Counting Pentecost (Feast of Weeks)
All of God’s Feast days listed in Leviticus 23 are set on fixed days of the week, only the Feast of Pentecost requires us to count.
Leviticus 23:15, “And ye shall count unto you from the morrow after the Sabbath from the day that ye brought the sheaf of the wave offering; seven sabbaths shall ye number fifty days.”
Pentecost is the complete fulfillment of the Feast of Weeks found in Exodus 34:22; Deuteronomy 16:8,10. The Feast of Weeks is a picture of the all inclusive Christ as stated as the fulness of Christ, Ephesians 4:13 and Colossians 2:9. When the Feast of Weeks is complete, only then will Pentecost have fully come as the scriptures say, Acts 2:1.
Why are we to count for ourselves? The Hebrew word count is #5608 in Strongs Concordance and means: to score with a mark as a tally or record, to declare or record, celebrate.
God requires us to keep 3 Feasts during the year, Passover, Pentecost, and the Feast of Ingathering, or Tabernacles at the end of the year.
The Passover which is required by believers who believe that as 1st Corinthians 5:7 says, Christ, our Passover is sacrificed for us. Passover, the first Feast, is immediately followed by the 7 Days of Unleavened Bread which is the second Feast. The number 7, meaning completion of our new life as we grow into sinlessness, waiting until Christ returns or our physical life ends. Christ, our Passover, because of His resurrection, became the first of the first fruit, and as the third Feast, is offered and accepted by God. We start our new life with the Passover and we are commanded to walk in newness of life for the rest of our physical life, Romans 6:4. This third Feast, the Feast of first fruit, is the picture of Christ in His death, burial, resurrection, and ascension. Christ is the beginning of God’s salvation and the entering into the Kingdom of God.The fourth Feast we read about in Leviticus 23 is the Feast of Pentecost. This Feast doesn’t have a fixed date so we can only arrive at the proper time of this Feast by counting.
When do we start the Counting to Pentecost
The Apostle Paul tells us in 1st Thessalonians 5:1:
“But to the times and seasons, brethren, ye have no need that I write unto you.”
Why? Because we know that there are four seasons to a full year implemented by the greater light, the sun, Genesis 1:16. The # 4 relates to the earth as the four points of a compress, north, south, east, and west as well as the four seasons of the year, spring, summer, fall, and winter. Even the news we read about every day points to the entire earth by its very letters, N-E-W-S.
We start our year as God instructs, the beginning of months, Exodus 12:2.
The tenth day: they were to choose a lamb. 10th of Abib
The fourteenth day they’re to kill the lamb 14th of Abib
The fifteenth day they celebrated the 1st Day of Unleavened Bread-15th of Abib
As we read in John 20:1, Mary went to the tomb on the 1st day the week, after the weekly Sabbath had ended, Matthew 28:1; Mark 16:1. The 7th day weekly Sabbath was of the old creation and had to give way to a new beginning with the last Adam,1st Corinthians 15:45. Jesus as the seed of the woman, Genesis 3:15, became God’s anointed, the Christ. With the start of God’s first Feast Day, the Passover, a Sabbath also, we have a new beginning. Christ Jesus, as a perfect and acceptable sacrifice to God our Father became the first of the first fruit and a new beginning for all of mankind.
We start our count on the day after the ending of the 7th day Sabbath, the first day of a 2nd week or the continuation of the seventh day, the eight day. This new Feast Day is a Sabbath also. This waving the sheaf is a picture of Christ in resurrection accepted by His Father as the offering for all of mankind.
According to the scriptures, we count until seven sabbaths of 50 days are complete. 7×50 =350 days. When we add the total number of days, the ten days at the beginning of months, four days until the killing of the lamb on the fourteenth day with the fifteenth day being the 1st day of Unleavened Bread, we arrive at 365 days, which is the total number of days within a calendar year. This pattern occurs every year eliminating any confusion, 1st Corinthians 14:33.
10 days
5 days
50 days
50 days
50 days
50 days
50 days
50 days
50 days
Total counting until the the fulfillment of the promise of the Father, Luke 24:29, implementing the fullness of Christ and the full measure of the Feast of Pentecost.
Why are We Instructed to Count?
We are instructed to count for ourselves because no church organization or minister is able to measure our progress. Only with God’s Divine revelation are we able to examine ourselves and measure our own progress. It is stated that Pentecost with its fulness is a promise of God, Luke 24:49. Only our Heavenly Father knows our progress. We start out with Christ as an innocent Lamb and grow into maturity as a vessel filled with all the fulness of Christ, 2nd Timothy 2:21. When understood, this is the Wisdom of God. No date is set for observing Pentecost, only we will be able to determine our own growth and progress.
2nd Peter 3:18, “But grow in grace and knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
Christ is the Lamb of God, John 1:36. This Lamb was not to be all that there is to our salvation. We are expected to progress from the Lamb to all that is known about Christ and to have within us, our vessel, which is our spiritual body, to contain all that there is of the Spirit and fulness of the Godhead.
Ephesians 3:19, “And to know the love of Christ which passeth all knowledge, and that ye may be filled with all the fulness of God.”
Jesus was born a God-man. He was begotten by God who is Spirit and He was born as a human through His mother Mary. He died on the cross, was raised in resurrection, and accepted by God to become a quickening Spirit, to fill us inwardly with His life. How much we absorb the Word of God and His life, with truth and no deception, is up to us. Pentecost is our report card. Only God knows how much we have filled our vessel with God’s truth from the time of our initial conversion.
Redeeming The Time
God wants us to count, number, or measure the time of our conversion.
Ephesians 5:16, “Redeeming the time, because the days are evil.”
There are many distractions within us as well as in the world. We start our journey to the Promised Land but along the way there are many distractions which will lead us away from Christ. Anything which comes between us and Christ as our Shepherd, Hebrews 13:20, can delay our progress.
Romans 13:11, “And that, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep: for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed.”
David writes in Psalms 39:4, “Lord make me to know mine end, and the measure of my days, what it is, that I may know how frail I am.”
Moses writes in Psalms 90:12, “So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts to wisdom.”
There are two major reasons why God tells us to count to the Feast of Pentecost.
1st, because God commands it,
2nd, it teaches us to realize and use carefully the ever shrinking time we have to come to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, Ephesians 4:13.
When Pentecost Had Fully Come
After Jesus had ascended and was accepted by God, He returned in the evening and breathed into his disciples and said, receive the Holy Spirit, John 20:22. This event was for their life and growth as His Spirit being food This is inward for their life and living as well as growth to be taken inwardly as their food. In Acts 2:2 tells us that they were all with one accord when the Spirit was released and placed upon them as clothing, or authority. The first was within for their life and the second was without for blowing and receiving authority for ministry. This blowing is the promise of the Father, Luke 24:49. In order to help others and have a ministry, they had to grow to a place where they had the fullness of God. They had to have the full supply of Christ.
Philippians 1:19, “For I know that this will turn to my salvation through your prayer, and the supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ.”
We all need to redeem the time.