A BIBLICAL DEFENSE OF THE SPRING FEAST DAYS (Passover/Unleavened Bread, Firstfruits, Pentecost/Shauvot ) (The Journey Continues….)
Jesus’s given name: Yehoshua or Yeshua translated means: Yah is Salvation (Yah is the short version of YHWH.)
Matthew 5:17-19 “Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill. For assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled. Whoever therefore breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.”
Luke 24:44 Jesus said to them, “These are the words I spoke to you while I was still with you: Everything must be fulfilled that is written about Me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalms.”
John 10:30 “I and My Father are one.”
Could it not be that, if the Father and the Son are one as Jesus has said, that the authorship of the Law belongs to them both? And if so, when Jesus repeatedly says, “If you love Me, keep my commandments.”, and if the only Law He saw as authoritative was that of the books of Moses, is He not telling us to obey what He/they have said and written?
John 14:7-11 “If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also; and from now on you know Him and have seen Him.” Philip said to Him, “Lord, show us the Father, and it is sufficient for us.” Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you so long, and yet you have not known Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; so how can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me? The words that I speak to you I do not speak on My own authority; but the Father who dwells in Me does the works. Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father in Me, or else believe Me for the sake of the works themselves.”
John 14:15 “If you love Me, keep My commandments.”
John 15:10 “If you keep My commandments, you will remain in My love, just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and remain in His love.”
1 John 2:3-6 Now by this we know that we know Him, if we keep His commandments. He who says, “I know Him,” and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But whoever keeps His word, truly the love of God is perfected in him. By this we know that we are in Him. He who says he abides in Him ought himself also to walk just as He walked.
…. in full obedience to what was written in the book of the Law – that is the books of Moses.
Matthew 19:17 So He said to him, “Why do you call Me good? No one is good but One, that is, God. But if you want to enter into life, keep the commandments.”
Which commandments would He have been referring to if they were not those as recorded by Moses – the ones He Himself kept and obeyed perfectly?
1 John 5:2 By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and keep His commandments.
Exodus 12:14 (re: Passover) ‘So this day shall be to you a memorial; and you shall keep it as a feast to the LORD (YHWH in the original texts) throughout your generations. You shall keep it as a feast by an everlasting ordinance.”
Numbers 9:14 ‘And if a stranger dwells among you, and would keep the LORD’s Passover, he must do so according to the rite of the Passover and according to its ceremony; you shall have one ordinance, both for the stranger and the native of the land.’
Leviticus 23:1-8 Feasts of the LORD (YHWH)
And the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, “Speak to the children of Israel, and say to them: ‘The feasts of the YHWH, which you shall proclaim to be holy convocations, these are My feasts.”
The Sabbath
‘Six days shall work be done, but the seventh day is a Sabbath of solemn rest, a holy convocation. You shall do no work on it; it is the Sabbath of the LORD in all your dwellings.”
The Passover and Unleavened Bread
“These are the feasts of the LORD (YHWH), holy convocations which you shall proclaim at their appointed times. On the fourteenth day of the first month at twilight is the LORD’s Passover. And on the fifteenth day of the same month is the Feast of Unleavened Bread to the LORD; seven days you must eat unleavened bread. On the first day you shall have a holy convocation; you shall do no customary work on it. But you shall offer an offering made by fire to the LORD for seven days. The seventh day shall be a holy convocation; you shall do no customary work on it.’ ”
Exodus 12:19 “Seven days there shall be no leaven found in your houses; for whoever eats what is leavened, that person shall be cut off from the congregation of Israel, whether he is an alien or a native of the land.”
John 2:13, 23 Now the Passover of the Jews was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. Now when He was in Jerusalem at the Passover, during the feast, many believed in His name when they saw the signs which He did.
Matthew 26:2 “You know that after two days is the Passover, and the Son of Man will be delivered up to be crucified.”
John 18:28-29 Then they led Jesus from Caiaphas to the Praetorium, and it was early morning. But they themselves did not go into the Praetorium, lest they should be defiled, but that they might eat the Passover. [Note: Passover/the Day of Preparation was not a Sabbath. However, the next day, the first day of Unleavened Bread is a High Sabbath, and if the Jews went near a Gentile, they would become unclean and unfit to eat of the Passover lamb, therefore, they would not have been willing to go into a Gentile place.] Pilate then went out to them and said, “What accusation do you bring against this Man?”
John 19:31-37 Therefore, because it was the Preparation Day, [a.k.a. the Day of Passover] that the bodies should not remain on the cross on the Sabbath (for that Sabbath was a high day) [Note #1: regarding leaving a corpse on a tree – Deuteronomy 21:23] [Note #2: The weekly Sabbath – on the 7th Day of the week, Saturday, is different than a High Holy Day. Within the Feast of Unleavened Bread there are two High Holy Days – the first and the seventh days of the week-long feast.], the Jews asked Pilate that their legs might be broken, and that they might be taken away. Then the soldiers came and broke the legs of the first and of the other who was crucified with Him. But when they came to Jesus and saw that He was already dead, they did not break His legs. But one of the soldiers pierced His side with a spear, and immediately blood and water came out. And he who has seen has testified, and his testimony is true; and he knows that he is telling the truth, so that you may believe. For these things were done that the Scripture should be fulfilled, “Not one of His bones shall be broken.” [Psalm 34:20; Exodus 12:46; Numbers 9:12] And again another Scripture says, “They shall look on Him whom they pierced.” [Psalm 22:16-17; Zechariah 12:10, 13:6]
Psalm 34:19-20 Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but YHWH delivers him out of them all. He guards all his bones; not one of them is broken.
Exodus 12:46-49 “In one house it [the Passover lamb] shall be eaten; you shall not carry any of the flesh outside the house, nor shall you break one of its bones. All the congregation of Israel shall keep it. And when a stranger dwells with you and wants to keep the Passover to YHWH, let all his males be circumcised, and then let him come near and keep it; and he shall be as a native of the land. For no uncircumcised person shall eat it. One law shall be for the native-born and for the stranger who dwells among you.”
Psalm 22:16-18 For dogs have surrounded Me; the congregation of the wicked has enclosed Me.
They pierced My hands and My feet; I can count all My bones. They look and stare at Me.
They divide My garments among them, and for My clothing they cast lots. (Matthew 27:35)
Zechariah 12:10 “And I will pour on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem the Spirit of grace and supplication; then they will look on Me whom they pierced. Yes, they will mourn for Him as one mourns for his only son, and grieve for Him as one grieves for a firstborn.”
Zechariah 13:6 And one will say to him, ‘What are these wounds between your arms?’ Then he will answer, ‘Those with which I was wounded in the house of my friends.’
Ezekiel 45:21 “In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month, you shall observe the Passover, a feast of seven days; unleavened bread shall be eaten.”
Numbers 9:14 ‘And if a stranger dwells among you, and would keep the Lord’s Passover, he must do so according to the rite of the Passover and according to its ceremony; you shall have one ordinance, both for the stranger and the native of the land.’ ”
Leviticus 24:22 “There shall be one standard for you; it shall be for the stranger as well as the native, for I am YHWH your God.”
Numbers 15:15-16 “As for the assembly, there shall be one statute for you and for the alien who sojourns with you, a perpetual statute throughout your generations; as you are, so shall the alien be before YHWH. There is to be one law and one ordinance for you and for the alien who sojourns with you.”
Numbers 15:29 “You shall have one law for him who does anything unintentionally, for him who is native among the sons of Israel and for the alien who sojourns among them.”
Leviticus 18:26 “But as for you, you are to keep My statutes and My judgments and shall not do any of these abominations, neither the native, nor the alien who sojourns among you.”
The Feast of Firstfruits
Leviticus 23: 9-11 And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, “Speak to the children of Israel, and say to them: ‘When you come into the land which I give to you, and reap its harvest, then you shall bring a sheaf of the firstfruits of your harvest [at that time in the spring the barley was beginning to ripen] to the priest. He shall wave the sheaf before the Lord, to be accepted on your behalf; on the day after the [weekly] Sabbath [during the Feast of Unleavened Bread] the priest shall wave it.”
1 Corinthians 5:7-8 Therefore purge out the old leaven, that you may be a new lump, since you truly are unleavened. For indeed Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us. Therefore let us keep the Feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.
1 Corinthians 15:20-23 But now Christ is risen from the dead, and has become the Firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For since by man came death, by Man also came the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ all shall be made alive. But each one in his own order: Christ the Firstfruits, afterward those who are Christ’s at His coming.
Pentecost/Shavuot
Exodus 34:22 “Celebrate the Festival of Weeks [Pentecost in the Greek] with the firstfruits of the wheat harvest…. [Note: for this Feast, as with Passover and the fall feasts, the men of Israel were to go to Jerusalem. In the chapter of Exodus in which this command appeared, Moses comes down from Mt. Sinai with the Law of the LORD YHWH. It is thought that the Law was first given to God’s people at the time of the Feast of Weeks.]
Deuteronomy 16:9-12 “You shall count seven weeks for yourself; begin to count the seven weeks from the time you begin to put the sickle to the grain. [Note: in this case this was the barley – an early maturing grain.] Then you shall keep the Feast of Weeks to the LORD your God with the tribute of a freewill offering from your hand, which you shall give as the LORD your God blesses you. You shall rejoice before the LORD your God, you and your son and your daughter, your male servant and your female servant, the Levite who is within your gates, the stranger and the fatherless and the widow who are among you, at the place where the LORD your God chooses to make His name abide. And you shall remember that you were a slave in Egypt, and you shall be careful to observe these statutes.”
Acts 2:1-5 When the Day of Pentecost (the Feast of Weeks) had fully come, they were all with one accord in one place. And suddenly there came a sound from heaven, as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. Then there appeared to them divided tongues, as of fire, and one sat upon each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance. And there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men, from every nation under heaven.
Acts 2:15-21 [Peter speaks]: “For these are not drunk, as you suppose, since it is only the third hour of the day. But this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel
‘And it shall come to pass in the last days, says God,
That I will pour out of My Spirit on all flesh;
Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,
Your young men shall see visions,
Your old men shall dream dreams.
And on My menservants and on My maidservants
I will pour out My Spirit in those days;
And they shall prophesy.
I will show wonders in heaven above
And signs in the earth beneath:
Blood and fire and vapor of smoke.
The sun shall be turned into darkness,
And the moon into blood,
Before the coming of the great and awesome day of the Lord.
And it shall come to pass
That whoever calls on the name of the LORD
Shall be saved.’ (Joel 2:28-32)
Acts 2:22-24 “Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a Man attested by God to you by miracles, wonders, and signs which God did through Him in your midst, as you yourselves also know— Him, being delivered by the determined purpose and foreknowledge of God, you have taken by lawless hands, have crucified, and put to death; whom God raised up, having loosed the pains of death, because it was not possible that He should be held by it.”
Acts 2:36-39 “Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ.” Now when they heard this, they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Men and brethren, what shall we do?” Then Peter said to them, “Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is to you and to your children, and to all who are afar off, as many as the LORD our God will call.”
HALLELUYAH!!!! He is risen…. and He is faithful to fulfill all that He has promised!
John 14:16 “And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Advocate to help you and be with you forever –“
John 14:26 “But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, Whom the Father will send in My Name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.”