Was the Last Supper a Passover meal?

Was the Last Supper a Passover meal?

© Christine Glover

In a previous [article] we saw that the resurrection of Jesus took place on a Sunday morning, on the Feast of Firstfruits. For the ‘sign of the prophet Jonah’ concerning three days and three nights to be at all meaningful, the crucifixion needed to have occurred both three days and three nights prior to the resurrection. Using what the Jews refer to as ‘inclusive counting’, where part of something represents the whole, we saw that the crucifixion took place on Thursday afternoon. The evening before this, Jesus had partaken of a meal with His disciples. The question before us, therefore, is was that meal a Passover meal, or an ordinary supper that Christ imbued with a special meaning when He broke the bread and shared the wine? Why is there any doubt or conflict about it anyway?

Simply put, the four Gospels appear not to agree on this subject. The three synoptic Gospels seem to state that it was indeed a Passover meal, while John clearly states that it was the day before the Passover. Can these seemingly conflicting accounts be reconciled? Or was John perhaps making a particular point about Christ being our Passover Lamb and the strict chronology was not important to him?

To find the answers to these questions, we need first to turn to Leviticus 23 to see the regulation of the annual festivals, as given by God to Moses. Bear with me as this background is important. God begins in this chapter by mentioning the regular weekly Sabbath, then, in verses 5-6 He states, “In the fourteenth day of the first month at even is the Lord’s Passover, And on the fifteenth day of the same month is the Feast of Unleavened Bread. In the first day ye shall have an holy convocation: ye shall do no servile work therein.”

If we compare this with Exodus 12, where the actual Passover they were commemorating took place, we see a little more detail: [Exodus 12:2-3, 14-16]

“This month shall be unto you the beginning of months: it shall be the first month of the year to you… In the tenth day of this month they shall take to them every man a lamb… a lamb for an house… And ye shall keep it until the fourteenth day of the same month: and the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it in the evening (literally: between the two evenings)… And this day shall be unto you for a memorial… Seven days shall ye eat unleavened bread; even the first day ye shall put away leaven out of your houses… And in the first day there shall be an holy convocation, and in the seventh day there shall be an holy convocation to you; no manner of work shall be done in them, save that which every man must eat, that only may be done of you.”

Putting these passages together, we see that the lamb for the offering was chosen on the tenth day of the first month. This month is variously called Aviv, Abib, or, later, Nisan, but these words all refer to the same month. On the fourteenth day of the month, the lamb was to be slain “in the evening” or, literally, “between the evenings”. As Jewish days began at evening on one day and ended at the start of evening the next day, this could simply mean the slaughter could begin as the fourteenth started and must be completed before the fifteenth started (evening to evening). However, traditionally, the Jews have taken a more complicated view of it. Taking the Scripture which speaks of ‘from the rising of the sun, to the going down of the same’, they divided the daylight portion of the day into sections. The sun began rising at sunrise (obviously), reached its zenith at noon, then began to go down after that. The afternoon was divided more or less equally, so that half way through it, ‘evening’ started – this was ‘the first evening’ and occurred around 3pm. ‘Second evening’ was from 3pm to 6pm, when the sun set. “Between the evenings” was therefore interpreted as being between 3pm and 5.30pm, the latter time to ensure that nothing was inadvertently carried over into the start of the next day. Thus traditionally the Passover lambs were killed between 3pm and 5.30pm on the fourteenth of Nisan/Aviv.

As evening fell, at 6pm on the fourteenth, the Passover meal was consumed, thus making it the start of the fifteenth of the month, when the Feast of Unleavened Bread began. They were to eat the roasted lamb with unleavened bread; thus the Feast of Passover (the Passover meal) coincided with the first day of Unleavened Bread. They were to eat unleavened bread for seven days and “the first day ye shall put away leaven out of your houses”. Now if they were to eat unleavened bread for seven days, beginning with the Passover meal at the start of the fifteenth day of the month, what can it mean that they were only to put away leaven from their homes “on the first day”? Surely the leaven needed to have been removed before the feast started. Well yes, it did, but just as the whole seven day Feast of Unleavened Bread could be referred to as ‘Passover’, so the whole of the preceding daytime, prior to the meal itself, could be referred to as ‘the first day’. To avoid confusion, later Jews began to refer to the fourteenth as “the day of preparation”. Thus as we shall see shortly, when the Gospel writers refer to “the day of preparation”, “the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread”, or “the day the Passover lambs must be slain” they are all referring to the fourteenth day of the month of Nisan/Aviv.

Thus, the timeline for Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread is as follows:

1^st Nisan/Aviv: the start of the Jewish new year, the beginning of the first month

10^th Nisan/Aviv: the choosing of a lamb, spotless and without blemish

14^th Nisan/Aviv: the slaughter of the lambs between 3pm and 5.30pm; the day all leaven was removed from their homes

15^th Nisan/Aviv: at the start of the day (ie at about 6pm in the evening) the Passover meal was eaten, along with unleavened bread; the Feast of Unleavened Bread began

21^st Nisan/Aviv: the last day of the seven days of Unleavened Bread.

Finally, a brief word on the ‘holy convocation’: “in it ye shall do no servile work”. God prescribed that every Israelite was to set aside Saturday as a day of rest. ‘Sabbath’ means ‘rest, cease’ and this refers to the regular weekly Sabbaths. The day was characterised by doing no work. God also prescribed seven annual Sabbaths. These were also characterised by doing no work. Two of these annual Sabbaths occur during the Feast of Unleavened Bread – one at the beginning (on the fifteenth day of the month) and one at the end (the twenty first day of the month). Just as in our Gregorian calendar, the fifteenth day of any month does not fall on the same day of the week each year, so too the 15^th Nisan/Aviv can fall on any day of the week. The feast is to be held from the fifteenth of the month and not from a Saturday 9regular Sabbath day), though of course, it may coincide from time to time, as it did in 2016.

So, with that in mind, let’s now look at the difficulties we find in the Gospels. In 30AD, the year we have previously seen was the most likely year for the crucifixion to have occurred, Nisan 14 began on a Wednesday evening at 6pm; the Passover lambs were slain from 3pm on the afternoon of the following daylight period of Nisan/Aviv 14 (our Thursday); and the Jews would have eaten the Passover meal as Nisan/Aviv 15 began on Thursday evening. If Jesus did not die when the Passover lambs were slain, this would call into question the whole possibility of a Thursday crucifixion. If however He was killed on Thursday afternoon when the lambs were being killed, then the meal He ate with His disciples could not have been the Passover meal, for that was not eaten until after He died. So the question is, have we got the timeline wrong? Did one or more of the Gospel writers make a mistake, or is there a way to reconcile these accounts?

Several theories have been put forward in an attempt to harmonise the accounts. All these theories relate to calendar differences. Some are better than others, but before we look at the Gospels themselves, it is worth noting some of these other theories:

It has been suggested that Jesus and His disciples celebrated the “Essene Passover”. The Essenes were a strict religious group who were attempting to return the traditional Judaism of their day to its scriptural basis. They lived in communities, were nearly all men, adopted boy children to train up, had very strict rules and, most importantly, they eschewed the sacrifices. They had nothing to do with the temple and its worship and sacrificial systems, as they believed them to have been ‘polluted’. It would appear that many of them were vegetarians. They also worked to a different calendar, based on a 364 day solar year, rather than the Jewish lunar calendar. As with the Jewish festivals, the Essene festival dates moved around the days of the week (although there are some who claim Passover always fell on a Tuesday). In 30AD, the Essene Passover fell the day before the Jewish Passover. However, Jesus would have been breaking Jewish law had He held Passover a day early, making this theory much less likely. The teachings of Jesus most closely aligned with that of the Pharisees, thus He would have been more likely to follow their calendar than that of the Essenes. Jesus also was not against the temple sacrifices. He participated annually in the Feast of Passover since being twelve years old – and always at the same time as all the other Jews. Therefore, although it is tempting to accept this theory, it must be rejected.

A second theory relates to an ancient Egyptian calendar. Humphreys claims that Jesus celebrated the last Supper on Wednesday evening because He was following a pre-exile lunar calendar, inherited by the Israelites from ancient Egypt and later used by Samaritans and possibly Galileans during the Second Temple period. For the reasons stated above (in the Essene paragraph), I do not believe this theory holds water either. There is no mention of such a calendar anywhere in Scripture; the Jews held to a calendar they believed stemmed from Moses at the time of the Exodus. Jesus followed the same calendar as the other Jews in Israel at that time. To have followed a different calendar would have necessitated slaughtering Passover lambs on a different day which could not have happened in the Temple and would not have been valid if performed elsewhere. God had said the sacrifices were to take place in “the place where I have set my Name” – that place was always taken to be Jerusalem and more specifically, in the Temple at Jerusalem. The Samaritans worshipped on Mount Gerizim. If Jesus had been following the calendar used by the Samaritans, He would not have been in Jeruslaem .

The third theory suggests that the Sadducees and Pharisees held two different calendars, where Passover was held on two consecutive days. That of the Pharisees being held on 13^th to 14^th Nisan/Aviv, and that of the Sadducees being held on 14^th to 15^th of the month. This would have meant that Jesus ate the Pharisaical Passover one evening, and was killed along with the sacrifices for the Sadducean Passover the next day. This theory is plausible, especially given the fourth theory, which is something of a variation on the third.

After the Babylonian exile, the Jews were scattered. They became known as the Jews of the Diaspora (dispersion) and many lived far from Jerusalem. The Jewish calendar was not set in stone. The leaders of the Jews would determine the first day of each month from the lunar cycle and thus the dates for the feasts would be set. At first, flares were set off from Jerusalem to announce the beginning of the new month, but one year the Samaritans interfered with this system. Thereafter messengers were sent out to those living in further districts or countries. These journeys often took some time so the announcements might come later to some areas than others. You might be wondering how it was that they could not determine the beginning of the month for themselves. It was dependant on the phases of the lunar cycle. As a result sometimes the month would be 29 days long and in other years, the same month could be 30 days long. To add to the confusion, every few years there was a double month, Adar I and Adar II to balance the calendar with the seasons. Thus the start of the month was not as easy to determine as some might imagine.

Due to the late arrival of the announcement of the start of the month in some regions the religious leaders began doubling up the feast days so that on two consecutive days, the same feast was held. Thus, depending on whether it was a 29 days month or a 30 day month, Passover was celebrated on both 14^th and 15^th or 15^th and 16^th of the month. Added to this was the sheer logistics of slaughtering the lambs in the Temple all in one day in two and a half short hours. Josephus estimated that there were up to 3,000,000 people in Jerusalem for Passover in the early part of the first century and that around a quarter of a million lambs were slain. Later historians agree that this is undoubtedly an exaggeration, but even if there were only 150,000 people present that would still mean in the region of 15000 lambs being slain. Therefore, following the rule for the Jews of the Diaspora, it is possible that there were two consecutive Passover days. There is no mention of such a custom being observed in the Gospels but that does not mean it could not have happened.

Now let’s turn to the Gospels themselves. The synoptic Gospels all appear to agree on two things: first, that the Last Supper was the Passover meal and second, that the crucifixion was between the 6^th and 9^th hours of the day. John’s Gospel however, is quite clear that the Last Supper was not the Passover; and he has Jesus being taken to Pilate at the 6^th hour.

The second of these anomalies is easily dealt with. In Jewish calculation, the daylight portion of the day started at 6am, therefore the 6^th hour was noon and the 9^th hour was 3pm. If John was following the same time frame, Jesus did not appear before Pilate until noon, while the other Gospels clearly show it was early in the morning. The conclusion therefore to be drawn is that John was referring to the Roman time calculation, where starting from midnight, the 6^th hour would be 6 o’ clock in the morning, thus bringing the two timelines into harmony. The other anomaly is less easy to reconcile.

Much of what is written in the synoptic Gospels is the same or similar; only John gives information that is unique to his Gospel, with two exceptions, those being a verse in Matthew 27 and another in Luke 22. We shall deal with these in due course.

All four Gospels begin the last days of Jesus by giving us a time frame. Matthew and Mark both refer to the time being two days before the Passover [Matthew 26v2; Mark 14v1]. We have already seen that the Passover meal was to be eaten at the beginning of Nisan/Aviv 15^th and that more probably than not, this was Thursday after 6pm. So two days before Passover would be Tuesday Nisan/Aviv 13^th. Luke, writing primarily for a Gentile audience, adds a little more detail, “Now the feast of unleavened bread drew near, which is called the Passover” (Luke 22v1), thus adding evidence to the view that ‘passover’ could be used as a generic term to refer to the whole feast. John 12v1 begins this period earlier, “six days before Passover”. We know that he is not referring to the same time as the other Gospel writers’ two days, because the events that occur after John’s timeframe occur before that of the synoptic writers.

The Jews had been seeking to get rid of Jesus for some time but now things were coming to a head. Both Matthew and Mark record that the elders of the people, that is, the religious leaders, were conspiring against Him, but although they wanted Him killed, they were sensitive to the fact of the Jewish festival approaching: “But they said, Not on the feast (day), lest there be an uproar among the people”. Mark’s wording is almost identical to Matthew’s [Matthew 26v5; Mark 14v2]. The word ‘day’ is not in the original and the verse is probably better translated as it is in the ESV, “not during the feast…”.

So the leaders were in a hurry to dispose of this ‘nuisance’ that was plaguing them, but they were not willing to disrupt the feast to achieve their aim. Had they failed in their endeavours before the feast, then it is more than likely they would have waited until the whole seven day Feast of Unleavened Bread had concluded.

As the feast drew closer, the disciples sought somewhere to prepare for the Passover meal. Matthew tells us:

          “Now the first day of the feast of unleavened bread the disciples came to Jesus saying unto him, Where wilt thou that we prepare for thee to eat the Passover” [Matthew 26v17].

From this verse it would seem clear we are speaking of Nisan/Aviv 15, which was the official first day of the feast of unleavened bread (see Exodus 12v ), however, both Mark and Luke add a further detail:

          “And the first day of unleavened bread, when they killed the Passover” [Mark 14v12]

          “then came the day of unleavened bread when the Passover must be killed” [Luke 22v7]

Well, the Passover lamb was killed on the 14^th, not the 15^th so we see that we are speaking of the day before the lambs were slain, the Day of Preparation. As it was a day to prepare for the seven day feast, it had been included in the generic term ‘unleavened bread’ even though it was not officially the first day. John simply says “now before the feast of the Passover”, suggesting that it was at least the day before, if not longer. The fact that it wasn’t ‘longer’ is borne out by Mark and Luke specifying that it was the day when the Passover lambs were slain. So we can now see that all four Gospels are referring to the day of preparation, Nisan/Aviv 14.

Now when did this incident occur (ie, the disciples coming to ask Jesus where they should make preparation)? Matthew and Mark both just say “the first day of unleavened bread”. Luke however says “then came the day…”. This is when it is important to remember that the Jews count their days as ‘evening and morning’ so the start of Nisan/Aviv 14 (Thursday) was at 6pm on Wednesday. There is a lot of preparation to be made for a Passover meal. For one thing, the house has to be cleared of all ‘leaven’, for another, the necessary supplies need to be purchased, the lambs slain and roasted, and the table set. If Luke’s phrase referred to the start of Nisan/Aviv 15, when the lamb was to be eaten, not only would they have missed the time (earlier that afternoon) for slaughtering the lamb, but they would not have had time to make all the necessary preparations. Not only that, but as soon as the slaughtering of the lambs began, all the shops closed, so they would have had nowhere to go to purchase the supplies. Thus it seems to confirm that this was at the start of Nisan 14, that is, Wednesday evening, before the lambs were killed in the Temple the following afternoon.

However, the next verse in the narratives appears to contradict this. Having asked where they were to prepare for the Passover meal on the following day, Jesus dispatches Peter and John (only Luke names those who went to prepare) with instructions to look for a man carrying a pitcher of water. This being ‘women’s work’, he would not have been difficult to spot. They were to follow him to a house and to say to the householder: where is the room where we can prepare, because “I will eat the Passover at thy house with my disciples” [Matthew 26v18]. Both Luke and Mark make similar statements. It certainly looks like Jesus was going to eat the Passover that night in this borrowed room. I admit I was stumped here for a while as this verse seemed to contradict everything I had just concluded. But does it? To find out, I needed to look at the original languages. In Matthew, the word for “I will” is poio . this is in the present tense, not the future and carries the meaning of “I want to” rather than “I am going to”. It is the “will” of desire, rather than of something future and definite.

The second thing I discovered was that the word “eat” should more properly be translated “keep”. So Matthew’s version should read: “I want to keep the Passover at your house.” Mark and Luke again seem to contradict this view. Mark says, “Where is the guest chamber, where I shall eat the Passover” and Luke says, “Go and prepare us the Passover, that we may eat”. The words for “shall eat” and “may eat” are phago and phagomen respectively and they both mean “might” rather than “shall”. Luke is closer with “may”. Both verses therefore indicate “I would like to” rather than a definite intention.

Once again, we see that there is therefore no conflict and Jesus was not stating that He was going to eat the Passover, but that He wanted to or desired to keep the Passover – something we shall see more about later.

So, the Nisan/Aviv 14, day of preparation has begun at 6pm on Wednesday evening. Two of the disciples have set off to get the room ready for the Passover meal the following evening, just as Nisan/Aviv 15 would be starting. They make the room as ready as possible – maybe they laid the table, certainly they would have cleaned it thoroughly to remove any trace of ‘leaven’ from the room. The rest of the preparation would need to be made the following day – buying fresh herbs for the “bitter herbs”, buying the wine for the meal, slaughtering the lamb between 3pm and 5.30pm and roasting it ready to eat. Roasting the lamb would itself take several hours as it was to be roasted whole. Coming to ask Jesus where they were to prepare as the preparation day began (6pm Wednesday evening) would not allow for the entire Passover meal to be prepared and eaten before midnight.

There are those who have suggested that they killed their own lamb and ate that a day before everyone else had theirs, but Jesus kept the law completely. Not one jot or tittle did He break. And the law commanded specifically that they were not to kill the lamb at home (“within [their] gates”) but only at the place where “God had placed [His] Name”, the Temple in Jerusalem, [Deuteronomy 16v5-6 with v2].

In addition, there is no mention of the disciples eating lamb. With the enormous symbolism attached to Christ as “the Lamb of God”, it is impossible to conceive of them eating lamb and Jesus not drawing out some teaching about its significance.

So, as already stated, the day of preparation had begun, 6pm on Wednesday; the apostles had prepared the room, but not the Passover meal and then we read: “And when the even was come, he sat down with the twelve” [Matthew 26v20], “And in the evening, he cometh with the twelve” [Mark 14v17]. It was still the evening at the start of Nisan/Aviv 14 and, as soon as it was dark (“when even was come”), Jesus and His disciples gathered together in the room that had been prepared and ate a last meal together. Of course, the disciples at this point were not aware that it was going to be their last meal together before Jesus was crucified.

After the meal was eaten (“And supper being ended”, John 13v2), Jesus washed His disciples’ feet before returning to the table and announcing that one of those seated with Him would betray Him. Concerned, but recognising that Jesus understood their hearts better than they knew them themselves, they started asking, not “who will it be?” but “Is it I?” It appears that they had started eating again, for Jesus dipped a piece of bread into the dip on the table and passed it to Judas, telling him, “What thou doest, do quickly” [John 13v27]. The other disciples overheard Him, but thought nothing of it, because Judas was in charge of the group’s money bag:
          “For some of them thought… that Jesus had said unto him, Buy those things we have need of against the feast…” [John 13v29].

This is an interesting point – they thought Jesus was telling Judas to go and buy what they might need for the feast. Why would He do that if they had just finished eating that feast? Where could Judas have gone if this was indeed Passover night; all the shops would have been closed because it was a special Sabbath?

After Judas had left, Jesus instituted what we call ‘communion’, ‘the Lord’s supper’, or ‘the breaking of bread’, amongst other titles. He took bread and wine, gave thanks, and imbued them with a significance beyond mere bread and wine. Now another interesting point here is the bread Jesus used. Those who say this was the Passover meal have to assume that the bread was unleavened bread. When the Israelites were instructed to eat the very first Passover meal, God said: “In the first month on the fourteenth day of the month, at even [ie, as the fifteenth was beginning], ye shall eat unleavened bread” [Exodus 12v18]

There were dire consequences for anyone who ate leavened bread: “Seven days shall there be no leaven found in your houses: for whosoever eateth that which is leavened shall be cut off from the congregation of Israel” [v19]

In Greek there is a word that is translated ‘unleavened bread’; it is azumos. But that is not the word used in the Gospels for the bread at the last supper. That word is ‘artos’ which is ordinary bread. In fact, in relation to the last supper, the word for bread is always ‘artos’, regular bread; not one of the Gospel writers uses the word ‘azumos’, unleavened bread. Paul also speaks of communion in 1 Corinthians 11v23ff. he says at the start, “I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you.” In other words, this was a direct revelation from Jesus to Paul. In the several occasions in this passage where Paul refers to ‘bread’, he always uses the word ‘artos’. Now while it is possible that ‘artos’ can be used to refer to any kind of bread, including unleavened bread, it seems unlikely that in the ten or so occasions bread is referred to in relation to the last supper, or the communion in the New Testament, there is not one reference to it being ‘azumos’, unleavened bread. Why would God not direct the use of the word ‘azumos’ if indeed they were eating unleavened bread? This again points to the conclusion that the last supper could not have been the Passover meal.

The next reference we need to examine is unique to Luke’s Gospel:
          “And he said unto them, With desire I have desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer: For I say unto you, I will not any more eat thereof, until it be fulfilled in the Kingdom of God” [Luke 22v15-16].

Luke uses a rather odd turn of phrase here: “with desire I have desired”. Other translations say “with fervent desire I have desired”, or “longingly I have desired”. It is difficult to get the full sense of the phrase in translation. The Greek phrase used here is ‘epithumia epithumisa’, which is two variations of the same word, meaning ‘desire’ or ‘longing’. According to Luke’s account, Jesus says these words immediately before the ‘breaking of bread’ is instituted. Some have taken the words “to eat this Passover” to mean “to eat this meal that we are eating right now”, but it need not necessarily mean that; Jesus could just as easily be referring to the season that had just started with the day of preparation – thus “I have been longing for this Passover season”. So that of itself is not definitive. If this was not in fact the Passover meal, what could Luke have meant? The first of the two words in the Greek phrase, ‘epithumia’ does mean ‘with desire’, but it also carries with it the notion of something forbidden. In other words, Jesus wanted more than anything else to share this coming Passover with His disciples, but He knew that was never going to happen, as He would already be in the grave by the time the Passover meal was eaten. Or, as one person put it: “I really wanted to eat this Passover with you, but God had other ideas”!

This is confirmed in the following verse: “I will not any more eat thereof”. Once again, the translation seems to suggest that, having already eaten the Passover meal, He would not eat another Passover meal until the Kingdom of God was established. However, that is not the whole story. The NASB, widely acclaimed as one of the most literal, yet easy to read, translations available, renders this verse: “I shall not eat it, until it be fulfilled in the Kingdom of God” [Luke 22v16 NASB]. This translation is supported by Ferrar Fenton’s translation and the English Revised and English Standard versions. In summary then, these two verses, paraphrased, read:

          “I really wanted to eat/keep this season of Passover with you and eat the Passover meal, but I knew I could not. In fact, I shall not eat it until the Kingdom of God is established.”

After the communion is instituted, Jesus and the eleven remaining disciples left the room and went to the garden of Gethsemane. There, Jesus was betrayed with a kiss from Judas, He was arrested and taken for trial before the Jewish religious leaders, who condemned Him and pronounced Him worthy of death. However, while they did have certain freedoms under their Roman rulers, they did not have the authority to execute anyone. So in order to be finally rid of Him, they led Him to Pilate, very early in the morning, probably around 6am. This was still the preparation day, Nisan/Aviv 14 (which you remember started at 6pm the evening before), and still the day when the Passover lambs were to be slain for the feast later that same day as Nisan/Aviv 14 gave way to Nisan/Aviv 15. This is only recorded in John’s Gospel:

          “Then they led Jesus from Caiaphas unto the hall of judgment [Pilate’s official residence]: and it was early; and they themselves went not into the judgment hall, lest they should be defiled; but that they might eat the Passover” [John 18v28].

Who are ‘they’ in this verse? These were the Jewish leaders who had arrested and tried Jesus; it might have included the whole of the Sanhedrin, together with the High Priest, chief priests, elders, Pharisees and others who had been called as [false] witnesses against Him. Also present were Peter (though ‘afar off’) and John who was an eye witness of these things. In short ‘they’ were all Jews. And John tells us that those who had condemned Jesus did not want to enter Pilate’s judgment hall, because they did not want to defile themselves and so ensure that they could partake of the Passover meal that was still to come. If the Passover had been the previous evening, their defilement would already have occurred by arresting Jesus and holding a trial in the manner in which they did, as these things would have taken place during a High Holy Sabbath. In fact, they were already in breach of the law, because they should not have held a trial at night. But that did not matter to them – they were in haste to dispose of Jesus before the feast. Now, they did not want to become ‘contaminated’ by associating with a Gentile, Pilate, which would render them unable to partake of the feast. As an interesting aside, they were content to break God’s law about trials at night, but they were concerned about breaking man’s law about not associating with Gentiles; nowhere were they told in the books of Moses that they would be ‘unclean’ if they associated with Gentiles.

And for good measure, John adds the little detail: “And it was the preparation of the Passover” [John 19v14] so there can be no doubt about which day it was. More about this shortly.

Without going into details, Jesus was tried, condemned and executed in quick succession. He was tried by Pilate at around 6am, hung on the cross from 9am to 3pm when He “gave up the ghost” and died. After this, Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus removed His body from the cross and buried Him quickly. Why the haste?

          “Now when the even was come, because it was the preparation, that is, the day before the Sabbath” [Mark 15v42]

          “[And this man begged the body of Jesus] and that day was the preparation, and the Sabbath drew on” [Luke 23v54]

“Now when the even was come”: remember that ‘evening’ could be anywhere between 3pm and sunset (6pm), so if Jesus died at 3pm, it would still be ‘evening’ until it got dark. However, the day would have changed at about 6pm from Nisan/Aviv 14 to Nisan/Aviv 15. The time for the Passover meal had arrived.

A lot of confusion has arisen because of the words of these verses: “it was the preparation…the day before the Sabbath”; “the Sabbath drew on”. Many have read this to mean the regular weekly Sabbath, but we nowhere read in the Scriptures that there was a day of preparation for the weekly Sabbath. We do however have copious amounts of evidence that the day before the Passover meal was a day of preparation.

John dispels any lingering doubt about which day it was:

          “The Jews therefore, because it was the preparation, that the bodies should not remain upon the cross on the Sabbath day (for that Sabbath was an high day), besought Pilate…” [John 19v31]

Matthew confirms this, for after the Passover meal had been eaten:

“The next day, that followed the day of preparation” the Jews asked Pilate that he should set a guard on the tomb [Matthew 27v62]. So the day after Jesus was crucified and buried is referred to here as “the day that followed the day of preparation”.

John informs us that this was not the regular weekly Sabbath, but one of God’s special annual Sabbaths, the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, Nisan/Aviv 15.

Conclusion

Having ascertained in a previous [article] that the crucifixion occurred on Thursday afternoon, we have now looked at whether the last supper was, or could have been, the Passover meal. It appears there are anomalies between the synoptic Gospel writers and the Gospel of John. John is clear that the last supper was not the Passover meal; the other three writes seem to suggest that it was. However, these anomalies are only superficial and there is no conflict between the Gospel writers when studied closely.

The Jews were determined to kill Jesus, but they did not want to do so during the feast. Matthew then suggests that the disciples were to get a room ready for the Passover on the “first day of Unleavened Bread”, which would be Nisan/Aviv 15. However, Mark and Luke indicate that this was in fact the preparation day, “when the Passover lamb was to be killed”. After dark, Jesus sat down with His disciples to eat a meal. There is no mention of them eating lamb (a significant omission), or bitter herbs, and the bread they ate was ordinary bread (artos) not unleavened bread (azumos).

After Jesus was crucified, Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus asked to bury Jesus quickly “because it was the preparation day…before the Sabbath” (Mark and Luke); this is corroborated by Matthew, who speaks of the next day being “the day that followed the day of preparation”. John explains that it was the preparation before the special annual Sabbath of unleavened bread and not the weekly Sabbath: “that Sabbath was an high day”.

From this we can conclude that Jesus and His disciples did not in fact eat the Passover meal, but ate a different meal the day before, at the start of the preparation day, Nisan/Aviv 14 (Wednesday evening).

So if the last supper was not the Passover meal, what was it? Was it a special meal at all, other than it being the last meal Jesus and His disciples would eat together – a point none of them was aware of except Jesus himself?

It is possible that it was just an ordinary meal. However, this is unlikely given that Jesus and the disciples went to a special room and spent the entire evening there, eating and drinking. In addition, the word translated ‘sat’ in Matthew 26v2 and Mark 14v17 is ‘reclined’ indicating that this was in fact a formal meal.

Another possibility is that the blessing of the bread and the wine at the end of the meal (after Judas had departed) was a simple ‘kiddush’ – a ceremony usually performed by the head of the household to usher in the Sabbath or other holy day. However, this is usually performed at the start of the meal and the Gospels clearly tell us that when Jesus prayed a blessing over the cup, it was after the meal was concluded. Also, as this in fact was not the start of a holy day meal (the holy day, high Sabbath, did not commence until the following evening), it would be inappropriate to perform a Kiddush at this time.

Some people say that a Kiddush can be performed at any meal for any purpose, or no special purpose. Bread and wine were available at every meal, especially at formal meals, and a blessing was (and still is) prayed over each before they are distributed. This lends credence to the first possibility, that this was just an ordinary meal.

However, David Stern gives another alternative. He suggests that this meal could have been a ‘se’udat mitzvah’. When a Rabbi ended a tractate (section/unit of teaching) of the Talmud with his disciples, they would celebrate with a special meal, known as ‘a banquet of completion’. In modern terminology, we might see it as a ‘graduation ceremony’. Jesus had spent three and a half years teaching His disciples. He knew (although the disciples seemed oblivious to the fact at this stage) that He would not be teaching them in the same way any longer; His ministry was complete, the training over. A ‘celebration of completion’ seems particularly appropriate.

© Christine Glover

Is Christianity a sect of Judaism?

Relationship between Christianity and Judaism

The other day I was listening to a sermon and the preacher happened to say that if we do certain things, live a particular way, then ‘Christianity is merely a sect of Judaism’. His intent was clearly to point out that Christianity is totally separate from Judaism. Indeed, when we look at Christianity around us today, from Catholics to Pentecostals, Baptists to Methodists, there is very little similarity between Christianity and Judaism. Another preacher I heard, speaking of the Apostle Paul, referred to Paul having been ‘called by Christ’ as meaning that he had been called ‘out of Judaism and into Christianity’.

Is it true that Christianity is a completely separate religion? Did Jesus Christ come to establish a ‘new thing’ called Christianity? Or is Christianity essentially Jewish? After all, Jesus was a Jew, the Apostles were all Jews, all the early believers for around the first ten years after the resurrection of Christ were all Jews or converts to Judaism (proselytes) and the events of the Gospels and many of those in the Acts of the Apostles all occurred in the land of the Jews, Israel. Of course, there are one or two things that overlap Christianity with Judaism – we worship the same God; we have the same Bible – well, the Old Testament is the same at least, but it does indeed appear, from our 21^st Century vantage point, that there is little else in common between Jews and Christians.

In order to understand this issue, we first have to understand what is meant by a ‘sect’. Recently, I was speaking to a Jew in Jerusalem and I asked him what the difference was between the various Jewish groups, such a Hassidic, Askenazi and so on. He started by saying ‘well, first you have to understand that all Jews are Jews.’ There are various groups within Judaism, but they all have the same Bible version, they all have the same worship practices, they are all ‘the same’ essentially. To him a ‘sect’ was simply a group within a group, but the emphasis was on their similarities, not their differences. Contrast this with the western view of a ‘sect’ where the emphasis is on the differences. For instance, Jews look for what is common between them; Christians, with their several denominational labels, cling to that which highlights the differences. They cling to those differences and the result is division and separation. In Judaism, they cling rather to the similarities and the result is unity and inclusion.

The dictionary definition compounds this western view:

Sect sɛkt/

noun

1.    a group of people with somewhat different religious beliefs (typically regarded as heretical) from those of a larger group to which they belong.

synonyms:

(religious) cult, religious group, faith community, denomination, persuasion, religious order; More

o    derogatory

a group that has separated from an established Church; a nonconformist Church.

"two of the older sects—the Congregationalists and the Baptists—were able to increase their membership dramatically"

synonyms:

(religious) cult, religious group, faith community, denomination, persuasion, religious order; More

o    a philosophical or political group, especially one regarded as extreme or dangerous.

"the radical sect Friends of the Earth campaigned against aerosols containing CFC gases"

You notice that the key words in these three definitions promote separation and even fear: ‘typically regarded as heretical’; ‘separated from an established church’; ‘especially one regarded as extreme or dangerous’.

A different online dictionary defines ‘sect as:

1.a body of persons adhering to a particular religious faith; a religious denomination.

2.a group regarded as heretical or as deviating from a generally accepted religious tradition.

3(in the sociology of religion) a Christian denomination characterized by insistence on strict qualifications for membership, as distinguished from the more inclusive groups called churches.

4.any group, party, or faction united by a specific doctrine or under a doctrinal leader.

Of these definitions, two are much closer to the Jewish understanding of the word ‘sect’: a body of persons adhering to a particular religious faith’ and any group, party, or faction united by a specific doctrine under a doctrinal leader’. So the Lubovitch Jews are those who follow the teaching of the Rabbi Lubovitch, while not denouncing the beliefs of the rest of Judaism – and that is the key. When a person is, say, a ‘Calvinist’, they follow the teachings of one of the leaders of the Reformation in the Middle Ages, John Calvin. If they then cease to be Calvinists, they usually (though not always) end up renouncing everything John Calvin taught and enter a different denomination, for example, Pentecostal. The Pentecostals teach that the miraculous gifts of the New Testament are still operative today; they often particularly emphasise ‘speaking in tongues’ (languages of either men or angels that they have never learned). If they then decide that these gifts are not valid today, the tendency is to renounce that teaching and join somewhere else. The result is a fragmented view of Christianity, whereas the Jews have a cohesive view of Judaism.

How does this help us understand the relationship between Jews and Christians today? Well, if Christianity was seen as a sect in Bible times, then it would have been an inclusive view, not an exclusive view. Being a Christian did not mean renouncing Judaism; being Jewish did not mean they considered Christians heretics.

So did the Jews therefore consider Christianity a sect? Furthermore, did the early Christians consider themselves a sect of Judaism?

Today, believers in Jesus are known throughout the world as Christians. But this was not always the case. The word ‘christianos’, from which we get the word ‘Christian’ is only found three times in the New Testament – in Acts 11v26, Acts 26v28 and 1 Peter 4v16. Other designations for believers (other than the word ‘believer’ itself) were ‘The Way’ (Acts 9v2, 19v9, 19v23, 24v14, and 24v22) and ‘The Nazarenes’ (Acts 24v5). The designation ‘Nazarene’ is derived from the word for ‘a person from Nazareth’. In the instance of the New Testament, it refers to those who were followers of ‘the man from Nazareth’, namely, Jesus Christ.

They were also known for being a ‘sect’ of Judaism: Acts28v22, 24v14 and 24v5. It seems that the New Testament does indeed place Christianity as a sect of Judaism, with roots firmly embedded therein.

So what changed? It was Epiphanius (310/320-403 AD) who first denounced as heretics those who were called Christians but still lived within Jewish faith and practice. Until that time, followers of ‘The Way’ had been deemed Christians beyond reproach. The Jewish Encyclopedia puts it: “For a long time they [the Nazarenes] were regarded as irreproachable Christians, Epiphanius ("Hæres." xxix.), who did not know much about them, being the first to class them among heretics. Why they are so classed is not clear, for they are reproached on the whole with nothing more than with Judaizing. As there were many Judaizing Christians at that time, the Nazarenes can not be clearly distinguished from the other sects. The well-known Bible translator Symmachus, for example, is described variously as a Judaizing Christian and as an Ebionite; while his followers, the Symmachians, are called also "Nazarenes" “

Epiphanius himself states: “But these sectarians... did not call themselves Christians--but "Nazarenes," ... However they are simply complete Jews. They use not only the New Testament but the Old Testament as well, as the Jews do... They have no different ideas, but confess everything exactly as the Law proclaims it and in the Jewish fashion-- except for their belief in Messiah, if you please! For they acknowledge both the resurrection of the dead and the divine creation of all things, and declare that G-d is one, and that his son is Yeshua the Messiah. They are trained to a nicety in Hebrew. For among them the entire Law, the Prophets, and the... Writings... are read in Hebrew, as they surely are by the Jews.”

Bede (c672-735 AD) wrote: “The Judaism and the Christianity of the Bible are the same, only differing in the fact that "biblical Christianity " professes Jesus as the Messiah” 

It might surprise people to learn that “the first fifteen bishops of the church in Jerusalem were all circumcised Jews and the congregation over which they presided united the law of Moses with the doctrine of Christ. It was natural that the primitive tradition of a church which was founded only forty days after the death of Christ, and was governed almost as many years under the immediate inspection of His apostles, should be received as the standard of orthodoxy. The distant churches very frequently appealed to the authority of their venerable Parent and relieved her distress by a liberal contribution of alms, but when numerous and opulent societies were established in the great cities of the empire, in Antioch, Alexandria, Ephesus, Corinth , and Rome, the reverence which Jerusalem had inspired to all the Christians afterwards called, the Nazarenes, who had laid the foundations of the church, soon found themselves overwhelmed by the increasing multitudes that from all the various religions of polytheism enlisted under the banner of Christ: and the Gentiles, who, with the approbation of their peculiar apostle, had rejected the intolerable weight of Mosaic ceremonies, at length refused to their more scrupulous brethren the same toleration which at first they had humbly solicited fro their own practice” (Gibbons, vol. 1, p. 389).

It is clear from this, that the church in Jerusalem was seen as the lead church for all the congregations throughout the world at that time and that they maintained a unity between the law of Moses and the doctrines of Christ. For forty years, the church leaders were all Jewish by birth and continued in Jewish orthodoxy while professing that Jesus Christ was the Messiah.

Gibbon goes on to explain that the Christians who fled the destruction of Jerusalem for refuge in Pella beyond the Jordan remained there in obscurity and solitude for another 60 years (to A.D. 130). In A.D. 135, the Romans defeated the Jews again and banished them from Jerusalem and imposed severe penalty if not death upon any who would dare to approach its precincts. He then writes, “The Nazarenes had only one way left to escape the common proscription, and the force of truth was on this occasion assisted by the influence of temporal advantages. They elected Marcus for their bishop, a prelate of the race of Gentiles, and most probably a native of either Italy or some of the Latin provinces. At his persuasion the most considerable part of the congregation renounced the Mosaic law, in the practice of which they had persevered above a century… In few years after the return of the church of Jerusalem, it became a matter of doubt and controversy whether a man who sincerely acknowledged Jesus as the Messiah, but who still continued to observe the law of Moses, cold possibly hope for salvation” (ibid. pp. 389–391).

Thus the keeping of the law of Moses had become deemed ‘heresy’ within 100 years after the death and resurrection of Christ. No longer was Christianity a sect of Judaism, no longer did its adherents follow the Way of the Nazarene; they had become an entirely separate religious group. But, to quote a phrase, ‘from the beginning it was not so’.

Galatians 2v11-21

Addressing some common errors relating to Galatians 2v11-21

These issues were brought to my attention by a fellow believer and in order to address them, I decided to write a blog post about them.

The issues relating directly to the passage (Galatians 2v11-21):

1.    The Galatian believers were being encouraged not to go back to the ways of Judaism; they were being told (by the ‘Judaisers’) that they could only be true Christians if they followed the law (of Moses).

2.    V12 – certain men came from James – these must have been falsely claiming to have come from James (the leader of the congregation in Jerusalem), because we know what James thought about this issue from Acts 15

3.    James had a life-long difficulty in giving up the Mosaic rituals and regulations, as we see from Acts 21

4.    In Christ, we know that all foods are now clean; Peter should have known this, for he was present on the occasion of Mark 7 and he received the vision of Acts 10

5.    V15 – could be read ‘We who know the law (ie Jews by birth) were saved by faith not by keeping the law. The Gentiles also are saved by faith. Law keeping cannot avail to save a man, or cover our sins’.

6.    The Gentiles were being told they needed to keep the Jewish rituals before they could become Christians

7.    Peter had to forsake his Judaistic sympathies or he was making Christ a liar

8.    Peter and the rest were abandoning grace for law.

9.    V19 – A new believer dies in Christ; he is therefore free from any claim of the law upon him

10. To go back to the law would nullify grace and to follow the law would mean going back under sin; following the law denies the need for Christ’s death.

Of these comments, let me address #2, 5 and 6 first. It is absolutely true that both Jews and Gentiles are saved by faith (as was Abraham, whose children we become through faith – see Galatians 3v7 and 3v29). It is also true, in part, that the Gentiles were being told they needed to keep the ‘Jewish rituals’ before they could be accepted. I say ‘in part’, because it was not ‘Jewish rituals’ per se that were being encouraged by these people who came from James.

But first let me start by saying the people who came from James were indeed misrepresenting themselves. They had come from Jerusalem and were believers, which means they came from the congregation in Jerusalem that was headed by James. But they were not sent by James. To say they ‘came from James’ could well imply they had been sent by him, but in this instance means they came from James’s congregation. Although the meeting in Jerusalem mentioned at the start of Galatians ch 2 was not in fact the meeting recorded in Acts 15, James would not have sent people to tell the Galatians one thing, then later sent a message to the churches from the Council in Jerusalem saying the exact opposite. (Just to clarify, the meeting mentioned in Galatians 2 was recorded in Acts 11, not 15).

Secondly, the so-called ‘Jewish rituals’ were not so much about keeping the Mosaic law as they were about conversion to Judaism. Some Jewish believers were teaching that conversion (shorthanded in Galatians as ‘circumcision’) was necessary before a person could be accepted before God. The promises and the blessings had been granted to Israel as a nation. By the time of the first century, the Jews had decided that the only way in which a non-Jew could access the blessings of God, was by becoming a Jew – ie becoming a proselyte to Judaism. These men from James were taking this a stage further and insisting that Gentiles could not partake of the blessings of faith in Christ unless they first became Jews. So this passage is not about whether or not Gentiles should keep the Law, but whether or not Gentiles needed to become Jews before they could believe in Jesus and obtain the benefits of the Abrahamic covenant (the covenant between God and Abraham, based on faith, that promised blessing to all the nations of the earth). God had already shown that He was accepting Gentiles on the same basis of faith and not by conversion to Judaism (Acts 10). A proselyte was one who was a Gentile, who then underwent conversion to Judaism and then was accepted in all ways as a Jew, as if he had been born a Jew. Just as adoption makes a child a legal member of a family, so conversion to Judaism made a Gentile a Jew in all respects and a member of the Jewish family. In short, legally speaking, a converted Gentile was counted as if he had been born a Jew.

So let’s now address the other comments.

“ The Galatian believers were being encouraged not to go back to the ways of Judaism; they were being told (by the ‘Judaisers’) that they could only be true Christians if they followed the law (of Moses).”

1.    As I already stated, the Galatian believers were not being encouraged to follow the Law of Moses; they were being told they must be converted to Judaism, else they could have no access to the promises of God through the Messiah

2.    It is not the ‘Law of Moses’, but rather the Law of God as given through Moses. [This is not actually much of an issue, but in the interests of completeness, I have included it]. Therefore the rituals and regulations are not those ‘of Judaism’ but of God – the feast days are God’s appointed times (Leviticus 23v2), the Sabbaths are God’s Sabbaths (Ezekiel 20v12), the laws are God’s laws (Leviticus 26v3).

3.    The Galatian believers could not at all be discouraged or encouraged to ‘go back’ to Judaism. Before they became believers, they were Gentiles – the whole point of Galatians is addressing whether or not Gentiles needed to become Jews. As Gentiles, they were therefore pagans and so did not follow the Law of Moses in the first place. It is impossible to ‘go back’ to something you never did to begin with!

James had a life-long difficulty in giving up the Mosaic rituals and regulations, as we see from Acts 21

1. Not one Jewish person in the entirety of the New Testament was asked to ‘give up’ their allegiance to God’s law. On the contrary, those who came to faith in Jesus not only continued in their Judaism, but were known for being ‘zealous for the law’ (Acts 21). Gentiles who came to faith were grafted in to Israel (Romans 11v17-19), became part of the commonwealth of Israel (Ephesians 2v12-13) and were deemed the children of Abraham (Galatians 3v7, 29).

2. If this was true for James, then it was also true for Paul, who was Jewish, and a Pharisee at that, to his dying day. In Acts 23v6, Paul, having been arrested, stated ‘I am a Pharisee, the son of a Pharisee’. Note the present tense – ‘I AM a Pharisee’ not ‘I WAS a Pharisee’.

3. Peter likewise was Jewish to his death; there is no evidence in the entirety of scripture that indicates Peter ever abandoned anything ‘Jewish’. To say differently is to add to the plain sense of scripture.

4. Throughout Acts, we see Christianity referred to as a ‘sect’. A sect is a sub group of a larger group; in this case, it referred to those who believed that Jesus was the expected Messiah who remained within Judaism. There was no hint of abandoning Judaism, but rather a working within it.

5. A person who spoke against God’s law was deemed a false prophet: Deut 13v3-5

“If a prophet or a dreamer of dreams arises among you and gives you a sign or a wonder, and the sign or wonder that he tells you comes to pass, and if he says, ‘Let us go after other gods,’ which you have not known, ‘and let us serve them,’ you shall not listen to the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams. For the LORD your God is testing you, to know whether you love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul. You shall walk after the LORD your God and fear him and keep his commandments and obey his voice, and you shall serve him and hold fast to him. But that prophet or that dreamer of dreams shall be put to death, because he has taught rebellion against the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt and redeemed you out of the house of slavery, to make you leave the way in which the LORD your God commanded you to walk. So you shall purge the evil from your midst.

The phrase ‘Let us go after other gods’ by implication includes abandoning the true God and His ways. His ways were enshrined in the law. This is confirmed by what is given here as the corollary to abandoning God – ‘You shall walk after the LORD your God and fear him and keep his commandments and obey his voice.’ Thus we see that if someone who calls themselves a prophet is to teach the people not to follow God’s laws, then they are in fact a false prophet. This ties in perfectly with the words of Jesus in Matthew 5v19: ‘So then, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do likewise will be called least in the kingdom of heaven’ (emphasis mine).

6. What does Acts 21 say in regard to this statement? Paul visited James some time after Galatians was written. This statement (in the sermon) was not made in relation directly to the letter to the Galatians, but made in support of the idea that James found it hard to give up his Judaism and renounce the following of the rules, regulations and rituals of the Mosaic law. With that in mind, let’s look at what was being said here. When Paul arrived in Jerusalem he had an audience with James, the leader of the congregation. It had been reported to James that Paul was teaching people who came to faith that they no longer needed to circumcise their children or to obey the Mosaic law. In his defence, Paul pointed out that thousands (myriad) of Jews had become believers and ‘all are zealous for the law’. In order to prove the point, Paul was asked to take four young men who had taken a vow. The fact that they needed to go to the Temple and to shave their heads indicates that this was the Nazirite vow they had taken. Paul was also encouraged to take the same vow himself and by this it would show those who were causing dissention that Paul himself lived in observance of the law (Acts 21v24). Paul actually did this, so what does it show? Does it show that James had not given up on his Judaistic rituals and regulations? Well, yes it does, but it does not show that he ought to have given them up. In fact, it shows that Paul also kept the law – unless he was being blatantly dishonest in keeping this vow and was just doing so for appearances! Some have suggested that James coerced Paul into taking this vow, but there is absolutely no hint that this is the case. Also, it is obvious that believing in Messiah in no way negated keeping the law, because many, many Jews had become believers and ‘all were zealous for the law’. Far from abandoning the law, they were upholding it more carefully and zealously. To say otherwise is reading something into the text that is not actually there and leaves one open to the charge of interpreting the scriptures to suit our doctrines rather than allowing the scripture to speak for itself.

7. If Paul abandoned the law, then he also contradicts himself multiple times in his letters, but one example will suffice. In Romans 3v31, Paul addresses this very issue:

Do we then overthrow (‘nullify’ or ‘make void’, in other translations) the law by this faith? By no means! On the contrary, we uphold the law.

Faith in Messiah does not nullify the law, but rather upholds it or establishes it (KJV). Does that sound like the law is to be abandoned, with its rituals and regulations? Not at all!

8. Jesus did not come to start a ‘new religion’ called Christianity – Christianity did not exist until around 250 years later. No, He came to show the true way to worship God, which was rooted in Judaism. God did not decide that Judaism was a mistake, or a false religion, and then set up something completely new.

In Christ, we know that all foods are now clean; Peter should have known this, for he was present on the occasion of Mark 7 and he received the vision of Acts 10

1.    Mark 7 is not about all food being clean. Those translations which include the words at the end as ‘thus He declared all foods clean’ are doing despite to the text. So let’s look at the actual text. The AV reads: ‘Because it entereth not into his heart, but into the belly, and goeth out into the draught, purging all meats?’ (Mark 7v19). Young’s Literal Translation has this same verse as ‘because it doth not enter into his heart, but into the belly, and into the drain it doth go out, purifying all the meats.' Those who suggest that ‘purging all meats’ is an addition to the text are mistaken. However, it has nothing to do with declaring all foods clean. What it does say is that if you eat with unwashed hands (which is the actual subject of the passage), then you are not going to be defiled by that food, because the food enters the stomach and passes through the digestive tract, and out into the toilet thus cleansing the food – from the dirt that might contaminate it from eating without washing your hands first! But there is a further meaning here – the Jews were fastidious about being ritually clean. For a Jew to eat food in the Temple required a certain level of washing for the sake of purity. Some Jews (the Pharisees in particular) had added traditions about hand washing to the eating of everyday foods in the home, saying a person had to be ritually clean before eating anything at all, even if the substance was actually permitted as food. Jesus was saying this is not necessary and was an addition to the Law of God. If Jesus had actually been saying that the laws of kosher were now done away with, the Pharisees would have stoned Him on the spot (notwithstanding that they had no jurisdiction to do so – cf the stoning of Stephen in Acts 7).

2.    Mark 7 needs to be read in conjunction with Matthew 15, which adds further detail to the account and clarifies what the issue actually was – eating with unwashed hands, not whether or not you could enjoy a pork chop!

3.    Acts 10 is likewise not about food. Not once, but twice, Peter explains what the vision was about and neither time did he refer to being able now to eat pork etc. The fact is, the animals in the vision were both clean and unclean (all kinds); the clean were made unclean by contact – contaminated by proximity. Likewise the Jews (considered clean in their own estimation) considered that if they had dealings with the Gentiles (considered unclean by the Jews), they would become contaminated and therefore made unclean. This was rabbinic tradition and was not mentioned at all in the Torah; in fact, it went against what the torah taught about Jews being a light to the Gentiles. God was showing Peter that Gentiles were not unclean, particularly those Gentiles who believed, as was the case in Galatia. Gentiles were to be accepted on the same basis – faith – as Jewish believers. There was to be no distinction (see Galatians 3v28)

Peter had to forsake his Judaistic sympathies or he was making Christ a liar

As already pointed out, Peter, Paul, James and the myriad Jews who believed did NOT forsake ‘Judaistic sympathies’. All they needed to ‘forsake’ was the erroneous rabbinical idea that Gentiles are unclean and could not therefore partake of the promises in Christ without first becoming legally Jewish.

Abandoning Judaism is more likely to make Christ a liar than following the faith He followed and walking as He walked. He Himself said that not the smallest point of the law would pass away till ‘all be fulfilled’ AND ‘until heaven and earth pass away’. ‘All’ has not yet been fulfilled (unless we have somehow missed the second coming). ‘Fulfil’ does not carry any notion of the meaning of ‘abolished’, ‘done away with’ or completed in such as way as to be obsolete. Instead it means to ‘fill up’ or to ‘give full meaning to’. This is why Jesus went on in this same passage to show that lust is the same as adultery and hate is the same as murder. He was showing that it isn’t just the outward keeping of the law that matters, but the attitude of the heart that also matters.

Peter and the rest were abandoning grace for law.

This would only be true if he was trying to earn his salvation through keeping the law – something Paul had done in the past, but once he came to faith in the Messiah, he realised he could never have been good enough in his own strength.

V19 – A new believer dies in Christ; he is therefore free from any claim of the law upon him

The example given was of a man convicted of murder, who receives the penalty for his crime (the death sentence), if he were to be resurrected, the law would have no hold over him. This is true to an extent – he cannot be tried and convicted of the same crime again, but (assuming resurrection) he could not then go out and kill anyone else! My own preferred analogy is of a driving offence, say, speeding. A person comes to court and is convicted of driving too fast, contrary to the speed limit. He is given a fine, which he cannot pay, so someone comes along and pays the fine for him. Can he therefore now go out and break the speed limit to his heart’s content? Of course not! As Paul says in Romans 3v31, ‘do we nullify the law through faith? God forbid! Rather we uphold the law’.

So what purpose does the law have for the believer? There are those who say the law has been nullified (contrary to Romans 3v31) and has no claim on any believer any more. This is not the case. The penalty for having broken the law no longer has any hold on us, but that does not mean we can do as we please, or that there is no longer any law for us as believers. 1 John has much to say about the purpose of God’s law:

1 John 2v3-6

And by this we know that we have come to know him, if we keep his commandments.  Whoever says “I know him” but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him,  but whoever keeps his word, in him truly the love of God is perfected. By this we may know that we are in him:  whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked.

This echoes the words of Jesus who said ‘If you love me, keep my commandments’ (John 14v15). We show true love for God and echo the true love of God when we keep the law. The passage goes on to say that if we claim to abide in Him, then we should walk as He walked. How did He walk? He kept the law perfectly – and we should strive to do so too.

Of course, there are those who say that this does not refer to the law of Moses, but to the new ‘law of Christ’ – in other words, if Jesus didn’t say it, we don’t have to do it, because we follow the law of Christ and He made it so much more simple. Maybe such things were already being said in John’s day, but whatever the reason, he addresses this very thing in 1 John 5v2-3, where he speaks of the law of God, rather than the law of Christ:

‘By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments.  For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome.’

Please note that the ‘law of God is not burdensome’, which echoes Deuteronomy 30v11: ‘Now what I am commanding you today is not too difficult for you or beyond your reach.’

I do believe that John considered the law of Christ to be identical with the law of God in any event.

To go back to the law would nullify grace and to follow the law would mean going back under sin; following the law denies the need for Christ’s death.

Again, only if it is used as a means of salvation or justification. And also to repeat – no-one can ‘go back’ to something that was not theirs in the first place.

v.14 – the preacher did not address this point directly, but I will do so here because it helps our understanding of what Paul was saying to Peter.

But when I saw that their conduct was not in step with the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas before them all, “If you, though a Jew, live like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you force the Gentiles to live like Jews?”

At first glance (and the standard Christian interpretation of this verse) is that Peter had abandoned everything to do with Judaism and had been living with Gentiles. The fact that the issue concerns eating together, it is assumed that the Gentiles were not eating according to the laws of kosher that the Jews adhered to and that Peter had no issue with this – he would eat non-kosher foods with the Gentiles until the Jewish believers arrived and then he refused to eat non-kosher foods and ate only with the Jews. Support for this view is taken from Mark 7 and Acts 10. But is this a correct interpretation? I suggest it is not! First see the points relating to Mark 7 and Acts 10 above.

It is always important to understand the Hebrew/Jewish context in which things were done, said and written in the New Testament. This particular verse contains a common phrase used in Hebraic thought – ‘live like a Gentile’. It was a term only used by Jews of other Jews and referred mainly to Jews who were associating closely with Gentiles, to the extent of eating meals with them. The Jews had decided that because you could never be sure if a Gentile had been in contact with a dead body, or eaten non-kosher foods, or were even serving non-kosher foods, then by association the Jew would become ritually contaminated. (See comments on Acts 10 above). It would therefore seem that the Jewish believers who had come from Jerusalem were saying that Peter was becoming ritually contaminated by eating with the Gentile believers. Peter therefore withdrew from this close association and had caused a rift amongst the believers in Galatia. The Jewish believers were separating from the Gentile believers and refusing to eat with them. This was causing some consternation and there were only two ways this rift could be healed – either Peter would need to return to eating with the Gentile believers as before, or else the Gentile believers would have to become Jewish converts in order that Jewish believers could have table fellowship with them. To force the Gentile believers into converting to Judaism was to ‘force (them) to live like Jews’. This was precisely what Paul had been teaching against and what Peter’s vision in Acts 10 had been about. Paul had been part of the tearing down of ‘the middle wall of partition’ between Jewish and Gentile believers and he most certainly did not want to rebuild it (Galatians 2v18). If the Gentiles had to become Jews before they could be believers in Christ, then that would be rebuilding that wall. The issue is not whether or not the Gentile believers needed to keep the law of God; it was entirely about whether or not Gentiles could be included in the Covenant of God purely by faith and without becoming Jews first.