Christians keep the Sabbath and the Holy Festivals

Should Christians keep the Sabbath and the festivals as described in the Old Testament, or not?

Well, this has been a hot topic all over the Christian world and the internet. We are taught in many churches that we are to keep the so-called Christian holidays — Christmas, Easter, and the rest — and that the biblical holidays described in the Old Testament were for Israel, not for New Testament Christians. In this post I will look into these claims and see what the Word actually says about it. And I am going to deal with the hard verses too — the ones people throw at this teaching. Fair is fair. Check everything against your own Bible.

Leviticus 23:1-2:

“And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, Concerning the feasts of the LORD, which ye shall proclaim to be holy convocations, even these are my feasts.”

Here they are, the seven:

1. PASSOVER (PESACH)
2. UNLEAVENED BREAD (HAG HAMATZOT)
3. FIRST FRUITS (YOM HABIKKURIM)

WEEKS or PENTECOST (SHAVUOT)
TRUMPETS (ROSH HASHANAH)
DAY OF ATONEMENT (YOM KIPPUR)
TABERNACLES, also called FEAST OF BOOTHS (SUKKOTH)

Three of these are pilgrim feasts — every Israelite male, thirteen years or older, was to present himself before Yahweh three times a year at the Temple in Jerusalem: at Unleavened Bread, at Weeks (Pentecost), and at Tabernacles.

Then the Sabbath, Leviticus 23:3:

“Six days shall work be done: but the seventh day is the sabbath of rest, an holy convocation; ye shall do no work therein: it is the sabbath of the LORD in all your dwellings.”

So now we have established the feasts and the Sabbath — the feasts Yahweh commanded Israel to keep, and He called them His feasts, to be kept forever. There is nothing in the New Testament that plainly cancels them. On the contrary, the Messiah said, Matthew 5:17-18:

“Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.”

Heaven and earth have not passed. So the Torah still stands.

Now I know what you are going to say: we are not Israel, and we are not under the Torah. Well — since we are grafted in, then we are. Romans 11:17:

“And if some of the branches be broken off, and thou, being a wild olive tree, wert graffed in among them, and with them partakest of the root and fatness of the olive tree…”

We pride ourselves on being just that — grafted into the olive tree. Look at it another way: if you get adopted into a family, are you not under their rules? We are to follow the Torah and the feasts. We keep the Ten Commandments. And no — we do not do blood sacrifices as commanded, because the Messiah was our blood sacrifice. The way I see it: if these feasts and the Sabbath were good enough for our Messiah to keep, then we need to do the same.

Now the hard verses

If I am going to be straight with you, I have to deal with the passages people use against this teaching. Here they are, honestly.

Colossians 2:16-17. “Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holyday, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days: which are a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ.” This is the strongest text against my position, and I will not pretend otherwise. But read it carefully. First — who is judging whom? Paul does not say. It is just as reasonable to read this as Paul telling Gentile believers who were keeping the feasts: don’t let outsiders judge you for keeping them. Second, look at verse 17: “a shadow of things to come.” The shadow is cast by things still future — the feasts point to the Messiah’s return and the kingdom, which have not happened yet. You do not throw away a shadow while the thing casting it is still on its way. What this verse does settle is that no one gets to make the calendar a fellowship test in either direction. I can live with that.

Romans 14:5. “One man esteemeth one day above another: another esteemeth every day alike. Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind.” People use this to cancel the Sabbath, but the word “Sabbath” never appears in the whole chapter. The word “alike” is not in the Greek either — the translators added it. The chapter is about “doubtful disputations” (verse 1), and the days in question are tied to eating and fasting (verse 6) — fast days, not the fourth commandment. Paul, who kept the Sabbath himself (Acts 13:42-44, 18:4), was not quietly annulling it in a chapter about food. This verse is about disputed observances. The Sabbath command is not a doubtful disputation.

Acts 15. The Jerusalem council. Yes — the apostles laid only four requirements on Gentile believers, and Sabbath-keeping is not among them. I will not twist that. But read what question they were actually answering: whether Gentiles must be circumcised to be saved (verse 1). The council said no — salvation is by grace (verse 11) — and gave four requirements as the starting fellowship baseline for converts coming straight out of pagan temples. The decree does not mention murder or theft either, and nobody concludes those are abolished. And verse 21 says Moses “is read in the synagogues every sabbath day” — James expected these new Gentile believers to be in the synagogue on Sabbath, hearing Moses, learning the rest over time. The four were the doorway, not the whole house.

Galatians 4:10. “Ye observe days, and months, and times, and years.” Read the verse before it: “how turn ye again to the weak and beggarly elements?” Again. These were Gentiles — ex-pagans. They could not “turn again” to Jewish feasts they had never kept. They could only turn back to the pagan calendar of their old idolatry. Paul would never call God’s own appointed feasts “weak and beggarly.” And the whole letter is about one specific heresy: men saying Gentiles must be circumcised to be saved (5:2). That is what Paul anathematizes.

One line that must not be blurred

Here is where I draw the line, and you should too: keeping the Sabbath and the feasts is obedience, not justification. Galatians 5:4 — “whosoever of you are justified by the law; ye are fallen from grace.” Paul leaves no room there. We are saved by grace through the blood of the Messiah, full stop. We keep His feasts because we love Him and because He kept them — not to earn what He already paid for. Anyone who tells you feast-keeping saves you is preaching another gospel. Anyone who tells you obedience does not matter has not read 1 John.

The holidays with no verse

There is no scripture I have found anywhere in the Word commanding the so-called Christian holidays. What we celebrate today — Christmas, Easter, and the rest — are man-made holidays put in place over the centuries by religious groups and adopted by most of Christianity. Show me the chapter and verse. I will wait.

The feasts of Leviticus 23 have chapter and verse. They are called His feasts. The Messiah kept them. The apostles kept them. I keep them. Read it for yourself, check everything against your own Bible, and let the Word speak. That is all I ask.