And in the End
For the Lord knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish. Psalm 1:6 NASB
Wicked – It is a laughable fact that statistically most people believe they are above average. It is a very sad fact that most people believe they are not among the wicked. Despite considerable warnings about the narrow way, most religious people, believe that they are on the right path. Most believers think once you have your ticket stamped, being good is good enough.
A month ago I was in China talking to the president of a Christian seminary. He proudly announced that 100,000 people had “come to the Lord” in his province. I asked him how he knew that. Reaching for another slice of cooked pork, he replied that the churches in the area performed 100,000 baptisms. “Baptized into what?” I thought to myself. Into a way of life that has been syncretizing pagan customs for 2000 years. Into a way of life that sees no connection to Torah. Into a way of life that is about being a good (and successful) person. If we talked about David’s definition of the wicked, the conversation would have ended abruptly. The first Psalm is about the preeminent place of Torah, the only true guiding light for life. The wicked are defined as those who do not follow the instructions of YHVH. Just like the statistics about “average,” the Greek paradigm of the Christian Church convinces believers that they are among the righteous in spite of their obvious behavioral misalignment.
Who, then, are the wicked? The Hebrew term is rasa (Resh-Shin-Ayin). “The person consuming experience” in Paleo-Hebrew. What might this mean? Could we suggest that the wicked are those who live according to their experience of life, whose standard is not the one revealed by the God outside the human frame but rather the standard of what pleases now, inside the human frame? Does it matter if that standard is determined by the Church rather than the civilization? The paradigm is still not revelation. It is accommodated revelation, modified and adjusted to the culture. Yes, the Church does advocate acts of righteousness, compassion, benevolence and moral character, but on what basis? The Bible? The Bible teaches Torah. Every prophet, every disciple, even the Messiah teaches Torah. The Bible does not teach a higher human morality. It teaches a revelation from God. Adjustments of that revelation are the signs of wickedness.
We must face the real statistics. Most people are average. There is nothing wrong with that. And most believers are good people. They are trying to live good lives and be faithful to God. They just don’t realize that Torah obedience is the standard of righteousness. They can’t imagine that Torah disobedience is wickedness. No one has ever taught them that nomos is Torah (law) and anomos is lawlessness, i.e., without Torah. 100,000 baptisms mean nothing without 100,000 observant followers of the revelation of YHVH. 100,000 baptisms means that these people have heard God speak to them but they haven’t heard Him say, “Now follow in my ways.” They have heard the Church tell them that their tickets are stamped, now go be a good person. It’s not their fault (yet). It’s the fault of 2000 years of anti-Jewish teaching. But that doesn’t make it excusable. Reading the word of God should convince anyone that God does have a standard and He expects His people to live by it. You and I know this. Therefore we are all the more accountable. But we are also expected to help others see it, so that 100,000 baptisms will mean 100,000 citizens of the Kingdom from heaven.
Notice that David does not say (and this is important) that the wicked will perish. He says that the way of the wicked will perish. In other words, the path that they tread, the behaviors they demonstrate, the system of thought they employ, the standards they accept—these will perish. Their way of life will be gone. Why? Because in the end, Torah will pour forth from Zion.
Now, please pass the shrimp. But don’t forget the Beatles.
Topical Index: wicked, rasa, Torah, Psalm 1:6
“To be in the Kingdom is to be baptized into Moses.” S.Moen
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TGcGxZfzG94
I always loved that song. I used to listen to it at full volume before I went in to take final exams in college. Cleared my head.
“With friends like these…who needs enemies”
With “Christians” like these … who need “The Anti-Christ”
Right. Sadly. One wonders if the anti-Christ is just a slight and subtle alteration in the true direction, couched in religious language so that no one will notice or question the shift.
Oh yeah.
To be baptised into Moses (Torah) is of John the Baptist.
Skip poses the question ‘Baptised into what?’ May be the ‘what’ in his mind is as the baptism of John.
I hope the Chinese pastor baptised 100,000, not into a ‘what’ but a ‘who’. Who? Jesus Christ of course, who is the fulfillment of the Law.
The Gospel of the Kingdom is not about doing but about being. Anything done that is set up as a substitute for the righteousness of Christ is the way of the wicked and will be burnt up as stubble and straw.
If Christ is all our righteousness then who are you? A do gooder or a good doer?
Can I respectfully disagree? The gospel of the Kingdom IS ABOUT DOING. Read James 1:27. What is true worship? It’s not about “being” at all. Being is a result of doing. The faithfulness of Yeshua is the grounds of our standing before the Father BUT if that is all it is, it is worthless. James simply repeats what the prophets said. If you love God, you DO what He does. If you aren’t DOING it, then you don’t love Him. Righteousness is not merely a forensic state. It is the result of obedience, Yeshua’s and ours.
Can I respectfully disagree? Respectfully no! The Gospel of the Kingdom is about being, otherwise it is not good news at all. When we are secure in our being in Christ then our doing is the result. James is right, if we are not doing it then we don’t love Him; equally he could have said if we love Him then we will do it.
Doing “what”? What is the measure of the standard that the church has taught you, if it is not the Word of YHWH found at the beginning of your Bible? The Word of YHWH found at the beginning of the Bible was the standard followed by Christ. He railed against the manner in which the Pharisees had elevated their own traditions, and had added to and taken away from the Word. He also caused the people to question their own motivation for obedience. But he never taught against the Word! The church teaches that the standard is love. Love is not a standard until you define what love is. And thankfully, Christ did exactly that when he pointed out that the two greatest commandments (both found in the OT), are the basis for all the rest of the law and for everything the prophets taught. John also tells us that love is obedience. Obedience to what? The only standard that these first believers had was the example of Christ.
As regards your reference to the “good news”, you should review the book of Hebrews to see that the “good news” was revealed to the Israelites in the desert, but that it did not profit them because they did not mix it with faith. What can we suppose that means? The “good news” of the death of Christ is not found in the teachings in the desert (as far as I can see), but the Israelites were instructed in how to live righteously. They just did not trust YHWH to be faithful to his promises. The “good news” is so much more than the death and resurrection of Christ, but don’t misunderstand, His death and resurrection are an integral part of the epic plan that YHWH is weaving.
In the fellowship that I attend we are all allowed to state our case, but just as in other settings, to have any credibility you must make your case based on facts, the text, and substantive evidence. Feelings don’t cut it. Neither does “because I say so” or “so and so says it is, and I believe so and so”. We also try to learn according to the idea that we don’t care what the truth is, we just want to figure it out so we can be obedient. Obedience is not legalism, but ignoring what should be obeyed is lawlessness.
Daniel Gruber makes a compelling, definitive case in his book Copernicus and the Jews that the “good news” has nothing to do with being saved by Jesus on the cross. The good news is that the kingdom of God has come to earth. This is the same good news revealed by Moses, proclaimed by Isaiah and established by Yeshua. The good news is not about my salvation. It is about much bigger things happening in the universe.
Well said!! N.T. Wright makes this point over and over. The Gospel is “Jesus is Lord and Caesar is NOT!!” God’s Kingdom has been established on Earth, as in Heaven. Yeshua is the first fruits of this Kingdom. God is doing a “cosmic level” restoration. One’s individual salvation is important, but not the most important thing God is doing. Many are so self-centered and absorbed within themselves and their individual salvation, that they are of no use in the Kingdom building work God has for us in the present life. God wants us on the playing field, not sitting in the stands.
If I can’t disagree, then why the heck am I studying?
Bizarre.
Christopher! I knew a Christopher once, from another forum. He was always good for a heated discussion and a private chuckle.
He also was good at splitting hairs. Irritating and the blazes sometimes but generally w/a good point, in the end.
We can ALL disagree…respectfully… 😉
Yes, it’s the same Christopher. And just in case anyone get’s the wrong idea I don’t expect everyone to agree with me, respectfully of course!
Hey, Christopher from me, too. Looking forward to not agreeing with you, too! Hope you find lots to chew here. My jaws get sore, some days…. Respectfully back.
Laurita
HAH! i got the “NO!” joke as soon as i saw it, and KNEW (or, rather, HOPED) it was the Christopher i knew.
I figure YOU won’t agree with anyone, except when you are tired, sick or distracted. For what it is worth.
Really glad to see you over here. Be advised, you sacred cows will be challenged, the weaknesses of your theories will be exposed and your lack of (over thinking of) research will be pointed out.
Mind sure has been. on all points.
Thanks ladies, nice to be touching base again, however I’m off to bed now, it’s getting late this side of the pond.
AMEN! Living according to The Owner’s Manual is the ONLY way to function correctly.
I hired a person who was “being” a contractor. However, he didn’t DO carpentry. Just said he did.
I fired him.
I didn’t need someone who IS a carpenter. I needed someone to DO carpentry.
Good point. !!
Good point, Michael C, and that statement will get you exactly halfway across the creek from the OTHER side. But unless you get together with the BEING person and hold hands, neither of you are going to make it, I fear. This discussion can get really ridiculous IF we keep insisting on arguing it from the parameters that we were handed from Devil Central. What I would like to suggest is that we try to start from the fact that the BEING and the DOING ARE the same thing. In other words, there can be no true being without doing and no true doing without being. There is no cartesian split. That is an illusion foisted upon us from Aristotle and before. Let’s just quit it. You cannot explain the straight starting from the crooked. The crooked is that righteousness is possible AT ALL without works AND without faith AT THE SAME TIME. The straight is that you get both or none. The rest is smoke and mirrors. Prove to me that righteousness is possible without being led by the Spirit. Prove it. Now prove to me that the Spirit is present WITHOUT CONCURRENT FRUIT.
Everybody? Waiting………
Laurita, You wrote “Prove to me that righteousness is possible without being led by the Spirit. Prove it. Now prove to me that the Spirit is present WITHOUT CONCURRENT FRUIT.”
With all due respect Laurita, I don’t think that anyone (and specifically, Michael C.) was claiming that works without faith can produce righteousness. He was pointing out that you can’t just “be”, or more accurately claim to “be”. You have to be “doing” something in accordance with what you claim to “be”. The forum was presented with the standard Christian argument that we are unable to follow Torah and so we don’t need to attempt to follow it (at least that is how I was reading it). Your statement asking Michael C. to “prove it” was somewhat inflammatory and was really just preaching to the choir. Paul is fairly clear in Romans that without the Spirit, we will have no ability to follow Torah, but that while we are in the Spirit (and therefore obedient to it) we are unable to do anything BUT follow the Torah. Your statement almost seems to be accusing some here of being Pharisees (i.e. righteousness earned by actions alone) which I don’t think you would intentionally do, given your prior comments, whereas the concerns expressed by myself and Michael C. (if I can be so bold as to speak on behalf of his statements), were pointing out what appeared to be the mire of the Christian way of thinking (i.e. confusing the way to salvation with the response to salvation).
I hope that this did not come across harshly. If it did, it was not intended.
Thanks for sticking up for Michael. Sorry about the ‘burn’. I love Michael. And you, too. Yes, I know what he meant. But you said it correctly, that we show BY our works. I am really struggling with the language, and don’t want to be inflammatory, but I am in need of better language to get around the split-in-half wording that we seem to end up with even when talking to ourselves. Maybe you can help me. I need a way to get this whole split back BEFORE the Tower of Babel messed up our ability to talk to each other. This is not a trivial point. This faith-vs-works thing is as big a wedge as the trinity. If we are ever going to get together and develop a good way to be able to talk about this without resorting to the same old dialectic (hate that word from hell), then at some point the split thing is going to have to disappear from the conversation. I am sorry to be yelling, but I am in need of a better way to speak. I need to have this fleshed out to where no one will be able to start off on the wrong foot. Help me! Thank you to Michael and you, too. I hope you don’t go away…
Hi, Laurita,
I’ll pass on trying to prove anything. I thought I had proven so much in previous years, yet now I have set aside so many “proven” things that turned out rather unproven.
Not sure what you mean by “Devil Central” so I’ll just say that I have a hard time thinking that separating an intellectual statement of who I am from what I do is somehow crooked. It seems that I can’t, at any given moment, settle on who I am apart from what I do. Being seems to be a moment by moment thing that follows what I do. Obeying Torah at any given moment is a show of righteousness. Disobeying Torah illustrates the opposite. My faith IS what I do, not just what I believe or claim for myself. As far as I can tell, righteousness, or what reflects YHWH, is defined, illustrated and explained in Torah. When one follows Torah, isn’t it clear that righteousness is exemplified? THE Spirit is YHWH, correct? He is spirit, which, frankly, I don’t really understand even though I express it continually.
I have trouble seeing how righteousness doesn’t come from Torah living. How can I BE righteous by exclamation and not follow Torah? Atonement is a covering for any deficit in righteousness, right? Were not our Torah and apostolic leaders considered righteous when the obeyed? Identifying the process as being led by THE spirit seems to differentiate from YHWH somehow. YHWH is spirit. Being led by him is the description of looking straight at Torah and aligning my actions with their instructions, right? “Being led by (the) spirit (YHWH) is doing Torah. What else can it be? I don’t see how anyone can isolate faith as separate from works that align and present Torah’s character in deed.
It seems to me, like the old adage, “all the proof of the pudding is in the eating,” that thinking in terms of “being” is the Greek response. In opposition is the Hebrew mindset of “doing.” Someone show me what they do, and as much as it aligns with Torah is the measurement of their faith. Whatever being is, I’ll leave that for others to judge by what I do consistently. It seems to me, whatever I will be will inevitably come from how I obey or don’t obey Torah regardless of what I assent to what I think I might be. My gauge is Torah, not my perception of my being because I have no clue as to what real life is except what is revealed to me in Torah. All else in Torah-less, lawlessness, unrighteousness.
So, I think I agree with what you said in so many words: “the being and the doing are the same thing.” But I make a distinction that thinking something, assenting to something is vastly different than doing it. And I realize there is much to say in that regard, much to long to say here in one response.
Sorry. Don’t think I proved anything.
Ok, Michael C. About that “thinking is vastly different than doing” thing. Ok, here goes.
“As a man thinketh in his HEART, so is he”. What does that verse mean? Obviously something different than we think (lol) it does! What does your nephesh make out of that verse? (I am not asking your cartesian head.)
Hi, again, Laurita,
“Ok, Michael C. About that “thinking is vastly different than doing” thing. Ok, here goes.
“As a man thinketh in his HEART, so is he”. What does that verse mean? Obviously something different than we think (lol) it does! What does your nephesh make out of that verse? (I am not asking your cartesian head.)”
I don’t know if this will get to where it will easily fit as a response to your statement, so I just included it in the beginning.
I look at this verse differently than I did several years ago. I was typically and consistently taught from my traditional conservative christian upbringing this verse meant I needed to “think” right, “think holy” thoughts, keep my thoughts captive and respectable. That is, thinking and believing correctly was the key. Align my thoughts with all those good new testament quotes so that my “so is he” will turn out ok.
But, I’m not yet sure that is what it means. Could it simply be a statement that acts like a guard pointing us to the way of Havvah so as to learn from her mistaken deception? She turned out to BE who she THOUGHT she should be. She THOUGHT like a walking, talking, naked snake convinced her to think. She became what she allowed her thinking to become. The rough part was that her thinking actually produced what she became. As Havvah thought in her heart, so she became. She then, using her strong influence as Adam’s ezer, somehow gave him permission, in his own thinking, to circumvent YHWH’s very word! Instead of obeying, he thought his own thoughts instead of YHWH’s instruction. Maybe if Adam and Havvah hadn’t thought so much and did more obeying of the clear command of YHWH, it would have been someone else that wore the “sin entered in through me” moniker.
So, what do I make of this verse? One tiny scratch of the surface might mean that, as I delineated earlier, yes, as a man thinks, so is he. So, I better be careful to exert all my strength, all my might, all my nephesh to align myself with that which YHWH demands of me. The beast is always at the door. I am to master that beast and choose yetzer haTov over haRa at every occurrence. And I believe those demands are set out in Torah. As the saying goes, “to be led by the spirit,” is simply a clear and visible demonstration that I am being righteous, that is, residing in the Tree of Life, Torah, as I obey it. I don’t have to necessarily think about it, I need to do it. I can think about it later, after I do it and experience the understanding of living in life. From that I am apt to seek more and clearer understanding of how to continue in Torah observance.
And, realistically, I am far from complete Torah obedience. I can relate to Paul very well in his anguishing statement of “doing the very thing I hate!” I didn’t mention earlier, but I am not, in any way, connecting Torah obedience with earning something only atonement can achieve. And I don’t even understand how YHWH achieved atonement for me “before the foundation of the world.” Torah obedience is where life resides. Righteousness is living. Instructions for right living is found only in Torah as far as I can determine. No where else. So, the question is: What do I do to exhibit being led by (the) spirit (YHWH?) He said, “If you love me you will keep my commandments.” The only commandments that fit that description comes from Torah. The very same commandments Yeshua, Paul and all those other first century believers obeyed. It’s not legalism. It is reciprocating love. He first loved me. I am obliged to love him back. Hesed. Do it. Don’t talk about it, think about it, philosophize it. Just do it. The doing will provide all the explanation needed more that talking, thinking and philosophizing. No explanation needed. There it is. I see it in action. Done. Clear. Fully explained.
Frankly, I wish just talking about it was sufficient. I can talk about a ton of stuff so easy. It’s the doing that makes me gasp. I’m still and continually trying to practicalize (I don’t think that is a real word!) “his yoke is easy and burden is light.” Yeah, Ok, if you say so. I’ll keep my efforts in doing it until, hopefully one day, I’ll understand the easy and light part. I’m certainly not there yet. But I’ll keep doing until then.
Ok. That was my tiny scratch on the surface of that question. Stick with me for the rest of our lives and maybe we’ll fully ‘get it.’ ‘Course I’m going to be hanging around people like Skip, and Rodney and Suzanne and all those guys whose books I’m reading for some further insight. I’m not going it alone, that’s fer shure! 🙂
Michael, I am going to bite your line one more time. Thank you for helping me. You wondered about how reality changed about the same time Havvah changed her mind. Then, later, you got to musing about being led by the Spirit.
Do you try to keep up with physics at all? The subject of the theoretical stuff, I mean. Romans 1 says that we can know Him by His works. The study of physics is one way to see Him, then. Are you familiar with the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle? I don’t understand it enough to paraphrase it, but if we cannot even view the stuff of reality without changing it, then doesn’t it make sense that somehow the power of choice has some sort of relationship with reality that is vastly different than Descartes would have wanted us to know?
Second, it took me a long time of being snookered before I began to suspect that I was not going to be able to choose to not be influenced (led) by a spirit. I began to catch on that we are HARDWIRED to be led by a spirit. Science is starting to catch up with this, and the sweat around the collar is beginning to steam a little. It is not our thoughts that are the origin of our experience. There are theta ‘brain’ waves that do NOT originate from the brain that are firing before the brain does. Where do they come from? And why are we cautioned to “believe not every spirit, but try the spirits (small “s”) to see if they are of God”? We ASSUME that, somehow, we are on our own; independent, free agents, if we are not following the Spirit of God, but, is that really true? It is impossible to think a thought that does not line up with what we are believing in our hearts. “Wait a minute”, you say. “What about all those oh-so-righteous thoughts that I am always thinking, but never acting on?” There is that cartesian split right there. I want to ask “what spirit are you thinking those thoughts in?” I am proposing that it could be possible to think a correct thought in the wrong spirit. Um, the room just got hot. So what does that mean? Is it possible to THINK I am believing the right stuff in my heart that is producing those oh-so-right thoughts in my head (that are NOT culminating in right actions) but in actuality I am believing some unrighteousness that is preventing me from lining up with the Spirit, all the while hiding behind another unholy spirit? Say, a spirit of error, or fear, or even one that is telling me that there is some sort of fictional character called Self that I can follow the spirit of? If I am to “try the spirits” (plural), then how many are there? And how are they to be “tried”? Most importantly, if my actions ARE NOT lining up with what I THINK I believe, then what is actually going on down there in my belly where my spirit, heart, belief system lives? “As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he”. If the “he” that is is-ing is different than that supposedly appearing, walking, quacking duck, then how is heaven viewing the duck? Should we then be needing to talk about a spirit-try? (Not to be confused by a spirit-fry per se, but if we happen to catch some of those slippery suckers, perhaps we should try frying those sneaky rascals….) Ok, I’m going to quit frying you, and this is so not personal to anyone else! It is just where I am at, and I am sorry to drag you through it. You can all feel free to ignore me! God bless us all.
Laurita,
I don’t think I got any of that at all??
Sorry.
See? I think all the words have been hijacked and made to mean something else entirely, so that we cannot even have a conversation or form the thoughts in our heads to have one. Skip is losing his hair about this. He has to be if he keeps on pulling it out in frustration about this. So am I!
What did you not get?
IF my mind, spirit and body are nephesh (one), then whatever I am producing in my spirit (heart) is going to show up in my mind and body concurrently. My thoughts and the very cells in my body are going to be reflecting what I am believing in my heart.
There are tons and tons and hundreds of thousands of studies and books in the scientific, medical and secular communities, not to mention other religious communities, that concur with this, and have been for the last 20-30 years. The ONLY communities, in fact, that I find curiously devoid of this understanding, is exactly the Judeo-Christian community. WHY?????????????????????
If we insist on keeping this up, are the very stones going to start crying out????
What is it going to take for us to really be willing to engage in something that is going to take us beyond the cartesian split: this double-minded thinking that has left us unstable in all our ways, unable to even be able to THINK correctly about words in the Word that are in front of our faces, because we are BELIEVING incorrect assumptions about what they MUST mean for us to be able to exist in a dual, fractionated and dislocated universe, where what I think in my head, believe in my heart and live in my body are disconnected? Are they REALLY disconnected? Or is there a connection between the error in the heart, the insanity in the head, and the illness in the body? All these other communities are beginning to sound the same: they say “yes!!!!!!!”. But none of them are able to explain why. Only we have been given the key to understand, but we are perishing still because we want to stay stuck in the errors and language and belief systems we got handed by our hoary-headed ancestors.
Skip had been painfully de-and-re-constructing the language we have been given to use to talk about this. Is he not far enough yet? How are we going to talk about the nephesh, the trinity, the works-and-grace issue, and all the other unholy splits that got accomplished when all the things that originally got joined together (ordered) got blasted back apart in the darkness of pagan error?
Some days I feel like the character on the bridge in Edward Munch’s silent Scream…. Do we really have no words yet that have been de-contaminated?
Michael, I know you know this, I can see that you have experience. Do you really have no words yet for that experience that you can see matches what you KNOW (yada) to be true? What language do you use? Lets use yours… But please, let us continue to try to talk!
Shalom.
Don’t worry about me. I am not losing my hair. Just getting it cut.
Skip, happy haircutting, then. Gives me one less thing to worry about… I want to keep my hair, too…
Laurita,
I’m trying to image reading ten or eleven studies/books EACH day, every day straight for at least fifty years to reach your number of hundreds of thousands (just using a minimum of 200,000 to get to a plural of thousands) of studies and books to concur with your statements. How does one do that?! Your gross exaggeration tends to lessen the impact. Just saying.
Hi Laurita,
It seems that we are going in circles here, and I’m wondering if that is not rooted in our continued attempt to understand the movement implicit in Hebraic concepts with our Greek mindset. The whole concept of “being” is Greek, i.e., that we believe we can “think” our way out of a problem. In Hebrew — if I’m understanding correctly — there is not a “rational” explanation for being; there is only action and obedience. It is the never-ending movement from incomplete to complete in this language of verbs. We keep trying to grasp it from the static noun-based Greek perspective, and it just further confuses us. I don’t have an answer for how to get there, except to wonder, when we are going in circles, whether we are creating the rut we can’t get out of, by insisting on words to explain it.
Hope I didn’t just further muddy the waters here. 🙂
No mud at all. You are on the right track. There is a reason that abstract concepts rarely occur in Hebrew but populate Greek thinking.
Oops , sorry, I didn’t address your Descartes issue. I may have mistakenly assumed you are in line with the totality of nephesh concept in that it identifies the whole person as opposed to a trinity of parts, i.e. body, soul, spirit.
Michael C, I like your statement of reality, thank you. You are actually answering my question better than you think you are. There is a frontier here that I think is uncomfortable because, like you keep trying to say, it is hard to describe. But, perhaps we are going to have to try getting a little closer to it if we are going to wrest the situation back out of this dialectic from hell; this Descartian split in a very real sense. This problem keeps right on going, and encompasses both the trinity issue as well as the nephesh issue, too. If we don’t start right in the middle of the mess, then we are going to have to continue to limp along with the miserable language we have been spoon fed for so long. Thanks for the nephesh endorsement. I am trying to learn how to stay standing on that place, too.
Actually, Michael, your math on how many publications in the brain research field alone is probably about right. I just last week heard a top brain researcher complaining about having to be able to do just that to keep up with all we are finding out (fifty publications, including books, a day). She was throwing up her hands. No one can do it. Not to mention the rest of the fields.
Suzanne, I am going to read what you said a few more times. There is a lot there. It is true that we make up our own problems and dig our own holes. The problem I am having is that people seem to think that we can use the words in the Bible to dig them with. They toss around the terms they find there and use them just any old way, and now we are all confused. We cannot ignore what it has to say, nor can we get around the mud in that pond. We have to see through it to even be able to read it. Skip is clearing mud. I am not trying to add to it, please believe me! But I am quoting terms I find there. I am not trying to make them up. I am trying to follow what they say!
But if I am one composite organism, a nephesh, then I cannot have it both ways, and just think that what goes down in the brain is not concurrently going down in the rest of me. There is a reason that there is a short circuit between the two. I don’t think (sic) there was supposed to be. If there weren’t a problem with my thoughts, I don’t think (lol) that I would have been advised to take all of them captive. Then what am I supposed to do with them? Why EVERY thought? Why captive? What problem with thoughts is going on?
Christopher,
Christ is the “goal” of the law, not the “termination” of the law. Skip wrote about this recently. The word translated “end” has multiple potential translations. Similarly, our word “end” has multiple potential uses. Yes, it can mean “completion” or “termination”, but it can also mean “goal”. Think of the english phrases “The ends justify the means”, and “the means to an end”. In both these phrases the word “end” does not mean “completion” or “termination”, but rather “goal”.
I notice that you only partially paraphrased the scripture when you stated that Christ is the fulfillment of the law. The actual verse states “For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.” Romans 10:4. Until I learned the underlying word for “end” I thought that this was one of the most poorly written statements in the bible, but only because I was being taught that it meant that the law was terminated by Christ. How could Christ be the end of the “law for righteousness”, if the law was in fact “for” righteousness? Why would the Father want to end such a law? He had already told Israel in the OT that this body of laws would be the envy of all the surrounding nations. Alternately, how could Christ be the end of the law in order to advance the cause of righteousness, when even the church taught that the old testament tells us that God’s Word (i.e. torah, law) IS righteous? How can righteous become more righteous? Neither of these positions make sense, but the use of the word “end” serves the larger purpose of separating the body from their Messiah, and if you tell a lie long enough, and loud enough … well, you know.
If we want to live righteously in accordance with the Words of the Father, and we have any question about how to do that, the first place to look is to Christ and the example that He gave us, both in life and in death. He is the Word made flesh. The life He lived was the life that Torah was pointing Israel to. He did not live according to Torah so that he could “abolish” it for everyone else (where have I heard that before?), but to show us how to live it out, as literally as possible. It almost seems as if He knew that someone would come along and argue that His perfect life somehow gets us out of following Torah. How could He have known that? If we convert God’s Word to a set of principles (as the Church has so eloquently argued) the result is that God’s Word becomes merely a set of suggestions, which allows me to pick and choose those of which I want to follow and those of which don’t apply because they don’t apply anymore.
Christ is the means to the end of living righteously, for those who believe (“believe”, of course, being an active verb, and not a noun).
Hi Jordan D
You’re right, I did say Christ is the fulfilment of the law, however please note that I did not say Christ terminated the law. The good news is that Christ has fulfilled the Law for us because we are incapable of fulfilling it ourselves. That does not excuse us from not trying to be obedient to the Law but an honest admission of our failure and hence our need for a Saviour found in the name of Jesus, the only name under heaven by which we may be saved. Or is it that His middle name is Torah?.
And yes, the good news is much more than just a ticket to heaven….reconciliation and restoration for all of creation for starters.
If we are truly incapable of keeping Torah, then Moses lied to us when he said that it was not too difficult and not too far away. Worse yet, God gave us Torah knowing that we were not capable of keeping it. Is that justice? No, I think we have embraced an Augustinian/Lutheran idea not found in Scripture. There is no point in God giving instructions for living, and holding us accountable to them, if we are NOT CAPABLE of keeping them. Choosing not to keep them is not the same as being UNABLE to keep them. You will have to decide which one of these you really meant.
You’re right, it’s not too difficult because the word is very near, it is in our mouth and in our hearts. Nevertheless that covenant was broken and is still being broken today but a new covenant was promised in which the law is actually put in our minds and written on our hearts so that we no longer have to be told.
Laurita Hayes in her post at 4.10pm expands on that and nobody is yet to publicly disagree with her.
Which as far as I can tell has not been fulfilled yet.
Thinking back on what damaged me most growing up under Calvinism was the indoctrination that we were not supposed to walk TORAH but were totally depraved… now I understand why (some) Christians are acting totally depraved and finding depravity acceptable.
Yeshua was complete in TORAH before the beginning of time… what He came to do was to demonstrate that it was possible to fulfill the TORAH (which is not forefather precepts / worship which is what the “church” is preaching) on the Earthly Kingdom as in the Heavens …. and we are supposed to follow that example. Not as arrogant masters and saints but children and bond-slaves / servants.
I dislike as much as you the term total depravity, but the fact of the matter no one, except Jesus, has ever followed the Law to the letter either BC or AD. If any one claims to they are a liar.
Enoch? David? (Yes, he claims to be blameless). Paul?
Perhaps your definition of “depravity” comes from Augustine and Luther, not from the Bible. Perhaps your view is incompatible with the idea of atonement in Scripture. Perhaps you have adopted a Greek idealism rather than the Hebraic temporal condition.
Does blameless equate to sinless?
See what the Hebrew words are.
OK, but not now as its late here and I’ll be up all night if I do. What dictionary or commentary would you recommend?
The best is the Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament (15 volumes so far), but you may not have it available. If not, try the Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament, but remember that it is much condensed.
As children and slaves we are always under supervision. Motherly supervision …the Father’s Ezer K also referred to as Ruach HaKodesh.
Perfection is not a Hebrew concept, apparently … Sojourners were satisfied if something was functional / fit for purpose.
Depends on how you define “perfection.” Take a look at Parmenides. His definition is the basis of Christian thinking and it precludes any hope of relationship, person, involvement, creation or interaction. Once again, God, Time and the Limits of Omniscience.
I have a small problem with the “complete in Torah before the beginning of time.” No problem with the Torah part, but the idea of “before the beginning of time” is not only nonsensical, it isn’t biblical as far as I can see. You might read my PhD dissertation, God, Time and the Limits of Omniscience on this temporality issue. There are several logical fallacies involved in the “before time” idea.
Furthermore, as I attempted to show in Cross Word Puzzles, I don’t think Yeshua’s role as Messiah was to prove that we could live according to Torah. There are prior biblical examples that suffice. I argued that his role as Messiah was to guarantee the presence of the Kingdom on earth by defeating the last stronghold of defilement, i.e., death.
Let me rephrase: … in Torah outside the linear concept of time.
Will look at the references when I have time .. pun intended.
“outside” the linear concept of time? What is that? Is time space? Does time have an “inside” and an “outside”? are you beginning to see the problem?
This is not my field of study, but as I understand, for the Greek mind, time is linear.
For the Hebrew mind, time is spiral (some say circular but spiral seems more logical)
However “The Most High” is not subject to either time or space or anything for that matter.
Similarly the “Son of Yah” was complete in Torah (fulfilled with Torah) / demonstrated the sumtotal of Torah before creation.
You are right (almost) about the Greek idea and the Hebrew idea (cycloid). But your next step in the argument is imported Parmenidean philosophy/theology, not biblical text. “Not subject to time or space” leaves you with INTRACTABLE problems (see Nelson Pike). Similarly, the idea that the Son existed in fullness of Torah before time and space leaves you with another set of IRRECONCILABLE issues. Both require extensive and careful articulation and dissection. Again, God, Time and the Limits of Omniscience will get you started. Don’t be naive in this pursuit. The typical theological affirmations are suspect at best and illogical at worst, even if they have been repeated for 2500 years (that takes you back to Parmenides again). Plato had a much more significant influence on Christian thinking than Moses.
Skip, you said,… “Notice that David does not say (and this is important) that the wicked will perish. He says that the way of the wicked will perish. In other words, the path that they tread, the behaviors they demonstrate, the system of thought they employ, the standards they accept—these will perish. Their way of life will be gone. Why? Because in the end, Torah will pour forth from Zion.”
Any thoughts on what WILL happen to the wicked???
That, my dear, is a LONG discussion.
Recently a birth mother said, “I would rather face God with my abortion than to face the church with my unplanned pregnancy. “
Roderick…wow…just wow…how true and how sad 🙁
I once saw a hippo mating. One term for the “church” is hippocrates. I recall a story or two of “righteous” men who were all to willing to toss out their women. There are a lot of stones out there. Any way you slice it, it’s gory for the one who bears the shame. Shame comes from not living up to the standard. So, it does become pretty important to know whether keeping those instructions would actually now separate us from God’s best (legalism) or whether instructions from YHVH are good, and as much as we can emulate of the ways and customs of Messiah would be good for us as well and actually pleasing to YHVH and the most loving thing we can do as humans.
Great discussion here.
“statistically most people believe they are above average.” Isn’t that an oxymoron? I had to chuckle at this statement.
Today is another rough one for me physically but, Skip, I WANT TO THANK YOU FOR YOUR GIFT: when I read that “the kingdom of God has come to earth” my heart skipped a beat in excitement. WOW. Think on that. We read those words all the time; I think that most of us who love Him talk about the Messiah rather numbly, academically, so comfortably. We should have a Town Cryer knocking on every door screaming 24/7 until God reigns on this globe (starting at my house in order to keep me focused!) that THE MESSIAH IN THE FLESH ACTUALLY CAME TO THIS WRETCHED PLANET (well, wretched people. The planet God created is just a victim.)… TO BE WITH GOD’S PEOPLE!!!!!!!!!!!
That’s way bigger than “good news.” What were the original Hebrew>Greek words there? Can you tell us?
RIghteousness OR faith? I think the devil split the baby. YOU CANNOT HAVE ONE WITHOUT THE OTHER. Why?
There is something called doing an action with the wrong, or in the wrong, spirit. There is something called trying to do something in the right spirit. I would rather have someone apologize to me in the crudest way imaginable that truly was sorry than a thousand ‘perfect’ apologies that were insincere. Anybody want to disagree with me?
Now, I can hear the murmurs from here. “But what about those people who ‘meant well’ but were breaking every condition that Love ever set?”
This is where I think the devil split the baby.
There is no such thing as love in my body that was NOT put there by God. I cannot generate it, nor was I born even knowing what it was (not to be confused with being born with NEEDING it, of course). Anything that is not being done in faith/love is sin. NO MATTER WHAT THE ACTION OR WORDS MAY BE. Even perfect Torah obedience I find in scripture likened to “whitewashed sepulchres, full of dead men’s bones”. That “dead men’s bones” used to puzzle me, but, literally, I think that that analogy can be paired with Paul describing “dead works”. We are all ‘dead’ without the quickening impulse of love. Just going around doing lifeless stuff. Even outwardly ‘perfect’ lifeless stuff. But if the word in Scripture called “perfect” really means “holding up my end of the stick”, then shouldn’t there be Someone on the other end of that stick? There is no such thing as ‘doing’ Torah all by my lonesome. If I am not inspired, powered and directed by the Holy Spirit of Yeshua at every breath, then I am literally dead on my feet. doesn’t matter WHAT I may be doing, it is not going to fit into the Big Plan.
When I went and looked at the list of the fruits of the Holy Spirit, back in my do-Torah-by-myself days, I got frustrated. Take patience, for example. I saw patience was on the list, so I decided I was going to be a perfectly patient person. Force of will, mind you. Looking back, I see a landscape riddled with the carcases of situations where I was employing patience IN THE WRONG SPIRIT (because I did not ‘have’ the right One), with some truly spectacular disasters. THis was all in the name of love, mind you. I was trying my utmost to achieve what I knew was right. BUT. I was patient when I should have been up in arms about injustice. I was patient when I should have just plain run. I was patient in situations that used me for cred in evil ways. In other words, I was not deploying patience tactically. The spirits that I was using (or were using me, is more like it!) to actually deploy it with were from hell. They were all spirits of fear, shame and guilt. I was actually freezing in places, but was believing that I was being patient. I was believing lies. Long story short, patience is not an inherent virtue any more than the rest of those fruits. There still has to be judicious application of righteousness; there still has to be an awareness of what love actually looks like in each place. Now, who can claim to have “perfect” (LOL) understanding of THAT? It takes two to tango perfection.
I need the Holy Spirit to guide me into all truth, and I need to follow by faith. I have discovered that Torah is not a Road Map per se. It is just one half of a secret code. I still need directions on where I need to be on that Way at any given moment. For all the obvious reasons. And, of course, in the right Spirit. Amen.
Ok, y’all: I am going to sing:
“You gotta know when to hold ’em;
know when to fold ’em;
know when to walk away;
know when to run.
You never count your Torah,
sittin’ at the table;
there’ll be time enough for countin’,
when the dealin’s done.”
I’m shutting up….
I would like to add my recommendation to Skip’s for Daniel Gruber’s book “Copernicus and the Jews”. It’s a great book for anyone to read but especially those whose primary view of scripture is what they have been taught by the church. You might find a few surprises and find you have to change your perspective on some things. I know I did.
Daniel Gruber may be speaking to the Israel Tour groups in 2015. In Israel.
Ditto, Mel.
I really enjoyed the book and appreciated the observations Gruber offered. Very interesting and enlightening.
Roderick,
you have no idea how many women i have worked with aborted under that concept.
Lightweight.
Skip gets over to England every now and then. Maybe you can look him up. Really great to see your “No!” today. Hope you enjoy the exchanges here.
Good point, Michael C, and that statement will get you exactly halfway across the creek from the OTHER side. But unless you get together with the BEING person and hold hands, neither of you are going to make it, I fear. This discussion can get really ridiculous IF we keep insisting on arguing it from the parameters that we were handed from Devil Central. What I would like to suggest is that we try to start from the fact that the BEING and the DOING ARE the same thing. In other words, there can be no true being without doing and no true doing without being. There is no cartesian split. That is an illusion foisted upon us from Aristotle and before. Let’s just quit it. You cannot explain the straight starting from the crooked. The crooked is that righteousness is possible AT ALL without works AND without faith AT THE SAME TIME. The straight is that you get both or none. The rest is smoke and mirrors. Prove to me that righteousness is possible without being led by the Spirit. Prove it. Now prove to me that the Spirit is present WITHOUT CONCURRENT FRUIT.
Everybody? Waiting………