Transcription
Hey CH MC broom here, coming back to you with part two of our teaching. Uh, my ministry is IM Ministries, which means Tree of Life Ministries, based on Revelation 22. We're bringing healing to the nations, and we're focused on you, my friends, to see you move forward in 2024. So, this is part two. I have part two of three. On my way down today, actually, I think the Lord wants me to do another part, so we'll probably have a part four of this.
And what we've been doing with part one and going into part two, we're kind of climbing a mountain. So, stay with me because we're going to hit the mountain peak today, and then we're going to have fun going down the other side of the mountain peak. So, as I said in our first part of this, back to the basics, I really felt like the Lord wanted us to go back to the basics of our faith and create a good foundation and then work from there, just like any professional, uh, sports team would do. So, in that first part, we covered the concept of justification, the concept of sanctification, and the definition of sin. I wanted to get to law, but law is such a huge topic. It's even going to be difficult in this time frame that we have to really dive deep into. If you have any questions, feel free to email me, and I'll answer those emails for you. Okay?
So, in part one, we talked about the Nicodemus principle. Well, what's that? Nicodemus came, came to Jesus at night, and he said he knew he was from God. Jesus tries to, uh, give him what he felt was some simple truth. Nicodemus was struggling with that simple, basic truth, and he says, "How can I share deeper truth with you if we don't have the foundation in place?" So, that's kind of what we're doing here. We're trying to lay a good foundation. Um, and like today, especially, we're going to look at the original texts of the Bible, the Old Testament, as what we call the Masoretic text. It's a Hebrew text that we use today to translate our Bibles into English. And then there is a Greek, uh, translation of the Old Testament called the Septuagint.
The complete and finished work of salvation through Jesus, and this is where he gives us a new heart that we read in Ezekiel, and he writes his word, his Torah, or his law on our heart. So, we really need to understand this word "law" in the original language. It's really going to bring out some beautiful stuff for us. The concept of sanctification happens after we receive that new life from Jesus, after we're saved. It's a process, and it's a partnership with the Holy Spirit that now indwells us in our inner man, and he starts growing us more and more into the lifestyle and the mindset of Jesus. So, again, justification is an act of salvation. Sanctification is a lifelong process for us where we grow more and more into the ministry of Jesus. As you know, in John 20, and I think it's verse 20 and 21, Jesus spoke to the disciples. He said, "As the Father has sent me, I now send you." And then he breathed on them and said, "Receive the Holy Spirit." So, Jesus will send us out beyond the four walls to do his ministry.
We talked about the definition of sin. This is where it's really going to play well into our definition of law in the original language. The definition of sin is that we're pulling back an arrow, we're trying to shoot at a bullseye, and we miss. We miss the mark. That's the definition of sin. So, now we're coming in to part two, and we're going to start with the Hebrew language on from the Masoretic text on the word "law." Good. We're only five minutes in, and we're rolling. This is wonderful.
So, the definition of law in Hebrew means God's teaching that hits the mark or hits the bullseye. So, when we miss the mark, that's sin, because we're missing God's righteousness, the way that he demonstrates it through Jesus's life and his teachings. Because remember, Jesus was without sin, so therefore he was walking that perfect path of righteousness before God. So, again, the word in Hebrew is Torah, which means God's teaching, that comes from a root word, *yarah*, which is to pull back an arrow and to release it, and you're trying to hit the bullseye. So, it's God's teaching that hits the mark.
Now, the thing that I struggled with was, remember in the first teaching, I talked about words bring up word pictures in our head. Sometimes we don't even realize it because it happens so quickly. And so, this concept of law, when I read it in the New Testament, especially with Paul, I was having trouble with it. And when I saw that the Hebrew, which the Hebrew is telling us in Jeremiah 31, that God's teaching, which is found in the Hebrew scriptures, is being placed in our hearts as believers, I was struggling with some of the things that I was reading in the New Testament. We're going to cover a little bit of that today, but I was struggling with the word in Greek, which we're going to see is the word *nomos*.
Now, the definition of law in our Hebrew Bible, or the Old Testament, is Torah, as I said. It's God's teaching that hits the mark. But what about the New Testament? What about the word that we find in the New Testament, "law," that's originally written in Greek, and it's *nomos*? I was having trouble reconciling the two together until I looked at the Septuagint, which is the Old Testament written in Greek. The interesting thing about the Greek that we use in our Bible, which is really cool, is it's Koine Greek. There's classical Greek, and there's Koine Greek. Koine Greek is the common Greek language that was spoken every day. It was a language of the civilized world at that time. The world had been Hellenized by Alexander the Great, and so the most common language being spoken was the Greek language. So, this is the street language of the day that was written in the New Testament to help people grab hold of God's truth. And then, as the Old Testament was being translated from the Hebrew to the Greek, because many Jewish people began to speak Greek that were outside of the land of Israel, and so what happened was about 300 years before the New Testament was even written, 70 Jewish Hebrew scholars were chosen to translate the Hebrew scriptures into Greek for the Library of Alexandria, Egypt. And this work is called the Septuagint.
So, it's important because we want to know how these Jewish scholars chose the Greek language, what word they chose in the Greek language for Torah, this God's teaching that hits the mark. And again, they chose the word *nomos*. And I found in the Theological Dictionary of the New Testament an answer for the reconciliation of the two words. In the Greek culture, the Theological Dictionary of the New Testament tells us that *nomos* means that which is proper. It covers all aspects of life, and it's religious in its context. So, now I could marry the two together. I could marry Torah, God's teaching that hits the mark, and *nomos* over here, that in the Greek culture, the language of the day, the street language, it meant that which is proper, it covered all aspects of life, and it's religious in context. And that's the word that the rabbis chose, and it made total sense and it flowed for me then. So, now I could reconcile again the Hebrew word Torah, God's teaching, with the Greek word *nomos*, again, that means that which is proper and covers all aspects of life, and it was religious in its context, meaning it was attached to, uh, religious practice. So, wherever we read "law" when it's referring to God's word, we know what it means. Now, we know that the word picture in our mind, it should say God's teaching. It's that which is proper and covers all aspects of life, and it's religious in its context.
Paul says that the law, that is God's teaching, is holy, it's righteous, and it's good, and it's spiritual. That, uh, point is very important, and that he joyfully concurs with the law of God in his inner man. Why does he joyfully concur with the law of God in the inner man? Because that's part of the New Covenant. That's part of the being spiritually born from above. Remember Jeremiah 31 that we talked about? God puts his law, or his Torah, his teachings, in our heart. So, we receive the Holy Spirit, but also we receive God's Torah, his teachings, in our heart. And the problem was with Paul, not that he struggled with God's teaching in the sense of his inner man, where he struggled with it was in his soul and his flesh, the outer man. Because remember, Paul says in Romans 7, that it's spiritual.
So, since we've talked about law, let's talk about the opposite of law. And I think it's very interesting when we take a look at the word "lawlessness" that's found in our Bible. The Greek is *anomia* and *anomos*. The prefix "a" is added to the word *nomos*, which we know that it's God's law, God's teachings, right? And it gives us a sense when you add the "a" of the absence of God's law. It's a non-observance of it, and it's used by those who despise God's law. So, what I've done is, and it looks like it got cut off a little bit on this slide, I'm sorry, but Matthew chapter 7, could you grab my Bible for me? We'll take a look at Matthew chapter 7 real quick here. This is a very important scripture where Jesus is talking about the resurrection, and when we come before him. It's Matthew chapter 7, verse 21. And I'm using the NASB Bible. He says, "Not everyone that says to me, Lord, Lord, they recognize him as Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he that does the will of my Father, Father is who shall enter." And he goes on to say, "Many will say to me, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name? Did we not cast out demons? Did we not perform many miracles?" So, they're operating under the baptism, it looks like, of the Holy Spirit. They're doing *dunamis* works. *Dunamis* in the Greek is dynamite power, and that's what we find in Acts chapter 2. And so, they're doing all these things, these things for God, and they're spiritual things. But Jesus is saying, uh, well, they're saying, "Lord, Lord," they're calling out to him, they recognize him. What does Jesus say back to them? And he says, "I will declare to them, I never knew you."
Now, these people knew who Jesus was, and they were doing, uh, miraculous things in Jesus. And Jesus comes back and says he never knew them. Now, does he not know them? Of course not. He knows who they are, right? But the word "know" in Hebrew, and I don't have the notes here, but I want to share this with you, is the word *yada*. Now, to know someone is like, I can know my friend. All right? I know my friend. The other layer is when a woman and a man come together in sexual intimacy, that's to know your wife. It's the same word, *yada*. But the deepest level of the meaning of *yada* is a covenant term. So, when Jesus says to them, "I declare, I never knew you," what he's saying is, "I never had covenant relationship with you." Why? He says, "Depart from me, you who practice lawlessness." The word *anomia*, the absence of God's Torah and the observance of it. We, the people that are despising God's teachings, his Torah.
So, this is an important teaching for us to understand. The problem is, and we're going to talk about this when we move into the writings of Paul. Peter speaks to this in 2 Peter 3:16. He says, "Be careful with Paul's writings, because unlearned men take them, they twist and pervert them to their own destruction." So, when we're working with Paul, what I'd like to see everybody do, just take Paul's writings out and try to work with your faith without Paul for a while, and then reintroduce Paul like a jigsaw puzzle. And if you can't fit Paul into the rest of the scriptures, you're not understanding Paul correctly. Okay? And a couple of reasons are here that I'm going to point out.
We need to stop here and explain that the word "law" found in our English translations of our Bible does not always refer to God's teachings. It can be used for at least two other definitions: the oral law, or sometimes it's worded in our Gospels, the traditions of the fathers, and or it can be law as in a certain principle. So, with oral law, Paul actually uses oral law to set up a whole argument about why Jesus is the Messiah and how we have this new relationship with the law. He's going to start in Romans chapter 7, and I've got it here for you to take a look at. And I challenge anybody, I'll pay somebody $500 if they can show me, I've always thrown this out there, uh, if they can show me in the Old Testament, the Hebrew scriptures, where this is found. It's not. And this is what it says in Romans 7, verses 1 through 3. Look what he says, "Do you not know, brethren?" And look what he says here, "For I am speaking to those who know the law." What law is he talking about here? Because when the rabbis write and when Paul writes, they don't tell you what law he's talking about. It's from the context that we find it in that we understand what he's writing about. We talked about this with righteousness on part one. When Paul writes "righteousness," we don't know if it's practical righteousness or if he's writing about judicial righteousness in the finished work of Jesus Christ. So, we can only know from reading it in its context what he's talking about. And Paul is not deviating from the rabbis. The rabbis write it the same way. When they speak of righteousness, we have to look at the context of where it's found. Same thing with law here.
Now, look what he says, "For a married woman is bound by the law to her husband while he's living. But if the husband dies, she's released from the law." Uh, I've never seen that in the Old Testament. So, then, "while her husband is living, he's joined to another man, and she shall be called an adulteress if she tries to marry another before he dies." Now, you're not going to find this in your Old Testament, but guess where you are going to find it? I found it three times in ancient rabbinic material of the oral traditions. So, it's found in oral law. Now, the crazy thing is, Paul's using this oral law to set up a whole argument for his reasoning, uh, about the New Covenant. It's just crazy. So, again, let me stress, when you find the word "law" translated in your Bible, it doesn't always refer to God's teaching. It may be, especially Paul, and normally it's just Paul's writings where we get tripped up with the word "law."
So, here's the thing. From like Romans 8:1 and 9, the real difference here that Paul is talking about is God's law without the Spirit is death, because it's only written on stone tablets. That's the old covenant, my beloved. But when the Spirit indwells us, the New Covenant, guess where the law is written? Jeremiah 31. It's written on our hearts. So, it's not about the law or not the law. It's about with or without the Spirit. This is the key. It's our relationship to the law that matters. You see, it's not God's law, God's teaching, that changes. God's word is eternal. But it's our relationship to the law before we were saved and after we're saved is what Paul's dealing with in Romans 7 on into 8.
Now, I know this is a huge topic, and I'm running out of time. I'm about down to the five-minute mark. This is a huge topic. We could talk about it more because there's a lot of scriptures that we need clarity on. But there's one verse I want to deal with right here off the bat because I think they've taken a Greek word, *telos*, and they have mistranslated it in Romans chapter 10, verse 4. Here it is: "For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness for everyone who believes." So, the issue here is people are thinking, "Okay, no more Torah. That's been done away with." That's not what's being said here, my friends. The word "end" is not a good translation from the Greek word *telos*. It actually means the goal. This is what the Old Testament, or the Hebrew scriptures, that Jesus, that Christ is the goal of the Torah. It's the teacher or the pedagogue that Paul will talk about that leads us to Messiah, right? For belief in him. It acts as a bodyguard to us before we're believing. So, there is a use for the Torah, God's teachings that hit the mark, for us as a protector, but it's supposed to lead us to him. So, he's the goal for righteousness. What kind of righteousness? Judicial righteousness for salvation. That's what should be understood here.
Okay, that's the end of the teaching that we have here. So, I hope that was good. I want you to stay tuned. If you, again, if you have questions, I want you to email me. Feel free to email me with scriptures. I'll answer those questions for you regarding the law, the Torah, because probably a lot of the questions are not going to refer to God's teachings, and most of the mistakes are going to be made in Paul's writings, which Peter warns us to be careful with, right? Untaught people are supposed to be careful with. So, this was climbing the mountain. I know we're, we're having to dredge through this, and you're going to have to do a lot of thought about this because you may have a word, "law," in your mind brings up certain images to you, and now you're going to have to renew your mind, as Paul would say, renew your mind with the truth of what God's law really means.
So, with this, I encourage you to stick with me. Our third teaching on that will be coming out. It will be on, uh, conviction and repentance. And then the fourth teaching will be our identity in Him. It's crucial we know who we are in Him. So, with that, I know that, uh, both Dr. Ken and Bishop Dominique would like me to pray for you. So, I'm just going to pray for you, uh, as we wrap this up here. Father, we just love you. We praise Your Holy Name. Father, we ask that You would open our eyes to the beautiful, basic truths that we're looking at in Your scriptures. Father, Lord, anybody that's struggling right now out there, Father, we just ask that You would come in and help them, Lord. The *parakletos*, the Holy Spirit, comes alongside of us. He's there to comfort. He's there to instruct. He's there for us, beloved. And I pray that the Lord, if you feel stuck, if you feel like you haven't felt the Spirit of God recently, I want you to just press into Him. The word tells us to draw near unto God, and He will draw near unto us. Our first assignment in Him is to draw near into Him, for you will see that we need to receive a *rhema* word from God. I'm getting ahead of myself because the *rhema* word is what we're going to see that's going to sustain us. It's who we are. It doesn't matter if it's manifested in our life or not. We're going to cover this when we get to the identity of who we are in Messiah, and it's going to be powerful. You're going to love it. So, please stick with me on this. Stick with these teachings. Stick with me on this. You're going to see victory in your life in 2024. You're going to move forward in 2024. You're going to grow in 2024, for this is the Lord's will. Thanks for watching. We'll see you next time.
[Music]