Question [Excerpt of letter from leader of large Messianic congregation]: Are you forbidding Gentile believers to celebrate Jesus, our Passover Lamb, in a Passover setting [Q&A 6/07;10/07]? It is one of the most beautiful things, and most prophetic, that the end-time church is rediscovering its heritage in Israel....In the Millennium all nations, both Jew and Gentile, will have to celebrate the Hebrew Feast of Sukkot (Tabernacles-Zechariah:14:16-21 [16] And it shall come to pass, that every one that is left of all the nations which came against Jerusalem shall even go up from year to year to worship the King, the LORD of hosts, and to keep the feast of tabernacles.
[17] And it shall be, that whoso will not come up of all the families of the earth unto Jerusalem to worship the King, the LORD of hosts, even upon them shall be no rain.
[18] And if the family of Egypt go not up, and come not, that have no rain; there shall be the plague, wherewith the LORD will smite the heathen that come not up to keep the feast of tabernacles.
[19] This shall be the punishment of Egypt, and the punishment of all nations that come not up to keep the feast of tabernacles.
[20] In that day shall there be upon the bells of the horses, HOLINESS UNTO THE LORD; and the pots in the LORD's house shall be like the bowls before the altar.
[21] Yea, every pot in Jerusalem and in Judah shall be holiness unto the LORD of hosts: and all they that sacrifice shall come and take of them, and seethe therein: and in that day there shall be no more the Canaanite in the house of the LORD of hosts.
See All...). Are we not free to keep or not keep one day above the rest?
Response: You are saying that for Gentiles to keep the Jewish Passover is a truth lost to the church and now being restored in this "end-time." Yet the "Last Supper" was not the annual Jewish Passover in remembrance of Israel's deliverance but a new "Passover" feast for the church to keep "on the first day of the week" (Acts:20:7And upon the first day of the week, when the disciples came together to break bread, Paul preached unto them, ready to depart on the morrow; and continued his speech until midnight.
See All...), in remembrance of the death, burial, and resurrection of "Christ our passover" (Lk 22:19; 1 Cor:5:7Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened. For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us:
See All...).
Exodus:12:14And this day shall be unto you for a memorial; and ye shall keep it a feast to the LORD throughout your generations; ye shall keep it a feast by an ordinance for ever.
See All... commands ethnic Jews to keep the Passover "a feast by an ordinance forever." The fact that Jews alone keep the Passover is the great proof that they are the chosen people to whom the Promised Land was given for an everlasting possession: "When your children shall say...what mean ye by this service?...[Y]e shall say, It is the sacrifice of the Lord's passover...when he smote the Egyptians and delivered our houses" (vv. 26,27). No Gentile could say that to his children-reason enough for Gentiles not to keep this Jewish feast with its special meaning! This is specifically for the physical descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and for no one else. So says the Bible.
Moreover, for Gentiles to keep this feast weakens its intended proof. Christians (whether Jews or Gentiles) celebrate "Christ our Passover" in the breaking of bread "on the first day of the week" (Acts:20:7And upon the first day of the week, when the disciples came together to break bread, Paul preached unto them, ready to depart on the morrow; and continued his speech until midnight.
See All...), as did the early church. The Jewish believers also kept the Passover once a year as commanded.
The fact that all nations will be forced to keep Sukkot during the Millennium does not justify Gentiles keeping the Passover. Nor does it illustrate freedom to keep or not to keep one day above the rest. Nor does Romans 14 refer to the Passover.