A Good Question
Let’s take a look at a question that a Pharisee asked Jesus (or Yeshua, His Hebrew name):
In Matthew 22:36-40 — “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.”
Some people might think that these two commandments are the first couple of statues from the ten commandments. However, these verses are not directly in the ten commandments as one would think.
Here are the locations of these commandments spoken by Christ.
Deuteronomy 6:5 — You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.
Leviticus 19:18 — You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the LORD.
God has shown us how much he loves us, but how do we love him? The first four commandments are related to loving God with all your heart, soul, and might, and the last six are related to loving your neighbor like yourself. And as the Messiah stated, the rest of the Law, which includes God’s commandments, statutes, and rules, are all fulfilled if one abides in these two commandments.
Now some will say that the ten commandments are all we need to follow to love God and our neighbor. There are many commandments and statues that we follow that are not included in the ten commandments. The ten commandments are looked at as the greatest commandments, however they were just the first ten commandments spoken to the people at Mount Sinai. In the original Hebrew, the ten commandments are translated as the 10 utterances or 10 sayings. After 10 commandments, The people thought if God spoke any commitments after 10, they would die because the voice of God was so loud that it was unbearable. That’s when they told Moses to go up the mountain and get the rest from God.
Then we go back to the question, how do we love God? It’s presented quite easy by John in 1 John 5:3, “For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome.”
Being “Under the Law”
We read in Galatians 5:1, “Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage.” And we see in Matthew 11:30, “For My yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”
Many will read this verses and say, we no longer have to abide by the Law, because Christ has set us free from doing so. We have heard all of our lives in church that we are no longer “under the Law”. However the meaning of that phrase “under the Law” has confused many generations I feel. When Paul is saying we are not under the Law or he states that the Law is a burden, he is saying that we are not under the law of sin and death. We are not under the fear of sinning and being stoned today. We now have our Savior that died for our sins. And of course he talks about not being under the Law in order to obtain Salvation, as that is a gift of grace now.
And at times when Paul talks about being under the Law he is also referring to bondage by the oral law. The religious leaders over the years would add a ridiculous amount of laws to a given commandment. These added laws became a written number of books called the Talmud. For example, while the Sabbath commandment says do not work on that day, there are hundreds of rules in the Talmud that define what should be considered “work” on the Sabbath. They added rules like you can’t bend down and tie your shoe, and you can’t carry anything in public. For every Law of God, Jewish scholars added an unbiblical amount of rules. God said in Deuteronomy 4:2 to not add anything or take anything away from His Word.
That’s why Christ had disgust for the Pharisees of his day, because they would put extreme burdens on the people, but not follow it them themselves. In Mark 7:6-8, Jesus tells the Pharisees that Isaiah prophesied of you hypocrites. The Messiah told them that they lay aside the commandments of God for the traditions of men. And I feel the Christian Church may have done the same over the years.
Over the last few hundred years, we see preachers really emphasizing that we’re not under the Law, and over time that has lead to churches picking out which laws that they believe shouldn’t be observed anymore. And over this time, the Law was put into the categories of Mosaic, ceremonial, and moral law. These categories of the Law are not listed in the Bible. They were created to classify which laws we should follow and which ones we should not. However, separating laws into categories has caused the church to divide among itself.
Almost every denomination split in Christianity has been from different interpretations of Paul’s letters. In fact, the Apostle Peter prophesized that this would happen. In 2 Peter 3:16, he talks about Paul’s letters by saying, “There are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction”. It makes you think about all of the different Christian dominations doing different things, mainly because of their interpretation of Paul’s letters. But Paul tells us to not preach a different Gospel, and Christ himself said that a kingdom divided cannot stand. Modern day Christianity has accepted that it’s okay to have different denominations that believe different things and worship differently. But it seems to be common sense that if the Bible is valid and the true Word of God, everyone should be in harmony.
Even the people Paul was preaching to at the time were a bit confused. When Paul was asked if it was a sin to obey the Law now that we have Grace. Paul replies in Romans 7:7, “By no means! If it had not been for the Law, I would not have known what sin was.” The Apostle John defines what is sin in 1 John 3:4 when he says, “Whoever commits a sin transgressive the Law: for sin is the transgression of the Law.” Paul goes on to say in Romans 7:22, “For I delight in the Law of God, in my inner being.”
Love For God’s Law
God tells Jeremiah in verse 31:33, “For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the LORD: I will put my Law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people.” The scripture is also repeated by Paul in Hebrews. God was saying that when the Messiah comes, He will write the Law on the hearts of the Believers, and they will do His Law, not to be saved, but because they are saved. A Believer repents from his sins and does good works because it’s coming from the heart and their love for God.
Psalms 119, the longest chapter in the Bible, is all about the great love for the Law. It’s a chapter that you never hardly hear read in modern churches as it uplifts the Law. Here are some of the great scriptures from Psalms 119.
Psalm 119:167 — I obey your statutes, for I love them greatly.
Psalm 119:47 — For I find my delight in your commandments, which I love.
Psalm 119:97 — Oh how I love your Law! It is my meditation all the day.
Psalm 119:127 — Therefore I love your commandments above gold, above fine gold.
So, we have all been told that since the Messiah came, there are many laws that we just don’t do anymore. And once again, denominations have been split on that as well. After looking over the history of the Christian Church of the last thousand years, it seems we have been looking for ways not to walk in his commandments, statues and rules instead of loving God so much that we are looking for every way we can do as many of them as possible. Now obviously we can’t obtain salvation from our works and obeying the Law, but we do it because it’s embedded in us, because we love him so much. And as we saw in 1 John 5:3, the way to love God is to obey his commandments.
The Apostle James puts it best In chapter 2:17-19 when he writes, “So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead. But someone will say, ‘You have faith and I have works.’ Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works. You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe…and shudder!” James also tells us in chapter 1:22, “Be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.”
“I Have Not Come to Abolish the Law or the Prophets”
When trying to determine which laws should be observed by Christians after His resurrection, we must look at some very important scriptures from the Messiah. Modern churches either have different interpretations of these scriptures, or they just don’t bring them up in their sermons. Christ stated in Matthew 5:17-19, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly, I say to you, until Heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished. Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the Kingdom of Heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the Kingdom of Heaven.”
Some say that the Messiah fulfilled the law after his crucifixion. But if you interpret it that way, you would have to read the verse as, “I have not come to abolish the Law, but to abolish it” What Jesus is saying is that He came to fulfill the prophecy about Him and to fully follow and teach the Law. Jesus states that not one bit of the Law will pass away until Heaven and Earth pass away. We see that doesn’t happen until the end of Revelation when God replaces the current Heaven and Earth with a new Heaven and Earth.
We obviously can’t do all of his commandments, because some require an established Levitical priesthood. And we obviously don’t sacrifice animals for our sins. Jesus, of course, became the sacrificial lamb for our transgressions of the Law. But we do honor and worship the Father by sacrificing our right to our lives and by sacrificing our desires for the things of this world. Sacrifice means giving to the Father whatever He requires of our time, our earthly possessions, and our energies to do His work.
Here are a couple of examples of commandments that perhaps we should be following. We have the 4th commandment that says remember the Sabbath and keep it Holy. God sanctified the Sabbath and set it apart when he rested on that day after creating the universe. In Exodus 31:16, God says that His people are “to observe the Sabbath throughout their generations as a perpetual covenant.” Everyone remembers that we are supposed to rest on the Sabbath, but most are not taught that the father forbids working on the Sabbath and making others work for you. He also commands us to not buy or sell on that day of rest.
Another example is the Father’s commandment to observe and honor His 7 Holy feast and festivals days. God said in Exodus to the 12 Israelite tribes which consisted of Hebrews and a mixed multitude that followed Moses out of Egypt and were “grafted in” to Israel, “These are my Holy Days that you will keep forever throughout all generations.” These 7 Holy days or festivals were never meant for just one tribe, Judah aka the Jews. In Exodus 12:49, God said, there shall be one law for the native and for the stranger who sojourns among you.
We know that the Messiah kept the Holy festivals and that Paul kept them after the ascension of Christ. We see in 1 Corinthians 5:7-8 that Paul is celebrating Passover with new believers in the Messiah. The Bible tells us that after the end of this world, those who make it to the next level will live in the Millennial Kingdom on Earth with the Messiah for 1,000 years. It tells us that during this time, we will still be honoring and celebrating His Holy Days. Here is something to ponder. If we will be celebrating God’s Holy feast and festivals with Christ during the Millennial Kingdom, why would we stop at the resurrection of Yeshua?
The 7 Holy feasts and festivals not only represent significant events that happened during the Exodus, they were always a foreshadow to the Messiah’s first coming and future second coming. He fulfilled the prophecy of Passover, Unleavened Bread, and the Feast of Firstfruits with His crucifixion, burial, and resurrection on those exact Holy days. And even most Christian denominations today believe His second coming, judgment, and dwelling with us will fulfill the last three: Festival of Trumpets, Day of Atonement, and Feast of Tabernacles. If God’s Holy feast and festivals are all about the Messiah, how can we not make them our biggest celebrations and our most deepest worship? Jesus knew that we would replace things that are Holy with our man-made festivals and traditions. He said in Mark 7:8, “You leave the commandment of God and hold to the tradition of men.”
“For I The Lord Do Not Change”
So, we look at the state of Christianity today. There have been thousands of denominations created that teach and believe in different ways. And it really comes down to everyone trying to figure out which commandments we don’t have to do anymore now that Yeshua came and ascended. We have many Believers that will say, “We only follow the commandments that are in the New Testament.” And a growing number of modern day Christians believe that the Old Testament is irrelevant today. What most people do not realize is that the New Testament did not exist when Jesus and the apostles were spreading the Word of God and the Good News of the Gospel. When we read in 2 Timothy 3:16-17 that “All scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work”, it is talking about the Law and the Prophets that were being taught in the synagogues. And it said “all scripture”, not just the ones we hand pick.
It makes sense to realize that if his commandments were important to him when he gave them, why would they not be important to him today? In addition to the words of Jesus in Matthew 24:35 that says Heaven and Earth will pass away before any of God’s word passes away, we also read in Numbers 23:19 that God does not change his mind. In Malachi 3:6, it says, “For I the Lord do not change.”
When it comes down to really trying to understand what commandments we are supposed to follow, Jesus Christ, Yeshua the Messiah, said it best in the scriptures below.
Matthew 23:2-3 — “The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses’ seat, so do and observe whatever they tell you, but not the works they do. For they preach, but do not practice”.
In the synagogues every Sabbath, the Pharisees would teach the Law and the Prophets, but would not follow the Word themselves. However Jesus told the Apostles to observe and do everything they taught from the Books of Moses, which is known as the Torah in Hebrew, meaning the Law of God. Then later the Messiah says to the Apostles in Matthew 28:19-20, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.” Christ tells the Apostles to observe and teach everything that he commanded, which included to abide by the books of Moses as they were taught in the synagogue.
I believe that we should be looking to see how many commandments, statues, and rules we can keep instead of trying to find every reason why we don’t have to follow some commandments. We should be trying to follow as many commandments as possible and do as many good deeds as possible, not for salvation, but because our heart yearns to do so. We do it because we love God with all of our soul and might, and we are so grateful what the Messiah did for us.
When we are so filled with the Holy Spirit and we happen to sin or we witness a sin, it really hurts us inside. Some people will sin and throw out a simple forgive me Jesus and feel like it’s all good. However, when you meditate on the fact that Jesus suffered a long painful death for every sin you do, you can’t help from hurting inside and not wanting to do it again.
After the Messiah said that not one tiny bit of the Law shall pass away until Heaven and Earth pass away, He tells us in Matthew 5:19 that “whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the Kingdom of Heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called Great in the kingdom of heaven.” Who can really say what that means exactly, but some of us may be going fishing with Jesus while others are working the fields.
If we truly love the Father, this should light a passion within us to keep his Law, participate in His Great Commission to teach his Word to others, and take care of the poor, elderly, orphans, widows, the disabled, and the abused.
I think David said it best with the very first scriptures of Psalms.
Psalm 1:1-2 — Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; but his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his Law he meditates day and night.
This is how we love Yah, our Father, with all of our heart, soul, and strength.
