The Abrahamic Covenant: Biblical Model for How to Be Saved

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Psalm 50:5, Made/cut a covenant…by sacrifice. This refers to the method by which covenants were made in ancient times between two parties. This same ritual occurred when YHVH made (or cut) a covenant with Abraham in Genesis chapter 15 except that YHVH took all the responsibilities for fulfilling the covenant upon himself, for Abraham was asleep when this covenant was cut (Gen 15:9–10, 12).

What is the lesson in this for us? Simply this: this is the model for salvation. All Abraham had to do was to have faith in YHVH and all the blessings of the Abrahamic Covenant would fall upon him (Gen 15:6). We know from Paul’s discussion in Romans chapter four that the Abrahamic Covenant is the original biblical model for how an individual can receive salvation from Elohim.

We also know that when YHVH made his covenant with Abraham, the vision Abraham had while he was asleep prophetically pointed to Yeshua’s death on the cross and his initiating the new/renewed covenant as prophesied in the Tanakh (e.g. Jer 31:31–33; also see my notes at Gen 15:12–21). 

Moreover, Yeshua at his last supper and subsequent crucifixion fulfilled this ancient prophecy as well as the spiritual types and shadows discussed in Psalm 50:7 and Genesis 15:9–21. At his last supper, Yeshua made a new covenant with his disciples through his body (the bread) and blood (the wine), which redeemed believers now commemorate when they take communion. 

And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and blessed it, and brake it, and gave it to the disciples, and said, Take, eat; this is my body. And he took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, Drink ye all of it; for this is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins. (Matt 26:26–28)

And when he had given thanks, he brake it, and said, Take, eat: this is my body, which is broken for you: this do in remembrance of me. (1 Cor 11:24)

Prior to his death on the cross, Yeshua’s predictively explained the significance of his broken body and spilled blood as it relates to covenantal agreement between him and those who would place their faith in him (as Abraham did in Gen 15).

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I Spent a Year as a Trans Man. Doctors Failed Me at Every Turn.

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From the Daily Signal at https://www.dailysignal.com/2019/10/07/i-spent-a-year-as-a-trans-man-doctors-failed-me-at-every-turn/

Sydney Wright / October 07, 2019 / 625 Comments

“I was not a boy, and hearing otherwise was the last thing I needed,” writes Sydney Wright. (Photo: nito100/Getty Images)

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Portrait of Sydney Wright

Sydney Wright

Sydney Wright is a business sales representative in the private sector and a student at Georgia Northwestern Technical College.

I can’t wrap my head around all that I’ve done to myself in the last two years, much less the “help” that some health care professionals have done to me.

Two years ago, I was a healthy, beautiful girl heading toward high school graduation. Before long, I turned into an overweight, pre-diabetic nightmare of a transgender man.

I won’t place the full blame on health care providers, because I should have known better. But they sure helped me do a lot of harm to myself—and they made a hefty buck doing it.

Here’s my story.

Congress is moving to impeach the president. But will their plan to remove him from office succeed? Find out more now >>

From my earliest years, I was always different from the other girls. I wore boy clothes, and I played with boy toys. I was a classic tomboy. 

As I got older, I became romantically interested in other girls. In fact, with the exception of one guy I dated in high school, I exclusively dated girls.

At the time, you wouldn’t have been able to tell I was gay just from looking at me. I had long, blond hair, wore makeup, and carried myself rather femininely. But in my head, I knew I was gay—though I was more of a self-loathing gay. 

The truth is, I didn’t like gays, and didn’t want to be associated with them. Yet there I was, dating only other girls.

Sydney as a senior in high school. (Photo: Sydney Wright)

By the time I was 17, my parents had long divorced and I was living with my dad. That’s when he found out I was dating girls. He promptly kicked me out of the house, saying it was his way or the highway.

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1 Year After Sex Change, This Teen Regrets His ‘Frankenstein Hack Job’

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From the Daily Signal at 1 Year After Sex Change, This Teen Regrets His ‘Frankenstein Hack Job’

Walt Heyer / November 17, 2019 / 436 Comments

Nathaniel, not pictured above, received sex change surgery at age 18. (Photo: Elva Etienne/Getty Images)

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Portrait of Walt Heyer

Walt Heyer

Walt Heyer is an author and public speaker. Through his website, SexChangeRegret.com, and his blog, WaltHeyer.com, Heyer raises public awareness about those who regret gender change and the tragic consequences suffered as a result.

Less than a year after having gender surgery, Nathaniel now says, “This whole thing was a bad idea. I am 19 years old, and I feel as though I have ruined my life.”

It’s heartbreaking each time I get a letter from someone who underwent gender-change surgery and regrets it, especially someone as young as Nathaniel. 

With his permission, I’m telling a bit of his story to raise awareness of the young lives being ruined by the rush to surgery, and hoping that hearing the testimony of this young man will influence others on this path to slow down and consider the consequences before consenting to surgery. 

In Nathaniel’s case, he says he was bullied by the boys in elementary school because he was sensitive and preferred playing girl games. When he was a bit older, he discovered internet pornography, heard about transgenderism, and as he says, “convinced myself that’s what I was.” 

When he finally worked up the nerve to tell his mother in the summer after eighth grade, she made an appointment with, in his words, “a doctor at an informed-consent clinic.” 

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How to “Go ye therefore…”

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Matthew 28:19–20, Go therefore. What were Yeshua’s final instructions to his disciples before his return to heaven? This portion of Scripture is commonly called, the Great Commission and is found in Matthew 28:19-20. Do we find here any clues to Yeshua’s view toward the Torah as to what his expectations were of his disciples? Here Yeshua instructs his disciples (that includes you and me) to:

Go you therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Set-Apart Spirit: teaching them to observe [keep, preserve, hold fast] all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. Amein.

It is clear from this text that Yeshua, a Jewish rabbi (Matt 26:25, 49; Mark. 9:5; 10:51; 11:21; 14:45; John 1:38, 49; 3:2, 26, 4:31; 6:25; 9:2; 11:8), expected his disciples to follow, teach accurately and spread his teachings (the good news of the kingdom of Elohim) to the world. In the religious culture of first century, Judaism disciples (talmudim) were expected to teach exactly what their Torah teachers had taught them. This is no different in our day when students enroll in a denominational Bible college or seminary, receive ordination and are then sent out into the mission field in the name of that denomination. The students are expected to carry forth the unique teachings and doctrines of that denomination. If they do not, they will either be reprimanded and expected to realign their teachings with the denomination’s official position. If they refuse to do so, that denomination will discharge them from their duties and defrock them.

Likewise, Yeshua expected his disciples to teach the nations to “observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you.” In fact, in Acts 1:8 Yeshua said to his disciples that, “You shall be witnesses unto me” to the whole world. This was their mission and assignment. Yeshua, as did all Jews of his era, spoke Hebrew, and maybe even Aramaic. The word for “commanded” (Matt 28:20) as in “whatsoever I have commanded you …” in the Hebrew would be the word tsavah from which the word mitzvah or commandment (as in Torah commandments) derives. If Yeshua were speaking Hebrew, mitzvah or mitzvot (plural)would have been the same word used in Matthew 5:19 where Yeshua says, “whosoever breaks one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven …” (emphasis added). The word mitzvah in Hebraic religious thought is a clear reference to the Torah commandments of YHVH in the books of the Law of Moses. David uses the term mitzvah (in its plural form mitzvot) numerous times in Psalm 119 equating it with the Torah-law of Elohim as given to Moses and the children of Israel. It was these same commandments (mitzvot) that Yeshua stated in the Sermon on the Mount that he told his disciples to “think not” that he had come to destroy,, that he taught would never pass away as long as heaven and earth stood, that he said whoever would break one of the least of them and teach men so would be called least in the kingdom of heaven, and whoever would keep them and teach men so would be called the greatest in the kingdom. It was these same commandments that Yeshua commissioned his disciples to teach and observe, to keep, hold fast and preserve.

Even in his final word to his disciples before his death, Yeshua commanded his disciples to adhere to the Torah and to convey to those who would follow them the same message.

Can there be any doubt as to what Yeshua’s view of the Torah was, and what his expectations were for his disciples in this regard? How is it that the church has diverged so greatly from the fundamental teachings of Yeshua and his disciples when so many teach that he and his disciples came to “do away with the law?” It has been admitted, by even some in the church, that Christianity is not the religion of Jesus or Yeshua, but rather the religion about the Person of Jesus or Yeshua. For Christianity to be fully the religion of Yeshua and his early disciples, it would have to uphold that obedience to the Torah’s standards of righteous living is a requirement of Christians today.

The Great Commission: The ABC’s of Gospel Evangelism

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No man can redeem his brother from sin except Yeshua!

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Psalm 49:7, None…can…redeem his brother. In that all men are of equal value before Elohim, a man can’t redeem his brother from the penalty of sin, which is death. One can only atone for his own sins by dying, and once dead, there is no more possibility of living, since the wages of sin is death. So there is no possibility of a man atoning for his own sins, much less those of another; this verse makes this truth clear. 

Even if a man could live a sinless life, he could at best save only one other individual—that is, give his life in exchange for only one other sinner. Only Yeshua who was the Creator of all humans life (Col 1:16; Heb 11:3) could exchange his sinless life for all humanity, since common logic tells us the one who creates something is of more value than the sum total of all that he creates. This is why verse eight states that the redemption of men’s souls is costly, since it cost the life of the Son of Elohim, the Creator of all things. Only this costly sin sacrifice could redeem men from the pit of the grave and give men the gift of eternal life (verse nine).

Another point to consider in this discussion is that since Yeshua was born of a virgin and not of the seed of man, his nature wasn’t polluted or defiled by Adam’s sin nature. If he had not been born of a virgin, this would have disqualified him from being the perfect and blemish-free Passover lamb sin offering for the remission of men’s sins before the judgment seat of Elohim. Since the life of man is in his blood (Lev 17:11), and man’s blood was defiled by Adam’s sin nature, and since Yeshua’s blood didn’t derive from man, but from his Father in heaven, Yeshua’s blood was acceptable to a holy Elohim as the required atonement for the redemption men’s souls (Lev 17:11 cp. Isa 53:10). No man except Yeshua has ever met these criteria, thus no man other than Yeshua is qualified to atone for another man’s sin. 

Because Yeshua was the blameless and sin-free Passover lamb, those who spiritually identify and unite with his atoning death through faith and the ritual of baptism for the remission of sins can now be presented as blameless as well before Elohim in heaven (Col 1:21–23).

 

Jacob’s Ladder: Prophetic Pictures and Symbols Relating to the Torah-Gospel

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Jacobs dream of a ladder to heaven is full and overflowing with a grand message relating to the gospel message including the relevance of Torah, Yeshua the Living Torah-Word of Elohim, what the believer’s spiritual walk should look like, the way to the Father in heaven and the regathering of the tribes of Israel in the last days and much more.

I have posted articles and videos on this amazing dream many times in the past. Here are some links to those past teachings. Even if you’ve studied my teachings before, it’s worth reading them again, since they’re so full of faith-inspiring truths and spiritual nuggets that makes the Bible come alive. Enjoy!

Video: Understanding the Prophetic Mystery of Jacob’s Ladder and the Gospel
Jacob’s Ladder Explained—YHVH’s Plan of Salvation from Genesis to Revelation
 

More Spiritual Bon Bons: Carol’s Biblical Quips, Puns, Aphorisms and Worplays (Part 2)

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Those of you who follow the comments section of this blog are already very familiar with Carol, who comments under the email sobriquet of JesusAntibodies. She is one of our most prolific commenters, for which we are grateful. She adds life and passion to our blog.

For a long time, many of us have been greatly amused and edified by her biblical witticisms and wordplays. At first I didn’t think too much about it. But the more I read them, the more I realized that many of them are downright brilliant! I believe that her ability to come up with truths and put them into aphorisms is a gift from Elohim. Thank you Carol, and all praise be to our Father in heaven for your giftedness.

It’s time for Carol’s sayings to be shared far and wide for the glory of Elohim and the edification of the body of Yeshua!

Recently I asked her to make a list of her terse sayings. She informed me that she had 40 pages of them! Overwhelmed, I asked her to send me some of her favorite ones to share with the multiple thousands of people who read this blog every week. Below is the first installment.

  • When I was smart, it was Him, not me. When I was stupid, it was me, not Him.
  • What’s that you said? He’s not coming? No, you’re not going!
  • Your heartbeat: that’s Him knocking. Will you let Him in?
  • When He closes a door, not even water can get in (think Noah’s ark).
  • There’s a reason He didn’t put our eyes on the back of our heads. How would we see over that hump?
  • Pray the answer; He already knows your question.
  • Well done good and faithful (bond) servant? I’m “AUL” in!
  • Genesis 1:1-3/ E=MC2.
  • First comes the netzering, then the engagement ring, then the wedding ring.
  • Kingredients
  • The Word of God changes? EVERYTHING!
  • Some people just want the inheritance and not the responsibility that comes with it.
  • Adam and Eve’s last name was Gardener. If Yeshua Messiah had a last name it would be Davidson!
  • You’re one in a minyan!
  • His moedim are His appointed times. Don’t disappoint Him!
  • Evening and morning equal one day. He takes us out of the darkness and into the light every day.
  • How will we know what love is, if we don’t know Who Love is?
  • Solomon said that there’s nothing new under the sun, but O, above the sun is the Son and He makes all things new!
  • If you take the “t” (the cross) out of the word “immortal” it becomes immoral.
  • It’s not enough to believe in Elohim. You must believe Elohim.