What is Sinless?

This is post number twelve in the series: Why I Am Not A Christian.  This series is posted so that you can start at the beginning and go from post to post in order.  If you are new here, this will make much more sense if you start at the beginning.


Let’s pretend for a moment that the churches in the modern world, and especially the United States, have not been so thoroughly infected with post-modern, relativistic thought; that there are actually people who believe that there is such a thing as objective truth.  I know that this is hard to swallow, considering the research that’s been done by Barna and his firm, but for the purposes of this study, let’s probe the idea that there are people who wish to claim allegiance to the Messiah of the Bible on the basis of the One who created everything and not the opinions of created beings.

Before anyone can undertake to be a disciple of the God of the Bible, one must decide who is the judge and who sets the standard.  If you have decided that you are going to pick and choose which things in Scripture apply to you, you might as well go off and start your own religion and be honest about what you call it.  “St. McGillicuddy’s Church of My Opinion,” for example.  If you are going to spend most or all of your time and energy focusing on one or two doctrines and only looking for those select texts that support your argument, then you’ve descended into making yourself the judge of Scripture.  It can be done very subtly, but done nonetheless.

In this installment, I decided to use sin as the example.  In many of the older denominations, sin is hardly, if at all, talked about.  But then people rarely talk about things that have no importance in their lives, whether positive or negative. And while sin may get preached about from the pulpits of the hyper-excitement charismatic denominations, it is practically undefined.  I’ve heard it said that it is not doing what you know you should do and doing what you know you should.  Alternately I could simply say, let your conscience be your guide.

Is that right?  Is that the Biblical standard?  I don’t think so.  Scripture tells me that “the intent of man’s heart is evil from his youth;” (Gen. 8:21).  “The heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick; who can understand it?” (Jeremiah 17:9)  In order to be clear, I must stop here and define what the Scripture is talking about when it says “heart.”  It means your mind.  Not a blood pump.  Not your emotions; although your emotions are inextricably linked to it.  Not your cogitating intellect.  It is talking about your non-physical being.  The part of you that needs the rational intellect to control it.  The corresponding feature in animals would be instinct.  It’s the part of you that has desires and needs.

When men simply decide that their own conscience is the standard, they can rationalize all kinds of things.  Do you think that Hitler thought of himself as evil?  Of course not.  He believed he was doing everything he did for the good of the people of Germany.  Geoffrey Dahmer admitted in an interview with a reporter that the reason he could justify killing and eating his victims was because if we are all evolved from the primordial slime, why should we not do whatever we want?  In a very sick way, Hitler made more moral sense than Dahmer, because at least Hitler was trying to do something he felt was good for his country, while Dahmer did what he did simply because it didn’t matter.  Or someone could argue that Hitler was more evil than Dahmer, because what’s the big deal of killing and eating a few people compared to murdering about eight million people?

Each person walking the planet can have their own, individual set of standards that they can call their conscience. In reality, that means that there is no standard at all.  This is why God gave us the Torah; His “Teaching.”  And because the vast majority of churches have abandoned the standard of Torah for what does and does not constitute sin, there is confusion and chaos.  You can go to one church and be made to feel guilty for wearing make-up or pants if you’re a woman.  You can go to another church and be a practicing homosexual and be made to feel that you are just fine the way you are and what you are doing is your own business.  There are people who quit going to church because they didn’t want to be convicted of sin, while there are other people who quit going to church because they are tired of there being no real standard and the hypocrisy drives them nuts.

Which reminds me that I need to do a comprehensive post on what is and is not hypocrisy.  That is another word that has been abused into near meaninglessness.

So, when the Bible speaks of Yeshua (Jesus) of being without sin, what does it mean?  If your concept of what constitutes sin is based on nothing more than your own personal conscience, then you can define Yeshua’s sinlessness as whatever you want to.  Have you ever thought about that?

If you choose not to study the same Scriptures that Yeshua studied which defines the standard of righteousness, and you instead have some undefined idea of what sinlessness is, then you create an image for yourself and apply that image to God.  This is backwards.  This is wrong.  This is idolatry.

What if you had been there when He made a whip of cords and drove the money-changers out of the Temple courts?  Not only was he angry, but he was downright violent.  Why was that not sinful?  When He was twelve and remained at the Temple asking questions and caused his parents to be worried, why wasn’t that sinful?  Then there was sassing His momma by asking her why she didn’t know that He had to be about His Daddy’s business.

If you have never studied Torah in depth and then only read the Gospels through the eyes of a modern Gentile, you are not going to understand what the writers of the Gospels meant when they said that Yeshua was without sin.  To the “Christianized” mind, a sinless Jesus is indefinable.  Seriously.  Take a moment and ponder this.  Can you, if you claim to be a Christian, clearly define to another person, what exactly made Jesus a sinless man?  Could any two people agree on that definition?

Would you say that Jesus was the embodiment of love?  Really?  Then why did he make so many people angry?  Do the words of Yeshua in Matthew 23 sound like someone full of love for everyone?  I remember being at a dinner with distant relatives and being chastised for believing in a standard of holiness. Someone said, “Jesus’ whole reason for coming to earth was to bring us peace and love.”

Really?  Matthew 10:34-39 quotes The Master as saying:

“Do not think that I came to bring peace on the earth; I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.  For I came to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and a man’s enemies will be the members of his own household.  He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me. He who has found his life shall lose it, and he who has lost his life for My sake shall find it.”

Can you see why it is dangerous to make broad statements when you don’t really know what you are talking about?  Don’t misunderstand my point and think that I am advocating for dominion theology or some form of militant Christianity.  In order to understand that quote above, you must take into account all of the teachings of Yeshua, and that includes what Torah says as well.  Could you consider the statement above to be hyperbole?  Yes and no.  As an aside I have to point out that it is ironic that “liberals” like to accuse us “Bible Thumpers” of only seeing things in black and white, and no shades of grey, when just the opposite is true.

Do I believe that some families will be torn apart over following Yeshua?  Absolutely.  Imagine you are an orthodox Jew who converts to Christianity.  Your family will consider you dead, mourn your loss, and may even have a formal “memorial” service for you.  If you are a muslim who converts, they may actually try to kill you.  So there is no hyperbole in such a case.

But you may simply have a stressful time dealing with family relationships once you become a devout believer in the God of the Bible.  The point is that discipleship can cost you a lot, but the ultimate reward is worth whatever sacrifice you may have to make.   Back to the question of what constitutes sin.

Another reason we need the Torah and the rest of Scripture to be the standard for what is and is not sin, is because there are a lot of people who like to run around saying that God told them something.  Even when I was still only a young Christian of about five years experience, and didn’t know near as much as I do now (which will never be enough), I used to get in some heated arguments with folks when I questioned the crap that was being taught by the likes of Benny Hinn and Kenneth Copeland and a lot of the bilge that comes from the Trinity Broadcasting Network.

I’ve heard people like Fred Price and Jesse Duplantis say some stupid and downright heretical things which should have gotten them banned from speaking in most churches, but instead they get applauded for it.  The particulars are not what’s important for the purposes of this essay, the point is that there has to be an immovable standard that settles any arguments.  That standard has to be Scripture.

By surrendering to the knowledge that Torah is eternal; that Yeshua is Torah and Torah is Yeshua; that the Holy Spirit would never, ever, contradict Scripture, and therefore, would never tell a believer something contradicted by Scripture; I can be assured that if I do my best to follow Torah, I need not be ashamed.  When I do fall short and violate Torah, I have the ultimate High Priest and advocate in Yeshua.

Yeshua has told us plainly and clearly that Torah is eternal and is still in effect.  He came to help us understand it better, and the Ruach HaKodesh (Holy Spirit) is here to give us the power to carry it out daily if we are willing to listen and submit our will to His.

In His Name

This is the next installment in the series that began with Why I Am Not A Christian.  You can return here to click on the subsequent essays: Two, Three, Four, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, & 10.


Lots of Christian denominations in the breathless "charismatic" wing will go on wild rants about invoking the name of Jesus.  Such rants, er, I guess I mean "sermons" are usually a mile wide and an inch deep.  And since it brings the subject to mind, it usually compares to the practice in many independent congregations to engage in what I call "broken-record" worship.  Now, before someone accuses me of being too critical, let me ask God, right here in front of the witnesses (No, not you JWs) who read this blog, to correct me if what I am about to say is wrong.  I just don't see how taking a little chorus of a song and repeating it over, and over, and over for a thirty or forty minute stretch at 110 decibels is somehow honoring to God.  To me, it invokes images of new age cults engaging in repetitive chants in order to empty their minds and achieve oneness with their navel or whatever.  I'd rather sing some stodgy old hymns that have great and meaningful lyrics that you have to actually think about and tell an important story or attribute of God than to sing the same line, "I am a friend of God" or "Better is one day in Your house" eighty-five times or for thirty minutes, which ever comes first.

If that isn't bad enough, imagine a preacher who spends 40 minutes talking about what the five smooth stones were saying to each other in David's pouch about which one of them get's to kill Goliath.  No, my imagination isn't good enough to come up with a whopper like that.  I remember being stunned by being surrounded by people shouting "Hallelujah!" and "Preach on!"  and wondering for the life of me what could possibly be edifying about any of this.  The reason it comes to mind over fifteen years later is because of the sheer stupidity and spectacle of it.  It wasn't like I walked out of that service (probably long before he was finished) thinking to myself, "Wow, this is understanding that is going to make such a difference in my Christian walk."

In a world that is hurting for answers, the last thing they need is mindless nonsense being associated with the Real God.  People need to hear the evidence for why they can trust the Bible.  They need to hear reasonable answers to skeptics about the Bible being just a bunch of myths invented to enslave people to a religious system.  People need to know that science doesn't conflict with anything the Bible says about history or anything else it addresses.  Real advances in the hard sciences show that the Bible can indeed be trusted.  There are facts and evidence that explain why the universe appears to be so old while the Bible claims an age of about 6,000 years.  People should have the opportunity to hear the logical, systematic explanations for why the atheist position isn't just illogical, but downright stupid.  By the way, I distinguish between atheists who don't really care about the argument, versus those who are militant in their religious fervor against God.

There are many, but not all of those associated with charismatic congregations who have this idea that if they simply attach the name of Jesus to whatever they are doing, and it seems like a good thing, God will bless, condone and sanctify it.  This stems from a serious misunderstanding of what it means from the ancient Biblical concept of "in My name."  We need to have the proper understanding of the phrase.

From the time Yeshua inaugurated His ministry and chose His disciples it was clear that he was no ordinary Rabbi.  But the modern, western, Christianized mind should never make the mistake of thinking that He did not teach in the exact same manner as all the sages who came before Him.  In case you haven't been keeping up with this series, let me pause here to fill in some things and repeat some things because they are well worth making clear.  There are Rabbis and there are Sages.  Sages were the top Rabbis.  They weren't appointed by anyone (unless you want to count the Holy Spirit).  They reached their status because they were recognized by the people as exceptional Torah scholars who practiced what they preached.  Just as a catholic nun would hold up Mother Teresa as a standard for piety and devoutness, a sage was the Rabbi everybody was hoping would be willing to take you on as a disciple, because everybody around knew that this guy had the answers and lived out everything that he preached.  The thing that probably shocks the mind of a modern westerner is the fact that when a Rabbi took you on as a disciple -- from the time of Noah until maybe a thousand years ago, the disciple lived with their Rabbi or Master.  It was nothing new or weird or different that the disciples of Yeshua of Nazareth spent all of their time with the Master.  It was a twenty-four hour a day, seven days a week deal.  They slept in the same houses, they ate all their meals together.  Every waking moment was spent learning how to do everything exactly the way their Master did it and memorizing the words that He spoke. Keeping in mind that you first had to have memorized the Torah and pretty much the Prophets and the Psalms.

That is such a foreign concept to modern people.  Imagine living and learning in such constant closeness that the only things you don't do together are bathing and defacating.  Sorry if that seems too graphic for you, but I want to be faithful to the facts.  No wonder that the gospels tell us that Yeshua spent a lot of time finding a solitary place to pray. So, what does this have to do with the point about "in My name?"

In order for anyone to have any respect for a man invoking the phrase, "in the name of . . ." the listeners would have to know that the person was a disciple in good standing of the Rabbi whose name they were using for authority.  Otherwise, what you were saying had no more importance than the sound of a chicken clucking.  Today, there are people in the churches who use the name Jesus as if there is some kind of celestial voice recognition software floating in the ethersphere and if you just say that name you get some kind of spiritual respect.  But we are given a wonderful real event in the book of Acts which demonstrates that such would be faulty thinking.

In Acts 19, Paul has come to Ephesus, a city in western Turkey and greatly devoted to the worship of Artemis.  Paul used the synagogue as his local base of operations, reasoning from the Scriptures about Messiah with the local Jews who had settled there after the big Babylonian diaspora.  Adonai was giving credence to Paul's message by performing extraordinary miracles through his hands.  Knowledge of this activity naturally spread through the area to the point that even some Jewish exorcists were willing to try using the name of Yeshua "whom Paul preaches."  Seven sons of a Jewish high priest named Sceva tried to do this to a man who was possessed by a demon, and with disastrous results.  The demon says to these pretenders, "I recognize Yeshua, and I even know about Paul, but who are you?"  Then this demon-possessed man beats these guys badly enough to send them running, naked and bleeding.

Before I move on, please note the wording by the demon.  "I recognize . . ."  This isn't a casual phrase.  The demon is acknowledging Yeshua's identity in the same way that the demon in the man at the Capernaum synagogue cried out, "I know who you are -- the Holy One of God." (Luke 4:34)  This title is one repeatedly used in the book of Isaiah to refer to the God of Israel.  It doesn't easily translate from the Hebrew because there is no equivalent word "of."  English translators stick "of" in there to make it read better for us, but those Jews in the synagogue on that day heard a demon recognize that they were all standing in the presence of God Almighty.  They all knew what it meant and they were amazed at His power and authority.

Back to Acts 19: Let me give you an analogy.  Let's say a bunch of thugs take over a small town.  A couple of guys from the neighboring town decide to take it upon themselves to go save those poor people from this oppression.  They are outnumbered and out-gunned, but they decide to try to look official and when they ride into town they even announce themselves as being there "in the name of the Law."  Problem is; the thugs already know who are and are not the duly appointed law men in the land and they know that these guys are just playing vigilantes.  The thugs simply make sport of these guys and send them off wounded.  The thugs know that they can get away with this because those guys lacked both the power and authority to get the job done.

There is this passage in Matthew 7 that always bothered me when I was calling myself a Christian.  "Many will say to Me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?' And then I will declare to them, 'I never knew you; Depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness.'"   Matthew 7:23

What law was he talking about?  He seems to be clearly saying that invoking his name and even doing very good things and even miraculous things is not good enough if I am practicing lawlessness.  Which laws?  Who's laws?

Problem was, I hadn't yet learned to take the Bible as a whole.  The answer was right there all along.  Not even in another book or epistle, but in the very same sermon that the Master was giving at the time.  All I had to do was go back to chapter 5 of Matthew, early in this sermon.  "Do not think that I came to abolish the Law . . ."  Matthew 5:17  So, how do we define those who practice lawlessness?  Those who deny that we need to keep Torah.  If I were to try to define Matthew 7:23 as referring to any other law and especially man-made law, the verse would not just be meaningless, it would be stupid.

By coming to the understanding of Scripture as a cohesive whole, I can see that in order to legitimately operate in the authority of God, I have to follow His rules and guidelines.  Notice in Matt 7:23 the assumption is that, come the judgment, there will be such people.  I don't want to be one of them.  I would rather risk having God say to me at the judgment, "That was nice of you to observe and keep all those commandments and teachings of Mine, but it really wasn't necessary."  rather than hear Him say, "You've got no excuse.  I think I made myself pretty clear  in that sermon on the mount, and in Luke 16:17 and in plenty of other places in My Word."

Choose carefully.  Choose wisely.

In the next installment, we will ponder the meaning of Yeshua's sinlessness.

What Upset The Jews?

In Acts chapter 22 we have the scene of Paul's last time of making a public statement before becoming a prisoner of Rome until his death.  His arrest was the result of the Roman military commander's fear that an insurrection or riot was breaking out.  It would be his head that would roll if order were not restored quickly.  What exactly caused the uproar?  It was assumed that Paul had brought uncircumcised gentiles into the area of the Temple forbidden to them by Torah.  Why was Paul there?  To prove that the rumors about him teaching against obeying Torah were unfounded and untrue.  Keep that firmly in mind.  A second thing you need to consider is the fact that the body of believers led by Peter and James and the other Apostles had stayed in Jerusalem and were enjoying much success bringing more and more fellow Jews into the congregation of believers in Messiah.  They wouldn't have been able to do that if they were preaching that Torah was no longer in effect.  Quite the opposite.  The Sanhedrin would have had the support of the people in dragging the Apostle out of the gates and stoning them to death.

Remember, it was Paul's missionary efforts to the Gentiles and the revelation of the Holy Spirit that adult male Gentiles did not have to be circumcised in order to be saved that had the die-hard Judaizers in an uproar.  Such men were insisting that, according to their interpretations and their dictates that salvation came according to what they considered the right way.  Stop and think.  If the Apostles in Jerusalem were teaching people that Torah had become void, all the Jewish leaders and the people would have been after them to destroy them.  Why did they only go after Paul?

Now that Paul has been arrested, he appeals to his Roman citizenship to have the commander of the Roman cohort to let him speak in his defense to the Jews who have attacked him.  Let us examine carefully this speech to the Jews and make sure we are clear about what it is that makes them angry.

"Brethren and fathers, hear my defense which I now offer to you."  And when they heard that he was addressing them in the Hebrew dialect, they became even more quiet; and he said, "I am a Jew, born in Tarsus of Cilicia, but brought up in this city, educated under Gamaliel, strictly  according to the law of our fathers, being zealous for God, just as you all are today.  And I persecuted this Way [this Way being belief in the Messiah, the Pharisee from Nazareth] to the death, binding and putting both men and women into prisons, as also the high priest and all the Council of the elders can testify.  From them I also received letters  to the brethren [Jews living outside the Israeli territory], and started off  for Damascus in order to bring even those who were there to Jerusalem as prisoners to be punished.  And it came about that as I was on my way, approaching Damascus about noontime, a very bright light suddenly flashed from heaven all around me, and I fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to me, 'Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?'  And I answered, 'Who art Thou, Lord?' And He said to me, I am Yeshua the Nazarene, whom you are persecuting.'

Anybody start screaming yet?  No.  Remember now, this crowd is full of men who were present to hear Yeshua of Nazareth with their own ears and beheld all the events regarding His death.  They no doubt knew about the miracles.  They no doubt knew all the reports by people who had seen the man after His resurrection.  Not a man in this crowd who was listening to Paul speak could shout out that he was lying.  Nobody in this crowd could accuse Paul of advocating belief in a false prophet, or a Torah breaker.  They remained silent.

Paul was relating to this crowd that several years back,  Yeshua [Jesus] appeared to Paul and struck him blind and made it abundantly clear that he was claiming Paul for His own.  I have to stop and marvel at this point.  If Yeshua's main point was about bringing about a whole new religious system and way of thinking, why in the world would he choose Paul to be the guy who pens most of the New Testament?  Paul: an intellectual Torah scholar and student of Gamaliel who was so influential with the Sanhedrin that they put him in charge of hunting down those who were preaching about this Yeshua the Nazarene.  Paul was a man who would end up writing his letters to the believers from prison, quoting Scripture because it was all in his head.

I want you to take special care to think about this next verse.  You don't get to just read over it and go, "well, isn't that nice."

Acts 22:12:  "And a certain Ananias, a man who was devout by the standard of the Law, and well spoken of by all the Jews who lived there."

Ananias was a man who kept Torah.  He kept Torah so well that all of his friends and neighbors were willing and ready to say that, "Hey, that Ananias guy, he's the real thing.  He keeps the Torah.  He's a Holy man."  Paul was using Ananias as a known standard.  Paul could have as much as said the following:   "The way we know that he's a Holy man is not because he has some free-floating, amorphous concept of loving his neighbor. He keeps the knowable, measureable standard of Torah.  I know the Law and you know the Law and if anything I am saying isn't true, let someone come forward and prove me wrong."

Let's not just gloss over this point as if it has little weight in the story.  If every word of Scripture is supposed to be breathed out by the God of the universe, we should think about what makes the choice of words important.  Why did God decide that these particular details are important for us to know?  Paul defends himself before all of these Jews by making a point that he is just as zealous for Torah as those who are trying to find reason to kill him.  He makes the point that he has had an encounter with the very entity whom he was persecuting.  At this point in time, no one has been able to deny the events of just a few years earlier regarding the Nazarene, the only remaining sticking point for some of the Jews was whether or not followers of the one they proclaimed as Messiah were advocating breaking from Torah, because on that point alone they would put down any follower of Yeshua of Nazareth and it would give credence to the idea that Yeshua was a false prophet as described in Deuteronomy 13.

Keep in mind that Paul's whole purpose in going to the Temple was to disprove the rumor that he was advocating any departure from Torah.  He also makes the point that the man who was sent to restore his sight and instruct him on what to do next was also considered a righteous man based on keeping the Torah.  The problem arises because those who still didn't accept the proofs that Yeshua was the Messiah wanted any evidence they could that would discredit this "Way."  Also keep in mind that the detractors couldn't find any fault with the believers who remained in Jerusalem, and their really big problem was due to this idea that Paul was taking the message of conversion to the Gentiles.  In fact, that point was where things got ugly.

"And He [God, Messiah] said to me, 'Go! For I will send you far away to the Gentiles.'" And they listened to him up to this statement, and then they raised their voices and said, "Away with such a fellow from the earth, for he should not be allowed to live!"  Acts 22:21-22

They listened to him "up to this statement, . . ."  Notice that they couldn't argue with anything else that he said.  Paul's "crime" in the eyes of these Jews was not that he was violating, nor was he advocating that anyone violate Torah, but that he was letting them know that if they didn't want to believe in God's one and only Messiah, then the Gentiles would be given the opportunity to repent, receive salvation and learn Torah.  Such a concept was outrageous to "The Chosen" ones.  Centuries of tradition was being turned on its head.  As long as anyone could remember, Gentiles who wanted to become followers of God needed to come to the devout Jews to learn the ways of God, be circumcised and then baptized.  But now Paul was correcting their bad assumptions, (which he also held until his Damascus road experience).  Just like the children of Abraham who walked out of Egypt, God would save His children from bondage first, and then out of gratitude, they would learn His ways (Torah).

Yeshua HaMashiach (Jesus The Christ) is inseparable from His Word, the Torah.  John 1:1 "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God."  You can't have one without the other.  You can lift a verse out of one of Paul's letters to try and make it sound like believers don't have to keep Torah, but in so doing, you do violence to the rest of Scripture.  We do well to remember that we are very imperfect human beings, and that if our understanding of a passage doesn't harmonize with all the other passages, it is we who are in error.  There are not two Gods.  There is not a God of the Old Testament and then a different God of the New Testament.  Those who think so have merely a god of their own understanding, which is no god at all.

Administration and Law

Sorry if the title seems a little misleading.  This post is not about current politics in the United States.

This is another installment in the series on Why I'm Not A Christian.

The thought of an analogy came to me while reading something at another Messianic website.  The author was making a point about Hebrews chapter 7.  But to give a bit more background, I think I will go back to reiterating my main contention that the reason the church gets so much doctrine wrong is because of the lack of a good hermeneutic and taking the Scriptures as a complete whole, in obedience to 2 Timothy 3:16: "ALL Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; . . ."

In order to really get a handle on what the Holy Spirit is communicating through the author of the letter to the Hebrews, we have to keep a couple of things firmly in mind. First is that this is a letter written by a Jew who is deeply educated in all the Torah and the Oral Law.  I still suspect that the author is Rabbi Paul.  I believe that the tone and style of the letter are different from his other epistles simply because of his audience and the subject matter.  Other criticisms aside, plenty of authors can and do change their style of writing depending on audience and subject.  The second point is that this letter is for the purpose of explaining to Jewish minds why the coming of Messiah changes the administration of the Law, but doesn't change the Law.  Let me remind my gentle readers that this is important in order to keep the rule of non-contradiction and the admonishment of Yeshua in Matthew 5:17-19, and in Luke 16:17.  If we take any other verses of Scripture and interpret them to mean that which contradicts these other two, then there is something wrong with our understanding.

My analogy comes from what was provided by the founding fathers of the United States.  They drew up the Constitution because nearly all of them understood that men are inherently sinful and cannot be trusted with very much power, that they must be restrained.  "Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely," as Lord Acton put it.  The Constitution was written for the express purpose of putting chains on the power of government and those who would wield that power.  The Constitution does not grant or give people any rights whatsoever.  The Constitution and its original ten amendments simply recognize the God-given rights inherent in mankind and tells the government, "YOU cannot cross these lines."

The founders understood that the law needed to be in the form of a contract.  The law could not be something that any one man or group of men just arbitrarily decided to do.  Not even under the pretense of doing it for the "common good" or the "general welfare."   They understood that nothing tramples an individual's rights faster than democratic rule or opinion.  Freedom and democracy simply cannot coexist.  What the founders knew was needed was a contract that embodied the law and put restraints on anyone serving in the government.  When you take elective office, or are commissioned as an officer, you take an oath to defend and protect the Constitution, not any man, group, or political party.

The idea here, is that people will come and go from the offices of power, but the law remains.  If the restrictions of the Constitution are actually followed by those in power, then legislation would not be passed that endangers the rights of all individuals.  The law of the land says that government doesn't get to decide what you can or cannot say about issues.  The burden of proof is on the government to convince a jury of your peers that you have broken the law.  No one has the right to deny you the use of arms or self defense and so on.  And ultimately, the founders understood that nobody should ever get elected and then claim that the popular vote gave them a mandate to violate the Constitution.  Yet this is what has gone on since at least Abraham Lincoln.

What does this have to do with the Bible?  Let's look at Torah in this light.  First of all, when did God's laws begin?  When was man given the laws of God regarding behavior, of clean and unclean things, tithing, making offerings, etc?  If you said Moses, you'd be wrong.

From the time that God Himself (Christ) walked with Adam and Eve in the garden, God has revealed His laws.  The Jewish sages have believed through their study of Torah, that God created the universe through Torah.  If that seems odd to you, consider that John 1 tells us that, "In the beginning was the Word . . . the Word was with God and the Word was God."  The Master told us that Torah is eternal.  The Psalms say the Torah is eternal.  He was trying to get us to see that He, as God, and His Word, are inseparable.

Cain and Abel knew the standards for offerings.  Abel obeyed and Cain did not.  Noah was simply told to gather two of every unclean animal and seven pairs of all the clean.  How did he know which was which long before Moses came along?  Abraham tithed to God through Melchizedek and participated in communion with bread and wine.  Abraham trained disciples, and God stated that Abraham kept all of God's laws and commandments.  We are not told it directly, but we can infer from the text that Abraham knew Torah from what was handed down and from God Himself visiting with him and speaking to him directly.  Somewhere along the line, Christians have assumed that the Law didn't exist until Moses, but the fact is; Moses simply wrote down in systematic form, everything that had already been known to the men who walked with God. Up until that time individual men and the families that they led were the guardians of the ways of God.  Moses came to deliver a whole nation made up of the Children of Israel and a mixed multitude whom Adonai saved out of bondage in Egypt.

In that event, please make careful note of the order of the events.  God hears the cry of his chosen people, on the schedule that he had already told Abraham about in Genesis 15, when Adonai unilaterally established His covenant with Abraham and Abraham's descendants forever.  God had arranged it so that Jacob and his sons would end up in Egypt, being delivered by a beloved son who was left for dead, betrayed for some silver coins.  (I think I see a pattern there.)  The Children of Israel by this time were mere slaves and we are not told that they were following anything close to the Torah.  Otherwise, why the need for Moses to receive them from Adonai?  Does the LORD tell Moses to go to the sons of Jacob and get them to start obeying the ten commandments and then He would save them?  No.

HaShem ("The Name") tells Moses that he has a plan and what to expect from Pharoah.  I'm going to paraphrase this for simplicity, but I won't violate Scripture.  Adonai set out to show the world who the One and Only True God was by taking down the most powerful empire  at the time.  And he wasn't going to do it just any way.  He was going to make a mockery of their false gods and sorcery tricks. When He concluded everything with the destruction of the entire Egyptian army, word would spread from there to every populated place.  From Sudan to beyond Persia, from North of Turkey to across the Mediterranean, people would hear about this event.

Then, not because the children of Israel's righteousness, but because of His covenant and the sake of His own honor, He would save His chosen people.  Note this.  Salvation came first.  It would be many days before Adonai would place the choice before the people about obeying Torah.  Think about that for a moment.  From the time of the first Passover until the giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai was 50 days.  From the time of  the ultimate Passover, or the crucifixion of Messiah until the disciples received the Holy Spirit at Pentacost was 50 days.  Ah, that repeating pattern thing. The history of the world is God's unfolding revelation.  Each new cycle contains foreshadowing of events to come

So, going back to Hebrews chapter 7 and what the writer is trying to convey.  That Messiah has come and established a new administration.  The Torah is still valid and in effect but under a new management. Because the ultimate sacrifice had been made, we could all be in the priesthood and appeal directly to God for atonement.  When understood in this light, we see that harmony exists in all Scripture.  Yes, Torah is eternal and we can believe what Yeshua said about it.  Yes, what Paul said in Romans about us not having to suffer the penalty of the Law is true, but we still establish the Law.  Apparent contradictions fall away to dust.  We can now understand how the Law continues to be in effect and true and good, yet at the same time we have an advocate in court who makes atonement for us when we come in contrition and brokenness.  You can admit that you violated the Torah, but instead of having to sacrifice a bull or goat or doves, you appeal to the ultimate sacrifice for your atonement.

Now imagine you get hauled into court and when charged with a crime, you decide to take the attitude that the law just doesn't apply to you.  How do you think the judge would react?

Just because the Torah or Law of Moses was given to be administered at first with imperfect men who had to atone for their own sins before they could atone on behalf of the people, doesn't mean that when the perfect Messiah came to atone for us that the Law or Torah just disappeared.  It is still there.  Just as the One who gave His life for it said it would always be.  He just made a way for us to appeal to His perfect atonement without needing a Temple or having to kill animals.

In the next installment, I ask the question: "Did God Mean Forever?"