p. 188 | THE TYPICAL FEASTS by Uriah Smith

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · May 13, 1862

THE TYPICAL FEASTS.

By Uriah Smith

BRO. SMITH: Your remarks in the Review of March 18, on the "Two-horned Beast," have removed from my mind views similar to those of the sister to whom you reply. I thought this nation was to be divided in order to develop the two horns. I do not now believe this. But I am watching the progress of the present mighty rebellion with deep interest, as I believe that it is in some way connected with, or has a bearing upon, our future destiny as Sabbath-keepers.

But I have taken up my pen to lay before you a difficulty that lies in my mind on another subject. The difficulty certainly cannot be insurmountable, but I do not know how to overcome it, therefore ask for light.

In Lev. xxiii, commencing at verse 4, we find a series of typical feasts and sabbaths instituted. From verse 4 to 21 inclusive, the types and shadows evidently refer to the sacrifice, death, resurrection, ascension of Christ, and pouring out of the Holy Ghost at the Pentecost. From verse 23 to 32 we believe refers to the work of our High Priest, Jesus, in the most holy place in the heavenly sanctuary, from the tenth of the seventh month, 1844, until the consummation. The typical sabbaths and feast of ingathering of verse 33 and onward I believe will be fulfilled in the immortal state. Now the question with me is, How can those types and shadows relate to events at the close of this dispensation, and yet the shadows themselves cease to exist more than eighteen centuries ago? It has been a favorite illustration with our preachers that the shadow of a tree can be traced up to the tree. If this subject is clear to your mind, please let the light shine through the Review.

I remain as ever, your brother.

H. E. Carver.

Iowa City, Iowa.

REMARKS. The key to an understanding of the fulfillment of the ancient typical feasts and ceremonies, I think is found in two statements made by Paul. One occurs in Hebrews, and reads as follows: "For the law, having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with those sacrifices which they offered year by year continually make the comers thereunto perfect." Heb. x, 1. Paul shows by this language that the system of types and shadows is to be taken together as a whole. "The law," he says, as a whole, "having a shadow of good things to come." Hence we cannot take each individual type and consider it as something complete and distinct in itself, and trace it down till we reach the particular event in this dispensation which it typifies.

But the law, as a system—that whole dispensation, with its typical work—foreshadowed the good things of the gospel. The dividing line, then, must come between the dispensations. No part of the former dispensation can lap over into this. None of the shadows which went to make up that system can continue when that dispensation has given place to the new. The shadows there cease because the particular economy which gave them existence there closed; but in their appropriate places in this dispensation, will be found the antitypes of all those shadows which composed that system, by which this, taken collectively, was foreshadowed.

The other statement referred to, is Col. ii, 16, 17: "Let no man therefore judge you in meat or in drink, or in respect of an holy day, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath-days; which are a shadow of things to come, but the body is of Christ." It is the little word of, which is important, in this testimony, to our present purpose. "The body is of Christ;" that is to say, the body or antitype of all these ceremonies is connected with the work of Christ, and will be found in something pertaining to his ministration. As in the text first quoted, Paul shows that it was the law system, taken as a whole, that contained the shadow, he here shows that it is the ministration of Christ, taken as a whole, that contains the substance. And when the ministration of Christ commences, the typical dispensation has given place to the real, the shadow to the substance, and all things pertaining to the former must cease, or we should have two ministrations going on at the same time, which would be inadmissible.

There is no difficulty in the illustration which our preachers have used, that the shadow of a tree can be traced up to the tree itself, if we remember that each individual ceremony was not a separate and independent shadow of itself, to be traced to a distinct tree in this dispensation; but that that dispensation, as a whole, was the shadow, and this as a whole, the tree which cast it; and the shadow did reach down without interruption to the introduction of this dispensation, where the tree commenced.

The paschal lamb met its antitype in the death of the Son of God; the offering of the first-fruits in his resurrection; the feast of pentecost, fifty days thereafter in the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. The antitype of the day of atonement is now being fulfilled by Christ in the holy of holies of the heavenly sanctuary; while the antitype of the feast of ingathering, to be fulfilled in connection with the ingathering of the great harvest of the earth, the gathering together from the four winds of heaven of the redeemed hosts, is the grand result of Christ's intervention and work in behalf of man. Thus we see that all these feasts must meet their antitype in the ministration of Christ; or, the body of them, as the apostle says, is of Christ.

Perhaps in this connection a word should be added in reference to the Sabbath. When it has been claimed that the weekly Sabbath is a type of the future thousand years' rest, that claim has been met with the argument that a type must reach to its antitype, and that consequently, even on this ground the Sabbath should now be observed. And this argument is still good; for the Sabbath was instituted before ever the typical dispensation was ordained; it was never incorporated with that dispensation to the extent that it was dependent upon it for its existence; and its supposed antitype, the glorious seventh thousand years, has no connection with the ministration of Christ. It might be added that there is nothing in the antitypical work of the Saviour of which the weekly Sabbath can be shown to be typical, hence it does not belong to that class of feasts and sabbaths, the body of which is of Christ. If therefore the Sabbath is a type, it stands out as the only one of its kind, absolute, and independent, and must consequently exist till its direct antitype is reached. It is unnecessary to add here that the Sabbath is not a type, it having been instituted before the fall of man, when anything shadowy was not only uncalled for, but would have been inappropriate, and not in accordance with God's gracious and uniform rule in giving types, which is to foreshadow good things to come, not evil. U. S.