Messiah and the Covenant

[Frogster]

Your claim that the ark was not present during Messiah's time is also based on tradition. There is no way to know for certain either way. What I do know is that Temple services were held during Messiah's time, and the Ark is necessary to properly fulfill all the ritual functions of the moedim. Thus, I conclude and believe that the Ark was present then. You're free to believe otherwise.[/SIZE][/FONT]

Yes, I follow some of the commandments, all the ones I can do today as I understand them, to the best of my ability. Which ones do you follow? Or, perhaps, since you believe that the Law is done away with and fulfilled in Messiah, is it sinful to follow any part of the Law?

Go tell a Jew in Israel, that the law said just do some ....heheheh..

 

[Frogster]

Nothing against anyone here, but real jews laugh at this whole movement of gentiles acting like they keep torah. This is a fact, that I know of, from off the forum.

There is a congregation I know of, where gentiles wear talits...

 

[Pilgrimer]

Your claim that the ark was not present during Messiah's time is also based on tradition.

That's not true. My view is based on Scripture. The last mention of the Ark is in 2 Chronicles 35:3 when Josiah had it placed in the Temple. Then in 2 Corinthians 36:10 the “vessels of the house of the Lord” were taken away to Babylon, and afterward the temple was destroyed. The ark is never again mentioned in Scripture.

If the Ark had been hidden in a chamber beneath the temple, and the demolition of the temple had not uncovered it, and it was present in the city after the return began in 538 B.C. and the altar was rebuilt and sacrifices and the feasts were re-established, it is not unreasonable to expect there would be at least some mention of the Ark being present, or at the very least mention of it’s presence when the temple was finished in 516 B.C. The account of the ark being placed in its permanent location in the Holiest in the time of Josiah even mentioned the staves being removed, so again, some mention of such an important detail would be expected in Scripture if the Jews had possession of the ark or if it was present in Jerusalem at any time after the return.

Also from historical sources there is no evidence of the Ark. The Jews regained their independence under the Maccabees which argues against it being kept hidden because of occupation. In fact, in both 1 Maccabees 1:20 as well as Josephus there is the account of Antiochus taking the “hidden treasures” from the temple, meaning the Jews must have tried to hide the vessels of the temple but they were found.

And also, the city was filled with Passover pilgrims when the Romans advanced upon the city, and the Zealots had set up their camp in the courts of the Temple. So if the Ark had miraculously broken out from underground and risen up in to the sky someone surely would have seen it.

So there is certainly no Scriptural evidence to support your view about the Ark, neither is there any historical evidence. And a good student should not base such a fundamental issue on something that is not supported by Scripture.

There is no way to know for certain either way.

Then why would you base such an important issue as what constitutes obedience in our present day on something that you do not know for certain, but for which your only defense is a Talmudic tradition?

Yes, I follow some of the commandments, all the ones I can do today as I understand them, to the best of my ability. Which ones do you follow? Or, perhaps, since you believe that the Law is done away with and fulfilled in Messiah, is it sinful to follow any part of the Law?

Sinful? No. But it certainly does demonstrate a lack of faith. But the more I walk with Jesus the more I come to understand that most of those who follow the Law of God do so because it's all they have of God.

Your sincerity is not the issue, your spiritual understanding of the Law is the issue.

The word for Law, Torah, does not mean commandments, mitzvah. It means teachings, instructions, directions. The root word for Torah is yarah, to throw, or to teach in the sense of throwing out one’s finger to point the way.

The Law is not the Way. The Law points to the Way, teaches about The Way.

I know that you understand at least to some level that the Law points to Jesus, else you would not own him as your Savior. But there is so much more you can learn from the Law about Jesus, not only about being reconciled with God through Jesus, but also about enjoying fellowship with God through Him. You know that the Law doesn't provide reconciliation but pointed to and teaches us about reconciliation through Jesus. But neither does the Law provide fellowship with God, but it has so very much to teach us about fellowship with God through Jesus.

You talk, talk, talk about obeying the commandments. And yet you sit in lonely, self-imposed exile waiting for the day when you believe God will once more deign to dwell in a temple made of stones, and you will at last be able to obey all his commandments and enjoy fellowship with the Father as you feast on the flesh of sheep and goats. While all around you a host, a living stream of believers, Jew and Gentile, men and women, rich and poor, even the lame and infirm and the aged, are pilgrims following The Way, coming up to Jerusalem, entering God’s temple, rejoicing in His Presence, clothed in wedding garments washed clean in the blood of the Lamb, sitting at His table eating those good things which His hand has provided, the bread of life, manna from heaven, having our thirst quenced with living water … obeying every commandment, every statute, every ordinance of the Law, in spirit and in truth.

“Believe me, the hour is coming, when you shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father … but the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship Him. God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.”

In Holy fellowship with the Father through Christ Jesus our Lord,
Pilgrimer

 

[ananda]

That's not true. My view is based on Scripture. The last mention of the Ark is in 2 Chronicles 35:3 when Josiah had it placed in the Temple. Then in 2 Corinthians 36:10 the “vessels of the house of the Lord” were taken away to Babylon, and afterward the temple was destroyed. The ark is never again mentioned in Scripture.

First, 2Chr 36:10 does not say that all the "vessels" (כל&#1497 were taken away. Second, the "vessels" (tools, כל&#1497 are identified separately from other Temple articles of greater importance (ark, altar, laver, etc.) in Scripture itself (e.g. Ex 31:7, etc.). Just because Nebuchadnezzar brought back a number of valuable tools (כל&#1497 from the Temple does not mean that he took the Ark.

So there is certainly no Scriptural evidence to support your view about the Ark, neither is there any historical evidence. And a good student should not base such a fundamental issue on something that is not supported by Scripture.

Your view on the whereabouts of the Ark after its last mention in Scripture is also based on tradition and conjecture, not Scripture. You choose to believe your tradition, I choose to believe mine for reasons as I've stated.

“Believe me, the hour is coming, when you shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father … but the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship Him. God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.”

"A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them. " Eze 36:26,27

We have radically different perspectives on Scripture, its relative authority, and doctrine. I fully comprehend your doctrine, as I was steeped in Baptist and evangelical theology for the past 20 years, so I've heard it before. After intensely studying the Judaic perspective for the past two years, I can say that I comprehend both perspectives. Can you say the same?

 

[Frogster]

First, 2Chr 36:10 does not say that all the "vessels" (כל&#1497 were taken away. Second, the "vessels" (tools, כל&#1497 are identified separately from other Temple articles of greater importance (ark, altar, laver, etc.) in Scripture itself (e.g. Ex 31:7, etc.). Just because Nebuchadnezzar brought back a number of valuable tools (כל&#1497 from the Temple does not mean that he took the Ark.

Your view on the whereabouts of the Ark after its last mention in Scripture is also based on tradition and conjecture, not Scripture. You choose to believe your tradition, I choose to believe mine for reasons as I've stated.

We have radically different perspectives on Scripture, its relative authority, and doctrine. I fully comprehend your doctrine, as I was steeped in Baptist and evangelical theology for the past 20 years, so I've heard it before. After intensely studying the Judaic perspective for the past two years, I can say that I comprehend both perspectives. Can you?

The Judaizers tried to give their perspectives in Galatia, Corinth, Crete, Ephesus, Philippi, Colossae, and for the most part, scripture used Abraham, to keep all that stuff out of the churches.


Abraham had what Jewish perspective when he got the gosepl 12:3, or justified by faith 15:6?

Lookie here, even the Jews gotta be pre-circumcision according the Holy Spirit inspiration..

Rom4:12 and to make him the father of the circumcised who are not merely circumcised but who also walk in the footsteps of the faith that our father Abraham had before he was circumcised.

 

[Clare73]

... if this is so, why would you arbitrarily end the reference at verse 22?

If Sabbath ended at the cross, then Joseph of Arimathaea and the Galilean women must have sinned when they observed the Sabbath day after the death of Messiah on the cross: "And they returned, and prepared spices and ointments; and rested the sabbath day according to the commandment." Lk 23:56, Mk 16:1.

So must have the early believers in Asia Minor also sinned, when they observed Sabbath: "the Sabbath or Saturday (for so the word sabbatum is constantly used in the writings of the fathers, when speaking of it as it relates to Christians) was held by them in great veneration, and especially in the Eastern parts [Asia Minor] honoured with all the public solemnities of religion. For which we are to know, that the gospel in those parts mainly prevailing amongst the Jews, they being generally the first converts to the Christian faith, they still retained a mighty reverence for the Mosaic institutions, and especially for the sabbath, as that which had been appointed by God himself, (as the memorial of his rest from the week of creation,) settled by their great master Moses, and celebrated by their ancestors for so many ages, as the solemn day of their public worship, and were therefore very loth that it should be wholly antiquated and laid aside. For this reason it seemed good to the prudence of those times, (as in others of the Jewish rites, so in this,) to indulge the humour of that people, and to keep the sabbath as a day for religious offices. Hence they usually had most parts of the divine service performed upon that day; they met together for public prayers, for reading the scriptures, celebration of the sacraments, and such like duties. This is plain, not only from some passages in Ignatius and Clemens's Constitutions, but from writers of more unquestionable credit and authority. Athanasius, bishop of Alexandria, tells us, that they assembled on Saturdays, not that they were infected with Judaism, but only to worship Jesus Christ, the Lord of the sabbath" (William Cave, Primitive Christianity)

The Apostle John was the elder overseeing the Asia Minor churches at the time. John's prominent disciple, Polycarp, observed Sabbath, and protested Rome's substitution of Sunday for Sabbath.

You'll understand if I follow the Word of God, which states that Sabbath day is a shadow, the reality is in Christ (Col 2:16-17).

 

[Clare73]

From my perspective, you're both correct ... Paul was both speaking for and against the Torah ... this was exactly the characteristic of a Balaam (Rev 2:14). The Tanach records Balaam as both a true and a false prophet.

Christ's apostles do not agree with you.

The apostles believed Paul received his revelation from Jesus Christ and did not regard Paul as a false prophet.

Instead they commissioned him to preach the gospel to the Gentiles.

There is no Biblical basis for this assertion from the mind of man, rather than the mind of God.

 

[Clare73]

Seeing therefore it remaineth that some must enter therein , and they to whom it was first preached entered not in because of unbelief:
Hebrews 4:6

In the New King James it is rendered DISOBEDIENCE.

Since therefore it remains that some must enter it, and those to whom it was first preached did not enter because of disobedience,

Unbelief is disobedience to God.

Disobedience manifests unbelief.

Unbelief and disobedience are used interchangeabley, because disobedience manifest (is rooted in) unbelief.

Trying to get people to go back under the Law is heresy!

You either believe the NT Word of God, or you don't.
There is no basis for discussion of it where there is unbelief of it.
The Word of God is for those who believe it.

 

[Clare73]

Messiah did not distingush between any of the books of the Law, the Prophets, or the Writings. Since He referred to them as a whole, they are all to be taken as Scripture, with varying degrees of authority.

Is all Scripture God breathed?

 

[Clare73]

If I may jump in to correct something here ... Yehoshua explained the meaning of what He said to Peter in Mt 15:20. In Mt 15:1-20, Messiah was addressing man-made traditions (see Mt 15:3), specifically in this case, of eating "with unwashed hands" (cf. Mt 15:20, compare Mt 15:2). As this tradition is not a Torah commandment, but man's tradition, He concluded that it does not defile a man to eat with unwashed hands. This has nothing to do with clean or unclean foods, and Messiah did not contradict or overturn Torah (cf. Mt 5:17) by declaring all foods clean. If He did, He would have to be considered a false prophet (Deu 13, Deu 18, etc.)

But the principle he stated is permanent.

"It's not what goes into a man's mouth that makes him unclean."

That necessarily means all food.

 

[Clare73]

Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, is yet to happen. Just because it hasn't happened yet doesn't mean we won't receive atonement. Those who walk in His narrow Way will indeed receive atonement. It's just something we're waiting for.

And there you have it, the false gospel.

 

[Clare73]

The atonement is the wedding... Yeshua is not married yet

Do you have a Biblical basis for that?

What was Calvary then?

 

[Clare73]

Yes, there is ... it involves repentance, fasting, prayer, abstaining from work, and a scapegoat, etc. (FYI, I believe we are currently under the "Old" Covenant, which has been renewed by Messiah.)

That's a unique religion.

The final atonement will happen on a future Yom Kippur ... Messiah is our atonement, and if we continue to walk in trust, repentance, and obedience, we have that guaranteed atonement to look forward to.

So when Jesus said the cup was his blood of the new covenant (Lk 22:20), what blood was he talking about?

 

[Clare73]

Wedding supper always happen after the wedding.. it will be part of the things that happen during the 1000 year break.

So what is the blood of the new covenant (Lk 22:20) about?

Do you realize how much you are letting the uncertain interpretation of the riddles (Nu 12:6-8) of unfulfilled prophecy overturn the clear and specific statements of the Word of God?

 

[Clare73]

We are the betrothed, or engaged. We are the virgins waiting with our lamps filled and lit for the day and the hour which no one knows (Yom Teruah) for the bridegroom to return, for His final atonement (Yom Kippur) and our marriage and eternal rest (Sukkot).

The seven moedim are not merely "Jewish holidays" - they are also guideposts and they are His appointment days with us, to show us the Way of Salvation. We must walk with Messiah along His narrow Way:

Passover: We must trust Messiah and enter into His Way, taking His shed blood upon ourselves.
Unleavened Bread: We must repent of our sins, and die with Messiah to the world.
Firstfruits: We must live again in obedience, producing fruit for Messiah and the Father.
Shavuot (Pentecost): We must embrace His Spirit Who teaches us Torah and His Ways.
Yom Teruah: We must wait patiently for His return, on the day which no man knows the day or the hour.
Yom Kippur: We will stand in judgment, and receive His redemption.
Sukkot: We will be married, and rest eternally with Him.

I believe Messiah's parables were designed to bring our attention to His Path and these guideposts along His Path.

That is contrary to the NT Word of God, and an invention of the mind of man.

 

[Clare73]

so there is a confusion regarding atonement I see.. Let's remember that God has appointed a Day of Judgment and it is called the Day of Atonement... There are those by faith with the sacrifice and Priest in the temple and those who just see what is outside in front of the temple... Choose this day whom you will serve.

Do you have a Biblical basis for this?

 

[Clare73]

Law of God needs no atonement.. It is perfect as it is.

Of the verses in Lev 16 on the Day of Atonement, 75% of them relate to atonement for the tabernacle.

 

[ananda]

You'll understand if I follow the Word of God, which states that Sabbath day is a shadow, the reality is in Christ (Col 2:1617).

... and you'll understand that I follow the Scriptures which Messiah Himself identified as the Word of YHWH, which states that Sabbath was (Ex 20:8), is (Ex 31:16), and will be celebrated by His people in the future (Isa 66:22-24).

 

[ananda]

Originally Posted by netzarim

From my perspective, you're both correct ... Paul was both speaking for and against the Torah ... this was exactly the characteristic of a Balaam (Rev 2:14). The Tanach records Balaam as both a true and a false prophet.
​

Christ's apostles do not agree with you. The apostles believed Paul received his revelation from Jesus Christ and did not regard Paul as a false prophet.

Sources, from two or more first-hand witnesses, please?

Instead they commissioned him to preach the gospel to the Gentiles.

The apostles themselves were already commissioned by Messiah to preach to the Gentiles. You're suggesting that they disobeyed Messiah by delegating this responsibility to Paul instead.

 

[ananda]

Is all Scripture God breathed?

YHWH speaks through all Scripture, but not all books identified by man is necessarily Scripture.