A DIAGRAM OF
THE AGES
By
D.
M. PANTON, B.A.
It
is extraordinarily beautiful and wonderful that
the Most High, in the kindergarten of Israels
ordinances, has given, with rich distinctness, the ground-plan of the
ages. Figures of us
(1 Cor.
10: 6), and shadows
of
things to come (Col.
2: 16), the
Feasts are an exquisite cameo, designed as such, of the Churchs path
from her
re-birth to the Eternal City:- the Sabbath - redemption; Passover -
conversion;
Unleavened Bread - sanctification; Harvest - resurrection and rapture;
Trumpets
- war; Day of Atonement - judgment; and Tabernacles - final joy. For
the
divisions of the Feasts remarkably corroborate this simple and decisive
clue.
They are divided into three groups: (1) redemption, conversion, and
sanctification,
a yet uncompleted group which all occur in the first month; (2)
resurrection and rapture, a group not yet begun, by itself, after
arrival in the land; and
then
war, judgment, and joy, grouped together in the seventh
(or last) month, close all with a rapid
rush.
1. THE
SABBATH - REDEMPTION
The Sabbath
was the foundation of all the festivals, so as
to be before all, through all, and after all. The
first of the seven feasts was the Sabbath;
all through the following feasts, the Sabbath continued, in sabbatic
days, sabbatic months,
and sabbatic
years; and Gods whole scheme of time closes, first with the sabbatic month - the millennial
age, and then with the sabbatic
jubilee, seven sevens of years - the vast eternity
beyond. So that the
Sabbath begins all,
permeates all, and closes all, because
it is the picture of redemption.
For
before a single soul is saved, redemption is ready; throughout every
vicissitude of the Church or the believer, redemption never leaves,
never
forsakes; and after the last soul has been brought in, redemption
remains our
foundation for ever. All
that preceded
our epoch went to produce redemption - creation, conscience, law,
incarnation,
sacrifice, resurgence from the tomb - all are God's laborious work
ending in
the conversion of the human soul.
For
the Sabbath was the
first blessing God ever gave to man; for Gods seventh day was mans
first; and
God called man at once to share, having done no work himself, in the restful enjoyment of all that
He had made. So
when our Lord sat down
on high, His rest began: the work was over, for everything possible for
the
salvation of a universe had been done: He then rested
from His works, even as God did [at the creation] from His (Heb. 4: 10). And exactly the same
invitation is once again
given to man. Man,
with no works of his
own, is now invited to share in the Rest of an ended work; as surely as
man had
no hand, and could have no hand, in the creation of the universe, and
yet was
invited to share its benefits, exactly so we who have had no hand, and
could
have had no hand, in the salvation of the universe, are yet invited to
share
its benefits to the full.
2.
- THE PASSOVER -
CONVERSION
The first
essential, after a
provided redemption, is the new birth: all things begin afresh from the
moment
of Gods descent into the individual soul. In the first month
although it was the
seventh in Israels
old calendar; for this shall be
the beginning of
months to you (Exod. 12: 2): conversion
instantly makes the past
obsolete, and starts all life afresh at
the fourteenth
day of the month -
the exact date of Calvary
is
the Lord's Passover (Lev. 23: 5). The Holy Spirit has made the
meaning
absolutely sure: 0ur passover hath been sacrificed for us, even Christ" (1
Cor. 5: 7):
so, from the moment of regenerating
faith, when the lintels of the conscience became blood-sprinkled - I have been crucified with Christ (Gal
2: 20):
now sheltering for ever behind the Blood, the old life has been blotted
out as
though it had never existed; it is the birthday of the new calendar. The Church starts on her
path home to God. So
therefore none unsheltered by the Blood by
his own act can escape the Destroying Angel.
3. UNLEAVENED BREAD - SANCTIFICATION
The next
feast is that in which,
anti-typically, we are now living. And
on the fifteenth day, of the same month -
that
is, immediately after crucifixion with Christ on the fourteenth - is the feast of unleavened bread
(Lev. 23: 6).
The Holy Spirit again leaves us in no
manner of doubt. Our passover
hath been sacrificed for us, even Christ; wherefore " - since expulsion of all leaven is
immediately to follow the
sprinkling with blood upon the lintels (Exod. 12: 15)
- let us keep the feast - a seven-day purgation covering our
whole dispensational era - with
the unleavened bread
of sincerity and truth (1
Cor. 5: 8).
It is the
sacred festival of a consecrated life, which should follow upon our
union to
Christ in His death (Lange).
Appropriately, therefore, to this
section the Holy Spirit attaches excommunication for leaven retained (1 Cor.
5: 11), and a cutting
off (Exod. 12: 19)
from the [millennial]
Kingdom of the [regenerate] believer guilty at the
Bema of unexpelled
leaven (1 Cor. 6: 9).
Sanctification is
the process through
which we are now supremely passing.
4.
HARVEST RESURRECTION
AND RAPTURE
The next
feast is not celebrated
in the wilderness at all for it is ascension into heaven. When
ye
come into the land, ye
shall
reap the harvest thereof (Lev.
23: 10).
The seed are the children of the kingdom
(Matt. 13: 38),
planted in ever-recurring
relays: the Saviour is both Sower
(Matt. 13 37),
and Reaper (Rev.
14: 15); so that the wheat is the crop sown between the
two Advents; and
the harvest is the garnering out of the field - from off the plains,
and from
out the bowels, of the earth, in a reaping accomplished after the
wilderness
Journey is over, in successive flights of resurrection and rapture. The reapers, our Lord
says, are
angels (Matt.
13: 39). The
harvest is exactly and minutely graded. The
first Sheaf - which is Christ (1
Cor. 15: 20);
or,
since a sheaf is a plurality of ears, the group that ascended after the
resurrection, including Christ (Matt.
17: 53)
is garnered while
the feast of unleavened bread is still going on;
then, when seven sabbaths shall
be complete
- the enormous lapse of a whole dispensational era - two first-fruit
loaves, leavened, for they are types of rapt saints, not
of Christ (Lev. 23: 17);
these are followed,
two or three weeks later, by the main harvest; and finally the batch is
gleaned
of un-reaped ears in the corners of the field - for even towards the
close of
the Day of the Lord (Rev.
16: 15) the
characteristic Church warning for watchfulness goes forth.*
[*
The type makes it as
clear as anything can be that the field, which is the world (Matt. 13: 38), is
reaped by a plurality of
cuttings, and not by one swing of the scythe. The
enormous gap separating the Solitary
Sheaf, with which no sin-offering is offered, from the Two Loaves,
which are
accompanied by sin-offerings, makes the guess that the Loaves are
Pentecost
manifestly impossible; for in that case the Loaves must have come
immediately
after Passover-Calvary, and before Leavenless
Bread -
the Church in her age-long walk of commanded separation. The Lords own ruling of the
type (Matt. 13: 39)
shuts up the reaping to resurrection:
the cutting of Firstfruits
and Harvest is the same as
the cutting of the Lonely Sheaf - ascension off the Field altogether.]
5.
ATONEMENT - JUDGMENT
Atonement,
or covering,
follows; for the Day of Atonement, the awful crisis of the wrath of
God, so
covers sin finally as to finish transgression,
and
to make
an end of sins,
and to make reconciliation
for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness (Dan. 9: 24). In absolute loneliness the
High Priest does it
all; he confronts the wrath of God with the covering incense and the
blood of
the slain goat - Christ lifts Himself between the saved and the wrath of God;
while the temple was filled
with the smoke from the glory of God,
and from His power; and
none was able to enter into the Temple
till the seven plagues should be finished (Rev. 15: 8). It is Christ alone before
the tribunal of
Deity, sheltering His redeemed in the great day when God rises up to
judgment;
it is the inrush of the Blood between the saved and the
outrush of the Divine wrath. Then follows the dismissal of
the sin-laden
goat into the wilderness - the living nations (the goats on the left
hand), and
later, the mustered dead before the Great White Throne, all adjudicated
to
Hell; and at last the High Priest puts off his sacrificial robes, all
sin
having been finally dealt with, and comes forth, clothed in his
garments of
beauty and glory, for His millennial and eternal reign.
6.
TRUMPETS WAR
Trumpets
muster for war, and
open actual battle against a foe; for the trumpet is a war-weapon; and
so we
read, as God's final judgments fall, And
I saw the
seven angels which stand before God; and there were given unto them seven
trumpets (Rev. 8: 2). These trumpet-blasts
proclaim war against an
earth in conscious rebellion against God: each trumpeting is followed
by a
judgment: six blasts still hope for repentance; the seventh, covering
all the
closing disasters, are pure, unadulterated,
awful war.
And as the
peculiarity of the feast of
trumpets was that the trumpets were blown all day, from dawn to sunset,
so,
throughout the Day of the Lord, trumpet-blast follows trumpet-blast
till its
sun has set. The
great
day of the Lord is near: the mighty man crieth there bitterly. That day is a day of wrath, a day
of the trumpet, and
of alarm
(Zeph. 1: 14). Gods appalling thunders
break the silence of
two thousand years, rouse the world, wake the dead, and usher in the
tremendous
events that cluster at the end. Finally,
the loud trumpet
ushered in jubilee (Lev. 25:
9): so the seventh angel sounded; and the
kingdom of the world is become the kingdom of our Lord, and of his Christ
(Rev. 11: 15).
That seventh trumpet-blast covers a vast epoch:
the last judgments descend; the millennial era - itself wholly judicial
- runs
its course; the great judgment takes place before the Great White
Throne; and
the final jubilee of the ages is ushered in.
7.
TABERNACLES JOY
The
Feast of Tabernacles is
the final mustering of the whole people of God, first for investigation
and
reward, and then for eternal bliss. On the first day
shall be a solemn rest, a holy assembling; and on the eighth
day shall be a solemn rest: that
is, before the millennial age, and again before the eternal state,
there will be musterings
of Gods people; solemn
gatherings, first for millennial, and then for eternal, joy. In the words of Jehovah .
Thou shalt be altogether
joyful [literally, Thou
shalt only rejoice] (Deut. 16: 15). In every sabbatic
year the Law was read to all Israel
on the first day of Tabernacles, as ushering in a
judicial era. When all Israel
is come to appear
before the Lord thy God, thou shalt
read this Law before all Israel
(Deut. 31: 11);
and Ezra (Neh. 8: 18) read the Law
throughout the seven days:
for the whole millennial epoch is judicial; but it was not read on the eighth, for eternity
is based on grace alone.
The
supreme characteristic of the Feast of Tabernacles - its lavish burnt
offerings
- reveals a humanity thoroughly redeemed and devoted to God. Its only sin-offering was
the single
slaughtered goat, daily offered: whereas the burnt offerings were twice
as many
as on the Feast of Unleavened Bread, and five times as many as during
Passover
Week: so our devotion in that day will be twice as much as in our
utmost
sanctification now, for our body will then be redeemed as well as our
spirit [soul]*;
and
it will be five times as much as in the moment of our conversion, for
then the ordinance of the law [five is the number of law] will be
fulfilled in us"
(Rom. 8: 4):
and all the sacrifices are a multiple
of seven, because it will be the revelation of Calvary perfectly
understood and
fully appropriated at last.
[*
Our spirit and soul are not synonymous.
The animating spirit returns to God at the time of death;
the soul
descends into Hades in the
heart of the earth.
Both body and soul (of the dead) are be
redeemed at the time of resurrection.]
So
God's wonderful
kindergarten of the Churchs history closes in the folding up of the
pilgrim
tent and the final entry into the city whose foundations are immovable
and
eternal. The long
pilgrimage is over. Grounded
on the Sabbath of redemption, which
precedes, interpenetrates, and winds up all; born from above at the
touch of
the Passover blood; battling for holiness against a thousand forms of
leaven;
an enormous dispensational interlude of seven weeks then divides the
first
three feasts from the last four - three in the wilderness, four in the
land;
the first three in the first month, and the last three in the last
month: so
resurrection and rapture resume Gods work in harvest; war on a
rebellious
world is ushered in by trumpets; universal judgment blots out sin in
the day of
covering or atonement; and now, after tent life on earth and in heaven
is over,
on the last day, the great day of the
Feast (John 7: 37)
- for it is a symbol of eternity - is the final convocation of the
redeemed. On the eighth day shall be a solemn
rest.
The
main distinction of this eighth day was the abandonment of the booths,
which
were broken up, and the return of all the people into solid houses:
it is a
final passing of the pilgrim life, and the entry into the many mansions
in the
House of the Father. This
eighth day is
sometimes regarded as in the Feast, sometimes not: the old calendar,
strictly
speaking, is over: the morning of the eighth day is the final Sabbath -
God's eternal Rest never to be
broken again
by sin. And His
servants shall do Him [liturgical] service [as
priests]; and they shall see His face; and they shall reign for ever and ever"
(Rev. 22: 3).
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