Q.     I read your article regarding the SDA accepting the Feasts. As a  Seventh Day Adventist (SDA), I believe the ceremonial laws that pointed to the redeemer were done away with at the cross. To keep these days means you are not accepting the Messiah as the one true sacrifice. Why do you continue to observe these days and deny the Lamb of G-d?

A.     Besides the fact that the Feasts are prophetic and will be observed in the millennial Kingdom by all nations (Ezekiel 45-46; Zechariah 14:16), the Feasts were also observed in the New Testament by the Messiah and His disciples. Below are several examples:

• Luke 2:41: “Now his [Yahshua’s] parents went to Jerusalem every year at the feast of the Passover.”
• Luke 22:11 “…Where is the guestchamber, where I [Yahshua] shall eat the passover with my disciples?”
• 1Corinthians 5:7-8:  “Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened. For even Messiah our passover is sacrificed for us. Therefore let us keep the feast….”
• Acts 20:6: “And we [Paul and company] sailed away from Philippi after the days of unleavened bread….”
• Acts 2:1: “And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they [apostles / disciples] were all with one accord in one place.”
• Acts 20:16:  “…for he [Paul] hasted, if it were possible for him, to be at Jerusalem the day of Pentecost.”
• 1Corinthians 16:8: “But I [Paul] will tarry at Ephesus until Pentecost.”
• Acts 27:9: “…because the fast [Day of Atonement] was now already past….”
• John 7:2, 37:  “Now the Jews’ feast of tabernacles was at hand … In the last day, that great day of the feast, Yahshua stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink.”

Many of these examples occurred years/decades after the Messiah’s death and resurrection. If the Feasts were tied to the sacrificial system and no longer required after Yahshua’s death, why then did the apostles continue to observe these days in the New Testament?

Also, the notion that these days are no longer required because of the sacrificial system would also apply to the Sabbath. As Numbers 28:9-10 verifies, there were also sacrifices on the Sabbath: “And on the sabbath day two lambs of the first year without spot, and two tenth deals of flour for a meat offering, mingled with oil, and the drink offering thereof: This is the burnt offering of every sabbath, beside the continual burnt offering, and his drink offering.”

Those who refuse to honor the Feasts due to sacrifices being offered on these days in the Old Testament must also apply this same reasoning to the Sabbath. Clearly, sacrifices were offered on both the weekly Sabbath and annual Feasts.

In addition, Yahweh lists the weekly Sabbath and annual Feasts together in Leviticus 23: “Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, Concerning the feasts of Yahweh, which ye shall proclaim to be holy convocations, even these are my feasts. Six days shall work be done: but the seventh day is the sabbath of rest, an holy convocation; ye shall do no work therein: it is the sabbath of Yahweh in all your dwellings. These are the feasts of Yahweh, even holy convocations, which ye shall proclaim in their seasons. In the fourteenth day of the first month at even is Yahweh’s Passover,” verses 2-5.

This passage confirms a continuity between the weekly Sabbath and Feasts. Try as a person might, you cannot observe the weekly Sabbath and dismiss the annual Feasts. To do this is contrary to Scripture and nonsensical.