The principal denotation of all the annual seasons (feasts) is for God’s people to enjoy rest with God and with one another. The weekly rest is thus the denotation of each of the seven annual seasons. Every annual feast, like the weekly rest, was a rest.
The weekly sabbath was a solemn rest. It was not something light or common but something quite holy, sacred, and important for God’s enjoyment and His people’s enjoyment. This solemn rest signifies a genuine and thorough rest of God and with God for God’s redeemed people to enjoy with Him and with one another.
Whenever a festival took place, it was a holy convocation. A holy convocation signifies a corporate enjoyment of rest, not by individual believers separately but by the church corporately. In such a gathering we have the enjoyment of God before God, with God, and with one another.
On the sabbath no one was allowed to do any work. This signifies having no need of human labor.
The sabbath was “to Jehovah.” This signifies a rest for God’s enjoyment, participated in by His redeemed people. In all the convocations, in all the festivals, we are doing one thing-resting before God and with God and one another.
There were seven annual seasons (feasts). Seven is the number of fullness. The seven annual feasts were in the fullness of God’s riches.
In the Bible the number seven is composed two ways: four plus three and one plus six. The seven festivals in Leviticus 23 are in two groups, with four in the first group and three in the second. The four festivals in the first group all took place in the first month of the year. The three festivals in the second group took place in the seventh month of the year. According to their dispensational fulfillment, the first four have taken place already, and the last three will take place in the future.
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