Is Rosh Hashanah the New Year?
Summer is ending, and Israel is still not saved. The fall set times of YHVH begin this Friday evening/Erev Shabbat.
The harvest is past,
The summer is ended,
And we are not saved!
Jer. 8:20
For God, this begins the seventh month in His redemptive calendar to Israel, while Rabbinic Judaism has long changed it to be the first month, and so it is celebrated as the “New (Head of the) Year”/Rosh HaShanah.
This sometimes brings confusion to the reality that God is finishing up His plan of redemption rather than beginning the process. His set time of remembrances and celebrations lay out prophetically for us His unfolding historical plan (Lev. 23).
But it is also interesting that the Jubilee years, which YHVH has decreed begin on the 10th day of the seventh month – in other words, on the Day of Atonement in the 50th year, the year beginning after the completion of the 49th year. (Lev. 25:8-13) This makes the Jubilee year both the beginning and the ending of what God had planned from before the Creation. (1Pt 1:18-20; Rev 13:8)
So it could be said that a new year begins for the redeemed on Yom HaKippurim, as well as on the first day of the first month (the Passover month), but a new year does not begin on the first day of the seventh month, the Day of Memorial of Trumpet Blasts. This can be likened to celebrating our natural birthday, and then also our spiritual born-again new-birth day. Only YHVH God!
Even though we who believe in Yeshua/Jesus have been redeemed and have had a “new beginning” for the rest of our lives, God is still fulfilling what needs to be done in and through us until the redemption of our bodies at the resurrection.
He is still fulfilling His redemptive plan to save “all Israel” and other nations, even while He is in the business of saving whomsoever he chooses from all of the nations.
For we who have believed, the end is secured from the beginning, and from the beginning, the end was embedded. Praise the Lord!
Howard Bass is the congregation pastor/leader of Nachalat Yeshua (Yeshua's Inheritance) in Beer Sheva, Israel.
