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The Daily Word of Righteousness
One in Christ in God, #38
Also in the fifteenth day of the seventh month, when ye have gathered in the fruit of the land, ye shall keep a feast unto the Lord seven days: on the first day shall be a sabbath, and on the eighth day shall be a sabbath. (Leviticus 23:39)
The Completion of the Harvest
The feast of Tabernacles (Leviticus 23:23-39) marks the end of the harvest season. All the food grown in the land of Israel has by this time been reaped and processed. Beginning with the citrus harvest in February and March, and continuing through the harvest of wheat, vegetables, corn, figs, grapes, and nuts, all has been gathered and threshed or otherwise prepared by the time of the feast of Tabernacles.
It is a celebration of the most extreme joyfulness and gratitude toward the Lord. God has received His people and has blessed them. The long drought of summer is over and the September (early; former) rains are about to commence.
It is easy to see how the new heaven and earth reign of Christ is associated with the feast of Tabernacles. Everything God has planted in the Christian has attained maturity. Christ has been formed in each aspect of his personality. There is nothing left of the first creation.
Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature [a new creation]: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new. (II Corinthians 5:17)
God demonstrates clearly that the past is over by creating a new heaven and a new earth.
Nevertheless we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness. (II Peter 3:13)
God creates the new heaven first, then the new earth. God always creates the heaven before the earth. This is the manner in which He works with us Christians. God is creating the "heaven" in us, the spiritual domain, first. After we have a "new heaven," so to speak, He will create for us a "new earth," a new body.
The "Tabernacles" phase of the redemption that is in Christ marks the completion of the work of atonement in the believer. The spirit of the Christian has been made one with the Spirit of the Lord (I Corinthians 6:17). His soul, or inner man, has been filled with the Nature and Substance of Christ and taught of the Lord in God's fires of suffering. His mortal body has been made eternally alive by being clothed with a body from Heaven that has been fashioned from the substance of eternal life.
The "long drought of summer" has come to an end. The harvest and processing of the personality has been completed. The new year, with its "refreshing rains" and its hope and expectations for a future too glorious to imagine, has arrived.
And he that sat on the throne said, Behold, I make all things new. And he said unto me, Write: for these words are true and faithful. (Revelation 21:5).
The symbolism of the elements and activities of the feast of Tabernacles suggests to us that the new heaven and earth reign of Christ has to do with the completion of the "harvest of all crops grown in the land of promise," which is a figurative way of describing the maturing of all that God has planted in the personalities of His children.
To be continued.