Yeshua Himself
taught in the Sermon on the Mount that He came not to abolish the
Law/Torah and the prophets but rather fulfill them. He stated that
it was easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for a single vowel
sign (the dots and tittles of the Hebrew vowels) from the Law/Torah until
ALL is accomplished[9].
And ALL will
be accomplished only once the new heaven and new earth come into existence.
Until then “the love of G-d is to keep His commandments”[10]
as specified in the Ten commandments and expounded/expanded on in Torah
stands. Yeshua cautioned that anyone who relaxes one of the least of
these commandments [of G-d] and teaches [Jewish] men so, shall be called
least in the Kingdom of heaven; but he who does them and teaches them shall
be called great in the Kingdom of heaven.”[11]
Note that Yeshua
addressed the Jews in this sermon, NOT the Gentiles, for this first blood
covenant of the keeping of the Law pertained only to the House of Israel
and not the Gentiles.
When some Jewish
believers demanded that the new Gentile converts be circumcised and keep
all of the Law, the Jerusalem conference was called to address this issue.
The decisions taken were as follows:
“….it seemed
good to the Holy Spirit, the Jerusalem assembly and the apostles to lay
no greater burden upon the Gentile converts than these necessary things:
• To abstain
from what has been sacrificed to idols;
• To abstain
from drinking or eating blood;
• To abstain
from what is strangled [i.e. put to death in a way that causes the creature
to suffer and
to release a secretion into the bloodstream harmful to human consumption]
• To abstain
from fornication.[13]
Just as those
Jewish legalistic believers misinterpreted the changes of the New Covenant,
so did the early Gentile Christian church fathers likewise misunderstand.
They failed to see the change in the FOUNDATION of the blood covenant;
that the FOUNDATION was no longer works of the law but FAITH IN YESHUA
for, “…no other foundation can any man lay than the one which is
laid, which is Yeshua HaMashiach.”[12]
The early Gentile
church fathers wrongly taught that Yeshua had abolished all of the
Mosaic Law in the New Covenant. Hence, any convert, whether Jewish or Gentile,
who delighted in G-d’s commandments and endeavored to observe them was
accused of being “under the Law”.
Eventually,
the early church went so far as to make the keeping of Torah, i.e. the
Law of Moses, punishable by death and in later years, beginning with the
Crusaders, forced the Jews to convert to their Gentile Christianity and
constrained them, in writing, to relinquish any relationship to the Jewish
people and Torah.
In other words,
the Church did all in its power to cut the Jew off from his own, cultivated
olive tree and graft him into its wild olive tree - precisely opposite
to G-d’s plan of salvation. Satan was doing all he could to foil G-d’s
plan.
The above gross
misinterpretation shows that the Church had failed and still fails to understand
the connection between Torah, the Jews and Yeshua; that Torah applied to
the Jew alone, the Gentile having no business with it, and that Yeshua
HAD NEVER ANNULLED the laws of Torah which pertained only to the Jew.
Apart from
the Noahic covenant, G-d had never covenanted with the Gentiles. Therefore
the Gentiles never did suffer the consequences of transgression as did
the Jews.
Orthodox Jews
outside of Yeshua still base their righteousness on keeping Torah along
with additional regulations added by Jewish sages throughout the centuries.
The orthodox Jews still have a “merit” system of works by which they may
gain G-d’s favor, blessings, prosperity, healing, etc.
The Gentile
outside of Yeshua, on the other hand, is without hope and G-d in the world[14].
Therefore he is commanded to REMEMBER from whence he was brought
and from what he was delivered.
Yeshua Himself
said that HIS yoke is easy in contrast to the Law whose yoke is hard. It
was the House of Israel who accepted the heavy yoke of the Law, not a Gentile
nation. Yeshua came to free the House of Israel from that heavy yoke.
But G-d did
not abolish His good commandments (extolled in Psalm 119); they are His
standard of righteousness by which we are to conduct our daily lives while
NO LONGER UNDER THE CURSE OF THE LAW!! The curse was part of the foundation
of the Old, First blood covenant.
G-d’s Kingdom
is not a Kingdom of lawlessness. Rather, Torah and the Word of G-d remain
in effect as standard of righteousness, justice and holiness[15].
