Archive for the ‘Scriptural Application’ Category
Is “Easter” a Mistake?
It was about this time of year that I began teaching an adult Sunday School class at my home church called the Faith Builders. I taught the class for a little over three years before deputation began. It was one of the greatest experiences of my life. My aim in the class was two-fold… that we would become “skilful in the word” and be of “full age” in the faith, capable of exercising in life that which we had learned through studying the scriptures (Hebrews 5:12-14).
The lessons I prepared were birthed from untold hours of study and organization of the material, which we would cover for around six months per subject. I gleaned from many resources as we covered a broad number of topics such as spiritual warfare, dispensations, three-fold nature of man, among others. Since we are still close to Easter I have included below a small portion from the lessons I prepared on the King James Bible.
Critics of the King James Bible claim that “Easter” in Acts 12:4 is a mistranslation of the word “pascha” and should be translated as “Passover” as it appears in all modern translations. As the outline below will show, the King James translators were correct in translating “pascha” as “Easter” as scripture, history, etymology and logic all attest. There are NO errors in the King James Bible. It is the inspired (2 Tim. 3:16), infallible, preserved word of God.
A. The Greek word “pascha” appears 29 times in the New Testament. Only in Acts 12:4 is the word rendered “Easter,” the other 28 times ”pascha” appears the word is rendered “passover” in reference to the night when the Lord passed over Egypt and killed all the firstborn of Egypt (Ex. 12:12) thus setting Israel free from 400 years of bondage
B. The key to unlocking the passage is verse 3, “Then were the days of unleavened bread…”; Peter was arrested DURING the “days of unleavened bread”
o AFTER the Passover (Ex. 12:13,14) – which included eating a lamb as well as unleavened bread (Ex. 12:5-8) – seven days were to be fulfilled in which the Jews were to eat unleavened bread (Ex. 12:15-18), these are “the days of unleavened bread”
o The dates for the observance were the 14th through the 21st of April (the “first month” in the Jewish calendar) – 8 DAYS total; the first day is the Passover followed by SEVEN “days of unleavened bread” (Ex. 12:18; Lev. 23:5,6)
o The Passover was sacrificed on the first night (Num. 28:16-18)
o Whenever the Passover is mentioned in the New Testament, the reference is always to the meal, to be eaten on the night of April 14th, not the entire week
C. Acts 12:3 says that Peter was arrested during the DAYS (plural) of unleavened bread; the Passover had already come and gone
o Luke 22:1 says, “Now the feast of unleavened bread drew nigh, which is called the Passover” – this doesn’t mean the WHOLE feast of unleavened bread was considered the Passover, JUST THE FIRST DAY; remember, unleavened bread was eaten with the Passover meal
o Mark 14:12 says, “And the FIRST day of unleavened bread, when they killed the passover…”
o Luke 22:7 says, “Then came THE DAY of unleavened bread, when the passover must be killed” – NOTE it is called “the day” (singular) not the “days” (plural), the “DAYS of unleavened bread” followed the DAY of the Passover (see Num. 33:3; Josh. 5:10,11; Ezra 6:19,22)
o Ezekiel 45:21 says, “In the first month, in the fourteenth day of the month, ye shall have the passover, a feast of seven days; unleavened bread shall be eaten” – in other words, unleavened bread shall be eaten on THE DAY of the Passover (April 14th) followed by seven days of eating unleavened bread (“the days of unleavened bread”); the phrase in vs. 21b that “unleavened bread shall be eaten” is referring to both the Passover (on the 14th) as well as the feast of seven days (15th-21st)
D. Herod could not possibly have been referring to the DAY of the Passover in his statement in Acts 12:4 as noted in points “B” and “C” above; Peter was arrested during the DAYS (plural) of unleavened bread after the DAY (singular) of the Passover.
E. Having established that “pascha” should NOT be translated as Passover in Acts 12:4 it should be noted that the word for Easter is exactly the same as the word for Passover in most languages of the world
o Pascha (Latin), Pâques (French), Pasqua (Italian), Pasen (Dutch) mean BOTH Easter and Passover; only the CONTEXT formulates the difference – PLEASE NOTE that the resurrection of the Lord Jesus occurred three days AFTER the Jewish Passover
o The Oxford English dictionary lists many early English literary sources that employed the word Easter to refer to the Resurrection; the earliest being 890 AD
o With the exception of English and German, all other European languages do not have a separate word for Easter and Passover but simply use a single term derived from Pesach (Hebrew for Passover) – in one way this is an advantage to the foreign believer who immediately associates Jesus Christ as the Passover Lamb
o As we shall see the English rendition of Easter and Passover in the King James Bible is superior and needs to be exalted into its rightful place instead of scorned by the critics – the Holy Spirit inserted a textual indicator that something other than the Jewish Passover was being referred to in the text
F. The etymology of our English word Easter was noted by C.F. Cruse (c. 1850 AD) that, “our word Easter is of Saxon origin and of precisely the same import with its German cognate Ostern. The latter is derived from the old Teutonic form of auferstehen/auferstehung, that is RESURRECTION”
o The German word Ostern (equivalent of Easter) is related to Ost (meaning east or rising of the sun), and as Cruse noted, comes from the older Teutonic forms of erster (first) and stehen (stand), which then became erstehen (an older form meaning “resurrection”), and which in turn became auferstehen (current form meaning “resurrection”)
o Thus Ester in English, which later morphed into Easter, came from Oster, which later morphed into Ostern in German
o The English word Easter means RESURRECTION – specifically, the RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST
G. When Wycliffe provided the first English translation of the Bible from the Latin, he did not provide an English equivalent for pascha; the words he used were pask and paske – still a basic type of Hebrew word pesach and the Greek pascha
o Wycliffe’s translation had the same characteristics as most languages do today concerning the translation of pascha as meaning both Easter and Passover
o When Tyndale applied his talents to the translation of the New Testament from Greek into English, he was not satisfied with the use of a completely foreign word, and decided to take into account the fact that the SEASON of the Passover was known generally to English people as “Easter”
o Tyndale gave us a greater advantage by using the word Easter in his translation and then also inventing the term Passover; ultimately this gave us two separate words for two distinct occasions
H. Tyndale was responsible for both Easter and Passover to be in the English Bible; in his 1525 New Testament, Tyndale used the English word Easter to translate the Greek word pascha, which was formerly transliterated – this was the first time this Greek word had been translated into an English word in a Bible translation
o Tyndale used this word as a synonym for the word expressing the Passover and also a descriptive word revealing the New Testament fulfillment of the Passover in Christ’s death, burial and RESURRECTION
o Of the 29 times the Greek word pascha occurs in the New Testament, Tyndale has Ester (or Easter) 14 times, Esterlambe 11 times, Esterfest once, and Paschall Lambe three times
o In 1525, Tyndale’s New Testament was printed, five years later in 1530 he printed the Pentateuch (Gen-Deut); when Tyndale was working on the New Testament, the word Ester (Easter) was adequate to translate Pascha, but when he started the Old Testament book of Exodus, in 12:11, he discovered the word Easter, which means resurrection was insufficient
o If he used the English word Easter, which describes Christ resurrection, in the translation of the Old Testament Hebrew Pesach, he would be speaking of an event that had not yet happened
o The Easter lamb or resurrection lamb was a logical translation in a New Testament setting, but seemed rather odd in the Old Testament; so Tyndale with his amazing linguistic ability formed the word Passover, and used it in all 23 places of the Old Testament Pentateuch
o The Hebrew word Pesach was understood by the Israelites at the time to mean skip over or to limp; so Tyndale used two words (“pass” and “over”) meaning to skip over or limp over, which shortly became the one word Passover in the 1530 Pentateuch, but Ester (Easter) remained in Tyndale’s revision of the New Testament in 1534
I. It is likely that Tyndale’s use of Easter in his New Testament is indebted to his knowledge of Luther’s German translation, which uses “Oster” in the same way
o Tyndale with his expertise in the German language knew of the Ester-Oster association; Luther obviously considered Oster as both a synonym for the Jewish Passover and a phrase used for the resurrection of Christ
J. The correct etymology of Easter was recognized by the King James translators who added an important factor to the use of the word Easter – they refined the semantic range of Easter to be translated only ONCE as Easter (Acts 12:4)
o As stated earlier, the Greek word pascha appears 29 times in the New Testament; in 28 of those instances it is referring to the Old Testament Passover; but in Acts 12:4 it is referring to the Christian resurrection celebration and not just the Old Passover
o Pascha is translated as Passover in 1 Corinthians 5:7 (“For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us”) as it alludes to the Jewish custom of carefully putting away from their houses all leaven upon the approach of the feast of the Passover, thus making Passover more readable than Easter (or Tyndale’s “Easter lamb”) in context
o A paraphrase of 1 Corinthians 5:7 would be “For Christ our ‘fulfillment of the Old Testament Pascha’ is sacrificed for us”
o There is a pre-resurrection pascha, and there is a post-resurrection pascha, the difference is night and day, and it is the very RESURRECTION of Jesus Christ Himself that forces the distinction
o The fact that modern ‘bible scholars’ rigidly insist that pascha must mean Passover regardless of context is iron-clad proof of the deplorable state of learning in our day; their insistence not only demonstrates a severe ignorance of both Greek and English etymology, but even more, a gross and pervasive ignorance of the dynamics of language itself; in short, modern ‘bible scholars’ have become slaves of words, slaves of lexicons, slaves of very language itself
K. The word “Easter” signifies the resurrection of the Lamb of God (see Rev. 5:6,13)
o The word Easter is derived from the word east – the sun rises in the east to bring the light of the new day; Malachi 4:2 testifies of Christ that, “unto you that fear my name shall the SUN of righteousness ARISE with healing in his wings” – a post resurrection event
o The death of Jesus Christ – “Christ our passover” (1 Cor. 5:7) – occurred BEFORE the days of unleavened bread; the resurrection of Jesus Christ occurred DURING the days of unleavened bread
o It should be noted that the translators of the King James Bible translated pascha as Passover in all of its other contexts, thus demonstrating that they were fervently aware of the semantic range of this word, unlike our modern critics; they translated the word pascha as Passover in the other contexts because those passages clearly employ the word pascha in a pre-resurrection context
o Due to the unction of the Holy Ghost, the translators of the King James Bible had the grace to perceive the distinction in context in Acts 12:4, and thus realized that this distinction mandated the post-resurrection translation of Easter
o The resurrection is preached consistently throughout the book of Acts; Acts 1:22; 2:31; 4:2,33; 17:18,32; 23:6,8; 24:15,21
L. “Easter” was not celebrated at this time so why would Acts 12:4 refer to “pascha” as Easter?
o The Holy Spirit inserted the word Easter in the English to signify the day of the resurrection even though it was not known as “Easter” at the time of Luke’s writing
o There are other examples in the Bible of celebrations being established by God’s people to commemorate a great deliverance or event (see Est. 9:26,27; Jn. 10:22) – it would not be inconsistent for early believers to recognize the day of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus
o The early Christians began very soon to commemorate the yearly event later known as Easter; Polycarp (c. 120 AD), who was a disciple of the Apostle John, met with Anicetus to discuss the proper date for this celebration
M. Why would the pagan Herod wait until “after Easter” to bring Peter before the people?
o At the time of the Jewish Passover celebration and the days of unleavened bread, there were multitudes of both Jews and Gentile proselytes present in Jerusalem
o Herod knew if he brought forth Peter to be killed before the assembled masses, they would have to make public the accusations laid against him; Peter might well preach a sermon in his defense (see Paul in Acts 22)
o Peter had already preached sermons with the result that 3,000 were converted at Pentecost and another 5,000 on a later day; thousands more could potentially be converted through the preaching of Peter about Christ and the RESURRECTION especially at the time of EASTER, and Herod might well have a riot on his hands
o Perhaps Herod thought it better to wait till the multitudes had gone home after the days of unleavened bread and then deal with Peter in a quieter fashion
N. The Holy Spirit included the insertion of the words “then were the days of unleavened bread” just before the inclusion of the word Easter to prove that Luke (the author of Acts) was talking about the Christian Pascha (i.e. Easter, the celebration of the resurrection) and NOT the Jewish Pascha (the Passover)
o The days of unleavened bread were AFTER the feast of the Passover and thus the pascha mentioned in Acts 12:4 is definitely NOT the Jewish Passover feast
o The word is the Christian pascha (Easter), the resurrection celebration that occurs THREE DAYS LATER (in the midst of the days of unleavened bread), as Scripture, history, etymology and logic all attest
O. There are those that argue that the word Easter is a reference to the pagan festival celebrating the goddess of fertility and sunrise; this theory is based on phonetics and not on historical verification
o The argument is based on the notion that Easter sounds like the female deity of spring Ishtar (Babylonian) and Eostre (Saxon) and therefore they must be related; the theory goes on to connect Eostre with the Hebrew word Ashtoreth (“the queen of heaven”)
o It seems strange to think that the King James translators (as well as Tyndale, Martin Luther, Coverdale, Matthews, etc.) would insert the name of the pagan god of Spring called Ishtar in place of the word pascha – if it was true that the pagan name was inserted into Acts 12:4, then when Luther and Tyndale named Christ the Easter lamb (in 1 Cor. 5:7) were they calling Christ the ‘fertility goddess’ lamb? Absolutely not
o This theory based on phonetics is complicated by the fact that Easter was originally pronounced and spelled Ester
o It is unfortunate that some dictionaries and encyclopedias have endorsed this false view of the origin of the word Easter without one shred of evidence
P. It is true that pagan traditions often have become Roman Catholic practice, and many of those traditions are now associated with Easter (eggs, rabbits, etc.) but this does not overthrow the connection of the word Easter with the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ
o Various pagan practices did attach themselves to the Easter celebration many centuries later, LONG AFTER the Easter celebration had its beginning
o Easter has ALWAYS been celebrated during the season of the resurrection of Jesus Christ; this is testified to by early church ‘fathers’ such as Polycarp and Irenaeus
“So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” – Romans 10:17
The Tree of Life
Often the challenges that life on the road can bring are tempered by the generosity and love we experience from some of the churches we visit around the country. As part of their mission conference last summer, a supporting church in Las Vegas had Christmas in June for the missionaries. Through their generosity and sacrifice our family was recently able to visit Disney World’s Animal Kingdom.
Animal Kingdom theme park is home to more than 1,700 animals from 250 species and sprawls across 500 acres of
lush landscape. We arrived when the park opened and went straight to Kilimanjaro Safari in the Africa area. There we rode an open-sided safari vehicle through a wildlife “preserve” and saw many different kinds of animals as they roamed the “savanna,” including lions, black rhino, giraffe, elephants, and hippos just to name a few. It was our favorite exhibit. From there we walked Maharajah Jungle Trek to see the various animals of northern Asia including Sandy’s favorite the tigers. Another highlight for Isaiah was riding the Expedition Everest roller coaster with his mama as Pearl and I watched from below. Since we had a park-hopper pass we were able to spend the remainder of the day at Magic Kingdom. It was one of those days as a family that we will cherish the rest of our lives.
One interesting feature of Animal Kingdom is its iconic centerpiece The Tree of Life. It is a sculpted 145-foot tall, 50-foot wide tree with a green canopy of synthetic umbrella like leaves. There is a swirling tapestry of 325 animals carved into the bark extending down to the gnarled roots and blending into the flora at its base. Brooks trickle through and waterfalls cascade around it creating the desired effect as an homage to nature.
As a student of the Bible I was interested in its title The Tree of Life. The concept of a tree of life can be found in various ancient cultures around the world. Rather than dispel the reality of such a tree ever existing, the number of accounts from so many varied sources actually point to a common history. They differ only because time and local cultural circumstances have embellished and altered the truth as found in the Bible.
Modern spiritualist, divorced from the truth of God’s word, see the Tree of Life as a symbol of the interconnectedness that we as humans share with the rest of the living beings on earth. To them the swirling interconnectedness of the animal sculpted carvings in the Disney Tree reflects this idea of a cosmic unity that binds us all.
Unfortunately the true connection that man and nature all share is the curse from the fall and its ramifications which include alienation from the life of God. The history of man unfolds between this paradise lost and the eventual paradise regained, between man being driven out from the Tree of Life and ultimately having right to it again.
The Tree of Life is mentioned three times in the Garden of Eden but it is lost because of man’s sin (Gen. 2:9; 3:22,24). It is then mentioned three times in the New Jerusalem as restored to its rightful place in the midst of paradise (Rev. 2:7; 22:2,14). The message between Genesis and Revelation is that Jesus Christ restores that which was lost. All that was lost in the fall of man God has restored to us through the person of his Son.
We can experience the Tree of Life today in type. The Tree is mentioned four times in the book of Proverbs and deals with the life of the godly man on earth and the fruit he bears (Prov. 3:18; 11:30; 13:12; 15:4). It is the life of God in us imparted to us through Jesus Christ that should bring life to those around us. This type of interconnectedness with our fellow mankind is something all who have tasted of eternal life should desire.
“The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life; and he that winneth souls is wise.” – Proverbs 11:30
Daniel’s Story
Last month we presented the need for the gospel in Italy at Fairfax Baptist Temple in northern Virginia. We enjoyed the fellowship of our host family as well as the brethren we met at church. We had opportunity while in the area to visit Washington D.C. and spend an afternoon at the Holocaust Museum, the Native American Museum, as well as the Capitol Building.
Sandy and I had visited the Holocaust Museum earlier in our marriage and thought the main exhibit may be too intense for Isaiah so we toured an exhibition for children entitled “Daniel’s Story” where visitors experience the Holocaust through the eyes of a fictitious child named Daniel. His story is based on the actual experiences of German Jewish children during the Holocaust. The exhibition was designed to draw in younger viewers by focusing on one child’s high hopes and shattered dreams without presenting violent or graphic images.
The exhibit uses overhead narration, Daniel’s diary pages and a walk-through environment to see through Daniel’s eyes the increasingly restrictive laws and random violence against Jews, his family’s forced move from their comfortable middle-class home to the decrepit ghetto in Poland, their transport to a concentration camp, and Daniel’s life following liberation. The exhibit concludes with a short video narrated by “Daniel” which tells of his time in the concentration camp and it also reveals that Daniel and his father survived, that his mother and sister were gassed, and that more than one million Jewish, Polish, and Gypsy children were murdered. “Whenever I see children playing, I think of my little sister,” says Daniel. “I hear her giggles.”
Before exiting the exhibit, children have an opportunity to write down their reactions. Judging from the drawings and
messages posted on the walls, the visiting children have been drawn into Daniel’s world and are sobered by the reality of this tragic time in world history. We were curious what Isaiah would write as he picked up marker and paper. He held up his note that read, “That is sad! I hope it will never happen again.”
Sadly, the Bible tells another Daniel’s story that reveals a future Holocaust that will be much worse than that which was inflicted upon Europe by Hitler. It is known to Bible students as Daniel’s 70th Week. Daniel 9:24-27 gives 490 years of history and all have been fulfilled except the last seven years. In this portion of scripture, one week is equivalent to seven years so 70 weeks equals 490 years. After 69 “weeks” (483 years from the command to rebuild Jerusalem) Messiah was “cut off” (crucified), Jerusalem was destroyed (AD 70) and the Jews dispersed among the nations of the world. God’s people (Israel) have been out of fellowship with Him and out of their land and thus God’s “clock” has not been ticking. In 1948, Israel became a nation again and since that time Jews have been returning to the Land – God’s “clock” is about to start again ushering in Daniel’s 70th week. The last week (7 years) will be when the Antichrist is in power. This period is known as the Tribulation and is also called in scripture “the time of Jacob’s trouble.”
This horrific time when the wrath of God will be poured out upon the inhabitants of the earth is described in the books of Daniel and Revelation. Just as Daniel’s Story put a face to the anonymous mass of Jews killed by the Nazis we would do well to meditate on these scriptures and their implication for individuals we walk among that will be left behind if the rapture occurs in our lifetime. Consider for a moment that person who must choose to either allow his children to starve to death (“no man might buy… save he had the mark”, Rev. 13:17) and eventually himself be decapitated (“I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus”, Rev. 20:4) because he won’t take the mark of the Beast or choose to take the mark and be doomed without any hope of future salvation and spend eternity in hell (“If any man worship the beast and his image, and receive his mark… The same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God… and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone… for ever and ever”, Rev. 14:9-11). May we be sobered by the reality of this tragic time in world history yet to come.
As a postscript, the good news for Christians (see “Free Gift” on homepage on how to be saved) is that we will not go through any part of this seven-year Tribulation but will be “raptured” or taken up to be with the Lord before it begins. Rather than listing lengthy passages of scripture, here are some simple principles upon which this fact is based…
1. Present-day believers will be taken out of the world before the wrath of God is fully poured out on the earth. 1 Thessalonians 1:10 tells us that Jesus Christ has “delivered us from the wrath to come.” Paul later writes, “For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Thessalonians 5:9). Hell is the wrath or judgment to which men will go. The wrath to come points to the Tribulation as defined in Revelation 6:17, “For the great day of his wrath is come and who shall be able to stand?” In Revelation 15:7, seven vials are poured out upon the people living on this earth. The vials were “full of the wrath of God.”
2. If Present-day believers were appointed to wrath then we should be looking for the coming of the Antichrist, but we are told to look for the coming of the Son of God. We are not told to look for the Antichrist or for signs in the heaven or on earth. We are told in Titus 2:13, “Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ.” We are to be “waiting for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Corinthians 1:7). “For our conversation is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ” (Philippians 3:20).
3. In Revelation chapters 2 and 3 we read of the activity of the local churches. Chapter 4 begins with a call, “Come up hither” which matches the detailed promise of the Lord’s call and the church’s departure found in 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18. Following this call, the Apostle John, a type or picture of the church (born again Christians), finds himself instantly before the throne of God in heaven (“After this I looked, and, behold, a door was opened in heaven: and the first voice which I heard was as it were of a trumpet talking with me; which said, Come up hither, and I will shew thee things which must be hereafter.”), and the Antichrist doesn’t show up until Revelation 6:2. The church on earth is not mentioned again during the chapters describing the Tribulation period.
4. The entirety of the seventy weeks of Daniel are said to be “determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city” (Daniel 9:24). God’s people in context are clearly the Jewish people and the holy city is Jerusalem. The Bible says that this time is for the purpose of completing God’s work with the Jewish people. The multitudes that will be redeemed out of all nations in the Tribulation is a side issue. The seventieth week is for the Jewish people. It is the “time of Jacob’s trouble,” not the church’s trouble.
5. 2 Thessalonians chapter 2 details the coming of the Antichrist and the perilous times of his power; in verse 2 of that chapter we learn that this information should not trouble any child of God – it would be most troubling if we were going to be present in the Tribulation
“For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be.” – Matthew 24:21