Lunar Sabbath Rebuttal 2
Here’s the second reason why I don’t observe a Lunar Sabbath:
Leviticus 23:4-8 (NKJV) “’These are the feasts of Yahweh, holy convocations which you shall proclaim at their appointed times. 5On the fourteenth day of the first month at twilight is Yahweh’s Passover. 6And on the fifteenth day of the same month is the Feast of Unleavened Bread to Yahweh; seven days you must eat unleavened bread. 7On the first day you shall have a holy convocation; you shall do no customary work on it. 8But you shall offer an offering made by fire to Yahweh for seven days. The seventh day shall be a holy convocation; you shall do no customary work on it.’”
Here the Holy Spirit is teaching Moses about the Feast of Passover/Unleaveaned Bread that they have already experienced first hand as our living examples. The Feast was instituted to rehearse, remember, and commemorate the historical events, and to look forward to our Redeemer’s sacrifice and future return. Verse 5 shows us that Preparation Day is Abib 14, the day to slaughter the lamb and toss it into the oven. Verse 6 teaches us that Abib 15 begins the Feast of Unleavened Bread, a seven day Feast of Yahweh. Verse 7 teaches us that the 1st day of Unleavened Bread is a holy Feast Day Sabbath; notice it’s a holy assembly with no servile work to be done; that’s a definition of a Sabbath. I noticed that in your writings you call the 15th day of Abib the regular weekly Sabbath. That is not true; it is a special Feast Day Sabbath, according to Leviticus. Verse 8 defines the length of the celebration of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, seven days. Now notice the second sentence in verse 8, the seventh day is also a special holy assembly day of no servile work, a holy Feast Day Sabbath. Now Lunar Sabbatarians have a problem. The seventh day of Unleavened Bread is Abib 21, NOT Abib 22. Yahweh was not defining the weekly Sabbath here, He did that 2,500 years before in the first two chapters of Genesis, where He defined the WEEK as work 6 days and rest on the 7th. That hasn’t changed for over 6,000 years!
Notice that the Feasts of Passover/Unleavened Bread and Tabernacles are similar, but not exactly the same. Both are 8 day Feasts, but the first day of Passover/Unleavened Bread, the 14th, is a working preparation day, not a Sabbath. So the seventh day of Unleavened Bread is actually the eighth day of the overall Feast, but it ends up being on a different day of the Lunar month than the eighth day of the Feast of Tabernacles, the 21st versus the 22nd. So the Thursday, Abib 15, Yahshua’s first full day in the tomb, was the holy Feast Day Sabbath, not the regular weekly Sabbath, as you proposed. Therefore, Yahshua was in the tomb Wednesday night, Thursday day and night, Friday day and night and all day Saturday, exactly three nights and three days, just as He said. Yahshua said there would be ONLY one sign of His Messiahship given to that evil generation, the sign of Jonah: Matthew 12:38-40 (NKJV) “Then some of the scribes and Pharisees answered, saying, “Teacher, we want to see a sign from You.” 39But He answered and said to them, “An evil and adulterous generation seeks after a sign, and no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. 40For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.” Yahshua fulfilled the sign of Jonah exactly, Wednesday night, Thursday night, Friday night, Thursday day, Friday day, Saturday day, rising from the dead right at the end of the regular weekly Sabbath on Saturday evening!!
Batya Wootten, in her great book, Israel’s Feasts and Their Fulness, explains that we have 7 Feasts covering 9 days.
Ø Feast Day 1 is Abib 14, Day of Preparation for Passover/Pesach/Phasekh, a working Feast day. Passover is the first Pilgrimage Feast.
Ø Feast Day 2 is Abib 15, the first day of Unleavened Bread, a Sabbath day.
Ø Feast Day 3 is First of the First Fruits Wave Sheaf always on the Sunday following the regular weekly Sabbath that occurs during Unleavened Bread. The day of the Lunar month therefore changes each year. This day is day 1 of the Omer count to the 4th Feast of Shavuot.
Ø Feast Day 4 is Abib 21, the last day of Unleavened Bread, a Feast Day Sabbath.
Ø Feast Day 5 is Shavuot/Pentecost and is always on the Sunday, 50 days after the regular weekly Sabbath that occurred during the Feast of Unleavened Bread. Therefore the day of the Lunar month for Shavuot changes each year. Shavuot is the second Pilgrimage Feast.
Ø Feast Day 6 is Tishri 1, Yom Teruah, the Feast of blowing of Trumpets.
Ø Feast Day 7 is Tishri 10, Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, or covering.
Ø Feast Day 8 is Tishri 15, the first day of Sukkot, or Tabernacles, a Feast Day Sabbath.
Ø Feast Day 9 is Tishri 22, the last day of the Feast of Tabernacles, a Feast Day Sabbath. Tabernacles is also the third Pilgrimage Feast. Two Feasts have two Feast Sabbaths, Unleavened Bread and Tabernacles. Two Feasts are workday Feasts, Passover and First Fruits. Three Feasts are no-work Feast Days, Shavuot, Yom Teruah, and Yom Kippur. A no-work Feast Day sounds like a Feast Day Sabbath to me.
If the 8th of a lunar month is a Sabbath, then by definition and by Yahweh’s command to work six days then rest the seventh, the 1st of the lunar month is a Sabbath also. So, if the 29th is a Sabbath, and the 1st is a Sabbath, where’s the 6 days of work between those two Sabbaths? The Lunar Sabbath is a confused false doctrine.
Let’s have some fun now. Eugene Faulstich claimed he found a unique planetary conjuction around the vernal equinox in 4001 BCE. He then claimed that the first day of creation was March 19, 4001 BCE, a Sunday, (ante)Gregorian calendar, Julian Day number 260167. I wasn’t there, so I can’t refute or support his claims. So the first Sabbath from Genesis 2:2-3, was on (ante)Gregorian March 25, 4001 BCE, or Julian Day number 260173. For fun, let’s use the Shabbat, Saturday, Feb. 2, 2013 CE, the day before Super Bowl Sunday in 2013 CE. A couple billion people should be able to verify that the day before the Super Bowl was Saturday, Feb. 2, 2013 CE. Feb. 2, 2013 CE was Julian Day number 2456325. 2456325 – 260173 = 2,196,152 days. 2,196,152 / 7 = 313,736 Shabbats in unbroken human history since Yahweh’s first Shabbat in Genesis 2:2-3!! And the bonus? The Shabbats that Yahweh used with the Manna Miracle to resynchronize the wilderness Israelites to His Shabbat from 1584-1544 BCE, fit this continuous weekly cycle EXACTLY!! Pretty cool.
Until He returns,
Gene Benjamin II
March 9, 2013 CE
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