Building on the Foundation

  Among God’s people who keep the Sabbath and Holy Days, one of the most controversial topics is the calendar. Folks go round and round arguing over which calendar we should use to determine the dates of the Holy Days. We can prove mathematically, Biblically, and historically that the correct calendar is the Hebrew calendar in use today. This calendar matches every known historical date back to at least the destruction of Solomon’s temple in 587 BC. However, that’s well beyond the scope of this post. Those are topics for other days. The purpose of today’s post is to show that the Hebrew calendar reveals Jesus Christ, the Messiah and Savior of mankind. First, let’s fill in a little background on the calendar. For those who might not know, God’s calendar, unlike the Gregorian calendar used by most of the world today, isn’t a solar calendar. Nor is it a lunar calendar like the Muslim calendar. The Biblical calendar is a lunisolar calendar, that is, it uses the moon to calculate months...

  This is Part 7, the final part of this series on the tabernacle. That doesn’t mean we’ve learned all there is to know about it, mind you; there’s always much more to learn from God’s Word! We frail humans could never plumb the full depth of God’s mind and His Word, not in ten thousand lifetimes! But this wraps up our current study of the tabernacle in relation to the Holy Days, the days of Creation, and the ten commandments. Last time , we saw that, on the Day of Atonement, Jesus Christ returns to the earth with His 144,000 saints, slays the Beast and his armies, and casts Satan into the bottomless pit. He will return from the heavens, the Holy of Holies, and stand on the Mount of Olives where He was crucified. Under the Old Covenant, this was foreshadowed each year when, on the Day of Atonement, the high priest returned from the Holy of Holies to the altar of burnt offering and sprinkled it with blood. Jesus Christ’s thousand-year reign, then, also begins on this same day, the D...

  Hebrews 9:11-12 proclaims, “But Christ came as High Priest of the good things to come, with the greater and more perfect tabernacle not made with hands, that is, not of this creation. Not with the blood of goats and calves, but with His own blood He entered the Most Holy Place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption.” Jesus Christ is the High Priest of the heavenly sanctuary. God commissioned the earthly tabernacle built by Moses to be a model of this heavenly reality and of His plan for mankind. God’s goal is to bring His children out of the east (sin) and into His presence (the Holy of Holies), as we’ve seen throughout this tabernacle series so far. In Part 4 and Part 5 , we saw the culmination of this plan for the firstfruits. Those in the First Resurrection, accompanied by Jesus Christ, will enter the heavens on the Day of Trumpets and stand before God’s throne in the Holy of Holies. This isn’t the culmination of God’s whole plan, though. In fact, it’s just getting ...

  As we explore the tabernacle, we begin to see that God uses patterns, symbols, and pictures to teach us about His plan. By now, it should be clear that God’s goal is to draw mankind out of the east (sin) and into the Holy of Holies (His presence; His family). This requires a step-by-step process of sanctification, for no sinful creature can dwell with the Almighty (Psa. 5:4). Jesus Christ’s blood atones for our sins. We repent, get baptized, receive the Holy Spirit, and begin to “walk in newness of life” (Rom. 6:4). That takes us through the altar, the laver, and into the Holy Place, as well as through the corresponding first three holy days: Passover, the Last Day of Unleavened Bread, and Pentecost. The fourth holy day, the Day of Trumpets, as we saw last time , corresponds to the Holy of Holies. That’s when the first resurrection happens and Yeshua/Jesus takes the firstfruits before His Father’s throne. “For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice...