History of the Passover 1

John 6:53-54 – Jesus said to them, “I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have not life in you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.

It was only on Passover night that Jesus Christ promised his body and blood, through the Passover bread and wine. 2,000 years ago, Jesus came to this earth to save all mankind and established the Church of God, in which the apostles who were directly taught by Jesus worked.

In the time of the early church (after Jesus ascended to the Kingdom of Heaven) the disciples understood the importance of the Passover for this reason Apostle Paul continued teaching for the people to celebrate the Passover.

1 Corinthians 5:7-8 — Get rid of the old yeast that you may be a new batch without yeast — as you really are. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. Therefore let us keep the festival…

1 Corinthians 11:23-25 – For I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you: The Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, “This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way, after supper he took the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me.”

However after the Apostolic Age, the Church was severely persecuted by the Roman Empire until Christianity was officially approved. Meanwhile, lawlessness began to work in the Church and the Church was divided into two; the Eastern Church which still kept the truth of the Passover of the new covenant, and the Western Church  which threw away the teachings of Christ and became secularized by pagan traditions. This arouses the Quartodeciman or Paschal Controversies that arouse in 155 A.D and 195 A.D. as noted in the book Eusebius Ecclesiastical History:

The Bishops’ of Asia, persevering in observing the custom handed down to them from their fathers, were headed by Polycrates. He indeed had also set forth the tradition handed down to them in a letter which he addressed to Victor and the church of Rome: “We,” said he, “therefore, observe the genuine day; neither adding thereto nor taking therefrom… Philip, one of the twelve apostles…John…Polycarp of Smyrna… Thraseas… Sagaris… Papirius… Melito…All these observed the fourteenth day of the Passover according to the gospel, deviating in no respect, but following the rule of faith. Moreover, I, Polycrates, who am the least of all of you, according to the tradition of my relatives, some of whom I have followed. For there were seven, my relatives bishops, and I am the eight; and my relatives always observed the day when the people (i.e. the Jews) threw away the leaven. I, therefore, brethren am now sixty-five years in the Lord, who having conferred with the brethren throughout the world, and having studied the whole of the sacred Scriptures, am not at all l alarmed at those things with which I am threatened, to intimidate me. For they who are greater than I, have said, ‘We ought to obey god rather than men.’” … Upon this, Victor, the bishop of the church of Tome, endeavored to cut off the churches of all Asia, together with neighboring churches, as unorthodox from the common unity. And he published abroad by letters and proclaimed, that all the brethren there were wholly excommunicated. Pg. 182-183

As Christianity was officially approved and lifted up in the world through the Edict of Milan in 313 A.D., the Church was rapidly secularized. In this age, lawlessness was firmly established and the truth completely disappeared (e.g. Sunday observance in 321, Council of Nicaea in 325). By this, all churches came to keep the Sunday service and followed the Roman way which threw away the Passover. In the book entitled While Men Slept… it is explained as follows:

Bringing the worshipers of Roman gods and the Christians together on the day of worship, however, was not enough. There were still disputes among Christians over key doctrinal issues that kept them out of unity with each other. The disputed matters concerned establishing the date of the Christian Passover, as it was called, and changing its date to distinguish it from the Jewish Passover. The Christian Passover controversy became known as the “Quartodeciman” or the “Fourteenth-day” controversy. It was so named because of being celebrated on the same day as the Jewish Passover, which was the fourteenth day of the month of Nisan… To resolve these differences, the Roman Emperor Constantine brought disputing Christians together in A.D. 325 for the first Council of Nicaea in Asia Minor… Christians were given the opportunity to unify their faith under the watchful eye of the Roman Emperor. As is done in most conflict resolution negotiations, compromise was sought. That meant that no one really got what he wanted but most got enough of what they wanted that they were, for whatever purpose, willing to agree.

The day for celebrating the Christian Passover was agreed upon. The Christians who believed in the deity of Jesus Christ were willing to make a compromise. They named the day of the Resurrection, “Easter,” after the pagan goddess of spring and fertility, Ishtar or Eastre. Pg. 62-63

By the judging of a Roman Emperor named Constantine since 325 A.D. the Passover of the new covenant was abolished and whoever wanted to celebrate the Passover according to the bible was considered a heretic and was punished as such. For this reason churches today do not see the importance of the Passover of the New Covenant and therefore do not celebrate it.

In my next post I will explain how is it that the new covenant of the Passover was restored in this day and age.