Scripture Reading: John 1:29; 6:4, 56-57; 7:2; 1 Cor. 5:7-8; Lev. 23:39-43
Ⅰ
We can enjoy Christ not only as the Passover lamb but also as every aspect of the Passover—John 1:29; 6:4, 56-57; Exo. 12:11-14; 1 Cor. 5:7:
A
On the day we believed into Christ, we had a new birth, a new beginning, and our age according to the "sacred calendar" began—Exo. 12:2-3; 13:4.
B
The lamb's being for every household reveals that the unit of God's salvation is the household, the family—12:3-4; Luke 19:9; Acts 11:14; 16:30-31.
C
Just as the Passover lamb was examined for four days and was to be without blemish, so Christ was examined and found to be perfect, without fault—Exo. 12:5-6; John 8:7, 46; 18:38; 19:4, 6.
D
For the lamb to be of the first year reveals that in the eyes of God, when the Lord Jesus was put on the cross, He was fresh, having never been used for another purpose—Exo. 12:5; Heb. 10:5-10.
E
Just as the lamb was killed by the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel, so we all had a part in killing the Lamb of God—Exo. 12:6; Acts 3:14-15; John 19:20; Isa. 53:5-6.
F
Just as the flesh of the Passover lamb was to be eaten for life supply, so we need to eat Christ for our life supply—Exo. 12:8-10; John 6:53, 55-57:
１
To solve the problem of the fall of man and to accomplish God's original intention, both life and redemption are needed.
２
God's judicial redemption through the blood of Christ is the procedure to reach God's goal of dispensing Christ as life into us for our organic salvation—Rom. 5:10.
G
The flesh of the lamb was to be roasted with fire and was not to be eaten raw or boiled— Exo. 12:8-9:
１
To be roasted with fire signifies Christ's suffering under the holy fire of God's judgment— Isa. 53:4, 10; Psa. 22:14-15; John 19:28.
２
To be eaten raw signifies not to believe in Christ's redemption but to regard Him merely as an example of human life to be imitated.
３
To be eaten boiled signifies regarding His death on the cross not as death for redemption but as the suffering of human persecution for martyrdom.
H
The children of Israel were to eat the lamb with its head, legs, and inward parts, signifying that we must take Christ in His entirety with His wisdom, His activity and move, and His inward affection and feeling—Exo. 12:9.
I
The lamb was to be eaten with unleavened bread and bitter herbs, signifying to eliminate all sinful things and to have a bitter taste regarding them—v. 8.
J
The children of Israel were not to break any bones of the Passover lamb—v. 46:
１
When the Lord Jesus was crucified, His bones were not broken—John 19:33, 36.
２
Christ's unbroken bone signifies His unbreakable and indestructible eternal life that imparts His life into us—Gen. 2:21-22.
K
The children of Israel had to eat the lamb with their loins girded, with their sandals on their feet, with their staff in their hand, and in haste—Exo. 12:11:
１
The eating of Christ as the Lamb energizes us to move out of Egypt, the world.
２
The redeemed ones applied the Passover in such a way that they could become God's army—vv. 17, 41, 51; 13:18.
L
The blood of the lamb was in a basin and was applied by a bunch of hyssop to the lintel and two doorposts of the house—12:22:
１
Hyssop, the smallest of plants, signifies faith, which is the thing that is the smallest in quantity; it is by such little faith that the blood of Christ is applied—1 Kings 4:33; Matt. 17:20.
２
The blood of the lamb being in a basin, not a large vessel, signifies that in our experience of conversion, the redeeming blood of Christ was made available to us in a way that was small and easy to apply.
M
Christ is not only the lamb, the unleavened bread, and the bitter herbs but also the house whose lintel and doorposts have been sprinkled with the redeeming blood— 1 Cor. 1:30; Eph. 1:7:
１
The blood opens the way for us to get into Christ, who is typified by the house, and protects us from God's judgment—Heb. 10:19; Exo. 12:13, 23.
２
The children of Israel were required to stay in the house whose door had been touched with the blood; they were not to go out of it until the morning—v. 22:
ａ
We should maintain our identification with Christ, with a constant realization that we are nothing and that He is everything—John 15:5.
ｂ
The redeeming blood keeps us in Christ—1 John 1:7, 9.
N
The children of Israel were to observe the Feast of Unleavened Bread for seven days as a continuation of the Feast of the Passover—Exo. 12:15-20; 13:6-7:
１
Christ is our unleavened bread, our sinless life supply of sincerity and truth, absolutely pure, without mixture, and full of reality—1 Cor. 5:7-8.
２
No leaven was to be seen with the children of Israel; this signifies that we must deal with the sin of which we are conscious, of any sin that is manifested, that is seen—Exo. 13:7; 12:19; 1 Cor. 5:7a; Heb. 12:1-2a.
３
The entire Christian life (signified by seven days), from the day of our conversion to the day of rapture, should be a feast, an enjoyment of Christ as our banquet, the rich supply of life—Exo. 12:16, 18-19.
Ⅱ
We can enjoy Christ as the Feast of Tabernacles—John 7:2; Lev. 23:39-43:
A
The Feast of the Passover signifies Christ as the initiation of God's redemption judicially, and the Feast of Tabernacles signifies Christ as the consummation of God's full salvation organically—John 6:4; 7:2; Lev. 23:5, 34.
B
God ordained the Feast of Tabernacles so that the children of Israel would remember how their forefathers had lived in tents (tabernacles) in their wandering in the wilderness; the word Tabernacles implies the thought of remembrance—Deut. 16:13-15.
C
Their coming together for this feast to worship God and enjoy their produce from the good land is a real picture of blending.
D
The reality of the Feast of Tabernacles is a time of enjoyment in remembrance of how we experienced God and of how God lived with us.
E
Our enjoyment of Christ today as the Feast of Tabernacles, in our corporate coming together for blending to enjoy the riches of Christ as the produce of the good land, reminds us that we are still in the wilderness and need to enter into the rest of the New Jerusalem, which is the eternal tabernacle—Rev. 21:2-3.
F
The New Jerusalem being called the tabernacle of God is for the overcomers in the first stage of the New Jerusalem to remember how they also dwelt in tents, living on the earth as strangers and sojourners and looking forward to the eternal tabernacle, the God-built city, the mutual habitation of God and man—Heb. 11:9-10, 13:
１
If we would walk in the steps of Abraham's faith, we must live the life of the altar and the tent, taking Christ as our life and the church as our living—Rom. 4:12; Heb. 11:9; Gen. 12:7-8; 13:3-4, 18:
ａ
Building an altar means that our life is for God, that God is our life, and that the meaning of our life is God—Exo. 40:6, 29; Psa. 43:4a; Lev. 1:3, 9.
ｂ
Abraham's dwelling in a tent testified that he did not belong to the world but lived the life of a sojourner on earth; erecting a tent is an expression, a declaration, that we do not belong to this world, that we belong to another country— Heb. 11:9-10, 15-16.
２
As the true descendants of Abraham (Gal. 3:7), we should be pilgrims on the earth, moving and pitching our tent as he did (Heb. 11:9, 13; 1 Pet. 2:11).
３
After Abraham built his first altar (Gen. 12:7), he built a second altar between Bethel and Ai, which stand in contrast to each other (v. 8):
ａ
Bethel means "house of God," and Ai means "a heap of ruins."
ｂ
In the eyes of the called ones, only Bethel, the church life, is worthwhile; everything else is a heap of ruins.
４
Abraham had his failures, and there was the forsaking of the altar and the tent; however, with him there was a recovery, and recovery is a matter of returning to the altar and the tent with calling on the name of the Lord—vv. 9-10; 13:3-4; Rom. 10:12-13; 12:1-2.
５
Eventually, at Hebron Abraham's tent became a place where he had fellowship with God and where God could fellowship with him—Gen. 13:18.
６
Abraham's tent with the altar built by him was a prefigure of the Tabernacle of the Testimony with the altar built by the children of Israel—Exo. 38:21.
７
Abraham, a stranger and a sojourner, "eagerly waited for the city which has the foundations, whose Architect and Builder is God"—Heb. 11:9-10, 12-16.
８
Abraham's tent was a miniature of the New Jerusalem, the ultimate tent, the ultimate tabernacle of God—Gen. 9:26-27; 12:8; 13:3; 18:1; Rev. 21:2-3.
９
As we are living in the "tent" of the church life, we are waiting for its ultimate consummation— the ultimate "Tent of Meeting," the New Jerusalem—1 Tim. 3:15; Lev. 1:1; Heb. 11:10.
G
The Feast of Tabernacles is the enjoyment of the New Jerusalem, which will be consummated firstly to be the firstfruits in the millennial kingdom as a reward to the overcomers and then consummated finally to be in the new heaven and new earth as the full enjoyment of God's full salvation to all the perfected believers.