COG Webcast

Celebrating the New Covenant Passover? But does it matter when?

Based on the Hebrew scriptures, the gospels, and historical record we are confident in stating that during the time of Jesus’ death the Jews were correct in celebrating the Passover seder (Old Covenant Passover) at the end of the 14^{th of Nisan/ Abib} in accordance with the instructions in the book of Exodus. Some Churches of God in the past century have  called this time the, “Night to Be Much Observed.”
Now the trickier part is in the gospel accounts, concerning the timing of the foot washing, bread and wine ceremonies that we will call the New Covenant Passover. This is due to the one divergent reading that seems to say that the disciples ate a “Passover” meal with Jesus at the beginning of the 14^th. However, in the scholarly literature this was considered to be the “thorniest” question about ‘timing’ in all of the New Testament. There were according to the scholarly writers 4 main possible explanations. Here they are in a nutshell:

1. The beginning of the 14th was the “real” Jews’ Passover, and everyone else keeping the Passover (such as the Pharisees and Sadduccees) on the following day were in error (most unlikely)
2. The beginning of the 14th  was not the Jew’s Passover but the disciples being from Galilee typically celebrated Passover at the beginning of the 14^thlike the Samaritans rather than the mainstream of the Jewish community (very unlikely)
3. The beginning of the 14th  was not the OT Passover, that would be held later. But Christ would be dead then, so he kept the Passover meal a day earlier in this one case.  Therefore many, Messianic Jews, favour adding the bread and wine ceremony to the Passover seder meal on the 15^th(possible)
4. This meal was the beginning of the whole 8-day season of Unleavened Bread (U.B.) which was also referred to as Pesach. Currently, the last day of U.B., the holy day, is called the 7^thday of Pesach. The beginning of the 14^th was the night in which the leaven was typically put out of the homes of all the Jews and was included in the general season of activities under a generic label for the season as Pesach/Passover. The meal Jesus ate on Abib 14 was not THE Passover seder meal, but a meal beginning the season. Paul and John seem to indicate we are to observe the symbols of the bread and wine, but not the meal, at the same time Jesus and his disciples originally did, thus making it a new observance with new symbols. (most likely)