TITLE: Avoid (Bypass) Sinai, Forfeit Everlasting Salvation
Since Scripture offers “salvation to the UTTERMOST” (“EVERLASTING salvation”), no-one should risk settling for partial salvation, a salvation cut short by shortchanging the requirements of holiness by not being fully committed to a life of consecration to all the will of YHWH (Is 45:17-25; Heb 5:9; 7:25; 12:14; 1 Peter 1:2,13-17).
To be “everlasting” salvation, salvation “to the uttermost,” to qualify us for immortality to inherit a “world without end” (Eph 3:20,21), we have to prove to be legitimate sons, to be “accounted worthy” (Lk 20:35; Heb 12:5-10).
The LORD’s Sabbaths and Feasts are uniquely endowed with grace to teach us to discern and understand revelation knowledge that shatters any fallacies that threaten to sabotage a believer’s walk of obedience to “the everlasting covenant” (Heb 13:20,21).
The chief reason why our Father has forever made the Hebrew Scriptures the plumbline against which to examine ourselves, to verify the accuracy of our interpretation of the Gospel (Acts 17:11; 24:14; 2 Cor 13:1,5; 2 Tim 3:14-17), is because they are so helpful in our quest for “masteries” of distinctions between righteousness and unrighteousness necessary to be dead to sin, that matter so deeply to Him (Rom 3:20b; 2 Tim 2:5).
Passover is so rich in doctrinal depth, range and purity, that it’s a wonder so many believers over the generations haven’t led a grass roots revival, by burying Easter.
Just shows how powerful the spirit of deception can be when believers abdicate personal accountability to the Word and abandon the help of the Gift of the Spirit, as personal Teacher and Revelator of “ALL truth.”
Eternal Life is not UNconditional.
Precedents, patterns and analogies are the most powerful aids to purification of our souls (1 Peter 1:22), in the toolkit of accurate interpretation.
The Passover is both PRECEDENT and MASTER PATTERN for interpreting the New Testament as a whole, and the Gospel in particular, using the analogies Passover reveals, to alert every redeemed soul to the reality of the danger in taking sanctification for granted.
A glance at 1 Cor 5:1-13 (set in the context of the Passover) and Rev 2:5,26; 3:2-6 will prove the point.
As part of the process of sanctification we are to “…judge those who are WITHIN (the church)…put away (evict) from yourselves that wicked person” (1 Cor 5:12,13).
1 Cor 6 expands on the critical need for Godliness at all costs.
If we don’t have Paul’s attitude to sin (making every effort by the Spirit to sin no more) in 1 Cor 6:12b, in order to honour the remission of sin which was purchased for us by “Christ our Passover”), we can be sure the LORD will cut off the unrepentant offender on the Last Day.
Shabbat (yet to enjoy its most delightful observance in the millennial Kingdom of David) is the great everlasting covenant “SIGN” OF SANCTIFICATION that symbolizes ALL covenant keeping (Ex 31:13,16; Is 56:6); whereas the Passover Feast of Unleavened Bread which Jesus will keep on His Return (Lk 22:1,2,7,12-18; 1 Cor 5:7,8) is the CALL TO SANCTIFICATION, to help ensure we’ll be presented to the Judgment Throne of “the Messiah our Passover,” as duly prepared, thoroughly UNLEAVENED disciples (Eph 1:4,5; Matt 12:50; 2 Cor 5:9-11; 11:1,2; Col 1:21-23,28,29; Jude vs 24).
It’s so interesting how the Holy Spirit provides the unexpected, by weaving principles of obedience together to make it less likely that we’ll omit to recognize vital information, to help us avoid wrong-doing.
For instance, we are called to Shabbat-keeping BY THE PASSOVER & EXODUS (Ex 15:11-17; Deut 5:15; 6:23), which establishes a very holy symbiotic relationship between them, which Sunday and Easter can’t hope to clone.
We’re commanded to REMEMBER Shabbat (Ex 20:8-11), THE perpetual Sabbath day of Matt 12:8, to keep IT holy, not only because it is the Memorial of Creation (our Father’s greatest Testimony – Ps 119:111), but BECAUSE by faith in God through faith in the sacrifice of firstling lamb’s blood, YHWH as Redeemer birthed and delivered Israel as a nation in Egypt (just as He as the Father of our spirits, would later rebirth us from above as a new creation and redeem us from darkness, through faith in “Christ our Passover” [Lamb of God]” – 1 Cor 5:7,8; Col 1), to sanctify them with the Moral Code and accompanying precepts of His Sinai Revelation (Deut 4:10-14,32-40), to make a surviving remnant of the Twelve Tribes and an assimilated “mixed multitude” (Ex 12:38; Nu 23:9,10; 24:5,6), WORTHY to enter their promised Land, to possess it, as a warning to us not to take grace for granted and presume upon eternal life (Heb 4:1-4,6-11).
Shabbat embodies this parallel revelation, which jointly makes it and the Passover the great Memorials of New Covenant salvation, irrespective of whatever calendar date on which we individually had our names written in the Passover Lamb’s Book of Life.
Lk 20:35 & Eph 1:4,5; 4:23,24; 5:10,15-17 describe exactly the same terms of separation (sanctification by the commandments, to be accounted worthy), applicable to us today (Matt 5:19; Rom 3:31; 1 Cor 7:19b; 11:1,2; 2 Thess 2:14-15; Heb 2:1-3; 5:9; 10:26-39).
If we despise Sinai, because of prejudice against our heritage in the House of Jacob (Lk 1:33), by “enmity towards God” by disapproval of His laws (Rom 8:6,7), we miss a huge part of the BALANCE OF THE CONCEPT OF THE LOVE of God (Jn 3:16), which is the call in the SUCCEEDING VERSES (Jn 3:19-21) which aren’t usually quoted, to learn to love Him by learning the covenant, to walk in the light, precept by precept, as Jesus did, to “remain forever” saved (Jn 14:15,21-24; 15:3-15; 1 Jn 2:3-6,17,28,29; Heb 13:20,21).
SINAI, the first Pentecost (Shavuo’t) at which the Exodus nation became YHWH’s bride (“virgin Israel,” soon to fall away) through the giving of the Ten Words as the marriage covenant, ANTICIPATED the regeneration of the human spirit and giving of the Holy Spirit 3500 years later in Jerusalem, to be able to produce “the perfect man” (Ps 101; Rom 8:29; Eph 4:11-14; 2 Tim 3:14-17) by adding the power and capacity of the inward Presence of the Spirit to individuals, for them to attain “masteries” of “the (narrow) Way” (Is 35:8; Matt 7:13-27; 2 Tim 2:5) on which we’re to be groomed through the Blood of the Lamb as covering, for diligent preparation, to be made acceptable amongst a chaste virgin Israel remnant (Matt 25:10-12; 2 Cor 7:1), to inherit a pristine New Earth as qualified stewards of the glory of such future perfection of beauty.
If we ‘talk Sinai down’ by parroting the doctrine of mere men, we’ll most likely downplay all or most of what Matthew-Revelation has to say about being purified by the righteousness of the law (Rom 8:4; 1 Jn 3:3,4,10), and it’s inevitable that we’ll fall short of the “mark” of holiness described in Phil 2:12-15 & 3:10-17, for the “prize” of the “crown of righteousness” that Paul won for “finishing his race” by “keeping the faith” by “delighting in YaH’s laws” and “serving them with his mind” (Rom 7:22,25; 2 Tim 4:3-8).
We’d best get to know THAT Paul, the Paul of Scripture.
So let’s watch out, because time to meet the bridal requirements for eligibility for resurrection to Life rather than damnation and destruction (Matt 7:13,14; Jn 5:24,27-29; Rev 19:7-9), is fast running out.
In short, if, by grossly distorting the meaning of 2 Cor 3:6-11 and Gal 4:22-31 we treat Sinai as an anachronism – an irrelevant historical anecdote, rather than as a living testimony of God’s precautionary provision of sublime universal guideliness (Eccl 12:13,14; Rev 14:6,7,12) for admirable moral conduct, for safe passage to the New Jerusalem, we’ll be writing our own curse (Prov 28:9).
