How This Messianic Learned to Stop Hating Easter

When I was younger, I berated other Christians for celebrating Easter.

I had heard the English word "Easter" comes from the Mesopotamian goddess Ishtar. And what do bunnies and eggs have to do with the Jewish Messiah anyways? Besides, the Gospels record Messiah and the 12 disciples celebrating the Biblical Passover. His resurrection occurred right after Passover, on the Biblical holy day First Fruits.

 (You can probably find old posts on this very blog of me saying stuff like that!)

Well, I've grown a bit since then and changed my mind about Easter. It's a good and holy thing that God's people celebrate Jesus' resurrection, even if they call it "Easter." 

I explain why below.

Is the name "Easter" really pagan? Yes.

The main (and only?) source for the "Easter = Ishtar" claims was 19th century Scottish Presbyterian Alexander Hislop in his anti-Catholic work The Two Babylons.

Hislop connected the etymology of the two because they sound alike: "Easter" sounds like "Ishtar." But there is no solid evidence the English word "Easter" derives from the Mesopotamian goddess Ishtar. 

Linking two words from different languages that sound alike does not a real connection make. The English evil and the Hebrew עיבל may sound similar, but the latter is merely a mountain in Samaria.

The "Easter is pagan" folks aren't entirely wrong, however.

The English word Easter probably does have pagan origins. It likely comes from the Germanic goddess Eostre. The evidence we have for this is The Reckoning of Time, a 1,300 year old book by the English Catholic monk Bede. In his book, Bede wrote that Eosturmonath was the month name when they celebrated Jesus' resurrection, a month "called after a goddess of theirs named Eostre."

For some people, the reality that the word "Easter" has pagan etymology -- whether Ishtar or Eostre -- is enough to discard modern Easter celebrations. 

But there's just one problem with that kind of thinking.

Also pagan: everything else

Many of the "Easter is pagan" folks have no issue with other words pagan in origin. One can go out on Wednesday in January, driving their Toyota Atlas while wearing Nike shoes, headed to watch the appearance of Saturn in the night sky. These are words like Easter: tainted etymology, but no longer connoting paganism.

My assumption was that paganism irredeemably corrupted things. My old thinking was, "Yes, we should get rid of Easter, and January, and Toyota Atlas, and Nike shoes, and Saturn, and..." 

After all, God warned Israel in the Torah, "Do not even mention the names of false gods."

However, I later discovered something that disturbed this naive belief. If pagan names irredeemably corrupted things, then we not only must throw out cars and shoes and planets and weekdays, we must also throw out some books of the Bible. More on that in a moment.

I came to understand that pagan names do not irredeemably corrupt things. God is bigger than that.

Glorifying pagan gods is no longer the purpose of these words. And purpose matters.

Purpose matters more than etymology

Given the name Easter is pagan in origin, should God's people discard modern Easter celebrations?

Here's a thought experiment to illuminate an answer.

Suppose a man goes to a congregation on Shabbat and light candles to the goddess Athena.

I hope you'll agree the issue is with the weird false-god-candle-lighting thing. That the man did it on Shabbat is completely irrelevant. Shabbat has good and holy origins, but if one's purpose is to light candles to a foreign god, then the etymology and symbolism of Shabbat matters little. A bad purpose on a day with good etymology is morally wrong. The purpose overrides etymology.

Now put the shoe on the other foot.

A good purpose on a day with bad etymology follows the same rule. The purpose remains the most important, overriding aspect.

And what is Easter's purpose? 

To celebrate Jesus' resurrection. 

Isn't that a worthy thing to celebrate?

The word Easter wasn't chosen to celebrate a pagan god. Its name was chosen because it happened to fall during a month of that name. And by that time, the old pagan names of the months probably sounded as innocuous to them as August sounds to us. (August, by the way, is named after the Roman god emperor Caesar Augustus, worshiped by the Roman Imperial Cult, you heathen! 😅) 

Just as the name "Wednesday" no longer implies pagan connections to the Norse god Wodin ("Odin"), neither did "Easter" imply paganism for the ancient Christians who adopted the name.

Illumination from the Bible

In the Bible, there are pagan names that sneak in. No one cares, and God uses those people and times and places. 

For example, the famous Shadrach, Mishach, and Abednego from the book of Daniel? Well, their Hebrew names were Hananiah, Mishael, and Azaria. The Babylonian court gave these men pagan names: Shadrach meaning "Command of [moon god] Aku", Mishach meaning "who is like Aku", and Abed-nego meaning "servant of [arts god] Nebo".

Yet God worked through these people, even with pagan names.

Or consider Esther and Mordechai. We think of these names as almost stereotypical Jewish names, but they are more likely Persian pagan names, honoring the gods Ishtar and Marduk. (Mordechai may have been a variation of "Marduk lives.") 

And yet, not only do we celebrate Queen Esther (named after Ishtar - gasp!), but we even have a book of the Bible named after her. God didn't find it problematic that their names had pagan etymology. Instead, God honored their names and preserved them in the Bible.

Or consider the Jewish calendar. When the Jews returned to Israel from Babylon, they brought with them the names of Babylonian months, including the month of Tammuz. It persists today as a month in the Jewish calendar, even though Tammuz was a pagan god mentioned as an abomination in the book of Ezekiel. 

And yet there is no condemnation of Israel using these names. The names no longer implied paganism. No, when God called Israel to repent, it was not for the etymology of the names of their months. It was because of their purpose: the active worship of foreign gods by burning incense to idols, passing children through the fire to false gods, engaging with temple prostitution.

Easter, Pascha, Passover

Protestants and Catholics celebrate Easter as Jesus' resurrection. But in the Eastern Church, the holiday is known as Pascha. That name should sound familiar to Messianic folks. It's an Aramaic variant of the Hebrew פסח pesach, or in English, Passover.

The Orthodox Christian church celebrates the death and resurrection of Jesus through Pascha. Ultimately, both Easter and Pascha are new innovations spun off from the genuine article of Passover. 

God has brought billions of non-Jews to faith in the God of Israel. He did it through the Messiah, Yeshua. We shouldn't be angered that many of these non-Jews innovate their own celebrations of what He did. 

God has been at work despite the gray vagaries and muddiness of humanity over the ages, and it's a sight to behold! This outlook is better, healthier, and more in alignment with God's character than standing off in the corner while shouting, "That's pagan!"

Is there anything objectionable in Easter?

Certainly.

It remains true that bunnies and chocolate eggs have no authentic connection with the Jewish Messiah. For many people, sadly, egg hunts and chocolate baskets and frivolity have replaced the celebration of the greatest event in history: the resurrection of the Jewish Messiah, God's only Son, the eternal King of Israel, Yeshua.

Names still matter. I hope you'll agree the name Hananiah ("Yah has been gracious") is a much better name than Shadrach ("Command of moon god Aku"). 🙂 

While God can and has used people and events with pagan names, "Resurrection Day" would be a vast improvement over "Easter." Or, given the early Christians observed Passover, maybe just Passover or Resurrection Passover would be a better fit yet.

There's also the ugly reality of replacing God's holy days with man-made, poor replicas. 

The early Christians, notably Polycarp (AD 69-155), held to celebrating Passover. Polycarp refused to recant this belief despite growing pressure to do so, appealing to the fact that he had received this from his mentor, John the Apostle, who had walked with Jesus.

But by the 4th century, the Quartodeciman Controversy (a.k.a, "Should we keep celebrating Jesus' death and resurrection on Passover, or should we stop doing Jewish stuff?") reached a boiling point when the Roman Emperor Constantine ruled,

It appeared an unworthy thing that in the celebration of this most holy feast we should follow the practice of the Jews, who have impiously defiled their hands with enormous sin, and are, therefore, deservedly afflicted with blindness of soul ... Let us then have nothing in common with the detestable Jewish crowd; for we have received from our Saviour a different way.

That's Christian antisemitism. (And self-defeating, given Constantine's Saviour was part of the Jewish people he so detested.)

Perhaps a good first step towards repenting of Christian antisemitism is Christians returning to the original faith of Jesus. Jesus celebrated Passover and imbued it with new meaning when He said of the Passover matzah, "This is my body, do this in remembrance of Me."

Even if Christianity adds new meaning and new remembrances, Christians would do well to honor God's redemptive work at Passover. God redeemed His people out of Egypt and commanded us to celebrate in remembrance of that every year forever. Christians have a unique opportunity to celebrate at Passover God's redemptive work through both the Exodus and the Passion.

Conclusion

I no longer hate Easter. God is not so small that He cannot redeem things tainted with pagan names. If it weren't so, we'd have to rip out from the Bible numerous heroes of the faith and even whole books.

Two thousand years ago, the apostle Peter stood in front of the early Jewish leaders of this new sect of Judaism, called the Way, and he said something powerful. What he said applies today to this Easter question. He said,

Brothers, you know that in the early days God chose that by my mouth the Gentiles should hear the message of the Gospel and believe. And God, who knows the heart, testified to the Gentiles by giving them the Holy Spirit—just as He also did for us. He made no distinction between us and them, purifying their hearts through faith.

God knows the heart and has purified the Gentiles through faith. That's how I look at Easter. 

While the name is tainted by paganism, God has purified it.

While the Gentiles used to be pagans, God made them new creations through the work of Messiah.

Because of this, billions of people now follow the God of Israel and called the Hebrew Bible their Scriptures. This is a work of God, and I stand in awe.

A Very Messianic Christmas

Like many small Messianic congregations, the congregation I attend rents space from a larger Protestant church.

A few weeks ago, a member of the church who is organizing the church’s Christmas service contacted me and asked if we Messianics would be willing to partake in the Christmas service.

How would you respond?

Her request was that we play some Hebrew songs, sound the shofar, and maybe do some dancing if that was our thing. Show the Jewish side of Christmas, she said.

I had mixed feelings about this.

Primarily, we, and indeed most Messianics, do not celebrate Christmas. It’s not biblical, its connections to Messiah’s birth are dubious, and the paraphernalia associated with the holiday have less to do with Christ and more to do with old world religious rites.

It’s my conviction that the people of God ought not celebrate this holiday, and our taking part in the service would send the wrong message.

On the other hand, I gotta to step back and look at this from a bigger perspective: an outsider would totally laugh at us little groups squabbling with each other over what days we celebrate, what foods we eat, and all the divisions to the Nth degree that we inflict upon ourselves. In that regard, the evil one has us right where he wants us, I think.

I mean, aren’t there bigger things to worry about? How about personally living a righteous life in private and public? How about peace and unity among Messiah’s disciples? While we’re squabbling about holidays, couldn’t we be busy, oh, I don’t know, feeding the poor, helping widows and orphans? And yet we spend 95% of our time arguing about times and seasons and theologies.

That’s not really the religious life I’m looking to live.

On top of that, the woman who approached us to take part in the Christmas service was humble, sincere, and showed nothing but kindness to us. The last thing I want to do is go in there shouting all Zany Zealot commando-style, “Christmas is pagan! Christmas is pagan!”

So, I, personally, was completely torn about this issue.

The other leaders in our congregation spent a few weeks mulling this over in discussion and prayer. We ended up declining the invitation. Today I sent out the following message to the woman who is organizing the Christmas service, names anonymized:

Hi Rachel,

Our congregation has given much thought and prayer to your invitation to take part in the Christmas service.

The reason we were hesitant to accept is, for Biblical reasons, Messianics do not celebrate Christmas. By all means we honor Messiah's birth, which likely took place during the biblical Feast of Tabernacles. But because December 25th was chosen to overwrite previous pagan winter solstice celebrations, Messianics instead celebrate his birth during Tabernacles, and we do so without the non-Biblical paraphernalia  (trees, holly, wreaths, etc.) associated with Christmas.

It's for these reasons we must respectfully decline your invitation.

Thanks for contacting us, Rachel. All of us -- myself, Bryan, Jesse -- recognized sincerity and humility in you. We honestly thank you for the kindness you've shown us.

Be blessed in Messiah Yeshua.

-Judah Himango

I wanted to be careful in my criticism. I wanted to avoid fixating solely on the negative. I also wanted to make it clear we are not denying the miraculous birth of Messiah, which the gospels record being met with angel-singing and rejoicing. At the same time, I wanted to stand for my convictions. I hope my letter portrayed those things.

What would you do, fine Messianic blog reader, if a church asked you to participate in their Christmas service?

More Orthodox Persecution of Messianics In Israel

Last year, I showed a video documenting how Ultra-Orthodox Jews in Israel were persecuting Messianic Jews by personally harassing and stalking Messianic Jews.

This year, a state-wide teen Bible knowledge competition, initially promoted by rabbis, was soon boycotted by many rabbis as they found that one of the winners was a Messianic Jew.

Also earlier this year, the Israeli Ministry of Interior was revoking the citizenship of Messianic Jews in Israel, forcing them to leave the country.

In March of 2008, a young Messianic Jewish teen, Amiel Ortiz, son of a Messianic pastor, was critically injured as he opened up an exploding package delivered to their home. The blast of the bomb shattered the windows of their home and the nearby automobiles, sending nails and over 100 pieces of shrapnel to permeate the boy's body. Amazingly, if not miraculously, the boy remains alive. The security cameras which Amiel's father installed on their home after an anonymous firebombing last year caught a well-known Jewish extremist delivering the explosive package to their home.

15 year old Amiel Ortiz, a Messianic Jew who was critically injured in a bomb delivered by Jewish extremists

Today, CNN is reporting that Jewish students from the city of Or Yehuda, near Tel Aviv, rounded up New Testaments in the city and burned them en masse.

The man responsible for organizing the students was Deputy Mayor of Or-Yehuda, Uzi Aharon. Uzi Aharon claims he did not intend to burn the New Testaments, he only meant to round them up to prevent missionizing in his city.

Uzi Aharon is a member of the Shas political party in Israel, an Ultra-Orthodox party that currently holds several seats in the Israeli Knesset.

Fortunately, many Conservative and Reform rabbis are condemning this New Testament burning. Derek Leman cites an excellent piece from a Conservative Jewish leader condemning the burnings.

Understanding the Persecution

I do not write this to villify Orthodox Jews. So many Orthodox Jews are zealous for Torah and for God; I understand where Orthodox Jews are coming from. To them, a Messianic Jew is a Christian, a member of a religion foreign to Torah; an idolatrous religion. Becoming a Christian means abandoning Jewish identity, Jewish culture, Jewish religion -- even Hitler could not make Jews lose their Jewish identity; how much worse, then, is converting to Christianity!

(To this day, in some Jewish circles, if an Orthodox Jew comes to believe in Y'shua as Messiah, family members will recite traditional prayers reserved for his or her death; to these Jews, faith in Y'shua is the death of a Jew.)

The reality of the matter, however, is not as the Orthodox Jews perceive it. Nor as the Christians perceive it, for that matter. The reality is that Messianic Judaism is not a Jewish flavor of Christianity.

While alone I cannot speak for all, I can say that many see Christianity as a Roman-led departure from the Hebrew faith. While many beautiful things have come from the Christian religion, and while God has used it to bring 1/3rd of the whole gentile world to the God of Israel through the Messiah of Israel, we must still contrast Christianity with the Hebrew faith.

The early believers in Y'shua as the Moshaich of Yisrael were initially known as Nazarenes, members of the Way community of Jews; they were not part of a new religion. Indeed, they kept the Torah as any God-fearing person ought to, received instruction at Beit HaMikdash (Temple), and were standing members in the Jewish community.

What happened in 325 CE was the official creation of a new state religion, and what came out of that has become what we know as Christianity today. This Roman religion in numerous ways is a departure from the Hebrew faith. It is indeed idolatrous in its praying to saints, in praying to Messiah's mother, in its claims of an infallible human being elected by the College of Cardinals, in its replacing Israel with an unclean people, in its replacement of God's Feasts with holidays of pagan origin, and most of all, its rejection of Torah.

When Constantine severed the Hebrew origins of this faith in Messiah, a new religion was officially created. It is this religion that Orthodox Jews fear their relatives and friends becoming members of. Many Orthodox Jews are zealous for God and do not wish to see Jewish folks severing their Jewish culture, identity, religion.

Ditto.

It is with earnest conviction I say that Messianic faith does not wish a loss of Jewish culture, a loss Jewish identity, especially not a loss of Jewish religion. There is no need to be baptized into Christianity. (Indeed, if one is already following Torah, a regular mikvah for outward cleansing is already prescribed!) There is no need to go to a Christian Church. There is no need to convert. Messianic faith requires one thing alone: faith in Messiah. Trust that the Jew from Natzeret, Y'shua ben Yosef, is the Moshiach foretold by the prophets in the Tenakh. As Rabbi Hallel once said, "Everything else is details."

I do not excuse this persecution by the Orthodox. One must not confuse understanding for agreement. Unfortunately, I suspect that the Orthodox will not see Messiah until he reveals himself in the flesh, again. Perhaps this time around, it will be the gentiles, with their idolatrous religion, who stumble on the stone laid in Tziyon. Or perhaps God's plan is that Jews and gentiles alike will finally be united in their faith in the God of Israel through Messiah.

At this time, however, it looks like many Christians will refuse to give up ties to the idolatry in their religion and that will be their stumbling block, just as it was for many of the devout Jews in Messiah's day.

We will see. Whatever the plan, I hope we see it come to fruition in our day, and soon; things sure are heating up down here on planet earth. Father help us.

God's Calendar vs Man's Calendar

*Update*: some Jewish friends have taken offense to this post, as I mention some non-Biblical things in the Jewish calendar. The point isn't to condemn the Jewish calendar, as it is much more Scriptural than the western calendar, but instead to point out the few places it deviates from the calendar God gave us in the Torah.

The secular western calendar in use today is very different from the Biblical calendar.

Unlike the western calendar, God's calendar doesn't have months named after false gods:

• January is named after the Roman god Janus.


• February is named after the pagan cleansing ritual known as februa.


• March is named after the Roman god Mars.


• April is named after the Roman sexual goddess Aphrilis, also known as Aphros or Aphrophdite.


• May is named after Maia, a Roman goddess of fertility.


• June is named after the Roman goddess Juno.


• July is named after the Roman emperor-worshipped-as-god, Divine Julius Caesar.


• August is named after the Roman emperor, Augustus, who, upon his death, was claimed to have joined the Roman pantheon as a god.

Only the remaining months, September, October, November, December, are neutral and secular in meaning, having their names derived from Latin numbers.

Also unlike the western gentile calendar, the Biblical calendar does not have days of the week named after false gods:

• Monday is named after Mona, the pagan Gemanic god.


• Tuesday is named after the Nordic god Tyr.


• Wednesday is named after the Germanic god Woden.


• Thursday is named after the Nordic god Thor.


• Friday is named after the Nordic god Frejya.


• Saturday is named after the Roman god Saturn.


• Sunday is named after the Germanic sun goddess Sunne.

In addition to the days of the week and most of the month names, the western gentile calendar also has many holidays named after false gods, or derived from a false god but have since been renamed.

• The Lent holiday is derived from the Babylonian god Tammuz, in which 40 days are spent weeping for his death.
  
  
• The Easter holiday, exactly 40 days after the beginning of Lent, is in honor of Tammuz' mother goddess, Ishtar. Easter is celebrated as Tammuz is resurrected back to life as the reincarnation of his father god, Nimrod.
  
  
• The Christ's Mass holiday (Christmas) is celebrated on December 25th as it was the birthday of Deus Sol Invictus, the "invicible sun" god of the Romans, a title given to the false gods Mithras, Sol, Elagabalus, and Mars. Some scholars suggest that Tammuz was also believed to have been born on December 25th.
  
  
• Most of the paraphernalia associated with the big holidays can be traced back to pagan origins. For example, Christmas trees, Yuletide, Easter eggs, and Easter rabbits in conjunction with these festivals are of pagan origin.

What about the Jewish Calendar?

Some folks think the Jewish calendar to be the Biblical calendar. Unfortunately, this is not quite so; the Jewish calendar in use today mostly Biblical, but also mixes some elements of the Babylonian calendar picked up during the Israelite captivity some 2600 years ago.

For example, the Jewish calendar kept today by modern Jews has month names taken from Babylonian paganism: the Jewish month of Tammuz is named after the Babylonian god Tammuz, who's worship is mentioned in Scripture as an abomination, and who's death was mourned for 40 days prior to the day of his mother goddess, Ishtar.

(As mentioned prior, to this day, Christians celebrate this pagan holiday in the form of 40 days of Lent leading up to Easter, replacing 40 days of weeping for Tammuz with 40 days of fasting for Jesus, replacing Ishtar Day with Easter Day.)

The Jewish year starts in the middle of the calendar on a Jewish holiday not found in Scripture, a holiday called Rosh HaShanah ("head of the year"), which may be Babylonian in origin. It should be noted that while Rosh HaShanah is not Scriptural, it is celebrated at the same time as the Scriptural Yom Teruah, and the two are often interchangeable in modern times.

Ironically, because the Jewish calendar is a mix of God's calendar and the Babylonian calendar, Jews are left with the uncomfortable reality that the "head of the year" falls in the 7th month of the calendar! Yes, it's true, Jews say "happy new year" not in the first month of the year, but half-way through the Jewish year!

Unlike the western pagan calendar, the day names in the Jewish calendar tell a better story: they are the same day names in God's calendar.

So What Is God's Calendar?

God's calendar is the calendar He gave to his people in Scripture. Unlike the western calendar, God's calendar is based around lunar cycles. It also utilizes agriculture and natural ripening of crops to determine seasons.

And unlike the western calendar and the Jewish calendar, God's calendar does not have any months or days named after false gods.

According to Scripture, here are the days of the week we are to use:

• Yom Rishon (יום ראשון), "First Day"
  
  
• Yom Sheni (יום שני), "Second Day"
  
  
• Yom Shlishi (יום שלישי), "Third Day"
  
  
• Yom Revi (יום רבעי), "Fourth Day"
  
  
• Yom Hamishi (יום חמישי), "Fifth Day"
  
  
• Yom Shishi (יום ששי), "Sixth Day"
  
  
• Yom Shabbat (יום שבת or more usually שבת), "Sabbath"

In God's calendar, a new day doesn't start at midnight. Rather, the day starts at sundown and ends at sundown. Thus, the Biblical sabbath starts Friday at sundown and lasts until Saturday at sundown.

The names of the months are equally as simple as the days, Torah simply calls them "First Month", "Second Month", etc. The first month also goes by the name HaAviv or HaAbib in the Torah, meaning the month of "the aviv (ripe) barley", indicating that finding naturally ripe barely in the land indicates the beginning of the first month. God's calendar has 12 months typically, but a 13th month is inserted if barley is not naturally ripe by the end of the 12th month in Israel.

In God's calendar, there are holidays which God calls "My appointed times" (Lev 23), eternal landmarks in time we're commanded to remember all our generations. There are 7 Feasts of the Lord, (7 being a Hebrew number of completion), 8 if you count the weekly Sabbath (8 being a number of new beginnings). Here are the holidays God instituted, listed in the order they occur:

• Passover - 1st month, day 14. This year, Passover will fall in April in the western calendar.
  
  
• Unleavened Bread - 1st month, day 15, the day after Passover. This is a 7 day-long festival. We see Messiah and his apostles celebrating this Feast and the Passover in the gospels.
  
  
• First Fruits - 1st month, first day of the week following Unleavened Bread.
  
  
• Weeks - Also called Shavuot or Pentecost, falls 7 weeks after First Fruits. In the New Testament, we see the apostles celebrating this Feast of the Lord in Acts 2. This is the last Feast of the Lord occurring in the spring.
  
  
• Teruah - Also called Feast of Shofar Blasts, Feast of Trumpets, Feasts of Shouting. This is the first feast occurring in the fall. It falls in the 7th month, day 1.
  
  
• Atonements - Also called Judgments, called Yom HaKippurim or Yom Kippur in Hebrew, this feast occurs 9 days later: 7th month, day 10.
  
  
• Tabernacles - Also called the Feast of Booths, Tents, and Dwellings, this feast occurs 5 days later: 7th month, day 15.

Additionally, God calls the Sabbath day, the 7th day, a weekly feast, a feast that has been in existence since the time of creation.

All of these Feasts of the Lord have symbolic meaning, with special commandments given to us detailing how to commemorate these eternal Feasts of the Lord.

Messianic Jews and some wise Christians have suggested these feasts of God have special meaning because Messiah fulfilled some of these.

For example, the first 4 feasts -- all which occur in the spring -- were fulfilled in real-time by the Messiah: his betrayal coming the very night he was celebrating Passover with his disciples (becoming the sacrifice Passover lamb), his death during Unleavened Bread (the unleavened/sinless one being buried for 3 days), his resurrection on First Fruits (becoming the first fruits from the dead), his sending his spirit to the disciples while they were celebrating Weeks.

Likewise, we look forward to the last 3 feast which remain unfulfilled, so we speculate. We speculate that Yeshua the Messiah will return on Teruah, the day of shofar blasts; New Testament prophecy confirms Messiah will return with the blast of the shofar. 9 days later, on Atonement/Judgments we speculate is when he will judge the nations per prophecy in the Tenakh and New Testament. 5 days after that, on Tabernacles, he will tabernacle and dwell with us, the Prince of Peace bringing us lasting peace.

Want to learn more about God's calendar? Michael Rood, a Messianic Israelite gentile, has written an excellent article explaining the western calendar, the Jewish calendar, and the Creator's calendar: The Creator's Calendar.

He also has a podcast teaching on the subject:




Shabbat shalom, fine blog readers, and may the Lord use this to increase your understanding of his appointed times with humanity.

We Celebrate Easter Because...

Jesus rose from the dead on Easter?

Nope.

Messiah rose from the dead on, or near, the Feast of First Fruits, one of the 7 Feasts of the Lord found in the Jewish and Christian Bibles.

Christians celebrate Easter because the founder of the Roman Catholic Church, the Holy Roman Emperor Constantine, issued the following decree in 325 CE at the Council of Nicaea:

When the question relative to the sacred festival of Easter arose, it was universally thought that it would be convenient that all should keep the feast on one day; for what could be more beautiful and more desirable than to see this festival, through which we receive the hope of immortality, celebrated by all with one accord and in the same manner? It was declared to be particularly unworthy for this, the holiest of festivals, to follow the customs (the calculation) of the Jews who had soiled their hands with the most fearful of crimes, and whose minds were blinded. In rejecting their custom we may transmit to our descendants the legitimate mode of celebrating Easter; which we have observed from the time of the Saviour’s passion (according to the day of the week).

We ought not therefore to have anything in common with the Jew, for the Saviour has shown us another way; our worship following a more legitimate and more convenient course (the order of the days of the week: And consequently in unanimously adopting this mode, we desire, dearest brethren to separate ourselves from the detestable company of the Jew. For it is truly shameful for us to hear them boast that without their direction we could not keep this feast. How can they be in the right, they who, after the death of the Saviour, have no longer been led by reason but by wild violence, as their delusion may urge them? They do not possess the truth in this Easter question, for in their blindness and repugnance to all improvements they frequently celebrate two Passovers in the same year. We could not imitate those who are openly in error.

How, then, could we follow these Jews who are most certainly blinded by error? For to celebrate a Passover twice in one year, is totally inadmissible.

But even if this were not so it would still be your duty not to tarnish your soul by communication with such wicked people (the Jews). You should consider not only that the number of churches in these provinces make a majority, but also that it is right to demand what our reason approves, and that we should have nothing in common with the Jews.

It's with a somber conviction that we must admit that most of Christianity this weekend will be celebrating a feast named after a pagan goddess, thanks to a Jew-hating Roman emperor who

• Declared his companion to be Sol Invictus, the Invincible Sun god.
  
  
• Proclaimed sun-day to be the new Sabbath
  
  
• Rose early during sun-rises at the steps of the church to worship the sun, instituting the first state-sanctioned sunrise services.
  
  
• Murdered his son and his wife years after becoming a professing "Christian".
  
  
• Proclaimed himself Pontifex Maximus, a title for the high priest of the ancient pagan Roman religion, now given as a title for Roman Catholic popes.
  

Ouch.

Upon This Disciple I'll Create My New Religion?

I've recently been debating with a Catholic man, Ariel, in the comments to Catholic Relevance.

Ariel is rather peculiar religious person, in that he went from a child under Catholicism, to agnosticism, to Evangelical Christianity, to Messianic Judaism, then back to Catholicism. (Wow!) He is now a chief contributor to IsraelCatholics.com.

In the little debate, Ariel points to us to his testimony and lays out the span of events that led him to believe that "Messianic Judaism is not biblical enough and [that] Catholicism really is truly Jewish and truly the faith of the Bible."

He further states,

"Messianic Judaism usually uncritically accepts the two pillars of Protestantism: sola scriptura (the Bible as sole source of authority) and sola fide (salvation by faith alone). Yet both of these doctrines are neither Jewish, neither biblical, nor genuinely Christian!"

Ariel and I debate these points and many others in the comments to Kineti Le'Tzion - Catholic Relevance. The points made are so important, however, I feel this debate deserves more visibility than dueling comments in a buried blog post!

To keep things reasonable short and concise, since so many of you [ahem, Gary] refuse to read long posts, I'm going to address only a single issue today:

Should we have a Pope?

Ariel states the Catholic position this way:

The fact that Jesus appointed Peter to be "the rock on which I will build my Church" is quite clear from the NT. See the wealth of other scriptures and quotes from the early church (way before Constantine!) in this presentation.

Ariel is referring to the following Scripture, Matthew's record of the gospel, ch. 16,

Jesus replied, "Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father in heaven. And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven."

It is from this Scripture that Catholics claim the Roman Catholic Church is the only true church of Jesus Christ. Indeed, Catholics claim Peter was the first Pope in a succession of popes leading up to the current Roman Catholic Church head:

While Catholics claim the Apostle Peter was the first Pope, the current Pope is Joseph Ratzinger, now called Pope Benedict XVI, a former Hitler Youth (though it's claimed he had no choice in the matter), is seen above wearing the Mitre (religious headgear), which some folks speculate is the pagan Dagon fish hat, although that is contested.

So, are the Catholics correct? Was Peter the first Pope? Did Jesus give authority to Peter to be the first Pope? Did Jesus authorize the creation of a church built on Peter in Rome?

Let's examine the evidence and come to a conclusion.

The first matter is the very Scripture itself. A few things strike me about this quotation:

• "You are Peter, and upon this rock..." - This is Greek word play. The Greek "Petras" means rock or stone, so it appears Jesus is playing a word game by saying "You are Petros, and upon this petras..."
  
  
• "I will build my church" - This translation and understanding is based on the faulty assumption that Jesus is starting a new religion. After all, we think of "church" as a big building with a steeple symbolizing organized religion, or perhaps a large religious organization itself like the Catholic Church. However, Jesus did not come to start a new religion, and this is evident in the fact that word "church" here is the very same Greek word "ekklesia", which means an assembly of people. Ekklesia is found elsewhere in the Bible -- even the Old Testament! -- but only in the New Testament is it translated in this way, perhaps intentionally as a way for the Church to validate its existence, sadly.
  
  
• "The gates of Hades will not overcome it" - I always get a kick out of this. Why would Jesus, a Torah-observant Jewish rabbi, talk about the pagan Greek god of the dead, Hades? Given that speaking the name of false gods is a sin according to Torah, if Jesus really did say this, he would not have been sinless - very consequential to Christian doctrine. Interesting! More on this in a moment.
  

So, what's the deal with all this? Is Jesus starting a new religion founded on Peter? Did Jesus break a Torah mitzvot by speaking the name of Greek god of the dead, thus sinning? The answer lies in the original text.

The book of Matthew was originally written in Hebrew, a document attested to by the early Church fathers Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Jerome, Papias, and Irenaeous. (Despite this evidence, some modern scholars debate Hebrew Matthew's existence.)

In any case, we no longer have the original Hebrew Matthew, it has since been lost. We do, however, have a Hebrew manuscript of what is believed to be the original Hebrew, in the form of a medieval document written by a Spanish Jewish physician, Shem Tov ben Isaac ben Shaprut. This Hebrew version of Matthew is dubbed Shem Tov's Hebrew Matthew.

(It should be noted there is debate among scholars and Christians as to whether Shem Tov's Matthew is a manuscript from Hebrew or a translation from Latin or Greek. In the very least, there exists in Shem Tov's Hebrew Matthew some rabbinic Judaic bias, such as writing Messiah's name blasphemously¹.)

I wanted to get my hands on this and see what the Hebrew Matthew had to say about Jesus building a church on Peter. 2 weeks ago, I did just that, and began studying Shem Tov's Hebrew Matthew. Unsurprisingly, using the Hebrew names1, it reads much differently than the Greek:

[Y'shua] said to him, "Blessed are you, Shimon ben Yochanan, because flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. I say to you: you are a stone and I will build upon you my house of prayer. The gates of Gehenna will not prevail against you because I have given you the keys to the kingdom of heaven. Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven; whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.

Now this is interesting. In the Shem Tov's Hebrew Matthew, we see that no longer is Messiah saying he'll build a church, which implies Jesus is creating a new religion. He instead says he will build a house of prayer, which does not imply a new religion or anything foreign to the Jewish faith.

What did Messiah mean when he said he'd build a house of prayer, you ask? Is He talking about building the Catholic Church? No, it seems obvious what he meant: since Messiah later revealed to Peter that the gentiles are to be included in the faith of the God of Israel, Peter was the foundation of what became a massive gentile following of Jesus that we have today. That gentile following of Messiah is the house of prayer. It does not speak to one particular denomination, Catholic or otherwise. Thus, whether Peter visited Rome or founded a church there -- a debatable point Catholics and Protestants have argued over for centuries -- is irrelevant.

Another interesting bit about this Scripture is how the difficult problem of "Hades" goes away in the Hebrew. While Hades was a Greek god of the underworld, Gehenna was a real place outside Jerusalem that became essentially a garbage dump where fires were burned continuously to consume the refuse of the city. Canaanite pagans had previously sacrificed their children to their false god, Santa Clause Molech, in the valley of Gehenna, so there was also a dark evil associated with the place.

Another interesting bit is how the Hebrew says, "the gates of Gehenna will not prevail against you", as opposed to the Greek reading, "the gates of Hades will not prevail against it [the Church]". The Hebrew is saying Gehenna will not prevail against Peter, the Greek is saying the gates of Hades will not prevail against the Church.

Given this understanding, I see no Scriptural evidence supporting the idea of a Pope, who presumes himself to be Jesus Christ on earth, infallible. On the contrary, I see Scriptures that indicate such presumption to be haughty, if not blasphemous.

The final idea we need to address -- because this confronts both Catholic and Protestant Christianity head on -- is the idea that Jesus came to start a new religion.

Some Christians deny this, saying it is the Jews who created the new religion, or that true Christianity is not different than the original faith in the God of Israel.

But these same Christians betray themselves by saying the Torah is passed away, that Jesus' grace replaces God's Law, or that we safely ignore God's Law because Jesus "nailed it to the cross". Indeed, my father-in-law once said to me, paraphrasing here, "Judah, Israel doesn't matter anymore -- everything changed with Jesus."

Do you Christian folks who profess such things understand what you're saying?

• If Jesus did away with the Law, then he is a false prophet who would receive capital punishment for leading people away from God.
  
  
• If Jesus did away with the Law, he started a new religion in which the Law is relegated to the back seat, and the Jews would be correct in rejecting Him.
  
  
• If Jesus did away with the Law, or even diminished it in any way, he contradicted his own words and his own actions.
  
  
• If Jesus made less meaningful even the slightest commandment in Torah, he failed to fulfill the messianic prophecies in the Tenakh (Old Testament), thereby rendering his Messianic status a lie.
  
  
• If Jesus replaced Israel with the Church, then Jesus made God out to be a liar; for Jesus would be revoking something God promised to be irrevocable: the Torah will be an everlasting covenant between Himself and Israel.
  
  
• If Jesus "changed everything" such that Torah is diminished, then He did indeed create a new (false) religion, and a Protestant is merely a lesser, misled form of a Catholic, the highest form of follower in this new religion.
  

Let me spell it out in plain words for you: by claiming Jesus somehow diminished the Law, you are unwittingly stating that Jesus is both a false messiah and a false prophet.

Stop with your foolish claims that Jesus somehow diminished the Torah, you're leading people astray.

Greek Jesus vs Hebrew Yeshua

Let's be frank. If the Greek peacenik adonis Iesous Kristo started a new religion, where we're supposed to have big Churches with steeples, celebrate these new holidays called Easter, Christmas, Lent, and Ash Wednesday, Sunday mass, and all the paraphernalia associated with a new religion, then the Catholic Church is right, and we should all convert to Catholicism.

On the other hand, if the Torah-observant, Jewish rabbi Yeshua HaMoshiach didn't start a new religion, then we need to clean up the mess that was created not 100 years after his death, which culminated in the creation of an official state religion in 325 CE, when the Roman Emperor Constantine declared himself the 'Holy' Roman Emperor and Sol Invictus (invincible sun god) and formalized what is today the Roman Catholic Church, complete with its Sun-day based worship.

So, who do you believe in? The Greek Iesous Kristo? Or the Hebrew Yeshua HaMoshiach? They are not one and the same; one is a perversion of the other. Which is it?

Our English Jesus Christ descends from the Greek understanding of Him, not the Hebrew understanding. We have a Greek mindset in these things -- it's no wonder Jews find Jesus so foreign and repugnant! He's tainted with Greek, pagan undertones in all we say about Him, everything from the western 'Christian' holidays, to his supposed diminishing of Torah, to the very halo we paint around His head.

We need to return to the teachings of this Jewish Messiah -- Sabbath, the Feasts of the Lord, Torah -- and get away from the man-made, Hellenized bastardization of these things that we have now in the Roman Catholic Church and its Protestant offspring.

Do we need a Pope to govern The Church? When one realizes the church in its current form is a religious invention of men, the answer becomes clear. What we do need is a return to our being Israel -- a holy, set apart people for God, different from the world -- grafted in not by race, but by belief in the God of Israel who gave Messiah so that both Jews and gentiles can be clean.




1. Shem Tov, himself a devout Jew being persecuted by the church, unfortunately substituted Yeshua's name in the Hebrew Matthew text with the shorter acronym YSH'W, which is a Hebrew acronym that meant to slam Jesus. The acronym's full form is Yemach Shemo Vezichro (literally meaning 'May his name and memory be obliterated'). It is an ancient rabbinic word play on Jesus' Hebrew name Yeshua, and Shem Tov used this shameful name in his manuscript of Hebrew Matthew.

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It's OK, I meant well

How much does one's real motive -- his heartfelt belief on the matter -- influence whether an act is moral or immoral?

If a man murders another, but his heart believed it was done for good, is it still evil? If the man truly believed his action was done out of righteousness or human ethical behavior, does it make the otherwise unethical act more ethical?

I encounter this argument from many gentile Christians who, after being confronted about the very un-Christian backgrounds of supposedly Christian holidays like Easter or Christmas, respond with the quip, "All that may be true, but I'm honoring God in my heart."

It's the religious version of "it's the thought that counts".

It's a good point. I know there are many folks, filled with God's spirit, doing their best to walk a righteous life before God and relying on God for their righteousness, who are trying to honor God in celebrating Christmas, Easter, Lent and other so-called Christian holidays, as well as now non-Christian holidays such as All Hallow's Eve (Halloween). Gentile Christians have told me many times, "I'm not worshipping my Christmas tree, and these other pagan symbols mean nothing to me, they're harmless decorations!"

Where does that leave us? What's the truth here? Well, let's summarize what we know:

1. The Christian holidays of Easter, Christmas, and Lent were formed from pagan rituals. These were chosen over God's holidays largely because of the hatred of Jews and all things Jewish in the early gentile Church. (See Church: Behold Your Founder) For example, man's Easter was chosen over God's Passover because Roman Emperor and founder of the Roman Catholic Church, Constantine, decreed in the 325 CE,

   "We ought not therefore to have anything in common with the Jew. It would be your duty not to tarnish your soul by communication with such wicked people (the Jews). It was declared to be particularly unworthy for this, the holiest of festivals, to follow the customs (the calculation) of the Jews who had soiled their hands with the most fearful of crimes, and whose minds were blinded. In rejecting their custom we may transmit to our descendants the legitimate mode of celebrating Easter. You should consider not only that the number of churches in these provinces make a majority, but also that it is right to demand what our reason approves, and that we should have nothing in common with the Jews."



2. These holidays have largely been scrubbed of their former pagan symbolism and racist past, although some forms still exist. Easter eggs, Easter rabbits, yule tide, mistletoe, Christmas trees, silver testicles of the Egyptian god Ra (excuse me, silver balls on Christmas trees), candles on Christmas trees, and the mythical St. Nick who knows when you're sleeping or when you're awake and whether you've been bad or good, are a few examples.


3. Most Christians are unaware of the pagan and anti-Jewish, anti-Torah backgrounds of these holidays.


4. The few Christians who have knowledge of this and continue to celebrate have justified their doing so by saying they are honoring God in their heart.


5. It is true that most Christians who are truly desiring to walk with God are, in fact, trying to honor God through these holidays, despite their pagan and racist backgrounds.

So, are Christians right in saying, "These holidays are what I make them to be, the pagan & anti-Jewish backgrounds don't mean anything to me"?

I'd like to look at Scripture and see. Is there anything in Scripture that would indicate either way? Let's look.

From the Torah

One thing that immediately comes to mind is something found back in the Torah. When Moses ascended the mountain to receive the commandments, the people of Israel became weary and, in their impatience, melted down their gold and from it, formed an undoubtedly beautiful golden statue of a calf, and worshiped it. To us, this sounds like pretty straightforward idolatry, doesn't it?

But a crux most Christians miss in this story is something that Jewish tradition holds: the golden calf they molded wasn't a new god; after all, the Lord was doing all kinds of miracles right before their eyes -- the splitting of the Red Sea, the leading pillar of cloud by day, the leading pillar of fire by night, the closing of the sea on the Egyptians, the giving of manna and water in the middle of the Negev desert -- the Israelites weren't in the market for a new god.

This golden calf was not a new god, no, Jewish tradition holds the calf was molded for the "unseen God", the Lord, who rode invisibly on the back of this calf. The Egyptian tradition of creating idols of their gods riding triumphantly on the backs of cattle was borrowed by the Israelites, and now the Israelites were making an idol for the Lord, the invisible god, riding on the back of a golden calf.

Still with me?

If this tradition holds water, the Israelites meant well. In fact, they were worshipping the Lord.

But this was something God didn't approve of, despite Israel's good intentions. Why? They were mixing holy and profane: a tradition of the world mixed with an otherwise holy people and holy God.

From the B'rit Chadasha (New Testament)

When Messiah went to the Temple in Jerusalem, he encountered folks who were selling the necessities for offerings in the Temple -- grain offerings, sin offerings, praise offerings -- as commanded by the Torah.

These folks meant well, they were even helping those who were giving to God. But when Messiah saw them, he did something rather unexpected and violent,

Jesus entered the temple area and drove out all who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves. "It is written," he said to them, " 'My house will be called a house of prayer,' but you are making it a 'den of robbers.'"

Despite the good intentions of those selling offerings for the Temple, Messiah rebuked them and sent them away. Why? Mixing holy and profane, mixing God's house with man's market.

What about when Messiah related to his followers all the things that must happen to him and how the Messiah must suffer and die? Kefa (Peter) responded, "Never!"

Certainly Peter had good intentions and meant well; he was stating he'd never let harm come to Yeshua. But did Peter's good intentions spare him?

From that time on Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, chief priests and teachers of the Torah, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.

Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. "Never, Master!" he said. "This shall never happen to you!"

Jesus turned and said to Peter, "Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men."

Wow. Why did Messiah himself come against Peter so harshly, especially when his intentions were good? Because he was mixing holy and profane; God's plan mixed with man's ideas. Peter meant well, even meant to glorify God, but that didn't make it right.

From logic and reason

If heart-felt motive is the only thing that determines whether an act is moral, anarchy exists and morality is relative.

Taken to an extreme end, the thinking of "It's OK because I mean well" results in any act being defensible. I could steal from you justly because I was fully convinced in my own mind that stealing from people wealthier than myself is morally good; a modern Robin Hood, if you will.

A more reasonable position, some might say, is that because you are fully convinced that a mother has a right to choose whether to let her developing child live or die, and because the mother's intention isn't evil -- she just doesn't want to have kids -- it is morally acceptable and agreeable that she kill her child abort the fetus if she so chooses.

When led to it's ultimate end, any crime is a non-crime, every sin is a non-sin, if we define morality or righteousness as "whatever I want it to be" or "whatever the purpose of my heart is", we're left with a humanist's utopia: relative moralism, no real rights or wrongs, nothing truly righteous, nothing truly evil.

Conclusion

Indeed, such thinking will lead one to a kind of washy unitarianism: for if the intent of one's heart is what matters, who's to say Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims, and other world religions have it wrong? They all believe in their heart they're following God, in some form or another, so why bother them?

If believers in Messiah can justify observing the world's holidays in good conscience, with all the pagan and anti-Jewish paraphernalia associated with Easter, Christmas, and Lent, we cancel out a gospel that insists on itself as the only way to God, we cancel out absolute morality, we remove the very idea of righteousness. We relegate absolute morality to the backseat, placing a greater importance on the intent of one's heart, allowing for wiggle room.

We've discovered in Scripture that one can try to please God and still do something unpleasing to God. We've seen that intent of the heart isn't the only thing that matters. While God does look on the heart, it can't be the only scale of right and wrong.

Your celebrating Easter is no better than putting a cross on a Buddha; we're mixing holy and profane. One must ask Christians, would you feel comfortable with celebrating such things if Messiah was visiting your home tonight? Would you talk to him how beautiful your adorned tree looks? How much fun the kids had at the Easter egg hunt? And then tell Him how you're doing these things in His name and for His sake? I can only imagine his response!

No matter how much we convince ourselves otherwise, seemingly harmless things like this do not honor God. God is not honored by your Christmas tree, God is not honored by your Easter eggs. Let's stop pretending otherwise.

Church, Behold Your Founder

Earlier this week, I covered how Constantine, the Holy Roman Emperor and sun worshiper, converted the Roman Empire to Christianity and founded what became the Roman Catholic Church in the early 4th century.

During this process, Constantine found it no difficult matter to integrate his old ways -- Mithraism, pagan holidays, rituals, and festivals -- into his new state religion. This includes replacing God's Passover with Easter (named after a pagan goddess), replacing God's Sabbath with Constantine's favorite day, the day of the sun, to name just a few. Admittedly, some of these teachings were already infiltrating the body of Messiah by this time; Constantine merely made it official.

On the venerable day of the Sun let the magistrates and people residing in cities rest, and let all workshops be closed. In the country however persons engaged in agriculture may freely and lawfully continue their pursuits because it often happens that another day is not suitable for grain-sowing or vine planting; lest by neglecting the proper moment for such operations the bounty of heaven should be lost.

-Constantine, dies Solis decree, 320CE

Constantine was also fiercely racist; his hatred and contempt for Jews survive in his writings and decrees to this day.

Unfortunately and sadly, Christianity looks to Constantine and his first Nicaean council and resulting Nicaean Creed as a basic doctrine and statement of faith, even to this day.

If more people read some of transcripts from Nicaea, we'd be less accepting of the trademarks of western gentile Christianity -- Easter, Lent, Christmas, Sunday sabbath. Don't take my word for it, below is a Nicaean transcript regarding Passover, and whether to replace that "despicable, ugly Jewish festival" with something more, errmmm, Christian. You know, something on the day of the sun.

Be forewarned: this central Christian doctrine contains racist language directed towards Jews.

When the question relative to the sacred festival of Easter arose, it was universally thought that it would be convenient that all should keep the feast on one day; for what could be more beautiful and more desirable than to see this festival, through which we receive the hope of immortality, celebrated by all with one accord and in the same manner? It was declared to be particularly unworthy for this, the holiest of festivals, to follow the customs (the calculation) of the Jews who had soiled their hands with the most fearful of crimes, and whose minds were blinded. In rejecting their custom we may transmit to our descendants the legitimate mode of celebrating Easter; which we have observed from the time of the Saviour’s passion (according to the day of the week).

We ought not therefore to have anything in common with the Jew, for the Saviour has shown us another way; our worship following a more legitimate and more convenient course (the order of the days of the week: And consequently in unanimously adopting this mode, we desire, dearest brethren to separate ourselves from the detestable company of the Jew. For it is truly shameful for us to hear them boast that without their direction we could not keep this feast. How can they be in the right, they who, after the death of the Saviour, have no longer been led by reason but by wild violence, as their delusion may urge them? They do not possess the truth in this Easter question, for in their blindness and repugnance to all improvements they frequently celebrate two Passovers in the same year. We could not imitate those who are openly in error.

How, then, could we follow these Jews who are most certainly blinded by error? For to celebrate a Passover twice in one year, is totally inadmissible.

But even if this were not so it would still be your duty not to tarnish your soul by communication with such wicked people (the Jews). You should consider not only that the number of churches in these provinces make a majority, but also that it is right to demand what our reason approves, and that we should have nothing in common with the Jews.[1]

Thus, for the last 1700 years, Christians think of Passover as something "Jewish", despite all the apostles, Paul, and Messiah himself keeping God's festival of Passover. We instead celebrate Jesus' resurrection on a day named after a pagan fertility goddess, Easter.

It's no wonder most Jews don't believe in Messiah; these early Christians were so anti-Jewish, they would likely die in horror to find Messiah himself was a Jew.

After the council of Nicaea, Christianity steadily diverted from its Hebrew roots and abandoned most everything the early Messiah-followers were accustomed to: Sabbath keeping, celebrating God's festivals, keeping Torah. It truly became a new religion because of these men, as opposed to "The Way" sect of Judaism it started out as.

To this day, most Christians are still convinced such things are "Jewish" and have no place in the life of a Christian. It is my goal to refute such anti-semitic lies, bring clarity, and restore the Hebrew roots of the modern religion of Christianity.

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footnotes:
1. Gleaned from Dr. Henry R. Percival’s “The Nicean and post Nicean Fathers”. Vol. XIV Grand Rapid: Erdmans pub. 1979,pgs. 54-55

Forgive Me Father, For I Have Sinned: A Catholic Confession on Sabbath

God knew what he was doing when he made for us a Sabbath: a day of rest for humanity. A break from the daily grind. A time to have some rest and peace -- true shalom -- with God.

The concept of Sabbath is a very old one in Judaism and Christianity. In the first book of the Hebrew and Christian Bibles, in the first few chapters, God lays in place the foundations for an eternal, everlasting holiday made by God himself:

By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. And God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.

When God revealed his ways to us, he gave us the command explicitly, repeated several times:

Say to the Israelites, 'You must observe my Sabbaths. This will be a sign between me and you for the generations to come, so you may know that I am the LORD, who makes you holy.

--

Bear in mind that the LORD has given you the Sabbath; that is why on the sixth day he gives you bread for two days. Everyone is to stay where he is on the seventh day; no one is to go out.

--

Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy.

--

The seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your manservant or maidservant, nor your animals, nor the alien within your gates.

--

For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.

Does Sabbath matter to Christians anymore?

When I tell Christians of the wonderful rest I receive from God every Sabbath -- the special time I can spend in shalom with God, taking a break from the world and spending time resting and worshipping God -- I'm often retorted with a Pauline quip accusing me of being under the Law, not under grace, and a legalist. Ouch!

But what does Scripture really say? Well, the Hebrew Scriptures are quite clear on this, as you can see from the above quotes. The Hebrew Scriptures are part of the Christian bible, however, not all Christians follow Hebrew Scripture. So how about the Christian-specific part of the Christian bible -- the New Testament, the apostolic writings? What does Messiah have to say on the Sabbath?

The answer is that Messiah tells us that the Sabbath was created *for* us,

One Sabbath Jesus was going through the grainfields, and as his disciples walked along, they began to pick some heads of grain. The Pharisees said to him, "Look, why are they doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath?"

He answered, "Have you never read what David did when he and his companions were hungry and in need? In the days of Abiathar the high priest, he entered the house of God and ate the consecrated bread, which is lawful only for priests to eat. And he also gave some to his companions."

Then he said to them, "The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. So the Son of Man is Master of the Sabbath."

If Sabbath was created for us, why are we ignoring it now? If Messiah is the Master of the Sabbath, why do we ignore Sabbath?

In the New Testament, the writer of the Christian book of Hebrews speaks of the relevance of Sabbath,

Therefore, since the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us be careful that none of you be found to have fallen short of it.

His work has been finished since the creation of the world. He has spoken about the seventh day in these words: "And on the seventh day God rested from all his work."

In the New Testament, Paul also tells us not to let anyone judge us in regards to keeping the Sabbath or any of the festivals:

Therefore do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a New Moon celebration or a Sabbath day.

Paul was undoubtedly hitting the same stifling religious spirit of the Pharisees, who rebuked Messiah because he had healed and picked grain to eat on Sabbath.

If Hebrews tells us a Sabbath remains for the people of God, then what happened? Why is there no real Sabbath, no real rest for us today? Instead of rest, most of us do all of our housework, shopping, and yard work on the weekend, we watch some football, maybe go to church, go out to eat, then call it a day. That's not rest.

That's not holy, either. In Scripture, holy comes from the Hebrew kadosh, which means set-apart. The Sabbath is not set apart for God in our western culture, but rather, it's ignored and made like any other day of the week, breaking one of the first commandments God gave to mankind.

If God's rest is so great, why did we lose it?

Well, the Roman Catholic Church -- in a kind of rebellion against the original faith -- broke from the Sabbath, the commandments, God's festivals, and all things "Jewish", replacing it with man-made holidays based around the existing pagan festivals at the time. Such was instituted at the outset of the 'Holy' Roman Catholic Church, starting with the first Pope [update: objections to this assertion, see footnote 1], Constantine, in 325 CE. Constantine, a sun worshiper himself according to his Mithra religion, had previously declared his sun-day the official, state-sanctioned day of rest:

"On the venerable day of the Sun let the magistrates and people residing in cities rest, and let all workshops be closed. In the country however persons engaged in agriculture may freely and lawfully continue their pursuits because it oftne happens that another day is not suitable for grain-sowing or vine-planting; lest by neglecting the proper moment for such operations the bounty of heaven should be lost."

-Constantine, Dies Solis decree, 321

Below is quotes from prominent Catholics regarding why they changed the Sabbath by their own authority.

Catholic Confessions About Sunday

• Confession Number 1: The Catholic Church admits it changed God's Sabbath from Saturday to Sunday.

Q. Which is the Sabbath Day?

A. Saturday is the Sabbath day.

Q. Why do we observe Sunday instead of Saturday?

"A. We observe Sunday instead of Saturday because the Catholic Church transferred the solemnity from Saturday to Sunday." Peter Guierman, The Convert's Catechism of Catholic Doctrine (1957 ed.), P. 50. Copyright 1930 by B Herder Book Co., St Louis. Used by permission.

"The Catholic Church for over one thousand years before the existence of a Protestant, by virtue of her Divine mission, changed the day (of worship) from Saturday to Sunday. . . . The Christian Sabbath is therefore to this day the acknowledged offspring of the Catholic Church, as Spouse of the Holy Ghost, without a word of remonstrance from the Protestant world." Editorial, The Catholic Mirror ( Baltimore ), September 23, 1893

"The Divine institution of a day of rest from ordinary occupations and of religious worship, transferred by the authority of the (Catholic) Church from the Sabbath, the last day, to Sunday the first day of the week, . . . is one of the most patent signs that we are a Christian people." James Cardinal Gibbons, The Cross and the Flag, Our Church and Country (New York: The Catholic Historical League of America, 1899), pp 24, 25.

• Confession 2: Catholic authorities confess there is no Scriptural support for changing God's Sabbath to Sunday.

"Nowhere in the Bible is it stated that worship should be changed from Saturday to Sunday." Martin J. Scott, Things Catholics Are Asked About ( New York : P.J. Ken edy & Sons), p. 136 Copyright 1927 by P.J. Ken eday & Sons. New York . Used by permission.

"You may read the Bible from Genesis to Revelation, and you will not find a single line authorizing the sanctification of Sunday. The Scriptures enforce the religious observance of Saturday, a day which we never sanctify." Cardinal Gibbons (for many years head of the Catholic Church in America ). The Faith of Our Fathers (92nd ed.,rev.; Baltimore : John Murphy Company), p. 89.

"Nowhere in the Bible do we find that Christ or the Apostles ordered that the Sabbath be changed from Saturday to Sunday. We have the commandment of God given to Moses to keep holy the Sabbath Day, that is the 7th day of the week, Saturday. Today most Christians keep Sunday because it has been revealed to us by the (Catholic ) Church outside the Bible." "To Tell You the Truth." The Catholic Virginian, 22 (October 223 1947),, 9.

"Q. Have you any other way of proving that the (Catholic) Church has power to institute festivals of precept?

"A. Had she not such power, she could not have done that in which all modern religionists agree with her;. . .she could not have substituted the observance of Sunday the first day of the week, for the observance of Saturday the seventh, day, a change for which there is no Scriptural authority." Stephen Keenan, A Doctrinal Catechism (3d American ed., rev,; New York : T.W. Strong. late Edward Dunigan & Bro. 1876), p. 174.

• Confession 3: Protestants who keep Sunday as a holy day pay homage to the Catholic Church, since it was the Catholic Church that turned Sunday into a holy day.

"But the Protestant says: How can I receive the teachings of an apostate Church? How, we ask, have you managed to receive her teachings all your life, in direct opposition to your recognized teacher, the Bible, on the Sabbath question?". (The Christian Sabbath ) 2nd ed.; Baltimore ; The Catholic Mirror, 1893), p. 29, 30.

"If Protestants would follow the Bible, they should worship God on the Sabbath Day. In keeping Sunday they are following a law of the Catholic Church." Albert Smith (Chancellor of the Catholic Archdiocise of Baltimore), replying for the Cardinal in a letter of February 10, 11920.)

"It was the Catholic Church which, by the authority of JESUS CHRIST, has transferred this (Sabbath) rest to the Sunday in remembrance of the resurrection of our Lord. Thus the observance of Sunday by the Protestants is an homage they pay, in spite of themselves to the authority of the (Catholic) Church," Louis Gaston de Segur, Plain Talk About The Protestantism of To-day. (Boston: Patrick Donahoe, 1868), p. 225.

"Protestantism, in discarding the authority of the (Catholic) Church, has no good reason for its Sunday theory, and ought, logically, to keep Saturday as the Sabbath. . . ' John Golmary Shae, "The Observance of Sunday and Civil Laws for Its Enforcement." The American Catholic Quarterly Review, 8 (January, 1883), 152.

• Confession 4: Catholic authorities claim the Seventh Day Adventist Church is the only major Protestant denomination keeping the Scriptural Sabbath.

"The (Catholic) Church changed the observance of the Sabbath to Sunday by right of the divine, infallible authority given to her by her Founder, Jesus Christ. The Protestant, claiming the Bible to be the only guide of faith, has no warrant for observing Sunday. In this matter the Seventh Day Adventist is the only consistent protestant." "The Question Box," The Catholic Universe Bulletin, 69 (August 14, 1942). 4.

"The Israelite respects the authority of the Old Testament only, but the (Seventh-day Adventist, who is Christian accepts the New Testament on the same ground as the Old viz: an inspired record also. He finds that the Bible, his teacher, is consistent in both parts that the Redeemer, during His mortal life never kept any other day than Saturday. The Gospels plainly evince to Him this fact: whilst, in the pages of the Acts of the Apostles, the Epistles and the Apocallypse, not the vistige of an act cancelling the Saturday arrangement can be found." Editorial, The Catholic Mirror ( Baltimore ), September 2, 1893.

"What Bible authority is there for changing the sabbath from the seventh to the first day of the week?

"Who gave the Pope the authority to change a command of God? If one follows Scripture alone, there's no question one is obliged to keep the Scriptural Sabbath, as it is prescribed by God himself to be kept holy.

With such strong-arming of God's commandments by the Roman Catholic Church, it is no surprise that the daughter of the Catholic Church, the Protestant church, inherited these man-made traditions that replace God's commandments. To this day, most Protestants continue in the ways of the old Catholic religion and disregard one of the first commandments in Scripture: to remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy. Nonetheless, it is a terrible shame that the Protestant Reformation, which threw out many of the fallacies of the Catholic Church, failed to go the last mile and restore the Sabbath day. Instead we are left with the inherited lies of our fathers, the religion of man-made rituals that replace the things of God.

Footnotes:

1. *Update: A Catholic commenter asserts Constantine was not the first pope. At most, Constantine was the Roman Emperor, who founded what is now the Roman Catholic Church. I can't find any historical references to him being referred to as a pope; instead he was Holy Roman Emperor, a sun worshiper who, after his conversion to Christianity, mixed his former Mithra religion as well as various pagan religions of the Roman Empire in the creation of the new formal state religion of Rome, which later became Roman Catholic Christianity.


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Halloween and celebrating man's festivals

Rabbi Scott Sekulow talks about Halloween from a Scriptural perspective.

If you've read this blog for the last few months, you'll know I'm a strong supporter of God's festivals -- you know, the one's God told us to celebrate in Scripture: Passover, Unleavened Bread, First Fruits, Pentacost, Shofars, Atonement, Tabernacles. These honor God and are awesome prophetic pictures of Messiah: things he accomplished when he first arrived and things he will accomplish when he returns.

One cannot love God without subtracting from love of the world. Messiah put it this way,

Anyone who loves his father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves his son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.

And again he told us,

If anyone comes after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it. What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit his very self? If anyone is ashamed of me and my words, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when he comes in his glory and in the glory of the Father and the angels.

Likewise, we cannot embrace the things of God without discarding the things of the world.

It's a simple equation: you + God = you - world

Enter Halloween.

Halloween is a rather unique man-made holiday in that no one really hides or denies the pagan, satanic, witchcraft from which it sprouted. (Contrast this with Easter or Christmas, both which have similar backgrounds, but is often denied by some Christians.)

When I married my wife, she had already been celebrating Halloween, so I've followed along. This year, however, I've come to the conclusion and have been convicted that it does mean something to God. It doesn't honor God, even though we have, for the masses, thoroughly sanitized the holiday of any tangible evil. Doesn't matter though, it doesn't honor God, it's from the evil one, and I am now convicted it has no place in the life of a proud Messiah follower who is unashamed of God and the awesome things God does on our behalf.

This year I'm not going to take part in the Halloween celebrations; not as some holier-than-thou thing, after all, I've had my share of lying, cheating, and all kinds of immoral behavior, but I can nonetheless strive to live for God, despite my failures. Gotta dig myself out of this worldly culture that has otherwise consumed me.



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