 Return to the Jewish Messiahby Maria Merola © Copyright Double Portion Inheritance Ministry July 2007 http://www.DoublePortionInheritance.com *The lllustration to the right shows the modern Hebrew name of the Jewish Messiah (Jesus), as "Yehoshua" but for the remainder of this article, I will be using the ancient Paleo Hebrew version of his name as "Yahu'shua" or interchangeably the shortened version of his name "Y'shua."
In these last days, as we approach the return of Yahu'shua the Messiah (Jesus), the Christian Church is being called by the Holy Spirit to go back to her Hebraic Roots, in order to win the Jews back to Messiah. But not only is it for the purpose of bringing our Jewish brothers into the Kingdom of Heaven, but it is also for the purpose of bringing the Christian Church into her “fullness” and this is what is termed in Romans 11:25 as “the fullness of the Gentiles...” The Christian Church is being called out of MYSTERY BABYLON pagan counterfeit in order to “INHERIT” what is called THE DOUBLE PORTION anointing. So what is the Double Portion anointing? Back in June of 2007, during a season of intense fasting and prayer, the Holy Spirit gave me a startling revelation. He said to me “the double portion anointing is that of Moses & Elijah.”
It was this one revelation that began the birthing of this ministry for which Yah gave me the name DOUBLE PORTION INHERITANCE. Many in the body of Messiah misunderstand and they think I am teaching that we must go back to “works of the law” in order to be saved. I want to make it clear that I am not teaching justification by works of the law. In no way am I teaching this. Also, it is important to note that the term “works of the law” as used many times by the Apostle Paul in his epistles was a term used in first Century Judaism to describe being “under Rabbinic Law” not under God’s laws. Being under the man-made religious systems of the Pharisees who “added to and subtracted from” the laws of God given to us through Moses, was always defined as being “under the law.” But being under the Torah (5 books of Moses) is what the Holy Spirit teaches us to do as it is he who writes these laws in our hearts and in our minds. (Hebrews 8:10, 10:16, Jeremiah 31:31). I believe that we are saved by “Grace through Faith” in Jesus Christ (Y'shua ha’Mashiach) and his finished work on the cross. However, sanctification is a totally different thing. Most Christians confuse Justification with Sanctification. The Holy Spirit made this real to me as I was praying one day. He showed me that Queen Esther was a prophetic “type” of the body of Messiah. She was a Jew and her real name was Hadassah which means “myrtle tree.” Her name is symbolic of the New Covenant in Y'shua’s blood. That is why the Jews call the New Covenant scriptures the B’rit Hadassah. B’rit (Covenant), Hadassah (Renewed). And so you see it is a “renewed” covenant since the first one was broken by Israel. In Jeremiah 31:31 the word “new” for “New Covenant” is defined by Strong’s Hebrew Concordance as follows: # 2318 chadash khaw-dash' a primitive root; to be new; causatively, to rebuild:--renew, repair. And so we see that Y'shua our Messiah came to “rebuild, renew, and repair” that which was broken by Israel. It is not entirely “different covenant.” The name “Esther” is the name of the pagan goddess of love from where we derive “Easter.” Esther’s cousin Mordecai told her to conceal her Jewish identity because it was in God’s plan to have her marry a heathen king. He told her to use the name “Esther” while in the King’s Palace because he feared for her life. But the day came when her own people, the Jews were sentenced to death, and she had to make a decision to come forward and shed her gentile heathen name and identity in order to save her own people. This is a picture of the Messiah. Yahu'shua has allowed the heathen nations, (gentiles) to give him a pagan identity for a season so that he could be married to them. The name “Jesus” is an English transliteration of the Greek name “Ieousus” but this was not his original name. His real Hebrew name is Y'shua, meaning "he shall save" or in the long form it is “Joshua” or “Yeshoshua” meaning "Yah has saved" in the past tense. In ancient Paleo Hebrew, the name Joshua would be rendered "Yahu'shua." So how did we start with Yahu'shua and end up with Jesus? The answer can be found in Matthew’s Gospel: Matthew 1:21 And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name JESUS: for he shall save his people from their sins. The Angel Gabriel appeared to the mother of Yahu'shua/Jesus and told her to give him this name, “for he shall save” but what language do you think Gabriel spoke to this Hebrew young woman in? Do you think Gabriel told her to give him a Greek name? How about an English name? It is noteworthy to find out that the letter “J” did not exist in the English alphabet until the 1500’s. Prior to the 1500’s the Greek transalations of the New Testament Bibles spelled his name Ieosus, not Jesus. So how did the Greek transliteration of the name Ieosus come about? Well first of all we find out historically that the Greeks had a generic name for “God” which is “Zeus.” They used the term “Zeus” the same way that we use the generic term for “God” today in English. But “god” is not a name, it is merely a title and it can describe any false god, including Satan who is the “god of this world” according to 2nd Corinthians 4:4. The newly converted Greek believers in Jesus knew that the sacred name of God is Yah in Hebrew, and so they simply placed his true name “Yah” in front of their generic word for “god” and came up with Yah’Zeus which means “Yah is God.” That was eventually abbreviated as Y’Zeus and then finally Ieosus became the way that it was spelled. When the English translators put together the King James Bible, they took the name Ieosus in Greek and added in the letter “J” in place of the letter “I” and hence today we get Jesus. But the “J” was never meant to be pronounced with the hard “g” sound. The letter “J” was meant to sound like a “Y” sound. And so every place in the Old Testament scriptures where we find the letter “J” the pronunciation is supposed to be a “Y.” Example: Joshua = Yehoshua = Yahushua Jehovah = Yehovah (the vav used to be a w sound in ancient Hebrew) as on Yehowah or Yahuwah. Yahu'shua has allowed us to give him a Greek-English Gentile name, just like Esther. His identity has remained concealed from the Jewish people because he appears to them to be a Greek pagan god named “Zeus.” But now as we approach the last days, God is calling the Body of Messiah, the Church to be like Esther and to lay down their lives for the Jewish people and for the Messiah himself, as he is from the tribe of Judah (King of the Jews). Many in the church say that they are “pro-Israel” and that they love the Jews, but when “push comes to shove”; they refuse to give up these pagan traditions of men that are keeping the Jews from knowing Yahu'shua as the true Jewish Messiah. The same prophetic picture can be seen in the story of Joseph in the book of Genesis. Joseph is known in prophecy as a “type” of Messiah at his first coming called “the suffering servant” from where we typify our suffering Messiah. There are some Jews who believe that there will be two different Messiah’s but we who have the Holy Spirit know that there is only one Messiah seen in prophecy. We see Yahu'shua/Jesus as the suffering servant or “Messiah Ben Yosef” meaning “Messiah the Son of Joseph.” Joseph was sold into slavery by his eleven brothers who are the eleven tribes of Israel. Joseph took on a gentile heathen identity when he was made governor in Egypt. When his eleven brothers came to buy grain during the seven years of famine, they did not recognize him because of his heathen clothing and eye makeup etc. Joseph allowed his identity to be concealed for a season and then he could no longer bear it, so he revealed himself to them, as he removed his pagan identity from them and then they recognized him as the one whom they “pierced” and then they “mourned for him” (Zechariah 12:10). In both of these stories, the story of Esther and the story of Joseph, we see a picture of Yahu'shua disguising himself as a gentile or a heathen, but then removing his heathen identity in order for the Jewish people to be saved. And now the church must remove his heathen identity and start calling him by his real name, Yahu'shua Ha’Mashiach. We must start associating him with the prophetic fulfillments of the Holy Feasts of YHWH and not the pagan sun god worship festivals which only assimilate him to the Greek god Zeus. Yahu'shua told us that the “traditions of men” make the word of God of “none effect” in our lives. And so if we are being told to leave behind these traditions and to come back to the true faith of the Jewish Messiah, we should do as he asks us to do. If we don’t obey the Holy Spirit’s call to “come out” of the false Christianity called “Mystery Babylon,” we will receive her plagues: Revelation 18:4 Come out of her, my people, that that ye receive not of her plagues. Revelation 18:8 ....therefore shall her plagues come in one day, death, and mourning, and famine; and she shall be utterly burned with fire: for strong is YHWH God who judgeth her. Whoa! Yahu'shua is telling all those who refuse to be fully grafted into the Olive Tree, Israel that they shall be part of MYSTERY BABYLON THE GREAT THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS and they shall be like that tree that bears no fruit and is chopped down and burned in the fire! Those in the church will not bear fruit in these last days until we are fully grafted in to the OLIVE TREE! In Romans 11, we read that in order for the rest of the world to experience REVIVAL and the LATTER RAIN OUTPOURING, the Jews must come to know Yahu'shua as the Messiah! We need to catch a vision for how important the Jews are to the REST OF THE WORLD: Romans 11:11-15: I say then, Have they stumbled that they should fall? God forbid: but rather through their fall salvation is come unto the Gentiles, for to provoke them to jealousy. Now if the fall of them be the riches of the world, and the diminishing of them the riches of the Gentiles; how much more their fulness? For if the casting away of them be the reconciling of the world, what shall the receiving of them be, but life from the dead? Christian Church, we need to see this! We want end time revival and we want to win the Jews to faith in Messiah, but we don't want to give up our man-made traditions! Don’t we see that the salvation of the Jews is absolutely essential to the salvation of the rest of the world? Like, Ruth (who began as a heathen Moabite) the Church is being called to sojourn with Naomi (a type of Israel) so that she can be married to Boaz (a type of Messiah). Those who join Israel and say to her like Ruth did to Naomi) "thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God" in Ruth 1:16 will get to be the bride of Messiah. But those who do not cling to Israel and they go backwards are like Orpah, (the sister in law of Ruth) are those who will end up joining "Mystery Babylon the Great the Mother of Harlots" in the end. It is noteworthy that the name Ruth means "friend" for she was a friend of Naom(a type of Israel) and this won her favor in the eyes of Boaz (a type of Messiah). But the name Orpah means "to go backwards, stiff-necked." The Christian Church has a small remnant who are being called like Esther "for such a time as this” to shed the heathen identity of Jesus Christ (Y'shua ha'Mashiach) and to allow his full Jewish Identity be made known. We must proclaim the truth that he was NOT born on the pagan Christ Mass and that he was born on a Holy Feast Day of YHWH on September 11th 3 B.C. called Yom Teruah or “Feast of Trumpets.” *The evidence for this date can be seen in the articles I have written entitled “Why Celebrate the Feast of YHWH?” and "When Was Jesus Born & Why Does it Matter?" We must reveal to the Jewish people that he was conceived on Chanukkah and that he was crucified on Passover on a Wednesday and not on “Good Friday.” He was also resurrected on the “Day of First Fruits” and not on EASTER! We must stop Sunday (for the pagan sun god) "the Sabbath." I am not teaching that it is a sin to attend church on Sunday, but the Sabbath was instituted at Creation and set apart by God even before the Law of Moses was given: Genesis 2:2-3 And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made. And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made. Jews often stumble over the fact that Christians don’t keep the 7th Day Sabbath. Why don’t we keep it? Because Constantine outlawed it in the 3rd Century and made SUNDAY mandatory for worshipping the pagan sun god. He put these Christians to death who were honoring the 4th commandment to keep the Sabbaths and Feast of YHWH Holy. Now, I am not suggesting that we have to keep the Sabbath in any religious ceremonial way, like the oral traditions of the Pharisees. But we should honor it as a day set apart by God and we should let the Holy Spirit guide us in the way we keep the Sabbath. Isaiah 58:13 gives us a guideline as to how God wants us to honor that day: “If thou turn away thy foot from the sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day; and call the sabbath a delight, the holy of YHWH, honourable; and shalt honour him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words.” The Sabbath is a day for giving honor to YHWH in however the Holy Spirit leads us. We are not to do what makes us happy or our own pleasure, but make it a day dedicated to him. Even Yahu'shua expected the end time saints to keep the Sabbath: Matthew 24: 20-21 But pray ye that your flight be not in the winter, neither on the sabbath day: For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be. Yahu'shua did not choose "another day" to be the Sabbath as the Roman Church has been claiming since the days of the Emperor Constantine: Hebrews 4:4-10 For he spake in a certain place of the seventh day on this wise, And God did rest the seventh day from all his works…Again, he limiteth a certain day, saying in David, To day, after so long a time; as it is said, To day if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts…For if Y'shua had given them rest, then would he not afterward have spoken of another day….There remaineth therefore a rest (Sabbath) to the people of God…For he that is entered into his rest, he also hath ceased from his own works, as God did from his. God is speaking here of entering into spiritual rest through the Holy Spirit in us. But the Sabbath Day being a literal day points to this spiritual rest. The “type” points to the “anti-type” and so we celebrate the type as a way of fully expressing the fulfillment of Messiah in the Sabbath. We don’t do away with the Sabbath because we now rationalize that we have Messiah instead. No! The Sabbath points to Messiah and so we keep it as a way of pointing to his rest: Matthew 11:28 Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest (Sabbath). If Yahu'shua is our “rest” or Sabbath, should we then do away with the Sabbath because we now have him instead? No, we keep the Sabbath all the more to show that we understand what he did for us, and that he is the creator of all things. He rested on the 7th day and so we should follow his example. Now that we have the living reality of Messiah in us, we want to do his commandments all the more, not the other way around. Most in the Christian Church today want to toss out the Law of Moses and the fulfillments of Messiah in the Law because they think it is enough to just call him “JESUS” and they think that somehow this Greek name is sufficient to reveal who he is. Messiah is fully revealed in the Law of Moses. We will never get an accurate picture of him until we study and understand Law of Moses, Church! Revelation 19:10 declares that the “testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy...” So how do we keep his testimonies? The “testimony of Y'shua” are imbedded in the Holy Feast Days of YHWH from Leviticus 23. When we keep his Holy Days and Sabbaths, he says that it shall be a “sign” or a mark that he places in the forehead of his remnant forever! We are blessed when we keep his Holy Feast days because they are his testimony: Psalm 119:2 Blessed are they that keep his testimonies, and that seek him with the whole heart. God’s remnant seed are those who are called out and set apart as they which “keep his commandments” and have his testimony (Revelation 12:17). If we continue in these lies about Yahu'shua even after we know the truth then we are without excuse. When people do these things in ignorance, God is patient, but once we know the truth, we are responsible to obey the truth that we are shown: Romans 14:23 “....for whatsoever is not of faith is sin.” Once the truth is revealed to us, then the Holy Spirit imparts faith to our hearts concerning that new revelation. Now if I go backwards and start celebrating Christ Mass and Easter, for me it is sin. I have been shown that these pagan holidays point to the false Messiah, and not the real Messiah, and so it would not be in FAITH for me to do this. The misunderstanding in the Christian Church today is with the concept of JUSTIFICATION versus SANCTIFICATION. My aim here in this study is to differentiate between the two and to show us that both elements are needed in order to be part of the “Election.” 1st Peter 1 tells us that the “elect” are those who have two things going on in their lives: 1.) They are justified (saved) by the sprinkling of the blood of Y'shua Messiah. 2.) They are sanctified (set apart) by the Holy Spirit, “the Law of the Spirit of Life” by the fact that he writes the Law of Moses on our hearts. Most people in modern day Christianity are content with just being “saved” and justified by grace through faith. But then they want to stop there and not allow the Holy Spirit to continue to sanctify them and set them apart from the world. Today I see imbalances within the Christian Churches as well as within the Messianic Movements. I see where the Christian Churches have not fully had a revelation of the need for sanctification and what it means to be “set apart” from the world and pagan trappings. They like to quote all those passages in scripture that reveal that we are saved by “Grace through Faith” and they think that those of us who want to return to the Hebraic Roots are being “legalistic” and that we are trying to put people in bondage to the law and dead works. But in reality, bondage is the result of our own doubt and unbelief, not keeping God’s commandments. I also see that Messianics often times are not patient with people in the church who have not come into this revelation yet about the Hebraic Roots of Christianity and they treat people in the Christian Church as if they are sub-standard. Messianics often times behave as if the keeping of the Law of Moses is necessary for being saved and justified. But we know that this is not true. Keeping the Law of Moses (Torah) is not the pre-requisite to salvation but it is the natural outcome of those who have the Holy Spirit. They will find themselves desiring to obey the commandments. Many Christians confuse the issue of circumcision and they think that Paul’s letter to the Galatians is forbidding them to keep the Laws of Moses. But Paul was merely drawing a distinction between being circumcised outwardly in the flesh and having our hearts circumcised by the Holy Spirit. He was making the point that being circumcised outwardly does not profit us unless we are prepared to keep the entire law of Moses. Galatians 5:2-4 “Behold, I Paul say unto you, that if ye be circumcised, Messiah shall profit you nothing. For I testify again to every man that is circumcised, that he is a debtor to do the whole law.” So we read here that if we are trying to JUSTIFY ourselves by outward circumcision and by the law, we are fallen from grace! I have met Messianics who know this passage of scripture, and yet they still persist in making those in the Christian Church feel less adequate. This only serves to make Christians want to reject the Hebraic Roots all the more, because they view this as arrogance. Messianics need to recognize that Christians who have been justified by grace through faith through the sprinkling of the blood of Y'shua ARE SAVED without the Laws of Moses written in stone. Why? Because Y'shua is the Law and he imparts to Law to us now in a different form which is called “The Law of the Spirit of Life.” In other words, the Holy Spirit gives us these same laws in an incorruptible form, with a new nature that desires to keep the law just like Yahu'shua kept the entire law! In other words, he gives us his Law-Keeping new nature in place of our old nature which is “against God’s laws.” Because Yahu'shua himself is the LAW incarnate, the “Living Torah,” and by virtue of our relationship with him, we have the law already in us when we are born again. The Analogy of the New Computer You have just purchased a new computer. The entire operating system and all the software you need is automatically installed on your computer. Now, even though you have it all installed, you have not figured out how to use it all yet. In the same way, when someone comes to faith in Y'shua Messiah, they repent of their sins and they are justified by faith in him. He then sprinkles his blood on them and cleanses them from sin. By virtue of their faith in his finished work on the cross, they receive the Holy Spirit. In other words, in the same way that the computer automatically has the operating system installed on it, we as born again believers automatically have the Holy Spirit and the Law of Moses “installed” in our hearts and minds, even before we learn how to use it! And so the learning of “how” to use it is the part where we are taught by the Holy Spirit, in other words, sanctification. The Gym Membership Analogy Your Father buys you a one year membership to the gym that costs $500.00. You did not have to pay him back or earn your membership because it was a free gift. But because you love your dad, you want to please him and show your appreciation by going to the gym each day to work out. If you waste the $500.00 by never going to the gym, you are still a member, but why wouldn’t you want to “work” to prove you’re a member of the gym and to show your love and appreciation? Now if you never go to the gym during that one year membership, at the end of the year, if you ask your dad to fork out another $500.00 to buy you another one year gym membership, do you think he is going to give it to you again? I don’t think so! And such is the case with the parable of the talents. Yahu'shua illustrates this in Matthew 25 as he gives “talents” representing gifts of salvation to three different men. Two of the men re-invested their gift of salvation by winning other souls into the kingdom. When the Master (Y'shua) returns, he finds that they invested their free gift into the lives of others and brought many more souls into the kingdom. But there is one guy who “hid” his talent and would not invest his free gift of salvation. To him, that one talent he has is taken from him! In other words, even though it is a free gift and you cannot earn it, you still have to invest it or you will lose it! So much for those “once saved always saved” people saying that you can never lose your salvation no matter what! Those who ascribe to what is called “Unconditional Eternal Security” have only half the picture. Yes, indeed salvation is a free gift, but once it is given to us, we have a responsibility to invest it in the life of others or we will lose it. That is why Paul declares that our salvation is something that we are still “working out” and not something that we have fully attained yet until we receive the resurrection of the body. Philippians 2:12 “… work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.” The Apostle Paul is instructing us to “work out” our salvation, just like that free gym membership! But he also says “with fear and trembling…” Why? Because you can LOSE your salvation if you don’t WORK IT OUT! If you don’t believe me, read Revelation 3:5: He that overcometh, the same shall be clothed in white raiment; and I will not blot out his name out of the book of life, but I will confess his name before my Father, and before his angels. So HOW are we supposed to WORK out our own salvation? Well, we are called to be sanctified by the Holy Spirit, this means “set apart” to learn to observe all his commandments and to keep them: 2nd Corinthians 6:16-18 “And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith YHWH, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you.” Notice that God calls us all out of idolatry and false religion. He says COME OUT----come out of what? The Temple of Idols! This means Churches where they erect Christ Mass Trees to Baal (unawares), and they do Easter Egg Hunts without realizing that is all for the sun god Ba’al! Oh, but I know what many of you Christians are going to say. Christians reading this are going to say, “But when we erect a tree, it is for Jesus, not for Baal…” But God commands us NOT to learn the ways of the heathen: Jeremiah 10: 2 Thus saith YHWH, Learn not the way of the heathen, and be not dismayed at the signs of heaven; for the heathen are dismayed at them. 3 For the customs of the people are vain: for one cutteth a tree out of the forest, the work of the hands of the workman, with the axe. 4 They deck it with silver and with gold; they fasten it with nails and with hammers that it move not. What was Jeremiah talking about here? He was talking about this pagan custom that originated with Tammuz (Ezekiel 8:14) the pagan sun god who was reincarnated each year on the Winter Solstice in Astrology on December 25th. They called this the “birth of the sun.” Tammuz’s mother Semiramis commanded the Babylonians to cut down a tree to commemorate Nimrod who was also “cut down” like a tree by Noah’s son Shem (Genesis 10). And God was warning us through Jeremiah NOT to do this! Mystery Babylon Religion is a pagan counterfeit of Christianity which originated in the 3rd Century out of a political movement by the Emperor Constantine, who was historically the first Roman Pope, giving himself the title of “Pontifex Maximus,” the official title of a Pope even to this day. Out of that movement, the Political machine called the Roman Catholic Church has been trying to disguise “Baal” with a false Y'shua since the 5th Century, and now the Protestant Churches have allowed this abomination in the church also. Oh, but so many in the church try to use these verses out of context to justify these pagan traditions of men: Colossians 2:14-17 “Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross; And having spoiled principalities and powers, he made a shew of them openly, triumphing over them in it. 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: Which are a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Messiah.” So what was blotted out? The Law of Moses? No! What was blotted out was the “ordinances,” in Greek this word is “dogma” which literally means a “man made civil decree.” Reading this in context you will see that God is telling us not to judge one another in regard to what? HOLY DAYS! But Christmas and Easter are NOT holy in the sight of God, and they never were. What was “against us” the man made laws which kept the Gentiles out of the outer court so that they could never know God. The Rabbi’s made laws that were against God’s laws which kept Gentiles alienated from the God of Israel. God already told us which days were holy and set apart in Leviticus 23. God is not saying through Colossians 2:16 that it is okay to celebrate pagan holidays. No, in fact we know that the Jewish Apostles expected the newly converted Gentiles to “abstain from pollution of idols” (Acts 15), and we know that any holiday devoted to the pagan sun god Tammuz, (Christmas and Easter) would qualify as pollution of idols! So what is Colossians 2:16 saying then? He is telling us not to judge one another in HOW we keep the HOLY DAYS of YHWH. It was already understood that any Christian would be keeping the Holy Days outlined in Leviticus 23 because this was before they were outlawed by Constantine in the 3rd Century. There were man-made ordinances that were instituted by the Rabbis which prevented Gentiles from coming near the outer court of the temple. But now, God is telling us that since these ORDINANCES were blotted out, there is nothing preventing Gentiles from being allowed to keep HOLY DAYS. Paul was saying (if I may paraphrase) “even though you had formerly been pagans who were following the rudiments of the world patterned after man-made traditions (i.e, Christmas and Easter) you are a part of Israel now, so don’t let any man judge you because you want to keep God’s Holy days.” He is saying we are not to judge one another in HOW they are kept. God is in NO WAY condoning the practice of pagan holidays. And in NO WAY is he saying that we are not to keep the FEASTS of YHWH. How do we know that these feasts have not been done away with? God says that his HOLY DAYS shall be observed FOREVER THROUGHOUT YOUR GENERATIONS: Leviticus 23:14 “…it shall be a statute for ever throughout your generations in all your dwellings.” Leviticus 23:21 “And ye shall proclaim on the selfsame day, that it may be an holy convocation unto you: ye shall do no servile work therein: it shall be a statute for ever in all your dwellings throughout your generations.” Leviticus 23:31 “Ye shall do no manner of work: it shall be a statute for ever throughout your generations in all your dwellings.” *Note: In all your dwellings means that Israel was to keep these no matter what part of the world that they were exiled in. These were not merely for those living in Jerusalem, but to all Israel living in various parts of the world. Leviticus 23:41 “And ye shall keep it a feast unto YHWH seven days in the year. It shall be a statute for ever in your generations: ye shall celebrate it in the seventh month.” Now was Paul the Apostle (who studied Torah all of his life) contradicting the word of God in Colossians 2:16? When he says “let no one judge you in regard to a HOLY DAY,” Paul is telling these former pagans in Colossi not to allow any pagans (or non-believing Jews for that matter) to judge them for wanting to keep the Holy Days of YHWH. The Soda Machine Analogy I want to buy a soda from a machine that won’t accept dollar bills. The soda costs $1.00, but I only have a one dollar bill. I have to convert that dollar bill into four quarters in order to make the currency compatible with that machine. Now, did the price of the soda change? Did the requirement change? No, what changed was the “form” in which the law comes to us now. In the same way that the machine was limited to what form of currency it would accept, we as humans are weak in our flesh and so we are unable to keep “Torah” 100% of the time. That is why now we have the “Law of the Spirit of Life” (Romans 8:2) which is the Holy Spirit who writes the Law of Moses on our hearts: Jeremiah 31:33 “But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith YHWH, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people.” Hebrews 8:10 “For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith YHWH; I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people.” Hebrews 10:16 “This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, saith YHWH, I will put my laws into their hearts, and in their minds will I write them.” God differentiates between the leading of the Holy Spirit who teaches us to keep the law versus the “letter” of the law which brings death. Why does it bring death? Because we are weak in our flesh and we are unable to keep the law without the Holy Spirit’s power in us. Therefore, God changed the form of the law from stone tablets to “fleshy tables of the heart” thereby making it possible for us to keep the law through the Holy Spirit that dwells in us. The law was not done away with, but rather it was changed from stone to flesh. In other words, God made the law compatible for us, just as that dollar bill was converted to quarters in order to make it compatible with that soda machine. Romans 7:14 “For we know that the law is spiritual: but I am carnal, sold under sin.” The law contained in ORDINANCES meant that the extra rules and regulations added in by the Rabbis were blotted out, but not the Torah (Law) itself. We must differentiate when Paul in his epistles speaking of God’s Holy Law (Torah) and when he is speaking of the “oral law” made up by the Rabbis. The Law of YHWH was only weak because of our flesh, but now through our relationship with Y'shua Messiah, we have the law in spiritual form made compatible for us! So why does the law in Stone Tablets bring death? Because we are not able to keep it in our flesh: James 2:10 “For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all.” So what is the Bible telling us? Is it telling us to break the Law of Moses? God forbid! The Law of Moses is now given to us in another form, thereby making it possible for us to obey it: James 1:25 “But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed.” James 2:12 “So speak ye, and so do, as they that shall be judged by the law of liberty.” So what is the “perfect law of liberty”? The Perfect Law of Liberty is the HOLY SPIRIT WRITING THE LAW OF MOSES ON OUR HEARTS! The righteous requirements of the law are NOT done away with; they are simply made compatible for our human nature. The Law in Stone Tablets was made Flesh through the person of Y'shua Messiah. He is the Living Word, the Living Torah! And it is for this reason that God foretold that he would remove from us the heart of stone, and give us a heart of flesh. What did he mean by this? It means he removed the stony heart which was unable to keep Torah and replaced it with the Torah in flesh (Messiah himself) who is able to keep Torah: Ezekiel 11:19 And I will give them one heart, and I will put a new spirit within you; and I will take the stony heart out of their flesh, and will give them an heart of flesh: Ezekiel 36:26 A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh. 2nd Corinthians 3:3-6 “Forasmuch as ye are manifestly declared to be the epistle of Messiah ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart…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.” Here, we find that the law is now written upon our hearts by the Holy Spirit and it was always meant to be that way even under the Old Covenant. |
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 Galatians 3:10 For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse: for it is written, Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them. You will notice that the word "works" is used here. What is Paul referring to? There was a cult back in those days known as "Works of the Law" and they were relegating righteousness by do doing certain "works" and by doing rabbinic traditions instead of having faith in Messiah. They were trying to force new converts to follow "rabbinc" customs before accepting them into their congregations. Becoming "circumcised" did not only apply to the physical surgery, but it had to do with following a certain set of rules laid down by the Rabbis in order to be accepted into their fellowship. In Paul's letters to the Romans and to the Galatians, he was not teaching that we no longer should obey Torah (God's instructions). He was arguing against man made rabbinic law and their pre-requisites---not the Torah of YHWH (God's Laws). In Romans 8, Paul addresses 4 types of Law : 1.) The Law of Moses 2.) The Law of Sin and Death 3.) The Law of the Spirit of Life 4.) The Civil Laws of the Land – Romans 13 With that in mind, let’s get a clearer picture of what Paul was talking about: Romans 8:2 For the law of the Spirit of life in Messiah, Yahu'shua hath made me free from the law of sin and death. Now we see that there are two different laws at work. The law of sin and death” is not the Law of Moses. The law of sin and death is that carnal nature within us that constantly wars against us, making us want to break the Law of Moses. The "Law of the Spirit of Life" is the Holy Spirit changing our nature so that we desire to keep the Law of Moses. The English word "Law" is a very poor translation because there are actually seventeen different Greek words in the Textus Receptus for the one English word that we use for "Law." That is why the Hebrew word for the "instructions" of YaHuWaH is a more specific term that differentiates from man's legalistic approach to an intimate relationship with the Heavenly Father. The Hebrew word for the Law of YHWH is Torah in the Strong's Hebrew Concordance: # 8451 towrah to-raw' or torah {to-raw'}; from 3384; a precept or statute, especially the Decalogue or Pentateuch:--law. The term "Torah" comes from another Hebrew word "Yarah" which means to teach or to instruct: # 3384 yarah yaw-raw' or (2 Chr. 26:15) yara; {yaw-raw'}; a primitive root; properly, to flow as water (i.e. to rain); transitively, to lay or throw (especially an arrow, i.e. to shoot); figuratively, to point out (as if by aiming the finger), to teach:--(+) archer, cast, direct, inform, instruct, lay, shew, shoot, teach(-er,-ing), through. The word "Torah" is specifically meant to describe the five books of the Bible transcribed by Moses (Moshe). But the other English words for "Law" in scripture are usually the Greek word "dogma" meaning a man made decree. In the analogy I used earlier with the gym membership, we cannot earn our salvation and we cannot “work” for it either. It is a free gift. Yet once we have attained it by grace through faith in Y'shua Messiah, now we have the responsibility of allowing the Holy Spirit to change us so that we will want to keep the Torah of YHWH (Law of Moses). Having addressed this age old controversy about the Law versus Grace, I want to admonish those in the Christian Church that it is time for us to leave behind those pagan traditions so that we can bring in the harvest of souls through the Jews first and then the “Greeks” (Gentiles). The pattern has always been in scripture that God wants to use the Jews to win the rest of the heathen world to Messiah. That is why God places the Jews as his top priority list: Romans 1:16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Messiah: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. The House of Judah (Jews) are the key to the rest of the world being saved: John 4:22 Ye worship ye know not what: we know what we worship: for salvation is of the Jews. Y'shua told the Samaritan woman, (a heathen) that she did not know what she worshipped because “Salvation is of the Jews.” Why? Because God revealed his son to us (who is our Salvation) through the tribe of Judah. Jacob/Israel's 4th son born to him by Leah was the one to whom it was prophesied: Genesis 49:10 The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh come; and unto him shall the gathering of the people be. \ It is through the tribe of Judah (Jews) that the gathering of the other eleven tribes as well as the Gentiles will be gathered back to Messiah. Y'shua our Messiah came to us in human flesh through this tribe---Yahudah (Judah). Now, getting back to Colossians 2:20-23, we see that the Apostle Paul was in no way condoning pagan holidays: “…Wherefore if ye be dead with Messiah from the rudiments of the world, why, as though living in the world, are ye subject to ordinances, (Touch not; taste not; handle not; Which all are to perish with the using;) after the commandments and doctrines of men?...” Obviously, Paul is not referring to the Holy Feasts of YHWH, as “commandments and doctrines of men” because we know that God commanded that these feasts be kept “forever, throughout your generations” in Leviticus 23. So what was Paul talking about here? He was talking about the man-made traditions of the Talmud, the oral traditions that were added to the Torah of YHWH (Law of Moses) making it that much harder for us to keep. That is why Paul spoke of being subject to “ordinances,” meaning man-made traditions and doctrines of men. The Rabbis made the dietary laws even more rigid by making hand-washing a religious ritual, when God was simply teaching them about how to prevent diseases from spreading and sanitation. The Rabbis made up rules about not eating milk or dairy products together with meat. But God only commands us to abstain from unclean animals such as pork and shell fish because these creatures cause parasites to live in the intestinal tract. The Rabbis took the dietary laws to a whole new level, and this is why the Apostle Shaul (Paul) said that the doctrines of men were full of rigid rules like “taste not, touch not, handle not...” In Ezekiel 8, we learn that God was showing Ezekiel all of the Babylonia customs that the children of Israel had adopted while in exile in Babylon. He was shown the abominations that were being done in the Jewish Temple as the people were "worshiping the sun god Tammuz" and they had erected the "image of jealousy" (Egyptian Obelisk, Phallic symbols, steeples, Nimrod's penis). And so this is exactly what was going on in Paul's day. Paul was rebuking the Galatians for going back under these pagan customs in the Jewish Temple. Paul was also addressing the pagan customs of “Jezebel’s Table” such as eating pork on Easter to commemorate the 40 days of weeping and fasting for Tammuz who was killed by a wild boar. At the end of the 40 days known today as "Lent" the ancient Babylonians break their fast by eating swine's flesh to commemorate Tammuz who was killed in a hunting accident at the age of 40 years old. So you see, "Lent" has nothing to do with Messiah. The dietary laws of the pagan priests of Ba’al were meant to commemorate their false Messiah, Nimrod, Tammuz etc. Satan had a counterfeit of dietary laws and holy days that were patterned after Nimrod instead of the Jewish Messiah, and this is what Paul was addressing. Paul was making a distinction between “The Table of YHWH” versus “The Table of Jezebel” patterned after Ba’al. 1st Corinthians 10:21 Ye cannot drink the cup of YHWH, and the cup of devils: ye cannot be partakers of YHWH's table, and of the table of devils. What was Paul referring to when he mentions “the table of devils”? 1st Kings 18:19 Now therefore send, and gather to me all Israel unto mount Carmel, and the prophets of Baal four hundred and fifty, and the prophets of the groves four hundred, which eat at Jezebel’s table. Jezebel’s false religion of Ba’al which can be typified in modern day Roman Catholicism and Protestantism teaches us to eat ham (an abomination to YHWH in Leviticus 7 & Isaiah 66:3-17) on Easter Sunday instead of eating the Passover Lamb in remembrance of what our Messiah did for us on Passover, Unleavened Bread & First Fruits. Jezebel’s false religion of Ba’al teaches us to eat leavened bread or “Easter Bread” during the week of our Messiah’s crucifixion because Ba’al is the bread from heaven with yeast (symbolic of sin) in him. Jezebel’s false religion of Ba’al teaches us to eat the Christmas ham, and other things sacrificed to idols (Revelation 2:20) and to erect the “asherah” poles and trees for Tammuz and Nimrod. Another misconception in the church that people often take out of context is Galatians 4:5-10: “To redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons…Howbeit then, when ye knew not God, ye did service unto them which by nature are no gods. But now, after that ye have known God, or rather are known of God, how turn ye again to the weak and beggarly elements, whereunto ye desire again to be in bondage? Ye observe days, and months, and times, and years.” Those in the Christian Church will often quote the above verses to try to make a case against Christians keeping the Holy Feasts of YHWH. But let’s look at this in context to see what Paul was talking about. He was talking about being “under the law” meaning the “letter” (without the Holy Spirit’s revelation) which was not able to save us from the sinful nature that was within us. He was telling the Galatians not to go under rabbinic laws which were co-mingled with Babylonian mixture and Kabbalah. You see when the Israelites were exiled in Babylon, they picked up many of the customs of Babylon and they co-mingled it with Judaism. We can see the same thing happening today with Christianity mingling the true faith of the Jewish Apostles with the religion of Nimrod from Babylon. He is saying “when you knew not God, you did service unto them which by nature are no gods…” He is telling us that before we knew God we were doing service to false pagan gods who are in reality NOT gods! Paul is addressing pagan holidays here! He is NOT addressing the HOLY FEASTS of YHWH at all! He is saying that because we were under the “law of sin and death” meaning our carnal nature, we were subject to pagan practices and false gods, i.e. Christ Mass, Easter and all these pagan customs from ancient Babylon, and Jewish Mysticism called Kabbalah. When Paul says “ye turn again to the weak and beggarly elements” he is talking about astrology and the zodiac signs. I myself used to study astrology before my conversion to Messiah back in 1981, and I know that the four elements which the zodiac signs are broken down into are as follows: FIRE, WATER, AIR, EARTH. Paul is talking about being in bondage to what? ELEMENTS! THE PAGAN HOLIDAYS! When he said “ye observe days and months, times and years….” He was referring to the way that the pagans observe astrology and pagan holidays that go with these elements. The Jews of Paul’s day were no different than the Christian Churches are today. They had Babylonian mixture in their holidays and food customs. God had already forewarned that these were an abomination: Deuteronomy 18:9-12 When thou art come into the land which YHWH thy Elohim (God) giveth thee, thou shalt not learn to do after the abominations of those nations. There shall not be found among you any one that maketh his son or his daughter to pass through the fire, or that useth divination, or an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch. Or a charmer, or a consulter with familiar spirits, or a wizard, or a necromancer. For all that do these things are an abomination unto YHWH: and because of these abominations YHWH thy Elohim (God) doth drive them out from before thee. God is telling us here that we are NOT to imitate these heathen nations and do the pagan customs and holidays that they do by “observing times” and astrology! Christ Mass and Easter were originated as days that were celebrated in observance of the pagan sun god and the goddess of the moon. God is strictly forbidding these and the Apostle Paul is saying the same thing in Galatians 4! But those in the church think that Paul is talking about the HOLY FEASTS of YHWH. That would make no sense for God to contradict his own word. Remember that God DOES NOT CHANGE: Malachi 3:6 “For I am YHWH I change not; therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed.” Neither does Y'shua Messiah change: Hebrews 13:8 “Y'shua Messiah the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever.” Many Christians misunderstand the words of Yeshua when he “summed up” the law in one commandment: John 13:34 “A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another.” Paul also summed up the law in one commandment: Romans 13:8 “….he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law.” Y'shua was NOT eradicating the Law of Moses. He was summing up all 613 laws to show that they are all evidenced in the one: There are 613 Laws in the Five Books of Moses: 6 + 1 + 3 = 10 Commandments 1 + 0 = 1 Commandment The Holy Spirit will always dictate our keeping of the law by the one commandment of loving one another. This means that if we love Y'shua and we love others, the rest of the law will not be burdensome to us. We will enjoy keeping the law. And if we love Israel and the Jews, we will want to become “all things to all men” in order to win them: 1st Corinthians 9: 20 And unto the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might gain the Jews; to them that are under the law, as under the law, that I might gain them that are under the law; 21 To them that are without law, as without law, (being not without law to God, but under the law to Messiah,) that I might gain them that are without law. You will notice that Paul is making a distinction between being “under the law” of the Rabbi’s (the Talmud) or the oral traditions versus the Law of God in Messiah. Often times, people in the Christian Church “wishy washy” approach to what love really is. They mistake "love" for "liscense" to sin, to break commandments and to commit all kinds of pagan practices. Often times in Messianic Jewish circles, the keeping of the Law of Moses is NOT dictated by love, but is instead rooted in PRIDE to gage who is more HOLY, and so it loses all of its meaning and purpose for why it was there in the first place. There is a balance to all of this, and neither of these groups have it right! The Christian Churches and the Messianics on the whole have to come into a revelation of their need for one another and to glean truth from each other. God showed me a metaphor while I was praying one day. He showed me that in Noah’s Ark, Noah represents Yeshua our Messiah. Under the Old Covenant, Jews were made clean or “sanctified” by the Law of Moses, and the Gentiles were considered “unclean” or uncircumcised. Noah gathered both “clean and unclean” animals into the ark before the day of God’s wrath was poured out. God saved both clean and unclean alike under the same Covenant! In other words, Jews and Gentiles under the same door! There was only one door to the ark, and that door is Jesus Christ or in Hebrew his true name Y'shua Ha’Mashiach! John 10:7 “Then said Yeshua unto them again, Verily, verily, I say unto you, I am the door of the sheep.” John 10:9 “I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture.” Dispensationalists and Pre-Tribulation Rapture theorists try to teach that God will deal separately with the Gentile Church as he will with the Messianic Jewish Believers. But this is not the case. There is only one door and one Resurrection (Rapture) and it will include both clean and unclean, that is to say “Jew and Gentile.” Now we know that unclean animals are a metaphor for non-Jewish people, because God showed this to Peter in Acts chapter 10. He gave the Apostle Peter a vision of unclean animals and he said to him “do not call unclean what I have made clean…” How can the Gentiles be made clean? By the sprinkling of the blood of Y'shua Messiah and by their faith in his finished work on the cross. But now, we have to get a Hebraic understanding of what the Jewish Apostles taught the newly converted Gentiles when they were coming to faith through the Jewish Messiah. The Apostles gave the non-Jewish believers certain requirements in order to have immediate fellowship with the Jewish believers. These are what are called “starter laws.” In other words, these four things that the Jewish Apostles required of the Gentiles were not the “end all” to their sanctification process, as some in the church try to teach today. These requirements were an introduction to the sanctification process because the Apostles reasoned among themselves saying: Acts 15:21 “For Moses of old time hath in every city them that preach him, being read in the synagogues every sabbath day.” The Jewish Apostles were saying that even though the Gentiles could get started fellowshipping with them based on these basic four commandments, they knew that because these Gentiles were going to the synagogue and learning the law of Moses every Sabbath day, they would gradually learn to become Torah observant and the Holy Spirit would sanctify them and set them apart from their pagan practices! Now, let us look at Acts 15 in context to see what the Apostles expected of the Gentile believers in Y'shua: Acts 15: 17 That the residue of men might seek after YHWH, and all the Gentiles, upon whom my name is called, saith YHWH, who doeth all these things. 18 Known unto God are all his works from the beginning of the world. 19 Wherefore my sentence is, that we trouble not them, which from among the Gentiles are turned to God: 20 But that we write unto them, that they abstain from pollutions of idols, and from fornication, and from things strangled, and from blood. Okay, let’s stop here for a moment and see what Paul is saying. He is requiring four things from the Gentiles: 1.) Abstain from pollutions of idols: In other words, pagan holidays (i.e. Christmas, Easter, and Halloween) offered up to idols and statues, meat sacrificed to idols etc. Even worldly music and anything offered up to false gods (which are really demons). 2.) Abstain from fornication: Sex apart from marriage; Adultery, Homosexuality. Any Sexual uncleanness that violates that original “one-man, one-woman” relationship which God instituted at creation when he said “the two shall become one flesh.” 3.) Abstain from things strangled: Animals that were strangled had not had any blood shed, and this violated the way that God wanted to show us a metaphor for the atonement. “Without the shedding of blood there can be no remission for sin…” Eating animals that were strangled meant that all the unclean diseases that were present in that animal’s blood were still present in the meat because the blood had not drained. This is also a metaphor of not being cleansed with the blood of Y'shua Messiah, which means your sins remain. 4.) Abstain from Blood: This even means rare steak etc. Why? Because Leviticus 17:11 declares that “life of the flesh is in the blood.” And this means that the blood has the ability to carry with it diseases. God wants us to drain the blood and disease that is carried through the blood. It is possible for animals to have demon spirits in them as we have seen with Y'shua casting demons into pigs. And so if we eat blood, the spiritual “life” of that animal can be passed on to us through the blood. Therefore to illustrate this, God wants us to abstain from animal blood. But now, he does not STOP here! He goes on to say in the next verse: Acts 15:21 For Moses of old time hath in every city them that preach him, being read in the synagogues every sabbath day. What is Paul saying here? He is telling the Jewish Apostles, if I may paraphrase here: “Don’t worry, the Gentiles will go into the synagogue every Sabbath and they will learn the law of Moses and they will want to become Torah observant….” Paul “sentenced” the Jewish Apostles saying “don’t overwhelm them with too much at once…let’s make it simple and give them only four things to abstain from…” After Paul laid down this requirement for the Gentiles, it pleased the Jewish Apostles and they were more than willing to allow them into their fellowship: Acts 15: 22 Then pleased it the apostles and elders with the whole church, to send chosen men of their own company to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas; namely, Judas surnamed Barsabas and Silas, chief men among the brethren: 23 And they wrote letters by them after this manner; The apostles and elders and brethren send greeting unto the brethren which are of the Gentiles in Antioch and Syria and Cilicia. Now, here is where a lot of people in the church today get mixed up. They read the next verse and they think that because physical circumcision was not required in order to enter into covenant, they think that “any thing goes now, as long as we believe in Jesus Christ…” Acts 15:24 Forasmuch as we have heard, that certain which went out from us have troubled you with words, subverting your souls, saying, Ye must be circumcised, and keep the law: to whom we gave no such commandment: Notice that certain Jews were requiring Gentiles to be circumcised and to keep the law in order to be justified and saved. But Paul said “to whom we gave no such commandment…” Paul was not requiring any keeping of the law as a pre-requisite to salvation. The keeping of the Law of Moses was NEVER intended to justify us even under the Old Covenant. The Law of Moses was only meant to “sanctify” and set the Israelites apart from the heathen nations. In other words, it was always FAITH that justified, NEVER THE LAW. But Paul also teaches us in his letter to the Romans that we do not make void the Law (Torah) because of faith, but we actually “establish the law” all the more because of faith in Messiah: Romans 3:31 “Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid: yea, we establish the law.” Does this sound like a dichotomy to you? Well, it is a “dichotomy” because while the law is not the pre-requisite to salvation, it is something that we keep once we have faith because that is who we are. As I illustrated in the analogy about the gym membership, we cannot not earn our salvation or our membership into God’s family because it is by the “election of grace.” He has chosen us and has written our names in the book of Life from the “foundations of the world.” However, because we are his children, we will show that we are his children by obeying everything that is in his heart for us to do because we know his heart. We know his Torah (instructions) by his voice and not only in the letter. We are instructed by him directly as we hear his voice and know his heart. Abraham obeyed everything that God said to him and he was accounted as “righteous” because he believed and obeyed: Romans 4:3 “For what saith the scripture? Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness.” Galatians 3:6 “Even as Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.” The Apostle James confirms this dichotomy: James 2 21 Was not Abraham our father justified by works, when he had offered Isaac his son upon the altar? 22 Seest thou how faith wrought with his works, and by works was faith made perfect? 23 And the scripture was fulfilled which saith, Abraham believed God, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness: and he was called the Friend of God. While it may appear that Abraham only had a superficial “belief” in God which did not require any type of works or obedience on his part, we find out that this is simply not the case. James continues: 24 Ye see then how that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only. We hear the verses about being saved by “grace alone” all too often in the church but there is not one verse of scripture that uses this term "grace alone." This term has actually been coined by Calvinism and those who hold to the doctrine of "once saved always saved." Seldom do we hear James 2:24 quoted from the pulpits in Christian Churches these days. How do we balance this dichotomy between works of the law and grace? Well to make it simple we must determine that the “works” being spoken of here are “works of faith” or works motivated by a direct relationship with God, and not by merely following a written code of rules in the scriptures. So why did God tell Abraham to be circumcised? It was a picture of having the old nature removed and a new conscience revealed from the cutting away of the “old flesh nature.” Abraham was not yet under Mosaic Law and yet he was being asked to circumcise himself as a sign of his covenant with God. Circumcision makes us more “sensitive” to the things of the spirit in the same way that for a male, it makes him more sensitive to “knowing” his wife. In other words, having our hearts circumcised makes us more sensitive to “knowing” God, because the old flesh nature is removed! This is why the Law of Moses reveals what God is really after in circumcision: Deuteronomy 10:16 “Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no more stiffnecked.” Deuteronomy 30:6 “And YHWH thy God will circumcise thine heart, and the heart of thy seed, to love YHWH thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, that thou mayest live.” Jeremiah 4:4 “Circumcise yourselves to YHWH, and take away the foreskins of your heart, ye men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem: lest my fury come forth like fire, and burn that none can quench it, because of the evil of your doings.” Most Christians in the church today confuse this issue of circumcision with keeping the rest of the Laws of Moses. They think that because Paul was not requiring the Gentiles to be literally and physically circumcised that this precluded them from keeping the Laws of Moses. But this is false teaching and a grave misunderstanding in the church today. Circumcision was always about the way we enter into covenant relationship with God. It always involved the removal of the “old flesh” nature, the sinful nature of the heart. It always involved blood shed. And so circumcision is a picture of the crucifixion of Messiah and how it accomplished our salvation. But since we who are justified by faith are now “circumcised in our hearts” by the Holy Spirit, we no longer need to be physically circumcised in order to be a true Jew: Romans 2:28-29 “For he is not a Jew, which is one outwardly; neither is that circumcision, which is outward in the flesh: But he is a Jew, which is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter; whose praise is not of men, but of God.” Paul is making an astounding statement above! He is revealing that becoming a “Jew” (belonging to the tribe of Judah) is not predicated on being physically circumcised. He says in the previous verses in Romans 2:26-27 that circumcision only profits us if we keep the Torah (Law of Moses). He goes on to say that if an uncircumcised Gentile obeys God’s instructions then he is deemed as one who is a circumcised Jew. But if a circumcised Jew does not keep God’s instructions, his circumcision is treated by God as though he were an uncircumcised Gentile. Water Baptism is the New Circumcision in Christendom Outward circumcision was always meant to point to circumcision of the heart even under the Law of Moses, and so we see that nothing has changed with the New Covenant regarding circumcision. God was always requiring circumcision of the heart even under the Old Covenant. Physical circumcision was just an outward expression of this. Circumcision was to salvation under the Old Covenant what water baptism is today in the Christian Church. In the same way that the water itself does not save us when we are baptized, it is an outward expression of being baptized into Messiah’s death. We are commanded to be baptized outwardly as a sign of the inward grace that is taking place. But as with the thief on the cross, (who did not have the opportunity to be baptized in water) he too went to paradise by his faith in Messiah without being outwardly baptized. Now this is not to say that we should not circumcise our baby boys on the eighth day from birth. I still believe that we should for cleanliness. But for those Gentile believers that were not circumcised on the eighth day from birth, they did not need to get circumcised in order to be counted as a Jew. If they wanted to become circumcised they were certainly welcome to do so, but it was not a requirement for salvation. Now since Paul rebuked Peter and the other Apostles for requiring this, most Christians today think that they are exempt from keeping the Law of Moses. They come to false conclusions based on this issue of circumcision. But Paul was by no means using the circumcision issue to cancel out the rest of the commandments, as he illustrates here to the Corinthians: 1st Corinthians 7:19 Circumcision is nothing, and uncircumcision is nothing, but the keeping of the commandments of God. Aha! Paul is saying that being circumcised in your flesh means nothing and neither does being uncircumcised mean anything. The only thing that will mean anything in the kingdom of heaven is whether or not we KEEP HIS COMMANDMENTS, in other words the Torah (instructions). Revelation 22:14 “Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city.” And so you see beloved, it is not merely those believers who do signs and wonders in his name, but they that DO his commandments who will have the right to eat of the TREE OF LIFE! Y'shua warned us in Matthew 7 of those will come to him on that day saying: 22 Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? 23 And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity. In the Strong’s Greek Concordance the word for “iniquity” is as follows: # 458. anomia an-om-ee'-ah from 459; illegality, i.e. violation of law or (genitive case) wickedness:--iniquity, X transgress(-ion of) the law, unrighteousness. God’s remnant that truly belong to him and have the “seal” of the Holy Spirit in them will be characterized as ones who “keep his commandments” and “have his testimony.” Revelation 12:17 And the dragon was wroth with the woman, and went to make war with the remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Y'shua Messiah. Those who have the testimony of Y'shua Messiah will be evident by the fact that they KEEP THE COMMANDMENTS OF GOD. Matthew 22: 37 Y'shua said unto him, Thou shalt love YHWH thy Elohim with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. 38 This is the first and great commandment. 39 And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. 40 On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets. This means that all 613 commandments within the Five Books of Moses will “hang on” these two commandments. So what does he mean by “hang on”? He means that these two commandments are the “umbrella” for keeping the rest of the commandments. If we don’t keep the two greatest commandments, then it will mean nothing if we attempt to keep the other 613 commandments. Y'shua was by no means canceling out the other 613 commandments in the Torah with these two. How do we know this? Matthew 5: 17 Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. 18 For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled. 19 Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. What About Temple Ordinances? Without the temple in Jerusalem standing, the Levites cannot perform their priestly duties. It is obvious to us now that the Levitical priesthood were re-inacting the functions of our Messiah who acts as our Eternal High Priest in the Heavenly Tabernacle after the order of Melchisidek. When the 3rd Jewish Temple is rebuilt, these ordinances will be peformed once again by the Levites. But the "evening and morning sacrifices" were not a sacrifice for sin. They were only meant to be performed as "worship." The Yom Kippur and Passover sacrifices for sin were always done as prophetic pictures of "the Lamb slain since the foundations of the world." It was always understood that these animals never took away sin. It was always meant to point to the coming of Messiah. And so when these animal sacrifices begin once again in the 3rd Jewish temple, it will be for the purpose of God giving the Jewish people in Jerusalem the opportunity to once again see a prophetic picture of "the Lamb slain since the foundations of the world." It will be the antichrist who will then "take away the evening and morning sacrifices and set up the abomination of desolation" in it's place (Daniel 12). And so we must understand that even the temple ordinances are there to help us have an accurate picture of our Messiah. To those who don't know him yet, they serve as a prophetic shadow for them to have the eyes of their understanding opened to him. And so not one "punctuation mark" (jot or tittle) of the Law of Moses is done away with "until heaven and earth are passed away" and we know that this does not happen until the Millennium where Messiah rules for 1,000 years in the temple performing his priestly duties (Revelation 21:1, Ezekiel 40-48) Y'shua admonishes us that if any man shall teach us to break even the “least” of these 613 commandments in the Law he shall be called “least” in the kingdom. And so he is telling us that if we keep the two greatest commandments, the rest of the commandments will not be a burden to us. If we truly love YHWH, then we will desire to keep his commandments. 1st John 5:2 By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God, and keep his commandments. 1st John 5:3 For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments: and his commandments are not grievous. If we walk in the Holy Spirit’s power to overcome the “law of sin and death” then we will be led by the Holy Spirit to fulfill the righteousness of the Law the same way that our Messiah fulfilled the righteousness of the law: Romans 8:4 That the righteousness of the Torah (law) might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. |
