Timing is on God’s heart. You may not think so, but God has a time for everything. We find ourselves now in the “chol-haMoed” (middle of the appointed time) of Sukkot. There is an aspect of this biblical time that cannot be ignored by those who seek to fully understand Yshua’s (Jesus’) embodiment within us of Torah:
Please bear with me as I grind out some of the issues relating to Torah and then I will get to this above-mentioned point.
As we sift through the Torah, The Law of Moses, so inseparably a part of our bibles, we find ourselves wondering just how much of it finds application in the working out of the salvation that we have in Christ Jesus. Between Paul’s doctrine of Grace and Jesus’ affirmation that nothing in the Torah will be removed (Mathew 5:17-20), we cling to the counsel of the Holy Spirit to discern what is applicable and what is not.
If you are one of those who think that nothing in Torah is applicable to us, then ponder on Mathew 5:17-20, Luke 16:17 and Mathew 13:52. On the other hand, if you are one of those few who think that everything in Torah is applicable to us, read carefully through Numbers 29:12-40 and think again:
Look at the number of bulls that need to be sacrificed, besides the daily quota of two rams and fourteen male lambs. It gets easier as the number of days of Sukkot progress, starting with the sacrifice and burnt offering of thirteen bulls on the first day of Sukkot and progressively reducing that number of bulls so that by the time the seventh and last day of Sukkot has arrived, only seven bulls are to be sacrificed for a burnt offering. If you add up all of those bulls that are to be sacrificed and offered up during the seven days of Sukkot, you will find that they amount to exactly seventy bulls – that is God’s favourite number times ten.
So then, you thought that you “kept” Sukkot? Well, you didn’t keep Sukkot as it was commanded by God through Moses if you didn’t have a high priest, a temple and an altar to do all of that sacrificing for you. Of course you might say “Jesus is my High Priest”. Well, of course, Jesus is our High Priest but it is our High Priest Jesus Himself who said “I have not come to abolish Torah”. And then it is up to you to decide, together with the help of the Holy Spirit, just how much of Torah is applicable and how much of Torah isn’t.
Personally, I would have loved to have celebrated Sukkot by living for seven days in a Sukkah. But I still haven’t got the logistics of that right to this day. We live in a complex which has a common garden and neither the caretaker nor the local residents would be too pleased if I set up a Sukkah on it. There’s something about Sukkot that is enhanced by the community’s support of Sukkah-building and we live in a society where for the most part, “Sukkot” is an unknown.
So then, you “celebrated” Sukkot. Did you celebrate Sukkot by living in a Sukkah? And let’s get back to those seventy bulls. How many of those got sacrificed as per the prescribed sacrifices in Numbers 29:12-40?
Then you might be saying to yourself “I’m not Jewish” so none of this applies to me. But I say to you that everything that Jesus spoke about concerning Torah applies to every believer. It’s a level playing field, whether you are Jewish or Gentile and whatever exists in the Torah that has applicability should apply to both Jews and Gentiles.
This brings me closer to my initial point: an aspect of this biblical time of Sukkot that cannot be ignored by those who seek to fully understand Yshua’s (Jesus’) embodiment within us of Torah:
So here it is: a special day that immediately follows the seven days of Sukkot. This very special day is called “Shemini Atzeret”. And yes, these words are taken straight out of God’s Word and not out of some famous rabbi’s commentary. We find them in Leviticus 23:36 where it says:
For seven days present food offerings to the LORD, and on the eighth day hold a sacred assembly and present a food offering to the LORD. It is the closing special assembly; do no regular work.
The word “eighth” is translated from the Hebrew word “Shemini” and those words “closing special assembly” are translated from the Hebrew word “Atzeret”. This Hebrew word is derived from a root Hebrew word “atzar”, which simply means “stop”, but by inference can also mean “prevent” or “restrain” or “hold back”. Because Hebrew for the most part is a rather primitive language, using primitive words that have multiple nuances in meaning depending on their context, we can readily accept the simple meaning of “atzeret”: a “stopping”. That’s like driving along and coming to a stop street. If you don’t stop at that stop street, you will be breaking the law. Even worse, you might get caught by the traffic police. Even worse than that, you might even be putting your life and the lives of others at risk. So then, it’s no coincidence that God calls this day of Shemini Atzeret a “stopping”. It’s a day on which we need to stop everything, stop looking only at our own lives and look at the bigger picture of what God has prepared for those who love Him:
No eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no mind has imagined what God has prepared for those who love him. But it was to us that God revealed these things by his Spirit.
(1 Corinthians 2:9,10)
What is interesting about Shemini Atzeret is that even though it immediately follows Sukkot as the “eighth day”, it is not a part of Sukkot, which is only seven days. It is a unique day and it finds its fulfilment in a “day” that follows the seven “days”, the seven thousand years, each thousand years being equivalent to a “day” of the existence of this planet Earth upon which we live. That eighth “day” will last for all eternity. It is a day for which we all as believers in Yshua hope for and we strive to obey the words of our Lord and Master, Yshua haMashiach (Jesus the Christ), in order that we may be found to be living according to the faith in Him that saves us from sin and death and transports us into His eternal Kingdom.
So when this special day of Shemini Atzeret arrives, don’t see it as another religious Jewish holiday, but see it as a wonderful opportunity to stop, to gather, to worship, to lovingly set your hearts and your eyes upon things above, things eternal, things that matter for eternity, even as we have caught a glimpse of these things through the Holy Spirit.
