Torah and Spirit

Shalom Fellow Israelite,

After reading some choice excerpts, from a modern day English translations of the Bible, it appears that under the guise of bringing scripture ‘up to date’, this assemblage-cum-translation is nothing more than a bamboozling attempt aimed at sanctioning sin, or even worse, promoting it under scriptural auspices. The distortions offered by these texts made me realize all the more why the enemy of our Creator would steer the “church” as far away from the Torah as possible. This is most likely the reason why Yeshua is leading people out of the Torah-less or lawless institutions, taking the sheep back unto Himself and feeding them His word by the Spirit.

The following is a testimony of a friend who describes her experience regarding this issue:

“I believe what happened was that I had to be taken out of the things I had been in before, to start understanding the Torah, so I could understand the REAL workings of the Spirit.  So much of the Charismatic movement had the real Spirit, and then it seemed that it got into something that really was not of the Father.  It was a wonderful time for me back in the mid 90's because that is when I was baptized in the

Ruach, but as things went on, I began to see many things that seemed to be a

counterfeit.” 

There are many others with similar testimonies.

 

In order to present and communicate the gospel of Yeshua, His disciples turned to the Torah and to the words of the prophets, as those were the only scriptural resources that they had. Therefore, how can we throw away those foundations and expect to mature in our spiritual lives?  Instead of the Word becoming flesh in us, the flesh changes the Word, so that God’s image is ‘created’ in the image of man.  Just as Paul warned in his letter to the believers in Rome: “Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man…” (Rom 1:22-23).

Because of this tendency to alter the original biblical text, we must try and stick as closely as possible to the Hebrew and Greek.   We must be careful, as some of the modern versions alter and change words to fit a new or modern morality (if morality is what it is...). However I must say that although here in Israel we have many institutions studying the Torah, Prophets and Writings in the original language, yet sin still abounds in our midst.  One would think that with the Torah being taught in the schools we would see a different society here.  It is not hard therefore to put two and two together. That is, Torah without the New Covenant indwelling Spirit of Holiness results in the same sin behavior, which is present where the Spirit of Holiness resides, but without Torah.  Now the question arises, what will happen when the New Covenant Spirit filled believers embrace Torah? Will they also compromise and continue in the ways of the spirit of this world, or will they become mature sons and daughters of the Living Elohim?

This brings me to another quote from another letter.  “As we mature in the Messiah and learn to be obedient to the Spirit of Truth, letting Him operate His will in our vessels, the victorious life of abundance comes just as promised.  But now, through further revelation, we know that this includes Torah obedience, we are on a less traveled road that was last traveled frequently by the Apostolic generation and early Believers.

             

Now that the Ruach is taking us back to that trail, where the end-time saints will have the testimony of Yeshua and obey His commandments, as John tells us in the book of Revelation, we have a goal that inspires embracing His will for our lives.  In other words, with the great war upon the Saints scheduled for the end of the age, the only way that any of us will be able to survive until the end is by being led by the Spirit, walking in the Spirit and letting Him through us comply with the Torah.  After all, He cannot do anything that is contrary to the Torah because that would be sin and He cannot sin.  If we have Him as the old four spiritual laws diagram put it, "on the throne of our life," then it is Him operating through us and we have submitted our will to Him. He must increase and we must decrease.”

             

Yes, how do we live and walk in the Spirit at all times and in all places?  How do we “cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of flesh and spirit” (2 Cor 7:1)?  How do we not become “children who are tossed to and fro by every wind of doctrine” (Eph. 4:14)?  How can we mature to become young men and women who have overcome evil (1 John 2:13-14), and then become mature spiritual fathers and mothers that know how to raise spiritual children in the nature of righteousness and holiness?  This is the challenge and opportunity that YHVH is giving to this generation of the seed of Abraham.  Will there be a remnant that will be an expression of maturity, perfection, wholeness and completeness as Yeshua’s body, a truly New Creation (adult) Spiritual Man?  I believe that it is possible by the obedience of faith and by the Word made flesh, as the Torah is being written on our hearts.

There seems to be a union, a marriage, taking place between the Torah and our New Creation person.  What that will look like has yet to be seen, but it is developing and will have its day of full expression through a people, a nation, that has been predestined before the foundations of this present cosmos.  Privileged, as we are, to taste of the power and glory of the coming age, we can have the same zeal as the early apostles: “Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended, but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Messiah Yeshua. Let us therefore, as many as be perfect [teleios – full age, mature, complete] be thus minded: and if in any thing ye be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this unto you” (Phil 3:13-15).

 Ephraim