An Honest Debate.com

Hi Terry, I don’t know why my post to you said 1:30 a.m. That’s not when I posted it. I’m not sure my blog server is on Central time. Believe me, When the sun goes down I’m headed for bed and I don’t get up until it rises again in the morning.

As for you more serious question, I agree with Cup of Wrath on this one (See Doug, I knew we would be agreeing again soon). Let me add this, Jesus observed the Freat because he was a Jew. Consider this verse:

“But when the fulness of time had come, God sent forth HIs Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeedm those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons.” Galatians 4:4

In the next major post in my present series I am going to make the point that Jesus came from us but he did not come to us. He came to his own, the Jewish people, as their Messiah, the fulfillment of promises and covenants that God made with them. Trying to understand Jesus outside of the Context of His mission to His own, to whom He came (John 1:12) is to open one’s self to all sorts of misinterpretations.

Paul observed law, for the same reason. For example, he was arrested in the Temple in Jerusalem while making an offering with relation to a Jewish purification ritual in Temple. The reason he did this was explained by James when he suggested that Paul do this:

“You see, brother, how many; myriads of Jews there are who have believed, and they are all zealous for the law; but they have been informed about you that you teach all the Jews who are among the Gentiles to forsake Moses, saying that they ought not to circumcise their children nor to walk according to the customs. What the? The assembly must certainly meet for they will hear that you have come. There do what we tell you. We have four men who have taken a vow. Take them and be purified with them, and pay their expenses so that they may shave their heads, and that all may know that those things of which they were informed concerning you are nothing but that you yourself also walk orderly and keep the law but concerning the Gentiles who believe we have written and decided that they should observe no such thing, except that they should keep themselves from things offered to idols, from blood and from things strangled, and from sexual immorality.”

Note again that the Gentiles (based on the Jerusalem council in Acts 15) were on a different track. In fact, in both Acts 15 and in Galatians it is obvious that in the early days of the church, as a transition was being made from a predominantly Jewish to a predominantly gentile church, there were two tracks within the church. Jewish believers continued to observe the Law and their customs until the temple was destroyed. On the other hands, gentiles were only required to observe the bare minimum and that only because of fear of offending the Jews, both the Jewish believers among them and those outside.

So we gentile believers don’t generally observe the feasts that were mandatory under the Old Covenant. Will we observe the Feast of Tabernacles in the Millennium? Yes. Why don’t we observe it now? We’re not in the Millennium yet.

Now let me add this based on the Colossians passage. If you want to observe the feast or observe one day above another (Romans 14) you are free to do so. There is certainly nothing wrong with observing the Feast of Tabernacles, and if it is meaningful to you, that’s fine. But to say that we should all observe it when the scriptures have clearly made the observance of such days optional is legalism, the very kind of legalism Paul was opposing in Colossians.

Finally, as to God saying the feasts were “His feasts,” Remember that second rule of interpretation, “Who is he talking to. Yes, God was saying the feasts were His feasts, but who was He saying this to, Jews or Gentiles?

P.S. I am writing this at around 8:30 a.m., but I notice the server is saying I posted it at around 1:30 p.m.