Genesis 1:14.
When the HOLY ONE of Israel created the lights in the firmament, the sun, moon, and stars, He specifically designated them to be for understanding the times and the seasons, days and years.
Revelation 12:1- "And there appeared a great wonder in heaven; a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars:"
The pure woman (Messiah's people) in Revelation is seen to be clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet. This would mean that she understands the relationship between the sun and the moon in the timing of the Messiah's plan of salvation. This understanding gives her the brilliance of the Sabbaths regulated by the sun and shows that she has conquered the mystery of the moon Sabbaths. The moon only reflects the light from the sun. It has no light of its own. Just so the lunar Sabbaths only reflect the light from the Sabbaths regulated by the sun, they have no light of their own.
All evidence presented in this study will be taken from the original King James Version of the Bible, 1611 edition.
Because of the deliberate adulterations of later versions of the Bible, it is imperative that one uses the King James Version.
In the English translation of the Bible, there is no differentiation made between the different "Sabbaths", the one being the last day of the creation week on which God rested, (Genesis 2:2), and those given to Moses to be calculated and observed from the new moon. (Leviticus 23:11,15,24,27,32,35,39) The King James' Version lists them all as "Sabbaths", in the original 1611 edition. (Subsequent printings, however, of the KJV Bible diminish the glory of the Sabbath by not using a capital "S", writing the word as, "sabbath".) The Sabbath day on which God rested at creation has an uninterrupted seven day sequence, irregardless of the phases of the moon. Those "Sabbath" days given to Moses to govern the timing of the annual feasts were all calculated directly from the new moon. Today, these are often referred to as, "lunar Sabbaths".
Leviticus 23:11-39- "And he shall wave the sheaf before the LORD, to be accepted for you: on the morrow after the Sabbath the priest shall wave it....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; .... Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, In the seventh month, in the first day of the month, shall ye have a Sabbath, a memorial of blowing of trumpets, an holy convocation....Also on the tenth day of this seventh month there shall be a day of atonement: it shall be an holy convocation unto you; and ye shall afflict your souls, and offer an offering made by fire unto the LORD....It shall be unto you a Sabbath of rest, and ye shall afflict your souls: in the ninth day of the month at even, from even unto even, shall ye celebrate your Sabbath....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....Beside the Sabbaths of the LORD, and beside your gifts, and beside all your vows, and beside all your freewill offerings, which ye give unto the LORD. 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."
The Bible specifies twelve annual lunar Sabbaths in the sacred year, eight designated in the fifty-two days of the spring feasts ending with the feast of Pentecost; (Leviticus 23:11-16) and four Sabbaths within the twenty-two days of the fall feasts, from the Feast of Trumpets to the eighth day of the Feast of Tabernacles (Leviticus 23:24-39). Eleven of these Sabbaths are calculated in seven-day sequences, only from the new moon of the first month and from the new moon of the seventh month. The Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur, is the one lunar Sabbath that is not thus calculated, because it is the tenth day of the seventh month (Leviticus 23:27). (The purpose of this will be discussed later.)
Even though eight of these lunar Sabbaths continue into the second and third months, they are all calculated only from the new moon of the first month in perfect seven-day sequence (Leviticus 23:15,16). As specified by Moses, there are only fifty-two days allotted from the fourteenth day of the first month to the "morrow" after the seventh Sabbath, which is the Day of Pentecost (Leviticus 23:16). The Wave Sheaf offering is always made on the third day from Passover (Leviticus 23:11); Passover, being on the evening of the fourteenth day (Leviticus 23:5), the Wave Sheaf always on the sixteenth day, which is the "morrow" after the first Sabbath of the eight (Sabbaths) counting to Pentecost (Leviticus 23:11).
If the lunar Sabbaths of the second and third months were calculated from the new moon of these same months, they would not be in harmony with the fifty-two days specified by Moses for the calculation of the feasts from Passover to Penecost. Therefore,
they are in perfect seven-day sequence only from the new moon of the first month and not from the new moon of the second or third months.
When the Messiah fulfilled the fifty-two days of the spring feasts in C.E. 31, these eight lunar Sabbaths all occurred on the seventh-day Sabbath, just as they were designed to when He delivered the pattern (feasts) to Moses for all Israel. This is irrefutable evidence that the lunar Sabbaths were, indeed, a prophecy of the seventh-day Sabbaths, by the manner in which they coincided in the year of fulfillment, C.E. 31. John 19:31-"The Jews therefore, because it was the preparation, that the bodies should not remain upon the cross on the Sabbath day, (for that Sabbath day was an high day,)"
The Messiah interpreted the entire old tabernacle system, together with the exact timing of each observance, by the fulfillment of the feasts that prophesied His first coming. Only He could give the true light on the lunar sabbaths.
The prophetic fall feast days which relate to the second advent of Messiah will also be perfectly fulfilled, as were the spring feasts at His first coming. Unlike the spring feasts, four of the fall feast days are prophesied to all fall on seventh-day Sabbaths, and are filled with extra special significance in the Sabbath years (Sabbatical years) . This indicates a Sabbatical year as the year of fulfillment.
Deuteronomy 31:10-16-" And Moses commanded them, saying, At the end of every seven years, in the solemnity of the year of release, in the feast of tabernacles, When all Israel is come to appear before the LORD thy God in the place which he shall choose, thou shalt read this law before all Israel in their hearing. Gather the people together, men, and women, and children, and thy stranger that is within thy gates, that they may hear, and that they may learn, and fear the LORD your God, and observe to do all the words of this law:"
The Day of Atonement also had special significance in these Sabbatical years as they were the year of release for a certain class of Hebrew slaves on this day.
Deuteronomy 15:1,12-"At the end of every seven years thou shalt make a release. And this is the manner of the release....And if thy brother, an Hebrew man, or an Hebrew woman, be sold unto thee, and serve thee six years; then in the seventh year thou shalt let him go free from thee."
But its greatest significance comes in the year following a Sabbatical year, the seventh Sabbatical year, in the great year of Jubile.
Levitucus 25:9,10-"Then shalt thou cause the trumpet of the jubile to sound on the tenth day of the seventh month, in the day of atonement shall ye make the trumpet sound throughout all your land. And ye shall hallow the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof: it shall be a jubile unto you; and ye shall return every man unto his possession, and ye shall return every man unto his family."
In this jubile year the Day of Atonement must fall on the seventh-day Sabbath, although none of the other fall feasts do in this year.
Whenever the Feast of Trumpets occurs on a seventh-day Sabbath, the first day and the eighth day of the Feast of Tabernacles do also; and the Day of Atonement always, without exception, falls on a seventh-day Sabbath the very next year, just as given to Moses and recorded in Leviticus. In this way all four of the lunar Sabbaths in the fall feasts occur on seventh-day Sabbaths in the two last years in the cycle of years, the seventh Sabbatical year and the Jubile year.
The Jubile year represented two great events in the plan of salvation. Isaiah, the prophet, prophesied of the fulfillments of these two events in Isaiah 61:1-3. The cross referencing from these texts refers back to Leviticus 25 to the Jubile prophecy itself. The first fulfillment of the Jubile, " the acceptable year of the Lord", was announced by the Messiah, Himself, in the synagogue on the Sabbath which was the Day of Atonement that Jubile year. This Jubile began Messiah's three and a half year public ministry in C.E. 27. (Luke 4:16-21) While reading Isaiah's prophecy of the Jubile, Messiah stopped in the middle of the sentence and closed the book, handed it back to the minister. Then He proclaimed, "This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears." He did not read the rest of the sentence, "and the day of vengeance of our God;" because it did not apply to this fulfillment of the Jubile. It applies to the last fulfillment of the Jubile, which ushers in the seventh millennium, the thousand year rest for the earth, immediately preceding His second coming.
No human mind, only that of the Infinite, could conceive or fashion such a glorious plan for the salvation of man!
)