The Postponements: Addressing the Issues by
Dale D. Carmean and Jack M. Lane
Section 1:
Do The Jews Have The Authority?
There are several calendar issues which must be discussed. Primarily, problems with the Hebrew calendar have caused churches to unwittingly schedule Holy Day observances on what we would call the wrong day, a majority of the time! We'll see that as we study into this matter in the pages ahead.
But before we can discuss the calendar itself, we must approach the question of whether or not the Jews have the authority to set the calendar, change it, or do anything they please with it.
Many people are still firmly convinced that there is such a thing as "God's Sacred Calendar." The Worldwide Church of God (WCG) published the so-called Sacred Calendar for many years, showing when the Holy Days fell. If a Holy Day was scheduled to be held on a certain day of a month, it would be clearly marked on the Sacred Calendar, so people would be sure to make it to Holy Day services on the correct day. Since the entire Church around the world was observing the same Sacred Calendar, the entire Church membership met on the same day, everywhere in the world.
It may come as a shock to many, but there is no such thing as "God's Sacred Calendar." There simply isn't. We were taught for years that there was a sacred calendar handed down from God. It turns out that it was nothing more than the standard Hebrew calendar, used by the Jews throughout the ages! It is a calendar, but it is not sacred, nor is it from God!
Most people who have begun to study into the calendar have seen that the Hebrew calendar is not scriptural. That is, there is no place in scripture where the year is defined, the months are identified, or the rules are expounded. There is no place in scripture where the Jews were given the authority to set the calendar. "God's Sacred Calendar" is a myth! And the Hebrew calendar is a man-made calendar, subject to flaws and imperfections because fallible men have put it together, and have tinkered with it over centuries and millennia.
THE CALENDAR THROUGH TIME
A brief history of the Hebrew calendar would show that, at the time of the Exodus, God told Moses that the year would begin with a particular month, and that Passover would occur 14 days into that month. We still know that month by its Hebrew name, Aviv or Abib, and by its Babylonian name, Nisan.
In the wilderness, God explained the sequence of Holy Days, found in Leviticus 23, and showed that the first month and the seventh month were especially important. On the first day of the seventh month, Tishri, the Feast of Trumpets was to be held. The first day of the month was a new moon. Atonement was to be on the tenth day following the new moon. The Festival of Ingathering, or Feast of Tabernacles, was to begin on the fifteenth day following the new moon. Other Holy Days fell into their appointed times, as God explained.
Throughout most of human history, each month was considered to begin with the new moon. The terms "new moon" and "new month" meant the same thing. The terms were interchangeable. (Recall, as an example, the cliché about American Indians saying, "Many moons ago, this or that happened.")
However, a complex system of traditions and legislation arose around the calendar, including a Calendar Council of the Sanhedrin by the time of Christ. Following the dispersion of the Jews from Palestine in the first century A.D., and increased persecution toward the Jews in the fourth century, the eminent Jewish scholar Hillel II did what had never been done before: he published the rules that had grown up around the calendar. Before that time, the calendar rules and regulations had been kept from the average citizen as a proprietary interest of the priests or the Sanhedrin. However, because of the increased persecution and growing isolation between communities of Jews, Hillel II felt the best way to preserve the calendar was to allow separated Jews to have the rules regarding the calendar.
The act of publishing the rules and regulations did serve to keep the Hebrew calendar going. However, the calendar experienced tinkering and changing several times over the centuries. It came to be in its present form, as we know it today, by the tenth century, at about the time of Maimonides, the Jewish scholar in Spain.
WHAT ABOUT AUTHORITY?
During the long centuries, several changes took place in the calendar, and in the way the Jews observed the Holy Days. Today, Holy Day observing Christians are faced with this dilemma: If the Jews truly have authority over the calendar, then it would follow that (1) it is not God's calendar, or else it could not be changed, and (2) we must observe the Holy Days when and how the Jews observe them.
If the Jews have authority over the calendar, who gave them that authority? Does that authority extend over the New Covenant church of God?
Although many are quick to answer that God gave the Jews the authority, there is no scripture whatsoever giving the Jews any control, or total and unquestioned rulership, in calendar matters. It's true, the Jews have taken on the responsibility with all earnestness, but there is no biblical mandate from God.
Similarly, there is no scripture that would indicate that the Jews of any age had religious authority or power over New Testament Christians, either in Holy Day observance or in any other matter.
If we stop to analyze the situation, we have to ask, "How is it that carnal, unconverted Jews would have the authority to tell members of God's New Testament Church when to observe God's Holy Days? Where is that in scripture?"
Paul referred to "the oracles of God" in Romans 3:1-2: "What advantage then has the Jew, or what is the profit of circumcision? Much in every way! Chiefly because to them were committed the oracles of God."
However, these verses are not speaking in reference to giving the Jews authority to set a calendar or move God's Holy Days. Yet this one verse of scripture, isolated from its context, has been used repeatedly to reinforce the idea that the Jews have total control over the calendar. This is absolutely not what is being discussed, and betrays a flagrant misuse of scripture.
When the word "oracle" is researched, and the book of Romans is considered as a whole, we can see that the "oracles of God" are the scriptures, and the advantage or profit the Jews had was not in having the calendar rules, but in knowing God's laws!
The apostles stated that we must obey God rather than men (Acts 5:29). That would include any man-made religious doctrine or legislation that is in conflict with God's Word. It is possible to worship Christ in vain, following the traditions of men as if they were the commandments of God (Mark 7:7-9). We are familiar with the stories in the gospels about how the traditions, laws and customs of the Jews so often worked in a direction opposite to what Christ wanted.
When the Jews rejected their own Messiah, the Gospel message was taken to the Gentiles, who embraced it with joy (Acts 13:48). When a party of Jews from Jerusalem attempted to impose Jewish practices on the Gentile church members, it was decided that God did not want that to happen, but rather that the Gentiles could follow the principles of Christianity in their own culture, without the imposition of the Jewish hardships (Acts 15).
That decision by the early church still holds true today! Why would we hang the burden of the rules of postponement, or any other traditions of men, around our necks if the scriptures don't tell us to do so? The Jews do not have any authority over God's church!
ARE WE UNDER THE PHARISEES?
In addition to the often used verses concerning the oracles of God, there are other scriptures that come up whenever calendar matters are discussed, to "prove" a particular point of view. Let's look at them briefly, to see if they really say what people try to make them say.
One scripture that is used in an attempt to bolster Jewish authority is this: "Then Jesus spoke to the multitudes and to His disciples, saying: ‘The scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat. Therefore whatever they tell you to observe, that observe and do...’" (Matthew 23:1-3). Some have even used this scripture as their authority to follow some of the practices of the Pharisees.
Did Jesus tell the multitudes and His disciples to become Pharisees? To do what the Pharisees do? Or that if they wanted to please God they should look to the Pharisees? Let's continue in the same verse: "... but do not do according to their works; for they say, and do not do. For they bind heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on men's shoulders ... all their works they do to be seen by men. ... They love the best places ... and to be called by men, ‘Rabbi, Rabbi’" (verses 3-7).
Is this the kind of behavior Christ wanted His disciples to emulate? Would Christ have wanted us to adopt the customs and traditions of the scribes and Pharisees? Not at all! In the next few verses, Jesus commanded His followers to live just the opposite way of life!
Yet, Jesus was referring to the Pharisees and scribes as those who had some authority, because they "sit in Moses’ seat." What kind of authority was that? In the Companion Bible, Bullinger mentions in a footnote that the verb translated "sit" might better be rendered "have taken [their] seat." If this is the sense of the verb, we can see how the scribes and Pharisees took to themselves the lofty authority of Moses! That's why Christ told the Jews to "do as they say, not as they do."
Did their authority extend beyond the confines of the local synagogue of the first century Holy Land, and reach clear down to us today, in the New Covenant assembly of God? Of course not. The scribes and Pharisees have no authority over the body of Christ.
Continuing in Matthew chapter 23, Jesus denounced the scribes and Pharisees. Seven times Christ thundered, "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!" Sin after sin was revealed by Him who can read all hearts. Christ did not want His followers to pattern their lives or behavior after the scribes and the Pharisees. Whatever limited authority the scribes and Pharisees may have exercised, they were not being held up as examples the people should follow.
THE EXAMPLE OF THE JEWS
If the Jews had the authority to tell us when to observe God's Holy Days, would they not also have the authority to tell us what to do on those Holy Days? For example, some practices of the Jews include:
- Calling Tishri, rather than Abib, the first month, and calling Tishri 1, rather than Abib 1, New Years Day.- Observing Rosh Hoshanah (The Feast of Trumpets) over two days.
- Observing Pentecost, or the Feast of Weeks, on a fixed date, Sivan 6, rather than counting from the Wave Sheaf ceremony.
- Observing Passover on Abib 15.
- During "Holy Week" (that is, Passover and the Days of Unleavened Bread), they will eat Kosher. The rest of the year, most Jews have no regard for the dietary laws.
INCONSISTENCIES
Many people, when originally instructed about "God's Sacred Calendar," were told that we weren't under the Jews’ authority, but that they just happened to "get it right." That is, the Jews were following "God's Sacred Calendar" almost as well as we were. (We made a few corrections, you see.) What colossal conceit! But now, there is a flip-flop in official explanations. Now, when anyone questions the calendar, the church organizations say the Jews have the authority over the calendar, and we must do what they say. Is this consistent with either history or logic?
If the Jews have the authority of the calendar, are we not under an obligation to keep Passover and Pentecost as they do? Yet, as we have just seen, even the Jews don't observe Leviticus 23 in all instances.
If we were to place ourselves under the authority of the Jews in this one area only, and not in any other, that would make no sense. But if we place ourselves under the Jews’ authority in many or all areas, so that we too "progress" in a backward direction, God's authority in our lives is nullified. If this untruth is carried out to its conclusion, we would have to admit that the Jews have authority in other areas of our lives, as well. We would, in fact, become Jews rather than Christians!
As we progress though this study of the calendar, keep in mind that (1) the Jews have accepted the responsibility of developing and maintaining the Hebrew calendar, although God did not give a scriptural command to that effect; and (2) the Jews have no authority over New Covenant Christians today, in any area.