In the Old Covenant there were six yearly feasts and these six feasts had seven holy convocations. If you counted the Passover as a holy convocation, you would have eight. The first of these was the Passover feast on the 14th day of the first month which is very close to the time that Easter is celebrated today. Second was the feast of unleavened bread which was a seven-day feast and had a holy convocation on the first day of the feast (the day after the Passover) and on the last day of the feast. (The second day of the feast of unleavened bread or the 16th day of the first month was when the firstfruits or wave sheaf was offered.) The third feast of the year, and the last of the spring feasts, occurred 50 days after the last day of the feast of unleavened bread and was called the feast of weeks, or later, Pentecost.
The fourth feast was the first of the fall feasts, the feast of trumpets, on the first day of the seventh month, and the fifth feast was the Day of Atonement on the 10th day of the seventh month. The last feast of the year was the feast of tabernacles, which lasted seven days and had a holy convocation on the first day, and at the end of the feast there was a holy convocation on the 8th day.
It is our earnest desire to keep all of these feasts, not in the type but in the antitype, or reality, because all of them represent profound events in the development of the New Covenant which was ratified by the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross of Calvary. This ratification brought to an end all the types of the Old Covenant and replaced them with the exciting realities of the New Covenant. As Paul said it, “He takes away the first, that He may establish the second.” Hebrews 10:9.
As implied already it is actually impossible to keep the feasts of the Old Covenant today because to do so requires a priest who is a descendant of Aaron; and, since the priests were destroyed in the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70, not even an orthodox Jew can keep the feasts according to what is written. See Exodus 28:1; Nehemiah 7:64; II Chronicles 13:9, 10.
However, it is our full intent to “keep the feast” (I Corinthians 5:8) not with the old leaven, but with the new leaven—not in the Old Covenant setting but rather in the New Covenant setting, with the veil taken away (II Corinthians 3:16), as we will explain in our next editorial.