This Teaching E-mail continues the series
of prophetic warnings the Spirit of God is giving to deter
followers of Jesus from participating in ANY form of paganism
that has been adapted into Christendom. Some denominations
to-day are so filled with pagan ritual and traditions that
they’re void of scriptural foundation and are leading
many astray.
How far afield from biblical truth we
wander when we ignore the continuity
of promises between the Older
Testament and the Newer Testament! We’ll be focusing here
in particular about the desecration of the Passover feast that’s overtaken so
much of Christendom, and how ignorance of God’s
deliverance of the Israelites from Egyptian slavery has opened
the door for much pagan infiltration into what is now known as Easter.
What you have taken for granted as always
having been celebrated by God’s called-out people is, in
fact, rooted in demonic darkness. We’ll also explore why the apostle Paul
refers to Jesus as the Passover Lamb for Jew and Gentile alike
who follow Him.
The Demonic Origins of Easter
Most Christians today eagerly look forward
to celebrating “Easter”; in fact, most kids,
whether from Christian homes or not, will be looking forward to
decorated baskets of chocolate bunnies and brightly colored
candy eggs surrounded by abundant (fake) green grass. Right
alongside all the fun of fancy new clothes and an Easter egg
hunt are church services, which for some people is the only time besides
Christmas that they sit in a pew.
Now, perhaps you’re a parent who is
earnestly trying to teach your children about the reality of
Jesus and His reconciling work on the Cross so that they might
access God their Father and be forgiven. Just how, in a
child’s mind, does he separate the fantasy of eggs and
rabbits and lilies from the truth of the death and resurrection of Jesus? That
kind of mix is called syncretism, borrowing from pagan customs to alter the holy
Word of God to make it more appealing. To our righteous Father,
that is abomination — the same kind of compromise that
brought chastisement upon His chosen Israelites, and will bring
upon His children today.
Have you ever wondered when and how all these
strange mythical practices came about? We hope you’ll be shocked enough to repent when
you learn the truth! Centuries
before the Incarnation of Jesus, the Babylonians were enslaved
by their worship of the demonic deity Ishtar, the goddess of
both love and war. (This deity was also known as Asherah,
Astoreth, Eastre, Gaia, and Venus, among other names.) The meaning,
however, was the same: “Earth Mother.”
The festival of Easter had long been
celebrated by the Assyrians, the Phoenicians, the Philistines,
and the Babylonians—peoples whom the Hebrews were
commanded by their holy God to not intermingle with through
marriage or adopt any of their detestable
practices (see Ezra 9:10-12).
Just as Christmas had been syncretized so
that its timing and practices coincided with the winter
equinox, so did celebration of Easter among the heathens
find its roots in the sky. Eastre, the goddess of spring, was
annually impregnated by the sun during the spring equinox. To
celebrate this festival to their Earth Mother, followers took
part in ritual sex acts to initiate fertility.
So where did the rabbits and eggs enter
in? Again, fertility among these agrarian peoples was
paramount. To ensure fertile land, they rolled brightly
decorated eggs across their fields. Then, to protect these
sacred eggs from “evil spirits”, they hid the eggs
in rabbit nests. Rabbits, a truly prolific species—we
used to raise them, and they ARE prolific!—were another
Easter symbol of fertility.
Two other symbols of contemporary Easter
celebration also are deeply rooted in the worship of this
demonic entity. The emblem of Ishtar is the lily, often found on stone
depictions with her. And, those delicious hot-cross buns so savored
on Easter morning are rooted in Baby-lonian mythology as well!
The Babylon-ian symbol for female was a circle with a
cross-shape below it. To celebrate their beloved Earth Mother,
the “Queen of Heaven”, the Babylonians baked round cakes marked with
a cross—the very cakes used in her worship by Israel that
so provoked God to anger.
If we might digress for a moment on the
schemes of Satan to lead children
astray: Notice that preparation of
these cakes was a family affair pushed by the wives onto their husbands and
children:
The children gather wood, the fathers light the fire, and the women knead the dough and
make cakes of bread for the Queen of
Heaven. They pour out drink
offerings to other gods to provoke Me to anger (Jeremiah 7:18)
Ahab-like husbands today choose to allow
their wives to rule by practicing pagan customs in their homes.
Failing to protect their children from sin-rooted traditions,
these fathers shouldn’t be surprised that the truth of
God has little or no impact on their sons and daughters. After
all, the holiness of the Bible becomes just another ingredient
in the whole celebration, be it Christmas or Easter. And the
parts that really appeal to impressionable kids are the fun ones: the
goodies, the gifts and the special foods! How tragic, from our
precious Lord’s perspective...
Syncretism, the Slide to our Forthcoming
Chastisement
But surely, you may be thinking, the word
Easter is in the Bible! NOT SO! In the original language of the
Newer Testament, the word pascha is used 29 times to describe the Passover celebration.
The only version of the Bible which used the word Easter (and
that only once in Acts 12:4) was the King James Version. As
with many religious leaders over the centuries, the king who
authorized the translation was thoroughly anti-Semitic and
wanted to distance Christian practice from its Jewish root!
Far earlier than that particular
mistranslation was the practice of the Romanized Church to
adopt pagan customs of converted heathens into accepted church
practice, even as authentic biblical practices were discarded.
According to Roman Catholic theologian, Cardinal John Henry
Newman, rulers of the Church were prepared:
“to
adopt, to imitate, or to sanctify the existing rites and
customs of the population, as well
as the philosophy of the educated class. The use of temples and those dedicated to particular saints, and ornamented on occasion with branches of
trees, incense, lamps, candles, votive offerings on recovering
from illness, holy water, holy days and seasons, use of
calendars, processions, blessings on the fields, sacerdotal
vestments, the ring in marriage, chants, the Kyrie Eleison
— are all of Pagan origin, and sanctified by adoption into the
Church.” (The Essay on the Develop-ment of Christian Doctrine, chapter 8, emphasis added).
Why then did these obviously pagan
practices become so widely accepted? Credit Roman Emperor
Constantine I when, in AD 325, he convened together 220 bishops
to establish unified doctrines and practices. This gathering, known as the Nicene Council,
instituted increased tolerance for pagan practices in order to facilitate control over the diverse populace.
Passover and other “Jewish”
observances were outlawed, while pagan customs were
“sanctified” with a scriptural spin. And, as we
noted with the family-style worship of the Queen of Heaven,
when children are brought up with pagan practices mixed in with biblical truth, they perpetuate the lies among their own offspring.
No longer “set apart for Him” are those who are
intended by our God to worship Him
alone in the manner prescribed in His Word.
ARE compromise and syncretism God’s
way? Hear from His own mouth how to respond to pagan
infiltration into His timeless, righteous commands for His
called and chosen ones:
Destroy their
altars, smash their sacred stones and burn their Asherah poles [symbols of the Earth Mother] in the fire; cut down the idols of their gods and destroy their names from
those places. You must not worship
the LORD your God in their way (Deuteronomy 12:3,4).
The Passover Lamb of Redemption
Since we can see pretty clearly how not to commemorate
the crucifixion and resurrection of our Lord, how then should we
commemorate His victory over sin on our behalf? Let’s
reexamine briefly the purposes behind the Passover celebration
during which our Lord Himself established a new covenant with His
disciples.
For multiple centuries the Passover
foreshadowed the sacrifice of our Lord Jesus. His atonement on
behalf of our sins can only be fully appreciated with a clear
understanding of the Passover. This is why we must identify the
continuity between both Testaments of the Bible.
When God heard the cries of Israel in
their slavery in Egypt, He responded by commanding through
Moses that the male head of each household kill an unblemished
male lamb in its first year — during its prime of life.
Some of the blood was to be put on the doorposts and lintels of
the houses in which they would eat the lamb. That night God
would pass through Egypt and strike down every firstborn male
to bring judgment against all the gods of Egypt. (See Exodus, chapter
12 for the whole account.) The blood of a slaughtered lamb on
each family’s doorframe would be a sign on their behalf
so that the destroying plague from God would be averted. He
would pass over them.
So important to the relationship between
God and the Israelites was this Passover that He established
very specific commands regarding it. The slaughter of the
Passover lamb would take place each year on the 14th day of the
first month. For seven days they would eat only unleavened
bread, that which was made without
yeast. In Scripture, leaven often
represents the influence of sin in a person (1 Corinthians 5:
6-8). A little bit can spread throughout to create a lot of
corruption! This is why our Father demands communal righteousness throughout
a home or faith community. NO ONE can fellowship with
unconfessed sin!
It’s important to recognize that our
God was demonstrating abundant
grace to His people. By accepting
the substitutionary blood of a lamb on behalf of the Israelites
who trusted His promise and obeyed His command, God was
preserving the lives of their firstborn. That grace to redeem
not only the firstborn but all of Israel by delivering them out
of slavery was designed by God to fulfill a particular purpose:
to call out a people specifically chosen in advance through His
eternal promise to Abraham to proclaim
Him among the nations (Genesis
12:2,3).
These called-out
ones were a type of the redeemed to
come from every kindred, tongue,
people and nation through the blood
of the Lamb of God (Revelation 5:9). The Israelites who were
saved by the blood of the lamb experienced their exodus into
freedom from Egyptian slavery. The redeemed of the slain and
risen Christ are freed to serve Him in our own exodus from the slavery of sin.
The account in Exodus reveals that this
Passover commemoration was not to be taken lightly. In fact, no
outsider was to eat of it, nor anyone not a part of the
covenant of circumcision among Israel’s males. (See
Exodus 12:43-48.) Let’s pause for a moment and consider
what appears to be exclusivity on God’s part. Through Abraham, God
had set apart a people unto Himself and His purposes through
the covenant sealed by circumcision. Those were the only ones
privileged by God to partake of Passover.
By the redeeming blood of Jesus, our Passover
Lamb as His called-out ones, we are no longer
“foreigners,” outsiders. We are “circumcised
of heart”, grafted in as His people and children of
Abraham as we walk in his footsteps of obedient trust (see
Romans 4:11,12).
But those who are not covered by His atoning
blood through obedient trust in Jesus are still
“foreigners” to God. Without His indwelling Spirit
Who evidences His redemptive work in their lives, they are not
identified as His people (see Romans 8:9). Therefore they are
unqualified to partake of His Passover of the new covenant
sealed in His blood. As we’ll discuss shortly, partaking
of communion in Him if you neither know Him nor have repented
of sins constitutes an “unworthy manner.” As Paul
warned, this can bring about illness or even death for defaming
His sacrifice (see 1 Corin-thians 11:27-31).
The Israelites were commanded by God to
keep this Feast of Passover remembrance year by year from generation to generation (Exodus 12:24-27). They were to diligently recount to their children not only the events of the first deliverance, but
also carefully cultivate a dependence on and gratefulness to
God that’s expressed by obedience
to Him (Deuteronomy 7:9). Only
the pure, unsyncretised, unadulterated truth was shared with
their children. No mix of the pagan practices and gods which
had surrounded the Israelites for 430 years.
Are you prepared to restore only the pure,
unadulterated truth of Christ as our risen Passover Lamb for your children
and grandchildren? That’s the pattern of God’s
Word, the only reliable source of what pleases Him!
Why Is the Blood of the Lamb So Important?
If you’ve been in the habit of
ignoring the Older Testament, you’ve missed out on so
much of the glorious foundations of our walk as followers of
Jesus! People fall into error when they believe only
half-truths or limited truth. You may not think you have time
to go through the first five books of the Hebrew Scriptures.
But for the sake of your own trust walk and that of your
family, at least give them a “crash course” in the
essential connection between the two Testaments. Sit down with
your family with your Bibles opened to the Newer Testament book
of Hebrews. You need this snapshot into the nature of sin and
the necessity of Jesus as the mediator through His blood on
your behalf!
Our sins are so vile before our holy God
that we deserve death for them in His sight. Only by His loving grace did
He allow the life blood of an unblemished animal sprinkled on
His altar substitute for that of a sinful, guilty Israelite.
According to His holy requirements, only through the shedding of blood is
there forgiveness of sins (Hebrews 9:22, apperceived from
Leviticus 17:11).
Yet, what a wonder that He has provided His own blood once and for all as
the eternal substitution for our deserved death! The sinless
life of Lord Jesus was exchanged for our guilty lives so that
through faith in His atoning work, we might be forgiven and
live. What a staggering culmination of sacrifice so that we
might be reconciled as adopted children by this ultimate
Passover Lamb! (See Ephesians 1:5.)
Keep in mind that the Israelites were
required to remove all leaven from their homes during this Feast. In Christ,
our Passover, we as His people are called upon to rid ourselves
of any leaven of iniquity so that our lives are filled with the
“unleavened bread” of sincerity (by implication, purity) and truth
(see 1 Corinthians 5:8). Just going through the motions of any spiritual
endeavor while still entertaining sin is detestable and
unacceptable in the sight of the God Who examines our hearts. The
heart that our just and holy God finds acceptable manifests love for Him and for
others, and determination to obey His commands (see 1 Samuel 15:22; Mark 12:33).
The Lord's Supper — His Passover
Covenant Remembrance
It was no mere coincidence that Jesus had
gathered His twelve disciples together to celebrate the Passover
just as He Himself was to become the Sacrificial Lamb. This was
no somber time for the Jews. It was
a celebration of God’s
faithfulness to His chosen people! God had remembered His covenant with Abraham to bring them to the
land He would give them (Exodus 6:4,5). The first Passover commemorated His
glorious redemption of their firstborn from the destroying
angel and their deliverance into freedom from Egyptian slavery.
This unforgettable evening with Jesus
would also become a commemoration. Every time they partook of the bread which He
called His body and the wine which was the new covenant in His
blood, they would remember His redemptive work to free them
from slavery to sin. This new
covenant would fulfill the
promise God had made to His people through the prophet Jeremiah
long ago:
“Behold, the days are coming, says
the LORD, when I will make a new
covenant with the house of Israel
and with the house of Judah—not according to the covenant
that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by
the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, though I was a husband to
them, says the LORD. But this is
the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after
those days, says the LORD: I will
put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God,
and they shall be My people” (Jeremiah 31:33).
Let’s look at some of the specifics
that help us connect the first Passover with the
“ultimate Passover” Jesus was establishing. The
Israelites were told by God that His redemption and rescue into
freedom would encompass four promises stated in Exodus 6:6,7.
Therefore the Passover seder, or set order of celebration which the
disciples were observing the same way their forefathers had,
contained four cups of wine — two before the meal and two
afterwards.
The first cup of wine addressed this
promise: “I will bring you out from
under the burdens of the Egyptians.”
The second cup recalled the next promise: “I will rescue
you from their bondage.”
The third cup of promise, coming after the
meal, was directly noted by Jesus. This, called the cup of redemption,
had a twofold meaning to our Lord. Looking back, His Father had
promised the Israelites, “I
will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great
judgments.” For those who
would trust that His blood redeemed them from the penalty of
sin and would trust God through His Messiah, this new covenant
of redemption would be fulfilled by Jesus and ratified by His
blood. He presented His blood to His Father, and His Father
accepted it as fulfilling His just requirements. The resurrection of
Jesus from the dead is total and complete proof that His blood
sufficed!
But what about the fourth cup, the one
called the cup of consummation based on the fourth promise to the Israelites? “I will take
you as My people, and I will be
your God.” Jesus refused to
drink this cup, telling His disciples that He would only drink
this cup with them at the future banquet in the Kingdom of God
(Mark 14:25).
This particular promise of belonging to God
connotes an incredible union of intimacy. It speaks of the
relationship between husband and
wife. Note that in our Exodus
Passover passage, God had referred to Himself as a husband —
One against Whom they committed spiritual adultery and broke
their end of their covenant with Him.
Using this same imagery, Jesus as the
heavenly Bridegroom won’t “take His Bride as His
own” until the wedding feast in eternity when this
relationship is consummated (see Revelation 19:7-9). We His
people are betrothed to Jesus — promised to be His Bride
so that we might bear spiritual fruit:
Therefore, my brethren, you also have
become dead to the law through the body of Christ, that you may
be married to another—to Him who was raised from the dead, that
we should bear fruit to God (Romans 7:4).
Each time we share together the bread and
the wine that remind us of His victory over death and sin, we
are renewing our marriage covenant to our heavenly Bridegroom!
The unleavened Passover matzo with its
pierced, striped markings recalls Jesus’s proclamation as
the Bread of life, “This is My body given for you; do
this in remembrance of Me” (Luke 22:19). We partake of “one loaf” as each
person shares a piece from it, signifying that we are one body
in Him (1 Corinthians 10:17).
The cup of the new covenant in His blood
is poured out for us (Luke 22:20). Therefore how needful it is that
each person examines his heart to make sure there is nothing
unholy, impure or unfaithful in the sense of entertaining
unclean spirits within. How grievous a thing it is to provoke
our Bridegroom to jealousy by “fellowshipping with
demons” while renewing our marriage vows in Him (see 1
Corinthians 10:21,22)!
Each time we share the bread and the wine,
we are participating in the body and blood of Christ because He said so! (See 1 Corinthians 10:16.) No other mediator between God and
man is needed, since Christ alone is our Mediator and High
Priest (1 Timothy 2:5; Hebrews 4:14). Each time we partake of
the bread and the wine, we are internalizing the reality of His death on our behalf, and the
confirmation of His covenant with His called-out ones, His
Church.
You may be wondering where wafers as well
as so much of the liturgy often attached to communion services
came from. Pagan Mithraists long before the earthly life of Jesus worshiped
the sun. Setting apart one day a week as Sun-day in honor of
the Sun/Mithras, the priest would elevate a flat disc of bread
to receive the sun’s first rays. At that moment he would
chant magic words to transform the
bread into the actual presence of
the sun. Faithful followers ardently believed that if they ate
that bread, they would possess the power of Mithras. Later on,
controversy over the “Sacrifice of the Mass” and whether the priest
would actually be serving either a “spiritual”
manifestation of the body of Christ or the
“physical” transubstantiation would continue until
the latter was established as Roman Catholic doctrine at the
fourth Lateran Council in 1215.
How Then Shall We Live?
All of this background material has been
presented to bring you to a decision point for you and your
household. Once again you’ll be bombarded by customs and
traditions that mix the truth and
reality of the atoning work of
Jesus on the cross and His glorious resurrection with pagan traditions and customs that not only belittle and defile His work but also
hack off the deeper fulfillment of Christ as our Passover as
His followers.
Think about that. Will you continue to
water down the biblical root of commemoration with worldly
lies? Or, will you boldly claim allegiance to walking wholly
and only in His Spirit and His Word as your standard for
living? NOW is the appointed time for you to choose.
We strongly encourage you to forsake pagan
Easter before God takes action against you! Establish a Christ-focused Passover of your own by celebrating the victory He achieved
for you on the cross. The crucifixion and resurrection
should bring Jesus followers as great joy as it did Him:
Let us fix our
eyes on Jesus, the Author and
Perfecter of our faith, Who for the joy
set before Him endured the cross,
scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the
throne of God (Hebrews 12:2).
Celebrate that His death has set you free!
