As I mentioned in my recent post, "Be Your Own Harshest Critic", Bill posted a comment on social media that said, "Going to synagogue on Sabbath is not a command from God but a man-made tradition." Bill is absolutely right. We've got articles on this.
In response, a random person protested, and what could loosely be called a discussion ensued. He ended up basing his entire case on the phrase "holy convocation". His claim was that holy convocation means "going to church," and therefore the laws of holy convocation are laws of church attendance.
Well, let's look into that. He can't be the only one making these kinds of claims.
HOLY TERMS
Word studies are dry and academic. I know. My apologies in advance. I'll make this short and as simple as I can. We need a few things in the ol' toolbox before we can proceed.
The Hebrew phrase usually translated “holy convocation,” “sacred assembly,” or “sacred occasion” is miqra qodesh (מִקְרָא־קֹדֶשׁ). This is a singular noun. The plural is miqra'ei qodesh (מִקְרָאֵי־קֹדֶשׁ). I am just going to refer to them both as miqra qodesh because it makes things easier.
Miqra (מִקְרָא) is a noun meaning calling, proclamation, summons, or convocation.
Qodesh (קֹדֶשׁ) is a noun meaning holiness / something holy / set-apartness.
The singular and plural Hebrew phrases appear a total of 19 times in the Old Testament, and they refer to the weekly Sabbath and the annual holy days.
Interestingly, miqra qodesh only refers to the weekly Sabbath once (LEV. 23:3). Most of today's article is going to focus on the annual festivals because that's where most of the details are. If we are going to use miqra qodesh to support going to church on the weekly Sabbath, then you are going to have a very difficult time.
"Holy", strictly speaking, is not really a synonym of "righteous". The word holy indicates something was ceremonially set apart for use only in the worship of God and never for mundane, everyday purposes. For example, pots and priestly vestments were called holy, but they were not righteous. Those weren't morally upstanding pots. Also, just because something is holy does not mean it is permanently holy. Holy things could be defiled and lose their holiness. Holy things could also perish in their use, like sacrifices.
Final note:
Do not get confused that you can just interchange 'festivals' with miqra qodesh. For example, take the Feast of Tabernacles. The first day was a miqra qodesh, and the final day was also a miqra qodesh. The days in between were not. The same applies to the Feast of Unleavened Bread. The first day of Unleavened Bread was a miqra qodesh and so was the final day, but the days between were not, Passover itself was not, and the Day of Firstfruits was not. The festival period and the specific days designated as a miqra qodesh are not always the same thing.
Word study over. See? Easy peasy! Now, with that knowledge, let's move forward.
HOLY SUMMONS
I am not going to spend much time here since surely this is something we all know already, but miqra qodesh designates a religious gathering, distinct from more general assemblies that might include political or legal matters. The Septuagint often renders it with terms conveying a summoned or invited assembly (e.g., klētē hagia).
The traditional way to understand miqra qodesh is a holy convocation or sacred gathering together of people. We might ask, how many people? The Bible doesn't always specify, but sometimes it is all the males and sometimes it reads as the gatherings were on the household scale. We will get more into this in a bit.
One might get the impression that the assembly is proclaimed to be holy. Many scholars believe that is not how it should be understood, since the people need atonement. But if not the assembly, then what?
HOLY TIME
Jacob Milgrom (preeminent Jewish biblical scholar who specialized in Leviticus and purity laws) and Baruch Schwartz (biblical scholar at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and co-author of a study titled “Miqra’ Qodesh and the Structure of Leviticus 23") have argued that miqra qodesh is not really talking about the people at all, but the time. They would lean more toward the "sacred occasion" definition rather than "sacred assembly."
The time itself was declared holy, and Israel was to use the holy time for appropriate purposes. The number one feature of all is that no normal, regularly assigned work was to be done during miqra qodesh. Remember, the word holy indicates something was ceremonially set apart for use only in the worship of God and never for mundane, everyday purposes.
I will refer you to Bill's posts where he explores how the time could be used for good as opposed to evil, for example "Good and Evil Works on the Sabbath". (Hint: pay attention to what God considers good vs. evil.)
God blessing time is not unusual. Notice how we agree that it is the time that is holy when we say "holy days" (even though that phrase isn't really in the Bible) or, "God blessed and sanctified the seventh day." When you read through the list of verses where miqra qodesh appears, you will see the days themselves are referred to. For example:
(LEV. 23:4) These are the feasts of the Lord, holy convocations [miqra qodesh] which you shall proclaim at their appointed times.
Why is the time holy? If you read carefully, you will see that God expected the Priests of Israel to proclaim the time to be holy (LEV. 23:2, 4, 21, 37). That leads many scholars to believe the time was not holy until it was proclaimed holy, just as people and objects were not holy until they were consecrated by the Priests. Then, it was up to the people to make appropriate use of the holy time.
Baruch Schwartz says this:
"Nor are [miqra'ei qodesh] to be explained as “sacred proclamations,” since the proclamations would not be sacred at all; it is the [mo'ed], the times themselves, that become sacred, and they achieve this status as a result of being proclaimed. Rather, [miqra'ei qodesh] must mean something that has become a sanctum by virtue of proclamation, i.e., a thing pronounced, and thereby rendered, sacred."
-Baruch Schwartz, “Miqra’ Qodesh and the Structure of Leviticus 23", p.17
So, according to Schwartz and others, the time was consecrated through a priestly proclamation made by offering the prescribed sacrifices. It is common among Sabbatarians to think of the time as simply being holy in and of itself, but that is not really what the Bible says. Proclaiming the time to be holy is an integral part of the law; a part you cannot simply skip by using romanticizing phrases like "God's holy days."
I should briefly note, these scholars also make an exception for the weekly Sabbath. They do not see the weekly Sabbath as needing to be proclaimed holy, only the annual days, since the weekly Sabbath was built to reflect the seventh day of creation which God Himself sanctified.
The problem that I am trying to highlight is: modern Sabbatarians are ignoring integral details in the law and importing their own ideas and traditions backward into ancient Israel. They go to church and they see modern Jews going to synagogue and they conclude that must be what ancient Israel did and therefore that must be what the law was about, and therefore they end up where they began - going to church is how one "keeps" a Sabbath. This person on social media was doing just this; trying to turn 'holy convocation' into 'go to church' when it is really about time and making appropriate use of it.
Going to church is not one of the commanded ways to use this time. We will see this more clearly when we look at those assemblies.
HOLY PLACE
Understand that neither assembly (the who/what) nor the time (the when) are about the place (the where). Church in this context is a place.
It is only natural that an assembly had to assemble somewhere, but the location is an additional detail in the law. The Bible does give this information, but it isn't always obvious. And holy time only sometimes pairs with holy place. Since this is true, how can it be all about going to church? It cannot.
I will explain.
Three of the annual holy days did have a specific location. Three times a year (not just one), every Israelite male was required to travel to the place where the Lord placed His name, where a priest would offer certain offerings for them (DEU. 16:16-17): at Passover/Unleavened Bread, Pentecost, and Tabernacles. (For more, see "Three Times in the Year".)
Yet, read through the commands for miqra qodesh and you will see this place is not explained anywhere near these verses.
Moses set no location at all. He didn't need to; they were all together in the wilderness. So, he said Israel would seek the place (DEU. 12:5). Joshua set the place at Shiloh (JOS. 18:1). This was only temporary, because notice God did not say He placed His name there. It was in Solomon's time that the place was set at Jerusalem (II CHR. 6:6). Why Jerusalem? Because of the Temple, not churches. The Temple is the place where the Lord placed His name. None of the commanded rituals happened 'at church' (or the Holiday Inn).
The Temple was absolutely not just a big church, and going to Temple was not similar to what we think of as church.
When you go to church, you are [hopefully] in God's immediate presence. You go there to be with other people, hear a sermon, sing, and pray.
When one went to Temple, they prepared ahead of time to be in an acceptable condition to occupy that sacred space to begin with. They visited close to the presence of God Himself, but unless they were the High Priest and it was the Day of Atonement they were never in the immediate presence of God. They prayed, certainly. But if they wanted a sermon, they had to go find a street preacher. And they absolutely did not arrive before the God of the Universe empty handed. Meaning, they brought a sacrifice. (This wasn't about money.)
It gets more complicated than just this. Oddly enough, it appears Israel's worship was both centralized as one singular nation at the Temple and decentralized to individual families and gatherings, all at the same time.
For example, take the Feast of Tabernacles again. Some portions of miqra qodesh were required to be performed at the Temple and some were required to be done at their temporary shelters. They weren't merely allowed to feast and celebrate in their shelters, they were commanded to do so.
Or take Unleavened Bread for example. Eating this bread was not optional; it was commanded. They did not just eat unleavened bread while they were at the Temple. Where do you eat? You eat wherever you happen to be when you eat.
So we can see, some portions of miqra qodesh were national and some familial. Some large assemblies and some small assemblies.
That is just the three pilgrimage holy days. What about the other times?
The rest of the year, the common Israelite was not required to go to Jerusalem. There was no specific location for the remaining miqra qodesh at all. And I really want to emphasize this: that includes the regular weekly Sabbath.
(LEV. 23:3) 3 ‘Six days shall work be done, but the seventh day is a Sabbath of solemn rest, a holy convocation [miqra qodesh]. You shall do no work on it; it is the Sabbath of the Lord in all your dwellings [moshevoteykhem].
We have another Hebrew word now: moshevoteykhem (מוֹשְׁבֹתֵיכֶם) which means dwelling places, habitations, places where people live - be that homes or home towns. For the non-pilgrimage holy days there were no large gatherings. They were all smaller.
So, we have two places where miqra qodesh can happen: at the Temple in Jerusalem, and wherever you dwell. Neither of those are 'at church'.
Let us ask... where is the Temple now? (I COR. 3:17; REV. 21:22)
This also brings up a final point. With the coming of the New Covenant, the Old Covenant law has changed. I believe all of the Old Covenant laws are obsolete because I believe the law was a singular whole. Sabbatarians do not. But where we can agree is that the "ceremonial law" is obsolete. The laws of miqra qodesh fall into "ceremonial law". Therefore, these laws of miqra qodesh are obsolete. So now we must ask, why are we building New Covenant doctrines from obsolete laws? Why are we fighting to keep some of it and discard some of it, but build what we keep on what we've discarded? How are we even having this discussion in the first place?
CONCLUSION
We've looked at the term miqra qodesh. We've looked at what it is, when it is, where it is. Then we contrasted that with how it is used by Sabbatarians (one in particular). We have seen how "go to church" is not an accepted definition of miqra qodesh to begin with. And we have seen how Sabbatarian practices are being built on certain Old Covenant laws which it seemed like everyone agreed are obsolete. The laws of miqra qodesh are inherently ceremonial.
The Bible does not command anyone to go to church on Saturday or any other day. The laws of sacred assemblies are not commands to go to church at all. What did Scripture do? It made certain time into a ceremonially holy time. For whom? For Israel, to whom that law was given. For where? Sometimes that was at the Temple, sometimes it was wherever you happened to be. But never synagogue, which was a much later development. (That is not to say attending synagogue is wrong, just not commanded.) For when? For the Old Covenant period. These are not laws for the New Covenant church.
Some modern Gentile Christians say they are keeping the law, but when we look critically we see they are not. They are adding to and taking away from the law, which is contrary to the law. Without a priesthood and without a Temple, keeping the laws of miqra qodesh is impossible (and I for one believe this is by design). Without a priest and a Temple, how will the time be properly proclaimed holy with sacrifices? If it isn't consecrated, then how is it holy time? These are not laws where we can take 'Israel' out and plug 'us' in, and take the original calendar out and plug the modern Jewish calendar in, and take 'sacrifice' out and plug 'money' in, and take 'Jerusalem' out and plug 'feast site' in, and take 'Temple' out and plug 'church' in. And in all of it, picking and choosing from ceremonial laws which I thought everyone agreed were abrogated. God is not going to praise us as obedient to the law when we are treating the law like a buffet. As I've said a million times, if you're not keeping all the law, then you're not keeping the law at all.
The person I mentioned in my "Be Your Own Harshest Critic" post went through traditions, Commandments, proof-texting, and finally landed on holy convocation - all to avoid Bill's accurate observation that, "Going to synagogue on Sabbath is not a command from God but a man-made tradition." What does "holy convocation" mean? Certainly not "going to church."
For more, I suggest:
Common Legalist Arguments - Part VIII
Is Ceremonial Law Removed?
Why Not Keep Biblical Days?
Temple of God / Law of God
Physical vs Spiritual
Shadows, Nails and the Fall Holy Days
Three Times In The Year - Part I
The Sabbath Rest of Hebrews 4
Acts 15:21 - More Law Later?
Lawlessness and I John 3
Editing the Commandments
Established and Imposed
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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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