Chapter 3: 120 Jubilees and the Holy Spirit

 

All of the prophetic patterns of the Bible indicate that the number 120 deals with the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. There were 120 priests blowing trumpets at the dedication of Solomon’s Temple, when the Spirit of God filled that Temple. There were 120 disciples in the upper room when the Spirit came to human Temples. The most significant pattern of all is seen in the story of Noah. But before studying Noah, we must look at the story of the patriarchs that preceded him. This will put the story of Noah into its proper context.

The Prophetic Names of the Patriarchs

In Genesis 2:7 we read that God formed Adam of “the dust of the ground." The word “ground” is from the Hebrew word Adama, and Adam was named after the ground from whence he was taken (Gen. 3:19). His descendants were named after specific circumstances or events, which were no doubt significant to them in their personal lives, but which are not recorded. Nonetheless, God planned all things so that their names would prophesy of greater events in the overall Plan of God.

Cain and Abel were the first two sons of Adam and Eve. But when Cain murdered Abel, Adam disinherited Cain from carrying the birthright to rule the earth under the Kingdom mandate. Thus, their third son, Seth, became the birthright holder. His name means “to place, or replace," because he was placed in the position of the birthright holder in place of Cain or Abel.

Seth’s son was named Enos, or Enosh, which is one of the biblical words later translated “man." It literally means “frailty, or frail flesh." In later usage it came to refer to mankind with a special emphasis on human nature or weakness.

Enos had a son named Cainan, not to be confused with the son of Ham named Canaan. Cainan (or Kenan) means “house, a fixed possession," as distinct from a tent, which is movable.

Cainan’s son was named Mahalaleel, which means “the praise of God."

Mahalaleel’s son, Jared, means “descent."

Jared’s son, Enoch, means “teaching, or initiation." Enoch was obviously a very effective teacher. We would expect this, since He walked with God. This implies that he received much divine revelation which he taught the people of his day.

Enoch’s son was Methuselah, whose name means “when he is dead, it shall be sent” (See Bullinger’s notes on Gen. 5:21 in The Companion Bible). On page 16, we saw how his name was prophetic of the coming Flood. Knowledge of the Flood apparently had been revealed to Enoch long before the birth of Noah. He also knew by revelation that Methuselah’s life would be the timetable for the Flood. One can only imagine what might have transpired between God and Enoch regarding this revelation. Perhaps Enoch prayed that his son would not be killed by the judgment of the Flood. At any rate, Methuselah became a prophecy of the Flood and set its timing by his death at the age of 969.

Methuselah’s son, Lamech, means “powerful, or powerful one." Methuselah outlived his son, for Lamech died at the age of 777, just five years before the Flood.

Lamech’s son was Noah. He represents the culmination of this entire revelation of the Holy Spirit. Noah means “rest," but the Bible has a strange explanation for his name. It says in Genesis 5:29,

²⁹ And he called his name Noah, saying, This same [man] shall comfort us concerning our work and toil of our hands, because of the ground which the Lord hath cursed.

We see this verse taking us full circle back to Adam and the curse on the ground. But why is the word “comfort” used, rather than “rest”?

The answer is found in the book of Jasher. In its account of Noah’s birth, we read in Jasher 4:13-14,

¹³ And the wife of Lamech conceived and bare him a son at that time, at the revolution of the year. ¹⁴ And Methuselah called his name Noah, saying, The earth was in his days at rest and free from corruption, and Lamech his father called his name Menachem, saying, This one shall comfort us in our works and miserable toil in the earth, which God had cursed.

In other words, Noah had two names, both of which were prophetic. Grandpa Methuselah called him Noah, but his father Lamech called him Menachem. The biblical account simply combines the two into a single verse, leaving out the details, but telling us his prophetic significance.

If we put all these names together, they form a prophecy that summarizes the entire Plan of God for the earth.

Earthly man was placed in frail flesh as his house; but the Praise of God (Jesus) will descend to teach (or initiate something); when He is dead, it shall be sent—the Powerful One, the Comforter.

 

One might also add that in the coming of the Comforter, men could enter into His Rest. Thus, the significance of Noah’s two names is manifest. He is a type of the Comforter (“Menachem”), who leads us into God’s Rest (“Noah”).

And so we see that the names of the original patriarchs from Adam to Noah reveal the entire Plan of God from beginning to end. It begins with man being placed in frail flesh, and it ends with the redemption of the body by the full anointing of the Holy Spirit. The coming of the Holy Spirit into men is, of course, in two stages. The disciples at Pentecost received the “earnest of the Spirit” (2 Cor. 5:5), which is the “earnest of our inheritance” (Eph. 1:14). That is, it is a down payment toward stage two, which is the full inheritance yet to come at the Feast of Tabernacles of some year.

The Two Floods: Water and Spirit

In the broader context of the patriarchs from Adam to Noah, we see that Noah is a type of the Holy Spirit, the Comforter. The events in Noah’s life provide us with surprisingly detailed information about the manner and timing of the Holy Spirit’s work. No history of the Holy Spirit is complete without some knowledge of the prophetic life of Noah. The people in Noah’s day were wicked by God’s standard. And so we read in Genesis 6:3,

³ And the Lord said, My Spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh; yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years.

The King James Version conceals the real significance of this verse. So let us go to a very literal rendering of Genesis 6:3, in the Concordant Version,

³ And saying is Ieue Alueim [Yahweh Elohim], Not abide shall My Spirit in the human for the eon, in that more-over he is flesh. And come shall his days to be a hundred and twenty years.

I don’t know which is worse, a poor translation or an ultra-literal one! But let us paraphrase the C.V. In plainer English, it tells us that God’s Spirit would not abide (remain) in man “for the eon” (or age). In other words, God was telling Noah that He would soon remove His Spirit from man for the duration of the age.

What does this mean? We know that this verse deals with the coming Flood. Note the biblical terminology at the time of the Flood. Genesis 6:17 reads,

¹⁷ And behold, I, even I, do bring a flood of waters upon the earth to destroy all flesh wherein is the breath [Hebrew, ruach, “spirit or breath”] of life…

In other words, God was going to remove His Spirit from all breathing creatures, particularly man. This Hebrew play on words is significant, because it portrays a twofold level in which God was dealing with Creation. On the physical level, God was going to remove the ruach-breath from all flesh. On the spiritual level, God was going to remove His ruach-Spirit “for the age."

This set up the need for the return of the Holy Spirit at the end of the age. Jesus came at the end of that age, and His Work prepared the way for the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. But since Pentecost was only the down payment of the Spirit, there was yet to be a greater outpouring at the end of this present age. Its timing is prophesied as well in Genesis 6:3, “and come shall his days to be a hundred and twenty years.”

Most people think this means that God was going to shorten men’s lifespan to 120 years. But this is not really the force of the statement. Bullinger and other commentators agree that this means man’s time of grace was to be 120 years. In other words, the Flood was to come after 120 years of opportunity to repent. Jasher 5:8,11 affirms this,

⁸ For thus saith the Lord, Behold I give you a period of one hundred and twenty years; if you will turn to me and forsake your evil ways, then will I also turn away from the evil which I told you, and it shall not exist, saith the Lord.…¹¹ And the Lord granted them a period of one hundred and twenty years, saying, If they will return, then will God repent of the evil, so as not to destroy the earth.

This is a very important detail, because God was not only talking about the Flood of water in Noah’s day; He was also talking about a much greater Flood— a Flood of the Holy Spirit. The Flood of water occurred after 120 years; the greater Flood is connected to the 120th Jubilee (1986 A.D.). The first potential time when this “Flood” might have been poured out was in Israel’s day under Moses, when God told them to enter the Promised Land. On that occasion, the people refused, because they believed the evil report of the ten spies (Numbers 13-14). In that context, God spoke something very significant in Numbers 14:21, which tells us His purpose: “But as truly as I live, all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord.”

This was God’s statement of His purpose and Plan. Man’s decisions could delay its fulfillment, but could not ultimately thwart it from coming. He went on to say that that generation would not see the fulfillment of this promise and would not inherit the glorified body, because they had rebelled against Him.

In other words, theoretically, if the people had gone into their land inheritance at that time—the Feast of Tabernacles in the 50th Jubilee from Adam—they would have returned to the inheritance that they had lost in Adam—the glory of the Lord, the glorified body, the “land inheritance” of the highest order. They refused it. Thus, there yet remains a rest for the people of God to inherit (Heb. 4:9).

This particular prophecy is mentioned five times in the Old Testament: Numbers 14:21, Psalm 72:19, Isaiah 6:3, Isaiah 11:9, and Habakkuk 2:14. The prophet Habakkuk connects this prophecy directly to the Flood of Noah’s day by saying,

¹⁴ For the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.

So the day is yet coming when the Spirit of God will be poured out upon the earth in like manner as the water was poured out in Noah’s day. It is the fullness of the Spirit, of which we have presently only received a down payment under Pentecost.

The Flood of Noah’s day set up the problem by removing the Spirit from man. The spiritual Flood resolves the problem by putting His Spirit back into man. The Flood of water occurred after 120 years; the Flood of the Spirit occurs after 120 Jubilees. As we said earlier, the fall of 1986 was the 120th Jubilee. This was the beginning, the hinge point of the outpouring of the Spirit. You must know this foundation in order to appreciate what God has been doing since that year to prepare the hearts of the Overcomers to receive His fullness.

But, of course, we are getting ahead of ourselves. You cannot understand the significance of 1986-1996 without an understanding of the foundational prophecies and time cycles leading up to the present time. So let us turn now to a study of the dedication of Solomon’s Temple.

Solomon’s Temple and the Number 120

The glory of God came down to fill Solomon’s Temple precisely 490 years after the glory came down upon Mt. Sinai to fill the Ark of the Covenant. Chronologically speaking, a 490-year period is what we call “Blessed Time." In dealing with the glory of God, we would always expect it to manifest according to Blessed Time, for it is a Jubilee event.

In Chapter 2, we saw proof that the Exodus occurred in the year 2448 from Adam. A few weeks after Passover of that year, the people saw the glory of God manifest on what became known as the day of Pentecost (Ex. 19-20).

In 1 Kings 6:1, we are told that Solomon laid the foundation of his Temple “in the four hundred and eightieth year after the children of Israel were come out of the land of Egypt.” We are then told that the Temple itself took seven years to build (1 Kings 6:38). So the Temple structure itself was completed 487 years after the glory had rested on the Tabernacle of Moses.

We are then told in 1 Kings 7 that Solomon hired Hiram to do the work of casting the pillars, the molten sea, and the ten lavers of brass. Each of these items was decorated with engravings. It is not difficult to conclude that this work took about three years, which would indicate that the Temple dedication itself took place after 490 years. The only difference is that while the glory came at Pentecost under Moses, it came on the eighth day of Tabernacles in Solomon’s day (2 Chron. 7:9).

At the dedication of the Temple, Solomon offered a sacrifice of 22,000 oxen and 120,000 sheep (2 Chron. 7:5). These numbers are highly significant. The number 22 is the number of “light” according to Bible numerology (the meaning of numbers in the Bible). Recall that all the firstborn of Israel belonged to God, but He redeemed them with the tribe of Levi, taking Levi on their behalf to serve Him. The number of Levites that were available to redeem the firstborn of Israel were precisely 22,000 (Num. 3:39). Thus, the number 22,000 signifies the firstborn Sons of God, and they are associated with His light, or transfiguration.

Solomon also offered 120,000 sheep to God. The number 120 deals directly with the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, as we have already seen.

When all the vessels of the Temple were set in order and cleansed properly, then they brought the Ark of the Covenant itself into the Temple and placed it in the Most Holy Place. The staves by which the Ark had been carried were then removed, signifying that the Ark had finally come to its “rest” in a fixed habitation, a house. Then we read in 2 Chronicles 5:11-14,

¹¹ And it came to pass, when the priests were come out of the holy place: (for all the priests that were present were sanctified, and did not then wait by course; ¹² Also the Levites which were singers, all of them of Asaph, of Heman, of Jeduthun, with their sons and their brethren, being arrayed in white linen, having cymbals and psalteries and harps, stood at the east end of the altar, and with them an hundred and twenty priests sounding with trumpets:) ¹³ It came even to pass, as the trumpeters and singers were as one, to make one sound to be heard in praising and thanking the Lord; and when they lifted up their voice with the trumpets and cymbals and instruments of musick, and praised the Lord, saying, For He is good; for His mercy endureth for ever: that then the house was filled with a cloud, even the house of the Lord; ¹⁴ So that the priests could not stand to minister by reason of the cloud; for the glory of the Lord had filled the house of God.

And so we see that there were 120 priests blowing trumpets when the Spirit of God filled the Temple of Solomon. This is very much an appropriate number, since it always seems to accompany an outpouring of the Spirit. It is also important to note that the Spirit came down after they all came into one accord, or harmony, making “one sound." This same terminology was used later when the Spirit was sent at Pentecost in the second chapter of Acts.

Pentecost in Jerusalem

Jesus was crucified on the Preparation Day of Passover, and He died in mid-afternoon, precisely while the people were killing the Passover lambs. Legally speaking, they were allowed to kill the lamb any time between noon and sundown, but on that noonday the sun was suddenly blotted out (Luke 23:44). The sun did not reappear again “until the ninth hour," which corresponds to mid-afternoon, or about 3:00 pm.

God performed this wonder in order to prevent any of the people from killing the lamb prior to the moment Jesus died. Since no one could kill the lamb after sundown, no one could do it until the sun reappeared. It did not reappear until the moment Jesus died.

Such detail shows how concerned God is with timing. God goes out of His way to fulfill the whole law down to every “jot and tittle” (Matt. 5:18). Thus, He manipulated events so that all could see that Jesus was indeed the true Passover Lamb, who took away the sin of the world.

God then raised Him from the dead on the day of the Wave-Sheaf Offering “on the morrow after the sabbath” (Lev. 23:11). But when Mary saw Him and mistook him for the gardener, He told her, “Touch Me not, for I am not yet ascended to My Father” (John 20:17). Later that same evening, He did allow the disciples to touch Him (John 20:27). So it is plain that He had already ascended to His Father by the evening after His Resurrection.

It is equally plain that this was not the ascension that occurred 40 days later. It was, rather, His ascension at the time the priest waved the sheaf of barley before the Lord in the Temple about mid-morning. Once again we find minute details being fulfilled according to precise timing. When the priest waved the sheaf down and up, it signified death and Resurrection. At that moment, Jesus presented Himself alive before the Father in the true Temple in heaven. Before that moment, though He was actually alive, He had not yet been declared legally alive. Mary was not to touch Him prior to the time He was declared legally alive.

The day of the Wave-Sheaf Offering was the first day of a 50-day count toward the day of Pentecost (Lev. 23:15-16). Thus, since the Wave-Sheaf Offering was always waved on the first day of the week, or “the morrow after the sabbath," the day of Pentecost also falls on the first day of the week, seven weeks later.

Jesus appeared to His disciples that first Sunday and again a week later on Sunday (John 20:26), setting a pattern for fellowship with Him on the first day of the week. From that point on, we find in all the records of the early Church that they met on the first day of the week for fellowship (communion) with Jesus and with each other.

The exception to this general pattern comes in Jesus’ final appearance to the disciples on the 40th day of this Pentecost cycle. Acts 1:3 says,

³ To whom also He showed Himself alive after His passion by many infallible proofs, being seen of them forty days, and speaking of the things pertaining to the Kingdom of God.

Before ascending, He told the disciples to “tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem until ye be endued with power from on high” (Luke 24:49). They did tarry ten days, and on the day of Pentecost the Spirit was sent.

If God took such pains to do all things according to precise timing, then why would Jesus ascend on the 40th day of the Pentecost cycle? What biblical pattern or prophecy was He fulfilling? The 40th day of the Pentecost cycle is traditionally the day of the ascension of Elijah, though there is no biblical reference. Nonetheless, it would appear that Jesus confirmed that tradition by His own ascension on that day.

Another biblical pattern is found in the story of Israel under Moses. After Israel crossed the Red Sea, they came into the wilderness on their way to Mt. Sinai. They arrived at Elim on the 15th day of the second month, one month after leaving Goshen (Ex. 16:1). They stayed at least a week, because here is where they began to receive the manna, and the Scriptures mention at least one full sabbath cycle wherein they ate manna before continuing their journey (Ex. 16:22-24).

From there they journeyed to Rephidim (Ex. 17:1), their last stop on the way to Sinai (Ex. 19:2). Their stay in Rephidim is undated, but it appears they were there on the 40th day of the Pentecost cycle. At Rephidim, the people complained for lack of water, and Moses struck the rock to give them water. Then we read that the Amalekites attacked Israel. Exodus 17:8-10 says,

⁸ Then came Amalek and fought with Israel in Rephidim. ⁹ And Moses said unto Joshua, Choose us out men, and go out, fight with Amalek; tomorrow I will stand on the top of the hill with the rod of God in mine hand. ¹⁰ So Joshua did as Moses had said to him, and fought with Amalek; and Moses, Aaron, and Hur went up to the top of the hill.

This story was commemorated in Psalm 81, which was read every Thursday in the synagogue in biblical times. (The 40th day of the Pentecost cycle always fell on a Thursday.) Israel won the battle, because of Moses’ intercession at the top of the hill. Moses is a type of Christ, who ascended on the 40th day, and is seated at the right hand of the Father, having been given all authority (the rod of authority) in heaven and in earth (Matt. 28:18). From that position of authority, “He ever liveth to make intercession for them” (Heb. 7:25).

By His intercession, we will win the victory over His enemies. Even as Moses ascended the hill to make intercession for the people, so also did Jesus ascend on the 40th day to make intercession for us until all enemies are put under His feet.

The disciples tarried ten days before the Spirit was sent on the day of Pentecost. This pattern not only appears in the story of Moses as He led Israel to Mount Sinai; it was also set in the Pentecostal pattern of king Saul. The complete story is found in my booklet The Wheat and Asses of Pentecost, but in brief, Saul was crowned king of Israel on the day of Pentecost—but not before tarrying for ten days. The first three days were spent searching for his father’s asses (1 Sam. 9:20), and then Samuel told him to tarry another seven days while he made burnt offerings and peace offerings to God to prepare for the day of Pentecost (1 Sam. 10:8).

In the building of Solomon’s Temple, we find it took seven years to build the Temple itself, and another three years to cast the pillars and vessels of the Temple. Again, the ten-day tarrying pattern was established, leading to the outpouring of the Spirit. These patterns show us plainly that the ten days can be subdivided into seven and three.

The law specified that it took seven days to complete the cleansing time of the leper (Lev. 14:8). Leprosy is a symbol of death and the death-ridden human nature that we inherited from Adam. So in one sense, to fulfill the law, it took a full seven days to cleanse the disciples, before the oil was poured upon their heads.

It also took seven days to cleanse Aaron and his sons and prepare them for the priesthood (Ex. 29:35). The disciples were being cleansed for a new priestly order. Though it was not a Levitical order, but that of Melchizedek, nonetheless, the same laws were applicable, and these were fulfilled to the letter.

So, in studying the disciples’ tarrying period leading to Pentecost in Acts 2, we conclude that they probably spent three days searching for would-be Pentecostals (the Father’s “asses”), meeting in the upper room for only the final seven days of the tarrying period. The main purpose of that week was to come into unity (with “peace offerings” to reconcile any disputes between them) and to present themselves as living sacrifices, or burnt offerings unto God. Acts 2:1-4 says,

¹ And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place. ² And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. ³ And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them. ⁴ And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.

Just as the 120 priests in Solomon’s day were all blowing their trumpets in harmony, so also the 120 disciples were “with one accord." They had no need of trumpets, however, for their mouths were filled with the voice and words of God “as the Spirit gave them utterance."

The Prophetic Life of Moses: 120 Years

In Deuteronomy 34:7 we read,

⁷ And Moses was an hundred and twenty years old when he died; his eye was not dim, nor his natural force abated.

Why did God have Moses live to be precisely 120 years old? What does this have to do with the outpouring of the Spirit? It has everything to do with our subject at hand. In fact, the life of Moses is one of the most profound and striking prophecies of the 120 Jubilees of history leading up to 1986 A.D.

Moses’ life was divided into three periods of 40 years each. We read in Acts 7:22-24 about the first 40 years of his life,

²² And Moses was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and was mighty in words and in deeds. ²³ And when he was full forty years old, it came into his heart to visit his brethren the children of Israel. ²⁴ And seeing one of them suffer wrong, he defended him, and avenged him that was oppressed, and smote the Egyptian.

We know, of course, that this resulted in Moses’ exile into the land of Midian, where he spent the next 40 years training in God’s Bible College. Then, at the end of those 40 years, God appeared to Moses in the burning bush and sent him back to Pharaoh to deliver His people. Exodus 7:7 says,

⁷ And Moses was fourscore years old [80], and Aaron fourscore and three years old [83], when they spake unto Pharaoh.

And so we see that Moses lived through three distinct phases in his life, each of which was 40 years. Finally, he died at the age of 120. (See the chart on the next page.)

This is prophetic of history as God views it. The 40th Jubilee is the year 1960 from Adam. Twelve years prior to this time, Abram was born (1948). Thus, on the 40th Jubilee from Adam, we find that Abram reached the first age of maturity (12). We are not told what happened at that time, but in general we can say that this follows the pattern of Moses’ life, for Abram was the man that God called out of Ur of the Chaldees and began to train for service.

Thus, the period from Abraham to Jesus was like a training period, comparable to Moses being trained in the wilderness prior to his job of leading Israel out of Egypt.

The 80th Jubilee from Adam is 26 A.D. It brings us to the time of Jesus, who is one like unto Moses, in that He led us out of our Egyptian bondage (to sin) at Passover. It takes no stretch of imagination to see how Jesus, after the 80th Jubilee, did what Moses did at the age of 80.

Even as Moses led “the church in the wilderness” (Acts 7:38) for 40 years, so also did Jesus lead the New Testament Church into the wilderness for a period of 40 Jubilees. Moses died after leading Israel for 40 years, and Joshua led Israel across the Jordan river into the Promised Land. So also in our day, after 40 more Jubilees, Jesus (whose Hebrew name is Joshua) will lead us into the greater promise of the inheritance lost by Adam at the beginning.

There is a seeming discrepancy that we must reconcile at this point. The 80th Jubilee from Adam was 26 A.D., but the New Testament Church began in 33 A.D. Thus, 40 Jubilees later we find that we have two endpoints as well: 1986 and 1993. The year 1986 is the 120th Jubilee from Adam; but 1993 was the 40th Jubilee of the Church.

To explain the reasons for this would require more background material than we can give here. But by the time you have completed these studies, the full picture will be manifest. We can only say for now that God planned this discrepancy in order to delay the fullness of the Spirit from coming ahead of schedule.

The Antidote to Noah’s Flood

As we mentioned earlier, there are two Floods. The first is the Flood of Noah, wherein the wind, breath, or spirit was removed from all flesh; the second is the Flood of the Holy Spirit, wherein the Spirit of God is to be poured out upon all flesh. The “latter rain” of Joel 2:23 is the antidote to the Flood of Noah.

The basic outline of God’s Plan to put His Spirit back into all flesh is revealed in Noah’s actions at the end of the Flood. Genesis 8:1 says,

¹ And God remembered Noah, and every living thing, and all the cattle that was with him in the Ark; and God made a wind [Hebrew ruach, “wind, breath, spirit”] to pass over the earth, and the waters asswaged.”

The wind, or Spirit of God, is said to be the antidote to the Flood of waters. This is a prophetic statement that has far greater implications than a mere reduction in the water level. As He resuscitates the whole earth by breathing into their nostrils the breath of life once again, we are brought into Immortality and Perfection, as at the beginning. Eden and more is restored.

The Scriptures also picture the Spirit of God as a dove. In fact, this was the original word picture found in Genesis 1:2, where…

² the Spirit of God moved [Hebrew rachaph, “brooded or fluttered," as a dove] upon the face of the waters.

The same picture is painted in Deuteronomy 32:11, where God is pictured as an eagle fluttering over her young, caring for the nation of Israel.

And so we find that toward the end of the Flood, Noah sent out three doves to see if the waters were abated. This was prophetic. It tells us that God planned to do the same in order to overcome the effects of the Flood of water. Thus, the outpouring of the Spirit comes in three stages, both personally and corporately. These three stages are represented by Israel’s three main feast days, wherein all the males were called to stand before God.

The Feast of Passover deals with the first dove sent out. It is a partial anointing that results in Justification. It is the salvation of your spirit. The Feast of Pentecost deals with the second dove sent out. It is a greater anointing that begins the work of Sanctification. It is sent for the salvation of your soul. Finally, the Feast of Tabernacles correlates with Noah’s third dove. It is the last anointing, for it represents the fullness of the Spirit poured out, wherein we see the redemption of the body (Rom. 8:23). At this outpouring, you receive the true inheritance that was lost in Adam: the glorified body. This is the full salvation in the Plan of God, as depicted by Noah’s three doves and Israel’s three feast days.

Corporately speaking, however, these doves and feast days depict three distinct outpourings of the Spirit, when God intervenes in the affairs of the earth in a most unusual manner. The first was when He came down upon Mount Sinai as fire and spoke the Ten Commandments to all the people of Israel. This was something very unusual, and the Scriptures say it had never been done before (Deut. 4:33).

The second great outpouring of the Spirit occurred in the book of Acts on the day of Pentecost. The third is yet to come at the Feast of Tabernacles, and when it does, the earth will give birth to the Sons of God who are fully in His image and likeness.

The three doves that Noah sent out give us a description of each of these three manifestations of the Spirit. Genesis 8:8-9 says,

⁸ Also he sent forth a dove from him, to see if the waters were abated from off the face of the ground. ⁹ But the dove found no rest for the sole of her foot, and she returned unto him into the Ark, for the waters were on the face of the whole earth; then he put forth his hand, and took her, and pulled her in unto him into the Ark.

When the Spirit of God was sent to Israel at Mount Sinai, the people were terrified at the sight. They thought that if they saw God they would die. And so, after God spoke the Ten Commandments to them, they had had enough. Exodus 20:18-21 tells us the story,

¹⁸ And all the people saw the thunderings, and the lightnings, and the noise of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking; and when the people saw it, they removed and stood afar off. ¹⁹ And they said unto Moses, Speak thou with us, and we will hear; but let not God speak with us, lest we die. ²⁰ And Moses said unto the people, Fear not; for God is come to prove you, and that His fear may be before your faces, that ye sin not. ²¹ And the people stood afar off, and Moses drew near unto the thick darkness were God was.

God told Moses the rest of the law, and Moses wrote it down and related it to the people. The law was thus a revelation to Moses, and having heard the voice of God, it was written on his heart, producing faith (Rom. 10:17). The people in general, however, only received the law written externally on tables of stone. Thus, while the people were persuaded to be obedient, they did not have the faith necessary to enter the Promised Land.

The people were obedient because the law was imposed upon them from the outside. It took a law enforcement agency to keep order and obedience, because the people did not really want to hear His voice or follow His law. They felt His laws were too oppressive. They disagreed with God’s way of thinking, which was different from man’s. After the signs and wonders had passed, the people began to resent God’s law and chafe at its demands of righteousness. And even today, men think of God’s commands as “bondage to the law." This kind of thinking only proves that the law has yet to be written on their hearts.

This also portrays the difference between a bondservant and a Son. We certainly must relate to God as bondservants, even as Paul did (Rom. 1:1). This deals with our willingness to obey God and do His commandments. But a Son goes further. A servant merely does his master’s will; a Son wants to do his Father’s Will, because he has his Father’s mind and is in agreement with Him.

Those of us who are “sons in training” differ in no way from servants, for we are yet minors (Gal. 4:1). Our Father imposes His Will upon us to train us in His value system, His laws. But there comes a day when we grow up to maturity. The mature Son who has learned his Father’s values will continue to live according to them—not because of an external law, but because those laws are written on his heart. He wants to live as he was taught, because he agrees that “the law is holy and just and good” (Rom. 7:12). He does not consider the law to be the bondage of a tyrant, but a way of life that brings life, liberty, and happiness to all.

The people in Moses’ day refused to hear the Spirit of God. This was the outworking of the prophecy in Noah’s first dove, which “found no rest for the sole of her foot” (Gen. 8:9). Even as that dove returned to the Ark, so also did the Spirit of God in Moses’ day go to the Ark of the Covenant. The Spirit thus did not indwell men at that time, but remained in an external structure—first the Tabernacle of Moses, and then the Temple of Solomon.

Noah’s second dove returned with “an olive leaf pluckt off” (Gen. 8:11). Noah then knew that the Floods had abated. Yet he did not leave the Ark immediately, because this would have violated the prophecy of the Plan of God.

This second dove depicts the outpouring of the Spirit at Pentecost in Acts 2, by which we received the earnest of the Spirit. The single olive leaf represents this perfectly. While it does show that now there is new life in the earth (in the hearts of men), it is, nonetheless, only a small portion of that which is to come. Also, in that the Spirit was now indwelling flesh, rather than remaining in an external dwelling place, we find that Genesis 8:10-11 does not mention the dove returning to the Ark. It says only that “the dove came in to him." The precise wording of the Scriptures prophesy that the Spirit of God had now come into men.

The third dove that Noah sent “returned not again unto him any more” (Gen. 8:12). It prophetically depicts a condition whereby man has no need of further outpourings, for the Spirit is in him fully. At that point, Noah left the Ark to bring new life into a new world. Even so, those who receive the fullness of the Spirit will be sent into all the world to bring all things under His feet. They will establish God’s New World Order after God has brought man’s New World Order into dissolution.

Keep in mind that the Flood in Noah’s day occurred after 120 years. The first outpouring of the Spirit (dove) occurred just prior to the 50th Jubilee from Adam. The second dove was sent seven years after the 80th Jubilee. The fall of 1986 A.D. was the 120th Jubilee, and so this is the overall hinge date by which the fullness is to be poured out. But this is merely an overall view. As we proceed in our studies, we will show the details of what has occurred since 1986 in the Plan of God and the importance of the year 1996 and beyond.

Cleansing Laws Following Childbirth

Leviticus 12 is a Scripture passage almost never read by Christians. It deals with laws that appear to be totally irrelevant to us today: the times of purification after childbirth. All the laws of purification in the Old Testament, whether by blood or by water, have been changed in the New Testament by the blood and water that came forth from the heart of Jesus at His crucifixion (John 19:34). However, the time cycles in the law are a revelation by which we may understand the birthing of the Manchild—“Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Col. 1:27).

Leviticus 12 tells us that when a woman gives birth to a son, she is unclean for seven days. On the eighth day she is to have her son circumcised. Then she is remain separate from her husband for yet another 33 days, for a total of 40 days (Lev. 12:2-4). However, if a woman gives birth to a daughter, she is considered unclean for 14 days, followed by another 66 days of purification and separation from her husband. And so, after a daughter’s birth, she is to remain separate from her husband for a total of 80 days (Lev. 12:5).

We know, of course, that after childbirth, a woman needs time to heal. Thus, we may argue that this was a practical law from that standpoint. However, there appears to be no practical reason why a woman’s separation time should be twice as long after a daughter’s birth. This was not meant to be practical. It was meant to be prophetic of what God has been doing throughout history, in bringing forth His children.

Back in the days of Adam and Eve, God said to “be fruitful, and multiply” (Gen. 1:28). This command was given to them prior to their sin, while they still retained the glory of God in their bodies. If they had had children prior to their fall, they would have produced children in the image and likeness of God. But they did not do so. Cain, Abel, and Seth were born some years after they had lost the glory and likeness of God. Thus, the children they bore were in the image of their fleshly state. They were not truly “sons of God” in the sense that God required. For this reason Jesus came, so that, in receiving Him, they might “become the Sons of God” (John 1:12). John also tells us that even “now we are the Sons of God” (1 John 3:2), but he immediately qualifies this by speaking of what we shall be. So it is plain that we are now imputed Sons, but in time, we shall actually manifest that Sonship in our bodies.

In the law, the people were required to bring a sacrifice to God as part of the purification rite after childbirth (Lev. 12:6-8). It was not that they had committed a sin by having children, as some have suggested; nor was it meant to imply that proper sexual relations was a sin. Rather, it was to show that they had brought forth children in the image of fallen man—not in the image of God. The child, whether boy or girl, was born into a realm of death (mortality). The woman had thus “touched a dead body” and was therefore unclean for seven days (Num. 19:11). She was defiled by the mortal condition of her offspring.

In a broad sense, there are two Adams: the first was made a living soul; the second was made a living spirit (1 Cor. 15:45). Paul tells us here that “there is a soulish body, and there is a spiritual body” (1 Cor. 15:44, literal translation). The word for “soul” or “soulish” is often translated “natural," and this hides the significance of the word. But in understanding the difference between soul and spirit, it is apparent that men descended from Adam are soulish, while those descended from Jesus are spiritual Sons and Daughters.

Thus, we can see that Adam and Eve brought forth an age in which all were inherently soulish. The word for “soul” is nephesh in Hebrew, and pseuche in Greek. These are feminine in the original languages. (In the English language, we do not have masculine and feminine words, but in many other languages, they do.) Thus, the soul is pictured as the feminine side of man, while the spirit is pictured as the masculine side. Every man and every woman has both a feminine side and a masculine side, called the soul and the spirit.

The point is, Adam and Eve brought forth soulish children—that is, children who were for the most part dominated by their soulish desires. One might say that the Old Testament period itself, leading up to Christ, was a soulish age, historically speaking. The “daughter” was fleshly, not in the full image of Christ. Because of this, the woman (earth, physical realm) had to remain separate from her husband (God, who is Spirit) for a full 80 Jubilees. This was a purification rite on the largest scale in the saga of God’s Plan to bring forth children in the earth.

This also explains why God would not impregnate the earth by His Spirit prior to the 80th Jubilee (26 A.D.). It would not have fit His Plan as revealed in Leviticus 12. The law is, and always has been, the blueprint of His intent and Plan for the earth. We have not understood His Plan because we have not understood His law. Jesus Himself became the sacrifice by which the “woman” was cleansed and purified at the end of her 80 Jubilees of separation. Then and only then could God once again impregnate the earth with His Spiritual Seed on the day of Pentecost.

Once again, the earth brought forth God’s offspring. This time He brought forth a son. Unfortunately, since the Feast of Pentecost is characterized by a leavened offering of firstfruits (Lev. 23:17), it meant that God’s son in the Pentecostal Age is leavened. That is, the sons of God during this age are still mortal and imperfect. Thus, the law specifies that the woman (earth) must await another 40 Jubilees of separation from her Husband before her time of purification is complete. Only then is she lawfully able to be united with her Husband to conceive again. The 40 Jubilees of purification extended from 33 A.D. to 1993 A.D. The earth is now lawfully eligible to be impregnated a third time—and this time the earth will bring forth the Manchild, the corporate body of the Sons of God who are spiritually perfected and in the full image and likeness of God.

God waited seven years after the 80th Jubilee before impregnating His wife the second time. The 80th Jubilee was in 26 A.D., but God waited until Pentecost of 33 A.D. to overshadow His wife. This seven-year tarrying period at the beginning of the next 40 Jubilees plays out in a seven-year difference between 1986 and 1993 as well. It partly explains why the Holy Spirit was not poured out in 1986. Even though 1986 was the 120th Jubilee, the Pentecostal Age did not end until 1993 A.D. Thus, the Spirit could not have come prior to 1993.

As we will soon show, the time to declare the great Jubilee occurred on September 23, 1996. However, the Feast of Tabernacles remained unfulfilled that year, because there were other prophetic time cycles that had not yet run their course. For instance, Hosea 6:2 indicates that the resurrection would occur "after two days," that is, after 2,000 years. In other words, this event could not take place prior to September of 1999 A.D., which was 2,000 years after Jesus' birth. (For proof, see Chapter Nine.) Other time cycles do not conclude until the year 2006 A.D. There are, no doubt, many other cycles that remain hidden at the present time. So the question remains as to how long we must tarry for the Holy Spirit to be sent forth in its fullness.

The point to remember in this section is that the earth waited 80 Jubilees for the Spirit of God to overshadow the 120 disciples in the upper room in Jerusalem, because it took 80 days to purify the woman after the birth of the soulish and fleshly. Then the fleshly “son” was born in 33 A.D., followed by 40 Jubilees of cleansing. We have now waited those 40 Jubilees. I believe that the explanation for all of this is found in the purification rites of the law found in Leviticus 12. The total period of time is 120 Jubilees, plus the current tarrying period..

Now it is time for the birth of the Manchild—the Son who is truly in the full likeness and image of Christ. I leave it to you to pray about this and determine your own course of action in preparing your heart to receive His fullness. This is the blessing that Paul prayed would be given to us. We close with his prayer in Ephesians 3:14-19,

¹⁴ For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, ¹⁵ Of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, ¹⁶ That He would grant you according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might by His Spirit in the inner man; ¹⁷ That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, ¹⁸ May be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth and length and depth and height; ¹⁹ And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fullness [Greek, pleroma] of God.