In these verses in Exodus 34 we have feasting and resting. These are two matters for us to enjoy today. Every day we need to feast and rest. It is not possible for us to feast all day long. However, we can enjoy a feast three times a day, at morning, at noon, and in the evening. Moreover, we need to rest with the Lord many times during the day. At least three times a day we should feast with the Lord, and many times a day we should rest with Him. Again and again we should take a break to remember the Lord and rest with Him. Suppose we took a break every twenty minutes to enjoy a rest with the Lord. If we deduct eight hours spent in sleeping, this would allow us to rest with the Lord at least forty-eight times during the day. How good it would be to have a Sabbath every twenty minutes!
The significance of the Sabbath is that it is a time to remember the Lord, a time to remember our Creator. If we do not take the time for a Sabbath rest, this means that we forget the Lord. But whenever we have a Sabbath, we remember Him. Certainly it is not too much for us to remember the Lord every fifteen or twenty minutes. Let us practice to remember the Lord and rest in Him time after time during the day.
As we have pointed out, 34:18 does not mention the feast of Passover, but the feast of unleavened bread. The reason is that the concern here is not salvation; it is our fellowship with God. We have already been saved, but what is the situation with respect to our fellowship with the Lord? If we desire to maintain fellowship with God, we need to clear away all the leaven from our lives. This is to keep the feast of unleavened bread.
The second feast spoken of in chapter thirty-four is the feast of weeks, which came in between the feast of unleavened bread and the feast of ingathering. The feast of weeks or Pentecost is the full issue of resurrection life. We know that the feast of weeks is observed seven weeks after the feast of firstfruit. This is my reason for saying that the feast of Pentecost is the full issue of the feast of firstfruit. Firstfruit produces Pentecost. This is true both in the type in the Old Testament and in the fulfillment of the type in the New Testament.
The firstfruit signifies the resurrected Christ. Christ was the first one raised from among the dead as the firstfruit of resurrection (1 Cor. 15:20). This was typified by the firstfruits in Leviticus 23:10-11 offered to God on the day after the Sabbath, the day of resurrection (Matt. 28:1).
From the day of Christ’s resurrection to the day of Pentecost was exactly fifty days. After His resurrection, the Lord Jesus stayed with the disciples for forty days. Then He left them and ascended to the heavens. Following that, the dis-ciples prayed for ten days. Then on the day of Pentecost (Pentecost means fifty), fifty days after the resurrection of Christ, there was the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. The outpouring of the Holy Spirit was the full issue of the resurrected Christ. The resurrected Christ was the firstfruit, the barley sheaf, on the day of resurrection. Then this resurrected Christ had a full issue manifested on the day of Pentecost. This means that the resurrected Christ became the Spirit poured out upon His believers for their full enjoyment.
As I consider the feasts in the Old Testament and their fulfillment in the New, I am convinced once again that the Bible is the Word of God. The Bible is not a book written according to the human mentality. No, the Bible truly is the divine revelation. Augustine once said that the New Testament is concealed in the Old and that the Old is expressed in the New. This understanding is correct. Regarding the types of the feasts and their fulfillment, we see that the New Testament and the Old Testament correspond to each other.
We need to clear all the leaven, all the sinful things, out of our daily life so that we may have the enjoyment of Christ. This means that if we have the feast of unleavened bread, we shall also have the feast of Pentecost for the enjoyment of Christ. We have seen that daily we need to take Christ as the sin offering and the trespass offering. If we apply Christ in this way every morning, we shall clear away the leaven from our daily life. This will lead us to a daily Pentecost, to the daily enjoyment of Christ. Then at the end of the day we shall have a time of ingathering, a time of harvest. Ingathering means to gather in the full harvest of produce in order to have a full enjoyment. To experience the feast of ingathering is to dwell with God in the full enjoyment of Christ. How marvelous it would be to have a feast of ingathering every evening! To end the day with a feast of ingathering is to enjoy the Lord in a full way as we dwell with God. This is the real feast of tabernacles.
However, many saints do not have the feast of unleavened bread in the morning. Neither do they enjoy the feast of Pentecost during the day. As a result, at the end of the day there is no feast of ingathering, no feast of tabernacles. Often our situation has been like this. But now we see that daily we need to feast with the Lord and rest with Him. Daily we should enjoy Christ as the feast of unleavened bread, the feast of weeks, and the feast of ingathering, and daily we should have many Sabbaths to remember the Lord and rest in Him.