Before we get too zealous to study this entire calendar and obey everything to our understanding, and condemn those who appear to us to walk in disobedience, let us consider the most important verses in the whole scriptures:
Matt 22vs35-40: “and one of them, one learned in the Torah, did question, trying Him, and saying, “Teacher, which is the great command in the Torah?” and Yahshuah said to him, “ ‘You shall love YHVH your Elohim with all your heart, and with all your being, and with all your mind.’ “This is the first and great command, “and the second is like it, ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself.’ “On these two commands hang all the Torah and the prophets.”
Let us not forget to love then, and regard this as most important. Through the heart of love we shall understand. Let us acknowledge that we, like all of mankind have sinned and are in need of forgiveness and grace.
Isaiah 53vs6; “We all, like sheep, went astray, each one of us has turned to his own way. And YHVH has laid on Him the crookedness of us all.
Shaul writes a strong warning to the Galatians, in chapter 3 vs1-14:
“Oh senseless Galatians! Who has put you under a spell, not to obey the truth – before whose eyes Yahshuah Messiah was clearly portrayed among you as impaled? This only I wish to learn from you: Did you receive the Spirit by works of Torah, or by the hearing of belief? Are you so senseless? Having begun in the Spirit, do you now end in the flesh? Have you suffered so much in vain – if indeed in vain? Is He, then, who is supplying the Spirit to you and working miracles among you, doing it by works of Torah, or by hearing of belief? Even so Avraham “did believe Elohim, and it was reckoned unto him as righteousness.” Know, then, that those who are of belief are sons of Avraham. And the Scripture, having foreseen that Elohim would declare right the nations by belief, announced the Good News to Avraham beforehand, saying, “All the nations shall be blessed in you,” so that those who are of belief are blessed with Avraham, the believer. For as many as are of the works of Torah are under the curse, for it has been written, “Cursed is everyone who does not continue in all that has been written in the book of the Torah, to do them.” And that no one is declared right by the Torah before Elohim is clear, for “The righteous shall live by belief.” And the Torah is not of belief, but “The man who does them shall live by them.” Messiah redeemed us from the curse of the Torah, having become a curse for us – for it has been written, “Cursed is everyone who hangs upon a tree.” – in order that the blessing of Avraham might come upon the nations in Messiah Yahshuah, to receive the promise of the Spirit through belief.”
Avraham was justified by faith alone, not works, but “blessed, because Avraham obeyed My voice and guarded My Charge: My commands, My laws, and My Torot.” (Plural of Torah-teaching) Genesis 26vs5.
It is a loving relationship that sets us right with Elohim, forgiven of sins by the blood of the Lamb, not an outward religious ritual. See Yirmeyahu 7vs 21-23:
“Thus said YHVH of hosts, the Elohim of Yisra’el, “Add your burnt offerings to your slaughterings and eat meat. “For I did not speak to your fathers, or command them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Mitsrayim, about matters of burnt offerings or slaughterings. “But this word I did command them, saying, ‘Obey My Voice, and I shall be your Elohim, and you be my people. And walk in all the ways that I have commanded you, so that it be well with you.’
At this time the people of Israel were not obeying Elohim’s commands, they did not love Him. In order to justify themselves they were coming to the temple, and according to the instructions written in the Torah, they were offering up sacrifices for their sins, but their hearts were uncircumcised. Yet here in these verses of Jeremiah, YHVH says that he did not command them to do all this ritual. Is this a contradiction then? For does it not say such things in the Torah? No, the point that is being made here by Jeremiah to Israel is similar to (but not the same as), the point that Shaul makes to the Galatians.
The voice of YHVH via the prophetic writings of Yermeyahu goes on further to explain, that Elohim did not command sacrifice, but obedience. We aught to differentiate between the two. We aught to lovingly obey God and love our neighbour as ourselves. This is defined and explained all over the Scriptures, but most famously by the so-called “Ten Commandments” in Exodus/Shemoth chapter 20.
If we disobeyed at that time, the ritualistic sacrifices were ordained to make atonement with God. This was in fact a fore picture of the sacrifice of the Son of God (see the writings of Paul). The problem was people sinning grievously, and then just coming to the temple to get ‘cleared’ out of trouble. This is just the same as what the some churches did with the “confession” system. God has provided a means of grace for our mistakes, but not for us to just keep on sinning again and again, especially grievous and repetitive sins. We and He alone know our hearts.
YHVH does not change (Mal’aki 3vs6a; “For I am YHVH, I shall not change”). His will does not change. From the beginning, until beyond the end, He seeks us to love and obey Him forever. His will for how we live our lives remains unchanged, as it is written. What has changed is that in the so-called ‘Old Testament’, there was temple sacrifice and ritual, for the forgiveness of sins, by faith for those who did this so that atonement was made for them with God. Now in the in the so-called ‘New Testament’ era we believe that Yahshuah, the Son of Elohim became the only true sacrifice for all sins, for all time, for all the world. This offer of Gods grace needs to be believed and received by faith. By this faith we shall receive the Set-Apart Spirit, and inherit eternal life. Justifying ourselves by imagining that we are obeying a ‘to-do-list’ (even if the list is of God) is what Saul (Paul) so strongly warns about. Firstly we do not even know the whole list, and then we do not even understand each point on every level, body, mind and spirit. Even if we are zealous, we cannot claim that we obey it all now, nor always have, nor always will do.
Torah is not against us. But if you sin and you are charged with a transgression, will that charge sheet be against you? It most definitely will be. When Yeshua said, “it is finished”, it referred to a debt that had been paid. In Greek the word is “tetelestai”. You will notice in the Lord’s Prayer that in Matthew it says forgive us our debts, and in Luke it says forgive us our sins.
The reason for this is as follows: Matthew was originally written in Hebrew, and in Hebrew sin is called debt. However, it would not make sense in Greek, because in Greek they use different words for sin and for debt. If you told a Greek that your debt was paid, he would think that you owed money and that the account was settled, he would not associate it with the forgiveness of sin. Hebrew scholars consider this as proof that the gospels were originally written in Hebrew.
We can make the following modern analogy: if you transgress a traffic law, you get a fine. The fine is a debt that you must pay. If you pay the fine, it doesn’t mean that the traffic law is now finished and you can now speed or go over a red robot – try and tell that to a traffic officer!
But the Almighty creator is a righteous judge. He really knows the truth about every thought, every word and every deed. Nothing can be hid from him. He truly knows good and evil, in the heart of everyone. In this world the guilty sometimes go unpunished, and ‘good people’, sometimes are accused of being guilty. In the eyes of God, however, 1% evil and 99% good is guilty enough to fail the 100% requirement.
Saul is basically saying to the Galatians that they must be insane to think that they can be saved by faith in Yahshuah, by the Blood of the Lamb, and now they are “OK” 100% obeying Torah, and justified by diligent, perfect obedience.
What he is saying is that we are ‘free’ by faith in the mercy of God. For disobedience to the Torah has consequences, and that is the curse. If we walk by faith in the Spirit, we are set free from the curse of the Torah. Galatians 2 verse 16;
“knowing that a man is not declared right by works of Torah, but through belief in Yahshuah Messiah, even we have believed in Messiah Yahshuah, in order to be declared right by belief in Messiah and not by works of Torah, because by works of Torah no flesh shall be declared right.”
Does this mean we should not love and obey God 100% ? No, we cannot say that either, but surrender to the mercy of God. It is a very fine line, a narrow way, a delicate balance we need to continually re-consider daily on this walk of faith with our Creator.
Self justified legalism leads to death as much as lawlessness. The Scriptures have warned us. Study, but do not go astray, do not loose your first love. It is very important therefore to be lead by the Set-Apart Spirit into all understanding. Yashuah teaches us in John 14vs26;
“But the Helper, the Set-Apart Spirit, whom the Father shall send in My Name, He shall teach you all, and remind you of all that I said to you.”
And in Ephesians 1vs17-18; “that the Elohim of our Master Yahshuah Messiah, the Father of esteem, would give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him, the eyes of your understanding being enlightened, so that you know what is the expectation of His calling, and what are the riches of the esteem of His inheritance in the set-apart ones,”
Saul in his letter to Titus (3:8-9) writes, “This is a faithful saying, and these things I will that thou affirm constantly, that they which have believed in Elohim might be careful to maintain good works. These things are good and profitable unto men.
9 but avoid foolish questions, and genealogies, and contentions, and strivings about the Torah; for they are unprofitable and vain.”
Shalom and welcome to this presentation of what is a very ancient calendar system
