(ThyBlackMan.com) Who have been the true Christians, and what does it mean to be a Christian? For what reason do certain people dislike Christians? Faithful Jews follow and obey the Torah, given by God and written down by Moses. What makes the Jews different from true Christians, is that the Christian has been “born again”, and has the Torah written upon their heart. A Christian can be a Jew (not necessarily Messianic), or a gentile.
In the King James’ Bible, the word “Christian” is first used (Acts 11:26) in reference to the disciples of Yeshua (Jesus), in the city of Antioch. The first Christians were Jews, because the Jews are the bridge that has led to the knowledge of our Creator, and on that bridge has provided a portal (the Door) that leads to the Kingdom of God. So who is Yeshua, and what is His relationship to Yehovah? The name Yeshua is the short form of saying “Yehovah Saves”.
God first revealed His actual name (Yehovah) to Moses (Exodus 6:3). There is no “J” sound in Hebrew. The English letter “J” was created more than ten years after the King James Bible was published (1611 AD), which had no “j”. So, instead of saying “Joshua”, it would be pronounced (close to) “Yuh –shua”.
Starting in Egypt (Exodus 12:2 – 13:14), in the month of Abib (Nisan), God established Passover, and the Feast of Unleavened Bread. Later would come the First Fruits and the Feast of Weeks, all occurring in the Spring (mostly). In the Autumn, the first day of the seventh month (Tishri) is the Day of Trumpets, the tenth day is the Day of Atonement, and starting on the fifteenth day through the twenty-first is the feast of
Tabernacles (Booths, or Ingathering).
I used to think that the “Feasts of the Lord”, given to Israel, were banquets or festivals. But the proper word to use is “moadim”, or “appointed times”. God runs this universe on His time clock, and schedules events according to His calendar. St. Valentine’s Day, Good Friday, Easter, Halloween, and Christmas, are pagan holidays, which are observed using a pagan calendar, the Gregorian calendar. Even the present Jewish calendar is illegitimate. A month starts with the sighting of the first sliver of the “renewed” Moon, at sundown. That’s why the Jewish day begins in the evening. Yehovah commanded this, starting in Exodus 12:2.
After the barley is aviv, and the next bottom crescent Moon seen in Jerusalem, it marks the start of the new year. If it is the end of the twelfth month, and the barley is premature, a thirteenth month is observed (I believe that will happen this year, 2014 AD). On the tenth day of the first month, the Passover lamb was chosen in Bethlehem, and examined for four days on the Temple Mount to ensure perfection. On the fourteenth day, and if no flaw has been found, the lamb is killed in the afternoon, and put in the oven. That evening, a portion of barley crop is marked (about 10 – 24 groups tied together) in the field, to be taken into the Temple at the end of the following weekly Sabbath, and offered on the first day of the week after preparation as a first fruit offering to Yehovah. Then, after seven Sabbath days are counted, the next (first) day is the Day of Pentecost. These are the Spring Feasts.
The Fall feasts occur in the seventh month (Tishri), with the Day of Trumpets (the first day, “which no man knows”), the Day of Atonement (tenth day), and Feast of Tabernacles (15th -21st).
All of these feasts (moadim) occur on a specific day on the Creator’s calendar. Look up on the Internet “Creator’s calendar restoration of all things”. These feasts were given by God to the Jews as rehearsals for a promise of future fulfillment. One other important feast recognized by God is the Feast of Lights, also called Hanukkah, which the Jews initiated. It is an eight day observance that starts on the twenty-fifth day of the ninth month (Keslev).
Referring to Part 5, where it spoke of Antiochus IV Epiphanies, the Seleucid Greek King, who outlawed the use of the name “Yehovah”, also had an altar built for the pagan god Zeus, and performed the Greek practice of sacrificing pigs on the Temple Mount. This started a successful Jewish revolt against the Greeks, and the land was independent until the Romans came. There was an eight day procedure established to cleanse the Temple Mount and rededicate the Temple, and the 25th day starts the commemoration to remember the event. It’s also called the Feast of Dedication, which you see mentioned in John 10:22.
Yehovah said that a future Prophet would be born in Israel, like unto (lineage of) Moses, a Levite, and the people must obey him (Deut. 18:15 -18). God established the royal line of David, of the tribe of Judah, and promised that the Davidic seed would forever be the ruler (2nd Samuel 7: 12-17). The coming Messiah was prophesied in the ninth chapter of Daniel.
Before Daniel died, in his will he instructed the Babylonian astronomers (whom he trained) to give his accumulated treasure to the King of the Jews, who would be born in the land of Israel.
The sign that the (wise) men from Babylon were to look for was the constellations Bethulah (Virgo), and the Lion (Leo), and the conjunction of the planets Jupiter, Venus, with the king star Regulus, along with a roaming second star, which would only be seen at the time of the birth of Jesus. This occurred on the Day of Trumpets, in 3 BC.
I speculate that Joseph and Mary were in Jerusalem, at the Temple Mount, on the 10th day (Day of Atonement), and the High Priest by revelation, gave Mary his used (cleaned) garments, to be utilized as (priestly) swaddling clothes for the child to be wrapped in. On the fifteenth, the Savoir was born, and “tabernacled” in Bethlehem for 7 days, being circumcised the eighth day, by that same High Priest.
Before the Pharisees changed the scriptures, Psalms 110:1 read as “Yehovah, said unto Yehovah (Himself), ‘Sit thou at my right hand until I make thine enemies thy footstool’.” When the Pharisees were examining (questioning) Jesus, they couldn’t answer how the Messiah could be both the offspring of King David, and also be Yehovah. But in order to bring salvation to mankind, God so loved the world that He was willing to morph from a pure Spirit existence, into a Spirit-Physical existence, being the human sacrificial Lamb of God (Himself).
Yeshua fulfilled the four Spring feasts of the Lord, including the First Fruits (24 Elders), before allowing anyone to touch Him (John 20:17). When He returns at His second coming, He will fulfill only the first feast of the Autumn, and the other moadim at subsequent advents, as explained in Part 7A.