A Critique of Fred Coulter’s Passover (l)
A Critique of Fred Coulter’s Passover (l)
Passover on the 14th or 15th?
This is the last Critique of Fred Coulter’s The Christian Passover.
Quotes are from Fred Coulter’s book, and some from his compatriots, all in PINK. The Scriptures, in RED, must be our primary focus and guide.
Chapters 19
This chapter starts with the preconceived notion that Jesus’ last supper was His last Passover. And Fred Coulter repeated his misconception again and again. Scriptures were cherry picked to support preexisting biases and other Biblical passages were reinterpreted and twisted to support his misconception.
If His last supper was a Passover, there were no words or a phrase to confirm that, such as “when they finished Passover, they sang a hymn”, “during Passover, He poured wine and break bread,” or “during Jesus last Passover, He took bread.”
And even when Paul was referring back to that night, he wrote, “the night He was betrayed” (1 Corinthians 11:23), rather than, say, “the last Passover He kept.” Why? Strange, isn’t it?
There is evidence in early historical works that at the time John was writing his Gospel, the 14/15 Passover controversy was already a major problem. That would explain why John describes Jesus’ last Passover and the subsequent events in greater detail than the other Gospel writers.
The Gospel of John makes a clear distinction between the Passover of the Jews and the Passover that Jesus kept. The sequence of events that John records conclusively shows that Jesus did not observe the Passover at the traditional time. (The Christian Passover, pg 232)
It is correct that John’s account apparently differs from the other Gospels, but not for the reasons given above. John had to keep on emphasizing the details of Jewish feasts as different from a Samaritan counterfeit version that had been a threat for hundreds of years.
John mentioned going through Samaria in detail encountering a Samaritan woman (John 4:4-40), eventually giving them the most important message: for “Ye worship ye know not what; we know what we worship, for salvation is of the Jews” (John 4:22).
For us living far and away in the twenty-first century, the threats from the Samaritans aren’t real, but for John and his countrymen from Galilee they had to live with those threats, and they were real.
John shows that the Passover they were preparing to eat was recognized as the official observance of the Jews: “(Now it was the preparation of the Passover, and about the sixth hour [6 AM]). And he [Pilate] said to the Jews, ‘Behold your King!’ But they cried aloud, ‘Away, away with Him! Crucify Him!’ ” (John 19:14-15). (Pg 233)
The sixth hour is 6 AM? Here, wringing like a snake, Fred says the sixth hour is “6 AM”, but in another of his own books, it is 8.30 AM (Harmony of the Gospels, 1974, pg 219). It’s like a red-hot murderer caught and being interviewed in a police station testifying with different alibi to suit different circumstances.
If Fred Coulter had not been lying with deceits, he would tell the truth that the “sixth hour” is the same as when Jesus met the Samaritan at the well — NOON! It was hot, and Jesus, being wearied and tired, asked for a drink. It was noon time, as the same time were listed elsewhere:
John 4:6 Now Jacob’s well was there. Jesus therefore, being wearied with His journey, sat thus by the well; and it was about the sixth hour. — NOON
And that noon, the sixth hour, is the same in the other Gospels.
Matthew 27:45 Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land until the ninth hour. — NOON TO 3 PM
Mark 15:33 And when the sixth hour had come, there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour. — NOON TO 3 PM
Luke 23:44 And it was about the sixth hour, and there was a darkness over all the earth until the ninth hour. — NOON TO 3 PM
John 19:14 And it was the Preparation of the Passover and about the sixth hour, and Pilate said unto the Jews, “Behold your king!” — NOON
The truth is that all the Gospel writers were using Hebrew time and all the “sixth hour” means 12 noon, since the hour counting starts at daybreak, at 6 AM. “And as soon as it was day, the elders of the people and the chief priests and the scribes came together, and led Him into their council [Sanhedrin], saying, “Art thou the Christ? Tell us.”” Luke 22:66-67 — “it was day” — It was daybreak! Jesus couldn’t be with the Sanhedrin here and inside the praetorium at the same time! The Scripture is screaming here! “John 19:14 couldn’t be 6AM!” — What a hypocrite, Fred didn’t follow his own thirteenth rule on studying the Bible 13) Do not form conclusions based on partial facts or insufficient information, or the opinions and speculations of others. (Pg 15)
Second, the chief priests (including the high priests), the captains of the temple and their servants are all known to be Sadducees. And they didn’t want to go inside the praetorium!
“Then they (the chief priests, etc) led Jesus from the house of Caiaphas to the praetorium. It was early. They themselves did not enter the praetorium, so that they might not be defiled, but might eat the passover,” John 18:28.
This is another proof that the Sadduciac passover haven’t arrived, and they, too, didn’t want to defile themselves by entering a Gentile residence just before their passover where they would have kept it on night of the fourteenth! This is a solid proof that that night could only be on the thirteenth!
The truth then, is, since Matthew, Mark and Luke testifies that Christ was on the cross at the sixth hour, Jesus couldn’t be at the praetorium (judgement hall) at the same time. And since the crucifixion was on the fourteenth, the time at the praetorium had to be on a day before, ON THE THIRTEENTH.
Then they led Him away to be crucified, but first to be flogged, including mocking and scourging — the missing hours, or for the next 18 hours — then back at the praetorium. From John 14:16 to17, there is a time gap where there is no record of Him — from about noon on the thirteenth to daybreak on the fourteenth of Nisan. A mystery of mysteries. A secret among secrets.
And that evening, the evening where Jesus and His disciples were taking supper, was indeed just a supper. There is no evidence of a Passover — no lamb, no bitter herbs, no mention of any blood on the doorposts and lintel — it was not even a Samaritan or a Sadducean Passover, where it would be on an early fourteenth of Nisan.
Jesus and His disciples were eating a meal, called a supper by the Gospel writers, is ON THE NIGHT OF THE THIRTEENTH!
Luke 22:20 Likewise also He took the cup after supper, saying, “This cup is the new testament in My blood, which is shed for you.
John 13:2 And supper being ended, and the devil having now put into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon’s son, to betray Him,
John 13:4 rose from supper and laid aside His garments, and took a towel and girded Himself.
John 21:20 Then Peter, turning about, saw the disciple whom Jesus loved following, who also had leaned on His breast at supper, and said, “Lord, who is he that betrayeth Thee?”
That meal, that last meal that Jesus took with His disciples, was called supper consistently. It was just as a supper as in John 12:2 where Martha and Mary made Him a supper in Bethany after raising Lazarus. If that night was a passover why didn’t the Gospel writers say so to differentiate it from other ordinary supper? Nothing was said it was a Passover if it really was one! How strange! Its silence speaks volume!
The truth is, that night — often called the “Last Supper” night — was on the night of the thirteenth. The following day, still on the thirteenth, Jesus was brought before Pilate, at noon, at sixth hour (John 19:14) and Jesus was led away by the Romans to be tortured by them, and then another 24 hours had passed, where He was crucified on the cross, at noon, and darkness began upon the whole land (Matthew 27:45, Mark 15:33, Luke 23:44) until the ninth hour when He died.
And Jesus died when the Passover lamb was sacrificed. He was and is our Passover Lamb! He died exactly on the fourteenth, at even (ben ha arbayim; 3 PM) and fulfilled the symbolism of the lambs that were killed at the Temple!
Bacchiocchi fails to consider that during Jesus’ day a majority of the Jews were observing the domestic Passover at the beginning of the 14th, as commanded by God in Exodus 12. (Pg 235)
The Samaritans, donning long white robes, chanting prayers and eating in haste, would keep their passover — with belts on their waists, sandals on their feet, and staffs in their hands — at Mount Gerizim at sunset.
Blood from the lamb would have smeared on their forehead, while those who have camped nearby, would have blood smudged at their tents entrance. On some years on their calendar, it occurs a month after the Jewish celebration.
But there is no record how the Sadduceans, the Boethusians and Herodians, would keep them, except that they would have kept it on an early fourteenth. And they were an aloof aristocracy MINORITY (not a majority) during Christ’s time, and they were confined to Jerusalem and the Temple.
When the Temple was destroyed by fire in AD 70, the Sadduceans and their compatriotes, the Boethusians and Herodians were all consumed and disappeared from history. Jesus acknowledged that the Scribes and Pharisees sat on Moses’ seat (Mathew 23:2) and thus the Seat of Moses was saved, despite their hypocrisy and fragility, along with their oracles (Roman 3:1-4).
But not the Sadducees! The Sadducees and their compatriotes perished into the AD 70 inferno! And the CoG Communities take pride in following their interpretation of the Passover! Wouldn’t these CoG Communities follow the same fate? If not, why not? Isn’t what happened in AD 70 a microcosm of the Great Tribulation in the Last Days?
A “domestic Passover” would have to be kept in their houses “as commanded by God in Exodus 12.” Fred Coulter emphasised in Chapter 6: “There is no question that the children of Israel were in their houses when they observed the Passover.” There has been no such record of any “domestic” Passover being kept back in Galilee.
And if they have to move to keep it in Jerusalem in houses, tents, or inns it would be a fake domestic Passover. A true domestic Passover would have to be kept in where there own houses, as Fred Coulter emphasises, as in Egypt. In Exodus 12:13-14 it says, “The blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you live.” And Jesus and His disciples lived in Galilee.
Because Bacchiocchi recognizes no other Passover than the traditional Nisan 15 observance, he concludes that Jesus’ observance of the 14th was “a special paschal meal” kept a day early in anticipation of His crucifixion. Notice: “An Early Passover Meal. A plausible resolution of the discrepancy is to assume that the last Supper was a special paschal meal eaten the evening before the official Passover meal. The anticipation of the paschal meal could have been motivated by the fact that Jesus knew He would suffer death at Passover in fulfillment of the type provided by the slaying of the paschal lamb on Nisan 14. He knew He could not possibly eat of the paschal lamb at the usual time [assuming that Jesus kept the traditional Nisan 15 Passover] and Himself be sacrificed as the true Paschal Lamb when the lambs were slain [referring to the afternoon of Nisan 14]. It was more important that Christ’s death should synchronize with the death of the Passover lambs [at the temple] than that His eating of the Passover meal synchronize with the official time of the Passover meal” (Ibid., p. 56, emphasis added). (Pg 236)
Although Bacchiocchi was right in observing how Christ’s last supper wasn’t a Passover, he wasn’t right to describe it as “an early Passover”. That night, there were no evidence of a Passover — no lamb, no bitter herbs. If lamb have been eaten at that supper, it is inconceivable that the Lamb of God who taketh away the sin of the world didn’t have the lamb mentioned.There were no reminder of John the Baptist’s words, “Behold the Lamb of God, who taketh away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29,36).
There were also no mention of bunches of hyssop brushing blood on the doorposts and lintel either, neither did they remained in the house till SUNRISE, OR DAYBREAK, nor did they burnt any of the remains at daybreak, but they hurried off to the Garden of Gethsemane against all the ordinances needed to keep a “domestic Passover” — so it shouldn’t be any surprise that it wasn’t a Passover of whatever kind at all, unless it is a Simon Magus Passover, taking on a false hope with a wafer of bread and a goblet of wine that the Catholics introduced later.
It is important to note what Fred Coulter wrote earlier in Chapter 6:
The children of Israel kept the Passover in their houses, just as the Bible records for us . . . The inspired record in Exodus 12 makes it clear that the children of Israel were not dwelling in tents at Rameses when they kept the Passover. The Hebrew word bayith, which is translated “house” or “houses” in Exodus 12, does not refer to a tent or a temporary dwelling. (Pg 62)
Amazing stuff! Even if Jesus and His disciples were eating that last supper in a house, it still doesn’t qualify keeping it bayith, “in their houses” as Fred Coulter alleges in Chapter 6, because bayith “does not refer to a tent or a temporary dwelling.” He warned in the introduction,“It is important to read with an open mind, carefully examining each Scripture as it is presented,” and “drawing conclusions only after considering all the facts,” (pg 5).
And the “facts” Fred presented are all either self-contradictory or against a “domestic Passover.” A better question to ask is why is the end-time Church has the descriptions as being “ten virgins, waiting, waiting and waiting,” and yet described as “blind” “wretched” and “naked”? (Revelation 3:17). And where are his team — Carl and Jean Franklin, Philip Neal, Albert and Mela Cataga John, Hiedi and Sasha Vogele — is this a case of the ten virgins sleeping? — Are they “blind” “wretched” and “naked”?
Now back to Chapter 19:
The word “they” in Mark 14:12 refers to those who were killing the Passover lambs at houses, tents, or inns where the domestic Passover would be kept. Mark’s record of the killing of the lambs at the time that Jesus sent His disciples to prepare the Passover confirms that many Jews in New Testament times were observing the domestic Passover. Clearly, Jesus and His disciples did not observe a “special paschal meal” at a different time from other Jews in Jerusalem. Mark’s testimony exposes this teaching as a false doctrine of men. (Pg 238)
Okay, let’s see what Mark says in Mark 14:12; and it’s getting a bit technical:
Mark 14:12 KJV And the first (G4413 protos) day (G2250 hemera) of unleavened bread, when they killed the passover, his disciples said unto him, Where wilt thou that we go and prepare that thou mayest eat the passover?
G4413 protos could be translated as ‘a time before’ as in John 1:15 John bare witness of him, and cried, saying, This was he of whom I spake, He that cometh after me is preferred before me: for he was before G4413 me.
John 1:30 This is he of whom I said, After me cometh a man which is preferred before me: for he was before G4413 me.
G2250 hemera could be translated as ‘a period of time or days’ as in Matthew 2:1 Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judaea in the days G2250 of Herod the king, behold, there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem.
Matthew 3:1 In those days G2250 came John the Baptist, preaching in the wilderness of Judaea,
Matthew 11:12 And from the days G2250 of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force.
Matthew 23:30 And say, If we had been in the days G2250 of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets.
Matthew 24:19 And woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck in those days! G2250
Matthew 24:22 And except those days G2250 should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved: but for the elect’s sake those days G2250 shall be shortened.
Matthew 24:29 Immediately after the tribulation of those days G2250 shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken:
Matthew 24:37 But as the days G2250 of Noah were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. During those 120 years Noah preached a warning message (1 Peter 3:20).
Matthew 24:38 For as in the days G2250 that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day G2250 that Noah entered into the ark,
Mark 2:20 But the days G2250 will come, when the bridegroom shall be taken away from them, and then shall they fast in those days. G2250
Mark 8:1 In those days G2250 the multitude being very great, and having nothing to eat, Jesus called his disciples unto him, and saith unto them,
Hence “the first (G4413 protos) day” could be translated as “a period of time” – could be many days. So Mark 14:12 could or should be translated as: “Now before the Days of Unleavened Bread arrived, when they killed the Passover lamb, His disciples said to Him, ‘Where do You want us to go and prepare that You may eat the Passover’?”
Matthew 26:17 Now the first day (G4413 protos) of the feast of unleavened bread the disciples came to Jesus, saying unto him, Where wilt thou that we prepare for thee to eat the passover?
Matthew 26:17 could be translated as: “Now before the Days of Unleavened Bread have arrived, the disciples came to Jesus, asking, Where shall we prepare for thee to eat the Passover?”
Same thing with Luke 22:7 Then came (G2064 erchomai) the day (G2250 hemera) of Unleavened Bread when the Passover lambs had to be sacrificed. 8 Jesus said to Peter and John, “Go and prepare the Passover meal for us to eat.”
G2064 erchomai could be translated “to come” or “to go” as in Matthew 2:2, 8. In Matthew 14:29 And he said, Come. G2064 And when Peter was come down out of the ship, he walked on the water, to go G2064 to Jesus.
Luke 22:7 could be translated as “As the Days of Unleavened Bread were approaching when the Passover lambs had to be sacrificed, 8 Jesus said to Peter and John, “Go and prepare the Passover meal for us to eat.””
Now back to Fred”s The Christian Passover:
— It is possible that Peter and John killed the lamb themselves. However, since the guest chamber was furnished and ready, it is more likely that the master of the house had already killed the lamb by the time Peter and John arrived.
— It is probable that the lamb for Jesus’ last Passover was a very small lamb,
— If the lamb was very small, the Passover meal could have been ready as early as 7:30 PM.
— The subsequent events of that night indicate that the Passover meal began early and probably ended by 9 or 9:30 PM. (Pg 240-241)
Typical of Fred Coulter’s analysis. A possibility becomes a probability and then it becomes a fact. And so in his Harmony of the Gospels, his passover started at 7.30 PM and everything ended by 9.30 PM when Jesus and His disciples sped off to the Garden of Gethsemane well before daybreak. They were to keep all the ordinances of a “domestic Passover,” shouldn’t they?
“And none of you shall go out of the door of his house until morning [sunrise]” (Ex. 12:21-22),” Fred wrote in Chapter 6, (pg 58)
And reaffirmed again in Chapter 7:
“…And none of you shall go out of the door of his house UNTIL SUNRISE….And the children of Israel went away and did as the LORD had commanded Moses and Aaron, SO THEY DID” (Ex. 12:22, 28). (Pg 64)
The killing and roasting took only one and a half hours, Fred says. Anticipated to feed 13 adults, he wrote that they only planned to have a tiny 8-day old lamb, weights only 10-12 pounds [about 5 kilos]. Have any of you roasted a leg of lambs, say just under half the weight above? I would love to hear from your experiences. More so if you have even killed a lamb, drained off the blood, skinned, cleaned and have it roasted, expected to feed thirteen adults after nightfall. If not, try it, it is an opportunity to prove the truth!
Nevermind, Fred Coulter provided his own analysis. Surely he had in mind a household during the time of the Exodus of around ten: women and children among them; here he analysed he needed close to 6 hours to roast a lamb, so back to Chapter 6:
To roast a whole lamb or kid weighing 20-30 pounds [9-14 kilos] until the meat was thoroughly done would take approximately 4-5 hours. The total time needed to have the meal ready is estimated to be from 4 and 1/2 hours at the earliest, to 5 and 3/4 hours at the latest, which includes 30-45 minutes to prepare the lamb and 4-5 hours to roast it. (Pg 67)
At the end of the Chapter 6 he concluded from an earlier question: Element # 4) How long did it take to kill, roast and eat the lambs, and to burn the bones and remains?
The Answer for Element # 4: To kill, roast and eat the lambs, and to burn the bones and remains, took from approximately 6 PM on the night of the fourteenth until 2-3 hours before sunrise, a total of 8-10 hours. (Pg 69)
See, Fred Coulter keeps on wiggling like a snake to suit different circumstances. Or is this a doublespeak? “Doublespeak is language that deliberately obscures, disguises, distorts, or reverses the meaning of words.” But in this case his distortion is everywhere. Can we trust his “analysis”?
He wrote in Chapter 1: “Unfortunately, the landscape of religious history is filled with the bodies of people who have taught false doctrines, and the bodies of people who have embraced such teachings.” (Pg 14) So true with Fred’s remarkable insight, especially when he’s describing himself!
Luke records Jesus’ words at the beginning of the Passover meal: “Now when the hour had come, He sat down, and the twelve apostles with Him. And He said to them, ‘With earnest desire I have desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. For I tell you that I will not eat of it again until it be fulfilled in the kingdom of God’ ” (Luke 22:14-16). (Pg 241)
Did Jesus eat the Passover? If so, why didn’t they said they were partaking in the Passover during the meal? If not, what was He talking about when he said “this Passover”?
Let’s study this; there could only be two possibilities:
1) He meant the upcoming Passover that very season, which was approaching, as this statement was made “before the feast of the Passover” (John 13:1).
2) He meant that very meal that evening which they were partaking of – even though it was served with leavened bread (artos G740), makes no mention of the lamb, or bitter herbs, which were required for a Passover meal.
What did Jesus mean when He said, “With desire I have desired to eat this passover with you before I suffer?” Note that earlier it was the disciples, not Christ, who mentioned eating the Passover, and that Christ referred later only His desire to eat it: “Where is the guest chamber where I shall eat the Passover with My disciples?” But did Christ eat the Passover? This difference is critical. The word for “desire” is an unusual word, epithumia in the Greek, and means “a longing, especially for something forbidden” (Strong’s G1937) — a strong desire for something denied. Other examples are:
Matthew 5:28 But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after G1937 her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.
Matthew 13:17 For verily I say unto you, That many prophets and righteous men have desired G1937 to see those things which ye see, and have not seen them; and to hear those things which ye hear, and have not heard them.
Luke 17:22 And he said unto the disciples, The days will come, when ye shall desire G1937 to see one of the days of the Son of man, and ye shall not see it.
Acts 20:33 I have coveted G1937 no man’s silver, or gold, or apparel.
1 Corinthians 10:6 Now these things were our examples, to the intent we should not lust after evil things, as they also lusted. G1937
James 4:2 Ye lust, G1937 and have not: ye kill, and desire to have, and cannot obtain: ye fight and war, yet ye have not, because ye ask not.
Revelation 9:6 And in those days shall men seek death, and shall not find it; and shall desire G1937 to die, but death shall flee from them.
Mark 4:19 And the cares of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches, and the lusts G1939 of other things entering in, choke the word, and it becometh unfruitful.
The word for “desire” in Luke 22:15 is a “desire, craving, longing — specifically for what is forbidden,” says the Jamieson, Fausset, Brown Critical-Experimental Commentary. This is the “strongest expression of intense desire,” whether good or bad. The New Testament Greek Lexicon says epithumia is, “desire, craving, longing, desiring for something forbidden.”
In other words, Jesus desired to eat the true Biblical Passover with His disciples that year, but He knew that such a thing would be impossible — it was forbidden; it was denied — that for Him to fulfill God’s plan that He must fulfilled that Special Sacrificial Paschal, that “Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.”
Jesus knew He was to fulfil John 1:29 The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world. So Christ knew He would be denied, forbidden and impossible for Him to eat that forthcoming Passover with His disciples.
With all these in mind, perhaps Luke 22:15 could be translated as: “With fervent desire I have desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer; but I’m saying to you now, I am forbidden and denied this privilege, and I will no longer eat with you until we’re all in the kingdom of God.”
As we continue reading the account, it is clear that the context supports this translation, and is consistent with the Greek. We are told that Jesus rose from supper (verse 4). After washing the disciples’ feet, Jesus sat down again (Greek “reclined”) to eat (verse 12). Jesus said, “The one who is eating bread with Me…” (verse 18), shows that the meal was in progress. Jesus dipped the morsel and gave it to Judas, who ate it (verse 26). (Pg 243)
Obviously Jesus and His disciples didn’t keep a “domestic Passover” back in their houses in Galilee. Neither did He keep a Passover of any kind in Jerusalem! Here they didn’t eat “with loins girded, shoes on their feet, and staves in their hands,” they didn’t take a bunch of hyssop, dipped it in the blood and strike the lintel and the two side posts, and to eat “in haste,” ready to flee.
And then they left for the Garden of Gethsemane on Mount Olives though they were supposed to remain in their house that entire night! Instead they sang a hymn where the Israelties didn’t sing any song in the original Passover in Egypt.
Jesus and His disciples left for the Garden of Gethsemane and according to Fred’s timeline it was around 9 – 9:30 PM. Further, they left without burning any food remains or the bones, infringing one of the Passover ordinances according to Exodus 12:10 and Numbers 9:12.
“And ye shall let nothing of it remain until the morning, and that which remaineth of it [food remains] until the morning (boqer) ye shall burn with fire.” Exodus 12:10
“They shall leave none of it [food remains] unto the morning (boqer), nor break any bone of it. According to all the ordinances of the Passover they shall keep it.” Numbers 9:12.
This is what Fred Coulter acknowledged this Passover ordinance in his earlier chapters:
“And none of you shall go out of the door of his house until morning [sunrise]” (Ex. 12:21-22),” (pg 58).
And none of you shall go out of the door of his house until sunrise [Hebrew boqer]’ ” (Ex. 12:21-22). (Pg 71)
“…And none of you shall go out of the door of his house UNTIL SUNRISE….And the children of Israel went away and did as the LORD had commanded Moses and Aaron, SO THEY DID” (Ex. 12:22, 28).
“If any of the children of Israel had left their houses before morning, it would be recorded in the Scriptures that some of the people had disobeyed the command of God and had left their houses too soon, and therefore they had died in the plague of the firstborn.” (Pg 72)
That would make Jesus and His disciples break the Passover ordinance since they were only allowed to burn the bones and other food remains and left their house only AFTER SUNRISE! What HERESY!
Fred Coulter’s definition of boqer even makes Jesus a sinner! Oh a white sepulchre of over 50 years!
And he has many sleepy followers and compatriots from members of the CoG Communities: If that night was a Passover night, Jesus and His disciple would have infringed one of the ordinances of the feast, and all our hopes and dreams would have been flushed down the toilet!
And now from John Ritenbaugh’s Toilet:
Everybody agrees—even people who support a 15th Passover—that Jesus kept the Passover at the beginning of the 14th—one whole day before the great body of Jews was keeping it, as it is recorded in the Scriptures. We have to keep it with the new symbols that He instituted at that time. We should not follow the traditions of the Jews regardless of their apparent good intent, nor of the apparent goodness accomplished at the time they observed it under Hezekiah and Josiah. (Passover transcript, Part Nine)
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So, allowing them half-an-hour to eat, they would then be finishing the Passover meal just about the time that the Death Angel was coming through. And then would come the burning of the remainder of it. Remember that God said He wanted not any of it to remain until morning.
6. What does “night” (that is, the Hebrew word, lailah) mean? What does “the morning” (Hebrew, boqer) mean?
And Ritenbaugh answers his own question:
Exodus 10:13 So Moses stretched out his rod over the land of Egypt, and the LORD brought an east wind on the land all that day and all that night. When it was morning, the east wind brought the locusts.
In this verse, “day” is yom; “night” is lailah; and “morning” is boqer. So this one verse here shows a complete day and a complete night—with its next morning. With this usage, it clearly shows there is a difference between “night” and “morning”—shown right in the scriptures! Lailah and boqer are NOT the same thing. The locusts arrived at boqer (after lailah). (Passover transcript, Part Four)
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We had worked our way partly through element #6, and so I want to review a portion of that element so we can have a running start on what is going to follow.
Genesis 1:3-5 Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good; and God divided the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night. So the evening and the morning were the first day.
Verse 5 is the one that I want to concentrate on here, just very briefly. “God called the light Day.” This is the Hebrew word yom. (You are familiar with it, probably, from reading in the newspaper about Yom Kippur. Yom, meaning day. The Day of Atonement.) Then “the darkness He called Night.” This is lailah. And “the evening and the morning.” Evening there is ba erev, and morning is boqer. What we are seeing here is that the Day (yom) consists of two parts: one is dark, and one is light. The dark is called lailah; and the light is called boqer.
Boqer is in many ways similar to ben ha arbayim, only it is on the other end of the night period. Boqer begins at the first crack of dawn, when light begins to appear in the eastern sky. (Passover transcript, Part Five)
Those nine steps (that John Ritenbaugh wrote), just to reiterate, were:
1. To select the lamb on the tenth day of the first month.
2. To kill the lamb “between the evenings” on the fourteenth.
3. To strike the doorposts and the lintel with the blood.
4. To roast the whole lamb with bitter herbs.
5. To eat the lamb that night.
6. To not boil the lamb, or eat it raw.
7. To burn any remains by morning.
8. No alien (no stranger, no foreigner) was to eat it unless he was circumcised.
9. They were not to leave their house until the morning.
Remember that I gave you the time element here in Numbers 9. It was one year later—after the Israelites left Egypt. It was the first month of the second year. Nothing has changed in regard to the keeping of the Passover! God makes it very clear: “According to all its rites and ceremonies you shall keep it.”
If you have a Bible with a center reference (or footnotes, or something), you will also see that the word “rites” is actually the word translated in other Bibles as “statutes”—meaning that these things now have the force of law. So, “according to all of its laws.“ Thus, these other things (like striking the doorposts and lintel, and not going out of the house), they have the force of law! (Passover transcript, Part Three)
Jesus and His disciple didn’t wait until the “the first crack of dawn” before rushing out to the Garden of Gethsemane, nor did they burn any of their food remains at daybreak. Another Reminder of this ordinance! “And ye shall let nothing of it remain until the morning (boqer), and that which remaineth of it [food remains] until the morning ye shall burn with fire,” Exodus 12:10. “They shall leave none of it [food remains] unto the morning (boqer), nor break any bone of it. According to all the ordinances of the Passover they shall keep it,” Numbers 9:12.
Now from Frank Nelte’s Toilet:
Anyone who, in the face of these clear Scriptures [Matt 26:17-19; Mark 14:12-16; Luke 22:8,11,13,15], claims that Jesus Christ did not observe a real Passover is calling Jesus Christ a liar! And calling Jesus Christ a liar most certainly qualifies for Romans 8:7. People who claim that Jesus Christ did not observe a Passover before He was killed are denigrating Jesus Christ’s last observance to some inconsequential status! They are insulting Jesus Christ! Claims that Jesus Christ observed some kind of “Lord’s Supper” are garbage and highly offensive to Jesus Christ!
Don’t let anybody tell you that there wasn’t enough time for Jesus Christ to eat a real Passover. Jesus Christ and His apostles had plenty of time to eat the Passover meal between 9:00 p.m. and 11:00 p.m., though it seems very likely that they concluded eating their meal well before 11:00 p.m. (JESUS CHRIST’S LAST PASSOVER, March 2014)
~~~
That is not how God works!
Everything associated with the Passover (i.e. the killing, roasting, eating and disposal of any leftovers) has to take place on the same day, based on the way God counts days (i.e. from sunset to sunset). If any part of the slaughtered Passover animal was still left on the next morning, but still on the same 24-hour day, then it was to be “burned with fire” that day (see Exodus 12:10).God’s intention with this instruction in Exodus 12:10 is very obviously that the entire Passover proceedings are to be carried out and completed on one specific day, the 14th day.
Consider Exodus 12:22 again.
And ye shall take a bunch of hyssop, and dip it in the blood that is in the bason, and strike the lintel and the two side posts with the blood that is in the bason; and none of you shall go out at the door of his house until the morning (Hebrew word is “boqer”). (Exodus 12:22)
What is the Bible definition of “boqer”? It is “when the sun rises“. How plain is that? The claim that “boqer” starts at midnight is a perversion of the truth. King David provided the obvious meaning for “boqer”. The added expression “a boqer without clouds” shows that the obvious meaning refers to a beautiful clear sky at sunrise.
Anyone who claims “boqer” starts at midnight is not being truthful. This means that belief in a late-14th Passover requires one to believe a lie. (THE PASSOVER WAS AT THE START OF THE 14TH OF NISAN, April 2019)
That’s right, according to Fred Coulter, John Ritenbaugh and Frank Nelte, if the children of Israel were to leave their houses before the morning, they would be breaking one of the most important ordinances! And this is far more than telling a lie!
From UCG’s Toilet:
The available historical information simply confirms what we read in Scripture. Christ observed His final Passover on this earth with the apostles during the evening portion of the 14th. At this Passover He instituted the symbols of the new covenant and He washed His disciples’ feet. This is the example followed by the New Testament Church and the same example that we follow today. We can confidently observe the New Testament Passover on the night portion of the 14th knowing that we have the support of Scripture and history.
3. Can the Hebrew term for morning refer to the few hours after midnight, thereby allowing the Israelites to leave their homes before daybreak? There is no example of the Hebrew term boqer (morning) ever meaning anything but “daybreak,” “dawn” or “towards dawn . . . The term boqer is used for the light portion of the day in Genesis 1 and is never used in the place of night. In Exodus 12, the firstborn were killed at midnight (middle of the night and not the dividing line between night and morning). The Israelites were told not to leave their homes until morning, not after midnight, or after the firstborn have died. God was very clear in the command that they were not to go out until morning—daybreak.” (Passover of Exodus 12, Study Paper November 1999, by UCG, pg 41-42).
According to the teachings of UCG and other CoG Communities, if Jesus and His disciples were to leave their houses before the morning, they would be breaking one of the most important ordinances! Can you believe such blatant heresy in His church today?
By blowing up their own righteousness, Fred Coulter and fellow compatriots from other CoG Communities have belittled the righteous like Hezekiah,Josiah and Ezra. Now they have even implied our Saviour is a sinner.
God strictly forbade any Israelite to leave his house until sunrise. The Schocken Bible conveys the precise meaning of the Hebrew word boqer, showing the exact time at which the children of Israel were permitted to leave: “Now you—you are not to go out, any man from the entrance to his house, UNTIL DAYBREAK” (Ex. 12:22, SB). (The Christian Passover, pg 71)
But Jesus and His disciples left around 9 to 9:30 PM without burning any food remains and bones. It’s a BLASPHEMY of blasphemies. Such filth is worse than the coronavirus beaming off from a pig! O generation of vipers! Snakes! Like in the Garden of Eden, it kills the redemptive process. It kills the work the Son of God is doing. It has the smell of a rat: “thou shalt not surely die.”
And a reminder:
The word of the LORD came unto Hosea to the children of whoredoms, to the house of Israel:
“Ephraim compasseth me about with lies, and the house of Israel with deceits” (Hosea 11:12). The house of Judah operates with hypocrisy but the house of Ephraim operates with SATANIC lies and deceits! Only the wretched naked and blind couldn’t see this.
Amazing Oh House of Wholedoms!
Just referring back to his Introduction and Chapter One, this is how Fred Coulter put a mirror in front of himself, and wrote about what he saw:
As the return of Jesus Christ draws near, Satan the devil is employing all the powers and forces of evil to complete his deception of the entire world (Rev. 12:9). One of his greatest deceptions is the perversion and paganization of the Christian Passover. He has so subtly masterminded his false doctrines and practices that they are nearly universally accepted and believed. People through the centuries have become so used to hearing, believing and practicing satanic lies that they cannot believe the truth. To those who have been blinded by Satan’s deceptions, the true observance of the Christian Passover seems fanatical and cultish. As Dressdon James once wrote, “When a well-packaged web of lies has been sold gradually to the masses over generations, the truth will seem utterly preposterous and its speaker [or writer] a raving lunatic.” (The Christian Passover, pg xiii)
“False doctrines and misinterpretations are continually being spread because ministers and teachers use the Word of God deceitfully. How diabolical it is to take the Word of God, which is the truth, and misapply it to create a lie! Such deceptive use of God’s Word has existed from the time of the apostles.”
“Anyone who twists and distorts the Scriptures is “using the law unlawfully,” as Paul said, and will end up believing false, satanic doctrines, which subvert the souls of men. Unfortunately, the landscape of religious history is filled with the bodies of people who have taught false doctrines, and the bodies of people who have embraced such teachings.” (The Christian Passover, pg 13-14)
And just in case we have forgotten Haman in the Persian Court, here is what Fred Coulter reminded us of himself when he wrote in Chapter 6:
WHAT FOLLY! What foolishness to accept a traditional belief that directly conflicts with the truth of God’s Word, and to use interpretations of Scripture that promote the false ideas of men! No wonder God says that He entraps the intelligent in the foolishness of their own human wisdom. (Pg 61)
~~~ CRITIQUES OF FRED COULTER’S THE CHRISTIAN PASSOVER ~~~
~~THE END~~
Joel Huan
The Mystery of Ephraim 