Question:
Dear Greg,
I
have questions concerning the annual holy days kept by ancient Israel.
When studying the practices of Israel I noted that they kept daily,
weekly, monthly and annual sacrifices. The
sacrifices were the main focus of these events.
My question is: were the annual holy days actually the annual sacrifices
mentioned in Hebrews 10:1-5? In
Hebrews 13:10-13, the scripture seems to state that new covenant people have an
altar, which is Christ, and that those who keep holy day sacrifices have no
right to eat. Considering these
statements, do those who keep the days of annual sacrifices deny the sacrifice
of Christ? Galatians 4:10 and 5:1
seem to indicate this. Circumcision
was the outward sign of acceptance to keep all the old covenant law. Paul did not seem pleased that the Galatians were keeping
days, months, seasons and years, as this was the pattern of the old sacrificial
system of the Jews. It seems the
Galatians may have been infected by a false gospel as mentioned in Galatians
1:6-9. Acts 21:21 is said to have
been a false accusation against Paul but after studying the matter, perhaps it
could be considered a true one.
I
know this has been a long question. I
thank you in advance for your reply
Coni
Answer: Dear Coni,
It
seems to me that you are on the right track as you grapple with this issue.
In order to attempt to help you, I’ll try to simply restate, in a
slightly different way, what you say below.
The
old covenant was a package of laws, practices, civil codes, statutes, etc.
The old covenant described and prescribed what was necessary for the
people of God to be the people of God. The
old covenant was physical, for a physical nation.
Only one nation – the Hebrews – was given the old covenant.
The terms of the old covenant were physical, as were the blessings and
cursings. When generally adhered
to, God promised prosperity. When
it was not, disobedience brought cursings.
Once again, the terms of the old covenant, the terms of salvation under
the old covenant, under the law, were simple – keep the law.
Obey the law.
When
God came to us in the person of Jesus, he came, humanly, as a Jew.
Jesus kept al of the old covenant – perfectly – as no human had ever
or can ever do. He fulfilled it. All of it.
His
cross is the watershed in this discussion.
The new covenant begins at the cross.
Under the new covenant the terms change – the covenant changes, the
“economy” of God changes. The new covenant is no longer just for the Jews, but for all
mankind. Everyone.
We are no longer capable of earning our salvation (not that humans under
the old covenant earned spiritual salvation.
At best they earned physical salvation from curses, hardships, military
captivity, etc.). The economy of
God is now grace, as opposed to law.
Under
the new covenant God gives us salvation, actually imparting the righteousness of
Jesus Christ to us because of the perfect work of Christ.
Christ made atonement for us “once and for all” – see Hebrews 10.
There is no need to offer sacrifices over and over again – the debt was
paid once and for all on the cross. It
is finished. The old covenant is no
longer required for salvation.
The
terms of the new covenant are faith, trust, and belief in Jesus Christ.
We must accept that what he did and does for us is enough for our
salvation. Some believe that our
salvation rests, in some degree, on our good works and merits, and many of those
folks dismiss this act of accepting Christ as “easy”.
They can only say this because they have not accepted Jesus Christ as
Lord and Savior. Accepting him,
trusting him, obeying him, and believing him is the hardest thing for any human
to do. Why?
Because we must give up control. We
must stop thinking that we control our salvation.
We must admit that nothing we do is good enough.
We must surrender our vanity and spiritual arrogance, our self-righteous
delusions that somehow we can manipulate or obligate God into giving us
salvation. We need God. He
doesn’t need our good deeds.
If
we accept Christ completely, that means that we believe that he alone can save
us. Period.
Salvation is by grace, by faith, and by Christ alone.
We are not good enough to earn salvation, and never will be. Christ alone is good enough.
Neither can we say that salvation is “Jesus plus”.
Salvation is not law and grace. Salvation
is grace. Period.
We must not delude ourselves into thinking that we can earn anything from
God. We are not equipped to do so,
for we are imperfect humans and will fail time and again.
Even the old covenant noted that all our human righteousness is but
filthy rags.
This
of course does not mean that we are free to behave in any way that we want, or
in fact that we will, if we authentically accept Christ as Lord and Savior, even
want to. Ephesians 2:8-10 shows
that we are saved BY grace FOR works. Because
we are saved by his grace, not by anything we do, then he will live in us
(Galatians 2:20). He will produce
works in us that will cause others to come to Christ.
What
works will he produce in us? The
works of the Mosaic, old covenant economy?
No, the works of the new covenant – that are explained throughout the
New Testament. And there are plenty
of “sin” lists and “virtue” lists in the New Testament – behaviors
that Christians will do and not do because Christ lives in them.
Interestingly, not once do we find the keeping or breaking of the Hebrew
sabbath or holy days listed in these lists.
What
about the argument that Christ kept the old covenant law – the weekly and
annual sabbaths – or that he kept kosher?
That was before the cross. He
was a Jew. He went to synagogue (not church) on Saturday (not Sunday).
He was circumcised. Though
there are not many references in the Gospels, it seems that Jesus kept all
annual holy days, all of them as per Leviticus 23 as well as the ones that were
added later – such as the Feast of Lights.
Does this mean that Christians must, as a condition of salvation, keep
all these days? Should all
Christian men be circumcised? Must
all Christians keep kosher? If we
accept the false premise that we must do everything that Jesus did, we will
believe such a thing. But the cross
of Christ changed all of that, once and for all.
If
we take such a position, we must realize that we are not free to keep part of
the old covenant – to pick and choose which parts we will keep.
Paul made this point in Galatians and Romans.
There are two ways that we may choose to be saved.
One – we may tell God that we are going to be saved by keeping the law
– perfectly. Either the old
covenant or new covenant. We may
earn our salvation if we can keep either covenant, without ever sinning. Second -–we may tell God that we choose grace.
We will fall before Christ, claiming his blood and his cross, asking for
God’s grace. If we do the second,
we must not try to show God what good boys and girls we are because we kept some
of the law. It is one way or the
other – not a combination of both. To
try to combine both is to diminish the power of the gospel and the enormity of
what Christ Jesus or Lord did and does for us.
You
mention the book of Hebrews in your question.
The book of Hebrews was written to show the superiority of Christ over
all aspects of the Old Testament and the old covenant.
It is much like Romans in that it develops a legal argument
progressively. Therefore, in order to fully appreciate the message, one must
keep the entire context of the book in mind.
The
“other gospel” Paul has reference to is any message that subverts, modifies,
changes, or adds to the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Legalism adds to the gospel in that it adds conditions to the gospel.
The only condition of the new covenant is the complete and utter
surrender to Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior.
Someone
who wishes to add conditions to the gospel is preaching another gospel
(Galatians 1). They have not
accepted Jesus Christ as Lord, but are in fact worshipping “other gods” –
“required” observances of days, months, times and years.
We must worship Jesus as Lord – he is Lord of all.
If he isn’t Lord of all, he isn’t Lord at all.
Christians may choose to worship him on any day and at any time – we
simply must not make the day, tradition, practice, or time more important than
the Lord. No day, time, or practice
is holy of and by itself. Those
things are not required for salvation. Jesus
is Lord of all.
In
Christ,
Greg Albrecht