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.

Circumcision and the Gentile Believers

Baptisms in the Jordan River

[This article was written in response to a question I was asked: Should believers be circumcised?]

Circumcision was given to Abraham as a sign in Genesis 17. I read the torah weekly in the order given in the Parasha, so I read this earlier in the year. The particular set of readings also gives a New Testament reading or two – on that day, these were from Romans 3v19 – 5v6 and Galatians 3v15-18. There were other readings as well, but these are the ones I want to concentrate on in this brief study.

The first thing to notice is when and for what reason God gave the sign of circumcision to Abraham. When Abraham was 75 years old (Genesis 12v4), God told him to leave his home and go to a place God would show him, but God did not tell him where he was going (see Hebrews 11v8). In faith and obedience, Abraham set out, resting in the promise that God had given him, namely, that God said ‘I will make of you a great nation, I will bless you, and I will make your name great; and you are to be a blessing….and by you all the families of the earth will be blessed’ (Genesis 12v2-3). We see in these verses two distinct promises. The first promise is that God would make of Abraham a great nation (the other promises about blessing Abraham and his descendants are directly connected to this promise); the other promise is that all the families of the earth will be blessed because of Abraham. So one promise is to the physical descendants of Abraham; the other is to the nations that are not directly descended from him.

It wasn’t until 24 years later that God reiterated these promises and explained them more fully, when Abraham had reached the age of 99 years. God appeared to Abraham and said, ‘I am El Shaddai (God Almighty). Walk in my presence and be pure hearted. I will make my covenant between me and you, and I will increase your numbers greatly’. Abraham had already trusted God (faith) and left his country (obedience); here God reiterates that He wants Abraham to follow Him (‘walk in my presence’) and renews the promise to increase his numbers (ie give him many descendants). He also renews the other promise: ‘you will be the father of many nations (plural)’ (17v4). Furthermore, God says, ‘I am establishing my covenant between me and you, along with your descendants, generation after generation, as an everlasting covenant’ (here we see that the covenant is permanent, everlasting, forever, throughout the generations); God continues, ‘I will give you and your descendants after you the land’ (this is the promise that Abrahams physical descendants will inherit the land of Israel as their permanent/everlasting possession – as long as they keep the covenant).

The sign of that covenant was circumcision: ‘Here is my covenant, which you are to keep, between me and you, along with your descendants after you: every male among you is to be circumcised…this will be the sign of the covenant between me and you’ (17v10,11).

The sign is not only for Abraham, but for all his descendants and is firmly restated with regard to the promised son, Isaac: ‘I will establish my covenant with him as an everlasting covenant for his descendants after him…I will establish my covenant with Isaac, whom Sarah will bear to you at this time next year’ (17v19,21). Abraham already had a son at this point – Ishmael. God repeated His promise to Abraham to reinforce the fact that the covenant whereby Abraham would become a great nation and his physical descendants would inherit the land of Israel was to be through Isaac. Abraham then went and circumcised his entire household, including his servants that he had bought (ie that literally belonged to him) and also his son, Ishmael (Isaac was not yet born). Nothing in this passage says anything about the nations round about. The promise that Abraham would be the cause of blessing other nations is not mentioned here.

[A brief aside about the servants being circumcised: when a person was ‘bought’ and therefore ‘owned’ by someone, they became more than just ‘property’. If the ‘owner’ had no children of his own, his chief servant stood to inherit all that he had. This is seen in Genesis 15v2, where Abraham states that ‘Eleazar of Damascus is my heir’. Abraham had no children of his own, so his servant Eleazar stood to inherit all that he had. The servants therefore were counted as ‘belonging’ in more ways than just because they had been bought with money – they were ‘family’ of a sort. It is because the servants were members of Abraham’s household that he had them circumcised. The matter of having these people circumcised says nothing about whether or not Gentiles should be circumcised].

So that is where circumcision is first given as a sign of the covenant between God and Abraham. God made two promises – firstly, that Abraham would be a great nation that would live in the land of Israel (the land God was giving him) and secondly, that all the (other) nations would be blessed through Abraham. The sign of circumcision was given when the promise of the land and being a great nation were reiterated.

So then we come to Romans and Paul’s commentary on this issue.

Abraham was declared righteous because of his faith. This faith preceded circumcision and preceded the giving of the law at Sinai through Moses. Abraham’s faith resulted in his obedience, but the promises were not given on the basis of obedience, but on the basis of his faith: ‘the account of someone who is working [works of obedience] is credited not on the ground of grace but on the ground of what is owed him. However, in the case of one who is not working but rather is trusting in Him who makes ungodly people righteous, his trust [faith] is credited to him as righteousness’ (Romans 4v4-5 CJB). So we see that Abraham was declared righteous by God not on the grounds of his works, or his obedience, or his status with regard to circumcision, but on the ground that he believed God/had faith in God/trusted God. Paul points out that Abraham was declared righteous *before* he was circumcised: ‘but what state was he in when it was so credited – circumcision or uncircumcision? Not in circumcision, but in uncircumcision!’ (4v10). He then goes on to say, ‘he received circumcision as a sign, as a seal of the righteousness he had been credited with on the ground of the trust [faith] he had while he was still uncircumcised’ (4v11).

Now this is where Paul brings together the two promises. Remember that God promised Abraham that his physical progeny would be great in number and would dwell in the land God was giving them and also that the nations would be blessed through Abraham. Paul explains that the reason God declared Abraham righteous *before* he was circumcised was in order that Abraham could be ‘the father of every uncircumcised person who trusts [has faith] and thus has righteousness credited to him’ (4v12) and also at the same time, be the father of those who were physical descendants and had received the sign of circumcision, but who also followed in the footsteps of the faith Abraham had when he was still uncircumcised himself (4v12b). In other words, a Gentile (person ‘of the nations’) who has faith though uncircumcised will be declared righteous by God just as a person who has faith and has been circumcised is declared righteous. Paul was expressing the fact that it is not by being Jewish (either by birth or conversion) that makes a person righteous, but it is faith and trust in God. We are Abraham’s children because of our faith, not because we have become legally Jewish by conversion and circumcision. And this, Paul continues, is the explanation of the statement back in Genesis that Abraham will be the father of many nations – not just Jews, but Gentiles (people of the nations) too.

And this is the exact point Paul is making in Galatians. There were some believers (most likely believers, though some suggest they might have been Jews who were concerned about the influx of Gentiles into the synagogues after they had believed in Messiah) who, being more strict in their observation of Judaism, were telling the Gentile converts in Galatia, that faith was not enough – they needed to be circumcised. Being circumcised was not just the medical procedure; it was shorthand for converting to Judaism. The Jews in the first century believed that salvation was the exclusive province of Jews. In order to be accepted by God, to inherit eternal life, you had to be a Jew. If you were not born a Jew, then you had to convert – and that meant, you had to be circumcised. So when Paul is writing to the Galatians, he is not speaking of mere physical circumcision, but the process of converting to Judaism. This is why he is saying that if a person is circumcised, they have ‘fallen from grace’ – they were seeking another method to be acceptable to God – that of being declared a legal Jew. It is *that* issue against which Paul speaks.

So where does that leave the issue of circumcision for Gentile believers? Physical circumcision was a sign to Abraham for his physical descendants; it is still a sign today for ethic Jews. However, my view (and I know it will not be accepted by everyone) is that Gentile believers do *not* need to be circumcised physically – we have actually been circumcised because of our faith: ‘It was in union with him [Messiah] that you [writing to a Gentile population] were circumcised with a circumcision not done by human hands, but accomplished by stripping away the old nature’s control over the body. In this circumcision done by the Messiah, you were buried along with him by being [baptised]…You were dead because of your sins, that is, because of your ‘foreskin’, your old nature’ (Colossians 2v11-13). The Berean Study Bible translates these verses: “And you have been made complete in Christ, who is the head over every ruler and authority. In Him you were also circumcised in the putting off of your sinful nature, with the circumcision performed by Christ and not by human hands. And having been buried with Him in baptism, you were raised with Him through your faith in the power of God, who raised Him from the dead.”

In Romans 2, Paul makes further commentary on the necessity of physical circumcision: ‘True circumcision is not only external and physical. On the contrary, the real Jew is one inwardly; and true circumcision is of the heart, spiritual not literal’ (Romans 2v28-29).

This was not some new teaching that Paul dreamt up. Jeremiah speaks of those who are ‘circumcised yet uncircumcised’ (Jeremiah 9v25). He can only be speaking of those who have been circumcised physically, yet are not ‘real Jews’ as Paul put it. Furthermore, Jeremiah also speaks of circumcising the heart: ‘Circumcise yourselves to the Lord and remove the foreskins of your heart’ (Jeremiah 4v4).

On what basis, what authority, was Jeremiah (and later Paul) able to say these things? In Deuteronomy 30v6 we have the mention of circumcision of the heart being done not by human hands: ‘Moreover the LORD your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your descendants, to love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, so that you may live.’ So we can see that God predicted a time when He Himself would circumcise the heart, of which physical circumcision was a symbol. Paul in Romans, Colossians and Galatians was simply expounding on an already existent theme and declaring that the time had arrived when the prophecy of Deuteronomy 30 was being fulfilled.

Can a Gentile who becomes a believer in Israel’s Messiah go ahead and be circumcised simply because they want to and wish to be obedient to God? There is nothing actually stopping a person from doing so, but I do not believe it is a requirement. Also such a person needs to examine their motives very carefully. It is tempting to think that if God is the God of the Jews, then we really ought to be Jews – and that means being circumcised. But the scriptures tell us that faith is sufficient. With faith, we are circumcised in our heart. If we seek to become ‘more Jewish’, then are we, as the Galatians were in danger of doing, making an addition to the gospel itself? Are we saying we need to be ethnic Jews or at least legal Jews (ie Jews by conversion/proselytisation) in order to be accepted by God? If so, then we are in danger of substituting ‘another gospel’ and ‘falling from grace’. We are saved by grace, not because we are physically circumcised: ‘if the uncircumcised man keeps the righteous requirements of the torah, wont his uncircumcision be counted as circumcision?’ (Romans 2v26).

Firstfruits, Pentecost and the Counting of the Omer

Leviticus 23 deals with the regulations pertaining to the weekly Sabbath and the annual “feasts of the Lord” (v2, 4). The list begins with the weekly Sabbath (v3), then moves on to Passover (v5), Unleavened Bread (v6), firstfruits (v10), the feast of weeks (v13), the feast of trumpets (v23), the day of atonement (v27) and finally, the feast of Tabernacles (v34) – eight in all, including the weekly Sabbath. Four of these occur in the spring; the other three occur in the autumn.

The feast of weeks is the last of the spring festivals. It is known in Hebrew as ‘Shavuot’ (meaning ‘weeks’); the English name, Pentecost’, is derived from the Greek word, meaning ‘fifty’. The Hebrew term derives from Deuteronomy 16v9: ‘Seven weeks shalt thou number unto thee: begin to number the seven weeks (shavuot) from such time as thou beginnest to put the sickle to the corn’; the term Pentecost (fifty) is because it is to be held fifty days after ‘the day that ye brought the sheaf of the wave offering’ that is, 'the morrow fater the seventh Sabbath shall ye number fifty days' (Leviticus 23v16).

So what was the ‘wave offering’? in Leviticus 23v10-11, God tells Moses to speak to the Israelites and say, ‘When ye be come into the land which I give unto you, and shall reap the harvest thereof, then ye shall bring a sheaf of the firstfruits of your harvest unto the priest. And he shall wave the sheaf before the Lord.’ From this we can deduce that the feast of Shavuot was to be fifty days after the feast of firstfruits. But when was the feast of firstfruits to be held? V11 gives the answer: ‘on the morrow after the sabbath the priest shall wave it.’ The most obvious understanding of ‘the morrow after the sabbath’ would therefore be Sunday, or the first day of the week. Sabbath is Saturday, or the seventh day of the week. But is it as simple as that? And in any case, there are approximately 52 Sabbaths and Sundays in a year – which one starts the count? The matter is further complicated by the fact that the seven special feast days are also designated as Sabbaths – days when no work is to be done (see vv 7, 8, 24-25, 28, 35, and 36). One definition of a Sabbath day is that no work is to be done: ‘But the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work…for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth…and rested the seventh day’ (Exodus 20v10). The word ‘sabbath’ means ‘rest’; therefore the seven feast days where work is forbidden are de facto ‘rest days’ and therefore have been designated ‘sabbaths’. These are known as the seven annual Sabbaths and are celebrated as Sabbaths along with the weekly Sabbath.

In the Scripture, order is considered important. Leviticus 23 lists the weekly Sabbath and the seven annual feast days in order. The weekly Sabbath is placed first, showing its pre-eminence among the Lord’s appointed times. The other days are listed in date order, from the beginning of the year. Passover comes first and occurs ‘on the fourteenth day of the first month’, in line with God telling Israel when He led them out of Egypt that ‘This month shall be unto you the beginning of months: it shall be the first month of the year to you’ (Exodus 12v2). Next comes the feast of unleavened bread ‘on the fifteenth day of the same month’ (Leviticus 23v6). The feast of unleavened bread lasts seven days and on the first and last days work is forbidden, and have therefore been designated ‘sabbaths’. Because the feast of unleavened bread is a week long, there will also be a weekly Sabbath during the festival, making a total of three Sabbaths within a week. As the feast of firstfruits is mentioned next, it is rightly assumed that the ‘morrow after the Sabbath’ therefore must mean one of these three Sabbaths during the week of unleavened bread. Obviously the reference to ‘the morrow after the Sabbath’ refers to a specific Sabbath and not to just any Sabbath during the year. But which one? And can we know for certain? It is clear it has to be one of the three at the feast of unleavened bread, but again, which one?

There are several views on this. I have come across one view which suggests that the relevant Sabbath is the seventh day of unleavened bread. From there, you count seven full weeks (as per Deuteronomy 16) and then, at the end of those seven weeks, you count another fifty days from the following day, making a total of 100 days between the feast of unleavened bread and the feast of weeks. I believe this can be discounted immediately. The two festivals (firstfruits and Pentecost) celebrate the barley harvest and the wheat harvest respectively. If the celebration of the wheat harvest (when the first of the wheat is brought to the priest) is delayed for 100 days, the wheat would be rotting in the ground! That is far too long to wait between one harvest and the next. That does not discount the possibility of starting the count on the seventh day of unleavened bread, but it does discount the notion that you count seven weeks, one day, then a further fifty days. I have not come across any other suggestion that the Sabbath concerned refers to the seventh day of unleavened bread.

The second view is the one favoured by the Jews and that is, the count starts on the day after the first day of unleavened bread. To understand this, it is important to remember that the Jewish day stars at nightfall, or sunset of what we would call the previous day. Instead of the day starting at midnight, it begins at approximately 6pm. Passover always occurs on 14^th Nisan (the first month of the Jewish religious calendar); the Passover lamb was slaughtered in the late afternoon of 14^th Nisan (‘between the evenings’) – that is, just before the day becomes Nisan 15. The Passover meal was consumed at nightfall, at the beginning of Nisan 15. Nisan 15 is also the first day of unleavened bread, when work is forbidden, and is designated a Sabbath. Even to this day, the Jews start the count of the omer from the day after the Sabbath on the first day of unleavened bread, Nisan 16.

Because Passover is tied to a specific date, this means it can fall on any day of the week, just like, for example, January 1^st in our Gregorian calendar can be any day of the week. If Nisan 14 is on any day of the week, then so too is Nisan 16: if Passover was on a Monday, then Nisan 16 would be on a Wednesday and so on. That means that Shavuot/Pentecost would also be on a Wednesday, as it is exactly 50 days later, or seven weeks plus one day. This way of calculating relies heavily on the reference in Deuteronomy where the count is ‘seven weeks’ (shavuot), but it ignores the reference in Leviticus that says ‘count seven Sabbaths’ (sabbatown). The words are similar, but come from different roots. Leviticus 23v15 is the only place in the whole of the Scriptures where the word ‘sabbatown’ is used and it simply means ‘sabbaths’ (it is the plural of sabbat). There are some translations which have actually changed the Leviticus reference to ‘weeks’ rather than sabbaths’, stating that the word ‘sabbaths’ can also be translated ‘weeks’. I think this is disingenuous and is not a true translation. The word is quite clearly ‘sabbaths’ (sabbatown) not ‘weeks’ (shavuot).

This misuse of the wording is not the only issue, but we will come to that later. It is therefore my intention to show that ‘the morrow after the Sabbath’ referred to in Leviticus 23v15 and 16 is in fact the weekly Sabbath and can be no other. To begin with, let’s look closely at the wording of the passage in Leviticus 23:

          “And ye shall count unto you from the morrow after the Sabbath, from the day that ye brought the sheaf of the wave offering; seven Sabbaths shall be complete: 16Even unto the morrow after the seventh Sabbath shall ye number fifty days” (Leviticus 23v15, 16)

We have already seen that ‘the day of the sheaf of the wave offering’ refers to the feast of firstfruits. We have also seen that the feast of firstfruits occurs in close proximity to the feast of unleavened bread. Unleavened bread lasts for seven days; the first and last days are designated Sabbaths, because no work is permitted on those days. That means there are a total of three Sabbaths during the week long festival of unleavened bread.

The count of fifty days begins on the ‘morrow after the Sabbath’, a term used twice in these two verses. As I have just noted, there are three possible Sabbaths that could be the one after which the count begins – the first day, the seventh day and the weekly Sabbath.

The verses also tell us that the feast of Shavuot/Pentecost falls fifty days after the day the count begins.

Deuteronomy 16v9 tells us that they must count seven weeks (shavuot – the plural of ‘week’ in Hebrew), but doesn’t mention Sabbaths at all. There is also no mention of fifty days or ‘the morrow after the seventh’ week or Sabbath. The count starts from ‘such time as thou beginnest to put the sickle to the corn’ (wheat, in this case). Taking this reference, the Jews begin the count on 16^th Nisan, using the first day of unleavened bread as the designated Sabbath after which to begin the count. This is only possible if you accept the idea that ‘seven weeks’ is the same as ‘seven sabbaths’ in Leviticus 23; that actual ‘sabbaths’ do not matter, as long as you have seven weeks plus a day.

It is my intention to show that this is a mistake and that in fact, the count starts after the weekly Sabbath and not one of the annual Sabbaths that fall in the week of unleavened bread, for the following reasons:

1. Always on a Sunday. ‘Seven Sabbaths shall be complete: even unto the morrow after the seventh Sabbath’ (v15,16). As I said earlier, if Nisan 16 falls on a Wednesday, then so too does Shavuot/Pentecost. Can that in any way be called ‘the morrow after the Sabbath’? can a Tuesday ever be a Sabbath? Well, yes it can – there are seven annual Sabbaths during the year – two during unleavened bread, Shavuot itself, the feast of trumpets, the day of atonement, and two during the eight day festival of tabernacles. Do any of these fall on the day before Shavuot? No. unleavened bread is approximately 50 days earlier and trumpets is in the autumn, in the seventh month of the Jewish calendar. The only Sabbaths that fall anywhere near Shavuot/Pentecost are the regular weekly Sabbaths. This means that the only day that can be called a Sabbath anywhere near the feast of Shavuot/Pentecost is a Saturday and therefore, the only day that can rightly be called ‘the morrow after the Sabbath’ is a Sunday. It is my contention that Shavuot/Pentecost is always on a Sunday. If that is the case, then the only day the count can begin is also a Sunday – the morrow after the weekly Sabbath during the week of unleavened bread. Is that enough reason to claim that the count begins on a Sunday? There are other reasons.

2. Vague. The second reason I do not believe the count should start on Nisan 16 is the distinct absence of the words ‘Sabbath’ or ‘rest’ from the description of the special days of unleavened bread – or indeed anywhere in the chapter apart from the feast of trumpets and the weekly Sabbath.

At the start of Leviticus 23, God sets out the rule for His Sabbath, ‘six days shalt thou labour, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of rest…it is the Sabbath of the Lord in all your dwellings’ (v3). The only other mention of a Sabbath in the entire chapter is in v24, speaking of the feast of trumpets: ‘In the seventh month, in the first day of the month, ye shall have a Sabbath.’ None of the other feasts mentions a Sabbath, only that work is forbidden on those days. It is therefore an assumption that these days are designated ‘Sabbaths’. In other words, it is man’s idea to call them Sabbaths, not God’s. That is not to say they were wrong to call these days Sabbaths; it is simply to point out that God did not refer to them as Sabbaths in this chapter. If He referred to the feast of trumpets as a Sabbath, then why not call the others Sabbaths too? God is not the author of confusion, therefore I believe it is significant that the word Sabbath is absent from six of the feasts, just as it is significant that it is included for the feast of trumpets.

Furthermore, when speaking of the weekly Sabbath, the scripture uses the definite article; the Sabbath; when referring to the feast of trumpets, it uses the indefinite article: a Sabbath. In vv 15 and 16, the definite article is used: the Sabbath, when referring to which day to begin the fifty day count. Now I accept that this might simply mean a specific Sabbath, rather than just any Sabbath in the year, but I believe it is more than that. Coupled with the absence of the word Sabbath to refer to the first and last days of unleavened bread, the use of the definite article refers us back to v3 where God is giving instructions about the weekly Sabbath: the Sabbath. The fact that the indefinite article used in v24 implies that this Sabbath is different from the weekly Sabbath and may or may not fall on the same day (Saturday, by the Gregorian calendar). The only Sabbath that could be referred to as the Sabbath during the feast of unleavened bread therefore is the weekly Sabbath.

3. The sign of the prophet Jonah. My final reason for believing the Sabbath referred to in vv15 and 16 is the weekly Sabbath takes us into the New Testament. The Pharisees approached Jesus and demanded a sign to prove He was the Messiah. His response was: an “A wicked and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given unto it, but the sign of the prophet Jonas” [Matthew 16v4]. What did He mean? In fact, He explained the comment Himself: “For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale's belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth” [Matthew 12v40]. What does this have to do with the calculation of Shavuot/Pentecost?

We can surmise from 1 Corinthians 15v20 that Jesus rose from the dead on the feast of firstfruits: “But now Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep”. He died at Passover as our Passover lamb and was raised three days later, on the feast of firstfruits.

We also know that He was raised on the first day of the week, before sunrise. When the women came to the tomb early on the first day of the week, to attend to Jesus’ body, He was already risen, [see John 20v1; Mark 16v2].

Furthermore, Jesus was crucified at the time of the slaughter of the Passover lambs, which was Nisan 14. If firstfruits is, as the Jews claim, on Nisan 16 (the day after the Sabbath on the first day of unleavened bread), there cannot be three days and three nights between Jesus’ death and resurrection. Does it actually matter? Is the expression ‘three days and three nights’ merely idiom, as some claim?

A Friday crucifixion?

Well yes, it is idiom. That is, because of the way the Jews count things, ‘three days and three nights’ does not mean a literal or exact 72 hours. But because Jesus actually mentioned ‘three days and three nights’, we cannot discount this and say well it was some period of time that could be as little as two days and one night, but it must not exceed 72 hours in total. Jesus emphasised the word ‘three’ by using it twice – once in relation to days and again in relation to nights. Therefore, we have to assume that He meant what He said and while the period need not be exactly 72 hours, it does have to include three days and three nights or part thereof. In Jewish ‘inclusive counting’, part of a day or night is representative of the whole, so an hour on Tuesday afternoon immediately before the new day began at sunset, would mean that Tuesday would be counted as a day. Working backwards therefore, we see that we cannot include Sunday as a day, for He arose before the sun was up. We do include Saturday night as the third night, because whatever time during the night the resurrection occurred, He was still in the grave part of that night. The third day, therefore, would have been daytime on Saturday (the weekly Sabbath). Could the weekly Sabbath and the annual Sabbath of unleavened bread have coincided the year Jesus died? Well again, yes it could. But did it? Continuing with our backward count: the second night would have been Friday night; the second day would have been Friday daytime; the first night would have been Thursday night; the first day would have been Thursday daytime, or the latter part of it where Jesus was buried shortly after His death. We already know that the day He died was Nisan 14; that means, for Him to have risen before dawn on Sunday, and to have been in the grave three days and three nights, the resurrection occurred on Nisan 17 not 16. This means that Nisan 14, when the Passover lambs were slain, was on Thursday, Nisan 15, the first day of the feast of unleavened bread, was from Thursday at sunset to Friday. The day from Friday evening to Saturday was the regular weekly Sabbath, on the 16^th Nisan; and the resurrection occurred on the 17^th Nisan, which as we already know was the feast of firstfruits, as Jesus arose on the feast of firstfruits.

If Jesus rose on the feast of firstfruits, and if He was in the grave three days and three nights (or part thereof), and if He was crucified on Nisan 14 when the Passover lambs were slain, then in order to accommodate the three days and three nights, the resurrection happened on Nisan 17.

Conclusion.

In summary:

The count for the fifty days begins on the feast of firstfruits, which falls some time during the week of unleavened bread.

The period between the feast of firstfruits and the feast of Shavuot/Pentecost is fifty days Leviticus 23v16b).

Deuteronomy 16v9 confirms this by telling us that the count is ‘seven weeks’. Technically, if we rely on this verse alone, we could say that Shavuot/Pentecost actually falls only forty-nine days after the feast of firstfruits and no Sabbath is intended.

According to Leviticus, however, those fifty days are marked by the count of seven Sabbaths (not just ‘weeks’), the following day being the feast of Shavuot/Pentecost: ‘the morrow after the seventh Sabbath’ (Leviticus 23v15b).

The feast of Shavuot/Pentecost must be on ‘the morrow after the Sabbath’ (Leviticus 23v16). There are no Sabbaths other than the weekly Sabbath that occur in that time period; therefore Shavuot/Pentecost must fall on a Sunday, as that is the only day that can be described as ‘the morrow after the Sabbath’. Shavuot/Pentecost is therefore always on a Sunday.

If Shavuot/Pentecost falls on a Sunday, then it follows that the fifty day count must of necessity also start on a Sunday. Therefore the feast of firstfruits is always on a Sunday.

Finally, if Jesus was in the tomb three days and three nights, and if He was crucified on Nisan 14 (which we know He was), then He cannot have risen from the grave until Nisan 17, or else we need to ignore the word ‘three’ in Jesus’ statement about the sign of the prophet Jonah.

The conclusion therefore is that the counting of the fifty days, known as ‘the counting of the omer’, must begin on ‘the morrow after’ the weekly Sabbath and not either of the Sabbaths of unleavened bread.