# OT Feasts and Festivals



## D. Paul (Jan 30, 2011)

I probably should have read "Do the Scriptures have many meanings?" first, but...

I have just come from a small group session where we have been "studying" the OT Feasts and Festivals. Rather, we have watched a video by Mark Biltz who claims he has "studied" these and thus proceeds with his incredibly rapid-fire use of scripture to make all the feasts & festivals point to the end times, the Rapture etc.

This doesn't necessarily belong in a Dispensational thread, although there are parallels. *And it's not even what Biltz says as the reason for this post!*

My Q is this: In the discussion it was mentioned that another Pastor had stated that "It is important that we recognize the significance of these feasts & festivals because these are what we are going to be celebrating in heaven."

*Is there any validity to this? I have never heard or read any such thing.
*
p.s. For the record, my research on Biltz seems to indicate that he is somewhat similar to Sid Roth.


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## jwithnell (Jan 31, 2011)

Everything -- the feasts, the sacrifices, the design of the temple, etc. -- pointed to the work of Jesus. In heaven we will worship and glorify God as His redeemed people. The pictures of the OT are not needed now that we have the finished work of Christ and its record in the scriptures; in heaven we certainly won't need these dim images. In the glimpses we get of heavenly worship -- In Isaiah 4 and Revelation 5 we see those in heaven using every part of themselves to glorify God.


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## Pergamum (Jan 31, 2011)

> "It is important that we recognize the significance of these feasts & festivals because these are what we are going to be celebrating in heaven."



Wow! That's sort of a step backward.


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## Jack K (Jan 31, 2011)

Indeed, returning to those festivals would be a step back into a dimly-seeing era. _"I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb"_ (Rev. 21:22).


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## Peairtach (Jan 31, 2011)

But the Feasts - in Christ's fulfilment of them - have spiritual, ecclesiastical, eschatalogical and practical fulfillments, as do other of the Old Covenant typological laws, in our era. 

The observation of the childish typology has fallen away but the adult New Covenant Israel of God still needs to know the alphabet that he learned when he was a child.



> All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work. (II Tim. 3:18-17, ESV)


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## goodnews (Jan 31, 2011)

D. Paul said:


> I probably should have read "Do the Scriptures have many meanings?" first, but...
> 
> I have just come from a small group session where we have been "studying" the OT Feasts and Festivals. Rather, we have watched a video by Mark Biltz who claims he has "studied" these and thus proceeds with his incredibly rapid-fire use of scripture to make all the feasts & festivals point to the end times, the Rapture etc.
> 
> ...



I don't think there's any question that we will be feasting in heaven (and by heaven I mean the place where we will exist after our bodies have been glorified). Certainly Jesus ate post-Resurrection, and there are other passages (like the Great Banquet) that hint to that. No book in all of history has as much eating as the Bible. It was central to life in the Garden, central to the life/teachings of Israel, central to the Gospel teaching, and very important in the Early Church. Indeed the Bible is bookended by the Tree of Life. In the Garden the climax of creation was the command to go and eat, and through faithful and correct eating we lived, and through unfaithful and incorrect eating we died. I think there's a sacramental vein (or actually artery) running through Scritpture. In between the Tree of Life motifs we have the eating emphasized throughout God's unfolding plan of redemption. The eating is still central, but is presented with the added element of redemption (so, now, the eating is done including the need of a sacrifice, or later the memorial of a sacrifice, e.g. meat and blood of an animal and later or the ground up and cooked bread and wine gotten from trampling with the feet). All pointing to Christ. I think there is an eschatological element in that, but I don't see it following a dispensational path. Rather (and I'm still hashing it out), it seems to follow a covenantal path, although I'm not quite sure how it all looks yet.


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