[emil]

The WMSCOG makes a big deal out of two things; keeping the Sabbath and celebrating the Passover. For both things, I understand they teach that the catholic church abolished them in the 4th century.

I am starting this thread to discuss the issue of the issue of the Passover and about when and how it was abolished by the catholic church. I request wmscog members and former members to weigh in.

I am not clear about what the passover is as celebrated by the wmscog. What aspect of it was abolished in the 4th century.

[Questioninginla]

[Questioninginla]

144000 wrote:

Questioninginla

What is, the bible?

People who hold to the Old Testament are spiritually blind, they cannot recognize Jesus or spirituall prophecies they can only become obsessed with physical things and deny any inconvenient warnings about the changing of the priesthood.

Not all Jews are blind, but every person who denies the Christ is.

Messianic Jews being one such type of open-minded Jew.

I'm beginning to understand you better, 144000.  Zero empathy 100% know-it-all-right-fighter.

[144000]

Empathy does not have to come with stupidity.

I empathize for all people who do not know Christ equally.

My basis for understanding what a member of Jewish faith says is whether or not they hold fast to the prophecies and are messianic.

Do not confuse an accurate definition with heartlessness, you imply things and put extra meaning there where none exists.

Please, project more, for it is written that ignorant and unstable people pervert the truth of Christ.

[Love'n Honey]

144000 wrote:

Empathy does not have to come with stupidity.

I empathize for all people who do not know Christ equally.

My basis for understanding what a member of Jewish faith says is whether or not they hold fast to the prophecies and are messianic.

Do not confuse an accurate definition with heartlessness, you imply things and put extra meaning there where none exists.

Please, project more, for it is written that ignorant and unstable people pervert the truth of Christ.

 You have proven yourself highly ignorant and unstable

[144000]

Keep criticizing, it only helps everyone see the depths of the slander posted here.

I told the truth, if thats a problem for you then I hope everyone can read it and see this communities deceptions for what they are.

[emil]

144000 wrote:

Emil

No I meant you guys could argue amongst yourselves, Ill comment when this community contradicts itself less.

My friend, your prejudice is showing. You assume that all of the members of this forum are one homogeneous group. I assure you it isn't. We have all come from a variety of backgrounds and hence have a variety of ideas and opinions. Rather than being critical of it, you must appreciate the diversity here.

You made an accusation about me. I only asked you to back it up with examples. Here it is again.

emil wrote:

144000 wrote:

emil

I'm starting to suspect that maybe your not even a Christian emil? Your posts seem to infer a lot of authority over Jewish things, when Christ set up New Covenant things to replace the Jewish things.

I wish you would point out specific examples of what I have said that cause you to come to this conclusion.

Sadly, you've made the accusation but not provided any evidence for your claim.

[emil]

@Hal – Thank you. It is exactly as I thought. The whole idea of the wmscog calling their celebration a passover itself is questionable. I shall be posting a lengthy explanation shortly.

[144000]

Emil

My criticism of you is just speculation. It appears to me that you deny a fundamental Christian event, Jesus keeping the Passover.

Even the babylon churches understand that it was the Passover, even if they twist Paul’s words to say “keep it whenever you want” instead of “whenever you keep it (acknowledging that it has an appointed time)”

Your arguments are based upon Old Testament citations and proving that the bible contradicts itself, which seems more jewish to me and at the same time less Christian to understand they did not contradict.

When it comes to blacks and whites and equal rights diversity can be a good thing.

But when you are talking about the commandments of God this is what God has to say about diversity: “let anyone who preaches a different gospel be eternally condemned”

So if many of you disagree, and I was one of you, I would be extremely alarmed that most if not all of you may be “eternally condemned”

Reconcile yourself with Christ before that time, it is not too late yet.

[Simon]

We mos?tly believe the same gospel

[Freedfromreseda]

Yes I agree “reconcile with Christ”. Ahn and Zhang are not Christ. Even Ahn said we should follow the teachings of Jesus Christ so God said, ” Come out of her my people”. That “her” can represent Babylon and the church that worships the female god. COME OUT OF HER AND RECONCILE YOURSELF WITH THE TRUE CHRIST!!!!

[emil]

144000 wrote:

Emil

My criticism of you is just speculation. It appears to me that you deny a fundamental Christian event, Jesus keeping the Passover.

Even the babylon churches understand that it was the Passover, even if they twist Paul's words to say "keep it whenever you want" instead of "whenever you keep it (acknowledging that it has an appointed time)"

Explain why John's gospel says it was the day before the passover. You haven't done that yet. You've agreed that Jesus was the passover lamb but you cannot explain why you call that meal the passover meal when the lamb was yet to be sacrificed. "whenever you keep it" in no way implies any appointed time. It implies nothing whatsoever about when it is to be kept.

Finally, you have made no effort to answer my 4 questions in my post on this page itself. If you want, I can repeat them.

Your arguments are based upon Old Testament citations and proving that the bible contradicts itself, which seems more jewish to me and at the same time less Christian to understand they did not contradict.

I have not made any effort to prove that the bible contradicts itself whether with OT or NT citations. You are the one who claims that I am cotradicting scripture when I quote the gospel of John. Your claim is becasue you cannot explain away my quote without assuming that it contradicts the scripture you have in mind. Point out where I have tried to prove the bible contradicts itself.

When it comes to blacks and whites and equal rights diversity can be a good thing.

But when you are talking about the commandments of God this is what God has to say about diversity: "let anyone who preaches a different gospel be eternally condemned"

So if many of you disagree, and I was one of you, I would be extremely alarmed that most if not all of you may be "eternally condemned"

Reconcile yourself with Christ before that time, it is not too late yet.

This is the classic "us vs them" syndrome that Questioninginla has been pointing out. You are clubbing all those who are not wmscog members as one homogeneous "them" and expect there to be unanimity. I am trying to tell you that the diversity proves that we all cannot be clubbed under the umbrella of "them".

Most of us, despite our diversity in view, are bound together by one common bond. The belief that Jesus is THE Christ as the bible testifies. That is where you are different.

[Freedfromreseda]

Emil, while a member you are indirectly taught us against them. They use the bible to say there are two kinds of people in the world: 1) God’s people and 2) not God’s people. The members are taught they belong to God and everyone else not in the “truth” don’t belong to God. Now I thought God wanted everyone to be saved. I guess only those who worship what is detestable to God can be saved?

[Sarah2013]

Freedfromreseda wrote:

Emil, while a member you are indirectly taught us against them. They use the bible to say there are two kinds of people in the world: 1) God's people and 2) not God's people. The members are taught they belong to God and everyone else not in the "truth" don't belong to God. Now I thought God wanted everyone to be saved. I guess only those who worship what is detestable to God can be saved?

Rock on!

[144000]

Emil

As for the passover, I don't think you read everything John wrote, it is a chronological series of events which starts the day before the passover, continues into the day of the Passover when the Last Supper is kept at its appointed time (evening/twilight) and finishes with his betrayal and death.

Here is the chronological order of events:

John 13:1 Now before the Feast of the Passover

Luke 22:1-6 The chief priests and the scribes were seeking how they might put Him to death

Luke 22:7 Then came the first day of Unleavened Bread on which the Passover lamb had to be sacrificed.

Matthew 16:17 On the first day of the Festival of Unleavened Bread, the disciples came to Jesus and asked, "Where do you want us to make preparations for you to eat the Passover?"

Luke 22:8 “Go and prepare the Passover for us, so that we may eat it.”

Matthew 26:20 Now when evening came

Luke 22:15 He said to them, “I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover

John 13:2 During supper, the devil having already put into the heart of Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon, to betray Him

Do you see that a lot of things happen in between what John 13:1 and 13:2 are saying?

Then after the evening supper they walk out to a garden, and its late at night now. The disciples fall asleep, and Jesus goes to pray, then the disciples sleep some more, then Jesus goes to pray again, then the disciples sleep some more. Time passes into the early A.M. hours. of Saturday, and you know what happens from there until Sunday his ressurection.

The night Jesus broke bread and gave wine to his disciples as his flesh and blood was the evening of the Passover at its appointed time on a Friday.

Freedfromreseda

But the bible actually does say that. To contradict that would be to contradict the bible. But you can continue to make excuses if you want to belong to the world. But Jesus doe snot belong to the world, and so the whole world hates him, and so the whole world will hate his disciples, as it is written.

It is easy to see that its not convenient for you to accept the hard truths about Christ, so you reject any of them as you please.

[emil]

144000 wrote:

Emil

As for the passover, I don't think you read everything John wrote, it is a chronological series of events which starts the day before the passover, continues into the day of the Passover when the Last Supper is kept at its appointed time (evening/twilight) and finishes with his betrayal and death.

Here is the chronological order of events:

John 13:1 Now before the Feast of the Passover

Luke 22:1-6 The chief priests and the scribes were seeking how they might put Him to death

Luke 22:7 Then came the first day of Unleavened Bread on which the Passover lamb had to be sacrificed.

Matthew 16:17 On the first day of the Festival of Unleavened Bread, the disciples came to Jesus and asked, "Where do you want us to make preparations for you to eat the Passover?"

Luke 22:8 “Go and prepare the Passover for us, so that we may eat it.”

Matthew 26:20 Now when evening came

Luke 22:15 He said to them, “I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover

John 13:2 During supper, the devil having already put into the heart of Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon, to betray Him

Do you see that a lot of things happen in between what John 13:1 and 13:2 are saying?

Then after the evening supper they walk out to a garden, and its late at night now. The disciples fall asleep, and Jesus goes to pray, then the disciples sleep some more, then Jesus goes to pray again, then the disciples sleep some more. Time passes into the early A.M. hours. of Saturday, and you know what happens from there until Sunday his ressurection.

The night Jesus broke bread and gave wine to his disciples as his flesh and blood was the evening of the Passover at its appointed time on a Friday.

Wow. You are one desperate dude trying to prove something by interleaving verses from different books. Read John's chapter 13 and see if there is a break in the narrative between verses 1 and 2. here, let me help you to see what it says:

It was just before the Passover Festival. Jesus knew that the hour had come for him to leave this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. 2 The evening meal was in progress, and the devil had already prompted Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot, to betray Jesus.

How can you justify separating those two verses to two separate days? See the truth. It will set you free.

Is that your only proof? OK let us for argument's sake accept that it might have been the Passover seder meal. What are the significant parts of a passover? The most significant part is the sacrifice, preparing and eating of the lamb. Is that a part of your celebration? Not to my knowledge. What is it that you do to celebrate the passover?

1. washing of feet. 2. partaking of the bread and wine. As Hal has already pointed out, these are not exclusive to the passover meal but are part of every traditional meal and welcome of guests. So to take those two actions and call them the passover is ridiculous.

The best you can do is to say, "we commemorate these two actions of Jesus, which he performed during the passover seder." Leave aside the fact that I have pointed out that the day itself is questionable when you read John's gospel. What is wrong with that? I will post in the next post.

So you see, your trick of trying to interleave verses between John's gospel is not so clever after all. In fact it directly violates the spirit of the instruction to not add or remove words from the bible.

[emil]

I promised to say more in the next post and here it is. Bear in mind that I have already shown that there is strong biblical reason to believe that the last supper was the day before the passover. I will say more aout this later. But to show how ridiculous the wmscog claim to passover is, let us tentatively accept that perhaps it could be the passover meal. But what Jesus did and which we commemorate is not the passover per se. So let us say it may have been the occasion of the passover seder.

Suppose Neil Armstrong landed on the moon on 4th of July, would we call the moon landing "Independence Day" because of the day on which it happened? It would still be the moon landing right?

Jesus institution of the partaking of his body and blood is a very significant event in its own right and should not be called the passover, even in the event it did happen at the passover meal. Note also that Jesus had spoken about it before hand. But he never related it to the passover.

[144000]

The break that you aren't seeing between John verses 1 and 2 is:

The gospel of Luke

The gospel of Matthew.

Luke and matthew say that Jesus prepared the passover ON the night of the Passover the FIRST DAY of the Feast of Unleavened Bread.

So when Jon says "the evening meal was in progress" he's talking about the evening meal, that happened the day AFTER Judas was negotiating with the pharisees.

Read luke and matthew, Judas negotiated with the Pharisees the DAY PRIOR to keeping the Passover.

So when John says that Jesus knew Judas was already taken by the Devil, THAT is the day John is talking about in verse 1, which in luke and matthew, it is further explained to be the -next day after that- which Jesus prepares Passover.

Is that clear?

[144000]

"Jesus had spoken about it before hand. But he never related it to the passover."

Oh really Emil.

What do the words:

"I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you"

Mean to you?

[emil]

144000 wrote:

"Jesus had spoken about it before hand. But he never related it to the passover."

Oh really Emil.

What do the words:

"I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you"

Mean to you?

I am not talking about that. I am talking about the body and blood. He spoke about giving his flesh to eat but did not say it was the passover.

[emil]

144000 wrote:

The break that you aren't seeing between John verses 1 and 2 is:

The gospel of Luke

The gospel of Matthew.

Luke and matthew say that Jesus prepared the passover ON the night of the Passover the FIRST DAY of the Feast of Unleavened Bread.

So when Jon says "the evening meal was in progress" he's talking about the evening meal, that happened the day AFTER Judas was negotiating with the pharisees.

Read luke and matthew, Judas negotiated with the Pharisees the DAY PRIOR to keeping the Passover.

So when John says that Jesus knew Judas was already taken by the Devil, THAT is the day John is talking about in verse 1, which in luke and matthew, it is further explained to be the -next day after that- which Jesus prepares Passover.

Is that clear?

Do you even understand what you are saying. They are all 3 talking about the day after Judas negotiated with the Pharisees and that is exactly what you said but in two opposite ways. Are you confused or you intend to confuse others. The meal happened AFTER Judas negotiated… AND Judas negotiated .. a DAY PRIOR to keeping the passover both point to the exact same day for the last supper. You are proving your own hypothesis wrong. Unless you are implying that the meal that John is writing about is not the night Jesus was arrested?

Why do you break the continuous narrative of John's gospel between verses 1 and 2?

[emil]

This is of necessity a long post. Some of it is a repetition of what I have already said elsewhere. I am including it here for better understanding. I am going to be very candid here. Please bear with me and read carefully.

1. I asked the question whether the passover was supposed to be restored but no wmscog member has come up with any kind of support for this contention.

2. I asked whether the events of that day which we commemorate should be called the passover. No answer. 

3. I asked the question what exactly does wmscog say is the NT passover and the benefit of their passover. Again a resounding silence.

4. Is the bread and wine supposed to cleanse us of our sins? No answer.

I still wait for their clarification. Until then here are a few thoughts on point #2.

Two points need to be understood.

a. Was it the passover meal?

b. Should we commemorate the events as a passover if it was?

John's gospel is crystal clear that it was the day before the passover. The 3 synoptic gospels do say it was the day of the passover. I hadn't realized this apparent discrepancy until a week or so ago. Now we cannot use the argument that 3 evangelists say it was the passover and only one says it was the day before. It is not 3 vs 1 for two reasons. John was an eye witness. Of the other 3 only Matthew was an eye witness. Secondly, scholars believe that Mark's was the first Gospel to be written and Matthew and Luke borrowed heavily from it. In that context it becomes John vs Mark. We are left with a dilema.

So John vs 3 witnesses is not reason enough to reject John's gospel as one wmscog member tried to do. John was closest to Jesus during the supper if you remember.

Since we are talking about the word of God, we should consider all 4 gospels as true. So we still need to resolve our understanding of the difference in the days. Maybe the answer is in the fact that their day started at dusk while we count it differently. Let's keep that aside for the time being and move on.

I have two other logical reasons to think it was the day before the passover.

a. Other NT scriptures refer to Jesus as the passover sacrifice which means they ate before the passover. See 1 Cor 5:7.

b. If it was the night of the passover seder, would the Jewish leaders be around to arrange all the logistics to get Jesus arrested? Wouldn't they have been keeping the passover at home with family?

These facts lead me to conclude that it is most likely that the last supper was not the passover seder.

Let's look at the second part about whether it should be commemorated as the passover. The WMSCOG's celebration is entirely different from what the Jews call a passover. Their claim is that it is the NT passover. I think Hal already said there is no such animal.

But how can they say it is a passover when the actions they commemorate are not exclusive passover actions? Even if we tentatively accept it could have been the passover meal, that is only the venue for Jesus to offer us his body and blood. How does it get the name passover?

I already made the point that if the moon landing happened on 4th July, it would still be called moon landing and not independence day.

Those are my arguments to show why the commemoration should not be called the passover. Now let the wmscog tell us why it should be. Don't lose sight of my other questions either.