Welcome to part 5 of the series, Debunking Replacement Theology.
Beginnings of the church…
The church or the body of Jesus Christ has ties to the Old Testament Mosaic Law and God’s Appointed Holiday of Shavuot. I realize this will be blasphemy in some circles of theology reading this. Hear me out before going ballistic and deeming me a heretic. God has a plan down to the day!
The Law was given on Mount Sinai to Moses roughly 1,600 years before Christ. In the Old Testament and in the Hebrew, this God appointed holiday is referred to as Shavuot.
The word means: weeks. Shavuot or the Feast of Weeks is a memorial of God giving Moses and Israel the Torah. Hebraic belief is redemption from Egyptian slavery was not complete until they received the instruction or teaching. The holiday is one of God’s seven appointed holidays. Nation Israel honored Shavuot, the Feast of Weeks, every year.
Provisions for the holiday include two loaves of bread, sacrificial lambs, a bull, two rams, a goat, and a drink offering of wine. God gives directions on how to make bread. Specifications for choosing livestock are given.
God loves the smell of grilled meats by fire. Toasted bread smells great. The holiday is also a day of rest with no work, a Sabbath. And He wants His people to do this celebration and exercise it every year on the same day.
Is God being unreasonable? He offers a holiday with grilled meats, toasted bread, and alcohol. It is an outdoor party in the late spring around a camp fire. Celebrate the harvest and give thanks to God. Road trip to Jerusalem!!!
See the Scripture for the complete details.
Leviticus 23:17-21 You shall bring in from your dwelling places two loaves of bread for a wave offering, made of two-tenths of an ephah; they shall be of a fine flour, baked with leaven as first fruits to the Lord. Along with the bread you shall present seven one year old male lambs without defect, and a bull of the herd and two rams; they are to be a burnt offering to the Lord, with their grain offering and their drink offerings, an offering by fire of a soothing aroma to the Lord. You shall also offer one male goat for a sin offering and two male lambs one year old for a sacrifice of peace offerings. The priest shall then wave them with the bread of the first fruits for a wave offering with two lambs before the Lord; they are to be holy to the Lord for the priest. On this same day you shall make a proclamation as well; you are to have a holy convocation. You shall do no laborious work. It is to be a perpetual statute in all your dwelling places throughout your generations.
Shavuot or the Feast of the Harvest is one of the three holidays where Jewish men are required to come to Jerusalem. The other two holidays are the Feast of Unleavened Bread and the Feast of the Ingathering (Tabernacles or the Feast of Booths). The men were to make their presentation and sacrifice before God at the Temple.
Exodus 23:14-17 “Three times a year you shall celebrate a feast to Me. You shall observe the Feast of Unleavened Bread; for seven days you are to eat unleavened bread, as I commanded you, at the appointed time in the month Abib, for in it you came out of Egypt. And none shall appear before Me empty-handed. Also you shall observe the Feast of the Harvest of the first fruits of your labors from what you sow in the field; also the Feast of the Ingathering at the end of the year when you gather in the fruit of your labors from the field. Three times a year all your males shall appear before the Lord God.”
Eating and drinking dairy products are part of the celebration of Shavuot. Many think the custom of dairy products is in reference to Bible verses referring to a promised land flowing with milk and honey. See the example below.
Exodus 3:8a “So I have come down to deliver them from the power of the Egyptians, and to bring them up from that land to a good and spacious land, to a land flowing with milk and honey…
As stated in the Leviticus passage, the Feast of Weeks is seven weeks after Passover. It is a celebration of the completed grain harvest. The holiday is also a celebration of God giving the Torah (instruction or law) to nation Israel. Because of this, Shavuot is considered as the beginning or birth of Judaism.
Fast forward to 33 AD. Nation Israel has been celebrating and living God’s Appointed Spring holidays. Jesus Christ, the Passover Lamb, had been sacrificed. He was the buried Unleavened Bread. Christ is the First Fruits of the resurrection.
Then fifty days later… It is seven weeks after the death of the sacrificial lamb, Jesus. Nation Israel is celebrating and living the holiday. Shavuot or Pentecost is also the day God the Father gave God the Holy Spirit. Because of this, Pentecost is considered the beginning or the birth of the church or the body of believers in Jesus Christ.
Acts 2:1 When the day of Pentecost had come, they (apostles) were all together in one place.
Acts 2:4 And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit was giving them utterance.
In the Greek New Testament, Shavuot (Hebrew) is translated as πεντεκοστε/pentekoste (Greek). Per Strong’s Concordance, it means: the fiftieth day; the second of the three great Jewish feasts, celebrated at Jerusalem yearly, the seventh week after the Passover, in grateful recognition of the completed harvest. We have transliterated the word to Pentecost (English).
This is the day promised by Jesus of the giving of the Holy Spirit.
John 14:26 But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you.
Acts 2:38 Peter said to them, “Repent, and each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit…”
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This series is an excerpt from the book, Rapture the Bride Redeemed. https://www.amazon.com/Paul-Lehr/e/B09W8FB77N