The Torah instructs us all to bring our own Passover Lambs
to the temple and slaughter them (as a personal sacrifice), and to
slaughter the national Korban Pesah, the paschal lamb. We are to then to
eat the lambs WE brought with matzot and marror, and to sprinkle
some blood on the lintel and the two doorposts (Exodus 12:22 ff.) It also
instructs the father to teach his son about the Exodus on Pesah (Exodus 12:26;
13:6, 14; Deut. 6:12 and cf. Exodus 10:2).
Exodus
12 - the Passover and the Festival of Unleavened Bread
12 Yahuah said to Moses and Aaron in Egypt, 2 “This
month is to be for you the first month, the first month of your year. 3 Tell the whole community of Israel that on the
tenth day of this month each man is to take a lamb for his family,
one for each household. 4 If any
household is too small for a whole lamb, they must share one with their nearest
neighbor, having taken into account the number of people there are. You are to
determine the amount of lamb needed in accordance with what each person will
eat. 5 The animals you choose must be
year-old males without defect, and you may take them from the sheep or the
goats. 6 Take care of them until the
fourteenth day of the month, when all the members of the community of Israel
must slaughter them (there were many Passover
Lambs) at twilight. 7
I am asked each year, around Passover, how to celebrate it
and what it truly means to us today. We all know it is commanded of us in The
Torah, and that Yahusha both celebrated it and “fulfilled it”. He brought the
physical rehearsals of the Spring Feasts to their fullest spiritual expression
and meaning. The Festivals of Yahuah were given to us as a guide to his Plan of
Salvation. They are his witness of His true Messiah. They are all “moedim” or
rehearsals that foreshadowed (shadows of greater things to come) the two
comings of the Messiah, Yahusha.
Colossians 2
16 Therefore
do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink (as you keep The Torah Kosher Laws), or with
regard to a religious festival (as you keep
Yahuah’s festivals), a New Moon celebration (as you keep Yahuah’s Seasons) or a Sabbath day (as you keep Yahuah’s weeks). 17 These are a shadow (physical
rehearsal/metaphor) of the things that were to come; the (spiritual) reality, however, is found in The
Yahushaic Covenant.
Hebrews 10
1 The law is only a (physical) shadow of the good things that are coming—not
the (spiritual) realities themselves.
For this reason, it can never, by the same sacrifices (and rituals such as The Seder or Easter) repeated
endlessly year after year, make perfect those who draw near to worship (perfection is found in the spiritual fulfillment, our
personal sacrifice following Yahusha’s example, and attitude of the heart).
The Law, the Festivals, and Sabbaths are “tutors and
mentors”. They guide us and help us come to understand a spiritual kingdom,
while pointing us to the Messiah. They are tools in our training in
righteousness.
Galatians 3:23
But before faith (in the Spiritual Kingdom of Yahuah) came to us (through The Yahushaic Covenant), we were guarded
by the power of The Law, being shut up together (gathered
together and protected) until the faith in Messiah (spiritual realities) would be revealed (unveiled and uncovered in The Yahushaic Covenant).
So in this (endeavor to teach us spiritual truths
and lead us into and understand The Yahushaic Covenant), the Law is
our teacher, leading us (by physical examples)
to the (spiritual truth of the) Messiah
so that we would be justified by faith (in the Passover
Lamb, not in the ritual keeping and rehearsal of sacrificing an animal).
But now that the faith (true spiritual reality of
the Passover Lamb) has come, are we no longer under the training of
that teacher? (Sha’ul asks a rhetorical question,
the answer is yes we remain under the training of The Law until we
mature, and wean ourselves off the milk of the word i.e. physical
examples/rehearsals to the meat of the word which is Spiritual Truths)
Hebrews 5
12 In fact,
though by this time (in The Yahushaic Covenant)
you ought to be teachers (of the physical to
spiritual parallels in The Torah), you need someone to teach you the
elementary (physical examples/rehearsals)
truths of Yahuah’s word all over again (found in
The Torah). You need milk (the
physical letter of the law and physical rituals), not solid food (the Spiritual Truths that the physical shadows were
designed to teach us)! 13 Anyone
who lives on milk (continues in the never ending
physical rehearsals year after year Heb. 10:1 not learning the
spiritual meaning of them), being still an infant (in spiritual maturity), is not
acquainted with the (spiritual)
teaching about righteousness (and still must keep
The Law by the letter until the spiritual truths are revealed to them).
14 But solid (spiritual)
food is for the mature (in Yahuah),
who by constant use (of physical to spiritual
parallels) have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil (defined in the physical examples in the Torah which teach
us of spiritual attitudes we must have to enter The Kingdom of Yahuah).
We (his chosen) were to rehearse these coming events,
so that we would recognize the Messiah when he came to fulfill them, and not
fall for “the false Messiah” or any other counterfeit. We were to use our
“spiritual eyes and ears of understanding” to discern the spiritual truths
behind them, then apply it to our lives. Once a feast or moedim (rehearsal)
was fulfilled, then the rehearsal becomes a memorial. We
keep them then now as a remembrance; to keep the event alive in our minds each
year. Moreover, we are to truly understand our role in them and follow
Yahusha’s example. Not just sit down and eat a Seder meal and call it a day.
Coming out of total rebellion in the Christian church into
the light of Yahuah’s moedim (appointed times), we struggle to
understand the Law and his festivals. We struggle with the physical rehearsals,
but even more importantly the spiritual application the rehearsals were
designed to teach us. We are now in The Yahushaic Covenant, whereby the
physical “letter of the law” and rehearsals have been transposed into their
final spiritual state. Few people truly understand the significance of Passover,
or how to celebrate it. We look to Judaism and the Passover Seder (and the Myriad
of traditions surrounding Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread) and
come away with a very burdensome and unfulfilling “ritual”. These rituals still,
to this day, have left us spiritually blind and deaf. However, Yahuah has been
trying to tell us that it is our obedience to the “spirit” of his commands that
he requires. As Sha’ul clearly taught, it was never about the sacrifice of
physical animals; those sacrifices were designed to teach us spiritual truths
through personal sacrifice (that is what we are after in this book). Below we see the concept the Apostle Sha’ul was teaching (in
Hebrews 8) is what Yahuah was trying to teach the Israelites for thousands
of years. We see in Isaiah that Yahuah finds no pleasure in the physical
sacrifices because they are not the point:
Isaiah 1:11
"The multitude of your sacrifices-- what are they to
me?" says Yahuah. "I have more than enough of burnt offerings, of
rams and the fat of fattened animals; I have no pleasure in the blood of bulls
and lambs and goats (Israel was missing the point
with the physical offerings not realizing they were designed to teach spiritual
sacrifice).
The “point” was always that true sacrifice is the spiritual
attitude of your heart, which is what the physical sacrifices were SUPPOSED to
teach us:
Psalm 51
16 For you
do not desire sacrifice; else would I give it: you do not delight in burnt
offering. 17 The (true spiritual)
sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, you
will not despise.
It was “obedience” that Yahuah was trying to teach us
through the physical animal sacrificial system:
1 Samuel 15:22
But Samuel replied: "Does Yahuah delight
in burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in obeying Yahuah (obedience is the spiritual attitude of our hearts)?
To obey (spiritual sacrifice) is better
than (physical) sacrifice, and to heed
is better than the fat of rams (this type of dying
to self and living an obedient submissive life is the example Yahusha set).
Yahuah finally had enough of the ritualistic religious
practices built around his commandments (that were robbing his people of their
love for him). You know, the same things we still do today such as the Jewish
Seder! The Israelites simply became religious on the outside by ritualizing Yahuah’s
Ordained Festivals, and they failed to understand the spiritual meaning and
application behind their physical acts. They were just going through the
motions.
Yahuah spoke His case against Israel through the prophet
Micah. Yahuah’s commandments and festivals had become a tedious ritual burden
to the people. Each year, over and over, Israel would go through the ritual
sacrifice on Passover sacrificing their lambs in this endless meaningless way; never
realizing the spiritual truth of that sacrifice. That is what Sha’ul was talking
about in Hebrews 5. The sacrifice of the lambs (each man had
to bring a lamb to slaughter) on Passover was simply to illustrate that each
man had dedicated his life and family to Yahuah as living sacrifices (committed
to lovingly obey Yahuah). It was a symbolic act to illustrate that they had
(the past year), and will in the future, walked humbly all year long (in
reverent submission) with Yahuah and acted justly with love and mercy.
Instead, they simply once a year went through the motions
and mistakenly thought the sacrifice of their physical lamb on Passover
“covered their sin” the rest of that year. They totally missed the point.
The physical lamb was but a “symbol” of their own living sacrifice all
year.
Yahuah grew weary of His people not “getting it” and
learning from these rehearsals.
Micah 6
- Yahuah’s Case Against Israel
(Yahuah
realizes his loving instruction, The Torah, had been turned into burdensome
rituals.)
1 Listen to what Yahuah says: “Stand up, plead My case before the
mountains; let the hills hear what you have to say. 2 “Hear,
you mountains, Yahuah’s accusation; listen, you everlasting foundations of the Earth. For Yahuah has a
case against his people; he is lodging a charge against Israel. 3 “My
people, what have I done to you? How have I burdened you? Answer me.…
(now
we see the “attitude” of the people, they are looking to give some physical
thing or physical ritual to Yahuah for His forgiveness)
6 With
what shall I come before Yahuah and bow down before the exalted God? Shall I
come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old? 7 Will
Yahuah be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousand rivers of olive
oil? Shall I offer My firstborn for My transgression, the fruit of My body for
the sin of My soul?
(the
people had no idea that Yahuah has NO USE for physical things, He is a
Spiritual being and what He requires is loving obedience and a loving heart),
8 He has
shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does Yahuah require of you? To act
justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.
So let us dispense with all the physical ritual, and study
the examples and rehearsals. Let us come to the proper spiritual understanding
and truth. That truth is that THE Passover Lamb that was paraded down the
streets of Jerusalem, inspected in public, and sacrificed for the nation of
Israel each year, was symbolic of Yahusha’s living sacrifice. The
individual lambs that each man selected from his own flock, inspected, and
presented as a sacrifice on the Altar each Passover was symbolic
of OUR bodies and living sacrifices on Passover.
Yahusha is THE Passover Lamb, and we all are
Passover Lambs in following the example Yahusha set of reverent submission and
loving obedience to Yahuah. We are going to abandon the syncretized (baptized
pagan) Roman ritual of the Jewish Seder, and cease the year after year distraction
of these religious traditions.
Let us press on to maturity and eat of spiritual meat and
wean ourselves off the milk of physical ritual. And that we will do in this
book, if Yahuah so permits. For a detailed breakdown of The Yahushaic Covenant
and the relationship between Yahuah and Yahusha, please read My book The
Yahushaic Covenant Volume 1 – The Mediator.
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