Holy Days in the New Testament
This article talks about:
- Misinterpretations in Mainstream Christianity
- Enduring Nature of Torah
- Messianic Fulfillment of the Feasts
-By Jared Abram Seltzer-
“The Jewish holidays are obsolete because Jesus fulfilled the law,” or at least this is the popular, traditional handling of the Tanakh. Many friends and family members remain perplexed that any believer should desire to interact with those antiquated commandments. Alas, this picture succinctly sums up the chasm separating mainstream Christendom from the praxis of the Messiah and of the first believers in Him. This essay will serve as a treatise attesting to the enduring nature of Torah and will enumerate examples of how the Apostolic authors both observed and encouraged observance of the holy days.
Two Views
In brief, there are two diametrically opposed approaches concerning the Biblical holidays which are also approaches to the “Old Testament” in general, and they amount to theological worldviews—frameworks which govern interpretation of every topic, injunction, or nuance of the Bible. The one posits that Jesus’ ministry somehow nullifies obligation to accomplish commandments of the Old Testament, whereas the other says that Jesus’ ministry is precisely what encourages and enfranchises His followers to follow whatever possible from Tanakh. Fortunately, the chasm between these two positions can be bridged via two techniques: defining the terms and remaining objective.
While it is tempting for a pro-Torah adherent to brush off the more popular view as uncritically simplistic, this would not be objective, and furthermore, the popular view is actually not for naïve people. Indeed, plenty of learned theologians bolster the traditional view with a complex labyrinth of prooftexts which aim to rebut pronomial dissenters but might just be overwhelming them. Its advocates are anything but simplistic, and the view is anything but simple for that matter. But it is precisely the complexity that shrouds its core flaw, making the popular view both plausible and credible. What is that core flaw? It says, “God changed.”
Did God Change?
The way this tenet is usually phrased makes it sound rather palatable, that God deals with His people in a dynamic way just as parents’ interactions with their child change as the child matures. Dispensational theology timelines attempt to illustrate this evolution of divine interaction. When worded this way, anyone would be hard-pressed to disagree, but there is an unwarranted change in definition happening here. To focus on the heart of the matter, it must be clarified exactly what about God changes and what about God doesn’t change? More precisely, what did God mean when He said, “I change not” (Mal. 3:6, cf. Num 23:19, 1 Sam. 15:29, Heb. 6:18, 13:8, Jam. 1:17b).
There is one (perhaps counterintuitive) thing that does not change, and that is how God interacts with people. He invariably interacts with people based on “where they are”—on their experiences, situation, motivations, and responsibilities—which necessarily means that His interactions with people will vary as vastly as people vary. Granted, this varying might be identified as change, yet it is change due to human variation and not divine wavering. Another thing that does not change is God’s value set: those things that are pleasing to God and those things which are displeasing to God. This is the axiom that the antinomial stance must reject. Instead, it claims that what God once called futile or abominable before Christ’s ministry, He now allows or even encourages after Christ. Stated in other terms: God changed.
Defining Terms
The best place to start in unravelling an enigma is with definitions. First and foremost, calling the holy days “Jewish” is a misnomer which a priori relegates them to Jews only. But not only has the meaning of the word “Jewish” changed over time from Judahite to Judean to those ethnically Israelite or adherents to the religious philosophies of Judaism, but also, God calls the holy days His own, not “Jewish”. He shared them with His people as a blessing and invited His people to observe them as a means of coming near to Him. (To be clear, in the New Testament several holidays are indeed called “of the Judeans/Jews”, but this occurs in the Gospel of John who was an Israelite maybe even from the tribe of Judah but certainly whose Master was of Judah albeit from the country of Galilee, therefore John must be referring to customs of the people of the land of Judea and not referring to all people of Judahite or Israelite descent in general.)
Secondly, making the issue of holidays about ultimate “salvation” is usually given unbalanced emphasis in a discussion like this one. That is a strawman argument. The antinomial position holds that the law was and is inadequate to effect or maintain ultimate salvation, and therefore any attempt to keep Biblical law is either of no ultimate benefit or is a distraction/detriment to God’s plan of salvation. It is perfectly agreeable that the laws’ purpose was never to secure ultimate salvation from the coming judgement. Indeed, the express and Biblically defined purpose of the law is (1) to identify sin, (2) promise blessing to the one keeping it, and (3) curses to the one shirking it (1 John 3:4, Deut. 11:26-28, Deut. 28-32). But to conclude that the God-given law is an impediment to God’s cosmic plan rings of jarring dissonance. Indeed, Messiah’s adage was that “a kingdom divided against itself will fall.” Did God sabotage Himself by giving Israel His commands, decrees, ordinances, and judgments? Or worse, are pious believers violating God’s will by upholding what He personally told Moses to teach to His people to do, keep, and guard throughout their generations?
One solution to this conundrum is to appropriate Torah pursuance to ethnically Israelite/Jewish people only and to exempt all others. This shortsighted suggestion fails to recognize several important Biblical truths: (1) non-Israelites joined the “ethnic Israelites” in the Exodus journey including the Mt. Sinai covenant experience; (2) there are many examples of non-Israelites joining Israel in their worship and obedience of the true God, the prototype of whom would be father Abraham himself; and (3) the Apostolic epistles indicate that Gentiles who are faithful to God through Israel’s Messiah are grafted into Israel, they are adopted as the children of God, and although they were once alienated from Israel, yet they have been drawn near to become fellow citizens with the holy ones in the family of God (Eph. 2:11-22). If God separated the enmity that was between Jews and Gentiles in order to make them one (v.16), then it becomes convoluted to argue that Torah is obligatory for Israel if they are Jewish and Torah is discouraged for Israel if they are not Jewish.
The debate about observing holidays does not explicitly arise from the Scriptures; it arises from conflicting interpretational paradigms of those Scriptures. The debate, when distilled to its simplest form is over whether or not believers should strive to obey whatever God has revealed in Scripture. Surely an antinomian would scoff at such a dilemma because he would actually agree that believers should obey what has been revealed, providing the caveat that God has revealed that the ancient law necessarily became defunct in the wake of Messiah’s fulfillment of the law. Worded differently, the person and ministry of Messiah was so superior to the law that the law dims into obscurity from His radiance.
Actually, what happens by such a fantastic explanation is the conception of a new God! See, if the law should be equated with the Old Testament methods of God, and the ministry of Jesus fundamentally and objectively supersedes those former ways, then the God of the Old Testament is intrinsically different and also inferior to the God of the New Testament—ergo, two Gods with differing sets of values. But doesn’t Hebrews speak of the superseding nature of Messiah over the Old Testament practices? Actually, Hebrews 8:6 speaks of a better ministry than the previous one, that is to say, the high priesthood of Messiah supersedes the high priesthood of Aaron. The book of Hebrews does not afford a carte blanche for Christians to abrogate the Mosaic scriptures. No, rather, the person of Messiah is the physical embodiment of the divinely given law. God’s values were and still are enumerated by the revelation that He gave to Moses and the Prophets, and they are embodied in the exemplar life of Yeshua the Messiah. God is not inferior, His Torah is not inferior, and Yeshua is not inferior; they are three forms of the same divine and unchanging standard—one spiritual, one written, and one made flesh.
A Self-Defeating Position
It is possible that some antinomians simply do not realize how they are pulling the carpet from beneath their own feet. Surely by the first century, every Messianic expectation that led up to and pointed to Yeshua originated in the Law, Prophets, and Writings. Indeed, after Yeshua’s resurrection and even long after His ascension, those scriptures continued to prove His Messiahship as they poured from the mouths of the disciples and of Paul; to be clear, there was no New Testament for the first several decades of the Jesus movement. So, a claim that the One called Christ could have come to contradict or nullify Moses—the scriptures that He and his witnesses cited as proof of His Messiahship—per the Mosaic revelation itself (Deut. 13), would categorically disqualify Him from any chance of being the Messiah! Were it true that Messiah abrogated Torah, it would be another example of a house divided against itself. Messiah even says to the unbelievers of His day, that if they do not believe Moses’ writings, how could they believe Yeshua’s words (John 5:47)? Furthermore, this self-defeating position cannot expect any future fulfillments of the prophecies of Tanakh, something that should be possible until the heaven and earth pass away (Mat. 5:18).
Instead, far from declaring the law or the Biblical Holidays defunct, post-Messiah, the Apostolic Writings uphold (both in word and deed) the same instructions given to the Israelites at the base of Mount Sinai. Even though most of the New Testament was certainly written several decades after the crucifixion, alas there is no poignant indication to the reader within its pages that the Torah had fallen into obscurity by the time of their penning.
Sabbath
Few topics are as well documented as Israel’s observance of Sabbath. Part of the Ten Commandments (which nearly all Christians believe to continue to be binding) is the Sabbath commandment to work six days and cease from work on the seventh day. Throughout recorded history, the Sabbath has been a day of rest that begins Friday evening and ends Saturday evening. The eventual transference of Sabbath’s sanctity to Sunday is nowhere endorsed by holy writ (and instead prophecy indicates that Sabbath will continue to be observed into the new age by all flesh, Isa. 66:23), but the sanctification of Sunday lies outside the scope of this article. Indeed, every mention of Sabbath in the Bible is a day of rest, occasionally referring to certain annual holidays but predominantly referring to the weekly day of rest on the seventh day.
Over three-quarters of New Testament occurrences of “Sabbath” appear in the Gospels pertaining to Yeshua’s ministry and passion week. It was His custom to attend and sometimes also teach in synagogues on Sabbath (Luke 4:16). But He also did a few controversial things on Sabbath that get interpreted as abolishing Sabbath. He healed on Sabbath citing that if it is fine for people to loosen and lead their animal to water on Sabbath (which the pious did), then it must be permitted to free a child of Abraham from her infirmities on Sabbath, too (Luke 13:15-16). Yeshua also defended the actions of His hungry disciples when they plucked, triturated, and consumed grain from a field on Sabbath. He did not defend working on Sabbath, which harvesting and threshing are forms of work, but He noted that if the temple ministry is permitted on Sabbath and also feeding the hungry takes priority over the temple ministry (as represented by David and his men), then it follows logically that feeding the hungry must take priority over Sabbath (Mat. 12:3-5). Further, a prophecy in the Gospels shows compassion for the pregnant or nursing if they must flee in winter or on the Sabbath (24:20). If the Sabbath was to pass away, then what is the meaning of this prophecy, the fulfillment of which would take place decades after the crucifixion?
Just after Messiah’s burial, His followers rested on Sabbath (Luke 23:56), and after the ascension there is mention of a “Sabbath-day’s rest” (Acts 1:12) which should have been meaningless to the believers if the Sabbath had become defunct to them, yet the text makes no mention of its passing in those books which were written decades later. However, the value of Sabbath on which day Moses is read in synagogues around the world is upheld in the context of what new Gentile believers ought to do as they turn to God (Acts 15:21). Peter, James, and Paul agreed that it is not right to load new Gentile believers with such a yoke as they themselves struggled to bear, and so James reasoned that only four injunctions be assigned to them since Moses is taught in every city in the synagogues on Sabbath. The implication seems to be that the new Gentile believers would be learning little by little as they heard Moses every Sabbath.
Like Messiah’s, it was also Paul’s custom to attend synagogue, or if unavailable, a nice quiet place on Sabbath (Acts 13:14-44; 16:13; 17:2; 18:4). There are a few passages used to bolster Biblical support for Sunday rest, for instance Acts 20:7. However, the passive participle “having assembled” indicates that the disciples had already gathered together when this story takes place. This story takes place on the “first-day” but before midnight. Since a day begins at sundown in Hebrew reckoning, it means that they had gathered on Sabbath and continued in fellowship that evening into the first day until midnight. The reason they did so is because Paul was slated to depart on the morrow (sunup) which is Sunday morning. But if work is not permitted on the Sabbath, and Sunday was the new Sabbath, then Paul would be travelling on it and approving of the sailors of the ship working on it. No, rather, Sabbath was still the seventh day on which no work is to be done, and the passage in Acts 20 records something of a going-away party for Paul on a Saturday night.
A few other oft cited prooftexts come from other New Testament books. One comes from Revelation where the text quotes John as saying, “I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day.” Somehow, this “Lord’s day” was assumed to be related to a later Greek expression referring to Sunday, and this became another proof text. However, a cursory word study of which day is the Lord’s reveals that either Sabbath or, more likely, the final “Day of the Lord” spoken of by the prophets is a much more likely candidate.
Another passage is when Paul tells believers to make a collection on the first day for the holy ones of Jerusalem, and some think this is referring to an offering plate in church. But the context is that each person should set aside a contribution and store it up at their own place every first day (1Cor. 16:2). That way when Paul and his friends come, people will not be scrambling to collect everything; the contributions will have been stored up and ready to go.
When Paul writes to the Colossians, he tells them to not let anyone judge them “in…a feast or…new moon or Sabbath” (Col 2:16). It is often assumed that Paul is speaking to believers who refuse to do these things and that they are judged by legalistic Jews. But Paul takes about eight verses of Colossians 2 to describe the puffed-up and worldly group that appears to be at odds with the believers there. It is against these people that Paul writes that the believers should not be judged or condemned (v.8). This group is called beguilers with enticing words, having humility for show, worshiping angels, following rudiments of the world, having vain deceit—these do not describe Torah keeping Jews. It is not only possible, but also probable, that the believers were being judged and condemned for following the scriptures; much like has happened throughout history.
Passover
Passover (Pesach) is a picture of Messiah. God told the Israelites in the book of Exodus to put the blood of a lamb on their door and they would be saved from the judgement of death, and this indeed parallels what Messiah accomplished in His ministry. While, in the Gospels, we see Yeshua and His disciples celebrating Passover at the Last Supper, pre-resurrection (Mat. 26, Mark 14, Luke 22, John 13), yet Paul wrote much later on to the Corinthians (1 Cor. 5:7-8), asserting that “Messiah our Passover was sacrificed for us, so we [both Paul and the Corinthians?] ought to keep the feast...with unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.” Granted his point was to make a word picture about evil versus truth, yet the apostolic command to keep Passover is there, post-resurrection. Even though Passover was a foreshadow of Messiah’s earthly ministry, yet it continues to serve as a reminder of His love for us and continues to point forward to the ultimate salvation that He will effect for His people at the last day.
Unleavened Bread
The festival of Unleavened Bread (Matzot) is seven days long starting Passover night. The passages that speak of Passover usually have the Feast of Unleavened Bread in the context, too, since the two were adjacent on the calendar. It commemorates the hurried departure of the Hebrews from Egypt such that there was no time to make leavened bread. This feast is mentioned in the synoptic Gospels only just before the passion week. As mentioned earlier, Paul alluded to it, too, when he wrote about unleavened bread of truth. Lastly, it shows up two times in Acts. When Peter was in prison awaiting execution and God sent an angel to miraculously free him, it was the week of Unleavened Bread (12:3). And lastly, just before Paul and his group left from Philippi, it was Unleavened Bread (20:6).
First Sheaf of Barley
The first sheafs of barley (‘Omer) were collected and brought to the temple on this holiday as an offering. There were two different reckonings of when this holiday should occur, but in the year Yeshua was crucified, it appears that both interpretations fell on the same day—the day of Yeshua’s resurrection. This imagery is why Paul points to Yeshua as being the first fruit of those who sleep (1 Cor. 15:20).
Feast of Weeks, Pentecost
Fifty days later, the wheat crop would ripen, and the first fruits of wheat were to be brought to Jerusalem’s temple. Just like Passover, the Feast of Weeks (Shavu’ot) was a pilgrimage festival which brought people (primarily Jews) from all over the world to Jerusalem. Many people better know this holiday by its New-Testament Greek name Pentecost. Pentecost appears three times in the apostolic writings. In one of them, we see Paul wanting to remain in Ephesus until Shavu’ot (1 Cor. 16:8), and in another we see Paul rushing to get to Jerusalem in time for Shavu’ot (Acts 20:16). But by far, the most well-known verse about Shavu’ot is in Acts 2.
Jewish tradition claims that it was during the Shavu’ot season that God gave the Torah (instructions) of God to Moses on Mount Sinai during the Exodus journey. Further, it uses homiletical extrapolation to assert that at that time, the Torah was spoken in 70 languages so that all of the nations of the world should understand, and that as God spoke, there was a great noise from heaven as God descended in fire (b.Shabbat 88b, Exodus Rabbah V:9, cf. Exo. 19:18-19). While this conjecture cannot be proved, it was certainly a common tradition contemporary to Christ, and that is what is important. There are parallels to the disciples’ Pentecost experience, but it must first be clarified that it probably did not happen in the “upper room” where a chapter earlier the new twelfth disciple was chosen by lots. The text says that on Pentecost, “they were all with one mind in the same place” sitting in or at a house (Acts 2:1-2). On Pentecost, the Bible commands that Israel be at the place where God would choose (the Jerusalem Temple), and the temple was regularly called “the House”, so it is probable that the believers were actually congregated at the Temple where other Jews from around the world would also be gathered. What ensued was a great sound from heaven like a rushing wind, fires that descended upon the believers, and the believers began speaking in other languages which the pilgrims understood. Remember, this was the same day of the year that God gave Israel divine revelation millennia prior amid great sounds, fire, and (traditionally) all the languages of the world, and now the pilgrims at the temple witnessed a great sound, fire descending, and they heard all the different languages. The parallels are undeniable, and that is the point. God wanted to be clear that what was happening was of importance comparable to that of the original giving of the Torah. And just as Shavu’ot was a first-fruits festival, so also the first fruits of recipients of the Holy Spirit increased 3000 on that day (v. 41).
Trumpets
For modern Israel, the Feast of Trumpets is the beginning of the civil new year. But Biblically, it was a day of trumpeting (of trumpets or shofars) as a memorial (Lev. 23:24). What is to be remembered is not explicitly in the text, but since trumpets are used for convening the people or calling the people to arms, it is reasonable to conclude that the holiday was to memorialize God’s military salvation. The Jewish sages compiled a list of ten things that they thought the trumpet blasts ought to recall on this day: coronation of the king, repentance, the voice at Mount Sinai, warning of danger from guards on the city walls, coming war to the Jerusalem Temple, the binding of Isaac (because of the substitutionary horned ram), fear or awe, judgment, the ingathering at the final redemption, and resurrection.
In the New Testament, we see the theme of trumpet blasts three times paralleling these ideas. In Yeshua’s apocalyptic prophecy, the sign of the Son of Man coming in power and glory is accompanied by His angels going out with a trumpet blast to gather the elect (Mat. 24: 30-31). This imagery paints a picture of a mighty military hero going out against all the tribes of the earth (later likened to a wicked servant who is destroyed, v. 51) taking some people and leaving others on the holy day of trumpeting. The same theme is spoken of by Paul (1 Th. 4:16-17; 1 Cor. 15:52). There, the trumpeting is a shout, the voice of an archangel and trump of God. His return brings the resurrection of the faithful; those resurrected and those who remain alive will be caught into the air, He will lead them to the Mount of Olives, and they will forever be with the Lord.
Day of Atonement
Ten days after the holy day of Trumpets came the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur). On this day, the High priest would enter the Holy of Holies to make atonement or covering for the sins of the nation. There is one narrative mention of this holy day in Acts 27:9, but the most well-known New Testament reference to the Day of Atonement is from the letter to the Hebrews. There, Yeshua is reckoned a priest in the heavenly tabernacle, not of the order of Aaron whose ministry was in the Earthly tabernacle which was a shadow of the heavenly, but of the order of Melchizedek, whereby he made atonement once and for all by his own blood and not by that of goats and calves (9:7-12).
Moreover, it was not the bull or first goat offering that carried the sin burden of the people. It was the scapegoat on which the priests would confer the sins of the nation that they would drive into the wilderness, and to prevent it from returning someone would follow it and ensure its death there. Although the crucifixion did not occur during the Day of Atonement season, yet like the scapegoat, Yeshua was condemned in Jerusalem and then driven out of the city to die. Maybe it was with this imagery in mind that John wrote, “He is the propitiation/atonement for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world…whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked” (1 John 2:1, 6).
Finally, it is the Day of Atonement that reckons the final judgement. Those who are atoned are written into the Book of Life, but whoever is not will be cast into the lake of fire (Rev 20:15).
Tabernacles
Five days after the Day of Atonement is the greatest celebration—the Feast of Tabernacles (Sukkot). In the wilderness, Israel dwelt in temporary structures, and this festival commemorates that journey by commanding Israel to live in booths for seven days. This was the third and final pilgrimage festival, and as such, Yeshua went to Jerusalem for it (John 7). The word tabernacle is Latin for a dwelling canopy, and it translates the Hebrew word mishkan, “dwelling place.” The Feast of Tabernacles is a picture of God dwelling with His people, first in the wilderness (Exo. 25:8), then in the Temple (1Ki. 8:13), then in the ministry of Yeshua (John 1:14; 14:9-10) who is the visible image of the invisible God (Col 1:15), and finally when Messiah returns to rule the Earth from Jerusalem and will forever dwell among His people (Zec. 2:10-11/14-15, Rev. 21:3).
There is one more holiday which is actually part of Sukkot. The eighth day (the day after Sukkot ends) is called the Last Great Day (Sh’mini ‘atzeret). On this day there was a traditional, joyful water drawing ceremony in Jerusalem, when water drawn from the Gihon spring was taken up to the Temple to praise God for providing rain and to pray for adequate rain in the season to come. It was on this day that Yeshua called to the people, “If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink” (John 7:37).
Conclusion
Indisputably, the holy days did or will point to aspects of Messiah who is the source of human salvation and redemption. But the question about whether these festivals should still be kept by believers is answered in two ways. There is a logical argument that if Messiah abrogated anything of the Torah received by Moses, the holidays or otherwise, then He would disqualify Himself from being Messiah, so He could not have nullified the observance of the holidays. Rather than nullifying anything from Scripture, Messiah upholds and lives out Torah and tells His disciples to follow His example—and we see that they do, post-resurrection, and this is the second way to answer. See what Messiah, the apostles, and the early congregation did, and do likewise.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jared Seltzer is a content writer and editor for Netivyah, holds degrees in biblical history, culture, and languages, and loves both to learn and to teach especially about the intersection of nascent Christianity with Second Temple Judaism.