We come now to the last feast of the year, the feast of tabernacles. This feast could not occur until the Day of Atonement was over. The anti-typical Day of Atonement, the cleansing of the sanctuary, is not over until the end of probation which occurs just before the Second Coming of Christ. This feast was a great time of celebration or rejoicing. We hope soon to participate in this feast. We cannot celebrate this feast yet because we are in the great Day of Atonement. Now is the time we are to humble ourselves before God and seek to receive the Holy Spirit and to be found without spot and blameless at His appearing as a result of the working of the Holy Spirit in our lives (see for example, Romans 8; Hebrews 10; Revelation 19).
The Day of Atonement occurs once for all time from 1844 until the close of probation. Soon after the close of probation Jesus will return in the clouds of heaven and take His children with Him. The feast of tabernacles is symbolic of that great festal time of rejoicing. The great jubilee will occur when God’s people are redeemed and the broken family chain extending all the way back to Adam and Eve is put back together again. It will be a festal gathering, a time of rejoicing such as no person today can begin to imagine.
Paul looked forward to it. He said, “But ye are come unto mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, To the festal gathering [or assembly] and church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, And to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel.” Hebrews 12:22–24.
To be in that festal assembly you must be clothed in the wedding garment (Matthew 22:11–14; Revelation 19:7, 8). Your sins must be blotted out during the Day of Atonement (Acts 3:19–21; Hebrews 10:14–18). In summary, you must have been born again of the Holy Spirit and be complete in Christ (Ephesians 4:11–15; Colossians 2:7–10).
Every true Christian is looking forward to and longing for the anti-typical, or real feast of tabernacles, in the New Covenant. When we have Christian gatherings, we enjoy the fellowship and association of brothers and sisters in Christ just as the children of Israel did in the Old Covenant, but all of that fellowship is not worthy to be compared with what we are going to experience in the future if we are present at the real or anti-typical feast of the tabernacles.