You can’t become righteous by trying to become righteous

One of the things Rabbi Yeshua said to His talmidim was that they had to be more righteous than those chasidim who were at that time held in the highest regard for their righteousness.

“For I say to you, If your righteousness is not greater than the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never go into the kingdom of heaven.” Matt. 5:20

Now, most of the time when we read about Yeshua’s comments regarding this bunch, they don’t come off as sounding very righteous, but I believe that in this instance (and in some others) He was not speaking of them quite that way. I believe that at this point he was referring to the highest attainable standard.

But they had to do better than that.

He was trying to get them to understand that the only way to succeed was going to be by the new covenant He had come to ratify with His own blood (in a little while). And because through that new covenant, He would inscribe His very Torah in their hearts, their very being.

But this shall be the covenant that I will cut with the house of Israel: After those days, declares YHWH, I will put My Law in their inward parts, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. Yermeyahu 31:33 [31:32]

Now of course, all you learned theologians out there (you’re still out there, aren’t you?) know that books and books and books have been written on this, and I don’t plan to write a new one.

But I would like to point out that, although Christians are always saying that this is why our covenant is better than their covenant, we don’t seem to be any better at walking in it. Do we?

But all is not lost. We do need to keep this covenant, and all the Torah of God, before our eyes continually, and endure the exhortations of our elders to not just throw in the towel, saying what’s the use.

Having said all this, I want to insert here an exhortation from an elder named Oswald Chambers, who wrote quite a few piercing admonitions about 100 years ago. (I’ve put a link in my blogroll to a source where you can read him.)

In his entry for July 24, in his devotional My Utmost for His Highest, he wrote:

His Nature and Our Motives

The characteristic of a disciple is not that he does good things, but that he is good in his motives, having been made good by the supernatural grace of God. The only thing that exceeds right-doing is right-being. Jesus Christ came to place within anyone who would let Him a new heredity that would have a righteousness exceeding that of the scribes and Pharisees. Jesus is saying, “If you are My disciple, you must be right not only in your actions, but also in your motives, your aspirations, and in the deep recesses of the thoughts of your mind.” Your motives must be so pure that God Almighty can see nothing to rebuke. Who can stand in the eternal light of God and have nothing for Him to rebuke? Only the Son of God, and Jesus Christ claims that through His redemption He can place within anyone His own nature and make that person as pure and as simple as a child. The purity that God demands is impossible unless I can be remade within, and that is exactly what Jesus has undertaken to do through His redemption.

No one can make himself pure by obeying laws. Jesus Christ does not give us rules and regulations — He gives us His teachings which are truths that can only be interpreted by His nature which He places within us. The great wonder of Jesus Christ’s salvation is that He changes our heredity. He does not change human nature — He changes its source, and thereby its motives as well.

“My doctrine shall drop as the rain… as the small rain on the tender plant”

Moses wrote those words in a book. Deuteronomy 32. Part of the law.

Right after I got up this morning, it began to rain. A nice, gentle rain, to water a dry and thirsty land. So what, you may ask? I live in California. California is classified as an arid state. Like a desert. And we’ve been in an awful drought, and it never rains (well, hardly ever) in summer. And here it is the 5th of June. So this is a big deal for us.

And spiritually also, California has been dry and thirsty. And, when you consider it, America has been dry and thirsty. America used to be known as a Christian country. You wouldn’t know it any more, would you? America actually is still a Christian country, in spite of what our highest leadership says, but the church of the Lord Jesus Christ, or h’qahal b’h’Adon Yeshua h’Mashiach, if you wish to Hebraisize it, has been dry, unproductive, and unable to direct the course of this nation.

Nonetheless, the church has been asking for rain lately. A spiritual rain. Most of the time it’s called “revival,” but how can the land revive if it has no rain?

Then again, if we do receive rain, and it just runs off, what good has it done? We need to open ourselves up to receive the rain from heaven. And this isn’t just standing there with our arms and mouths lifted up, though this is good, but it unavoidably entails that old, crummy notion of “repentance.” Now, we all tend to glaze over when we hear that word. It has become not much more than relgious lingo, so we nod & agree and go about our ways without doing much about it. It means changing what we’re doing, folks. Making a 180 degree turn and heading back in the direction we belong.

“They have corrupted themselves… a crooked and perverse generation. Do you thus repay the Lord, oh foolish and unwise people? Isn’t He your Father who bought you?”

The church? Crooked, perverse, and corrupt? Yep.

Now (bear with me while I seem to switch gears a little), one of the things in the church that has been bothering me is called “replacement theology,” where Christians say that the old covenant people (aka Israel, or the Jews) have been replaced by the new covenant people (the church). Which is supposed to mean that all the wonderful promises written in the “old testament” Scriptures have been taken away from the natural seed of Abraham and bestowed upon the “spiritual” seed of Abraham. We even call ourselves “spiritual Israel.”

But – oops! – we claim the promises, not the curses. What’s up with that?! The curses written in the Book of Deuteronomy are really nothing fancier than the consequences of disobedience. So we think the church hasn’t been disobedient? Excuse me?! Jesus was quoting Deuteronomy when he said that the great commandment — that makes it a “new testament” commandment, if Jesus said it — is to love the Lord with everything we have. Are we doing that? Let alone loving our neighbor in the same way and to the same extent that we love our own selves. That includes our president. Ouch!! Ok – we won’t dwell on that one. But how about that brother or sister that just drives us up the wall? Let alone loving the Redeemer. We like to say we do that (“Oh, I just love Jesus…”), but let’s prove it with our actions, not our words.

I’m not yelling at anyone else who happens to still be reading this, any more than I’m yelling at myself. It starts with me, and I haven’t been obedient to the commandment of the Lord Jesus Christ, but I don’t really think I’m alone with this.

So, we have to deal with the consequences of Deuteronomy, if we want to claim its promises. All of a sudden, replacement theology doesn’t seem to be so attractive, does it?

Now, Christians who claim this doctrine (still ignoring the consequences, of course) like to quote Galatians 4:24, “which things are an allegory; for these are the two covenants, one indeed from Mount Sinai bringing forth to slavery, which is Hagar…” in such a way as to mean that there are two peoples – the Jews and the church, but it’s two covenants he’s talking about.

If there’s any replacing being done, as Paul writes in Hebrews, the new covenant replaces the old covenant. And Paul writes this in Hebrews because the book of the prophet Jeremiah tells us in chapter 31, “Behold, the days come, says Jehovah, that I will cut a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah, not according to the covenant that I cut with their fathers in the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which covenant of Mine they broke, although I was a husband to them, says Jehovah; but this shall be the covenant that I will cut with the house of Israel: After those days, says Jehovah, I will put My Law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people...”

The requirements of behavior that will please God don’t change. He will write his Law – his Torah – on the hearts of his people, not do away with Torah. Like Jesus said, he didn’t come to do away with it, but to fulfill. And as Paul says again in Romans “that the righteousness of the Law might be fulfilled in us.”

(Please also note this promise is to us goyim only if we willingly join ourselves to the house of Israel and the house of Judah, and therein is a mouthful, or rather a book full, but let’s just say for now that we are very, very fortunate to be given the opportunity, which is only through the blood that ratifies the new covenant, that is the blood of Yeshua the Promised One, the Messiah of Israel.)

I would like to think that even now, he is writing his Law on my heart, but I know I have to be willing and obedient, and take the bad with the good, until such a time as I have completely turned my back on — repented of — the bad, and stuck myself like glue to the good.

“I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing. Therefore, choose life, so that both you and your seed may live, so that you may love Jehovah your God, and that you may obey His voice, and that you may cling to Him.”

It looks like the rain outside my window has begun to let up a little — although I really hope not.