Posted on 06/24/2014 2:13:28 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
Recently, a friend emailed me with a very common claim, namely, that, “Paul hijacked Christianity with no personal connection with Jesus and filled his letters with personal opinions.” This could be rephrased in the more common claim: Paul invented Christianity.
This claim is especially common among Muslim apologists who use it in an attempt to explain why the Qur’an simultaneously affirms Jesus as a true prophet while also contradicting the Bible at every major point. However, since my friend is not a Muslim and is not coming at the issue from that angle, I will just deal with the question more broadly.
My friend alleges that some of the “personal opinions” of Paul that were interjected into the New Testament include: “slaves obey your masters; women not to have leadership roles in churches; homosexuality is a sin (though there is Old Testament authority for this last, Paul doesn’t seem to base his opinion on it).”
“None of [of the above] were said by Jesus and would perhaps be foreign to his teaching,” he wrote. “I think Paul has created a lot of mischief in Christianity, simply because he wrote a lot and his letters have survived.”
Let’s deal with this point-by-point.
No personal connection to Jesus
Paul, in fact, did have a personal connection to Jesus. This is revealed in the famous “Damascus road” accounts in Acts 9:3-9, Acts 22:6–11 and Acts 26:12–18. Paul refers back to this experience elsewhere in his letters, though it is only laid with this level of detail in Acts, written by Paul’s traveling companion Luke.
The only way one can maintain that Paul had no connection to Jesus is to rule out the conversion experience of Paul a priori based on a presupposition. Of course, I can argue that such a presupposition is untenable, but that would take an entire post to itself. For the sake of brevity, I would just point out that it is illogical to employ such reasoning. It would go something like, “It didn’t happen because it couldn’t happen because it can’t happen therefore it didn’t happen therefore Paul had no personal connection to Jesus.”
Personal opinions
Yes, Paul does interject his personal opinions into his writing! However, when he does, he clearly delineates what he is saying as his personal opinion as an Apostle.
For instance, in dealing with the issue of marriage in 1 Corinthians 7, Paul clearly distinguishes between his own statements and the Lord’s.
In 1 Corinthians 7:10, Paul says, “To the married I give this charge (not I, but the Lord)…” and in 1 Corinthians 7:12, Paul says, “To the rest I say, (I, not the Lord)…” This example shows that Paul was not in the business of putting words in the mouth of Jesus. Paul had no problem showing when he was giving his own charge and when it was a statement made by the Lord Jesus, as it was in this case (Matthew 5:32).
Yet it is important to note that other Apostles recognized Paul’s writings as Scripture from the earliest days of Christianity, as seen the case of Peter (2 Peter 3:15–16).
Paul’s “personal opinions” and the Law
Out of the three examples, two are directly from the Mosaic Law. Obviously the Mosaic Law couldn’t have stated that women should not preach in the church because the Church did not yet exist and wouldn’t for over 1,000 years.
The claim that there is only Old Testament authority for the last of the examples is false. The same goes for the claim that Paul does not base his statements on the Law.
It is abundantly clear that Paul actually does derive his statements on homosexual activity from the Law.
For instance, in 1 Timothy 1, Paul mentions homosexuality in the context of the type of people the Law was laid down for (1 Timothy 1:9-11). This short list indicts all people, just as Paul does elsewhere (Romans 3:23), showing that all people require the forgiveness that can only be found through faith in Jesus Christ.
When Paul deals with it elsewhere, he mentions it in the context of other activities explicitly prohibited by the Law (1 Corinthians 6:9-11), again going back to the idea that the Lord Jesus Christ sets apart (sanctifies) His people and justifies them.
As for the command for slaves to obey their masters, this is regularly claimed to be objectionable by critics. By way of introduction, is important to distinguish between what we have in our mind about the institution of slavery as Americans and the institution of slavery as it existed in Paul’s day. After all, Paul explicitly listed “enslaverers” (or man-stealers) in the same list mentioned above (1 Tim 1:10). Since the entire institution of slavery in the United States was built upon the kidnapping of people, it is clearly radically different from what Paul spoke of. Furthermore, the stealing of a man was punishable by death under the Mosaic Law (Exodus 21:16). The practice of slavery in America would never have existed if the Bible was actually being followed.
Paul also exhorted his readers to buy their freedom if they could (1 Corinthians 7:21) and instructing the master of a runaway slave to treat him as “no longer as a bondservant but more than a bondservant, as a beloved brother” (Philemon 11). Paul grounded his statements in the defense of “the name of God and the teaching.” Paul said that bondservants should “regard their masters as worthy of all honor,” not just for the sake of doing so, but so there might be no chance to slander the name of God and the gospel.
The fact is that Paul knew the Law quite well (Philippians 3:5-6) and the Law does deal with slavery.
Ultimately, the claim made by my friend requires more fleshing out on his end and some evidence on his part in order to be more fully dealt with.
Paul’s teachings foreign to Jesus’ teachings?
This is another common claim. First off, one must ask if this statement implies that Jesus would simply have to repeat everything Paul said and vice-versa or else they would remain foreign.
The fact is that there is nothing contradictory between Paul’s writings and Jesus’ teaching. One must wonder why Luke – a traveling companion of Paul and the author of Luke-Acts – would have no problem writing the gospel that bears his name if he perceived such a contradiction. Furthermore, one must wonder why this apparent conflict was lost on the earliest Christians, including the Apostle Peter, who viewed Paul’s letters as Scripture (see above).
In affirming the Law (Matthew 5:17), Jesus affirmed all that Paul that was clearly grounded in the Law. Furthermore, if there was a real contradiction between Paul’s writings and the teachings of Jesus, Paul would have been rejected, instead of accepted as he has always been.
The Christian community existed before Paul became a Christian, as is clearly seen by the fact that he was persecuting Christians (Acts 8:1,3), and he even met with the leaders of the early church. They did not reject Paul, but instead affirmed what he had been teaching (Galatians 2:2,9). This makes it even clearer that Paul could not have invented or hijacked Christianity.
As for the claim that Paul has had such a large impact “simply because he wrote a lot and his letters have survived,” all one has to do is look at the other early Christian writings that survived in order to see that is not a valid metric.
We have seen that the claim that “Paul hijacked Christianity” is without evidence. While I have taken the burden of proof upon myself in responding to this claim, in reality the burden of proof would be on the one making the claim in the first place. No such evidence has been presented and no substantive evidence can be presented since Paul did not invent Christianity or hijack Christianity or anything similar to it. Instead, Paul was an Apostle of Jesus Christ commissioned to spread the gospel, something that he clearly did by establishing churches and penning many letters under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit that we can still read today.
When one reads the gospels and the other writings contained in the New Testament, the message is cohesive and clear: all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God (Ro 3:23), God demands complete perfection (Mt 5:48) and all we have earned through our sin is death (Ro 6:23) and hell. Yet God offers the free gift of eternal life to all who repent and believe (Mk 1:15, Ro 10:9–11) in Jesus Christ, who died as a propitiation (Ro 3:25, Heb 2:17, 1 Jn 4:10) for all who would ever believe in Him (Jn 6:44) and rose from the grave three days later, forever defeating sin and death. Those who believe in Him can know (1 John 5:13) that they have passed from death to life (Jn 5:24) and will not be condemned (Jn 3:18), but will be given eternal life by Jesus Christ (Jn 6:39-40). Paul and Jesus in no way contradict each other on what the gospel is, in fact the four gospels and Paul’s letters (along with the rest of the New Testament) form one beautiful, cohesive truth.
Hmmm... hint of British Israelism maybe? WWCOG being channeled here? And as theories go, is about as speculative as it gets. No grounds for obligation visible there.
No. While I am familiar with British Israelism [BI], It is the Biblical precept that interests me... More 'Two House' Messianic than BI. If one is not aware of the continuing distinction between the two houses of Israel through the OT and into the new, one is missing half of what is being told. That Ephraim was sown as seed is important. That Ephraim was never pardoned, never given mercy, never brought home, is also vitally important, because YHWH declares He will remarry her (the wife called the House of Israel, distinct from the House of Judah). How He can do so (without breaking His own law) is one of the major conundrums left unresolved - Judah doesn't know how that happened, and neither do the Christians - Even though, IMHO, the Christians are the product thereof.
[roamer_1:] Right... which ratifies within itself the Mosaic covenant, and every other covenant there before.
No, that's not a ratification.
Yes, it is.
Principle of mutual exclusion. You can't have a new contract that is fundamentally replacing the old and recapitulating the old at the same time, especially when we know from Jesus Himself the two are NOT compatible.
There it is - Paul's logic bomb.
In contract law, to bring all the terms of a previous agreement forward you would need an incorporation clause. Matthew 5:17 is a sunset clause issued during the last days of the Old Covenant, so its not even part of the New Covenant per se.
Then none of the words of Yeshua himself are part of the 'new covenant' either. That would be an absurdity, would it not? You contend that the 'sunset clause' has occurred, and the Torah is terminated, yet all of Torah and the prophets are not yet fulfilled... How then can the sunset clause have been reached? Indeed, the prophets AND Torah predict the Millenial Kingdom, and beyond - So how then can they be fulfilled? Focus only upon the Davidic Covenant - How much of that needs yet to be accomplished? If you study it, you will be amazed at that which must still come to pass.
Furthermore, even if one granted the premise of continuity past the terminus of the sunset clause (which makes no sense), the applicable parties under the full rigor of Moses are still just God and national Israel, those named in the Old Covenant contract, and only for as long as the individual provisions in question remain unfulfilled. That's not the contract Christians are under.
Indeed it must be, as this 'new' covenant is made with 'the House of Israel and the House of Judah' (notice the distinction again). Gentiles are grafted into that covenant, else they have *no* covenant. There isn't any other.
(Sidebar here: This is why it is critical to define Torah to painful detail. Prophecy is not legal code. Unfulfilled prophecy has no bearing on whether the legal provisions foreshadowing Christ were fulfilled. Everything we are debating about was fulfilled in Christ. To prove that wrong, you would have to define Torah more exactly than you have so far.)
I see what you are saying, but that is much harder to suss out than you might imagine, as ALL of Torah is prophetic. Everything we are debating was, or will be fulfilled in Messiah - Not all has been accomplished. That is the point. Take ONLY the Holy Days and study them. It will soon become apparent that the spring feasts have been fulfilled in an incremental and amazingly exact way in the first coming, death, and resurrection. But the Fall Feasts remain to be accomplished, and no doubt will be accomplished at the second coming, and that, with the very same incremental accuracy which was presented in the fulfillment of the Spring Feasts. This alone confounds your position as declared immediately above: The legal code is, in and of itself, prophetic. What now?
and furthermore, the prophets necessarily reveal the purpose of the legal code - Something declared prophetically is no less law - Take the Inheritance, as an example. What YHWH has explicitly declared within the Inheritance must necessarily come to pass, and therefore, has the force of law in a prophetic sense - This is no small thing, especially as it touches Ephraim (the House of Israel). In a programmatic sense, it MUST execute in order to complete (fulfill) the entirety.
Do not forgo the principle of 'two witnesses'... The Word and the Prophets are intricately intertwined - It is the very signature of YHWH.
[roamer_1:] No, I don't... All I can do is tell you - If you don't do anything about it, that's your business.
Yes you do. Paul and much in the New Covent specification says we are free of the Old Covenant to the extent it foreshadowed Christ.
Again, Paul's logic bomb. Try operating under this premise: Paul cannot go against the Words of his Master, and Paul MUST be saying the very same thing as his fellows... There is only ONE Gospel. Reconcile Paul to John, and to James particularly. They are all three saying the same thing, from different aspects, just as the Gospels are all saying the same thing from different aspects.
And every time Paul says we are free from the law, he always immediately ties it back to the idea that the freedom we have as Christians should *not* be considered license... Are we free to sin? Of course not! And since 'sin' is transgression of Torah...
If you want to convince me, you need to tell me what this "easy" Torah is because I don't see it. I see a law which, while itself good and reflective of the goodness of the divine nature, puts me in the position of death and eternal doom. The New Covenant undoes that, because as I identify with Christ in His death, I die to the law. The law no longer condemns me. It can't. I'm dead to it, and alive to God.
Right. Messiah removes the curses of the law. But we are continually being made in his image - His example to us shows us what that looks like. We, as disciples are to 'walk in his footsteps' - A strange phrase, that. I wonder where it comes from (heh... not really. I know where it comes from). So we are no longer doomed. We can earnestly try and try again... Keep trying to walk in his footsteps.
[roamer_1:] Why then have the Jews been able to keep Torah for the last two thousand years?
But they haven't. God took away the sacrifice and now no one can keep Torah under Moses.
That isn't the point. Second Temple Jews lived as far away from Jerusalem as Holland and Spain - Many, no doubt, may have only seen the Temple once in their whole life, if that. What you seem to be reading into the law is not nor has it ever been a feasible interpretation.
No one gave the rabbis permission to just say, "oh well, let's just be nice now instead of sacrifice." That's a unilateral man-generated modification to the law of the contract.
So was the synagogue system. It is not specified in Torah. Yet Yeshua endorsed it. Used it. Preached from it. It's Rabbinical basis was relied upon by all the Apostles. That system was the fall-back necessary for those who could not make it to Temple at least since the Babylonian exile. What then? A second Temple era Jew, living in the south of France, too poor to go to Temple three times a year (not to mention every Sabbath), was just bound for hell even if he was devout in other aspects? What of Ruth? What of Esther? No, this sense that Christians have of what the law does and what it is for is wholly their own invention.
It voids the contract. Furthermore, the Jewish religion still rejects God's Messiah. Is that compatible with Torah observance? They have retained a form of godliness, but have forsaken the power of God.
Funny, as I could say the very same thing about the vast majority of Christendom.
I respect Jewish people as individuals, as I would any other people. But I do not see them keeping Torah properly. Not at all.
Neither do I see them keeping Torah 'properly'. No one but Yeshua has ever kept it 'properly'. But yet they do their best to keep it as best as they can. And the devout always have.
No, there are principles of statutory interpretation involved here that are as ancient as law itself. I have heard repeatedly from the HR community that the explicit statements of the law are immutable. That's false. The law of the sacrifice is explicitly stated, is it not? Yet it is not only mutable, it can be cast aside as nothing when the inconvenience of a missing temple is encountered.
It is not mutable. But they (Jews) have relied upon grace through faith, even as the Christians do - It is a Torah principle:
A devout man, never missing a single Temple pilgrimage, becomes too old to travel... Even though he has done his best through his whole life, he is doomed because the very long life that YHWH has blessed him with makes him too frail to keep Torah, as he desires? And his son, who is still in his prime, stays home to care for his ailing father... He too is doomed? Which is more important? Making it to the feast, or honoring his father? What of those who lived far away? what of those who were slaves? All of them, doomed? No, accommodations have to be made, and those are made within Torah. See if you can find them out. It isn't the contract. It is your reading thereof.
In addition, as a matter of statutory interpretation, if you have a complete, interdependent system, with no specific provision for severing parts of the law out of "inconvenience," then that entire statutory construct must stand or fall as a whole. There is a rational reason for this. You cannot impose rules for individuals that cannot be supported by the full infrastructure.
But that's just it - the infrastructure does allow - It must. This is part of the same mindset that always figures Israel to be agrarian and small - not taking into account her maritime capabilities... not taking into account her colonies. I know it is dreadfully difficult to shake the traditional view you have been raised in, but the job of Israel, from the first, was to spread Torah to the world. How can that be done if everyone has to stay in walking distance to the Temple? Unfortunately, Israel wound up becoming insular anyway, which is why they didn't bear much fruit.
It isn't about the sons of Abraham. It's about the sons of Adam.
[roamer_1:] I have already told you - ALL of Torah is Torah. Whatever of it is yours to do, that DO.
Except for the parts that you say don't apply. I am sorry, but that appears to me to be nothing but a useless tautology.
Any more so than 'love God and love your neighbor'? What does that mean? If you want to talk about a lack of specificity, there is far less ground for you to stand upon than I.
Well no. If that's the pitch, I'm sticking with the New Contract, which really is new because it's different from the Old Contract. We die to the law when we become believers in Christ, because we follow Him in death, and in resurrection, and so pass out from under the law: Rom 7:4-6 [...]
Careful now, with Romans 7 - You will note that he is speaking to those who know Torah. You cannot take it out of a Torah context.
This is Torah for the New Covenant believer, to have faith in Christ, and be renewed by the Spirit, being filled with His love and all manner of spiritual fruit, which the Old Covenant had no power to do:
How can that possibly fail to resemble Torah?
New wine and old wine skins do not mix. But you are in effect teaching the old wine skins are incorporated into the new wine skin, in direct contradiction to the explcit teaching of Christ. The New Covenant Torah is the royal law of love. We are done with the training wheels. How odd it would be to see an adult riding around with training wheels, proclaiming to everyone he met that we should all go back to using training wheels. But for everything there is a time and season, and there comes a time to internalize your sense of balance and set those training wheels aside.
That would necessarily imply that you personally had used the training wheels in the first place. The training wheels are there to help you get your internal balance - You seem to imply that training wheels are not needed at all, even to someone who knows nothing and is just starting to ride a bike.
And the analogy is good - because once you have internalized what the training wheels teach you, you are not going to fall down any more. Because even yet, you are not to sin, and sin is transgression of the law of YHWH.
This is possible and does NOT offend God, because God can change His own law. For example, according to Jesus, divorce was alien to Torah before Moses, but was permitted under Moses because of the hardness of human hearts:
It was not needed from the beginning - Of course it wasn't. That isn't to say that just in the days of Moses it became necessary.
God can change His own law respecting worship:
[...]
The pattern of the new temple service was given to David directly from the Lord, to be built by Solomon, but it abrogates the pattern of the wilderness tabernacle, which was also Torah, given explicitly and in great detail. Set aside just like that. Because the Lawgiver declared it so, due to a change in circumstances.
That isn't true- like with the covenants, one incorporated into the next, the Tabernacle is incorporated into the Temple. The Temple is an expansion of, not an abrogation of, the Tabernacle.
In the New Covenant we learn that the two greatest commandments are to love God with everything we've got and love our neighbor as we love ourselves, that the law in fact is fulfilled in these two commandments. This love we also learn is made possible, not by the dead letter of the Mosaic law, but by the spirit of Christ living within us, which life of the Spirit is only possible precisely because we have died to the law in Christ and been raised in newness of life, with the great principles of the law written on our heart, just as Jeremiah prophesied. To go back under that lesser law from which Jesus has set us free is open defiance of the New Covenant Torah. It is disobedience to Christ, who has fulfilled the law on our behalf, and satisfied the all the terms of the sunset clause, allowing us to live in the light of the New Covenant:
So then the 'NEW LAW', looking *nothing* like Torah, is written on the heart - What good then was Torah EVER? In what way is it the 'training wheels' you speak of? When YHWH spends three quarters of the Book saying to keep his Torah, to not do as the heathens do, to not do their religious rites and say they are for Him... That he HATES what they do, and what their rites remind him of... Showing us HIS way, teaching us HIS Holy Days, saying all of that is FOREVER and for everyone...
But now, in the 'NEW LAW' we are free to do exactly what He spent so much time telling us *not* to do - Christmas, and Easter, and Sunday Sabbath (if any Sabbath) are now good, and written on our hearts. That just simply makes no sense at all.
No, he spoke Hebrew, in which it was clear that he meant that the Levened Barley loaf he held represented his soon to be broken body.
Thanks for your voice of reason, Hebrew examples...
Luke 23:38 And an inscription also was written over Him in letters of Greek, Latin, and Hebrew: THIS IS THE KING OF THE JEWS.
John 19:20 Then many of the Jews read this title, for the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city; and it was written in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin.
Acts 21:40 So when he had given him permission, Paul stood on the stairs and motioned with his hand to the people. And when there was a great silence, he spoke to them in the Hebrew language, saying...
Acts 22:2 And when they heard that he spoke to them in the Hebrew language, they kept all the more silent. Then he said:
Acts 26:14 And when we all had fallen to the ground, I heard a voice speaking to me and saying in the Hebrew language, ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me? It is hard for you to kick against the goads.’
and a favorite source...
Orion Center for the Study of the Dead Sea Scrolls
http://orion.mscc.huji.ac.il/
F.A.Q.
In what languages were the scrolls written ?
The majority of the scrolls were written in the Hebrew Language (approximately 90-95%) with Assyrian Block script. From this majority there are a few cases in which the scribes used Paleo-Hebrew (see for example 4QPaleoExodus). In addition to the texts found in Hebrew there were also some texts written in Aramaic and Greek.
http://orion.mscc.huji.ac.il/resources/FAQ.shtml#language
90 to 95% Hebrew, I imagine the Greek docs were letters from home, 'how's life at kabbalah camp son...?'
Thanks and copy the information from: The Orion Center for the Study of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Associated Literature at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem
1Jn 2:22 Who is a liar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist, that denieth the Father and the Son.Which basically is saying that the example you are using for "easy" Torah observance is antichrist. Did John work logic bombs too?
RM: [roamer_1:] Right... which ratifies within itself the Mosaic covenant, and every other covenant there before.
SR: No, that's not a ratification.
RM: Yes, it is.
Well, we could go back and forth like this indefinitely, couldn't we. :) In the interest of breaking this infinite loop, let me suggest the problem is in the word "ratify." If it simply means to say that Jesus agreed that the law of Moses was good and in force for the duration of the Old Covenant, then of course we actually agree. If it means that the entirety of the Mosaic covenant would be in force for gentile Christians during the entirety of the New Covenant era, even after the law was fulfilled in the person and ministry of Christ, then we still have a bone to pick. So "ratify" is ambiguous, and I will continue to disagree with what I think you think it means, because Jesus knew and the apostles would all figure out that the Old Covenant was coming to an end, and any meaning of "ratify" that is truthful must comply with that fact.
SR: Principle of mutual exclusion. You can't have a new contract that is fundamentally replacing the old and recapitulating the old at the same time, especially when we know from Jesus Himself the two are NOT compatible.
RM: There it is - Paul's logic bomb.
You've mentioned that now a couple of times, and as you haven't explained it to me, I can only theorize what you mean by it. I know a logic bomb is a malicious piece of code that might, for example, be buried in the systems of a nuclear power plant with intent to cause havoc at some predetermined time. This seems to suggest you might be one of those HR folks who think Paul was a saboteur and not a true apostle of Christianity. Is that your position? If so, you understand I reject that view entirely, and in so doing I reject the notion of "logic bomb" as an affront to the Holy Spirit Himself, who gave Paul those very words for the benefit of all who would later follow Christ.
As for the point of the logic itself, I theorize you mean that Paul nefariously set up the discontinuity between the covenants as a way to attack the uninterrupted continuity of OT Torah you think should be there. I am guessing here, so I will take no offense if you tell me I have guessed wrong. But if I have guessed correctly, please be aware that the only logic bombs pitting one inspired writer against another inspired writer must be coming from outside the system, falsely imposed on the system by a series of false assumptions, leading to apparent contradictions when in fact there are none. Scripture, when rightly understood, does not have self-destructive logic bombs.
And therefore, Paul and Jesus agree in all essential points. They have a difference of situation, in that Jesus speaks mainly from before the formal end of the Old Covenant, and Paul speaks from the perspective of one who came to faith in Christ after the inauguration of the New Covenant. Jesus lays the foundation for the New Covenant, and so all of His teaching is relevant to us as believers. But it must be understood in it's temporal context. You know yourself how subtle bugs can be introduced by failing to recognize the actual scope of a variable. Use it in it's proper scope, and all is well. Use it out of scope and it leads to major headaches. Jesus had to fulfill the final act of sacrifice under the Old Covenant law, in order to break that law's power to condemn lost sinners. When the curtain in the Holy of Holies is torn in two, by God Himself, He signals yet another change in the law, a new openness of access to the very presence of God, which the apostles will eventually teach is the consequence of His grace:
Heb 4:16 Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.
SR: In contract law, to bring all the terms of a previous agreement forward you would need an incorporation clause. Matthew 5:17 is a sunset clause issued during the last days of the Old Covenant, so its not even part of the New Covenant per se.
RM: Then none of the words of Yeshua himself are part of the 'new covenant' either.
Addressed above. I would further add that Christ spoke several times after His death and resurrection, and even after His ascension, to Paul and others, and that He promised the Holy Spirit, Who would guide us into all truth. Odd that the Holy Spirit did NOT guide the apostles into Old Covenant Torah observance.
That would be an absurdity, would it not? You contend that the 'sunset clause' has occurred, and the Torah is terminated, yet all of Torah and the prophets are not yet fulfilled...
They are all fulfilled with respect to Christ. I reiterate the passage conveying this from my last post:
Luk 24:44-49 And he said unto them, These are the words which I spake unto you, while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled, which were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms, concerning me. (45) Then opened he their understanding, that they might understand the scriptures, (46) And said unto them, Thus it is written, and thus it behoved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day: (47) And that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. (48) And ye are witnesses of these things. (49) And, behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you: but tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem, until ye be endued with power from on high.
How then can the sunset clause have been reached? Indeed, the prophets AND Torah predict the Millenial Kingdom, and beyond - So how then can they be fulfilled? Focus only upon the Davidic Covenant - How much of that needs yet to be accomplished? If you study it, you will be amazed at that which must still come to pass.
Unless one is willing to see how Christ is the fulfillment of the law, as He Himself stated, then one might never see all that is fulfilled already in Him. This is essentially the problem the Pharisees had in perceiving who Jesus was and what His appearance really meant. It requires an act of faith to understand this. They couldn't do it. Many today still can't.
SR: Furthermore, even if one granted the premise of continuity past the terminus of the sunset clause (which makes no sense), the applicable parties under the full rigor of Moses are still just God and national Israel, those named in the Old Covenant contract, and only for as long as the individual provisions in question remain unfulfilled. That's not the contract Christians are under.
RM: Indeed it must be, as this 'new' covenant is made with 'the House of Israel and the House of Judah' (notice the distinction again). Gentiles are grafted into that covenant, else they have *no* covenant. There isn't any other.
Do you deny then there are two contracts? In Jeremiah 31, God says there are two. In Hebrews, there are two. Paul also here:
2Co 3:5-6 Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think any thing as of ourselves; but our sufficiency is of God; (6) Who also hath made us able ministers of the new testament; not of the letter, but of the spirit: for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life.What do you do with the newness of the New Covenant. Yes, of course it was made to Israel, as Paul says here:
Rom 1:16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.But the grafting in of the gentiles is NOT to the Old Covenant, but the New, and NOT to the Hebraic status quo, but an entirely new sort of entity:
Eph 2:13-16 But now in Christ Jesus ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ. (14) For he is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us; (15) Having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances; for to make in himself of twain one new man, so making peace; (16) And that he might reconcile both unto God in one body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby:You speak of logic. Let it rule the day here. This union is between Jew and Gentile, not two varieties of Old Covenant Hebrews. There is no grafting in if there are no true gentile believers. And we were afar off. We were never part of that Old Covenant. But in this New Covenant, God takes true Jews of all houses, and puts them together with true Gentiles in one new man. The ecclesia is a new thing. Not that there haven't been assemblies before. But this one is special. Nothing else like it. Unprecedented. NEW. And it has it's own Torah, the Torah of Christ as promulgated by His Apostles.
SR: (Sidebar here: This is why it is critical to define Torah to painful detail. Prophecy is not legal code. Unfulfilled prophecy has no bearing on whether the legal provisions foreshadowing Christ were fulfilled. Everything we are debating about was fulfilled in Christ. To prove that wrong, you would have to define Torah more exactly than you have so far.)
RM: I see what you are saying, but that is much harder to suss out than you might imagine, as ALL of Torah is prophetic. Everything we are debating was, or will be fulfilled in Messiah - Not all has been accomplished. That is the point. Take ONLY the Holy Days and study them. It will soon become apparent that the spring feasts have been fulfilled in an incremental and amazingly exact way in the first coming, death, and resurrection. But the Fall Feasts remain to be accomplished, and no doubt will be accomplished at the second coming, and that, with the very same incremental accuracy which was presented in the fulfillment of the Spring Feasts. This alone confounds your position as declared immediately above: The legal code is, in and of itself, prophetic. What now?
Addressed above. Christ's own post-resurrection statement indicates the fulfillments were in Him, and were accomplished. His apostles ratified this (nice word) in all their writings. Even Peter, preaching on Pentecost, under the power of the Holy Spirit, recognizes the immediate fulfillment of things thought to be far off:
Act 2:16-21 But this is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel; (17) And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh: and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams: (18) And on my servants and on my handmaidens I will pour out in those days of my Spirit; and they shall prophesy: (19) And I will shew wonders in heaven above, and signs in the earth beneath; blood, and fire, and vapour of smoke: (20) The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before that great and notable day of the Lord come: (21) And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved.Peter says, this is right now happening. Look at all those far off celestial events, yet Peter says this miracle of Pentecost is being fulfilled before their very eyes. Difficult to reconcile with our limited way of thinking about these things, but the Holy Spirit is not wrong, and therefore Peter is not wrong, no matter how hard it might be to digest. This is the new wine, the power of the Holy Spirit for all believers, purchased with the blood of Christ, Jew and gentile reformed into one new man. No way the old wineskins could've handled this.
Luk 5:36-39 And he spake also a parable unto them; No man putteth a piece of a new garment upon an old; if otherwise, then both the new maketh a rent, and the piece that was taken out of the new agreeth not with the old. (37) And no man putteth new wine into old bottles; else the new wine will burst the bottles, and be spilled, and the bottles shall perish. (38) But new wine must be put into new bottles; and both are preserved. (39) No man also having drunk old wine straightway desireth new: for he saith, The old is better.and furthermore, the prophets necessarily reveal the purpose of the legal code - Something declared prophetically is no less law - Take the Inheritance, as an example. What YHWH has explicitly declared within the Inheritance must necessarily come to pass, and therefore, has the force of law in a prophetic sense - This is no small thing, especially as it touches Ephraim (the House of Israel). In a programmatic sense, it MUST execute in order to complete (fulfill) the entirety.
No, prophecy is not automatically law. Law is directive of human behavior. Much prophecy is of what God will do. It is descriptive. Any prophecy that is prescriptive is never in announcment of some new obligation, but is always a restatement of law already given. To dilute the meaning of law to incorporate everything spoken is just a convenient tactic to sweep in things not yet fulfilled, but which are not law, the end effect of which is to discount Jesus' own post-resurrection words that the fulfillment of which He spoke was what was written in the law concerning Him.
Do not forgo the principle of 'two witnesses'... The Word and the Prophets are intricately intertwined - It is the very signature of YHWH.
No problem. The New Covenant is replete with multiple witnesses that the Old Covenant has passed and is no longer in force.
RM: [roamer_1:] No, I don't... All I can do is tell you - If you don't do anything about it, that's your business.
SR: Yes you do. Paul and much in the New Covent specification says we are free of the Old Covenant to the extent it foreshadowed Christ.
RM: Again, Paul's logic bomb. Try operating under this premise: Paul cannot go against the Words of his Master, and Paul MUST be saying the very same thing as his fellows... There is only ONE Gospel. Reconcile Paul to John, and to James particularly. They are all three saying the same thing, from different aspects, just as the Gospels are all saying the same thing from different aspects.
I agree with your statement, but that does not speak of malicious code in Scripture at all, so I do not get the logic bomb theory. Sounds to me like you have an active contradiction in your thought. I could be wrong, but that's what I'm seeing at the moment.
And every time Paul says we are free from the law, he always immediately ties it back to the idea that the freedom we have as Christians should *not* be considered license... Are we free to sin? Of course not! And since 'sin' is transgression of Torah...
New Covenant Torah. Not Old. Of course God redeems us in Christ to sanctify, heal and purify us. And the directives flowing from the New Covenant royal law of love, which we know satisfies the requirements of the Torah of either Covenant, are all valuable to our walk with God and with each other. But we do not leave the New just to end up back at the Old. Otherwise the New isn't New. It's impossible to be a Christian without being born again. We have a new life. We are a new creation. I have experienced this personally. It is real, a work of God's own Spirit, and it leads to the forsaking of sin (per New Covenant Torah) and a hunger to please God in all our ways. So it is a false dilemma to suggest we have no guidance into the ways of love if we do not eat kosher, or do not wear tassels, or do not observe moons and feasts etc etc. We each have the seal of the Spirit of God, and we have the teaching of the apostles of God. What more anyone would want beyond that is past my imagination.
SR:If you want to convince me, you need to tell me what this "easy" Torah is because I don't see it. I see a law which, while itself good and reflective of the goodness of the divine nature, puts me in the position of death and eternal doom. The New Covenant undoes that, because as I identify with Christ in His death, I die to the law. The law no longer condemns me. It can't. I'm dead to it, and alive to God.
RM: Right. Messiah removes the curses of the law. But we are continually being made in his image - His example to us shows us what that looks like. We, as disciples are to 'walk in his footsteps' - A strange phrase, that. I wonder where it comes from (heh... not really. I know where it comes from). So we are no longer doomed. We can earnestly try and try again... Keep trying to walk in his footsteps.
Nothing much to disagree with there, though I don't get your inside humor about the footsteps. Care to share that with the rest of the class? :)
RM: [roamer_1:] Why then have the Jews been able to keep Torah for the last two thousand years?
SR: But they haven't. God took away the sacrifice and now no one can keep Torah under Moses.
RM: That isn't the point. Second Temple Jews lived as far away from Jerusalem as Holland and Spain - Many, no doubt, may have only seen the Temple once in their whole life, if that. What you seem to be reading into the law is not nor has it ever been a feasible interpretation.
But it is the point. You are switching to individual inconveniences, but the law was written for the nation. The priests could not do sacrifice. The nation was deprived of the means of obeying a huge percentage of the law of Moses. But the law didn't stop acting to condemn them. Unless you think Paul is wrong. What they should have concluded from this, and it should have come from the rabbis, is that they had no means of atonement. God took it away. Unless they found their way back the Messiah, they were condemned. The law condemned them. It's no good to make excuses. They should have been terrified. Instead they made excuses, and you appear to be ratifying those excuses to live outside the law of atonement.
SR: No one gave the rabbis permission to just say, "oh well, let's just be nice now instead of sacrifice." That's a unilateral man-generated modification to the law of the contract.
RM: So was the synagogue system. It is not specified in Torah. Yet Yeshua endorsed it. Used it. Preached from it. It's Rabbinical basis was relied upon by all the Apostles. That system was the fall-back necessary for those who could not make it to Temple at least since the Babylonian exile. What then? A second Temple era Jew, living in the south of France, too poor to go to Temple three times a year (not to mention every Sabbath), was just bound for hell even if he was devout in other aspects? What of Ruth? What of Esther? No, this sense that Christians have of what the law does and what it is for is wholly their own invention.
You can't seriously be arguing that finding a building in which to study Torah, which they were already obligated to do, is the equivalent of giving up on the sacrifices demanded by the law. Apples and oranges. One is merely finding a physical means to keep the law, the other is making spiritual excuses to break the law.
SR: It voids the contract. Furthermore, the Jewish religion still rejects God's Messiah. Is that compatible with Torah observance? They have retained a form of godliness, but have forsaken the power of God.
RM: Funny, as I could say the very same thing about the vast majority of Christendom.
I'm not God, so I don't have a clue what's going on in the hearts of the vast majority of Christians. If you are comfortable making such statements, that's up to you. I can't go there.
SR:I respect Jewish people as individuals, as I would any other people. But I do not see them keeping Torah properly. Not at all.
RM: Neither do I see them keeping Torah 'properly'. No one but Yeshua has ever kept it 'properly'. But yet they do their best to keep it as best as they can. And the devout always have.
Except that in rejecting Messiah they deny both Father and Son, which John identifies as Antichrist. Torah observant? Not even on the radar. They need to believe in Jesus first.
SR: No, there are principles of statutory interpretation involved here that are as ancient as law itself. I have heard repeatedly from the HR community that the explicit statements of the law are immutable. That's false. The law of the sacrifice is explicitly stated, is it not? Yet it is not only mutable, it can be cast aside as nothing when the inconvenience of a missing temple is encountered.
RM: It is not mutable. But they (Jews) have relied upon grace through faith, even as the Christians do - It is a Torah principle:
A devout man, never missing a single Temple pilgrimage, becomes too old to travel... Even though he has done his best through his whole life, he is doomed because the very long life that YHWH has blessed him with makes him too frail to keep Torah, as he desires? And his son, who is still in his prime, stays home to care for his ailing father... He too is doomed? Which is more important? Making it to the feast, or honoring his father? What of those who lived far away? what of those who were slaves? All of them, doomed? No, accommodations have to be made, and those are made within Torah. See if you can find them out. It isn't the contract. It is your reading thereof.
The whole point of Paul's introductory remarks in his treatise to the Romans is that God holds all sinners guilty, whether they are gentiles living without the law, or Jews with the full benefit of Moses. All stand condemned. Young, old, strong, weak, it doesn't matter. All have sinned, and all are headed for the gallows, but for the Gospel of Christ. If they deny Messiah, they deny to themselves God's means of grace, God's chosen object of faith. Yes, without Christ, they are doomed.
SR: In addition, as a matter of statutory interpretation, if you have a complete, interdependent system, with no specific provision for severing parts of the law out of "inconvenience," then that entire statutory construct must stand or fall as a whole. There is a rational reason for this. You cannot impose rules for individuals that cannot be supported by the full infrastructure.
RM: But that's just it - the infrastructure does allow - It must. This is part of the same mindset that always figures Israel to be agrarian and small - not taking into account her maritime capabilities... not taking into account her colonies. I know it is dreadfully difficult to shake the traditional view you have been raised in, but the job of Israel, from the first, was to spread Torah to the world. How can that be done if everyone has to stay in walking distance to the Temple? Unfortunately, Israel wound up becoming insular anyway, which is why they didn't bear much fruit.
It isn't about the sons of Abraham. It's about the sons of Adam.
Well, I think you misunderstood, perhaps, what I meant by infrastructure. The law was designed for a theocratic nation. It has many principles which a wise nation might borrow and use to bring justice, and many of those principles actually survive to this day in our common law. But for the law to operate as a whole for the nation for which it was designed, that nation had to exist. There is no provision in the law for how to proceed if the worship of God per God's commanded form of worship becomes impossible. You can't play cafeteria and only obey those portions of the law which are easiest to perform. That's cheating.
RM: [roamer_1:] I have already told you - ALL of Torah is Torah. Whatever of it is yours to do, that DO.
SR: Except for the parts that you say don't apply. I am sorry, but that appears to me to be nothing but a useless tautology.
RM: Any more so than 'love God and love your neighbor'? What does that mean? If you want to talk about a lack of specificity, there is far less ground for you to stand upon than I.
Answered above. The New Covenant Torah speaks endlessly on the principles of love for God and neighbor. And not one word affirming kosher or calendars or using Hebrew names etc. as obligatory.
SR: Well no. If that's the pitch, I'm sticking with the New Contract, which really is new because it's different from the Old Contract. We die to the law when we become believers in Christ, because we follow Him in death, and in resurrection, and so pass out from under the law: Rom 7:4-6 [...]
RM: Careful now, with Romans 7 - You will note that he is speaking to those who know Torah. You cannot take it out of a Torah context.
That's a form of begging the question. He is using an Old Covenant principle that explains by analogy how the Old Covenant could cease to have force on a New Covenant believer. And he is in fact explaining how the two covenants interface with each other in the life of one person, how our identification with Christ in His death transfers us from the condemnation of the one to the newness of life in the other.
As to his audience, I note a mixture of names in the epistle, and do not assume Rome to be an exclusively Jewish, or even a mainly Jewish congregation. Many generations of gentile believers have read this passage with sufficient understanding to get what he is saying. God designed Scripture for all believers. It is our food, the words of God, and he has made it accessible.
SR: This is Torah for the New Covenant believer, to have faith in Christ, and be renewed by the Spirit, being filled with His love and all manner of spiritual fruit, which the Old Covenant had no power to do:
RM: How can that possibly fail to resemble Torah?
There is a resemblance, but not an identity. That's the point. Forcing it into an identity, or coming around to identity by the back door, is what got Paul all frosted in Galatians. So bad was it Paul described it as another Gospel, another Jesus. If we live according to the Torah of the New Covenant, all will be well with us, for our salvation is secured by the blood of the Lamb of God, and nothing can or will remove us from His protective care. If we try to live under both covenants, we are inviting heartache and trouble into our lives. It is disobedience, rebellion.
SR: New wine and old wine skins do not mix. But you are in effect teaching the old wine skins are incorporated into the new wine skin, in direct contradiction to the explicit teaching of Christ. The New Covenant Torah is the royal law of love. We are done with the training wheels. How odd it would be to see an adult riding around with training wheels, proclaiming to everyone he met that we should all go back to using training wheels. But for everything there is a time and season, and there comes a time to internalize your sense of balance and set those training wheels aside.
RM: That would necessarily imply that you personally had used the training wheels in the first place. The training wheels are there to help you get your internal balance - You seem to imply that training wheels are not needed at all, even to someone who knows nothing and is just starting to ride a bike.
And the analogy is good - because once you have internalized what the training wheels teach you, you are not going to fall down any more. Because even yet, you are not to sin, and sin is transgression of the law of YHWH.
No, this is not about us personally using the training wheels. This is more what Paul spoke of in Galatians concerning the law being our tutor and leading us to Christ. The nation Israel had the training wheels. We have the Spirit, and the new creation in Christ. "Old things are passed away. Behold all things are become new." We are past the training wheels.
SR: This is possible and does NOT offend God, because God can change His own law. For example, according to Jesus, divorce was alien to Torah before Moses, but was permitted under Moses because of the hardness of human hearts:
RM: It was not needed from the beginning - Of course it wasn't. That isn't to say that just in the days of Moses it became necessary.
Good, then you admit my point, that God can modify His own law based on conditions. Thank you.
SR: God can change His own law respecting worship:
[...]
The pattern of the new temple service was given to David directly from the Lord, to be built by Solomon, but it abrogates the pattern of the wilderness tabernacle, which was also Torah, given explicitly and in great detail. Set aside just like that. Because the Lawgiver declared it so, due to a change in circumstances.
RM: That isn't true- like with the covenants, one incorporated into the next, the Tabernacle is incorporated into the Temple. The Temple is an expansion of, not an abrogation of, the Tabernacle.
But it is true. The Tabernacle is described in great detail in Exodus 26-27. The overall pattern of the Temple is similar, but in many details different. They didn't need a desert tent anymore. The Tabernacle was designed for packing up and moving around. The Temple was a far more grandiose project, set permanently on Zion. There is no account I am aware of that described the one being incorporated into the other. I don't mean to offend, but that sounds totally fictitious. You can argue it was a minor change, but a change it was. So again we see that some parts of the law clearly were mutable. What Blackstone would call "things indifferent," i.e., things that cannot be tied to universal, eternal moral principles.
SR: In the New Covenant we learn that the two greatest commandments are to love God with everything we've got and love our neighbor as we love ourselves, that the law in fact is fulfilled in these two commandments. This love we also learn is made possible, not by the dead letter of the Mosaic law, but by the spirit of Christ living within us, which life of the Spirit is only possible precisely because we have died to the law in Christ and been raised in newness of life, with the great principles of the law written on our heart, just as Jeremiah prophesied. To go back under that lesser law from which Jesus has set us free is open defiance of the New Covenant Torah. It is disobedience to Christ, who has fulfilled the law on our behalf, and satisfied the all the terms of the sunset clause, allowing us to live in the light of the New Covenant:
RM: So then the 'NEW LAW', looking *nothing* like Torah, is written on the heart - What good then was Torah EVER? In what way is it the 'training wheels' you speak of? When YHWH spends three quarters of the Book saying to keep his Torah, to not do as the heathens do, to not do their religious rites and say they are for Him... That he HATES what they do, and what their rites remind him of... Showing us HIS way, teaching us HIS Holy Days, saying all of that is FOREVER and for everyone...
But now, in the 'NEW LAW' we are free to do exactly what He spent so much time telling us *not* to do - Christmas, and Easter, and Sunday Sabbath (if any Sabbath) are now good, and written on our hearts. That just simply makes no sense at all.
Where did I say the New Covenant Law has no resemblance to the Old Covenant law? I have already said that it does resemble it. They are both from the hand of the same Lawgiver. But it is necessary to have respect for the Lawgiver. He has told us, repeatedly, this covenant is new. Not like the old. The principles of righteousness are written on our hearts by the Spirit of God, not on stone tablets that can be shattered. As to your question, if your conscience forbids you certain things, then avoid them. If another believer as an expression of his liberty in Christ does not use the same calendar you do, or eat the same food, is that really a good reason to cause division in the body of Christ? Each believer will stand or fall before their own Master. Better to focus on what we have in common. New Covenant principles, and the leading of God's Spirit, will take us away from all idolatry, sexual corruption, dishonesty, sloth, and so many other things. But we are to always remember that the core is love. Without that, the rest is all empty pride and noise.
Peace,
SR
>> “After reading them, it’s not a pleasant spiritual communication/message.” <<
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Almost looked like he was looking into the chambers of the US Congress, huh?
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Yep. This sort of thing is problematic over this form of communication - If it weren't for the vast ocean of corn between you and I, I would be much more comfortable addressing these issues on one back porch or the other, with a handy supply of sweet tea. ; ) Our entire conversation thus far would have hardly passed an hour in that condition. Much better conversing, and my favorite preference - far preferred to banging about with these accursed thumbs.
To that end, I offer only this link to address the two house fable: A Brief Assessment of Two House Theology
Let me begin by noting that, as I said before, my position is more like Two House Messianic than British Israelism - I do not fully adhere to either one. My insatiable penchant is for the Prophecy, from which my greater thesis arises...
But that being said, your presented article is a rather shallow case. Again, the errata proves the point:
Note that I use 'Ephraim' as shorthand for the 'House of Israel' to distill the thought away from Israel proper, and to avoid confusion between the two.No, by far and away, the House of Israel is the most ignored saga in the Book. And a huge portion of the Book is dedicated to that story. There is no way one can understand the prophets if one misses the distinction.
- Read the prophets. Ephraim is present, separate, and distinct from Judah in end time battles (ALL of the tribes are mentioned). Ephraim owns lands, has armies and weaponry. If, as your article describes, the ten tribes are presently incorporated into what we know as Israel, then some action necessarily must occur to separate Ephraim out again, allowing him to fill the position he is in by the end time. I think that is, of course, a ludicrous thought, hence I believe that Ephraim is already separate and distinct, and as close as we are to the coming conflagration (say, within the next 50 years) I don't think there is time for him to appear, thus he must be here already...
- Read Hosea particularly, because he describes in no uncertain terms how Ephraim will fair in the breadth of time. He cannot go back - brambles are put in his way. He forgets who he is. YHWH brings him into the wilderness and courts him, and for a while things are swell... But eventually Ephraim becomes wealthy and arrogant and falls away again, forgetting the Father and going after his monies and wine, full of decadence. It doesn't end very well... Ephraim does return, but only after he is made scarce upon the earth - as scarce as the gold of Ophir. If the Church, or Western Civilization, is indeed Ephraim, it is not with any sort of pride that I announce it - but rather with a sense of certain doom. We are in for a terrible time, if that is the case.
- Look into the inheritance of Ephraim (Joseph, Ephraim, Manasseh) - How is it that he, given the lion's share of the blessing, remains unfulfilled? He is the fruitful bough (bears fruit) by the river, overflowing the wall. He is given the fruits of the land and the sea, the earth will set forth her treasures (mining). Cattle and land... And understand: The inheritance cannot be given until the death of the testator (heard that before?). So IF I am right, one should not begin to see Ephraim forming from the nations until after the death of Messiah... He CANNOT be incorporated in Israel, because Israel (since Messiah, even since Babylon), certainly has never received these blessings.
When the dragon goes after the seed of the woman, some 1650 years are spent chasing them into the wilderness... The 1700's are an extraordinary time. A study of long-count prophecies in the Bible will amaze you. Read that old black heretic Isaac Newton. His math si pretty good on the long count stuff, even if He didn't get it perfectly right.
- And lastly, I would bring you to Isaiah 54 - Read 53 for context - Who is this barren woman who is told to leap for joy following the death of Messiah? She cannot be the gentiles, for she inherits them. She cannot be the married wife (the House of Judah), for she will have more children than her. She was a wife of youth, rejected and shamed... but now, she is married again to YHWH. There is only one entity that she could be. Only the House of Israel can be this woman.
- THEN look to the NT. You will find he is still in the nations at that time. The clues are sparse to a Greek mind, but they are there - and once you see, you will see it everywhere.
I will also add this: it is the snare of Satan, who has been much mentioned on these pages, to attack believers through the universal human Achilles heel, pride. What better way to do that than to draw off tens of thousands of gentile believers into spiritual coma by convincing them they are crypto-Ephraimites? And what better way to show spite toward God, which spite is ever in the heart of Satan, than by promoting an abuse of God's good law to promote evil and division in the body of Christ, and to blunt the message of God's amazing grace?
I would submit that it is not I who is in a spiritual coma. Rather, most of Christendom slumbers in Greek blankets and with a Roman pillow. Read the Temple texts in Ezekiel. The House of Israel (Ephraim) is shown the measure of the Temple so that he will be ashamed of himself - HE DOESN'T KNOW.
And don't feed me a line about siphoning off believers - The very same thing is spouted by the Romanists. The only unity there is is in TRUTH. One cannot be so sure of oneself that one does not seek. The truth is not in the choir-box now any more than it was for the Temple Jews. Had they the knowledge of the few who were paying attention, they would not have missed the time of their visitation. In it's ignorance of the Tanakh, I believe the church at large is in the very same position.
More tomorrow. I am too beat to address your whole post. I hope you have a great day.
1Ti 1:4 Neither give heed to fables and endless genealogies, which minister questions, rather than godly edifying which is in faith: so do.The "ministration of questions" is an interesting thought to me. Some things don't have definitive answers this side of Heaven. Where did all my genetic material come from? Who knows? And theologically, who cares? My family is the "one new man" created in Christ, neither Jew nor Gentile, but a brotherhood of new creations made to be like Him.
Heb 7:11-14 If therefore perfection were by the Levitical priesthood, (for under it the people received the law,) what further need was there that another priest should rise after the order of Melchisedec, and not be called after the order of Aaron? (12) For the priesthood being changed, there is made of necessity a change also of the law. (13) For he of whom these things are spoken pertaineth to another tribe, of which no man gave attendance at the altar. (14) For it is evident that our Lord sprang out of Juda; of which tribe Moses spake nothing concerning priesthood.Your theory of Torah, so far as I am able to understand it, is that God never changes Torah, so that anything added later does not displace anything already in place. I think the passage above destroys that notion entirely. But I want to look at it fairly closely to understand how that could work. Because in a certain respect I think understand the value in what you are saying. God's holiness is perfect and eternal. How then could there be a setting aside of the shadows if they, even as shadows, are intrinsically good?
So it begins to appear to us what is the eternal Torah. It is the fruit of the Spirit, all those characteristics that express our love for God and neighbor: Patience, kindness, absence of envy, humility, self-control, unselfishness, good temper, innocence of thought, sorrow for sin, joy for truth, forgiving, believing, hoping, enduring, and unfailing. To paraphrase Jesus, it's not what goes into a man that makes him unkosher, but what comes out of him.
Well, I'm starting to nod off here, so good night.
Peace,
SR
As for using Torah observance among disbelieving Israel as a model for Christian behavior, this might be a problem:
1Jn 2:22 Who is a liar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist, that denieth the Father and the Son.
Which basically is saying that the example you are using for "easy" Torah observance is antichrist. Did John work logic bombs too?
Who is denying that Yeshua is Messiah?
Well, we could go back and forth like this indefinitely, couldn't we. :) In the interest of breaking this infinite loop, let me suggest the problem is in the word "ratify." If it simply means to say that Jesus agreed that the law of Moses was good and in force for the duration of the Old Covenant, then of course we actually agree. If it means that the entirety of the Mosaic covenant would be in force for gentile Christians during the entirety of the New Covenant era, even after the law was fulfilled in the person and ministry of Christ, then we still have a bone to pick. So "ratify" is ambiguous, and I will continue to disagree with what I think you think it means, because Jesus knew and the apostles would all figure out that the Old Covenant was coming to an end, and any meaning of "ratify" that is truthful must comply with that fact.
In fact, I DO believe that the entirety of Moses was ratified into the new covenant, and is meant for everyone - That was the original intent for Torah, and Torah remains beyond this current age into the millennium, as recorded by the prophets, to include the Sabbath and Feast Days... And the WHOLE WORLD (implies Gentiles, no?) will keep Torah then. So again, my question is how it can be that the bride refrains from keeping what is plainly described as law in the Kingdom?
You've mentioned that now a couple of times, and as you haven't explained it to me, I can only theorize what you mean by it. I know a logic bomb is a malicious piece of code that might, for example, be buried in the systems of a nuclear power plant with intent to cause havoc at some predetermined time.
A classic logic bomb is malicious only if the software is abused. If it is used according to it's design, no untoward thing will happen, and the software is benign and useful for it's purpose.
This seems to suggest you might be one of those HR folks who think Paul was a saboteur and not a true apostle of Christianity. Is that your position?
No, I have nothing against Paul, as I have declared before - My fight is against abusing Paul by way of interpretation.
As for the point of the logic itself, I theorize you mean that Paul nefariously set up the discontinuity between the covenants as a way to attack the uninterrupted continuity of OT Torah you think should be there.
No, I am saying that you seem to be reading in a discontinuity where there can be none. No doubt Paul can be read that way, IF one is willing to say that YHWH changed His mind. But I know for a fact that He didn't. He set Torah in stone on purpose. Structurally, the contract(s) cannot be voided without pulling down the prophets too. Do that and the primary proofs of the deity of YHWH are nullified. THAT Paul can easily be read into is the abuse of code triggering the logic bomb. If one is concerned with the preservation of the structures present in the layout of the whole, Paul is saying something quite different from what you suppose.
I am guessing here, so I will take no offense if you tell me I have guessed wrong. But if I have guessed correctly, please be aware that the only logic bombs pitting one inspired writer against another inspired writer must be coming from outside the system, falsely imposed on the system by a series of false assumptions, leading to apparent contradictions when in fact there are none.
That is exactly right - If the disciples are gainsaying Messiah, or if one disciple is seen authoritatively speaking differently than the other disciples, something is drastically wrong with one's interpretation. That is why I am against the standard reading of Paul. His words need to be reconciled to his Master, and the other disciples. If one does so, he cannot be saying what everyone says he is saying. There is no private revelation. Paul MUST stand with the prophets, to include Yeshua, as must every other disciple. The prophets judge the prophets. What was already said has been said, and WILL be so.
Scripture, when rightly understood, does not have self-destructive logic bombs.
PRECISELY so.
And therefore, Paul and Jesus agree in all essential points. They have a difference of situation, in that Jesus speaks mainly from before the formal end of the Old Covenant, and Paul speaks from the perspective of one who came to faith in Christ after the inauguration of the New Covenant.
That cannot be so. Yeshua is the lawgiver. What HE says is necessarily paramount.
Jesus lays the foundation for the New Covenant, and so all of His teaching is relevant to us as believers. But it must be understood in it's temporal context. You know yourself how subtle bugs can be introduced by failing to recognize the actual scope of a variable. Use it in it's proper scope, and all is well. Use it out of scope and it leads to major headaches.
Here is the scope: Yeshua is the lawgiver. His words will never pass away. His words CANNOT be temporal. There's your problem, right there. It is the same as considering Moses' words to be temporal (malleable, fungible), which is exactly what got the Jews in so much trouble. A disciple must align EVERY word to his master's words. He cannot add to them, nor take away.
Jesus had to fulfill the final act of sacrifice under the Old Covenant law, in order to break that law's power to condemn lost sinners. When the curtain in the Holy of Holies is torn in two, by God Himself, He signals yet another change in the law, a new openness of access to the very presence of God, which the apostles will eventually teach is the consequence of His grace:
ALL TRUE. Yet the prophets show animal sacrifice in the Kingdom. Go figger.
Addressed above. I would further add that Christ spoke several times after His death and resurrection, and even after His ascension, to Paul and others, and that He promised the Holy Spirit, Who would guide us into all truth. Odd that the Holy Spirit did NOT guide the apostles into Old Covenant Torah observance.
Oh, but he did. To include Paul. That again, is read into the text by a Greek-centric mind. Understand the definition of terms as declared in Torah, and it all changes perspective.
They are all fulfilled with respect to Christ. I reiterate the passage conveying this from my last post:
But no, they are not. He has not come in glory and power to establish His Kingdom here upon earth upon the throne of David. You will find that every one of the Feasts of YHWH are all about Messiah. And the fall feasts are not accomplished... So your reading must be necessarily incorrect. In fact, the prophets declare Him through the Kingdom and beyond.
Unless one is willing to see how Christ is the fulfillment of the law, as He Himself stated, then one might never see all that is fulfilled already in Him. This is essentially the problem the Pharisees had in perceiving who Jesus was and what His appearance really meant. It requires an act of faith to understand this. They couldn't do it. Many today still can't.
I disagree emphatically. YES, in the same sense as a betrothal is a marriage... What was done at the cross makes the end game inevitable - But like a betrothal is also *not* a marriage until the consummation, the end game must still occur, and the establishment of the Kingdom must BE. Inevitable as that is, it hasn't happened YET.
Do you deny then there are two contracts? In Jeremiah 31, God says there are two. In Hebrews, there are two. Paul also here:
No, there is one, but all previous contracts are necessarily ratified en toto into the current one. None of it can pass away until all of it is fulfilled. Every jot and title. Every jot and tittle. ELSE there are many contracts, each standing on their own, awaiting fulfillment each in it's own power and way... But that is not the foregone example(s), and that is not what it says.
But the grafting in of the gentiles is NOT to the Old Covenant, but the New, and NOT to the Hebraic status quo, but an entirely new sort of entity:
I don't think you are grasping the concept of the covenants one being within the next. The Adamic Covenant did not make the Edenic covenant null - Neither did Noah nullify the Adamic. Neither did Abraham nullify the Noahdic, and so on. Each time, the previous was expanded, more revealed, by the next. Each one ratifies what was before into itself. The tricky business is in the split within Abraham/Melchizedek - There is the Inheritance, and Moses, and Aaron, and, some would argue, the Moabic covenant too. But the Inheritance is necessarily interactive with Moses, and the Davidic covenant is necessarily back-logged from within Moses, interactive with Abraham. Just as the Aaronic priesthood of Moses is within, and draws authority from, Melchizedek. Necessarily, for all intensive porpoises, ALL of the 'contracts' are interactively the SAME thing. One CANNOT make even one single word EVER UTTERED by YHWH to return to Him empty, because IT WON'T return to Him empty. If you have it so, you are doing it wrong.
You speak of logic. Let it rule the day here. This union is between Jew and Gentile, not two varieties of Old Covenant Hebrews.
No, the primary split is between the two houses. It is the sticks of the two houses that are, with exact specificity, made into one stick in the hand of Messiah.
There is no grafting in if there are no true gentile believers.
But you forget that the House of Israel inherits the gentiles. Ephraim is the fruitful bough...
And we were afar off. We were never part of that Old Covenant.
But it says 'sometimes' afar off, or more succinctly 'for some time afar off'... You are right. Gentiles were never part of the Covenant. So how could they have been 'sometimes' afar off... they have ALWAYS been off the map, according to the covenants... Since Noah.
But in this New Covenant, God takes true Jews of all houses, and puts them together with true Gentiles in one new man.
I have no argument with that, except in the ordering of it, which is specific.
The ecclesia is a new thing.
No, FRiend, it is not. The Hebrews were mikvah'd in the Red Sea, and all of Israel took bread and wine from Melchizedek in the loins of their father. It is the very same thing, except for the aspect of the discipleship of Yeshua within the greater assembly. That is new, just as the discipleship of any Rabbi is new, within the context of Torah.
Not that there haven't been assemblies before. But this one is special. Nothing else like it. Unprecedented. NEW. And it has it's own Torah, the Torah of Christ as promulgated by His Apostles.
No, there is necessarily ONE Torah. The Torah that Yeshua Himself followed as our example. Not that a Rabbi cannot give his disciples instructions (Torah means 'instruction', not 'law'), That can be 'new',,, But that is needfully within the context of Torah as handed down through Moses, lest Yeshua breaks Torah by adding to or taking from.
Now you made light of my "tautology" of love, love for God, love for each other. But my "tautology" has an advantage over yours ("All Torah is Torah," IIRC). Mine is sanctioned as central truth by Christ and His apostles, repeatedly. So the Holy Spirit must've thought it was pretty important to say. Works for me.
I didn't make light of your tautology - You were demanding specifics from me, while saying there are no specifics for you. The greatest commandments 'love YHWH and love one another', have ALWAYS been there. They are Torah. Your tautology IS Torah. There is no difference.
Your theory of wholesale incorporation is unfounded, and early attempts at such incorporation were all resisted and rejected by those same apostles.
It isn't a theory - it is right there in black and white. And no, the Apostles fought Halakha and the oral torah of the Pharisees. They necessarily had to have kept Torah.
Addressed above. Christ's own post-resurrection statement indicates the fulfillments were in Him, and were accomplished.
Countered above. The Fall Feasts are not fulfilled. Study them. They are about the Great Harvest... The Second Coming. If you can show them fulfilled to my reasonable satisfaction, I will cede. As to the new winskin, it is still a wineskin! Not a bottle. Not a set of matching tumblers from wally world. Same for same.
No, prophecy is not automatically law. Law is directive of human behavior.
I said, 'in a sense'. Prophets are too - the inheritance is all prophecy and it is directly involving the behavior of the tribes.
[...] It is descriptive. Any prophecy that is prescriptive is never in announcment of some new obligation, but is always a restatement of law already given.
you had best go read Ezekiel.
To dilute the meaning of law to incorporate everything spoken is just a convenient tactic to sweep in things not yet fulfilled, but which are not law, the end effect of which is to discount Jesus' own post-resurrection words that the fulfillment of which He spoke was what was written in the law concerning Him.
I am discounting nothing. In fact, I dare say that I probably find the blood of Messiah to be more powerful than most Christians to. The ripples from the cross travel across time in both directions.
No problem. The New Covenant is replete with multiple witnesses that the Old Covenant has passed and is no longer in force.
no, it is not. The spirit of the law is within the law. How then can the law be abrogated?
[roamer_1:] Right. Messiah removes the curses of the law. But we are continually being made in his image - His example to us shows us what that looks like. We, as disciples are to 'walk in his footsteps' - A strange phrase, that. I wonder where it comes from (heh... not really. I know where it comes from). So we are no longer doomed. We can earnestly try and try again... Keep trying to walk in his footsteps.
Nothing much to disagree with there, though I don't get your inside humor about the footsteps. Care to share that with the rest of the class? :)
It is disciple-speak. Inherent to the Hebrew Talmudim. Part of the training thereof was for them to follow single-file and literally walk in the footsteps of their master. Usually the foremost was directly behind the master, said to be 'covered in his dust'. There is much to learn in the Hebrew definition of a disciple.
But it is the point. You are switching to individual inconveniences, but the law was written for the nation. The priests could not do sacrifice. The nation was deprived of the means of obeying a huge percentage of the law of Moses. But the law didn't stop acting to condemn them. Unless you think Paul is wrong. What they should have concluded from this, and it should have come from the rabbis, is that they had no means of atonement. God took it away. Unless they found their way back the Messiah, they were condemned. The law condemned them. It's no good to make excuses. They should have been terrified. Instead they made excuses, and you appear to be ratifying those excuses to live outside the law of atonement.
You forget they have been through diaspora before. Were all the Jews in Babylon doomed because the priests could not make atonement? Daniel? Esther? Mordecai? For if your premise is true today, then it was also true then. OR, your assumptions of how this works is in error.
And while it is true that Torah is given to the nation, each individual is also responsible - Our nation is currently going through the same thing - We are besieged by our own permissive government. The federal abrogation of authority and justice does not stop me from being true to what America is - In the same way, the personal aspect of Torah cannot be denied - So the personal adherence is every bit as important as the national aspect of Torah, and every bit as open to judgement by YHWH.
Thus my examples of 'personal inconvenience' hold just as much to bear as does the national - In fact, as it touches this conversation, it bears more weight - After all, your contention against me is because I personally choose to try to keep Torah.
[roamer_1:] So was the synagogue system. It is not specified in Torah. Yet Yeshua endorsed it. Used it. Preached from it. It's Rabbinical basis was relied upon by all the Apostles. That system was the fall-back necessary for those who could not make it to Temple at least since the Babylonian exile. What then? A second Temple era Jew, living in the south of France, too poor to go to Temple three times a year (not to mention every Sabbath), was just bound for hell even if he was devout in other aspects? What of Ruth? What of Esther? No, this sense that Christians have of what the law does and what it is for is wholly their own invention.
You can't seriously be arguing that finding a building in which to study Torah, which they were already obligated to do, is the equivalent of giving up on the sacrifices demanded by the law. Apples and oranges. One is merely finding a physical means to keep the law, the other is making spiritual excuses to break the law.
No, the question is not a matter of convenience or excuse - It has been your contention that if one breaks any part of the law, one is doomed. I am simply presenting scenarios which plainly show the error in your thought - The desire to keep Torah in that poor Jew living in the South of France is more important than his actual compliance with the 'letter'... In your world, it seems that Jew will be damned for not completing the pilgrimage, regardless of his status and ability to keep the letter of the law... I would submit to you that such has never been the case. The spirit of the law was always the point, else David would have been struck dead for eating the showbread.
But no, David was forgiven. So too, no doubt that poor Jew in the Languedoc. It has always been the circumcision of the heart - that is what I have been saying all the way along.
That's a form of begging the question. He is using an Old Covenant principle that explains by analogy how the Old Covenant could cease to have force on a New Covenant believer. And he is in fact explaining how the two covenants interface with each other in the life of one person, how our identification with Christ in His death transfers us from the condemnation of the one to the newness of life in the other.
He is speaking directly to the divorce and remarriage of the House of Israel. Her bill of divorcement kept her 'afar off' - She can be the only one who married another, and stands accused of adultery. Do not miss the impact upon the crowd's Hebrews when he said those words, because that is exactly what they would react with, what they would hear. And understand too, that in those words, Paul is declaring explicitly that Yeshua IS YHWH.
As to his audience, I note a mixture of names in the epistle, and do not assume Rome to be an exclusively Jewish, or even a mainly Jewish congregation.
I would somewhat disagree - Paul went where others had not gone, so it is a mystery as to how this large congregation in Rome even occurred. I would be speculating of course, but what seems natural to me is that the Roman believers were present at Shavuot when the Spirit was given, which would point to at least a Jewish core influencing the believers there... and the interim communications must have most naturally been with the Jerusalem Church directly, else how are they even there?
Many generations of gentile believers have read this passage with sufficient understanding to get what he is saying. God designed Scripture for all believers. It is our food, the words of God, and he has made it accessible.
OK, but without the Hebrew understanding, gentile believers are missing much.
If we live according to the Torah of the New Covenant, all will be well with us, for our salvation is secured by the blood of the Lamb of God, and nothing can or will remove us from His protective care. If we try to live under both covenants, we are inviting heartache and trouble into our lives. It is disobedience, rebellion.
LOL! Are you listening to yourself? Again, we see the ONLY thing that Christians CAN'T do is keep Torah! Funny how Galatia, which is purportedly gentile according to Christian thought, is accused of keeping Torah!
[roamer_1:] That would necessarily imply that you personally had used the training wheels in the first place. [...] And the analogy is good - because once you have internalized what the training wheels teach you, you are not going to fall down any more. Because even yet, you are not to sin, and sin is transgression of the law of YHWH.
No, this is not about us personally using the training wheels. This is more what Paul spoke of in Galatians concerning the law being our tutor and leading us to Christ. The nation Israel had the training wheels. We have the Spirit, and the new creation in Christ. "Old things are passed away. Behold all things are become new." We are past the training wheels.
Again, the dichotomy is apparent - The only Scriptures the Galatians had, if they had any, are contained in Tanakh in a synagogue. The NT was not there. And Paul is telling them not to follow the Scriptures? How do you suppose he could even stand to speak in a synagogue telling them to throw their ancient Torah in the garbage can?
Good, then you admit my point, that God can modify His own law based on conditions. Thank you.
That isn't what I said. And if you cannot see the Tabernacle in the Temple, that is your problem, not mine.
Where did I say the New Covenant Law has no resemblance to the Old Covenant law? I have already said that it does resemble it. They are both from the hand of the same Lawgiver. But it is necessary to have respect for the Lawgiver. He has told us, repeatedly, this covenant is new. Not like the old.
He has also said that His Torah as given through Moses is eternal, never to pass away. If He can so easily discount what He said to the Hebrews, how then can you trust his promises? It doesn't make any sense at all.
Eph 1:3-5 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ: (4) According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love: (5) Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, ...Those blessings bestowed on us in Christ are the culmination of plans He laid since the beginning of time, which could not have been accomplished through the levitical priesthood, but rather had to displace said priesthood to make way for Christ. which displacement was always part of the plan. He has not changed His mind, but He has advanced His plan through logical stages.
SR: The ecclesia is a new thing.
RM: No, FRiend, it is not. Paul said it is. One new man. God said it is. A new covenant, not like the old. Jesus said it is. New wine that will burst old wineskins. There's your two, er, three witnesses. I really don't know what else might convince you. Honest.
You forget they have been through diaspora before. Were all the Jews in Babylon doomed because the priests could not make atonement? Daniel? Esther? Mordecai? For if your premise is true today, then it was also true then.
I refer you again to Hebrews 7. During the Babylonian captivity the Old Covenant was still in force. messiah had not yet come. But now there is no more atonement in the levitical system, either hoped for or actual. It has been replaced by Christ as our High Priest. The former diasporas had no Jesus to reject. Now they do, and they have. Therefore they are doomed apart from Christ, no matter how much of the old system they seek to retain, and they are no examples for Christians to follow in terms of true Torah observance.
After all, your contention against me is because I personally choose to try to keep Torah.
Not really. If you want to keep the entire law of Moses, though, you are missing your levites. And even if all you wanted was to eat kosher and honor the feast days and wear clothing of unmixed fabric, then fine, do that. But your basis does not appear to be "personal." I base this only on the words you have said. I'm not trying to read your mind. But you have said you believe these things are true for all believers, only that you have chosen to respond to them, which puts all believers who don't see Torah the way you do in that vast lump of Christians you apparently think poorly of:
Col 2:16-17 Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holyday, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days: (17) Which are a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ.Can you honestly say it is indifferent you if we "greekified" Christians eat bacon, meet for worship on Sundays, and haven't got a clue or a care what day it is on the Hebrew calendar? If it is not indifferent to you, I do not know how you can claim it is mere personal preference. Especially when you are willing to devote so much time and energy attempting to persuade other believers of these merely "personal" preferences. I'm not buying it.
Gal 5:2-3 Behold, I Paul say unto you, that if ye be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing. (3) For I testify again to every man that is circumcised, that he is a debtor to do the whole law.And lest you think I rely too much on Paul for this idea, we also have James chiming in:
Jas 2:8-11 If ye fulfil the royal law according to the scripture, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself, ye do well: (9) But if ye have respect to persons, ye commit sin, and are convinced of the law as transgressors. (10) For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all. (11) For he that said, Do not commit adultery, said also, Do not kill. Now if thou commit no adultery, yet if thou kill, thou art become a transgressor of the law.Guilty of all. Notice the basis of his argument. Being a law-breaker means defying the Lawgiver. It doesn't matter at which point you cross the border into lawlessness. One step over the line and you're an outsider. Boom. Just like that.
Joh 3:17-19 For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. (18) He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. (19) And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.Many, many other passages apply. There is no salvation in any other name, least of all in "trying" to be Torah compliant while simultaneously rejecting the Giver of the Torah. See, no matter what "stuff" you find to do, the heart of man is continuously evil. We are dead in our trespasses and sins. Without addressing that problem, the problem of our lustful, rebellious heart, no amount of effort or "good intentions" can save us. The Old Covenant has been displaced by the New, and it is the message of the New we are to bring to the nations, and to Israel, that Jesus saves, and marvelously so, that just as He calmed the wind and the waves, so He can still our hearts from the tempest of sin that governs them. Why deprive anyone of that message, and the extreme seriousness of it, over useless speculation that defies clear-as-a-bell apostolic Torah?
Rom 7:1-6 Know ye not, brethren, (for I speak to them that know the law,) how that the law hath dominion over a man as long as he liveth? (2) For the woman which hath an husband is bound by the law to her husband so long as he liveth; but if the husband be dead, she is loosed from the law of her husband. (3) So then if, while her husband liveth, she be married to another man, she shall be called an adulteress: but if her husband be dead, she is free from that law; so that she is no adulteress, though she be married to another man. (4) Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ; that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God. (5) For when we were in the flesh, the motions of sins, which were by the law, did work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death. (6) But now we are delivered from the law, that being dead wherein we were held; that we should serve in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter.Sorry, no mention of the House of Israel here. This is clearly what I said before, an analogy in the law of Moses that demonstrates how death operates to create a condition where what was once impermissible is now permissible. A second marriage while the first spouse lives is adultery. That's what's prohibited. Death of the spouse sets the woman in the example free from that law, and can now do what was formerly prohibited. Likewise, when we through Christ die to the law, what was prohibited when we were married to the letter of that law is permitted now that we are married to Christ.
SR: Good, then you admit my point, that God can modify His own law based on conditions. Thank you.
RM: That isn't what I said.
Yep, you're right. I went back and reread it and concluded I didn't understand what you had said. It was about the divorce modification. What your point was is still unclear to me. Nevertheless, the addition of a divorce rule was in fact a modification. Otherwise Jesus would not have drawn the contrast. I speak as a lawyer. I know a modification when I see one. As applies to the Temple versus the tabernacle.
And if you cannot see the Tabernacle in the Temple, that is your problem, not mine. Well no, it's really your problem, for the simple reason that folks who have no problem with God making changes to His own law will have no trouble seeing that the tabernacle wasn't unpacked and set up inside the Temple. That's frankly ludicrous. But if it's what you want to believe, Ok then.
He has also said that His Torah as given through Moses is eternal, never to pass away. If He can so easily discount what He said to the Hebrews, how then can you trust his promises? It doesn't make any sense at all. Well, for such a sweeping statement, I would have expected a reference to the Biblical text. Where does it say the law of Moses will never pass away? I know there are a number of passages that use the Hebrew word עולם, but all that means is basically "far out into the indefinite future" It does not inherently mean "having no end." That is conditioned by the thing being referenced. Now we know that God Himself IS eternal, but it is obvious from the appearance of the New Covenant that aspects of the Old Covenant were inferior and had to give way to a better covenant. Which makes sense. We are the changing ones. God's plan for our redemption reflects both our maturation and God's eternality.
So here's my dilemma. The facts concerning the newness of the New Covenant are so obvious on their face, that no valid options exist for reconciliation with the Hebrew Roots proposition that there really isn't a New Covenant. The HR proponent is stuck with trying to allow for the language of New Covenant without allowing for the substance, real newness, new wine. All of that newness language becomes illusory at best, or an excuse to attack the Greek text at worst. This is not a question of trying to avoid logic bombs in Paul that aren't there. This is a question of dealing with the obvious. And that's a problem. I've spent significant time on this (as I'm sure you have too), but it is proving unprofitable to continue. If we can't get past obvious, then I think I need to bow out. I have no hard feelings, and am very happy for the civil tone of the discussion, but I must get other important things done.
So if you will excuse me, I will push myself away from the table for now. At some indefinite point in the future, we may revisit these things. Until then, I wish you well.
Peace,
SR
No disciple of Messiah is under the law. A disciple of Yeshua keeps the commandments out of love for YHWH, because Yeshua, and all of the Apostles said to do exactly that.
For myself, it seems a perfect candidate for this rebuke:
1Ti 1:4 Neither give heed to fables and endless genealogies, which minister questions, rather than godly edifying which is in faith: so do.
So am I to understand that you consider Torah to be 'fables and endless genealogies'? That certainly isn't right.
The "ministration of questions" is an interesting thought to me. Some things don't have definitive answers this side of Heaven.
LOL! I take it you have never read the Talmud. There you will find 'fables and endless genealogies which minister questions'. There is not a better description anywhere. And they HAVE attempted to answer bloody near everything, this side of heaven, in heaven itself, or otherwise. Just in the reference, one can tell that Paul is speaking of Jewish Tradition.
Why then get tangled up in uber-speculation about being a crypto-Ephraimite, especially when we know, for a fact, the various supposedly lost tribes were not lost, even up to the time of Christ, and not hyper-separated from Judah, as the theory requires?
Actually, Two-House supposes they were not entirely lost, that the Apostles knew where to go to find them... at least to get the ball rolling. And that many were represented at Shavuot when the Spirit was given - Shavuot is greatly underrated by normal Christian thought IMHO. They 'forgot who they are' thereafter, in the multitude of wars and displacements that followed.
See, this is like those judicial opinions that seem too short, but they are dead-on correct, because they identify the essential presupposition that isn't true, that unhinges the rest of the case, no matter how gloriously complex it may be. Nothing you cited rehabilitated your damaged presuppositions.
It remains, no matter what, that the prophecy concerning the House of Israel is there, and necessarily serves a purpose - I am not welded to Two House, nor British Israelism, nor any other published theory. But I am welded securely to the bare fact that those prophecies exist and will come to pass, and I do consider the sheer volume of those prophecies to carry great import - Unlike standard chunked-and-formed Christianity, I cannot ignore them. To do so, with any of the prophecy is to court disaster.
To the best of my knowledge there is no 'official' Christian eschatology to deal with it except Successionism, or Supersuccessionism - Replacement Theology, if you will - That which I can resoundingly reject. So if I seem to have to wandered off, it is not without a valid reason. Supply me with a workable theory better than my own, and I will come around. But don't tell me, 'Who cares?' or that it doesn't matter... Because I am certain that it must.
In that connection, I have a question for you. [...] I'd like to know what you think about this passage: Heb 7:11-14 [...] Your theory of Torah, so far as I am able to understand it, is that God never changes Torah, so that anything added later does not displace anything already in place. I think the passage above destroys that notion entirely.
It is a matter of precedence, and thereby allowed for (predicted in Torah). Torah and the prophets show the priest-king (Melchizedek). I don't think that could be found 'going in' but rather in retrospect, after the fact. The linkage that is hard to see is that which ties Melchizedek to Messiah, because the surface emphasis in Torah focuses simply upon 'king' (out of David). That linkage IS there, if you wish to look for it (Zadok, as an example)... But that is another whole line of debate and proofs to add to an already burgeoning tome.
The key, I think, is to look at the legal authority of Aaron and how that comes from Melchizedek, and apply the same to the kingship as well. That is why the question is raised about how David could call his son, generations removed, 'Lord'. According to precedence (patriarchy), the father is more honored than the son... The son should call David 'Lord'... In the same way, Melchizedek is of a greater authority than Aaron. Once the tie between Melchizedek and Messiah is found, the rest is academic - Messiah comes from David, David is of Judah, not through Aaron, so IF Messiah is Priest and King, then the priesthood is necessarily predicted to change (albeit that it is not change exactly). Needless to say, the whole thing boils down to Yeshua necessarily being YHWH again.
But I want to look at it fairly closely to understand how that could work. Because in a certain respect I think understand the value in what you are saying.
My, but that is refreshing.
God's holiness is perfect and eternal. How then could there be a setting aside of the shadows if they, even as shadows, are intrinsically good?
You are really close here. The conundrum is that Torah says Torah is immutable and eternal. The task is to reconcile the Messianic Covenant to that. The shadow is cast by, and therefore inherently resembles, what cast it. And what cast it, admittedly comes from before the law was given, presaged in Melchizedek (actually from the foundation of the world). BUT the shadow necessarily shows what the object is.
Maybe a different analogy: You hold in your hand a picture of a mountain scene. Think of two dimensions becoming three. The information held within the two dimensions (say, a picture on paper) is not an inaccurate representation of what it displays. Now let's jack it up a notch: Now you are sitting in my private theater, looking at a movie still-shot of that same mountain scene... The representation is still two dimensional, but now you have the benefit of seeing motion within the frame, and an illusion of depth - You can see the wind blowing through, the aspen leaves flipping and changing color, animals popping into view, the ever-changing motion of a mountain stream.
Now, your job is to find that exact place in real life. I don't care if you use the movie or the picture. Either one will get you there, providing you understand what they are showing you (eyes to see). The movie shows you more, but essentially, the movie and the picture are necessarily showing the very same thing. And for all that, I can guarantee that all of it is a poor shadow of what you will experience when you are standing in that place, when you find it, with all it's dimensions intact. There is SO much more than can be captured in the images of any kind, that it is really impossible for you to appreciate it...
Yet my point is this: You are arguing that the picture should be thrown out - That it's data is no longer necessary because we have the movie. I can see where you might think that... But now, let's use only the movie and edit out of the movie the information the picture contains: Can you still find that place with what is left in the movie? I don't think so.
And yet, we see they can be set aside.
Unless of course, we are talking of the first temple destruction, Then the Jews are all damned until there is a new Temple again. Of course I am being sarcastic, but it seems that is what you see.
The pre-Mosaic rule of divorceless marriage was modified by Moses' writ of divorce.
We don't know the context of that - whether it is talking of Sodom, or of Noah's time, or of Eden. But it also shows that there was some kind of Torah all the way along. At least we can see that much.
The wilderness tabernacle was set aside for the Temple.
I have already disagreed with you on this point. The Temple is an expansion, a further revelation, of what was imaged in the Tabernacle.
And here, in Hebrews, we see that the levitical priesthood is set aside for Jesus as our new High Priest, and as a consequence, as so much of the law is in support of the levitical priesthood, the law itself must be changed (μεταθεσις) to accommodate Christ acting on our behalf in the order of Melchisedec.
This is somewhat true - If one looks to the Prophets, the Levites are in the future Temple. One cannot forget YHWH's promise to Aaron. Try and figure out how that works. But, to your point, Torah predicts and allows for this 'change'.
Now I think you try to support immutability of the law by arguing that any new code is additive and always incorporates the old. That's a creative angle, but I don't think it works. Even if it were true (which I contend it is not), the premise of immutability is defeated if anything new is added. Additions are changes. If someone adds a new feature to the code, that goes in the change log. The new body of code is different. It has changed. So it is not immutable.
Unless the feature was already there and the Creator of the code simply revealed the switch to use to activate the feature in the change log... The code didn't change. Our knowledge of the code changed. Think of Torah as a seed that the rest of Scripture sprang forth from. All of it must be there, contained in the dna of the seed. An oak tree looks nothing like an acorn, yet both are the very same thing.
The law, Torah, is not immutable.
Then something is amiss, because Torah says Torah is immutable. Cannot be changed, added to, or taken from. So either Torah has been changed from it's original state, or YHWH changed his mind (which He said He NEVER WILL), or the Messianic covenant is false, or, you are reading it wrong. Guess which one I choose?
So then what is the truly eternal Torah? Only those things that God does NOT change.
YHWH said He would never change ANYTHING in Torah. What was given to Moses cannot change, or the whole thing is a lie (or you are reading it wrong again).
So it begins to appear to us what is the eternal Torah. It is the fruit of the Spirit, all those characteristics that express our love for God and neighbor: Patience, kindness, absence of envy, humility, self-control, unselfishness, good temper, innocence of thought, sorrow for sin, joy for truth, forgiving, believing, hoping, enduring, and unfailing. To paraphrase Jesus, it's not what goes into a man that makes him unkosher, but what comes out of him.
Here again, we are pretty close together. This is TRUE... Like the Beatitudes, against which there is no law... That doesn't change Torah, but rather, illuminates it. Those who are in the kingdom keep Torah naturally - It is not their focus, but neither do they disobey, because like all law, it is written for criminals. To a lawful citizen, the law is transparent, it has no effect upon them because they do not break the law.
As I said, we are going hopelessly in circles. I show you real changes, and you show me rationalizations, some marvelously elaborate, for how change isn’t really change. Double-speak. There’s no way to move forward with this. I appreciate your civil demeanor, but I need to get other things done. I wish you well.
Peace,
SR
Are you trying to mock the Torah and the Jews ? Perhaps you should reflect on your words and understand how antisemitic, antiChristian, and unclean they appear.
Ctnd. Moreover, taking offense at term “Judaizer” as being wrongly antisemitic places you on the fringe even more, as besides Paul not sparing them in his stronger denunciations, then despite your aversion to the term "Judaizer," it is used quite clearly by RCs of greater weight than thee:
Judaizers: A party of Jewish Christians in the Early Church, who either held that circumcision and the observance of the Mosaic Law were necessary for salvation and in consequence wished to impose them on the Gentile converts, or who at least considered them as still obligatory on the Jewish Christians. - http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08537a.htm
Who were the Judaizers? The Judaizers were a sect of early Christians who believed Gentiles had to convert to Judaism in order to embrace Jesus as the Messiah. For the Judaizers this meant, among other things, observing circumcision, Jewish feast days, and the dietary provisions of the Law. - http://www.catholic.com/quickquestions/who-were-the-judaizers
The section that follows, Phil 3:2–21, is a vigorous attack on these Judaizers (cf. Gal 2:11–3:29) or Jewish Christian teachers (cf. 2 Cor 11:12–23), giving us insights into Paul’s own life story (Phil 3:4–6) and into the doctrine of justification, the Christian life, and ultimate hope (Phil 3:7–21). - http://www.usccb.org/bible/philippians/philippians.htm
Heb 7:11-12 If therefore perfection were by the Levitical priesthood, (for under it the people received the law,) what further need was there that another priest should rise after the order of Melchisedec, and not be called after the order of Aaron? (12) For the priesthood being changed, there is made of necessity a change also of the law.There is nothing wrong with the law as God gave it to Moses. But it is gravely wrong to misapply it to Christians, as it creates confusion as to the true basis of salvation, as well as the true instruction from God we have on how to live. For Christians, true Torah is the New Covenant, the law of Christ, the royal law of love in all its dimensions. Not the Levitical law. Disrespecting Torah is disrespecting the word of Christ and His apostles by rejecting the newness of the New Covenant. Disrespecting Torah is rejecting Messiah, as is true of many Jews. As long as they reject Jesus, they cannot be Torah observant. This is a tragedy, but it is not anti-Semitic to point it out. Else Paul himself is anti-Semitic:
Rom 10:1-4 Brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is, that they might be saved. (2) For I bear them record that they have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge. (3) For they being ignorant of God's righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God. (4) For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth.If they don't have Christ, they don't have Torah, and they don't have salvation. So far from "mocking" them, it is the most Christian, loving thing one can do, to be honest with them, to frankly tell them their Messiah has come and fulfilled the law on their behalf, and offered himself to die for them, that they might have eternal life.
Perhaps you should consider the context of the debate, and explain how reproving Judaizers, and challenging them to be consistent in their position, is somehow mocking the Torah and the Jews, and is antisemitic, antiChristian, and unclean. Do it!
I did, and I think you crossed the line so I reproved you.
But af_vet_1981 has not shown here why my words warrant these charges when Scripture goes much further, while if the objection is to how my words may be taken, then we must heavily censor Scripture, as well as refrain from contending for the faith and against liberalism. Yet this charge by af_vet_1981 is consistent with RCs who see most any reproof of Rome as bigoted, but which can never apply to them.
You provided a reasoned response, and indeed, calling Christian sabbathtarians "Judaizers" as they enjoin keeping the ceremonial law upon us is clearly not mocking the Torah nor is it antisemitic, antiChristian, and unclean, esp. when Paul had much stronger words.
And yet the response to this apostolic support by af_vet_1981 was that "Peter and Paul are my apostles; I believe and trust them. They were not antisemitic in the least."
And thus despite any denial that he was not calling me antisemitic, af_vet_1981 is dealing with motive, so that while the fact is that i am very much pro-Israel , and Paul can say
"I would they were even cut off which trouble you. (Galatians 5:12) - "Would that those who are upsetting you might also castrate themselves!" (NAB) - and
"Who both killed the Lord Jesus, and their own prophets, and have persecuted us; and they please not God, and are contrary to all men: Forbidding us to speak to the Gentiles that they might be saved, to fill up their sins alway: for the wrath is come upon them to the uttermost," (1 Thessalonians 2:15-16)
and Peter can state, "Now therefore why tempt ye God, to put a yoke upon the neck of the disciples, which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear?," (Acts 15:10)
yet my words that, "all those Judaizers who even had marital relations last night must remain unclean till the evening. (Leviticus 15:16-18) I wonder how many observe that one," are said to be mocking the Torah, and antisemitic, antiChristian, and unclean, because af_vet_1981 does not trust my motive.
Thus af_vet_1981 does not trust me in my reproof of modern-day Judaizers and thus i am charged with speaking antisemitic, antiChristian, and unclean words.
And thus he/she must yet provide evidence of why i cannot be trusted to speak such words without these being antisemitic, antiChristian, and unclean, or otherwise show how my words of reproof in calling for consistency are trying to mock the Torah and are antisemitic antiChristian and unclean.
It was however, mocking those who enjoin keeping the ceremonial law yet who do not treat themselves as unclean until the evening every time they had marital relations.
Dogs vs judaizers is apples to oranges. Judaizer is a term of art fully appropriate as a summary encapsulation of a particular heresy. It expresses an entire body of systematic apostolic thought in a single word. That’s why its been used for many centuries in these “grace vs law” debates. We should no more relinquish it to political correctness than any other term in the Christian theological lexicon. Yes, it may offend some. The cross offends as well. So it is not the offense that should be our measure of our speech, but whether we speak these truths in love.
For this is the way of wisdom -- to acquire ideas one after another until, in the end,
there emerges one complete concept for which all of the prefaces were necessary.
From Da'ath Tevunoth (The Knowing Heart)
Rabbi Moshe Chayim Luzzatto
BACKGROUND ARTICLES
http://www.yashanet.com/studies/revstudy/background.htm
Home:
http://www.yashanet.com/
Then why respond with "I trust them" when i showed to apostles wanting Judaizers to be cut off or castrated, or reproving Judaizers for placing their yoke upon the disciples, while i am charged with mocking the Torah and the Jews, and being antisemitic, antiChristian, and unclean simply because i pointed out the inconsistency of modern-day Christian (if they can even be called "Christian) "Judaizers," using that fitting label.
I blame history, which has shown what has come from assigning such labels to Jews in a highly charged religious polemic.
This is simply liberalism 101, in which if the reaction to truth makes a guilty "victim status" party angry, like Islam gets, then it should not be said!
Certainly context and the audience must be considered, and which i was doing in making my remark, but you were not. Had i been trying to reach a typical Jewish bystander then calling them Judaizers would not be fitting, but my remark was after many posts contending against souls preaching an admixture of law and grace, making obedience under the New Covenant as requiring the literal observance of the ceremonial law.
And thus both pointing out their inconsistency and calling them Judaizers was contextually and polemically fitting. But you jump in censuring me as mocking the Torah and the Jews, and sounding antisemitic, antiChristian, and unclean, which can hardly be justified contextually, and as Scripturally fitting or wise.
That term itself sounds as if it applies to all Jews who follow and teach Torah
Which is irrelevant as my audience was not all Jews but "Christian" Judaizers!
I was not all mocking the Torah and the Jews, as the reproof was against either, but against "Christian" Judaizers insistently imposing, if inconsistently, literal observance of the ceremonial law on Christians, contrary to Scripture
. These are the ones doing the mocking, that of obedience to the Lord being under the New Covenant, which the Lord instituted with His own sinless shed blood! But instead of siding with us, you instigated an attacked on me, and continue to engage in laborious attempt to justify it rather than apologize for your rash response.
Consider Martin Luther.
And Hilterians and white supremacists and atheists quote Paul to justify their hatred, but once again the misuse of a term does not invalidate its proper use, which mine was! Stop trying to defend your vain attack.
In addition, as is typical of Roman rage against Luther, you fail to consider your own house:
“The Popes Against the Jews,” Part 1
The Popes Against the Jews, Part 6: The Show So Far Listen to this article. Powered by Odiogo.com
Luther was hardly alone in his exasperated cynicism, which is not excused, but for context see Luther and the Jews .
That is why I object to the term. We have Torah Observant Jews among us here.
Yet again, I was not even addressing Torah Observant Jews for following the Torah, but souls who profess Christ yet adamantly contend we must keep the ceremonial law. It is these to whom the term "Judaizer applies, and i doubt any Torah Observant Jew would have a problem with me calling professed Christians by that term as befitting, while their objection would be to Christians claiming both obedience to the Torah and faith in Christ.
Meanwhile, the Lord termed Gentiles a "dogs" (Mt. 15:22-28) in using a women of faith to actually reprove Jews via her response (who would have been indignant at far less), and there were sincere Pharisees when the Lord unloaded on them with His broadsides, (Mt. 23) and Paul warned of the "concision" in the same breath as "dogs" and "evil workers," (Phil. 3:2) and of Cretians always being "liars, evil beasts, slow bellies." (Titus 1:2) And the Holy Spirit recorded it for all generations, and their decedents can read it.
Thus since these can be misunderstood by the unlearned and unstable who wrest such to their own damnation, not understanding context, as you evidently failed to do with me, then you need to censor the Lord and His Spirit for using words that may appear to be "antisemitic, antiChristian, and unclean." Or whatever.
. Can you use another term that honors your biblical argument without having such a connection with Judaism ?
Are you serious? I must only censor "Christians" who profess faith in the Jewish Messiah, but who insist obedience to Christ means obeying the ceremonial laws of the Torah, without having such a connection with Judaism? Am i on MSNBC?
Instead of this being what is Scripturally objectionable, it is is that of your censure of me for calling "Christians" by the term "Judaizer," as if this was mocking the Torah and the Jews, and antisemitic, antiChristian, and unclean by my words. And then making it an issue of lack of trust of me when faced with apostolic censure of the like! And then trying to defend it all with more sophistry. Just admit it was a rash response due to misunderstanding the context, or reprove the Lord and apostles for their broadsides.
Why not allow that this was a rash reaction on your part, which i dare say we would not see by a regular RC here if a Catholic has made my response.
Paul was an approved Apostle. I trust him implicitly and completely. That is my answer when someone points to his writings as being antiSemitic. Luther was not an apostle. He was a rebellious Catholic who established his own re-formed version of the religion, not unlike thousands of others, before and after him. What distinguishes him is that he is relatively recent in that history testifies extensively (his writings survive), millions followed him, and millions died, both in the Thirty Years War, and later. Luther became completely and rabidly antiSemitic and his published work was the blueprint for the Holocaust, and his legacy to the world.
Luther was hardly alone in his exasperated cynicism, which is not excused, but for context see Luther and the Jews .
exasperated cynicism ?
Do you really mean to defend Luther's blueprint for the Holocaust as exasperated cynicism ?
I detest all the antisemitism that stained, or still stains, the Catholic and Orthodox churches. I see blessed John Paul II, a frail and completely genuine man, putting his prayer for forgiveness, in one of the cracks of the Western Wall; and I simply melt. He is a bridge over the chasm of history.
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