Deuteronomy 6:25 And it shall be our righteousness, if we observe to do all these commandments before the Lord our God, as he hath commanded us.

Absolutely, but they didn’t obey, so where is their righteousness now. In my zeal to bring you my thoughts on apostates yesterday, I may have overstated my opinion on agendas and those who are troubled by them. This all boils down to the issues of being right in our own minds. Doing that leads to one of the most overlooked issues of righteousness, personal possession. Here in Deuteronomy they called it “our righteousness”. Their being right was linked to and judged by obedience to the law and they could not keep it. They held onto their “righteousness” as if it were unconditional, theirs by possession and were unwilling to give it up. Bible history shows us how that worked out for them.

Along comes Christ and He was and is righteous. In Him no harm could be found. He was and is that perfect sacrifice for the remission of sins. What happened to His righteousness?

Isaiah 41:10 Fear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness.

We stand and walk with God by the right hand of His righteousness. Who is seated on the right hand of the throne of God? Jesus Christ of course.

2 Corinthians 5:21 For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.

Philippians 3:9 And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith:

I have access to His righteousness by faith. It is not my own and yet I still desire to be right.

Acts 12:4 And when he had apprehended him, he put him in prison, and delivered him to four quaternions of soldiers to keep him; intending after Easter to bring him forth to the people.

Easter: mistranslated “Easter” in Act 12:4, AV, denotes the Passover (RV). The phrase “after the Passover” signifies after the whole festival was at an end. The term “Easter” is not of Christian origin. It is another form of Astarte, one of the titles of the Chaldean goddess, the queen of heaven. The festival of Pasch held by Christians in post-apostolic times was a continuation of the Jewish feast, but was not instituted by Christ, nor was it connected with Lent. From this Pasch the pagan festival of “Easter” was quite distinct and was introduced into the apostate Western religion, as part of the attempt to adapt pagan festivals to Christianity.

My original question was this; if pascha is mistranslated Easter why keep it? Now, a few hours later, in the beginnings of that study I see the term “apostate Western religion”. Who are you calling apostate? Who are you to judge those who celebrate Easter? Vine’s Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words has been a standard in my search for meaning. What do they mean by apostate and do I apply?

After close study I discovered to my disappointment that name calling is a consistent bad habit even amongst the best intentioned of us. Our desire is to be right on critical matters and we have allowed the need to be right on trivial issues to continue this bad habit.

I have studied under some extremely intelligent and dedicated theologians and without an exception I have found in each of them at least one point of personal judgement that is disturbing in its pronouncement. They all have a personal agenda that they just cannot shake and they erode fellowship for some to the point they scream heretic, blasphemer, or apostate. 

Personal agendas that caustic are not good for unity in the faith and need to be dealt with on a personal level.