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The
Midnight Cry:
A Prophetic Witness to the Church Today
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18
The Truth About Easter
Should the Christian
Church be keeping Easter? It is not biblically commanded as a holy
convocation. Where does the authority for its observance come from? Is
it valid?
Easter
is the most important celebration in the conventional Christian
calendar. Yet, there is no mention of it in the Bible.[1]
How strange! You would think that the Church MUST have got it right. Yet
the book which establishes Christian doctrine and practice is silent on
this most important subject! Why? Surely, the Church could not have got
it wrong....? Or... could it?
Well, truth is
stranger than fiction! Jesus Himself prophesied of the whole world
being deceived by Satan (Rev 12:9). Could that also include the Church?
He warned in Matthew 24:4 to beware lest others deceive you. The ‘you’
He was referring to there was His very own – the ‘elect’, or His Church.
He also predicted, by way of a parable, that the whole of His Bride
would be asleep shortly before His coming. That prophecy is in Matthew
25:5.
While the
Bridegroom was delayed, they ALL slumbered and slept (Matt 25:5).
The metaphor of
sleep refers to deception – an inability or even unwillingness
to perceive. It refers to an inability or unwillingness to
perceive truth instead of error. And isn’t that true over the matter of
Easter? Most Christians don’t really want to know the truth! They would
rather continue to believe a lie.
The Lie of Easter
The lie of Easter is
a massive one. It goes all the way back into the darkness of pagan
antiquity. Easter is NOT a Christian festival. It has its roots firmly
established in paganism!
“Oh, that doesn’t
matter!” say the majority. “So long as we keep it to celebrate the death
and resurrection of Jesus, we are honouring Him by doing so.”
Well, it sounds OK.
I’ll grant you that. But it’s a human argument. (And it is not right
that humanism should replace true Christianity!) God says something
different. This is what He told Israel, and He says the same to His
Church today:
Take heed to yourself that you are not ensnared to follow them
[the
pagan nations around]...
and that you do not inquire after their gods, saying, ‘How did these
nations serve their gods? I also will do likewise.’ You shall not
worship the Lord your God in that way... (Deut 12:30,31).
Why? The reason was
not just that which He told Israel:
...for every abomination to the Lord which He hates they have done
to their gods; for they burn even their sons and daughters in the
fire to their gods (v. 31).
There is a further
reason, and it has everything to do with coming out of the ways of this
world and being pure, being sanctified, being holy. He said:
Whatever I command you, be careful to observe it; you
shall not add to it nor take away from it (Deut 12:32).
Are we careful
to observe all God says? Frankly, the Church isn’t. Just as was true of
the established religious body in Jesus’ day (Matt 15:6-9), today’s
church-goers put Church tradition before what God says in His Word. What
God says comes second, to fit in with Church tradition.
That is an
abomination, comparable to the sacrifice of a child in the fire to a
pagan deity. Instead of sacrificing a child, you have willingly
sacrificed what God says in favour of something Satan has palmed off
onto society. Paul was adamant about idolatrous compromise:
...the things which
the Gentiles sacrifice they sacrifice to demons and not to God, and
I do not want you to have fellowship with demons (1 Cor 10:20).
“Oh, come now. Don’t
be silly. The Church is not sacrificing to demons, or even remotely
involved in worshiping demons when it is reminded of the death and
resurrection of the Lord Jesus by keeping Easter.”
Oh, isn’t it? Paul
continued:
You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons; you
cannot partake of the Lord’s table and the table of demons. Or do we
provoke the Lord to jealousy? Are we stronger than He? (1 Cor
10:21,22).
Well, if you are
stronger than Him, and if you think you know better than Him, go ahead
and keep Easter. If you think Easter is a better observance than the one
in the Bible which He established to be kept, go ahead. Keep Easter.
Do you think He’s
not bothered about what you keep? He says in Deuteronomy 12:30-32 and
Revelation 22:19 that He IS bothered! It DOES make a difference, when
you know the truth.
But the tragedy is
that many don’t know the truth. They are deceived and have believed the
lie of Easter. It is high time for the Church to AWAKE!
Easter’s Vile Origins
Ironically, many in
the world know the truth about Easter’s pagan origins and point a finger
at the duplicity of the Church in observing this custom. To them,
Easter’s customs are quaint and deserve investigation for curiosity’s
sake. But for those who seek spiritual truth – for the Church of Jesus
Christ – there should be a much deeper motivation to get to the heart of
this issue – the search for truth.
London’s Daily
Mail carried an article about Easter on April 21, 2000, which read:
“While Easter is
the most important celebration in Christianity, it seems many of the
customs have their roots in outrageously pagan traditions. The name
Easter is as pagan as could be, taken from the Saxon goddess of
dawn, Eostre, a spring deity with a hare’s head.
“Over the
centuries, the hare has been replaced by a cuddly bunny and Eostre
has been largely forgotten, but the name stuck.”
While the Church
does not perpetuate Easter’s other pagan symbols, it cannot escape its
tarnish. It just isn’t a truly Christian festival. It is not commanded
in the Bible, nor given sanction.
What Does Jesus Want?
Do you honestly
think that Jesus is pleased about the Church keeping Easter? Do you not
think He is vexed by the Church’s practice of remembering His death by
using pagan elements? Is it not demeaning in the extreme to Him, to
associate His death and resurrection with a heathen reminder of the
rebirth and the arrival of spring? Is He no better than the fictitious
Eostre (pronounced almost the same as ‘Easter’)? Does He have no right
to a distinctly separate commemoration? Is He not vexed by this grubby
sham we call Easter?
You bet He is!! He
hates pagan derivatives! Because they detract from 1) the sanctity of
the occasion, 2) the truth and purity of His Word, and 3) the
uniqueness, or separation from the world’s ways, which He desires for
His Church.
And furthermore, He
has already given the Church a commemoration of His death in the
Passover ritual. If this sounds strange to you, or you don’t believe me,
read it for yourself. It’s in Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians:
Therefore purge out the old leaven, that you may be a new lump,
since you truly are unleavened. For indeed Christ, our Passover, was
sacrificed for us. Therefore let us keep the Feast... (1 Cor 5:7,8).
What Feast? Easter?
No! The Feast of Unleavened Bread (Lev 23:4-8), preceded by the Passover
commemoration (Lev 23:5).
Paul was instructing
the New Testament Church to continue to keep the festivals God had
previously given to Israel. The only difference now under the New
Covenant is that we do not need to observe them with the old symbolism
and animal sacrifices. (The letter to the Hebrews makes that clear.)
Jesus has instituted new symbolism of unleavened bread and wine,
replacing the lamb which was the figure under the Old Covenant (Luke
22:15-20; 1 Cor 11:23-26).
Enacting that ritual
of taking bread and wine at Passover is the way Jesus wants us to
remember His death. Not Easter! Scripture proscribes the latter; it
endorses the former. That is the truth.
Why The Church Keeps Easter
Why, then, does the
Church continue to keep Easter? The answer is as simple as it seems
impossible to change – Church leaders endorse it and the majority follow
what they say.
Of course, Church
leaders don’t blatantly tell believers to flout the Word of God. They
tell them the opposite. while they provide subtle arguments and specious
reasoning as to why they say it is alright to keep Easter.
But you should not
believe them. You should believe what God says in His Word, the Bible.
He nowhere says it is alright to compromise with what He has commanded
in favour of what Church tradition proposes. He hates syncretism – the
fusion of pagan custom with Christian practice. It is watering down the
purity of His Word and perverting ‘the way’ He has given to His Church.
Church leaders have
been reared on the dogma that Easter Sunday commemorates the time of
Jesus’ resurrection. But scripture indicates Jesus had already risen by
that time. Notice the account in most common translations:
Now after the Sabbath, as the first day of the week began to dawn,
Mary Magdalene and the other Mary came to see the tomb... (Matt
28:1, NKJV).[2]
The account relates
an earthquake and the appearance of an angel, who rolled back the huge
stone which sealed the tomb’s entrance. The angel told the women: “He is
not here; for He is [has] risen” (v 6). The Williams translation
expresses the correct tense.
The same fact is
repeated in Mark 16:1-6 and Luke 24:1-6. The two Marys came to the tomb
very early in the morning. This was supposedly (according to what most
believe today) Sunday. (In fact, it was a Sabbath, which I can
demonstrate by referring you to the Greek text of this passage.2)
Well, if it was a
Sunday, as most Church leaders suggest, and Jesus had already risen
before the women arrived, there is no proof He rose on Sunday. He could
have risen before Sunday. And, in fact, if you do a little elementary
arithmetic, you can see quite easily that He had to have risen in the
afternoon, three days after His death. That was the only sign He
promised by which the world could know He was the Messiah (Matt
12:39,40). He died in the mid-afternoon (Matt 27:45-50). So, He rose
from the dead in the mid-afternoon, three days afterwards.
Yet, the Church
believes and teaches another myth in this regard – that Jesus died on a
Friday and rose on a Sunday. Neither of these suppositions are supported
by scripture. Rather, when you study into this issue, it is much more
probable that He died on a Tuesday, arose on a Friday (fulfilling the
symbolism of the second Adam – 1 Cor 15:45), and was seen by the women
on the next Sabbath morning. This is not wild conjecture. It is
supported and substantiated in The Timing of Jesus’ Death and
Resurrection.
But the Church as a
whole does not want to accept this proposition, because it destroys
their cherished traditions surrounding Easter. They would rather stick
with their empty traditions than learn new truth. It’s easier. It causes
less upset. And it continues an unbroken tradition that was established
by the Roman Church from the fourth century AD.
Origin of Easter
We have mentioned
already about Easter that its "name [is] derived from Eostre, goddess of
Spring" (Pears Cyclopaedia, 89th Ed.)
This spring festival
goes back thousands of years into heathen antiquity. It was the time of
year when there was a sudden spurt of new growth and reproduction in
nature. This was attributed to the powers of the fertility goddess of
nature or the goddess of spring.
Pagans celebrated it
with a time of festivity and giving of fertility symbols such as eggs,
rabbits or similar emblems, and most probably also with ritual
fornication with temple prostitutes.
While the Church
today does not descend to that level of depravity in its physical
observance, can it ever divorce itself from Easter’s unChristian
foundation and associations? In short, “No!”
By perpetuating this
pagan custom, the 'Christian' Church – regardless of what it calls
Easter, or what it claims it is observing it for – is actually more
pagan in its customs than Christian. Jesus said nothing about
commemorating His resurrection. He deliberately avoided that issue. His
reasons may not be obvious to most, but there should be no need if the
Church is living up to His command to demonstrate His resurrection
forcefully in its practice throughout the year.
Jesus expected us to
commemorate His death by the continued annual observance of Passover
(Luke 22:13-19; 1 Cor 11:23-25). But there is no comparable command to
celebrate an annual observance of His resurrection, which is what Easter
is.
It is entirely
biblically unfounded. Its basis is pagan, its connotation pagan, and its
practice pagan.
What God Expects Of Us
You cannot
‘Christianise’ something that is pagan. Just like you cannot take a
Buddhist or Hindu idol and ‘Christianise’ it. The two are opposites and
distinctly heterogeneous. A pagan edifice has no place in a Christian
church; and pagan practice should have no esteem in the eyes of
Christians who seek to obey God.
Either the tradition
is biblically based or it is not. Either God commands it or He doesn’t.
And if the answer to those questions is not a resounding “Yes!” then we
should have nothing to do with it. Paul wrote:
Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers. For what
fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness? And what communion
has light with darkness? (2 Cor 6:14.)
The answer should be
“NONE!” But the Church does not respond in this way. It enacts a lie
through its stubborn refusal to relinquish the paganism in its customs.
(Christmas is equally wrong.[3])
And what accord has Christ with Belial? (2 Cor 6:15). And what
agreement has the temple of God with idols? (2 Cor 6:15.)
The Church and most
Christians would seem to say “Plenty!” That should not be!
The custom of Easter
observance is an idol in the Church which needs pulling out, root and
branch.
Therefore, come out from among them and be separate, says the Lord.
Do not touch what is unclean, and I will receive you (2 Cor 6:17).
Therefore... beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness
of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God (2
Cor 7:1).
Integration of Easter
“Well,” you might
say, “I can see that you’ve got a very good point, but how on earth did
the Church end up in this position? It seems we are bound into
traditions that the majority have assumed were OK, but which clearly are
not.”
For the answer to
that, you have to delve into some history, to see what happened to the
early Church after the fall of Jerusalem in AD 70. It is relatively easy
to demonstrate from the book of Acts, which was written by the Gentile
physician Luke, that the apostolic Church was keeping the traditional
festivals which God (note that!) had given Israel. These
included Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread.[4]
However, after the
fall of Jerusalem in AD 70, Jews came under a great deal of persecution.
Anything Jewish was attacked with hate and hostility. And since the
early Christians kept the Sabbath as did the Jews, and appeared to
others to have the same festivals, they also came under anti-Semitic
attack. This victimisation threatened life and livelihood in many cases.
The rising tide of
anti-Semitism may initially have been a response to Jewish revolts
against Roman rule. But prejudice soon mounted further when Jews were
required to regard the Roman Emperor as a god. This, Jews refused to do.
The ensuing clashes
were inevitable, and many Jews perished. Anti-Jewish sentiment rose
during the next two centuries, when there were 10 persecutions of Jews
in the Roman Empire. Christians, who held to the faith once delivered
and to the traditions they had received, were lumped into this number.
In this time of
trouble, it was no wonder that heresies soon arose which appealed to
human reason and the desire to make life easier. Distancing oneself from
anything the world regarded as ‘Jewish’ was one way to ease the burden
of oppression.
It was in this
climate of persecution that many Christians fell prey to seductive
heresies. The greater part of the Church turned its back on its ‘Jewish’
roots, replacing them with subtle unbiblical alternatives. Moreover,
what could be more appealing to the masses than customs with which
pagans were familiar?
A radical shift in
Christian belief and practice occurred in the early fourth century, with
the emergence of the Roman Emperor Constantine.
When the Roman
Empire was falling apart, Constantine saw in Christianity a useful
political crutch. Christians had made considerable impact in the Empire,
as had the commercially orientated Jews. Attempts to eradicate the
Christian religion had failed. Many Christians had been martyred, along
with Jews in the anti-Semitic purges, particularly of Hadrian (circa. AD
135). But persecution didn't seem to stop Christianity's progress. It
only appeared to spread it!
"The Roman
government began to see the uselessness of persecuting the Christians.
The struggle to suppress them was one which decidedly weakened the Roman
state at a time when the long disorders of the century of revolution
made the emperors feel their weakness. After the retirement of
Diocletian his 'Caesar' Galerius, feeling very probably the dangers
threatening Rome from without and the uselessness of the struggle
against the Christians within, issued a decree, in AD 311, by
which Christianity was legally recognized" (J H Breasted, Ancient
Times, A History of the Early World, p 763).
"Throughout the
great Roman world men were longing for some assurance regarding the life
beyond the grave, and in the midst of the trials and burdens of this
life they wistfully sought the support and strength of a divine
protector. Little wonder that the multitudes were irresistibly attracted
by the comforting assurances of these Oriental faiths and the blessed
future insured by their 'mysteries'! At the same time it was believed
possible to learn the future of every individual by the use of
Babylonian astrology... The orientals who practiced it were called
Chaldeans, or Magi (whence our words 'magic' and 'magician'); and
everyone consulted them" (Ibid. p 737).
Constantine 'grasped
the nettle' and saw that there was mileage to be made out of
Christianizing these Babylonian 'mysteries'. He looked to the pagan
customs of the east as the 'cement' to bind his empire in the west.
Easter was only one of several customs he, and others, pushed as a new
'Christian' observance.
It was adopted by
the Roman state Church in AD 325 at the Council of Nicaea. It was a
direct replacement for the Passover and days of Unleavened Bread which
the world knew Jews still observed.
What Jesus Commands
The problem is,
Easter is nowhere commanded in Scripture, and therefore the Church has
no divine authority for observing it. Christians are not instructed by
Jesus to celebrate His resurrection at this time. However, we are
told to commemorate His death:
This is My body, which is [broken] for you; do this in
remembrance of Me (1 Cor 11:24).
We are also told to
observe the Passover:
For indeed
Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us. Therefore let us
keep the feast... (1 Cor 5:7,8).
What festival?
Easter? NO! Passover, and the days which the Bible reveals follow
it.
Revelation’s Hidden Story
Because this
festival of Easter is so deeply rooted in the ‘Christian’ tradition,
many will find it hard to accept that it should cease.
However, consider
this. In a series of prophetic letters to the Church, Jesus condemned
the onslaught and acceptance of false teaching such as Easter
observance. The transition from Sabbath to Sunday, and from Passover to
Easter was revealed by Jesus in symbolic language that has been
preserved for us in the book of Revelation.[5]
Jesus warned the
first ‘era’, represented by the church at Ephesus, of those who said
they were apostles but who were not (Rev 2:2). The truth is first
revealed to God’s apostles and prophets (Eph 3:5). These false apostles
represent those who were trying to introduce heresies into the Church
early on.
Then, to Pergamos,
Jesus had a warning written about the danger of eating things sacrificed
to idols (Rev 2:14). What were those things? They are a physical symbol
of something spiritual. False spiritual teaching is food sacrificed to
an idol. It does not honour God. It honours the idol. In the case of
Easter, it honours Eostre, the false goddess of spring.
Acceptance of this
false teaching, Jesus likened to sexual immorality (Rev 2:14). It is no
less evil, or God would have used symbols of lesser impact.
Then, to Thyatira,
He continues His dire warning, using the same symbolism of sexual
immorality and eating of food sacrificed to idols (Rev 3:20). Jesus
clearly identifies that as unbiblical doctrine (Rev 3:24).
He even predicts
that the Church would not repent or turn away from its idolatry (Rev
3:21). The results were catastrophic and will again be catastrophic for
the Church today. Great tribulation will engulf those who do not turn
away from embracing idolatrous customs in the name of Christ (Rev 3:22).
It is blasphemous and an affront to the Creator God!
Lukewarm minds will
accuse me of overstating it. But those people have not received the
perception of God in this area, to see how evil it is to replace
something God has commanded with a vastly inferior substitute of corrupt
heathen origin. Perhaps they should also consider the original character
of this festival.
True Character of Easter
The true character
of the idolatrous celebration of Easter is revealed by the noted
historian and clergyman, Alexander Hislop. He wrote:
"Easter is
nothing else than Astarte, one of the titles of Beltis, the queen of
heaven, whose name, as pronounced by the people of Nineveh, was
evidently identical with that now in common use in this country
[i.e. 'Easter']. That name, as found by Layard on the Assyrian
monuments is Ishtar. The worship of Bel and Astarte was very early
introduced into Britain, along with the Druids, 'the priests of the
groves'...
"[Bel's] consort
Astarte was also adored by our ancestors... whose name in Nineveh
was Ishtar, the religious solemnities of April, as now practised,
are called by the name of Easter – that month, among our pagan
ancestors, having been called Easter-monath. The Festival, of which
we read in Church history, under the name of Easter, in the third or
fourth centuries, was quite a different festival from that now
observed in the Romish Church, and at that time was not known
by any such name as Easter. It was called Pasch, or the Passover"
(Alexander Hislop, The Two Babylons, pp 103,104).
"That beautiful
but abandoned queen of Babylon [Semiramis, synonymous with Ishtar]
was not only herself a paragon of unbridled lust and licentiousness,
but in the Mysteries which she had a chief hand in forming, she was
worshipped as Rhea, the great 'Mother' of the gods [precursor of
Catholic Mary worship], with such atrocious rites as identified her
with Venus, the Mother of all impurity... of idolatry and
consecrated prostitution (Ibid. p 5).
Is it fitting that
such a depraved idolatrous festival should be adopted and associated
with the wonderful act of redemption of our Saviour? Hardly! It’s no
wonder Jesus used the metaphor in Revelation of sexual immorality to
depict the Church’s embracing of this depraved teaching! And anyone who
wants to argue with the meaning of the symbolism should realise that it
is not my interpretation. Jesus Himself nominated this
condemnation because of – what He calls – the acceptance of wrong
doctrine (Rev 3:24) which He terms the depths of Satan!
Subtlety is deep in Satan’s counterfeit teaching.
The Church did not
stop in its abandonment of truth in favour of lies. It adopted other
pagan trappings to add to the insult.
Hislop records:
"That festival [the scriptural Passover] was not idolatrous, and it
was preceded by no Lent... The forty days' abstinence of Lent was
directly borrowed from the worshippers of the Babylonian goddess.
Such a Lent of 40 days, 'in the spring of the year', is still
observed by the Yezidis or pagan devil-worshippers of Koordistan,
who have inherited it from their early masters, the Babylonians.
Such a lent of 40 days was held in spring by the pagan Mexicans, for
thus we read in Humboldt, where he gives account of Mexican
observances: '...fast of 40 days in honour of the sun'. Such a lent
of 40 days was observed in Egypt... was held expressly in
commemoration of Adonis or Osiris, the great mediatorial god"
(Ibid., pp 104,105).
Today, we have
Shrove Tuesday and Ash Wednesday, which precede this period of 40 days
leading up to Easter Sunday with its worship of the sun-god, Osiris
(incestuous lover and son of Isis). Prior to this lenten fast, eggs and
flour were used up by making pancakes, hence this peculiar Shrove
Tuesday custom. (Shrove is the past participle of the verb 'shrive',
which is an archaic Roman Catholic term referring to the priest's
hearing a sinner’s confession, assigning of penance, and absolution of
his sin – all prerogatives of God which the Catholic Church arrogantly
claims for its priesthood.)
Paul condemned these
superstitious rituals as worthless in Col 2:18-23 and Gal 4:3, and 8-10.
But,
"to conciliate
the pagans to nominal Christianity, Rome, pursuing its usual policy,
took measures to get the Christian and pagan festivals amalgamated"
(Ibid., p 105).
There you have it;
the truth about Easter.
It is not scriptural
in origin, not commanded in the New Testament, and should not be
observed by the modern Church. Those who do keep it, unwittingly pay
homage to the idolatrous Romish Church, who has perpetuated this myth in
Christendom. Those who observe Easter – instead of Passover as we are
instructed by God, and reminded by Paul – is following tradition
instituted by men, outside the authority of the Word of God.
As a child of God,
you are commanded to come out of the ways of modern Babylon, the mother
of 'Christian' harlotry (Rom 18:4). MBH „
Those who might dismiss the above comments as the ‘individual opinion’
of the author should be reminded that there are many believers who have
been led by the Spirit to see the errors in observing Easter.
Malcolm B Heap
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