Why No Salvation For Demons?

I just want to think out loud today. Nothing definitive. Lots of guessing, speculating, and wondering.

A while back, I wrote two posts "Banished or Saved from Eden?" and "Once and Future Kingdom - part II", and in those, I went over the idea that since we chose poorly and went for the Tree of Knowledge rather than the Tree of Life, death was necessary in order to redeem us, and therefore not allowing humans to reach the Tree of Life made our reclamation possible. That sparked a thought in my mind.

If death was critical to human salvation, is the inability to die critical to why demons cannot be redeemed?

This is speculation, mind you! I am not claiming to be so wise that I have the solid answer. The Bible doesn't really tell us about these things. It's ambiguous enough to where some people actually believe there will be a salvation for demons. I'm not convinced of that, though. I think people dream up all kinds of things, and this is one of them. I think there is no salvation for fallen spirit beings. But why not?

There are two thoughts on the immortal nature of the spirit beings we commonly call angels and demons.
One says these beings are unconditionally immortal and therefore they can never die.
The other says the one and only unconditionally immortal being is God Himself. Other spirit beings are conditionally immortal. Meaning they can live forever, but only if God allows it. It appears Adam and Eve were conditionally immortal ...until they weren't.

If fallen spirit beings cannot die, and death is required for salvation, then there can be no salvation at all. Their end is Hell eternal. End of discussion. So, let's not focus on this.
But if their immortality is conditional, then God could simply revoke their existence. Annihilation. God, the Creator and Sustainer, can do all that can be done. The question is, can this be done? Or, perhaps if it can be done, is there some kind of limiting factor like an oath sworn by God that He would never do this? The Bible is silent.

So, according to the second line of thinking, they can die. Like Tolkien's elves. Then, why no salvation? Is it because of annihilation? Perhaps because they have no body, no mortal form, death for them is immediate annihilation, whereas death for us is a separation of our spirit from our physical body without annihilation...? Immediate annihilation would pretty effectively rule out salvation.

I wonder, if they would first be embodied and made human, then killed, would that count?
But would it count as a human death or a spirit being death? Jesus was embodied and died, but His death counted as a human death. My guess is the death of an embodied spirit being would probably just count as yet another human death among billions. It can't be that simple.

I think it wouldn't matter either way because their own death cannot redeem them. Humans die all the time but we've never redeemed ourselves. Only the death of God, as a man, was able to redeem mankind. If you turned a demon into a human and then killed them, there is not sufficient value to redeem anything, not even their self. So, it might count as a human death plus it has insufficient value. Chances are good that this path fails.

Just for completeness sake, I know of two selections from the Bible that seem to talk about Satan being killed.

(EZE. 28: 18-19) 18 By all your wrong-doing and sinful trading you made your holy places sinful. So I made a fire come out from you, and it has destroyed you. I have turned you to ashes on the earth in the eyes of all who see you. 19 All the nations who know you are filled with wonder and fear because of you. You have come to a bad end, and you will be no more forever.

But is Satan going to be destroyed, or just his works? The word translated as "destroyed" does not necessarily mean annihilation of existence. Just two verses prior, in verse 16, Satan was "destroyed" from among the fiery stones. Past tense. Yet, he still exists today. So, what really is being destroyed here? What will be no more forever?
Or, since this is a lamentation for the King of Tyre and an allusion to Satan both, in poetic form, does every little thing even apply to Satan?
I have no answer. Only questions.

And then you have this from Isaiah. The majority of the chapter is about death and it very much seems to be referring to Satan.

(ISA. 14: 15-16) 15  Yet you shall be brought down to Sheol, to the lowest depths of the Pit. 16  Those who see you will gaze at you, and consider you, saying: ‘Is this the man who made the earth tremble, who shook kingdoms'...

Quite a bit of this chapter would go well with the parts in Revelation that speak about the final defeat of evil. Yet, it's poetic, apocalyptic language. It is never a good idea to be too literal with apocalyptic poetry.
These words really seem to describe a conscious existence, as well as something that can be seen. This confounds many, because it says, "those who see you". Does "those" include normal humans, as if to say there is an embodiment involved? Or, does it refer to glorified humans and spirit beings only, with no embodiment involved? Or, is it just more apocalyptic poetry that points to a definite reality but couches it in hyperbolic language?

Both selections talk about a possible death. Neither mention any value coming from it. So, there are no solid answers other than there is no salvation to be found here. We will have to wait and see about the particulars.

I warned you up front that I'm just thinking out loud today!

I think the answer to why there is no salvation for fallen spirit beings is because salvation requires death, and 1) if they can die then they cannot die without being annihilated, and 2) even if they could die as we do, there is insufficient value in it for salvation. I think it won't matter if there is an embodiment or not. The only salvational death is God's death. God would have to become one of them and die. Not gonna happen! (I don't even think that's possible. You can't be born an angel as you can a man.)

In the end, the most reasonable choices I can see are annihilation or eternal torment. Revelation 20: 10 appears to side with eternal torment.

And this takes me right back to my post "Banished or Saved from Eden?". Good thing God kicked us out of that garden before we could access the Tree of Life, or we'd be in the very same boat as those spirit beings. Thank God for our enemy, death. Thank God for HIS death, specifically! He saved us from death, through death. God does love a good turnabout.

Thoughts?

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It is important that you understand; Everything on this blog is based on the current understanding of each author. Never take anyone's word for it, always prove it for yourself, it is your responsibility. You cannot ride someone else's coattail into the Kingdom. ; )

Acts 17:11

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Common Legalist Arguments - Part VII

In my last post in this series, part VI, we went over the idea that the law is eternal like God is. We saw that this does not work. The law had a start and an end. We saw how sin and righteousness both exist apart from the law. Most people who say the law is eternal only believe some 2% of the law is eternal. So, even as they make this claim they don't really believe it. We found what is eternal is actually the nature of God behind the law. Or, you could say, the spirit of the law. God is love, love is in the inspiration for the law, love is over and above the law, and love endures even when the law does not. We found these three things are needed today: faith, love, and God-indwelling. These three bring us to righteousness. Possess these things and you will fulfill the requirements of the law.

This time, I would like to address what I consider to be a very subtle approach that many take to justify their views on continued Old Covenant law-keeping: claiming that the law applied to Israel, and since we are "Spiritual Israel" then the law must apply to us.

A person said as much to me just recently.

ARGUMENT #7
The law applied to Israel, and since we are Spiritual Israel the law applies to us.

Certain people are what we might call "legalist". When I think of legalism, I think of a person who looks to generate their own righteousness in law-keeping before they look to faith. They often fixate on minutiae, and "major in the minors". Armstrongism is a Sabbatarian system. So, they believe that to gain righteousness and please God we must all "keep" a cherry-picked list of Old Covenant laws, like Sabbath, holy days, tithes, and clean/unclean meats for example - but never all 613. And they rarely keep those laws the way the law says to. But are they keeping the law if they aren't keeping the law?

Let's be blunt here. The Old Covenant is gone. Period. When the Old Covenant goes, the law goes. I go into this in depth in other posts (for example "Review - Written By The Finger of God"). Still, perhaps it would help to very briefly review the Old Covenant.

The world rejected God three times - at Eden, the Flood, and Babel. So, God rejected the world. To salvage mankind, God called for Himself a man named Abraham to be the progenitor of a very small and insignificant (by worldly standards) nation whom He called Israel. Out of all the wide world, Israel would be His portion; His people. This little nation would help do the most wondrous thing of all. From the moment He rejected the Gentiles, He put in motion a plan to reclaim them. That plan was to bring the Messiah, and bringing the Messiah is where Israel comes in. The Old Covenant was made between God and Israel alone (DEU. 5: 3). This Covenant literally excluded the Gentiles (EPH. 2: 11-12). Covenants are contracts. God and Israel alone were parties to that contract. What we call "the law" were the terms of that contract. The laws were specifically designed to fence Israel away from the Gentiles until Messiah could come. He has come! He alone kept the law blamelessly. And when God died, the Old Covenant dissolved. End of laws. End of division. Time for a new covenant with all nations.
Enter Spiritual Israel.

It should be simple to see why the law was brought int, how the situation has changed, and why the law must change with it. Yet some people are absolutely determined to misunderstand that message. Their teachers have failed them.

Don't get me wrong here. I am not advocating a free-for-all now that the Old Covenant law is gone. There is a standard of righteousness in the New Covenant. However, righteousness is not found in trying and failing to keep a few cherry-picked laws from the Old Covenant.

To bind us to some of the law, they have to break into the Old Covenant somehow, as if through a rear window or back door.

BACK DOORS

Let's go over some of these back doors. I discuss all this in depth in other posts, so you can always go to the Categories page to find more. But reviewing this now will help later in this post. You will find that today's common legalist argument never stands alone. It must be paired with another back door, like one of these. Needing so many back doors is evidence that the initial claim is false to begin with.

Some people misunderstand covenants and just assume the laws are separate from the Covenants that create them. That's not possible. A contract and its terms are one. The terms are the contract and the contract is the terms. What is a contract without terms? It is nothing. And what are terms with no agreement to bind parties to them? It is no agreement at all. When the contract ends, its terms by necessity are dissolved.
I speak of the Old Covenant and its laws. People think the Covenant can end but the laws are untouched by this. Understand covenants and you will understand why this cannot be. (See "Confusing the Covenants" and "Parties to the Covenants" for more.)

Some say the New Covenant is the same as the Old, which is completely redundant. This flies in the face of what God Himself said in Jeremiah 31: 31-32. He specifically said they would not be the same. If they are the same, then one isn't necessary, all 613 laws are still in force, and you're still excluded by law. I like to use Passover as an example (EXO. 12: 43, 48-49). If the law has not changed, then Gentiles are still forbidden by law to observe Passover. Saying the Covenants are the same doesn't get you Passover, it gets you excluded from Passover. The law cannot be eternal and gone at the same time. It cannot be unchanged and changed at the same time. It cannot be required and forbidden at the same time. To demand Gentiles must observe the law is to demand all of these contradictions. I agree that the law has changed! Since there are obvious changes, the answer cannot be that the Covenants are the same.

Some say the Covenants are different, but laws defy reason and magically skip like a flying reindeer from Covenant to Covenant ...but only certain ones! (The ones they choose. The  Bible doesn't choose. The Bible makes them an all-or-nothing deal.) How can some terms of a contract flit about so? They say all the terms of the Old Covenant come forward into the New Covenant unless otherwise stated. Notice, it's made up. Nothing in the Bible says this. Absolutely nothing in the New Testament says the terms of the Old Covenant come forward into the New Covenant unless otherwise stated. Since this is the opposite of how contracts work, we must have something in the Bible to say this - yet there is nothing of the sort. Therefore, it is impossible. Also, this ignores the fact that most of the 613 laws are never "otherwise stated", so they should have come forward, yet they don't appear in the cherry-picked list. And no two churches seem to agree on what that list is.

Some believe the laws were given to "us", regardless of whom Moses (DEU. 5: 3) and Paul (ROM. 9: 4) plainly and clearly state they were actually given to. If the laws were given to "us", then Gentiles were never excluded to begin with, which is contrary to the law and the Bible narrative. The Gentiles were excluded by law. In order to keep the law, the Gentiles had to go through steps to join Israel first. If they had to join Israel, then they were not Israel. And if they had to become Israel to get the law, then law was not given to them (to us). Plus, if it was given to "us", then that means all of the laws were given to us. All 613, not just a few. Now, we're right back to the previous paragraph again. Why aren't they keeping all of the laws? This back door is not possible.

Some even deny there is a New Covenant at all. Are you really a Christian if you get it this wrong? Tell me you don't read the Bible in light of the Christ event without saying you don't read the Bible in light of the Christ event. Usually, this back door comes from certain extremists who intentionally want the Gentiles to remain excluded. They cut Paul out of the New Testament and become a "Red Letter Christian" in order to minimize the New Testament as much as possible. If the Bible doesn't say what you want - change it! Yet, everything one needs to demonstrate the goal was always to bring back the Gentiles can be found in the Old Testament. (For more, read "Once and Future Kingdom - part II" where I go over a list of verses that state the Gentiles will be brought back.) And bringing the Gentiles back demands a change in the law because it excludes them. And a change in the law requires replacing the Covenant they are strangers to with a Covenant they are party to.

But of all the ways I've seen to bind us to parts of the Old Covenant, the most subtle is probably the "we're all [Spiritual] Israel now" method.

SPIRITUAL ISRAEL BACK DOOR

We are all Israel now ...Spiritual Israel, that is. It's a different Israel.

I'm not going to get deep into what spiritual Israel is. Spiritual Israel is a legitimate, biblical thing. It just means Christians. The idea comes from several verses, but mainly Romans 9. In Galatians 4, Paul uses Jerusalem instead of Israel, but it's the same idea. It is not to be confused with Physical Israel. 

In brief, Christians are all "grafted in" to the promises and inheritance given to Jesus because we are one body with Jesus (GAL. 3: 26-29). He is the vine and we are the branches (JON. 15: 5). Jesus is the true and spiritual Israel promised in the Old Testament, who reenacted Israel's journey and succeeded in every point where they failed. Because of Jesus, the entire church, both Jews (Physical Israel) and Gentiles, are the Israel of God (GAL. 6: 16).

Spiritual Israel gets turned into a back door. The thinking behind this spiritual Israel backdoor goes like this:
The laws applied to Israel, and we are all Israel now, so the laws apply to us. Yay!
...well, only some of the laws, not all, and rarely as written.

I left the word "Spiritual" out of that sentence above on purpose to illustrate the problem.

There are two distinct peoples and two distinct Covenants which are being confused. They must not be. The sleight of hand here is one Covenant and people are being swapped in where another Covenant and people belong. You need to discern this. It's critical. Just like discerning the difference between the New and Old Covenants is critical, discerning the difference between Spiritual and Physical Israel is critical. They aren't the same.

To elaborate a bit, Spiritual Israel is not the same as Physical Israel. All Christians are Spiritual Israel, and that can include some from Physical Israel, but not all Physical Israel are Christians. "For they are not all Israel who are of Israel" (ROM. 9: 6b). If it is possible to be a part of one or the other, then the two are different. Yes, they both contain the word Israel, but that does not make them the same. Just like York, England and New York both contain the word York, but they aren't the same. Joining Spiritual Israel is not the same as joining Physical Israel. And therefore joining Spiritual Israel does not join you to the the things that applied only to Physical Israel, such as the Covenant for Physical Israel. Acts 15 and 21 make this abundantly clear (at least they ought to). In other words, the law. The law is a part of the Old Covenant. The Old Covenant was made with Physical Israel alone; all others were excluded. The Old Covenant is gone for everyone. New Israel is part of the New Covenant alone, not the Old. So, there is still absolutely no reason to apply the Old law to New Israel.

Two Israels. Two Covenants.

Do you see? The thinking confuses Physical Israel and Spiritual Israel because they both contain the word Israel. And it does this in order to remove Spiritual Israel from the New Covenant, turn it into Physical Israel, and then place it into the Old Covenant. This is impossible. This is against the law. And as Jesus said, you cannot put new wine into old wineskins.

This backdoor rests entirely on confusing the two Israels. "Hey! I'm Israel now. So, that makes me the Israel that the Old law applied to. Everybody Sabbath!" No. Not at all.

The law was given to a specific people in a specific area for a specific purpose and for a specific time. That wasn't the Gentiles and it's still not. That wasn't Spiritual Israel, and it will never be.

Israelites are not necessarily Spiritual Israel. You must be a disciple of Jesus to be part of Spiritual Israel, and some simply do not want to join up. Spiritual Israel allows Gentiles in - no circumcision required! How is that possible if the law is still in place? It is not possible.

Someone might say to me, "If I am joined to Jesus, and Jesus was physically an Israelite, then doesn't that make me a part of Physical Israel?" No. We are not physically joined to Jesus; we are spiritually joined. And, once again, His death dissolved the Covenant. There is no Old Covenant to join. It's like going to your bank and demanding to get the terms of your great grandfather's mortgage. You can't, even if you are literally a physical descendant. That mortgage no longer exists.

Removing the distinctions between Jew and Gentile requires the law to be gone first. If the law is not gone, then the Jews are still separate and the Gentiles are still rejected. But we know the Gentiles are no longer rejected and the Jews are no longer separate, so the law is gone. It's the only way.
And how can those laws be gone? The only possible way is by dissolving the Old Covenant and bringing in a New Covenant. The only way to replace the Old Covenant is for one of the parties to the Covenant to die. Who were the parties? Physical Israel and God. So, either all Physical Israel must go extinct, or God must die. God promised to never let Physical Israel go extinct. Therefore, God had to die. When Jesus died, that Old Covenant - with all of its laws - was dissolved, for everyone, even Physical Israel. There is no Old Covenant to break into anymore. Either you are in the New or you're in no covenant at all. The Old is not an option. The New Covenant was made in His blood. It is the New Covenant that creates Spiritual Israel. To leave the New Covenant for the Old Covenant - or rather for no covenant at all - is to leave Spiritual Israel. Some people think they are pleasing God by this when in reality they are sitting on a fence between two Covenants, satisfying neither.

Even if it were somehow possible to resurrect that old law, you would immediately be excluded by it. And that is the main reason why those who want to resurrect the law only want to resurrect about 2% of the law. They know it is impossible to fulfill the law they say must be fulfilled, so they cheat. But you cannot resurrect only 2% of the law. It's an all or nothing deal. As James said, you break one, you break them all. (Read "Are The Ten Commandments Removed?" for more.) Are they keeping all 613? No. If they aren't keeping all the law, then they aren't keeping the law at all.

Physical Israel was created hundreds of years before the Old Covenant. It can exist apart from any covenant. That is not the case with Spiritual Israel. Spiritual Israel cannot exist apart from the New Covenant. It exists only under the New Covenant. Spiritual Israel does nothing to restore the Old Covenant. Spiritual Israel does nothing to make the laws of the New Covenant the same as the laws of the Old Covenant. "New Israel, Old Covenant" is a contradiction.

So, Spiritual Israel is not the back door into the law that many seem to think it is. One must misunderstand both Israels and both Covenants to achieve this. Having failed here, one must go once again to the list of back doors we reviewed earlier and choose another. And, as we've seen, those back doors fail, too. If any one of those back doors actually worked, the rest wouldn't be necessary. So, why are there so many?

CONCLUSION

Today, we've seen two Israels are being confused and two Covenants are being combined. This cannot be.
Today, we have seen many attempts to pry open a back door into the Old Covenant. All fail.

(JON. 10: 1) Most assuredly, I say to you, he who does not enter the sheepfold by the door, but climbs up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber.

I know I've repeated the same things a few times today. I wanted to try and say this in a way that would resonate. I figured saying it a couple different ways might just do it.

The key takeaway here is, just because you are part of Spiritual Israel does not in any way bind you to a cherry-picked handful of terms from a dissolved Covenant. That's the wrong Israel and the wrong Covenant.

[Also see Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV, Part V, & Part VI]

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It is important that you understand; Everything on this blog is based on the current understanding of each author. Never take anyone's word for it, always prove it for yourself, it is your responsibility. You cannot ride someone else's coattail into the Kingdom. ; )

Acts 17:11

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The Legalist Dance

For years now, I've been watching a dance. The legalist dance. I didn't realize it at the time, but back when I was a legalist in the Armstrongist system, I was doing this dance myself. What is it? Please allow me to explain.

Legalism is very much like a conspiracy theory. Everyone in the world has it wrong except the legalist and a few other people who think as closely as possible like they do. Everything else is a lie. History is wrong. Books are wrong. Statues and carvings tell a tale that's wrong. Tradition is wrong. Christians are wrong. Jews are wrong. Others in their own church are often wrong. Everything and everyone, but themselves, is wrong.
Once you dismiss everything that could possibly witness against the conspiracy, then you start piling on the theories as if they're true. You can't prove it right or wrong, because absolutely everything is a lie except their claims. Something has to be right. Guess what. It's them!

No proof, because proof is dismissed. Just baseless claims shouted into a vacuum.

The conspiracy bleeds into the Bible. The legalist's interpretations of the Bible do not come out of the Bible, they are forced into it, based on other things the legalist has accepted. The Bible has to change because they need it to change to get the conclusions they want. Conclusions are pre-determined. If you believe in a "lost century" and a "great falling away" after the Apostles died, and the Early Church Fathers were all liars and deceivers, then everything from mainstream Christianity must be false. Therefore, we have to force new interpretations into the Bible, where the Jews are wrong and the Christians are wrong but the conspiracy is right. This will require much proof-texting and cherry-picking.

Take Acts 15 for example.

They rush into the chapter, grab verse 1, then head off as quickly as possible.
The legalist must undo the decision of the Council of Jerusalem in Acts 15 in order to retain legalism. So, they will remake the discussion to one that's all about circumcision and Pharisaical customs. They reframe everything in the light of a misreading of verse 1, saying, "You have to understand the discussion was only about circumcision, and only because some Jews were saying circumcision is needed for salvation." (A guy said that to me just this week.) They must focus on verse 1, willfully blind to the context of the entire chapter and the culture in that place and time, purposefully skipping right past verses 5 and 24, and you can forget about Acts 21: 25. Then they are off once again.

In, grab, out, skip. 1-2-3-4.
But what happens if we linger a while and read?

The debate was never about circumcision only. No Jew ever thought circumcision all by itself was anything. No one at any point thought circumcision led to salvation. No Jew thought babies were saved at eight days old. Verses 5 and 24, with Acts 21: 25, make it abundantly clear that the entire point was law-keeping. If we stop interpreting three clear verses in the light of one, and start interpreting one unclear verse in the light of three, then we'll see this. Circumcision is merely the gateway to the law. Can't keep the law if you're not circumcised (for men, at least).
And those Pharisaical customs, yes, they were burdensome. They annoyed Jesus. They sometimes contradicted the very law they were meant to interpret. However, Peter threw the context backward in time to "our forefathers", which reaches back in time to Moses himself, before Pharisees existed (ACT. 15: 10). James didn't boast to Paul about Jewish converts being zealous for customs before saying, "But concerning the Gentiles who believe, we have written and decided that they should observe no such thing" (ACT. 21: 25). No, that was about the law. And if it was about the law, then it also handled circumcision and customs besides. And, at times, the legalist preaches that it was about the law. One moment, they boast about the law-keeping in Acts 21: 20, then spin right around the next moment and say it was only about circumcision and customs.

Verses 5 and 24, with Acts 21: 25, make it beyond clear that the debate was over teaching the Gentiles to be circumcised and keep the whole law, and that the decision of the Council was against this. But if it was about the law, then Mainstream Christians are right after all and the conspiracy disintegrates. This will not do. The legalist cannot allow it. Therefore it must be twisted into a new interpretation. They have little choice. It's either rewrite Acts chapters 15 and 21, or give up the beloved conspiracy.

After verse 1, they samba to verse 21. But not the whole verse! Only the second half.
They say, "Moses being read in the synagogue on Sabbath means the Gentiles were being taught to keep the Sabbath law." (That same guy said this to me, too.) Except this interpretation nullifies everything else in the chapter as well as James' reiteration of the decision in Acts 21. It makes Peter's words into a secret message, encoded for those with gnosis to understand that, despite what they clearly said and wrote, the real decision was against Paul and Barnabas - to teach the Gentiles to keep the law after all. Secret codes and hidden messages are like candy to a conspiracy theorist.
Oh wait! So, it is about the law after all. It's not about the law, but it is about the law, at the same time.
They want James to say, "Some came to us, troubling you. The Holy Spirit is against this. We only burden the Gentiles with these necessary things: the whole law (except the parts requiring circumcision, and the parts forbidding Gentiles to participate, and sacrifices, oh, and national laws, and some things we don't want to do like travelling to Jerusalem.) Never mind the whole law. Gentiles should keep 2% of the law. We could say that clearly, but instead we say, 'Moses is read in the synagogues.' So, leave your Christian house church and go to Jewish synagogue. And none of this is written in the letter we send with Paul and Barnabas. You'll find this out when Luke writes Acts later on. Many of you will be dead by then. Farewell."

Makes perfect sense.

Let's go back to verse 21 and look at the first half of the verse, which was ignored. "For Moses has had throughout many generations..." Guess what verse 21 is not doing. Speaking about the future! Had Gentiles been going to synagogue and listening about Moses for many generations? No. Gentiles had only been called to the faith for a short while, not generations. Who had? The Jews! It's about the Jews, who for many generations went to synagogue and listened about Moses. The Greek Interlinear reads, "from generations of old". Use of the Greek word "archion" proves this is not just past tense but quite old. And did Moses write about the Pharisaical customs? No. Moses wrote about the law. So, the burden no one could bear was not the Pharisaical customs. It was the law. And do these legalists believe Gentiles were going to synagogue in the first place? No. The legalist believes the Jews were corrupt, so synagogues would be avoided. Gentiles could not go to synagogue. Even Jews who believed in Jesus could not go to synagogue. Christians were meeting in Christian churches, not Jewish synagogues. So, Peter is referring to their forefathers, the Israelites, who, over centuries of time, sat every week and listened to the law given by Moses. This is not at all some secret code for instructing future Gentiles to keep the law.

I could give you multiple other examples of the legalist dance besides Acts 15. Jeremiah 10 and Christmas Trees, for one. The legalists read all the way to verse 4, then it's off like a shot. They got a tree and gold and they're gone before the rest of the chapter, the context of the book as a whole, the parallels in Isaiah, and the history of the Middle East can obliterate the conspiracy.

This same legalist I mentioned also said this to me, "You have to pay attention to what they are saying. Circumcision is not a custom of Moses, they {Judaism} added it from the Abrahamic covenant, into the instructions of Moses..."
Circumcision is a conspiracy! According to the conspiracy, circumcision was a lie stolen from Abraham by those evil Jews, then secretly added into the Old Testament in several places. All those verses about circumcision - lies! And that's the message we need to hear from Acts 15.
Now, even the Old Testament is false.

See what I mean?

You just go ahead and try to point this out to them. I'll wait.
What did they do? They ignored you, didn't they? They raced off to some other idea as quickly as they could, didn't they?
That's the dance. The dance is a metaphor for proof-texting, driven by conspiracy theories.

The legalist dance is diving in and out of ideas and verses as fast as possible, staying only long enough to get what they want from the selection, then they're off again to something else before the context can dissolve their conspiracy. A hop here. A pirouette there. Like a honeybee going from flower to flower. Stop, take a bit, move on. On and on and on. Perhaps I should have titled this post "Biblical ADHD".

And if you find the intestinal fortitude to follow them through this dance to its end, you will only discover it starts all over again from the beginning, as if nothing at all had been discussed up to that point. Round and round they spin. The conspiracy simply must be right. They have too much invested to abandon it.

As I said, I've been watching this dance for years. Longer than I've had this blog! Because I used to do this dance back when I was a legalist. I just didn't realize it.

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It is important that you understand; Everything on this blog is based on the current understanding of each author. Never take anyone's word for it, always prove it for yourself, it is your responsibility. You cannot ride someone else's coattail into the Kingdom. ; )

Acts 17:11

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Is The Sabbath A Test Commandment?

I was doom-scrolling the other morning, having woken up far too early and with nothing better to do at that bitter hour. My feed, rather than giving me what I want to see, chose to show me a conversation between two people I've never met. One was saying the Sabbath is not included in the New Covenant. Another argued against this, and did it with these words:

"The Sabbath is not a fixed time period in time and space, rather it's a test of loyalty to see if we will respect the command of our Creator and honor Him as our sovereign."

I am puzzled by the part about "not a fixed period in time and space," because the two were talking about the weekly Sabbath. You know, the day, the seventh day specifically, from sundown on the sixth day to sundown on the seventh day ...which makes it exactly a fixed time period in time and space. (If he had said, "Jesus is the New Covenant Sabbath," then he'd have a point, but he didn't.)
Look, let's ignore that curiosity and just concentrate on that last part, "...it's a test of loyalty to see if we will respect the command of our Creator."

Have you heard something like that before? If you're at this blog (and you are currently reading this blog, I believe) then you likely have. You may have even said as much yourself. But is it so?
The quick answer is - no. It's nothing but a self-justification.

All laws are a "test", from a certain point of view. In that light, the Sabbath is a test, but not uniquely so. It's not like you need a 613th law just to see if you will keep the other 612. Talk about superfluous! No, I'm pretty sure it will be apparent all on its own if you're keeping each law or not. No additional tests necessary. Laws are not tests to see if you'll keep other laws. Laws can only do what they are worded to do, and no law in the Bible is worded that way. God didn't need a test law to see if people would obey the law. He knew they wouldn't. He gave Adam and Eve one command and they couldn't handle that much. Moses predicted they would fail. Bear in mind, if you break one, you've broken them all. It's a package deal. So, yet another law won't help you. It actually has the opposite effect.

But, in the interest of being thorough, let's turn to the verses in our Bibles where it describes the Sabbath as a special "test Commandment".

Aaand we're done.

For all the people who say, "I only believe what I read in my Bible," you may now confidently stop believing the Sabbath is a special test commandment. The Bible doesn't say it, the Jews never believed it, the Apostles never declared it, the early church fathers never wrote it, no "doctor of the church" ever expounded on it, and so we should reject it.

The Bible describes many tests - the forty years in the wilderness, manna for six days, hard questions, temptations, strange commands, even life itself (JER. 17: 10) - but never does it directly, literally say the laws are tests. Oh, they're gonna test! We know that, from a certain point of view, all laws are tests. But nothing specifically says so. And nothing says the Sabbath is a peculiar test. If the Sabbath were alone in being a test, then perhaps he would have a point here. But no. It's a drop in a comprehensive ocean of tests.

No, it wasn't given as a test. The reason laws were given is spelled out in Galatians 3: 19-24. The law was added 1) to guard Israel specifically until Messiah could come, and that was needed because of 2) sin in mankind's hearts. That was the purpose of the law. To guard and guide Israel on their mission, because of sinfulness in their nature. Who, us? No. Israel. God's chosen people after we, the Gentiles, rejected Him. God did not give the Sabbath to "us". He rejected us because we rejected Him first. He gave it to the Jews. We, the Gentiles, were excluded - by law. Until when, today? No. Until Messiah could come to bring in the New Covenant and call us back. (For more, read "Once And Future Kingdom".) God knew Israel would violate the law, but He gave them the law anyway as guardrails to ensure they would at least not go completely away from Him before they could reach the finish line. God put guardrails on Israel to guide them until Messiah could come. Messiah has already come! Mission accomplished. The rejection of the Gentiles is healed. That Old Covenant is now gone, ended at the cross, along with all its terms. No one is bound to the Old Covenant any longer.

As for the Sabbath day, it was given to make the Jews rest. That's what the word means. The rest was from their normally assigned duties (they weren't required to stop everything, it was lawful to do good on the Sabbath). The point was to make Israel take time out from the busy-ness and focus on God. That's not a "test" nearly as much as it is a mercy and plain common sense. God knew humans would not want to stop their busy-ness, just like a child who doesn't want to stop playing to go to the bathroom. So, yes, it did "test", so to speak. But to test wasn't the point. The point was spiritual health and refreshment. It was sacred time to be spent in a sacred place. Testing is but a by-product.

So far, we've concentrated on the Sabbath as a test, but that wasn't all the guy said. He also said, "...to see if we will respect the command of our Creator and honor Him as our sovereign."

Do you see the manipulation in there? The part about the Sabbath being a test is just an excuse, a self-justification, but the bite is in the fear it's packaged with.
"God is your God, isn't He? You don't want to defy God, do you? You don't want to make Him angry, do you? You want God to be sovereign, don't you? You don't want to do what Satan did and play God, do you? You want to do what God commanded, don't you? Hey! Here's a command! So, keep His commands so you can show Him He's your king."
Scary! Sounds almost reasonable, doesn't it? The manipulation must be highlighted.

The mistake here is the assumption that following the Old Covenant laws are how we remain obedient to God. That is simply not true.

The law was not given to "us". The Bible clearly says to whom the law was given, and it wasn't us. The Old Covenant law was given to Israel and Israel alone. Gentiles were excluded. By law! If the claim is the law is still in force, then so is the law that excludes Gentiles. We are not in that Covenant. No one is. That Covenant is gone. It had to go so the Gentiles could be brought in. The Covenant and its terms are inseparable. They are one. It is gone. Exactly like a marriage covenant is gone when one party dies. Dissolved when Jesus died to institute a New Covenant. (Most of the Gospels happen in the Old Covenant period.) The terms of the Old Covenant have not come forward into the New. That is not how contracts work. Terms (laws in this case) do not just jump from contract to contract on their own. The Old Covenant Sabbath does not gain special "test commandment" powers that magically transfer it to another Covenant. No. Being loyal to the New Covenant and its terms are how we remain obedient to God. Righteousness is a covenant word. Righteousness is a condition granted by being faithful to the Covenant you're in. Be faithful to the New Covenant and you will be counted righteous because of Jesus's own righteousness credited to you. If you want to obey God as your sovereign, then do what God commanded you to do, in the New Covenant, not what God commanded the Jews to do in the Old Covenant. The Sabbath is never laid out as a term in the New Covenant.

And that was Chap #1's point to begin with. If the New Covenant required it, we would be able to point to something concrete in the New Covenant. Of all the Ten Commandments, this one is never reiterated or given to the Gentiles in any way. So, when Chap #1 said, "the Sabbath is not included in the New Covenant," Chap #2 did not respond with a verse. He did not because he could not.

The mistake of swapping the Old Covenant in where the New Covenant should be comes from failure to read the Bible in light of the Christ event. I couldn't agree more with the God Cannot Be Contained blog. Once you take Jesus out of the center, out of the very focus of everything written in the Bible, not discerning who He really is and what His death really did, all bets are off. Clearly, Jesus is not the center of Sabbatarianism. The Sabbath has taken the focus away from Jesus. The SDA church isn't named "Christ's Adventists". Sabbatarians are not called "Christ-itarians". The Sabbath is maximized and Jesus is set aside. That is the opposite of respecting the command of our Creator. That is the opposite of honoring Him as our sovereign. The fear manipulation is meant to distract you from realizing by swapping Old Covenant law in, you are doing exactly what you hoped not to do!

The test line is an excuse to avoid having Jesus as the focus, and the fear it's packaged with is a fake. It's a shell game where you go to choose the New covenant but the Old is swapped in at the last second. The fear helps you to not notice. It's a deception. You are being manipulated.
It's a self-justification; an excuse. It's nothing other than the kind of thing a person says to support an otherwise unsupportable action they want to continue doing. The Bible didn't give this idea to us, it was forced into the Bible. This is a stock footage argument invented by Ellen White of the Seventh Day Adventism to justify their preoccupation with the Fourth Commandment. She invented this claim right at the turn of the 20th century.

The idea that, "We all need to keep the Sabbath because it's a test commandment," isn't even a good argument. No one was convinced to adopt Sabbatarianism because of this. You must already be a Sabbatarian for it to have any sway at all. But if you notice, it doesn't do that very well.

People can justify the most absurd things. We have a seemingly unlimited capacity to delude ourselves. There are forty five thousand denominations in "Christianity". You know there are people out there who have convinced themselves they are cats - and they even demand litter boxes be provided. It's no big shock that some people have deluded themselves into believing they are Old Covenant Israelites, demanding Sabbaths.

I will spare you the lengthy dissertation on how the Sabbath isn't being kept as commanded anyway. They say, "keep the Sabbath law like we do," but they aren't keeping it the way the law says to. Let alone all those other laws. The Sabbath is a test of keeping the laws? Then why do they throw most of those laws away?  It's a test for the laws even they don't believe are in force any longer. The law! The law! Just not THAT law.

However, having said what I've said, there is nothing against having a "Sabbath day" in the New Covenant. It's not commanded, but it's not forbidden either. There are Jewish converts to Christianity, and they retain a Sabbath day. That's their right and their heritage. Nothing speaks against this. Most of Christendom considers the first day to be like a Sabbath. We still need to stop our busy-ness and focus on God, do we not? In fact, it can be quite beneficial if used properly. But it must be emphasized this is not a command we receive from the Bible. The Bible told us to join the New Covenant. If you are observing any kind of "Sabbath", then that is a command you got from your church not your Bible. Respect your faith tradition, but be honest about it.

I know there are other justifications besides this "test Commandment" claim. I know someone out there would like me to consider the rest of their points. I can feel someone itching to tell me about, "If you love me, keep my Ten Commandments." I assure you, I have considered all of these things. I lived them and preached them for 30+ years of my life. I am not going to thoroughly explore all Sabbatarianism here in one post. Instead, I refer you to our other posts, such as "If You Love Me, Keep My Commandments", "Are The Ten Commandments Removed?", "Confusing the Covenants", and "Common Legalist Arguments". (See the Categories page for even more.)

So, no, the idea that the Sabbath is a "Test Commandment" is not biblical. The Sabbath is not a peculiar and unique test of loyalty to see if we will respect the command of our Creator and honor Him as our sovereign. It is not a test over and above anything else. This "test commandment" line is a self-justification, made by Sabbatarians to reassure Sabbatarians. It's an excuse made up to compensate for the lack of anything truly solid. It comes packaged with some fear. "You don't want to fail the test of loyalty, do you? Well, come to my church and give my Minister your money!" Yeah. I'll pass, thanks. I'll focus on Jesus and follow the New Covenant.

Listen, if you want to be disloyal, take Jesus out of the center focus. If you want to fail a test, leave the New Covenant for some other covenant. That will fail you real good.

So, of the two, Chap #1 is the more convincing to me.

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It is important that you understand; Everything on this blog is based on the current understanding of each author. Never take anyone's word for it, always prove it for yourself, it is your responsibility. You cannot ride someone else's coattail into the Kingdom. ; )

Acts 17:11

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Common Anti-Christmas Arguments

Good [insert time of day here], students. My name is xHWA. I will be your defense against the dark arts teacher this term. Today, I have a super-concise article to help you defend yourself against the most popular anti-Christmas claims.

A friend sent a video made by some guys talking about origins of Christmas trees. The hosts mentioned a couple, like St. Boniface and Passion Plays. I didn't watch the full video (after so many years of doing this, I rarely watch long videos because they just review what I've already seen 1,000 times). Instead, I went to the comments section to see what flak they received. That's where I prefer to rut around. I get a kick out of seeing the objections roll in form back seat scholars. They're always the same. You can count on it. The top five are almost always these:

• Nimrod and Semiramis
• Jeremiah 10
• Saturnalia
• Solstice festivals
• Constantine

It's odd to me how many people fall for these. Everything you need has been available for decades now, or much longer. Yet, they still linger. The most difficult one to answer out of all of these is Saturnalia, and it's not really all that difficult to answer. How ironic that most of them say, "Look it up." Well, we did! And here's what we found. In short --
All of those are false. Fake. Fraudulent. Phony.

Nimrod and Semiramis - completely fictitious. Not a shred of evidence whatsoever in support, and every reason in the world to ignore it. All this Nimrod nonsense comes from Alexander Hislop. His material was demonstrated to be false the very decade he published it, over 170 years ago. He's been proven false again by Ralph Woodrow. You can't even find Nimrod's real name in history, let alone particular details of his life. There are multiple options for which person in history was the biblical Nimrod, but who can know? And Semiramis - she lived hundreds of years years after Nimrod. Depending on what identity you choose for Nimrod, it could be almost 2,000 years after. Awful hard to marry and have kids with those timeframes.
(See "Some Background On Hislop", "The Babylon Connection", "On Nimrod and Christmas Trees" and "Nimrod's Birthday Was January 6?" for more.)

Jeremiah 10 condemns Christmas trees - false. Jeremiah mentions trees and gold, and people conclude Christmas tree. But the context of Jeremiah, taken together with nearly identical depictions in Isaiah, show clearly the item in Jeremiah 10 is a carved idol god. An idol god, carved with tools, into a human form with a mouth and feet, overlayed in beaten gold, dressed, set up, carried around, prayed to and looked to for help, is not a Christmas tree by any stretch of the imagination. Can we find a tradition in the Middle East around 600BC that resembles the Christmas tree? No. So, it's bunk in imagery and from lack of evidence.
(See "Jeremiah 10 and Christmas Trees?" and "Jeremiah 10 Then and Again" and "A Dialogue on Jeremiah 10" for more.)

Saturnalia - fallacious. Christmas does not come from Saturnalia. Saturnalia was on December 17th. After Caesar's calendar reforms, it ran to the 19th. At its longest, and only for a short while, it lasted to the 23rd. At no time was Saturnalia ever on the 24th or 25th. Saturnalia did not merge with Christmas; it merged backwards in the month with Bruma, on November 24th. Only one tradition from Saturnalia made it into Christmas, but not on Christmas day, and that is the inversion of social order. The "Lord of Misrule" tradition, where a servant becomes the master for a day, was usually done on the 12th day of Christmas - January 5. Gift giving at Christmas does not come from Saturnalia, either. It comes from New Year. Gift giving wasn't done on Christmas day until the 1800s. Romans decorated with greenery swags at Saturnalia, sure enough. But Romans decorated with swags all the time. Decorating was not specific to Saturnalia. Google "Roman fresco" and see for yourself. Most of them have greenery swags of some kind; usually laurel. It was year-round. If anyone says, "I'm not honoring the nativity of our Lord and Savior, whose birth is the second greatest miracle in mankind's history, because of greenery," well then that's more of a matter of priorities.
(See "The Plain Truth About December 25" for more.)

Solstice festivals - fraudulent. Christmas is not nor was it ever on the actual solstice. December 25 was the traditional date of the solstice in Rome, but only because Julius Caesar set it that way when he reformed the calendar. Did you notice the solstice is on December 21? That's because Caesar's calendar lost a year every 130 years or so. Christmas is not a solstice festival. Rome had no solstice festival. There was no festival on December 25 until after it became associated with Jesus. December 25 was not chosen because of any festival. There was nothing for them to steal from. We have records from Hippolytus on why it was chosen - and it has to do with the crucifixion and "Integral Ages". Hippolytus was so important in Rome that they made a statue of him and carved his calculations into it.
(See "The Plain Truth About December 25" and "The Quartodecimans and Epiphany" for more.)

Constantine started Christmas - phony. December 25th was chosen as the date of the nativity in the western church 50+ years years before Constantine was born. If the scholarly consensus on the Donatists from north Africa is correct, then Christmas became a festival several years before Constantine became emperor. As for all the false claims about Nicaea - proof please. There is none. Constantine gets more hate than almost anyone else in history, but most of it is for things he never did. What ever happened to "you shall not bare false witness"?
(See "Christmas With The Donatists" for more.)

There are a handful of other silly excuses for Christmas.

Druids is one. Come on, people. The Druids? Seriously? Do people do any kind of actual research at all? The Druids were practically gone when Christmas was starting. They were 1,500 miles away. Christians hadn't set foot in Britain yet, so far as we know. Christmas has no connection to the Druids at all. Even mistletoe at Christmas does not come from the Druids. It came from being used medicinally for the 1,000 years from when the Druids disappeared to when mistletoe became a Christmas ornament after the British civil war. Usually, the claim is about Druid solstice festivals. They had no known solstice celebration. They had winter celebrations, yes, but in late October or early November, and again perhaps in January.
(See "Misinformed On Mistletoe" for more.)

Generic, nameless pagans is another. This one is just a desperate stretch. "It can be traced to pagans." Which pagans? They don't know. Name your pagan and then dig up the history, else why burden us with your miseducation. Just because some things are similar does not mean they are related. Correlation does not prove causation. Or, to put it another way, it isn't enough just to say something looks similar, you have to prove - from genuine evidence - that one thing actually comes from another thing. "I was a pagan and pagans like trees and winter festivals!" Which pagans, in which area, at which time, doing which specific thing? Pagans took quite a few things from Christians, don't you know. Wicca? Wicca was invented in the 1900s. Pretty sure I can show how Christmas is a little older than that. Not everything is pagan just because pagans do it. Pagans like worship ceremonies. Are worship ceremonies pagan? Better stop going to church! Pagans pray. Is praying pagan? Better stop praying! Pagans wear clothes. Are clothes pagan? Better sto... no, on second thought, please keep doing this one. If people actually stuck to the "pagans do it, so we can't" standard, they wouldn't be able to function.
(See "Everything I Don't Like Is Pagan", "Superstitions Be Gone!" and "Peddlers of Paganism" for more.)

I think this confusion can be laid at the feet of several things, but, in my opinion, the biggest culprits are 1) The Reformation, and 2) garbage "history" produced from 1600-1900 that's still being passed around on, 3) social media. You can trust everything you read on social media. (I read that on social media. It's a quote form Abraham Lincoln.)

The Reformation is when everything started coming apart. I'm not going to get into the details here, but in digging through various histories as long as I have, the pattern has become clear. In short, after the Reformation, no idea was too outrageous. 45k denominations later and it's still going.
The histories produced from the 1600s throughout the 1800s are a mixed bag. Some are of fantastic quality. Surprising, really, given what they had to work with back then. But many others are ridiculously poor quality. And it seems those are the ones that float around social media the most. It doesn't help that the many "one true church" -es out there promote the garbage heavily.

Lastly, there are the holier-than-thou type. They take personal offense, on God's behalf, that we are celebrating a day with no direct command to do so. Because they are offended it must mean God is, too. It doesn't seem to matter that there is no command against it. It doesn't seem to matter that the Bible shows not one but two holidays the Jews invented for themselves - Purim and Hanukkah. No command from God needed. And not only does the Bible give its full support, but Jesus Himself is seen observing Hanukkah at the Temple - which means Jesus, as a Jew, likely celebrated both. God Himself celebrating manmade holidays that He did not command. We see that establishing and imposing a new, un-commanded holiday to honor God is completely biblical in every way. I think people should be required to know what their Bibles actually say before they preach about it, let alone be taken seriously about that preaching. So, thanks but no thanks on this one.
(See "Established and Imposed" for more.)

And if there are any more things (and there are, but most of them are not so popular) then we have an article for that, too. Want to know the real history of Christmas? (See "Christmas Eras Tour" or "Christmas With The Donatists" or "The Quartodecimans and Epiphany".) Want to know the real history of Christmas trees? Hint: it wasn't Nimrod or St. Boniface or Martin Luther. (See "Falsely Accused?".) Have a more esoteric question? (See our most comprehensive Christmas article of all, "Christmas FAQ".)

So, there you have it. A handy little reference to help you defend yourself against anti-Christmas ridiculousness. Our articles come with references so you can trace our work. And our references are never, "I read it in an encyclopedia," or worse, "ChatGPT told me so". We insist on the oldest, most reliable material available. I hope this is useful to you.

God bless, and have a very Merry Christmas!

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It is important that you understand; Everything on this blog is based on the current understanding of each author. Never take anyone's word for it, always prove it for yourself, it is your responsibility. You cannot ride someone else's coattail into the Kingdom. ; )

Acts 17:11

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The Quartodecimans and Epiphany

Back in early 2024, I did a series of posts on a group commonly known as the Quartodecimans. The Quartodecimans were Christians, mainly from the east, who are best known because they emphasized that the Last Supper should be observed annually, on the date of Nisan 14 whenever possible. This led to the "Quartodeciman Controversy". I started out that series by saying any good discussion on Easter ought to mention the Quartodecimans. And it should!
But I bet you didn't know any good discussion on Christmas should mention them, too.

The Quartodecimans celebrated Christmas?? Well, perhaps some did, but not overall. They celebrated the nativity of our Lord, yes, but not usually on December 25 as Christmas. Instead, they celebrated it on January 6 as Epiphany.

Let's go on an adventure and see how the Quartodecimans were involved with Epiphany.

TOOLBOX

There are some things you are going to need to know in order to fully understand today's post. Tools to work with, so to speak. I usually assume people read my other articles, but I will summarize to save you time. Skip this if you're already familiar.

The first thing you will need to know is Epiphany.

Epiphany started in the eastern church as a memorial of our Lord's incarnation and birth. Same idea as Christmas, but on a different date. Later, it was decided Christmas would honor the nativity, and Epiphany became the day to honor major events of Jesus' life including the arrival of the Magi, His baptism, and the wedding at Cana. That's how things are to this day in Catholic and Orthodox churches, but Epiphany has been mostly abandoned by Protestants (which is why I'm explaining it in the first place).

The second thing you will need to know is "integral ages".
The ancient Jews had an unusual idea where multiple important events happen on the same date. These are called "integral ages". In the minds of the ancient Jews, important people were believed to have been conceived or born on the same date on which they died. I know this sounds odd, but you must understand that, whether it's true or not, it is built on quite a lot of evidence.

The third thing you will need to know is Calculation Theory (CT).
CT is a theory about how the date for the nativity of Christ was originally chosen. According to CT, Christian scholars came to the date on their own through calculations. They first determined the date of His crucifixion, then used integral ages to reach the birth. Hippolytus championed March 25, and that date caught on in the west. In the east, however, the popular date was April 6. Today's post is mostly going to be about this April 6 date.
Now, you add in integral ages, and you get Jesus being conceived on a certain date (March 25 / April 6), then nine months later comes His nativity (December 25 / January 6).

Now that you are fully armed and operational, let's dive into April 6.

PIECES OF APRIL

I am going to give you scholarly references but I'm going to try my best to explain things plainly.

In the early 200s AD, calendar issues were taking the spotlight. Many Christians were attempting to determine when the crucifixion occurred, and for several reasons. Everyone knew Passover was Nisan 14, yet it was becoming clear there was an issue with the Jewish calendar - Nisan 14 was no longer reliably anchored to the start of spring following the Bar Kokhba revolt. Correcting Nisan 14, then converting that into the other calendars in the empire, was quite difficult. At the same time, there were theological debates that needed answers, such as the human and divine natures of Jesus. And then, there were natural curiosities, such as Hippolytus trying to find every Passover back to the 4th day of creation. The answer to all of these included calculating dates.

We know Christian scholars were calculating dates because we have the written evidence. In the west, Tertullian and Hippolytus converted Nisan 14 to March 25 in the Julian calendar.
That is not how they did it in the east.

"In the East, too, the dates of Jesus’ conception and death were linked. But instead of working from the 14th of Nisan in the Hebrew calendar, the easterners used the 14th of the first spring month (Artemisios) in their local Greek calendar—April 6 to us. April 6 is, of course, exactly nine months before January 6 - the eastern date for Christmas."
-Biblical Archaeology Review, "How December 25 Became Christmas", 7-10-2025. 

Please allow me to explain this more plainly.
Eastern Christians used a completely different calendar than the Jews or the western Christians - the Macedonian lunar calendar. They took the idea behind Nisan 14 (the fourteenth day of the first Jewish spring month) and replaced it with their equivalent (the fourteenth day of their own first spring month). Thus, Nisan 14 was traded for Artemisios 14. This was not a date-to-date swap, but an idea-to-idea swap. (Artemesios 14 and Nissan 14 would not usually be on the same day, but they are always the 14th day of the first spring month.)
Later, others converted Artemisios 14 into April 6 in the Julian calendar. (If you're interested, Thomas Talley explains how that worked on page 8 of his book "Origins of the Liturgical Year". But that's not important right now.)

This is the majority scholarly consensus on what they did. Understand that this is circumstantial evidence. No ancient source explicitly says, "This is what we did." But this is the best reconstruction from the scattered evidence that we do have. Here's how it went:

• Many eastern Christians put Artemisios 14 in place of Nisan 14.
• Artemisios 14 is April 6 in the Julian calendar.
• Observance on Artemisios 14 / April 6 is well attested in regions like Syria and Egypt.
• These regions were known to have populations of Quartodecimans, and it would logically be Quartodecimans who were most interested in Nisan 14 date conversions.
• Besides Quartodecimans, the only other group who might have observed April 6 were the Montanists, but they were relatively few in number, and most agree the Montanists inherited this practice from the Quartodecimans.

Simple and condensed takeaway:
The Artemisios 14 / April 6 date most likely comes from the Quartodecimans.

Now, let's get some source material in here to back this up.

Talley, who got this ball rolling for me in the first place, agrees:

"In both Asia and Cappadocia the concern was not to observe a given Julian date, April 6 or March 25, but to observe the fourteenth day of the first month of spring..."
-Thomas Talley, "Further Light on the Quartodeciman Pascha and the Date of the Annunciation", p. 4

"Although for him [Sozomen] that paschal date of April 6, the old Asian 14 Artemisios, was peculiar to a Montanist group, there is every reason to believe that the early Quartodeciman Christians in Asia had observed the same date..."
-Thomas Talley, "Origins of the Liturgical Year", pp.8-9.

Every reason to believe Quartodecimans were observing Artemisios 14 / April 6? Interesting! Talley is so convinced of this, he calls April 6 "that Quartodeciman date" ("Origins" p. 97).
Talley refers us to Epiphanius. In his book "Panarion", Epiphanius says this about the Quartodeciman beliefs:

"And there is no little dissension in their [the Quartodecimans'] ranks, since some say the fourteenth day of the month [this is the eastern date], but some, the eighth before the Kalends of April [this is the western calculation]."
-Epiphanius of Salamis "Panarion" Quartodecimans 50.7 (374-378 AD). 

Epiphanius is writing about the Quartodecimans here, specifically. This makes it abundantly clear at least some Quartodecimans did observe April 6. But not all Quartodecimans. Some had adopted Hippolytus' date of March 25.

We can list several other names that support these conclusions: Louis Duchesne (Conferences), Hans Lietzmann (A History of the Early Church), Paul F. Bradshaw and Maxwell E. Johnson (The Origins of Feasts, Fasts, and Seasons in Early Christianity), Andrew McGowan (Ancient Christian Worship), Susan K. Roll (The Feast of the Nativity), Hans Förster (The Celebration of Christ’s Birth in the Early Church), Paul Barnett Simmons (The Origins of Christmas and the Date of Christ's Birth), and of course, reputable online resources like Biblical Archaeology Review.

Here is your simple, condensed takeaway:
Many Quartodecimans were almost certainly observing Artemisios 14 / April 6. But why is that important? Because in the same way March 25 becomes December 25 when integral ages are applied, April 6 becomes January 6 - the date of Epiphany. This means the Quartodecimans are the primary suspects for why we have Epiphany on January 6.

This is clearly Talley's position.

"The same relationship is visible between April 6 and January 6 without any reference (pace Norden!) to the quarter days [solstices and equinoxes]. Rather, these winter dates can both be seen as the result of the same paschal calculation, with the conception/annunciation on March 25 leading to the nativity on December 25 in the West, and the conception/passion on April 6 leading to the nativity on January 6 in the East. [...] The persistence of the April 6 date in the East for the passion, long after the Quartodeciman controversy had been resolved in favor of the Sunday observance, suggests that it was the paschal full moon date of the Asian calendar that underlay the January 6 nativity observance."
-Thomas Talley, "Origins of the Liturgical Year", pp.129. [bold mine]

"As the association of April 6 with the conception would lead to the dating of the nativity on January 6, so such an association of the conception with March 25 would lead to dating the nativity to December 25."
-Thomas Talley, ("Further Light on the Quartodeciman Pascha and the Date of the Annunciation", p. 4. [bold mine]

Other scholars, such as Paul F. Bradshaw and Maxwell E. Johnson (The Origins of Feasts, Fasts, and Seasons in Early Christianity), agree with Talley that Quartodecimans honored the nativity and did so on Epiphany.

So, although nothing explicitly says this, it very much looks like the Quartodecimans not only observed the nativity of our Lord on Epiphany, but they are the reason why we have Epiphany in the first place. Remember from the Toolbox section: Epiphany started in the eastern church as a memorial of our Lord's incarnation and birth. It started in Quartodeciman strongholds, and it persisted there. They were observing "Christmas" so to speak ...but on Epiphany.

The pagan co-opt theory (also called the History of Religions Theory or HRT) cannot explain both Christmas and Epiphany. Nor can it respond to the abundance of records from the early 200s which plainly show Christians in various places working out these dates. These calculations happened decades before there was any Roman celebration on December 25, and there was no corresponding pagan festival for Epiphany to co-opt. Epiphany demonstrates the Nativity was not some generic solstice co-opt, either. Compare that to the grand total of zero ancient records positively demonstrating a pagan co-opt.

HRT cannot overcome these points. The claim that Christmas and Epiphany are pagan is built on sand.

ROBOT ROCK

Given what I wrote about in my article "Writing in the AI Age", I decided to run my conclusions past multiple AI platforms. After those AI platforms gave me rave reviews for accuracy and unassailability (some, of course, telling me I could neutral it up a bit), I decided to ask follow-up questions to only two platforms. I asked ChatGPT and Grok what I thought were simple questions:

How can I know when those old sources say something like "14th of the month" (or similar) that they were referring to Nisan 14 and not Artemisios 14?

Did the conversion of Nisan 14 to Artemisios 14 happen early enough that it could have led to or influenced the choice of Epiphany on January 6?

I was wholly unprepared for the AI vs AI battle that I would spark. I liken it to a dispute on the scale of the Quartodeciman controversy.

ChatGPT went on a wild tangent, completely reversing everything it had just minutes earlier assured me was accurate and unassailable. It reassured me I was still correct, but I was also wrong and would have to rewrite everything. That startled me. How could I be wrong with so much scholarly support? So, I took its concerns to Grok. Grok disagreed. Strongly. Grok insisted my article was perfectly defensible and aligned with the majority scholarly opinion.

I found myself copy/pasting responses between the two platforms for several minutes (yes, the AIs argued with each other). One would say the other was wrong, and back and forth we went. Until ... after several rounds of back-and-forth, ChatGPT, the cautious one, finally conceded Grok's point that the consensus of modern liturgical historians is exactly what I had written in the first place. Thus, ChatGPT timidly reversed itself a second time, and Grok had a hardy crow for its victory.

Turns out even the robots need to read Talley, Bradshaw, and Roll before they render a verdict.

[This is not an endorsement of any AI system. They each have strengths and weaknesses. If you use AI, make sure you a) understand how it works, and b) require it to triple-check everything it tells you.]

TENTATIVE DECISIONS

Why do I care about these Quartodecimans and their ties to Epiphany so much in the first place? Please allow me to explain, briefly.

Readers here already know this but others may be unfamiliar - As Bereans Did is a polemics blog dedicated to the investigation of what we call Armstrongism, after its founder Herbert Armstrong. Armstrongism - a branch of Seventh Day Adventism - has long claimed to be modern theological descendants of the Quartodecimans.

"Among the Gentiles the churches in Asia remained the most faithful to the word of God. We pick up the story of the true Church in the lives of such men as Polycarp and Polycrates. They were called 'Quartodecimani' because they kept the true Passover celebration instead of Easter."
-Herbert Armstrong, "True History of the True Church", 1959, p.15 

The claim is still alive and well. The United Church of God repeated it recently in their article "Church Driven Underground" from July 27, 2025. Author Tom Robinson said:

"Faithful Christians in the first few centuries after Christ were sometimes called Quartodecimans, from the Latin for 'fourteen,' as they continued to observe Passover on the 14th of the Hebrew month of Nisan..."

"Faithful Christians" is code for "one true church" which is code for Armstrongism. Armstrongism is not descended from the Quartodecimans, of course, neither directly nor indirectly. But this claim by Herbert Armstrong, the "founder, Pastor General, and spiritual and temporal leader of the church since its inception", forces the system to own the Quartodecimans ...and everything we learn about them, which now includes the Nativity (Epiphany at first, then later Christmas).

If we only listen to Armstrongists, we would believe the Quartodecimans were opposed to honoring the resurrection on Sunday (Easter). But upon further inspection, it turns out they were not. They did observe the resurrection on Sunday, they just put an emphasis on a Nisan 14 date for the Last Supper. (See our Quartodeciman posts for more.)
And if we only listen to Armstrongists, we would believe Epiphany was pagan and the nativity resolutely to be ignored. In my post "Nimrod's Birthday Was January 6?", we explored how Herman Hoeh "the most accurately-informed historian in the world" tied both Christmas and Epiphany to Nimrod. That is patently false, of course. Absurdly false. But it was the official line from the church for decades! No going back now. Today, we have seen the Quartodecimans were not in any way opposed to observing the Nativity of Christ, and they did it on Epiphany.

Out of one side of the mouth, Armstrongism calls the Quartodecimans "the true church", but out of the other, they call anyone who observes Easter and Christmas/Epiphany "Nimrod-worshipping pagans". Now we see that must include the Quartodecimans. 

So, Armstrongists have a decision to make:
A) Own that the very "true church" itself observed Easter and the Nativity, and admit Herbert Armstrong et al were wrong.
-Or-
B) Stop claiming Armstrongism is theologically descended from the Quartodecimans, and admit Herbert Armstrong et al were wrong.

Paganism or one true church - which? One of those two pillars must fall. I’ll let you decide.

CONCLUSION

What did we see today?
1) Quartodecimans likely started Epiphany.
2) HRT cannot withstand this.
3) Any church who claims the Quartodecimans as their ancestors must deal with this.

Let’s put it all together one last time.

Early Christians determined the dates of Jesus' crucifixion - March 25 in the west and April 6 in the east. Then, they used the principle of integral ages and careful reasoning - not pagan festivals - to arrive at the dates for Jesus’ birth - December 25 Christmas in the west and January 6 Epiphany in the east.

The people who first championed the western date of March 25 were Tertullian and Hippolytus. The primary suspects for who first championed the eastern date of April 6 are the Quartodecimans - the same people Herbert Armstrong and his successors have long hailed as the one faithful “true church” that kept the pure apostolic faith. Pascha on the 14th wasn't the only thing the Quartodecimans did. They had an entire life beyond that day, which included honoring Easter Sunday and, it seems likely, celebrating the Nativity of Christ on Epiphany.

After Nicaea, the Quartodecimans gradually blended into the greater church and began keeping both Epiphany and Christmas. But Epiphany is with us to this day.

Armstrongism can’t have it both ways.
You can either keep claiming the Quartodecimans as spiritual ancestors, but then you must also own Easter and Epiphany - or - you can keep calling Christmas and Epiphany pagan, but then you must admit the Quartodecimans were pagan as well, and out goes "true history of the true church".
Either way, Herbert Armstrong et al were wrong.

As for the rest of us who believe - whether you observe December 25, January 6, both, or neither - may we all rejoice that the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. Christmas and Epiphany are not birthdays; they honor ideas - BIG, theological ideas - of the incarnation and the birth of God. The early church, Quartodecimans very much included, did not forget this astonishing truth.

It’s a good day to remember it again.

Merry Christmas! Happy Epiphany! And grace and peace to you in the Name that is above every name, Who became flesh like we are so He could die to save us all. This is the true meaning of Christmas and Epiphany.

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It is important that you understand; Everything on this blog is based on the current understanding of each author. Never take anyone's word for it, always prove it for yourself, it is your responsibility. You cannot ride someone else's coattail into the Kingdom. ; )

Acts 17:11

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