The moeds and the rapture – which one is it?

Lev. 23 presents us with the seven moeds (feasts) of Jehovah which are primarily annual observances of the personal works of Jesus in our salvation. When the passage speaks of an individual feast it is translated from the Hebrew word chag which is defined as: a festival, or a victim therefore; and when it uses the plural feasts, it is translated from the Hebrew word moed which is first defined as: appointment, i.e. fixed time or season.

As a Christian, I am interested in which, if any, of the seven moeds will be fulfilled in the rapture. I rule out the first three. Passover was fulfilled at the cross: "Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us (I Cor. 5:7) and Christians remember this event in the Communion cup.

Unleavened Bread was fulfilled in the death and burial of Jesus: "I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world" (John 6:51). "Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness; but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth" (I Cor. 5:8). Christians remember this event in the Communion bread.

Firstfruits was fulfilled in the resurrection of Jesus: "But every man in his own order: Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ's at his coming." (1 Cor 15:23) Christians remember this event in baptism: "Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life." (Rom 6:4) Baptism is an outward sign of something that has already happened within the spirit of each believer.

As we can see, the first three moeds have already been fulfilled and are memorialized in the church. Further, each moed is fulfilled simultaneously when a person is born again: the old spirit is destroyed (Passover) and recreated (Firstfruits) without sin (Unleavened Bread).

Everyone who has ever been or ever will be saved, before or after the cross, has been saved by looking forward to or back to that most significant event of all of time and eternity.

The last three moeds will be fulfilled in the future. While for many years I had believed that Trumpets could only be the rapture, I have recently seen that it is more likely the second advent of Jesus. There is a great trumpet in Matt. 24:31, Isa. 27:13, Zech. 9:14. The moeds are Jewish events which are fulfilled by Jesus as his personal works in our redemption, i.e. they must include and involve the Jewish people. I have difficulty assigning the rapture to the moed of Trumpets because the rapture involves the church, which does include some Jewish people, but today is primarily made up of Gentiles. The Jews must be able to recognize the fulfillment of the moeds.

Whether Trumpets is the rapture or the second advent of Jesus, the Day of Atonement is judgment and answers perfectly to the sheep and goats judgment (Matt. 25:31-46). Tabernacles, observed for seven days plus one (an eighth day or new beginning) is the millennium, which is a picture of a temporary dwelling place followed by a new beginning, i.e. the millennial reign followed by the creation of a new heaven and earth.

As with the first three moeds, the last three will be fulfilled simultaneously for each believer, and they will be fulfilled for believers by looking forward to their fulfillment by Jesus in the earth. For Christians, Trumpets is fulfilled in the coming of Jesus in the rapture (I Thes. 4:16); Atonement is fulfilled in the judgment of our works (I Cor. 3:12-15) followed by the judgment seat of Christ (Rom. 14:10-12); and we skip to the eighth day of Tabernacles and enter our permanent dwelling place, which is heaven.

A word about the judgment seat of Christ: Rom. 14:11 is a direct quote from Isa. 45:23. Please take a minute and read Isa. 45:24 to see what those tongues will be confessing! Christians should not fear the judgment seat of Christ because it will happen AFTER the burning of the works and there will be no sin remaining to confess. Any remaining vestiges will have been destroyed and we will gratefully proclaim "in the Lord have I righteousness and strength!"

That leaves one moed which has not been addressed: Pentecost. Scripture describes two significant events in relation to Pentecost: the events of Exo. 19 and those of Acts 2, and both have to do with the establishment of a covenant. The law was given in Exodus and the Holy Spirit (grace) was given in Acts. It appears to me that each of these events, both of which occurred on a single day, was the beginning of a continuing lifestyle of faith and holiness for the people of God.

Exo. 19 contains imagery of the rapture. God tells Moses to instruct the people to wash their clothes and be ready against the third day when the Lord would come down in the sight of the people. They were to wash their clothes; in the New Covenant God takes care of this matter himself - he clothes us with the robe of righteousness. The third day is resurrection; it is the day we meet with God face to face. Hos. 6:2 speaks of Israel being revived, raised up and living in the presence of the Lord on the third day, or the third one thousand years after the resurrection of Jesus, during the time when he will be present on earth as king.

In Exo. 19:5 God tells Moses that if the people will obey his voice and keep his covenant then they would be to him a peculiar treasure, a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. Speaking to Christians, 1 Peter 2:9 says, "But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light."

In Exo. 19:9 God tells Moses he will come in a thick cloud, and verses 16-20 describe what happened: "And it came to pass on the third day in the morning, that there were thunders and lightnings, and a thick cloud upon the mount, and the voice of the trumpet exceeding loud; so that all the people that was in the camp trembled. 17 And Moses brought forth the people out of the camp to meet with God; and they stood at the nether part of the mount. 18 And mount Sinai was altogether on a smoke, because the LORD descended upon it in fire: and the smoke thereof ascended as the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mount quaked greatly. 19 And when the voice of the trumpet sounded long, and waxed louder and louder, Moses spake, and God answered him by a voice. 20 And the LORD came down upon mount Sinai, on the top of the mount: and the LORD called Moses up to the top of the mount; and Moses went up."

It was an awesome moment. Thunder, lightening, and a thick cloud. No one missed hearing the trumpet that day. Notice that two significant things happened: the Lord came down, and when he called, Moses went up.

Acts 2:1 "And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place. 2 And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. 3 And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them. 4 And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance."

The New Testament Pentecost occurred on the same day as the original, it included a group of people who were waiting on God, and God came down. There was no trumpet sounding long, and growing louder and louder. There was no thick cloud, thunder and lightening. There was a sound like a rushing mighty wind, but no one went up. Instead, they hit the street preaching the gospel, and three thousand people, "Jews, devout men" (Acts 2:5), were saved. God was calling people to himself, and today, 1975 years later, He is still calling. We are living in Pentecost which began in the year of the rejection of Jesus (when God came down) and will end in the year of the acceptance of antichrist (when the people of God go up).

It is very interesting that the offerings of Pentecost include two loaves of break baked with leaven. To me, two loaves acknowledges two groups of people, Christians and Jews, very similar to the twenty-four elders, resurrected humans, seen in Revelation. The presence of leaven indicates that God acknowledges the sin nature that all humans have within us, but the lamb sacrifices indicate that the sin is forgiven.

Soon, He is going to call all his people, and the final part of Pentecost will be fulfilled. On that day there will be a trumpet and clouds. There will be the voice of the Lord and the voice of the archangel. And all the righteous will rise, will go up, to meet the Lord.

According to Lev. 23:13 Pentecost was to be observed fifty days after the first day after the first Sabbath after Passover. The Sabbath is Saturday, the day after is Sunday (the first day of the week, the day of the resurrection of Jesus), and beginning with that Sunday, they were to count fifty days to Pentecost, which would also fall on a Sunday. It is interesting to note that only two moeds do not have set dates - Firstfruits and Pentecost (which depends on the date of Firstfruits), but on the calendar currently used by the Jewish people, Pentecost has a set date of Sivan 6. When considering the timing of a possible fulfillment of a prophecy, I think we need to consider the Biblical timing of the event. If the rapture is the final fulfillment of Pentecost, then I would expect it to occur on a Sunday.

The Jewish calendar is very complex and very different from ours, and it is not a 360 day calendar made up of twelve months of thirty days each. Their calendar consists of a nineteen-years cycle. Of those years, twelve are regular years having 353-355 days and seven are leap years having 383-385 days. In leap years an entire month, Adar II, is added between Adar and Nisan. This is done when the vernal (spring) equinox falls later in the year than Nisan 16.

In ancient times the calendar was adjusted by direct observation as confirmed by the Sanhedrin. But in 70 A.D. Jerusalem fell to Rome and the Jews began to be scattered throughout the world. This meant that, as time went on, the Sanhedrin was no longer able to proclaim the new moon every month and the principles of the calendar and intercalation were in danger of being forgotten. This led Rabbi Hillel II to produce a method of calendar calculation that was adopted in 358/359 A.D. and is still in use today.

The lunar part of Hillel’s calculation is accurate to one day in 14,000 years, and the solar adjustment is accurate to 6 & 2/3 (6.66) minutes per year. (I do not view those minutes as evil, but rather an illustration of man tinkering with the things of God. Having said that, it’s quite an interesting number!) Today it has been 1647 years since the Jewish calendar calculation began to be used. If those 1647 years are multiplied by 6.66 minutes, divided by 60 minutes then by 24 hours, we find that the Jewish calendar inaccuracy is currently at 7.61 days. The Jewish dates are currently falling 7.61 days later in the year than they should.

There is a very interesting fact concerning this calendar discrepancy. Given the sign of the fig tree and a forty-years generation, it is very interesting to observe the date of the recapture of Jerusalem. June 7, 1967 occurred on Iyar 28, eight days before Pentecost as it is currently being observed on the Jewish calendar. But when the calendar discrepancy is taken into account, we see a correlation between Sivan 6, Pentecost, and the date of the recapture of Jerusalem. This may be a confirmation from God that the actual dates are significant in the beginning of the final generation and that the 7.61 days is the actual amount of the calendar discrepancy. Further, while the date of the recapture of Jerusalem correlates to the observance of Pentecost on an assigned date, I would think that the rapture, if it is the final fulfillment of Pentecost, would occur on the correct day.

As recorded in Exo. 19 God came down and Moses went up in the morning. In Acts 2, the church age began on Pentecost in 30 A.D. during the third hour of the day (between 9:00 and 10:00 a.m.). 1937 years later the Jews marched on the old city of Jerusalem, where at 9:50 a.m. Brigadier General Rabbi Goren blew the shofar at the wailing wall, brought to a close the times of the Gentiles, and caused the fig tree to burst forth in leaves, not only on the anniversary of the beginning of the church age, but during the exact same hour of the day!

It appears that actual calendar dates do have significance in the fulfillment of prophecy. Times means years and the times of the Gentiles were fulfilled on June 7, 1967. This means that the Jewish calendar would at that time take on a renewed significance because the endtime appointments of Lev. 23 are about to be fulfilled.

 
...then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air...