It is so wonderful to realize and experience daily that God has delivered us, His people, from Satan’s usurpation and tyranny in the world so that we may hold a feast unto Him! Our whole Christian life is a feast with God and on Christ. This does not mean that we “party all day” but rather that stop our natural and fleshly enjoyment by enjoying the Lord Jesus as our real feast!
Our real feast in our Christian life is nothing outward but the enjoyment of Christ as our sinless life supply (the reality of the unleavened bread – the Feast of Unleavened bread) and as the firstfruits of Spirit of the resurrected Christ (the reality of the Feast of the Harvest).
God called us into the fellowship, the joint participation, and the partaking of His Son, Jesus Christ, and our daily Christian life and church life should be a life of feasting on the Lord. When we touch the Lord and enjoy Him we will realize that He is so rich, so wonderful, so available, so experiential, and so applicable to our daily life.
Our Christian life starts with not only being redeemed by Christ but eating Christ as the Lamb of God, the unleavened bread, and the bitter herbs, and it continues with a feasting on Christ as the crucified, resurrected, and sinless life supply.
Throughout our Christian life, we can enjoy Christ with His bountiful riches in His resurrection and ascension as God’s full allotment in His New Testament economy.
The Feast of the Harvest typifies the enjoyment of the rich produce brought in by the resurrected Christ. This rich produce is the all-inclusive Spirit of the processed Triune God given by Him to His chosen people as the blessing of the gospel (Gal. 3:14) so that they may enjoy the all-inclusive Christ (the very embodiment of the Triune God) as their good land. This signifies that the believers, through receiving the bountiful Spirit on the day of Pentecost, not only have entered into the good land, but also have participated in the bountiful riches of the all-inclusive Christ (Eph. 3:8) in His resurrection and ascension as God’s full allotment in His New Testament economy. (Witness Lee, Life-study of Acts, pp. 44-45)
Today we will go on to see what is the Feast of Ingathering (the Feast of Tabernacles) – the consummation of the harvest, our full enjoyment of the Triune God in the millennium kingdom and for eternity.
Lord Jesus, thank You for delivering us from Satan’s usurpation in the world so that we may feast on You and with You all throughout our Christian life. Lord, save us from not eating You and drinking You. We take You in as our sinless life supply so that we may live because of You a pure church life for God’s satisfaction. Lord, we exercise our spirit to enjoy the bountiful supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ and experience the riches of the Triune God in Christ as the Spirit with our spirit! Keep us enjoying You today, tomorrow, and for eternity!
The Feast of Tabernacles: Fully Enjoying Christ in the Millennium and in New Jerusalem
After the harvest was over, God ordained a feast called “the Feast of Ingathering”, also called the Feast of Tabernacles (see Lev. 23:34; Deut. 16:13-15), which is the consummation of the harvest (Exo. 23:16b). The feast of the Harvest is the full issue of the firstfruits, and the feast of the tabernacles is the ultimate consummation of the harvest.
All these three feasts are in the center of God’s economy in type. The Feast of Tabernacles typifies, first, the coming millennium as a dispensational, joyful blessing for God’s redeemed people (including the overcomers and the saved Israelites) to enjoy with God for one thousand years on the restored earth.
This feast was seven days (Lev. 23:34) indicating that it was for a complete course of days, which will be one thousand years. During these seven days the people of Israel had to present an offering by fire to Jehovah, signifying that Christ is offered day by day as food for God for the satisfaction of God and man.
In the millennium the overcomers will daily offer Christ as God’s food in their experiences so that God would be satisfied and God and man would enjoy mutual rest and satisfaction. Today we experience Christ, enjoy Him, and offer Him to God, but in the millennium we will offer Christ to God as food in all our experiences day by day so that God and man would be satisfied and at be at rest.
The Feast of Tabernacles was after the harvest – this indicates that the millennium will come after the harvest of what God desires to obtain on the earth. God is a God of purpose, and He has an eternal economy, a definite plan; He wants to gain something on earth with man.
In His eternal plan, God wants to gain a group of people who will be His corporate expression, which will consummate in the New Jerusalem. For this, God has worked in four main dispensations (periods of time in which He related to man in a specific way in order to gain man for His expression):
- The dispensation of the fathers (Rom. 5:14, also called the dispensation before the law): from Adam to Moses, when the “fathers” – the patriarchs – experienced and enjoyed God to become His expression individually;
- The dispensation of the law (John 1:17): from Moses to the first coming of Christ, when God dealt with His people based on the law, commandments, and sacrifices;
- The dispensation of grace (Acts 1:11): from Christ’s first coming to His second coming, when God temporarily set aside His earthly people Israel and has opened the gates of salvation to whomever believes into Him;
- The dispensation of the millennial kingdom (Rev. 20:4, 6), when the overcoming believers and the believing Jews will feast with Christ at the wedding feast for one thousand years.
The millennium, the age of the kingdom, will usher in the new heaven and new earth with the New Jerusalem for eternity (Rev. 21:1-3). Through these four dispensations God has worked in man and with man to gain what He is after; He worked to obtain the new creation out of the old creation and thus gain a group of people who would be His corporate expression.
The three feasts God ordained the children of Israel to keep perpetually portray our Christian life from our salvation as sinners to our entrance into the millennial kingdom, which God has prepared as the peak of His consummation of the new creation in the old creation, so that God and man may gladly enjoy all the blessings that God’s work of new creation accomplished in the age of the old creation.
Throughout our Christian life, day by day, we need to enjoy Christ as our feast of unleavened bread and feast of the harvest, and we will be ushered into a consummate feast, the feast of tabernacles in the millennium kingdom to enjoy God in full together with the overcomers among God’s people.
Ultimately, the eternal Feast of Tabernacles will be the enjoyment in the New Jerusalem for eternity; the New Jerusalem is the eternal tabernacle of God with man (Rev. 21:2-3) in the new heaven and new earth, where all of God’s people will enjoy the consummation of the harvest of their experience of God.
What we enjoy and experience of God today is a foretaste of the full taste we will have in the New Jerusalem. Today we need to pay the price to enjoy Christ, experience Christ, and feast on Christ, and God will reward us with the entrance into the feast of tabernacles to enjoy God to the full in the millennium kingdom and for eternity in the New Jerusalem!
Behold, the tabernacle of God is with man – the New Jerusalem, the holy city, is in fact the eternal tabernacle, where the real and consummate feast of the tabernacles will be kept and observed forever! Our destiny is to forever enjoy God together with His people in and as the New Jerusalem! Praise the Lord!
Lord, we want to keep the Feast of Tabernacles by feasting on You every day until we are granted a rich entrance into the millennium kingdom to enjoy You to the fullest extent. Grant us, Lord, that we would be Your overcomers, those who daily eat Christ, enjoy Christ, and experience Christ until we will fully enjoy Him in the millennium kingdom and as the New Jerusalem! Oh Lord, gain what You are after in Your dispensations in time and in eternity! Gain Your corporate expression, the people who enjoy God and experience God until they corporately express God for eternity!
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Inspiration: the Word of God, my Christian experience, brother Minoru Chen’s sharing in the message for this week, and Truth Lessons—Level Three, vol. 2, lsn. 28 (by Witness Lee), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Crystallization-Study of Exodus (2), week 9 / msg 9, Keeping Feasts unto God Three Times a Year Typifying the Full Enjoyment of the Triune God in Christ.
- All Bible verses are taken from, Holy Bible Recovery Version.
- Hymns on this topic to strengthen this burden:
# Christ Jesus is the food we eat; / He is our bread, He is our meat; / He is our life-supply complete; / We daily eat of Him. (Hymns #1145)
# Jesus is the living Spirit, / He is our rich feast; / As the Body now enjoys Him, / Praises are released. (Hymns #1142)
# Lord, may Your portion in us / Continually increase / That we may be invited / Unto that wedding feast. / And keep us always watching— / At morning, night, or noon— / For the wedding day that’s coming / Very soon. (Hymns #1316)
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