An argument against Christians hosting Seder meals?

Thanks for the reply.

The big structure does play out in the Bible, so making this shift would sure mess up a lot of things.

Passover and Unleavened Bread did become interchangeable terms historically, so it seems even the Jews considered them as a single event.

There is a division in both Day 1 and Day 2, and Day 2 seems to fit with Passover/Unleavened Bread, so a division isn’t the key. There is also a division between Land and Sea on Day 3.

The big structure matches Passover with Atonement chiastically, so Passover must be step 2.

The big structure also puts blood and water at Passover (slain firstborn-Red Sea) and water and blood at Atonement (Jordan-Jericho), so Passover must be step 2.

Perhaps Passover/Unleavened Bread is a bloody Creation week (see Jordan on Leviticus 1 following the Creation week painted in blood: http://www.biblicalhorizons.com/biblical-horizons/no-107-re-creation-in-the-ascension-offering/). As such it still corresponds with the seven sprinklings of blood towards the Ark at Atonement.

It’s not just Leviticus 23 that presents this beginning with a Sabbath. The first step is always a Word, a Divine Call (Light), and the second step is God’s man falling down dead. He raises him up at step 3 and gives him a job to do (Firstfruits).

Following that with unleavened bread, you have a further dividing, a continuation of the separation that started at Passover. The firmament divided the waters above from the waters below. The seven day feast of unleavened bread separated the old bread from the new bread, the Egyptian leaven being left behind, the bread of slavery being replaced.

Then when you get to the end, you have the feast of booths corresponding directly with the Sabbath of creation week, and the marriage of Adam and Eve in Gen 2, which are both beautiful.

You’ve obviously studied this more than I have, though, so let me know how we came to put the Sabbath at the top? Is it strictly from Lev 23 putting it at the top, or is there other precedence? Historical precedence from other theologians?

Thanks. And seeing as we’re on opposite sides of the world, this might be a drawn-out conversation.

Yes – Passover and Unleavened Bread became interchangeable terms for the one event.

Re the Sabbath, I think there is the idea of the initial Word already being a perfect seven, God’s completed creation week, and this larger feast pattern is its echo in man’s domain, from Garden to Land, or from Most Holy Place to Holy Place. Just some thoughts. It does pan out in the Bible though. For instance, Zechariah’s visions begin with an imperfect rest (stagnation) and end with a grand corporate rest.

My main hang-up with the Sabbath being first is in the progression is how we then view the Lord’s Day, the eighth day, the new beginning. The new beginning was not a new sabbath, but a new creation, with a sabbath as a yet to be obtained goal (as in the book of Hebrews). Have you dealt with this somewhere?

I agree with most of what you say, but the New Covenant is not about being born but being born again. That is when the journey starts. It is not about life, but about resurrection life.

The point about maturity was that human history is at a more mature point after the cross.

Thanks for the comment!

Baptism is a goal, not just a starting point. Our desire is to conform more and more to the death and resurrection of Christ – the very destination to which our baptism is pointing. This is the goal for every Christian, and the goal we desire for our children. Initiating them upon this journey after birth, and encouraging them therein for the rest of their lives, to me, is very consistent with going from childhood to maturity. It’s a childhood within the covenant which anticipates the maturity given through that covenantal community, covenantal promises, and covenantal identity of God’s Israel – the visible church.

I like your blog.
Thanks,
Eric

Brent – Here’s the links to some more concrete argumentation that begins at the beginning (although you have read some already):

http://www.bullartistry.com.au/wp/2009/04/15/weapons-of-war-3/
http://www.bullartistry.com.au/wp/2009/04/15/weapons-of-war-4/
http://www.bullartistry.com.au/wp/2009/04/15/weapons-of-war-5/
http://www.bullartistry.com.au/wp/2009/07/09/cutting-off-flesh-by-water/
http://www.bullartistry.com.au/wp/2009/09/25/the-acid-test/
and to illustrate the difference between the “pre-wilderness” Covenant sign and the “post-wilderness” Covenant sign as the difference between betrothal and marriage, see here:
http://www.bullartistry.com.au/wp/2009/04/15/marriage-as-a-promise-of-wine/

The seven feasts list in Leviticus 23 begins with the weekly Sabbath. So the pattern begins with rest and ends with a greater rest (after testing, maturity and glorification) for the whole body. Good question. The first Sabbath seems to be the ‘call’, the primary word from God. In the prophets, it is the call to the prophet. See the structure of Ezekiel here:
http://www.bullartistry.com.au/wp/2009/09/10/haman-hamstrung/

In the corresponding structure for a worship service, it is the call to worship. In the Tabernacle, it is the Ark (Word).

Probably search under the “Feasts” tag for more posts on this. You’ll find the basics in my book Totus Christus if you want to go that far. It takes you through most of the Bible and shows how this pattern structures both history and the Scriptures as literature. It was intended to be a short book, but I found the pattern often working at three or more levels. Hopefully soon I will get the shorter Bible Matrix printed which just has the basics and doesn’t weigh over a kg! Shoot me an email and I’ll send you some more details.

Jesus commands us to follow Him. Baptism should be our first response after obeying the gospel. It is a response to the divine call. For sure, some non-believers will be baptized by mistake, but at least this practice is not ‘playing on the highway’, asking for confusion. When we look back on our baptism, it should be something we remember. Communion is our weekly response to the call.

We have raised our children so that they eventually ASK for baptism, usually aged around 7 or 8. Before salvation, for sure, they are blessed by the Covenant – which corresponds with the FV statements concerning such ‘umbrella’ blessings. But the New Covenant is not about a helpless people rescued from slavery, but the ‘next generation’ where the previous people comes out of the wilderness as an army. Baptism is a public testimony to faith. Arguing for a sort of ‘corporate’ faith is not a bad idea, but credo-baptism puts the individual into the corporate, the body present as witnesses.

I could be wrong on all this, but paedobaptism seems to rub the Bible’s fur the wrong way. It’s against the very grain of the childhood to maturity theme.

Thanks for your comments!

Second, it should answer the BIG questions, like:
– How does fallen man voluntarily respond to God? Can a man trust is own response? If baptism is a ritual response, given the nature of man, though we respond to God multiple times over, should we rely on only one ritual response?
– How should we raise unbaptized children of Christians? If we grant that they ARE under covenant, why not apply the sign of the covenant? Or Are they under covenant?

Lastly, in some of your other posts that touch on the subject, your chiasms always start with Sabbath. How did the seventh day become the first feast? From this post http://www.bullartistry.com.au/wp/2009/04/15/weapons-of-war-4 do you have a reference that fleshes out this particular pattern as the one that “the entire Bible follows”.

Thanks.