Should Modern Israel Observe the Feasts?

Do Gentile Christians, or modern Jews, need to keep the feasts and the Law of Moses?

The cross of Jesus was always God’s plan.

Jesus Christ was crucified since before the foundation of the earth, in God’s mind.

God already chose believers in Christ before the world began.

God already decided that we would be complete in Him.

God began to reveal these promises to Abraham. He promised that in his seed (singular, which is Christ) all nations of the earth would be blessed. It was a program for all mankind regardless of ethnicity, and based in Jesus alone.

God preached the Gospel ahead of time to Abraham. He foresaw the justification of the heathen. Abraham saw Jesus’ day, and was glad.

Abraham believed the promise, and God credited His faith to him for righteousness.

The sign of circumcision only came later.

The Law of Moses only came later. It was a temporary insertion. It wasn’t the condition of the promise, neither was the promise limited to those who would be part of the Law.

The Law had relevance only to the people to whom it was given. And was only ever going to be temporary.

It didn’t annul the promises made to Abraham, nor their scope, nor their conditions.

It was simply an interim arrangement, for a select group, for a time.

It was centred around Israel’s deliverance from Egypt.

The Law and the Prophets themselves bare witness that Moses’ Law was only to be temporary.

Moses said, “A Prophet shall the Lord your God raise up like unto me. Unto Him ye shall harken.”

David in the Psalms spoke of a rest that remained for the people of God, even though the nation had already entered into the promised land and was already observing the rests demanded of them under the Law.

The Prophets spoke of a New Covenant coming.

They each spoke about Christ.

They spoke about the Gentiles being included in it.

The Gentiles didn’t have Moses’ Law, but God’s law was written in their heart.

When the time of the promise came, Jesus came as the seed of Abraham and David, as a minister of the circumcision, to confirm the promises made to the fathers.

He perfectly obeyed Moses’ Law. He taught the Jews at that time that they should still be keeping Moses’ Law.

But He also spoke of a new day coming when people would no longer be required to worship in Jerusalem as demanded by Moses’ Law, but in spirit and in truth.

At the last Passover, He stated that it would be the last, for it was transitioning into the New Covenant in His blood which was shed for many, not just for Jews, and was about to find its fulfilment in the kingdom of God. Then He would drink fruit juice anew, meaning not the same at all.

He told the disciples that they would share bread and wine with each other and remember Him, not on set occasions but as often as they happened to get together.

He told them to go into all the world and teach all nations to observe all things whatsoever He had commanded them.

The Apostles soon understood that this did not mean they should go about demanding that Gentiles keep Moses’ Law.

Rather, they understood that Jesus’ message about the New Covenant had come to pass through His death and resurrection.

Paul wrote to the churches, confirming their faith that they didn’t need to keep Moses’ Law.

God’s law (not Moses’ Law, not the Old Covenant) was written in their new hearts.

Even for those unbelievers or weak in faith who were still attempting to keep the Law, it soon became impossible to keep the Law, once the altar and Temple and Levitical records were destroyed in AD70.

In future centuries unbelieving Jews invented various forms of Judaism, which were new, altered and futile ways of attempting to keep Moses’ Law, ways which Moses never wrote about.

They developed traditions which were neither commanded by Moses nor inaugurated by Jesus in the New Covenant, and called it keeping Moses’ Law, and sought by these things to distinguish themselves as a people.

It’s okay to celebrate something if we want, and on special days. If it’s important to us, it will probably be important to God too, because He responds to our heart. He fellowships with our heart. So it’s okay for a Jewish person to commemorate events that happened to Israel when God brought them up out of Egypt. However, they don’t have to. And doing so is not strictly speaking following Moses’ Law. Neither is it following Christ’s command. It’s just something they can do if they wish.

The Jewish descendants were still beloved for the fathers’ sakes. Nevertheless God had decided since before Abraham that in Him, Christ, there would neither be Jew nor Greek, bond nor free, male nor female. We would all be one in Christ Jesus.

There would not be any distinction between Gentile and Jew.

Gentiles would be grafted into the promises made to Abraham, they wouldn’t be a separate appendage to God’s plan.

God doesn’t require anything of modern Jews that He doesn’t also require of Gentiles.

There is only one Church, one body. There is no middle wall of partition between Gentile and Jew.

All nations are delivered from the Law or how it barred them, and are now inheriting the promises made to Abraham.

All can now walk in the blessing which God planned for us since before the foundation of the world.

We are complete in Jesus.

Modern Israel nor we need to keep any of Moses’ feasts, sabbaths, food laws or such like.

By the cross we are free from the Law and free from the barrier that was the Law.

We are justified from all things from which the Law of Moses could not justify the Jews.

This is the message of the grace of God.

The preaching of the cross.

It is able to make us strong.

It strengthens the heart.

It is able to build us up, and to give us an inheritance among those who are sanctified.

Stand fast in this freedom.

No need to be entangled again with thoughts of dates, and forbidden foods etc.

Hold to Jesus. He is nourishment enough.