Beware of The New Judaizers, Part 2 Apostle Paul was constantly battling the false apostles (2 Corinthians 11:13) whom he accused of preaching another gospel, a different gospel which perverted the true Gospel that Paul, Peter, John and the true apostles preached. Paul even pronounced a curse on the Judaizers for preaching another gospel (Galatians 1:6-9)! He must have considered them a very serious threat to the Gospel, a threat that could sabotage the ministry and derail the churches of the first century. Paul used much of his writing that we have in the New Testament to fight back the corrupting influence of the Judaizers and their attempt to impose the Torah on New Covenant believers. Pauls letter to the churches of the province of Galatia was perhaps his most potent defense of the true Gospel against the Judaizers and other false teachers like them throughout church history right up to our time. For example, in Galatians 4:9-11, Apostle Paul addressed the Galatians, But now after you have known God, or rather are known by God, how is it that you turn again to the weak and beggarly elements, to which you desire again to be in bondage? You observe days and months and seasons and years. I am afraid for you, lest I have labored for you in vain. Paul did not mince words. He called a return to the Law not a special blessing but bondage. Why? Because it cancels out the liberty that we have under the terms of the New Covenant in Christ. According to Apostle Paul, observing the stipulations of the Torah is not a sign of spiritual strength. Instead, it is weak and beggarly, a feeble attempt. It is not a sign of spiritual growth and maturity. Observing the regulations of Torah is not a move up to a kind of spiritual college level. Instead, it is being shallow, it is being demoted from higher to lower grade levels spiritually. When you live by the Torah as an attempt to please God, when you observe days (the weekly Sabbath), months (new moons), seasons (the annual feasts from Passover to Pentecost), and years (the Year of Jubilee), Paul calls it going back to the elements as in elementary. Youre putting the Christian life in reverse, trying to start kindergarten all over again. Enrolling a college student (New Covenant believer) in kindergarten (Old Covenant observances) is not progress at all! You see, God began with the Torah primarily to teach the Jews and the human race that sinful man cannot keep Gods perfect Law. The goal of the Law is to convince the human mind and convict the human heart that we needed and still need God to save us from the results of our 100% failure to keep The Ten Commandments and the other more than 600 laws scattered throughout the Torah. The Torah set the stage and prepared the way for Messiah, Jesus Christ, to come and save us from the demands of Gods Law, which Jesus kept perfectly 100% of the time during His years on earth. Now, in Christ, we do not put our lives in reverse, trying to achieve what He already accomplished for us by His sinless life and His substitutionary death on the cross. He shouted It is finished for a reason (John 19:30): the requirements and demands of the Law have been met and fully satisfied. It is finished. The debt is paid in full by Jesus. Taking the Christ follower back to Old Testament observances is like making payments to a credit account that not only has a zero balance but an account that was fully paid and closed. If not the details of Passover and other Old Covenant observances and rituals, what should consume the New Covenant follower of Christ? With our faith in Christs finished work, we are to be consumed with the glories and mysteries of the righteousness (the right standing with God) that comes through faith in Jesus. As saints in Christ we have an enormous body of revealed truth to keep us occupied for eternity, not to mention the great assignment of biblical teaching, benevolence, evangelism and mission we are to be engaged in right now. There is a reason why Judaism is called the Old Testament. Here it is in Hebrews 8:13 (New Living Translation): When God speaks of a new covenant, it means He has made the first one obsolete. It is now out of date and will soon disappear. And God does not want you, I, any preacher, theologian or Bible scholar to make the Old Covenant re-appear. Some Christian leaders are calling this return to the Judaistic rituals a part of the end time revival. But in reality, it is more like a resuscitation, or worse, an attempt to exhume the remains of the dead that was buried over 2,000 years ago! Leave that legalistic covenant right where God wants it: dead and buried, having been fulfilled in Jesus Christ who has established with us the New Covenant in His blood (Luke 22:20).
Posted on: Mon, 03 Nov 2014 14:02:13 +0000
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