The Feast of Pentecost, which came fifty days after the feast of Firstfruits, signifies the New Testament believers enjoyment of the outpoured Spirit as the aggregate of the rich produce of the resurrected Christ for the producing and existence of the church as the Body of Christ.
The first group of four feasts were the feast of Passover, the feast of the Unleavened Bread, the Feast of Firstfruits, and the Feast of Pentecost. These were all in the beginning of the year, and they were related together. God wants His people to feast with Him and with one another.
As we live a holy and clean life in the church life, we will feast with the Lord and with the saints in many ways that are ordained by God.
The Feast of the Passover is the first feast, signifying the beginning of our Christian life. Christ died for us as the Passover lamb, and because of His shed blood which is applied to us by faith, we are spared from God’s judgment, we can come forward to God in an atmosphere of peace and acceptance, and we can partake of Christ together with all the saints in the house, the church of God.
After this feast there was one week of feasting – the Feast of Unleavened Bread, which signifies Christ as the sinless life supply for us to enjoy and partake of, so that we may live a sinless life by having Him as our supply and person living in us.
Our entire Christian life is a feast, a feast on Christ as the sinless life supply for us to live a duplication of His life on earth, a life with no sin or mixture or corruption.
A few days after the Feast of the Passover, there was the Feast of Firstfruits, which signifies the resurrected Christ who is for the Father’s satisfaction and for our enjoyment. In His resurrection Christ was ascended to the Father secretly to be the firstfruits of resurrection for His enjoyment, and then He came to His disciples, to us all, for our enjoyment.
After Christ satisfies the Father by being the firstfruits of resurrection for His personal enjoyment and satisfaction, He is being dispensed into us, His people, with all the riches of His resurrection for us to partake of Him and enjoy Him.
Sadly to say, however, many times we neglect to offer God the firstfruits, and therefore we ourselves do not have much enjoyment of the freshness of Christ in His resurrection.
We need to have more experience of Christ as the burnt offering, the meal offering, and the drink offering, until we ourselves become a corporate burnt offering, a corporate meal offering, and even a corporate drink offering in Christ for the satisfaction and enjoyment of God.
The Feast of Pentecost Signifies the Outpouring of the Spirit for the Producing of the Church
The Feast of Pentecost was the feast of the fiftieth day, counting from the day after the Sabbath, the day on which the sheaf of the wave offering was brought to God, to the day after the seventh Sabbath (see Lev. 23:15-22).
Fifty is five times ten, five signifying responsibility and ten signifying fulness. The Feast of Pentecost signifies the resurrection of Christ in its sevenfold fulness reaching the realm of complete fulness, bearing the full responsibility (signified by the number fifty) for the testimony of resurrection.
We know from the book of Acts that on the day of Pentecost the Holy Spirit was poured out upon the disciples in Jerusalem and formed them into the church, the Body of Christ.
On the day of Pentecost in the New Testament, the consummation of the Triune God — the all-inclusive, life-giving, compound Spirit of the processed Triune God, who is the totality of the Triune God — was poured out upon the one hundred twenty disciples as representatives of the Body of Christ (Acts 2:1-4). Wow!
So the real significance of the Feast of Pentecost is that we experience the outpouring of the Spirit of the consummated Jesus, the Spirit who was not yet when the Lord was on earth before His death (John 7:39).
Through His death, His human shell was broken, and in His resurrection He became a life-giving Spirit, the consummation of the processed Triune God, thus being glorified. This reached the fulness at Pentecost, when Christ as the Spirit was poured out for the formation of the church as the Body of Christ.
The Feast of Pentecost came fifty days after the feast of Firstfruits, indicating that the outpoured Spirit is the aggregate of the rich produce of the resurrected Christ (see Gal. 3:14).
The blessing of Abraham is Christ Himself, the all-inclusive One, as the reality of the good land. This all-inclusive Christ reaches us as the Spirit, which is the ultimate blessing, the reality of the all-inclusive Christ typified by the good land.
This Spirit was poured out on the day of Pentecost for the formation of the church, and this baptism was completed in the house of Cornelius, with the baptizing of the Gentile part of the Body in the Spirit.
Now the Spirit has been poured out on the whole Body of Christ, and we need to experience such a Spirit especially as we go out to announce the gospel or minister the word.
When we go out to preach the gospel and speak the word of God, we need to stand in oneness with the Body of Christ and claim the outpoured Spirit on the Body, for the sake of the increase and enlargement of the Body of Christ.
As a result of the outpouring of the economical Spirit of God on the believers, the Body of Christ came into existence as the increase, the enlargement, of the unlimited, individual Christ, making Him the universal, corporate Christ, the mingling of the processed and consummated Triune God with His chosen and redeemed people, which will consummate in the New Jerusalem (1 Cor. 12:12-13; Rev. 21:2).
The economical Spirit was poured out for the existence of the church as the Body of Christ, the enlargement of Christ, the corporate Christ. Hallelujah!
Thank You Lord for baptizing the whole Body of Christ in the Spirit, the consummation of the processed Triune God! Hallelujah, we all were baptized in one Spirit in one Body, and we were all given to drink of the one Spirit! Thank You Lord for making us a part of Your Body, Your enlargement and continuation, Your duplication and increase. Keep us enjoying You as the outpoured Spirit on the Body. Keep us in the Body, drinking the Spirit, and experiencing the baptism in the Spirit whenever we announce the gospel and minister the word!
The Feast of Pentecost signifies our Enjoyment of the Outpoured Spirit of Christ
The Feast of Pentecost signifies our enjoyment of the outpoured Spirit of Jesus Christ; this Spirit is the aggregate of the rich produce of the resurrected Christ.
The resurrection of Christ had a rich produce with much significance, for in resurrection Christ was begotten to be the firstborn Son of God, He became a life-giving Spirit, we were begotten as God’s many sons, and the new creation came into being (see Acts 2:1-4, 32-33; Rom. 8:29; 1 Cor. 15:45b; 2 Cor. 5:17).
The outpoured Spirit makes all this real to us.
We enjoy the Feast of Pentecost by enjoying the outpoured Spirit with all His rich aggregates in Christ’s resurrection.
Christ was the unique Son of God, and in the Godhead He still remains uniquely the only begotten Son of God, but in God’s economy Christ with His humanity and His divinity became in resurrection the Firstborn Son of God for His propagation (Rom. 8:29; Heb. 1:6).
The only begotten Son of God is the embodiment and expression of God’s life for us to receive life, and the firstborn Son of God is for the universal propagation of God, for the establishing of the churches.
In His resurrection Christ became a life-giving Spirit, a Spirit which He was not yet before He was glorified (John 7:39; 1 Cor. 15:45).
In His resurrection we all as believers in Christ were produced by Christ to be the many sons of God; we were regenerated through the resurrection of Christ from the dead to be the many sons of God, the many brothers of Christ (1 Pet. 1:3).
We are the many grains produced by Christ as the unique grain who fell into the ground and died (John 12:24); we are the many members of the Body of Christ constituting His Body (1 Cor. 10:17). All these items are in the aggregate of the rich produce of the resurrected Christ.
Hallelujah, we are now the many sons of God, the brothers of Christ, and the members of the Body of Christ to be the increase, enlargement, extension and expansion of God in humanity!
As we meet in the local churches we need to realise we are part of the universal extension of Christ, which came into being on the day of Pentecost.
These first four feasts – the feast of Passover, unleavened bread, firstfruits, and Pentecost – form a group that bears a great significance, which includes the death, resurrection, and ascension of Christ, with the outpouring of the Spirit for the producing of the churches.
By enjoying Christ as the feasts we enjoy His death, resurrection, and ascension, and there’s an outpouring of the consummated Spirit of the processed Triune God to produce the Body of Christ as the enlargement, extension, expansion of Christ into a corporate Christ. Hallelujah!
And the consummation of this is the New Jerusalem, which is the real increase, enlargement, expansion, and extension of the all-inclusive, immeasurable, untraceable Christ, who fills all in all!
Lord Jesus, thank You for pouring out the Spirit as the aggregate of the rich produce of the resurrected Christ! Hallelujah, Christ became the firstborn Son of God and we are the many brothers of Christ to be the many members of the Body of Christ! Thank You Lord for coming into us as a life-giving Spirit to regenerate us to be the many sons of God, the new creation of God, for propagation of God in man! Praise the Lord, the church today is the mingling of God with man, a mingling that is the achievement of God’s eternal economy and the fulfillment of God’s eternal desire to gain a corporate expression in humanity!
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message by Ron Kangas for this week, and portions from, Life-study of Leviticus, pp. 476-478 (by Witness Lee), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Crystallization-Study of Leviticus (2), week 9, The Feasts (2) – The Feast of Firstfruits, the Feast of Pentecost, and the Feast of Tabernacles.
- Hymns on this topic:
# From this Christ to God ascended / Hath the Spirit been outpoured, / Poured upon the Church, His Body, / That His members be empow’red; / Thus the Lord of all in heaven / Thru His Church will be adored. (Hymns #277)
# O, say, aren’t you glad that the Spirit’s outpoured / And God, fully processed, is flowing in us? / So freely we’re breathing this life-giving Lord, / And breathing, receiving His life, glorious! (Hymns #1114)
# “With one accord,” until the mighty gift / Of pentecostal power was outpoured; / Then forth as witnesses possessed of God, / To preach the resurrection of the Lord! (Hymns #258)
