The Coming of the Holy Spirit Fulfilled the Feast of Pentecost

     The fourth of the seven feasts of Israel, the Feast of Pentecost, occurs exactly fifty days after the Feast of First Fruits. See Leviticus 23:15-21 It is also called the Feast of Harvest and the Feast of Weeks. It is a celebration of the second harvest of the year, the summer wheat harvest, and also traditionally a celebration of the receiving of God's Law at Mt. Sinai.

      The Feast of Pentecost was first celebrated in the year that Israel reaped their first wheat harvest in the Promised Land, approximately 1,500 years before the time of Christ. Just as the first three feasts foreshadowed what was to come, so the Feast of Pentecost foreshadowed something that God had in store for His people.
    
     Coincidentally, it was on the very day of the Feast of Pentecost in Jerusalem, fifty days after Jesus' resurrection, that the Holy Spirit was poured out on the new believers in Christ, or was it just a coincidence? Was the pouring out of the Holy Spirit the prophetic fulfillment of another feast of Israel?

     In what way does the Holy Spirit's arrival fulfill the Feast of Pentecost? First of all, Pentecost was a harvest feast, and when the Holy Spirit was poured out on the Day of Pentecost, after Peter preached the gospel, there was a harvest of 3,000 precious souls. (Acts 2:41) It is also interesting to note that 3,000 souls died when Moses came down the mountain with the Law only to find that the children of Israel were partying with the Golden Calf. (Exodus 32:28)  As Paul explains in II Corinthians 3:6, "....for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life." but that is a topic for another day.

      There is another way in which the Feast of Pentecost is fulfilled by the coming of the Holy Spirit. The Jewish tradition is to celebrate the receiving of the Law on the Feast of Pentecost. Why, you might ask, would someone want to celebrate receiving God's Law? It is because with God's Law, the people of Israel would be able to know what God expected of them. They would be able to walk in a way that pleased God because He made it very clear to them what they were to do and not do. God would use the Law to teach the people about Himself and help them to draw near to Him.

     With the coming of the Holy Spirit there was a new way for man to walk in communion with God. Since the coming of the Holy Spirit, believers no longer walk according to the letter of the Law written on tablets of stone. We now walk by the Spirit, and the Law of God is written on our hearts.

     "But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days," declares the Lord, "I will put My law within them, and on their heart I will write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people." Jeremiah 31:33

     Before He left, Jesus told His disciples, "But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you." John 14:26

     And so, all of the spring feasts have been fulfilled in a miraculous way, exactly on time. There are three more feasts that have yet to be fulfilled, and those are the three autumn feasts: Feast of Trumpets, Day of Atonement, and Feast of Tabernacles. These feasts just might be able to give us a glimpse into the future.....