1 Kings 18:21 "And Elijah
came unto all the people, and said, How long halt ye between two opinions? if
the LORD be God, follow him: but if Baal, then follow him. And the people answered him not a
word."
There
is nothing that has a stronger hold on people today than Easter and its
celebration. It is one of the biggest of the year, yet there is no scriptural
basis for its practice.
The
word Easter occurs only once in the entire Bible (Acts 12:4), and then,
it occurs only in the King James Version as a mistranslation. The word should
be translated Passover and not Easter. The Greek word pascha in
every other place, and in every other version of the Bible is translated Passover.
One of the biggest religious celebrations of the year is a human tradition,
without Bible authority.
Jesus said, "This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and
honoureth me with their lips; but their heart is far from me. But in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the
commandments of men," (Mat. 15:8-9).
I would no more be a party to observing Easter Day than I would in
observing Baal Day. I can't think of anything more wicked than for us to engage
in Easter observance.
1) Easter is wrong because
it bears the name of an old pagan goddess: the very name is heathen. The
Teutonic tribes of northern Europe had a goddess of the spring and the sunrise
called Eostre. Every spring at a certain time, they would meet on a
mountain top and have a drunken revel, and as the sun came up over the horizon,
that marked the climax of the revel. It dates all the way back to Babylon, when
the Babylonian kingdom was built. Those heathen sunrise services mark the
background and ancestry for our present day sunrise services. What about
bringing the name of a pagan goddess into our worship today?
God condemned its practice:
"He said also unto me, Turn thee yet again, and
thou shalt see greater abominations that they do. Then he brought me to the door of the gate of the LORD'S house
which was toward the north; and, behold, there sat
women weeping for Tammuz. Then said he
unto me, Hast thou seen this, O son of man?
turn thee yet again, and thou shalt see greater
abominations than these. And he brought
me into the inner court of the LORD'S house, and, behold, at the door of the temple
of the LORD, between the porch and the altar, were
about five and twenty men, with their backs toward the temple of the LORD, and
their faces toward the east; and they worshipped the sun toward the east,"
(Ezek. 8:13-16).
Let me also remind you that
God told Israel not to mention the name of the heathen gods that surrounded
them: " That ye come not among these nations, these that remain among
you; neither make mention of the name of their gods, nor cause to swear by them, neither serve them, nor bow yourselves unto
them," (Joshua 23:7).
The same pagan goddess of
spring, Eostre, can be identified with the pagan worship in other lands.
She is the same as the Ishtar or Ashtaroth that we read about in
the Bible.
Judges 2:13 "And they
forsook the LORD, and served Baal and Ashtaroth."
1 Sam. 7:3 "And Samuel spake unto all the house of Israel, saying,
If ye do return unto the LORD with all your hearts, then
put away the strange gods and Ashtaroth from among you, and prepare your hearts
unto the LORD, and serve him only: and he will deliver you out of the hand of
the Philistines. 4 Then the children of Israel did put away Baalim and Ashtaroth,
and served the LORD only."
1 Kings 11:4 "For it came to pass, when Solomon was old, that his wives turned away his heart after other
gods: and his heart was not perfect with the LORD his God, as was the heart of David his father. 5 For Solomon
went after Ashtoreth the goddess of the Zidonians, and after Milcom the
abomination of the Ammonites. 6 And Solomon did evil in the sight of the
LORD, and went not fully after the LORD, as did
David his father. 7 Then did Solomon build an high place for Chemosh, the abomination
of Moab, in the hill that is before Jerusalem,
and for Molech, the abomination of the children of Ammon. 8 And
likewise did he for all his strange wives, which burnt incense and sacrificed
unto their gods."
2 Kings 23:13 "And the high places that were
before Jerusalem, which were on the right hand
of the mount of corruption, which Solomon the king of Israel had builded for
Ashtoreth the abomination of the Zidonians, and for Chemosh the abomination of
the Moabites, and for Milcom the abomination of the children of Ammon, did the
king defile. 14 And he brake in pieces the images, and cut down the groves, and
filled their places with the bones of men."
Jeremiah 44:17 "But we will certainly do whatsoever thing goeth forth
out of our own mouth, to burn incense unto the queen of heaven, and to pour out
drink offerings unto her, as we have done, we, and our fathers, our kings, and
our princes, in the cities of Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem: for then had we plenty of victuals, and were well, and
saw no evil."
God condemned her worship
in the strictest way. You can easily verify the pagan origin of Easter by
consulting any good encyclopedia.
2) Easter is wrong because
it does not represent the resurrection of Christ. How could it represent the
resurrection when it comes on different dates each year, sometimes a month
apart? The truth is, Easter is not determined by the resurrection, but by the
full moon and the spring equinox, from about the 21st of March to
April 25th. These dates were set by the Nicaens in the year of 325
A.D.
These things had to so with
the festivals of the goddess of spring, but had nothing to do with the
resurrection of Christ. Why falsely pretend that Easter represents the
resurrection when it does not, but was practiced by the heathens many years
before the resurrection occurred?
3) Easter is wrong because
it is filled with pagan sex symbols. Easter worshippers would be embarrassed to
know that rabbits, colored eggs, and chickens don't have a thing to do with the
resurrection, but are pagan symbols of sex and fertility.
4) Easter is wrong because
it denies 51 other resurrection days in favor of one day.
The only day the church has
a right to observe is the first day of the week (the Lord's Day, Rev. 1:10), to commemorate His death and suffering.
The devil doesn't care if we celebrate all of these pagan holidays, he wants to
keep our minds away from the real purpose of the resurrection. He delights in
all of these festivities, programs and pageantries associated with this heathen
holiday season. Those who fail to see the adversity of souls in this clutter
and confusion are very limited in their spiritual vision. Paul condemned the
church at Galatia because they, "observed days, and months and times
and years, " (Gal. 4:10).
One of the reasons God
drove the Jews into Babylonian captivity was because of idolatry. Their whole
family joined this idolatrous worship in making and offering hot cross buns.
Jeremiah 7:17-18
"Seest
thou not what they do in the cities of Judah and in the streets of
Jerusalem? The children gather wood,
and the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead their
dough, to make cakes to the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings
unto other gods, that they may provoke me to anger."
Jeremiah 44:19 "And when we burned incense to the queen of heaven,
and poured out drink offerings unto her, did we make her cakes to worship her,
and pour out drink offerings unto her, without our men?"
Why do people who call
themselves Christians engage in such heathen customs and try to justify it by
associating it with the resurrection of Christ? God calls such things an
abomination.
Now everyone of us should
be honest in religious matters. We should not be so filled with traditions and
prejudices that we get angry when the truth is presented.
Some people are so
prejudiced that they close their ears to anything contrary to their long
established ways of thinking. I want to commend the attitude of those who are
honest and sincere, and urge you to consider the facts that we shall present.
It is taught almost
everywhere that Jesus was crucified on Good Friday and that He arose from the
dead early Sunday morning. On this assumption, services are held in cities all
over America on Good Friday afternoon with preachers of almost every
denomination speaking on the seven sayings from the cross. Schools are often
closed for these occasions.
Now you may ask, "What
is wrong with Good Friday observance?" The answer is, that it makes Christ
a liar, that's all. He said He would be in the grave three days and three
nights. You are going to have to be a mathematical genius if you can figure
three days and three nights between Friday afternoon and Sunday morning. There
is no way you can figure more that two nights in this period of time.
It is stated eleven
different times in the New Testament that Jesus would be in the grave three
days and three nights. Only one example was given which is found in Matthew 12:40, "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." Do you believe the story of Jonah, or do you
believe it to be a phony? Do you believe the eleven reiterated statements in
the Bible? You can't, and believe in Good Friday, for they are contradictory.
I want to point out that my
God is a God of truth and exactness. If that were not true, we would have a
whole universe of confusion.
Gal. 4:4 "But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent
forth his Son..." A study of
the Bible will reveal that God fulfilled His word in the most careful way. In
spite of all the prophecies fulfilled in the Bible, we are asked to believe
that God carelessly and partially fulfilled this promise.
Why do people deny the
accurate and literal fulfillment of the promise of Christ to be in the grave
three days and three nights? The answer is they want to validate a wretched
tradition, and join in popular practices with the world.
Jesus, in a conversation
with the scribes and Pharisees said, "But he answered and said unto
them, An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a
sign; and there shall no sign be given to it, but the sign of the prophet
Jonas: 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,"
(Mat 12:39-40).
Now consider the importance
of this statement. Christ declares that the only sign He would give to prove
that He was the Christ, the Son of God, was that He would be three days and
three nights in the heart of the Earth.
The scribes and Pharisees,
who rejected Him as the Christ, asked Him for proof that He was the Christ, and
He offered but one: that He would be three days and three nights in the heart
of the Earth. His evidence was not that He would be resurrected, but the length
of time He would be in the tomb before being resurrected. Think what this
means: Jesus based His whole claim on being the Christ, the Son of God, upon
remaining three complete days and three complete nights in the grave. If He
remained three days and three nights in the heart of the Earth, He would prove
Himself to be the Savior. If He failed to prove Himself to be the Christ, He
must be rejected as an imposter. No wonder satan has caused scoffers to laugh
at the story of Jonah and the whale, and set up traditions such as Good Friday
and Easter to deny that Christ is the Son of God.
Most critics will admit
that in the Hebrew language in which the book of Jonah was written, the
expression, "three days and three nights" means a period of 72 hours,
or three 12 hour days, and three 12 hour nights.
In Jonah
1:17, it says, "Now the LORD had prepared a great fish to
swallow up Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three
nights." This, critics admit was a period of 72 hours. Jesus states
that, "...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."
Did Jesus know how much time was in a day and in a night? "Jesus
answered, Are there not twelve hours in the day? If any
man walk in the day...But if a man walk in the night, he stumbleth..." (John 11:9-10).
I realize that in dealing
with these items, I will be in disagreement with popular traditions on every
point. I feel that I must challenge the heathen traditions that have grown up
to dispute the teachings and promises of my Lord. I want to brand the whole
thing as historically and Biblically false, and Easter and Good Friday as a
fake and a fraud that has nothing whatsoever to do with the death and
resurrection of Christ.
An interesting thought is
found in 1 Cor. 15:1-4, where the apostle Paul
stated that the facts of the gospel are based upon the death, burial and
resurrection of Christ, but then said it is according to the scripture. This
should settle the question in the mind of an honest Bible reader.
Since a Friday crucifixion
is not supported by any scripture, these prophecies and their fulfillment are
given to prove that the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ were in accord
with them. The agreement of what did take place was foretold by Jesus Himself:
"And he began to teach them, that the Son of man must suffer many
things, and be rejected of the elders, and of
the chief priests, and scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again,"
(Mark 8:31).
Mark 9:31 "For he taught his disciples, and said unto them, The Son of man is delivered into the hands of men, and they
shall kill him; and after that he is killed, he shall rise the third day."
Mark 10:34 "And they shall mock him, and shall scourge him, and shall
spit upon him, and shall kill him: and the third day he shall rise again."
Mat. 12:40 "for as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of
the whale; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart
of the earth" (ASV).
According to traditions
which are commonly accepted, Jesus died on Friday evening sometime between 3
P.M. and sundown, and was raised from the dead very early in the morning on the
following Sunday. Many readers of the Bible are curious as to how the interval
of time between late Friday afternoon and early Sunday morning can be figured
out to be three days and three nights. It seems to be more like two nights, one
day, and a small portion of another day.
The solution to this
apparent difficulty proposed by many commentators is that a day and a night is
simply another way of saying a day, and ancient Jews reckoned a fraction of a
day as a whole day. They say there was a part of a Friday (a very small part),
or a day and a night; all of Saturday, another day and a night; and part of
Sunday (a very small part), another day, or a day and a night.
There are many who are not
satisfied with this solution. I must confess that it does not satisfy me at
all. It seems to me to be a makeshift answer, and a very weak one at that.
Is there a satisfactory
solution to this? Yes. The first fact to be considered is that the Bible
neither states nor implies that Jesus was crucified and died on Friday, but, it
does say that Jesus was crucified, "...the day before the Sabbath,"
(Mark 15:42).
As the weekly Sabbath came
on Saturday, beginning at sunset the evening before, the natural conclusion is
that Jesus was crucified on a Friday. It is a well known fact to which the
Bible will attest, that the Jews had other Sabbaths, as well as the weekly
Sabbath which is on Saturday. The first day of Passover week, no matter what
day of the week it came on, was always a Sabbath.
Exo. 12:16 "And in the first day there
shall be an holy convocation [Sabbath], and in the seventh day
there shall be an holy convocation [Sabbath] to you; no manner of work
shall be done in them, save that which every
man must eat, that only may be done of you." (cf. Lev. 23:7-8; Num.
28:16-18).
The question therefore
arises as to whether the Sabbath that followed Christ's crucifixion was the weekly
Sabbath (Saturday), or the Passover Sabbath. God does not leave us to decide
for ourselves which Sabbath is meant in this instance. John tells us in so many
words in John 19:14, that the day on which
Jesus was tried and crucified was the preparation of the Passover. It was not
the day before the weekly Sabbath (Friday), it was the day before the Passover
Sabbath which came that year on Thursday, as we shall show later. Therefore,
the day on which Jesus Christ was crucified was a Wednesday. John makes this
very clear.
The gospel of John was
written later that the other gospels according to historians. For a long time,
scholars have noticed that in various places, there was an evident intention to
correct statements which one might misunderstand from reading the other
gospels. One of the things misunderstood being that Jesus ate the Passover with
His disciples at the regular time of the Passover. To correct this belief, John
clearly states that He ate it the evening before, (John
18:28). Christ died on the cross at the moment the Passover lamb was
being slain, between the two evenings, on the 14th of Nisan, (Exo. 12:6). God's real Lamb, Jesus, of Whom all other
lambs offered through the centuries were only types, was therefore slain at the
very time appointed of God. Everything about the Passover lamb was fulfilled in
Jesus Christ.
1) He was the lamb without
blemish and without spot, (Exo. 12:5; 1 Pet. 1:23);
2) He was chosen on the 10th
of Nisan (Exo. 12:3), for it was on the 10th
of the month, the preceding Saturday that the triumphal entry into Jerusalem
was made. Since they came from Jericho to Bethany six days before the Passover
(John 12:1), six days before Thursday would be
Friday, and the next day, Saturday, when He came to Jerusalem, (John 12:12). It was also on this same day that Judas
offered to betray Jesus for thirty pieces of sliver, (Mat.
26:6-16; Mark 14:3-11). This was after the supper which occurred late on
Friday, i.e., after sunset in the house of Simon the leper; the next day would
be Saturday, the 10th of Nisan. Thirty pieces of sliver was the
price set on Christ by the chief priests. It was the buying or taking of a
lamb, which according to the law must occur on the 10th of Nisan, (Exo.12:6). Furthermore, they put the exact value on the
lamb that the Old Testament prophecy predicted:
Mat. 26:15 "And said unto them, What
will ye give me, and I will deliver him unto you? And they covenanted with him
for thirty pieces of silver."
Zech. 11:12 "And I said unto them, If ye think good, give me my price; and if not, forbear. So they weighed for
my price thirty pieces of silver."
3) Not a bone was broken:
John 19:36 "For these things were done, that the scripture should be
fulfilled, A bone of him shall not be broken."
Exo. 12:46 "In one house shall it be eaten; thou shalt not carry
forth ought of the flesh abroad out of the house; neither shall ye break a bone
thereof."
Num. 9:12 "They shall leave none of it unto the morning, nor break
any bone of it: according to all the ordinances of the passover they shall keep
it."
Psa. 34:20 "He keepeth
all his bones: not one of them is broken."
4) He was killed on the 14th
of Nisan, in the evening just before the 15th of Nisan, which began
at sundown: "And ye shall keep it up until the fourteenth day of the
same month: and the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it
in the evening," (Exo. 12:6). If we
take exactly what John says in John 19:14, that
Jesus was slain at the preparation of the Passover Sabbath, the type is
fulfilled in every detail, but, if we accept the traditional theory, that He
was crucified on Friday, the type fails in many points. Furthermore, if we
accept the traditional view, the Jesus was crucified on Friday and ate the
Passover on the regular Passover day, then the journey from Jericho to Bethany
(which occurred six days before the Passover, John
12:1), would fall on Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath. Such would be
contrary to the law.
It is impossible for Jesus
to take such a journey on the Sabbath, however, His triumphal entry into
Jerusalem was on the Sabbath, and he violated no law is doing so, because it
was a Sabbath day's journey from Mt. Olivet (Bethany) to Jerusalem:
Acts 1:12 "Then
returned they unto Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet, which is from
Jerusalem a sabbath day's journey."
Luke 24:50 "And
he led them out as far as to Bethany, and he lifted up his hands, and blessed
them."
When we accept exactly what
the Bible says, in that Jesus was crucified on the preparation day of the
Passover, and that He was three days and three nights in the heart of the
Earth, we can't fail to see that the crucifixion did not take place on a
Friday. Since the preparation of the Passover was Wednesday, and His
resurrection was early on the first day of the week, this allows exactly three
days and three nights in the grave.
Sometimes people object to
the view here advanced because the two on the way to Emmaus early on the first
day of the week said to Jesus in speaking of the crucifixion, "...besides
all this, today is the third day since these things were done," (Luke 24:13-21).
It is said that if the crucifixion took place on Wednesday, the
following Sunday would be the 4th day after these things were done.
The answer to this is very simple. We must understand that there is a six hour
interval in the Roman and Jewish time. He died at sunset on Wednesday, as
Thursday was beginning, therefore, they were completed on Thursday. The first
day after Thursday would be Friday, the second day would be Saturday, and the third
day would be Sunday, the first day of the week. It is supported by the
scriptures that Jesus was in the grave three days and three nights. The theory
of a Friday crucifixion cannot be harmonized by the scriptures by any reckoning
of time.
There are many passages of
scripture that support the above argument making it necessary to believe that
Jesus was three full days and three full nights in the heart of the Earth. Some
of them are as follows: Mat. 12:40; 26:61; 27:40 &
63; Mark 8:31; 9:31; 10:34; 14:58; Luke 24:21; John 2:19-22; 1 Cor. 15:1-4.
There is absolutely nothing
in favor of a Friday crucifixion, but everything harmonizes with the Passover
Sabbath. It is remarkable how many prophecies and type/antitype passages of
scripture are harmonized when we take the Bible for what it says.
THE TIME OF HIS DEATH
In Matthew we read:
Mat. 26:1 "And it came to pass, when Jesus had finished all
these sayings, he said unto his disciples,"
Mat. 26:2 "Ye know that after two days is the feast of the passover, and the Son of
man is betrayed to be crucified."
Mat. 26:3 "Then
assembled together the chief priests, and the scribes, and the elders of the
people, unto the palace of the high priest, who was called Caiaphas,"
Mat. 26:4 "And
consulted that they might take Jesus by subtilty, and kill him."
Mat. 26:5 "But they said, Not on the feast day,
lest there be an uproar among the people."
Although the Jews preferred
to kill Christ at another time, truly the Sanhedrin did what God's hand had
determined. The thing which was almost unbelievable about His death is seen in
that the Jews who wanted Him dead preferred not to kill Him at the Passover
feast, but the scriptures cannot be broken. God's purpose cannot be defeated.
He died at the Passover to fulfill the type in Exodus 12.
In addition to the weekly
Sabbaths, God commanded Israel to keep seven other feast days each year. These
were called holy convocations or high Sabbaths. In John
19:31 we read, "The Jews therefore, because it was the
preparation, that the bodies should not remain upon the cross on the sabbath
day, (for that sabbath day was an high day,) besought Pilate that their legs
might be broken, and that they might be taken
away." This shows beyond doubt that the day in which Jesus Christ was
crucified was not the preparation of the weekly Sabbath, but the Passover
Sabbath. This high Sabbath was to be kept each year on the 14th of
Nisan, without regard to the day of the week.
There is yet one more
clinching proof of this amazing truth. A close study of this text will show
that there were two Sabbaths in the week in which Jesus was crucified. Matthew 28:1 in the KJV says, "In the end of
the Sabbath..." but the Farrah Fenton's Version says, "Sabbaths."
In the footnote to this text, he says, the original Greek is in the plural,
"Sabbaths." Let's see if the King James Version doesn't teach this
also. According to Mark 16:1, Mary Magdalene
and her companions did not buy their spices to anoint the body of Jesus until
after the Sabbath was past, yet, after preparing the spices, they rested on the
Sabbath accord to the commandment, (Luke 23:56).
If we study these passages
carefully, there is only one possible explanation. After the annual high
Sabbath day (the Passover Sabbath) in John 19:31 which was Thursday, these women purchased and
prepared their spices on Friday, then they rested on the weekly Sabbath
(Saturday) according to the commandment, (Exo. 20:8-11).
A comparison of these two passages proves there were two Sabbaths that week
with a day in between, otherwise, these passages would contradict each other.
IN SUMMATION
Jesus died about sunset on
a Wednesday and was buried as Thursday was beginning. 72 hours, which was
exactly three days and three nights later, at the beginning of the first day of
the week, He arose from the grave. When the women visited the tomb just before
dawn the next morning, they found the grave already empty, (John.20:1). We are not driven to a makeshift solution
that any small portion of a day is reckoned as a whole day and night. We find
that the statement of Jesus is literally true. This supposed difficulty solves
itself as does many other difficulties in the Bible if we take the Bible to
mean exactly what it says.
This study was written by our beloved brother Emery McCallister.