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Subject: OLD replaced by NEW? Part 2 Date: Sun, 1 Dec 1996 01:07:17 +0000 From: heb_roots_chr@mail.geocities.com Reply-To: heb_roots_chr@geocities. com To: "Hebraic Heritage Newsgroup"<heb_roots_chr@geocities.com>
From: Nehemiah Trustees Covenant Fund ntcf at INTERNET
ntcf@netvision.net.i1
To: Betty & Mason ntcfusa at INTERNET
ntcfusa@ix.netcom.com
Subject: OLD replaced by NEW? Part 2
Part 2 ----------------------------------------------------------------
One such example of Sha'ul's invented expression is in a passage you mentioned:
=BB "By the works of the law will =BB no human being be justified in his sight, for by the law comes the =BB knowledge of sin." (Rom. 3:20)
The phrase "works of the law" can mean one of four things, and depending of which we choose, we either end up hating the law, replacing it, or doing it.
1. No one will be considered righteous by G-d on the grounds of doing the good works the Torah requires.
This one has to be wrong because the most important work the
Torah requires is trusting G-d and loving Him with all your
heart and soul and strength. The interpretation is absurd
because Torah was given by G-d to be obeyed. Why should
obeying it NOT lead to being considered righteous by G-d?
Sha'ul, proves that he could not have meant the above for he
later quotes Moshe with approval that "the person who does
these things," i.e. performs the righteous deeds commanded by
the Torah, "will attain life through them." (Rom 10:5) One
can assume that attaining life and being considered righteous
by G-d are closely related.
2. No one will be considered righteous by G-d on the grounds of doing the good works the Torah requires, because no one is able to live up to the Torah's demands (except Y'shua).
By modifying interpretation #1 above to include human
inability to do Torah is equally ridiculous and unscriptural.
Ya'acov 2:10 says, "For whoever keeps the whole law and yet
stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it."
Ya'acov is speaking here of someone who rebels against a
particular command of Torah, yet claims to uphold the rest of
it. He is teaching that if one accepts the authority of any
part of Torah, he has to accept the authority of the whole
Torah. He is not saying that the Law of Moshe is
unfulfillable, or cannot be lived up to. The Torah, again,
was given to be obeyed, and G-d expected people to obey it.
That is why Moshe said,
"Now what I am commanding you today is not too difficult for
you or beyond your reach. It is not up in heaven, so that you
have to ask, "Who will ascend into heaven to get it and
proclaim it to us so that we may obey it?" Nor is it beyond
the sea, so that you have to ask, "Who will cross the sea to
get it and proclaim it to us so that we may obey it?" No, the
word is very near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart
so that you may obey it. (D'varim [Deut] 30:11-14).
The Torah does not set an impossible standard. Rather, it
sets a standard of trusting faithfulness towards G-d, and of
following its system of repentance and sacrifice that we
might obtain forgiveness from G-d and create a condition of
being considered righteous in His sight.
3. No one will be considered righteous by G-d on the grounds of doing the bad works the Torah requires.
This interpretation is worse than the previous two because it
assumes that the Torah requires mechanical, prideful,
self-righteous, legalistic rule keeping. The Torah itself
invalidates this position, as do many quotes from the NT.
Besides, Sha'ul calls the Torah, "holy, just and good" (Rom
7:12) which could not be true if it demanded the bad works of
self-righteousness.
Yet, many Christians hold to this view that the Torah was an
inferior product of G-d. They claim that the Messiah is
"better" than the Torah, in the sense that He supercedes it
and abrogates it. Instead of the newer covenant being given
as Torah -- explaining it -- they see it as replacing Torah,
which makes Torah relatively "bad." But such ideas impugn the
character of G-d and are heresy. Unfortunately, by holding to
them, Jews are viewed as blind, foolish or misled, if they
follow Torah. Is it any wonder why a gospel without a Torah
lifestyle for the community of faith is unacceptable to Jews?
4. No one will be considered righteous by G-d on the grounds of legalistic observance of Torah commands.
This is the only acceptable alternative. By understanding how
Sha'ul knit together the Greek words here, to express his
disapproval of legalistic observance of Torah commands --
i.e. a detailed mechanical rule-keeping system prescribed by
men, which did not take into account the heart attitude -- we
can unlock the rest of Scripture, undo the anti-Torah bias,
and understand our true relationship to the Torah.
But failing to understand Sha'ul's expression of legalism,
Christians have dressed these ghost words up with all of their
fears of becoming "religious" for the wrong reasons and
appearing hypocritical, and have created the illusion of a
"Cheruv" (Cherub) with a glowing sword who, instead of
protecting the way TO the tree of life through the Torah and
the grace it contains, is prohibiting us FROM honoring G-d
and appropriating His Torah in our redeemed lives.
Christians have allowed this monster to remove the
distinction between the redeemed community who act on the
basis of "trust", and the unredeemed community who act on the
basis of moral self-effort. They have joined their camp with
those who are unredeemed and in doing so have been deceived
into thinking that the goal is salvation, rather than the
"working out of your [already accomplished] salvation with
fear and trembling, (Philippians 2:12)
Another famous example of Sha'ul's expression of legalism is found in the following passage you quoted me:
=BB "For freedom Christ has set us free; stand fast therefore, and do not =BB submit again to a yoke of slavery. [law-keeping] Now I, Paul, say to you =BB that if you receive circumcision, Christ will be of no advantage to you. =BB I testify again to every man who receives circumcision that he is bound to =BB keep the whole law. You are severed from Christ, you who would be justified =BB by the law; you have fallen away from grace." (Gal 5:lff)
You incorrectly assume, as many Christians do, that the yoke of slavery is "law-keeping." The yoke of slavery being spoken about here is the sin of legalism. In Judaism the "yoke of the mitzvot (commandments)" is regarded as a joy to bear, and if the Torah is correctly understood as requiring first and foremost trusting faithfulness, then, what Y'shua says makes perfect sense, "My yoke," i.e. the yoke of obedience to the Torah's true meaning, as upheld by Y'shua, "is easy, my burden is light." (Matt 11:28-30)
This is in contrast to a yoke where Torah is perverted into legalism. Any who are redeemed and would seek justification through self-effort apart from a basic trusting faithfulness towards G-d, or who are unredeemed, and would even attempt to earn, possess or maintain salvation by means of observing Torah, loose the advantage of the Messiah, and fall away from G-d's grace, because grace is grace. You cannot earn it, or improve upon what G-d has already declared righteous on the grounds of trust alone. Torah, therefore, is the basis of grace, not the antithesis of it.
=BB From what you wrote, you seem to think that I (we) believe the Law is done =BB away with and no longer applicable, and as I said, that viewpoint is heresy =BB in my book. The Law stands for ever.
Amen! We finally agree.
=BB The New Covenant fulfills the Law =BB within us because it provides for a new heart, a new spirit, new motives, =BB new power to do what the Law has always required.
Well, that was short-lived. Again, this is where error sneaks in undetected. Your implication is that "fulfilling" the Law" means that it has come to an end, so far as we are concerned, in the same way that when you pay your VISA bill, you fulfill your credit card's demands, i.e. you end its demands upon your life. But just like your credit card, you don't stop using the Torah just because you have paid off its demands.
The word "fulfill" is really a bad translation when Y'shua refers to his task concerning the Torah. Fulfilling in the sense of "ending" the Torah is not in view at all, but rather that Y'shua was the "Goal" to which the Torah pointed. Y'shua removed the penalty or curse that the Torah required of those who could not keep it, in its entirety all the time. Now, as a redeemed community, we are free to use our credit cards, i.e. to enjoy the blessings and lifestyle of Torah, without fearing the penalties of non-payment. What a tremendous gift!
=BB One can say the God divorced Israel as His wife under the terms of the Old =BB Covenant, as Hosea says, but that He will buy her back under the New =BB Covenant. All this is not an issue of Law or Torah.
As soon as you say "terms of the Old Covenant" you imply Torah. In addition, this is a faulty interpretation of the passages in Hoshia (Hosea), Yerrniyahu (Jeremiah), and Yishaiyahu (Isaiah). A close examination of those passages will reveal that G-d never divorced Israel under the terms of Torah (His instructions.) His did kick us out of his house when we failed to be obedient and listen to those instructions, but then He pursued us and sought to bring us back and save us. He who cut off the natural branches, is He not able to graft them back in? (Romans 11)
=BB It must be a bit difficult for you who actually live there and have your =BB roots there, and owe your loyalties to THE one nation under heaven with =BB which God has made covenants. How hard it must be to separate these =BB two--the completion of the church and our homegoing, from the unfinished =BB work God will then do to bring the whole nation of Israel back to =BB Himself--all by grace, as Ezekiel 36 says. (I assume you wish to leave with =BB the rest of us in the Rapture, but if you wish to remain behind, I'll ask =BB God and see if He will make a special exception in your case!)
YES, it would be difficult to separate these two using your model, and NO, I don't really wish to "leave with the rest of you," so please feel free to ask G-d for this on my behalf. In your pre-trib system of theology, I have to decide to whom I am more loyal, the Christians and the Body of Messiah, or Israel and my people, as you have so wisely pointed out. But the Scripture presents me with no such choice, and in my opinion, the Rapture is nothing more than a transport mechanism which makes it possible for us to meet the Lord in the air, only to return back to earth with him to reign. It is not a device that would tear me away from my people to join a 7-year party in Heaven, while they are left here to suffer. In my view, the rapture and the protection of saints during "Et Tzara L'Ya'acov" (The time of Jacob's trouble) are two different scenes in the same play. But I am sure you are already familiar with the various non-pre-trib views, of which there are several variations. But this again is another sermon, and I am sure you will appreciate it that I don't elaborate further in our discussion here.
=BB You are gracious to help me better understand what you believe and where =BB you are in your pilgrim journey. Thank you again,
I hope it has been truly challenging and eye opening.
Shabbat Shalom
Uri
sources: 1. Torah Rediscovered by Ariel & D'vorah Berkowitz, =A91996, FFOZ
2. Jewish New Testament Commentary by Dr. David Stern, =A91992, JNT
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