I have some relatives that defend their Hebrew Roots cult-ish faith with this nonsense. Not only do they have a primary source problem in producing evidence that Christmas/Easter is pagan, but they also have a Galatians/Hebrews problem when it comes to justification by faith alone. Thanks for a thorough, well researched article, yet again!
What you say is true about the tomb is empty and Messiah conquered the grave. You say the eggs and bunny were a late addition so why blend that with a Jewish Passover (pesach) lamb? Why add to a truth with a pagan ritual? Why mix the profane with the truth? Bunnies and eggs have nothing to do with the miraculous event of Messiah conquering the grave. The Christian belief stands good enough alone and doesn’t need any additional festival activity! That’s the point - not that celebrating the death and resurrection isn’t enough on its own. We don’t need to add anything to that celebration to make it “fun”. It should stand on its own. It confuses that wonderful event with spring celebrations, splitting the emphasis and taking away from the pure resurrection story.
Certainly honoring bunnies and eggs is not Christian and need not be bundled with such a glorious miraculous event that should stand on its own - spring events don’t need to be added to it. That’s my point, not arguing pagan vs Christian.
I don't have a problem with it. I don't prefer it either. I think this is an area where Christians can reasonably disagree with one another. My point is limited to the topic of the essay, but if you don't want Easter bunnies, I certainly understand.
A tremendous piece that proves once and for all that Easter is NOT pagan in its origins! Its a Christian holiday through and through and celebrates a momentous event in history, Jesus Christ rising from the grave on Easter Morning and conquering death! Dr. Martin, you've done it again with another masterful work of history!
Sorry, Brother Rod, but you're engaging in a bit of evasion and creative deflection here. I agree with many of your points, but you're not confronting the real problem at issue -- the SUBSTITUTION of Passover with Easter to obscure its Leviticus 23 Hebrew roots. That divorce from Hebraic origins was Constantine's express purpose in changing the holidays, and Augustine doubled-down on that game plan, intentionally allegorizing an enormous body of doctrines rooted in Hebraic literalism (such as the Millennial Kingdom) to placate the Romans who blamed Christianity for the sack of Rome in 410. Prior to Augustine many key figures such as John's disciple Polycarp personally kept the feasts as a central practice of Christianity. Today the connection to the feasts you're implying Churches commonly teach is actually still very rare, even after decades of reminders of those perspectives by the Hebrew Roots movement and Messianic Judaism. I have no problem with Easter as an augmentation of the truths of Passover, but as an complete substitute with no historical and theological context it borders on heresy.
Further, some of the claims of pagan connections do have some merit, but the Roman Catholic church was very good at reinterpreting those things to serve the Cause of Christ and largely neutralized their impact.
Do you really believe that the only way you can make your point is to accuse me of "evasion and creative deflection", or that that is my only possible motive for disagreeing with you? That seems...uncharitable.
You're right and I apologize. I woke up this morning regretting that choice of phrase. I had just pivoted from a hot debate with an unfriendly and hadn't adjusted my frame of mind. It won't happen again.
I'm actually encouraged that you're on this trajectory. In 2011 I decided to cut all my ties to pre-fab doctrines and denominationalism and re-study Bible history and prophecy from scratch, adopting a literalist approach and the Hebrew cultural perspective of the Apostles and the Prophets. It's been an amazing journey resulting in a body of conclusions I call Restoration Theology that integrates the central threads of two house doctrine with pre-millennial eschatology and the Levitical feasts. I outlined some of its key points in a critique of Roger Stone's recent Holy Week article: https://millennialistvagabond.substack.com/p/holy-week-according-to-restoration Along the way I added the study of the history of Christian Hebraism which is utterly fascinating and opens up insights on history and geopolitics I would never have previously imagined. Much of it is simply unknown to modern Christians.
This is long but relevant to our conversation and begins with a summary similar to your own:
Resurrection Day and the Second Advent: The Oracles That Bridge Both Comings
Why Christians on this special day should respect the Jews and look forward to their collective salvation
Preface
On this Easter Sunday, 2026, we celebrate the central event of Christianity: the resurrection of Jesus the Messiah. This was no isolated miracle. It was the precise fulfillment of the final act of Passover week — the offering of the First Fruits. As Paul declares in 1 Corinthians 15:20-23, “Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep… But each in turn: Christ, the firstfruits; then, when he comes, those who belong to him.” On the very day the priests in the Temple waved the first sheaf of the barley harvest — the day after the Sabbath following Passover — Jesus rose from the grave as the first sheaf of the greater resurrection harvest.
At the Last Supper, on the eve of His crucifixion, the Lord commanded His disciples to continue the ritual of the bread and the wine “in remembrance of me” and to do so “until he comes” (1 Corinthians 11:23-26; Luke 22:19-20). In that single command He anchored the entire prophetic calendar. The biblical feasts are not merely ancient Jewish observances; they are the divine framework for both advents and God’s entire redemptive timeline. Passover and First Fruits (as well as Unleavened Bread and Pentecost) were fulfilled at the first advent. The fall feasts — Trumpets, Atonement, and Tabernacles — await their complete fulfillment at the second advent, which will culminate in the literal Millennial Kingdom.
It was always God’s plan to save the corporate House of Judah at the Second Advent. Through the long Age of the Gentiles He has carefully preserved them — not as an afterthought, but as the faithful stewards of the oracles of God. That preservation is the very reason the two houses remain interconnected even now, and it points directly to the soon-coming culmination of prophecy: the restoration of both houses and of “all things” in the thousand-year Sabbath Kingdom.
With that hope firmly in view, we turn to the Apostle Paul’s clear teaching in Romans 3:1-2 about the special advantage given to the Jew — the oracles of God — and what that advantage means for us today in Restoration Theology.
The Oracles of God: Romans 3:1-2 in Restoration Theology
At First Century Bible Church we teach the pre-Roman doctrines of the Apostolic Age. One of the clearest statements of the two-house division of the Abrahamic Covenant is found in Romans 3:1-2, where Paul asks, “What advantage then hath [present tense] the Jew? … Much every way: chiefly, because that unto them were committed the oracles of God.
”In Restoration Theology the “oracles of God” (logia tou Theou) refer specifically to the written Hebrew Scriptures — the living, authoritative revelations God gave to the patriarchs and prophets and entrusted to the House of Judah (Leah’s line). This stewardship was part of the deliberate probate division of the covenant inheritance after Jacob married two wives. The House of Judah received the scepter, the Temple service, the Levitical priesthood, and the custody of the written Word. The House of Israel/Ephraim (Rachel’s line) received the birthright, the double portion, the name “Israel,” and the fruitfulness that would become a multitude of nations. The oracles stayed with Judah.
This is why, even after the northern house was divorced and scattered, and even after the corporate House of Judah (defined today as Judaism) collectively rejected Messiah, the Hebrew Scriptures have been preserved and transmitted by Judah through every dispersion. The oracles themselves were never taken away from them. They remain Judah’s covenantal trust.
Yet we must carefully distinguish these preserved written oracles of the Old Testament from the Living Word of the Christian era. John opens his Gospel with the declaration that “the Word was with God, and the Word was God … and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1:1, 14). The written oracles pointed forward to Messiah; the Living Word is Messiah Himself.
During the two-thousand-year Christian Era (the two “Days” of the Age of the Gentiles), the House of Israel — defined corporately as Christianity — has received the new covenant first. Jeremiah 31:31-34 is already being fulfilled in the House of Israel: God is putting His law in their inward parts and writing it on their hearts. When a person accepts Christ he receives the gift of the indwelling Holy Spirit who will guide him in all truth (John 16:13; John 14:26; 1 John 2:27). However, the written oracles remain an essential component of Christianity.
Paul makes this practical for every believer when he writes to Timothy in 2 Timothy 3:15-17: “From a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works.” By “scripture” taught to Timothy “from your youth” Paul clearly means the Old Testament, since much of the New Testament had not yet been written when Paul sent this letter, much less compiled and canonized.
Here Paul shows that faith in Christ does not replace the written oracles; it illuminates them. The Holy Spirit and the continually preserved written oracles work in tandem to equip the House of Israel (Christians) to perform the good works God prepared beforehand for us to walk in (Ephesians 2:10). Thus the oracles remain a living testimony to the world throughout the Age of the Gentiles.
While present-day debates over the role of the Jews in current events and prophecy often address (often contemptuously) the phenomenon of Talmudism — the Jewish practice of following the Hebrew sages’ commentaries on the Torah (and commentaries on the commentaries) — it is rarely if ever noted that this practice is driven by a near-fanatical insistence on leaving the Torah itself completely untouched. Jews in the Gentile age practically do backflips to avoid even speaking the name of God.
Viewed from the Restoration Theology perspective this makes perfect sense: the chief duty of the House of Judah is to preserve the oracles until they are restored in a perfect form in the Millennial Kingdom. They also have the witness of the House of Israel’s fall from grace and authority at Shiloh by mishandling and misusing the Ark of the Covenant — the incident that caused God to shift authority to the House of Judah at the time of David. They do not want to suffer the same fate. And because of that the Torah itself is shielded from tampering by layers upon layers of commentaries, like a vault within a vault within a vault.
The continuing role of the Jews (the corporate House of Judah) during this same period perpetuates two-house interconnectedness even though the House of Judah remains only partially hardened. The curse Christ pronounced upon that generation in Matthew 23 is not yet fully lifted; that lifting will occur at the Second Advent.
Until then, Judah’s faithful stewardship of the oracles keeps the two houses linked: Judah guards the documents while the House of Israel carries their message to the nations.
The Second Advent itself spans the three fall feasts. It begins with the Resurrection/Rapture on the Feast of Trumpets (when the Bride of Christ is glorified) and culminates at the Day of Atonement (Revelation 19:11-21). Only then, five days layer at the Feast of Tabernacles, does the literal Millennial Kingdom begin — the “restoration of all things” (Acts 3:21; Mark 9:12) in which both houses are finally reunited as one stick in the hand of the Lord (Ezekiel 37).
At that moment the oracles that Judah preserved will be perfectly joined with the Living Word that the House of Israel has already received. The new covenant will be fully realized for both houses together under Messiah on David’s throne.
This is the precise Hebraic logic Paul is teaching in Romans 3:1-2. The advantage of the Jew is real and ongoing: they were given the oracles. But that advantage is not the end of the story. It is the foundation for the full restoration of all things when the two houses become one and every oracle finds its perfect fulfillment in the Living Word who reigns from Jerusalem. That is Restoration Theology in its purest apostolic form.
Postscript
Dear brothers and sisters in the House of Israel, let us pray earnestly for the Jews of the House of Judah. Even now the Messiah is preparing their hearts to receive Him collectively at His soon return. Pray that many Jews will begin to turn to Him publicly in these closing days of the Age of the Gentiles, awakening the full House of Judah to the reality of His soon return and the irrevocable promises He has made to them (Romans 11:25-26; Zechariah 12:10; Romans 11:11).
The same God who preserved them through centuries of dispersion is the One who will lift the partial hardening and fulfill every word spoken to their fathers. May our prayers hasten that glorious day.
I have some relatives that defend their Hebrew Roots cult-ish faith with this nonsense. Not only do they have a primary source problem in producing evidence that Christmas/Easter is pagan, but they also have a Galatians/Hebrews problem when it comes to justification by faith alone. Thanks for a thorough, well researched article, yet again!
What you say is true about the tomb is empty and Messiah conquered the grave. You say the eggs and bunny were a late addition so why blend that with a Jewish Passover (pesach) lamb? Why add to a truth with a pagan ritual? Why mix the profane with the truth? Bunnies and eggs have nothing to do with the miraculous event of Messiah conquering the grave. The Christian belief stands good enough alone and doesn’t need any additional festival activity! That’s the point - not that celebrating the death and resurrection isn’t enough on its own. We don’t need to add anything to that celebration to make it “fun”. It should stand on its own. It confuses that wonderful event with spring celebrations, splitting the emphasis and taking away from the pure resurrection story.
They are not pagan. You clearly didn't read that part of the essay.
Certainly honoring bunnies and eggs is not Christian and need not be bundled with such a glorious miraculous event that should stand on its own - spring events don’t need to be added to it. That’s my point, not arguing pagan vs Christian.
I don't have a problem with it. I don't prefer it either. I think this is an area where Christians can reasonably disagree with one another. My point is limited to the topic of the essay, but if you don't want Easter bunnies, I certainly understand.
A tremendous piece that proves once and for all that Easter is NOT pagan in its origins! Its a Christian holiday through and through and celebrates a momentous event in history, Jesus Christ rising from the grave on Easter Morning and conquering death! Dr. Martin, you've done it again with another masterful work of history!
Excellent essay! Excellent history explanation. I see the eggs (real ones!) as a symbol of life.
Sorry, Brother Rod, but you're engaging in a bit of evasion and creative deflection here. I agree with many of your points, but you're not confronting the real problem at issue -- the SUBSTITUTION of Passover with Easter to obscure its Leviticus 23 Hebrew roots. That divorce from Hebraic origins was Constantine's express purpose in changing the holidays, and Augustine doubled-down on that game plan, intentionally allegorizing an enormous body of doctrines rooted in Hebraic literalism (such as the Millennial Kingdom) to placate the Romans who blamed Christianity for the sack of Rome in 410. Prior to Augustine many key figures such as John's disciple Polycarp personally kept the feasts as a central practice of Christianity. Today the connection to the feasts you're implying Churches commonly teach is actually still very rare, even after decades of reminders of those perspectives by the Hebrew Roots movement and Messianic Judaism. I have no problem with Easter as an augmentation of the truths of Passover, but as an complete substitute with no historical and theological context it borders on heresy.
Further, some of the claims of pagan connections do have some merit, but the Roman Catholic church was very good at reinterpreting those things to serve the Cause of Christ and largely neutralized their impact.
Do you really believe that the only way you can make your point is to accuse me of "evasion and creative deflection", or that that is my only possible motive for disagreeing with you? That seems...uncharitable.
You're right and I apologize. I woke up this morning regretting that choice of phrase. I had just pivoted from a hot debate with an unfriendly and hadn't adjusted my frame of mind. It won't happen again.
No problem. I do that a little too often myself. And I'm certainly interested in your point of view!
I'm actually encouraged that you're on this trajectory. In 2011 I decided to cut all my ties to pre-fab doctrines and denominationalism and re-study Bible history and prophecy from scratch, adopting a literalist approach and the Hebrew cultural perspective of the Apostles and the Prophets. It's been an amazing journey resulting in a body of conclusions I call Restoration Theology that integrates the central threads of two house doctrine with pre-millennial eschatology and the Levitical feasts. I outlined some of its key points in a critique of Roger Stone's recent Holy Week article: https://millennialistvagabond.substack.com/p/holy-week-according-to-restoration Along the way I added the study of the history of Christian Hebraism which is utterly fascinating and opens up insights on history and geopolitics I would never have previously imagined. Much of it is simply unknown to modern Christians.
This is long but relevant to our conversation and begins with a summary similar to your own:
Resurrection Day and the Second Advent: The Oracles That Bridge Both Comings
Why Christians on this special day should respect the Jews and look forward to their collective salvation
Preface
On this Easter Sunday, 2026, we celebrate the central event of Christianity: the resurrection of Jesus the Messiah. This was no isolated miracle. It was the precise fulfillment of the final act of Passover week — the offering of the First Fruits. As Paul declares in 1 Corinthians 15:20-23, “Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep… But each in turn: Christ, the firstfruits; then, when he comes, those who belong to him.” On the very day the priests in the Temple waved the first sheaf of the barley harvest — the day after the Sabbath following Passover — Jesus rose from the grave as the first sheaf of the greater resurrection harvest.
At the Last Supper, on the eve of His crucifixion, the Lord commanded His disciples to continue the ritual of the bread and the wine “in remembrance of me” and to do so “until he comes” (1 Corinthians 11:23-26; Luke 22:19-20). In that single command He anchored the entire prophetic calendar. The biblical feasts are not merely ancient Jewish observances; they are the divine framework for both advents and God’s entire redemptive timeline. Passover and First Fruits (as well as Unleavened Bread and Pentecost) were fulfilled at the first advent. The fall feasts — Trumpets, Atonement, and Tabernacles — await their complete fulfillment at the second advent, which will culminate in the literal Millennial Kingdom.
It was always God’s plan to save the corporate House of Judah at the Second Advent. Through the long Age of the Gentiles He has carefully preserved them — not as an afterthought, but as the faithful stewards of the oracles of God. That preservation is the very reason the two houses remain interconnected even now, and it points directly to the soon-coming culmination of prophecy: the restoration of both houses and of “all things” in the thousand-year Sabbath Kingdom.
With that hope firmly in view, we turn to the Apostle Paul’s clear teaching in Romans 3:1-2 about the special advantage given to the Jew — the oracles of God — and what that advantage means for us today in Restoration Theology.
The Oracles of God: Romans 3:1-2 in Restoration Theology
At First Century Bible Church we teach the pre-Roman doctrines of the Apostolic Age. One of the clearest statements of the two-house division of the Abrahamic Covenant is found in Romans 3:1-2, where Paul asks, “What advantage then hath [present tense] the Jew? … Much every way: chiefly, because that unto them were committed the oracles of God.
”In Restoration Theology the “oracles of God” (logia tou Theou) refer specifically to the written Hebrew Scriptures — the living, authoritative revelations God gave to the patriarchs and prophets and entrusted to the House of Judah (Leah’s line). This stewardship was part of the deliberate probate division of the covenant inheritance after Jacob married two wives. The House of Judah received the scepter, the Temple service, the Levitical priesthood, and the custody of the written Word. The House of Israel/Ephraim (Rachel’s line) received the birthright, the double portion, the name “Israel,” and the fruitfulness that would become a multitude of nations. The oracles stayed with Judah.
This is why, even after the northern house was divorced and scattered, and even after the corporate House of Judah (defined today as Judaism) collectively rejected Messiah, the Hebrew Scriptures have been preserved and transmitted by Judah through every dispersion. The oracles themselves were never taken away from them. They remain Judah’s covenantal trust.
Yet we must carefully distinguish these preserved written oracles of the Old Testament from the Living Word of the Christian era. John opens his Gospel with the declaration that “the Word was with God, and the Word was God … and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1:1, 14). The written oracles pointed forward to Messiah; the Living Word is Messiah Himself.
During the two-thousand-year Christian Era (the two “Days” of the Age of the Gentiles), the House of Israel — defined corporately as Christianity — has received the new covenant first. Jeremiah 31:31-34 is already being fulfilled in the House of Israel: God is putting His law in their inward parts and writing it on their hearts. When a person accepts Christ he receives the gift of the indwelling Holy Spirit who will guide him in all truth (John 16:13; John 14:26; 1 John 2:27). However, the written oracles remain an essential component of Christianity.
Paul makes this practical for every believer when he writes to Timothy in 2 Timothy 3:15-17: “From a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works.” By “scripture” taught to Timothy “from your youth” Paul clearly means the Old Testament, since much of the New Testament had not yet been written when Paul sent this letter, much less compiled and canonized.
Here Paul shows that faith in Christ does not replace the written oracles; it illuminates them. The Holy Spirit and the continually preserved written oracles work in tandem to equip the House of Israel (Christians) to perform the good works God prepared beforehand for us to walk in (Ephesians 2:10). Thus the oracles remain a living testimony to the world throughout the Age of the Gentiles.
While present-day debates over the role of the Jews in current events and prophecy often address (often contemptuously) the phenomenon of Talmudism — the Jewish practice of following the Hebrew sages’ commentaries on the Torah (and commentaries on the commentaries) — it is rarely if ever noted that this practice is driven by a near-fanatical insistence on leaving the Torah itself completely untouched. Jews in the Gentile age practically do backflips to avoid even speaking the name of God.
Viewed from the Restoration Theology perspective this makes perfect sense: the chief duty of the House of Judah is to preserve the oracles until they are restored in a perfect form in the Millennial Kingdom. They also have the witness of the House of Israel’s fall from grace and authority at Shiloh by mishandling and misusing the Ark of the Covenant — the incident that caused God to shift authority to the House of Judah at the time of David. They do not want to suffer the same fate. And because of that the Torah itself is shielded from tampering by layers upon layers of commentaries, like a vault within a vault within a vault.
The continuing role of the Jews (the corporate House of Judah) during this same period perpetuates two-house interconnectedness even though the House of Judah remains only partially hardened. The curse Christ pronounced upon that generation in Matthew 23 is not yet fully lifted; that lifting will occur at the Second Advent.
Until then, Judah’s faithful stewardship of the oracles keeps the two houses linked: Judah guards the documents while the House of Israel carries their message to the nations.
The Second Advent itself spans the three fall feasts. It begins with the Resurrection/Rapture on the Feast of Trumpets (when the Bride of Christ is glorified) and culminates at the Day of Atonement (Revelation 19:11-21). Only then, five days layer at the Feast of Tabernacles, does the literal Millennial Kingdom begin — the “restoration of all things” (Acts 3:21; Mark 9:12) in which both houses are finally reunited as one stick in the hand of the Lord (Ezekiel 37).
At that moment the oracles that Judah preserved will be perfectly joined with the Living Word that the House of Israel has already received. The new covenant will be fully realized for both houses together under Messiah on David’s throne.
This is the precise Hebraic logic Paul is teaching in Romans 3:1-2. The advantage of the Jew is real and ongoing: they were given the oracles. But that advantage is not the end of the story. It is the foundation for the full restoration of all things when the two houses become one and every oracle finds its perfect fulfillment in the Living Word who reigns from Jerusalem. That is Restoration Theology in its purest apostolic form.
Postscript
Dear brothers and sisters in the House of Israel, let us pray earnestly for the Jews of the House of Judah. Even now the Messiah is preparing their hearts to receive Him collectively at His soon return. Pray that many Jews will begin to turn to Him publicly in these closing days of the Age of the Gentiles, awakening the full House of Judah to the reality of His soon return and the irrevocable promises He has made to them (Romans 11:25-26; Zechariah 12:10; Romans 11:11).
The same God who preserved them through centuries of dispersion is the One who will lift the partial hardening and fulfill every word spoken to their fathers. May our prayers hasten that glorious day.
This was fantastic. I will share some of these facts with my kindergarten class.