Should Christians Keep the Feasts?
Based purely on Scripture (not man’s private interpretations), we can be confident that the Law remains for Christians to keep. However, there is a conundrum around the feasts.
On the one hand, there are verses that clearly indicate that feasts like Passover are not optional (see below). On the other hand, other verses suggest that the feasts must be kept in a specific fashion, which involves a pilgrimage to Jerusalem.
However, even if one journeyed to present-day Jerusalem, and even if that were the real historical Jerusalem, it seems clear that YHWH does not dwell there. There is no temple or priesthood.
What is an obedient Christian to do? I don’t have an answer, but thought I’d present the relevant Scriptures for consideration.
The Feasts Must Be Kept
But the man who is clean, and is not on a journey, and fails to keep the Passover, that soul shall be cut off from his people. Because he didn’t offer the offering of YHWH in its appointed season, that man shall bear his sin. If a foreigner lives among you and desires to keep the Passover to YHWH, then he shall do so according to the statute of the Passover, and according to its ordinance. You shall have one statute, both for the foreigner and for him who is born in the land.
You shall observe the feast of weeks with the first fruits of wheat harvest, and the feast of harvest at the year’s end. Three times in the year all your males shall appear before the Lord YHWH, the God of Israel.
It will happen that everyone who is left of all the nations that came against Jerusalem will go up from year to year to worship the King, YHWH of Armies, and to keep the feast of booths.
The Feasts Must Be Kept On YHWH’s Terms
This Scripture says that the Passover must be kept where He chooses, not where we choose:
You may not sacrifice the Passover within any of your gates which YHWH your God gives you; but at the place which YHWH your God shall choose to cause his name to dwell in, there you shall sacrifice the Passover at evening, at the going down of the sun, at the season that you came out of Egypt.
then it shall happen that to the place which YHWH your God shall choose, to cause his name to dwell there, there you shall bring all that I command you: your burnt offerings, your sacrifices, your tithes, the wave offering of your hand, and all your choice vows which you vow to YHWH. [...] Be careful that you don’t offer your burnt offerings in every place that you see; but in the place which YHWH chooses in one of your tribes, there you shall offer your burnt offerings, and there you shall do all that I command you.
The following Scripture indicates that curses come upon those who keep Passover other than as prescribed. However, it also shows that YHWH is merciful towards those who try to keep His feasts.
For a multitude of the people, even many of Ephraim, Manasseh, Issachar, and Zebulun, had not cleansed themselves, yet they ate the Passover other than the way it is written. For Hezekiah had prayed for them, saying, “May the good YHWH pardon everyone who sets his heart to seek God, YHWH, the God of his fathers, even if they aren’t clean according to the purification of the sanctuary.” YHWH listened to Hezekiah, and healed the people.
I am not aware of any Biblical record of the feasts being kept apart from the presence of YHWH. It is true that the feasts were at times kept outside Jerusalem, but only when YHWH (and the priests) were with the Israelites:
The children of Israel encamped in Gilgal. They kept the Passover on the fourteenth day of the month at evening in the plains of Jericho. They ate unleavened cakes and parched grain of the produce of the land on the next day after the Passover, in the same day.
In fact, we do have evidence of a righteous person, residing outside of Jerusalem, not keeping a feast, but fasting:
In those days I, Daniel, was mourning three whole weeks. I ate no pleasant food. No meat or wine came into my mouth. I didn’t anoint myself at all, until three whole weeks were fulfilled. In the twenty-fourth day of the first month, as I was by the side of the great river, which is Hiddekel ...
Of note is that Yeshua kept Passover (often referred to as the “Last Supper”) within Jerusalem.
For what it’s worth, in the apocrypha, Tobit does keep a feast while in exile:
In the days of Esar-haddon I returned home, and my wife Anna and my son Tobias were restored to me. At our Festival of Pentecost, which is the sacred Festival of Weeks, a good dinner was prepared for me, and I reclined to eat. When the table had been set for me and an abundance of food placed before me, I said to my son Tobias, “Go, my son, and bring whatever poor person you may find of our kindred among the exiles in Nineveh who is wholeheartedly mindful of God, and he shall eat together with me. I will wait for you, my son, until you come back.”
However, feasting may not have been the right thing for Tobit to do:
Then I remembered the prophecy of Amos, how he said against Bethel, “Your festivals shall be turned into mourning and all your songs into lamentation.” And I wept.
He becomes blind on the same day.
“This is a Statute Forever”
Then we have these verses. For the sake of readability, I won’t be reproducing the whole context, as there is a lot of text. However, it is always important that the reader (you) studies the context.
You must not eat bread, or roasted grain, or fresh grain, until this same day, until you have brought the offering of your God. This is a statute forever throughout your generations in all your dwellings.
You shall make proclamation on the same day that there shall be a holy convocation to you. You shall do no regular work. This is a statute forever in all your dwellings throughout your generations.
Whoever does any kind of work in that same day, I will destroy that person from among his people. You shall do no kind of work: it is a statute forever throughout your generations in all your dwellings.
But When are the Feasts?
Another complication is that there is disagreement among Christians, who want to be obedient, as to what is the correct calendar.
The most common calendar that is kept is a lunar calendar that originated in Babylon, with months named after Babylonian deities. This is almost certainly a false calendar. (After all, what is common is almost never true.) The Book of Enoch clearly says that the true year has 364 days:
... the year is exactly as to its days three hundred and sixty-four.
And the sun and the stars bring in all the years exactly, so that they do not advance or delay their position by a single day unto eternity; but complete the years with perfect justice in 364 days.
... the exactness of the year is accomplished through its separate three hundred and sixty-four stations.
... the year is completed in three hundred and sixty-four days. And the account thereof is accurate and the recorded reckoning thereof exact ...
This couldn’t be more clear. The true year is exactly 364 days – not more, not less. The only problem, of course, is that our year appears to really be 365 days.
Enoch seems to hint at the reason for this:
And in the days of the sinners the years shall be shortened, And their seed shall be tardy on their lands and fields, And all things on the earth shall alter, And shall not appear in their time: And the rain shall be kept back And the heaven shall withhold (it). And in those times the fruits of the earth shall be backward, And shall not grow in their time, And the fruits of the trees shall be withheld in their time. And the moon shall alter her order, And not appear at her time.
The following verse is possibly related, though I think this has to be properly interpreted (if the feasts were abolished, it would contradict Zechariah 14:16).
I will also cause all her celebrations to cease: her feasts, her new moons, her Sabbaths, and all her solemn assemblies.
Conclusion
Please leave a comment below if you have any ideas!