The feast of the Passover signifies Christ as our redemption to begin our enjoyment of God’s salvation with God, in which Christ is everything.
There were seven yearly feasts, and the first one was the feast of the Passover. There were the weekly feasts, the Sabbath, and there were the yearly ones, seven of them.
When we as God’s people have been formed into a priesthood serving God with Christ as the reality of all the sacrifices, when we are cleansed from our uncleanness and live a holy life for the church life, we are qualified to feast with the Lord.
Actually, our entire Christian life should be a feast, for even our sufferings are so that we may enjoy Christ as our feast even more. Feasting on the Lord and with the saints, however, needs to be in the principle of the Sabbath, which is that we first rest with the Lord and enjoy God, and then we can work with God by being one with Him.
In God’s creation of man, man’s first day was a day of rest. This sets the principle of our resting with the Lord first, enjoying Him, and partaking of Him, and then doing something for Him in oneness with Him.
Furthermore, even in redemption, the first thing we need to do is not work for God or do something for Him, but enjoy Him. We cannot work for our redemption, and nothing we do is acceptable to God for our salvation.
All we have to do is believe into the Lord and receive His accomplished work. The redemption work is done and we can simply believe and receive.
Christ has done everything for us. He has paid the highest price, He shed His blood on the cross, and He died for us. Now all we have to do is receive His redemption by faith.
We need to daily keep the principle of the Sabbath by first resting and enjoying God, being filled with God and allowing God to infuse us with Himself. Then, we can work with God, and our work will be the overflow of the enjoyment of God, and we will be one with Him in whatever He leads us to do.
God doesn’t accept work that is not initiated by Him, work that doesn’t come from our resting with Him and enjoying Him.
In our natural man we may be inclined to do many things for God, and our flesh may be so ready and willing to do works for God, but God wants us to first stop and enjoy Him (which kills our flesh and denies the natural man) and then, after we are filled with His enjoyment, we can work with Him, for Him, in Him, and one with Him.
And this rest and enjoyment is unto the Lord, that is, for His joy and satisfaction, in a solemn way, full of holiness and enjoyment.
Feasting on the Lord in our Christian Life in the Fullness of God’s Riches
The number of annual feasts ordained by God for His people to keep was seven. These seven annual feasts were in the fullness of God’s riches.
The number seven in the Bible denotes completeness. There were four festivals that took place in the first group of feasts, and three took place in the second group.
The first group took place in the first month of the year, and the second group took place in the seventh month of the year. In their dispensational fulfillment in church history, the first four feasts have taken place already, and the last three will take place in the future.
God ordained these feasts for His people to come in His presence and rest with Him, enjoy all He has given them, and partake of what He has done. These feasts kept the oneness of God’s people, and they blended them together, bringing them into oneness before their God to enjoy God and rest with God.
The feasts are yearly, the new moons are monthly, and Sabbath is weekly; furthermore, we daily eat and drink. Daily we eat and drink Christ, weekly we have completion and rest in Him, monthly we experience a new beginning in the Lord, and throughout the year Christ is our joy and enjoyment.
Christ is the reality of all the positive things in the universe, and He is our feast both daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly. He is all-inclusive and all-extensive. He has done everything for us, and He has ordained many times during the weeks, months, and years for us to come together and enjoy Him and what He has done.
Hallelujah for our Christ, who really wants to be our joy and enjoyment for us to feast on Him with the saints!
In the church life in the Lord’s recovery we have seven annual feasts, and attending these feasts and being in the messages given at these feasts has been a contributing factor of our oneness.
One thing that brother Witness Lee left us was the seven annual gatherings, and we can testify that without these feasts we would not be here today. By the Lord’s mercy we come together again and again in holy convocations, and the Lord has a way to release His word and preserve His recovery in oneness.
Hallelujah! Christ is the reality of the Sabbath and of all the annual feasts (Col. 2:16-17), and when we come together to enjoy the Lord, He Himself is the reality of all our feasts.
Thank You Lord for ordaining many feasts throughout the year for us to enjoy You with the saints and hold holy convocations unto the Lord. Thank You for being the reality of the Sabbath and of all the annual feasts. Lord, we come to You to feast on You daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly, and we want to pay the price to join the yearly feasts to enjoy You in a rich way with all the saints. Amen, Lord, preserve us in oneness in Your recovery as we meet again and again to enjoy You and hear Your word!
Christ is our Passover – He’s our Redemption to Begin our Enjoyment of God’s Salvation with God
In the first month of the year, on the fourteenth day, the people of Israel was to hold the feast of the Passover (Lev. 23:4-5).
The feast of the Passover signifies Christ (1 Cor. 5:7) as our redemption to begin our enjoyment of God’s salvation with God. The Passover, the first feast of all the annual feasts ordained by God for His people, typifies that Christ is the beginning of our enjoyment of Him that originates our Christian life (1 Cor. 5:7-8).
Christ is our Passover, for He has become our redemption to begin our enjoyment of God’s salvation with God.
When we were born of our parents we had a new beginning in our human life, and when we received Christ as our Savior by faith in His redemption we had a new beginning in our spiritual life.
But this new beginning should not be something we refer to as having taken place a long time ago; we should have new beginnings every day! Daily we need to come to the Lord in a fresh way and have something new with Him, a new touch, a new word, a new beginning.
We should never allow the freshness of the new beginning to fade; every day we need to celebrate the Passover not as a historical even but as a reality, bu enjoying Christ’s redemption as the beginning of our enjoyment of God’s salvation.
Christ accomplished a perfect redemption for us; through His death judicially and in His complete salvation by His life organically He carries out God’s eternal economy, and the beginning of this is Christ as the Feast of the Passover (John 6:4; 1 Cor. 5:7-8).
Christ our Passover has been sacrificed; He is not only the reality of the lamb sacrificed for Passover, but He is the entire Passover.
Today we keep the reality of the feast of the unleavened bread as the continuation of the Passover (Exo. 12:15-20) – our entire Christian life should be a feast, an enjoyment of Christ as our banquet, the rich supply of life.
From the Passover (the first feast of the year) to the Feast of Tabernacles (the last feast of the year) the people of Israel had a life of feasting with their God and with one another.
Christ is our Passover – He is the beginning of our enjoyment of God’s salvation that originates our spiritual life. Our entire Christian life should be a feast, from the very beginning to the end.
We may say that we have a lot of sufferings and trials, but all these are actually to help us feast on the Lord more. The Lord prepares a table before us in the presence of our enemies (Psa. 23:5); while we’re suffering and fighting, the Lord makes our fighting a feasting and our suffering a table.
Christ is our Passover; the main elements of the Passover were the Passover lamb with its blood for redeeming and its flesh for fighting and walking, and the unleavened bread, which signifies a sinless living (see Exo. 12:5-8).
The people of Israel applied the blood of the lamb and ate the roasted flesh of the lamb; the blood was for God to pass over them in His judgment, and the meat of the lamb was for the people to be strengthened to leave Egypt.
Christ shed His blood judicially for our redemption, and He gave Himself to be “roasted” by the fire of God’s judgment so that we may eat Him, be strengthened inwardly, and get out of the world to fulfill God’s purpose.
Christ today is the Lamb with His blood for our redemption, and with Himself for strengthening and nourishing so that we can walk on God’s way, be released from the world’s usurpation, and fight the battle for God’s economy. Hallelujah for Christ, our Passover!
Lord Jesus, today we want another new beginning with You! We come to You afresh to touch You, enjoy You, and receive Your living word. Cleanse us with the blood You shed for our redemption, and give Yourself to us to eat for our nourishing, supply, and walking in the way of God. May our entire Christian life be a life of feasting on the Lord. We want to enjoy You as our Passover. Lord Jesus, Your redemption is the beginning of our enjoyment of God’s salvation with God. Thank You for becoming our Passover to be our feast!
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message by James Lee for this week, and portions from, Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1994-1997, vol. 4, “Crystallization-study of the Gospel of John,” ch. 6, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Crystallization-Study of Leviticus (2), week 8, The Feasts (1) – The Sabbath, the Feast of the Passover, and the Feast of Unleavened Bread.
- Hymns on this topic:
# We are feasting with our Savior, / He with us and we with Him; / Hallelujah, hallelujah! / Feast of feasts that ne’er will end! / Eating, drinking with Thyself, Lord, / We are wholly satisfied. / Taste we of that glorious banquet / Thou wilt share with us, Thy Bride. (Hymns #1105)
# Lord, Thou art our true Passover, / God passed over us thru Thee; / By Thyself and Thy redemption / We with God have harmony. / Thou, the Lamb of God, redeemedst us / With Thyself and with Thy blood; / We apply Thy blood, our ransom, / Eating Thee, our real food. (Hymns #196)
# Lamb of God so pure and spotless, / Lamb of God for sinners slain. / Thy shed blood has wrought redemption, / Cleansing us from every stain. / Lamb redeeming, Lamb redeeming, / Bearing all our sins away. (Hymns #1089)
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