3 Feasts Jesus Didn’t Fulfill (and 4 He Did)

Who doesn’t love feasts? God gave the people feasts they could enjoy before him. Indeed, God commanded the Israelites to gather together at seven sacred assemblies every year involving feasts. Leviticus 23 describes them:

1. Passover (verse 5)
2. Feast of Unleavened Bread (6-8)
3. Feast of First Fruits (9-14)
4. Feast of Weeks (15-22)
5. Feast of Trumpets (23-25)
6. Day of Atonement (26-32)
7. Feast of Booths (33-43)

The people gathered at the tabernacle (later, the temple). Not only did these festivals ensure that people remembered God’s mighty works, but they pointed to something significant about Jesus. In fact, Jesus fulfilled the first four on holy days!

What do I mean by “fulfilled”?

The apostle Paul wrote that the festivals “are a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ” (Colossians 2:16-17). In other words, the feasts and what they commemorated foreshadowed some reality about Jesus. Thus, Jesus fulfilled the feasts when he completed that which they foreshadowed.

With that in mind, let’s look at the four holy days Jesus fulfilled and then consider the three he didn’t fulfill—and why.

The Four Feasts Jesus Fulfilled

The Jewish religious calendar begins in spring on Nisan 1, the month that the people escaped from Egypt (Exodus 12:1-2). That day is called Rosh Chadesh Nisan. Two weeks later come the year’s first three sacred assemblies, which overlap. In fact, they’re so closely related that they are often collectively referred to by the name of the first: Passover.

For Detail Lovers

The Jewish calendar is lunar, unlike the Gregorian calendar used by most of the world today. That causes Nisan 1 to fall on different dates in March or April each year. Most people think the Jewish new year is in the fall. That is because around the third century AD, many Jews started celebrating the new year in the fall (more on that later).

1) Passover: Pesach

Nisan 14 (March 27, 2021 afternoon)

Passover celebrated God’s deliverance. For it, God commanded Israelite families to sacrifice a lamb each year on Nisan 14, without breaking any of its bones. This was the Passover sacrifice. That night, they ate the lamb with bitter herbs. This was the Passover feast.

The annual sacrifice and feast commemorated how the Destroyer passed over homes protected by lamb’s blood so the inhabitants would not die and could instead begin the journey to the promised land.

For Detail Lovers

Here’s what happened. The Lord sent Moses to Pharaoh with a message: Let my people go! This was because the Egyptians had enslaved the Israelites. Nine times Pharaoh refused, and nine times the Lord brought plagues as a sign that he was more powerful than Pharaoh’s gods.

Then the Lord announced the tenth plague: The Destroyer would come that night and kill the Egyptian firstborn males. But he commanded the Hebrews to sacrifice a lamb and paint its blood on the top and sides of the doorframe. When the Destroyer came, he would pass over homes protected with lamb’s blood.

According to Rabbi Dovid Rosenfeld, since the temple’s destruction in AD 70, no Passover lambs have been sacrificed. He says that Jews today consider Nisan 14 a minor holiday and refer to Nisan 15 to 21 as Passover.

Jesus’s Feasts Fulfillment

On Thursday, Jesus ate the Passover Feast with his disciples. The Jewish leaders arrested him that night and Rome crucified him the next day. Soldiers did not break his legs when they broke the legs of those crucified with him so “that the Scripture” regarding the Passover lamb “might be fulfilled” (John 19:33,36).

The New Testament declares, “Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed” (1 Corinthians 5:7). Just as Passover commemorated God delivering his people from slavery to Egypt so they could journey to the earthly promised land, so Jesus’s sacrifice delivers God’s people from slavery to sin so that they can journey to the heavenly promised land. Just as the first Passover lambs’ blood protected from death, so Jesus’s blood protects from the second death (hell), granting eternal life.

For Detail Lovers

Because Jewish days began at sunset, Jesus was crucified on the same religious calendar day as the feast, Nisan 15. Thus, when he gave his disciples bread and wine at the Passover feast and said, “This is my body” and “This is my blood of the covenant,” he linked the Passover feast to his sacrifice (Matthew 26:26,28).

2) The Feast of Unleavened Bread: Chag HaMatzot

Nisan 15-21 (sunset March 27 to sunset April 3 or 4, 2021)

The Feast of Unleavened Bread celebrated God’s continued deliverance with a week of feasts. Each year before the feasts began, Jewish families completely emptied their homes of leaven (Exodus 12:19). Then for seven days, they ate nothing with yeast. They also made daily food offerings. On the first and last days of the week, they held sacred assemblies at the temple and did no work.

The Feast of Unleavened Bread recalled that the Hebrews fled from Egypt quickly on Nisan 15, without time to let bread rise. Leaven often symbolized corruption and could not be used on the altar.

Jesus’s Feasts Fulfillment

Just as the festival’s bread was without yeast, so Jesus was without corruption. Just as Jewish families purged yeast from their houses, so today followers of Christ purge sin from their lives:

Let us therefore celebrate the festival, not with the old leaven, the leaven of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

1 Corinthians 5:8

3) Feast of Firstfruits

Sadducees: Sunday after Sabbath after Passover (April 4, 2021); Pharisees: Nisan 16 (March 29, 2021)

The Feast of Firstfruits celebrated the first of the grain harvest. This was because the first sheaf of barley was a sign that God was about to bless his people with more. So Jews brought a sheaf of barley to the temple to wave before the Lord and give thanks for the harvest to come. They could not eat any barley until they performed this ritual.

The Hebrews began celebrating this holy day after they arrived in the promised land. Thus, it reminded families that their harvests were God’s gift and there was more to come.

Jesus’s Feasts Fulfillment

Jesus rose from the dead on the Feast of Firstfruits. His resurrection promises that he will resurrect those belonging to him when it is time to enter the new promised land. Just as the first sheaf of barley anticipated a greater harvest of barley, so Jesus’s resurrection anticipates a greater harvest of souls.

But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep… For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. But each in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ.

1 Corinthians 15:20–23

For Detail Lovers

The Sadducees celebrated the Feast of Firstfruits on the day that followed the Sabbath that followed Passover (always a Sunday). The Pharisees celebrated Firstfruits on the second day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread (Nisan 16). According to Harold W. Hoehner in Chronological Aspects of the Life of Christ, Nisan 16 fell on the Sunday following the Sabbath that followed Passover in both AD 30 and AD 33. These are the two years most scholars place the crucifixion.

4) Feast of Weeks (Pentecost): Shavuot

7 weeks after Firstfruits (Sadducees, May 23, 2021; Pharisees, May 17, 2021)

The Feast of Weeks celebrated the end of the wheat harvest. It was also called Pentecost because it came 50 days after the Sabbath of the Feast of Unleavened Bread. Then on this day, worshipers presented two loaves of wheat bread made with leaven to the Lord.

For Detail Lovers

In preparation for the festival, people made provision for the poor. In time, the celebration also commemorated the giving of the law at Sinai not long after the Israelites escaped Egypt. If Jesus was crucified in AD 30 or 33 as most scholars think, the Sadducees and Pharisees celebrated Pentecost on the same day the year of the crucifixion.

Jesus’s Feasts Fulfillment

On this sacred day, Jesus baptized his followers with the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:1-4). Just as the wheat harvest had produced loaves of bread, so the resurrection produced the church. Just as the loaves contained leaven, so the church contains imperfect people.

The Three Feasts Jesus Has Not Fulfilled

The seventh month of the year held three more celebrations, and their final fulfillments are yet to come. For Jesus said, “I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also” (John 14:3).

5) Feast of Trumpets: Rosh HaShanah

Tishri 1 (sunset September 6 to sunset September 7, 2021)

The Feast of Trumpets celebrates God’s providence. Trumpets call people to gather before God in rest from all harvests, including grapes and citrus. Priests blew trumpets from morning to night. This feast began a time of spiritual renewal.

For Detail Lovers

Today, the celebration extends over two days and includes a celebration of the civil new year. This change may have happened around the third century AD. Exodus 12:1-2 commands that the Jewish year begin on Nisan 1, so that remains the new year on the Hebrew religious calendar.

Jesus’s Future Feasts Fulfillment

Just as the trumpet sounded to call people to the temple after all harvests were complete, so when the earthly harvest of souls is complete, another trumpet will sound to call for the ingathering of souls:

For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord.

1 Thessalonians 4:16-17

6) Day of Atonement: Yom Kippur

Tishri 10 (September 16)

The Feast of Trumpets was followed by the Hebrews’ holiest day of the year, the Day of Atonement. This was not a feast, but prepared the people spiritually for the feasts to come.

On this day, the people prepared themselves by ceasing all work, fasting, denying themselves comforts, and confessing and repenting from sins. Meanwhile, the high priest presented sacrifices to cleanse the people and all the holy things from the year’s accumulated defilement of sin. He also took two goats and sacrificed one to make atonement for sin. Then he laid his hands on the head of the other, confessed the people’s sins, and sent the goat into the wilderness as a sign that their sins had been carried away.

Jesus’s Future Feasts Fulfillment

In Jesus’s first coming, he atoned for sin on the cross, completing the work of the first goat. But the Judgment follows his second coming, after which he will remove all sin and causes of sin, fulfilling what the second goat pointed to (Matthew 13:41; Revelation 20:10-15). What the Day of Atonement pointed to will be fully and finally complete.

7) Feast of Booths: Sukkot

Tishri 15-22 (September 21-28, 2021)

The Feast of Booths celebrates the journey to and arrival in the promised land. It was the final festival of the year and provided another week of feasts. The people brought fruit and tree branches to rejoice before the Lord. For seven days, they dwelt in temporary booths constructed from branches. This commemorated the Lord’s good care as the Hebrews journeyed through the desert. Then on the eighth day, they entered homes, commemorating arrival in the promised land.

For Detail Lovers

By Jesus’s day, water and light ceremonies took place during the Feast of Booths (John 7-8). People bound together a palm frond, myrtle, and willow (called a lulav) to carry with citron fruit in a procession during the water ceremony.

Jesus’s Future Feasts Fulfillment

Just as the Hebrews lived in temporary booths until they reached the earthly promised land, so our souls dwell in temporary shelters—our earthly bodies—while we journey to the new promised land. When Jesus returns, he will raise our bodies into glorious, imperishable bodies. We will bring to him the fruit his Holy Spirit has grown in our lives.

For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality.

1 Corinthians 15:52–53

Another feast awaits: the wedding feast of the Lamb (Revelation 19:7-9). The Lord God will bring us to the new heavens and earth. There he and Christ, our Passover Lamb, will dwell in our midst forever (Revelation 21:1-3). There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain. Our journey ends. We will arrive.

3 Feasts Jesus Didn't Fulfill (and 4 He Did) Click To Tweet

---

Related Posts

• 3 Things Everyone Should Know About Jesus in the Old Testament
• An Easter Poem

Books You Might Like

These are affiliate links for which I receive a small commission at no cost to you.

• Discovering Jesus in the Old Testament by me, Pam Farrel, and Karla Dornacher. Creative devotional study.
• Holiness to the LORD: A Guide to the Exposition of the Book of Leviticus, by Allen P. Ross. Excellent commentary with sermon outlines.
• Leviticus: An Introduction and Commentary, by Jay Sklar. Easy to read commentary with outstanding introduction.
• Recalling the Hope of Glory: Biblical Worship from the Garden to the New Creation, by Allen P. Ross. Detailed look at how Old Testament worship should inform us today.
• Chronological Aspects of the Life of Christ, by Harold W. Hoehner. Interesting examination of when events in Jesus’s life occurred, though contains some speculation.