Why the "NT-only, grace-only" theology is off the mark
Why the "NT-only, grace-only" theology is off the mark
Isaiah 29: 13 Then Adonai said: "Because these people approach me with empty words, and the honor they bestow on me is mere lip-service; while in fact they have distanced their hearts from me, and their 'fear of me' is just a mitzvah of human origin 14 therefore, I will have to keep shocking these people with astounding and amazing things, until the 'wisdom' of their 'wise ones' vanishes, and the 'discernment' of their 'discerning ones' is hidden away."
Mainstream Christianity insists "Jesus" preached the Gospel - the Good News about the Messiah's death, burial, and resurrection - which is all Christians tend to focus on. But Scripture, read in context, reveals He did NOT preach those things at all; rather, He preached the Kingdom of YHWH (Yahweh)!
Luke 4: 43 "But he (Yeshua/Jesus) said, "I must preach the good news of the Kingdom of God to the other towns also, because that is why I was sent."
Luke 8: 1. And it happened after these things that Y'shua was going around in the cities and in the villages and was preaching and declaring the Kingdom of Elohim.
Acts 28: 23 "From morning till evening the Apostle Paul explained and declared the Kingdom of God and tried to convince people about Yeshua from the Law of Moses and from the Prophets."
Acts 24: 14. But this indeed I (Paul) acknowledge, that in that same doctrine of which they speak, I do serve the Elohim of my fathers, believing all the things written in Torah and in the prophets.
So, while his death, burial, and resurrection are an important part of the Good News, it's not the whole story! YHWH isn't just in the business of "saving" people. As Creator and law giver, He is in the business of teaching us how to be good subjects in His Kingdom to come! If His Messiah "Jesus" supposedly abolished Torah at the cross" then why was EVERY believer completely Torah observant for one hundred years after Yeshua's death, including the Apostle Paul who was "caught" being Torah observant 29 years after Yeshua's death (Acts 21:23-24)! Was Paul a hypocrite, saying one thing and doing another; or were his teachings, perhaps, misunderstood?
YHWH said HE would send a prophet who was to do everything He ordered him to do:
Deuteronomy 18: 15 "ADONAI will raise up for you a prophet like me from among yourselves, from your own kinsmen. You are to pay attention to him, 16 just as when you were assembled at Horev and requested ADONAI your God, 'Don't let me hear the voice of ADONAI my God any more, or let me see this great fire ever again; if I do, I will die!' 17 On that occasion ADONAI said to me, 'They are right in what they are saying. 18 I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their kinsmen. I will put my words in his mouth, and he will tell them everything I order him.
Yeshua Himself said He came to do HIS FATHER's will; not his own!
John 6: 35. Y'shua said to them, I am the Bread of Life. Whoever comes to me will not hunger. And whoever believes in me will not ever thirst. 36. But I have said to you that you have seen me, and you do not believe. 37. All who my Father has given to me will come, and whoever comes not to me I will cast outside! 38. For I came down from heaven,[1] not to do my will, but to do the will of Him who sent me. 39. And this is His will, that of Him who sent me, that all that He has given to me I do not lose even one. 40. For this is the will of my Father, that all who see the Son and believe in him, will have life that is eternal. And I will raise him up on the last day. (AENT)
[1] As in the context of Miltha (the Word) or the "Manifestation" or the "Will of" YHWH coming down from heaven to do the Will of YHWH upon earth; his Spirit is of YHWH but his nephesh (soul) and body are human and temporal. This shows that Yeshua was NOT in charge; HIS FATHER WAS!
Yeshua came to proclaim the Kingdom of YHWH and to do everything his Father commanded. He tore down the fences of man's legalism. Neither he nor his Apostles ever advocated against Torah!
John 12: 44. But Y'shua cried out and said, He who believes in me, it is not in me he does believe, but in Him who sent me. [1] 45. And he who sees me sees Him who sent me! 46. I have come as the light into this world that all who believe in me might not remain in the darkness! 47. And he who hears my words, yet does not keep them, I do not judge him, for I have not come to judge the world but to give life[2] to the world. 48. He who rejects me and does not receive my words, there is something that judges him. The word that I have spoken, it will judge him on the last day. 49. For I have not spoken from my soul, but the Father who sent me. He gave a Commandment to me what I should say and what I should speak. 50. And I know that His commands are eternal life. [3] Therefore, these things that I speak just as my Father told me, thus I speak.[4] (AENT)
[1] Y'shua does not bring a new Faith, but reveals the original Faith of YHWH the Father.
[2] Y'shua proclaims that he came to give life, then he declares that his father's Commands are eternal life! The Father's "Commands" are instruction in righteousness; this is Torah which contains Commandments, Judgments, Testimony and Witness regarding the Kingdom of Elohim. Those who enter into Covenant with Mashiyach are entering into Covenant with his Father YHWH; therefore, it is evil - an outright lie - to teach that Torah is done away with and replaced by a new theology!
[3] The Commands of YHWH bring eternal life. YHWH's "Commands" refers to all of His Commandments; these are one and the same as every Word that proceeds out of the Mouth of Elohim. These are not Commands only between Y'shua and his Father but they are universal for all souls who will enter into the Malchut Elohim.
[4] Y'shua speaks the Word of YHWH, not his own words; therefore, he conveys the revelation of YHWH according to the Ruach haKodesh without the baggage of man's religious tradition. Religion has a propensity to reinvent or interpret the Word of YHWH to make it "acceptable" to man's standards; whereas Mashiyach came not to please men, but to honor and bring Glory to his Father.
Yeshua was sent by the Father NOT to do his own will, but the Father's! So many seem to think he came to replace the Father and abolish Torah....Yet he came to restore man's relationship with YHWH and remind us to totally rely on YHWH for everything.
Many (if not most) Christians keep insisting "God is love" and that's all we need to know. So here's a hypothetical question: A father teaches his child not to cross the road unless he has looked both ways; he did that because he LOVES the child. The child, believing that the father's love is all encompassing, doesn't bother to continue to obey what the father SAID because, hey, "Dad is LOVE!"; he just goes ahead and crosses the road without looking - and consequently gets smashed by a semi-truck. So, how did the father's LOVE save that child? It didn't! There are commands the kid should have obeyed in order to please his father and continue living with and FOR the father. Loving God includes obeying His rules because they are our ONLY blueprint for moral, holy living!
We created this page mainly to counter the Christian claims that, in order to "be saved" one has to do nothing besides "believe in Jesus." While this is true to a certain extent because Yeshua was the Final SIN Sacrifice, there is more to "having a personal relationship with God" - a whole new world, as a matter of fact! Yeshua (YHWH-Come-in-the-Flesh) even said He did not come to replace his Father or to abolish his Father's Divine Instructions ... Torah - without which mankind would have no blueprint for moral, holy living (1 John 3:4).
And think about this: If you abolish Torah, you have to abolish the Ten Commandments right along with it. You can't pick and choose what parts of Torah are still valid - especially since YHWH gave us several "forever" commands above and beyond "the Ten Commandments"! But yet, Christianity - borne out of Catholicism and NOT the original teachings of Messiah - insists that "Jesus came to do away with the law" and they've decided the "forever" commands don't pertain to them. Somehow, they cannot seem to understand that Yeshua came to proclaim the Kingdom of YHWH and then to martyr Himself so that we could have everlasting life with YHWH (see also John 17:1-3).
No, we're not trying to be mean here; we're just trying to get your attention!
1 John 2:3-6: The way we can be sure we know Him is if we are obeying his commands. Anyone who says, "I know Him," but isn't obeying his commands is a liar - the truth is not in him. But if someone keeps doing what he says, then truly love for God has been brought to its goal in him. This is how we are sure that we are united with him. A person who claims to be continuing in union with him ought to conduct his life the way he did.
So, how did Yeshua conduct his life? By obeying and carrying out his Father's Divine Instructions/Commands! Are you beginning to see what we're getting at? Yeshua was completely Torah observant, as were all of the apostles and disciples throughout the entire First Century....so what makes Christians think THEY don't have to be? How did Yeshua's death on the stake negate his Father's Divine Instructions? How did YHWH's Divine Instructions get to be a "curse"? That doesn't even make sense!
That, in itself, reveals there must be more to God and the Bible than just "believing in Jesus" and it's way past time for mankind to realize this. We are in the end times as outlined in the Books of Daniel and Revelation, and it won't be much longer before Yeshua's return. Those who have chosen to ignore God's Torah are NOT worshiping the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and will be very surprised to discover they were "left behind" on that fateful day because they were guilty of being "lukewarm." Many of our Christian brethren have already realized this and opted to leave the "milk" of the church in order to pursue a true relationship with their Creator because they've finally understood that Yeshua said He did NOT come to abolish or negate his Father's Commands:
Matthew 5: 17 Don't think that I have come to abolish the Torah or the Prophets. I have come not to abolish but to complete. 18 Yes indeed! I tell you that until heaven and earth pass away, not so much as a yud or a stroke will pass from the Torah - not until everything that must happen has happened. 19 So whoever disobeys the least of these mitzvot (words/commands) and teaches others to do so will be called the least in the Kingdom of Heaven. But whoever obeys them and so teaches will be called great in the Kingdom of Heaven. 20 For I tell you that unless your righteousness is far greater than that of the Torah-teachers and P'rushim, you will certainly not enter the Kingdom of Heaven.
Has everything happened that must happen? Have heaven and Earth passed away yet? Since when does the word "complete" (or "fulfill) mean "abolished"? Why would God abolish His own original divine teachings which He said were to last forever? Did Jesus come to make a liar out of YHWH, God the Father?
Here's the thing: The "Old Testament" is God's Word; The "New Testament" is about God's Word. One can be "saved" by believing in the Messiah (the "arm of YHWH"), but one cannot possibly understand God until one is firmly rooted in Torah.
Isaiah 53: 1 Who believes our report? To whom is the arm of ADONAI revealed?
Conveniently forgetting that "Jesus" was the SON, sent by God, Christianity has pushed our Creator whose Name is YHWH into the background and insisted that Jesus has somehow usurped all of God's power and "nailed to the cross" all of His original teachings/instructions. (1 Corinthians 11: 3. and the head of the Mashiyach is Elohim.) Not only that, but they changed the Messiah's name along with the dates of his birth, death and resurrection, and removed all traces of his Jewishness.
Please read the following very carefully: Yeshua (his given Hebrew Name which means, "Yahweh is Salvation" while "Jesus" means nothing in particular), was a Torah observant Jew who kept all the Biblical Feasts and the seventh day Sabbath. Contrary to popular belief, He was not born on December 25th; He was born on the first day of Sukkot (Feast of Tabernacles) which always falls in the September/October time frame on our Gregorian calendars. His exact date of death according to the Bible was Nisan 14 - Passover - and He rose three days later on Saturday evening, not on a Sunday. God gave us seven Biblical Feasts which He said believers were to keep forever, and Yeshua has so far only fulfilled the first four....and yet Christians as a whole have chosen to ignore them and instead, celebrate their man-made "holy days" of Christmas and Easter - both of which are steeped in paganism (more on this in the articles on the Challenging Mainstream Christianity page)....
Despite all this, Christians (many of whom believe there's more than just one way to heaven thanks to the Oprahs and others in this world who bend in whatever direction the wind blows!) arrogantly believe THEY have the market cornered on Truth and put down the Jews - who OBEY God by keeping His Torah, His seventh day Sabbath and His Biblical Feasts - by making statements such as this one, found on a Christian website: Even with the presence of God in their lives, the ancient Hebrews of the Bible were still just as sinful as the Greeks. They turned their backs on God all through history. Even today, Israel as a nation, rejects Jesus Christ. They are a nation that does not know God.
Of course the Jews are just as sinful as everybody else! But to insinuate that "Jews don't know God" is an ignorant and untrue statement, because believing Jews OBEY Torah which reveals exactly who God is, how we are to worship Him, and how we are to treat each other according to HIS desires; whereas Christianity has borrowed the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and effectively twisted Him into someone unrecognizable by ignoring His "forever" commands and insisting His Laws were abolished by a Son (a HUMAN who was born and died....Can GOD be "born" and have a mother and "die"? Please think about that!) whose name, and dates of birth, death and resurrection were changed by the early "Church fathers" - never mind that each of these things are foreshadowed in the Biblical Feasts that God commanded us all to keep "forever"....
When God made His New Covenant with the Houses of Israel and Judah (Jeremiah 31:32), He never mentioned that it was to somehow abolish His Divine Instructions (Torah)...And, contrary to popular belief Yeshua, who was Himself Torah observant, never said He came to abolish the Torah; He came to abolish man-made doctrines, the rabbinical ideology which had distorted (and is still distorting) the Word of God!
When Yeshua returns, He will be teaching GOD'S WORD which was revealed through Torah (the first five Books which contain all the "thou shalt and shalt nots" and "thus saith the Lord" verses) and once again personally demonstrating how much off the mark man's opinions are - and thus He will be abolishing Christian traditions and the opinions and ideologies of your respective pastors who are just as off the mark as many of the rabbis of old who had added to and/or taken away from the Word and turned YHWH's commands into a burden....
Many protest that this was "just for the Jews," but we would ask you to please think about this: Where did God ever say He was going to treat His adopted children any different from His natural ones? Torah is our only blueprint for moral, holy and godly living! The ONLY thing Yeshua "nailed to the cross" was the requirement to kill an innocent animal to atone for our sins, and that in no way negates the need for Torah! God Himself said that anyone who wants to follow the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is to be Torah observant:
Please think about this, too: Back when God created the world and made the seventh day holy (Genesis 2:2-3), He wasn't talking to the Jews because there were no Jews back then! Adam and Eve, to whom He gave His first rules weren't Jews, and neither were Cain and Abel who offered the first sin sacrifices. And Noah, who also was not a Jew, knew the difference between "clean and unclean" animals...(Genesis 4:3-5)
Numbers 15: 13 "'Every citizen is to do these things in this way when presenting an offering made by fire as a fragrant aroma for ADONAI. 14 If a foreigner stays with you - or whoever may be with you, through all your generations - and he wants to bring an offering made by fire as a fragrant aroma for ADONAI, he is to do the same as you. 15 For this community there will be the same law for you as for the foreigner living with you; this is a permanent regulation through all your generations; the foreigner is to be treated the same way before ADONAI as yourselves. 16 The same Torah and standard of judgment will apply to both you and the foreigner living with you.'"
Please re-read the above in case you missed it: Any Torah-less non-Jew/Hebrew/Israelite who does not yet believe in the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is an "alien"/foreigner. However, if they do wish to accept Him, then they are to do exactly as those who are already belong to Him!
"Living among" means not necessarily physically, but rather, it refers to all those who have accepted the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. They MUST be Torah observant, just like the Houses of Israel and Judah were with whom God made His New Covenant (Jeremiah 31:32)!
Romans 10: 12. And in this, it discriminates neither Jews nor Gentiles. For there is one, Master YHWH, over them all, who is abundantly generous towards every one that calls on him. 13. For everyone that will call on the name of Master YHWH, will have life.
It is important to understand that YHWH did NOT make His New Covenant with the Gentiles; He made it with those who were obedient to His divine Instructions (Jeremiah 31:32)! Same God, same rules for both the "natural" and the grafted-in" children....
This does not mean that Torah observance will "save" you, because the ONLY thing that gets you into heaven is belief on the shed blood of Christ! But that in no way negates our need to obey God's rules. If you wish to have a REAL relationship with YHWH, then you MUST obey His "forever" commands, because they are our only blueprint to moral, holy living. But once you have the Holy Spirit, you will want to please God - and pleasing Him means obeying His Torah which will keep you from sinning! (Remember - sin is the transgression of the Law/Torah - 1 John 3:4)!) Doesn't that make more sense than making up your own rules about a Savior who never once heard the name of "Jesus" during his entire lifetime on Earth?
Jeremiah 31:32 tells us that Yahweh made His "new covenant" not with the Torah-less Gentiles, but with the House of Israel and with the House of Judah; He did, however, extend His grace and mercy to the Gentiles who, once they become believers in Yeshua, automatically become part of "Israel"! And God told Israel: "I give you good instruction: Do not forsake my Torah" (Proverbs 4:2). And Paul reiterated this when he said: Do we then nullify the Law through faith? May it never be! On the contrary, we establish the Law. (Romans 3:31) Paul also wrote in Acts 21 - a full 29 years after the death of Yeshua::
Acts 21: 25. As to those of the Gentiles who have believed, we have written, that they should keep themselves from (an idol???s) sacrifice, and from sexual sin, and from what is strangled, and from blood.??? 26. Then Paul took those men, on the following day, and was purified with them; and he entered and went into the temple, explaining to them how to complete the days of the purification, up to the presentation of the offering by each of them.
This event clearly establishes Rav Shaul as a Torah observant Jew; however, most mainstream Christians twist Paul into being a man pleaser ??? as though his offering was solely to please Jews, as some sort of political posturing. There is no conflict between atonement made by Yeshua???s blood and the giving of offerings in the Temple. Paul walks in the footsteps of Y???shua, King David, and all the Yisrael of Elohim, when he declares "I rejoice in the Torah of Elohim, in the inner man." (Romans 7:22.) Each and every blood sacrifice and offering made in the Temple points to Mashiyach???s perfect blood. The Temple stood until 70 AD. The followers of Y???shua met daily in the Temple and gave offerings unto YHWH, but they also knew atonement was accomplished through the precious blood of Y???shua....
Paul wrote:
Romans 7: 7 Therefore, what are we to say? That the Torah is sinful? Heaven forbid! Rather, the function of the Torah was that without it, I would not have known what sin is. For example, I would not have become conscious of what greed is if the Torah had not said, "Thou shalt not covet."
Romans 7: 12 So the Torah is holy; that is, the commandment is holy, just and good.
Paul also said that YHWH???s law is spiritual (Romans 7:14) - and that which is spiritual is eternal.
2 Corinthians 4: 18 We concentrate not on what is seen but on what is not seen, since things seen are temporary, but things not seen are eternal.
So, the question once more is: Why would Yeshua???s death have abolished Torah? Those who teach contrary to the Torah, which both Yeshua and Paul upheld, are false preachers and prophets; nothing more, nothing less. Paul wrote:
2 Corinthians 11: 13 The fact is that such men are pseudo-emissaries: they tell lies about their work and masquerade as emissaries of the Messiah. 14 There is nothing surprising in that, for the Adversary himself masquerades as an angel of light; 15 so it???s no great thing if his workers masquerade as servants of righteousness. They will meet the end their deeds deserve.
If the above has peaked your curiosity, then we invite you to read the articles on the Challenging Mainstream Christianity page, and verifying in the Bible everything we've espoused; don't just take our word for it! If some of the articles come across as blunt or harsh, it's because many Christians have attacked this website - some have even sent death threats! - and so we are presenting God's Truth without bothering to mince words. You have the choice to take it or leave it. In the end, God Himself leaves it up to us as to whether or not we choose to obey Him, or his enemy....
Micah 6: 8 Human being, you have already been told what is good, what ADONAI demands of you - no more than to act justly, love grace and walk in purity with your God.
How do you walk in purity with God unless you are OBEYING Him?
Bottom line: We are on the same side! So, let's work together, for God's sake!