How a Pagan Easter Became "Christian"
Easter was a pagan festival long before Christianity and the New Testament Church ever existed. It anciently commemorates the Friday death and supposed Sunday resurrection of Nimrod, the false pagan savior!
In the great apostasy which swept through the New Testament world in the latter part of the first century, this pagan "Good Friday — Easter Sunday" tradition was falsely applied to the death and resurrection of the true Savior, Jesus Christ. It was made to appear "Christian."
This teaching became especially popular in the area around Rome. But in Asia Minor, where the Apostle Paul had established Churches, the New Testament Passover continued to be observed on Nisan 14.
The Encyclopedia Britannica, article "Easter," states: "Generally speaking, the Western Churches kept Easter on the first day of the week, while the Eastern Churches [containing most of those who remained as part of the TRUE Christian Church] followed the Jewish rule [observing Passover on 14 Nisan, the first month of the Sacred Hebrew Calendar]."
This difference soon led to serious controversy. Gradually the Greek and Asian Churches began to succumb to the pagan tradition. This same article in Britannica states: "Polycarp, the disciple of John the Evangelist, and bishop of Smyrna, visited Rome in 159 to confer with Anicetus, the bishop of that See, on the subject, and urged the tradition which he had received from the apostle of observing the 14th day. Anicetus, however, declined."
The story doesn't end here! "About forty years later [A.D. 197] the question was discussed in a very different spirit between Victor, bishop of Rome, and Polycrates, metropolitan of pro-consular Asia [the territory of the Churches established by the Apostle Paul]. That province was the only portion of Christendom which still adhered to the Jewish [the writer should have said "true Christian"] usage. Victor demanded that all should adopt the usage prevailing at Rome. This Polycrates firmly refused to agree to, and urged many weighty reasons to the contrary, whereupon Victor proceeded to excommunicate Polycrates and the Christians who continued the Eastern usage [that is, GOD'S way]. He was however, restrained [by other bishops] from actually proceeding to enforce the decree of excommunication . . . and the Asiatic Churches retained their usage unmolested. We find the Jewish [the true Christian] usage from time to time reasserting itself after this, but it never prevailed to any large extent."
It did, however, crop up from time to time as an irksome and annoying issue that caused disunity in the professing Christian Church. When the pagan Roman Emperor Constantine convoked the Council of Nicea in 325 A.D., heordered the bishops to settle the matter once and for all. It was one of the two big issues of the Council.
Council Confirms Roman Usage
At the time of the Nicean Council, the Syrians and the Antiochenes were the only defenders of the observance of the 14th day. They stood little chance!
"The decision of the council was unanimous that Easter was to be kept on Sunday, and on the same Sunday throughout the world, and that 'none hereafter should follow the blindness of the Jews' " (ibid).
In the spiritually darkened minds of those at the Council, anything that was Biblical — anything that God commanded — was "Jewish."
The bishops at Nicea so abhorred anything they thought to be Jewish that they "decided that Easter Day should always be on a Sunday, but never at the same time as the feast of the Jews. If the 14th Nisan fell on a Sunday, Easter Day was transferred to the following Sunday"! (Burns, The Council of Nicea, p. 46)
"For how," explains Constantine —"could we who are Christians possibly keep the same day as those wicked Jews?" (Arian Controversy, Gwatkin, P. 38)
So strong was the anti-Jewish feeling that pork or ham — an abomination to the Jews — was deliberately eaten on Easter to show utter contempt for anything "Jewish." In this case the "Jewish" way also happened to be God's way as revealed in the Bible. (Write for the free article, "Is All Animal Flesh Good Food?")
Thus the Nicean Council — regarded by the world as one of the great milestones of Christianity — condemned observance of the New Testament Passover, one of God's most sacred memorials, without even looking into the Bible! And by "violence and bloodshed" — as history shows (Hislop, p. 107) — the observance of the pagan Easter was enforced in its place.
When Was Christ Resurrected?
Shocking though it may be, either the "Good Friday-Easter Sunday" tradition is a fable — or you have no Savior! Jesus gave only one sign to prove that
He was the Messiah. That sign was the length of time He would be dead and buried.
Notice Jesus' own words concerning this ONLY SIGN that would prove His Messiahship:
"An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given to it, but the sign of the prophet Jonas: For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale's belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth" (Matt. 12:39-40).
Did Christ mean what He said? Did He really expect to be buried in the earth for three days and three nights — a full 72 hours?
Notice Mark 8:31: "And he began to teach them, that the Son of man must suffer many things, and be rejected of the elders, and of the chief priests, and scribes, and be killed, and AFTER three days rise again."
Did you grasp that? Jesus did not say "after a day and a half." He said "after THREE DAYS."
Now consider! If Jesus were crucified and buried late on "Good Friday," then one day after would be Saturday evening, and two days after would be Sunday evening, and three days after would be Monday evening.
But Jesus rose long before Monday evening! Either He was not crucified on "Good Friday," or He did not fulfill His sign and He is therefore an impostor and not the Messiah!
Did Jesus fulfill His sign? In Matthew 28:6 we read this testimony of the angel at the tomb: "He [Jesus] is not here: for he is risen, AS HE SAID"! Jesus did fulfill His sign! He is the Savior! Then He could not have been crucified on "Good Friday"!
What Day Was the Crucifixion?
Jesus was buried shortly before sunset on the day of the crucifixion (Luke 23:53-54). Since Jesus said that He would "rise the third day" after His crucifixion, it is obvious that the resurrection must have occurred precisely at the completion of the third day following His burial. That moment would be near sunset three days later.
When the women came to the tomb early Sunday morning, Jesus was already risen! The angel said, "He is risen: he is not here" (Mark 16:6). He was not at the sepulcher Sunday morning. Therefore Jesus could not have risen later than near sunset Saturday afternoon — three days after His burial.
Why shortly before sunset on a Saturday? Well, obviously, if Christ was ALREADY RISEN on Sunday morning, and WAS NOT THERE — and if He meant what He plainly said concerning His length of time in the tomb, and if He was, as the Bible plainly states, buried shortly BEFORE A SUNSET, then the nearest SUNSET prior to the early predawn darkness of Sunday morning was the PREVIOUS LATE SATURDAY AFTERNOON!
Christ said He would be in the tomb for THREE DAYS AND THREE NIGHTS!
Can we count back in time to discover, then, WHEN He was buried?
Three days before Saturday would place the crucifixion on Wednesday! That Wednesday was a preparation day — a preparation day for what? For the annual Feast of Unleavened Bread. The first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread is always an annual Sabbath. So Thursday that year was an annual Sabbath.
So that we would know that that Sabbath which followed the crucifixion was not the weekly Sabbath, John was inspired to call it a "high day" (John 19:31). According to Jewish usage this expression means an annual Sabbath or Holy Day which may occur any day during the week.
Now look at your Bible again.
Mark picks up John's account by adding that after that Sabbath — the high day of the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread — the women bought sweet spices to use in anointing the body of Jesus (Mark 16:1). This purchasing of the spices could not have been on Thursday, the annual Sabbath. It had to be on the following day, Friday.
Having made their purchases and prepared these ointments on Friday, the women then "rested the Sabbath day according to the commandment" (Luke 23:56). This was a different day — the weekly Sabbath, the seventh day of the week. Upon that day — near its close — Jesus was raised from the dead exactly three days and three nights after He was buried in the tomb.
Could anything be plainer?
Your Bible proves that the resurrection was not on Sunday. The crucifixion was not on Friday. Rather, Christ died near sunset on Wednesday and was resurrected near sunset on Saturday, three days and three nights later. (This is all explained in much greater detail in the booklets, The Resurrection Was Not on Sunday and The Crucifixion Was Not on Friday. Write for them. Both are free)
Does It Make Any Difference?
Some will still say, "Yes, I know that Easter has a pagan origin, and I can plainly see that Christ was not resurrected on a Sunday. But as long as we keep Easter in a Christian spirit as a kind of remembrance of Christ's resurrection, what difference does it make? After all — REGARDLESS as to the significance of the day, or the various customs associated with it, we're doing it to remember the resurrection of Christ, aren't we?"
Not the Christ of the Bible, you're not!
And the answer is — it doesn't MAKE A BIT of difference, if Christ Is NOT alive, and if the Bible is NOT the Word of God, and if there is no God!
Because if there is no God, and we're left free to pick and choose whatever custom most appeals to us for OUR OWN religions — then let's have at it with great zeal! But, at least, let's call a spade a spade — and realize the TRUE significance of the symbols we use.
But since there is a God — and since Jesus Christ REALLY DID walk from His tomb, then it does make a tremendous difference — to CHRIST!
There is not a single word in the Bible telling us to observe Easter. Instead, God thunders, "LEARN NOT the way of the heathen" (Jer. 10:2). And any encyclopedia will tell you that Easter is a pagan festival, long antedating Christianity. More detailed proof is available in our surprising free booklet, The Plain Truth About Easter!
Are you going to obey God? The choice is yours.