Originally published on Tuesday, March 29, 2011, 2:59 pm in German at www.letztercountdown.org

Now that we are approaching the end of the preparatory studies for the last third part of the Shadow Series, more and more signs are becoming visible that we are really nearing the end. This short series, which deals with the sacrifices of the sanctuary, I dedicate to the late 19-year-old Erik Downes of Florida, USA, previously my only helper in the project who corrected the English translations of my articles for me during his period of study beginning in March of 2010.

During his winter vacation school trip to Costa Rica, he drowned at sea. His whole class was endangered by a riptide. His mother flew to Costa Rica and was informed that her son had told his classmates shortly before he drowned that they should head to shore, because he was the only one who sensed that they were in danger. They followed his advice, but as one of his companions turned around, he saw that Erik was drawn under water by an invisible hand, never to appear again.

As a result of this terrible accident, I got in contact with Erik’s mother and aunt, who gave such a wonderful Christian testimony in spite of this infinitely sad situation that I must not fail to mention it here. Before the circumstances of his disappearance were fully known and there was still some hope that Erik could possibly be found, their only prayer was that God’s will might be done—and if it would be His will that Erik should be laid to rest before the time of persecution would begin, it would be their only wish to at least recover his body so there would be closure.

As soon as Myrna, Erik’s mother, arrived in Costa Rica on January 8, 2011, three days after the phone message that her son was missing, his body had just been found. She thanked God for hearing her prayers. Later, her only wish and only thought was that she would be able to give a strong testimony at Erik’s memorial service for the righteousness of God and that she would not look like a “broken” mother. She wanted to show all the young people that to follow Jesus and work in His harvest as Erik had done is the meaning of life. As a Seventh-day Adventist, she knows that she will soon take Erik back into her arms, for the day of Jesus’ return is not far off.

The memorial service for Erik, my only friend and helper at the time, was held on January 23, 2011 in Florida and was recorded and stored in the archives of Shores SDA. Erik was Myrna’s only child. They had a deep and dear relationship. After returning from Costa Rica, she wrote me the following:

Life here in Florida continues with lots of people stopping by to visit and offer their sympathies. They are keeping me busy. I think most of the people who stop by are amazed to see how well I am holding up. I always refer them to the scriptures and especially the hope that we are given in 1 Thessalonians 4:

But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him. For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep. For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort one another with these words. (1 Thessalonians 4:13-18)

To those who come expecting to find a broken mother, I share the above scripture and my question to them is always, would you cry for someone who is asleep? The above scripture was one of Erik’s favorites. As I was going through his bible, he had underlined the word “comfort”. I sometimes wonder whether God was preparing him for such a time as this.

Thank you so much for the email you sent and for sharing the dreams that Erik shared with you. I will use excerpts from all the emails you sent on your behalf. Feel free to use any of the documentation that you have from Erik. I am sure he would want you to, especially if it would win a soul to Christ.

Yes, Erik also had dreams. They were often of a very personal nature, but as my friend he told me about them. From his dreams I could gather what violent, spiritual struggles Erik was exposed to as a young Adventist in the secular environment of his own church. He fought a heroic inner battle against secular music, among other things, because he knew he’d have to let Jesus change his taste if he wanted to see the Kingdom of Heaven. In a dream, Jesus appeared to him and admonished him lovingly. In another dream, the “Lion of the tribe of Judah” followed him all over a construction site (our ministry). Erik was sometimes tempted to fall back into the world, but each time that happened Jesus brought him back to Himself with a personal dream.

As it turned out, our last correspondence was about a dream he had had, but it wasn’t a personal dream this time. It was about the preparations for the coming of the false Christ. Erik had seen that a special “machine” was being prepared and was almost completely finished. It worked to project a three-dimensional image into the atmosphere of our planet and was even able to influence people’s thoughts. He also made mention of Project Blue Beam, which you can find on YouTube. A major role in the fraudulent Return would be played by the increasingly occurring UFO phenomena. I was surprised by his dream, because another Adventist had also sent me a dream about our great test and the false Christ shortly before that. He had seen many incredible details of this faked Second Coming and the machine in full operation that Erik saw. One didn’t know about the dreams of the other. I was the only one who knew both of them and was able to see the parallels and concordance of both dreams.

The penultimate e-mail I received from Erik included a personal dream again. He had been worried about me because I had not written for a month, but Jesus reassured him in the dream that I was OK and would write on December 20, 2010. And then Erik felt that something important was going to happen on December 22, 2010. It was like a warning. Erik waited, and in fact, I wrote to him on December 20 after a very busy time. I mentioned the dream of the other Adventist, and that I would not be able to share it with him because that brother had not yet given me permission. He had sent me the dream because he thought it could help me in my studies. Erik expressed his curiosity as to how his dream was included in the other dream, and I prayed for two days about whether I could send him the dream. On December 22, I felt that I could wait no longer, and I sent the dream about our great test to Erik. He was very glad to have gotten it, and that was the last e-mail that I received from him before his death. He understood the 22nd of December as a warning, and so it was.

I know that Erik was taken from us because Jesus knows the future better than we do, and I know that Erik will be one of the first who I will take into my arms in heaven to thank him personally for his efforts for propagating the fourth angel’s message, and for his deep friendship. He was the kindest and most respectful brother I have found in our ranks since my baptism.

A few weeks after his death, our Lord answered the prayers of our small group here for more helpers and Erik’s aunt, Lynn, became his successor. We all are very happy that our Lord has called her to correct the articles in English, which she does with extraordinary dedication and devoted meticulousness. Thank you, Lynn, that you’re on board!

We still pray that more brethren will wake up and translate these messages. I wish I could have more opportunities to explain and tell you so many more things, but the translations take too much time. That is why it takes months for a new article to be published. How sad those brethren will be, who would have been able to serve in the fourth angel’s message with their talent and knowledge of language to give the loud cry a certain sound as Erik and his aunt were doing. Soon they will be faced with the bitter realization that it is too late.

We are all asked to present a living sacrifice, like Erik did:

I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. (Romans 12:1)

In addition, we are to build a spiritual house, a united community of holy priests, and to offer up spiritual sacrifices:

Ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ. (1 Peter 2:5)

A Warning

As we begin to study an almost entirely overlooked theme of the Old Testament that has been pushed aside, we should never lose sight of those verses. We will look at a part of the sanctuary doctrine that has never been deciphered. There is nothing but silence about it. It is a special part of the sacrificial service, which was abolished at the cross. Jesus died on the cross exactly at the time of the slaughter of the evening sacrifice, as we have studied extensively in the Cross Shadows. The sacrificial lamb escaped from the priest for this part of the daily sacrifice, and the veil of the temple was rent in two. No one could enter the temple because the Holy of Holies was exposed. The sacrificial system had come to an end once and for all, because type and antitype had perfectly met. Jesus was the spotless lamb of the daily sacrifice, and from then on everybody who seeks forgiveness should claim His blood.

In our church we know a lot about the sanctuary service, even though the subject is rarely taught anymore. We know that all the sacrifices were pointing to the one perfect Sacrifice, Christ, the divine Lamb. Therefore, we know the anti-typical meaning of all the sacrifices:

But Christ being come an high priest of good things to come, by a greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this building; Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us. (Hebrews 9:11-12)

So, please don’t get confused by a study of the feast days or sacrifices to think that we should start to keep the Jewish festivals again. No, that is not God’s will:

And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he quickened together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses; Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us [the ceremonial law of Moses], which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross; And having spoiled principalities and powers, he made a shew of them openly, triumphing over them in it. Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holyday, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days [i.e. the shadow sabbaths of the feast days]: Which are a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ. (Colossians 2:13-17)

Oh, how much discussion there is about the words of the apostle, and how wrongly have they been understood up to the present day!

We, as Adventists, know that it was the ceremonial law that was nailed to the cross. We also understand correctly that the festivals, new moons and ceremonial sabbaths (shadow sabbaths), which can fall upon any weekday, no longer have to be kept since they are just shadows of things to come. But what does the term “shadow of things to come” really mean? Another word for this is “prophecy”. A prophecy is a shadow of the future. And this is the knowledge that we have not yet fully acquired as a church.

There are whole movements inside and outside of Adventism which want to observe the Jewish feasts again. There are even Jewish-Adventist groups that stir thousands of people to keep rites again that Jesus has abolished. No, it is a fundamental misunderstanding and a terrible aberration to think that we might please God without understanding that these rites were foreshadowing Jesus and have been replaced by completely different “sacrifices”, namely spiritual sacrifices like I described before. We can never please God by formal ceremonies, but doing so will fulfill a different prophecy. Such people exactly repeat the error of the Jewish people who had a dead religion (Sardis!) because they no longer understood what the ceremonies, like shadows (prophecies), pointed to: the living and saving Messiah.

On the other hand, many believe that we no longer need to study what those rites and ceremonies actually mean, because everything was already supposedly fulfilled on the cross. They believe that there isn’t any prophecy left for our days. This is another fatal error, as you will see!

The Autumn Festivals as the Type of our Time

Divine wisdom divided the festivals into two major sections: the spring and the autumn festivals. This division is reflected in the first and the second coming of Jesus. The spring festivals essentially foreshadowed the events of Jesus’ passion week until the outpouring of the early rain at Pentecost, while the autumn festivals include all levels of the judgment period since 1844.

The feast of trumpets, which started the autumn festivals with the first crescent moon of the seventh month, foreshadowed Miller’s midnight cry. This was followed by the Day of Atonement on the tenth day of the seventh month. It is the main component of our sanctuary doctrine and the basis of our entire Advent message. Since October 22, 1844, we are living in the fulfillment of the prophecy of this Yom Kippur day, which in reality takes place in heaven, and will last for a total of 171 years for the judgment of the dead and the living. There was another special celebration, the feast of tabernacles, that began on the fifteenth day of the seventh month and lasted seven days. In Adventism, we have slight difficulties with the interpretation of this festival because we do not have clear statements from Ellen G. White about it, but we should be able to understand its significance if God explains it to us:

Also in the fifteenth day of the seventh month, when ye have gathered in the fruit of the land, ye shall keep a feast unto the LORD seven days: on the first day shall be a sabbath, and on the eighth day shall be a sabbath. And ye shall take you on the first day the boughs of goodly trees, branches of palm trees, and the boughs of thick trees, and willows of the brook; and ye shall rejoice before the LORD your God seven days. And ye shall keep it a feast unto the LORD seven days in the year. It shall be a statute for ever in your generations: ye shall celebrate it in the seventh month. Ye shall dwell in booths seven days; all that are Israelites born shall dwell in booths: That your generations may know that I made the children of Israel to dwell in booths, when I brought them out of the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God. (Leviticus 23:39-43)

The feast of tabernacles is to be a reminder of the wandering in the wilderness for 40 years. During that time, the Israelites had no roof over their heads, but they were protected and led by God. Even more, however, it was a warning for our time. We would commit the errors of ancient Israel again, and like them we would have to wander for many years in the wilderness as an Advent people.

It was not the will of God that the coming of Christ should be thus delayed. God did not design that His people, Israel, should wander forty years in the wilderness. He promised to lead them directly to the land of Canaan, and establish them there a holy, healthy, happy people. But those to whom it was first preached, went not in “because of unbelief” (Heb. 3:19). Their hearts were filled with murmuring, rebellion, and hatred, and He could not fulfill His covenant with them.

For forty years did unbelief, murmuring, and rebellion shut out ancient Israel from the land of Canaan. The same sins have delayed the entrance of modern Israel into the heavenly Canaan. In neither case were the promises of God at fault. It is the unbelief, the worldliness, unconsecration, and strife among the Lord’s professed people that have kept us in this world of sin and sorrow so many years. {1SM 68.3–69.1}

On May 9, 1892, Ellen G. White wrote from Melbourne, Australia, to a brother:

I saw that Jones and Waggoner had their counterpart in Joshua and Caleb. As the children of Israel stoned the spies with literal stones, you have stoned these brethren with stones of sarcasm and ridicule. I saw that you willfully rejected what you knew to be the Truth. Just because it was too humiliating to your dignity. I also saw that if you had accepted their message, we would have been in the kingdom two years from that date, but now we have to go back into the wilderness and stay forty years. (Written from Melbourne, Australia, May 9, 1892) {GCB May 9, 1892}

Soon, in the third part, we will take a closer look at this statement of Ellen G. White and discover that it is the key to a wonderful insight.

The fourth angel’s message was rejected in 1888, and as Ellen G. White tells us, this meant that we had to wander again for “40” years in the wilderness. Spiritually, we had lost the solid roof over our heads and we had to live in booths, without a temple, without a city, without protective walls. Our leaders had failed, and a terrible long wandering in the wilderness had started. Since she stated that we could have been in heaven two years from that date, this wandering actually started in 1890, the year in which Jesus could have returned. Rather than enter the heavenly Canaan, we wandered back into the wilderness. Therefore, we should finally understand and admit that the feast of tabernacles pointed to that terrible time and has already been fulfilled by us with the 3 times 40 years (120 years) from 1890 to 2010. This makes it completely unnecessary to celebrate the feast of tabernacles anew. (The anti-Trinitarians among us should ponder why the number “3” appears here again.) As I said in the article The Power of the Father, the wilderness wandering ended by the fact that our God led us to an oasis with fresh water, the beginning of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit in the latter rain since 2010, and the (re)proclamation of the fourth angel’s message, which is the true midnight cry: “Behold, the bridegroom cometh.”

The end of the wandering in the desert was predicted by a special shadow sabbath, the eighth day after the seven days of the feast of tabernacles.

Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, The fifteenth day of this seventh month shall be the feast of tabernacles for seven days unto the LORD. On the first day shall be an holy convocation: ye shall do no servile work therein. Seven days ye shall offer an offering made by fire unto the LORD: on the eighth day shall be an holy convocation unto you; and ye shall offer an offering made by fire unto the LORD: it is a solemn assembly; and ye shall do no servile work therein. (Leviticus 23:34-36)

This eighth day, which finished the autumn festivals, is called by the Jews “Shemini Atzeret” as you can study at Hebrew for Christians, the main rite on that day was the “Prayer for the Latter Rain”. Since 2010, the Orion message is being given and we pray every day that the 144,000 will finally accept and understand this message, because the antitype of this festival will soon come to an end. Any Adventist who will not have received the latter rain will soon be sifted out.

Many, however, understand the feast of tabernacles as a symbol for the time of the plagues, in which the angels of our Lord will lead us to the most solitary places on earth, where we will no longer have to take care of ourselves for our maintenance and food. This interpretation is a nice and possible third application, but it does not help us for this article. As we shall see in these articles about the shadows of the sacrifices, all the autumn festivals together are a symbol for the entire preparation of the people for the time of the plagues.

To understand this, we need to study something that was apparently never examined in detail. I would like to ask you now to skim through chapters 28 and 29 of “Numbers,” as this book was quite appropriately titled in Greek. I will not quote all the verses here, because these are all ceremonial instructions for the spring festivals (Chapter 28) and autumn festivals (Chapter 29). The statutes for the exact number of sacrifices which had to be sacrificed on every single feast day are listed therein.

Most of us quickly skip these chapters because they are really somewhat “boring”. We are buried in instructions, and it is really about as much fun reading these chapters as the long lists of genealogies, or like reading a phone book. Maybe that’s the reason why so far nobody pondered why God took the trouble of giving us such detailed instructions. We have been told that the earthly sanctuary is a “shadow of things to come”, and therefore the sacrifices are prophecies as well. Ellen G. White gave us even more evidence in saying that we do not understand the Jewish sanctuary service good enough. Since we understand quite a lot today, our special interest should be drawn to those things that have never been investigated. The numbers of the sacrificial animals and offerings have never been examined before, to my knowledge. That is precisely why this “boring” collection of sheer numbers attracted my attention.

If we think according to typology, the figures of the sacrificial animals of the spring festivals should tell us something about the events surrounding Jesus’ crucifixion, and the figures of the autumn festivals should tell us something about our time. What might that be?

So that we can learn from the past, it makes good sense to examine the sacrifices of the spring festivals first, and to try to find out if there is any significance to them.

The Sacrifices of the Spring Feasts

I have set up several tables below that give an overview of the various details of the sacrifices of the spring festivals, accompanied with the appropriate verse number. What we are seeking are those offerings that were instructed to be offered within the core time of the festivals, excluding the daily sacrifices, which also included the seventh-day Sabbath offerings. Therefore, we immediately exclude the regular daily sacrifice from our study, which is explained at the beginning of Chapter 28.

It is also striking that the Lord doesn’t mention the Passover lamb in Numbers 28. In fact, in this context it has no new typical significance, for it found its antitype in the introduction of the Lord’s Supper by Jesus (see Part 2 of Cross Shadows). We will see that it was by divine intention that this sacrificial lamb was not even mentioned here again.

Other Preliminary Remarks:

1. We find precise information from God regarding the number of units of flour that depended on the kind of sacrificial animal, measured in tenth parts of an ephah (a biblical unit of measurement). Some recent Bible translations have these measurements converted into pounds or kg, making it impossible to decrypt the prophecy contained therein. We have to stay with the quantities and units that God has given us.

2. The portions of oil that had to be mingled with the sacrificial flour are given in the unit “hin”. If you look closely, you will see that the portions of oil (to be mingled with the flour) and the portions of the wine (for the drink offering) are always exactly the same. I have studied this data in detail and could not find a direct prophetic significance, but the details of the amounts of flour have a highly prophetic significance. Indirectly, the amounts of flour include the amounts of the oil, and these contain the amounts of the libations. To avoid unduly complicating this very challenging study, I omit the unnecessary “hin” units, but the reader should know that I have examined this issue in detail.

3. In order to obtain a complete list of all the sacrifices of the spring festivals complementary to Numbers 28, we must also consult Leviticus 23, as there are listed some more sacrifices which according to our Bible Commentary (references below) were not replaced by the other sacrifices and had to be offered additionally. The prophetic meaning appears only if the list is complete.

The first spring festival with special sacrificial instructions in Numbers 28 is the first day of the feast of unleavened bread:

These sacrificial instructions applied to all seven days of the feast of unleavened bread, so we get the following totals:

However, there are still more instructions for sacrifices during the feast of unleavened bread given in Leviticus 23, which we must not leave out just because they are not mentioned in Numbers 28:

The next spring festival for which God has given sacrificial instructions is the Feast of Weeks, Feast of Firstfruits or simply Pentecost:

Again, we find additional sacrifices in Leviticus 23 for Pentecost (see our Bible Commentary Volume 1 on Numbers 28:26):

The spring festivals, in contrast to the autumn festivals, extended over the month boundary until the second month. This is caused by the waiting time for Pentecost (7 weeks, therefore it was also called “Feast of Weeks”). Beware: it could be easily overlooked that during the seven weeks (Omer sabbaths) of waiting for Pentecost, there always falls a new moon with 100% certainty. This has to be considered as prophetic too. By the similarity of the quantities, we can see that it is a logical part of the spring feasts:

As always, to understand a prophecy—and this is a prophecy, because the shadow service is in itself a type of something that would be fulfilled later—we need a key to unlock the prophecy. According to the hermeneutical principle, the key must be contained in the Bible itself.

In this case, it is actually quite easy to find that key, or at least part of it. It is in fact in the same Chapter 28 of Numbers. But first, we have to ponder over flour and oil. We know that all the animals were pointing to Jesus’ sacrifice. What stands out here is the strange dependence on certain units of flour. Of course, the flour was mixed with oil. We do this to bake bread. In the Lord’s Supper, Jesus Himself refers to what we have to understand by the symbol of bread:

And as they did eat, Jesus took bread, and blessed, and brake it, and gave to them, and said, Take, eat: this is my body. (Mark 14:22)

Why was the bread to be mingled with oil? What does the oil mean?

Let Ellen G. White explain it to us in one of her best books. In “Christ’s Object Lessons”, we can read in the chapter on the parable of the 10 virgins:

Lingering near the bride’s house are ten young women robed in white. Each carries a lighted lamp and a small flagon for oil. All are anxiously watching for the appearance of the bridegroom. But there is a delay. Hour after hour passes; the watchers become weary and fall asleep. At midnight the cry is heard, “Behold, the bridegroom cometh; go ye out to meet him.” The sleepers, suddenly awaking, spring to their feet. They see the procession moving on, bright with torches and glad with music. They hear the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride. The ten maidens seize their lamps and begin to trim them, in haste to go forth. But five have neglected to fill their flasks with oil. They did not anticipate so long a delay, and they have not prepared for the emergency. In distress they appeal to their wiser companions saying, “Give us of your oil; for our lamps are going out.” (Margin.) But the waiting five, with their freshly trimmed lamps, have emptied their flagons. They have no oil to spare, and they answer, “Not so; lest there be not enough for us and you: but go ye rather to them that sell, and buy for yourselves.”

While they went to buy, the procession moved on, and left them behind. The five with lighted lamps joined the throng and entered the house with the bridal train, and the door was shut. When the foolish virgins reached the banqueting hall, they received an unexpected denial. The master of the feast declared, “I know you not.” They were left standing without, in the empty street, in the blackness of the night.

As Christ sat looking upon the party that waited for the bridegroom, He told His disciples the story of the ten virgins, by their experience illustrating the experience of the church that shall live just before His second coming.

The two classes of watchers represent the two classes who profess to be waiting for their Lord. They are called virgins because they profess a pure faith. By the lamps is represented the word of God. The psalmist says, “Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto may path.” Ps. 119:105. The oil is a symbol of the Holy Spirit. Thus the Spirit is represented in the prophecy of Zechariah. “The angel that talked with me came again,” he says, “and waked me, as a man that is wakened out of his sleep, and said unto me, What seest thou? And I said, I have looked, and behold a candlestick all of gold, with a bowl upon the top of it, and his seven lamps thereon, and seven pipes to the seven lamps, which are upon the top thereof; and two olive trees by it, one upon the right side of the bowl, and the other upon the left side thereof. So I answered and spake to the angel that talked with me, saying, What are these, my lord? . . . Then he answered and spake unto me, saying, This is the word of the Lord unto Zerubbabel, saying, Not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit, saith the Lord of hosts. . . . And I answered again, and said unto him, What be these two olive branches which 408 through the two golden pipes empty the golden oil out of themselves? . . . Then said he, These are the two anointed ones, that stand by the Lord of the whole earth.” Zech. 4:1-14.

From the two olive trees the golden oil was emptied through the golden pipes into the bowl of the candlestick, and thence into the golden lamps that gave light to the sanctuary. So from the holy ones that stand in God’s presence His Spirit is imparted to the human instrumentalities who are consecrated to His service. The mission of the two anointed ones is to communicate to God’s people that heavenly grace which alone can make His word a lamp to the feet and a light to the path. “Not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit, saith the Lord of hosts.” Zech. 4:6. {COL 406.1–408.1}

Please read the whole chapter. It contains lots of important information for this last generation of the 144,000.

We should now add up the individual totals, to explore whether this results in numbers that could have a prophetic significance in connection with the outpouring of the Holy Spirit.

I had a certain suspicion when I began this study. Many people ask what my study method is. My response is that I let myself be guided by the Holy Spirit. Frequently, there are small problems that I find in the Bible or thoughts during prayer that point me to something specific. Indeed, I started to study the Jewish festivals to counter the lunar Sabbath keepers, and so I recognized more and more how little of what the Bible says about the feasts we are able to fully explain. Hopefully, the first two parts of the Shadow Series showed this clearly.

I suspected that the many instructions for the festival sacrifices had a special relationship with certain biblical periods, during which exceptional conditions existed or will exist on earth. I believed that these feast sacrifices would constitute something like a “provision” for those specific hard times. I still had no idea how this study would result and where the keys could be found, but it’s always like this when I pursue a case. The Holy Spirit gives an idea and then through diligent study in prayer, I get the solutions. Sometimes I fall asleep after having prayed for it and then I get the solution the next morning when I wake up.

What are these “exceptional circumstances”? When Jesus died on the cross, one such state of emergency came. As we learned in the previous part, the sacrificial system was abolished through Jesus’ death on the cross once and for all. He died just at the time of the slaughtering of the daily evening sacrifice, and the lamb escaped from the priest. Ellen G. White told us of this, confirming this view. The curtain that separated the Holy Place from the Most Holy Place was torn apart from top to bottom by the Father, and thus ended the Jewish sacrificial system.

We must understand, however, what it was replaced by: Jesus’ intercessory service in the heavenly sanctuary. Nevertheless, Jesus was laid to rest in the grave for a whole Sabbath, and when He rose again, He spent still another 40 days on earth with the disciples:

For forty days Christ remained on the earth, preparing the disciples for the work before them and explaining that which heretofore they had been unable to comprehend. He spoke of the prophecies concerning His advent, His rejection by the Jews, and His death, showing that every specification of these prophecies had been fulfilled. He told them that they were to regard this fulfillment of prophecy as an assurance of the power that would attend them in their future labors. “Then opened He their understanding,” we read, “that they might understand the Scriptures, and said unto them, Thus it is written, and thus it behooved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day: and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.” And He added, “Ye are witnesses of these things.” Luke 24:45-48.

During these days that Christ spent with His disciples, they gained a new experience. As they heard their beloved Master explaining the Scriptures in the light of all that had happened, their faith in Him was fully established. They reached the place where they could say, “I know whom I have believed.” 2 Timothy 1:12. They began to realize the nature and extent of their work, to see that they were to proclaim to the world the truths entrusted to them. The events of Christ’s life, His death and resurrection, the prophecies pointing to these events, the mysteries of the plan of salvation, the power of Jesus for the remission of sins--to all these things they had been witnesses, and they were to make them known to the world. They were to proclaim the gospel of peace and salvation through repentance and the power of the Saviour. {AA 26.2–27.1}

Who performed the intercessory service during this time when there was neither a sacrificial system nor was Jesus in the heavenly sanctuary as High Priest? What would have happened to the people who had sinned during that time? Would they have been forgiven? These are not just theological questions regarding redemption, but we encounter there a type for a time when we will be in a similar but even worse situation. I am referring to the time when Jesus will have left the sanctuary and His intercession will have terminated. At that time, the door of mercy will have irrevocably closed. The Holy Spirit will have been withdrawn from the earth and we will have to live without an Advocate in this world. In the model case of the year 31 AD, Jesus indeed spent some moments with the disciples and certainly gave them hope. But the sacrificial system was permanently abolished, and He had not yet taken up His service in the heavenly sanctuary. The Holy Spirit wasn’t present yet, which is also a characteristic of the time of the plagues.

I examined the festive sacrifices regarding their possible significance as a provision, as a “food supply”, for these times. Everything that Jesus instructed in types was done in view of the very last time, so the 144,000 would be able to decipher the corresponding prophetic significance of the autumn festivals by the example of the fulfillment of the spring festivals and draw their conclusions.

If you calculate a “provision for a journey”, you need two pieces of information:

1. The daily food supply of the travelers
2. The length of the journey in days

From these two values, by simple multiplication, the required total amount of the necessary provisions can be calculated.

What if we only know the total amount of provisions for the journey? Then we have to calculate how far one could go with it. We would first have to determine what the daily requirement is, and then we could divide the existing provisions by the daily requirement, and then we would obtain the maximum possible duration of the journey in days according to the total amount of food.

Believing that the total amount of the sacrifices during the spring festivals was the provision for the period of the emergency state after Jesus’ crucifixion, I just had to find the amount for the daily requirement in order to calculate how many days the festive sacrifices would last.

It is quite obvious, which information is needed for the calculation of the daily provision... the amounts for the daily offerings in Chapter 28 of Numbers:

The daily requirement was therefore 2 loaves, and so we would come to 153 ÷ 2 = 76.5 days of provision between Jesus’ death and His commencement of the Sanctuary Service, which does not appear to be logical. Something is still missing in our calculation.

Without a deeper understanding of the daily sacrifices one cannot study these things. The priests had the obligation to offer the daily sacrifices for the people, but there was also a special daily offering for the priests of the house of Levi themselves:

And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying, This is the offering of Aaron and of his sons, which they shall offer unto the LORD in the day when he is anointed; the tenth part of an ephah of fine flour for a meat offering perpetual, half of it in the morning, and half thereof at night. In a pan it shall be made with oil; and when it is baken, thou shalt bring it in: and the baken pieces of the meat offering shalt thou offer for a sweet savour unto the LORD. And the priest of his sons that is anointed in his stead shall offer it: it is a statute for ever unto the LORD; it shall be wholly burnt. For every meat offering for the priest shall be wholly burnt: it shall not be eaten. (Leviticus 6:19-23)

The English translation of this text uses the term “meat offering” but indeed there was no meat but only flour and oil to be offered for the priests.

This special daily sacrifice can be easily overlooked, because it was “hidden” pretty well in another part of the Bible. As we shall see, this offering has an outstanding importance for our time. Let us add this finding now to the table of the daily requirement:

Typologically, the daily sacrifice of two loaves for the people represented the daily requirement of “Holy Spirit” of a “normal” disciple of Jesus in the time after Jesus’ death, while the required provisions of an apostle was lower and just one loaf of bread.

We now re-calculate the foreshadowed maximum time for which the total stock sacrificed at the spring festivals was sufficient:

153 ÷ 3 = 51 days

Jesus spent one day in the grave ... Sabbath, Nissan 15, the first day of the feast of unleavened bread. Then, the instruction was given that one should count from the day after the Sabbath (Nissan 16, the day of the waving of the sheaf of firstfruits) a total of 50 days to come to the feast of Pentecost, the outpouring of the predicted early rain.

And ye shall count unto you from the morrow after the sabbath, from the day that ye brought the sheaf of the wave offering; seven sabbaths shall be complete: Even unto the morrow after the seventh sabbath shall ye number fifty days; and ye shall offer a new meat offering unto the LORD. (Leviticus 23:15-16)

If we add to these 50 days set by God, the day on which He rested in the grave, we come to exactly 51 days of needed provision. Jesus Himself had been the evening sacrifice on Friday, Nissan 14. The Israelites, the people and the disciples and apostles (the true Levites and priests), had a specific daily requirement of 3 loaves of bread mingled with the Holy Spirit for the time until the real outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost exactly 51 days later.

In my opinion, it is correct to conclude that Jesus, although He ascended to heaven on the 40th day after His resurrection, not yet commenced His ministry in the heavenly sanctuary. Only on the day when He sent the Holy Spirit, did He also begin His Intercessory Service, because God in His infinite counsel provided for exactly 51 days of emergency time. As far as I know, there are no contrary statements of the Spirit of Prophecy. If someone finds something, please contact me.

In the second part of “Shadows of the Sacrifices”, we will examine the fall feasts and how it was possible that the disciples received their portion of “bread”, although at the spring festivals of the year 31 AD there could not have been offered any valid sacrifices for provision, because the whole sacrificial system was already abolished with Jesus’ death on the cross.