43rd International Bible Conference, August 4, 2011Then Jesus said to them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, Moses did not give you the bread from heaven, but My Father gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is He who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” Then they said to Him, “Lord, give us this bread always.” And Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life. He who comes to Me shall never hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst.  John 6:32-35The Meaning of the Bread and Wine within the History of the IsraelitesLet’s turn to First Corinthians chapter 15 verse 21.   For since by man came death, by Man also came the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ all shall be made alive. But each one in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, afterward those who are Christ’s at His coming. Then comes the end, when He delivers the kingdom to God the Father, when He puts an end to all rule and all authority and power. For He must reign till He has put all enemies under His feet. The last enemy that will be destroyed is death.  verses 21-26   After the Israelites left Egypt and crossed the Red Sea, God spoke to them about three feasts they were to observe. First, there was the Feast of Unleavened Bread which can be found in the books of Leviticus and Deuteronomy. The day before the beginning of the Feast of Unleavened Bread was the day of the Passover. The week that then followed was the Feast of Unleavened Bread. The second feast was called “the Feast of Ingathering,” also referred to as “the Feast of Weeks,” and it lasted fifty days. The first of the fifty days was the Feast of Firstfruits. This took place on the day after the Sabbath, which we refer to as Sunday. Counting seven weeks from this day, we come to the fiftieth day which is called the Feast of Pentecost. God told the Israelites they were to observe this second feast of fifty days referred to as the Feast of Weeks or Feast of Firstfruits. The third feast is the Feast of Firstfruits, in other words, the gathering of the harvest. The feasts observed during the seventh month of the Jewish calendar are the Feast of Trumpets when the trumpets were blown; the Day of Atonement, when sacrifices were offered up for atonement; and the Feast of Tabernacles, marking the completion of the fall harvest. The Feast of Tabernacles is also referred to as the Feast of Booths. Observances such as these were commands given to the Israelites when they were in the wilderness, having come out of Egypt, and they were related to their food and their agricultural activities. If, however, we look at the Old Testament through Jesus Christ, we can see that the many commandments given to the Israelites, the feasts they were to observe, and the many laws they were given were to be accomplished through Jesus Christ. The communion service, in which we break bread and drink wine together, was introduced to us through accounts of the way in which the members of the early Church gathered together to do this. When we look back over time, we find that one day long, long ago God made a decision in His heart and this was to be revealed through the history of the Israelites. He intended to be born in human form in the midst of this nation, and He revealed in advance what He would accomplish in the flesh.  The Israelites observed the Feast of Weeks for fifty days, beginning when the barley began to ripen and they gathered in the first fruits. Then, fifty days later the wheat harvest began. The Korean Bible generally uses the term “wheat,” but some English versions use both “wheat” and “barley” in reference to grain. It would seem that in the Bible grain can sometimes mean wheat and sometimes barley. At the beginning of the Feast of Weeks, the Israelites brought the first fruits of the harvest to the priest as a wave offering on the day after the Sabbath. If we look at this through the New Testament, we can see how it is reflected in Jesus’ crucifixion, His spending the Sabbath day in the grave, and His resurrection at dawn the day after the Sabbath. At the time of the early Church, however, a strange rumor began to spread. Jesus had spoken in advance of the resurrection of the dead, but some people were saying this resurrection had already taken place, so many people were confused. (see 2 Timothy 2:18) It was in the midst of such times of confusion that the New Testament was recorded, and yet the apostle Paul wrote a letter in which he provided a clear and precise definition of this issue of the resurrection. This is what he wrote about the order in which the resurrection would take place:   But each one in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, afterward those who are Christ’s at His coming.  1 Corinthians 15:23   First of all, the first fruit is Christ. It is the proper order for Christ to be resurrected first. Next it says that when He returns—when He comes to this earth again—there will be the resurrection of those who are His. When we consider the Feast of Trumpets, the Day of Atonement and the Feast of Tabernacles through the writings of the prophets and the New Testament, we find they tell us in advance that when Jesus returns to this world as King of kings, the Jews will have to stand before Him as will the many nations of the world   Then comes the end, when He delivers the kingdom to God the Father, when He puts an end to all rule and all authority and power.  1 Corinthians 15:24This verse is not talking about this world that we know; it is talking about the time right after the millennial kingdom and just before the new heaven and new earth, the time when He will deliver all things to God the Father. We need to take careful note of the details. Now let’s go back to the matter of the bread and wine. One day, Abram heard that his nephew Lot had been taken captive in battle. So he took with him his servants that he had trained in his household and rescued his nephew, also recovering all the goods that had been stolen. On his way back, he met two kings. One was Melchizedek king of Salem and the other was the king of Sodom. When Abram met Melchizedek, the king brought out bread and wine. (see Genesis 14:18) Abram had stood before this mysterious figure who was “without father, without mother, without genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor end of life, but made like the Son of God, [and] remains a priest continually” (see Hebrews 7:3). At that time, Abram, the father of the Jews, gave him a tithe of all he had received. We are given a brief glimpse of this incident in the book of Genesis. What exactly was this bread and wine? As we continue to read through the book of Genesis, we find the door gradually opening to provide an answer to this. The King of Sodom wanted to give all the goods to Abram, but Abram gave them all back to him, saying he did not want it to be said that he had made Abram rich. To put it simply, Abram stood before a fork in the road. There was Melchizedek who had brought with him bread and wine, and there was the king of Sodom. From the way Abram acted at that time, we can see which path he chose to become the father of faith. Later, Abraham had a son Isaac and when Isaac was around sixty years old, he had twins, Esau and Jacob. Then through Joseph, one of Jacob’s twelve sons, Jacob’s family of seventy all went down to Egypt. The famine in Canaan was so severe that Jacob’s family moved down to Egypt with the aid of Joseph, who had become the prime minister of Egypt.Joseph ended up in Egypt because his brothers had sold him as a slave. In Egypt, he was put to work in the house of a captain of the guard and, because he was bright and served his worked well, he was later made overseer of the entire household. The captain’s wife became attracted to Joseph, but he rejected her advances, so she made false charges against him and he was thrown in prison. While Joseph was in prison, two other men came to be locked up with him: the chief butler who served wine to the pharaoh, and the baker who baked the pharaoh’s bread.   It came to pass after these things that the butler and the baker of the king of Egypt offended their lord, the king of Egypt. And Pharaoh was angry with his two officers, the chief butler and the chief baker. So he put them in custody in the house of the captain of the guard, in the prison, the place where Joseph was confined. And the captain of the guard charged Joseph with them, and he served them; so they were in custody for a while. Then the butler and the baker of the king of Egypt, who were confined in the prison, had a dream, both of them, each man’s dream in one night and each man’s dream with its own interpretation. And Joseph came in to them in the morning and looked at them, and saw that they were sad. So he asked Pharaoh’s officers who were with him in the custody of his lord’s house, saying, “Why do you look so sad today?” And they said to him, “We each have had a dream, and there is no interpreter of it.” So Joseph said to them, “Do not interpretations belong to God? Tell them to me, please.” Then the chief butler told his dream to Joseph, and said to him, “Behold, in my dream a vine was before me, and in the vine were three branches; it was as though it budded, its blossoms shot forth, and its clusters brought forth ripe grapes. Then Pharaoh’s cup was in my hand; and I took the grapes and pressed them into Pharaoh’s cup, and placed the cup in Pharaoh’s hand.” And Joseph said to him, “This is the interpretation of it: The three branches are three days. Now within three days Pharaoh will lift up your head and restore you to your place, and you will put Pharaoh’s cup in his hand according to the former manner, when you were his butler. But remember me when it is well with you, and please show kindness to me; make mention of me to Pharaoh, and get me out of this house. For indeed I was stolen away from the land of the Hebrews; and also I have done nothing here that they should put me into the dungeon.”  Genesis 40:1-15   Here we read about the chief butler and how Joseph told him that he would be restored to his position within three days. This account was recorded by the hand of Moses approximately 1,500 years before Jesus was crucified, but the incident actually occurred about five hundred years before that. We hear the voice of Joseph in his shabby state, talking to the chief butler in prison, but whose voice was this actually? Joseph said, “Interpretations belong to God. Within three days you will be restored to your place and will put Pharaoh’s cup in his hand according to the former manner.” These words of Joseph are so deeply buried with the life of Joseph with its extreme ups and downs that there are times when we just gloss over them without thinking deeply about what they are saying. Yet, if we examine this incident carefully, we might consider the heart of God who had taken charge of this incident and put these words of wisdom into Joseph’s mouth. What is the significance of this wine? What is the significance of the period of three days? And what is the significance of the butler being confined in this unobtrusive prison, in the lowest of positions, and then being restored to his place? What did God mean by providing this interpretation through the lips of Joseph? Jesus was nailed to the cross in the morning of the day before the Sabbath. The Jews slaughtered a lamb at sunset on the day of the Passover. As Jesus hung on the cross, the whole land became shrouded in darkness. A deep, dark night came and went. Why did that happen? God inserted one day in order to fulfill the Old Testament prophecy stipulating that they were to slaughter the lamb at sunset. Many mysteries that were revealed and accomplished through Jesus Christ had already been declared and prophesied in the Old Testament.As the blood flowed from Jesus’ body on the cross on Calvary, people mocked Him, saying things like, “Look, isn’t that happening to Him to punish Him?” and, “If You are the Son of God, come down from the cross.” He endured all this cursing and mockery from the people. God was with Jesus Christ as He shed His blood on the cross in this way.   Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old t

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