Can ex-WCG, PCG, etc., people know they are observing Pentecost on the correct day? How important is it? This article will answer these questions and furnish the correct calendation.
The Jews today adopted a fixed week calendation that was put together by Rabbi Hillel II in 359 CE (AD), which includes “postponements” so that holy days didn’t conflict with the now fixed week Sabbath.
The Passover and the Sabbath, when figured from the proper lunar calendar, never bump into each other. Passover is always the 14th, and the Sabbath is always the 15th.
First day of Unleavened Bread would always fall on a weekly Sabbath, making it a “high” Sabbath. All the confusion clears up when you work from the correct premise regarding how the weekly Sabbath was determined based on the same calendar where everything reset on the new moon.
Here is a calendar I put together of how Pentecost was calculated before Hillel II changed the Jewish calendation in 359 CE:
Calculating Pentecost 2021 (opens as PDF)
Herbert Armstrong’s dilemma was in trying to maintain the weekly Sabbath as he wanted it, on Saturdays. If he was aware of the change in calendation, like the Adventists, he was not about to reveal this to the membership. Imagine trying to keep the Sabbath when it fell during the workweek of our present calendation!
As I have maintained, it was never truly about the Sabbath anyway. It was about convincing people to overlook and accept his alterations; simple, small alterations, so that they would accept other, more drastic changes later, such as accepting the tithing law as he interpreted it, and not strictly as Scripture put it.
Note that neither date he states was Pentecost. It is all based on the false premise of the Sabbath always being based on fixed weeks, which it was not. So all the WCG splinter groups end up keeping the Sabbath on the wrong days, except rarely when the two calendars match up. All anyone has to do is look at who is being told to keep these feasts in Leviticus 23. The Hebrews, and no one else, via a covenant only they were a party to. Just another level of deception.
The WCG splinter groups all work from the false premise that the weeks back through antiquity were fixed weeks. If you go to Lying for God, the first volume is dedicated to demonstrating how the Hebrews used their lunar calendar to reset the week every new moon. Every new moon began a new month / day “1”. Because it was not a work day, the first work day was day “2” so that the weekly Sabbath always fell on the 8th, 15th, 22nd, and 29th. And day(s) after the 29th, but before the new moon, were not counted as days per se, and I believe they were not considered work days either.
So they are all wrong about Pentecost, because they are all using the wrong calendation.
Christians are not a legal party to the old covenant; any of it, including the holy days, such as Pentecost. Therefore, calculating its occurrence is a moot issue.
By William Hohmann (former WCG member; graduate of Ambassador College; author of many articles on the ESN site)
Exit & Support Network™
June 16, 2021
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The Law of Moses and the Grace of God
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