Home Away
One thing I have asked from the Lord, that I shall seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord and to meditate in His temple. Psalm 27:4 NASB
One thing – Asaph makes it clear that being in the presence of YHVH is the one truly good thing in life (Psalm 73:28). David echoes Asaph. ‘ahat (from ‘ehad) – one (and only one) thing David asks. He asks and then he pursues. He turns his prayer request into committed action. He does not wait for God to do what he must do. He seeks (baqash).
What does David desperately desire? To live in the Temple? Hardly! The Temple didn’t exist when David lived. His dream might be to spend his days in the Temple yet to be constructed, but God made it plain that David was not the one to build it. With that in mind, why does David desire to be in the “house of the Lord”? David desires to be in the presence of God, to experience life enclosed by the divine. David wants to be consciously aware of favor (“beauty”) of God in the place of God’s abode. David wants to be where God is.
What about us? Where do we want to be? Can we honestly say that our greatest desire is to be encompassed by the divine? Do we really want to be at home with God?
Perhaps we need to consider the implications of such a desire. To be at home with God is to be completely given to His will. Personal agendas must be dismissed entirely. What matters in God’s house is what God wants. This includes, but is not limited to, a life completely committed to following His instructions. Is that what we really want?
To be at home with God is to feel as He feels, to suffer as He suffers over the sins of men and the lost of the world. This means experiencing compassionate agony. Weeping over a city. Feeling anger over death. Willing to be crucified so that others might find life. Knowing the insatiable mix of joy and sorrow that the world of men presents. Is that really what we want?
Don’t we really want to be left alone, to be exempted from this pain, to find comfort and peace and joy in the house of our God? Are we really ready to make this the most important task of our lives?
“If you were to give this matter thought, you would, no doubt, conclude that true perfection lies only in communion with God. . . . For that is the only good, and all else that men consider good is vanity and illusion. Only by arduous effort can man earn that good; only through works, that is, through the observance of the Mizvot, can man enter into communion with God.”[1]
Do we really think that God welcomes communion with those who reject His ways?
Perhaps I am alone in this matter, but I often find myself overwhelmed with the thought that I must make such a commitment. I falter, not because I do not desire to be in His presence, but because I am so weak, so filled with excuses, so quick to choose the path of least resistance. Upon examination, I realize that there are but very few mitzvot that directly apply to me, but even these few are so demanding that I fail to keep them fully. Perhaps I lack the strength of will, the moral character, to find my way into His presence. And that possibility intimidates me. It frightens me to death. That I might ultimately fail to be at home with Him because of the seduction of my yetzer ha’ra is real! I can hardly entertain the thought for it spells eternal consequences and I would much rather pretend that things are okay today.
But neither Asaph nor David will allow me.
Topical Index: good, nearness, desire, mitzvot, Psalm 27:4
[1] Moses Luzzatto, Mesillat Yesharim, JPS, 2010, p. 18.
When you wrote” enclosed by the divine”, for some reason I read en- clothed by the divine:)
that works too
There is some truth to the English saying, “Home is where the heart is.” David at times failed to fully observe and do the mitzvot. And yet he is called a man after God’s own heart. The rest of us, some of us very new to the idea of doing God’s commandments, can be encouraged by this fact, that God looks at the heart, and it counts for a lot.
This is reassuring as there needs to have grace and mercy enter into the equation and the understanding that we are not yet perfect and that our relationship cannot be gained through attempts to become perfect. Kathy
To experience the world through His eyes, ears, touch; to taste the humiliation of the all-consuming Way, and to speak His life into the world BECAUSE we have willingly shouldered the responsibility of those very real Practices Of Death, is the only right response to that world. It is the Mind of Yeshua, and it encompasses His death, for only from there can His Resurrection and Life be obtained. He hung on a cross to bring life to me. Now I must be willing to do the same for others. What dies on my cross? Me, of course. BUT, the rules say that I can carry the burdens of death for others with me! And if I carry those burdens for them, then I can bring the breath of life to them in their place. It is the principle of the seed; death and transformation. We are called to do it first for ourselves, but then for others. It is a sweet fragrance, this savor of life unto life in this dark world. There really is only one way to make it better. In the process of uplifting others, I get included! What I choose to, and act on, for them then becomes what I allow and accomplish for myself! This is no solitary, ‘personal’ experience! Hey, I need a whole bunch of people then to accomplish my own redemption!
Did you ever play the circle game called ‘seat’ when you were young? It is where everybody agrees to sit down all at once, together, in that circle. If I ‘sit’ down at the same time as the person behind me does, then their knees become my ‘chair’, and, concurrently, my knees become the seat of the person in front of me. Everybody gets a chair, if they do it right. If I take the salvation of the person in front of me seriously, personally, and make a move to participate in it, and at the same time, become available in my needs to those around me, thus affording them the opportunity to reach out to help me, then is the Kingdom not come?
As I thought about wanting to be in the presence of YHWH, It was like 99.999 said yes, but I felt this little tug from somewhere deep inside that bothered me. It was a pull in the opposite direction. One thing is for certain, I want to want to be 100 per cent with the Father. Could we withstand the Joys and heartaches He must go through? Can we take our mind off our selves long enough to imagine the depth of His pain, His sorrow? Do you think He would allow us to comfort Him as He comforts us? Is that even allowed, or needed or wanted? When I think of being in HIs presence I usually only think of all the Joy, no sadness, or grief no death or sickness. Its a whole new concept to think of the magnitude of the other end of the spectrum so to speak. No wonder we need HIs covering, we could not endure the lows or highs with out Him. Sorry for the rambling Skip. I always say I am too much like Moses in my speech. LOL! Thank you for making us dig deep within our own selves.
“Only by arduous effort can man earn that good; only through works, that is, through the observance of the Mizvot, can man enter into communion with God.”
I don’t think it’s by our arduous effort that we “earn” the right or the privilege of being in communion with God. I really don’t think it’s possible to earn such a thing. I don’t do God’s Torah because I’m trying to earn anything with Him. (And yes, I have had to remind myself of that.)
So why do we do it? My understanding, and my experience, is that Torah reveals my yetzer-ha’ra and shows me my sin. If this (Torah) is the standard of an absolutely Holy God, and this (my actions) is how I fail to fully meet that standard, my filth is contrasted against His purity. Off-white and even gray can look white (or white enough) until you put it next to absolute true white to show the contrast. This is what Torah does. How would I otherwise know?
Torah reveals my need for God’s grace. It humbles me. If the best I can ever do is still “off-white” and He demands “true white”… I’m leaning hard into his mercy and forgiveness.
Torah reveals the nature of God. It tells me what He values. He values hard work, and also rest. He values community. He expects me to engage in community and tells me how to do so. He values the sanctity of life. He values cleanliness. He values my body, and tells me how to avoid defining it. He values family. He values kindness and generosity toward those in need, the poor, the widowed, the marginalized. He values his creation. The land and animals He made, and so He tells me how to be a steward of it. He values justice, and honesty. He also values mercy. By doing His Torah, I get to know Him. And the more I know Him, the more I love Him, and the more I see I need Him. And the more I need and love Him, the more I want Him.
Torah makes me want more of God. It doesn’t make me worthy, but it doesn’t make me feel worthless either. Quite the opposite. It tells me that I *have worth* in His eyes. He cares what I do. He cares what I eat. He cares enough to lift me from the filth and tell me that He meant me for glory, He meant me to be a bearer of His image, and He cares enough to tell me how to do that. And it’s only by faith, by his Spirit, that I can carry it out.
Torah doesn’t *get you* to communion with God. Doing Torah IS communion with God, and it’s an ever growing and expanding dynamic. It is now, and it is yet to come. It’s a journey, not a destination.
Spelling correction: *defiling, not defining. Pretty sure autocorrect is responsible for that one.
Alicia,
Your description of how you apply Torah to your life is as beautiful as anything I have ever heard and a remarkable complement to Skip’s teaching. Study of Torah has revealed His character and the depth of His love to me in ways that 60+ years of “religion” has ever been able to do. Thank you for your comments.
Thank you, Geo.
Alicia,
I surely appreciate what you have written here. It gives me more thought regarding Torah and put like this, I can think of folks it would help to see the truth of desiring to follow God’s word.
I am going to print this for my hubby to consider.
Following Torah is truly a mindset that you do because you want to (chose to). NOT because of trying to find favor with God although that is altogether to common a reason. I believe that is when Torah becomes a burden to big for many to bear.
Thank you for your thoughts.
“Perhaps I am alone in this matter, but I often find myself overwhelmed with the thought that I must make such a commitment. I falter, not because I do not desire to be in His presence, but because I am so weak, so filled with excuses, so quick to choose the path of least resistance.”
If there is one specific thing that breaks God’s heart…I believe it is that we don’t realize how much He loves us. He also realizes what we don’t always…we live in a world filled with a determination to destroy us. Sometimes we have to start a little further back then just “I want to love You more than anything Father God.” Sometimes we have to start at, “I want to WANT to love you more than anything Father God….I understand knowing You is the highest goal I could have…but it’s so hard getting there.” He understands that…and bit by bit He will begin to untangle whatever webs have been woven around us to keep us in a place we don’t really want to be but can’t get out of ourselves. He’s good like that….in fact….He’s just really GOOD.
Can we back off a moment from our Christian presuppositions, and stop and consider: what if Moses Luzzatto is right? What if the idea that we “can’t earn” communion with God is a totally man-made (Christian) doctrine? I don’t think Luzzatto is talking about grace here — hen (grace) predates Yeshua’s walk among man. What if it is only “through the observance of the Mizvot, (that man) can enter into communion with God?” I’m not saying that it is, just asking the question that I think Skip was presenting. Can we stop and consider the implications of that before we come back with pat Christian doctrine?
Oh my yes! It isn’t about earning “grace.” God provides all that. It is about standing before Him, being in His presence. And that, my friends, is a function of how I walk. He has given me the instructions. I am expected to fulfill them. I “earn” my right to stand before Him just as the debtor in the parable of the great debt did NOT earn his right to be forgiven by the king. Luther concentrated on the unworthiness of Man because he adopted Plato’s dualism and embrace the doctrine of original sin, but that doesn’t make it biblical. Grace, overwhelming grace, is the character of YHVH, but that does not relieve me from the necessity of following His orders and following those orders is what allows me to have unbroken fellowship with Him.
By the way, our small group here in Florida has started this week a thorough study of Luzatto’s book. Each session is recorded and will some day be available to all. It is INTENSE, challenging and very good for the soul.
Oh no, you started without me? I will have to move continents!!
I think the word “earn” is tripping me up a bit. If I earn something, I have a right to it. If I have a right to it, I can demand it. That doesn’t meld with Torah and relationship with God (or anyone!) in my mind. What am I failing to connect, here?
Maybe our cultural definition, derived from Hellenism, of “earn” is entirely different than Hebraic thought. Certainly our Christian cultural understanding of grace is not the same as hen.
I am going to have to think on that, Suzanne. Interesting.
Perhaps it’s an “earned” privilege of standing in His presence. One only has to read the parables of the kingdom to see that this is a basic function of the kingdom. I would suggest that it causes tension in our minds with the grace that is freely offered because of our lack of obligation too the covenant aspect of our faith. It’s our works that will be judged to “stand” as done for the expansion of the kingdom, but we’re attached to the things we do. It’s would seem to be the same issue with “law vs. grace” as opposed to “law and grace”. Two separate functions working together, not in opposition, towards the end goal of God being all in all.
YHWH bless you and keep you……
I read the first 4 chapters of Luzzatto’s book a while back and put it down due to some issues I got entangled in. I am not enticed to pick it back up again. These days I am in need some intensity that is good for the soul!
“now” enticed, not “not” enticed. Sorry.
I was struggling over this very question yesterday after reading a TW on Abraham’s “faith”. It “seems” to me that I must conclude it was by grace that God chose Abram in the first place. We have no reason to think that Abram knew Him before hand (at least that I can find). NO communion. No intimacy. But by grace Abram was chosen!
BUT then it was Abraham that believed God (had faith=Listened to God’s Word and Obeyed) that allowed God to account righteousness (Right standing) to Him. I believe this is Paul’s understanding of “by grace, through faith.”
I couldn’t agree more Suzanne and Skip. We have to be willing to dump much of our doctrine and theology!
Please feel free to critique my understanding if I am off!
YOU ARE RIGHT! No orthodox Jew would ever claim that we EARN (in our sense of the word) righteousness. Paul didn’t make that claim when he pointed to Abraham and ABRAHAM DIDN’T MAKE THAT CLAIM. The mischaracterization of the Jewish idea as effort to earn righteous IN ORDER TO BE ACCEPTED by YHVH is simply NOT Jewish. It is anti-Semiitic propaganda.
Let’s discover what the TEXT says, not what that Church teaches.
Well that is what Orthodox Judaism believes. That in fact one “can” earn themselves into relationship and right standing with YHVH. That by doing the Mizvot, one earns their own salvation, basically. Therefore it’s a very easy concept for them to “not” need Yeshua.
And I have no doubt that Luzzatto felt the same way. Based on what I’ve read of him.
Ya all do know that he was a complete Kabbalist, correct? Completely enthralled with the mystical and esoteric traditions. Which of course is the “spiritual philosophy” of Judaism. Just sayin…
Doing the Mizvot, in the way God is pleased with us, is a direct result of the new heart that’s being given and the empowering of His Ruach. All of which are not something we can “earn”. It is only by faith through Grace unto those good works that pleases Him. I know that sounds a little to Christian for some but, nonetheless, that’s what the text says.
Most definitely someone who is lawless or Torahless, is displeasing to YHVH. But, I think it’s a big mistake to get wrapped up into Kabbalah perspectives in hopes of attaining some sort of favor before Him.
Our righteousness, our ability to stand before a Holy God, and our Salvation is only worked out through the work of and price paid by Yeshua our Redeemer, the “only” true and real tzedek. He makes it very clear to us, that through Him, and by Him, is the only way to YHVH and to please Him.
I am not suggesting that Luzzatto was not a mystic. And I am not suggesting that ALL he wrote is good stuff. Of course, ALL Martin Luther wrote isn’t wonderful either. What I am saying is that Luzzatto’s insights into our responsibility and obligation toward others are powerful and worth reading. Like ALL authors, you take the good and leave the rest. You might like what Luther says about some passages in Romans, but that doesn’t mean you embrace what he says in “The Jews and Their Lies.”
And as for the idea that Jews believe that they “earn” their way to God, I would suggest that this is a Christian interpretation of Jewish belief based on an anti-Semitic paradigm. Have a conversation with an orthodox Jew like Moshe Kempinski. You will definitely NOT hear this notion. It is all about grace. Suzanne is right. Our idea of “earn” is the result of OUR PARADIGM, not the same as the way Jewish rabbis think about it.
Well said, Mark!
Oops, I hit a wrong key somewhere!
At some point, when I went looking at all the false religion out there, in an attempt to see WHY they were not able to bring peace to all my precious friends, as well as to see what exactly I was believing wrong that had been continuing to keep me in bondage, too, I found something interesting.
I saw, in an answer to my question, that the one thing all false systems of belief seemed to share was some sort of idea that you had to work your way to heaven; there was something you could DO to get to a grace point – some religious practice, some way to shift OURSELVES in response to reality, that could result in a ‘better’ position. And that it was all futile. For all their gloss and surface pomp, what was lacking was; #1 faith, and, #2 grace. When you do DEEDS, you don’t need faith, and when you are busy pulling yourself up by those good old bootstraps, inch by inch, there is no room for grace. Even though there is language in those false belief systems for both those terms, there is no ROOM for them, thus the destitution in them for what we all need the most. All false religions, I have noticed, source SELF for these gifts, and even though they can refer to them as ‘gifts’, they WALK as if they can be accessed in the flesh. Hence, no peace; no rest, for them. The notion of God, then, becomes a DESTINATION POINT, a goal, an end result, of practice, and not a SOURCE of practice.
My conclusion is that is just must be too scary for the flesh to even consider that we are incomplete without Him IN OUR ESSENCE; hence, the need to believe that we are able to access completeness on our own, with Him as an accessory, after the fact, of selfhood.
To need Someone in my essence is to feel incomplete. That feels IMPERFECT to my flesh, but I bet our very Greek, very pagan INTERPRETATION of this perfectly good, informative feeling of that imperfection did not come from Above. What do you want to bet? I like the Hebrew interpretation of imperfection better. This understanding that imperfection has to do more with needing another Piece, a missing part, a conclusion, rather than just being NOT GOOD ENOUGH. It gives me a glove that actually fits my hand. Halleluah!
Your Greek paradigm is still showing. The Scriptures DO NOT teach that you are incomplete and need a missing piece. That is a Greek philosophical idea that gets imported into Christian theology through the doctrine of original sin – and original depravity. The Christian view of original sin says that you, as a result of Adam’s sin, are now incomplete, inadequate and missing something.
But the idea of the sages is not that you are missing something but rather that you CHOOSE the wrong path. You aren’t incomplete. You are disobedient. That disobedience has consequences that have to be dealt with, but it does not originate in some missing part of what it means to be human. In other words, Judaism rejects the idea of original sin and the philosophical basis of that doctrine.
But your analysis still rests on that Greek idea. Now it might be true that pagan religions also rest on the idea of some incomplete nature of human being (although I am not convinced that even this is true), but suggesting that Judaism embraces this idea is to misread Jewish philosophy. You must be careful not to read Jewish ideas according to your own paradigm, which appears to me to be quite comfortable in Western Greek thought.
So under this idea… if Adam and Havvah had NOT been disobedient, but let’s say one of their children or grandchildren WERE disobedient… would sin have entered the world and affected ALL mankind in the same way? Have we inherited sin from our original parents? Obviously that’s what I was taught. I’m trying to get my head around this and shift (or firmly torque!) my paradigm. I need some help.
The opportunity to “choose” wrongly, i.e., miss the mark, or sin, was in the world from the time of the garden — it had to be, or Adam and Havvah could not have chosen to be obedient. If there is no choice to disobey, it corresponds that there is no choice to obey — there is only tyranny or despotism — neither of which fit the character of YHVH. So, I don’t think it could have been Adam or Havvah’s disobedience that brought sin into the world. They may have been the first, but that doesn’t require that they were the source.
So what do we make of this:
“Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned—”(Romans 5:12 ESV)
I’m not sure what you are asking. The verse is about DEATH, not guilt. Did you think they were the same?
It says that SIN entered through one man AND death through sin. I was asking how it’s possible to say that Adam and Havvah’s disobedience was not the source of sin entering the world, which is what Suzanne said above. And if sin entered into the world of mankind through Adam, then how is it not inherited, and therefore inherent in us?
I have written about the origin of the idea of the federal headship of Adam and the doctrine of original sin. But really good work on this pagan idea is found in the lectures of Dwight Pryor, also available on line. So search some previous TWs and listen to Dwight. You will see that what you have been taught is Plato adopted by Augustine regurgitated by Luther, not Genesis.
Oh, words! I am not disagreeing with what you are saying. And I appreciate the clarification about the TRUE Judaic viewpoint. What I keep running into is Kabbalism, specifically, transported nicely right on over into New Age, specifically, practices and mindsets that RESULT in a reaction of, specifically, works of various sorts in the flesh. I just buried a good friend that was taught Kabbalism and embraced it wholeheartedly and practiced many aspects of it fervently, and worked herself right into an early death. Being around it chilled me to the bone. She felt she was self-serving her own grace, and her faith was being demonstrated by her works. Nice end run around the need for a Saviour; she considered Him a ‘good example’ of the ‘universal christ’ that came to show us HOW it is possible to achieve grace through works. She died exhausted and in agony. This stuff is hard. The words can be twisted. The meanings can be distorted. And lives are lost.
I am incomplete because the other half of me is Him. It is Him, working THROUGH me, that moves me toward His grace. And not of my own works, lest I should boast. I don’t think anybody here is seriously not on the same page. Our problem then becomes HOW to portray the truth to others. In the end, I think it is going to have to be something that can transcend words.
My point is that I earn the right to be called forgive AFTER the fact of forgiveness. This is the message of the parable of the great debtor. Forgiveness comes first, but I am expected to show myself worthy of it. When I don’t, the king withdraws his offer. Isn’t that a form of “earning”?
Okay so maybe we can just do away with the word “earn” since apparently we can’t get the meaning of it without having it defined by the Rabbi’s.
So then lets call it “doing good deeds”. Because yes, Judaism does believe that through “the doing” of good deeds, prayer and repentance, they are forgiven by YHVH and thus have absolutely no need for Yeshua, our Savior and Redeemer. Which of course, is absolutely the only way for us to be forgiven and be made able to be declared righteous and able to stand before the Father.
We could do good deeds all day everyday and never be able to “make ourselves” righteous. There is no amount of good deeds and prayers that will allow us to attain or work out “our own” righteousness and forgiveness. That whole notion is so anti-Yeshua it isn’t even funny.
So, how is it so far off, or as you put it, an “anti-Semitic paradigm”, when we correlate “earn” to “doing good deeds” in exchange for or payment for our sin?
They most certainly do believe that it “is” within their ability by what they “do” to become righteous and to be forgiven by God. Orthodox Judaism also clearly states that they do not have, any need for nor use for, the notion of a divine or semi-divine being who will sacrifice himself to save them from, or make atonement for, the consequences of our sins.
I’m not by any means suggesting that theres no value in reading a Kabbalists’ mystics’ writings(although I’d be hard-pressed to find much) but I am suggesting that it’s very dangerous to put very much trust or to lean our understandings towards Kabbalah and Orthodox Judaism rather than through or instead of Yeshua and His Apostles. And even more dangerous to put very much confidence at all in our own ability to attain righteousness and forgiveness from the Creator of heaven and earth by any other means than by and through Yeshua Messiah and what He Himself has done for us.
Instead of trying to defend the idea of impetus righteousness, why not step back and consider the parable of the great debtor. Isn’t forgiveness offered on the basis of NEED alone? The king never asks for even a cent. He recognizes the impossible situation of the servant and forgives him. Is that the END of the parable? No, the servant is expected to demonstrate his WORTHINESS of forgiveness by showing hesed to others. When he does not do so, the king withdraws his forgiveness. Now, the forgiveness was not EARNED by the servant, but the worthiness of being forgiven was. IN other words, since he did not perform according to the grace show to him, he was judge not WORTHY of the original forgiveness. So, his “earning” did not affect the initial forgiveness but it did affect the final result.
Do you see anything else in this parable given by Yeshua?
Oh, I wasn’t going to go step in this pie, but I woke up yesterday with this on my mind, and it has been building since. Perhaps it has to do with the package free will came in, which I can clearly see no human on the planet has ever understood even a fraction of (thank G-d; if we had, surely we would have been able to see many MORE ways to blow everything up to smithereens much faster!), but it has to do with this dance; this chess game we are in with the Creator.
Way back at the beginning, I think we joined in an accusation against Him: we accused Him of unfairness, basically; we CHALLENGED Him to ‘prove’ His worthiness in the relationship. BY doing that, we opened Pandora’s Box for ourselves: we granted, by implication, the right to be challenged back ON THE SAME BASIS. By the rules of relationship, things wash both ways – what’s good for the goose is good for the gander. SO, the same principle reverberates on down to us.
If I harbor unforgiveness in my heart, then I have granted the right to be judged according to the same standard I am employing. If I expect my debt to be forgiven, then I must grant the debt of others to be forgiven against me. If I want G-d to let me off the hook, then I must let Him back off, too. Yes, He extends forgiveness to me, BUT, the WAY I appropriate it is to exercise it myself.
In relationship, I am not a worm on a cosmic hook, ‘needing’ to be let back off; I am a player that is calling the way the steps go, too; if I am unhappy with where they are going, I am the one supposed to change what I am bringing, or not bringing, to the deal. If I am bringing unforgiveness, then I have just set the conditions for myself, too. Reset, I should say! I can call this forgiveness deal back off on my end, and this is how I do it.
Now, to back up a bit, the WAY I go about righteousness (which would include forgiveness, by the way), which is the practice of walking in how I need to be treated myself, is going to be the key to whether or not I actually accomplish that righteousness. This is where we need Yeshua, whether we even know His Name, or not. I firmly believe that every true act of righteousness on this planet that ever has, or ever will be, done happened, or will happen, through Him. We are completely dependent on Him for this. I need to appropriate those robes of righteousness to enter the feast; I still need to exchange, through repentance, my filthiness; my unproductive menstrual rags of unfruitfulness, for His perfect will done through me instead of my own works. Oh, with that marvelous free will, we can CHOOSE righteousness, all right, but, not to get a big head, we cannot GENERATE it. In the flesh, my motives; my motive force; is always going to be tainted. This is what is gong to make the acts themselves wrong. This is where I need the other half of me; this is where I need Him. In this dance, I get to choose, and He gets to make it happen. In me. This goes down in my real estate every time, y’all, but it has to still be the single biggest mystery ever to me! I simply do not understand how He dwells in me to will and to do His good pleasure. And I am present when it goes down! Where I end and where He begins? Haven’t a clue! Halleluah!
The first part of your comment is precisely what the Hebrew principle of “measure for measure” is all about. Thanks.
Oh, dear. Do you happen to mean that old eye-for-eye thing that Yeshua supposedly came to abolish even though He clearly imposed even more severity to it in His Sermon on the Mount where He took it further and said don’t wait for someone else to come along and cut out that eye; you should do it yourself?! The Lord’s Prayer isn’t any better, because it implores heaven’s forgiveness directly on the basis of my forgiveness.
Do you know how much trouble I run into in the Christian community when this subject comes up? How much resistance I encounter if I so much as bring up the notion that the trouble in a person’s life may even be remotely connected to the trouble they may be causing in someone else’s? Forget their salvation! Don’t touch that! Some of it can get so bad that a person cannot even consider that they are still under what the old timers I knew referred to as the natural law; you know, the one that dictates if I eat too many Twinkies (hey, pork, too!) my arteries, not to mention my digestion, may be affected? “Oh, I am not under the Law, but under grace”, they say, and stagger off. I ran into so much resistance with one pocket of people who SAID they really wanted to know about the connection between the curses of disease in their lives and their faith (um, obedience) (or lack thereof!), and we were going great until the subject of that obedience; and, specifically, the subject of FORGIVENESS, came up. The whole thing just shut down right there. The concept that there may be a connection between harboring unforgiveness and experiencing disease or other challenges arising out of that unforgiveness just unhinged everything. I was asked not to say anything any more. That group fell apart shortly afterward. It was a beautiful, trans-denominational group. I cried.
Unfortunately, so many times I find that people in the fringe beliefs, or just out in the lost, secular world in general, even, do not have near this trouble conceiving that measure for measure principle. Without that disconnect between their choices and the outcomes that seems to be running rampant in so much of the Christian community, they usually quite readily, and eagerly, I might add, embrace the concept that they should consider cleaning up their own act, particularly when it comes to forgiveness, if they want to change the outcome, like their health. Blinders. Sigh.
What has always stood out to me is that its concludes not a thing about “eternal damnation”. BUT that the wicked servant is handed over to the “torturers” UNTIL he should pay all that was due him.
I still think that some of us are twisting our own righteousness/righteous works with YHWH’s. MY righteousness is as filthy rags. But it doesn’t say HIS righteousness, ie, His words, His commands are. IF man never could live righteously by the commands of YHWH, then why say, “Then it will be righteousness for us IF we are careful to observe all these commandments before the Lord our God, as HE has commanded us(Deut. 6:25).” Why say in the New Testament, by the way, that both Zacharias and Elizabeth were righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless. If its just not possible.
It absolutely agree that it’s by grace that He accepts me by the blood of Yehshua (the way He has always accepted men and women, on the basis of the Lamb that was slain from the foundations of the world)) and I also see that its is grace that He gives me His instructions (which are Yeshua, by the way, the Way, the Truth and the Life). I believe the problem Laurita, and Mark is that again you are confusing man’s commandments, Kabalism or a good mixture of some of YHWH, some of mans commandments, which will result in my righteousness being as filthy rags and YHWH’s righteousness which are His commands, (which are Yeshua) that give me life (Deut.6:25)!
Again, I am willing to be shown a flaw in my paradigm or understanding of scripture as I am certainly learning.
One more place where I don’t understand the Western mindset on grace and faith is this; It says: You don’t have to “do” anything for grace to come to my life. All you have to do is believe. Because its not by “works” that any man should boast, we love to say.
If that’s the case then what is “belief”. What is mentally ascending into a realm called “faith”? Is that NOT WORKS? Or not physical work? For me many times “belief” as understood by a Greek paradigm is exhausting! Yet we say that its not by works that any man should boast! If I take this claim to its logical conclusion then the only one who truly ever receives grace is the one who doesn’t “believe”, doesn’t work, doesn’t think. Just hope….but wait isn’t “hope” work….?
Calvin solved this problem by saying that “Yes, the act of assenting to believe is works. Therefore, we can’t even do this. God ELECTS unconditionally who will be saved and who won’t, thereby not involving us in the matter at all.” Nice solution to a paradigm problem but it entails even more problems, like why should I do anything at all if God is the only active agent.
David, I am sweating bullets with you. It doesn’t help that the language has been so corrupted it is a wonder we are still talking to each other at all! This place has been hammered and hammered and we should expect trouble here. But, I believe if we just keep talking and talking, we can undo that hammering. This is a great place to do it! Keep talking! I am listening, for sure. I need to hear the truth out of unfeigned lips, undefiled and pure. Let’s dedicate ourselves to go to the trouble to reclaim pure words that mean pure things. If we can get to the place of understanding together, then we can get others there, too! Until then, let’s keep trying! And until then, please forgive my stammering tongue and all the other trouble I am having. If I keep on being willing to open my mouth, maybe someday I will be able to spit it out! Not there, yet!
I’m right there with you!
Some current thoughts on this matter (subject to more reflection)
What is the difference between earning your salvation and demonstrating your worthiness?
First, the goal. If my goal is to get to heaven, then my actions can be judged on the basis of whether or not they help me gain access to heaven. Good acts give me credit toward achieving the goal. Bad acts subtract credit. Therefore, the calculus is earning.
But what if the goal is not to get to heaven but rather to live a righteous life?
What if my acts are not attempts to get credit but simply expression of the fact that I am already delivered? Not that I am already credited with a ticket ot heaven, but that I have been rescued from the clutches of the yetzer ha’ra. What if my effort to act righteously is viewed as an effort to demonstrate that deliverance has already occurred. Isn’t this demonstrating worthiness after the fact?
How do I show that I am delivered? By making efforts to act in accordance with that deliverance? This is to demonstrate my worthiness of the gift bestowed on me. It is not an attempt to earn the gift. The gift has already been given. It is an effort to show the benefactor that his decision to honor me with the gift was a good one. I earn the validation of his decision. I do not earn his decision.
In the West, immortality is achieved by the nobility of our death. Greek legend saw this in terms of the legacy we leave behind. The more noble the cause that precipitates our death, the more glory accrues to us and the longer we will be remembered. The goal is to leave a legacy that will be remembered for thousands of years. The obstacle is the vastness of eternity and the possibility of being forgotten. Immortality is to be remembered.
Christianity adopted this view of death into its religious thinking. It left behind that idea that immortality is remembrance. Instead, it incorporated the Dionysian idea of the immortality of the soul. The problem was not legacy, but rather eternal reward or punishment. But the determining factor was still the quality of my death. If I died as a believer, my life has achieved its divine purpose and I was rewarded in the next life with immortality. If I died as a non-believer, my life did not achieve its intended divine purpose and I was punished with eternal damnation. The key was not how I lived, but rather how (i.e., in what state) I died. I might live a completely wanton and wicked life as long as I died in a state of belief. Since this leaves a man in the tenuous position of insuring that he believes the moment before he dies, the Church simply moved the moment of “death” from physical extinction to spiritual decision. Once I decided to believe that dogma of the Church, I was accounted as having “died to myself” and therefore worthy of eternal reward no matter what happened in the remaining days of my physical existence on earth. I was saved, which meant that I was going to be rewarded with heavenly continuance, because I “died” in the proper way.
The Hebraic view of my existence is entirely different. In Hebrew thought, what happens after I die is in some significant sense unknown and unknowable. Therefore, the concept of reward and punishment in the afterlife ultimately depends on the choice of YHVH, not on me. The quality of my death is not a determining factor in my participation in the ‘olam ha’ba. What matters in Hebrew thought is my actions here and now. In other words, Hebraic thinking focuses on living rather than dying. What matters in Hebrew thinking is how I live because how I live demonstrates whether or not I have entered into a covenant relationship with YHVH, a covenant relationship initiated by Him but manifested by me. My life is a validation of His faithfulness, not an exercise in gaining my admission.
Hi Skip,
This is an awesome post!
I see the focus on dying in this Western culture. It grows as time passes. I never really understood where that came from. I even posted on another thread something about facing a horrible death at human hands. Shows that I think about it too.
I find myself personally more focused on living these days and I can say that I sure have a lot more peace in my life for it. This earning a ticket to heaven stuff is a terrible burden to bear and it is a lie!! I get the parable that you reference above. It makes so much sense to me thru Hebrew eyes. This is one that I never really understood until that certain paradigm fell away. So much here to consider.
“What is the difference between earning your salvation and demonstrating your worthiness?”
This is an EXCELLANT question!! Indeed, what is the difference? I guess it depends upon which paradigm one holds dear. I believe there is much in scripture ( and other) that addresses worthiness.
I will do well to reflect on this on this Sabbath day.
Well, if you can show me where I am confusing ‘man’s commands’ with “God’s commands”, I need to see it. I knew God’s commands and tried to implement them for decades in my flesh, and they never fruited peace. We all know in our hearts what is good, for we all know how we would like to be treated. The problem is how to implement true goodness, true righteousness. I was not cooperating with the Divine in that implementation, however. I was struggling on my own to merit favor (would that be my interpretation of His commands, which would then be ‘man’s commands’? If so, I was sure guilty!). I was a sick puppy.
But when I have succeeded in allowing the establishment of relationship with Him, then that righteous behavior is not longer up to me to implement. Oh, I still need to repent of my yetzer ha-ra inclinations, motives and addictions each moment to keep relating, BUT, when I do that, I invite HIS will, inclination, motives and behavior to work through me. A joint enterprise. I choose to submit to Him, He enforces my choice with His power. The power to implement does not come from ME, which would be the yetzer ha-ra. To me, the yetzer tov is a power switch. Righteousness is righteousness, but I cannot supply the power to do it. The power to obey comes from Him. No credit for me. Um, small loss!
My statement about confusing the commands of YHWH…was due to the story about your friend (which I am grieved to hear about) following Kabbala. And earning grace through works. And seemingly equating this to following YHWH’s Torah. Sorry if I misread
As far as your other statements I do not think we are too far off in our thinking except I still hear some Greek paradigm in what you are saying. Whether you are following His commands by the power of the Spirit or not, its YOU, ALL OF YOU that is following them. Not just a part of you called “spirit” and the other part called flesh is not. I NEVER read where following HIS commands are burdensome. In fact I am told they are not according to John, Yeshua and Moses.
I certainly agree with what you are saying I just think, as you have said, for all of us, it just comes out differently! I love the way Paul says it in Romans 8 when he speaks of walking according in the flesh vs walking according to the Spirit. The way I read it, Paul is saying the evidence you are walking in the Spirit is that you are following the commands. If you are not walking according to the Spirit then, you are carnally minded, and are not walking following the Torah. Ezekiel spoke of this when YHWH said “I will put my Spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes, and you will keep My judgments and do them.”
Good stuff and fair enough, and I am certainly learning as I go! I just wanted to say thank you, David.
Greetings, Skip and others! My question is not directly related to the current discussion but I really need to understand and would appreciate your input. Paul in Galatians 2:14 says: “But when I saw that their conduct was not in step with the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas before them all, “If you, though a Jew, live like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you force the Gentiles to live like Jews?” zaō means “to pass life.” If Peter continued to live as a Jew (eating kosher and keeping Sabbath among other things), why would Paul say this to him? It seems to suggest more than Peter’s hypocrisy when he was trying to hide his fellowship with the Gentiles. What could Paul mean?
Start with my audio series on Galatians. Then read Mark Nanos’ book on Galatians. Then think of Paul chastising Peter for defaulting to the group that insisted that Gentiles become Jews by being proselytes before they could enjoy full fellowship. Then read the verse again.
Thank you, Skip. I actually have your series and found it very helpful. I am also in the middle of reading Mark Nanos’ book on Galatians. I think I understand the context and that Paul’s argument is not the law versus grace dichotomy but about the status of Gentile believers in the synagogue. However, it does not help me understand in what ways Peter could live like a Gentile and not like a Jew. I listened to your lectures on Galatians 2 again–you skipped this verse.
OK, give me a day. Teaching in Fresno tonight.