And you obviously prefer to interpret the NT is light of the OT, regressive revelation rather than progressive. Many of the Jews from Jesus days suffered from the same problem. They could not "think outside the box" that Israel's fulfillment was in Messiah and His body, the church, the new Jerusalem, the chosen people and holy nation of priests.
But allow me to add one note of annoyance:
And, if you'll stop reading selectively, you'll see that Sha'ul goes on to say ...?
Even Paul did not refer to himself as "Sha'ul" except to speak of his old life as a persecutor of Christians. Same with Jesus, "Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?" He preferred to be known as "Paul", 125 times in the book of Acts alone.
It puzzles me as to why gentile believers have to appear more Jewish than Jesus and Paul by using transliterated Hebrew names.
Sha'ul sounds like the name of a killer whale at Seaworld.
You know, topcat, generally I've considered you among the best of the GRPL for not mischaracterizing your opposition. Don't lose that respect now.
Types are teaching tools. They are a means of conveying spiritual and/or prophetic truths by physical copies. Every time a pastor tries to illustrate a spiritual truth with any kind of illustration, he is using a type--does this mean that he is returning "to older, shadowy, decayed conventional figures," or is he simply using a long-respected teaching tool? How much better then to use the Scripture's own types in the structures of the Tabernacle and Temple, their services, the Feastdays, etc.
For my part, since "all Scripture is God-breathed and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: That the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works" (2 Tim. 3:16-17), I'm going to use every last bit of it, not just the parts you approve of. And if Scripture contradicts a common notion, as it does here, I'm going to go with what it teaches.
And you obviously prefer to interpret the NT is light of the OT, regressive revelation rather than progressive.
I interpret the whole of Scripture by the whole of Scripture. The New Testament does not supercede the Tanakh, nor is the Tanakh complete without the NT. The Tanakh cannot be fully understood except by the light of the NT, nor can the NT be understood except by the light of the Tanakh.
What you are doing is not "interpreting the Old Testament in the light of the New," it is rejecting the Old Testament in favor of the New, something never taught in Scripture. The proper response to an apparent contradiction between the Testaments is not to ignore the "old" in favor of a popular interpretation of the New, but to come to a conclusion in which both are completely true.
You have not provided such a conclusion. You have hedged and hemmed and hawed, but you have yet to show that Jer. 33 says anything other than what it plainly says, that the Levitical priesthood is as eternal as Yeshua's Kingship and the rotation of the earth.
Many of the Jews from Jesus days suffered from the same problem. They could not "think outside the box" that Israel's fulfillment was in Messiah and His body, the church, the new Jerusalem, the chosen people and holy nation of priests.
Perhaps because that's manifestly a lie not taught in the NT, as I demonstrated amply in my last post. The Gentile branches of the Church are grafted into Israel's tree, but they have not replaced the natural branches any more than adopting a child into your family "replaces" your natural children.
Even Paul did not refer to himself as "Sha'ul" except to speak of his old life as a persecutor of Christians. Same with Jesus, "Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?" He preferred to be known as "Paul", 125 times in the book of Acts alone.
Oi vey. Have you actually done a search on "Saul" in the book of Acts? He's called by that name right up through chapter 13. It's his Hebrew name. If he used Paul more often in the latter chapters of Acts and in his letters, it was because he was more and more addressing Greek audiences, being the apostle to the Gentiles.
I use the name Sha'ul for a very specific reason: Because for too long, the fact that Paul of Tarsus is also Rabbi Sha'ul the Pharisee. He continued to identify himself as a current member of the Pharisees even at his arrest in Jerusalem (Ac. 23:6). He paid for Temple sacrifices--you know, the thing you claim have no place in the post-Cross era--to demonstrate that he was not preaching against Messianic Jews continuing to keep the whole of the Torah, and depending on how one reads the verse, may well have taken a Nazrite oath himself (Ac. 21:20-26). He continued to affirm that "the Torah is holy, and the commandment holy and just and good" (Rom. 7:12).
What he taught was not jettisoning the Torah, but against trying to win the favor that God had made available to all in Messiah Yeshua by His grace by legalistically keeping the Torah. He also taught against compelling the Gentile believers from being circumcized as a requirement (or even being pressured to after the fact) of salvation, since being circumcized puts one under an obligation to keep the whole Torah, including those parts that were always distinctly for the natural seed of Israel (Gal. 5:3).
His objection was also based on the motivations of the pro-circumcision group: "As many as desire to make a good showing in the flesh, these would compel you to be circumcised, only that they may not suffer persecution for the cross of the Messiah. For not even those who are circumcised keep the Torah, but they desire to have you circumcised that they may boast in your flesh" (Gal. 6:12-13). In other words, those who were most vocal about circumcizing others were also those who weren't doing much of a job at keeping Torah themselves. They weren't interested in anything other than keeping their non-believing Jewish brothers placated.
So clearly we see that Sha'ul wasn't trying to distance himself from his Jewish, or even his Pharisaic, heritage, from the Torah, or even from sacrificial Temple worship. Neither did Yeshua. Since you have yet to deal with or even acknowledge His endorsement of the whole Torah, let me repeat it for you:
"Do not think that I came to destroy the Torah or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill. For assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the Torah till all is fulfilled. Whoever therefore breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven." --Mt. 5:17-19
It puzzles me as to why gentile believers have to appear more Jewish than Jesus and Paul by using transliterated Hebrew names.
Do you honestly think that Yeshua used the English form of His name? Yeesh. That's like the joke about the guy who refused any version of the Bible other than the KJV because "if it was good enough for Peter and Paul, it's good enough for me."
Hey, if you want to use Jesus and Paul, no problem. I can use either forms of their names interchangeably. However, I've come to prefer the Hebrew transliterations on the basis that a) that's what Yeshua's closest friends, at least, would have called Him, and b) I'm chosing to drive home the point that none of the Scriptures are as Hellenized as we tend to take them. Yeshua and Sha'ul were Jewish rabbis--and more than that, certainly, but Jewish rabbis nevertheless. If you want to really understand Scripture, it helps to do so through Jewish eyes.
So lest there be any misunderstanding about what the score is, I have:
- Clear endorsements of the whole of the Torah, right down to the least of its commandments, by Messiah Yeshua and Rabbi Sha'ul.You have:
- A demonstration from Scripture that the Apostles didn't have any problem with continued sacrifice in the Temple.
- At least two clear-as-a-bell promises from the Tanakh that the Levitical priesthood would continue in their office forever, and a portrayal of neo-Levitical worship in the Temple prophesied in Ezekiel.
- Shown that Hebrews requires only the transformation of the Levitical services and a change in the High Priest, not that it actually requires doing away with sacrifices of a transformed character. (And btw, have you noticed that it is the Prince, the Messiah, who makes the offerings in Ezekiel's Temple, Ezk. 45:17 and 22, etc.?)
- A single passage of Hebrews, which to interpret the whay that you are doing so, requires simply ignoring several contrary Scriptures instead of reconciling them.It's very poor theology to base a position on a single passage of Scripture, especially when your interpretation of that passage so manifestly conflicts with the plain meaning of so many others.
- That's pretty much it, actually. Unless you count long-standing opinion, aka the traditions of men. I don't.
"They which are the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God: but the children of the promise are counted for the seed." -- Romans 9:8
Sigh. It's much better, imho, when such . . . .unwarranted wording/argument is left off this thread.