What It Means to be Filled with the Holy Spirit # 11

"And When the Day of Pentecost Was Fully Come" (continued)

In John 1:29, we find that the very first mention of the Lamb of God, the very first mention of the True Passover Lamb, far surpasses everything written of the Lamb in the Old Testament.

"The next day John (the Baptist) seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, "Behold the Lamb of God, Which taketh away the sin (all the sin) of the world"

With these Words, the Holy Spirit through John the Baptist sums up and fulfills all the types and shadows which the passover lambs, and there were thousands, represented in the Old Testament; and He proclaimed The One Who is the Lamb of God Himself, He heralds the only Lamb which God hath provided! He heralds The One Who taketh away the sin of the world! He heralds The One Who taketh away each and every sin of the whole world, sin past, sin present, sin future! - For we are not redeemed with corruptible things, "But with the Precious Blood of Christ ..." (1 Peter 1:19).

Thus, in the Old Testament, the feasts of the Lord only point to Christ and prefigure Christ; but throughout the Gospel of John, the Holy Spirit makes it clear that the feasts of the Lord are all fulfilled, summed up and completed In The Person of the Lord Jesus Christ. May we please prayerfully read John, chapters six, seven, and eleven before we go further; for in these chapters, most of the feasts of the Lord are spoken of, or are indirectly referred to, as our Lord Jesus presses toward "the hour" that He completes the work His Father sent Him to do: - HIS Cross, His Resurrection, His Ascension.

"And the Passover, A Feast of the Jews, was Nigh"

In John 6:4, and in John 7:2, we learn that the Passover and the other Feasts were now referred to as the feasts of the Jews, and not "the feasts of the Lord." After the rebuilding of the temple and the wall in Ezra and Nehemiah's time, ceremonialism, formalism, hypocrisy, corruption, and greed began their deadly rise in the observance of these feasts; and when Jesus came on the scene, these deadly things were fully and actively at work in the temple. Hence, "the Feasts of the Lord" had become the feasts of the Jews. "The Feasts of the Lord" were to be holy gatherings, they were to be times ordained by the Lord God, which were to prepare His people to receive His Son, The Christ, with a joyful heart; instead, these Feasts had become the feasts of the Jews, and the majority of God's people did not even recognize THE ONE to Which these Feasts had pointed to, and prefigured, for so long.

~T. Austin-Sparks~

(continued with # 12)