The “true Christian” obeys the Holy Spirit within them through the daily process of sanctification (Ephesians 1:13-14; Galatians 5:16) and understands that the Decalogue (The Ten Commandments) was given specifically to Israel’s children under a Covenant that does NOT carry-over into the New Covenant (Romans 6:14); the true Christian understands that the Moral Law of God, extant from the creation of the angels as an arbiter of free will, is summed-up in loving God with your whole heart and loving your neighbor as yourself (Matthew 22:36-40). The Christian does not live life worrying and fretting about laws or rules or days or regulations, but the Christian lives in grace and forgiveness and peace with God through faith in Jesus Christ (Romans 5:1).
Islam is a demonically rooted religious cult born of adultery, unfaithfulness, between Abraham and Hagar which produced the “wild donkey” of a man named Ishmael; Ishmael is NOT the son of promise as only Isaac born through Sarah via Abraham would be the seed (Jacob-Israel) through whom God would set-apart a people group for His eschatological purposes in Time and Eternity…”a blessing to every family of the Earth” (Genesis 12:3).Ishmael is the progenitor of the Ishmaelites (Midianites) who became a virulent enemy of Israel. The Ishmaelites are the progenitors of a 7th-Century demon possessed pedophile, thief, murderer, named Muhammad who is the father of Islam and ultimately the Islamic Caliphate (a murdering hoard of demonically led warriors) who fulfilled the prophecy concerning Ishmael’s descendants who would be enemies of every family of the Earth.
Islam’s Allah is Satan masquerading as an angel of light (2 Corinthians 11:14) via the Arabic moon god; in this, Satan is currently receiving the praise, worship, adoration, via Islam denied him during his coup d’é·tat in the Kingdom of God, a rebellion of cosmic proportions which necessitated extrication from the Kingdom (Luke 10:18; Ezekiel 28:11-19) and the creation of Time, this Universe, as a repository, ground zero, where our God, Jesus Christ our Warrior, has ultimately defeated the Evil One through self-less love at Golgotha i.e. the Gospel ordained “before Time began” (2 Timothy 1:9-10; 1 John 3:8b). For the previous 6000-years this war between the god of Islam and Elohim, Jesus Christ (1 John 3:8b), has waged among and within mankind partially constrained by Time and physics; soon, Jesus Christ will restrain the Evil One, Allah, during His Millennial Reign resulting in 1000-years of perfect peace; subsequently, Jesus will confine Allah and his demonic hoard in the Pit of Hell, forever (Revelation 20:10), and Allah will deceive and murder no more.
Subsequent the Judgment of the Condemned (Rev 20:11-15), Jesus Christ will purify the Earth of Allah’s defilement by fire (2 Peter 3:7-10) and in its place provide a New Earth and a New Heaven where the faithful in Jesus Christ will reign with Him in resurrected bodies (Philippians 3:21) within the New Jerusalem, forever (Revelation 20-22). In summation, the horrors of Allah on the Earth for 6000+ years will act as a bulwark against future disobedience, rebellion, in the Kingdom of God as free will remains extant by necessity.
The utter FUTILITY and blasphemy of seeking days, food, ceremonial laws, rules and regulations to honor God in self-righteousness…
If you seek to obey the Law in order to earn your own righteousness (a right standing) with God you are deceived (Romans 3:20) as on your best day your works of righteousness are equated to a filthy, bloody, menstrual cloth in God’s nose (Isaiah 64:6). The ONLY righteousness you will attain in this life as you’re encapsulated by a body of sinful flesh (Romans 3:23) is the righteousness earned for you by the faithfulness and perfection of Jesus Christ and the blood atonement He made for YOUR sin at Golgotha and by faith the righteousness of Jesus is then imputed into and over your life when you believe in Jesus as your Lord who died for you (John 3; 2 Corinthians 5:21). It is the one who believes that is saved, NOT the one who works (John 3:18).
Having believed in Jesus as Lord by faith (trusting-believing), God the Father, by covenant promise (Hebrews 8:7; Matthew 26:28), agrees to impute the perfection, righteousness, of Jesus over your life and declare you “not guilty” (2 Corinthians 5:21; Hebrews 8:7) and adopts you into the family of God by His grace (unmerited favor unattainable by human effort) and then the Father GIFTS you with the Holy Spirit who takes-up residence within you (Ephesians 1:13-14) and teaches you God’s will for your life and walks you daily in sanctification as the Spirit prepares you for service in the New Jerusalem (Galatians 5:16; 1 John 2:27); therefore, it matters NOT what you eat, drink, or what day you choose to serve God as the ceremonial law foreshadowed Messiah’s fulfillment of same (Colossians 2:16)…what matters is that you possess the Holy Spirit by faith in Jesus Christ and you’ve initiated an eternal covenant, intimate, relationship with God the Father through the Son, Jesus Christ by faith in Jesus as YOUR Lord believing that He died for you (John 6:29).
I tell you that the one born again by faith in Jesus receives the indwelling Holy Spirit as Guarantor of covenant relationship with the Father (Ephesians 1:13-14) and it is the Holy Spirit who walks the faithful in Jesus in a LAW that is more stringent and life changing than the Torah…it is the Law of the Spirit that penetrates the heart through the conscience as the Spirit walks those in Jesus in the process of sanctification where the Spirit daily and incrementally transforms God’s children into the obedient likeness of Jesus Christ as the Spirit prepares them “daily” for service in the New Jerusalem (Galatians 5:16).
The Law of the Spirit is infinitely superior to the Law of the Covenant because the Law of the Spirit is etched upon the human heart whereas the Law of the Covenant is etched upon stone. Stone reflects the coldness and impersonal attributes of the Law carved within it by an accusatory finger but the Law that penetrates a pliable human heart produces peace and intimacy with God as it is the indwelling Holy Spirit that teaches and guides and provides discernment with love, patience, grace, forgiveness, God’s strength to face this World with victory, a World that is fading away in defilement and rebellion to God’s Truth in Jesus Christ.
The Torah is beautiful…how would mankind know his origin, God’s eschatological plan for Time and Eternity void the Torah but it’s only “half the Book?” I’ve never read a book where I understood the author’s intent at chapter 39 of 66. The problem you face in your life of exclusively dwelling in the Torah is you’ve neglected God’s Way of acquiring the indwelling Holy Spirit given ONLY, exclusively, to those who believe with a sincere heart that Jesus is Lord and that He died to pay their sin-debt for them…a debt they could never pay them self.
It is the belief, faith, in Jesus as Lord that initiates covenant relationship with the Father who agrees to forgive your sin based upon the imputation of the Son’s righteousness into your life (John 3; 2 Corinthians 5:21; Hebrews 8:7; Ephesians 1:13-14)…it is at that time that the Father, by covenant promise, seals you and guarantees you an eternal inheritance by Gifting you with the Holy Spirit (Ephesians 1:13-14)…and ONLY then will your eyes be opened, your heart made receptive to the deeper truths of God’s truth and His wisdom that are beyond a natural man’s ability to comprehend and internalize (1 Corinthians 2:14).
Until such time you honor the Father by faith in the Son, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit takes-up residence within you as your Teacher, your Wisdom and your Discernment, you will never truly know God intimately. Faith in Jesus Christ as your Lord is the KEY to knowledge, wisdom, peace, joy, eternal life, in the Holy Spirit; in fact, there is NO OTHER WAY (John 14:6; John 6:29; Romans 5:1).
If you deny the deity of Jesus Christ, you are not in Covenant Relationship with the Father…
Jesus is God, Elohim, I AM, having entered Time “to destroy the works of the Devil” for your benefit (1 John 3:8b) and if you deny Jesus as your Lord by faith believing that He died for you, you will not enter the Kingdom of God but you will die in your sin and perish in Perdition without hope or remembrance (John 8:24). It is the one who is born again by faith in Jesus having received the Holy Spirit as guarantor of that relationship that KNOWS Jesus is Deity and the necessity for same; in fact, it is the knowledge that Jesus is God which separates the Christian from every religion, sect, cult, in the World.
Entering into a Covenant Relationship with God the Father, what is mandated?
From Adam to Abraham, from the Covenant of Law to the Covenant of Grace, one’s “faith” in God has been “KEY” to establishing covenant relationship with Him (See Hebrews 11). Though God gave Israel’s children the ceremonial laws, dietary laws, the Decalogue, and commanded them to obey these rules and regulations, these laws only foreshadowed and expressed Israel’s need for the coming Messiah and pointed Israel’s children to a coming Redeemer who would keep those laws with perfection and justify and sanctify the one who “believes” in Him by faith (Galatians 3:24).
In the New Covenant, it is “faith” that remains “key” to establishing Covenant Relationship with God the Father; that is, faith in the Son, Jesus Christ, as Messiah-Redeemer-Savior-Intercessor who shed His innocent blood upon a Roman Cross at Golgotha to pay the sin-debt of humanity and reunite God and man by eradicating the chasm of sin. Faith, that is, believing that God is true and that God will do exactly as He has promised in His written word and through His Living Word, Jesus Christ, is the only Way to the Father’s heart and the only Way to an eternal Covenant Relationship sealed and guaranteed by the indwelling Holy Spirit (John 14:6; Ephesians 1:13-14).
The Decalogue, the Ten-Commandments given Jacob’s children at Sinai, are truly nothing more than the moral law codified in stone….a moral law extant from the creation of the angels as the moral law of conscience, infused within every human being by our Creator at conception, is the arbiter of free will. Yes, the Decalogue does proclaim some specificity concerning certain sins and certain commands given to Jacob’s children as this people group was set-apart for God’s special dispensation through a Law Covenant where they were to be holy as God is Holy. Nine of these moral laws were infused into the New Covenant by Messiah and mens rea (the thought life) enhanced their culpability before God (Matthew 5:21-27).
As a Gentile who loves and serves Jesus Christ, the Decalogue stands in divine beauty as representing God’s holiness but I don’t enslave myself to letters etched in stone as I serve the Living God through obedience to the Holy Spirit who lives within me and guides me in God’s will through sanctification (Ephesians 1:13-14; Galatians 5:16). I don’t worship letters nor do I seek self-righteousness through a facade of obedience to those letters; I serve God in Jesus Christ through the Spirit and in this covenant of intimacy with my Lord there is peace, forever (Romans 5:1).
Jesus said in John 14:15: “If you love me, you will keep My Commandments.” What Commandments and how?
The one who has entered into covenant relationship with God the Father by faith in Jesus Christ as their Lord believing that Jesus died to pay their sin-debt does not practice lawlessness nor are they obligated to rules, laws, mandates, days, ceremonies, but they are redeemed, they are forgiven, they are declared “not guilty” by covenant promise (Hebrews 8:12) and have received the indwelling Holy Spirit as Guarantor of that Covenant; a better Covenant (Hebrews 8:7-13)…NOT one etched in stone or scratched upon parchment or mutilation of the flesh but a Covenant of Grace through Faith that changes the heart and reunites man and God in love with intimacy and peace (Ephesians 1:13-14; Romans 5:1).
When Jesus tells you that those who love Him keep “MY” Commandments, Jesus is not speaking of the inferior Law Covenant of sin and death (Romans 8:2) that only defines your sin absent atonement (Romans 3:20) but Jesus is speaking of HIS Commands articulated within HIS ministry upon this Earth. These Commands are administered and arbitrated by the indwelling Holy Spirit in the New Covenant and it is the Holy Spirit via sanctification that teaches them, implements them with patience, grace, mercy, compassion, through the conscience as the Spirit prepares those in Jesus for service in the New Jerusalem (Galatians 5:16; John 14:26).
Through the Spirit’s teaching, leadership, anointing, with tact and compassion, there is peace with God knowing that the redeemed are forgiven and that they are loved beyond human comprehension by the God of the Universe; in this, there is intimacy, peace, joy, contentment, in our relationship with God, forever (Romans 5:1). The Law Covenant could NEVER provide this relationship of intimacy with eternal purpose and contentment but only the faithfulness of Jesus and the Holy Spirit make this intimacy with God possible (John 14:27; Hebrews 8:7).
Jesus is the end of the Law concerning righteousness (Romans 10:4). What does this mean?
Jesus is the “end of the Law” concerning “righteousness.” This means that Jesus, in His sinless perfection, kept the righteous requirements of the Law for you and for me (Matthew 5:17) as we’re sinners (Romans 3:23) and unable to keep the Law in mandated perfection (James 2:10); therefore, the Law curses us because of our sin-nature (Galatians 3:10) and the Law only defines our sin but provides no atonement (Romans 3:20), but God the Father sent the Son into the World as our Redeemer via the Gospel (John 3:17; 2 Timothy 1:9-10) and Jesus walked before the Father and mankind in absolute perfection, kept the Law in perfection, gave Himself as blood-atonement for our sin (Leviticus 17:11; Matthew 26:28) and those who believe in what Jesus did for them at the Cross by dying to pay their sin-debt receive the IMPUTED righteousness of Jesus over their life in exchange for their sin (2 Corinthians 5:21; John 3) and they are declared “not guilty” by the Father (Hebrews 8:12) and enter into covenant relationship with the Father guaranteed and sealed by the Gift of the indwelling Holy Spirit, forever (Ephesians 1:13-14).
No longer must man strive after a law seeking righteousness with God in the hopelessness of self-righteousness but Jesus becomes our righteousness by faith (John 3:16); so then, Jesus is the “end of the Law” concerning righteousness (a right standing) with the Father (Romans 10:4) for all who believe that Jesus died for them to pay their sin-debt (Romans 10:9-10).
"RickeyD" Holtsclaw 