Sh'mini Atzeret "The Eighth Day of Assembly" (Part C) Feast Days - Major Festivals - The Harvest
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- Religião e espiritualidades
A SUMMARY OF THE PURPOSES OF THESE TWO COVENANTS (The following explanation was taken from Torah Rediscovered, Ariel and D’vorah Berkowitz, FFOZ Publications): ‘A person cannot appropriate the full blessings of the covenant with Moshe (the Torah) unless he first enters into the covenant with Avraham. The latter is done by faith and faith alone. The covenant of promise (through Avraham) gave Israel the physical promises. Not only are these physical promises a reality; they are also pictures of the spiritual relationship we have with HaShem. Moreover they are illustrative of the spiritual promises of inheritance obtained by all believers through faith in Yeshua. ‘For those who trust HaShem for the promises, the proper order for faith and obedience is set by the sequence in which the covenants were given. In other words, faith must precede obedience. But the kind of faith accepted by HaShem is one that naturally flows into obedience. True obedience never comes before faith, nor is it an addition to faith. It is always the result of true biblical faith. To rephrase this in terms of the covenants: the covenant of promise (Avraham) must come before the covenant of obedience (Moshe). If we were to put Moshe first, attempting to secure those promises by obedience, we would be going against HaShem’s order. (This, by the way, is the key to unlocking the difficult midrash used by Sha’ul in Galatians 4:21-31.) All we could hope for would be a measure of physical protection and a knowledge of spiritual things. But we could not receive justification or a personal relationship with the Holy One through obedience to the Torah; it all had to start with faith. Avraham came before Moshe, but Moshe did not cancel out Avraham! The two complemented each other—as long as they came in the proper order.’ What does this mean for the Jew as well as the Gentile? Apart from a being well reasoned theological argument for combating legalism, the concept taught here defines our identity, as, not only being grounded in the Torah—but it is who we are in Messiah! If the blood of the Sinless One has redeemed us from sin and unrighteousness, then we now have been clothed in his holiness! We now have a new identity—the righteousness of HaShem! The old man has died with the death of our Messiah; the new man has been raised unto life everlasting just like him (2 Corinthians 5:17-21)! And all of these promises are secured for us within the pages of God’s Torah! Shomer Mitzvot In Judaism, safeguarding and keeping the Torah is central to performing the will of HaShem. Indeed, as properly understood from HaShem’s point of view, the whole of Torah was given to bring its followers to the "goal" of acquiring the kind of faith in HaShem that leads to placing one’s trusting faithfulness in the One and only Son of HaShem, Yeshua HaMashiach. To this end, the Torah has prophesied about him since as early as the book of Genesis (3:15), and continues to speak of him until its conclusion in Revelation (22:20). In this capacity, the Torah hrwt acts like its etymological counterpart hry "yarah" (an archery term) in that it "teaches" its adherents how to properly identify with HaShem by helping them to "reach the mark.” To be sure, one of the most common Hebrew verbs used to identify "sin" atx “chatah” literally means, "to miss the mark.”
A SUMMARY OF THE PURPOSES OF THESE TWO COVENANTS (The following explanation was taken from Torah Rediscovered, Ariel and D’vorah Berkowitz, FFOZ Publications): ‘A person cannot appropriate the full blessings of the covenant with Moshe (the Torah) unless he first enters into the covenant with Avraham. The latter is done by faith and faith alone. The covenant of promise (through Avraham) gave Israel the physical promises. Not only are these physical promises a reality; they are also pictures of the spiritual relationship we have with HaShem. Moreover they are illustrative of the spiritual promises of inheritance obtained by all believers through faith in Yeshua. ‘For those who trust HaShem for the promises, the proper order for faith and obedience is set by the sequence in which the covenants were given. In other words, faith must precede obedience. But the kind of faith accepted by HaShem is one that naturally flows into obedience. True obedience never comes before faith, nor is it an addition to faith. It is always the result of true biblical faith. To rephrase this in terms of the covenants: the covenant of promise (Avraham) must come before the covenant of obedience (Moshe). If we were to put Moshe first, attempting to secure those promises by obedience, we would be going against HaShem’s order. (This, by the way, is the key to unlocking the difficult midrash used by Sha’ul in Galatians 4:21-31.) All we could hope for would be a measure of physical protection and a knowledge of spiritual things. But we could not receive justification or a personal relationship with the Holy One through obedience to the Torah; it all had to start with faith. Avraham came before Moshe, but Moshe did not cancel out Avraham! The two complemented each other—as long as they came in the proper order.’ What does this mean for the Jew as well as the Gentile? Apart from a being well reasoned theological argument for combating legalism, the concept taught here defines our identity, as, not only being grounded in the Torah—but it is who we are in Messiah! If the blood of the Sinless One has redeemed us from sin and unrighteousness, then we now have been clothed in his holiness! We now have a new identity—the righteousness of HaShem! The old man has died with the death of our Messiah; the new man has been raised unto life everlasting just like him (2 Corinthians 5:17-21)! And all of these promises are secured for us within the pages of God’s Torah! Shomer Mitzvot In Judaism, safeguarding and keeping the Torah is central to performing the will of HaShem. Indeed, as properly understood from HaShem’s point of view, the whole of Torah was given to bring its followers to the "goal" of acquiring the kind of faith in HaShem that leads to placing one’s trusting faithfulness in the One and only Son of HaShem, Yeshua HaMashiach. To this end, the Torah has prophesied about him since as early as the book of Genesis (3:15), and continues to speak of him until its conclusion in Revelation (22:20). In this capacity, the Torah hrwt acts like its etymological counterpart hry "yarah" (an archery term) in that it "teaches" its adherents how to properly identify with HaShem by helping them to "reach the mark.” To be sure, one of the most common Hebrew verbs used to identify "sin" atx “chatah” literally means, "to miss the mark.”