WHAT AM I
When
I tell people that I am a Messianic Christian or Bondservant they often look at
me a little strange and ask what is that? I
tell them that I believe in Jesus or Yeshua and that He is the Messiah and I am
saved through His grace and am a servant of His through faith. They often come back with, “That’s the same as I believe,
not in those words but what is the difference between my belief and yours?”
The
answer to this question could and has taken books to explain.
It boils down to the question of Law verses Grace.
No subject is more intimately bound up with the nature of the gospel than that
of law and grace. This whole argument between the two conceptions of the New
Covenant stem from two major Epistles of Paul, Galatians and Romans.
If we ignore them for the moment and just look at the rest of the New
Testament we have no argument between the two conceptions.
If we look at the words of the Savior Himself, in the gospels, we
understand fully; believing in Him saves us.
We also fully understand that we keep His Word because we love Him.
We know that He is the supreme authority of what is meant about how we
are saved and respectfully keep His Commandments in love. Look at all the other
books of the Testament of the apostles and every one of them attest to the fact
that we are saved by His Grace and nothing we can do will add to our own
salvation. Yet, every one of them
also speaks to living righteously, keeping His Commandments, and following His
example.
It is strange indeed that this kind of argument to the notion of not keeping commandments should be considered by any believer who is seriously studying the New Testament. Did not Yeshua say,
Joh
14:15 “If you love me, you will keep my
commands;
And
did He not say,
Joh 15:10 If you keep My commands, you will stay in My love — just as I have kept My Father’s commands and stay in His love.
It
was John who recorded these sayings of Yeshua and it was he, of all the
disciples, who was mindful of the God’s teaching and example regarding love,
and reproduces that teaching so conspicuously in his Epistle. We can see the
tenderness of his entreaty when he writes,
1Jn
3:18 Children, let us love not with words and talk, but with actions
and in reality!
And
1Jn
4:7 Beloved friends, let us love one another; because love is from God; and
everyone who loves has God as his Father and knows God.
We miss John's message when we have failed to see his emphasis upon the keeping of the commandments of God.
1Jn
2:3 By this we know that we have
come to know Him, if
we keep His commandments.
1Jn
2:4 The one who says, “I have
come to know Him,” and does not keep
His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him;
And
1Jn
3:21 Beloved, if our heart does not
condemn us, we have confidence before God;
1Jn
3:22 and whatever we ask we receive
from Him, because we keep His
commandments and do the things that are pleasing in His sight.
1Jn 3:23
This is His commandment, that we believe in the name of His Son Jesus
Christ, and love one another, just as He commanded us.
1Jn
3:24 The one who keeps His commandments abides in Him, and He in him. We know by this
that He abides in us, by the Spirit whom He has given us.
And
1Jn 5:3 For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments; and His commandments are not burdensome.
The
purpose of the Law was given to expose man’s sins.
No man’s works, or keeping the law, will justify him. (Rom 3:19-20).
1 Cor 15:56 says,
“The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law”.
No man can fulfil the Law perfectly, except Yeshua. That is why Yeshua
said that He came to fulfil the Law. When He fulfilled the Law and the prophets,
He took our place on the cross and overpaid the price for our salvation. All our
sins were placed on Yeshua and judgement came upon Him on that cross so that we
who believe will never be judged. Yeshua
has triumphed over sin and death. This is the Gospel: This is the Good News.
Messianic
Christianity is a faith. It is a belief in God’s grace, in his love, in his
promise and power to forgive and cleanse. God grants his children not only
forgiveness of sin, but also a new life, a life in Yeshua. Where once we lived
for ourselves, now we live for Yeshua. And we do so because the Holy Spirit
resides in us, not because we have suddenly become righteous ourselves. The
Bible does
give us rules and behavioral expectations, but these should be seen as the result
of a faith relationship, wanting to be like Him, not as the basis
for it. They are not a measurement of our righteousness. That’s good, because
we all fail to measure up. The
Torah, the teachings and instructions of God, the commandments, the law, or what
ever you want to call it, was given to lead us to Him and to bring us closer to
Him. His Torah has never been for salvation.
Not one person since Adam has ever been saved except through His Grace.
They were saved because they believed and then they obeyed.
So
that you do not violate one of Paul’s own scriptures:
1Co 1:12
Now this I say, that every one of you saith, I am of Paul; and I of
Apollos; and I of Cephas; and I of Christ.
1Co
1:13 Is Christ divided? was Paul
crucified for you? or were ye baptized in the name of Paul?
Let
us bring Galatians and Romans back for consideration.
It is in these two Epistles from Paul and from Paul alone that we get the
idea that the “law” is null and void. The
understanding of what Paul meant in these two Epistles is the basis for not
keeping God’s teachings and instructions, the Torah.
It is preachers saying “I am of Paul” and teach others not to keep
God’s Word. They preach this in
ignorance of course. Since these Epistles and the rest of the New Testament was
translated to Greek and later to Latin, there was a mistranslation and
misunderstanding of his words. In
Greek the word, NOMOS is the only
word to describe law, ordnance, instruction, commandment or statute.
When Paul is writing about the commandments of God it is translated as
the nomos of God.
When he writes of the rabbinical law as handed down by tradition, it is
translated as nomos.
When he writes about the doctrine
that arose from the newly converted pagans that they were saved by works, it was
translated as the doctrine of nomos.
He did condemn forcing the gentiles to be circumcised.
That
is what Galatians is about, not voiding the Law.
He very well condemned the rabbinical laws set down by the priests. He
also condemned the doctrine that was
arising among the new converts that they had to earn their salvation.
I would like to shout this point. Paul
was talking about the doctrine of believing that keeping the law saves one. No where in all his writings did he ever condemn or void the
Torah. As
a matter of fact, he argued over and over that he kept the Torah and taught it.
When the Bible was later translated into Latin, this one word, Nomos
lost the distinction of exactly what Paul was talking about.
Much later when they were translated to English, it became more
confusing.
The
Catholics took advantage of this very bad translation and misunderstanding and
changed the day of rest. They
Christianized Easter and did away with the Feasts.
They adopted idols and placed them in a prominent place within their
church building. They gave the
mother of our Lord the status of a goddess so they could pray to her.
They took a pagan god’s supposed birthday, the sun god Tammuz, and laid
claim for it for the Son of God. This
dogma became so ingrained after 1,200 years the Protestants retained these
worship rituals only differing slightly here and there until we now have over
3,000 denominations.
The
basic point in Paul’s letters to the Galatians and Romans which is very well
documented in Acts 15, known as the Jerusalem Council.
The elders of the church in Jerusalem came together to decide about what
to do about Paul preaching against circumcision.
Act 15:5 But some of the sect of the Pharisees who had believed stood up, saying, “It is necessary to circumcise them and to direct them to observe the Law of Moses.”
James was the leader of the Church of Jerusalem and after he had heard all sides here
is what he had to say:
Act
15:13 After they had stopped
speaking, James answered, saying, “Brethren, listen to me.
……………………….
Act
15:19 “Therefore it is my
judgment that we do not trouble those who are turning to God from among the
Gentiles,
Act
15:20 but that we write to them
that they abstain from things contaminated by idols and from fornication and
from what is strangled and from blood.
Act
15:21 “For Moses from ancient generations has in every city those who preach
him, since he is read in the synagogues
every Sabbath.”
In other words, they listed a few things that the new gentile converts should do immediately. If you look at the four things listed they all had to do with pagan idol worship, so first they had to get out of paganism. Then James follows it up by pointing out that Moses and the Instructions and Teachings of God are taught in the synagogues every Sabbath and they will learn the Torah in this way. The Council followed it up with a letter carried by Paul and his friends which included:
Act
15:28 “For it seemed good to the
Holy Spirit and to us to lay upon you no greater burden than these essentials:
Act
15:29 that you abstain from things
sacrificed to idols and from blood and from things strangled and from
fornication; if you keep yourselves free from such things, you will do well.
Farewell.”
So
you see the Torah was not made void, but was re-enforced by the knowledge that
the
new converts would learn the Torah as they were taught in the synagogues.
Now look where Paul makes this point very clear.
Rom
3:27 Where is boasting then? It is excluded. By what law? of works? Nay: but by
the law of faith.
Rom 3:28
Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds
of the law.
Rom
3:29 Is he the God of the Jews only? is
he not also of the Gentiles? Yes, of the Gentiles also:
Rom
3:30 Seeing it is one God, which shall justify the circumcision by faith, and
uncircumcision through faith.
Rom
3:31 Do we then
make void the law through faith? God forbid: yea, we establish the law. (TORAH)
Paul
is emphasizing here that the circumcision is of the heart and not of the flesh.
It’s circumcision that’s the basis for this whole debate.
The doctrine that the new convert had to be circumcised in order to be
saved is the yoke that even the Jews could not wear. Paul and Peter argued that
Jews could not live under this doctrine and they should not place the same yoke
on the new convert. Many Church
pastors have twisted Paul’s argument about circumcision to mean all the
instructions of God. They never mentioned voiding the Torah. You do not void the
whole Torah for one restriction that became a stumbling block.
You don’t throw the baby out with the bath water.
I invite the reader to read Galatians in the Literal Translated Version of the Bible or The
Complete Jewish Bible. Both these translations are independent of the Latin, German
and earlier English translations of the Bible and are an attempt in translating direct from
Hebrew and Greek. These will help you see what Paul is talking about throughout the
books of Romans and Galatians.
Another thing one can do is to get a good Bible dictionary, copy of Thayers Greek
Definitions and a Strong’s Concordance and look each word up in each questionable
verse. This will certainly rectify the misunderstanding of how Paul can say one thing in
one place and another thing in a different verse. I invite, no I beg the reader to do these
things and find for yourself if I am telling you the truth.
2Ti
2:14 Of these things put them
in remembrance, charging them before
the Lord that they strive not about words to no profit, but
to the subverting of the hearers.
2Ti
2:15 Study to shew thyself approved
unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.
When we speak of the Torah, we must define just what it is we are talking about. The
first five books of the Bible contain the Torah, and they are words that come out of
God’s mouth.
Mat 4:4 But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.
There
are 613 commandments in the Torah but most of them pertain to the Priest, for a
young girl, or dividing the land or agriculture while in the land.
What is left for us to look to, as our guidelines are the Ten
Commandments, (Exodus 20), and commandments of the Feasts, (Leviticus 23) and
the dietary laws (What is clean and unclean).
One can read those and see that they are not so difficult to keep.
The hardest thing for me was giving up baby back ribs.
1Jn 5:3 For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments: and his commandments are not grievous.
What
was grievous was the rabbinical laws. This
is what Paul found to be the Yoke around our neck and what Yeshua condemned.
Mat
23:4 For they bind heavy burdens and grievous to be borne, and lay them
on men’s shoulders; but they themselves
will not move them with one of their fingers.
Once you come to the conclusion that we should keep God’s Torah, (His teachings and
Instructions) then; the questions our observing Easter or Passover - Sabbath or Sunday
will become a moot debate. Once the reader has studied the scriptures and learned for
himself that the Torah is kept out of a love for God; then we will have a desire to keep
His Feasts, to keep His Sabbath and to keep His commandments. Once everything
falls into place, we will see the perfect plan of God for us, have a desire to follow the
example Yeshua set and draw near to Him. He kept the commandments and never
infringed on one of them. I guarantee you that even though He drove demons from a
man into pigs, He never tasted one piece of bacon or tenderloin. He kept the Sabbath
and even spent His ministry teaching how to keep Sabbath. He kept the Feasts and
even fulfilled the Spring Feast, which are: Passover, Feast of Unleavened Bread, Feast
of First Fruits and Feast of Pentecost. He will fulfill the Fall Feast upon His Second
Coming. Most of the Church does not even know what they are and how He will fulfill
them. That is why
He commanded us to keep the feast throughout
our generations
forever, so that we would know and understand His perfect plan.
Now, let me cite Paul’s verses again:
1Co 1:12
Now this I say, that every one of you saith, I am of Paul; and I of
Apollos; and I of Cephas; and I of Christ.
1Co
1:13 Is Christ divided? was Paul
crucified for you? or were ye baptized in the name of Paul?
Knowing how often Yeshua said to keep His Commandments (Torah) and how much
all the other apostles wrote about keeping His Torah, If we believe that the Torah was
made null and void in Paul’s writings, are we not saying we believe we are for Paul and
not God?