There continues to be a lot of buzz going around regarding the keeping of the Jewish Feasts by Christians -- particularly around the Passover.
In listening to some of the talks on the subject, there are a couple of things
I am concerned with which I need to cover here today.
First of all, some people in their response to support this theory say that because Jesus kept the Jewish Feasts, we should also … don't we want to be like Jesus?
That is fine, of course we want to be like Jesus... but this statement is not applicable here to the context of Christians keeping the Jewish
feasts.
The Jews kept the Feasts,
not the Gentiles. And at that, the Jews only kept them until they received the
message of Jesus Christ and His ultimate sacrifice on the cross.
Some quote Paul as saying,
“let us therefore celebrate the feast, not with the old leaven of malice
and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth” (1 Corinthians
5:8).
This also is out of context because he was then speaking of the new feast
celebration. It was now some 30 years after the first preaching of Christ’s
work on the cross. The Corinthians were well aware of the meaning. They were
not keeping the Old Testament Feasts. The context of this letter is all about
the moral character of the church at Corinth and the problems of divisions, covering subject
after subject -- the most serious to do with Judaists in the church. It was not within a context of the keeping of the Jewish Feasts.
The second item is about the
interpretation of the statement of Jesus in Luke 22:19.
Referring to the line, some say that when Jesus told His disciples, "whenever you do this, do it in remembrance of me. What was "this"? These people say that it was the celebration of the
Passover, coming out of Egypt...
However, this was not about
the Old Testament Passover. Jesus was bringing about for the first time the
institution of the last supper which became our communion observance today. “This”
was the new liturgy of the last supper which was about His broken body that was
just less than a day away at the time He spoke it.
This was not, as some teach
wrongly, referring to the celebration of the Old Testament Passover of coming
out of Egypt... but it was referring to the New Covenant for
which Jesus was giving His body that took the Jews (and the world) out of 4,000
years of law keeping.
This is exactly the same
thing that I heard a local radio talk show host teach in his radio program just a couple of weeks ago his whole
issue of Christian having to keep the Sabbath and Jewish Feasts.
The problem is that this individual is
a British-Israel believer, which means that he believes in keeping the Old
Testament Jewish Sabbaths and Feasts because he believes that he is an
Israelite – all Anglo-Saxons and Americans are the lost tribes of the Northern
Kingdom, according to this theory, who went up to Ireland and Britain and
America as Ephraim and Manasseh respectively. This is contrary to what the Word
of God teaches. They stand on misinterpretations of some scriptures that don’t
mean Ireland, Britain and America. I’ve written about that on my post of January 27, 2016)
Here’s what took place at
the last supper:
"And he said unto them,
With desire I have desired to eat this passover with you before I suffer:
"For I say unto you, I
will not any more eat thereof, until it be fulfilled in the kingdom of God.
"And he took the cup,
and gave thanks, and said, Take this, and divide it among yourselves:
"For I say unto you, I
will not drink of the fruit of the vine, until the kingdom of God
shall come.
"And he took bread, and
gave thanks, and brake it, and gave unto them, saying,
"This is my body which
is given for you: this do in
remembrance of me.
"Likewise also the cup
after supper, saying, "This cup is the new testament in my blood, which is
shed for you."
Notice He did not make that
statement when He took the cup… He said it when He broke the bread which was
about His body being broken for us. It was clear that He was the Matzo,
the unleavened bread of the Passover. He was fulfilling that feast at this
time. And of course that also pertained to the next line where He said,
“Likewise” also the cup which He proclaimed as “the new testament in my blood
which is shed for you.”
The teaching of the meaning
of the Old Testament to the work of Jesus on the cross is fine for the most
part. The problem is that some present it within the context of defending the theory that is going around now
about the need for Christians to keep the Hebrew Feasts… this is very
confusing for people and actually wrong…
…because that theory also
contains the keeping of the Sabbath on Saturday by Christians. A lot of people
are asking questions. Some people even use these
kinds of confusions as an excuse to stay away from the Church. If we have to
keep the Jewish Feasts and Sabbaths, then we have to keep the circumcision and
all the rest of the ordinances.
This whole thing is from the
enemy who wants to create divisions in the Church. We should not support or defend it ever
as being scriptural.
As for the Sabbath which
many people bring into this picture, this is part of the Ten Commandments and
is to be kept. We Gentiles call it The Lord’s Day and keep it on Sunday, based
on the triumphant Resurrection of our Lord and Saviour. It is interesting to
see that among the old writings of earlier fathers of Christendom, many called it
'our Sabbath'.
We can teach the meaning of
the Feasts in the Old Testament, that’s good. Most people know about it, except
of course the new babes in Christ. This would be a good topic for a Bible
study, or a discipleship program -- but not, in my humble opinion, a preaching
message connected with this erroneous theory that plagued even the Christians
in the early Church.
Acts 15:10 says: “Now therefore why tempt ye God, to put a yoke
upon the neck of the disciples which neither our fathers nor we were able to
bear?”
Acts15:19 wraps up the
council meeting at Jerusalem with, “Wherefore my sentence is, that we trouble not
them which from among the Gentiles are turned to God: But that we write unto
them, that they abstain from pollutions of idols, and from fornication, and
from things strangled, and from blood.”
Jesus kept the Sabbath, yes,
and other Holy Days as well. He was a Jew, living among the Jews… His atoning
death had not yet been consummated. Remember on the cross He cried out “It is
finished”. That’s when His ultimate sacrifice became in effect.
When Jesus said, "It is
finished", wow this was the whole of the Old Testament He was referring
to. Four thousand years of spiritual hardship and temporary animal sacrifices. The
old shadows of things to come finally came to the promised reality of being changed
into the promised New Covenant.
“Therefore if any man be in
Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things
are become new.
“And all things are of God,
who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the
ministry of reconciliation;
“To wit, that God was in
Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto
them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation.
(11 Corinthians 5:17-19,
KJV)
If you have a contract about
a house sale, and in a span of time, the house breaks down, and begins to fall
apart, the roof leaking, the patched up fixes coming undone, etc... and you’re
stuck with this signed contract, you are bound by it…
…But, on seeing this, the
previous owner, who has now become a Christian, has compassion and says, I will
tear up the old contract I gave you and make a new one with a brand new house,
never been lived in before…
… You move in the new house.
Do you continue celebrating the old one? Of course not. It's done, it's gone,
it's past, forgiven and forgotten. The previous owner does not say, let's drink
to this new day and remember what I have done to you in the old house. No, he
wants you to remember the sacrifice, the kind action he did for you and your
family, not the old selfish malice he had done previously.
Jesus said in an earlier
statement, one does not put old wine into new skin. He was speaking of the old
and the new testaments -- the new is totally new and overtakes the old fully
and completely. The shadows in the feasts were temporary until the cross. Even
the book of Hebrews covers that clearly. One should not emphasize the Old
Testament ordinances, but use it in passing into the explanation of the New.
Re the statement by many that,
"Early Christians continued to observe God's feasts, but with a new
spirit and a sense of Christ's death as the true Passover Lamb."
Actually the Christians did
not continue to observe God's feasts. Acts 2:42 says, "and they continued steadfastly in the apostles
doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in
prayers". Not "and continued steadfastly in the keeping of the Jewish
Feasts".
The apostles did go into Synagogues,
and to Feast events where Jews were gathered, but it was to bring them the good
news of Jesus Christ and to ‘contend for the faith’. The Christians began to
keep Sunday – Resurrection day – immediately (after Christ returned to heaven),
and especially, later on, after they were forbidden to come into the
synagogues.
The Jews did keep the Feasts
until they got saved by the belief in Jesus Christ’s work. And the Gentiles
were never asked to keep the law after they came to the Lord – this was
actually a big problem for Paul having to deal with the Jews who wanted to
impose the old rules on the new Christians.
The original Holy Days are still on for the Jews as long as the New Covenant is not accepted individually… that’s why Jews still observe them, however they observe them in vain for they still need to receive Christ as their personal Saviour. If all 7 billion + individuals today received the free gift of salvation, there would be no more observing.
During His ministry, Jesus
was constantly attacked on the issue of the Sabbath where He responded that the
Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath and that He was even the
Lord of the Sabbath (Matthew 12:8). But they didn’t understand this yet, for He
was going to give His life for that “fulfilment” of the law requirements later
on at the end of His ministry on earth.
Jesus not only “liberalized”
but He actually fulfilled all the demands of the law in His death and
Resurrection. Otherwise, if He did not, why did He die a most humiliating death
before His whole Creation.
As for Zechariah 14, which
some people point to as support to keep the Sabbath now… the observance of the
feast of Tabernacles will be kept as a reminder of what happened in the end
times of the previous era before Jesus’ second coming.
This feast is the last of
the yearly feasts that were observed by the Jews for the whole of Israel’s history. It was the most joyful and colourful of
all and lasted 7 days. It represented the coming out of Egypt and the future return of Messiah. In the new
millennium which Zechariah speaks about, it will be rolled over as the one
Feast that will continue for that final 7th millennium until its
end, when Satan will rise up again and lead people to disobey and turn away
from God’s commandments once more (Rev.20:7-8 – that’s when the Gog and Magog
battle will take place).
But that will be the last
and final time (Rev.20:10). Then the whole universe will be rolled up as a
scroll, as predicted in Rev.6:14), and everything will be renewed (Rev. 21:1)
as it was at the beginning of Genesis, where God pronounced His creation that
“it was good”. And then the new Jerusalem will come down from God out of heaven
prepared as a bride adorned for her husband… (Rev.21:2). Wow, something to look
forward to.
“Let no man therefore judge
you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holy-day, or of the new moon, or
of the sabbath days: Which are a shadow of things to come; but the body
is of Christ.” (Colossians 2:16-17)
To the scriptures used to
support that the law was given as "a sign for ever" or a
"perpetual covenant" as being the interpretation for believers today
to still have to keep the feasts, a search of the word “perpetual” and
"forever" shows that the Hebrew word used is ‘olam’ which means a
thing concealed, a vanishing point, used as in continually, lasting, long time,
etc. It does not always refer to forever
in the sense of never ever ending throughout eternity.
However in some scriptures,
the same words, perpetual and forever, are from another Hebrew word. Based on
the context of the scripture we can tell what the sense of it is. For example,
when a scripture refers to God's eternal glory as in Psalm 104:5, the same word
is used and we know that it means eternal, because He is eternal.
In Isaiah 57:15 where it
speaks of God as the "lofty one that inhabits eternity"; here, the
word in Hebrew for eternity is 'ad' which means a duration, everlasting,
perpetuity throughout God’s eternity. And in another scripture, Isaiah 60:15,
speaking of Zion, the Hebrew word for 'eternal' is 'olam'.
In the Gesenius'
Hebrew-Chaldee Lexicon to the Old Testament, there is a whole page-and-a-half
spent to explaining the varieties of meanings for this one word 'olam'. One portion of it I quote: "(2) It more
often refers to future time, in such a manner, that what is called the terminus
ad quem (the goal, the object) is always defined from the nature of the thing
itself. When it is applied to human affairs, and specially - (a) to individual
men, it commonly signifies all the days of life, as a perpetual slave (not to
be discharged as long as he lives)... poetically used as a beast, Job
40:28..." etc. The Lexicon goes on to show a multitude of examples to this
effect.
So, the scriptures referred to in the book of
Exodus, in context, is actually saying:
“Wherefore the children of Israel shall keep the sabbath, to observe the sabbath
throughout their generations, for a perpetual (olam) covenant.” (i.e.: for a
time concealed, till a vanishing point, always as in continually every day for
a long time, etc. during their life time).
When did that time come to
an end? In the New Covenant when God,
through the death of Jesus Christ His Son (God in the flesh) gave His life on
the cross, as the ultimate sacrifice that the previous ordinances could not
permanently cover.
This had been promised for
over four thousand years, through the prophets and the shadows of the feasts
and sabbaths of things to come. To the
people living at that time, that four thousands years was an eternity! The explanation of all of this is given in
the many books of the New Testament, especially Romans, Hebrews and others that
specifically refer to the books of the Law in the Old Testament.
"God, who at sundry
times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the
prophets, Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath
appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds; Who being the
brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all
things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat
down on the right hand of the Majesty on high.” (Hebrews 1-3).
Atonement is received by faith
and grace, “lest any one should boats”, not by grace + works.
The problem is that some
people are stuck in the Old Testament still. We need to know it but we need to
move into the full grace and mercy of the New Covenant promised in the Old --
otherwise what we’re saying is that Jesus’ ultimate sacrifice and His
resurrection is not enough and was in vain. It is an insult to our Lord and
Saviour who came to give Himself a ransom for our sin.
“For if they which are of
the law be heirs, faith is made void, and the promise made of none effect.
Because the law worketh wrath.” (Romans 4:14-15)
“… ye are not under the law,
but under grace.” (Romans 6:14)
Romans 7:7-12 tells us that
the law cannot help us be good, perfect or holy.
“And ye are complete in him,
which is the head of all principality and power: In whom also ye are circumcised
with the circumcision made without hands, in putting off the body of the sins
of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ: Burried with him in baptism,
wherein also ye are risen with him through the faith of the operation of God,
who hath raised him from the dead.” (Colossians 2:10-12).
“Blotting out the
handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and
took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross; And having spoiled
principalities and powers, he made a show of them openly, triumphing over them
in it.” (Colossians 2:15).
“Christ hath redeemed us
from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us; for it is written, Cursed
is every one that hangeth on a tree.” (Galatians 3:13)
And there are many other
scriptures that show the law no longer has a hold on those who are saved by
grace, through faith and repentance.
The key is that our preaching
of the feasts has to be clear that we are no longer under the law that
required the keeping of the ordinances until the time of Jesus’ final
sacrifice.
We do not need to keep any of the Feasts that were there to point to that ultimate sacrifice of our God for His Creation -- because that is now done. We celebrate Good Friday and Easter. \dmh
.-------------------------------------------------------------------
Diane M. Hoffmann, B.Th., M.Th., Ph.D./Th.
Author of "24 Hot Potatoes in the Church Today"
Just released by Xulon Press, a div. of Salem Media.
To watch the Video Trailer:
http://www.godtube.com/watch/?v=YLZYLGNX
web site: http://24hotpotatoes.blogspot.ca/
.
We do not need to keep any of the Feasts that were there to point to that ultimate sacrifice of our God for His Creation -- because that is now done. We celebrate Good Friday and Easter. \dmh
.-------------------------------------------------------------------
Diane M. Hoffmann, B.Th., M.Th., Ph.D./Th.
Author of "24 Hot Potatoes in the Church Today"
Just released by Xulon Press, a div. of Salem Media.
To watch the Video Trailer:
http://www.godtube.com/watch/?v=YLZYLGNX
web site: http://24hotpotatoes.blogspot.ca/
Order a copy of
"24 Hot Potatoes in the Church Today"
for yourself or as a gift for a friend,
at:
Amazon.com, Barnes&Noble.com, Xulonpress.com,
Your Local Book Store,
(in Campbell River: North Island Inkjet-Christian Corner).
(in Campbell River: North Island Inkjet-Christian Corner).
or
.
.
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