According to Jewish tradition, God graciously gave Israel the gift of the Law, His written Word, on the 6th of Sivan. This established a type of marriage relationship between them. According to the New Covenant, on that same day millennia later, God gave the Messianic remnant of Israel the gift of His Holy Spirit. This incomparable event is known as Pentecost. It can be seen as renewing and deepening the marriage-like relationship between God and a remnant of His people. Through this remnant, “all Israel” is eventually saved. But there is more.
The gift of Holy Spirit wonderfully enables all nations to enter into a marriage-like relationship with YHVH. Christian theologians teach, therefore, that Pentecost marks the birthday of the Church. They sometimes call the present period of time the Church Age. Others refer to it as the “times of the Gentiles.” Still others identify the present age as that of the Kingdom. Though helpful to varying degrees, none of these terms seems to fully describe the current season in which we live, inaugurated at Pentecost.
Pentecost released a phase of redemption history that will conclude with the prophetic fulfillment of God’s second season of appointed feasts. Those are the fall feasts of Trumpets, Atonement and Tabernacles. While the spring feasts were all associated with Messiah’s first coming, the fall feasts will be associated with His second coming.
What must take place between now and then? The ministry begun by the Holy Spirit on Pentecost must be completed in and through God’s people. The book of Ruth, which Jews “co-incidentally” read every year on Shavuot, demonstrates the completion of that ministry. Ruth reveals how Jew and Gentile, male and female, and those from opposite stations in life, joined together in holy, sacrificial love in order to bring about Messiah’s first coming.
Ruth paints a prophetic picture of what will take place in order to bring about Messiah’s second coming. Jew and Gentile, male and female, “slave and free,” will choose to join together in Holy Spirit-driven love and power.
The ministry of the Holy Spirit that began at Pentecost is intended to prepare a bride for the coming Messiah-Bridegroom-King. That bride is one new humanity in Him. She is comprised of Jews and Gentiles, males and females, and differently gifted individuals from all stations of life. Formerly, Jewish men from the priestly tribe were considered to be of greater value to God and spiritual stature than others. As the book of Ruth foreshadows, in Yeshua that is not the case.
Our destiny in Messiah is more determined by our surrender to, and infilling of, the Holy Spirit than by our nationality, gender or social status. From the ministry of the Spirit flows love. From love flows Body unity. From Body unity flows maturity. From maturity flows Messiah-likeness. When Messiah-likeness in the Body is attained according to God’s measure, she is a Bride ready for her King!
“Father in Heaven, this Shavuot please pour out Your Spirit, that we might empty ourselves, surrender more fully to Holy Spirit, be filled by Him, and bear fruit by Him, the greatest of which is love. I renounce restrictions against women in the Body. I turn from being ‘respecters’ of others based on worldly thought. I pray not only for myself, but for all whom You desire as Your Bride, in Yeshua’s name.”