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Or not, actually. But I was amazed to read just this morning that there was a sort of anticipation – and refutation – of the phenomenon years before. Stone Chumash cites Pesachim 87a as the source of this commentary on the Book of the Hosea (Haftarah Bamidbar):
God told Hosea that Israel had sinned, to which the prophet replied, “All the world is Yours. [If they are unworthy] exchange them for another nation.”
God responded by commanding him to marry a harlot and have children with her, even though he knew she was unfaithful. Chapter 1 of Hosea relates that he had three children from this marriage and, at God’s command, named them as follows:
Stone runs through the story of the names of the children, the second and third being Lo-ruhamah and Lo-ammi. These verses are some of the key Scriptures used to say that God has replaced Israel with the Church. But Stone goes on the relate:
…for the Jews had forfeited their claim to chosenness. Then, after the three children were born, God ordered Hosea to send his family away. Hosea pleaded that he could not part with the children!
God then said: “Your wife is a harlot whose children may not even be yours but the product of adultery, yet you say that you cannot abandon them. Israel is the offspring of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob – how dare you say I should exchange it for another nation!”
I really don’t understand any longer how the church theologians who have wanted to go with the first premise have so completely missed the second and more important one, unless it’s through some sort of willfulness.
Or, The Romans and the Law, part II
Rom 13:10 Love does no evil to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfillment of the Law.
Which “Law” does love fulfill? Love fulfills Torah. “Jesus said to him, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.”
So, to those Christians who say they are not under Law, but under grace, if they do not distinguish between Torah and the law of sin & death, does this mean they are not obligated to love God and their neighbor?
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.
The Lord promised the descendants of Jacob through the prophets that when they became sheep scattered all over the mountains of Israel, he* would raise up a true shepherd who would regather them into a place of safety. Now, mind you – he was speaking to Israel at that time. No goyim need apply.
So when Yeshua comes along, it makes sense that he tells the first goy-lady he meets that he hadn’t come for her, but for the lost sheep of the house of Israel. It wasn’t that he was being heartless – she did get what she came for – but he had to make his purpose clear to everyone. And please notice that sheep are still sheep, even when they’re lost. But goats are not sheep. Only sheep are sheep, and Yeshua came for the sheep. No goats need apply.
And when he first issued instructions to his followers to go out and preach, he told them to stay away from goyim and Samaritans (did you ever meet a Samaritan? me, neither), but to go to the lost sheep of Israel.
Then we read the great sheepfold lecture of John chapter 10 — where he says that there is a sheep pen, and that he is the entrance to that sheep pen, and he also is the shepherd of the sheep.
Now, are you with me here — who are the sheep? If you said the descendants of Jacob (aka the Jews), then I thank God that I haven’t put you to sleep yet. If you said something else, why are you still reading?
But then he took a turn and said “There are other sheep which belong to me that are not in this sheep pen. I must bring them, too.” What other sheep? Ah, that’s where we goyim get in on the deal! Of course, not all goyim get to become sheep, but at least there was something in the plan all along to let us into the sheep pen. Through the door. Not any other way. And we sure as ‘ell don’t get to kick any of the original sheep out!
If you don’t know what I meant with that last comment, and if you haven’t yet caught on, then let me tell you that far too many “Christians” say that “the Church” has supplanted or superseded or replaced or somehow knocked into second place “the Jews” in God’s plans for this world. Big, big mistake. (For all you learned theologians out there, this is what is called “replacement theology,” but then all you learned theologians out there already knew that.)
I wasn’t around in 1947 or 1948, but from what I understand, many Christians a generation or two ago who bought into this load of – excuse me – figured that there obviously was no way the Jews would ever get their land back, let alone their original place in God’s favor. I’m not sure how they explained what happened next; if they were honest with themselves, they radically re-adjusted their theology. But we hardly ever do that, do we?
(*by the way, if anyone objects to my not capitalizing the Divine Pronoun, tell them to get over it — I am merely following the Biblical practice. On the other hand, whenever I do Capitalize, and someone sees an inconsistency in that, tell them to quit being so religious.)
Shabbes Goy 