Passover

[wenlock]

the Passion week.

Scripture reference, please.

[David Taylor]

Scripture reference, please.

I already included it....you must have skimmed over it and missed it.

John 19:14 "And it was the preparation of the passover, and about the sixth hour: and he saith unto the Jews, Behold your King! But they cried out, Away with him, away with him, crucify him. Pilate saith unto them, Shall I crucify your King?"

If the word 'passion' was throwing you, I'll include another verse along with the one already listed.

Acts 1:3 "To whom also He shewed himself alive after his passion by many infallible proofs"

[wenlock]

I already included it.

No reference to celebrating 'passion week' mentioned. Where is there apostolic command to do this, please?

[David Taylor]

No reference to celebrating 'passion week' mentioned. Where is there apostolic command to do this, please?

What in the world are you talking about...???

Here was my original comment. I'm the one who mentioned it.


Christians do celebrate the Passover....the fullness and completion of it
however, and not the pre-type and shadow.
Today we refer to it as the Lord's Supper and the Passion week.



Not sure what you're getting at, but I nor any other Christian don't require an 'apostolic command' to celebrate the passover as the pre-type and shadow to the fulfillment Christ made the week of His Last Supper, death, burial, and resurrection - aka the passion week.

If you choose to not observe the fulfillment of the passover that is found in the events of the passion week, then that's your perogative...many millions of Christians, however, will still continue to do so.

[wenlock]

Not sure what you're getting at, but I nor any other Christian don't require an 'apostolic command' to celebrate the passover as the pre-type and shadow to the fulfillment Christ made the week of His Last Supper, death, burial, and resurrection - aka the passion week.

That's a matter of opinion.

[CoffeeCat]

A reminder to those in this thread that Christians do celebrate slightly different traditions, depending on interpretation, and that these traditions will be disagreed on in some cases. Feel free to discuss them, but understand the need to be gracious to fellow brothers and sisters who do not interpret them exactly as you do. We have the freedom in Christ to celebrate Jesus Christ fully, as our Lord and saviour, both in the passover and in the passion, and if a Christian brother or sister feels they would like to celebrate passover, that should not be up for debate, so long as they also celebrate the risen Christ.

Please adjust your posts accordingly, everyone, to allow for the needed grace when the conviction of a brother or sister is different than yours, here. Respect is what we are aiming for, and anything less won't fly. Thanks.

[wenlock]

Today we refer to it as the Lord's Supper and the Passion week.

Some do, some don't.

[grit]

I think our discussion might benefit from Christian considerations of what we’ve historically termed the regulative principle of worship(RPW), the normative principle of worship(NPW), and the recently coined informed principle of worship (IPW) (the latter being chiefly a recent dialog among Reformed tradition seeking some middle course or "broad understanding" of RPW) (links are to Wikipedia, see also Sola Panel blog, Avoiding Evil blog, Messiah's Schlissel Articles & Article Reviews, A Response to Steve Schlissel and Brian Schwertley by Peter Wallace, and a PDF of Cowley on Schlissel). The regulative principle sought to purify worship to only those aspects commanded or specifically sanctioned in Scripture (particularly in the Christian New Testament). The normative principle perceived that whatever God did not forbid through Scripture might be allowed in worship. Thus, the Puritans (of the RPW) kept only Sunday and sang the Psalms acappella, while Lutherans (NPW) celebrated a host of holy days and enjoyed organs and hymns to pub tunes. I’m admittedly a corrupted Presbyterian (RPW), so I get rather serious over aspects of purifying principles of worship. I’m going to be quite long-winded about it, so for the faint of heart, there’s nothing to see here… move along… move along.

If I may interject with Passover discussion the bearing of holy days more common to Christian practice, the regulative principle of worship practically forbade Christmas and Easter, while the normative allowed for them. Passover had long since been abandoned by most all Christians as abrogated Jewish anachronism; that is, Christians by and large from a very early date abandoned the Jewish calendar. Today, even those holy and devout of us who reverently foster redemption of a liturgical calendar inclusive of Christmas, Easter, and the like must consent that the regulative principle of worship was, as a rule, highly favoured among initial Calvinistic Reformers (such as the Presbyterians and Puritans, and continuing on through the Baptists, and early Methodists), and that any present observance of Christmas and Easter by these Christians was historically a social, secular, and ecumenically liturgical compromise of initial inclinations. Calvinists of the Reformation sought to throw out all Roman Catholic corruptions of worship away from Biblical mandate and example. Yet religiously, the influence of Lutherans, Anglicans, and Catholics accepting of non-Biblical holy days came to bear toward other Christians adopting these liturgical forms. Of even greater influence, however, was perhaps American government and societal pressures, where Christmas and Easter had to be tamed from riotousness sensuality (more akin to today’s Carnival and Mardi Gras celebrations) into what became popular family occasions.

Due to such religious corruption as had become commonplace following the American Civil War, and especially with the homogenization of American culture following World Wars I and II, I admittedly enjoyed the bittersweet blessings of both Christmas and Easter (and Valentine’s Day, St, Patty’s Day, Mother’s Day, July 4th, Hallowe’en, Reformation Day, and Thanksgiving as well, among others) throughout my childhood as a Presbyterian. These had become the American norm, chiefly through public and Sunday School schooling of children. Even since gaining a better awareness of my more rooted Calvinistic and Puritan heritage of only honouring Sunday the LORD’s Sabbath, and no other holy days, I have found it somewhat dispelling to contemplate denying a following generation of children the wonders I richly enjoyed as a child, however ill-fated or spiritually misspent. One might frown on a religious mingling of the real baby Jesus with an imagined Santa Claus, but if it’s ones indelibly joyful and wonder-full childhood, it can seem very Scrooge-like to deny it to ones own children, even if the commercialization of Christmas has gotten out of hand. It doesn’t stop appropriate awe-full considerations of fire and brimstone dripping from the heavens due whatever audacity of affront my guided missteps in thought and worship practice might warrant, but one should understand this has always been a matter of some difficulty for Calvinists, even beginning with Calvin himself, and throughout Protestant deliberations and reforms of the matter.

I tend to think we overlooked and/or extremely over-emphasized a lot of appropriate theology in those early days of Reformation, due primarily to the excesses with which we were faced in the errant Roman Catholicism and general Christian, social, and political comportment of the age. Oh, I agree Christmas is rightly considered anathema; I mean, how can we deny our congregations an observance of Hallowe’en when it religiously comes from the same source and has even older roots of Christian memorializing? But the Christian Scriptures do not deny heavenly sanction of observing Christ’s birth, rather they support it with angelic choir and signs in the heavens, even if Jesus never subsequently partook of annual candled cake and ice-cream or paid royalties in singing "Happy Birthday".

Likewise, our Lord’s Passion and Resurrection are intimately, and I would argue inextricably connected to the Jewish Passover commanded in Scripture, rather than just a newly instituted Lord’s Day or Resurrection Sunday nowhere near as regulated in commanded detail as Jewish Sabbaths of the Old Covenant. The early Church certainly sanctioned and honoured more than exclusive Sunday worship. Scripture mentions such (Matt. 2:11; 26:17-30, 55; 28:16-17; Luke 19:45-47; 24:52; John 4:21-24; Acts 2:1, 42-47; 5:42; 6:1-4; 16:13-18; 17:17; 18:20-21; 19:8-11; 20:7, 16; 24:10-21; 1 Cor. 5:4-8; 11:26-33; Heb. 1:6; 3:13; 10:11-25), as do early Christian records. The questions (or opinions) remain just how explicitly detailed Scripture regulates our worship of God, and where to draw lines regarding elements of propriety and custom. That’s why we continue with differences on Sunday vs. Saturday, Psalm singing vs. hymns or choruses, musical instruments vs. acappella, wine vs. grape juice, cathedrals vs. tents, submersion vs. sprinkling, and the like, even pertaining to observance as foundational as Jesus’ incarnation, Passion, and resurrection.

Even now, while continuing to favour a regulative principle of worship (that is, exclusive Sunday worship as opposed to present Jewish or Christian liturgical calendars), I think there has been undue and faulty neglect among regulativists of the cyclical nature divinely designed into both the natural and spiritual condition of man as an aspect of both man’s creation and redemption, and a loss of continuity in the redemptive history of God’s people when we particularly ignore the Old Covenant with its feasts and holy days. Regulativists do not deny the value of Christian custom, we simply insist that such be founded upon clear Scriptural directive, so why forget Christian Jewish roots altogether, and the natural and spiritual flow of time? It isn’t that Christian worship is unregulated by Scripture (there are clear elements specified), nor normative inventions sanctioned (few appreciate "Jesus Christ Superstar" for Sunday morning worship), but the clarity of detail can get a bit hazy at the peripherals, for proponents of RPW and NPW alike. With freedom in Christ there is not the same detail of meticulous Old Testament command in anything but the heart, the spirit, of New Testament worship, even as regards the LORD’s Sabbath, which Calvinists traditionally hold as of divine command.

Clearly the early Christian Church gathered for worship on the first day of the week. But proponents of regulative principle (which I count myself) surely are not so bold as to assume that God has placed His divine stamp upon the Gregorian calendar and a nuclear clock; neither that God discontinued summer and winter, night and day, or the 7-day week itself, even if there be certain variations of such from as He first created them? No, the spirit of worship, the heart of holy observance, the freedom of relating to the Father through the Son, is as applicable to the evening and morning of Sunday as it is to the daily worship of the first Christian church and the whole narrative of a Jewish Year and a Christian Year. Ought we to start our Sunday from the unspecified minute and hour of Jesus’ resurrection, or is midnight acceptably regulative for scripturally determining the first day of the week? Should a day begin with evening, in keeping with the Old Testament and Jewish tradition, or do we parallel the rising of the Son with the rising of the sun? Are Christians right to structure Sunday worship in accordance with worldly timings, are we corrupted in Jewish associations through Old Testament custom, or is there some mystical fulfilled timing in Christ that should regulate our Sunday worship, and spiritually for all eternity?

Surely, the LORD has provided us some patterns from the Old Testament continuous through the New, even if things like evening and morning, spring and fall, Passover (Pesach) and Tabernacles (Succoth), and even the Ten Commandments (and the Two Greatest) take on richer meanings and fulfillments in Christ? Are not these at once more wholly binding in non-legalistic ways of the heart, as well as eternally completed in the freedoms purchased through Christ’s sacrifice on our behalf? We are no longer bound to keep the Levitical Law of Passover in the flesh, but as Jesus is our Passover Lamb are we wrong to honour Him as such in the time God initially appointed and chose for His Son’s Passion? Our flesh is free, but our hearts are allowed to corporately worship more than on Sundays, as also allowed throughout eternity. Having a Seder Meal, a Passover Haggadah, or a Maundy Thursday Service is neither necessarily cowing to ritualistic servitude nor bucking the commands of regulative principle. And neither is it necessarily relegated to the normative principle’s ‘allowance without command’, for the heart of the matter in Scripture is clear, only a literal “Thou shalt” is wanting.

I, for one, think we too quickly and completely dismissed Jewish influence as no longer applicable or binding on our free conscience in the Gospel of Christ and the New Covenant. Certainly we don’t give credence to the constraints and idolatry of legalism, nor are we insensitive to the ardent Reformer battles Paul faced in defense of Gospel freedom by faith against Judaizers and their old dead works. Jesus combated this with the Pharisees even while still keeping Sabbaths and Feasts. While at once dismissing physical circumcision as binding in the New Covenant, none of us denies the necessity of a spiritually circumcised heart. We gladly find prophetic room for Jesus in the feasts of Israel, room to praise Jesus our Peace and Passover Lamb, room for thanksgiving in God’s providence of First Fruits and Harvest, and room to trumpet God the Judge dwelling among us toward Atonement. And though the Temple of Christ’s body was sacrificed for us, we do not deny the command made of John to measure the Temple in Revelation. Temple simply takes on a fulfilled observance of New Covenant recognition, rather than a persistent sacrifice in daily rituals by imperfect priests.

What I’m getting at is there remains the observance of spiritual freedoms in Christ and worshipful honours to His person and work which might rightly and scripturally be sanctioned as a regulation of worship consistent with the Jewish calendar. When Paul in Galatians (a primary passage on the subject of regulative principle in worship) references, “ the weak and worthless elementary principles of the world, whose slaves you want to be once more”, and fears he may have laboured in vain for that they, “observe days and months and seasons and years” (4:9-10, ESV), he is speaking to the daemonic trap of legalism at the hands of power-grubbing Judaizers, of wrongly thinking that works of ritual are of any merit against faith, and of slavery to these things rather than enjoining Christ. He is not discounting either the value of regular orderly worship, the cycles of both nature and spiritual remembrance, the Jewish calendar, or the continuance of evening and morning, summer and winter; just as he does not discount the spiritual value of the Moral Law. Paul is seeking to rescue new believers from forms without substance, from turning Sabbath rest into chains of slavery, from observance without real reconciliation through Christ.

Freedom in Christ does not entail ignoring the Old Covenant, nor abrogating the importance of remembering it, but rather seeing and observing it in its actuality in Christ – the Law fulfilled and written on our heart, not abolished, but purposefully transformed into truly loving the LORD God with all our heart and soul and mind and our neighbour as our self. Celebrating Passover, a Passion Week, is not a command of ritual but a command of heart, whether it be ‘regulated’ to some Sunday, each Sunday, or the heart and spirit of the Gospel Christ actually lived on Earth for a week of time (rather than just one day in seven). I think the Jewish Calendar (which indeed extended into the New Testament), may very well be compatible in regulation with the New Covenant, fulfilled in it rather than destroyed by it; otherwise, the Old Testament itself might be considered as destroyed or useless in Christ (as indeed Marcion and others sought in excluding it from Christian canon), rather than the treasure it still remains.

If we obediently find in Scripture the true value of celebrating Jesus’ incarnation as angels, shepherds, and wise men did, and an appreciation of the week of Christ’s passion, crucifixion, and resurrection; we might want to reconsider the calendar pattern we find, not in a fruitless slavery of obligatory works, but in the celebration of fulfillment in Christ of redemptive history as seasoned throughout the Jewish Biblical calendar, as modern Messianics do. Certainly an observance of the Mosaic Law in circumcision, holy days, or Temple building is no longer binding, but reverent commemoration of Christ in these things is both Biblical and an acknowledgment of God’s redemptive history, worth cyclically celebrating every bit as much as a Lord’s Day (which Jesus never commanded, and was only one of several days the early church used for worship). If we religiously honour Reformation Day, Calvin’s birthday, 500th Anniversaries, Thanksgiving, or even our moms and pops, certainly we have better reason to freely follow the guidance of Scripture in such things as Passover, and spare Calvinist and other congregations further embarrassment, ridicule, and confusion over what to do with our church year; to say nothing of frankly admitting to JWs and Muslims, “No, Jesus probably wasn’t born on Christmas Day, and Jesus didn’t rise from the dead the first Sunday after the first full moon after the vernal equinox, some of us just sorta picked those dates from a magic hat and ran with them.” Why not at least honour Christ’s Incarnation of tabernacling among us in human vessel on the Feast of Tabernacles? I find it a spiritually enriching prospect.

We Regulators were right to throw out Christmas, Easter, and the panoply of accumulated Romish, even pagan holy days. And Martin Luther was right to pick Hallowe’en, with all the abuses associated with saint’s relics and indulgences, to begin the process of Church reform with wood (paper) and nail. But we present day inheritors of scriptural worship and the RPW very much need and are far overdue to instruct and discipline as much in every congregation. If worshipful study finds Christian acceptance of Passover celebration, especially when set against a Cadbury Easter, then so be it; if, however, one sets ones earthly presence toward the certain spiritual eternity without the night of day, the timeless loss of months and seasons of years, perhaps each ‘day’ too should be marked on the calendar as Sunday, the LORD’s Sabbath, though I’m not sure when I’d get some God-designed, biological sleep.

- grit

[Studyin'2Show]

Is not passover a celebration of the flight of Israel from the clutches of Egypt? If so, what purpose does it serve to those who are not of the nation of Israel?

As for coming out of Egypt, I do indeed remember coming out of Egypt as each believer should. Egypt is our life of sin which leads to death. The passover lamb's blood on the doorpost is the blood of my Passover Lamb which has been applied to my heart to save me from the death from sin that I would truly deserve. The Angel of Death has indeed passed over me! Halleluyah!

I do not attend a Messianic assembly. At this time we are members of a Southern Baptist church family. Yet, we do indeed celebrate the LORD's Passover both in spirit and in action as well as the Lord's Supper. We have done so (Passover) for about 8 years and have enjoyed it each time. It gives such perspective to the "Passion". The Sunday after Passover (Resurrection day) we celebrate the Feast of First Fruits (which He is). We do not celebrate the Feasts of the LORD because we think we have to in order to be saved. God forbid! We have done all that is neccessary for salvation simply by accepting the blood of Messiah as the free gift that it is. For me it was simply this. I was reading Leviticus 23 one day and read that God calls the feasts HIS feasts. I decided to embrace anything that was His and feel I have been blessed through it. Once we began to do so as a family, we were amazed to find that they are EXTREMELY Christian. (not the Jewish traditions but merely the convocations as written into scripture) I believe there are many that would be pleasantly surprised that the feasts do not 'take away' from Yeshua (Jesus) but that He is the substance of each and every one!

God Bless!
Denise

[ConqueredbyLove]

I have been to only a few Passover meals. But every year I re-read the story of the Passover, especially about the lamb and the applying of the blood, etc. because it helps me appreciate The Lamb of God more and more. I learned something new this year that made the story ever more precious to me....it was beautiful and is beautiful...

Do I have to do that? Of course not. But I would not miss the blessing and the coming to know Jesus on a deeper level that comes as a result of it for the world.

I, also spend a few weeks before and especially "Passion Week" going over our Lord's last week here on earth. I start with the events of "Palm Sunday" and go through each day. I always, try to attend "Good Friday" service...

How can we ever, ever meditate enough on the sufferings of our Lord? Not only does it bring us closer to Him but it blesses each person of the Godhead so much.

I don't do this because I feel I have to.........I do it because He deserves it...

~Worthy is the Lamb that was slain!~

[grit]

I'd be interested to see how many of those who observe a Resurrection Sunday do so in connection with the timing set by the Emperor Constantine and Western Christianity (which is prevalently popularized today), Eastern Christianity (though there doesn't seem to be many Eastern Orthodox here at our site), or in recognition of actual Jewish timing (who still use the term Passover); and whether or not Christians celebrating Easter find it irritating that Easter and Passover are no longer linked on the calendar as was our LORD's crucifixion, or whether they find it comforting when the two occasionally coincide?

[Studyin'2Show]

I'd be interested to see how many of those who observe a Resurrection Sunday do so in connection with the timing set by the Emperor Constantine and Western Christianity (which is prevalently popularized today), Eastern Christianity (though there doesn't seem to be many Eastern Orthodox here at our site), or in recognition of actual Jewish timing (who still use the term Passover); and whether or not Christians celebrating Easter find it irritating that Easter and Passover are no longer linked on the calendar as was our LORD's crucifixion, or whether they find it comforting when the two occasionally coincide?

Most have no idea why it is when it is. I know that I never even considered it when I used to celebrate it. When I found out what it was based on I was surprised.

[ConqueredbyLove]

or whether they find it comforting when the two occasionally coincide?

Well, I will probably open up a can of worms here but... And I know there are different calenders and such.

I personally believe our Lord died on Thursday...And a few years back I found it comforting when Passover fell on the Thursday before Easter I went to service that Thursday and the presence of the Lord was so real and sweet. It was a special treasure. And we had the Lord's supper together that evening. It was just so special.

I started paying attention to Passover and similar type days such as Yom Kippur when I sat under a pastor who just loves Israel and the Jewish people. He was very fond of teaching us about our Jewish Roots. I would not be surprised if they someday move to Israel.

Learning of these things has just greatly enriched my Christian Journey I find the more I learn about the ways of the Jewish People and learn of their customs etc. especially during the time when Yeshua was here, the more the Scriptures are opened up to me....We look at Scripture through "Western" eyes when we would be much more blessed to look through "Eastern" eyes where Christianity was birthed and grew first.

We miss so much richness when we don't learn of these things, IMO...

[grit]

“To regard the observance of certain days as in itself meritorious as a work, is alien to the free spirit of Christianity. This is not incompatible with observing the Sabbath or the Christian Lord’s day as obligatory, though not as a work (which was the Jewish and Gentile error in the observance of days), but as a holy mean appointed by the Lord for attaining the great end, holiness. The whole life alike belongs to the Lord in the Gospel view, just as the whole world…” - Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible, (1871) Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset, and David Brown.

“Does this mean that it is wrong for Christians to set aside one day a year to remember the birth of Christ? Or that a special observance of the coming of the Spirit at Pentecost, or the blessing of the harvest in autumn, is a sin? Not necessarily. If we observe special days like slaves, hoping to gain some spiritual merit, then we are sinning. But if in the observance, we express our liberty in Christ and let the Spirit enrich us with His grace, then the observance can be a spiritual blessing.” - The Bible exposition commentary, Warren Wiersbe.

[BShorts]

Lets clarify this subject. Exodus 34 is the second set of stone tablets for the commandments and the feasts are on them, so the feasts are part of the commandments and they are to be celebrated as a lasting ordinance. The lords supper is passover Luke 22 where he says to eat his flesh and drink his blood through the passover un leavened bread and wine. 1 corinthians 11 where it says the lords supper says on the night he was betrayed he said to eat the bread and drink the wine. and we know it is wine because in the same chapter it says some get drunk. And the new covenant feasts are the same as the old, but Jesus showed us how to celebrate them in a way different from the old covenant. You can't say it is only for the jews because inromans 2:28-29 says we become inward jew by circumcision by the spirit which means by baptism. We know that circumcision represents baptism because colossians 2:11 says so.Through the gospel of the new covenant we all can inherit the kingdom. We have to keep all of the covenant to recieve the promise, and the feasts are a big part of the new covenant.