Manna From Heaven (4)
November 12 What say we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may increase? Romans 6:1 NASB
Sin – YHWH is a God of order. The Genesis account of creation is a bugle blast sounding order in the cosmos. Everything that YHWH does demonstrates ordered purpose. And the patterns that YHWH puts into place within His creation all proclaim order. Just for a moment, imagine yourself living in the 16th Century BC. You have come out of a culture where chaos, fickle gods and fate rule life. Now Moses tells you that YHWH is not like that. He loves His creation. He instructs His creation. He sets patterns in place to govern His creation. Would it come as a surprise to you that your religious and spiritual life is also patterned, ordered and purposeful? I don’t think so.
Grundmann notes that “The shift from the legal to the religious use [of sin] is important inasmuch as it shows that the religious life, too, is seen to be ordered, i.e., that dealings with God must follow a pattern.”[1] That is the entire point of the rituals established in Torah – patterned behavior. That is why Shabbat comes every week, why the appointed times follow agricultural patterns, why the new moon is important, why all of these ordered experiences are eternal commandments. The continuity of the community depends on the exercise of ordered existence and YHWH provides precisely the ordered existence needed for His people to claim that they belong to Him. To violate the pattern, to ignore its practice is hatah. At least that’s what the word means in the Tanakh.
Of course, you see where this is going, don’t you? When we lift the words out of their cultural context, we alter the patterns they established. And after awhile (say several centuries), we forget that we even changed the meaning. Now the words become our words; words that we define according to our practices and culture. So when Grundmann says, “For the OT as a whole, then, sin is a legal and theological term for what is against the norm,”[2] we ignore the fact that the “norm” is Israel’s practice and rituals. Instead we think that the “norm” is what we do now. We think that the pews, the altar, the stage, the praise and worship music, the sermon, the prayers and the offering (let’s not forget that) are the norm. And since church history verifies our thinking back to the 3rd century, we don’t ask anything about the meaning of the words as Yeshua understood them.
Actually, it’s just too threatening, too disconcerting, too risky to ask, “What if sin really is not following the patterns God established in Israel?” That would cause me to change a lot of things. No, better to simply pretend that sin is only about all those moral mistakes that I am certainly not guilty of doing. But YHWH is a God of patterns, isn’t He?
Topical Index: sin, hatah, Romans 6:1, pattern, order
” we ignore the fact that the “norm” is Israel’s practice and rituals.”
This would only appear to be true when Israel’s practices and rituals conformed with Torah. The many, many, many times that Israel’s practices and rituals conformed with some other standard only brought YHVH’s judgment upon them. So should we conform with Israel or conform with Torah? Are the two identical? If not, a choice is to be made.
Sorry, I should have clarified. It is conformity to Torah which was to be Israel’s standard. Israel’s experience when it did not conform should have taught the nations a severe lesson. IT strikes me that one of the great obstacles to Torah conformity is God’s grace. If He punished more and forgave less we might actually see the connection, but since He is so full of grace we often think that our misbehavior has no consequences.
This study adds greater insight to the text God gave me some 18months ago, of which i’m still working out: Jer 6 v/16 This is what the LORD says: “Stand at the crossroads and look; ask for the ancient paths, ask where the good way is, and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls. Clearly its decision time, the right way (God’s) or mans way. Forget tradition!!
The following verses are also interesting, do they not seem applicable to many now??? Just a thought, Blessing’s Simon
ps – Thank you again Skip for the insight into the richness of the word.
Yes, I was musing on the very same verse in light of this…
I give thanks to the Lord for making me cross path with Skip. More of His to you in bringing more of Torah Truth to us who were born and brought up outside of the Torah culture. Having said that, how then can one start living by His grace within this culture for I really do understand that in it is the fulness of life.
Skip, where do I begin at least to have a foundation in all this? I need your input.
Thanks, more of His grace love to you
Ifeoma
“Of course, you see where this is going, don’t you? When we lift the words out of their cultural context, we alter the patterns they established. And after awhile (say several centuries), we forget that we even changed the meaning. Now the words become our words; words that we define according to our practices and culture.”
Skip, I have a question. Is Victor Klemperer”s La langue ne ment pas (Language does not lie),basically saying the same as what you are, but taking it a step further?( or giving a really good analogy of how serious this can become.
How “the language of a clique became the language of a people”
“No, the most powerful influence was exerted neither by individual speeches nor by articles or flyers, posters or flags; it was not achieved by things which one had to absorb by conscious thought or conscious emotions.
Instead Nazism permeated the flesh and blood of the people through single words, idioms and sentence structures which were imposed on them in a million repetitions and taken on board mechanically and unconsciously. . . language does not simply write and think for me, it also increasingly dictates my feelings and governs my entire spiritual being the more unquestioningly and unconsciously I abandon myself to it.
And what happens if the cultivated language is made up of poisonous elements or has been made the bearer of poisons? Words can be like tiny doses of arsenic: they are swallowed unnoticed, appear to have no effect, and then after a little time the toxic reaction sets in after all.
THANK YOU so much for these quotes. Yes, this is the problem. What happens when we let go of ancient words and rituals to remind us of the meaning of the words? We SHIFT what we think and feel until one day we are no longer the people of those ancient words. Hesed is a perfect example. I want this book!
I hope this makes sense and I’m not to far off topic, but it came to my mind.
I grew up in Northern Michigan and I was immersed in natural cycles like berry picking, ice-fishing, canning, and raising baby chicks. Things kind of flowed with the seasons and there was always work to do.
I think these verses about the natural cycles from Proverbs 27 are so interesting.
Pr 27:23 Be sure you know the condition of your flocks, give careful attention to your herds;
Pr 27:24 for riches do not endure forever, and a crown is not secure for all generations.
Pr 27:25 When the hay is removed and new growth appears and the grass from the hills is gathered in,
Pr 27:26 the lambs will provide you with clothing, and the goats with the price of a field.
Pr 27:27 You will have plenty of goats’ milk to feed you and your family and to nourish your servant girls.
This seems to me to say the natural cycles are good and provide well what we need. Times of riches and power and the cycles they bring don’t last forever but collapse eventually and if you have paid attention to the natural cycles and kept them healthy you and your family will be nourished and thrive.
Are you saying the ways and patterns of God that he shows us through the true Israel are beautiful and feed and nourish body and soul when kept?
Yes, we have to look at sin and the Torah in the context it was orginally meant for, but the question is, how do we apply it to our lives, in our culture? Yes, it does not say that dancing is a sin, but it does say that sexual immorality is. If you’ve seen some of the dancing that I’ve seen lately, I would say it borders on sexually immoral. So then, how do we understand the Torah and commands in context, stay true to God’s word, but then apply them to the totally different culture we live in?