I would to hear opinions from the forum about a biblical issue that I am interested in and have struggled over to understand. This is also one of those questions that most people initially misunderstand when I bring it up, so please read my questions carefully.
Regarding the Passover, the scripture says in Exodus 12:14 - "Now this day will be a memorial to you, and you shall celebrate it as a feast to the Lord; throughout your generations you are to celebrate it as a permanent ordinance." (Note: “throughout your generations…a permanent ordinance.”) The basic idea is repeated later in Exodus 12:24 – “And you shall observe this event as an ordinance for you and your children forever.” (Note: “forever”)
While the ritual ordinances of Torah do not apply to Gentile believers (as clearly set forth by the Jerusalem Council of Acts 15), today's Messianic Jews still hold the position that Jewish people, including or especially believers in Jesus, are required to keep the ordinance of Passover as set forth in the Torah as a means of obedience to God faithfulness to God's calling and purpose for Israel. While Jesus said that He did not come to abolish but to fulfill the law, many Christians interpret "fulfill" to mean that He brought an end to the Law, abolished it, made it null and void, etc, but Jesus' own words, and words like "permanent" and “forever” in Exodus 12:14; 24 would seem to contradict that view.
There are similar references to permanence in connection with the Sabbath as well, such as Exodus 31:16 – “So the sons of Israel shall observe the Sabbath, to celebrate the Sabbath throughout their generations as a perpetual covenant.” While Sunday is the Lord's Day and the appropriate day for Christians to gather for corporate worship without question (Acts 20:7, 1 Cor. 16:2), does the Bible teach that even believing Jews should still continue to keep the Sabbath as a sign of God's covenant relationship with Israel (see Exodus 31:13)? Many passages in Acts make it clear that Paul and the others in the apostolic church continued to refer to Saturday as the Sabbath of Israel.
There seems to be a lot of evidence in Acts that Jewish Christians in the apostolic church continued to keep the ordinances of Torah, including the Sabbath, to the extent that they were able. According to Ireneaus, John and the other apostles continued to live strictly according the ordinances of Moses.
Salvation was and is always by grace, never by Law, so my questions do not have to do with soteriology but rather matters of obedience and calling. Now my question(s): Do these passages mean that Jews, especially the faithful remnant that believes in Messiah Jesus, must still keep the Passover and Sabbath for the sake of obedience to God? Would this be analogous to baptism, where we consider a born again believer in Christ, Jew or Gentile, who neglects baptism to be disobedient, but still saved? By the same token, and in light of the cited passages, is a Jewish believer who neglects the Passover and the Sabbath living in disobedience to God? Since the Bible cannot be divided against itself, can we say that certain passages from Paul’s writings that might seem to say otherwise should be interpreted to preserve harmony with Exodus 12:14, 12:24 and 31:16 rather than overturning them? What do you think?
The answer that many give to such questions is that such things in the early church were relegated to matters of conscience, but when the God's Law commands Israel with words like “permanent” and “forever”, the law of conscience does not seem to apply. For Gentiles believers such things are clearly issues of conscience I believe, because while we are members of the commonwealth of Israel through Christ (Ephesians 2:12-13), we are still not Israel. But what about the Jews? When it comes to salvation, scripture is clear that there is neither Jew nor Gentile, male or female, slave or free, but isn't obedience and calling a different issue altogether?
I understand that these questions may seem academic from a Gentile perspective, but the purpose and calling of Israel has always been an area of great interest to me, perhaps because I have never been satisfied with the standard dispensational or covenantal interpretations. I have read some of the Messianic Jewish scholars, and they are fairly critical of the gentile church's traditional approach to the subject of Israel and her place in God's redemptive economy. The answers to these kinds of questions do have some practical relevance in our Great Commission efforts toward Jewish people, where we often struggle with the same questions that the early church struggled with, except maybe in reverse. For instance, when Jewish people are saved, what are we to tell them? Do we tell them they are no longer Jews but Christians and must forsake all things Jewish (the medieval approach), or do we say that to continue to live as a Jew is a matter of conscience (modern approach), or does the answer lie elsewhere? Should we even concern ourselves with such questions?
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