Torah of Messiah - Genesis 26:5
Chapter 1
Foreword
The Bible is God's Word, but we do not always understand the historical text. If we accept the allegorical way of speaking, many details are open up, secrets are revealed. During the study of our theme, we have experienced great joy, but also deep consternation. Only the joy we wanted to share with everyone, but things have come to light that affect all of us. Did we always hit the right note? If not, let us know so we can correct it immediately.
The chapters build on each other, so we recommend reading the book at least once from top to bottom, especially the introductory explanation of allegory, which should be part of the standard knowledge of every Christian. Unfortunately, the basic things of literature today are taught little or not at all in schools, and so there is a great ignorance of the multitude of rhetorical means that our good writers also use. Once you have read the present work in one go to get an overview, you can then work on the individual topics separately. You will discover that the Torah of the Messiah is systematically constructed and is reflected in the teaching of the New Testament. The Old Testament has hid the things that are revealed in the New Testament. What is revealed in the New Testament reveals the hidden parts of the Old Testament. We constantly have to jump back and forth between the two parts of the Bible and bring things into alignment, as it were, like a picture. With two eyes, it gives us its spatial dimension.
The Allegory
The allegory in the Bible is a narrative that tells a story behind the story. The figurative level is usually made clear by use of word pictures. But even where the text does not offer metaphors to the reader, for the reader obviously purely historical things are reported, is also told figuratively. This is what the apostle Paul describes and explains to us in large letters when he explains the two covenants to the Galatians.
The large letters that Paul uses can also have a pictorial meaning in addition to the literal ones. For example, the large letters might indicate that not only Paul was unable to see because of his age, but that he was admonishing us today because we are becoming increasingly blind in Christianity. On the other hand, we must also take the large letters literally, because at that time the New Testament was actually written exclusively in capital letters; in looking at the capital letters, some secrets can be discovered, because the letters are also pictures, albeit abstract illustrations.
Hebrew script is derived directly from images. Today their origin is no longer visible. But the old alphabets are handed down to us and so we can also recognize the allegorical way of speaking from the letters. The first letter, the Aleph, it is written like this א, represented the head of a bull in the early days. The last letter, the Taw, it is written like this ת, represented one of two crossed woods a cross.
Now follow some arguments for the pictorial level of all biblical texts.
- 1. Dieter Burdorf, Professor of Literature and Literary Theory at the University of Leipzig, writes in his "Einführung in die Gedichtanalyse" ("Introduction to Poetry Analysis"): One could speak of an allegory if a text or section of text contained at least two distinguishable layers of meaning, one literal and the other allegorical.
- 2. Paul writes to the Galatians about the two covenants, the earthly Jerusalem and the heavenly Jerusalem and says that this has a figurative, i.e. allegorical, meaning. If now both covenants are to be understood allegorically, then all texts that refer to the two covenants must also have a figurative meaning.
- 3. I discovered the pictorial level in silence three years ago in the history of Samson without ever knowing anything about allegories in the Bible. Only in search of the appropriate rhetorical figure did I assign the narrative from Judges 14 to the allegories.
- 4. A few months (2018) ago I found a description of Jewish interpretation practice. It is abbreviated with the acronym PaRDeS. There are four approaches to the interpretation of the Old Testament. The second approach, represented in the word PaRDeS with the capital R, refers to the second, the allegorical level of interpretation.
- 5. Priska and Aquila, the Jewish couple from the New Testament, represent two levels through their names. The literal level is represented by Priska and the heavenly level by Aquila, because Priska means old, historical and Aquila means eagle. Together they explain the scriptures more precisely to the disciple Apollo and all the assemblies, they explain, among other things, the Son of Man, who at the same time is the one who came from heaven.
- 6. Paul writes: For we now see through a mirror (this is the pictorial plane), unclearly (the mirrors at that time were polished copper), but then face to face. Now I recognize (myself) piece by piece, but then I will recognize (myself), just as I too have been recognized. 1.Cor.13,12 What mirror did Paul look into? I mean, it is the Bible. It is our mirror. Not only a sinner sees himself in it, but we also learn many beautiful things about ourselves.
- 7. Elihu (my God he is) describes his God and says to Job, among other things: "Can you, like him, spread out the vault of heaven, solid as a cast mirror? The infinite vastness of the firmament forms a mirror? If so, what do they reflect? They reflect the earthly. We see, as Paul says well, unclearly. Another reason is that the sides are reversed in the mirror image. While the earthly is left-turning, the heavenly is right-turning. The right-left schema can be taken both:
- 1. linguistically from the Bible and
- 2. from the matrix - the Typos, which explains
Example to 1: The right-left schema is now linguistically explained by the names Timnath-Serach and Timnath-Heres. On the one hand the place is called Heres and on the other hand Serach.
Serach is written like this:
1. סרח . This is the spelling in Joshua 24.
Heres writes like this:
2. חרס . This is the spelling in Judge 2.
Both names can be read not only from right to left, but also from left to right. (Compressed details on: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LBuQKWj4UOQ
Example for 2: The right-left scheme between the die and its print image. Texts must be prepared in clockwise direction in the artwork so that they can be read counterclockwise after printing on the print medium, here related to the Hebrew language. Not everything can be told with an impression, therefore many matrices are needed on which the puzzles are made in portions, which are then copied consecutively on parchment rolls. The printed product is therefore always an impression and an image of the original image. If we study the print result, we can conclude from the image to the original image, to the allegorical level.
Metaphors
The words of the image, which are the metaphors, belong to the most important stylistic means of biblical narratives. What the pictorial words tell us must be researched.
In our days, much is researched in them, more than we think. Science has provided us with a flood of knowledge about nature, more than in any other epoch before. Let us use their research results, the things they have observed and studied, to help us interpret the texts of the Bible correctly, e.g. the land of Hawila. It is mentioned for the first time in Genesis 2, a wondrous land and its gold is really good.
Hawila writes in Hebrew: חוילה (Cha-wi-lah'). It means:
1. circular,2. round,3. Circumferential,4. cyclical.
The Circular postway of Asia Minor
Hawila as nouns:
1. circular letter,2. Newsletter,
3. mailshots.
The root word חול (chul H2342) means:
to turn, to twist; to whirl, to rotate; in a circular and/or spiral way; especially dancing, to bend, to twist, to tremble in pain, suffering, sorrow and trouble; (especially when giving birth) but also in fear.
figuratively: waiting, persevering; twisting, misleading, perverting - morally corrupting.
What is described with the land Hawila? It is an abstract model. If we reduce it to its essential characteristics and then represent it, we get a funnel or a trapeze. The abstract form gives us the patterns for:
1. pyramids2. trumpets3. zikkurat (columnar and pyramid-shaped buildings)4. lenses5. eyes6. mouth7. ear8. columns9. funnel10. spiral staircases or ladders.11. goblet or cup12. flowers (lilies)13. sand whirl14. and many more.
As we can see, the land of Hawila sprays with funnel-like things. God, in his wisdom, has put both his narrative and the objects of his narrative into the word Hawila.
Let us first look at the most abstract level known to us humans. It is the world of numbers. We do not interpret anything of our own into it, but only take our material from the Bible. The word Hawila appears 7 times in the Hebrew Bible. The number 7 stands for perfection, completion, wholeness and completeness. Especially this number finds its most obvious expression in Revelation.
1. the seven trombones - funnel-like;2. the seven bowls - round;3. seven eyes - round and eye;
we puzzle out further details from other scriptural passages:
4. seven columns (Pr. 9,1);
5. seven loaves - at that time usually round, Matth. 15,34;
6. seven baskets - round, like a vessel;7. seven pouring tubes - a branch, which has a long funnel-shaped shape);
8. the seven-pointed star - funnel-shaped or trapezoidal: a constellation which also bears the following names: Pleiades, dove, seven sisters, chicken; the Pleiades are a cluster of stars in the constellation of Taurus, the symbol on the flag of Ephraim;
9. seven stars in the constellation Orion - two funnel-shaped or trapezoidal star arrangements are held together by the belt of three stars Amos 9,8 and Job 38,31;
10. seven stars in the partial constellation of large chariots (Ursa Major) - funnel-like or trapezoidal with drawbar Job 9,9).
The heavens tell us the work of his hands. Are not the redeemed also the work of his hands? If this is so, then we are told some things in the firmament. Heaven reflects, for it is said above the vault of heaven: solid, like a cast mirror. Job 37,18 And what exactly does it reflect? Earthly things that refer to heavenly things.
Introduction
Back to the law, back to the Torah? The question drove me around after I had read a book by making such a demand. I began to research.
Actually, I only wanted to briefly describe the scriptural passages that contain the word Torah, showing that there were other laws in the Old Testament before the law of Sinai. But during the elaboration it became clear to me: I also have to deal with the topics which are regulated by the laws.
For me it was a surprise to discover that God had passed on laws to his people before the Sinai, of which I had no idea. So is the Lord, he hides the most beautiful things so that we can enjoy digging them out, because for God it is an honor to hide things and the kings honor it is to explore the thing. Proverbs 25:2 And because I too am a king, see Rev 1,6, I could not help myself. And so I set to work to investigate the matter to the best of my knowledge and ability.
Full of astonishment I often sat there, approaching the subject carefully, step by step, and was surprised again and again. Maybe that's how it will be for you too, dear brother, dear sister. If you love beautiful presents, then this reading is exactly the right thing for you. The question of whether we need to go back to the Torah will be answered in the course of the book.
The Torah of the Messiah
"The Law or Torah of the Messiah" is a linguistic expression that I have heard from various speakers in various lectures. In Judaism it is used to express: When the Messiah comes, he will change the law. What is to be changed and to what extent was not really explained by the speakers.
If we listen carefully to Jesus' speeches and take a closer look at his dialogues with the scribes, we can see that the Lord refers on the one hand to the law of Moses and on the other hand to the traditions of the elders.
When Jesus speaks about the law of Moses, he specifies it by saying: "You have heard that it is said to the ancients ... this is the law of Moses. But I say to you: ... this is the law of the Messiah. Our Lord is the lawgiver. He is the one who brings the "new" law and exemplifies its statutes. The law is not really new, as we will see.
In Matthew 5:26 we read that the Lord will fulfill the law. With this word the Lord wants to say, among other things, that he completes it in a certain way, filling in the gaps in understanding. And there were lots of gaps. The law of Sinai is a teaching law, the correct teaching and interpretation of which is presented and clarified by the Messiah himself.
According to this pattern the Lord corrects again and again the wrong interpretations of the oral traditions of the elders who have survived to this day in the Talmud, i.e. the Mishnah and the Gemara. These are the written traditions of the learned Jews, who had been passed on orally over many centuries. Especially in the times after Malachi, the scribes constructed an extensive teaching system and thus obscured and partly distorted the actual meaning of the law and, above all, obstructed the access to Tanakh.
Similar developments took place in Christianity. The so-called traditions of the Roman Church have softened and twisted the contents of the New Testament. According to their understanding the human tradition even enjoys a higher authority than the Word of God itself. This is an insult to the majesty, because Jesus himself is the Word of God made flesh. The apostle John writes: In the beginnig was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
This Word or also this God, became flesh, i.e. the Son of God took the form of a human beeing. If we now give priority to human traditions, then we deny the authority of God. And this is exactly what happens through the teaching system of the Roman Church. In this way, Rome, and especially the Pope, places himself above God. And thus positoned, he makes himself God in the final elevation.
We also find similar thorn hedges in the evangelical churches. Here ist a prominent example of the Brethren movement to call. In their circles, the Bible is read an interpreted through the corresponding brother glasses. The word is studied far too little personally and when it is, it is narrowed again by the comments of the Elders, by the Mishnah of the brothers. More about this later. Let us return to the topic, to the Jewish traditions and ask ourselves:
1. How was the Messiah with the Torah?2. What kind of teaching was there at Sinai?3 How did the scholars mess up their teaching?
The questions will be answered in the course of the chapter.
Jesus' remarks and statements on the Torah
Let's take a closer look at his speeches. Jesus says in Matthew 5:17: "Do not think that I came to abolish the law or the prophets; I did not come to abolish, but to fulfill. When Jesus introduces his explanations with the words "do not imagine", he wants to say to those who hear: "Please do not insinuate that I want to invalidate or change anything with my speeches."
Let us take a look at two other terms from the verse that Jesus uses to make his intentions clear:
1. do not "let fall, do not invalidate";2. not to destroy, not to exterminate, not to deconstruct;3. not not to keep (double negative);4. not to interrupt for the night.
"To fulfill" means:
1. fill completely;2. pack fully;3. screw up to a higher level;4. deliver completely, saturate, carry out;(one speech) complete, authenticate.
The Lord leaves nothing aside from the law. He does not invalidate it either. Neither does Jesus build a new doctrinal edifice and thus separate himself from others. What Jesus actually intended was to fulfill the law in all its breadth and depth and height, i.e. to obey all the rules and regulations of the law and, as a crowning glory, to raise it to a higher level. To live by this law, it requires a humanly almost impossible effort. Jesus fulfilled the Torah for us and so we may joyfully follow him in his footsteps.
The righteousness of the Pharisees and Scribes is derived from the law, but through their traditions they have changed the law and made it ineffective. Their understanding of justice must inevitably fall short and is therefore not recognized by God. The legislator corrects their interpretations in a gentle way. For this reason Jesus speaks to them as follows: For I say to you: Unless your righteousness is more excellent than that of the Scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom. More exquisite should be the righteousness of the hearers, more exquisite than that of the Scribes and Pharisees, that is, better and overflowing in quantity and quality. And this righteousness is the proof at the entrance to the kingdom of heaven.
Jesus does not primarily criticize the Pharisees and Scribes, but their righteousness, which they seek to attain through their traditions. When Jesus speaks of the more excellent, then he alludes to the other righteousness, to the righteousness that comes from God. Already the prophet Habakkuk takes up the topic. He writes: But the righteous one will live by faith. Hab.2:4 And through Moses it is transmitted how a man becomes righteous. He writes: ... and he (Abraham) believed the Lord; and he (God) counted it to his righteousness. Genesis 15:6
Abraham trusted in the words and instructions of God, that is the faith that was attributed to him as righteousness. And the patriarch courageously left his homeland and embarked on a long and arduous journey. Now to the question:
What kind of teaching was there at Sinai?
The teaching law of Sinai
What is a teaching? It is an illustrative teaching in which the representation of the object to be explained is taught by pictorial means. For this purpose, God uses a brilliant tool that every child immediately understands.
Presentation of the Law of Sinai
The law contains 10 commandments, the first five on one tablet and the other five on the other. In the New Testament, the commandments are assigned to one of the two tablets and summarized under two commandments. The ten words, as the ten commandments are also called, are attached to two commandments. We will see that the commandments actually hang.
Clarification by means of reduction: from 10 to 2
Jesus says in Matthew 23:37-40: "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. But the second, like him, is: You shall love your neighbour as yourself." (Quote from Exodus 19:18; the neighbor is the Hebrew Rea ריע or רע). The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments.
Now we look at the way the Messiah teaches us. In the lessons, the teacher of Israel often makes a division into two. Separated in this way, the laws are assigned to one of the two tables.
Example presented by the Messiah himself
The Messiah says: You know the commandments: "Thou shalt not commit adultery; thou shalt not kill; thou shalt not steal; thou shalt not bear false witness; thou shalt not withhold anything; honour thy father and thy mother." Mark 10:19 In the first part the Lord names the commandments of the table on the left first. Thou shalt not:
1. bear false witness;2. adultery;3. kill;4. steal;5. withheld.
The second tablet calls Jesus before the first. Why? It describes the visible side of the 10 commandments, the horizontal plane. This is the area of life in which our actions can be seen by all people. Now to the first tablet:
6. honour your father and mother.
In the second part of the verse the visible level is also addressed, but at the same time an important distinction is made, which only becomes clear in the parallel text. In the Gospel of Matthew, the second part of the verse reads somewhat differently: "Honor the Father and the Mother, and love your neighbor as yourself."
The honour of parents on the one hand and the love of one's neighbour on the other. In this way the parents are confronted with their neighbor and at the same time expressed: the parents are not identical with their neighbor.
Note: Charity is linked to love for oneself.
God's illustrative teaching for the Ten Commandments
Further is indicated by the confrontation: to honour the parents and to love the neighbor weigh equally heavily. They form counterweights. To illustrate this, God uses the beam scale. It is his perfectly calibrated instrument. If we were to place the requirements in the bowls of a beam balance, then the balance should be in equilibrium.
Well, parents and neighbours are legal subjects, in legal jargon. They represent the visible part of abstract law. If everything is in order, the balance must be in balance, because both laws are fulfilled. If the call to charity, the second commandment of Matthew 23, is hung on the left side of the beam scale, then the first commandment, in honour of the parents, must be hung on the right side. And because the commandment to honor the parents is hung on the right side, a connection must inevitably be made. The logical conclusion can only be: The reverence of the parents has something to do with the worship of God. And exactly this connection is made in the fifth commandment. Let us take a closer look at the second part of the fifth commandment:
... so that your days may be prolonged in the land that Yahweh, your God, gives you.
The text can also be translated differently: ... that thy days may be prolonged on the earth which Yahweh thy God giveth thee. Why earth? Because the Hebrew word Eretz can be translated with land as well as with earth. And both variants stand side by side with equal rights.
What does the text want to tell us? If a person fulfils the demand to love his parents, then he will prolong his days. Honouring the parents therefore means that the weight that the demand puts on the scales keeps them in balance.
Strangely, why is the weight of the left bowl not mentioned? By educating his parents, a child learns obedience and how to behave towards his parents. It also learns through its parents how to behave towards others. And so father and mother are, as it were, legislators and lawmakers, judges and law enforcement officials for the adolescent. An obedient son is then also a decent neighbour. If this is the case, then the balance is in equilibrium.
Here is a simple example:
The neighbour asks the boy if he wants a candy and stretches it towards him. He answers yes, but turns to his mother looking for help. She nods to him friendly. Then the child turns back to the neighbour and carefully takes the candy out of her hand. While he unwinds it radiantly, he hears his mother's voice: "And what do you say?" The boy answers: "Thank you!" He turns around, hurries towards his mother and then falls into her arms.
We are, as it were, the child. Teached by our parents, we test what we have learned on our neighbor. Neighbour and mother are happy about our fine behaviour and in the end we are happy too. In other words, the balance of the right is in balance. The boy feels it, feels that everything is in order and that he has done everything right.
Is following the fifth commandment enough?
No! What is told here in addition and also hidden is that the weights of the first, second, third and fourth commandments are always in the right balance, only we do not see them or better put: The pure and flawless worship of God can only be seen and judged by God.
Our conclusion is: Because no man has fulfilled the demands of God comprehensively and sinlessly, neither Abraham nor Moses nor King David could prolong their own days of life on this earth to live here forever, let alone us.
The Scales of Justice of God
Jesus says: "The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments." What does the Lord want to tell us when he explains that everything depends on these two commandments? Imagine a beam scale. There we have on the one hand the vertical beam and on the other hand a horizontal beam. Then there are the two scales that are attached to the ends of the horizontal beam. What do we see of the scale? The beams and the scales. And the scales are what matters now. The scales represent the two commandments, to love God and to love one's neighbor. In these two commandments, represented as scales, lies the whole law of God and also the prophets. But because we do not see God and certainly not the worship in accordance with the law, the parents form the visible part and thus the right weighing bowl.
The next one represents the left weighing pan and the parents the right.
Love your neighbour - רע (Reah')
Now follows a highly explosive explanation of who our neighbor is. We have previously shown how the word "neighbour" is written in Hebrew in this way: רע or ריע. The word appears in the Bible in 114 verses. The first time in Genesis 11:3: And they said one to another (one to one): "Well, let us paint bricks and burn hard! And the brick served them as stone, and the earth resin served them as mortar." The people of Babylon are our neighbors. And what do they do? Let us read verse 4: And they said: "Let us build for ourselves a city and a tower, the top of which shall reach to heaven, and let us make a name for ourselves, that we may not be scattered all over the earth." Our neighbors want to build a stage for themselves, a pyramidal bed of flowers, the top of which will reach up to heaven. All this with the one aim of making a name for themselves. (That's misterious, isn't it?)
Who is the Reah?
We now carry out an analysis using the Hebrew language.
Reah, Hebrew רע, with the Strong No. H7462, means:
1. noise, roar (of a thunder);2. a noise (of war);3. a loud cry of joy.
Before our explanation we look at the root of the word.
Reah derives from רוע (Ruah' H7321) and means:
- damage, deface, spoil, cloud; especially by breaking;
- (figuratively) splitting, splitting the ears (with a noise, a sound, sound);
- shouting or shouting in case of alarm or joy.
Now the explanation: The Reah is our neighbor, the one who makes a noise next to us and makes a loud noise. Whether hostile, as in a war between neighbours, or full of joy, as in a victory?
Bone trouble
With the word root we explain the hidden reason: Something was damaged or broken. For this reason they separated, one from the other. They split up. In the pattern, the Tower of Babel, we can deduce and interpret many historical events of the past and the future, such as:
Babylon: An occasion and its consequences
What was that noise? Was it a war cry? What is certain is that opinions clashed hard. And so their consensus and then their unity broke. And so it happened that the neighbors separated from each other. Now one group sounded the alarm and the others chanted in the choir: "Refugees, refugees are you". And these are our neighbors, these are those who have slain us and will slaughter us. Such are the ones we should love. Our neighbor, Reah, has not yet been fully described. We have already come to know the Hebrew word. Now we look at another word, although it is not really different: the word evil.
The neigbour writes himself in Hebrew like this: רעEvil is written in Hebrew like this: רע
Can we tell the difference? No, there is none. Even the evil one is our neighbor. We should love him as we love ourselves. No matter how evil the evil is, we should love him. Here is a warning to those who want to fight evil with cannons and rockets. The one who kills with the sword must be killed. Rev 13:10. God will eradicate evil from the earth in his time and not before, and will kill evil with the breath of his mouth.
Babylon: Where is the explosiveness?
The word Reah not only describes our neighbor, but also the man of sin, the son of destruction. This is the Antichrist, described in Matthew 24:48 as the evil servant. How should we behave toward him? Jesus gives us the only possible answer: "But I say to you: Resist not the evil one, but whosoever shall strike thee on thy cheek, offer unto him also the other. In this matter Jesus did not stop with words alone. Matthew 26:67 tells us: Then they spit in his face and beat him with fists; but some gave him cheek pranks. Had Jesus resisted them, had he taken countermeasures? No, patiently he endured the humiliations.
The name, son of destruction, appears twice in the New Testament:
- 1.John 17:12
None of them (the disciples) is lost except the son of destruction (this is Judas).
- 2.Thessalonians 2:3
Let no one deceive you in any way, for this day (the day of Christ) does not come unless the apostasy comes first and the man of sin, the son of destruction, has been revealed.
The division into two in the Torah and the Prophets
In all Tanakh (OT) scriptures there is a right part and a left part. The right part refers to God and the left part to the neighbor. Who would have thought that? Even in the prophets a dichotomy is made.
When we look at the location of the Ark of the Covenant in which the two tablets lay, the reader knows that the Ark stood in the Holy of Holies. At the tent, as at the first temple, there was the entrance to the sanctuary in the east. The priest entered the temple from the east and headed west toward the Sanctuary. And once a year the high priest was allowed to enter the Holy of Holies.
Then he stood before the ark of the covenant and saw two cherubim on the lid of the ark. But he could only see them from the side, and so he saw only one half of the angels' faces. The right cherub stood on the north side and had the face of an eagle, and the left cherub stood on the south side and had the face of a man. The eagle speaks of the heavenly and the face of a man speaks of the earthly. That is so, becomes clear by the arrangement of the two law tablets.
The high priest could not look into the ark. If this had been possible for him, he would have seen that the tablet with commandments 1- 5 is on the right side and the tablet with commandments 6- 10 is on the left side. This arrangement is due to the Hebrew language. One reads from right to left. It follows from this that the cherub standing on the right, looking with the face of an eagle, looked at the right table, and the cherub standing on the left, looking with the face of a man, looked at the left table.
The fulfillment of the commandments by the Messiah is told to us in the Gospel of John - right tablet and in the Gospel of Luke - left tablet.
An outstanding example of this. In Luke 2,51 it says: "And he -Jesus- went down with them -his parents- and came to Nazareth, and he was subject to them. Jesus fulfilled the fifth commandment by subordinating Himself to His parents and obeying them. It is the first mention that the Lord kept one commandment and then it was the fifth: Honour your father and mother ... The episode is told only by Luke. It is only a small detail, but of great importance, as we have already explained above. The fifth commandment has a key position in the Torah of the Messiah.
A Babylonian named Reah
Babel means confusion. God had confused the Babylonians after the speakers had confused the people. Some claimed this, others that. God will gather the scattering into one again. It is not the churches that are to become an ecumenism, according to the Catholic interpretation, but the faithful will be gathered from diaspora into one, our Lord Jesus Christ.
The ecumenism of our neighbor -Reah- is the work of that woman who previously brought leaven into the flour and in this way smuggled every conceivable evil into the church. The Lord speaks of this system from leaven and warns the sincere: Go out of her, my people, that you may not share in her sins, and that you may not receive of her plagues. Rev.18
And so we live and work to also win our neighbor for God, to save the Reah, as if we were to pull him out of the fire.
What kind of teaching was there at Sinai?
The teaching law draws a comprehensive network of relationships before our eyes. If a disturbance occurs to the neighbor, it also affects the relationship with the parents, because our parents are also disgraced by a shabby behavior. And when parents are injured, it also affects our relationship with God. This principle applies to all generations. Even if the parents have long since died, we honour them if we obey the Torah, the law of God. If we do not obey, our father and mother will be denigrated and so will the Lord. At the scales of the Justitia of God the smallest weight changes can be seen.
God wanted to make it clear to the people through the ten commandments that through their own efforts they would never be able to fulfill the law, to keep the scales in balance. On the contrary, the balance will always be in a state of imbalance. The people had said full-bodied: "We want to do everything the Lord says", but already in the past they had not wanted to live in the law of the Lord. Let us hear what question the LORD confronted his servant Moses with: And the LORD said to Moses, "How long refuse you to keep my commandments and my laws?" Exodus 16:28
God asked this question already four chapters before the legislation at Sinai. And now from us the question to the reader:
"Which commandments and laws
had the people received
before the legislation at Sinai?
Which Torah does God speak of in Exodus 16?"
To this day people try to live sinlessly by their own strength by building their own system, but with their hands and feet they refuse to observe the Lord's instructions. Is one of the great scholars still alive? No, they all died. Such self-will leads us to the third question.
How did the scholars screw up their teaching?
Nearly 1000 years have passed since the legislation on Sinai and the people must realize: we cannot keep the demands of the law. The Jews had well understood that God led them into Babylonian captivity because of their faithlessness. Also for this reason the priests and scribes tried to erect protective fences after their return from Babylon in order not to violate the laws. But their hedges grew enormously and did exactly the opposite. They mutated into a thorny and thus impenetrable undergrowth. Their own interpretations were and are not purposeful, for in this way they obstructed access to pure Tanakh (the Old Testament).
Sneakily, but steadily, they grew an impenetrable fence. The heart of the Torah of God became impassable. This is where Jesus comes in. The Messiah sought to pull out the undergrowth in order to give them free and direct access to the scriptures again. But no, to this day the Jewish scholars continue to build on this fence instead of tearing it down, and besides, the thorn hedges hinder many from reading and studying the Torah alone.
What is opening up in the last few days
In the five books of Moses, the Torah, the law of the Messiah is already hinted at. It is quite different from the law of Moses. Both laws are called Torah, but one is the law of God and the other the law of Moses. Strictly speaking, the law of Moses is also God's law, because the Lord engraved it with his own hand, with the finger of God, on the two stone tablets. Why is it nevertheless called "Moses' law"? Well, God had called and appointed Moses as mediator. As a servant of God, he follows the call of the Lord and climbs the mountain; there God gives him the tablets of the Law. On further command he descends from Sinai again and brings the two tablets with the ten words to the people and explains it to them. His entire period of service follows this pattern:
1 God calls him,2. speaks to him,3. then Moses passed on the words and their meaning to the people.
Moses is the messenger of the law, or in other words, he is its bearer and interpreter. But there can be no doubt that God is the law-giver. If Jesus Christ "changes" the law with the New Testament, then he does not "change" it, but interprets it correctly, among other things by taking it to a higher level. But the studied masters refuse, do not want to accept his teaching and instead engage in word battles with him. And because they have nothing to oppose the eloquent Messiah, because they are far inferior to him, they resort to the last and shabbiest means to reach the ignorant at all times: qualification, competence and authority they question.
The question to the Messiah: In what right do you do that?
This was the question asked by the supreme Jews at the time. Jesus did not answer them because the questioners did not want to answer Jesus' counter-question; they had maneuvered themselves into a dead end. They also would not give an honest answer because otherwise they would have had to acknowledge his authority and step back into the second row. But the chief priests and elders were not prepared to do so. And so, at that time, the question of the legitimacy of the Messiah remained unanswered.
The legislator remains silent.
The Torah speaks: Hear Israel ()!
Here you find chapter 2 of 7 -> 2. My Torah - God's Law
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