Light In Torah

  In last week's Torah portion,  Shelach  ("send"), we find the purpose for the entire journey of God's people lost in a single decision. What caused that decision is multifaceted, but the end result is the same. The generation that had it all lost it through murmuring, complaining, and faithless actions toward God and one another. It is all about the Land—the destination of our calling as Abraham's seed. But you ask, "What is so significant about the Land?" Simply put, every prophecy ever spoken was either given in the Land or is about the Land, which is the central focus of God's vision for mankind! Ironically, in last week's and this week's Torah portions, there are principalities and powers to deal with on the way to the Land. Some are overtly obvious, and others work behind the scenes without you even knowing it. One of the greatest adversaries that we all face is the pain of the past, hungering to manifest itself in the present, so it c...

The fivefold ministry is often cited as originating in the New Testament, but that would be a mistake. Whether we look at Moses in Exodus 18 appointing individuals for national leadership, Elijah passing his mantle to Elisha (2 Kings 2 & 3), studies of our Bible heroes, or the creation story itself—where God's image manifests throughout His Word, highlighted in Yeshua's life so the world might know the Word from the beginning (John 1:1–3)—the fivefold ministry is hidden in plain sight through the first 39 books of our Bible, with its seed in the first five. To assume this ministry started only in the assembly at Ephesus (the only letter that mentions it) would be like assuming the church began in Acts—both are mistaken (Acts 7:38; Gen. 48; Ex. 19:3–8). A simple way to remember the fivefold ministry is the acronym  APEST : Apostles, Prophets, Evangelists, Shepherds, Teachers. An  apostle  ( shelach  /  apostolos ) is one who is sent out. They are like the bud...

Yesterday, I left you with the question: Which one is it? Is it the mercy seat, or is it a specific monument—a specific place referencing a merciful act? Yes. What did Paul mean? In both meanings, the same thing is true. The whole idea of penal substitution is not a sovereign act first. God designed the mercy seat . The agent has come and meets me here. The emperor forgives a rebel city, and they raise a monument to him. There is no appeasement; it is mercy. It is mercy, and that is what  hilasterion  carries in either meeting—not a victim offered up to God, but a gift set forth by God, who had already decided on mercy. We saw this, as I mentioned earlier, at that meeting place in Isaiah 53. Do you remember this word in Hebrew?  Paga  (to meet, to intercede). In Isaiah 53:6, "the iniquity of us all met on Him"—the servant. The guilt converged on Him, but  paga  does not actually capture it all, because in verse 12 we see the same word returning: "He made in...

In the Greek and Roman world, far from the temple,  hilasterion  had nothing to do with the mercy seat . It meant a  monument —a public marker set up to declare that peace had been made. Archaeologists have found stones with inscriptions using this word hailing Caesars. One of the clearest examples comes from Metropolis, south of Memphis. Here is the story for you history buffs: after Caesar was murdered and Rome fell into civil war, it came down to two men—Marc Antony and Octavian. Octavian won and became Caesar Augustus. The city of Metropolis had backed the wrong guy—Antony. So when Augustus became the most powerful man on earth, those people were shaking in their boots. Why? They bet on the wrong horse. He should have treated them as traitors. What did he do instead? Augustus forgave them. In gratitude, the people built a  hilasterion  to Augustus. It was not a payment to buy anything back. It was a public marker thanking him for mercy. They were not all kil...

  Over the past eleven weeks, I have done my best to make the case about Jesus, blood, sacrifice—all of it. So now, without a doubt, every question answered, right? Lol, not quite. The purpose of continuing these studies is that the topic is limitless, and my understanding is limited. Yes, we have gained some insight. Some excitement may have been challenged, and maybe even relieved at some point. Hopefully, you have gained a greater understanding—bigger than what you might have inherited. But then, at some point, you share this with someone. You try to communicate, and within about five seconds, they are going to open their Bible and point to a verse. At the top of that list, I think, is probably Romans 3:25. There are a handful of verses that people treat this way. Someone opens the Bible and says, "Heresy. It is right here. This is the one that says everything is wrong about what you believe." This is one verse. We are going to tackle this week. We will look at something a...

As we draw these studies to a close, I want to encourage you to hear me carefully. I am not saying there is no atonement in the gospel. John writes, "He is the atonement for our sins, and not for ours only but for the whole cosmos." Atonement runs from the beginning to the end of the gospel. The question has never been whether atonement is real. The question has always been:  What is atonement?  For ten weeks, I have been telling you: Atonement is not God's wrath being pacified by death. It is His life overcoming the forces of death. Atonement is cleansing, the holding together of heaven and earth, so that God's presence can dwell with His people. Jesus is the atonement for the whole world. John says His indestructible life is the answer to the death-dying condition every human being lives in. He is the cleansing, the consecration, the living water, the meeting place where heaven and earth come together. He is more than enough. That is  more  atonement than Penal Sub...

Eleven weeks ago, we started an expansive journey beginning with the merit—the favor that flows from the faithfulness and standing of the Righteous One. For the  chen  pattern to hold, for the participation framework to work, for everything we have said about the servant to make sense, we must say something carefully about Yeshua Himself. Most of us were given a picture of Jesus where the emphasis on His deity made His humanity feel incidental—a divine being walking around in human form, looking like a man, but actually God making decisions with God's knowledge and power, with outcomes never actually in doubt. I understand the impulse: the desire to honor Him. But hear me: if His obedience was not real obedience, His merit is not real merit. If His temptation could not have pulled Him another way, His faithfulness is not the kind we have been describing. If the prayer in Gethsemane could only ever have ended one way, it is not that big of a deal. If any of that is true, the en...

  Do you remember the final scene of the cross? John 19:34—the soldier pierces His side, and out comes blood and water. Some say, "So what? We have blood and water. No big deal." Others say John wrote that as a medical detail to prove He was actually dead. But John was not a careful writer for that reason. He gave you blood and water because the gospel writer is signaling both directions of participation at once. Blood—covenant blood, the blood that binds two people together, the blood of the new covenant. Water—the water of life, from Ezekiel 36, the living water He promised in John 7 that would flow from the believer's heart. Out of His side: both covenant and cleansing, consecration and renewal. The gospel writer says, "Look at what is happening at this cross." The crucifixion is the demonstration of Jesus' faithful obedience, but it is the life He brings. The blood placed on the heavenly sanctuary that the Hebrews talk about is not proof of death; it spe...

Continuing from part one: what about 2 Corinthians 5:21? Isn't that Penal Substitutionary Atonement? "For our sake He made Him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God." (2 Cor. 5:21) Read with a substitutionary lens, that sounds like a celestial transfer: Jesus was innocent, sin gets imputed to Him, God treats Him as if He were a sinner, the penalty falls, the transfer is complete, and you go free. But that is not what Paul is doing. Reread 2 Corinthians with the rest of Paul's letters open. You will notice that for Paul, "made Him to be sin" is not a courtroom transaction. It names full  participation , not a transfer. Skip to Romans 8:3: "God sent His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and concerning sin, condemned sin in the flesh." Read carefully: God did not  condemn Jesus ; He  condemned sin in the flesh . Jesus had taken on the same human condition every one of us lives in. He entered the groun...

Atonement is not God's wrath being pacified by death. Atonement is the holy life overcoming the forces of death. Atonement is cleansing; it is the holding together of the relationship between heaven and earth, so that God's presence can dwell with His people. Jesus is the atonement for the whole world. John says His indestructible life is the answer to the death-dealing condition every human being lives in. He is the cleansing, the consecration, the living water. He is the meeting place where heaven and earth come together, and He is more than enough. That is more atonement than Penal Substitutionary Atonement ever offered. Some say this is absolute heresy. "You're going to answer for this one day. This is a demotion of Jesus. You're pulling back His glory. You're softening the cross." Here is what I actually said: His obedience was real. His faithfulness was real. He merited the fullness of the Spirit by walking the path no one else could walk. He confron...

Sometimes we limit ourselves by the way we examine the Scriptures. When we look at the Instructions (Torah), there is a tendency to turn it into a chronological history book, an all-encompassing science text, a theological manual of complete instructions, and a book of restrictive "dos and don'ts" that limit our freedom of expression and became obsolete after Yeshua's crucifixion. Personally, I think Yahweh's Instruction book is a never-ending guidebook. For example, as we move forward in counting toward the firstfruits of the wine, many have a tendency to think that Passover, Unleavened Bread, Firstfruits, Pentecost, etc., were all introduced in Leviticus 23 for the first time, or in Exodus 12 in story form, or because they are mentioned as "feasts of the Jews" a couple of times in the Gospels, that they are limited in their scope. And because they are defined in Leviticus ( Vayikra ) 23, we tend to stay away from them because that information is only f...