Feast of Tabernacles explained, pt. 2/2: from the first to last Adam
Additional connections identified.
As I briefly explained last week over here:
…the Eighth Day of the Feast of Tabernacles points to the heavenly Millennium right after the Second Coming of Jesus Christ since “one day is with the Lord as a thousand years.”1 The two sabbath rests in Tabernacles, sandwiching six days of non-rest, represent the very first sabbath mankind’s first two ancestral progenitors fully enjoyed with Yahweh and the first post-sin thousand years of eternal life every redeemed human being will experience after the Second Coming, in between which are six thousand years of humanity’s existence in its sinful condition, the time frame where each person must decide what path they embark on.
The Feast of Tabernacles is spoken of in various points of the Bible as a fulfilling promise of restored communion with God. For instance, the prophet Hosea declared of Yahweh’s oracles:2
And I that am the LORD thy God from the land of Egypt will yet make thee to dwell in tabernacles, as in the days of the solemn feast.
There was additionally a notable post-exilic3 emphasis on the Feast of Tabernacles. Leading priest and scribe Ezra recorded that when the children of Israel (the real and actual ancient Israel, not the 1948-present nazijewish crime syndicate blasphemously calling itself “Israel”) “gathered themselves together as one man to Jerusalem,”4 the Feast of Tabernacles was kept:5
…as it is written, and offered the daily burnt offerings by number, according to the custom, as the duty of every day required; And afterward offered the continual burnt offering, both of the new moons, and of all the set feasts of the LORD that were consecrated, and of every one that willingly offered a freewill offering unto the LORD.
The prophet Zechariah, a contemporary of Ezra,6 relayed a divine emphasis on the Feast of Tabernacles in the penultimate concluding section of the book ascribed to his name. After describing an unequivocal victory of God and His people over the wicked, the prophet states:7
And it shall come to pass, that every one that is left of all the nations which came against Jerusalem shall even go up from year to year to worship the King, the LORD of hosts, and to keep the feast of tabernacles.
And it shall be, that whoso will not come up of all the families of the earth unto Jerusalem to worship the King, the LORD of hosts, even upon them shall be no rain. And if the family of Egypt go not up, and come not, that have no rain; there shall be the plague, wherewith the LORD will smite the heathen that come not up to keep the feast of tabernacles. This shall be the punishment of Egypt, and the punishment of all nations that come not up to keep the feast of tabernacles.
The “rain” here is the probably referring to the same latter rain aforementioned in the second half of Zechariah,8 not a literal watering but a spiritual outpouring of God’s messaged assurance of a universal hope of redemption as the fulfillment to the Noahic Covenant9 in conjunction to Jesus’s conclusion of the Sermon on the Mount.10 IOWs, anyone who refuses to come up to the heavenly Zion, a.k.a. New Jerusalem,11 to worship the Lord of the universe, will be a recipient not of God’s glories but rather the seven last plagues12 befalling mankind that God’s people are spared from, just as in the typified ancient example13 the children of Israel were spared from the seven concluding plagues that befell literal Egypt preceding the Exodus.14
Additionally, John the Apostle mentions the Feast of Tabernacles in his gospel account,15 and in the Revelation of Jesus Christ (a.k.a. Book of Revelation) writes that God is the true eternal tabernacle in the heavenly Zion, wherein there was seen no temple, “for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it.”16 The true Temple is spoken of as the body of Christ, which in its literal application was Jesus’s physical body17 that was crucified unto death and resurrected on the third day by God the Father.18 In the fulfilled/completed “spiritual” application, the body of Christ are His believers19 redeemed by His atoning blood from grace through faith.20
In a nutshell: just as one dies with Christ, so they live with Him.21
The apostle Paul wrote to the church at Corinth:22
All flesh is not the same flesh: but there is one kind of flesh of men, another flesh of beasts, another of fishes, and another of birds. There are also celestial bodies, and bodies terrestrial: but the glory of the celestial is one, and the glory of the terrestrial is another.
There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars: for one star differeth from another star in glory. So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption: It is sown in dishonour; it is raised in glory: it is sown in weakness; it is raised in power: It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body.
Cont.:23
And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit. Howbeit that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural; and afterward that which is spiritual.
The first man is of the earth, earthy; the second man is the Lord from heaven. As is the earthy, such are they also that are earthy: and as is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly. And as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly. Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption.
As explicitly elaborated by Paul, the second Adam is none other than God’s appointed Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. At the Second Coming of Jesus, the redeemed saints of God, whose righteousness are imputed by God,24 will be granted an eternal incorruptible body and reconciled to God in an everlasting tabernacle beginning with the heavenly 1,000 years that marks the eighth day. The apostle reveals of God’s glorious promises with assuring exhortation:25
Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory.
O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?
The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord.
II Pet. 3:8.
Hos. 12:9.
In reference to the time period after the ancient Jews of Judah were liberated from not only Babylonian captivity but permitted by Medo-Persian authorities to restore Jerusalem.
Ez. 3:1.
Ez. 3:4-5.
Ez. 5:1, 6:14; cf. Zech. 1:1, 7.
Zech. 14:16-19.
Zech. 10:1-2.
Gen. 9:12-17.
Matt. 7:24-27.
Rev. 3:12, 21:2; cf. Jn. 18:36.
Rev. 15:1.
I Cor. 10:6, 11; cf. Jas. 5:10, Jud. 7.
Ex. 8:20-23.
Jn. 7:2.
Rev. 21:22.
Heb. 10:10.
Jn. 2:19-22.
Rom. 12:5; I Cor. 12:12, 27; Eph. 3:6, 5:23.
Eph. 2:8-9.
Jn. 12:24-25; I Cor. 15:35-38; Col. 2:10-15; II Tim. 2:11-14.
I Cor. 15:39-44.
I Cor. 15:45-50.
Rom. 4:23-24; cf. Jas. 2:23.
I Cor. 15:51-58.