Posted on 09/20/2006 10:14:32 AM PDT by Buggman
As many of you already know, we are entering into the fall High Holy Days, comprised of the Feasts of Trumpets, Atonement, and Tabernacles. Just as the spring Feastdays celebrate the First Coming of Messiah Yeshua, and Shavuot (Pentecost) celebrates the giving of the Ruach HaKodesh (the Holy Spirit) to the Ekklesia in between the visitations of Yeshua, the Fall Feastdays look forward to His Second Coming—and in particular, the Feast of Trumpets looks forward to His Glorious Appearance in the clouds of heaven!
The day which this year falls on September 23 (beginning at sundown the previous night) is known by many names, but is little understood. The most commonly used today is Rosh Hashanah, the Head of the Year or New Year, and is regarded as the start of the Jewish civil calendar. (The religious calendar begins on the first of Nisan, fourteen days before Passover, in accordance with Exo. 12:2.) For this reasons, Jews will greet each other with the phrase, “L’shana tova u-metukah,” “May you have a good and sweet new year” or simply “Shanah tova,” “A good year.” In anticipation of this sweet new year, it is customary to eat a sweet fruit, like an apple or carrot dipped in honey.
The Talmud records the belief that “In the month of Tishri, the world was created” (Rosh Hashanah 10b), and its probably due to this belief that it became known as the Jewish New Year. The belief that the world was created on Rosh Hashanah came out of an anagram: The letters of the first word in the Bible, “In the beginning . . .” (B’resheit) can be rearranged to say, “1 Tishri” (Aleph b’Tishri). Perhaps because so little is directly said in Scripture about this day—unlike all of the other Feastdays, there is no historical precedent given to explain why Rosh Hashanah should be celebrated—the rabbis also speculated that Adam, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Samuel were all born on this day.
However, that’s not it’s Biblical name, which is Yom Teruah, the Day of the [Trumpet] Blast:
And YHVH spake unto Moses, saying, “Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, ‘In the seventh month, in the first day of the month, shall ye have a sabbath, a memorial of blowing (Heb. zikrown teruah) [of trumpets], an holy convocation. Ye shall do no servile work therein: but ye shall offer an offering made by fire unto YHVH.’” (Lev. 23:23-25)In each of these passages, I’ve placed “trumpets” in brackets because it’s not actually in the Hebrew text; however, teruah can and usually does mean to sound the trumpet (though it can mean to shout with a voice as well) and the use of a trumpet on this day is considered so axiomatic that there is literally no debate in Jewish tradition on the matter. Specifically, the trumpet used is the shofar. The shofar is traditionally always made from the horn of a ram, in honor of the ram that God substituted for Isaac, and never from a bull’s horn, in memory of the sin of the golden calf.And in the seventh month, on the first day of the month, ye shall have an holy convocation; ye shall do no servile work: it is a day of blowing (teruah) [the trumpets] unto you. (Num. 29:1)
The shofar first appears in Scripture as heralding the visible appearance of God coming down on Mt. Sinai to meet with His people (Ex. 19:16-19). It is also linked with His Coming in Zec. 9:14 and with Him going up (making aliyah) to Jerusalem in Psa. 47:5. Small wonder then that Yeshua said He would Come again with the sound of a trumpet, a shofar, in Mat. 24:31, which is echoed by Sha’ul (Paul) in 1 Th. 4:16 and 1 Co. 15:52. Indeed, many commentators have recognized that by “the last trump,” Sha’ul was referring to the final shofar blast, called the Tekia HaGadol, of the Feast of Trumpets.
This visitation by YHVH is closely associated with the second of this Feastdays names: Yom Zikkroun, the Day of Remembrance. This is not primarily meant to be a day when the people remember God, but when God remembers His people—not that He has forgotten them, but in which He fulfills His promises to them by Coming to them. In Isa. 27:13, it is the instrument used to call God’s people Israel back to the Land. In Psalm 27, which is traditionally read in the month leading up to Yom Teruah, we see the Psalmist looking forward to God rescuing him from his enemies:
Among the rabbis, the shofar is often associated with the Coming of the Messiah and the Resurrection of the Dead as well. “According to the Alphabet Midrash of Rabbi Akiva, seven shofars announce successive steps of the resurrection process, with Zechariah 9:14 quoted as a proof text: ‘And Adonai the Lord will blow the shofar’” (Stern, David H., Jewish New Testament Commentary, 489f). “And it is the shofar that the Holy One, blessed be He, is destined to blow when the Son of David, our righteous one, will reveal himself, as it is said, ‘And the Lord GOD will blow the shofar’” (Tanna debe Eliyahu Zutta XXII). It’s interesting that the rabbis, without the benefit of the New Covenant writings, have come to the same conclusions as the Apostles: That YHVH would visit His people in the person of the Messiah and raise the dead on Yom Teruah (also in the Bablyonian Talmud, Rosh Hashanah 16b). On Yom Teruah, the shofar not only rouses the people from their complacency, but the very dead from their graves. (See Job 19:25-27, Isa. 26:19, and Dan. 12:2 for the Tanakh’s primary passages on the Resurrection.)Though an host should encamp against me,
My heart shall not fear:
Though war should rise against me,
In this will I be confident . . .For in the time of trouble He shall hide me in His pavilion:
In the secret of His tabernacle shall He hide me;
He shall set me up upon a rock. . .
The shofar is an instrument that is very much associated with war (Jdg. 3:27, 2 Sa. 20:1, Neh. 4:18-22, Ezk. 33:3-6). It was used to destroy the walls of Jericho (Jdg. 6:20). In Joel 2:1, it sounds the start of the Day of the Lord, the time in which God will make war on His enemies: “Blow ye the trumpet in Zion, and sound an alarm in My holy mountain: let all the inhabitants of the land tremble: for the Day of YHVH cometh, for it is nigh at hand” (cf. v. 15). This again matches perfectly with the NT, where Sha’ul describes the Lord’s coming with a trumpet immediately preceding the Day of the Lord (1 Th. 4:16, 5:2).
This brings us to the next name for this Feastday, Yom HaDin, Judgment Day. Not only did the shofar sound the call for war, but also the coronation of kings (2 Sa. 15:10; 1 Ki. 1:34, 29; 2 Ki. 9:13, 11:12-14). Therefore, the rabbis have always associated this day with God’s sovereign Kingship over all mankind: “On Rosh Hashanah all human beings pass before Him as troops, as it is said, ‘The LORD looketh from heaven; He beholdeth all the sons of men. From the place of His habitation He looketh upon all the inhabitants of the earth. He fashioneth their hearts alike; He considereth all their works’” (Rosh Hashanah 6b, quoting Psa. 53:13-15). To remember God’s Kingship, it is traditional to eat round objects to remind us of God’s crown (oriental crowns being shaped as skullcaps instead of circlets). For example, challah is made to be round instead of braided as it normally is.
Because this day is associated with God’s judgment, it is also considered a time of repentance (t’shuva) in preparation for Yom Kippur. The Casting (Tashlikh) Ceremony, in which observant Jews gather together at the shores of oceans, lakes, and rivers and cast in stones and/or crumbs of bread to symbolize “casting off” their sins, is performed on this day to a prayer comprised of Mic. 7:18-20, Psa. 118:5-9, Psa. 33 and 130, and often finishing with Isa. 11:9.
The Talmud (ibid.) goes on to say that on this day, all mankind is divided into three types of people. The wholly righteous were immediately written in the Book of Life (Exo. 32:33, Psa. 69:28) for another year. The wholly wicked were blotted out of the Book of Life, condemned to die in the coming year. Those in between, if they truly repented before the end of Yom Kippur, could likewise be scribed in the Book of Life for another year. For this reason, a common greeting at this time is “L’shana tova tikatevu,” which means, “May you be inscribed [in the Book of Life] for a good new year.”He will turn again,
He will have compassion upon us;
He will subdue our iniquities;
And Thou wilt cast all their sins
Into the depths of the sea.
(Mic. 7:19)
The Bible, of course, is clear that one is written in the Lamb’s Book of Life (cf. Php. 4:3; Rev. 3:5, 13:8, 17:8, and 21:27) not by one’s own righteousness, but by receiving the Messiah’s righteousness by faith, trusting in Him, and that there is no in-between; one either trusts God or one doesn’t. Nevertheless, a great eschatological truth is preserved for us in this rabbinical tradition. At the time of Yeshua’s Second Coming, all mankind will be divided into three groups. Those who have already trusted in the Messiah will be Resurrected and Raptured to be with Him immediately upon His Coming on the clouds of the sky. Those who have taken the mark of the Beast and have chosen to remain with the Wicked One will be slated to die in the Day of the Lord, which for reasons that are beyond the scope of this essay to address, I believe will last for about a year.
However, there will also be a third group, who neither had believed in the Messiah until they saw Him Coming on the clouds but who also had not taken the mark of the Beast. Many of these will be Jews, who will mourn at His coming and so have a fount of forgiveness opened to them (Rev. 1:7, Zec. 12:10-13:2)—most prominently, the 144,000 of Rev. 7 and 14. Others will be Gentiles who will be shown mercy because they showed mercy to the children of God (Mat. 25:31ff). These are given the opportunity to repent during the period between the fulfillment of the Feast of Trumpets and the Day of Atonment, called the Days of Awe—a reference, I believe, to the Day of the Lord.
Finally, this day is known as Yom HaKeseh, the Hidden Day. It was a day that could not be calculated, only looked for. Ancient Israel kept its calendar simply by observing the phases of the moon. If a day were overcast, it might cause a delay in the observance of the beginning of the month, the new moon (Rosh Chodesh), the first tiny crescent of light. Every other Feast was at least a few days after the beginning of the month so that it could be calculated and prepared for in advance. For example, after the new moon that marked the beginning of the month of Nisan, the observant Jew knew that he had fourteen days to prepare for the Passover.
Not so Yom HaKeseh. In the absence of reliable astronomical charts and calculations (which were made only centuries after God commanded the Feasts to be observed), the Feast of Trumpets could be anticipated, estimated to be arriving soon, but until two or more witnesses reported the first breaking of the moon’s light after the darkest time of the month, no one knew “the day or hour.” Therefore, it was a tradition not to sleep on Rosh Hashanah, but to remain awake and alert, a tradition alluded to by Sha’ul: “But ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief. Ye are all the children of light, and the children of the day: we are not of the night, nor of darkness. Therefore let us not sleep, as do others; but let us watch and be sober” (1 Th. 5:4-6).
Because of the difficulty of alerting the Jews in the Diaspora when the Sanhedron had decreed the start of the Feast to be, it became traditional to celebrate the first and second day of Tishri together as Yoma Arikhta, “One Long Day.” Is this meant to remind us, perhaps, of when another Y’hoshua (Yeshua) won against his enemies because God cast down great hailstones (like the hailstones of Rev. 16:21) and called upon the Sun to stand still so that they would not escape (Jos. 10:10ff)?
Yom Teruah is a day which ultimately calls all of God’s people together in repentance in anticipation of the glorious Second Coming, in which He will once again visit His people in the Person of the Messiah Yeshua to Resurrect the dead, awaken the living, and judge all mankind together.
Shalom, and Maranatha!
Jude: You say "Catholic" like it's a bad thing.
I'm as critical of the Romanists as the next Protestant, but they didn't get everything wrong. They still worship the Trinitarian God.
And as Topcat pointed out, the "holy catholic church" exists on earth and is made up of all true believers. And for 2,000 years the vast majority of those believers have held to a Sunday sabbath at the beginning of a new week, a new covenant and a new life in Christ.
Absolutely true; they didn't "ignore" them; they said that if you kept the Jewish sabbath, it was "an admission that [you] have failed to receive the gift of grace". That was 200 years before Constantine, BTW.
See my post #495.
I'll give you five bucks for your tagline!
Well somewhere along the line you switched the topic from "sabbath observance" to "synagogue worship".
Sabbath observance can take place in a synagogue, in a house, or down by a river:
Act 16:13 And on the sabbath we went out of the city by a river side, where prayer was wont to be made; and we sat down, and spake unto the women which resorted thither.
No synagogue. No jewish ceremonies, but coming together on the sabbath.
The question has always been whether or not the sabbath was observed by Christians. The answer is of course it was.
Paul believed in the sabbath of God. To state otherwise goes against his word in God inspired scripture:
Act 24:14 But this I confess unto thee, that after the way which they call heresy, so worship I the God of my fathers, believing all things which are written in the law and in the prophets:
Jesus believed in the sabbath, created through him and for him:
Mat 5:17 Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill.
Mat 5:18 For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled
Luk 6:5 And he said unto them, That the Son of man is Lord also of the sabbath.
Mat 12:8 For the Son of man is Lord even of the sabbath day.
Again, a prime opportunity for Jesus, God in the flesh, to state to his followers that the sabbath is no longer in effect. Does he? Nope, he AFFIRMS the sabbath by reminding us that he IS the LORD of the sabbath. He is reminding them, and us, that it is HIS sabbath, his creation.
And as previously pointed out, there is not one hint of controversy in scripture about a decision to NOT observe God's sabbaths.
You have tradition and culture on your side. Fortunately I have a commandment of God, the testimony of Jesus Christ, the testimony of Paul and scripture on my side.
Then again, maybe I don't. Have you ever reflected on the fact that it's the Catholics, perhaps more than any other Christian group, who believe in sanctifying all of time? You can call us Sunday worshippers, and we certainly believe that that Sunday Mass is not optional, but most Catholic parishes have Mass every day, and all Catholics are encouraged to hear Mass every day. That includes Saturday.
Not to mention the sanctification of time by the celebration of the Divine Office (aka the "Liturgy of the Hours").
Christians aren't called to be just Sunday worshippers. They aren't called to be just Saturday worshippers, either. "Pray constantly," Christ said.
Campion: Yes
That a way to Testify, brother! It would be nice for those of us debating you to know exactly what your position is. Since I am in the "sola scriptura" crowd, I know that the Scriptures say Sabbath only. What crowd are you in. Capmion? Please, profess you faith, Campion, for all to see. Sabbath scriptural or created by the Apostolic succession?
As we all are , my good friend. [Worshipers, not nuns, LOL]
Christians aren't called to be just Sunday worshipers. They aren't called to be just Saturday worshipers, either. "Pray constantly," Christ said.
We were told to "Remember the Sabbath Day to keep it Holy" and it was to be our sign to differentiate us from the Nations [Exodus 31:17]. Yes, we all pray constantly, every day....but God still maintains his Holy Sabbaths and we are to celebrate them.
Seven fifty?????
"There is nothing in the language restricting remembering Him to Pesach."
Indeed, I think that the practice of frequently partaking (at the Agape meals http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eucharist#The_Agape_feast ) can be clearly inferred from Paul's instruction to the Corinthians.
"Anyone who eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord unworthily will be behaving unworthily toward the body and blood of the Lord. Everyone is to recollect himself before eating this bread and drinking this cup; because a person who eats and drinks without discerning the Body is eating and drinking his own condemnation. In fact, that is why many of you are weak and ill and some of you have died"
(1 Cor 11:27-30).
To begin, we need to begin with Passover itself. Passover, though a feast of the Lord, is not a sabbath:
Lev 23:5 In the fourteenth day of the first month at even is the LORD's passover.
Num 9:2 Let the children of Israel also keep the passover at his appointed season.
Num 9:3 In the fourteenth day of this month, at even, ye shall keep it in his appointed season: according to all the rites of it, and according to all the ceremonies thereof, shall ye keep it.
Num 9:4 And Moses spoke unto the children of Israel, that they should keep the passover.
Num 9:5 And they kept the passover on the fourteenth day of the first month at even in the wilderness of Sinai: according to all that the LORD commanded Moses, so did the children of Israel.
It of course has it's origin in Israels flight from Egypt:
Exo 12:5 Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male of the first year: ye shall take it out from the sheep, or from the goats:
Exo 12:6 And ye shall keep it up until the fourteenth day of the same month: and the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it in the evening.
Exo 12:7 And they shall take of the blood, and strike it on the two side posts and on the upper door post of the houses, wherein they shall eat it.
Now as you know, this is a clear type of the sacrifice of Christ.
This ceremony was performed every year, once a year, on Passover....sometimes. However, Passover is so important that God said that the Passover could be taken again if someone could not take it the first time:
Num 9:6 And there were certain men, who were defiled by the dead body of a man, that they could not keep the passover on that day: and they came before Moses and before Aaron on that day:
Num 9:7 And those men said unto him, We are defiled by the dead body of a man: wherefore are we kept back, that we may not offer an offering of the LORD in his appointed season among the children of Israel?
Num 9:8 And Moses said unto them, Stand still, and I will hear what the LORD will command concerning you.
Num 9:9 And the LORD spoke unto Moses, saying,
Num 9:10 Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, If any man of you or of your posterity shall be unclean by reason of a dead body, or be in a journey afar off, yet he shall keep the passover unto the LORD.
Num 9:11 The fourteenth day of the second month at even they shall keep it, and eat it with unleavened bread and bitter herbs.
Num 9:12 They shall leave none of it unto the morning, nor break any bone of it: according to all the ordinances of the passover they shall keep it.
So there are two times a year when God said that the Passover could be taken. BTW, this may explain why God created passover as a holy day, but not as a sabbath.
The main point is that each person took it ONCE a year.
God could have just as easily have commanded each person to observe it every day, or every week, or every month, but he didn't. It was (then) a reminder of an event that happened at a certain date in God's timetable.
Fast forward:
Mar 14:16 And his disciples went forth, and came into the city, and found as he had said unto them: and they made ready the passover.
Mar 14:17 And in the evening he cometh with the twelve.
Mar 14:18 And as they sat and did eat, Jesus said, Verily I say unto you, One of you which eateth with me shall betray me.
Mar 14:19 And they began to be sorrowful, and to say unto him one by one, Is it I? and another said, Is it I?
Mar 14:20 And he answered and said unto them, It is one of the twelve, that dippeth with me in the dish.
Mar 14:21 The Son of man indeed goeth, as it is written of him: but woe to that man by whom the Son of man is betrayed! good were it for that man if he had never been born.
Mar 14:22 And as they did eat, Jesus took bread, and blessed, and broke it, and gave to them, and said, Take, eat: this is my body.
Mar 14:23 And he took the cup, and when he had given thanks, he gave it to them: and they all drank of it.
Mar 14:24 And he said unto them, This is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many.
Once again, we find the Passover being taken once a year. However, Jesus, the messiah, now gives new instructions about HOW to celebrate not only passover, but his death.
1Co 11:24 And when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, Take, eat: this is my body, which is broken for you: this.
So the precedent for Godly remembrance of events is once a year, on the anniversery of the event. We do that today for practically all major events. Recently we had the 5 year "remembrance" of 9/11. There were public ceremonies that are not held except at the yearly remembrance. Christ is asking us to commemerate his death, on the holy day that he died on, Passover.
If you forget that some churches take "communion" whenever basically that they please, then the logical conclusion from reading scripture and understanding the holy days of God would be that the passover is taken once a year.
Now about this verse:
(KJVR) For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do show the Lord's death till he come.
This doesn't mean "Take it as often as you want", "eat it as much as you can". If it did, then the proper course of action would be to constantly be eating the passover. It means, "every time you take it".
"The Message" puts it quite nicely:
(MSG) What you must solemnly realize is that every time you eat this bread and every time you drink this cup, you reenact in your words and actions the death of the Master. You will be drawn back to this meal again and again until the Master returns. You must never let familiarity breed contempt.
Or:
(GNB) This means that every time you eat this bread and drink from this cup you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.
When the passover is not taken at the proper, God ordained time, then it ceases to be the passover that God commanded and instead becomes a manmade tradition, prone to being taken unworthily.
I hope this helps....
Thank you Douglas.....very succinct and well thought out.
Thank you diego, it was a good study and I hope it helps explain it to our friends.
You are misreading Barnabas and reinterpreting his words apart from the historical setting.
Jesus rose on the first day of the week, which Barnabas also refers to as "the eigth day". Only historical revisionists will find the ECF teaching that Jesus rose from the dead on the last day of the week. He did not. He rose on the first day, and the church universal has always recognized this fact by establishing Christian worship on the first day according to the tradition of the apostles as recorded in Scripture.
You keep saying this, but yet you cannot point to any Scripture that shows baptized Christians, both Jews and gentiles, in a Christian worship setting on the last days sabbath of the Jews. The fact that Paul was able to find a place where people gathered on the old covenant sabbath to pray does not enjoin Christians to worship on the sabbath of the Jews. We have already shown it was Paul's custom to seek them out on their worship places in order to convert Jews to Christ.
It was also Paul's custom at one point to have his hair cut off to take a vow in order to not be falsely accused by the apostate Jews. Have you made this your custom as well? Should all Chrisians cut off their hair when they take a vow?
Nowhere do we see baptized gentiles observing new moons or annual feast days of the Jews.
Mat 5:17 Think not that I am come to destroy the law
Since you are so sure that Matt. 5:17,18 authorizes the keeping of the last day sabbath, and since none of your old covenant sabbatarian friends has chosen to answer my challenge, why don't you take a crack at this list:
Do you bring your grain offering to the local priest (Lev. 2:1)?
Do you bring your tresspass offering to the local priest (Lev. 5:6)?
Do you avoid temple worship when you have a "discharge" (Lev. 15:2)?
Do you get your tonsorial fashions approved by a priest or rabbi?
Do you have your sons circumcised by a rabbi?
Do your women bring a purification offering to the priest after bearing a child (Lev. 12:6)?
Do you bring your skin ailments to the priest for adjudication (Lev. 13:4)?
Do you bring cases of adultery to a preist to be tried by "bitter water" (Num. 5:19)?
Until you can honestly answer these questions about old covenant practices, your quote of Matthew 5 to support the old covenant sabbath rings hollow.
Christians do not celebrate the passover. We celebrate the Lords' Supper on apostolic authority. That's what Paul called it after all. If he wanted to use the word "passover" to describe the gathering of baptized Jewish and gentile believers around the bread and wine, he would have done so.
Of course that would have been confusing, since God commanded that old covenant passover be celebrated by the shedding of the blood of animals. He also specified that uncircumcised gentiles were not allow to participate in the passover. (Speaking of Matt. 5:17,18, there is no command from God to allow uncircumcised gentiles to partake of the passover.)
So Paul was not so confused as modern judaistic worshippers, and he understood from the Lord Himself that what the church was doing was not a Jewish passover, but a Christian Lord's Supper, made universal and appropriate for people of all ethnic and cultural backgrounds.
"In the same way He took the cup also, after supper, saying, 'This cup is the new covenant in My blood; do this, as often as (gr. hosakis) you drink it, in remembrance of Me.' For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until He comes." (1 Cor. 11:25,26)
The practice of the early church was to do this frequently, certainly more often than once a year.
"And they continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in prayers." (Acts 2:42)
"Now on the first day of the week, when the disciples came together to break bread, Paul, ready to depart the next day, spoke to them and continued his message until midnight." (Acts 20:7)
When Paul conducted the Lord's Supper in Acts 20, it was nowhere near the date of passover as far as we can tell.
"The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ?" (1 Cor. 10:16)
It was typical of the early church that whenever they came together to receive instruction from the apostles and elders, to engage in the Lord's Supper and prayer. This is the simple pattern of gospel worship.
Christ is our passover (1 Cor. 5:7). We no longer observe in the shadowy pracitces of the old covenant, since the reality of Christ's finished work and the new covenant as dawned. We live in the age of Messish, the "age to come". We have put off the older fleshly worship forms, and worship Christ anew in the simplicity of the gospel.
Tell us how you conduct a "passover" without introducing manmade traditions like the apostate rabbis?
This is where most of your false doctrine originates. You cannot find any scripture that will substantiate this claim. It is spurious and illogical.... and can be scripturally proved to be in error.
This is where most of your false doctrine originates. You cannot find any scripture that will substantiate this claim.
"Now when He rose early on the first day of the week, He appeared first to Mary Magdalene, out of whom He had cast seven demons." (Mark 16:9)
Mark 16 is pretty clear on the subject, unless you are predisposed by your theology to htink otherwise.
But just in case you do not believe the plain words of this text of Scripture, let's look at another:
Now on the first day of the week, very early in the morning, they, and certain other women with them, came to the tomb bringing the spices which they had prepared. ... He is not here, but is risen! Remember how He spoke to you when He was still in Galilee, saying, 'The Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, and the third day rise again.' And they remembered His words. ...Without twisting the plain words of Luke, we see that on the first day of the week (lit. "the first of the sabbaths") the women arrived at the newly empty tomb. The "two men in shining garments" they encounter remind them of Jesus' owns words that He would rise from the dead "on the third day" following His crucifixion. Later in that same first day of the week (v. 13), two of the disciples have an encounter with Jesus and they recall the story of the crucifixion, and how that very day was "the third day" (v. 21) since these things surrounding the crucifixion happened.Now behold, two of them were traveling that same day to a village called Emmaus, which was seven miles from Jerusalem. And they talked together of all these things which had happened. So it was, while they conversed and reasoned, that Jesus Himself drew near and went with them. ... But we were hoping that it was He who was going to redeem Israel. Indeed, besides all this, today is the third day since these things happened,. Yes, and certain women of our company, who arrived at the tomb early, astonished us. (Luke 24:1,6-8,13-15,21,22)
The plain reading of this text is that Jesus rose on "the third day", which happened to be the first day of the week as recorded in Luke.
There is no way to twist out of that conclusion.
And so because of these facts the universal church from the days of the apostles onward has celebrated and worshipped the triune God on the first day of the week, according to the Scriptures, not according to the shadows of the Jews.
First of all, your error is in trying to equate the universal practice of the church from the 1st century onward whereby we rightly worship the triune God on the first day of the week rather than the last day (which was the custom of the Jews) as a "Catholic" doctrine. It is not.
Some of the most vocal anti-Romanists from the protestant magisterial reformers to modern day fundamentalists are all united in first day worship based on apostolic authority.
When you can get 99.9% of all Christians to agree on something, that is probably more than a accident.
The notion that "the Papacy had indeed fulfilled Daniel 7:25" is based mainly on a poor interpretation of Daniel 7 and of whom is it speaking, to whom it is applied, and when it is applied.
And it's a poor excuse for reading the NT practices as if there we merely rabbinic Judaism Part II.
Amen.
Just curious, which of the twelve tribes are you descended from?
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