Fred Coulter’s Passover (Ie)
Draft Ie
Chapter 8 – 9
In Chapter 8 Fred Coulter spent a lot of time whinging against himself, contradicting himself about travelling in the darkness of the night.
He wrote:
Imagine the difficulties the children of Israel would have encountered if they had attempted to travel to Rameses by night with no light to guide them. Some families might have ended up in the wrong city and missed the Exodus! And how could they have kept their sheep and goats from being scattered along the way? It is no easy task to keep stragglers from wandering off during the daylight hours; it would have been an impossible task in the dark hours after midnight.
And a few paragraphs later he turned around about travelling in the dark:
When the 14th day ended at sunset, or ba erev, the entire nation was ready to march, and the Exodus began. . . The first column would have begun to march out at about 6 PM, as the sun was setting, and the end of the last column would have left the city at about eleven o’clock on the night of the 15th.
And then he admitted: The Scriptures clearly record that the Exodus began at the going down of the sun, and continued on into the night: “…the LORD your God brought you forth out of Egypt BY NIGHT…. at sunset [ba erev, the beginning of the 15th], at the going down of the sun, at the time that you came out of Egypt” (Deut. 16:1, 6).
That night, of course, was on the fifteenth, under a full moon, and there shouldn’t be any difficulties seeing the Egyptians burying their dead, either later that night, or early morning. Neither would the Egyptians have any difficulties seeing the children of Israel going out with a high hand.
In Chapter 9, Fred Coulter asked a series of questions:
Is there any Biblical evidence that God altered the Passover ordinances that He had given to Moses?
Of course, He did. If not, every observant believer needs to continue eating with their loins girded, sandals on their feet, staff in their hands; and they were to eat in haste.
Did God Himself end the domestic sacrifice of the Passover lambs?
Of course, He did. Otherwise we wouldn’t read of a 12-year old Messiah going to Jerusalem to keep the Passover with His parents.
After Israel’s first Passover, did He institute a mandatory tabernacle sacrifice of the Passover lambs?
Of course, He did. Otherwise what’s the point of God setting aside a whole tribe of Levi and establishing the Priesthood for a special purpose and then having the ordinances of the sanctuary and Temple instituted.
Did God require that the blood of the Passover lambs be sprinkled on the altar?
Of course, He did. Otherwise at each Passover we would still be taking the blood and striking it at both sides of door posts and on the lintels of our houses.
He alleges:
In accordance with God’s command, the morning offering was originally offered at sunrise, when the morning begins, and the evening offering was originally offered between sunset and dark. Every day of the year, there was an offering at the beginning of daylight and at the beginning of darkness. Later records of the temple service show that a change was instituted in the time of the evening offering. Instead of an offering immediately after sunset, as God had commanded, the offering was moved to the late afternoon.
Conveniently, he offered no record or evidence of when the change took place. If he did, he would be a Biblical genius, worthy of a Nobel Prize, if not he must be trying out a new magic.
Throughout Fred’s writings, he wrote a lot about observing a “domestic Passover” but he never define it. Okay maybe the case in Egypt should serve as the best example, since he advocates the Passover ordinances were never changed. Should this be the case Israelites would be observing Passover in their houses, just as they did in the land of Goshen. Should that be the case, Galileans needs not come to Jerusalem and yet Jesus and his disciples went to Jerusalem in numerous times to observe Passover. Were they gallivanting in Jerusalem? This is a serious charge, a travesty and bothering blasphemy!
God’s commandment is clear in Deuteronomy 16:16 Three times a year shall all thy males appear before the Lord thy God in the place which He shall choose: in the Feast of Unleavened Bread, and in the Feast of Weeks, and in the Feast of Tabernacles.
That place chosen by God is Jerusalem as affirmed in II Chronicles 6:6 “I have chosen Jerusalem, that My name might be there.”
Further down in Chapter 9, Fred Coulter wrote a headline:
All Sacrifices except the Passover
Were to be Brought to the Tabernacle
I read his argument in the whole chapter but couldn’t find any statement in Leviticus 17 that alluded to his allegation. In fact Leviticus 17 is more inclined to refer to any and all sacrifice and especially the blood that needed to be brought to the tabernacle. In verse 8, it says, “And thou shalt say unto them: ‘Whatsoever man there be of the house of Israel, or of the strangers who sojourn among you, who offereth a burnt offering or sacrifice . .
In the Good News Translation, it says “who offer a burnt offering or any other sacrifice.” Both translation would inevitably include the Passover sacrifice, only that the GNT made it clearer. The critical performance of any sacrifice is that “the priest shall sprinkle the blood upon the altar of the Lord at the door of the tabernacle.” The Jews had sprinkled the blood upon the alter since memorial time, evidently from the time of Moses, down to Ezra, and then during the time of Christ. If Moses had any doubt, he had all the time to ask God who dwelt between the cherubim in the Temple for any further details.
Paul wrote in Galatians 1:14 “I profited in the Jews’ religion beyond many of my equals in mine own nation, being more exceedingly zealous of the traditions of my fathers.”
And in 2 Thessalonians 2:15 “Therefore, brethren, stand fast and hold to the traditions which ye have been taught, whether by word or our epistle.”
We should learn how to distinguish good traditions from bad ones.
Joel Huan
The Mystery of Ephraim 