David, Bathsheba, and the Dangers of the Letter of the Law

Coming to a steamy romance near you!

Whoo, boy!  Two months!  Sorry about that; I was busy getting ready for the move, then moving, then without internet for a week, then dealing with several ministerial crises that popped up.  Baruch Hashem, though!  The crises actually opened up some wonderful opportunities.  I’ll have to get everyone’s permission to share the events some day soon.

In any case, it has indeed been far too long since I posted, so it’s time to get back into the swing of things.  I thought I’d start with commenting on a rather provocative article from Torah Ideals on the affair between David and Bathsheba.  The whole article really needs to be read to understand my responses to it, but here’s the flavor of it:

It is a convention of biblical scholarship that scripture sometimes presents seemingly contradictory information that forces us to evaluate the misdeeds of extraordinary people in the context of their times and circumstances. To warn us against superficially interpreting David’s episode with Bathsheba, the Talmud records the oral tradition that, “Anyone who says that David sinned is in error.”¹

Even without the Talmud’s admonition, it is impossible to reconcile the simple reading of the text with Torah law. According to Jewish law, an adulteress is forbidden to marry a man with whom she committed adultery, even after divorce or the death of her husband.² Any descendant from such a union would be a mamzer, i.e., illegitimate, and would thus be disqualified both from reigning as king and from marrying into the general community of permitted Jewish women. Because David remained married to Bathsheba after the incident without reprimand, and because their son, Solomon, was allowed to rule and perpetuate the messianic line, we have no choice but to conclude that David, whatever his sin may have been concerning Bathsheba, did not commit adultery.³

If David and Bathsheba were adulterers, this scene should never have happened.

This article was post on another forum I hang around the fringes of and naturally generated quite a bit of controversy.  After all, the plain sense of the text seems to be that David committed outright adultery and murder, but found grace in the eyes of Hashem so that his life was spared.  However, in addition to the problems such a reading brings to the legitimacy of Solomon’s reign–not to mention letting him build the Temple!–but the fact is that David committed not one, but TWO capital crimes under the Torah if we take the simplest reading of the text. The Torah also does not allow the murderer or the adulterer to atone by way of repentence and sacrifice; his life is forfeit, plain and simple. Therefore, to look deeper to understand just why this penalty wasn’t applied to David is not only warrented, but necessary.

Let me take a minute to explain the rationale behind the rabbis’ assertion that David could not have legally married Bathsheba if they had indeed committed adultery, and that therefore Solomon would have been a mamzer, illegitimate and uneligible to even enter the Temple, let alone have built it (Deu. 23:2).  I wanted to comment on this particularly because it is an excellent example of just how the rabbis interpret Scripture.

The prooftext cited in the Torah Ideals article is the Babylonian Talmud, Sotah 25a:

Said R. Judah of Disqarta, “No, it is to prohibit the woman to marry her lover as she is prohibited to remain wed to her husband. For we have learned in the Mishnah: Just as she is forbidden to her husband, so she is forbidden to her lover.”

A better proof comes from Mishnah Yevamot 2:8:

He who is suspected [of having intercourse] with a married woman, and they [the court] dissolved the marriage with her husband, even though he [the suspect] married [the woman], he must put her out.

Both Sotah and the above passage from Yevamot are commenting on the ceremony of the bitter waters described in Num. 5:11-31. The text describes in detail what to do if the woman goes through with the ceremony, but what do you do if she refuses to finish it? The rabbis understood that to be a de-facto admission of guilt. Such a self-confession is inadmissable in a Jewish court for the purposes of invoking the death penalty (Judaism’s version of the 5th Amendment–no one can be convicted solely out of their own mouth), so what is to be done with the woman?

Numbers 5:14 specifically states that a woman who commits adultery “defiles herself” (nit’ma’ah), lit. “is made ritually unclean.” The rabbis interpret this to mean that she is in the same state of ritual impurity as she is when niddah (having her period; see Lev. 15:19-24)–which only makes sense, since why should someone who committed adultery be less unclean than a woman who was simply having her period? (This would be a prime example of a kal v’chomer argument, a type of argument that Yeshua Himself used often.) Therefore, from the time a husband made an official statement of jealous suspicion to the time the woman was cleared by fulfilling the bitter water ceremony, she was forbidden to him just as if she were unclean from her period. Therefore, if she refused to complete the ceremony, she would become permanently forbidden to her husband as unclean and they would have to divorce.

And if a woman were forbidden to her husband by adultery, how much more should she be forbidden to her lover?

So yes, the principle that David would have been forbidden to marry Bathsheba following an outright act of adultery is definitely Biblical, though the Torah doesn’t come out and state it. It is a perfectly valid derived law.

Having said that, I could see the case made that the husband is not required to divorce his wife in all cases, since Scripture is clear that Hashem did not divorce His adulterous wife, Israel. However, forbidding the wife to the adulterer, as Hashem continued to forbid Israel to the pagan gods, would still stand.

And again, even if that weren’t so, we would still have the problem that a pair of adulterers and a murderer were not put to death despite the clear commandment of the Torah.

The article does a good job of explaining how David gets off the hook by a pair of technicalities:  Uriah was horrendously disrespectful and disobedient to a direct order from the King–most likely because he knew or at least suspected what was up–and in that time, either was considered worthy of death.  And if the giving of a retroactive get (divorce document) was indeed a practice in David’s time–which is by no means proven, but very plausible–then that would explain why David’s affair would not necessarily de-legitimize and disqualify Solomon.

The Torah Ideals article does go a bit far in its exoneration of David, but I think it gets to the meat of the matter when it states, “Although innocent of adultery and murder—sins against man—David had nevertheless sinned against G-d when he failed to uphold the divine will by manipulating the intent behind the law.”  I would add just one word to that sentence:  ”Although technically innocent . . .”  Not that I think David was wholly exonerated in Hashem’s eyes, but that being an expert in the Torah itself, David would have used the above machinations to try to get off technically rather than just flaunting his adultery and murder.  After all, most humans try to find “technical” ways to justify their actions.

Hashem’s response could then be seen as basically saying, “Okay, if you want to play legal games with Me, let’s see you pass judgment on yourself.”  That is why Nathan’s story involved theft rather than adultery or murder.   And since David pronounced (correctly, from Exo. 22:1) that a thief must pay back fourfold, the Holy One pronounced, “Okay, you’ve stolen one life from Me, so you owe me four.”  That is why David ultimately lost four sons, one in infancy, the other three to the sword.

While Torah Ideals–and the rabbis–may go too far in exonerating our fathers and heroes, nevertheless their willingness to look past the surface details of the story and struggle with apparent contradictions is something that my Sunday brethren should admire.  Even if we disagree on the actual nature of the sin, I think the rabbis’ explanation gives us a valuable insight into David’s mind–and into the kinds of rationalizations even the man after Hashem’s own heart can fall into when stumbling into sin.

Shalom

When RL Gets in the Way of OL

Apropos of Nothing

I’ve been extremely lax in my posting since just the High Holy Days. No, this blog hasn’t been abandoned, nor have any of my projects; however, some things are on hold as we prepare to move from our current apartment and in with some friends who have been gracious enough to open up a basement apartment to us. The move will help to shield both of our families financially from the coming crisis, will get mine a bit further away from the city, and–if things do settle back into some semblance of normalicy–allow us to put aside some real money towards a house of our own.

In order to prepare for this move, I’ve been spending my Sundays over there, helping to clean out our future living space, rearrange the furnature, and so forth. While that’s going on, a huge chunk of my personal study time has been eaten up, so I’m having to prioritize.

The YouTube videos are on hold for the moment, mostly because I’m havng trouble finding quiet times in which to record and edit them. After we get settled in, I’ll get started on that again.

My blogging time has also been cut back on. I’ll try to get at least a good weekly post in, but most of my writing time is focused on keeping up with the Revelation teaching series for Beth HaMashiach (which you can listen to at Cyber-Synagogue if you haven’t heard already) and working on the follow-up to When the Stars Fall.

Hopefully, once we get into December, things will be back to some semblance of normalicy, at least as far as my updates go. Thank you very much for your patience and support.

Shalom

“Hypocrites! You know how to discern the appearance of the sky . . .”

The "Pharisee and Publican" - or as I like to call it, "the Supracessionist and the Dispensationalist"

“. . . but you cannot discern the signs of the times!”

So Yeshua answered the Sadducees and Pharisees who demanded yet another sign from Him.  And so I think he would answer the Christians today who ignore the greatest miracle in two thousand years staring them in the face.  They believe in the Resurrection of Yeshua, which they have not seen, but refuse to believe the resurrection of Israel, which stares them in the face every day!

And why?  For the same reason that the Sadducees and the majority of the Pharisees rejected the Messiah:  It would mess with their theology too much, so they would rather condemn the miracle than praise the God who sent the miracle.

A couple of days ago the Rosh Pina Project has given some answers to a recent sermon by Stuart Olyott condemning Israel, and of course earlier this week we joined the chorus of Messianics and Christians responding to John Piper’s ill-thought-out tweet.  As I’ve looked over the various blogs where these attacks on Israel are being addressed, most seem to be intent on dealing with the Israel-bashers on their own terms.  That’s fine; it’s certainly easy enough to disprove Replacement Theology with Romans 9-11, and it’s good to address those arguments.  But this blog being what it is, I wanted to take the argument in a different direction:  To demonstrate specific prophecies that have been or are in the process of being fulfilled in Israel right now.  I’ll start by reposting something I originally wrote for Yom HaAtzma’ut:

Let’s start with the passage that David Ben Gurion himself cited as the Biblical mandate for Israel’s restoration:

Isa 66:7-11 -  “Before she travailed, she brought forth; before her pain came, she delivered a son.   Who has heard such a thing? who has seen such things? Shall a land be born in one day? shall a nation be brought forth at once? for as soon as Zion travailed, she brought forth her children.   Shall I bring to the birth, and not cause to bring forth?” says the LORD: “shall I who cause to bring forth shut the womb?” says your God.  “Rejoice with Jerusalem, and be glad for her, all you who love her: rejoice for joy with her, all you who mourn over her; that you may nurse and be satisfied at the comforting breasts; that you may drink deeply, and be delighted with the abundance of her glory.”

Or how about this one, prophesying that Israel would be restored twice, and that the second time would take place when the Gentiles were rallying to the Messiah:

Isa 11:10-13 -  It will happen in that day that the nations will seek the Root of Jesse, who stands as a banner of the peoples; and his resting place will be glorious.  It will happen in that day that the Lord will set his hand again the second time to recover the remnant that is left of his people from Assyria, from Egypt, from Pathros, from Cush, from Elam, from Shinar, from Hamath, and from the islands of the sea.   He will set up a banner for the nations, and will assemble the outcasts of Israel, and gather together the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth.   The envy also of Ephraim will depart, and those who persecute Judah will be cut off. Ephraim won’t envy Judah, and Judah won’t persecute Ephraim.

There are also the twin prophecies of Ezekiel 36-37.  Chapter 36 gives us the straightforward prediction of Israel’s restoration, while chapter 37 puts it forward in pictorial form, presenting it as a resurrection from the dead.  It would be too much to cover both prophecies in their entirety here, so I will restrict myself to pointing to a few points in particular:

Ezk. 36:18-27 – Therefore I poured out my wrath on them for the blood which they had poured out on the land, and because they had defiled it with their idols; and I scattered them among the nations, and they were dispersed through the countries: according to their way and according to their doings I judged them.   When they came to the nations, where they went, they profaned my holy name; in that men said of them, These are the people of the LORD, and are gone forth out of his land.   But I had respect for my holy name, which the house of Israel had profaned among the nations, where they went.

Therefore tell the house of Israel, Thus says the Lord GOD: I don’t do this for your sake, house of Israel, but for my holy name, which you have profaned among the nations, where you went.  I will sanctify my great name, which has been profaned among the nations, which you have profaned in their midst; and the nations shall know that I am the LORD, says the Lord GOD, when I shall be sanctified in you before their eyes.  For I will take you from among the nations, and gather you out of all the countries, and will bring you into your own land.  I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean: from all your filthiness, and from all your idols, will I cleanse you.  I will also give you a new heart, and I will put a new spirit within you; and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh.  I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and you shall keep my ordinances, and do them.

Note the parallelism:

Ezk. 37:7-13 – So I prophesied as I was commanded: and as I prophesied, there was a noise, and behold, an earthquake; and the bones came together, bone to its bone.  I saw, and, behold, there were sinews on them, and flesh came up, and skin covered them above; but there was no breath in them.  Then he said to me, Prophesy to the wind, prophesy, son of man, and tell the wind, Thus says the Lord GOD: Come from the four winds, breath, and breathe on these slain, that they may live.  So I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood up on their feet, an exceedingly great army.

Then he said to me, Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel: behold, they say, Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are clean cut off.  Therefore prophesy, and tell them, Thus says the Lord GOD: Behold, I will open your graves, and cause you to come up out of your graves, my people; and I will bring you into Eretz-Israel.  You shall know that I am the LORD, when I have opened your graves, and caused you to come up out of your graves, my people.

Note the sequence:  First, Israel is gathered from the nations and restored to the Land, but it is as if the dry bones were restored without flesh.  But then they are covered with flesh, the outward sign of healthiness, but have no breath, no Spirit.  Only then is the Holy Spirit poured out to truly make Israel live and walk in the ways of Hashem.

I believe that we are in the days when we see the flesh on the bones, but not yet the Spirit.  As I noted in January:

Rosenberg’s observation about the spiritual awakening after the Six-Day War is what caught my attention.  Possibly the most terrible thing about the Holocaust is how many of the survivors lost their faith in the Holy One of Israel, who didn’t, in their eyes, act to save the Jews from destruction as He did in the days of Esther or the Maccabees.  The spiritual revival came about in part because in the space of a single generation, we saw Hashem give victory to Israel in not just one, but two wars that she shouldn’t have survived.

But when will the Spirit be poured out?  Zechariah gives the answer:

Zec. 12:10-12, 14 – Zec 12:10  I will pour on the house of David, and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplication; and they will look to me[1] whom they have pierced; and they shall mourn for him, as one mourns for his only son, and will grieve bitterly for him, as one grieves for his firstborn.  In that day there will be a great mourning in Jerusalem, like the mourning of Hadadrimmon in the valley of Megiddon.  The land will mourn, every family apart . . . all the families who remain, every family apart, and their wives apart.

And who is this Pierced One that Israel will mourn for?  The Midrash Rabbah gives us the answer:

“Come near,” means to come near to the Kingdom.  “Eat of the bread,” refers to the bread of Messiah’s royalty.  “Dip your bread in the vinegar,” refers to Messiah’s sufferings, as it is said, “But he was pierced for our transgressions.”  (Ruth Rabbah 5:6, quoting Ruth 2:14 and Isa. 52:5)

Who can this Messiah be, who was a banner to the Gentiles even before Israel was returned to the Land for the second time, who was pierced for our transgressions?  What other candidate fits the prophecies and the rabbinic commentary on the prophecies if not Yeshua of Nazareth?

On the way back from a pilgrimage to Israel three years ago, I found myself intently studying Zechariah 8 on the plane home, having had my attention drawn to it by Moshe Kempinsky when we visited his shop.  It is a prophecy that we can see being fulfilled before our very eyes:  There are old men and women in Jerusalem watching over the play of children (vv. 4-5), the Jews have returned (vv. 7-8), the once-barren Land is now a place of fruitful fields and vines (v. 12), and people from all over the world–Christians as well as Jews–go up to Jerusalem and Israel to seek the favor of Hashem and learn His ways (v. 21).

And yet, it is not a prophecy that is complete, because Jerusalem is not yet a city completely at peace (v. 10), nor has the Sh’khinah returned to the Temple (v. 3).  When will that day come?  According to chapter 12, only when all Israel mourns for the Pierced One together in the midst of a day of battle.  And we are coming to that day soon.

Christians are fond of condemning the Jews for being blind to the miracles of Jesus.  Those who do so had best be sure that they are not overlooking the greatest miracle of our time because of their own philosophy:

Mat 7:1 “Don’t judge, so that you won’t be judged. 2 For with whatever judgment you judge, you will be judged; and with whatever measure you measure, it will be measured to you. 3 Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but don’t consider the beam that is in your own eye? 4 Or how will you tell your brother, ‘Let me remove the speck from your eye;’ and behold, the beam is in your own eye? 5 You hypocrite! First remove the beam out of your own eye, and then you can see clearly to remove the speck out of your brother’s eye.

Shalom

Related articles

• Reflections from Jeremiah 23:1-15 (michaelawbrey.com)
• “Jesus, not Israel” (roshpinaproject.com)
• What the Bible Teaches About Scoffers (verticalviewer.wordpress.com)
• Red Skies In The Morning – Pharisees Take Warning (olsonwriter.wordpress.com)

Yeshua, Not Christians

John Calvin, a brilliant scholar, but no prophet

I’d been taking a bit of a break from blogging for a couple of reasons:  One is that a lot of the work I was doing was on refuting an anti-missionary tract, and it seemed inappropriate to continue the attack during the High Holy Days.  The second was busyness and the third was just plain needing to take a break from writing to spend some time in study and prayer.

Even after coming to the end of my planned hiatus, I didn’t post for a while simply because I couldn’t think of anything that I really wanted to get back into.  Fortunately, John Piper came to the rescue with his (uncharacteristically, for him) ill-thought-out tweet:

Isaac not Ishmael. Jacob not Esau. Israel not the Nations. Jesus not Israel. In Jesus all who believe.

K’neti L’Zyion and the Rosh Pina Project have already offered their responses, but it seemed like a good time to jump back into the fray by offering my own thoughts on the subject.

Thought the first:  How is it that Piper can be a Calvinist when it comes to individual election, but basest form of Arminian when it comes to a nation’s?

Thought the second:  Yeshua, not John “Let’s Set People Who Disagree With Me On Fire” Calvin.

I’ve never been a fan of Calvinism, in large part because of the overly-aggressive Calvinists I’ve met, but in large part because of this very self-contradiction in their theology:  They insist that the individual’s salvation is undeserved and Divinely-mandated and that therefore the elect cannot lose their salvation on the one hand.  But apparently TULIP falls completely apart if applied to Israel’s election.

But if the Eternal One could once go back on His promise to a body, or else weasel out of them with lawyerly loopholes (which, the last time I checked, was the attribute of Satan, not the Holy One), how in the world can the Calvinist rest secure in their own election?  Why could not God turn back the devout Calvnist from the pearly gates and let in a Hindu or Buddhist, saying, “Hey, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion?”

Only if Hashem’s promises mean what they say is there any security at all in election.  And if they do mean what they say, then

All Israel will be saved, just as it is written . . . From the standpoint of the Gospel, they [Israel] are enemies for your [the Gentiles'] sake, but from the standpoint of election they are beloved for the sake of the Patriarchs, for the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. (Rom. 11:26, 28-29.

Does this refer to the Church?  Well, perhaps we might accept that the Calvinists are the enemies of the Gospel for the sakes of the Gentiles . . . but fortunately, Hashem loves them too.

Shalom

Related articles

• Does Erwin Lutzer Offer False Hope to Calvinist Parents? (arminianperspectives.wordpress.com)

More Answers to Rick Halpern

Yeah, I know this took me long enough.  I had some distractions crop up, and I really needed a break.  In any case, here are the next two videos (really parts 1 and 2 of one video, since I couldn’t get it in the 15-minute YouTube limit):

Enjoy and shalom.

Related articles

• First Video: Answering “Choose Life” by Rick Halpern, Part 1 (returnofbenjamin.wordpress.com)

Raised for War, Part 4: The Deliverer Comes

The Sarejevo Hagadah, 15th century Spain

I will raise them up a prophet from among their brothers, like you; and I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I shall command him.  It shall happen, that whoever will not listen to my words which he shall speak in my name, I will require it of him.  –Deu. 18:18-19

One of the things I think my Sunday-brethren lack is a real appreciation for Moses.  In fact, there’s a real tendency to put him down.  “You’re going back to the Law of Moses!” I’ve heard in derisive tones, as if the Torah of Hashem that was delivered to us through Moses were a bad thing.  “Well, Christ is superior to Moses!”  Okay, that’s true, but unless you actually appreciate who Moses was and what Hashem did through him, that’s not much of a compliment to the Messiah, now is it?  Only if we understand just what an elevated state of holiness that Hashem bestowed upon Moses does calling Messiah superior properly exalt Yeshua.

That’s a subject that really deserves its own post, so let me put it aside for the moment and concentrate on the above passage of the Torah, which speaks specifically of the Messiah.  First, how do we know that it speaks of Messiah?  Simply put, because through the whole of the Tanakh, there was never a prophet quite like Moses:

The LORD came down in a pillar of cloud, and stood at the door of the Tent, and called Aaron and Miriam; and they both came forward. He said, “Hear now my words. If there is a prophet among you, I the LORD will make myself known to him in a vision. I will speak with him in a dream. My servant Moses is not so. He is faithful in all my house. With him I will speak mouth to mouth, even plainly, and not in riddles; and he shall see the LORD’s form. Why then were you not afraid to speak against my servant, against Moses?”// (Num. 12:5-8)

There has not arisen a prophet since in Israel like Moses, whom the LORD knew face to face, in all the signs and the wonders, which the LORD sent him to do in the land of Egypt, to Pharaoh, and to all his servants, and to all his land, and in all the mighty hand, and in all the great terror, which Moses worked in the sight of all Israel.  (Deu. 34:10-12)

All the prophets of the Tanakh knew Hashem only through dreams and riddles–that is, the strange prophecies that He put in their mouths.  And the Torah tells us as its postscript that Moses is yet unique among the prophets for two reasons: In knowing Hashem face-to-face and in the mighty signs and wonders that he did in the sight of all Israel.

Now what do the Renewed Covenant Scriptures tell us about Yeshua?

For the Torah was given through Moses. Grace and truth were realized through Yeshua the Messiah.  No one has seen God at any time. The one and only Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he has declared him.  (John 1:17f)

In other words, Yeshua was claiming to have gone beyond Moses, who was able to behold only the “back” of Hashem’s Glory (Exo. 33:20-23); Yeshua, in His pre-incarnate existence as the Word and Sh’khinah of Hashem knew what Kabbalists term the Ein Sof, the Infinite One that we know only by the traits that He emanates into the world.  Yeshua knew Hashem and had come from Hashem so intimately that He was able to say, “Not that anyone has seen the Father, except he who is from God. He has seen the Father” (John 6:46), but, “He who has seen me has seen the Father. How do you say, ‘Show us the Father?’ Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and the Father in me?” (14:9f)

“But,” one of my Jewish brethren may object, “Jesus may have said that, but he didn’t prove it.  After all, Moses is still unique in the miracles that he did ‘in the sight of all Israel.’”

And He's still doing miracles today

That’s partially true, in that we who know Yeshua believe that the signs that will accompany His Second Coming will outstrip those that accompanied His First, but even in His earthly ministry in the 1st Century, His signs were shown to “all Israel.”  Even His enemies acknowledged them:

Some therefore of the Pharisees said, “This man is not from God, because he doesn’t keep the Sabbath.” Others said, “How can a man who is a sinner do such signs?” There was division among them.  (John 9:16)

The chief priests therefore and the Pharisees gathered a council, and said, “What are we doing? For this man does many signs. If we leave him alone like this, everyone will believe in him, and the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation.”  (John 4:47-48)

“Men of Israel, hear these words! Yeshua of Nazareth, a man approved by God to you by mighty works and wonders and signs which God did by him in the midst of you, even as you yourselves know.  (Acts 2:22)

Incidentally, even the Talmud acknowledges that Yeshua did miracles which could not be explained by natural trickery when it accuses Him of learning Egyptian magic or somehow getting power by sewing a parchment with Hashem’s Name under His skin (b.Shab. 104 and b.Sanh. 107).  (One wonders why the Talmudists think that would give a man such power.)  What does that tell us?  That Yeshua’s miracles were so well-witnessed and so well-known that the rabbis could not deny that He had done them “in the sight of all Israel,” but having denied that He was a prophet, let alone Messiah, they had to offer an alternate explanation.

So what’s the point of all that?  Simply this:  In both terms of intimacy and in terms of the public display of signs and wonders, Yeshua was indeed the Prophet Like Moses.

But the comparison doesn’t end there, which is where I really want to take this post.  (Like Bill Cosby’s famous “Fat Albert” routine, I told you that story to tell you this one.)  As we go through our own Exodus and time “in the wilderness,” we find that at every step of the way, Yeshua acts just like Moses.  To start with, He comes to us before we go with Him.

Moses did not send messengers from Mt. Sinai telling the Hebrews to come to him to meet Hashem.  They never could have responded to such a call, for they were in bondage just as those who are without Hashem are in the present day (an issue we explored in the last post on this subject).  Instead, Hashem sent Moses to the Hebrews to liberate them from their slavery.

Seriously, if you've not read it yet, do so.

And how did Moses accomplish this task?  With the Ten Plagues, of course–but why the Ten Plagues?  Hashem tells us, “For I will go through the land of Egypt in that night, and will strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and animal. Against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments: I am the LORD” (Exo. 12:12).  Now that of course refers to the Passover specifically, but as many scholars have noted, all of the Plagues were targeted at the gods the Egyptians worshiped.  (Chuck Missler has a good article on the subject here.)

There’s a connection there to Yeshua’s ministry that is often missed, for just as Moses contended with the gods of Egypt, so Yeshua contended with the demons which the Gentiles worship (Deu. 32:17, 1Co. 10:20)–through His miracles and through the deliverances (exorcisms, if you prefer) that were a defining trait of His ministry.

Did you realize that before you ever came to faith–or to repentance, for those born into households that raised them in faith but who fell into whatever sin–Messiah, like Moses, came to you in your bondage and fought the gods of this world for you?

And of course, the ultimate Deliverance was effected through the Passover, which we’ll look at next time.

Shalom

First Video: Answering “Choose Life” by Rick Halpern, Part 1

I’ve been working on this for a while–mostly because I’ve never done a video before, and it took a long time to get it the way I wanted it.  I’m hoping to add about one part a week until it’s done.  Feedback and suggestions from those who’ve done this sort of thing before are definitely appreciated.

Shalom

From the Mailbox: Does God Condemn the Ignorant?

Jonah and the Dag

I got this in an email the other day:

In North Vietnam there was a very loving and caring man who worked his fields and taught his children basic decency. His life was devoted to what he perceived as ‘good’. He was in a remote village so his life experience was nearly exclusively what his family/villagers had taught him. He did not know about the Messiah but was a sort-of-Buddhist. I called him a ‘rice farmer’ and his kindness was genuine. He would do all he could to assist others. Now, the American bombs killed him so what is his destiny???? What about the “Billions” in similar circumstances who are alive now??? What about the ones in death??? This is what is driving me nuts. Nobody wants to or can help me understand this.

Shalom,

That’s a very difficult question–not because the answer isn’t there, but because of the emotion tied up in it. On the one side, you have the standard Christian answer: All have fallen short of the glory of God, so whoever doesn’t accept Jesus as their Lord and Savior will go to Hell for their sins. Those who accept that will attack any attempt to discuss the point as an invitation to heresy. On the other side, you have the sick dread that those of us live with who have relatives and ancestors who never knew the real Yeshua–and that includes me, since I have a lot of Jewish relatives who don’t believe.

To answer the question, let’s first make a distinction between those who actively reject Yeshua versus those who simply never heard of Him.

There is no doubt at all that the Bible teaches that those who actively reject Yeshua, no matter what their excuse, are under judgment. For example, “He who believes in the Son has eternal life; but he who does not believe the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him” (John 3:36). The word translated, “does not believe” is apeithoon, which never refers to an honest mistake, but means an active and willing disbelief leading to disobedience. It is, for example, used throughout the book of Acts to refer to those Jews who actively persecuted the Apostles, not of those who were just weren’t sure yet.

The same word appears in Romans 2:8, “But to those who are selfishly ambititious and do not believe/obey (apeithousin) to confirm the truth but obey unrighteousness, [recieve] wrath and indignation.” The issue is clearly not that they don’t have access to the truth, but that they are actively disobeying it in persuit of unrighteousness.

Scripture never once condemns those, Jewish or otherwise, who simply had not yet heard of Yeshua, but only those who actively chose to reject the Word being delivered to them.

So what does Hashem do with those who did not have a chance to hear of Yeshua’s salvation? There is no simple answer for that, but I believe that there is Scriptural evidence that He shows mercy to the ignorant who pursue whatever light they are given.

Let us begin with the Torah:

“‘When a ruler sins, and unwittingly does any one of all the things which the LORD his God has commanded not to be done, and is guilty if his sin, in which he has sinned, is made known to him, he shall bring as his offering a goat, a male without blemish. (Lev. 4:22-23)

“If anyone of the common people sins unwittingly, in doing any of the things which the LORD has commanded not to be done, and is guilty if his sin, which he has sinned, is made known to him, then he shall bring for his offering a goat, a female without blemish, for his sin which he has sinned.” (Lev. 4:27-28)

The word translated “if” is ao, which indicates a condition or a choice. Here it indicates that the person becomes guilty if, and only if, his sin is made known to him. This does not mean that the person has to be confronted by another, since we each have our own sense of right and wrong (which, if nothing else, makes us angry when someone else sins against us, making us guilty for those sins which anger us, Rom. 2:3). But it does mean, for example, that someone who has never heard of the Sabbath or who honestly believes that he should observe Sunday instead is not held guilty by God of any sin.

This idea is confirmed in the New Testament as well. Yeshua says, “If you were blind, you would have no sin,” to the Pharisees (John 9:41). Paul says to the citizens of Athens that God “overlooked the times of ignorance” (Acts 17:30) and to the Romans that “sin is not imputed when there is no law” (Rom. 5:13).

Does this mean that everyone who has simply never heard of Yeshua automatically goes to Heaven? I don’t think so, for if that were the case, why should we risk condemning billions by making them come to a decision point? What I do think it means is that a person who doesn’t know Yeshua but is aware of their own sinfulness and seeks out a way to be reconciled with the Holy Creator will have a door opened for him. Those that do not, who hide behind tribal gods and customs or seek occultic power in this world rather than the righteousness of Heaven, will not.

Let’s take for example the story of Jonah. God sent Jonah to Ninevah (after a bit of a detour) to proclaim to them that judgment was coming if they did not repent. The rabbis discern that when Ninevah did repent, they did not do so completely and many of their actions, like making the animals fast and wear sackcloth, demonstrated a complete ignorance about the God of Heaven’s requirements.

In fact, there’s a suggestion in the text that they didn’t even really understand who they were repenting to! The Assyrians worshiped Dagon, a fish god, and it is likely that one of the reasons they listened to Jonah was that he had been vomited up on the shore by a giant fish. There’s no record that they sent sacrifices to the Temple of God in Judah so they didn’t even understand that their forgiveness required blood-atonement.

But Hashem forgave them anyway, and when Jonah protested, what did He say? “Should I not have compassion on Ninevah, the great city in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know their right hand from their left, as well as many animals?” (Jonah 4:11)

The Eternal One does not change, and He is just as compassionate today as He was 3000 years ago. Therefore, I have to believe that He still excuses the sins of ignorance, and that He is merciful to whose who acknowledge their sin–even if they don’t know what all of their sins are–and seek the forgiveness of Heaven but who through no fault of their own never meet a missionary to proclaim the One they are seeking to them. As Yeshua Himself said,

 “Ask, and it will be given you. Seek, and you will find. Knock, and it will be opened for you. For everyone who asks receives. He who seeks finds. To him who knocks it will be opened. Or who is there among you, who, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, who will give him a serpent? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him! Therefore whatever you desire for men to do to you, you shall also do to them; for this is the Torah and the Prophets.” (Mat. 7:7-12)

But by the same token, that means that those who do not ask, who do not seek, who do not knock will not find. Therefore, those who refuse to acknowledge their sinfulness, who do not seek forgiveness but instead seek self-justification will never find forgiveness.

And to our sorrow, we have to acknoledge that this includes the vast majority of the human race.

Therefore, let us seek to neither exonerate nor condemn those who have passed before us. For them, we will trust the Holy One to be both just and merciful. Our task is to bring the true Good News to those yet alive today. Those asking and seeking deserve to have their answer in the Messiah Yeshua, and many of those who are not seeking may yet be turned when they hear of the glorious love and mercy of the true Eternal God.

Shalom

See also How Hell Elevates Human Dignity and Idolatry Insults Human Dignity, especially if you think the above means I’m going universalist on you.

Anti-Messianics in full flow in Arad (via )

It’s been a while since I reblogged stuff from Rosh Pina, but it looks like the anti-missionaries are back at it.

Shalom and prayers.

Here is a taste of the religious intolerance faced by Messianic Jews in the southern Israeli town of Arad from the Gur Hasidim who, for several years, have been busy trying to theologically cleanse the town from Jews who believe Yeshua is Messiah. The Gur have designs on Arad being one of their centres, hence the need to get rid of the Messianics, they've even had a pop at Chabad there! One target of this daily harasment is a sabra Israeli called … Read More

via

Raised for War, Part 3: The Nature of Our Slavery

Bars of memes and walls of preconceptions

The Egyptians ruthlessly made the children of Israel serve, and they made their lives bitter with hard service, in mortar and in brick, and in all kinds of service in the field, all their service, in which they ruthlessly made them serve. . . and the children of Israel sighed because of the bondage, and they cried, and their cry came up to God because of the bondage. God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. God saw the children of Israel, and God was concerned about them. (Exo. 1:13-14, 2:23-25)

You were made alive when you were dead in transgressions and sins, in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the children of disobedience; among whom we also all once lived in the lust of our flesh, doing the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest. (Eph. 2:1-3)

For, uttering great swelling words of emptiness, they entice in the lusts of the flesh, by licentiousness, those who are indeed escaping from those who live in error; promising them liberty, while they themselves are bondservants of corruption; for a man is brought into bondage by whoever overcomes him. (2Pt. 2:18-19)

Every Jew is supposed to have burned into him the lessons of the Passover:  That we were slaves to Egypt, but that Hashem in His great mercy and to fulfill His covenant with our father Abraham, redeemed us with an outstretched arm and great judgments.

Every Christian is likewise supposed to have burned into him the lessons of the New Covenant:  That we were slaves to the world, but that the LORD in His great mercy and to fulfill His covenants with our fathers and the prophets redeemed us with both arms outstretched and with great judgments.

Unfortunately, the nature of our slavery in the modern world so often escapes us, especially here in the West.  We join the Pharisees in saying, “We have never been in bondage to anyone” (John 8:33)!  Oh, we may groan at the labors of this world, but we deny the chains that bind us!

What are these chains?  Simply put, these chains are chains of the mind, binding our thinking to the ways of the world.  Ephesians tells us that there are three kinds of chains:

1. The course of this world, the myriad of ways that our cultures, our memes, our paradigmns, and even good ol’ peer pressure shape and mould us.
2. The Prince of the Power of the Air, the Adversary, who binds and blinds us supernaturally.
3. The lusts of our flesh, our human desires run amok.  Paul lists this one last because it is the most subtle and yet strongest chain of all, and the one which will remain even in the Millennium when the Adversary is bound and the cultures of the world are controlled by Messiah Himself.

Through sin, memes, and conditioning, we are wrapped in so many invisible chains that true freedom of thought and action is impossible.  We make up our minds and then refuse to admit data that doesn’t fit our decision.  We make up new memories on the fly.  We make decisions on a subconcious level up to ten seconds before our conscious minds work out a “logical” reason for that decision.  That means that we’re making decisions based on processes that we aren’t even aware of (processes that can be influenced by those with the know-how without you even being aware of it) and then coming up with logical justifications after the fact.  As one scientist put it, “This doesn’t rule out free will, but it does make it implausible.”

If you never read another book on spiritual warfare again, read this one

As George Otis writes in The Twilight Labyrinth:

As Japanese researcher Gen Matsumoto points out, memories act at a subconscious level . . .  A whiff of burning hay might flood the mind with memories of a long-ago trip through the country. . .   His pornographically inclined neighbor may find the movie theater of his mind clogged by sexual reruns. . .

Given an ample supply of the right kind of neural patterns, [the Devil] can control both our inner reality and often the people and circumstances that surround us. . . (p. 157)

[E]xperience prompts physical changes in our brain. . .  Experiments conducted by Dr. Gray Lynch, senior professor at the Center for Neurobiology of Learning and Memory at the University of California at Irvine revelaed that stimulated neurons produce new synapses in as little as ten minutes.

The enemy’s strategy is simple.  He wants to influence the kinds of thoughts that enter our minds so he can alter the neural structure of our brains. . . (p. 158)

Otis concludes, “This also explains why true conversion is (and must be) such a radical process.  As our minds are renewed by the Holy Spirit, old mental patterns are actually replaced with new, undistorted metaphors” (p. 165).  That’s also why only those who have experienced that radical conversion can even perceive the true Kingdom of Heaven (John 3:3), the true rule of Hashem in the hearts of the faithful.

Let me give a couple of personal example of the forging of these memetic chains:  In my teenage years, I came across a friend’s porn collection and was fascinated by it (the course of the world).  It excited me, transforming normal and natural male desires into an obsession (the desires of the flesh).  I justified myself:  “Oh, it’s perfectly natural.  I’m not hurting anyone.  Anyway, I’m holding onto my physical virginity, so I’m doing all right.”  And out of those lusts, the Adversary gained a foothold in my life that would take more than a decade to unravel.

When I speak of a foothold, I don’t mean that in a purely metaphorical sense.  I opened up a door and unclean spirits, demons, of lust entered in.  And though I came to repent of pornography in principle, they did not politely leave, but for many years continued to drag me back, first to magazines found in certain stores downtown, and then to the ever-increasing volumes of free porn available on the internet.  I would have temporary victories, and they would withdraw just long enough for me to let my guard down to trip me up again.

Sin chains like these serve the same purpose as Pharaoh putting the Hebrews under forced labor:  They degrade the soul, kill the spirt, and break down independent thought, creating a slave mentality that seeks maximum comfort over the struggles that come with true freedom.

From the time that I rededicated my life to the Lord at age 22 after a family member confronted about the size of my porn stash, I knew it was wrong, and I hated myself for it.  I was also deeply ashamed, and would only refer to my habit in a vague past tense if the subject came up.  It was not until I overcame my shame, confessed my sin, and allowed myself to be prayed over and delivered that the door was finally closed.

"Everyone knows that 'R' stands for 'Resurrect' and 'D' stands for 'Damn to Hell,' right?"

There are even more subtle chains, like the “Gospel of St. Vote.”  Anyone who cares at all about politics knows this one, whether he wants to admit it or not.  We are drawn into politics because we legitimately care about our country, and we become convinced that everything that is wrong is the “other side’s” fault.  The key of the Gospel of St. Vote is that we believe that if only enough people would vote right, we could turn this country around and set everything right.  And you moderates out there aren’t immune either.  You’re convinced that only you see clearly the extremes of both sides and that by waffling between them, you’re one of the ones who is saving the country from “extremism.”  It’s still the Gospel of St. Vote.

The genius of that particular chain is that it never makes you feel guilty or ashamed.  Everything is someone else’s fault.  You, on the other hand, see clearly just what is wrong with this country and just what needs to be done.  You are certain to be vindicated by history.

That chain is one that I’ve only really even become aware of in the last year or so as I’ve listened to some Christian talk radio that is decidedly non-Conservative.  And I’ve come to realize that the problems this country faces are far more complex than we’d like to think.  Does social spending divide the family and cause people to rely on the government rather than on each other and God?  Sure, but in a godless nation–and let’s be frank, true Christians who walk the walk as well as they talk the talk are an increasingly rare breed–what else are we to do?  As I quoted Mark Steyn months ago, “But the social  liberalism always ends up burying the fiscal conservatism. As  Congressman Mike Pence put it, ‘To those who say we should simply focus  on fiscal issues, I say you would not be able to print enough money in a  thousand years to pay for the government you would need if the  traditional family collapses.’”

On the other hand, the realities of our military ventures are pretty disturbing to anyone who does a bit of reading about them too–and are just as deeply costly to our nation.  So why do I root for going in, guns blazing, just because the guy in the White House got my vote?

The fact is there are no easy answers, and no salvation to the world by voting the right way.  Those older and wiser are saying, “Well, duh,” right now, but for me, the subtle draw of the Gospel of St. Vote captured my imagination for almost two decades of my life.

I’ll have to write more on that another time.

In the next entry in this series, we’ll look at the parallels between the Exodus and that moment of salvation we experience in Yeshua as well as the importance of ritual immersion in water (what my Sunday brethren call baptism).  Until then,

Shalom

Related articles

• The Devil’s Prison House (ptl2010.wordpress.com)
• Freedom in Christ (michaelelynch.wordpress.com)
• “Christ and Cancer,” by John Piper (brokenbelievers.com)
• What About Regeneration (verticalviewer.wordpress.com)