We shall know the Day of Atonement has been completed and the feast of Tabernacles is here in kingdom-wide fulfillment when the loud voice proclaims from the new heaven: "Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God."

We shall know the Day of Atonement (Day of Reconciliation) and the feast of Tabernacles (abiding) have been completed in us personally when the Father and the Son have come to us and have made Their eternal abode with us (John 14:23), and we are at perfect rest in them.

In the kingdom-wide fulfillment of the seven feasts of the Lord, the Day of Atonement is the thousand-year Kingdom Age (Millennium). The purpose of the Kingdom Age is first, to bring to perfection the Wife of the Lamb; second, to bring deliverance and justice to the nations of the earth.

The payment for our redemption was made two thousand years ago on the cross of Calvary. But there remains the original problem of disobedience. Mankind cannot return to the garden of Eden, cannot partake of the tree of life and live forever in the body, until the problem of disobedience has been solved. Christ, the obedient One, has been raised from the dead—the First of the Kingdom of God.

Next in order will come the Lord's firstfruits.

And I looked, and, lo, a Lamb stood on the mount Sion, and with him an hundred forty and four thousand, having his Father's name written in their foreheads. (Revelation 14:1)

After the firstfruits, the remainder of the elect will be reconciled to God.

Finally the saved nations of the earth will be enabled to walk in obedience before the Lord God, making them eligible to partake of the tree of life that is in the midst of the Paradise of God.

Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city. (Revelation 22:14)

One misunderstanding in Christian thinking is that man can be restored to Paradise on the basis of forgiveness alone. It is believed that God's mercy and grace through the Lord Jesus are a "ticket" by which man is allowed back into Paradise and is permitted to eat of the tree of life and live forever in the body.

However, such is not the case. God's mercy and grace have provided forgiveness for us through the atoning blood of Jesus. But forgiveness does not give us the authority to enter Paradise and eat of the tree of life. Rather, forgiveness enables us to come to God in prayer so through the Virtue that is in Jesus we may experience moral reconstruction. It is the reconstruction of our moral nature plus forgiveness that finally open the door to immortality in the body and to Paradise.

To be continued.