Light In Torah

There is a second question hiding in the first question from yesterday's study. If He did not become impure, does that mean He never kept the purity laws—never brought sacrifices for impurity, never went to the  mikveh , and so on? Does it mean that? Drumroll, please? I do not know. But here is something to think about, especially for the critic who would wave all of this off and say, "Of course He was never subject to that impurity nonsense—He did not do that legalism!" Remember what we learned about the  tzaddik —the righteous one. One thing we always find is true: the  tzaddik  is  with  his people. He identifies with them. He does not hold himself above them; He is down in the middle with them. Now think about who Yeshua was understood to be—the Messiah of Israel. A teacher with students, living in public, constantly watched, and measured against everything the people expected of a faithful Son of the covenant. The Messiah of Israel was never imagined a...

We have established that there are two things which cannot become unclean: living water, which cleanses and cannot be defiled, and the words of Torah, which cannot be contaminated by impurity. Impurity simply cannot reach them. Did you make any connections in your mind with who represents both of these? Let me review a thought from the Gospel of John, chapter 1: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The Word became flesh and dwelt among us" (John 1:1, 14). Yeshua is the Word, and He is also the source of living waters. So we have learned that when God acts and speaks, when He meets His people, His Word—His own presence and action in the world—both maintains its purity. The Word of God, which is compared to fire, cannot be touched by impurity. And now that the Word is in a body, walking the roads of Galilee, John gives us another connection to Yeshua and water. At the Feast of Tabernacles, the priest performs the great water-drawing c...

In our last two studies, we drew parallel comparisons between Yeshua, living water, and the Word. We saw that even death—the most profound event that could render someone ceremonially unclean—cannot affect living water or the Word of God. This week, in the Torah portion  Chukat , the prophetess Miriam dies (Num. 20:1). We are now forty years after the children of Israel left Egypt, and an entire generation has died off in the wilderness, leaving the entire community of Israel unclean. At the beginning of this Torah portion, we are introduced to the red heifer—a ritual that specifically deals with counteracting the effects of death within the camp of Israel. And as I mentioned a few studies ago, the red heifer is back in the news. This morning, it is only fitting that we pay tribute to this woman, who is responsible for the entire Torah—God's instructions—that we have today. How, you might ask? If it were not for Miriam, there would have been no Moses. Not only was she responsible f...

Let me start with a story that we can all relate to: A student is studying with his teacher when he suddenly stops, embarrassed. He realizes that he is ritually impure and feels he has no business speaking holy words of Torah in that condition. His teacher tells him, "Open your mouth, let the words shine, because the words of Torah do not contract impurity." He proves this from Jeremiah 23:9, where Jeremiah says that God's word is like fire. Just as fire cannot be made unclean—if you take something impure and throw it into fire, the fire burns it up, the impurities are consumed, and the flame remains pure—so too, when impurity comes near the words of Torah, God's word finds nothing to take hold of. This later becomes a matter of Jewish law regarding the Torah scroll. A scroll may be handled by a ritually impure person, a menstruating woman, and even unredeemed individuals—the point is that even very high levels of impurity do not defile the scroll. The system was desi...

  Yesterday I asked: Did Yeshua ever become unclean? Throughout the Torah and all of Scripture, there are examples of certain holy things that impurity cannot overcome. You can bring impurity to them, but nothing transfers! Today, I want to show you one of two of these things, and then we will look at Yeshua through that lens. The first is living water— mayim chayim . There is a passage in Leviticus we could easily read right past. In the middle of a section about a carcass—which contaminates everything it touches: jars, ovens, food, water sitting in a pot—there is one exception. A spring or a gathering system of water stays clean. The very thing that defiles everything around it cannot touch that kind of water. The distinction is this: if you draw water off into a vessel, that is different. But water still joined to its source—groundwater or a spring system—that kind of natural  mayim  holds its purity. Living water was part of everyday life in Israel. Of course, when yo...

  Continuing our thoughts on the death of Yeshua and the idea of purity flowing out of Him, this week's study comes from a question. The individual who asked understands what I was saying about Yeshua and holiness flowing out—there is always a "but." But how can we say that Yeshua was never made impure? How is this possible? You could argue that He was a flesh-and-blood human being living under the Torah. He touched the dead. He stood next to people who were unclean. He spent His days surrounded by exactly the conditions that Leviticus says transmit impurity everywhere. So, if we take His humanity seriously—and we should—then He contracted impurity the way any of us would. And if He did, surely He went to the temple and, through the Torah's instruction, would have undergone the purification process necessary to walk into holy space. It is a good question, right? And guess what? We are not going to get an answer to it today—not a final one. This is the beginning of ano...

  Over the past few weeks of study, we have watched God's people complain again and again, and we keep asking: How can they still complain after everything God has done for them? Good question, Sherlock. But this week, it gets even stranger, because we have actually heard these exact complaints before—many times. They moaned about food and water three times in Exodus, and then they cried over food again earlier in Numbers. Do they not see that each time they cry out to God, He provides for them? Should they not have learned their lesson by now? If they have run out of water, they should not whine—they should pray. God has not let them down yet. Did they forget that God has always taken care of them? And after this  chutzpah , you would assume God would be angry. Enough already—stop complaining! But shockingly, God gives in to their complaint. He tells Moses to supply the people with water, as if Israel's complaining were justified. What is going on? I think the key to unlockin...

We have spent a lot of time on this over the past eleven weeks. But people then take all of that and run in Hebrews 10 toward a terrible conclusion: "By one offering He has perfected forever those who are being sanctified." And then, after quoting Jeremiah—"I will put My Torah upon their hearts and upon their minds, and I will remember their sins no more"—Hebrews says, "Where there is remission of these, there is no longer an offering for sin." That announcement is often read as if the entire sacrificial system has been eradicated by Jesus. That is not what the author is saying. He is not calling the system a failure. The temple worked; the priesthood worked exactly as it was designed. And the prophets tell us that in the age to come, Ezekiel saw a third temple in detail, with some offerings returning (Ezek. 40–48). So the author of Hebrews is not trying to abolish the temple. What is finished is the one thing earthly offerings were never built to do: the ...

In yesterday's study, "Invest Wisely," at first blush, it appears we went away from Yeshua in Hebrews, but in actuality, it is an essential piece of the puzzle to hear, "Well done." The heavenly sanctuary represents the place where God and humanity can meet. Yeshua has reopened it, which raises an obvious question—and the author of Hebrews wants to answer it. This week's study of Hebrews does the heavy lifting we need for understanding that answer. His blood is life—and not just any life. It is an  indestructible  life. Hebrews says that He walked into death, and death could not hold Him. He holds His priesthood by the power of His indestructible life (Heb. 7:16). That is why He is a priest of a different order—not because of His bloodline, but because death could not hold Him. A life like that—indestructible—and blood like that is the most potent force in all of creation: the strongest purifying and consecrating power there is. And that is the key to the bo...

It does not happen very often in my life, but the topic of the Red Heifer in Israel is in the news again. Within this week's Torah portion is the topic of the Red Heifer (Num. 19). It is a very strange ceremony, and though I have considered and studied it for many years, I am perplexed with the simplicity and the complexity of the eternal decree (Num. 19:21). Every year God gives me a deeper understanding concerning this topic, but, as I shared with a buddy this morning, I have a loooooong way to go when it comes to understanding this topic of how God restores us from coming into contact with death. We live in a world that is saturated with death. We cannot watch a movie, TV show, or any YouTube series without being desensitized with the death mindset. Add to that the overstimulation of sex into our society and the longing to be loved, felt, or heard, and we are in desperate need of the Red Heifer—whatever the complete meaning of that could be. Like many topics in life, it is one w...

Last week I shared one verse with you: Romans 3:25. This week I am going to try to give an overview of the entire book of Hebrews, which is not going to be very easy. There is one book people turn to in order to say that everything we have said across the entire "Atonement Explained" series is completely wacky and cannot be possible. This is the book people would go to. The whole discussion in Hebrews is basically summarized by saying: Jesus is the sacrifice, He took His blood into the Holy of Holies to satisfy God and buy your access. Case closed. But Hebrews says we cannot do that. We have to take the writing apart one step at a time, because that is far too small a picture of what His work actually entails. The author of Hebrews himself has already said this book is very, very large. There is a lot going on, and the author stops right in the middle of his letter. He warns his readers that it is going to be hard to understand, so I feel like I am in good company attempting ...