The Path of Shalom
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Dec. 2, 2005
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Living by the Law?
A comment that a fellow blogger left on
my blog has motivated me to do a post about the law. I have found that
most redeemed people that I know have been brought up as I have been
with Greek thinking. We do not truly understand what the Law is because
of our lack of a Hebrew mindset. So first, I want to establish that
what we refer to as the Law is called Torah in Hebrew. If you will go
to some other articles in my blog about Torah, you will gain more of an
understanding than what I will write here about that Hebrew word and
its meaning. Very simply, Torah is YHWH's teachings. It was given to
His people, Yisrael, in a covenant that is likened to a marriage
covenant by Hebrew scholars, in other words it was the Ketubah between
YHWH and Yisrael when it was given. It was never meant for a means of
salvation. It was given after redemption by the blood of a lamb put on
the doorposts and after they were baptized in coming through the sea. I
find most people that are having trouble with "the Law" are having
trouble with the idea that the Yisraelites kept it for salvation. They
did not. Any redeemed Yisraelite was redeemed by trust in YHWH and the
blood that only stood for the blood of our precious Redeemer, Yeshua
the Messiah. I want to make it very clear that Torah has never been for
any person's salvation. The keeping of it will never save anyone.
The Torah was given as an absolute. YHWH, in His love, gave His
teaching and His heart about how to live life to His people. It would
separate them from the other peoples of this earth that did not know
Him. If they lived it, they would show forth His glory. Sadly, because
they were just like us today, they got the wrong motives for obeying
the Torah. They thought it would make them spiritual, that they would
gain favor with YHWH and some even thought that if they obeyed, it
would result in their salvation. So, something that a loving G-d gave
to them for their good became something that they would be prideful
about. YHWH wanted His ways to be known unto the nations that they
might know Him also. He wanted Yisrael to be a light unto the nations.
Instead, His people who were lifted up with pride about having His
Torah, looked down on those of the nations. They were not to live as
those of the nations did, but they were to have His heart for them and
show forth His love to them. Yes, they had the Torah, but they did not
obey it and instead, they were rebellious. Because of turning from the
words of life, they experienced the ways of death. BUT, there was
always a remnant of those who honored YHWH and His Torah and desired to
obey Him. Now, what is so different with us today? We just substitute
the newer scriptures and our own traditions and we look with contempt
so often on those who are "sinners" and "heathen" and are caught in the
tarpit of sin.
Today, most of Western Christendom has been
taught that "the Law" is done away with and there has been a derision
that has developed toward it. They will even purposely break it to show
that they are free from it. I have to think they do not truly
understand the Torah and have ignored Yeshua's words when He said that
He did not come to destroy the Torah (He would have been speaking
Hebrew/Aramaic and would have called it Torah, not Law) but to fulfill
it. They ignore that He said until heaven and earth passed away, not
one jot or tittle of the Torah would pass away. They ignore what He
said about men who would teach and keep His Torah as opposed to those
who would break it and teach others to do so also (Matthew 5:17-19).
They even teach that Paul taught a derision towards the Torah and that
he taught men to break it. Did he? I can tell you, he did not. He
taught against the legalistic keeping of Torah for salvation that the
religious promoted. He taught against that it was by keeping the Torah
that a person belonged to YHWH. He upheld the Torah and honored it. He
also lived it in his own life, which I have also been taught about
derisively by those who oppose the Torah.
There are at least
three places in the Prophets that YHWH tells His people that He was
going to write the Torah on their hearts.(Jeremiah 31:33, Ezekiel
11:19, Ezekiel 36:26) He also told them in Deuteronomy - "The LORD your
God will circumcise your heart, and the heart of your seed, to love the
LORD your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, that you may
live. The LORD your God will put all these curses on your enemies, and
on those who hate you, who persecuted you. You shall return and obey
the voice of the LORD, and do all his mitzvot which I command you this
day." (vs 6-8) When you study these things out, you will see that the
time that this happened was on Shavuot (Pentecost) when YHWH's
Set-apart(Holy) Spirit was sent to indwell those who trusted in Yeshua
as the One who was the bloody sacrifice and had risen and ascended to
YHWH. Now, if the Torah has been written on our hearts, if He has
circumcized our hearts so that we will love Him with all our heart and
soul, if Yeshua has said "If you love Me, you will keep My
commandments," how do we have an excuse to purposely break it? Why
would we even WANT to purposely break it? Paul admits to the struggle
in keeping the Torah because of the struggle with our sinful nature
that manifests itself in Torah-breaking, BUT, Paul said we have the
victory in Yeshua:
"So then, the Torah is holy, and the
commandment is holy and righteous and good. Therefore did that which is
good bring death to me? May it never be! Rather it was sin, in order
that it might be brought to light as sin by producing my death through
that which is good, that through the commandment sin might become
utterly sinful. For we know that the Torah is spiritual; but I am of
the flesh, sold into bondage under sin. For that which I work, I do not
understand; for I am not practicing what I would wish, but I am doing
the very thing I hate. But if I do the very thing I do not wish, I
consent with the Torah--that it is good. So now, it is no longer I that
work it, but sin which indwells me. For I know that nothing good dwells
in me, that is, in my flesh; for the wishing is present in me, but to
work of the good is not. For the good that I wish, I do not do; but the
evil that I do not wish, this I practice. But if I am doing the very
thing I do not wish, it is no longer I that work it, but sin that is
dwelling in me. I find, therefore, the law that evil is present in me,
the one who wishes to do good. For I rejoice together with the Torah of
God in the inner man, but I see another law in the members of the body,
waging against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity of
the law of sin which is in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will
deliver me out of the body of this death? Thanks be to God through
Yeshua the Messiah our Lord! So then, I myself indeed with the mind am
a slave to the Torah of God, but with the flesh, the law of sin."(Rom
7:12-25, Messianic Renewed Covenant version)
I have one more
thought to consider here. If you know anything of Hebrew understanding,
the Word is the Torah. The Jewish people refer to the whole of the
scriptures that they hold as the Torah and specifically the first five
books. But they do refer to the whole thing as the Torah. Now what we
have been given since Yeshua was here is just an extension of that
Torah. It is founded on the foundation of the first five books and is
further revelation and commentary on the Torah and further history of
those who love the Torah. Now, John says that the Word was made flesh
and dwelt among us. In Greek, that is "logos," but John was Hebrew and
I can tell you that He was thinking Torah because the Hebrews loved
Torah. Yeshua is the Torah made manifest. He is the fulfillment of it
because He embodies it. He is the Author of it and He is the keeper of
it. Now if the One that we love because He gave Himself for us is the
Living Torah, how can we treat the Torah that He wrote contemptously?
In that light, do we keep the Torah or does the Torah keep us?
When it comes to Torah, we cannot live it in our own strength. Paul
teaches us that and so does our experience. BUT, we have that Torah
written on our hearts. It is our loving Father's instructions for us to
live in harmony or shalom with each other and with Him. We do not gain
any favor or salvation by obeying it, but we do gain the abundant life
that it shows forth. We do know His absolute when we give the Torah its
proper place. We cannot even substitute the obeying of Torah for our
relationship with the Living Torah. It is by our relationship with the
Living Torah, Yeshua the Messiah, that we can obey it at all. Even
then, it is a life-long process of having our minds and hearts renewed
and stumbling and His picking us up and saying "this is the Way, walk
in it." What I want to see is that those who claim to know Him have a
reverence, a respect, a love for His Torah instead of treating it as a
little thing or even as some do, with derision. The newer scriptures
did not replace the older ones as I already said. They are further
revelation and commentary and if we do away with the older ones, we
have no foundation for the newer ones. We also will have no foundation
for our lives. There is a mystery in the tie between the written Word
of G-d and the One who is that Word made flesh. Hebrews says that the
Word is alive and powerful. Well, there is only One who is that! Let us
honor and love Him by honoring and loving what He has authored.
Love and shalom,
Serena
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• Dec. 3, 2005 - Wonderful, Serena.
Ahava, dear sister.