The feast of propitiation was a holy convocation (v. 27b). This signifies that it is not a festival for individuals but for a congregation.
On the day of propitiation, the people were to afflict their souls and bring an offering by fire to Jehovah (vv. 27c, 29). This signifies mourning, repenting, and feeling sorrowful for sin, and offering Christ as food to God for the satisfaction of both God and man. According to Zechariah 12, this is what the Jews will do when the Lord Jesus comes back.
On the day of propitiation, the people were not to do any work but were to have a sabbath of rest (vv. 28, 30-32a). This signifies that God’s redeemed people do not need to do any work for their redemption but should rest in the redemption God has accomplished for them, that God too may rest in His redeemed.
“On the ninth day of the month at evening, from evening to evening you shall keep your sabbath” (v. 32b). This signifies that the rest of God’s redeemed people is a full and complete rest.
On the first day of the seventh month was the festival of the blowing of trumpets, and the feast of propitiation was on the tenth day of that month. The festival of the blowing of trumpets will be fulfilled when the Lord Jesus comes back, and the trumpet sounds to call together God’s dispersed people, to call back the scattered Jews to their fathers’ land. After the Lord Jesus has descended from the air to the earth, the Jews will repent, mourn, and return to God, receiving Christ as their Savior. This will be a literal fulfillment of the feast of propitiation.
However, the typology of this feast has already been fulfilled spiritually with us. On the cross, Christ accomplished propitiation. Using the New Testament term, He accomplished redemption. When we repented, believed, and received Christ as our Savior, we experienced this feast. Therefore, the feast of propitiation has a double application. Spiritually this feast has been applied to us, and literally it will be applied in the future to the Jews.
Leviticus 23:33-43 speaks of the feast of tabernacles. This feast signifies the coming millennium as a dispensational, joyful blessing for God’s redeemed people to enjoy with God for a full period of time in God’s old creation. This will take place not in the new heaven and new earth but on the restored earth.
“Speak to the sons of Israel and say, On the fifteenth day of this seventh month is the feast of tabernacles for seven days to Jehovah” (v. 34). These seven days signify that the festival of tabernacles is not for one day only but for a complete course of days. This complete course will be a thousand years.
“On the first day there shall be a holy convocation; you shall not do any laborious work” (v. 35). This signifies that from the first day it is not a festival for individuals but for a congregation to enjoy rest without the need of any human labor.
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