Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob represent the three main feasts of the Lord: Passover, Pentecost, and Tabernacles. The three key revelations of these feast days are: Faith, Obedience, and Agreement.

Abraham: Man of Faith

Hebrews 11:8 says,

⁸ By faith Abraham, when he was called, obeyed by going out to a place which he was to receive for an inheritance; and he went out, not knowing where he was going.

His faith was demonstrated and proven by obedience. To uproot one’s household and make a long trip to an unknown land was not something that he would have done without being assured in his heart that he had indeed heard the word of God.

The promise was not merely something that Abraham himself was to receive as an inheritance. It was a blessing to be extended to all nations. The promise is given in Gen. 12:3, “in you all the families of the earth will be blessed.”

Paul tells us in Rom. 4:13, 14,

¹³ For the promise to Abraham or to his descendants that he would be heir of the world was not through the Law, but through the righteousness of faith. ¹⁴ for if those who are of the Law are heirs, faith is made void and the promise is nullified.

The law came at Pentecost through Mount Sinai. Paul’s point is that justification is by faith, not by obedience (to the law). Passover is the feast focusing on faith in the blood of the Lamb. It occurred more than 7 weeks prior to Israel’s arrival at the Mount, where they received the law. Hence, justification is not a Pentecostal experience. Pentecost is something further—the next step, the Isaac step.

Likewise, faith is not the same as wishful thinking, nor is it a matter of having faith in yourself. Biblical faith is an unshakable acceptance and belief in the promise of God to us, not God’s belief in the promise of men. So we read in Rom. 4:20-22 about Abraham…

²⁰ yet, with respect to the promise of God, he did not waver in unbelief but grew strong in faith, giving glory to God, ²¹ and being fully assured that what God had promised, He was able also to perform. ²² Therefore it was also credited to him as righteousness.

Rom. 4:16 adds,

¹⁶ For this reason it is by faith, in order that it may be in accordance with grace, so that the promise will be guaranteed to all the descendants, not only to those who are of the Law, but also to those who are of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all.

Many do not understand the meaning of grace. Grace is first and foremost an act of God. In this case, God made a promise to Abraham without Abraham having to earn God’s confidence or prove himself worthy of it. The implication is that God would train Abraham to be worthy, and God would take the responsibility to make sure His promise was fulfilled.

Abraham responded by faith, believing that God was able to keep His promise—however unlikely it might seem. Physical circumstances did not look so good, and even his character would have to be refined in the fire in order to bring forth the sons of God.

Hence, grace was not a matter of God overlooking sin but taking the initiative and the responsibility to finish the project and make it successful by the end of time. As the revelation of Scripture unfolded, we learn that the promise was to bring forth sons of God. Even as physical children must be trained, so also is it with the sons of God.

Children are born, they are trained, and they finally come to full maturity as sons. These three steps were depicted in the feasts of Passover, Pentecost, and Tabernacles. Hence, the faith of Abraham is equated with justification as well as a new birth.

In Gal. 3:6-9 we read,

⁶ Even so, Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness. ⁷ Therefore, be sure that it is those who are of faith who are sons of Abraham. ⁸ The Scriptures, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, “All the nations will be blessed in you.” ⁹ So then those who are of faith are blessed with Abraham, the believer.

Faith is required for all men, not just biological descendants of Abraham. All are justified by the same requirement—faith in the promise of God. This is how all nations are blessed through Abraham. Paul makes it clear that the sons of Abraham are the same as the sons of God (Gal. 3:7, 26).

Isaac: The Obedient Son

After being justified by faith, the next step is the Pentecostal time of training, illustrated by the bar-mitzvah (“son of the commandment”) at the age of 13. The central idea is personal covenant responsibility, which shifts from faith to learning obedience. It is for this reason that Pentecost is a celebration of the giving of the law at Mount Sinai. Just as Passover is about justification, Pentecost is about sanctification.

The Jewish bar-mitzvah was subsumed into the baptism of the Holy Spirit as part of Pentecost. This took Step 2 out of its prior Old Covenant context and transferred it into a New Covenant context.

Paul was careful to distinguish between faith and works, because he saw the difference between Passover and Pentecost. On the other hand, James focused on the need to progress—to go beyond justification to sanctification, to go beyond faith to works, and to go from Passover to Pentecost.

It is interesting that many today associate faith with Pentecost, especially in the area of “faith healing.” Yet one does not need to be a Pentecostal to have faith or even to manifest a gift of healing.

Each of the three feasts certainly have their own level of faith, for we know that faith ought to grow and increase over time. In Luke 17:5 the disciples asked Jesus to help them increase their faith. Nonetheless, the second level of faith has to do with works (Pentecost), which are (as James tells us) the evidence of justifying faith.

According to the book of Jasher, Isaac was 37 years old when his father offered him up as a sacrifice on Mount Moriah. It tells us that this event occurred just before the death of Sarah (age 127). The Bible does not specifically say this, but the Bible records her death immediately after the Moriah event.

Hence, Isaac was an adult and could easily have resisted his 137-year-old father, but he did not. He was a willing participant. Jasher 23:56 says:

“And Isaac said to his father, I will do all that the Lord spoke to thee with joy and cheerfulness of heart.”

Jasher 23:58 continues,

“And Isaac said unto Abraham his father, Bind me securely and then place me upon the altar lest I should turn and move and break loose from the force of the knife upon my flesh and thereby profane the burnt offering; and Abraham did so.”

Jasher 23:62 concludes,

“And Abraham stretched forth his hand and took the knife to slay his son, and Isaac answered and said unto his father, Do unto me as the word of the Lord has spoken…”

This is the prime example of Isaac as the obedient son, an example of one who was willing to give his life for his faith in the word of the Lord. In so doing, he became a type of Christ, who said in John 10:17, 18,

¹⁷ For this reason the Father loves Me, because I lay down My life so that I may take it again. ¹⁸ No one has taken it from Me, but I lay it down on My own initiative. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This commandment I received from My Father.

Paul, too, recognized this in Phil. 2:8,

⁸ Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

So also in Genesis 22:6, we read,

⁶ Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it on Isaac his son…

Isaac carrying the wood up Moriah parallels Christ carrying the cross. John 19:17 says,

¹⁷ “They took Jesus, therefore, and He went out, bearing His own cross…

According to Gen. 22:2, Abraham’s offering occurred in Mount Moriah, which later became the Temple mount area. We read in 2 Chron. 3:1,

¹ Then Solomon began to build the house of the Lord in Jerusalem on Mount Moriah, where the Lord had appeared to his father David, at the place that David had prepared on the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite.

Obedience, then, demonstrates and proves one’s faith and also reveals the underlying purpose of the feast days. Faith justifies, but obedience sanctifies in order to prepare us to become overcomers in step 3.

Not only was Isaac a type of Christ, who was made an offering for sin, but Isaac was also a type of those in the body of Christ who progress beyond justification into obedience. This is shown in Gen. 22:12, 13,

¹² He [God] said, “Do not stretch out your hand against the lad, and do nothing to him; for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son from Me.” ¹³ Then Abraham raised his eyes and looked, and behold, behind him a ram caught in the thicket by his horns; and Abraham went and took the ram and offered him up for a burnt offering in the place of his son.

This made Isaac a type of believer in relation to the “ram caught in the thicket” which then became the type of Christ. It sets forth the substitutionary principle on which the later sacrificial system under Moses was established. All of the animal sacrifices, then, were types of Christ, prophesying of His death on the cross. Isaiah 53 is built upon this prophetic principle, and it concludes in verse 12, “He Himself bore the sins of many and interceded for the transgressors.”

Sin demands the penalty of death, for “the wages of sin is death” (Rom. 6:23). Only death can pay the penalty for sin, but God has provided a Substitute, so that by faith in His provision (promise) we may receive life.

On a secondary level, those who exhibit such faith become part of the body of Isaac. These identify with the death of Christ, “knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him” (Rom. 6:6). Christ’s death was literal; our death is legal through imputation. Imputation is where God calls what is not as though it were (Rom. 4:17, KJV).

Even so, many believers have given their lives for their faith. Rom. 8:36 says,

³⁶ Just as it is written, “For Your sake we are being put to death all day long; we were considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”

Being willing to give one’s life does not justify us, for justification (Passover) is by faith alone. Nonetheless, it is evidence of sanctification (Pentecost).

Jacob: The Overcomer

Jacob represents the feast of Tabernacles and the third church as well. Though he was not perfect, he was trained and disciplined by God so that he would ultimately be worthy of the name Israel.

Jacob was the name his earthly father gave him. Israel was the spiritual name that his heavenly Father gave him. Though one man embodied both names, Jacob and Israel were two different men, legally speaking. To use Paul’s terminology, Jacob was the name of his “old man” (KJV) or “old self” (NASB), while Israel was the name of the “new man” and “new self,” that is, the new creation man.

We are given other examples as well. Abram was the name his father gave him; Abraham was the name his heavenly Father gave him. Sarai was the name given to her by her father; Sarah was the name given to her by her heavenly Father. If we are heirs of the promise, then we are known to the angels in heaven by our spiritual name.

Since childhood, Jacob was a believer. In fact, even before he was born, God chose him to be the only son of Isaac, even as Isaac had been the “only son” of Abraham (Gen. 22:2). An “only son” was the heir to the estate and was distinguished from his brothers in a legal sense. In other words, the law recognized just one heir, no matter how many brethren in the flesh that he had.

Just as Abraham had Ishmael 14 years before Isaac was born, so also did Isaac have twins, Jacob and Esau. Yet the law recognized only one in each generation to be the heir of the promise. Paul explains this in Gal. 4:28, 29,

²⁸ And you brethren, like Isaac, are children of promise. ²⁹ But as at that time he who was born according to the flesh persecuted him who was born according to the Spirit, so it is now also.

Jacob was a child of the flesh; Israel was the child of promise. Ishmael was a biological son of Abraham, but in order for him to become an heir, he would have to be begotten by the Spirit. The same is true of Esau and all who were “born according to the flesh.” One who is born of the flesh is neither an heir, nor “only son, nor “chosen.”

Ultimately, there is only one “Heir of the world” (Rom. 4:13), and that is Jesus Christ. He is the only-begotten Son of God, and we are co-heirs with Him (Rom. 8:17) through the principle of unity and agreement with Him. The problem we all face is that, unlike Jesus, we were all begotten by the seed of men and born children of the flesh.

In other words, we must be “born again” (John 3:3) by the Spirit in order to be a son of God and qualify as an heir of the promise. So Jesus says in John 3:6,

⁶ That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.

It can only be this way. Flesh begets flesh; Spirit begets spirit; like begets like. Those who claim to be heirs on the basis of flesh and blood (bloodline) will be disappointed. A child of the flesh may indeed be chosen (handpicked) by the Father, but he is no different from a slave until he matures spiritually. In the foreknowledge of God, he is given a promise of things to come, but he is not yet a “son” in the fullest sense of the word. He must yet be disciplined. Heb. 12:7, 8 says,

⁷ It is for discipline that you endure; God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom his father does not discipline? ⁸ But if you are without discipline, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate children and not sons.

Jacob is our prime biblical example of a son in training, according to the principle in Gal. 4:1-3,

¹ Now I say, as long as the heir is a child, he does not differ at all from a slave although he is owner of everything, ² but he is under guardians and managers until the date set by the father. ³ So also we, while we were children, were held in bondage under the elemental things of the world.

The purpose of discipline is to align the son with the mind and nature of the father. This is necessary, because sons are not born with the nature of the father. He is yet immature, lacking the character to carry the responsibility of an heir—which is to rule the estate (kingdom).

So Jacob deceived his blind father in order to obtain the position as his only son, the heir (Gen. 27:19-24). He was yet undisciplined, thinking that he could obtain the promise by deception. No doubt he thought that he was justified on account of the prophecy given to him before he was even born (Gen. 25:23). But he was wrong. He then entered a time of discipline, working for Laban as a slave. As Paul said, “he does not differ at all from a slave, although he is owner of everything.”

After serving Laban for 20 years, Jacob was almost ready to be transformed into a new creation. On his way back to Canaan, Jacob heard that Esau, with a spirit of vengeance, was coming to kill him. He went out to pray and suddenly found himself wrestling with a man that he thought was Esau. It was only when the angel disabled him that he discovered that it was not Esau at all, but an angel of God.

The revelation he received that night was that he thought he had been fighting Esau all of his life, when, in fact, he was fighting God. He thought he had to overcome Esau in order to inherit the promise according to the prophecy, but, in fact, he had to overcome his own flesh.

Jacob had thought God needed help from the arm of flesh in order to fulfill His promise. He discovered, however that he had to lose confidence in the flesh, that the flesh had to be defeated and die, in order to become a new creation man.

So we read in Gen. 32:30,

³⁰ So Jacob named the place Peniel, for he said, “I have seen God face to face, yet my life has been preserved.”

Peniel means “God’s face.”

So the next day when he finally met Esau, he said to him in Gen. 33:10, “I see your face as one sees the face of God.” When you can see the face of God in your bitterest enemy, then you truly see the world as God sees it. Without this revelation in the sovereignty of God, we try to overcome through the power of the flesh, not truly believing that God is able to fulfill His promise without our help.

God’s sovereignty was the primary revelation that changed him from Jacob to Israel. It is what made him cease to depend on the flesh to obtain the promise of God. Years later, when he blessed the sons of Joseph, he described this life-changing moment saying in Gen. 48:16, “The angel who has redeemed me from all evil, bless the lads, and may my name [Israel] live on in them.”

To be an overcomer requires something to overcome. In this case, Jacob (as our prime example) overcame the deception built into his own fleshly nature (and name) that had given him confidence in the flesh. Most believers since his time have been plagued by the same “evil,” as Jacob called it. It is the evil of having faith in oneself rather than in God. Few have understood this over the centuries, but it is critical to becoming an overcomer.

The problem manifests itself through the Old Covenant, where men believe they are saved by making a promise to God—following the pattern in Exodus 19:8. Such believers have Abraham as their father, but they have Hagar as their mother. One must legally claim another mother—Sarah, the type of the New Covenant (Gal. 4:22-26), for salvation is based on God’s promise to man, not man’s promise to God.