There’s deception afoot. I guess it’s always been there, at least since the serpent deceived Eve into abandoning her trust in God and doing something she shouldn’t have done, but one of the prevalent deceits of today is equally as egregious but far more subtle. It started with covert groups of people, servants of the dragon who have been going about as of the last few decades that I’m aware of, but probably longer. They attempt to bring a hybrid gospel to the unsuspecting and would-be believer that teaches an adherence – at least as much as possible – to the laws and regulations practiced by the Hebrew followers of the Torah. This, they claim, is to be practiced in addition to following Christ, thus appearing not to be an abrogation of loyalty to Jesus so they can resume these practices and still claim to be Christian. I started taking notice of this new gospel when I first heard the adherents carefully avoiding mention of the name of Jesus Christ, preferring what they call His Hebrew name they say is Yeshua. In English it’s Jesus. That’s the name I was taught to believe is above every other name on earth and in Heaven. It seems that all versions of this “religion” studiously reject any holiday that has been established recognizing or in honor of Jesus Christ. This includes Christmas and Easter, but they observe Old Testament holidays like the Passover Feast of Tabernacles, etc., but nothing in honor of Jesus Christ.
A couple of analogies come to mind, both of which attempt to show what I’m trying to get across. With the understanding that there are two Covenants between man and God that are/were in effect, I believe that the first Covenant, the one God made with His people, we can call them the Jews, was enacted in order to prepare the world for the advent of Jesus Christ’s covenant. For the first, let’s say we are taking a long journey, and we have to travel through two distinct stages to get where we are going. The initial segment of this trip is in England, where we must use a map of the UK to drive to a place where we board the ship to go to America. In turn, when we get to America, we must use another map to drive to wherever our destination lies.
When we begin our trip, we’ll need a map of Great Britain to follow from the start to the port. Consider that to be the first Covenant. We follow the UK map, completely understanding all the requirements of driving in England, including driving on the left side of the road, using kph instead of mph, etc. After following the British map and arriving at the departure port, we have completed that stage. Now just for the sake of this analogy, the trip across the pond corresponds with the appearance of Jesus and the establishment of His ministry. The whole trip thus far has been taken in anticipation of our voyage, and once we get across the ocean, we might decide it would be useful to hang on to the British map even though that part is finished, but we will never again need follow it on this journey. It is important to take note that there were some very worthwhile issues revealed in the first map, but if we are to believe the Gospel, those things are now indelibly consigned to our hearts, from which we will be guided by faith and no longer the legal code of the map (book).
[Galatians 3:24,25]; “24 Therefore the law was our tutor to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith. 25 But after faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor.”
Once we arrive in New York, or wherever our ship comes to port, we must break out the US map. From now on until the end of our trip we will be using this one. We might refer to the bygone British map for reference, after all some very influential people with great wisdom drew it up – indeed it shows us examples of how some of the obstacles common to both countries must be overcome, but for all practical purposes, to get where we are going, we are done with the British map. The new map of the US is ALL WE NEED to finish our trip. Although it will always be useful for historical reference; even with much meaningful spiritual significance, not one iota of information in the old map will any longer be necessary to guide us where we’re going because, as stated in the Gospel, all still-relevant and pertinent information that was in it is now written on our hearts if we stay faithful. The new map is quite capable of getting us where we are going. With all that said, it would be a shame to deny ourselves the experiences of Biblical forebears like Elijah, Moses, and King David, etc., so we choose to read about them to understand and appreciate their relationships to God and how God dealt with people in those early days, but not as a guide to our current destination.
When folks allow themselves to be convinced they need to continue to follow the old map, even in a new nation, they begin a process of self-delusion that starts putting distance between themselves and Jesus Christ, and this is not only unnecessary and irresponsible, but spiritually dangerous. With the knowledge of Jesus Christ and the true nature of His Covenant – It’s hard for me to understand how folks can believe they are more perfectly serving God by observing expired legal requirements of an expired law than if they were simply following the code of the Gospel of Jesus. We cannot contrive any religious practices that can make us better servants to God than simply following the teachings of Jesus! It is not possible to combine both maps for any advantage on this remainder of the trip. For instance, even unbelievers know it would be foolish to try driving on the left side here in America. No matter how much a person would like to believe otherwise, steering wheels are on the left side of the car here in the US. The apostle Paul made this precept abundantly clear to the Galatians, a church which had obviously been infiltrated while he was away by some iteration of those servants of confusion mentioned earlier. Paul got so upset when he figured out what they were buying into, he actually called them “foolish Galatians”[Galatians 3:1]! The legal salesmen to whom they had been listening were apparently trying to make the Galatians accept edicts of the old law in addition to the Gospel he (Paul) had preached to them earlier. If you follow this “modified” version of the gospel, I strongly urge you to study what he told them. In fact I’ve heard adherents of this strange religion actually judging the apostle Paul saying he wasn’t “real” apostle! A podcaster I used to follow actually disagreed with Paul’s recriminations of the Galatians saying Paul didn’t understand Christianity because he was a Roman – as if being a Roman somehow diluted Paul’s faithfulness to Jesus. Imagine that! An ad hominem attack on the apostle of the entire Gentile world by a modern-day podcaster presumptively arrogating to himself the authority of judge over a man who had seen Christ as well as being one of the preeminent apostles of the Christian Religion!
Paul also said that if you are going to adhere to the law, you have to follow all of it [Galatians 5:3] “And I testify again to every man who becomes circumcised that he is a debtor to keep the whole law”, so how does that work with the requirement of stoning people to death who get caught in immorality? Animal sacrifices? There are practices in the old law that cannot and must not be done today. They are no longer needed due to Jesus’ teaching and His sacrifice, but as far as this “new” Gospel goes, it seems like anything they can include from the old law is taught to be either necessary or at least useful, as if by practicing as much of it as possible somehow pleases God more than if one simply follows Jesus through faith.
There are examples in the New Testament where Jesus and/or His disciples actually violated the hitherto rigid constraints of the old way of “observing” the Sabbath. There was an occasion when He and His disciples were walking through a cornfield and picking corn – all forbidden on the Sabbath -, another time He healed a paraplegic and told him to take up his bed and go home on a Sabbath when carrying a bed on the Sabbath would have been forbidden. In fact, one of the complaints the Pharisees levied against Him was that – apparently, He actually had a reputation for this – He was a man who didn’t observe the Sabbath according to the law. [John 9:16]: “Therefore some of the Pharisees said, “This Man is not from God, because He does not keep the Sabbath.” Perhaps more telling is that when He was observed “violating” the Sabbath, He did not deny that He had done so, rather He explained that we should all do good on the Sabbath, and that the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.
Jesus spoke parables about sewing an old patch on a new garment and putting new wine in old wineskins, which I understand as a warning against trying to mix old things with new ones, re, covenants. He also made it clear [Mark 2:27] that the Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath. I’m not saying it’s wrong to do or not do whatever on any day of the week, as long as a person is dedicating what they do for the Lord, but to try and teach that the law governing Sabbath practices as some residual legal requirement is Spiritually irresponsible.
Jesus also said that not one jot or tittle of the law would ever pass, but – and all of the adherents to this mystery religion I’m talking about either miss or ignore this part – He qualified that with “until all is fulfilled.” [Matt 5:18]. The “all” in that statement was exactly the law He was talking about. Else why did He say [Matt 5:17]: “Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill.”?
The other analogy is that of taking out a mortgage, say on a house. When you owe on a mortgage, you pay every month until the house is paid off. When you pay the last note, the mortgage is paid off –fulfilled! Why would anyone in their right mind continue to pay notes on a mortgage after it is paid? When Jesus died on the cross, the mortgage, or covenant, was paid! In His own blood, Jesus paid the ransom for each and every one of us, and for people to continue to try and pay more by trying to continue to live under a law which His blood fulfilled, I believe is pursuing a “religion” which intentionally ignores, or gives less than proper appreciation for His sacrifice. This might not seem like such a big thing, but the dragon is waging war on the woman (Jesus’ Church) to this day and whatever he can do to belittle the act of Jesus’ death for our sins, he will certainly do. In this case by attenuating Jesus’ sacrifice by following a belief system that basically says we need Jesus and something else, in this case adherence to an inapplicable covenant, people are falsely accepting a belief that something more besides Jesus’ ultimate fulfillment of that covenant will make God love them more, and I passionately believe this will have the exact opposite effect on His regard for them. Especially since the old covenant is what Jesus’ new Covenant specifically replaced.
There are many observances in this false belief system that make it up. It teaches strict observation to the old dietary requirements, even in the face of Mark 7:15,16, where He says “There is nothing that enters a man from outside which can defile him; but the things which come out of him, those are the things that defile a man. 16 If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear!” Maybe these folks don’t have ears; it sure looks like it. Also in [Mark 7:18,19]: “So He said to them, “Are you thus without understanding also? Do you not perceive that whatever enters a man from outside cannot defile him, because it does not enter his heart but his stomach, and is eliminated, (thus purifying all foods.)” Some folks argue that the last part of that was added to the Bible later than the rest of the narrative, but it logically concludes what Jesus was getting at, so even if it was added later, it quite succinctly sums up the passage and besides, it’s a dangerous undertaking to step out onto that slippery slope of picking and choosing what parts of God’s Spiritually inspired word to accept or to reject, whatever the reasoning. Another aspect of that argument is that it may well have been added – but most likely by the same author who wrote the rest of the book, and if so, he had the authority to add it.
I may be going too far into the arguments, but I tend to get passionate about these beliefs, especially when it comes to minimizing Jesus’ authority or even giving equal credence to other elements of one’s religion to Jesus’ sovereignty.
One last point I’d like to make is that the law was not handed down to Gentiles, although some Gentiles converted in Biblical history. When Gentiles undertook to observe the requirements of the Old Covenant laws, they volunteered into it. After Jesus’ resurrection, in the book of Acts there are mentioned some traditions of the old law observations that the Jewish disciples were trying to levee on newly converted Gentiles and it caused quite a stir among the apostles, with all of them finally agreeing that as far as old observances, the new believers would only be required to refrain from immorality, eating strangled animals, blood, and things sacrificed to idols, but that’s as far into the old covenant that the apostles required Christians to go.
There are other groups out there preaching the same, or similar, message. There are the Christian Zionists who actually believe the interlopers living in Israel right now are the actual descendants of the Jewish tribes, even though Jesus told us in the last days there would be people claiming to be Jews who are not, but are a synagogue of Satan. There are also those who claim to be Judeo-Christians and aside from the fact that these are mutually exclusive terms so there cannot be such a thing, they too, try and wind laws of Judaism into the Gospel of Christ. The common thread in all of them is the attempts they all make to bring the old Mosaic covenant into twisted versions of the Gospel. In the more extreme cases, they actually try to completely return to Mosaic law. There’s a move on in Israel now to resume the practice of sacrificing animals. That is why I believe this is a great deception and the same enemy is selling the same product under different labels. If you are of the mind that any of these belief systems (that attempt to superimpose the old covenant onto the Gospel of Christ) are correct, I implore you to study Matthew chapter 5 where Jesus lays out what is expected of His followers and how He wants us to serve Him, and as stated earlier, study Galatians where the Apostle Paul addresses this very thing at length.
There are some ministries out there that expound against this insidious perversion of Jesus’ Gospel such as the Law of Liberty Ministry of Adam Fannin. He goes much deeper into this phenomenon than this post. You might also want to check out the Liberty Fellowship ministry in Montana pastored by Chuck Baldwin which also addresses this issue. I think it’s more than a coincidence that both ministries have the word “Liberty” in their name, seeing that Jesus actually died for our freedom from our sins (which would not have been sins if not for the old law). So there are reputable followers of Christ who recognize the fallacy – and the danger – of trying to misapply Judaism and its old law into the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
So why in these days are people who claim to be Jesus’ servants trying to get back into the old law? Maybe since it uses a theology once established and accepted by God, it’s much easier to deceive folks with than if it just outright went against God. Jesus changed things however, and even a cursory reading of the New Testament reveals just how much our servitude to God evolved through His ministry. Having the new law written on our hearts has some profound implications for our beliefs. It’s commonly, but quite mistakenly, held to just be too simple to be real, and because of this quirk of human nature which rejects simplicity, men are compelled to add things that no longer, or never did, belong. In short, the Gospel of Jesus Christ is being perverted and diluted by trying to inject Judaism in one form or another back into our relationship with God and He isn’t going to be pleased with this false ministry which effectively minimizes Jesus’ sacrifice. Watch out for the deceptions of the enemy – I greatly fear this new “gospel” is one such deception. If you think I’m wrong, please send comments explaining why.
May the blessings of the Almighty Father find and keep us.
MK