September 02, 2015
The Yoke of Slavery
I visited a church that reveres
the Torah, the first five books of the Bible. In open discussion I heard such
comments as, “We are studying the Torah to make the Jews jealous. We are saying
that it doesn’t just belong to Judah … it is our heritage and our right to have
it too. We can, through the blood of the Lamb, keep the Torah. We are grafted
in and have a part in the Torah. The Torah gives instructions on how to live;
it’s guardrails on each side to keep you on the road.” I left the two hour
worship service feeling depressed and wondering why anyone would want to go
back under the law. Paul spoke of freedom from the law, “It is for freedom that
Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened
again by a yoke of slavery” (Gal 5:1 NIV).
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1 comment:
Gail;
-----How many different ways can we screw up in trying to relate to the Old Testament? In general, there are those ways which say the Old Testament is no longer relevant. God made some kind of mistake, and now we have to play like He didn’t mean it. And there are those ways which say the New Testament made no effect on God’s expectations exhibited in the Old Testament, so you’d better not pick up sticks on the Sabbath! Others say the Old Testament wasn’t a mistake; God intended it to lead to Christ, after which, now having Him, we drop the Old Testament like a rotten potato.
-----I like the one that says God knows what He’s doing. In fact, His Word so indicates He knows what He’s doing that we ought to read it. I remember going to class, doing homework, taking tests, and in general stressing over whether or not I was going to get sufficient grades throughout seventeen years of schooling. All of that is now over. Yet, I don’t forget what I learned just because I no longer attend classes. No, quite to the contrary, I am always looking for one mental technique or another for retrieving the classroom material I missed while paying more attention to the cute girl two rows over.
-----Paul tells the Galatians that the Law was our schoolmaster (KJV.) Nowhere does the Torah inform that obedience to the Law saves your soul from eternal doom. Many passages implying such are corrected by the Old Testament’s transcendent message of a Messiah given for the purpose. We false ones get so completely caught up in the twigs, leaves, and veins of things that we forget the overall nature of the forest. God told mankind the nature of this forest from the time it began to burn: the Seed of the woman would crush the head of the serpent. “The integrity of the upright guides them.” (Prov 11:3a) This doesn’t mean the upright are not guided by the Holy Spirit. Integrity is a mere element of the guidance equation. It is not only about the truth. Integrity is as much about internal consistency as it is about abiding to the truth. Without the Old Testament, the New Testament has no integrity. Without the New Testament, the Old Testament has no integrity. The disciple’s integrity accepts this. Christ is the end of our faith and the fulfillment of the Law rather than the discarding of the Law.
-----Although going back to school to retain my career is in no way necessary, a few days, maybe a couple weeks of being in school might jog more memories of what I learned. Taking issue with anyone saying you must practice the Torah rituals is one thing well to do. But run fast and far from taking issue with obeying the Torah. The Torah even defined those rituals as mere bearers of the truth concerning God, man, and salvation, not as salvation itself. The integrity of the New Testament is in being the truth those rituals bore. This nullifies neither the born truth nor the truth bearer, only the necessity to perform the rituals. Yet, we can do the rituals to experience with more perspective the truth they bear without being commanded to do so, without perceiving and teaching it is necessary to do, without being enslaved to the Law. The rituals of the Torah have not lost their value. The purpose of doing them has just changed from a requirement looking forward to the Lord’s first advent to an utility looking back at His advent. We loose our integrity by either making more of the Torah than the Torah makes of the Torah, or making less of it than it is.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
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