Culminating in the beautiful, immutable Ten Commandments, these must be three of the most pivotal chapters in the entire Bible, for providing LINKAGES in the full counsel to explain the sacrificial “vocation” of loving obedience (the performance of ’emunah’ = faith and faithfulness), to which we’ve all been called.
In Hebrew thought, faith is never detached from faithfulness. Even thanksgiving and believing for healing are acts of obedience – decisions of will. It is by observing both faith and faithfulness as one, that the righteous shall live (Hab 2:4). This is what Romans teaches in the three related references, Rom 1:5; 15:16-18; 16:26. Namely, obedience TO THE FAITH; obedience in word and deed, by the offering up ourselves by faith, to be acceptable through our sanctification by the Spirit; and the obedience OF faith, to uphold THE FAITH (by being faithful to its doctrines).
Faith which does not underscore and promote faithfulness, is sin because Scripture defines anything which is not of faith and faithfulness (to keep the concept of ’emunah’ intact), AS sin.
There’s no getting away from it.
If we’re not obeying His Voice (heeding His sayings), we’re not CLEAVING to Him. We’re rejecting the Life which He is in us, because His Life cannot co-exist with disobedience (Deut 30:10,11,14-20).
That being so, it may be worth mentioning here that if we love the precepts (God’s laws/ways which make us pure and keep us pure) LESS than the promises which offer an inheritance to those who are sanctified by the faith and faithfulness which are of the Messiah (Acts 20:32; 26:18; 2 Thess 2:13), we become a BURDEN upon the system of PURIFICATION of a bride
The fuel which our holy vocation runs on is “the obedience of faith” (a rather important phrase tucked away at the end of the final chapter of Romans) which “worketh by love” (Deut 6:4,5; Mk 12:29; Rom 1:5; 3:31; 15:16-18; 16:26; Gal 5:6; Eph 4:1), the UNDERSTANDING of which depends on knowledge and PRACTICE of “the Way of the LORD” known to Abraham and later codified and expounded by Moses, for finer interpretation by Y’shua the Messiah, as “a Prophet like unto thee (Moses)” (Gen 18:18,19; 26:5; Deut 18:18,19; Ps 111:10; Is 2:2-4; Acts 3:21; 24:14).
The grand idea of Sinai, missed by most who, through prejudice, look for ways to undermine the Hebrew Scriptures and who read Galatians as an all-out war against law (Gal 3&4), is that none other than a God Who is LOVE because He is LIGHT, could have spoken and written the indivisible Ten Words upon which the quality and continuity of civilization depends; and that therefore, HE, the ALMIGHTY, Who calls us out to be sons, not slaves (even saving Israel as “My son, even My firstborn”), to offer reciprocity to God in loving obedience to His Word when mixed with faith (Heb 4; 1 Jn 5:3), HAS NO EQUAL.
Only those who know no other way to act except UNDER COMPULSION, are bad adverts for the Sinai covenant which is subsumed within the New Covenant, when Y’shua IN us, our hope of glory, keeps all Ten for us (just as He “performs all things for us”) as we walk IN Him to live THROUGH Him by His indwelling Spirit inspiring obedience to His love, by grace (Rom 8:4,14; Jn 15:1-14; Heb 12:28).
The difference between being obedient under bondage to a slavewoman rather than obedient to the faith in the liberty of the Spirit as sons of a freewoman as children of promise, is like chalk and cheese
The law of the LORD is a delight mainly to those who appreciate what they WOULDN’T have, in the ABSENCE of its regulating influence on life through the wisdom of its teachings and tenets.
Filtered through the New Covenant, Sinai teaches us that a loving bride, knowing that we are sanctified by the commandments (Jn 17:17,19; 1 Cor 7:19; 1 Thess 4:1-3a; 2 Thess 2:13-15), and who doesn’t act under compulsion, unites all Ten Words (“given in commandmenT”) in her heart, knowing that those who divide them and modify them have no light in them and will see no light (Is 8:13,14,16,20; Rev 14:12).
Even before Sinai, Israel was aware of the Sabbath. Continuous since Gen 2:2,3, it was in their Abrahamic legacy (Gen 26:5).
The sages taught that Israel are His witness nation ‘who proclaim the THREE PART sanctification,’ which we find mentioned in 1 Thess 5:23, in order for a remnant of Israel to be brought to what they called ‘the final end of Redemption’ (physical resurrection of the body – Rom 8:23), ‘adorned,’ they say, with ‘the elevated Stone,’ an allusion to ‘winning Christ’ (receiving His crown of Life) by abiding in the Vine by remaining true to the commandments (Gen 49:24; Jn 15; Phil 3:10-16).
Of course, Lk 21:19; Rom 12:1,2; 2 Cor 7:1; Eph 4:23,24 and 1 Peter 1:9 all refer to the ‘three part sanctification’ of spirit, soul and body necessary for us to be blameless, holy and spotless.
So the sages were on the ball even though they weren’t able to understand the Messianic Reconciliation that would make our REMAINING PURE a necessity, by preserving our innocence by following after righteousness line by line precept by precept in order not to “destroy” what the Atonement “built” (rebirth by the Spirit) (Gal 2:17-19)
The Ten Words are all good.
Before prophecy was fulfilled to release captive Israel, Israel had had SIX TIMES the length of the Babylonian Exile (400-430 years) to ponder the goodness of their God and reflect on what national independence under their God’s benevolent laws would be like, not just for themselves, but for the world (Deut 4:5-8; Is 2:2-4).
Hebrew tradition seems very confident in stating that the “Feast unto Me” which Israel was summoned to hold “three days’ journey into the desert” as a sacrifice to YHVH, after YHVH wore down Pharaoh’s peevish and tempestuous resistance, was their first formal recognition and observance of SHABBAT as “a great and populous NATION,” rather than as individuals (such as Moses’ Levitical family would have done) (Ex 2:1-10; 5:1-3; 8:26-28; 10:9; 26:5-8).
This revelation of God’s wisdom by demonstration of Shabbat to Principalities and Powers by the elect nation of Israel as the church in the wilderness (their first foretaste of millennial peace in their flight from Egypt which had not yet brought them to the Reed Sea), became the first “sign” of their sanctification as a nation, following the sacrifice and sprinkling of the Passover (Ex 12:21-23,27; 31:13,16; Acts 7:38; Eph 3:10), hence the commandment in Deut 5:15 – “And remember thou wast a servant in the Land of Egypt and that the LORD THOU GOD brought thee out thence (by a sacrifice – Ex 12:27 and) with a mighty Hand and by a stretched out Arm (later symbolic of the Messiah as the Branch of YHVH and of Jesse, and the Ruler in Is 4:2; 11:1-12; 40:10) : THEREFORE the LORD thy God COMMANDED ye to KEEP the Sabbath Day.”
The same applies to us due to our translation from bondage to sin through the Sacrificial sprinkling of the Blood of “Christ our Passover” (1 Cor 5:7,8; 11:1,2; 1 Peter 1:2b).
Of considerable anecdotal interest is that Pharaoh evidently decided to pursue and recapture or destroy Israel only AFTER their consecration to keep Shabbat (now the Prologue to the Seven Feasts of YHVH) as a Feast to YHVH.
So we’re in good company.
This permanent thematic relationship between Shabbat and the Passover Feast of Unleavened Bread will take on new meaning for us personally if we’d consider the likely accuracy of the sages’ interpretation of Ex 12:49; 13:9,16 as Israel now being READY TO RECEIVE deliverance, IN ORDER TO receive the TORAH, because of what they had witnessed and suffered in pagan Egypt, AND because the iniquity of the Amorites had reached its fullness (Gen 15:16) as would Amalek later on, to be wiped out by the Messiah (Ex 17:13-16), and the world would need a robust witness of truth and righteousness in word and deed by Israel as chief of nations (Ex 19:8; Deut 4:5-8; Micah 4:1-8; 7:8-20; Zech 8:8), along with the Gospel of salvation by faith, for a reserved remnant to eventually be saved “to the uttermost” by being holy and blameless by keeping the Way by abiding in the Vine, by the Spirit (Is 2:2-4; 43:1-8; 44:1-11; Rom 3:31; 7:22,25-8:6,7,14,23; 11:11-15,25-29; Col 1:23,28; 4:12; 2 Peter 3:9-18).
According to the Passover pattern for deliverance and salvation, we too were delivered, and grafted into the House of Jacob when, in YHVH’s view and timing, WE were READY to receive Torah Instruction, though satan saw to it that no-one told us (2 Tim 3:14-17).
Clearly, the purpose of the Passover and the Exodus was to prove to posterity that YHVH the God of the Hebrews is God alone (Ex 10:7; 12:12; 15:11; 18:11; 20:3) both Creator and Saviour, and that therefore none other exists (Is 44:6,8,24; 45:21,22); and that therefore, the one faith (which can be traced back to Seth and Enos in Gen 4:26 through Abraham the Hebrew) would forever be inseparable from the one law refined under the New Covenant as prophesied by Deut 18:19; Ex 12:49 and confirmed by Rom 2:13 and 3:31.
Once united with and “in” the Messiah through adoption and by commitment to serve and submit to Him as Master, the Ten Commandments which are the test of loyalty to the One God at the Judgment Seat of Christ, are life to those who labour for acceptance by doing them as their principal duty, as the foundation of righteous civilization (Deut 32:46,47; Eccl 12:13; Acts 10:35; 2 Cor 5:9-11; 1 Jn 2:3-6,17; 28,29; 2 Jn vs 5&6).
Just as we see reflected in the New Testament in Matt 5:19; 12:50; 28:20; 1 Cor 7:19; 11:1,2; 1 Thess 4:1-3a; 2 Thess 2:15 in descriptions of the narrow path of holiness (especially throughout John’s Gospel and letters and in His record of the Revelation – Rev 14:6,7,12; 22:14,15,18,19), chapters 18-20 which climax in the marriage covenant of Ten Words given as one commandment (as we find out later in Ex 34:27,28,32 and James 2:6-26) leave us under no illusion that the ways of YHVH will ever be dispensed with.
Seeking out YHVH’s ways, line by line precept by precept (because they’re hidden in the lines AND between the lines by allusion and analogy) to remain “undefiled in the Way” (Ps 119:1,45; Jn 15:3; 1 Cor 3:17), will always be “the whole duty of man,” or we will be less than well acquainted with the requirements of the righteousness of God in Christ that we claim to BE (Eccl 12:13; Lk 12:47,48; 17:10; 2 Cor 5:21), and therefore impure (perhaps even nowhere close to being “chaste virgins”) by being wilfully ignorant, imperfect practitioners of the umbrella love command (Deut 30:10,11; 2 Cor 11:2; 1 Jn 3:3-10; 4:17; 2 Jn vs 5&6).
When human jurors do as they should, and “judge FOR YHVH,” it is our God judging between plaintiff and defendant according to HIS statutes and laws (Gen 18:16).
But since nations’ statutes as yet not conformed to God’s ways because those who labour in legal systems are not conformed to the image of YHVH (Rom 8:29), the results are at best imperfect.
Israel exists to arrive at the point when it will ‘hallow’ (sanctify, exalt, magnify, glorify) YHVH’s Name by exemplifying a legal system in perfect harmony with the Divine Statute Book (Ex 19:5-8; 24:8; Deut 4:5-8; 28:1-3,9,10; Matt 6:10).
This is why they will be feared and exalted as a nation (Deut 28:1-3,9,10; Is 46:13; Lk 2:32)
This is why we are warned sternly not to boast against the natural branches (Rom 11:18,22,25-29).
“Righteousness (in word and deed) exalts a nation”; and that righteousness entails rule-taking, to avoid being hypocritical
Sheep nations will follow Israel’s lead.
Since ALL the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hidden in God as the Messiah (Col 2:3), we are given the Holy Spirit to comb the Torah from which the Rabbi of rabbi’s Y’shua was MADE (Jn 1:14), from a-z to know the mind of Christ, to steadily renew the spirit of our minds to be righteous as He is righteous, to be faultless and perfect by walking in Him (Matt 5:48; Col 1:22; 3:10; Eph 4:23,24; Phil 2:15; 1 Jn 2:29; 3:7).
So in this Portion we should be very encouraged to find yet another example of Heaven’s matchmaking in the pairing of Moses and the Priest of Midian, Jethro’s daughter Zipporah, which leads to YHVH counselling Moses through his father-in-law, to more efficiently establish Torah in Israel’s midst, which is always to our benefit in the long run, for this is why He bore Israel on eagles’ wings to bring them to Himself to be a peculiar possession (Ex 18; 19:1-8; Deut 4:5-8; Is 2:2-4; Rom 3:31).
We will be Torah teachers to the world with them, under Messiah’s millennial Instruction.
The fact that the PROPHETS hinge upon the Shema which affirms Torah (the Torah and the Prophets HANG upon the primary two commandments, to love YHVH with our all; and our neighbour as YHVH in the Messiah loved us), couldn’t be a greater endorsement of the purity and perpetuity of Torah, which is in Y’shua’s DNA and which most likely IS His DNA.
No wonder we’re encouraged to call Torah our “sister” and not to forsake “her” which has so much to offer, to illuminate the deeper meaning of teachings in the New Covenant.
Take a look at Prov 4:6 6:23; 7:2-4 for yourself.
We should never forsake our “sister” (wisdom=Instruction/Torah) but should love, exalt and embrace her!!!
That’s all contained in Matt 5:19 (confirmed in Rom 3:31) where Y’shua warns us never to discriminate against any mitzvah (precept; principle; requirement; good work of righteousness) but to treat all mitzvot (plural of mitzvah) with equal respect and consideration in order not to undermine our sanctification and forfeit blessing or needlessly incur penalties for disobedience.
