Torah – Page 10 – Snapshots

No Greater Burden

When the Apostles are first wrestling with how to integrate believing Gentiles into God’s spiritual community, they make a radical break with historic Judaism, which requires us all to become Jewish in order to be right with God. (Ac 15:1-2) The Apostles note that both nationality and culture have nothing to do with salvation. (Ac 15:11)

In addition, the Apostles recommend four things necessary for Gentiles to be welcome in synagogues (Ac 15:28-29), where they might hear Torah read and explained every Shabbat. (Ac 15:21) They include rules which aren’t actually in Torah,* so the Apostles aren’t identifying a subset of Mosaic Law pertinent to Gentiles; they’re providing helpful, extra-biblical guidelines which are easily derived from Torah.

They’re also sensitive to the fact that even these basic rules may pose an inconvenience, a burden of sorts for new believers embedded in pagan culture, affecting their ability to engage in society as they had before. These types of changes are often necessary, but must be proposed with sensitivity and a certain lenience, especially at first. The apostles start with no greater burden than the very basics, and have the Holy Spirit’s approval.

In handling this crisis, the Apostles say nothing like: “Gentiles don’t have to obey X and Y laws of Torah”. Such sentiment dishonors Christ’s command that His disciples teach all nations to observe all things He’s commanded them (Mt 28:19-20), ignores His teaching that even the least of Torah’s commands are obligatory (Mt 5:19), and denies its universal profitability. (2Ti 3:16-17)

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Purge the Leaven

The feast of unleavened bread teaches us to purge sin from our lives and communities; we are unleavened, designed to live without sin, because Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us. (1Co 5:7-8)

Ice Cave in Mutnovsky Volcano, Kamchatka, Russia

Those who sin deliberately, as a manner of life, don’t belong to God (1Jn 3:9), so as believers we’re already obeying God as best we can (Ps 119:22) and asking Him to help us where we’re powerless to do better. (Ps 119:35) So the sins and faults we’re to purge are often hidden from us: secret faults, where we’re deceived about the way. How do we purge those kinds of sins, those we don’t yet know about?

Our spirit is God’s candle, searching all our inward parts. (Pr 20:27) Since God knows us better than we know ourselves, we can ask Him to take us on a tour of our own hearts (Je 17:10), pointing out secret faults where we need cleansing and healing. (Ps 19:12) We can do this because we’re safe with Him: He loves us infinitely just as we are, with all our brokenness, so there’s no need to be defensive or elusive with Him, even when He’s indignant with us.

With Him inside helping us, we can search our own hearts for hints of secrets faults, looking for clues both in our failings and in the accusations of others. We may be blind to our own sin, but others can generally see them, at least partially. When someone takes the time to blame us for something, or if we can easily see on our own that we’re at fault, let’s despise the shame (Heb 12:2), looking for the underlying belief or character flaw and asking God to deliver, heal and cleanse us. Let’s not fear finding faults in ourselves; let’s fear allowing hidden sin to continue to corrupt our witness, and service for God. (Php 2:12)

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Christ the Firstfruits

Christ our Passover (1Co 5:7) is also the firstfruitsof God’s harvest (1Co 15:23); He’s the firstborn from the dead (Col 1:18), the first of many to rise again eternally. It’s a savor of both life and death. (2Co 2:15-16)

The resurrection of Christ proves everyone shall rise from the dead (Jn 5:28), some to endless splendor and joy, some to shame and everlasting contempt. (Da 12:2) As when we plant crops and expect a harvest, we see the same in spiritual things: we reap what we sow, later than we sow, and more than we sow. (Ga 6:7-8)

Regardless what we sow, our sowing comprises God’s eternal harvest as well as our own. (Re 14:14) He shall gather out of His kingdom all things that offend and cast them into a fiery furnace (Mt 13:41), and He will also gather a harvest of His saints together to Himself to enjoy forever. (Ps 50:5)

On this day of Firstfruits, let the resurrection of Jesus remind us that we’re destined for eternity. We’re part of an everlasting crop, a harvest in God’s eternal plan, so let’s bring forth fruit befitting of resurrection life. (Mt 3:12) Jesus overcame death in every sense that it could be conquered, and He lives in His elect to do the same. (Col 1:27) There is no temptation or trial too strong for Him. (Jn 16:33)

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Your Lamb

In preparation for the Lord’s Passover (Ex 12:11), we’re to choose a spotless lamb to represent our house and keep it for four days, a lamb for each household. (Ex 12:3) At this stage it’s any blemish free lamb, a generic lamb.

Once a lamb is selected, a determination is made as to which household(s) it represents. Then a lamb becomes the lamb (Ex 12:4), the one lamb to represent the household(s) for which it is chosen.

Once the lamb-to-household relationship is established, the lamb becomes your lamb. The family spends time getting to know their lamb, verifying that it has no blemish. (Ex 12:5) They inspect it, and become deeply familiar with it. Then, in place of their own firstborn, they kill their lamb on the 14th day. (Ex 12:6)

As in all God’s feasts, He’s giving us a window, a picture, a hint of how to walk with Him.

Jesus Christ is not just a passover lamb; He is not just the passover lamb. It’s not enough to know that Jesus is a savior, one among many. Neither is it enough to know that Christ is the savior, the one and only. Yeshua, Jesus Christ of Nazareth, the Jewish Messiah, must become our passover (1Co 5:7); until He is our savior, whom we have chosen for ourselves, to represent our souls in the day of judgment, getting to know Him, and He us, we have nothing. (Mt 7:21-23)

Let’s choose Christ deliberately and deeply, giving diligence to make our calling and election sure (2Pe 1:10), getting to know everything about Him that we can (Php 3:10), personalizing His work and connecting with His nature and character. Let’s behold the beauty, feed in the majesty, and enjoy the unfathomable riches of Christ! (Eph 3:8)

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That Which Decays

Basic physics tells us that closed systems tend to greater and greater disorder; they deteriorate and decay over time. So at its beginning our universe must have been highly ordered, which can only be by design.

A similar principle applies in spiritual things: God creates perfectly, then often allows Man to corrupt His work, causing ethical and moral decay.

For example, the earthly temple of Israel, a replica of the heavenly in its architecture, sacrifices and ceremonies (He 8:5), has decayed and vanished twice: the first time in 597 BCE and again in 70 CE. God’s people didn’t use the temple as He intended, to reveal Himself and His salvation to the world. (Mk 11:17) They corrupted His way so deeply and were such poor witnesses that God destroyed His temple and scattered His people to the four winds.

As in its first destruction, this last devastation of the Temple doesn’t mean it’s obsolete; it has merely vanished for a season. (He 8:13) The whole system will be restored one day, fully operational again. (Re 11:1) Its precepts and symbolism are still relevant.

God’s purposes are often mysterious; in being omnipotent, He generally reveals Himself through weakness; being beauty itself, He veils Himself in dullness (Is 53:2); He calls us to fullness of joy through suffering (2Co 4:17), even allowing Man to kill the eternal Prince of Life (Ac 3:15) to reveal through Man the power of His resurrection. (Php 3:10)

Just because God lets something die and decay doesn’t necessarily mean He’s through with it.

Perfecting Holiness

Holiness isn’t popular, yet only the holy will see God (He 12:14): He calls us to godly fear in perfecting it (2Co 7:1), continually cleansing ourselves of all uncleanness, all filthiness of the flesh and spirit. What does this mean? How do we do it?

Holiness is about our heart’s alignment with God’s Law, Torah, the law of love (Mt 22:37-40); it’s God’s measure of how disposed we are to seek His pleasure, of our inclination and tendency to love others as ourselves in deed and in truth.

So how would we live if we cared deeply for God and others? Perfecting holiness is striving every day to live out our answer to this question, exercising our inner selves, training our souls in godliness, purifying our spirits in seeking and obeying the truth through the Spirit unto authenticity and love (1Pe 1:22), seeking the pleasure of God and the good of others in every thought and choice. It’s continuous improvement for life. (Php 3:14)

Thankfully, the pursuit of holiness is itself the work of God, to make us increase and abound in love toward others, so that He may stablish us unblamable in holiness before Himself. (1Th 3:12) As we wrestle this out in daily life He strives in and through our striving (Col 1:29), ensuring our victory (1Co 15:57): He will be glorified in and through us. (2Th 1:10)

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The New Month

Since the moon is central in the timing of God’s feasts, celebrating each new month is natural in God’s kingdom. (Is 66:23)

YHWH doesn’t tell us exactly how to do this, but it’s easy for saints to come together under an open sky to worshipfully enjoy each new moon. Like anything else, the more familiar we are with lunar phases the easier this will be.

Monthly worship rhythms keep us aligned with God’s calendar in community, and encourage us to anticipate and prepare for each biblical feast as it approaches, keeping us in touch with God’s prophetic timeline. (Col 2:16)

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Not Under Law

Of all the phrases used by the Apostle Paul in the New Testament, “not under law” may be the most misunderstood. Most think it means God’s laws in the Old Testament are obsolete, but context implies something very different: Paul says, “sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace.” (Ro 6:12-14)

Not being under law is what causes us to overcome sin … yet sin is breaking God’s Law. (1Jn 3:4) Paul isn’t telling us we can sin all we want now, but how being in Christ causes us to sin less and less.

The key appears to be in the contrasting phrase – under grace: experiencing the power of God as He transforms us into the likeness of Christ. (Ep 2:8,10)

As God works in us both to will and to do of His good pleasure (Php 2:13), we are no longer under law, trying to obey in our own strength, feeling only the duty and command but no empowering life, with no inclination to obey, always failing, rebelling and feeling the terror of our condemnation. Rather, we have Christ in us, the hope of glory (Col 1:27), Who delights in the law of God within us, moving in us to obey Him in spirit as well as the letter, that the righteousness of the law might be realized and fulfilled in us as we obey it from the heart. (Ro 8:4)

Jesus Christ overcame the world (Jn 16:33) and is doing it all over again in every one of His children (1Jn 5:4), delivering us from both the penalty and power of sin, giving us grace unto glory. (Php 1:6)

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My Feasts

As we approach a new year in God’s calendar (Ex 12:2), I am looking forward to celebrating with my King as He invites me to His table again … to seven glorious, heavenly feasts of the Lord.

When Jehovah calls them “my feasts” (Le 23:2), He seems to be saying that these eternal appointed times are for Himself as well as for us; each one an invitation to dine in person with the Almighty.

As He Himself rested on the very first Sabbath day (Ge 2:2-3), and as He promises to celebrate Passover again with us in His kingdom (Lk 22:15-16), and as all activity in the Jerusalem temple during each biblical feast mirrors that of God’s heavenly temple (He 8:4-5, 9:23), it is evident that God Himself participates in His own feasts, along with the hosts of Heaven — and that He invites us to join Him.

We can see Jehovah’s heart here in His insistence that we come to His house to participate in His feasts (Ex 34:22-24); and as it has been from the earliest days so shall it always be. (Zec 14:16) As He invited the Apostles of old (Jn 21:12), what an awesome privilege to be invited by God to come and dine with Him! (Mt 22:8-10)

Further, in characteristic fashion, these appointed times with God are not just for satisfying our fleshly appetites, but each feast is rich in spiritual food, simply chock full of spiritual and prophetic symbolism to engage our minds and hearts in His ways. (Col 2:16-17)

The message could not be any clearer: in His feasts God is inviting us into an awesome fellowship with Himself; He enjoys sharing Himself with us and engaging us in what He is doing. In this coming season of God’s calendar, let’s take every opportunity to enjoy and delight in God as He has so graciously invited us.

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Keep My Commandments

Every heart responds to the Creator in one of two basic ways: thankfulness and joyful obedience (Ro 6:17) — or distrust and disobedience. (Ro 1:21)

We all start out in sin, as rebels hating God (Ep 2:3), but God transforms some of us so we begin loving Him, trusting Him, thanking Him and obeying Him from the heart; He quickens our spirits to delight in His Law, (Ro 7:22) and starts writing His laws into our minds and hearts. (He 8:10) We then begin to enjoy obeying Him: a transformed nature, a new creature, is evidence of our redemption. (2Co 5:17)

It is in obeying Jesus that we love Him: He said: “If ye love me, keep my commandments;” (Jn 14:15) we love Him by keeping His Laws (1Jn 5:3), those laws within Torah, which are all spiritual (Ro 7:22) and eternally good. (Ro 7:12)

Unfortunately, most Christians are consistently taught that certain parts of the Mosaic Law are obsolete, no longer relevant, but Jesus didn’t abolish any part of Torah and He specifically told us not to think this way (Mt 5:17-19); it’s still God’s definition of sin. (1Jn 3:4)

Though we aren’t justified by obeying God’s Law, we’re deceived in thinking we’re in a right relationship with God if we’re still willfully disobeying Him. (1Jn 2:4) We’re far from salvation if we aren’t seeking to know and obey God’s statutes (Ps 119:155); we can’t worship in truth until we’ve learned His commandments (Ps 119:7), or even be earnest in seeking salvation if we aren’t already obeying Him the best we know how. (Ps 119:176)

As we seek to make our election sure, here’s an easy litmus test: if there are parts of God’s Way we still don’t like, that we disdain and deliberately refuse to obey, then we’re deceiving ourselves, carnal, still out of step with God. (Ro 8:6-7) Though there’s definitely room for sincere ignorance (1Ti 1:13), the stubborn, willfully disobedient soul has yet to be redeemed. (Ro 2:7-9) In other words, What’s the point in pretending to be transformed … if we aren’t acting like it? (1Jn 3:7)

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