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II. In His perfect redemption through His death judicially and in His complete salvation by His life organically for the carrying out of God’s eternal economy, He is:
M. The Feast of the Passover — John 6:4; 1 Cor. 5:7-8:
1. It is the first feast of all the feasts ordained by God for His people (Lev. 23:5), typifying that Christ is the beginning of our enjoyment of Him that originates our spiritual life.
2. In this feast the main enjoyments are the passover lamb with its blood for redeeming and its flesh for fighting and walking, and the unleavened bread, signifying a sinless living (Exo. 12:5-8).
3. In the enjoyment of Christ we must eat His flesh and drink His blood so that we may have His eternal life (John 6:54) and eat Him as the heavenly bread so that we may live forever (v. 58) through His word, which is spirit and life to us (v. 63).
N. The Feast of Tabernacles — 7:2:
1. John in his Gospel refers to first the Feast of the Passover as the beginning of our enjoyment of Christ for the initiation of God’s redemption judicially.
2. Then he also refers to the Feast of Tabernacles, signifying the consummation of God’s full salvation organically.
3. The Feast of Tabernacles, which was the last feast of all the feasts ordained by God for His people (Lev. 23:34, 39-43), was for Israel’s enjoyment of the rich produce of the good land at its harvest time for their satisfaction.
4. Christ is our good land with all its produce for our enjoyment and satisfaction.
5. He cried out on the last day of the feast, saying, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes into Me, as the Scripture said, out of his innermost being shall flow rivers of living water” (John 7:37-38).
6. This call is repeated by the Spirit with the bride for people to participate in the enjoyment of Christ in the New Jerusalem in John’s last book, Revelation (22:17).
7. This indicates that the people who held the Feast of Tabernacles were not satisfied; the real satisfaction was to receive Christ and drink of Him that they would be not only satisfied but also overflowing with rivers of living water.
8. This is the enjoyment for satisfaction in drinking the river of water of life in the New Jerusalem (vv. 1-2).
9. Hence, the New Jerusalem is called the tabernacle, indicating that those who participate in the New Jerusalem are the real keepers of the Feast of Tabernacles for eternity with full enjoyment and satisfaction.
10. The word Tabernacles in the title of the Feast of Tabernacles implies the thought of remembrance; that is, the Israelite keepers of the Feast of Tabernacles should remember that their forefathers dwelt in tents (tabernacles) in their wandering in the wilderness.
11. Similarly, even the New Jerusalem is called the tabernacle of God (21:2-3) for the remembrance of the overcomers, who dwelt also in tents, in the first stage of the New Jerusalem.
12. The New Jerusalem will be consummated first to be the firstfruits in the millennial kingdom as a reward to the overcomers and then consummated finally to be in the new heaven and new earth as the full enjoyment of God’s full salvation to all the perfected believers. This will be the real Feast of Tabernacles.
In this chapter and the next we want to see more points concerning the all-inclusive Christ. These points are of three sections, and these three sections are mostly according to our participating in the Divine Trinity. The first section is from Christ being God (John 1:1) resulting in His being the fountain of living water (4:14). Christ is God for the purpose of dispensing Himself into us as the flowing God issuing in the fountain of the living water. This section is covered in John 1 — 4. John 1 unveils God (v. 1), the Word (vv. 1, 14), the life in the Word (v. 4a), the light of life that shines forth God (v. 4b), the flesh (v. 14a), the tabernacle (v. 14b) to be God’s dwelling place among His elect, and a group of four items: the Lamb (v. 29), the Spirit (v. 32), the house, and the ladder (v. 51). The Lamb is for redemption. The Spirit is for life-giving and transforming. Then the transformed stones are built together into the house of God, the church of God and the Body of Christ, which consummates in the New Jerusalem as the real Bethel. The house of God is a base for Christ to be the ladder to join heaven and earth.
In John 2 Christ is the temple of God (vv. 19-21), built with Christ Himself and all His overcomers as the constituents. In John 3 He is the serpent (v. 14), the eternal life (vv. 15-16, 36), and the Bridegroom, the increasing Christ (vv. 29-30). In John 4 He is the fountain of living water to quench our thirst, to satisfy us, make us happy, and be our pleasure (v. 14).
In the second section, the section of enjoyment, Christ is the Feast of the Passover and the Feast of Tabernacles. After this section of feasting, He is the Shepherd to care for us outwardly (10:11, 14, 16) and the Comforter, the Paraclete, to comfort and cherish us inwardly (14:16-17). Eventually, this comforting Spirit becomes the Spirit of life breathed into all of Christ’s believers (20:22).
There are some other items of Christ in the vast field of the Gospel of John. Some of these “gleanings” are that Christ is the only begotten Son of God to declare and express God (1:18) and the Messiah, the Christ, anointed by God to carry out His commission (v. 41). He carries out God’s commission by being the Lamb to redeem, the Spirit to dispense life and transform, the house, and the ladder.
Christ is also the Son of Man (v. 51). Jacob in his dream saw angels ascending and descending on a ladder (Gen. 28:12). When the Lord referred to that dream, He said that the angels of God ascend and descend on the Son of Man. The glory of the only begotten Son of God declares and expresses God in His divinity. However, to be the ladder that joins heaven and earth together requires humanity. This is the ministry of the Son of Man. Today, after His resurrection, Christ is still the Son of Man. Jesus told the high priest that he would see “the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of Power and coming on the clouds of heaven” (Matt. 26:64), and Stephen, when he was being persecuted, said, “I see the heavens opened up and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God” (Acts 7:56). When John saw Christ as the High Priest caring for the lampstands, He was like the Son of Man (Rev. 1:13). For eternity the Lord Jesus will be the Son of Man. Many Christian teachers have seen that He became a God-man, but they have not seen that He also became the man-God, the God in humanity, the God who is the Son of Man. For eternity the Lord Jesus will be the universal, steady, and strong ladder bearing the burden of the heavens and the earth as the Son of Man.
Additional gleanings of Christ in the Gospel of John include grace (God enjoyed by us) and reality (God realized and gained by us). John 1:14 says that the Word became flesh and tabernacled among us, full of grace and reality. Verse 17 says that grace and reality came through Jesus Christ. Christ is also the Creator who can change death into life (water into wine) in chapter 2. As the new wine, Christ is for our pleasure and our satisfaction to stir us up. The riches of Christ revealed in the Bible are inexhaustible.
In His perfect redemption through His death judicially and in His complete salvation by His life organically for the carrying out of God’s eternal economy, Christ is the Feast of the Passover (6:4; 1 Cor. 5:7-8). First Corinthians 5:7 says that Christ our Passover has been sacrificed. Christ is not only the Passover lamb but also the entire Passover. Then verse 8 says that today we are keeping the reality of the Feast of Unleavened Bread as the continuation of the Passover (Exo. 12:15-20). The feast is a time for the enjoyment of the banquet. The entire Christian life should be such a feast, such an enjoyment of Christ as our banquet, the rich supply of life. The feast is a table for eating. The Lord’s table is a feast. Psalm 23:5 says that the Lord prepares a table, a feast, for us to enjoy in the presence of our enemies.
Leviticus 23 says that God ordained seven annual feasts for His elect. The first one was the Passover (v. 5), and the last one was the Feast of Tabernacles (v. 34). The Passover is the initiation, and the Feast of Tabernacles is the consummation of our enjoyment of Christ. The Passover, the first feast of all the feasts ordained by God for His people, typifies that Christ is the beginning of our enjoyment of Him that originates our spiritual life. The entire Christian life should be a feast. At other times we have said that the Christian life is a suffering life, but we suffer so that we can feast more. Our suffering helps us to enjoy the Lord. Eventually, our suffering becomes our feasting. This is why Psalm 23:5 says that the Lord has prepared a table before us in the presence of our enemies. Enemies indicates fighting and suffering, but the Lord makes our fighting a feasting and our suffering a table.
In this feast the main enjoyments were the passover lamb with its blood for redeeming and its flesh for fighting and walking, and the unleavened bread, signifying a sinless living (Exo. 12:5-8). The flesh of the lamb was organic, and the blood was judicial. The blood redeemed the children of Israel judicially, and the flesh of the lamb was for God’s elect to eat so that they could be nourished and strengthened to walk out of Egypt organically. Christ today is the Lamb with His blood for redemption and with Himself for strengthening and nourishing us so that we can walk on God’s way out of Egypt. At the same time, we also eat Christ as the unleavened bread, signifying that we are living a sinless life.
In the enjoyment of Christ we must eat His flesh and drink His blood so that we may have His eternal life (John 6:54) and eat Him as the heavenly bread so that we may live forever (v. 58) through His word, which is spirit and life to us (v. 63). In John 3 we see that Christ as the Bridegroom, who is above all things (vv. 29-31), speaks the words of God to spread God. Following the spreading of God, He gives the Spirit without measure (v. 34). Then He gives the eternal life (v. 36). Thus, in chapter 3, just as in chapter 6, there are the word, the Spirit, and life.
Christ is the Feast of Tabernacles (7:2).
John in his Gospel refers to first the Feast of the Passover as the beginning of our enjoyment of Christ for the initiation of God’s redemption judicially.
Then he also refers to the Feast of Tabernacles, signifying the consummation of God’s full salvation organically. After the full harvest of their crops from the good land, the Jewish people observed the Feast of Tabernacles to worship God and enjoy what they had reaped (Deut. 16:13-15). Actually, their coming together was a real picture of blending. All the people of Israel were required to go to Jerusalem three times a year for this blending. The last time was in the fall after the harvest to enjoy their produce from the harvest of the good land in their praise to God with adoration, to bless God and speak well of God.
God ordained the Feast of Tabernacles so that the children of Israel would remember how their fathers, while wandering in the wilderness, had lived in tents (Lev. 23:39-43), expecting to enter into the rest of the good land. Everyone had a tent, and God had a tabernacle among these tents, so the Feast of Tabernacles was a remembrance of God’s story. This points to what the Lord said when He established His table. He told us to eat the bread and drink the wine in remembrance of Him (Luke 22:19-20). The Lord’s table is a remembrance just as the Feast of Tabernacles was a remembrance.
This feast is a reminder that today people are still in the wilderness and need to enter into the rest of the New Jerusalem, which is the eternal tabernacle (Rev. 21:2-3). Although the New Jerusalem will be solidly built with gold, pearls, and precious stones, it will be called a tabernacle. The New Jerusalem is the tabernacle for the remembrance of how the overcomers, before the consummation of the New Jerusalem in the kingdom age, were still living in tents; they were not settled yet. When they enter into the New Jerusalem in the new heaven and new earth, they will no longer be living in tents, but they will still call their eternal dwelling place the tabernacle in remembrance of what they experienced. When we enter into the New Jerusalem, we will have many eternal and joyful memories of what we experienced. The reality of the Feast of Tabernacles is a time of enjoyment in remembrance of how we experienced God and of how God lived with us. We lived in tents, and He lived in a tabernacle. Eventually, our Feast of Tabernacles will be the enjoyment of the New Jerusalem in the new heaven and new earth. That will be the real consummation of all the harvest of our experience of God.
The Feast of Tabernacles, which was the last feast of all the feasts ordained by God for His people (Lev. 23:34, 39-43), was for Israel’s enjoyment of the rich produce of the good land at its harvest time for their satisfaction.
Christ is our good land with all its produce for our enjoyment and satisfaction.
He cried out on the last day of the feast, saying, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes into Me, as the Scripture said, out of his innermost being shall flow rivers of living water” (John 7:37-38). The Feast of Tabernacles was just a type of Christ as the reality. That feast did not satisfy them, so on the last day the Lord cried out that whoever is thirsty, unsatisfied, should come to Him to drink for their real satisfaction.
This call is repeated by the Spirit with the bride for people to participate in the enjoyment of Christ in the New Jerusalem in John’s last book, that is, the book of Revelation (22:17).
This indicates that the people who held the Feast of Tabernacles were not satisfied; the real satisfaction was to receive Christ and drink of Him so that they would be not only satisfied but also overflowing with rivers of living water. This overflow of the riches is the expressed riches, the fullness. Originally, all the riches were contained in God, but now they become our enjoyment to such an extent that they overflow to express the riches of our enjoyment of God.
This is the enjoyment for satisfaction in drinking the river of water of life in the New Jerusalem (vv. 1-2).
Hence, the New Jerusalem is called the tabernacle, indicating that those who participate in the New Jerusalem are the real keepers of the Feast of Tabernacles for eternity with full enjoyment and satisfaction.
The word Tabernacles in the title of the Feast of Tabernacles implies the thought of remembrance, that is, the Israelite keepers of the Feast of Tabernacles should remember that their forefathers dwelt in tents (tabernacles) in their wandering in the wilderness.
Similarly, even the New Jerusalem is called the tabernacle of God (21:2-3) for the remembrance of the overcomers, who dwelt also in tents, in the first stage of the New Jerusalem in the kingdom age.
The New Jerusalem will be consummated first to be the firstfruits in the millennial kingdom as a reward to the overcomers and then consummated finally to be in the new heaven and new earth as the full enjoyment of God’s full salvation to all the perfected believers. This will be the real Feast of Tabernacles.
