Passover and Pentecost by S. H. Carnahan

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Mar 3, 1909

Passover and Pentecost.

By S. H. Carnahan

Having in my Bible work been called upon to place special study on the time of Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection in connection with the Passover and Pentecost, I will lay before the readers of the SIGNS OF THE TIMES the information gained.

The Passover was a movable festival as far as the days of the week are concerned, like our Christmas-time, December 25, which may come upon any day of the week; the Passover season always commenced on the fourteenth day of the first month, and continued to the twenty-first. Ex. 12:18. Pentecost, which means fiftieth, depended for its date upon the day the Passover season began; hence might fall upon any day of the week.

To find the day of Pentecost, we count from the fifteenth day of the first month. As the fourteenth day of the month, which is the first day of the Passover festival, is a sabbath, we begin the count on the second day of the season, and count seven complete sabbaths, or weeks (compare Lev. 23:15, 16 and Deut. 16:9), which would be forty-nine days (seven times seven), and the day following, or the fiftieth day, would be Pentecost.

In order to ascertain the day of Pentecost mentioned in Acts 2:1-4, we must find when the Passover occurred. The Passover was to be eaten “in the place which the Lord thy God shall choose.” Deut. 16:7. The day preceding our Lord’s crucifixion the disciples came to Him and asked, “Where wilt Thou that we prepare for Thee to eat the Passover?” He told them the place and they prepared it. Matt. 26:17-19.

The time of this Passover undoubtedly was Thursday night, March 29, A.D. 31, according to our system of reckoning. “Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us” (1 Cor. 5:7), “and become the first-fruits of them that slept.” 1 Cor. 15:20. In the old typical system, they were to “bring a sheaf of the first-fruits” of the harvest unto the priest.

“And he shall wave the sheaf before the Lord, to be accepted for you: on the morrow after the Sabbath the priest shall wave it. And ye shall offer that day when ye wave the sheaf an he lamb without blemish of the first year for a burnt-offering unto the Lord.” Lev. 23:10-12.

In our Passover, Christ, we have the antitypical, or true, sheaf waved, the real Lamb of God slain, who was crucified without the city, as was the Passover lamb. “Thou mayest not sacrifice the Passover within any of thy gates.” Deut. 16:5. Likewise Jesus our Passover was slain on the fifteenth day of the first month, which, according to Roman time, was Friday, March 30, A.D. 31.

Calculating seven full weeks and a day, or fifty days, we have the great Pentecostal day coming on Sabbath (Saturday), May 19, A.D. 31—the day when the Spirit of God, or the Holy Ghost, was poured out in such marvelous degree on Christ’s disciples.

It is true that chronologists differ in regard to the date of the crucifixion, some placing it as early as A.D. 30, others, as late as A.D. 33. But that it occurred A.D. 31, March 30, we believe we have indisputable evidence in the prophecy of the twenty-three-hundred-day period, and the declaration that the Sabbath coming the next day after the crucifixion was an “high day.”

Daniel was told in vision, “Unto two thousand and three hundred days; then shall the sanctuary be cleansed.” Dan. 8:14. The prophet did not understand it then; but later the angel Gabriel came to explain it to him. Chapter 9:21-27. He told Daniel that seventy weeks were determined upon his people; that is, seventy weeks, or 490 days (“a day for a year,” Eze. 4:6; Num. 14:34), of the twenty-three hundred days, were cut off for the Jewish people. Verse 24.

This great period was to begin at the going into effect of the commandment to restore and rebuild Jerusalem, which was in 457 B.C., or about 456½ years, for it was in the fifth month of the seventh year of the reign of Artaxerxes, king of Persia. Ezra 7:8, 9. The seventy weeks, or 490 years, would reach (being more than 456½ years) down thirty-three and one half years this side of the birth of Christ, or to the autumn of A.D. 34—the time when the work of the apostles was turned mainly from the Jewish people to the Gentiles. Acts 13:49.

At the close of the sixty-ninth week, 483 years, or just seven years prior to A.D. 34, autumn, was to be the setting forth of Christ as the Messiah, or Prince. Dan. 9:25. This was done at His baptism. Matt. 3:13-17. Messiah means the anointed one. Compare Luke 4:18 and John 1:41, margin. This baptism took place seven years before 34 A.D., or autumn, A.D. 27.

In the midst of this week of years the Messiah was to be cut off. This was fulfilled in the crucifixion of Jesus, which occurred half way between the autumn of A.D. 27 and the autumn of A.D. 34, which would be in the spring of A.D. 31.

Now as to the day and the month. Most all agree that the crucifixion took place on Friday. In A.D. 31, Friday came on the 30th of March. And hence the order to break the legs of those who were crucified, “that the bodies should not remain upon the cross on the Sabbath day (for that Sabbath was an high day),” as it came in the Passover week. John 19:31. The reason they were requested to break the legs of Jesus was that that high day Sabbath came the next day after the crucifixion day.

When the soldiers came to break their legs, they broke the legs of the two that were crucified with Him. “But when they came to Jesus, and saw that He was dead already, they brake not His legs.” “For these things were done that the Scripture should be fulfilled, A bone of Him shall not be broken.” John 19:33, 36; Ps. 34:20. Neither were any bones of any of the typical Passover lambs broken. Ex. 12:46; Num. 9:12.

The Passover was both commemorative and typical—pointing back to the deliverance from Egypt and the angel of death, and forward to the greater deliverance to be accomplished by Christ in freeing His people from sin and eternal death.

As the ordinance was to come to an end when the type met the antitype, the Saviour, just at the close of this Passover supper, instituted another ordinance, the Lord’s Supper, which is a memorial, or reminder, of both His crucifixion and His coming. Luke 22:13-19.

It is not stated at just what period this ordinance should be celebrated, but the Scriptures say, “As often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do show the Lord’s death till He come.” 1 Cor. 11:26. The emblems should be unleavened bread and unfermented wine, which are to represent the body and blood of Jesus. The meat-offering in connection with the Passover supper consisted of fine flour mixed with olive-oil, and the drink-offering of wine. Lev. 23:13.

Further, the Sunday that is popularly called Easter fell that year, A.D. 31, upon April 8. But strictly speaking, the Easter Sunday was unknown at that early date, for the Easter of those times was a heathen festival, and, like the Passover, came upon a certain day of the month and upon any day of the week.

While the children of Israel kept the Passover by eating the paschal lamb with unleavened bread and bitter herbs (Ex. 12:8), the heathen observed Easter, from a different motive, by eating many eggs and other dainties in honor of the Saxon goddess of love and lust. This heathen festival was later transplanted into the Christian usage by the Church of Rome, and through her special manipulations was made to come upon Sunday and be observed, it is said, in honor of the resurrection of Christ. See Gibbon’s History of Rome.

The word “Easter” in Acts 12:4, as in the Revised Version, should have been translated “passover.” Therefore, instead of observing the Passover which has served its time, or the Easter, a heathen institution, should we not rather celebrate the ordinance of humility and the Lord’s Supper? John 13:3-17; Luke 22:15-20. And to do even this acceptably, we should be living in obedience to God and be at peace with the brethren. Compare 1 Cor. 11:27-29 with Matt. 5:23, 24. S. H. CARNAHAN.