The Spring Festivals
Pentecost (Shavuot)
The Feast of Weeks, Celebration of the Wheat Harvest
Description
Fifty days after Firstfruits, Israel celebrated the wheat harvest with two leavened loaves—representing Jew and Gentile united in the church. The Holy Spirit's descent on this feast (Acts 2) marked the church's birth and the ingathering of the first believers.Pentecost's dual significance—commemorating the giving of the Law at Sinai and the wheat harvest—finds fulfillment when the Holy Spirit writes God's law upon believers' hearts. The three thousand converts at Pentecost reverse Sinai's three thousand dead (Exodus 32:28), demonstrating that the Spirit gives life while the letter kills.
Key Verses
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:
And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place.