Before addressing these feasts that Israel was required to keep under the provisions of the old covenant, let’s look briefly at what is meant by the terms synergy and system and then consider the symbolism of the number seven in Scripture.
Synergy is the interaction of elements that when combined
produce a total effect that is greater than the sum of
the individual elements and contributions. For example,
in physiology it is the cooperative action of two or more
muscles and nerves that contribute to human mobility.
A system is a set of interacting or interdependent component parts forming a complex whole. BusinessDictionary.com gives this definition: “An organized, purposeful structure that consists of interrelated and interdependent elements. These elements continually influence one another to maintain their activity and the existence of the system . . . to achieve the goal of the system.”
How does this tie in to the number seven? As used in Scripture, seven has its literal numeric sense but also often figuratively refers to spiritual perfection and completeness or wholeness.
As biblical scholar E.W. Bullinger, who produced The Companion Bible, explains regarding the number seven in the Bible, it “stamps with perfection and completeness that in connection with which it is used. Of time, it tells of the Sabbath, and marks off the week of seven days, which, artificial as it may seem, is universal and immemorial in its observance among all nations and in all times. It tells of that eternal Sabbath-keeping which remains for the people of God in all its everlasting perfection” (Numbers in Prophecy, 1979, p. 168).
In the Christian world, there are some who recognize that God’s weekly Sabbath is on the seventh day; Friday sunset to Saturday sunset; not the first day of the week or Sunday (see Genesis 2:1-3; Exodus 20:8-11; 16:22-26; 31:13-17; Luke 4:16; Acts 13:42, 44; Hebrews 4:4-11). However, as those who are new new creations in the lord Jesus God's anointed one, he is our rest every day of the week, and thus those are not under any obligation to keep the seventh-day Sabbath or any other day designated by the churches of Christendom. Whatever day of the week those who are believers, new creations in the lord Jesus meet Jesus says he is in their midst - Matthew 18:20 “For where two or three are gathered together in my Name, there I am in their midst.”
God established for Israel under the old covenant the weekly seventh-day Sabbath and a system of seven annual feasts; with seven annual Sabbaths or Holy Days among them; because these symbolized for them, in overview, God’s full plan to bring humanity, all who are ultimately responding to the progression of God’s great spiritual harvest of human beings.
The early spring barley harvest at the time of the Passover and Feast of Unleavened Bread commenced with the wave-sheaf offering that symbolizes God's anointed one Jesus our Savior, as just mentioned. The Feast of Weeks or Pentecost in late spring was “of the firstfruits of wheat harvest” (Exodus 34:22), depicting God’s saints-holy ones (all His true followers, new creations) spiritually harvested in this age.
Finally, the “Feast of Ingathering” (same verse); another name for the Feast of Tabernacles; celebrated the great agricultural harvest of late summer and autumn. This foreshadowed the great harvest of mankind when vast numbers will come to salvation during the 1,000-year reign of Christ and the Great White Throne Judgment period to follow (see Revelation 20:4-13; Ezekiel 37:1-14).
Let’s briefly consider the seven annual feasts one by one.
The Passover
God’s system of festivals begins with a key starting point; the Passover (Leviticus 23:4-5). The name “Passover” refers to the night when God sent a plague of death on the Egyptian firstborn but passed over the houses of the Israelites who had put the blood of sacrificed lambs around their doors, sparing them from death (Exodus 12). Those slain Passover lambs were symbolic of Jesus God's anointed one being sacrificed as our Passover Lamb. As the apostle Paul wrote, “For indeed God's anointed one, our Passover, was sacrificed for us” (1 Corinthians 5:7).
The Israelites were protected under the cover of the sacrificial lambs’ blood. Today, those whom God has called to be part of His called-out Assembly are covered by the shed blood of the Lamb of God, Jesus His anointed one, which washes away their sins and spares them permanent death (John 1:29; 3:16- 17; Acts 22:16; Romans 6:23).
Without the fulfillment of Passover, none of the feasts following it could be fulfilled. Jesus died for our sins (1 Corinthians 15:3; 1 John 1:7) so we could die to our sins and begin a new, transformed life patterned after his life (Romans 6:1-11). The Passover, then, is the beginning of God’s annual feasts. All feasts that follow the Passover are built on that foundation. They would not exist apart from what it portrays.
The Feast of Unleavened Bread
Unleavened Bread (Leviticus 23:6-14). Bread without leaven typifies the humility and holiness that Jesus teaches his disciples to exhibit. Leavened bread dough puffs up. Jesus and Paul likened leaven to sin and hypocrisy (Matthew 16:6; Luke 12:1; 1 Corinthians 5:6-8). God wants us to overcome sin that weakens and can destroy us.
Christ’s disciples during his ministry removed leaven from their homes for seven days and eat unleavened bread for seven days, considering what it represented spiritually. Jesus said, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God” (Matthew 4:4).
Christians must figuratively ingest God’s word; internalizing it so it becomes part of them.
Since we cannot make ourselves holy (and God demands holiness), God the Father views us as holy through the resurrected Jesus His anointed one (see Colossians 3:4; Ephesians 2:4-6). Thus, we must take in God's anointed one Jesus and put out sin; becoming holy as God is holy (1 Peter 1:15-16)
And recall that it was during this festival that the wave-sheaf of the first of the barley harvest was presented to God; representing God's anointed one Jesus as the beginning of the new creation process.
The Feast of Pentecost
The Feast of Weeks is so named because it comes seven weeks after the day of the wave-sheaf offering (Exodus 34:22; Leviticus 23:15-22). The day also came to be called Pentecost, meaning “fiftieth” in Greek, as people are specifically told to count 50 days to it (verse 16; Acts 2:1).
This feast, which anciently centered on the wave offering of two leavened loaves of the firstfruits of wheat, pictures the presentation before God of His people in this age as spiritual firstfruits (see Romans 8:23; James 1:18). It further represents the conversion of the people of God through the Holy Spirit, which was given to the called-out Assembly in a powerful way on the day of Pentecost, anticipating a yet later fulfillment in this age (Acts 2:1-4, 17).
Pentecost points to the first harvest of those whom He is calling out of this world in His plan of salvation; with the expectation of a later harvest ahead.
The Feast of Trumpets
The events that accompany the later harvest of those whom God in calling out of this world in His system of salvation are represented in the festivals of Trumpets, Atonement, Tabernacles and the Eighth Day. Introducing these is the Feast of Trumpets (Leviticus 23:23-25). A blowing of trumpets by a watchman in Old Testament times warned of an approaching army and imminent war (Ezekiel 33:2-4). The Feast of Trumpets looks ahead to God’s intervention in human affairs by his agent, His anointed one Jesus, without which we would otherwise annihilate ourselves (Matthew 24:21-22).
The fulfillment of this feast will include a number of major events: the Day of the Lord, when angels will blow trumpets followed by cataclysmic upheaval (Revelation 8-9); the crowning of Jesus God's anointed one as King of Israel and King of kings and Lord of lords of the nations at His return to save mankind from annihilation (Revelation 11:15; Matthew 24:22). It pictures the resurrection at the last trumpet of the righteous who have lived and died before this time, immediately followed by the change of the living saints-holy ones to immortality (1 Corinthians 15:50-52; 1 Thessalonians 4:15-17). It also ushers in the pouring out of the seven last plagues, which will include the destruction of all tyrannical leaders and their military powers (Revelation 15-16). In short, the Feast of Trumpets portrays both the calamity and the jubilation that will come when Jesus God's anointed one intervenes as the agent of Yehovah to take control of the world and reign over all the nations of this world.
The Day of Atonement
The Day of Atonement is an occasion of drawing near to God through fasting (Leviticus 23:26-32).
In ancient times it involved a ceremony in which a goat “for the Lord” was slain and another goat was banished to the wilderness (Leviticus 16). The slain goat represented God's anointed one’s sacrifice, through which the world was to be reconciled to God when Jesus was crucified.
The banished goat symbolizes the removal of the spirit tyrant of this world; the incarceration of Satan and his demon cohorts for 1,000 years (Revelation 20:1-3). Satan, originally an archangel who rebelled against God (Isaiah 14:12-15; Ezekiel 28:11-17), is now the god of this world and its kingdoms (2 Corinthians 4:4; Matthew 4:8-9) and the great unseen power behind despotic oppressors of mankind.
Isaiah prophesied the fulfillment of the meaning of the Day of Atonement: “He [Satan] who struck the people in wrath with a continual stroke, he who ruled the nations in anger, is [now himself] persecuted and no one hinders. The whole earth is [finally] at rest and quiet . . .” (Isaiah 14:6-7). God further charges that Satan “did not open the house of his prisoners” (verse 17); that is, the human race whom he enslaved through sin and suffering throughout history.
With physical and spiritual tyrants removed, the earth and its inhabitants can finally enjoy peace and prosperity (Isaiah 11:9), symbolized by the Feast of Tabernacles to follow.
The Feast of Tabernacles
The Feast of Tabernacles is a joyous festival of seven days in which the Israelites were commanded to live in temporary dwellings; with an Eighth Day following as an added feast (Leviticus 23:33-44). The Feast of Tabernacles will be fulfilled in the future reign of the Prince of Peace, God's anointed one Jesus, on the earth (see Isaiah 9:6-7; 11:9-10). For 1,000 years (Revelation 20:4) Israel and all nations will live in unprecedented peace and unparalleled prosperity (Micah 4:1-4; Amos 9:13-14).
As noted earlier, this feast celebrates the fall ingathering harvest (Exodus 23:16), which symbolizes the harvest of untold millions of people in the age to come.
Amazingly, this doesn’t mark the end of God’s great ingathering harvest of human lives. That remains for the fulfillment of the Eighth Day that follows the Feast of Tabernacles. Again, all of God’s feasts are interdependent.
The Eighth Day
The Eighth Day feast (see Leviticus 23:36, 39) is connected to the previous seven days, but its themes go beyond. Its fulfillment will be like that of the Feast of Tabernacles in many respects. Both festivals portray a global Garden of Eden (see Ezekiel 36:35; Isaiah 11:6-9; 51:3; 65:20, 25).
Yet the Eighth Day celebrates the last spiritual harvest period. It includes the resurrection to physical life of all human beings who lived since Adam who have not received the opportunity to be delivered from the second death. This will be their day of salvation (see Revelation 20:11-13; Ezekiel 37:11).
This general resurrection is called the Great White Throne Judgment, as Jesus God's anointed one will then sit in judgment on “a great white throne” (Revelation 20:11-13).
Great here may encompass the scope of this judgment; involving great numbers of people resurrected, perhaps many billions of people. White would seem to denote brilliant light or God's anointed one's righteousness. Throne presents God's anointed one acting as the agent of Yehovah as the uncontested Sovereign. And regarding Judgment, God's anointed one will judge people out of the scriptures, just like the judgment God’s called-out Assembly undergoes today (1 Peter 4:17; 2 Corinthians 11:32-33; John 12:48).
This judgment is not an immediate sentencing, but rather an evaluation that takes place over a long period of time. “And I saw the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne; and books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of the things which were written in the books, according to their works. And the sea gave up the dead who were in it, and death and the grave gave up the dead who were in them. And they were judged, each one according to his works. And death and the grave were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death. And if anyone was not found written in the Book of Life, he was thrown into the lake of fire" [Revelation 20:12-15].
The Eighth Day feast depicting the Great White Throne Judgment is the culmination of the great system of salvation for mankind. The seven distinct feasts of God coalesce in His synergistic system of salvation.
For all mankind through the ages—and for you today
The apostle Paul writes about the culmination of God’s plan of salvation, looking from this age to the next:
“In Him we [of the Church in this age] have redemption through [God's anointed one's] blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace which He made to abound toward us in all wisdom and prudence, having made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He purposed in Himself, that in the dispensation of the fullness of the times He might gather together in one all things in His anointed one [in the 1,000-year period and the Great White Throne Judgment], both which are in heaven and which are on earth; in him” (Ephesians 1:7-10).
Yes, Almighty God designed seven distinct festivals that combine into a synergistic system of salvation for all humankind. How remarkable is the plan of God; and the system of feasts He gave to Israel given the them to keep it in mind! Along with the apostle Paul, we too can exclaim, “Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God!” (Romans 11:33).
God’s seven annual festivals were commanded to be kept each year by Israel under the old covenant. They represented and depicted to them His blueprint for the salvation of mankind.
For all those who have been called out of this world and are now new creations in the body of the lord Jesus we are not required to keep the weekly Sabbath or the seven annual Sabbaths. However that being said we could keep any of them. We are free to do so as the apostle Paul did. The one important thing for us to know is that keeping any day is not a requirement placed on us to-day and certainly not to obtain salvation. We are free in the lord Jesus God's anointed one as members of his body.
Synergy is the interaction of elements that when combined
produce a total effect that is greater than the sum of
the individual elements and contributions. For example,
in physiology it is the cooperative action of two or more
muscles and nerves that contribute to human mobility.
A system is a set of interacting or interdependent component parts forming a complex whole. BusinessDictionary.com gives this definition: “An organized, purposeful structure that consists of interrelated and interdependent elements. These elements continually influence one another to maintain their activity and the existence of the system . . . to achieve the goal of the system.”
How does this tie in to the number seven? As used in Scripture, seven has its literal numeric sense but also often figuratively refers to spiritual perfection and completeness or wholeness.
As biblical scholar E.W. Bullinger, who produced The Companion Bible, explains regarding the number seven in the Bible, it “stamps with perfection and completeness that in connection with which it is used. Of time, it tells of the Sabbath, and marks off the week of seven days, which, artificial as it may seem, is universal and immemorial in its observance among all nations and in all times. It tells of that eternal Sabbath-keeping which remains for the people of God in all its everlasting perfection” (Numbers in Prophecy, 1979, p. 168).
In the Christian world, there are some who recognize that God’s weekly Sabbath is on the seventh day; Friday sunset to Saturday sunset; not the first day of the week or Sunday (see Genesis 2:1-3; Exodus 20:8-11; 16:22-26; 31:13-17; Luke 4:16; Acts 13:42, 44; Hebrews 4:4-11). However, as those who are new new creations in the lord Jesus God's anointed one, he is our rest every day of the week, and thus those are not under any obligation to keep the seventh-day Sabbath or any other day designated by the churches of Christendom. Whatever day of the week those who are believers, new creations in the lord Jesus meet Jesus says he is in their midst - Matthew 18:20 “For where two or three are gathered together in my Name, there I am in their midst.”
God established for Israel under the old covenant the weekly seventh-day Sabbath and a system of seven annual feasts; with seven annual Sabbaths or Holy Days among them; because these symbolized for them, in overview, God’s full plan to bring humanity, all who are ultimately responding to the progression of God’s great spiritual harvest of human beings.
The early spring barley harvest at the time of the Passover and Feast of Unleavened Bread commenced with the wave-sheaf offering that symbolizes God's anointed one Jesus our Savior, as just mentioned. The Feast of Weeks or Pentecost in late spring was “of the firstfruits of wheat harvest” (Exodus 34:22), depicting God’s saints-holy ones (all His true followers, new creations) spiritually harvested in this age.
Finally, the “Feast of Ingathering” (same verse); another name for the Feast of Tabernacles; celebrated the great agricultural harvest of late summer and autumn. This foreshadowed the great harvest of mankind when vast numbers will come to salvation during the 1,000-year reign of Christ and the Great White Throne Judgment period to follow (see Revelation 20:4-13; Ezekiel 37:1-14).
Let’s briefly consider the seven annual feasts one by one.
The Passover
God’s system of festivals begins with a key starting point; the Passover (Leviticus 23:4-5). The name “Passover” refers to the night when God sent a plague of death on the Egyptian firstborn but passed over the houses of the Israelites who had put the blood of sacrificed lambs around their doors, sparing them from death (Exodus 12). Those slain Passover lambs were symbolic of Jesus God's anointed one being sacrificed as our Passover Lamb. As the apostle Paul wrote, “For indeed God's anointed one, our Passover, was sacrificed for us” (1 Corinthians 5:7).
The Israelites were protected under the cover of the sacrificial lambs’ blood. Today, those whom God has called to be part of His called-out Assembly are covered by the shed blood of the Lamb of God, Jesus His anointed one, which washes away their sins and spares them permanent death (John 1:29; 3:16- 17; Acts 22:16; Romans 6:23).
Without the fulfillment of Passover, none of the feasts following it could be fulfilled. Jesus died for our sins (1 Corinthians 15:3; 1 John 1:7) so we could die to our sins and begin a new, transformed life patterned after his life (Romans 6:1-11). The Passover, then, is the beginning of God’s annual feasts. All feasts that follow the Passover are built on that foundation. They would not exist apart from what it portrays.
The Feast of Unleavened Bread
Unleavened Bread (Leviticus 23:6-14). Bread without leaven typifies the humility and holiness that Jesus teaches his disciples to exhibit. Leavened bread dough puffs up. Jesus and Paul likened leaven to sin and hypocrisy (Matthew 16:6; Luke 12:1; 1 Corinthians 5:6-8). God wants us to overcome sin that weakens and can destroy us.
Christ’s disciples during his ministry removed leaven from their homes for seven days and eat unleavened bread for seven days, considering what it represented spiritually. Jesus said, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God” (Matthew 4:4).
Christians must figuratively ingest God’s word; internalizing it so it becomes part of them.
Since we cannot make ourselves holy (and God demands holiness), God the Father views us as holy through the resurrected Jesus His anointed one (see Colossians 3:4; Ephesians 2:4-6). Thus, we must take in God's anointed one Jesus and put out sin; becoming holy as God is holy (1 Peter 1:15-16)
And recall that it was during this festival that the wave-sheaf of the first of the barley harvest was presented to God; representing God's anointed one Jesus as the beginning of the new creation process.
The Feast of Pentecost
The Feast of Weeks is so named because it comes seven weeks after the day of the wave-sheaf offering (Exodus 34:22; Leviticus 23:15-22). The day also came to be called Pentecost, meaning “fiftieth” in Greek, as people are specifically told to count 50 days to it (verse 16; Acts 2:1).
This feast, which anciently centered on the wave offering of two leavened loaves of the firstfruits of wheat, pictures the presentation before God of His people in this age as spiritual firstfruits (see Romans 8:23; James 1:18). It further represents the conversion of the people of God through the Holy Spirit, which was given to the called-out Assembly in a powerful way on the day of Pentecost, anticipating a yet later fulfillment in this age (Acts 2:1-4, 17).
Pentecost points to the first harvest of those whom He is calling out of this world in His plan of salvation; with the expectation of a later harvest ahead.
The Feast of Trumpets
The events that accompany the later harvest of those whom God in calling out of this world in His system of salvation are represented in the festivals of Trumpets, Atonement, Tabernacles and the Eighth Day. Introducing these is the Feast of Trumpets (Leviticus 23:23-25). A blowing of trumpets by a watchman in Old Testament times warned of an approaching army and imminent war (Ezekiel 33:2-4). The Feast of Trumpets looks ahead to God’s intervention in human affairs by his agent, His anointed one Jesus, without which we would otherwise annihilate ourselves (Matthew 24:21-22).
The fulfillment of this feast will include a number of major events: the Day of the Lord, when angels will blow trumpets followed by cataclysmic upheaval (Revelation 8-9); the crowning of Jesus God's anointed one as King of Israel and King of kings and Lord of lords of the nations at His return to save mankind from annihilation (Revelation 11:15; Matthew 24:22). It pictures the resurrection at the last trumpet of the righteous who have lived and died before this time, immediately followed by the change of the living saints-holy ones to immortality (1 Corinthians 15:50-52; 1 Thessalonians 4:15-17). It also ushers in the pouring out of the seven last plagues, which will include the destruction of all tyrannical leaders and their military powers (Revelation 15-16). In short, the Feast of Trumpets portrays both the calamity and the jubilation that will come when Jesus God's anointed one intervenes as the agent of Yehovah to take control of the world and reign over all the nations of this world.
The Day of Atonement
The Day of Atonement is an occasion of drawing near to God through fasting (Leviticus 23:26-32).
In ancient times it involved a ceremony in which a goat “for the Lord” was slain and another goat was banished to the wilderness (Leviticus 16). The slain goat represented God's anointed one’s sacrifice, through which the world was to be reconciled to God when Jesus was crucified.
The banished goat symbolizes the removal of the spirit tyrant of this world; the incarceration of Satan and his demon cohorts for 1,000 years (Revelation 20:1-3). Satan, originally an archangel who rebelled against God (Isaiah 14:12-15; Ezekiel 28:11-17), is now the god of this world and its kingdoms (2 Corinthians 4:4; Matthew 4:8-9) and the great unseen power behind despotic oppressors of mankind.
Isaiah prophesied the fulfillment of the meaning of the Day of Atonement: “He [Satan] who struck the people in wrath with a continual stroke, he who ruled the nations in anger, is [now himself] persecuted and no one hinders. The whole earth is [finally] at rest and quiet . . .” (Isaiah 14:6-7). God further charges that Satan “did not open the house of his prisoners” (verse 17); that is, the human race whom he enslaved through sin and suffering throughout history.
With physical and spiritual tyrants removed, the earth and its inhabitants can finally enjoy peace and prosperity (Isaiah 11:9), symbolized by the Feast of Tabernacles to follow.
The Feast of Tabernacles
The Feast of Tabernacles is a joyous festival of seven days in which the Israelites were commanded to live in temporary dwellings; with an Eighth Day following as an added feast (Leviticus 23:33-44). The Feast of Tabernacles will be fulfilled in the future reign of the Prince of Peace, God's anointed one Jesus, on the earth (see Isaiah 9:6-7; 11:9-10). For 1,000 years (Revelation 20:4) Israel and all nations will live in unprecedented peace and unparalleled prosperity (Micah 4:1-4; Amos 9:13-14).
As noted earlier, this feast celebrates the fall ingathering harvest (Exodus 23:16), which symbolizes the harvest of untold millions of people in the age to come.
Amazingly, this doesn’t mark the end of God’s great ingathering harvest of human lives. That remains for the fulfillment of the Eighth Day that follows the Feast of Tabernacles. Again, all of God’s feasts are interdependent.
The Eighth Day
The Eighth Day feast (see Leviticus 23:36, 39) is connected to the previous seven days, but its themes go beyond. Its fulfillment will be like that of the Feast of Tabernacles in many respects. Both festivals portray a global Garden of Eden (see Ezekiel 36:35; Isaiah 11:6-9; 51:3; 65:20, 25).
Yet the Eighth Day celebrates the last spiritual harvest period. It includes the resurrection to physical life of all human beings who lived since Adam who have not received the opportunity to be delivered from the second death. This will be their day of salvation (see Revelation 20:11-13; Ezekiel 37:11).
This general resurrection is called the Great White Throne Judgment, as Jesus God's anointed one will then sit in judgment on “a great white throne” (Revelation 20:11-13).
Great here may encompass the scope of this judgment; involving great numbers of people resurrected, perhaps many billions of people. White would seem to denote brilliant light or God's anointed one's righteousness. Throne presents God's anointed one acting as the agent of Yehovah as the uncontested Sovereign. And regarding Judgment, God's anointed one will judge people out of the scriptures, just like the judgment God’s called-out Assembly undergoes today (1 Peter 4:17; 2 Corinthians 11:32-33; John 12:48).
This judgment is not an immediate sentencing, but rather an evaluation that takes place over a long period of time. “And I saw the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne; and books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of the things which were written in the books, according to their works. And the sea gave up the dead who were in it, and death and the grave gave up the dead who were in them. And they were judged, each one according to his works. And death and the grave were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death. And if anyone was not found written in the Book of Life, he was thrown into the lake of fire" [Revelation 20:12-15].
The Eighth Day feast depicting the Great White Throne Judgment is the culmination of the great system of salvation for mankind. The seven distinct feasts of God coalesce in His synergistic system of salvation.
For all mankind through the ages—and for you today
The apostle Paul writes about the culmination of God’s plan of salvation, looking from this age to the next:
“In Him we [of the Church in this age] have redemption through [God's anointed one's] blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace which He made to abound toward us in all wisdom and prudence, having made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He purposed in Himself, that in the dispensation of the fullness of the times He might gather together in one all things in His anointed one [in the 1,000-year period and the Great White Throne Judgment], both which are in heaven and which are on earth; in him” (Ephesians 1:7-10).
Yes, Almighty God designed seven distinct festivals that combine into a synergistic system of salvation for all humankind. How remarkable is the plan of God; and the system of feasts He gave to Israel given the them to keep it in mind! Along with the apostle Paul, we too can exclaim, “Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God!” (Romans 11:33).
God’s seven annual festivals were commanded to be kept each year by Israel under the old covenant. They represented and depicted to them His blueprint for the salvation of mankind.
For all those who have been called out of this world and are now new creations in the body of the lord Jesus we are not required to keep the weekly Sabbath or the seven annual Sabbaths. However that being said we could keep any of them. We are free to do so as the apostle Paul did. The one important thing for us to know is that keeping any day is not a requirement placed on us to-day and certainly not to obtain salvation. We are free in the lord Jesus God's anointed one as members of his body.
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