Are you a longing for the soon return of Jesus Christ? Are you a rapture Watcher? Can you see all the signs pointing to the soon return of Jesus Christ? Then you must read this article!
The Feast of Trumpets is the first holiday in the series of three Autumn Feasts and also the next Feast of the Lord that has not yet been fulfilled. After all, Jesus Christ fulfilled the four Spring Feasts exactly on the day and in every detail of each of these feasts, but the three Fall Feasts are still in expectation of Him who will fulfill them. More specifically: He will complete their meaning.
Already in the Old Covenant, celebrating all these feast days was dedicated to the people of Israel, partly as a reminder of past events, but it always included a shadow meaning that it already pointed to the future fulfillment by Christ. And when Jesus completed His ministry on earth, he fulfilled the Passover feast, Unleavened Bread and the Firstfruits Feast by dying as the Passover Lamb, fulfilling the feast ofunleavened bread [3] and rising as Firstfruits of those who died… on the day of the Firstfruits Feast. [4] Pentecost was fulfilled 50 days later when from Heaven
the Holy Spirit promised by Him was poured out on His Church or on His Bride [5]. Through the very detailed fulfillment of these festivals, Jesus showed that only He could be the promised Christ.
So if the upcoming Feast of Trumpets is also a shadow of a future great event in God’s Plan of Salvation, it motivates us to further explore the meanings given to this feast in the Old Covenant. For these shadows can then be the key to discovering the real meaning that will come to full clarity in the future and in which Christ will also be central. According to Jewish traditions, three themes are central to the blowing of the trumpets at Rash Hashanah or the Feast of Trumpets.
-The Wedding of the Messiah
-The raising of the dead
-The crowning of the King
In addition, each of these themes is symbolized by blowing a series of short or medium tones on the shofar. According to a tradition, they together form 99 blows. This sequence ends with the 100th tone, which is very elongated. This tone is also called the Last Trumpet (Tekia Gedola). Paul says that this Last Trump is blown when the Messiah comes for His Body, with the dead rising in Christ and all believers going to meet Him [6] The Feast of Trumpets is actually quite unknown to most Christians. Perhaps you have never thought about it yourself and searched the sky for that new moon, as an expression of vigilance. Yet this is again a feast in which Christ is central. It shows all aspects of the next celestial event on God’s Calendar. Now there are Christians who do not have a clear picture of the rapture of the Church or for whom it does not feel comfortable at all within their theological framework. But just as the Day of Atonement and the Feast of Tabernacles reflect important future events in God’s Plan of Salvation, so too must the New Covenant meaning of this Feast of Trumpets be sought. Or in other words: We may search for the real future meaning of
fulfillment in Christ. A sincere seeker can not ignore this and wants to elaborate that meaning in his or her discipleship, because the New Testament explicitly refers to the three themes mentioned above.
An Other Angle
The search for the meaning of this feast of the trumpets can also be done in another way; in Wake Up! the Hebrew Wedding Ritual is described in detail. Paul presents the Church as a bride and Jesus Christ as the Bridegroom. The steps in this covenant process are also a heavenly blueprint, which Jesus speaks of several times, and they give us great insight into the relationship between the Heavenly Bridegroom and the earthly Bride. We refer to the book for a detailed description, but briefly it boils down to the prospective bride and groom entering into a first covenant with each other and sealing it by drinking the wine cup as a sign of that covenant. At that time they are not yet married, but the bride is already heir to her groom. The groom buys the bride separately from her family at this stage. After this covenant, the groom will first leave for a longer period of time and leave the bride with her family [8] because he will prepare the bridal room in his father’s house and also the house in which the bridal couple will live after the wedding. So far there are very clear parallels with the 4 spring feasts.
When the groom leaves and leaves gifts for the bride, we see the parallel with the Pentecost; the Bridegroom leaves the Bride in a covenant relationship with her and with gifts. We also understand the words of Jesus much better when He tells His disciples that He will no longer drink the wine until he drinks it with them again in His Father’s kingdom and that He will go and prepare a place for His bride. These words of Jesus are the words of a heavenly Bridegroom. [9]
After the departure of the Israelite bridegroom, as said, he would not be visible to the bride for a long time. We also recognize that in the many centuries that the earthly Bride is already waiting for her Bridegroom. The ultimate spiritual unity comes only after He has picked her up and the Wedding has taken place in the Father’s house. As soon as the bridal room and the future home are ready, the groom may leave to pick up the bride. It is the father of the groom who traditionally has to indicate when the time is there. At that moment the trumpet sounds and the groom’s procession comes to the bride in the evening to pick her up for the wedding ceremony to be held at the groom’s father’s house. So the bride is picked up from her family’s house and taken away. Because she sits on a special portable, her feet do not touch the earth. After the wedding, they stay in the bridal room for 7 days, after which everyone sees the couple step outside and the Wedding Supper is enjoyed. Do you discover a future reality in this deep-rooted Hebrew tradition? The Feast of Trumpets corresponds exactly in this pattern to the moment when the groom comes to fetch the bride for the wedding. Will that also be the moment, the ‘Jubilee Day’, when – at the sounding of that Last Trumpet – the dead in Christ come alive again and meet Him, together with the then living who stayed behind, in the air to live forever with the Bridegroom? [10] Based on all these patterns, can we ignore the deep meaning of the Feast of Trumpets, if we want to understand this feast openly as a feast with a future fulfillment in Christ? We cannot help but explain this feast within the framework of the pattern of the entire feast series and always look at every feast how Christ is central to its New Covenant meaning. After all, the Father does all things through Him. But now that the spring feasts were given their true meaning by the very day of each feast by Jesus Christ, wouldn’t it be obvious that the mysterious Feast of Trumpets would take full effect exactly on a future day of this feast? The Bride cannot wait for the Bridegroom to come, but she is ready every day and looks forward to being clothed in heavenly white robes. [11]
[1] Lev. 23: 23-25, Num. 29: 1-6. In Hebrew: Yom Teroea [2] Num. 29: 1 That is, without having sinned. [4] 1 Cor. 15:20 [5] See John. 14: 25-26 [6] 1 Cor. 15: 51-52, 1 Tess. 4: 14-18 [7] See, for example, what the letters to the Thessalonians and the book of Revelation say about this. [8] You can also say: the bride is no longer with her family, but is still with her family. Do you see the parallel? [9] See, inter alia, Matt. 26:29, Mark. 14: 24-25 [10] See eg 1 Tess. 4: 15-17 [11] See Rev. 3: 5. Only for those who are NOT awake will the Lord come as a thief, Op says. 3: 3. It is curious that even on the date of this festival (Tishri 1-2), the Jews are also dressed in white or wearing a white kippah, without therefore understanding its New Testament meaning.
This article was translated. Written by www.wakeup.nu
image credits: ID 123531910 © Tomert | Dreamstime.com
