PASSOVER VS. EASTER!!!!

Jeremiah chapter 31




Today we are walking in: Passover Vs Easter!!!







Today we look to the word-PASSOVER-H6453 pecach--passover, sacrifice of passover, festival of the passover; appears in the King James Bible 46 times








The Torah testifies...............








Exodus 12:48




And when a stranger shall sojourn with thee, and will keep the passover H6453 to the LORD, let all his males be circumcised, and then let him come near and keep it; and he shall be as one that is born in the land: for no uncircumcised person shall eat thereof.






The prophets proclaim..................



Ezra 6:19




And the children of the captivity kept the passover H6453 upon the fourteenth day of the first month.







The writings bear witness...........................




2 Kings 23:21




And the king commanded all the people, saying, Keep the passover H6453 unto the LORD your God, as it is written in the book of this covenant.




Passover NOT easter!!!!




Yahshua the Maschaiach said in John 17:17, “Sanctify them in the truth your word is truth.” This powerful statement sets the standard for all who would be True Worshipers, those sanctified or set apart by the truth of Almighty The Most High’s pure Word. They know the truth and have been set free by it, John 8:32. It is their goal to follow the narrow pathway of truth and righteousness and leave the broad way of lawlessness, sin and error. They follow the instruction of the Apostle Peter in 2 Peter 3:17-18 where he said, “Therefore, dear friends, since you already know this, be on your guard so that you may not be carried away by the error of lawless men and fall from your secure position. But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Sovereign and Savior Yahshua Maschaiach. To him be glory both now and forever!



As seekers of truth, we must constantly be on guard against the errors that have been put forth by law-loathing men. One such error that has caused many to lose their spiritually secure position is the doctrine of Easter.



Origin of Easter



Surprisingly, history is very candid about the origin of Easter. The ancient records clearly show that it originated from paganism and that it was substituted for the Passover and the Days of Unleavened Bread observances. Let’s take a look at some of the verifying evidence.



Nelson’s Bible Dictionary explains, “Easter was originally a pagan festival honoring Eostre, a Teutonic (Germanic) goddess of light and spring. At the time of the vernal equinox (the day in the spring when the sun crosses the equator and day and night are of equal length), sacrifices were offered in her honor. As early as the eighth century, the name was used to designate the annual Christian celebration of the resurrection of Christ. The only appearance of the word Easter (KJV) is a mistranslation of pascha, the ordinary Greek word for ‘Passover’ (Acts 12:4).”



This source agrees completely with the Catholic Encyclopedia, which states, “[Easter] The English term, according to the Ven. Bede (De temporum ratione, I, v), relates to Estre, a Teutonic goddess of the rising light of day and spring, which deity, however, is otherwise unknown, even in the Edda (Simrock, Mythol., 362); Anglo-Saxon, eâster, eâstron; Old High German, ôstra, ôstrara, ôstrarûn; German, Ostern. April was called easter-monadh.”



Why did Easter become a substitute for Passover and who had the authority to make such a drastic change? Certainly not the Apostles. The Apostolic congregation in Jerusalem and all other locations always observed Passover and never Easter. The Apostle Paul in his first epistle to the Corinthians wrote about the Passover observance, exhorting them to keep the feast.



“Therefore purge out the old leaven, that you may be a new lump, since you truly are unleavened. For indeed Maschaiach, our Passover, was sacrificed for us. Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth” (1 Cor. 5:7-8; NKJV).



Paul had instructed the Corinthian brethren in the proper observance of Passover and the Days of Unleavened Bread that follow it. He never switched the Biblical observances to Easter or even intimated or envisioned such a thing for the future.



Eastern Bishops Disagree



A controversy developed in the 2nd century C.E. concerning when to observe Passover. A Catholic Encyclopedia article, “Easter Controversy,” quotes Eusebius, a 4th century writer on church history: “We read in Eusebius Hist. Eccl., V, xxiii): ‘A question of no small importance arose at that time. The dioceses of all Asia, as from an older tradition, held that the fourteenth day of the moon, on which day the Hebrews were commanded to sacrifice the lamb, should always be observed as the feast of the life-giving pasch.’”



The eastern believers were, at this time, still observing Passover on the 14th of Abib (the first scriptural month). In a letter from Polycrates (the head of the eastern bishops) to Victor the bishop of Rome, Polycrates insisted that they observe the ancient tradition that was passed on to them by a long line of bishops all the way back to the Apostles.





They refused to observe any day for Passover other than the 14th of Abib. For their refusal to break from keeping Passover and switch to the unscriptural Easter, Victor, bishop of Rome, excommunicated the eastern bishops.



The Roman Church had taken a sharp turn from the narrow way of truth and started down the slippery slope’s broad way to destruction. The church had no scriptural mandate or authority to make such a switch. The Most High Word tells us that the Passover observance is everlasting. “This day shall be for you a memorial day, and you shall keep it as a feast to The Most High; throughout your generations you shall observe it as an ordinance for ever… You shall observe this rite as an ordinance for you and for your sons for ever” (Ex. 12:14, 24: RSV).



The correct opinion of the eastern bishops, as well as the truth put forth in the sacred Scriptures, had no effect upon those who favored the pagan Easter over Passover. The controversy continued for the next 135 years when, at the Council of Nicaea in 325 CE, Emperor Constantine imposed his view that all the various congregations should observe Easter, on Sunday, in opposition to the Jews whom he held responsible for the Maschaiach’s death.



Once again we read in the Catholic Encyclopedia, “The text of the decree of the Council of Nicaea which settled, or at least indicated a final settlement of, the difficulty has not been preserved to us, but we have an important document inserted in Eusebius’s ‘Life of Constantine’ (III, xviii sq.). The emperor himself, writing to the Churches after the Council of Nicaea, exhorts them to adopt its conclusions and says among other things: ‘At this meeting the question concerning the most holy day of Easter was discussed, and it was resolved by the united judgment of all present that this feast ought to be kept by all and in every place on one and the same day. . . And first of all it appeared an unworthy thing that in the celebration of the Jews, who have impiously defiled their hands with enormous sin. . . for we have received from our Saviour a different way. . . And I myself have undertaken that this decision should meet with the approval of your Sagacities in the hope that your Wisdoms will gladly admit that practice which is observed at once in the city of Rome and in Africa, throughout Italy and in Egypt. . . with entire unity of judgment,’” “Easter Controversy.”



At this time in his life Constantine was a sun worshiper. It is understandable that he would give his support for this “Sun”-day observance.



Why the break from thousands of years of tradition and embrace Easter over Passover? In a bid for new converts, Roman Church leaders integrated heathen customs of the masses with their worship. Their disdain for anything they deemed Hebrew was clear as well, making certain that the church calendar never had Easter fall on the same day as the Passover. Apparently they forgot that Yahshua the Maschaiach and all the Apostles were Hebrews who kept the Passover as an example for us. They had forgotten what Yahshua told the Samaritan woman in John 4:22, “You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews.”



Easter’s Pagan Past



As shown, the Easter celebration was originally a heathen fertility rite for the worship of the female deity Eostre or Estre. The pagan celebrations attached to this deity were quite offensive to True Worshipers.



In chapter three, section two, we read, “Then look at Easter. What means the term Easter itself? It is not a Christian name. It bears its Chaldean origin on its very forehead. Easter is nothing else than Astarte, one of the titles of Beltis, the queen of heaven, whose name, as pronounced by the people of Nineveh, was evidently identical with that now in common use in this country. That name, as found by Layard on the Assyrian monuments, is Ishtar. The worship of Bel and Astarte was very early introduced into Britain, along with the Druids, “the priests of the groves.” Some have imagined that the Druidical worship was first introduced by the Phoenicians, who, centuries before the Christian era, traded to the tin-mines of Cornwall. But the unequivocal traces of that worship are found in regions of the British islands where the Phoenicians never penetrated, and it has everywhere left indelible marks of the strong hold which it must have had on the early British mind. From Bel, the 1st of May is still called Beltane in the Almanac; and we have customs still lingering at this day among us, which prove how exactly the worship of Bel or Moloch (for both titles belonged to the same g-d) had been observed even in the northern parts of this island.”



Hislop links Easter to Astarte, Beltis (the queen of heaven), Ishtar and Bel (or as known to the Israelites, Baal). Astarte and Baal were two of the most reprehensible idols that the Israelites worshiped. These idols competed with The Most High as Elohim. In 1 Kings Chapter 18, the story of the Prophet EliYah and his competition with the priests of Baal and Asherah shows how serious a threat they were to the true worship of The Most High. Ancient Israel’s proclivity for leaving the worship of The Most High for the abominable worship of Baal and Asherah continues today in the rites of Easter.



Hislop describes how these ancient pagan traditions became part of the Easter celebration. “Such is the history of Easter. The popular observances that still attend the period of its celebration amply confirm the testimony of history as to its Babylonian character. The hot cross buns of Good Friday, and the dyed eggs of Pasch or Easter Sunday, figured in the Chaldean rites just as they do now. The ‘buns,’ known too by that identical name, were used in the worship of the queen of heaven, the g-ddess Easter, as early as the days of Cecrops, the founder of Athens—that is, 1500 years before the Christian era. ‘One species of sacred bread,’ says Bryant, ‘which used to be offered to the gods, was of great antiquity, and called Boun.’ Diogenes Laertius, speaking of this offering being made by Empedocles, describes the chief ingredients of which it was composed, saying, ‘He offered one of the sacred cakes called Boun, which was made of fine flour and honey.’”



The prophet Jeremiah took a strong stand against these abominations: “The children gather wood, the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead their dough, to make cakes to the queen of heaven (Jeremiah 7:18).” He then goes on to describe in more detail the pagan practices which have been attached to Easter. The Jewish people of Jeremiah’s and Ezekiel’s day had incorporated sun worship into the worship of The Most High. We have already read of their worship of the Queen of Heaven and Tammuz, but The Most High also showed Ezekiel other abominations that were going on.



After revealing the women weeping for Tammuz, The Most High said to Ezekiel, “Have you seen this, O son of man? Turn yet again, and you shall see greater abominations than these. And he brought me into the inner court of The Most High’s house, and, behold, at the door of the temple of The Most High, between the porch and the altar, were about five and twenty men, with their backs toward the temple of The Most High, and their faces toward the east; and they worshiped the sun toward the east,” Ezekiel 8:15-16.



As the sun rose in the east the Jewish leaders were turned to face the east, worshiping the rising sun. Judah was corrupting the true worship of The Most High by introducing false, paganistic sun worship into their fellowship.



The Most High’s temple was built facing eastward just as the tabernacle in the wilderness faced east. This positioning was for a purpose. Sun worshipers would begin their daily worship by facing the rising sun in the east. The Most High’s temple and tabernacle faced the east so that a True Worshiper would turn away from the rising sun in the east to face the temple or the tabernacle in the west. This was a symbol of repentance. One had to turn away from sun worship to the True Worship of The Most High.



Such is the status of those steeped in paganistic Easter sunrise worship today. One must turn, repent of such things, and shift to the True Worship of The Most High. “Rome, pursuing its usual policy, took measures to get the Christian and Pagan festivals amalgamated.” The Two Babylons.



These revolting customs were ushered in by the Roman Catholic Church without even the slightest admission of wrongdoing. Once again we quote the Catholic Encyclopedia in the article “Easter.” “Because the use of eggs was forbidden during Lent, they were brought to the table on Easter Day, coloured red to symbolize the Easter joy. This custom is found not only in the Latin but also in the Oriental Churches.



The symbolic meaning of a new creation of mankind by J-sus risen from the dead was probably an invention of later times. The custom may have its origin in paganism, for a great many pagan customs, celebrating the return of spring, gravitated to Easter.” Concerning the Easter rabbit, the Catholic Encyclopedia says in the same article: “The Easter Rabbit lays the eggs, for which reason they are hidden in a nest or in the garden. The rabbit is a pagan symbol and has always been an emblem of fertility” (Simrock, Mythologie, 551).



How sad it is that mainstream Christianity has left the truth to follow the fables of ancient paganism. The Apostle Paul warns Timothy of such happenings in 2Timothy 4:3-4, “For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear.



They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths.” The facts speak for themselves. The Easter celebration has more to do with pagan fertility rites than it does with Yahshua’s death and resurrection as the Son of The Most High.



No Mandate for Resurrection Celebration



Nowhere in the Scriptures exists a command or example for observing the Savior’s resurrection. He indeed was slain, buried and resurrected, but it is not a matter to be celebrated after the ways of the pagans. The resurrection is not justification for devising our own observance, nor is it grounds for Sunday worship. There are, however, clear mandates for observing the day of His death.



The Scriptural way we remember the Savior’s resurrection is through our own baptism. Paul wrote in Romans 6:3-5: “Know you not, that so many of us as were baptized into Yahshua the Maschaiach were baptized into his death? Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Maschaiach was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of His resurrection.”



Paul repeats to the Colossians that the believer is “buried with him in baptism, wherein also you are risen with him through the faith of the operation of Yah, who has raised him from the dead,” (Col. 2:12). As we come up out of the watery grave into a new life in the Savior, we portray His rising from the tomb and changing to spirit.



Lent: Loaned from the Heathens



Another custom linked with Easter is Lent. The word is derived from the Old English lencten, meaning spring. Today it is the 40 weekdays from Ash Wednesday until Easter, reserved by churchianity for penitence and fasting.



Most of the self-denying practice of fasting during Lent has given way to giving up something—usually something that should be given up anyway, like tobacco or drinking to excess. But where did this custom of Lent originate?



The Two Babylons explains, “The forty days’ abstinence of Lent was directly borrowed from the worshipers of the Babylonian goddess. Such a Lent of forty days, ‘in the spring of the year’ is still observed by the Yezidis or Pagan Devil-worshipers of Koordistan, who have inherited it from their early masters, the Babylonians….Such a lent of forty days was observed in Egypt…held expressly in commemoration of Adonis or Osiris, the great mediatorial god,” pp. 104-5.



Osiris’s counterpart is the Greek Demeter and the Babylonian Tammuz—both deities of fertility and life. As Hislop observes, “Among the Pagans this Lent seems to have been an indispensable preliminary to the great annual festival in commemoration of the death and resurrection of Tammuz, which was celebrated by alternate weeping and rejoicing…To conciliate the Pagans to nominal Christianity, Rome, pursuing its usual policy, took measures to get the Christian and Pagan festivals amalgameted, and, by a complicated but skillful adjustment of the calendar, it was found no difficult matter, in general, to get Paganism and Christianity—now far sunk in idolatry—in this as in so many other things, to shake hands,” p. 105.



The Most High’s Salvation Plan in His Observances



Observance of Passover and the Days of Unleavened Bread holds the key to understanding The Most High’s plan of salvation. It was never Almighty The Most High’s intention to link His Son’s death and resurrection to a pagan festival in honor of a fertility idol. Instead, Almighty The Most High ordained the observance of Passover and the Days of Unleavened Bread to point toward the salvation that comes through His Son.



By dying on Passover day and being resurrected during the Days of Unleavened Bread, Yahshua became the Savior of mankind. The Most High never tells us to observe the Savior’s resurrection. Nor is Easter commanded anywhere in the Scriptures. We never see Yahshua or His disciples coloring and hiding eggs, eating hot-cross buns, or worshiping the rising sun. Nor did it ever happen among the Savior’s apostles even after His death and resurrection. The simple, verifiable fact is that Easter is man-made, not The Most High inspired.



Yahshua’s death to pay the penalty for our sins is memorialized by the Passover, and this observance is explicitly commanded, honored, and kept throughout the Bible. The New Testament included. The Scriptures are the inspired Word, 2 Timothy 3:16. The words were breathed by The Most High as if He were talking face-to-face with us, which is the meaning of inspiration in this passage. If He commands us to keep certain days at certain times then we simply have no authority to do anything differently.



The Most High’s feasts fulfill their intended purpose of pointing to Yahshua’s redemptive work. As True Worshipers we must do as the Apostle Paul taught in 1Corinthians 5:7-8, “Therefore purge out the old leaven, that you may be a new lump, since you truly are unleavened. For indeed Maschaiach, our Passover, was sacrificed for us. Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth” (NKJV).



Choosing the Passover Lamb



As sanctified believers we must choose Yahshua as our Passover lamb. In order to find salvation we must recognize him as the Lamb of The Most High who takes away the sin of the world, John 1:29. Without Passover, Yahshua could not have fulfilled the Scriptures which pertain to His Messiahship. To reject Passover and the Days of Unleavened Bread is to reject Yahshua as the Maschaiach. Let us look at some of the crucial scriptures that prove this point.



First, as the Lamb of The Most High, Yahshua fulfilled the scriptures regarding the first Passover observance in Egypt. The Passover Lamb of Exodus chapter 12 prophetically points to our Savior as the Lamb of The Most High.



Let us look at this passage and learn how Yahshua fulfilled it. “Tell the whole community of Israel that on the tenth day of this month each man is to take a lamb for his family, one for each household. If any household is too small for a whole lamb, they must share one with their nearest neighbor, having taken into account the number of people there are. You are to determine the amount of lamb needed in accordance with what each person will eat” (Ex. 12:3-4).



Just as the lamb was selected on the 10th day of the month, so the Lamb of The Most High was selected by the Jews to be their offering on the same day. In Christianity this is referred to as Palm Sunday. This event actually took place on the weekly Sabbath that preceded the Passover. We read about this in Matthew 21:6-11, “The disciples went and did as Yahshua had instructed them. They brought the donkey and the colt, placed their cloaks on them, and Yahshua sat on them. A very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road, while others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. The crowds that went ahead of him and those that followed shouted, ‘Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of The Most High!



Hosanna in the highest!’ When Yahshua entered Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred and asked, ‘Who is this?’ The crowds answered, ‘This is Yahshua, the prophet from Nazareth in Galilee.’”



The people were totally unaware that they were in fact choosing Yahshua as their Passover Lamb. Four days after this occurred some of the same people who heralded Yahshua’s entrance into Jerusalem were crying out for His death. How ironic!



We next learn how the Passover lamb was to be killed on Passover day (Abib 14) and how its blood was to be applied to the lintel and side posts of the door of the house where the lamb was eaten (Ex. 12:5-7). Prophetically this points to Yahshua’s suffering and death on Passover day. Consider Yahshua’s suffering.



Yahshua began the day (scriptural days begin at sundown) by gathering with the Apostles to eat the Passover. “They left and found things just as Yahshua had told them. So they prepared the Passover. When the hour came, Yahshua and his apostles reclined at the table. And he said to them, ‘I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer.’” It was at this time that he humbled Himself as a servant and washed His disciples feet thereby giving us the example of humility (John 13:1-20).



Then Yahshua instituted the new Passover meal and emblems. He gave His disciples unleavened bread to represent His Body and the juice of the grape to represent His shed blood. “While they were eating, Yahshua took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to his disciples, saying, ‘Take it; this is my body.’ Then he took the cup, gave thanks and offered it to them, and they all drank from it. ‘This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many,’ he said to them. ‘I tell you the truth, I will not drink again of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it anew in the kingdom of The Most High’’ (Mark 14:22-25).



After discoursing and praying with His disciples, they all departed to the Garden of Gethsemane to pray. Here is where His suffering as the Passover Lamb began. All of those events took place on Passover day. From the time that Yahshua began to sweat drops of blood in the garden of Gethsemane until His death on Golgotha, Yahshua shed His blood as atonement for sin. He fulfilled the scriptures regarding the Passover Lamb and proved Himself to be the Lamb of The Most High who takes away the sin of the world.



His blood was upon the torture stake just as the blood of the Passover lamb was placed upon the side posts of the Israelite’s dwellings. To separate Yahshua’s sacrifice from Passover and to relink it with Easter is a sacrilege of immense proportion and an insult to Yahshua. The observance of the Passover and the Days of Unleavened Bread was ordained by Almighty The Most High in perpetuity as the memorial of Yahshua’s death and resurrection.



“So this day shall be to you a memorial; and you shall keep it as a feast to The Most High throughout your generations. You shall keep it as a feast by an everlasting ordinance…So you shall observe the Feast of Unleavened Bread, for on this same day I will have brought your armies out of the land of Egypt. Therefore you shall observe this day throughout your generations as an everlasting ordinance… And you shall observe this thing as an ordinance for you and your sons forever” (Exodus 12:14, 17, 24; NKJV). Through Yahshua’s sacrifice we are freed from the bondage of Egypt (sin—Heb. 11:25).