tulsa 2011
Member
- Joined
- Dec 18, 2010
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On the Issue of the Unified Torah Or Law
The theology called dispensationalism, Christian Zionism, separation theology, postponement theology or the rapture cult has not taught that under the New Covenant the Torah or Law is unified and that all parts of the Law given in the five books of Moses must now be observed. For example, sin is the transgression of the Law. To deliberately murder someone is sin. But to be uncircumcised is not sin. To eat pig meat is not sin, though it is not a good idea to eat it regularly. However, Messianic Judaism, Hebrew Roots and the Sacred Name theology people do demand observance of some of the laws of the Torah that can be called ceremonies or rites.
Dispensationalism could not have gotten by teaching that the Torah remains the unified Law that it was under the Old Covenant. At least it could not have been accepted by so many denominations in the late 19th and 20th century had it taught a unified Torah. It did teach that all Old Covenant Israel remains God people, along with the entity called the church, the word originally from circe, pronounced kirkee. Dispensationalism even back then implied strongly that Old Covenant Israel remains the chosen people.
The whole issue in Acts 15 was about Paul's teaching that circumcision was no longer a ceremony necessary at all for entering the kingdom of God. This certainly implies that the unified Torah or Law was no longer unified under the New Covenant. The moral law part of the Law must remain because it is the righteousness of God. This is all fundamental to the Gospel of Christ. To now teach that a person can be in Christ and yet regard the Torah as unified is another Gospel.
The issue in Acts 21: 20-21, where James told Paul that there were thousands of Jews that believed and are zealous of the Law, and that they know that Paul is teaching the Gentiles to forsake Moses, is about the Jews which believed but were zealous for the Law refusing to separate the Law out into its moral and ceremony part. Hebrews 10: 1 and Colossians 2: 16-17 calls the ceremony part of the Law the shadow.
The word ceremonies is in the Old Testament.
"Let the children of Israel also keep the passover at his appointed season.
3. In the fourteenth day of this month, at even, ye shall keep it in his appointed season: according to all the rites of it, and according to all the ceremonies thereof, shall ye keep it." Numbers 9: 2-3
Ceremonies is Strong's exhaustive concordance number 4941, mishpat, which, among other things, can mean ceremony.
I know that the NIV does not translate mishpat as ceremonies, but as rules and regulations. The Geneva Bible has rites and ceremonies, And the New King James version has rites and ceremonies.
Ritual is not in scripture, but rites is also found in Numbers 9: 3, above.
Shadow, used in Hebrews 10: 1, in Colossians 2: 16-17 and in Luke 1: 79, is Strong's number 4639, skia, which is said to mean "shade, or a shadow, literally or figuratively, darkness or error, or an adumbration, shadow." Adumbration means to prefigure in a vague way. Those ceremonies ordained for the people of the Old Covenant prefigured the substance which is Christ that was to come. Colossians 2: 17, quoted below, points out that the soma, or body, "is of Christ." The substance is Christ.
"For the law having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with those sacrifices which they offered year by year continually make the comers thereunto perfect." Hebrews 10: 1
"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 Christ." Those parts of the unified Torah or Law which are ceremonial, or rites, are just shadows, or prefigurings of the substance which was to come later, that is Jesus Christ. To continue observing those shadows, now darkness and error, is to insult Christ who came about two thousand years ago.
"To give light to them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace." Luke 1: 79
Christ came to bring light and life to those who operate in the shadows. To not divide the Torah into its moral and ceremony components is to return to those shadows.
The theology called dispensationalism, Christian Zionism, separation theology, postponement theology or the rapture cult has not taught that under the New Covenant the Torah or Law is unified and that all parts of the Law given in the five books of Moses must now be observed. For example, sin is the transgression of the Law. To deliberately murder someone is sin. But to be uncircumcised is not sin. To eat pig meat is not sin, though it is not a good idea to eat it regularly. However, Messianic Judaism, Hebrew Roots and the Sacred Name theology people do demand observance of some of the laws of the Torah that can be called ceremonies or rites.
Dispensationalism could not have gotten by teaching that the Torah remains the unified Law that it was under the Old Covenant. At least it could not have been accepted by so many denominations in the late 19th and 20th century had it taught a unified Torah. It did teach that all Old Covenant Israel remains God people, along with the entity called the church, the word originally from circe, pronounced kirkee. Dispensationalism even back then implied strongly that Old Covenant Israel remains the chosen people.
The whole issue in Acts 15 was about Paul's teaching that circumcision was no longer a ceremony necessary at all for entering the kingdom of God. This certainly implies that the unified Torah or Law was no longer unified under the New Covenant. The moral law part of the Law must remain because it is the righteousness of God. This is all fundamental to the Gospel of Christ. To now teach that a person can be in Christ and yet regard the Torah as unified is another Gospel.
The issue in Acts 21: 20-21, where James told Paul that there were thousands of Jews that believed and are zealous of the Law, and that they know that Paul is teaching the Gentiles to forsake Moses, is about the Jews which believed but were zealous for the Law refusing to separate the Law out into its moral and ceremony part. Hebrews 10: 1 and Colossians 2: 16-17 calls the ceremony part of the Law the shadow.
The word ceremonies is in the Old Testament.
"Let the children of Israel also keep the passover at his appointed season.
3. In the fourteenth day of this month, at even, ye shall keep it in his appointed season: according to all the rites of it, and according to all the ceremonies thereof, shall ye keep it." Numbers 9: 2-3
Ceremonies is Strong's exhaustive concordance number 4941, mishpat, which, among other things, can mean ceremony.
I know that the NIV does not translate mishpat as ceremonies, but as rules and regulations. The Geneva Bible has rites and ceremonies, And the New King James version has rites and ceremonies.
Ritual is not in scripture, but rites is also found in Numbers 9: 3, above.
Shadow, used in Hebrews 10: 1, in Colossians 2: 16-17 and in Luke 1: 79, is Strong's number 4639, skia, which is said to mean "shade, or a shadow, literally or figuratively, darkness or error, or an adumbration, shadow." Adumbration means to prefigure in a vague way. Those ceremonies ordained for the people of the Old Covenant prefigured the substance which is Christ that was to come. Colossians 2: 17, quoted below, points out that the soma, or body, "is of Christ." The substance is Christ.
"For the law having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with those sacrifices which they offered year by year continually make the comers thereunto perfect." Hebrews 10: 1
"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 Christ." Those parts of the unified Torah or Law which are ceremonial, or rites, are just shadows, or prefigurings of the substance which was to come later, that is Jesus Christ. To continue observing those shadows, now darkness and error, is to insult Christ who came about two thousand years ago.
"To give light to them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace." Luke 1: 79
Christ came to bring light and life to those who operate in the shadows. To not divide the Torah into its moral and ceremony components is to return to those shadows.
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