The Beliefs of John Robert Stevens

The Lord revealed the importance of the Feast of Tabernacles to John Robert Stevens around 1955. God revealed the very day he was to begin his observance, and even though he hadn’t looked at a Jewish calendar, it was the exact date that Tabernacles was to start that year. God made clear to him the scriptural reality of the feast as he began celebrating it personally during this time, and a few years later he began celebrating it with Grace Chapel of South Gate. He later instituted the celebration of the Feast of Pentecost and the Feast of Passover in the mid-sixties.

The importance of these three celebrations is clear from Exodus 23:14-17 and Deuteronomy 16:16, which both state the three times every year that God’s people should appear before Him. Throughout Leviticus 23, which summarizes the Old Testament celebrations of the feasts, the Lord commands that the observance of these feasts is to be a “perpetual statute.” This, coupled with the fact that Jesus Himself observed the feasts (Luke 2:41-42; John 7:2-10; John 13:1), shows that God did not intend for the celebration of these biblically appointed times to end with the advent of Christianity.

Stevens emphasized the New Testament realities of each feast, from the time of Jesus’ birth during Tabernacles, to His crucifixion during Passover, to the falling of the Holy Spirit during Pentecost. However, he was clear that the New Testament realities of the feasts could only be understood in the context of the Old Testament celebrations, from the deliverance of the children of Israel from the bondage of Egypt during Passover, to the time God’s presence tabernacled with His people in the wilderness, to the giving of the Law at Mount Sinai during Pentecost. Stevens was clear, however, that all of these feasts had special significance to the modern believer, and were not an empty observance of ritual:

We don’t observe the feast with the building of booths as they did in Old Testament times, but as we worship the Lord, we recognize the significance of tabernacling with Him. It is the spiritual significance of the feast which is real to us, not the observance of the physical requirements. Spiritual reality is what we are looking for.¹

Stevens mentioned one of the feasts 2,337 times in his written materials.