THE PATH OF YHWH’s PEOPLE

 

This article is to give you a brief overview and understanding of  how we at Lev Shel Torah Congregation view scripture.

 

Those believers who have been raised in various church denominational

 circles will have certain perceived and taught mindsets concerning what scripture says.  Many of these views will include such interpretations as; the church is the body of Christ; we live under grace not law; Jesus came to forgive sins and give us eternal life.

 

For many of these believers there is a disjunction between the Old Testament and the New Testament.  One was “for then” the other is “for now”. These are all commonly held

beliefs and perceptions by many believers who would classify themselves as Christians.

 

As part of the Lev Shel Torah Assembly our perception of scripture is rather different in several fundamental details yet also similar in other respects. Like most “churches” we agree in the understanding that “God” sent someone who would take our rightly deserved punishment upon himself as His only son and thereby restore our relationship to our heavenly Father. While the church would call him “Jesus” we would call Him by His true Jewish name Yahshua who is one with the Father – YHWH. Indeed for us His Jewishness and His being part of Israel is very important.

 

We see scripture indicating throughout both Old Testament and New Testament that the primary reason for Yahshua’s coming was to restore the nation of Israel (which is not just Jews) thus to bring His people (Israel not the church) back into their inheritance. Salvation through Yahshua’s death and resurrection  is but the beginning of this path of life back to full inheritance for each of us who accept what YHWH offers.

 

 We perceive a single continuous plan first spoken of by Moses (in Deuteronomy 28:64-68 and 30:1) continued by many of the prophets  stating how Israel (all 12 tribes) would disobey YHWH’s instructions on how to live, (called the TORAH) given through Moses at Mt Sinai, be split into two Kingdoms after Solomon’s reign, how one kingdom or ‘house’ (called Ephraim or Israel in scripture) would be scattered into the nations and become indistinguishable from other gentiles and indeed be referred to as gentiles, while the other (called Judah in scripture – the Jews of today!) was exiled a number of times, often to return (in part) to the land of Israel. Yet repeatedly the prophets spoke of the Messiah who would come and begin the restoration of  these two kingdoms (houses) of Israel back into one Nation living under YHWH’s commandments (Torah) and through this YHWH would establish His Kingdom on earth. (Ezek 37:15-28, Isa 11:12, Jer. 3:18, Hosea 1:11 etc)

 

With this understanding of scripture the events recorded for us in the New Testament (Brit Chadasha) concerning the life and actions of Yahshua and later His disciples show again and again aspects of this restoration. Two such examples include: Yahshua’s parable of the prodigal son where the son that squandered his inheritance is a picture of the Kingdom of Ephraim Israel who eventually realizes who he is and returns to His Father. His father comes to meet him and makes him welcome, however the other  brother (Judah) becomes jealous. Even Shaul (Paul) wrote of this later concerning the “gentiles” (Ephraim Israel) bringing Judah to jealousy (  Rom 10:19 & 11:11) .

 And again Yahshua’s parable of the 10 virgins, 10 representing the 10 tribes making up the Ephraim Israel Kingdom. In this parable some are prepared and ready to enter into their inheritance when the time comes by living according to YHWH’s commandments (Torah, represented by the burning lamps – see Ps 119:105) while others were not ready and missed out. In symbols this parable identifies who is being spoken about and how the end result depends on living according to the Torah YHWH gave Israel at Mt Sinai – the ways Yahshua Himself lived and showed us how to live.

 

There are many other parables with similar understandings in the Brit Chadasha. In a like manner there are many connecting threads between the Tanakh and Brit Chadasha to show the continuity of the same plan of YHWH throughout all of history. A few examples of such threads are:

Jacob’s blessings over Ephraim and Menashsheh in Gen 48: .... where Jacob asks that they (literally from the Hebrew:) “multiply like the fish of the sea to become (the fullness of ) many nations”. Then in the Brit Chadasha we see Yahshua choosing His disciples to make them “fishers of men” i.e. to find those lost Ephraimite Israelites who desired to return to become part of Israel. This is also entirely in keeping with statements of Yahshua such as Matt 15:24 “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel” and to His disciples (Matt 10:6) “Go rather to the lost sheep of the House of Israel and (John 10:16) “and other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring in, and they shall hear my voice and there shall be one fold and one shepherd”.

 

Indeed such statements made by Yahshua make far more sense when seen in the light of His primary purpose being to restore a complete Nation of Israel living before YHWH according to the TORAH.

And again another thread can be seen in the “Great commission” statement to the disciples by Yahshua – “Go to Jerusalem, to Judea, then to Samaria and to the uttermost parts of the earth”. When we understand Jerusalem to be the capital city of the Kingdom of Judah and Samaria to be the capital of the northern Ephraim Kingdom whose inhabitants were by then scattered “to the uttermost parts of the earth” we again see a connection between the Tanakh and the Brit Chadasha. There are yet many many others. Such as the 153 fish caught by the disciples in John 21:3-11 being connected to Hosea 1   and again Yahshua’s words in Matt 5  often called “The sermon on the Mount” being connected to Hosea 1    etc. etc..

His disciples (including Shaul (Paul) ) continued the same message and understood the same restoration process being the progression of salvation. We see again many links between the letters written by the disciples and the Old Testament. For example in I Peter 2: 9-11 Peter uses the same phrases used in Hosea 1   to identify those to whom he is writing (it is Ephraim Israel). Again in I Peter 1:1, also the same can be seen in many places of  John’s letters, James’s letters as well as Shaul’s letters.

There are many who contend that Shaul writes much against the “law” where “the law” is thought of as being the commandments given to Israel at Mt Sinai (Torah). In fact reading carefully with this restoration perspective in mind Shaul continually writes concerning this restoration of Israel and living according to Torah.

 What is often misunderstood are his repeated  admonitions against living Torah legalistically!  This is even more understandable when it is realised that there is no word in Hebrew or Greek for ‘legalism’ or ‘legalistic’.  Thus Shaul is forced to use phrases which include the word ‘law’ to describe legalism.   We see some of his understanding of the restoration of the Nation in Rom 9: 25-27 where the word gentile is linked to the Kingdom of Ephraim., Rom 11: 17-25 indicating  both houses would be grafted into the Olive Tree. Again there are many other similar references concerning both the restoration and the validity of living according to Torah (although not legalistically).

If  Lev Shel Torah’s  perspective of YHWH’s plan seen through ALL of scripture for His people is correct, then it has major implications for the way we should live, and how we understand scripture.

Those of us who are part of Lev Shel Torah have found:

I).   It means a Torah lifestyle for all  Israelites and anyone who desires to be part of YHWH’s people is NOT an OPTIONAL EXTRA! This is because it teaches us how to live before and relate to YHWH as well as how to live with each other, without any pagan mixtures! Indeed we haave found that our relationship with YHWH absolutely depends on and grows within the boundaries of living Torah out of love for our Father.

II)   Part of coming into our inheritance ABSOLUTELY DEPENDS  on His people DECLARING  (and using) His true Name (YHWH/YAHSHUA) to the world (Ex 3:15 and Jer. 16:21) as well as demonstrating His character  to all nations!  THIS WILL NEVER HAPPEN IF WE DO NOT HAVE A TORAH LIFE STYLE!  Indeed if we claim to be YHWH’s people yet do not live by His commands, it can be justifiably disputed if we can be considered as “His people” (see I John 5: 2 –3 and Isa 8: 16).

III)   We begin to understand scripture from a Hebrew mindset rather than the Greek mind set we have inherited from our culture. This gives the Holy Spirit (Ruach Ha Kodesh) a greater and greater opportunity to reveal more truth of scripture to us and to continue “renewing our minds” as Shaul writes.

IV)   Our understanding of concepts like “evangelism,” “Law and grace”, our “salvation and inheritance” have become different from the church’s understandings., We are seeing in scripture YHWH working with ONE ENTITY – a nation called Israel which includes the houses of Ephraim and Judah and (as scripture makes clear) any other foreigner  who wishes to be part of this Nation – and NOT with the two ENTITIES called the church and the Jews.

We know without doubt we are in times when this restoration process is gathering pace rapidly prior to Yahshua’s  return. The question we all must ask ourselves in these times is “do I wish to be one of YHWH’s people or not?”