Leviticus episode 8 - From Passover To Tabernacles, God Maps Our Redemption Story

A calendar of rituals can feel distant, until you realise it maps the whole arc of redemption. We walk through Leviticus 23 and discover how each feast becomes a waypoint: Sabbath as weekly rest that remembers creation and redemption; Passover as deliverance under the Lamb’s blood; Unleavened Bread as a decisive exit from Egypt’s grip; Firstfruits as the pledge that resurrection has begun; Pentecost as the Spirit’s harvest of people; Trumpets as the sound of victory and inheritance; and Tabernacles as pilgrim life that longs for a better city.

We connect the ancient patterns to the life and work of Jesus. The timing isn’t incidental: crucified on Passover, raised at Firstfruits, the church gathered at Pentecost. These are not isolated miracles but a coherent story that carries us from forgiveness to sanctification, from early hope to gathered community. Along the way we explore why haste mattered in Exodus, how yeast became a picture of worldliness, and why a trumpet blast ties Sinai, Jericho, and the return of Christ into one promise of public renewal.

This conversation stays practical and personal. We share how Sabbath can refresh faith rather than just police activity, how living “in tents” trains our hearts for the city to come, and how the trumpet promise comforts the dying and steadies the living. Augustine’s two cities help us set our loyalties: the visible city decays, the shining city descends. If you’ve ever wondered how Leviticus could speak to modern hope, this tour of the feasts shows a clear path from canvas to cathedral, from desert campfires to a garden city where God is near.

If this journey deepened your hope, follow the show, share it with a friend who loves biblical themes, and leave a review telling us which feast reshaped your week.

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Transcript

Setting The Scene At Sandown Park

SPEAKER_02 0:30

Ah, book by book. We're delighted to come and share with you once again in this great study that we're doing in the Book of Leviticus. I'm Richard Buse, and I'm joined here by Dr. Paul Blackham and by the Reverend Joseph Steinberg. And we're situated in the beautiful Sandown Park in Surrey, England, where the great Christian Resources Exhibition is taking place right now. There are hundreds of little stalls and booths and displays and exhibits all around us here. And indeed, some of the friends have taken time out to come and join us in our study right here now with you. And so Leviticus and this is our eighth study. Let's look at this book. Chapter 23. Let me just read a little bit. The Lord said to Moses, speak to the Israelites, and say to them, These are my appointed feasts. The appointed feasts of the Lord, which you are to proclaim as sacred assemblies. There are six days when you may work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath of rest, a day of sacred assembly. You are not to do any work. Wherever you live, it is a Sabbath to the Lord. These are the Lord's appointed feasts, the sacred assemblies you are to proclaim at their appointed times. And then comes a great list of what these various feasts are. And I hope that everyone can follow us now as we try and just turn this over in our mind. The feasts. I'll start with you, Paul Black. I mean, the most basic festival, of course, was the weekly one, the Sabbath. What's the truth that we celebrate each week in the Sabbath?

Sabbath: Creation, Redemption, Future Rest

SPEAKER_01 2:02

Well, there it is. It's the first of them, and uh we got the rest of them are these big annual things. This one just weekly, and what's the reason for it? Well, in the the two c the Ten Commandments is given are given on two occasions or recorded by Moses, and in the first one he says, Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy, because the Lord God created the universe in six days and then rested on the seventh. And then in Deuteronomy he says, Remember to keep the Sabbath day because I redeemed you out of Egypt. So on this day, we're thinking about the fact that God created everything, and then he entered into his rest. But of course, the rest of God was broken because there was after Genesis 1 and 2, there's Genesis 3, and this problem of sin and death and decay and disorder comes into his creation, and his rest, his own rest is broken in that way. And so we think, you know, that we you come think of it at the end of Genesis 3 and think, is that the end there is no rest for us or for the creation? But no, there's redemption, and that's why the the in the Deuteronomy, when the Ten Commandments are given, the Sabbath is also then making us look back to creation, it's making us celebrate the fact that God has accomplished a redemption, but also looking forward to the day when we will enter into a rest. The whole creation will enter into a new rest, God's rest. So I think this time, this weekly festival is this incredible looking at the whole history of the universe from beginning to end, every week, once a week. In in some ways, it should be this huge uh day of spiritual rejuvenation as we feast on the fundamental realities uh that that it surround us.

SPEAKER_02 3:36

So the lesson is make that seventh day work for you in the proper way. Yeah. It should be. And make it special. Special, yeah, of course. Uh we go on to the Passover actually. Well, when you get on to uh verse 4 onwards, you get the Passover and the unleavened bread happening. And uh Joseph, with your again, your Jewish background, which we're very grateful for, you've explained the Passover, of course, many, many times. What can you tell us about the gospel truth in that ancient festival?

SPEAKER_00 4:06

There is so much that I could say about Passover. So I just I'm gonna focus on one aspect of it. Okay. God was very specific about what he wanted the children of Israel to

Passover And The Lamb’s Blood

SPEAKER_00 4:16

do. He said to take uh uh we talked this last study about the sinless, spotless, blameless sacrifice, perfect in every way, take a lamb like that, a symbol of sinless perfection, and slaughter it, pour its blood into a bowl, take a bunch of hyssop, and apply that blood to uh the lintel and the doorposts. It kind of looks like a cross, doesn't it? The lintel and doorpost of your home. So that when my uh angel of death, my judgment comes upon the land, you will not be judged. And you the firstborn would die where there was not that blood applied. And so, of course, when the angel of death comes and sees that blood cross on the door, passes over, which is why it's called Pesach in the Hebrew or Passover. Now, it's an amazing picture of Jesus because Jesus, of course, died on Passover. And as we trust in him and in a sense apply his blood to the doorpost of our heart, Jesus says in Revelation, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone lets me in, I will come and sup with him and he with me. And so when we stand before God at the end of time and God's angel of death, his judgment comes towards us to, in his holiness, consume us because we are not like him. If we have the blood of Jesus by faith applied to our hearts, that perfect, spotless, blameless symbol of sinless perfection, the Lamb of God slain before the foundations of the world, if we have his blood applied to our hearts, when God's judgment comes, it passes over us, and in a sense comes onto the body of Jesus. Cursed is he who was hung on a tree, and Jesus takes that curse on our behalf. So it's an amazing celebration and remembrance of all that God has done for us, foreshadowed in the Passover, but ultimately portrayed in Jesus' death. And isn't it remarkable that God chose the actual feast of Passover for Jesus to die? I think that really makes the point and takes it and just nails it right on.

SPEAKER_02 6:01

It could never have been manipulated, nothing like that is just in God's really making that clear. Evidence and order that that such a thing could happen. Why was there um then we've got a you know this question, Paul, why was there a festival, a festival around eating bread without yeast?

Unleavened Bread And Leaving Egypt Fast

SPEAKER_01 6:17

It does sound strange, doesn't it, to say, we'll have a festival and just to eat bread without yeast in it. Well, do you know it takes us right back to the Exodus again, as Joseph was telling us, and it's because when they were leaving Egypt, it was very specific. Do not wait for bread uh to rise with the yeast. Just you've got to eat it in haste. And in in Exodus 12, verse 39, we're told specifically, with the dough they brought from Egypt, they baked cakes of unleavened bread, and then we're told the dough was without yeast because they'd been driven out of Egypt and did not have time to prepare food for themselves. So this is a time to remember uh we are being redeemed out of a sinful world. And in a sense, could you imagine if somebody uh during the Exodus from Egypt had said, no, no, to me the priority is to have big fluffy loaves of bread here. And you think, no, no, that isn't the priority now. The Lord's redeeming us out of Egypt. Forget your bread, just get what you can and we're going. So, no, no, it's more important to me to enjoy life in Egypt. That show would show incredible worldliness and a and a and not that you, you know, it would show a heart that isn't at all interested in the Lord and his redemption. And so through scripture, that's what yeast is worldliness, sinfulness, a rejection of redemption. So there's a whole festival to say, no, we're being redeemed out of the world, we're we're on an exodus, out of sin and death and chaos into God's glorious future.

SPEAKER_02 7:47

Yeah, we are on an exodus. I like that very much indeed.

Firstfruits And Pentecost As Harvests

SPEAKER_02 7:52

And uh actually, as you look at all these feasts, I mean, the the first fruits, the Pentecost, you know, it seems to be concerned with harvest, is that right? I mean, what do they what do they tell us about the, again, about the person and work of Jesus Christ?

SPEAKER_00 8:05

Well, just as Passover is when Jesus died and speaks of our forgiveness, and then and then of course we go right into the feast of unleavened bread, which speaks of sanctification, because sin is removed, so we're set apart. So Jesus rose again at the Feast of Firstfruits, which is significant because firstfruits was a sort of promise harvest, in that if there were enough winter rains throughout the winter for the barley harvest, then we knew that all the other harvests are going to come. And so Paul uses this sort of analogy where Jesus was uh the firstfruits of the resurrection. If Jesus rose again from the dead, so we also know that's the promise to us that we also will be risen again. So it's a sort of harvest in a sense of his people. And that takes us right to Pentecost because in fact Pentecost is important not only because the church was born at Pentecost, but in fact, Israel, according to Jewish tradition, also became a nation at Pentecost when the law was given there on Mount Sinai. So it's a it's again God harvesting his own people to himself. Both are very significant in the fact that, you know, here again God chose to, you know, Jesus could have been in the ground for five days or seven days, however God wanted. But the the way God set things up, he rises again, feast of first fruits, we are to have hope in that. God gathers his people together two times at the Feast of Pentecost. So again, harvests. God cares ultimately not about the harvest of food, but the harvest of souls.

SPEAKER_02 9:24

There's a great the tie up really between Leviticus and the New Testament is huge. It is. And that's why it's so vital, it's so foundational for us to be looking at these chapters together. Then I noticed that there's a day of the blowing of trumpets, Paul Blackham.

Trumpet Blast And Final Triumph

SPEAKER_02 9:39

Why?

SPEAKER_01 9:40

Why is there a day to just blow trumpets? Well, again, you know, you do need some background, and I'm thinking of maybe Joshua 6 as an example. Um well in Exodus, when they went to Mount Sinai, the Lord said, When you hear the the the trumpet blast, the the ram's horn sound, then you may approach. And there's this idea of this horn blast, this trumpet blast, and then we see it, there's a day, a festival of doing it, and you think, well, what's it all about? When we get to Joshua 6, remember they they they came around Jericho, and then the trumpets were sounded, and the walls fell down, and the people of God inherited the land and took possession of it, and you think, ah, it's got something to do with this day of inheriting the land. And then we think 1 Thessalonians chapter 4, verse 16, we're told the Lord Himself will come down from heaven with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first, and we think that's what it's all about. This trumpet blast sounds the triumph, the victory of God, and Christ will come when the trumpet sounds. So in one sense, we're all we're all listening for it. And I know with my little my son Paul, um when he heard this, uh it he it really captivated him. And then sometimes if a big lorry goes past and goes, uh, he's like, Oh, is it the trumpet blast? He takes it very seriously.

SPEAKER_02 11:06

Yeah, because it speaks to families, doesn't it? Very much that. And I mean the whole idea of the what you theologians call the eschaton at the end of the age, when Christ comes back and the trumpet sound, actually, that passage in 1 Thessalonians 4 was read to my dad while he was dying. And he said to the nurse who was by side, could you read me a bit from the Bible? And she read that bit, and while she read it, he went.

SPEAKER_01 11:30

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 11:30

I was talking to my own family recently about my own demise one day. I said, I of course I've got to get ready one day. I said, but maybe the eschaton will happen first, you see, just quoting you. And my daughter Wendy said, Well, that would be wonderful if the eschaton happened first. But ought we not to have a plan B. Okay, we did talk about the plan B as well. Okay. So that at least one's ready before that day, that great day comes. The day of blowing of trumpets. And then living in tents, uh, Joseph.

Tabernacles And Life As Pilgrims

SPEAKER_02 12:00

That's a theme of the Bible, and each year it seems here that God's people had to live in tents for a week. And now, why was that done?

SPEAKER_00 12:08

Well, that was the Feast of Tabernacles, and that really is the culmination of all the feasts. If you think about it, we started with the Sabbath, which is the rest. Jesus is the Lord of the Sabbath, he brings the rest, he's the personal embodiment of that. Jesus died on Passover, rose again at first fruits. Uh, the church was born at Pentecost, and then we have this long summer period, then we have the blowing of the shofar, the return of Christ. We already looked at the Day of Atonement, which is God's judgment on the world. Of course, Jesus stands as the judge of the church, and then finally, tabernacles, the the the the the festival of tents. And what is that speaking of? I think it reminds us of a few things. Historically, it was the time for Israel to remember that although you arrived in the land, I provided for you in that long period of the desert, and although you've arrived in the land, this is not the final destination. And uh Hebrews points us to this when we think about Abraham. Although he went to the promised land, he never built a city there, he looked for the city whose builder and maker is God. And for us, we are pilgrims, we're a pilgrim people. And this reminds us that these bodies that we live in, they're simply, as you've been saying, they're just tense. We're waiting for the eschaton, the coming of God, the coming of Christ to set up his reign throughout the whole of the earth when every people from people from every nation, tribe, tongue, from every everywhere, every everywhere, just gather together underneath God's reign, tabernacled with him, underneath, you know, his banner over me is love, and Jesus is here, um, his new creation is here, death, decay, sin, everything's eradicated. The world is the way it was meant to be. All is at peace. When you want to see God, he's right there. We don't have to pray to him, we can speak with him. Everything is perfect. But for now, we are reminded that we're still dwelling in tents. This is not all there is. Jesus says, don't lay up for yourself treasures here on earth, but lay up for yourself treasures in heaven where rot, where moths and rust and all these things aren't, you know, where there's no corruption, where there's no decay, where there's no disease, where there's no death. That's what we're looking forward to. And that festival reminds us of that final glorious day.

SPEAKER_02 14:05

I'm sure you're looking forward to that day, Paul Black.

SPEAKER_01 14:07

Oh, every day I always think, is today the day?

SPEAKER_02 14:10

Yeah, I often think I look out of the window, I think, I wonder if he's coming today. Today. And that is a it's a terrific thing to look forward to. Because at the moment we're working hard. Uh Richard Baxter, that great Puritan uh preacher of two centuries, three centuries ago nearly, uh, wrote that hymn, that ye holy angels bright. And he starts with the angels. Then he talks about the saints who are having their rest. Then he talks, then the third verse is ye saints that toil below. And I think that's me.

From Tents To The City Of God

SPEAKER_02 14:41

But we won't be toiling forever, we won't be living in tents forever. This is not permanent what we're looking at. So as we wind up this little study, we're thinking then of the future coming, and of the trumpet blast, and of the not of a tent now, but of a of a city, a garden city that will be coming, descending to us, and Jesus, in a sense, will be bringing heaven with him. So when we see all the decay that's going on around us in our dying world, let's be reminded that there's something better. When the city of Rome was sacked in a single day on the 24th of August 410 AD, Augustine, who was then fifty-six years of age, was living in Carthage, and he rallied the whole Christian community with his book, The City of God. And he reminded them that there are only two cities, the city that we see around us, that is decaying, and with all its squalor and sometimes shanty towns and the rest of it, but then the city that is shining and is above, and it will be coming, and that the city that Abraham was looking forward to. That city is on its way, and we are citizens of that place. God bless you, and thank you for sharing in our study today. We'll be back before too long.