Recently I received an e-mail letter asking about the Feast of Tabernacles. The letter was in connection with an invitation that "Alex" (not his real name) had received to attend the Festival of one of the Worldwide Church of God offshoot churches. I include this reply to Alex as a means of informing anyone who is interested on the background of WCG liturgy, and how it evolved into what is our present position on worship. I have edited the original letter by doing some rewording and by adding division headings. The last edit was done 9/28/98 and most of these edits amounted to updating statements regarding chronology.
July 31, 1997 (date of original letter)
Dear Alex,
You asked about going to the Feast of Tabernacles. I hope you don't mind if I take you the "long way around" and give you some background on the Festivals.
The Foundation
There are a few Christian churches that hold a Feast of Tabernacles observance and do not have connections to the Worldwide Church of God, but I am sure that the great majority of modern USA Feast observances have their origin in the WCG. For the WCG, and its offshoots, the Feast is the high point of the year, occurring in September or October. It is a time of joy that results when people of like mind get together and worship and fellowship. We typically speak of it as "the Feast".
Mr. and Mrs. Herbert Armstrong (as he often told it) began keeping the Biblical festivals in 1927 - before he began the Radio Church of God (name subsequently changed to WCG) in 1933. As he told it, they began keeping the Biblical festivals before understanding what meaning these days have for Christians.
Mr. Armstrong always taught that the festivals revealed the plan of God but looking at what he said, it seems that festival observance was built on following premises, not necessarily in order of importance or sequence: 1) assume that the traditional Christian holy days (in particular Christmas and Easter) should not be observed because of pagan connections. 2) assume that the Biblical festivals were meant to be observed by God's people for all time - from ancient Israel, throughout the "church age" on through the millennium. 3) assume that God intended a "one true" meaning for these festivals for Christians. 4) assume that the Biblical festivals picture the plan of God chronologically. If Mr. Armstrong's original logic was different, at least anyone who had to systematically defend the WCG approach to the Biblical festivals used these premises.
Realize that a foundational premise for all that we did was the worldview that there is one small true church, and all of what is typically called Christianity is off the track. The one true church would not be observing Sunday, Christmas and Easter, but would be observing the seventh day Sabbath and the Biblical festivals.
The Festivals
The festivals are Passover, Days of Unleavened Bread, Pentecost, Atonement, Feast of Trumpets, Feast of Tabernacles, Last Great Day (our name for the last holy day in the fall festival season.)
Our Explanation of the Modern Relevance for Christians
If there is a Christian meaning for the festivals, what is the meaning? If I were explaining our old understanding of the festivals, I would follow this logic.
The Passover (not a holy day where work was forbidden) was on the same day in the NT as in the OT. (Not so, but I can't get into details on a subject that involves a lot of chronology. We favored a chronology that made the Passover on the same day in the OT as the NT because it lent credence to the idea that the festivals were meant to be observed for the entirety of human experience.) Christ changed the symbols from the Passover lamb to the bread and wine. The connection between Christ the Passover Lamb and the OT Passover is understood by most Christians.
The first and last days of Unleavened Bread? This festival anciently celebrated the hasty exodus from Egypt. We looked at verses like Mat 16:6 "'Be careful,' Jesus said to them. 'Be on your guard against the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees.'" and Gal 5:9 , "A little yeast works through the whole batch of dough." From these verses and others, we took the concept of leaven to mean what it became to mean in Christ's time - i.e. fermentation by yeast being equated to spoiling, corruption, and sin. The Days of Unleavened Bread, therefore, were used to celebrate our personal coming out of spiritual Egypt and putting out sin. That concept was changed a bit by the mid 80's from "putting out sin" to "putting on righteousness".
Pentecost wasn't much of a problem - the example in Acts relates it to the birthday of the NT church, and the giving of the Holy Spirit - not an unfamiliar association for many mainstream Christian churches.
The Christian meaning of Feast of Trumpets is a bit more difficult to justify. The OT command is (Lev 23:24 NIV) "Say to the Israelites: 'On the first day of the seventh month you are to have a day of rest, a sacred assembly commemorated with trumpet blasts.'" We looked to NT verses about Christ returning with trumpet blasts and assumed we should celebrate the return of Christ on this day.
The day of Atonement? We took an interpretation of Leviticus 16 and assumed the chronological argument (i.e. asking "What happens after Christ returns?) and used it to celebrate the binding of Satan that begins (according to our understanding of pre-millennialism) after the return of Christ and before the millennium .
The Christian meaning of the Feast of Tabernacles? - again it is impossible to nail it down Biblically. We associated it with the millennium - simply because we assumed a chronological plan being revealed in the holy days, and in the pre-millennialist view, after the return of Christ comes the millennium.
I recall that during the Feast of 1972 I wrote a personal study paper to try to link the Feast of Tabernacles with the millennium without appealing to the chronologic logic argument. I still have it in my files. The most firm argument I could appeal to were the NT references to the word "tabernacles" referring to a temporary body. Then if we consider our life now as temporary, we look forward to our existence in an eternal world, i.e. the millennium. (Really that's a faulty argument, because the millennium is only a thousand years - not quite eternity!) Secondarily, I appealed to Peter's desire to build tabernacles at the transfiguration and said that this shows a connection between tabernacles and the fulfillment of the transfiguration i.e. the millennial reign of Christ. Both these arguments might be fine if the original premises are correct, i.e. Christians are commanded to keep the Feast of Tabernacles, but they are weak for establishing a definite Biblically based connection between the Feast of Tabernacles and the millennium.
The Christian Meaning of the last holy day in the Feast of Tabernacles season? We named it "the Last Great Day" from John 7:37. Our understanding of the sequence of resurrections described in Rev. 20 placed a second resurrection after the millennium where all who have never heard of the Gospel would get their chance to be saved, and so we used the Last Great Day to celebrate this resurrection.
Good News and Bad News
These worship times contain some good things and some baggage that has to be dumped.
The good parts of the old WCG liturgy: 1) There is nothing wrong with celebrating the fact that we need to put on God's righteousness (Days of Unleavened Bread), or celebrating the fact that we need the Holy Spirit to live righteously (Pentecost), or celebrating a time when Satan will not sway mankind (Atonement), or celebrating the return of Christ (Trumpets), or celebrating the rule of Christ on earth (Feast of Tabernacles), or celebrating the fact that God is merciful and has a plan for those who have never heard the Gospel (Last Great Day) 2) It included the one repeated Christian ceremony that Christ told us to observe - the Lord's Supper. 3) It points us to the Bible as a source of what we do. 4) It forced us to take our relationship with God seriously.
But there is this baggage to the "old" WCG liturgy: 1) A strong foundational premise was elitism - the idea that we're the only true church. 2) It emphasized the idea that external actions, i.e. the keeping of holy times identified who were "real" Christians and who were not. 3) It celebrates events that are not certain and are not emphasized in the New Testament or are subject to different interpretations - e.g. the millennium, the binding of Satan, the second resurrection. 4) It emphasizes "keeping" more than "worshipping" - the Sabbatarian viewpoint, so we were expected to put our jobs on the line to go the Feast of Tabernacles and other festival days. We taught that the observance of the non-sacrificial aspects of these days were required of all Christians. 5) The festivals were considered part of conversion and "the truth". That is, "being converted to the truth" meant accepting certain "true lost doctrines" one of which was the "true festivals". 6) The keeping of festivals was tied into our view of tithing as a law, because we were commanded to set aside "second tithe" of our income for attending the festivals.
Let me also point out that the traditional Christmas/Easter celebrations also have their baggage - namely their secular sides that come largely from a natural tendency of affluent cultures to drift toward materialism and from the polytheistic origins of many Christmas and Easter customs. I need not go into details, but both of these traditional Christian holidays could be - and are - celebrated in a secular fashion without even thinking about Christ.
The "Good Stuff" - Our Present Position
Some members of our Baraboo congregation and I attended a Christmas concert in December of '96. It was one of our first ventures into celebrating the first advent of Christ at the Christmas season. It was presented by noted Hispanic Christian singer, Fernando Ortega. It was a wonderful celebration of the Advent - God becoming man, the birth of Jesus. One of our local church members who also attended remarked, "Not having 'kept' Christmas all these years, we can now go back into it and go for the 'good stuff'." That is, we can celebrate the Gospel, and avoid the secular/materialistic aspects.
I think "going for the good stuff" can also be applied the WCG's festivals as we now observe them. They have baggage, but with our new approach we try to use them to celebrate the Gospel, not elitism. We have tried to shed the baggage and keep the good stuff. The Lord's Supper has a fuller meaning as we focus on our total dependence on Christ. The days of Unleavened Bread focus on Christ the true bread of life. Pentecost is no longer a celebration of the beginning of the "one true" church but a celebration of the greater Christian church and of the guidance of the Holy Spirit given to all Christians. The Feast of Trumpets still focuses on the return of Christ, but we also note that Christ has to live in each of us now. The day of Atonement focuses on Christ our Atonement, not on a vague interpretation of Leviticus 16. The Feast of Tabernacles and the Last Great Day is a celebration of our salvation in Christ in a retreat setting.
Also, the emphasis is not on "keeping" holy times but on worshipping. Consequently, the goal is to worship together, not observe 24 hour periods of time. Some still fast on the Day of Atonement and avoid eating leavened products on the Days of Unleavened bread; I think most do not. There can be an advantage to doing those physical things - they can be part of personal worship. But there is also an advantage to come to the point that Paul described: (Rom 14:5-10 NIV) "One man considers one day more sacred than another; another man considers every day alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind. {6} He who regards one day as special, does so to the Lord. He who eats meat, eats to the Lord, for he gives thanks to God; and he who abstains, does so to the Lord and gives thanks to God. {7} For none of us lives to himself alone and none of us dies to himself alone. {8} If we live, we live to the Lord; and if we die, we die to the Lord. So, whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord. {9} For this very reason, Christ died and returned to life so that he might be the Lord of both the dead and the living. {10} You, then, why do you judge your brother? Or why do you look down on your brother? For we will all stand before God's judgment seat." In the "old days", of course, we had our way of explaining this passage, but the "Plain Truth" is that in matters of worship Paul always places more importance on the internal attitude than the outward action.
There is now personal choice on whether or not to attend the Feast of Tabernacles; previously we considered it to be commanded. Some do not attend at all, some attend a full eight-day site, some attend "weekends only" sights, and some meet in homes at their local church area during the weekends. The attendance comes from a desire to worship God with people of like mind, not by command.
With the freedom of choice is the disadvantage that some might be missing out on the "good stuff", and I will have to admit that I have a personal tendency to judge people who I might think are missing out. Yet Christ says "Judge not, that ye be not judged" (Matt 7:1) and the apostle Paul, as I said, always places more importance on the inside attitude than the outward action. So I have no choice - the command is "don't judge".
We worship on the annual festivals, and the seventh day of the week, because it is our tradition. It serves as a reminder of the 60 year journey of the Worldwide Church of God and its transformation from a law-and-Christ worldview to a Christ-centered worldview. I don't know what the future of these days is. We have the Lord's Supper in common with all Christians, and we have moved to observing it more often than just once a year. We have Pentecost in common with a lot of Christians. Many churches have a time of retreat, which is what the Feast of Tabernacles is. Getting together to celebrate Christ is always appropriate and right.
As far as I know, the break-away churches who have retained the old WCG worldview have the baggage that I listed above. That is not to say that their feast observances do not contain uplifting worship and good Christian living messages. But I believe they have the baggage I described above, and less of "the good stuff".
I plan to attend "the Feast" in the Quad Cities this year (1998). It will be my 29th Feast. Our new approach has helped me focus on Christ as our reason for being there, and that makes me want to be there even more than when I thought it was commanded.
Maybe this is more than you asked for, Alex, but I hope it helps you understand how the Feast orginated and what it has become over the years, and I hope it gives you a basis for deciding whether or not you want to accept your friend's invitation to the Feast.
In Christian Love,
John Torgerson