Dr. Barclay with Something to Think About - April 25, 2020

10 MORE DAYS

So after 40 days on earth, Christ ascended back to Heaven but still commanded His disciples to wait.  Wait a further 10 days before fulfilling His instructions to go into all the world and proclaim the Gospel. He wanted them to be filled with the Holy Spirit, that’s true, but was there also more?

According to the Commentary by David Guzak there are four reasons why the disciples may have been required to wait. It meant that there was:

1. a promise of something definite to come
2. something they had to receive and could not devise themselves
3. something worth waiting for
4. a test of their faith by waiting.

In addition, the events surrounding Christ’s passion followed the Jewish feasts and not our Easter. 

• Passover: when the Hebrews were saved in Egypt by the blood of a lamb, without blemish, put on and over the doorframe of their homes. Christ is called the perfect lamb of God, who saved us by the shedding His blood.
• Unleavened Bread: As leaven refers to sin in the Bible, this refers to week of such food being consumed starting the day after Passover. The bread [matzah] was both striped and pierced; Christ received both stripes and piercings before being crucified and is known as the Bread of Life.
• First Fruits: On the day after Sabbath following the Feast above, this was to be a wave offering of the first of the harvest. No sin offering was given. Christ, in turn, is considered to be the firstborn of the dead [Rev 1:5] and without sin
• Pentecost: 50 days following the Sabbath of First Fruits, requires the offering of two loaves of bread made with leaven and a sin offering representative of both Jews and Gentiles, both with sin, and the foundation of the Church.

Nothing is in the Bible by chance.  The 10 days of waiting was required to fulfill the needs of the festivals as decreed by God, as well as a test of their obedience.

          

Even further, the number 40 is considered in the Bible to represent a time of consecration or trial and the number 10 to represent a period of Divine Order or Perfection.

When you look at the overall picture, it really does give you something to think about.