In the epistles–Romans through Jude–the word “feast” or “feasts” is mentioned only four times. Three of these references evidently refer to collective gatherings that include the saints of God. There is significant teaching relevant to these three references.
A feast in scripture is not an orgy of eating. Rather, as God ordained a feast, it is a collective event for His people which brings glory and satisfaction to Him. God gave seven such feasts to Israel to keep annually, but Israel failed to do so. What started, and was intended, as the “feasts of Jehovah” became mere “feasts of the Jews” (see the opening verses of John 5, 6, and 7 respectively). God does not accept the collective acts of His people as being glorifying or honoring to Him when His holy standards which relate to these are not maintained.
The first reference to a feast in the epistles is 1 Corinthians 5:8, “Therefore, let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.” Note that the positive article is used relative to the feast at this time. The feast is referred to here in the context of a church into which an individual had brought sin through personal misconduct. But that sin could be judged, and was. The judgment was required in order that the feast could be kept, freed from the leaven-like influence of malice and wickedness. It was only by the purifying exercise of discipline that the atmosphere of sincerity and truth in the feast could be maintained. God’s standard, of course, has not deteriorated. It remains so; that where the feast is to be kept in the spirit of God’s requirements, it must be in an atmosphere separated from sin and united in holy dedication to His sincerity and truth.
The next collective reference to a feast in the epistles is in 2 Peter 2. This chapter deals with “false teachers among you who bring in damnable heresies” (v. 2). Verse 10 says that these walk after the flesh in the lust of uncleanness. God defines them in verse 12 as natural brute beasts. Yet, in verse 13, these individuals who are totally unacceptable to the Lord are found “…sporting themselves with their love feasts (RV) while they feast with you.” Here we discover that the feast has come to be characterized by what the attendees define as an exercise of love. It is love of self, love of evil, love of feigned piety; and not love of the truth of God. Here there is neither sincerity nor truth. Therefore, the feast has become their feast. A holy God, deprived of His rightful place, disassociates Himself from the whole affair and accredits the possessive pronoun simply to the humans who convene it. How sad.
The third and final epistle reference to these feasts is in Jude. Here the writer warns of certain men crept in unawares. Verse 4 defines them as ungodly men. Verse 8 tells us they are filthy dreamers. The language of the Spirit of God defines these invaders as utterly corrupt, unsaved individuals, who through subtlety have insinuated themselves into the fellowship of saints. If they have “crept in,” into what could they possibly have crept other than into the local collective fellowship.
The horrid reality is that their insinuation into the midst of the beloved saints repeatedly referred to by Jude results in a situation utterly unacceptable to the Lord. Thus He declares in verse 12, that these are spots in your feasts of charity. Note that the Spirit of God now defines the feast as “your feasts.” The thing has become a human activity. The Lord is apart from it. Its essence is fleshly, not spiritual.
What started as “the feast” became, as the result of corrupting influence, “their feasts”, and finally, as peopled by ungodly men and filthy dreamers, the once glorious feast of the saints becomes your feasts.
And all as a result of allowing within the local church those who were never spiritually fitted to be there. Carelessness, lack of watchfulness, lax standards of reception, the false idea that each and every person can join himself to this feast depending on his own self-judgment of his own merits (an idea absolutely foreign to Scripture and to the Lord), results in this total deterioration. The false teachers mentioned by Peter and the ungodly men of Jude’s day have no divinely instilled ability to perceive either the holiness of God or the unholiness of themselves. Being presumptive in their wickedness, they join themselves to that which is holy and thus pervert the whole. Peter and Jude warn us that such a state of affairs will come in the church of the latter days. And both writers urge the true saint to reflect on the truth of God and to beware of incursions by the wicked ones.
Note that neither Peter nor Jude, in the context of the wickedness they write of, even suggests the possibility of excommunication. There is no suggestion that the testimony thus corrupted can be made pure again. Both writers, rather, warn against letting this deterioration happen in the first place. But both point out, and foretell, the ultimate judgment of the wicked ones; but it is clear in both that the judgment takes place after the Lord comes and removes His true saints from the scene. Rather than the saints having power, in the face of such insinuated wickedness, to excommunicate the wicked from among themselves, the Lord exercises His cleansing power by taking the saints to glory and thereby segregating the wicked ones for His perfect judgment.
The warnings of Peter and Jude are warnings for today. Corrupting influences stalk the local church. The very contaminants described by these writers seek now to insinuate themselves into the testimonies where the feast is still kept in its joy and simplicity. Brethren, let us keep the feast in sincerity and truth.