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The Feasts were Temporary
Unlike the seventh day of the week,
which is a memorial to Creation, each feast day was
an object lesson that pointed forward to the ministry
of Messiah and His execution of the plan of
salvation. For example, the first Passover was an
object lesson about judgment day. Moses told the
people to kill a lamb and put the blood on the
doorposts of their house. If a “believer”
obeyed, the death angel ‘passed over” that
household. If a person did not believe Moses and did
not do what was required, the death angel killed the
first-born. The object lesson to which this event
pointed is huge and wonderful to understand. A day is
coming when God will “pass-over” the
household of each heart and if the blood of the Lamb
of God is on the doorpost, he or she will escape the
penalty of sin, which is death by execution.
With the passage of time, the apostles
clearly understood how the feasts were shadows of
things to come. When they begun to understand the
object lessons to which the feasts pointed, they
refused to impose the observance of the feasts upon
new converts. The shadows in the laws of Moses
disappeared in the wonderful light of truth. After
his conversion, Paul did not observe the feast days.
For example, all Jews were required to go up to
Jerusalem to attend three feasts per year. (Exodus
23:17) Paul ignored going to the feasts for at least
three years! (See Acts 18:11, 19:10) When he was with
those who observed the feasts, he participated –
not because they were obligatory, but out of
deference to his brothers who felt compelled to
continue with “tradition.” Paul’s
respect for those who were weaker in the faith is
clearly seen in Romans 14: 1-5. (It was considered
highly offensive for a Jewish Christian to antagonize
his Jewish brothers. For this reason, Paul was
accommodating in practice, but not in principle. See
Galatians 2: 11-13.)
Paul specifically addressed a
controversy over the observance of Passover in
Corinth. The Pharisees were doing their best to get
the Gentiles to observe Passover. Paul wrote, “Get
rid of the old yeast* [that is, your sinful past]
that you may be a new batch without yeast –
as you really are [justified through the
sacrifice of Jesus, our Passover Lamb]. For
Christ, our Passover lamb has been sacrificed. [The
laws demanding the slaughter of the Passover lamb and
the observance of the feast died with Him.] Therefore
let us keep the Festival [in our behavior toward
each other], not with the old yeast, the yeast of
malice and wickedness [for one another], but
with [better] bread without [the] yeast
[of this world], the bread of sincerity and
truth.” (1 Corinthians 5: 7,8)
(*Note: Prior to observing
Passover, the Jews were commanded to remove all yeast
from their houses. The fist day of Passover was the
beginning of the Feast of Unleavened Bread that
lasted for seven days. The object lesson for the
Feast of Unleavened Bread is beautiful: If you want
the death angel to pass over your house, purify your
hearts by removing anything sinful! “Since we
have these promises, dear friends, let us purify
ourselves from everything that contaminates body and
spirit, perfecting holiness out reverence for
God.” (1 Corinthians 7:1)
Some people distort 1 Corinthians 5:
7,8 to make Paul appear as though he is endorsing the
observance of Passover. This is not true, for if he
had, Paul would have insisted on obeying the law and
going to Jerusalem as God required. (Exodus 23:17;
Deuteronomy 12: 13,14) Perhaps the best evidence of
Paul’s attitude about observing the annual feast
days is found in Galatians. Paul sternly rebuked the
church at Galatia for backsliding into Jewish
customs. He wrote, “…how is it that you
are turning back to those weak and miserable
principles [listed in the laws of Moses]? Do
you wish to be enslaved by them all over again? You
are observing special days and months and seasons and
years! I fear for you, that somehow I have wasted my
efforts on you.” (Galatians 4: 9-11)
On another occasion, Paul addressed
the church at Colossae. Church members were upset
because Pharisee believers insisted on the necessity
of circumcision and observing the laws of Moses. Paul
told the church that the laws of Moses commanded
Israel to observe certain feasts, but these were shadows
of Jesus and His ministry. “[There is no
further need for circumcision of the flesh because] In
Him [Jesus} you were also circumcised, in
putting off of the sinful nature, not with a
circumcision done by the hands of men but with the
circumcision done by Christ, having been buried [into
his death] with him in baptism and raised [out
of the water] with him through your faith in the
power of God, who raised him from the dead.
When you were dead in your sins [to
spiritual things] and in the uncircumcision of
your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ [God
circumcised your hearts]. He forgave us all our
sins, having cancelled the written code [of
Moses], with its [many] regulations, that
was against us [contrary to our carnal hearts] and
that stood opposed to us [condemned us]; he
took away, nailing it to the cross [with Jesus]. And
having disarmed the powers [authority of the
Jews} and [Roman] authorities, he made a
public spectacle of them [showing their
weakness], triumphing over them by [using] the
[despised and degenerate] cross.
Therefore [since Jesus has come
from the tomb and you have come to life with Him} do
not let anyone [among the Pharisees] judge you
[condemn you] by what you eat and drink
[we know idols are nothing], or [condemn you] with
regard to a religious festival, a New Moon
celebration [Numbers 10:10] or a Sabbath [feast}
day. [All of] These are a shadow of the things
that were to come; {now that He has come] the
reality, however, is found in [ministry of] Christ.”
(Colossians 2: 11-17)
At Calvary, the shadows to which the
laws of Moses pointed disappeared. The practices of
an entire religion became obsolete on a single day
– although it took many years to figure this
out. Now that Jesus has ascended, says Paul, the laws
of Moses are impossible to observe. (Hebrews 7:12)
The Mosaic system was only a shadow of things to
come. The sacrifices of sheep and goats never atoned
for sin – they too, were object lessons.
(Hebrews 10:4)
Paul came to understand that obedience
was not a prerequisite for salvation. Obeying
God’s Ten Commandments will not produce
salvation, but faith in God for salvation does not
eliminate the demands of the Ten Commandments. God
gave the laws of Moses to Israel as a vehicle to
teach how the plan of salvation would be
implemented. (Galatians 3-4) God personally spoke the
Ten Commandments to Israel to declare His sovereign
will for all mankind. After Jesus died on Calvary,
the “schoolmaster” (the laws of Moses,
Galatians 3:24,25, KJV) was no longer needed because
human beings, with the gift of the Holy Spirit, have
enough information to figure out the dimensions of
the plan of salvation.
Works
and Salvation
Many
people have a hard time sorting out the relationship
between faith, works, and salvation. The road to
Heaven is lined with two ditches. On the right side
of the road is the ditch of fanaticism and
self-righteousness. Some people, like Paul, are born
in this ditch and they may never climb out. Some may
jump out of this ditch only to land on the other side
of the road in the ditch of affluence, indifference
and neglect. These ditches exist because it is far
easier to be casually religious or a religious zealot
than to practice the principles of faith and love. The
devil is pleased to have us in either ditch.
I
once asked a young man, very zealous about the law,
if he sinned anymore. He said “Oh, no.” I
asked again, “Do you knowingly commit sin?”
Again, he said “Oh, no.” Then, I said,
“Your righteousness is made because the moral
law of God reaches beyond your ability to recognize
sin. Once you have learned what is wrong, then you
must learn what is right!” In other words, sin
is more than commission it is omission. “Anyone,
then, who knows the good he ought to do and
doesn’t do it, sins.” (James 4:17) For this
reason, “All have sinned and fall short of the
glory of God.” (Romans 3:23) John wrote, “If
we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a
liar and his word has no place in our lives… If
anyone says, ‘I love God,’ yet hates his
brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love
his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom
he has not seen.” (1 John 1: 10; 4: 20)
God’s
requirements for the human race are surprisingly
light. His yoke is easy. (Matthew 11:30) You may ask,
if this is the case, then why did Israel fail? The
problem is love. The carnal heart loves itself more
than it loves God and others. Unless we are born
again, the kind of love that God wants is missing.
The gift of salvation is free, but obeying God costs
everything. (Matthew 7:21) The rich young ruler could
not follow Jesus because he could not let go of his
money. (Matthew 19: 16-22) He loved wealth more than
God! He was in the ditch on the left side of the
road. The problem with ancient Israel remains the
problem with Christians today. We do not love God
enough to live by faith. We either want to make up
our own rules for salvation or we want to
“improve” on God’s requirements by
adding 2,000 more. God says that ten rules are enough
for born again people. Are the Ten Commandments
binding? Yes. Will obedience save me? No. Will my
faith in Jesus save me if I am following His calling?
Yes.
The
Great Tribulation
Previously,
I wrote that a time is coming when God will notify
the whole world that he requires us to worship Him on
His seventh day Sabbath. This may sound farfetched at
the moment, but the book of Revelation predicts that
God is about to send a series of fourteen destructive
judgments upon the Earth (seven trumpets and seven
bowls). The first four judgments will kill 25% of the
world’s population. (Revelation 6: 7,8) At that
time, a politically and religiously diverse world
will awaken to the reality that God is angry and,
corporately speaking, the world will conclude that
God’s wrath must be appeased or everyone will
quickly perish. To appease God, the nations of the
world will, among other things, enact a series of
laws that will require everyone to worship God. A
great controversy regarding worship will materialize
during the Great Tribulation. (Revelation 13)
During
the Great Tribulation, God’s servants, the
144,000, will call mankind to worship the Creator as
He commands. (Exodus 20: 8-11; Revelation 14: 6,7) A
conflict arises because God demands that we rest on
His holy day, Saturday, the seventh day. This will be
in direct opposition to the “worship laws”
which the religions of the world are supporting.
Through this controversy, the enduring nature of the
Ten Commandments – particularly the fourth
commandment – will surface. Everyone on planet
Earth will be talking about this matter. Of course,
many people will defiantly rebel against God’s
commandments, just like they did in Noah’s day.
Revelation 11:19 points forward to a day near the end
of the Great Tribulation when God will literally
present the Ten Commandments to a rebellious world.
The whole world will see the tablets of stone written
by the finger of God. The wicked will see the very
law they refused to obey. What greater evidence can
there be than to literally see the law that so many
people refused to acknowledge?
I
hope you will prayerfully consider these matters. I
also hope you will examine on this web site these two
articles written on the Sabbath. They are titled, What
happened to the Lord’s Day? and From
Sabbath to Sunday. Let me conclude this
study with a summery text that everyone should
respect: “Now all has been heard; here is the
conclusion of the matter: Fear God and keep his
commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. For
God will bring every deed into judgment, including
every hidden thing, whether it is good or evil.”
(Ecclesiastes 12: 13,14)
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