Religious Observance: Cultural or Commanded?

SPEAKER 01 : 0:12

We’ve been having a lot of calls in the past week about the festival. People asking for information, talking and getting phone numbers of people to call and wanting to know. I’ve answered some letters on the subject and given people Ted Phillips’ phone number in Huntsville and Ken Register up in Branson. It’s really exciting to see everybody get in the mood for the festivals again. How many of you this year at the festival will have kept 25 or more Feast of Tabernacles, may I ask? I think we’ve got a few candidates here for that. We have several, I guess about a half a dozen or so. How many of you from 20 to 25 are in that category? I guess my wife and I would have to go in that category. 15 to 20? Quite a few more. 10 to 15? So you get a fairly large number of the congregation that have kept an awful lot of the Feast of Tabernacles, haven’t you? You think about it, you think that as long as many of us have been doing it, in fact, there are some people, I think some even in this room, and I know many in the church who have kept the Feast of Tabernacles all their life. I mean, they were drugged to their first Feast of Tabernacles as a little bitty baby, and there never has been a year when they were not present somewhere at the Feast of Tabernacles during their entire life. And to those of us who’ve been doing this, It is almost second nature to keep the festivals. You know, it’s something you don’t even think about. It’s something that you put on your calendar and you plan for, and the question of should I do it this year or should I not do it this year doesn’t even cross your mind. It’s second nature, it’s natural, it’s right, and so good to do it. You might ask the question, though, knowing how we do feel about it and knowing how natural it is, why is it that everybody doesn’t keep the Holy Days? Because we all know what blessings we get from it. We all know how encouraging it is to us. We know what it means to us to spend that eight days together with God’s people and how uplifted we can be when we go home from the Feast of Tabernacles. Why doesn’t everybody do it? Obviously, there must be some reason for it. The scriptures for keeping the Holy Days seem so obvious to us that we really would wonder why everyone doesn’t see it. The most obvious reason, frankly, is that most Christians know little or nothing about the Holy Days. They just never heard of them. Some of them say Feast of Tabernacles, and they’ll say, what? They just frankly have no idea. For many of them, the Old Testament is about as uncharted as the Atlantic was for Christopher Columbus. They really don’t know where anything is. If they wanted to look for it, they have no idea what’s there. For those that are maybe a little more familiar with the Bible, the Holy Days have been dismissed as being Jewish and irrelevant to Christians. They’re just as part of the Old Testament religion, and we have a New Testament religion, and they make just that simple demarcation and never really ask any further, never really inquire any further along the line. A few people, though, on the other hand, I think have studied the subject and have arrived at a conscious decision not to observe the Holy Days. Why? What is the rational, philosophic, theological, or scriptural basis for people to make that decision? Now, at first blush, you might say, well, I don’t really care to even bother looking into it. I proved the Holy Days a long time ago, and if they haven’t proved it, that’s up to them. Why should I worry myself with it? The answer is there isn’t any reason for you to worry yourself with it. But actually, I found, to my surprise, that studying the reasons why, the reasons that people advance as to why they do not keep the Holy Days, has turned out to be a very useful study. A number of very interesting things have arisen from it, things that I have I guess I had taken some things for granted, had not really looked carefully at some things as I might have done, and in the process of asking myself the question that I’ve asked you, why is it everybody doesn’t keep the Holy Days, and began to look carefully at the reasons advanced by those who don’t, I have found some things that have turned out to be rather interesting to me. Those who do not believe in the Holy Days at all, they do not all argue from the same set of premises. So consequently, you can get a little confused from time to time because one person over here may not keep the Holy Days for one set of reasons. And another person over here will not keep the Holy Days for a quite different set of reasons. For example, the people who don’t keep the Holy Days but who keep the Sabbath have a different problem from the people who don’t keep the Holy Days or the Sabbath. when it comes to explanation or exegesis of the scriptures involved with it or the laying out of their philosophical underpinnings or theology of law of the Bible or why they do this or why they don’t do the other. The people who keep the Sabbath have a different set of problems with the Holy Days from the people who don’t keep them at all in the process. But there are some common premises that keep cropping up in a lot of different ways in people’s arguments. For example, The holy days, some people assert, are the national days of Israel. They apply only to Israel and not to other nations. Now, in this category fall any number of different arguments, proof texts, structures of ideas or theologies. Another premise that is advanced is that the holy days are essentially Levitical and ceremonial. All such laws passed away either at the cross or at the destruction of the temple. Now, as you might notice, there are two different schools of thought that can fall out of this very quickly, because it’s really quite different to say that these laws were terminated at the cross from saying they were terminated at the destruction of the temple. For if the laws were not terminated at the cross, then you have the church continuing to observe these laws until the destruction of the temple. And you have a Roman general saying, being the determining factor in the setting aside or the abrogation of a portion of God’s law. The rationalization of that, as I think you might immediately see, is fraught with difficulties. The other argument that the Holy Days were all of the ceremonial and Levitical laws were abolished at the cross presents another set of problems from another different angle. Third, the holy days could only be observed at the temple in Jerusalem and nowhere else. In other words, it is an argument of place. And so that if you could, if there were a temple, you could go to Jerusalem, observe the holy days, but you couldn’t observe the holy days anywhere else. There are some very obvious problems with this, which we will be addressing, not necessarily today, but in time. All the holy days, number four, are types or shadows which are fulfilled in Christ and are therefore no longer binding. This is another premise. So the whole thing was fulfilled in Christ, and therefore it has no further obligation for us to observe. Strangely, some people, there are a few people who believe that, essentially, but at the same time still observe the Passover. And which of the Holy Days is more fulfilled in Christ than was the Passover? Of course, this is one of the reasons why some Christians keep the Lord’s Supper instead of the Passover and very meticulously avoid calling it the Passover, even avoid carefully the day of the Passover, for the Passover is one of the holy days. And if you have one, it’s hard not to keep one and keep all the rest. There was an article that appeared in the August 1979 Bible Advocate entitled, Should We Keep Israel’s Holy Days? by D.L. Prunkard. Many of us knew Don Prunkard, for he was a minister of the Worldwide Church of God for many years. He resigned, I believe, or was fired, I really don’t recall which, I think in 1972. And he was with the Church of God Seventh Day for some little time, worked in their office in Denver, did not stay with them. But I think he was not really in their employ at the time he wrote this particular article, because I think it was solicited from them after the work began here in Tyler, and Mr. Ted Armstrong had gone to Denver and extended a hand of fellowship, as it were, to the Church of God Seventh Day. But as a result of that, the question of the Holy Days naturally arose in the Church of God Seventh Day again, and they had to address it, and so they invited Don Prunkard to address it. So Prunkard at that time wrote this article entitled, Should We Keep Israel’s Holy Days? Now, as the title implies, his primary premise is the first one I listed, He asks, did Jesus command Christians to observe the national days of Israel? Okay, so far so good. He has phrased his question. He’s identified the premise that he’s focusing his argument around as the first one, that these were the national days of Israel and not binding upon other nations in the process of time. Now, this is what we call a loaded question. I don’t know if it registered on you when I read it or not, but let me read it to you again. Did Jesus command Christians to observe the national days of Israel? What’s wrong with that question? Well, maybe I should phrase this another way, not what’s wrong with it, but what does this question assume? Well, you see, it assumes that the holy days are the national days of Israel without first establishing that that’s what they are. Is the question, for example, there is a much more fundamental question. I would put it this way. Are these days the national days of Israel, or are they God’s revelation to man as to how he wants to be worshipped? Now, there’s a fundamental difference between those two concepts, a very important difference. And depending upon how you phrase your question, you go charging off in two totally different directions in laying out your evidence before the people. And as I’ve said before, and I’ll probably say again somewhere downstream, if you don’t ask the right questions, there’s no way you’re going to come to the right answers. Because the question determines the entire direction of your inquiry. For example, if we conclude that these are the national days of Israel, then you can only conclude, no, Jesus did not command Christians. to observe the national days of Israel, at no time did he ever even address the question. On the other hand, if the latter is true, that these are God’s revelation to man as to how, when, and where he is to be worshipped, then there was no need for Jesus to address the question with the church or to command them to observe them, for it had already been done. So you see, the way the question is asked has a profound difference on the way it comes out. The fact is that Jesus was a savior, not a legislator. He did not come to give a law, but to save men from the consequences of the transgression of a law that had long since been given before. As I think it was, was it John that put it this way or was it Matthew? The law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. the difference in their roles is profound and extremely important. So Jesus really was not here to command the people to do this law or the other law, but merely to save men. Now, in his introduction, Prunkard couples the Holy Days with such words as rituals, obligatory, ceremonial bondage, rigorism, legalistic religion, Judaism. Now, all this is very interesting because who wants to be involved in ceremonial bondage? Who wants to have their religion involved with rigorism? These are what we call loaded words. Naturally, nobody wants to have that kind of a religion. Nobody wants to be involved in a legalistic religion. Unfortunately, in the process of developing or going on, he doesn’t pause to define any of the terms that he lists here. Take Judaism, for example. Just what is it anyway? I wonder if you think you know what Judaism is. Is it the law of Moses? Let’s take the Pentateuch, you know, the Torah, the first five books of the Old Testament that lay out God’s revelation to Moses of how Israel, let’s take it that way, wants to worship him. Is that Judaism? I see a head or two shaking. I guess you don’t feel what it is. You’re quite right, it is not. Actually, Judaism is not a single religion. It’s almost like asking you to define Christianity. It’s a very difficult thing to do because you almost have to say, which Christian religion do you want to know about? Because the difference between the Mormon religion and the Roman Catholic religion is profound. The name Christ is there. They both profess to worship in some way or form Jesus Christ. But what is taught and what is believed in both cases is strongly at odds with what Jesus himself said. And, of course, the Roman Catholic Church claims the authority to change the law of God, whereas the Mormon Church claims that God has revealed laws to them which change the law of God, but all of it, again, going off in two quite different directions. And then you have the Baptists, the Methodists, the two seed in the spirit, predestinarian Baptists. And, you know, the number of religions just goes on and on and on of Christianity and the wide variety of difference that exists between them to the point that people who are members of the Church of Christ, I guess, believe that some Baptists are going to hell. If not all Baptists are going to hell, because virtually, I think Church of Christ believed, I may be wrong, but I think they believe that you basically have to be a member of the Church of Christ in order to be saved. So the difference between Church of Christ and Baptist is very profound, even though both would be classified by a military census taking as Protestant Christianity. But even officially, we have to make those some of the divisions between Catholic and Protestant and nonconformist, as the British put it. Judaism, like Christianity, is not a single religion. Today, you have Reformed Jews, Conservative Jews, and Orthodox Jews, and the difference between them in the United States is profound. These are not all the Jews that you have, by the way. There are every sort of spectrum of belief that exists in between these and other little sects of the Jews here and there, the Hasidic Jews and others, that have beliefs that go all the way down to the way they dress, to ringlets down by their ears, and so on it goes. The number of sects of Judaism today is remarkable. In Jesus’ day, there were the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the Essenes, the Essenes who did not even believe that it was permissible for a person to drink anything but water. They were so ascetic that the idea of allowing yourself the pleasures of wine or a nice cold glass of milk or anything of that nature would be out of the question. It’s water or nothing for the Essenes. And, of course, there were many other sects of the Jews with different variations and themes that they advanced. Judaism is not the law of Moses. It is the broad term for the religion of the Jews in the simplest possible terms. And as such, it is the religion of men, not of God. It is not the religion of the Old Testament. How could any Christian believe that first century Judaism was a legitimate representation of the religion God delivered to Moses? How could a Christian believe that? Now, why do I ask that? Well, if you think for a moment about Jesus and what he had to say, about the religion of his day, you will understand immediately what I’m talking about. For Jesus repeatedly asked these men, why do you make the law of God of none effect by your tradition, by your teachings and your commandments? The law says this, but you say that. Jesus went back again and again saying, but from the beginning it was not so. You have heard it said by them of old time, but from the beginning it was not so. You have heard that a man could put away his wife, but from the beginning it was not so. And Jesus kept trying to pull people back to the religion of the Old Testament, believe it or not, and condemned Judaism, rejected it out of hand. They were condemning his disciples for breaking the Sabbath because they walked through a field and plucked ears of grains, rubbed them in their hands, and popped them into their mouth. They were condemning them for breaking the Sabbath. Jesus, and of course some modern commentaries believe that they were breaking the Sabbath. But what has happened is they have confused the Judaism of Christ’s day with the law of Moses. The truth is that Jesus defended and supported the law against Judaism. There is nothing in his ministry to indicate that he himself somehow was looking at the religion of the Old Testament and condemning it. But the assumption seems to be made by many commentators that the Judaism of his day was the Old Testament religion and that Jesus was repudiating it. Jesus is seen as repudiating the law of Moses, any Old Testament religion, rather than supporting the law against Judaism. But how does one go about establishing this argument if you wanted to try to argue that this was the national days of Israel or the national law of Israel and had no meaning outside of that? Well, Prunkard goes at it this way. And I think it’s representative of a certain of certain schools of biblical thought, biblical criticism, because he says, quote, The Pentateuch’s third book, that’s Leviticus, was a manual of law for the priests having to do with the cleansing, worship and service of the redeemed people. Now, I won’t go through all the quotes of what he had to say on the subject, but it’s very evident from a couple of remarks that he makes that he, by and large, ascribes to the critical schools of Graf and Wellhausen who hold that the priestly codes, as well as certain other parts of the Pentateuch, were not written in Moses’ day. The book itself, of course, says, categorically, the Lord spoke unto Moses, thus, thus, and thus. But these are viewed by the Graf Wellhausen School as a legal fiction. Now, legal fiction doesn’t mean it’s a lie exactly, but what it is is a circumstance to where you have a document that appears to have been an original document. Well, at a later time, a law is added to this document and is put into the document as though it were a part of the original. So that in a time of Ezra and Nehemiah, a new law conceived by the priests, instituted by the priests, would be put into Leviticus with the words, the Lord said to Moses. Now, I have a hard time with that. I have a very difficult time with that because I can see where that line of reasoning can lead. And, of course, I do not feel, I feel also, by the way, know for a fact that the Graf Wellhausen School has been largely rejected nowadays and better scholarship as time has gone on has examined the whole approach to it and found that it doesn’t work that way, that the evidence is much, much stronger than they ever believed for the unity of the Pentateuch and its authorship by Moses with very simple edits being taking place at some later time, a very few edits in the book. But anyway, he says the Pentateuch’s third book, Leviticus, was a manual of law for the priests, having to do with the cleansing, worship, and service of the redeemed people. The manual contained priestly laws not transferable to Gentiles. They were administered only by sons of Aaron. Much of the manual is mutely prophetic, typifying Christ, and was, along with other aspects of Moses’ economy, operationally annulled at Golgotha. Now, is that true? It should be a very simple thing to ascertain whether it’s true or not. So if you’ll just turn back to the book of Leviticus, let’s ask ourselves just exactly what was the book of Leviticus. Was it a manual of law for the priest? Leviticus chapter 1 and verse 1. And the Lord called unto Moses and spoke to him out of the tabernacle of the congregation, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel and say unto them, if any of you bring an oblation and offering and so forth. Now, To whom is this addressed? Is it a manual of law for the priests, or is it an instruction to the people? Well, it’s very simple. It’s instruction to the people, not a manual for the priest. This isn’t just a manual a Levite carried around inside of his robes or kept in his study at home, and let’s see, how am I supposed to take care of this that the people weren’t concerned with? The law was said to be spoken to the people, and it continues throughout the first three chapters. outlining the things that the people were to do. Now it was indeed relative to the service of Aaron and the priests in the temple, for the people themselves were not allowed to offer these offerings. They brought them to the priests. But it was not just a manual of law for the priests. Chapter 4, verse 1. The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, Speak to the children of Israel, saying, If a soul shall sin through ignorance against any of the commandments of the Lord concerning things which ought not to be done, who is it said to? speak unto the children of Israel, not to the priests. For again, this was what the people were to do if certain things happened and they committed certain sins in ignorance and found out about them later and said, what do I do ceremonially about this? Well, this is what the people were to do. Now, to be sure, it has to do with ceremony, with sacrifice, but nevertheless, it is for the people. Now, there are instructions in here for Aaron and for Levi, but this is not a priestly manual. This is a book of instructions relative to the ceremonial part of God’s law. In Leviticus 11, verse 1, the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying unto them, Speak unto the children of Israel, not the priests, but all of them, the whole children of Israel, saying, These are the beasts which you shall eat among all the beasts that are on the earth. Now we come to something that has absolutely nothing to do with sacrifice or ceremony in the temple, with the sacrificial offerings that were offered. Here were laws having to do with clean and unclean meats, which the people were allowed to eat and not allowed, the dietary laws of these people. So is it true that this is a priestly manual? Well, no, it really doesn’t read like one. It reads like a manual for all the people having to do with certain aspects of the law, certain statutes, certain judgments about how things were to be done. But what about the allegation that these priestly laws were not transferable to Gentiles? This is a very important consideration, because if we just sort of lump all this together, the book of Leviticus, and of course it is in the 23rd chapter of Leviticus that we often return to about the Holy Days, where again, Moses is told, speak to the children of Israel, not just to the priests. But he says the laws were not transferable to Gentiles. Prunkard quotes, or says, Gentiles were disallowed from the Israelite system and not permitted to enter the sanctuary of the Jerusalem temple. Gentiles observing the days was illegal and unconscionable. Now, is that true? Now, If you think about this at first blush, you may think, well, yeah, I think there is something to say about that. I am of the understanding that the Gentiles were not allowed to enter the Jerusalem sanctuary. I would presume that the Gentiles were not allowed to offer sacrifices. I wonder, I mean, is that your impression? That Gentiles could not observe the holy days, that they were not allowed, let’s say, to offer sacrifices or to enter the sanctuary under any circumstances at any time. Well, again, it’s not that difficult to ascertain. But one of the reasons we sometimes overlook certain things in the Bible has to do with our own use and our own understanding of words. Now, the term Gentile is an English word. It basically means one not a Jew in our society, in our world. And so we may refer to a person who is not a Jew as being a Gentile. Many of you feel that you are a Gentile because of that simple English definition. But interestingly enough, in the Old Testament, the word that is translated Gentile, goy, or goyim, doesn’t mean one who is not a Jew. The word means nation or nations. And it is not used of an individual as in, he is a goy or a Gentile. Not in the Old Testament. Because you wouldn’t say of some person, he is a nation. At all. I mean, it makes no sense. In fact, most often in the Old Testament, in your King James Old Testament, the word goy is translated nation or nations. It is not translated Gentile. Occasionally it is. More often it is not. Well, then, how do we go back then to find out what the Bible says about a Gentile or one not a Jew or one not an Israelite in the worship of God? What word does it use? Simple. The word stranger in your King James Version of the Bible. So if you want to go home and look it up for yourself and inquire into the law to find out about what people who were not Israelites could do in the Mosaic economy, just take your concordance out, look up the word stranger, and make your way through the Pentateuch looking up all the references to stranger. The word means essentially alien or one who’s not an Israelite. That’s a very simple proposition. But what does the law say? Turn back to Exodus 12, if you would. There’s a very interesting one, one that we’ve looked at many times. And I think we’re probably more familiar with this statement than we will be with some of the others that I will turn to. So I want to go to this one first. The 12th chapter of Exodus, we all know, is the giving of the Passover, the revealing of the ceremony of the Passover, what would be involved in it. The death angel would pass over their houses that night. They would put a mark on the corner of their doorposts. After all the instructions are given, there is one additional thing that has to be said. And in the 1243 of the book of Exodus, we read this. And the Lord said to Moses and to Aaron, this is the ordinance of the Passover. There shall no stranger eat thereof. Now there you seem to find, at least superficially, support for the statement that the stranger or the Gentile was not allowed or it would be illegal or unconscionable for him to observe the festivals. But a couple of things need to be observed. One is, this is the only festival where this is mentioned. There is no such provision for the days of unleavened bread. There is no prohibition for Pentecost, none for tabernacles, atonement, or trumpets, none for the last great day of the feast. Only for the Passover is this specific statement made. Why do you suppose it would be mentioned here and not elsewhere? Well, the only possible reason is that the Passover was the only festival that involved the eating of a sacrifice as a part of the festival itself. Okay, but that’s not all we have to note about this. In verse 44, every man’s servant that is bought for money, when you have circumcised him, then shall he eat thereof. A foreigner and a hired servant shall not eat thereof. In one house it shall be eaten. You shall not carry forth any of the flesh abroad. All the congregation of Israel shall keep it. Notice now verse 48. And when a stranger shall sojourn with you and will keep the Passover to the Lord, All right, that’s a situation that’s going to arise. There will be a stranger, an alien living in your country. He’s going to observe that the Passover is coming. He’s going to come to you and say, can I observe the Passover with you people? When he wants to do it, he says, let all his males be circumcised and then let him come near and keep it. You realize what it says? It says categorically that a stranger could keep the Passover. All he had to do was be circumcised. But do you realize that an uncircumcised Jew could not keep the Passover either? So this isn’t a differentiation between Jew and Gentile. There is no distinction made as to whether a Jew could keep the Passover and a Gentile could not. Both of them had the same restriction placed upon them. They both had to be circumcised. The only reason the stranger is specifically mentioned is because, by and large, for the most part, under normal circumstances, the stranger was not going to be circumcised. Then he says, one law shall be to him that is homeborn and unto the stranger that sojourns among you. Now, how far are we to take that statement? Is that basically in every way or is that just really having to do with the Passover? Or as I’ve already pointed out to you, there is no prohibition mentioned whatsoever regarding any of the other holy days, regarding an uncircumcised person observing these days. There is now, in connection with the Passover, the specific permission for a Gentile, a stranger, to observe the Passover. All he had to do was the same thing every Jew had to do, and that was be circumcised. Now turn back to Leviticus, the 16, back in what is called the priesthood manual, to see another thing that may surprise you a little bit. Leviticus 16 and verse 29. This shall be a statute forever unto you that in the seventh month, on the tenth day of the month, you shall afflict your souls. The expression means to fast. This is the day of atonement. And do no work at all, whether it be one of your own country or an alien, a stranger that sojourns among you. For on that day shall the priest make an atonement for you to cleanse you that you may be clean from all your sins before the Lord. Do you realize what that said? It just said that the stranger is supposed to fast on the Day of Atonement right along with the rest of them. What do we need to conclude? That he was supposed to fast, but he was allowed to work? Of course not. The stranger was allowed, even expected, if he lived in Israel, to observe the holy days with Israel, even to the extent of fasting on the Day of Atonement. And he didn’t have to be circumcised to fast. No specification of any sort on that. Leviticus 17 and verse 8. And you shall say unto them, whatsoever man there be of the house of Israel or of the strangers, that is the alien, the Gentile, who sojourns among you, that offers a burnt offering or sacrifice and brings it not to the door of the tabernacle of the congregation to offer it to the Lord, even that man shall be cut off from among his people. Do you realize what I just read? I just read a statement that specifically permits a Gentile to offer a burnt offering at the door of the tabernacle of God. They were permitted to keep the Passover if they were circumcised. They were expected to fast on the Day of Atonement. They were permitted to offer burnt offerings and sacrifices before the Eternal. Now what does it sound like we’re dealing with here? A national religion of Israel? or the way God wanted to be worshipped as he revealed it to any man who wanted to worship him. This is the way you will do it, God says, whether you are an Israelite or whether you are a stranger. Because you see, the tendency is to look back and say, well, the Gentiles, they were separate from Israel. They weren’t allowed to do this and they weren’t allowed to do that. I think you may be in for even more surprises as we go along. Leviticus chapter 22 and verse 18. The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, Speak to Aaron, his sons, and to all the children of Israel, and say unto them, Whatsoever he be of the house of Israel, or of the strangers in Israel, that will offer his oblation for all his vows, and for all his freewill offerings, which they will offer to the Lord for a burnt offering. Okay, here we are, vows, freewill offerings, and everything else, and they are for the people of the house of Israel, or of the strangers, the aliens, the Gentiles that sojourn among them. What are you going to do with these things? The Gentile was allowed to do anything the Jew could do. Realizing the Jew had to be circumcised to do it as well. It just simply adds the rather dubious privilege, if you want to put it that way, as most Gentiles probably saw it, of being circumcised in order to participate fully in the worship of God, the religion of Israel. You’re going to offer of your own will a male without blemish. It just goes on and on with all of the expectations of all of how it’s to be done, all the circumstances around it. And it’s to be done by Gentiles as well as by Jews. Leviticus 24 and verse 22. You shall have one manner of law as well for the stranger as for one of your own country. For I am the Lord your God. Now what laws is he talking about? Well, all these laws about oil for the lamp, showbread, murder, blasphemy, and what you do with a blasphemer, all these things are included in here. The Gentile was bound by the law of blasphemy. If he stood up in a congregation or among a group of people in Israel and blasphemed, he’d die just like a Jew would do. The law was binding upon him just like it would have been binding upon anybody else. Now these are all, these are just a few really of the references to strangers. in this priestly manner. Take a look over at the book of Numbers, though, for even more on the subject. Numbers chapter 19 and verse 10. He that gathers the ashes of a heifer shall wash his clothes and be unclean in the evening. It should be unto the children of Israel and unto the stranger that sojourns among them for a statute forever. Now, the red heifer This was a particular animal that was to be prepared in a certain way. They were to choose an animal with certain conditions. It was to be a heifer. It was to be a red-colored animal. It was then to be killed as a sacrifice. It was to be burnt, and then its ashes were kept for generations thereafter, and they were used ceremonially to prepare holy water in the temple for the rites of purification in the temple. Okay? What does it tell you the way this is worded? It says then that an alien, a stranger, or a Gentile could actually participate in these days in the rites of purification with the water of the red heifer. Which is precisely what Paul and the others were doing in the 21st chapter of Acts in the temple long after everything that was nailed to the cross was nailed there. Was going through purification which involved the ashes of the red heifer yet again. The whole thing comes together and the more you look at this the more you begin to wonder where did this idea come from about all these distinctions to exist between Israel and the Gentiles. I mean, where’s the idea? Is it in the law of Moses? Turning over then to Deuteronomy the fifth chapter, to just sort of round this thing out a little bit, Deuteronomy 5 and verse 14. But the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. In it you shall not do any work, you nor your son nor your daughter nor your maidservant, your ox, your ass, nor any of your cattle, nor the alien, the stranger, the Gentile. He’s not supposed to work on the Sabbath either. in Israel at this time. And so on it goes with the Sabbath, the poor tithe, blasphemy. And you can look up law after law after law after law and find the alien is obligated by, involved in, participates in. For after all, if an alien is allowed to participate in the poor tithe as a recipient, why would he not be obligated to participate in the poor tithe as a giver? Of course he would. And the law, systematically, step by step, goes all the way down through here, making it very, very plain. that there was no differentiation in the law of Moses between what was expected of Jews and what was expected of Gentiles. The religion, the worship of God, the religion that God delivered to Moses was a religion for man, not merely a religion for Jews. Plunkard’s allegation, though, about the Gentiles is true in one respect. It is true as it applies to first century Judaism. Now, notice we made a distinction between the law of Moses and the law of God. But the attitude of Jews toward Gentiles in New Testament times, as it is revealed actually in the New Testament itself, and also revealed from current history of the time, the attitude of Jews toward the Gentiles of the time could only be described as vile. They regarded them with extreme aversion or scorn and even hatred. Quoting from the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia article, Gentile, they were regarded as unclean, with whom it was unlawful to have any friendly intercourse. They were the enemies of God and his people, to whom the knowledge of God was denied unless they became proselytes. And even then they could not, as in ancient times, be admitted to full fellowship. Notice what he’s saying. In ancient times, they could be admitted to full fellowship in Israel, but not in this time could this be done. Jews were forbidden to counsel Gentiles, and if they asked about divine things, they were to be cursed. All the children born of mixed marriages were bastards. That is what caused the Jews to be so hated by the Greeks and the Romans, as we have abundant evidence in the writings of Cicero, Seneca, Tacitus. Something of this is reflected in the New Testament, John 18, 28, Acts 10, 28, and 11, 3. This is from an article on Gentiles in the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia by a gentleman named Porter. What misleads, I feel, some superficial commentators of the New Testament and preachers is the assumption that this attitude I’ve described to you here represents or is a reflection of the law of Moses. You will find nothing of this attitude in the law of Moses. You will find no law, no instruction, no prohibitions, no admissions, no nothing in the law of Moses to even give you a hint of this kind of an attitude toward Gentiles. You will find a statement in Ezekiel 44 where God condemns the people for bringing the uncircumcised stranger into his sanctuary. But the implication is that the circumcised stranger could come in. And of course, he would also have condemned them for allowing an uncircumcised Jew into his sanctuary. So there again, Ezekiel offers no distinction between Jew and Gentile in this regard. The Gentile who was circumcised and was obedient to God could come into the sanctuary and offer an offering just like a Jew could do. What misleads, as I said, some of commentators and preachers is the assumption that the attitude is a reflection of the law of Moses. Nothing could be further from the truth. We have already seen that the law of Moses permitted a Gentile full access to the worship of God. The law even granted him the doubtful privilege of circumcision. To all intents and purposes, the Gentile was the equal of the Israelite in every way. The only apparent discrepancy, as I said, is the restriction against an uncircumcised stranger entering the sanctuary, Ezekiel 44.7. But then the uncircumcised Jew was not allowed entry either. The laws then separating Jews and Gentiles in New Testament times were the laws of men and not the law of Moses, not the law of God, something which somehow or other, I feel, has been overlooked from time to time. Now, with this in mind, I think we can grasp more clearly the meaning of one of those scriptures which is often found confusing for some people and is often used by people who do not believe in keeping the holy days in an attempt to show that they need not be kept. The scripture in question is Ephesians 2 and verse 15, actually verses 14 and 15. where it says, For he is our peace, who has made both one and has broken down the middle wall of partition between us, having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances, for to make in himself of two one new man, so making peace. A great deal has been made of some writers about the abolition that is spoken of here, and as though the law of Moses, or the law of God, or the law of the Old Testament, or the ceremonial law, or a whole listing of other kinds of laws, are the laws mentioned in this particular context that were abolished. But I want you to go back with me a little bit in the context so that we can understand what it is that Paul is talking about here. The whole context actually begins in chapter 2, verse 1 of Ephesians. You has he quickened who were dead in trespasses and sins, wherein in time past you walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now works in the children of disobedience. And of course, disobedient to what? Disobedient to the law. Paul is talking about the salvation of the Gentile church, of the Gentiles to whom he is writing. For indeed, this church is a church of, I’m not just sure racial stock, the people of Galatia, I mean, or Galatia and Ephesus and Colossae were, But I think a lot of them were of Greek origin. But certainly they were not Jews. And the context makes it very clear that they were not a Jewish church in this area. He says in verse 8, the familiar scripture, Verse 11, that you being in time past Gentiles in the flesh who are called uncircumcision by that which is called the circumcision in the flesh made by hands. Now we have no real difficulty, do we, in identifying who this is addressed to. It is to a group of uncircumcised Gentiles. He says in verse 12 that at that time you were without Christ, aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, aliens, foreigners, strangers as it were, From the commonwealth of Israel, strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. Just cut off, completely isolated, away from God and away from Israel. But now in Christ Jesus, you who sometimes were far off are made near by the blood of Christ. Far off from who? Made near to who? Now, over the years, there has been a great deal of questioning and controversy over whether or not the Scripture is talking about being made near, the Gentiles being made near to the Jews, or whether it’s talking about the Gentiles being made near to God, or, in some cases, it’s been suggested both. In other words, being made near to God and near to the Jews. But it’s been raised and talked about again and again. He is our peace, it says in verse 14, who has made both one and has broken down the middle wall of partition between us. The words between us are italicized in the King James Version, which indicates they are not in the original Greek. He has broken down the middle wall of partition. What is the middle wall of partition? Well, it’s been looked at in two different ways. Ezekiel 43, verse 8 mentions a wall that exists between man and God. You’re erecting of a wall between me and you. And so consequently, some of us have explained this in the past, that what Jesus did was to break down that wall between man and God by his sacrifice and his flesh, which is true. He did break down that wall. Others have suggested that the middle wall of partition refers to that wall in the temple. As you go in and you come up toward the sanctuary, there is a sign, or was in Josephus’ day, and I think it was there in Jesus’ time as well. It certainly was at the time Paul wrote Ephesians. A sign that said something to the effect that any Gentile who passes this wall will be responsible for his own death, which will immediately ensue. In other words, it’s a very clear statement that any Gentile who stepped beyond this point was a dead man. So this was the wall of partition between Jew and Gentile, and this period of time, the area outside this was called the court of the Gentiles, because the Gentiles could come this far, but could go no further. Inside the sanctuary, there was an area called the court of the women, not because only women could go there, but because that was as far as women could go. In other words, they could come through the court of the Gentiles, into the court of the women, but they could not go on beyond that into the main area of the sanctuary at this time in Israel’s history. So the court of the women, then comes the court of the priests on the back part of the temple where they were allowed to go, where they went about doing all of the ceremony in the service of God. Well, the Gentile was not allowed even as far as the court of the women. They were sealed off and kept outside of that. And many commentators, and probably most of them feel, at the middle wall of partition that Paul refers to is that middle wall which sealed the Gentile out and allowed the Jew to go past into the temples. Okay, looking at it in this way, it goes on to say then, having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances, for to make in himself of two, by this interpretation it would be Jew and Gentile, one new man, so making peace between the Jew and the Gentile, and that he might reconcile both Jew and Gentile unto God in one body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby. What you actually have got is a three-cornered reconciliation. Because indeed it is impossible to reconcile a Gentile to God and reconcile an Israelite to God without both of them subsequently being reconciled with one another. For indeed if both of them have come to God, they are together. They have to be. There is no possibility of them being otherwise. So it is a matter of pulling the Jew and the Gentile together, reconciling both of them to God, so that all barriers come down. But what is abolished? You see, there was no enmity between Jew and Gentile in the law of Moses. We’ve already seen that clearly. It’s stated as plain as anyone could ever see. There was one law for him that was home-born and for the stranger, and a Gentile was admitted into full fellowship in the worship of God in Old Testament times, in the earliest times. What changed? What made it different? The laws of Jews, men. their own commandments, their own ordinances, their own requirements, their own sign that they put up that prohibited even the circumcised Gentiles from going on into that area of the tent. Their own attitude toward the Jews that considered them as contemptible, that caused them to curse a Gentile who came to them to ask about sacred things. Try going to an Orthodox rabbi nowadays and asking him how to pronounce the sacred name. You will find yourself in a rather awkward position with the gentleman for he will not talk with you because he considers you a Gentile about The sacred name does not wish to discuss it. But at this point in time, this was the attitude. There was a total rejection. The children of a marriage between a Jew and a Gentile were considered as a bastard. It was the whole approach. This was not the law of God. It was not the law of Moses. It was not the religion God revealed to Moses. And you do not find it in the Old Testament at all. Okay, what was abolished? He abolished in his flesh the enmity. Even the law of commandments contained in decrees or dogmas which men had made that separated Jew and Gentile. You can’t argue that this is abolishing the law of Moses, any part of it. For no part of the law of Moses separated Jew and Gentile. Something I guess that over the years people just carelessly took for granted. That the law of Moses made a distinction between the Jew and the Gentile in the worship of the eternal God. What Christ abolished was not the law of God, but the enmity created by the laws of men, the ordinances of the Jews. Proctor has made a common error, actually, in his article. He has equated Judaism of the first century with the religion that God delivered to Moses. They are not the same. The Judaizers who so upset the churches of Asia were teaching a perversion of the gospel and a perversion of the law. And there’s no way you say they were Judaizers. You know, you’re ready when you say that a group of people coming in were Judaizers, you have not answered the question at all. You have taken one very little closer to the answer, because then you must go beyond and say, what sort of Judaizers were they? What were they teaching? What did they believe? What ideas were they advancing? Because had they been Sadducees, it would have been one thing. Had they been Pharisees, it was something else. Had they been Essenes, it would have been a whole idea of Stoicism or asceticism, whereby certain foods and drinks were not allowed to be touched. So one cannot answer those questions quite as simply as that. But one thing is very clear, that the Judaism that was attempted to be spread through the early New Testament church in Asia had nothing to do, even remotely, except maybe indirectly as men misappropriated the law of Moses. But the Judaism did not originate, nor was it, in actual fact, the law of Moses. Now there is much more. to be said on the subject of the reason why people do not keep the Holy Days. And it will be said, in fact, in the very next edition of the International News, as I’ve got rather lengthy article now almost finished on the subject. I won’t go into it today. I think I’ll break off there with that particular set of information, whereas I think it’s quite a bit of there for a person to ponder on as to what that means and the consequences for our understanding of this. But as far as the idea of that has been advanced by some who do not keep the Holy Days, that the reason they don’t is because they were the national days of Israel, and they were only for Israel, and it was even illegal and unconscionable for Gentiles to observe them, has been shown to be absolutely false, and one to be completely sincere, absurd, and impossible as far as the law of God is concerned. It is only the law of men that has created the problem in those particular areas. But you’ll have to catch the international news to get the rest of it.

SPEAKER 1 : 49:14

Thank you.