Tag Archives: Matthew

Is your house built on sand or rock?

Posted on by
5

Matthew 7:24–27, House on the Rock. What is Yeshua saying here? The Bible equates Torah with wisdom (e.g. Deut 4:5–6; Ps 111:10; Prov 2:6). Therefore, a wise man is one who walks in the Torah. The same man will be called “greatest in the kingdom of heaven” (5:19), referring to one who keeps the Torah-commandments of Elohim and teaches men to do them, whereas the one who rejects Torah the Messiah Yeshua will reject him (verse 23).

A “house” in Hebrew thought is a reference to the temple of Elohim (1 Chr 6:48; 9:13, 26, 27; 22:2; 23:28; 28:21; 2 Chr 4:19; 5:1; Ezr 4:24; Is. 2:3; Matt 12:4; Mark 2:26) that was built upon Mount Moriah (originating from the Hebrew word moreh meaning “to teach”) from which the Torah-law (the righteous teachings or instructions) of Elohim was to go forth to the nations (Isa 2:3; Mic 2:4). We know from the Testimony of Yeshua that the saints are called the spiritual temple (or house) of Elohim (1 Tim 3:15; Heb 10:21; 1 Pet 4:17; 1 Cor 3:16; 6:19; 2 Cor 6:16; Eph 2:21). What we see here is that the “teachings” or “instructions in righteousness” (i.e. the Torah) of YHVH go forth from the temple or house of Elohim located on Mount Moriah for the benefit of the spiritual house or temple of the saints. Clearly stated, Yeshua is saying that the Torah-law of Elohim is for redeemed believers today during the so called “Church Age.”

The “rock” is a clear reference to Yeshua (Ps 18:31,46; 78:35; Rom 9:33; 1 Pet 3:8). He is a Rock and a House (Ps 31:2). He was the Rock in the wilderness from which the water of life flowed and that followed them (referring to the pillar of fire over the Tabernacle of Moses; 1 Cor 10:4; John 4:13–14). He was the Rock that is the Creator (Deut 32:18). As the Rock of Israel, his work was perfect and all of his Torah-ways (instructions, precepts, teachings in truth and righteousness) are judgment and truth (Deut 32:4). He is the Rock of Israel’s salvation (Deut 32:18; Ps 62:2,6; 89:26; 95:1). In Jacob’s dream of a ladder to heaven (which we discussed above), the rock or stone upon which Jacob rested his head and from which the ladder to heaven ascended is mentioned several times (Gen 28:11, 18, 22). This is a clear reference to Yeshua. He is the Stone that the builders rejected and which has become the Head of the corner (Ps 118:22). He is the Stone of stumbling and the Rock of offense (Isa 8:14), and he is the Stone that was laid in Zion for a foundation a stone, a tried stone, a sure foundation (Isa 28:16). Yeshua is the Torah-Word of Elohim made flesh ( John 1:1, 14), and as we have already seen, he was the one who spoke out the Torah-instructions in righteousness to Israel at Mount Sinai. And upon what were those instructions written? Upon two tablets of stone.

So how could we summarize what Yeshua is teaching in his parable about the house on the rock? Does it give us any insights into how he viewed the Torah-law of Elohim that was given to the Israelites at Mount Sinai? Was Yeshua negative in his view of the Torah? Was he indicating that it would be replaced with another (new) law for his disciples—one that would supersede the Torah? Or as Paul the apostle said in the book of Romans, “Do we make void the Torah of Elohim by faith?” (Rom 3:31 cp 6:15). We all know Paul’s immediate response in the same verse to his rhetorical question. “Elohim forbid!”  Yeshua’s teaching of the house on the rock validates the Torah and therein he states clearly that the man whose spiritual house is not built on Torah is a foolish man and that his house will fall. Such individuals will be the ones who will hear the words of Yeshua, the Living Torah, on judgment day, “Depart from me, you that work Torahlessness. I do not know you” (Matt 7:21–23). This warning is totally consistent with Yeshua’s words of Matthew 5:17–19 where he forcefully upholds the legitimacy of the Torah of Elohim. In Yeshua’s Sermon on the Mount (Matt 5–7), he nowhere contradicted himself, nor deviated from his core teaching of upholding the Torah—the instructions, teachings, precepts in righteousness of Elohim, which was had been the standard of righteous living that ruled both the national life of Israel and that of the individual. Yeshua, Paul the apostle along with numerous other biblical writers affirm over and over again that Elohim’s standards of righteousness never changed for ancient Israel (and for all humans), and never will change to this day.

 

What REALLY is the narrow gate?

Posted on by
3

Matthew 7:13, Enter the narrow gate. Here Yeshua speaks of the straight gate and the narrow way that leads to life versus the wide and broad gate that leads to destruction. This narrow gate relates to Jacob’s dream of a ladder to heaven.

In Genesis 28:10–22, we have the account of Jacob’s dream of a ladder reaching into heaven. The dream greatly amazed Jacob and afterwards he concluded that he had experienced a divine encounter. He named the spot where he had the dream Beth El meaning “House of El (God),” and he concluded that this spot was “the gate of heaven” (verse 17). In Hebraic thought, “the ladder” to heaven is equivalent to the Tree of Life, which is another term for the Torah of Elohim. We know that Yeshua was the Torah-Word of Elohim made flesh ( John 1:1,14). Not only that, Yeshua likened himself to a ladder reaching to heaven (John 1:51). 

Furthermore, we see both Moses and Joshua describing the Torah-law of Elohim as a (narrow, by implication) path from which one must turn neither to the left nor to the right (Deut 5:32; 17:11, 20; 28:14; Josh 1:7; 23:6). In Proverbs, the path of wisdom (i.e. Torah) is also likened to a (narrow, by implication) path from which one must not turn either to the left or to the right (Prov 4:27). 

The term “gate” (or door) itself in Matthew 7:13 is a Hebraism referring to the means by which one enters into the Tabernacle or Temple of Elohim (Exod 27:14, 16; 32: 35:17; Ezek 40:3, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 13 etc.). The Tabernacle (or Mishkan) of Moses was representative of the pathway to redemption or salvation. Before actually entering the tabernacle, one encountered the altar of the red heifer, which is a prophetic picture of the cross of Yeshua. To enter the tabernacle, one passed through a multi-colored gate. One of the colors was crimson, which represented the blood of lamb on the door posts of the Israelites’ homes on Passover eve. After that, one would come to the brazen alter of sacrifice, which pictures the new believer dying daily, after the example of Yeshua on the cross, and daily ingesting of the “blood” and “body” of Yeshua (pictured by the Christian ritual of communion), the Lamb of Elohim. 

Yeshua fulfilled all these prophetic types and shadows. He said that he is the door or gate ( John 10:7, 9, 10) by which all must enter to have salvation (Acts 4:12), in order to have access to the Father in heaven (John 14:6). Yeshua told the rich young ruler that the Torah (both the Written Torah and Yeshua the Living Torah-Word of Elohim) was the path to eternal life (Matt 19:16–17). Moreover, the Torah points to Yeshua who was the “aim” or “goal” (not the “end” or “termination” of the Torah, as Rom 10:4 is often mistranslated as in most of our English Bibles) of the Torah who is the Living Torah-Word of YHVH ( John 1:1, 14). Yeshua said that he was the way (to the Father in heaven), the truth and the life ( John 14:6), and that the Word of Elohim is truth ( John 17:17). The only Word of Elohim that existed when Yeshua spoke these words was the Tanakh (or Old Testament).

Yeshua defined himself as the truth, so what is truth? How does Scripture define “truth”? In Psalm 119:142 and 151, David says that the Torah-law and Torah-commandments of Elohim are truth. It’s this simple! Any religious theology that attempts an end run head face into the truth of Torah. Period!

We see the concept of gates in the messianically prophetic verses of Psalm 118:19 and 20. Here the Messiah (Yeshua) is likened as gates of YHVH and gates of righteousness (Ps 119:172 defines “righteousness” as “all of thy Torah-commandments) which all the righteous shall enter.”

So Yeshua is the gate, or the straight way of life and truth, the door to salvation or redemption and the way to the Father in heaven. He is the Word of Elohim made flesh or the Living Torah (John 1:1, 14).

 

When Did Easter Replace Passover?

Posted on by
5

Matthew 28:1, When did the early Christians first celebrate a day commemorating the resurrection of Yeshua?

Although the resurrection of Yeshua the Messiah is a biblical and historical fact, it’s celebration (known as Easter), is neither commanded in the Scriptures, nor was it celebrated by the original disciples of Yeshua. It is purely an invention of the church, which eventually replaced Passover! Here are the facts:

In A History of Christianity (vol. 1), Kenneth Scott Latourette states that notice of Easter as a festival occurs in the middle of the second century, but that festivals commemorating the resurrection of Messiah were presumably observed by at least some Christians from much earlier times (p. 137). Church historian, Philip Schaff, also attributes the beginning of the Easter festival to the middle of the second century (History of the Christian Church, vol. 2, p. 207). He states that the Christian Passover naturally grew out of the Jewish Passover, as the Lord’s Day (Sunday) grew out of the Sabbath. “It is based on the view that Christ crucified and risen is the centre of faith. The Jewish Christians would very naturally from the beginning continue to celebrate the legal Passover, but in the light of its fulfillment by the sacrifice of Christ, and would dwell chiefly on the aspect of the crucifixion. The Gentile Christians, for whom the Jewish Passover had no meaning except through reflection on the cross, would chiefly celebrate the Lord’s resurrection as they did on every Sunday of the week.” He notes that the early Christians commemorated the entire period between the death and resurrection of Yeshua with vigils, fasting, special devotions, meetings culminating in a resurrection feast celebrating the whole work of redemption. The feast of the resurrection gradually became the most prominent aspect of the Christian Passover (Easter celebration), but the crucifixion continued to be celebrated on Good Friday” (ibid., pp. 207–208).

Christians universally kept the Passover on the biblical date of Abib (also known as Nisan) 14/15, irrespective of the day of the week until A.D. 135 according to leading Sabbath scholar Prof. Samuele Bacchiocchi quoting the fourth century Christian historian Ephiphanius (From Sabbath to Sunday, p. 81). “This conclusion,” continues Bacchiocchi, “is supported indirectly by the two earliest documents mentioning the Passover celebration, since both emphasize the commemoration of the death rather than the resurrection of Christ. The Ethiopic version of the apocryphal Epistle of the Apostles [or Didache] says, ‘and you therefore celebrate the remembrance of my death, i.e., the Passover’ (ch. 15). In the Coptic version the passage is basically the same, ‘And you remember my death. If now the Passover takes place …’ (chap. 15)’ (ibid., p. 82).

The second document that attests to the early church’s emphasis on the death rather than the resurrection of Yeshua is the Sermon on the Passover, by Melito, Bishop of Sardis (died ca. A.D. 190). According to Bacchiocchi, Melito provides a most extensive theological interpretations of the meaning of the Passover for early Christians. “Though Melito makes a few passing references to the resurrection, it is clear from the context that these function as the epilogue of the passion drama of the Passover. The emphasis is indeed on the suffering and death of Jesus which constitute the recurring theme of the sermon and of the celebration” (ibid., p. 83).

“The resurrection,” Bacchiocchi admits, “however, did emerge in time as the dominant reason for the celebration not only of the annual Easter-Sunday, but also of the weekly Sunday. The two festivities, in fact,… came to be regarded as one basic feast commemorating at different times the same event of the resurrection.” Bacchiocchi concludes,

It would seem therefore that though the resurrection is frequently mentioned both in the New Testament and in the early patristic literature, no suggestion is given that primitive Christians commemorated the event by a weekly or yearly Sunday service. The very fact that Passover, which later become the annual commemoration of the resurrection held on Easter-Sunday, initially celebrated primarily Christ’s passion [death] and was observed on the fixed date of Nisan [Abib] 15 rather than on Sunday, makes it untenable to claim that Christ’s resurrection determined the origin of Sunday worship during the lifetime of the Apostles. (ibid. p. 84)

 

Will the Real Judas Please Stand Up?

Posted on by
1

Matthew 26:14–15, Then Judas. When Yeshua plainly stated that he’d be crucified soon, Judas evidently became disillusioned, since he was expecting a Conquering King Messiah, not a Suffering Servant Messiah. With Yeshua as a conquering king, Judas could have expected a prominent position in Yeshua’s government.

The lust for money and power were likely the motives behind Judas’ following Yeshua (after all, Judas carried the money bag for Yeshua’s ministry). When Yeshua predicted his crucifixion, Judas’ incentives for following him suddenly vanished. Judas figured he’d salvage what he could of his unfulfilled expectations and enrich himself, even if it meant betraying Yeshua for money. Judas had come to the conclusion that Yeshua was a false Messiah faker and that he had wasted several years of his life following him, so, in his mind, giving Yeshua over to the Jewish authorities wasn’t an act of betrayal at all, but was an act of civil service to expose Yeshua as a trouble-making fraud.

To Judas, the Jewish leaders had been right after all to reject Yeshua as the Messiah. To them, he was merely a pretender, a deceiver, an agitator and a troubler, and Judas had come to the same conclusion. When Judas came to this realization, he now found it advantageous to his personal well-being to cast his lot in with the Jewish religious establishment and to make some money from it as well.

 

Don’t give away the store when helping others!

Posted on by
8

Matthew 25:9, No, lest there. Those who are spiritually wise and have been prudent to prepare for the Messiah’s return must not allow those are not wise and have not prepared to leach off of them spiritually, so that the prudent end up like being weak and ineffective spiritually like the foolish. In other words, Yeshua teaches that self-interest for the purpose self-preservation is actually wisdom and prudence. The wise must not allow themselves to become so “kind-hearted” that in the process of helping others they end up exhausting themselves spiritually to the point of burn-out so as to become all but useless for helping to expand Elohim’s kingdom on earth.

 

Being Cast Into Outer Darkness Versus Being Cast Into the Fire

Posted on by
Reply

Matthew 22:13, Outer [or exterior] darkness. This is likely not a reference to destruction in the lake of fire, which is the fate of the wicked, but rather the place where those who will be least in the kingdom (Matt 5:19) will reside.

In this same parable, Yeshua alludes to the lake of fire in verse seven where he mentions the fate of the wicked who refused the invitation to the wedding of the king’s son. This refers to those who refuse to respond favorably to the gospel message.

Those who are invited guests to the son’s wedding, but who weren’t properly attired, are those saints who will be in the kingdom of Elohim, but who will not have attained the higher reward of being the bride of the king’s son (i.e. the bride of Yeshua). They will not be living in close proximity to Yeshua as his bride in the New Jerusalem, which is a place where there is no darkness or night, for Yeshua who is the Sun of Righteousness (Mal 4:2) and whose face shines like the suns (Rev 1:16) will be the light of the New Jerusalem (Rev 21:23; 22:5). Rather, the place of reward for those who weren’t properly attired in robes of righteousness (Matt 22:11) will be to live further away from the New Jerusalem somewhere on the New Earth. These immortalized saints appear to those who Yeshua refers to in Matt 5:19 as “the least in the kingdom.”

Moreover, light is a biblical metaphor referring to the knowledge of YHVH’s truth or being able to see spiritually, while darkness is an obvious and universal metaphor for ignorance or spiritual blindness. It is possible that these who will be least in the kingdom, though possessing eternal life, will be living in a state of not possessing as much divine revelation or spiritual light as a commensurate reward for their rejecting the fuller spiritual light while they were mortal humans. They have reaped for eternity what they sowed as physical humans. This is because they failed to properly prepare their robes of righteousness to be the bride of Yeshua as the lesson of the previous parable teaches us. The reward of these people who will be to be the least in the kingdom and to abide in a place on the new earth that is further away from the New Jerusalem that has less spiritual light shining on it.

Outer darkness being a lower position in the kingdom of Elohim as opposed to being cast into the lake of fire seems to be more consistent with Yeshua’s usages of this phrase elsewhere (e.g. Matt 8:12; 25:30). In the verbal imagery of Yeshua, being cast into outer darkness seems to be in direct contrast to being cast into a fiery furnace, which is a reference to the fate of the wicked. This fate is final and refers to eternal damnation in the lake of fire (Matt 13:42, 50 cp. 3:12; 25:41; Mark 9:43–49; Rev 19:20; 20:10, 14, 15; 21:8).

 

Yeshua Straightens Out the Rich Young Ruler

Posted on by
1

Matthew 19:16, What good thing. Yeshua’s answer to the rich young ruler when he asks him what he must do to have eternal life might, in a cursory reading, appear that Yeshua is promoting a works based salvation. However this is not the case. Yeshua cleverly shows the young man that he is incapable of obtaining eternal life through good works, for man isn’t capable of perfectly following the Torah. In the case of the young man, he thought himself to be perfectly righteous, when in reality, Yeshua showed him that he was covetous, and therefore still an unrighteous sinner thus disqualifying himself from reward of eternal life. Yeshua, on the contrary, instead of promoting a works-based salvation model, instructs the young man to deal with his sin by selling his possessions and giving the proceeds to the poor, and then becoming a follower of him. The lesson here is that salvation and eternal life can come only as we turn from our sin and become a follower of Yeshua.

What Yeshua is really saying when he answers the young man’s question in verse 21 is this: “If you want to be perfect [Gr. teleios meaning “brought to its end, finished; wanting nothing necessary to completeness”],” turn from sin by obeying the Torah more completely, but also follow the Messiah by becoming his disciple. Remember, to hear and to obey (Heb. shema) the Messiah was a command of the Torah as well (Deut 18:15), and to not believe in him is sin (John 16:9 cp. 3:18). So according to the Bible, to be spiritually perfect or complete one must, as Yeshua said, love him by keeping his (Torah) commandments (John 14:15). It is the Torah that shows us how to love Elohim (and our fellow man as well).

Yeshua makes a similar point in his exchange with a scribe in Mark 12:28–34. While extolling the virtues of Torah-obedience, and commending the scribe for his understanding of the deeper heart issues of Torah-obedience, Yeshua makes an interesting concluding statement. He tells the scribe, “You are not far from the kingdom of Elohim (v. 34) as if to tell him, “You’re on the right spiritual track with regard to your Torah-obedience, and you’re heading for the kingdom, but that alone won’t get you into the kingdom. You must also become a disciple of Yeshua.