Who God is

[Soyeong]

The laws that God has given were not arbitrarily given, but rather they were give to teach us about what He values, what He considers to be morally right and wrong, and about His character. For example, God is righteous, so He has given righteous laws that teach us about His righteousness and about how to express His righteousness through our actions. When we express God's character traits through our actions in obedience to the Torah, we are experiential learning to know more about who God is and this is the basis for growing in a relationship with Him.

In Jeremiah 9:3 and 9:6, they did not know God and refused to know Him because in 9:13, they had forsaken the Torah, while in 9:24, those who know God know that he delights in practicing steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in all the earth, so again we come to experiential know more about God through delighting in expressing those godly character traits through our obedience to the Torah. Jesus is the exact expression of God's nature (Hebrews 1:3) and what that looked like was a life lived in sinless obedience to the Torah, so he is the personification of the Torah, which is why it testifies about who he is (John 5:39-40), so everything that he did in obedience to it testified about who the Father is, which is why he could say that anyone who has seen him has seen the Father (John 14:9).

In 1 John 2:3, those who say that they know Christ, but don't obey His commands are liars and the truth is not truth is not in them and in 1 John 3:4, sin is defined as the transgression of the Torah and those who continue to practice sin have neither seen nor known him. In Matthew 7:21-23, Jesus said that he would tell those who were workers of lawlessness to depart from Him, so again the Torah is God's instructions for how to know and be known by God. The Mosaic Covenant is a marriage relationship between God and Israel, so they needed to be taught how to grow in a relationship with Him, and so the Torah was given for that purpose. So if the Torah teaches us about who God is, then by expressing His nature through our actions we are acting as a light and a blessing to the nations through testifying about who God is, while refusing to submit to the Torah is bearing false witness to the nations about who God is. Even though we are under the New Covenant, God's character has remained the same, so the way to grow in a relationship with Him has remained the same.

 

[Bob S]

If it through the knowledge of Torah then NO I do not know Him.

I would like to know just how we know God because of the Laws He gave Israel? I know God through Jesus Christ and His love for mankind. I know God by the gift of the Holy Spirit that is within me guiding and teaching me to love as Jesus loves.

God's character is not a bunch of thou shalt not's nor is it a bunch of ritual and civil laws found in the Torah. God's character is beyond the whelm of our intellect. We know He can be angry enough to snuff out the lives of His chosen people and we know that He is gentle enough to forgive over and over. We know that He is so loving that He has prepared a place for us that is, once again, our beyond anything we can imagine. We know God is so thoughtful that He, before the foundation of the Earth found a way to save fallen man. He was willing to send His Son to this fallen planet and suffer with all the sins of the World on Him and understand personally what death really is.

God's character is so marvelous that He, while dying on the Cross, thought not about Himself, but of the man next to Him also dying on a cross by giving Him life everlasting.

Yep, I know enough not to pin a label on Him that tells us that His character is Torah.

 

[BobRyan]

If it through the knowledge of Torah then NO I do not know Him.

I would like to know just how we know God because of the Laws He gave Israel? I know God through Jesus Christ and His love for mankind. .

Jesus was the one in that big glowing cloud above their heads and leading them visibly day by day from one place to another - speaking to them audibly from the tabernacle -- "they all drank from the same spiritual Rock and that Rock was Christ" 1 Cor 10.

 

[Bob S]

Jesus was the one in that big glowing cloud above their heads and leading them visibly day by day from one place to another - speaking to them audibly from the tabernacle -- "they all drank from the same spiritual Rock and that Rock was Christ" 1 Cor 10.

That was not the Torah Bob.

 

[BobRyan]

That was not the Torah Bob.

Jesus says it is "The Word of God" Bob.

Mark 7:6-13