing. I think they account for most of the 3,000 who came to Jesus at Peter’s first alter call on Pentecost just a few weeks after those same God-fearing citizens were screaming for His blood, and calling for the release of the criminal Barabas.

These same folks are identified by Isaiah in chapter 61. He said that Jesus came to, among other things, set the captives free. Psalm 68:18 says that when He ascended on high, He took them captive to Himself which is confirmed at Ephesians 4:8.

Therein lies a picture of the Rapture. Forty days after they rise on First Fruits, fulfilling the 40-day warning period of Jonah, Jesus ascends back to heaven taking with Him the captives that He set free by His death and resurrection. And, when Jesus ascends back to heaven, His mission as the Messiah is complete. Ten days later on Pentecost, Peter offers Him as Messiah to the Jews for the very first time, and now all the Spring feasts are fulfilled by Jesus.

When these set times were promised to the Church, the shadows are cast and their meaning to the Church in the end time is illuminated because, at long last the time has come.

The set time for the Rapture to occur in fulfillment of that shadow cast by Jesus Himself when He ascended to heaven taking with him the promise of the full harvest yet to come is 40 days after First Fruits. That scene was the promise fulfilled. When He returns for us on that same Ascension Day, it will be to fulfill that promise and reap the full harvest in the twinkling of an eye, of those living at the time, and those that were made alive that had slept in Him.

Now, we still have some accounting to do for elements in Jonah’s landscape, but that’s next class.

Go on to Class V of the Rapture Series
God Set the time Paul sets us straight