Posted on 03/22/2013 10:51:40 AM PDT by DouglasKC
Easter customs mix pagan myths, rituals, symbols and practices with just a little truth. What's wrong with this picture?
Link to YouTube video:
Find Lent in the scriptures, and also find how it represents Yeshua’s or Moses’ fasts.
Not holding my breath, of course.
His resurrection happened. That's for sure. But without his sacrificial death it would have been meaningless to us. That's why he commanded us to observe and remember his DEATH on Passover:
1Co 11:23 For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you: that the Lord Jesus on the same night in which He was betrayed took bread;
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; do this in remembrance of Me."
1Co 11:25 In the same manner He also took the cup after supper, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in My blood. This do, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me."
1Co 11:26 For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death till He comes.
This is the Christian Passover....the observance of the death of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. There is no command in scripture to observe the resurrection in PLACE of this.
I don’t need “quick quotes,” or any other agitprop. The entire pattern of “the sign of the Prophet Jonah” is thoroughly discussed, and picking verses out of the whole picture is satanic deception.
Yeshua truly was in the Earth for three whole days and three whole nights. that much has been astronomically determined.
Get thee behind me Satan!
If you wanted to commemorate the days of Christ's Last Supper and Crucifixion... what would you call them?
This whole discussion comes down to the question of authority... did the Apostles have any? How were they to exercise it? You listed an Old Testament source for a list of Holy Days. Could the Church have had any authority to commemorate Holy Days which had occurred since the time of Leviticus (such as Christ's Birth, Mission, Death, Resurrection and Ascension)?
Either they had this authority or there is no Church. For what purpose were the Epistles written but from a position of authority for the education and reproof of God's people? If I take you at your meaning, by what authority would St Peter have declared that gentiles do not have to be circumcised to be partakers of the New Covenant (Acts 15)?
Your supposition makes no sense. There is no place for the New Testament except from men given authority to record it. There is no Church built by Christ (Matt 18) unless that Church has authority to act on Christ's behalf in the world. If that Church has authority to put aside God's covenant to Abraham (circumcision), then surely it has the authority to declare a feast day or two.
Revelation 22:18,19 might lend some light on this topic.
I would have to disagree only because Christ certainly knew when Passover was. As far as the bread sopping, I can guarantee you that unleavened bread can certainly be made that will soak up any liquid...been there and done that.
Even though the bread and wine of passover got changed into communion services and the Lord's supper over the years it was always understood that the bread was unleavened even in the traditional church. This was the case until the eastern churches began using leavened bread as a symbol of the risen Christ or as a symbol of new life. As an accomdation to this the Catholic church ruled that either leavened or unleavened bread could be used in communion at a council (mid 1200's?) if I remember right. But the western Catholics still use unleavened bread.
And yet our Lord was Jewish and observed every bit of their faith with them. Was He wasting His time? The command to celebrate Passover forever was one given from God to Israel. There is no forever if it stops. Jesus didn't come to change one bit of God's Law, He came to fulfill it.
You are throwing the baby out with the bathwater. The law which ended was the chastisement of Deuteronomy ("The Second Law"). This was the Law of Moses. It was given through a man for the reproof of a hard-hearted Israel. Christ fulfilled that law for man so we are no longer subject to its harsh strictures.
God's Law is forever. It has not changed. We still have the Ten Commandments... we just understand them better. What did Christ tell us? There are Two Commandments. We are to love God and love our neighbor. If you read the Ten Commandments, you will read the same things. Numbers mean things in Judaism. Three is a number for God (they didn't understand it was because He was a triune God) and seven is the number signifying covenant. In the Ten Commandments, we find that the first three are about our relationship with God and the other seven about our relationships with each other. Jesus's two commandments are the fulfillment of God's Law... He told us why we shall and shalt not... we shall and shalt not out of love for God and neighbor.
It's not a matter of what I want to do. Scripture tells us that it happened on Passover, a day created by the Lord himself. So I call it what he called it "Passover".
Gee... so you don't want to even talk about the rest of my post where I showed you Biblical sources for the Jewish understanding of "three days and three nights?" Sadly, you are not alone. You are so brainwashed into heresy you will not listen to millenia of teaching. Farewell then.
[Shaking the dust from my shoes...]
“Number 1 I do think it’s important that we observe the Lord’s holy days WHEN he said to observe them.”
and
“The holy days of the Lord are listed in Leviticus chapter 23”
From Leviticus 23:
15 ‘And you shall count for yourselves from the day after the Sabbath, from the day that you brought the sheaf of the wave offering: seven Sabbaths shall be completed.
16 Count fifty days to the day after the seventh Sabbath; then you shall offer a new grain offering to the Lord.
17 You shall bring from your dwellings two wave loaves of two-tenths of an ephah. They shall be of fine flour; they shall be baked with leaven. They are the firstfruits to the Lord.
18 And you shall offer with the bread seven lambs of the first year, without blemish, one young bull, and two rams. They shall be as a burnt offering to the Lord, with their grain offering and their drink offerings, an offering made by fire for a sweet aroma to the Lord.
19 Then you shall sacrifice one kid of the goats as a sin offering, and two male lambs of the first year as a sacrifice of a peace offering.
___
Do you do these things?
So why do Protestants treat his un-Scriptural teaching of "the Bible alone" as infallible?
Catholics follow the teachings of the Bible that was written, preserved and canonized by Christ's Church.
"If they still refuse to listen, tell it to the church; and if they refuse to listen even to the church, treat them as you would a pagan or a tax collector." --Jesus"if I am delayed, you will know how people ought to conduct themselves in God's household, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and foundation of the truth." --St. Paul
Our Lord had no problem separating Jewish tradition from biblical truth. For example:
Mar 7:2 Now when they saw some of His disciples eat bread with defiled, that is, with unwashed hands, they found fault.
Mar 7:3 For the Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they wash their hands in a special way, holding the tradition of the elders.
Mar 7:4 When they come from the marketplace, they do not eat unless they wash. And there are many other things which they have received and hold, like the washing of cups, pitchers, copper vessels, and couches.
Mar 7:5 Then the Pharisees and scribes asked Him, "Why do Your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders, but eat bread with unwashed hands?"
ALL Jews did this it said in verse 3. But Jesus didn't have a problem going against this. He didn't have a problem going against the tradition of healing on the sabbath. There are many other examples.
In fact part of the challenge of the 1st century church was to weed out what was scriptural from what was traditional and went AGAINST scripture.
We know that there were Jewish traditionalists that constantly harangued Paul for not keeping tradition.
Most don't understand the thousands and thousands of extra-biblical rules and regulations that Jewish religion had or has The talmud IS this body of tradition.
Sure, but Hebrews chapters 7 to 10 makes it abundantly clear that under the new covenant that Christ is the one and only sacrifice needed. He is our high priest after the order of Melchizedek, not after the order of the Levites or the Aaronic priesthood.
Am I the only one that watched the entire video?
I agree with this completely. But Christ said ALL other commandments HANG on these two. They're not gone, but these two sum up the reasons for all the others. Someone who has the love of Christ in them cannot but help to keep the commandments of the Lord!
>> “If you wanted to commemorate the days of Christ’s Last Supper and Crucifixion... what would you call them?” <<
.
His last supper was on the beginning of the last day of preparation for the days of unlevened bread, and his crucifixion at the end of that same day, slightly before passover.
>> “This whole discussion comes down to the question of authority... did the Apostles have any?” <<
.
they had no authority to change “one jot or one tittle” of Torah.
“Sure, but...”
You say, “sure”, you offer these sacrifices, but then say (correctly in my opinion) that we don’t need to under the New Covenant.
So what is it? You sacrifice goats on the appropriate days designated in Leviticus or not?
Mark 7:6 And He said to them, “Rightly did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written:
‘This people honors Me with their lips,
9 He was also saying to them, “You are experts at setting aside the commandment of God in order to keep your tradition. 10 For Moses said, ‘Honor your father and your mother’; and, ‘He who speaks evil of father or mother, is to be put to death’; 11 but you say, ‘If a man says to his father or his mother, whatever I have that would help you is Corban (that is to say, [e]given to God),’ 12 you no longer permit him to do anything for his father or his mother; 13 thus invalidating the word of God by your tradition which you have handed down; and you do many things such as that.” 14 After He called the crowd to Him again, He began saying to them, “Listen to Me, all of you, and understand: 15 there is nothing outside the man which can defile him if it goes into him; but the things which proceed out of the man are what defile the man. 16 If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear.”
But their heart is far away from Me.
7 ‘But in vain do they worship Me,
Teaching as doctrines the precepts of men.’
8 Neglecting the commandment of God, you hold to the tradition of men.”
We do not put aside the Commandments of God. The Tradition we follow has a capital "T". What is this Tradition? It is the instruction given by Christ after His Resurrection and prior to His Ascension. Scripture records this period as 40 days in length... and yet it only gets a mention in the Bible. Why? He wasn't playing board games. Christ gave instruction to the Apostles in the administration of His Church. We call it the Deposit of Faith and it is unchanging because it is a fixed-in-time instruction for understanding the revelation of God. It establishes the authority of the Apostles and it is through this authority they brought the Word to the world in the form of the Traditions they had been taught (1 Cor 11:2, 2 Thess 2:15). They weren't commanded to write a book for us to memorize, they were commanded to Baptize in God's Name and build God's Family on Earth (the Church).
>> “How is Easter paganisim?” <<
.
It is in totality, the celebration of the goddess Ishtar and her illegitimate son Tammuz.
Revelation 22:18,19 might lend some light on this topic.
Let's take a look.
18 For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall aadd unto these things, God shall add unto him the bplagues that are written in this book:While St. John was writing this in his exile on the isle of Patmos, was he putting the wraps on his version of the Protestant Bible?19 And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the abook of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book.
No, he was writing the Book of Revelation, which is the book he is referring to here. He was not referring to the entire Bible, which did not yet exist, as such.
Secondly, this statement doesn't provide us with the canon of Scripture, which would not be defined for another 300 years, and is still contested by Catholics, Protestants, and the Orthodox.
Thirdly, there is a logical problem. If I write a book and claim that it is inspired, is it? Is my authority enough? Was John's authority enough? Catholics believe that Revelation is Scriptural, because Christ's Church, "the pillar and foundation of truth," tells us so. The Catholic position is non-contradictory. The Protestant theory of "the Bible alone" is a self-contradiction, since the teaching doesn't exist in Scripture.
Interestingly, Luther originally rejected Revelation as un-Scriptural, rejecting the existing canon of Scripture, elevating his authority over that of Christ's Church and the then accepted canon of Scripture, in violation of his own principle of "the Bible alone." This anecdote is an amusing demonstration of the fact that The Bible isn't self-authenticating or self-canonizing.
So, no, this passage doesn't uphold Luther's dogma.
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