Shalom Haverim (friends),
I have been thinking all this month about a subject that has become a question of great importance to me in a time in my life where I have to teach my children about what is right and what is wrong in the world today. Often my children ask me a question that each one of us should be asking ourselves daily as we live our lives.
What is Truth?
In th book of Yochanan (John 18:38), Pilate asked our Messiah Yeshua this question.
What is Truth....?
I hope that in our lives today we are asking Yeshua this question.Today, just as in the time of Yeshua, this is a question that seems to be of little importance to the world of today.
It is more about image. What you drive, were you go to church, where you live, how much you and your wife make or what you do for a living. It is all about image. Who cares about truth when everything in your life seems to appear to be truth.
Yeshua said to the Samaritan woman at the well, "the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshipers shall worship the Father in spirit and truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him. YHVH is a spirit, and they that worship Him must worship him in spirit and in TRUTH." (Yochanan 4:23-24)
Well, as always I want to give you a look through the eyes of the Messianic Jew and define the word TRUTH for you through Biblical eyes and not through the eyes or mindset of a Western Roman or Greek.
Yeshua said in this chapter of Yochanan, "What you worship you know not: we know what we worship: for salvation is of the Jews."
The writers of the Torah knew what true worship meant, so that is where we will begin. I want to begin where the truth was defined and explain what it means in the Brit Chadasha (Renewed Covenant).
The Renewed Covenant was written by Torah observant Jews and they all kept the Torah as a way of life, because truth was already defined for them in the Hebrew Bible. Yeshua did not come to install or begin a new religion but came to show us how to fulfill the Torah and all the WORDS of TRUTH.
Yochanan 14:24 says,"He that loveth me not, keepth not my sayings: and the WORDS (Torah) which you hear is not mine, but the Father's which sent me."
"Lead me in thy truth and teach me: for thou art the YHVH of my salvation (Yeshua): on thee do I wait all the day." Tehillim 25:5
"Mercy and truth are met together: righteousness and peace have kissed each other. Truth shall spring out of the earth: and righteousness shall look down from heaven." Tehillim 85:10-11
"Thy Torah is Truth." Tehillim 119:12
The Torah, Yeshua's Truth
Yeshua said "think not that I come to destroy the Torah (LAW) or the Prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil." Every Christain that I know can quote this scripture but they have trouble remembering what Yeshua said after this statement. "Whosoever therefore shall break one of the least commandments, and teach so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, they shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven."
Where do you stand today? Do you argue that all that OLD stuff the "Law" was done away with when Yeshua came to fulfill the Law.
Well, do you know that during the first century these were rabbinical terms "Destroy and Fulfill". These terms were used all the time between Rabbi's of the day to determine who was teaching the Word of YHVH the correct way. If a Rabbi though he was teaching the word of YHVH (Torah) the correct way he would say that I am fullfilling the Torah.
In other words, I am teaching you the right way to live Torah and I am not destroying it by teaching you something oposed to the true way to walk out Torah in your life. Another rabbi would argue and say, "no you are destroying the Torah and I am fulfilling the Torah. I am teaching the correct way to walk Torah."
So we see that these were terms that the Jewish people were accustomed to and they knew what Yeshua was saying to them as Torah observant Jews.
The Church today has totally changed the meaning of the word to "fulfill". They have redefined it in a way that means, "well, Jeshua did all the commandments for me and kept them perfectly so that I do not have to do them any more."
I ask you, where is the Church today in the kingdom of heaven; teaching men to break the least of His commandments? Mattiyahu (Matthew) 5:17-20. Be careful when you redefine words in the Bible. You can end up with one of the lesser jobs in the kingdom. How many times have you asked for the least job that you can find?
One of the things I am trying to point out to you is that Jewish thought is different that of the Romans and Greeks. When the Bible was translated into Greek from the Hebrew there was not a good understanding of Hebrew thought or a way in which to guide the translator of the Brit Chadasha into a correct understanding of Hebrew thought and meaning.
So the translator used words they thought the writer was trying to convey. Again the Greek or Roman mind set was foreign to Torah and the Jewish way of thought. That is why we have to go back to the Torah to define things in the Renewed Covenant. YVYH had already defined word meanings in His Torah and the Words are unchageable.
Malachi 3:6 - "I am YHVH (Jeshua) I change not."
The Torah was YHVH's unchangeable WORD to mankind. "The grass dries up. the flfower fades: but the WORD (Yeshua) of our YHVH will stand forever." Yesha'Yahu (Isaiah) 40:8
Now in modern Christianity this means "there are exceptions to this last statement." Christianity defines this statement as "whatever our Church Fathers have said was done away with and we believe them and not YHVH."
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The Church Father's Truth
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The Church Father's of Christianity are some of the most interesting people I have ever studied. They are men like Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch who wrote circa 115 AD to the Magnesians, telling them "to no longer live for the Sabbath but for the Lords Day, the day of His resurrection." The Lord's Day was a holy day of Roman sun worship already established in the Roman culture. Ignatius also said that anyone who celebrated the Passover with the Jews, or received emblems of the Jewish feast, was a partaker with those that killed the Lord and His apostles. this is just opposite of what Rav sha'ul (Paul) insturcted the gentile believerws to do in 1 Corinthians 5:7-8; "to keep the feast" Passover.
Justin Martyr, in the second century, claimed that YHVH's covenant with the Jewish people was no longer in effect and that the Church had replaced the Jews in YHVH's redemptive plan.
"G-d's covenant with Abraham is everlasting." (Genesis 17:7-8)
Irenaeus was a bishop of Lyon in the second century. He wrote that the Jews were disinherited from the grace of YHVH. But Paul wrote that the gifts and calling of YhVH are irrevocable (Romans 11:29)
Eusebius lived in the third and fourth centuries. He wrote the history of the church for the first three centuries. He taught that the promises of YHVH in the Hebrew Scriptures were for the Christians and the curses were for the Jews. He declared that the Church was the "true Israel of YHVH" that had replaced literal Israel in YHvH's covenant. My covenant will not break, nor alter the things that is gone out of my lips, says YHVH in Tehillim 89:34.
The christian leader who expressed his hate for the Jewws more than any other was John Chrysostom. He was a bishop of the Church in antiock in the fourth century. He said that he could never forgive the Jews for killing Yeshua and YHVH had always hated the Jews. He taught it was the Christian duty to hate the jews. In one of His sermons Chrysostom declared, "The synagogue is worst than a brother, it was den of scoundres, the temple of demons devoted idolatrous cults, a place of meeting for assassins of Messiah (Christ), a house worse than a drinking shop, a den of thieves, a house of ill fame, a dwelling of iniquity, a refuge of devils and this was one of his milder sermons that he preached bout the Jewish people.
You see, the church once believed it was part of Israel. The Church considered itself to be grafted into the covenants (see Ephisian 2:12). Sha'ul said , "that at the time you were without Messiah (Christ), being aliens from the commonwealth of Israelk, and strangers from the covenants (plural) of promise, having no hope, and without YHVH in the world."
But the Church Fathers changed this to teach that the "Church" had replaced Israel and Israel was estranged and without YHVH. Can you tell me who is the real Chiurch? Who are the real Church Fathers? Is it Avraham, Isaac, Ya'acov, Moshe, Yehoshua, Melech David, Mattithyahu, Luke, Mark, Yochanan, Sha'ul, or Kefa?
Please see what YHVH's word says in Yeshayahu (Isaiah) 51:1-2
What most people do not understand is that the Church started in the wilderness at Mount Siani when YHVH spoke to the Kahal (Church) in the wilderness and they saw His WORDS. "And Mount Sinai was altogether in a smoke, because YHVH descended upon it in fire: and the smoke thereof ascended ast the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mount quaked greatly." Exodus 19:18.
The nation of Israel had to sanctify themselves before they could receive the Revelatiojn of YHVH. This means that they had to immerse themselves in a mikveh (baptismal). Our jewish oral Law says that YHVH spoke to everyone in his own language. This means that 70 natins heard the words of YHVH. There was always a mixed multitude with Irael. Also this was fifty days after the nation of Israel crossed the Sea of Reeds. The Feast of Weeks (Pentecost). Stephan in the Book of acts says, "this man was in the kahal (Church) in the wilderness." acts 7:38
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Tradition or YHVH's Truth
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Everything that the Church has today was already established by the Church in the wildeness. The Torah the Revelation of YHVH, love, faith, truth, grace, mercy and the Holy Spirit and baptism.
And most of all a hope in the One to come to redeem all of mankind. Faith has alsways been a part of every believer's life, but to have faith meant that you would obey the Torah because you wanted to show your love for Him that saved you.
We all fail don't we? Yet YHVH says that He is YHVH; YHVH, merciful and compassionate, slow to anger, rich in GRACE and TRUTH: showing grace to the thousandth generation, forgiving offences, crimes and sins; yet not exonerating the guilty, but causing the negative effects of the parent's offences to be experienced by the children and grandchildren, to the third and fourth generations. Exodus 34:6-7
One person that had more of an effect on the relationship of Israel and the Kahal's (Church) gentile believers was Constantine the Great who made Christianity the national religion of Rome around 313 AD. Constantine merged Rome sun worship with Christianity into a new state religion, decrees of which he dictated and enforced with the sword. He required Jewish believers in Yeshua to make the following profession, "I renounce all customsk, rites, legalisms, unleavened breads and sacrifices of lambs of the Hebrews, and all the other feasts of the Hebrews, sacrifices, prayers, aspersions, purification's, sanctifications, and fast, and new moons, and Sabbaths, and superstition, and hymns and chants nad observances and synagogues, and food and drink of the Hebrews."
"In other words, I renounce absolutely everthing Jewish, every Law (Torah), rite and custom and if afterwards I shall wish to deny and return to Jewish superstition,or shall be found eating with jews, or feasting with them, or secretly conversing and condemning the Christian religion instead of openly confuting them and condemning their vain faith, then let the trembling of Kayin (Cain) and the leprosy of Gehazi cleave to me, as well as the legal punishments to which I acknowledge myself liable. "and may I be anathem in the world to come, and may my soul be set down with HaSata (adversary) and the devils."
Why has the Kahal changed so much? Yeshua lived a Torah observant life because of His Father's Torah. Yeshua kept the Sabbath, Passover, Yom Kippur, Sukkot, the Feast of Dedication (Chunakah). Yeshua prayed hymns, kept the Festivals of the New Moon, Rosh HaShanah, Shavuot, Purim (Feast of Esther). Yeshua did everything His Father had written in the Torah, but yet today these things are called "those old things that the Jews did when they were under the law"
Do you know that there are many things the Church Fathers adopted from the Romans and the Greeks that are forbidden for the nation of Israel to do?
We as Jews had already done and paid a great price for these things. They are all there in the Tanach for anyone to read and learn from them. Just as Sha'ul said in 1 Corinthians chapter 10, "Now all these things happened unto them for examples" (verse 11) Wherefore, my dearly beloved flee from idolatry." (verse 12)
Which Father are you following? Truth or Tradition?
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