So far we have explored many aspect of Jewish Ceremonial laws in the Shadow Of The Old Testament Series

This is what we have discussed so far

1. The Fall Feast (Part 1)
2. Pauls Explanation Of Col 2 (Part 2)
3. Day Of Atonement (Part 3)
4. Feast Of The Tabernacles (Part 4)
5. Clean And Unclean Meat (Part 5 , Part 6)
6. Burning Of Incense (Part 7, Part 8) 
7. Lighting Of Lamp (Part 9, Part 10 )
8. Offering Of Sacrifice (Part 11, Part 12)
9. Esther and Purim ( Part 13)
10. The Spring Feast (Part 14)
11. Jesus , The True Passover Lamb (Part 15)
12. The Red Heifer (Part 16, Part 17)

I was supposed to share this on Pentacost day, but my blogging software ran into some issues.

Purpose Of Pentecost (Feast Of The Weeks , Shavuot)

The Purpose OF the Feast, as mentioned in the Torah is as follows

“You shall rejoice before the Lord your God,
  you and your son and your daughter, your
  male servant and your female servant, the
  Levite who is within your gates, the stranger
  and the fatherless and the widow who are
  among you, at the place where the Lord your
  God chooses to make His name abide. And
  you shall remember that you were a slave
   in Egypt, and you shall be careful to observe
  these statutes.”- Moses (Deut 16:11)

The real reason behind the festival is to remember the grace of God that he had brought Israel into the land of Israel. Prior to that the Jews will be counting the Omer. Between Passover to Pentacost, there are about 49 days (7 Sabbaths)

On that day Israel is supposed to offer two young bulls, one ram, and seven lambs in their first year. (Num 28:27)

Christ And First Fruits

Many Christians said that Christ is the first fruit of resurrection. But those who think like this tend to forget about another significant event that happen at the point when Jesus died on the cross. Matthew wrote about it.

“Then, behold, the veil of the temple
  was torn in two from top to bottom;
  and the earth quaked, and the rocks
  were split, and the graves were opened;
  and many bodies of the saints who had
  fallen asleep were raised;  and coming
  out of the graves after His resurrection,
  they went into the holy city and
  appeared to many.” – Matthew (Matt 27:51-53)

When Christ is raised, he was not the only one that was raise. All the Saints of the Old Testament who kept the Mosaic covenant were raised alongside with him. It is at that point all the rituals and statutes of the Mosaic Covenant had the power to save. That is also the time when the Mosaic Covenant is fulfilled completely.

From that point onwards, both Jews and Gentiles had to sign the Covenant with Christ through baptism to be saved.  Unlike the Mosaic Covenant, they are not to enter into the land of Canaan, but they are suppose to enter the Kingdom of Heaven, which is the city that all the Jewish forefather look forward to.

Those who kept the Mosaic Covenant and were save, were those who resurrected together with Christ. When Christ fulfil that Covenant by being the Passover lamb, he saved all of them and bring them into heaven.

Under the Covenant of Christ we are no longer going to inherit the physical land of Canaan but to inherit the Spiritual promise land.  Like Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, we now look forward to the city where the maker is God.

That is why Christians today no longer celebrate Pentecost to celebrate their entry into the land of Canaan. We are not farmers, so we have no Omers to count, but we keep the spirit of these feast. Knowing that God had rescued us from being slaves to sin and made us the slaves of righteousness. We as Christians ought to celebrate the fact that through the Covenant of Christ we are now Abraham’s descendent. Today we are freed from sin and we are no longer slaves of sin but slaves to righteousness. 

The Establishment Of The Church Through His Spirit On Pentecost

That is why Christ chose the day of Pentecost to establish his church. In Acts 2 the first Christians are gathered in the upper house of John Mark in Jerusalem. It was the Pentecost, where many Pilgrims from the Jewish diaspora returned to Jerusalem to keep the feast.

Jesus had promised his disciples

“If you love Me, keep My commandments.
  And I will pray the Father, and He will 
give you another Helper, that He may 
abide with you forever—
  the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot
  receive, because it neither sees Him nor
   knows Him; but you know Him, for He
  dwells with you and will be in you. 
   I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you.”- Jesus (Jn 14:15-18)

Which later he spoke before he ascended to heaven he told his disciples

“you have heard from Me;  for John truly
  baptized with water, but you shall be 
  baptized with the Holy Spirit not many
  days from now … ….

  But you shall receive power when the
  Holy Spirit has come upon you; and
  you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem,
  and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the
  end of the earth.”- Jesus (Acts 1:4-5, 8)

The disciples followed his instruction and continued to wait and pray. Acts 2 narrated the coming of the Holy Spirit

“And suddenly there came a
  sound from heaven, as of a
  rushing mighty wind, and it
  filled the whole house where
  they were sitting.
   Then there appeared to them
  divided tongues, as of fire, and
  one sat upon each of them. 
  And they were all filled with
  the Holy Spirit and began to
  speak with other tongues, as
  the Spirit gave them utterance.” – Luke (Acts 2:2-4)

While today many in Christendom debate over what tongues sounded like. But we know that it is no normal language. it is a type of Utterance. It was very loud, and many of the pilgrims who came to Jerusalem for Pentecost gathered near the upper room to witness what the din is all about.

But as they gathered. They saw a group of 120 disciples given utterance by the Holy Spirit, but yet they heard them speaking in their own languages. These are the location where they are from
1. Parthians
2. Medes
3. Elamites, 
4.  Mesopotamia,
5.  Judea and
6. Cappadocia,
7. Pontus 
8.  Asia,
9. Phrygia
10. Pamphylia,
11. Egypt and the
12. parts of Libya adjoining Cyrene,
13.  visitors from Rome,
14. Cretans
15. Arabs

Today many who are anti tongues speaking claim that the utterance was assortment of languages and not an unknown tongue. But I would like to encourage those who think so to try this simple experiment.

1. Get 15 different bibles in different language (tongues) turn to Matt 6:9-13)
2. Each of you recite the Lords prayer in your own language
3. See if you can hear distinctly 15 languages clearly.

In Acts 2 there are 2 miracles that happen. The first was that those 120 disciples spoke in an unknown tongue. One that cannot be understood clearly. The second being that some of those who gathered were moved by the spirit of God to interpreted the tongue. that is why they could hear it by their own language.

“we hear them speaking in
  our own tongues the wonderful
  works of God” – Crowd at the upper room (Acts 2:11）

While those who hear the tongues speaking at not the interpreting mocked “They are full of new wine.” . they felt that these disciples were drunk.

Today many claims that when one believe in Christ he received the Holy Spirit. But in Acts these two event are not related and separated. For when the gospel is preached to Samaria, the book of acts recorded

“Now when the apostles who were at
  Jerusalem heard that Samaria had
  received the word of God, they sent
  Peter and John to them,  who, when
  they had come down, prayed for them
  that they might receive the Holy Spirit.”- Luke (Acts 2:14-15)

In Acts 10 the method that the disciples used to determine if one recieved the Holy Spirit is clearly stated

“And those of the circumcision who
  believed were astonished, as many
  as came with Peter, because the gift
  of the Holy Spirit had been poured
  out on the Gentiles also.
   For they heard them speak with
  tongues and magnify God.’”- Luke (Acts 10:45-46)

Peter when recalling this event compared it to Acts 2 saying.

“And as I began to speak, the Holy Spirit
  fell upon them, as upon us at the
  beginning” – Peter (Acts 11:15)

This same standard was used by Paul when he was preaching in Ephesus

“ And when Paul had laid hands on
  them, the Holy Spirit came upon
  them, and they spoke with tongues
  and prophesied.”- Luke (Acts 19:6)

The Purpose Why God Poured His Spirit Onto Men

The purpose of Tongues Speaking is an evidence of receiving the Holy Spirit. But the Holy Spirit is not here just as a sound that irritates people when we pray. The Holy Spirit is a guarantee and seal that indicate that we are the children of God.

As Paul once said

“In Him you also trusted, after you
  heard the word of truth, the gospel
  of your salvation; in whom also,
  having believed, you were sealed
  with the Holy Spirit of promise,
  who is the guarantee of our inheritance
  until the redemption of the purchased 
  possession, to the praise of His glory.” – Paul (Eph 1:13-14)

The Holy Spirit is sent to the world for 3 purpose

“And when He has come, He will convict
  the world of sin, and of righteousness,
  and of judgment: 
   of sin, because they do not believe in Me;
   of righteousness, because I go to My Father
   and you see Me no more; 
   of judgment, because the ruler of this
  world is judged.”- Jesus (Jn 16:8-10)

The Holy Spirit  is given to believers and it is God living within them. Jesus once describe what the Holy Spirit does

“I still have many things to say to you,
  but you cannot bear them now.
   However, when He, the Spirit of truth,
  has come, He will guide you into all truth;
  for He will not speak on His own authority,
  but whatever He hears He will speak; and
  He will tell you things to come.” – Jesus (Jn 16:12-14)

He is here to help believers as a counsellor, to remind the believers the importance of keeping the word of God. To provide them comfort and strength in times of difficulty and to continually make supplication for believers before God as they pray.

We would go into this details in a separate series.

Conclusion

This article is mainly written to talk about Pentecost. In this study we have looked into the Mosaic Covenant and what Pentecost meant to the keepers of the Torah.

It is meant as a day of Thanksgiving where they remember the fact that they used to be slaves in Egypt. That is why they need to go up to Jerusalem for a sacrifice. It is one of the 3 festivals where the Israelites had to travel to Jerusalem to keep it.

We looked into the idea of first fruits. Knowing that along with Christ the saints of the old testament were raised  at the same time of Christ for Christ had finally redeem them with his blood.

When Christ sacrifice himself and offered the world the Covenant of Christ. He made use of the festival to establish the church. The Holy Spirit fell on the 120 believers , they spoke in tongues and the crowd gathered to see what was happening. Peter stood up, spoke to the Jews Pilgrim, telling them that Jesus is the Christ.

They performed Baptism on 3000 who believed. Upon Baptism their sins were forgiven and they form the first Church. It is the group of people redeemed by the blood of Christ and part of the kingdom of God.

As far as Christians are concern, there is no longer the need for us to keep this festival. For Christ had given us a better promise far better than what the Mosaic Covenant promised. Today we are pilgrims waiting to inherit the Kingdom of God, it is far better than receiving the land flowing with milk and honey.  That is why we ought to keep the Spirit of the festival and remember the fact that we used to be slaves to sin and now we serve God.

Most importantly, let us strive to pray for the Holy Spirit, which is evidence by tongues speaking. For the Holy Spirit is the seal that guarantees our inheritance in heaven. He is the Spirit of God living within us, teaching us and guiding us in our daily lives.

That is our true Pentecost.