THE NEW MOON, THE PASSOVER AND OUR CALLING
During Passover season each year members of the churches of God celebrate the feast the world over. Many will read portions from John 13:18 on through the 17th Chapter of the gospel of John. Chapter 17 of John contains the real prayer of Christ to His Father and not the model prayer found in Matthew 6:6-19 and in Luke 11:2-4, for these are just the outlines that Christ gave to His followers when they asked Him to teach them how to pray. An interesting revelation is found in John 17:17, “Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth.” “Sanctify” is Strong’s # 37 Greek, hagiazo, from # 40; to make holy; i.e. [cer.] purify or consecrate; [mentally] to venerate:— hallow; be holy; sanctify. This truth is relevant to our faith as Christians to lead us to holiness and to Jesus Christ who is “the WAY, the TRUTH and the LIFE” (John 14:6).
In answer to the Jews who wanted to kill Him, Jesus said, “Do not think that I shall accuse you to the Father; there is one who accuses you – Moses, in whom you trust. For if you believed Moses, you would believe Me; for he wrote about Me. But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe My words?”(John 5:45-47). Christ is showing here that the Old and the New Testaments are one in God’s plan of saving mankind. I once attended a church where the new is more relevant than the old. We used to carry a pocket size New Testament book given us by the Gideons. We failed to realize that when the apostle Paul wrote to Timothy that, “All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work”(2 Timothy 3:16-17 NKJ all throughout). The New Testament was yet in the making and the only scripture that Paul was referring to was the Old Testament!
Remember, that in order to believe the words of Jesus Christ, we must first believe also the writings of Moses in the Old Testament. This is what John 5:47 is saying, and if we also read the parable of the rich man and Lazarus in Luke 16:29-31, we can read that Abraham also advised the rich man’s relatives to, “believe Moses for if they do not hear
Moses won’t be persuaded even if a dead man will rise from the dead.” [Please read the article, Christ’s Message in the Parable of Lazarus and the Rich Man, May/June 2006, issue of the Prove All Things magazine]. Even today the Jews are not persuaded even though the Son of God rose from the dead as prophesied in their scripture.
It is no wonder that we have to go back to what Moses and the prophets wrote to correct the wrong teachings and practices that the former Worldwide Church of God had established. These wrong teachings gave God reason to splinter and scatter the WCG! One other reason for the scattering was the Churche’s practice of postponing God’s annual Sabbaths [appointed feasts]. They will not be protected by their Savior’s shed blood, because they keep the wrong new moon and that will give them a late 14th day of Abib for Passover. All of God’s appointed feasts will be out of their appointed times- disobeying His command! No wonder God thunders in Isaiah 1:14,”Your New Moons and your appointed feasts My soul hates; they are a trouble to Me, I am weary of bearing them.”
Believing Moses, the Church of God, in Truth went back to check for God’s true calendar. God’s calendar was integrated in His creation, so let’s go back to the so-called “creation week” in Genesis 1. In truth, this is not the creation, but the recreation [Psalm 104:30] due to the damage done by Satan’s rebellion. The real start of the Bible is in John 1, where the beginning started with God and the Word. Satan and his angel’s rebellion brought damage, chaos, confusion and total darkness due to their sins. A careful study of Genesis 1 will reveal God’s calendar from the beginning of creation. Note the illustration showing the phases of the moon from day 1 to day 7, on the next page. Notice that the 1st Day is also the 1st Day of the Week, of the Month and of the Year! In the creation week, the 1st Day is in Genesis 1:1-5, the 2nd Day is in Gen. 1:8, the 3rd Day is in Gen. 1:13, the 4th Day is in Gen. 14-19, the 5th Day is in Gen. 1:23, the 6th Day is in Gen.1:31 and the 7th Day is in Gen. 2:2. Now go back and check that the light appeared not on the 1st day, but on the 4th day (verse19). This means that the dark phase is three days or approximately 72 hours in some months, before light appeared. Reading Gen. 1:14, God appoints the Sun, the Moon and other heavenly bodies [tools] for signs and seasons, for days and years. In Psalm 104:19 we can also read that God, the author of His creation, appointed the moon for seasons and closed the verse with the sun “knowing its going down.” What does God mean by putting the setting of the sun after appointing the moon for seasons? The Church of God, In Truth is of the strong belief that God wants us to use the going down of the sun as precedent for the start of the month.
We start keeping the weekly Sabbath day the instant the sun dips below the horizon. In like manner, we start the month on the day the instant the moon conjunction turns dark. The wrong practice that the Worldwide Church of God followed, by waiting for the young crescent moon to start the month is to our belief, the reason for God’s displeasure that splintered His church.
The Passover is the first step in God’s plan of redemption. It is the only annual festival that is not a Sabbath. And yet, it is of critical importance to the plan of salvation. The very first recorded Passover was, just as it is today, a test of faith in Jesus Christ:
“By faith Moses, when he was come to years, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter; choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season; esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt: for he had respect unto the recompence of the reward. By faith he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king: for he endured, as seeing him who is invisible. Through faith he kept the Passover, and the sprinkling of blood, lest He that destroyed the firstborn should touch them” (Hebrews 11:24-28, KJV).
On the night that those first Passover lambs were sacrificed, God went through the land and struck down all the firstborn of Egypt, both man and beast. With that act, and others that followed, God declared Himself Lord and said that He executed judgment against all the gods of Egypt (Exodus 12:12). When Jesus the true Passover lamb (1 Corinthians 5:7), knew that He was to be sacrificed, He declared that His death signified the fact that judgment had come upon this world and that with His death, the ruler of this world would be cast out (John 12:27- 32). The observance of the Passover, whether by Israel or by us today, is a declaration that there is but one God, the Father and Jesus Christ, in heaven and on earth. Israel’s obedience to God — in the killing of the lambs, the sprinkling of the blood on the doorposts and the eating of the sacrifice — saved their firstborn from certain death and opened the way for their relationship with God. It also signaled the beginning of the fulfilment of the promise that God had made to Abraham more than 400 years earlier — that He would bring Abraham’s children back to the land that He had promised to give them.
We, like Israel’s firstborn, had been saved from certain death by the blood of the Lamb of God (John 1:29; Romans 6:23; 1 Peter 1:18-19). The coming of Jesus Christ to offer Himself as our sacrifice was complete; for He came not only as our Passover, but also as the Wavesheaf that was accepted by God and as the Firstfruit that is holy to the Father. Also, His death opened the way for the coming of the Holy Spirit and initiated the fulfilment of His promise to draw all men to Himself (John 12 : 32).
Our annual observance of this most significant festival is a reminder of the purpose for the Passover, of our relationship with the true God, and of what that relationship meant and how it began — just as it was intended to be for Israel. The new and special calling that God had after the scattering of the Worldwide Church of God, makes the observance more true and deep, knowing that this is the real saving start for a spiritual and eternal life- for it is now properly done as God the Author intended it to be.
Today, we do not kill lambs or sprinkle blood in the observance of the Passover. Instead, following the example of Jesus Christ and the teaching of the apostle Paul, we use the symbols of unleavened bread and a cup of wine to solemnly memorialize the broken body of Jesus [His flesh] and the inauguration of the New Covenant in His blood that was shed to forgive our sins [See Luke 22:19-20; Matthew 26:26-28; 1 Corinthians 11:24-25]. We do so with faith, that through Jesus Christ — our Passover sacrifice— we have passed from death to life. It is not, therefore, stretching the point to say that the proper understanding and observance of the Passover is a matter of life and death!
The apostle Paul confirms that when he instructs us to examine ourselves prior to taking the Passover. “For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do shew the Lord's death till he come. Wherefore whosoever shall eat this bread, and drink this cup of the Lord, unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of that bread, and drink of that cup.For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh damnation to himself, not discerning the Lord's body” (1 Corinthians 11: 26-29). He tells us that when we take the bread and the wine we proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes. He further cautions that if we eat the bread and drink the cup in an unworthy manner, having failed to discern the body and blood of Jesus Christ properly, we eat and drink judgment [Greek krima, Strong’s# 2917 , damnation, condemnation,] a sentencing to ourselves! When we demonstrate by appropriate behavior that we understand the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, the condemnation that has already come upon this world passes over us-just as the death angel passed over those in Israel who had followed Moses’ instruction! It is very, very, very necessary to follow Moses’ instruction in finding the true new moon in order to arrive at the correct appointed day and time of Passover.
Out of the hundreds of splintered and scattered churches of God, most of them claim that they are continuing the unfinished work of the WCG including following the postponements and the young crescent moon as their new moon. The Church of God in Truth is not continuing the work of the WCG; it is a new group that God has called to start anew from the oil of truth. True, it acknowledges that God had used Mr. Armstrong mightily and had restored many truths to the Philadelphia church he founded. Human as he was, he embraced many untruths and errors, if the word of God is carfully scrutinized. The Bible is our ultimate guide to the truth. Jesus Christ said in John 17:17 when He prayed for His chosen ones, “Sanctify them by Your truth. Your word is truth.” To sanctify is to separate for a holy purpose. God’s church is called for a purpose: to continue God’s will by restoring the correct dates for God’s appointed feasts [annual Sabbaths] as well as obeying God’s words in the Bible. We understand that some people think they are wiser than God when God said in Deuteronomy 16:16 that the head of the household must appear before God three times a year, at the Feast of Unleavened Bread, the Feast of Weeks [Pentecost], and the Feast of Tabernacles and bring an offerings. They want God’s people to give seven times, disobeying God’s command.
One other thing that God called us to do is to prepare ourselves as wise virgins having the oil of truth, preparing to be a future bride of the Lamb that we read in Revelation 19, “Let us be glad and rejoice and give Him glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and His wife has made herself ready. And to her it was granted to be arrayed in fine linen, clean and bright, for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints” (Rev. 19:7-8).
Those members of any church of God who keep Passover following the young crescent moon as their new moon, will have to pass through Satan’s wrath in order to be at the marriage supper Rev12:17! Here is Christ admonition for them, “I counsel you to buy from Me gold refined in the fire, that you may be rich; and white garments, that you may be clothed, that the shame of your nakedness may not be revealed; and anoint your eyes with eye salve, that you may see.”(Revelation 3:18).
Indeed the role of the true new moon in pointing us to the correct appointed time of the Passover as well as the other festivals of God. One of the most important things a child of God should buy is what Proverbs 23:23 is talking about to the foolish virgins! “Buy the truth, and do not sell it, Also wisdom and instruction and understanding.” ?
We read in the book of Romans, God had assured those He had called, “And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose” (Romans 8:28).
Now it is clearer why God called us. we are to live the new truth revealed to us by God and also to preach the truth as a witness to those who are mis-lead.
Sotero Sonza