This blog is going to rock everything you thought you knew as a believer. It goes against the grain of what we’ve been told all of our lives. I pray that this blog will stir you to dig into God’s word deeper than you ever have before. The majority of pastors and teachers in Christianity have taught that Christians are not obligated to keep the Mosaic law. It is often said “we are no longer under the law”. On the other hand, the majority of Jewish rabbi’s and teachers say that Gentiles only need to keep the Noahide laws. These views have been taught over many, many years and many generations believe this to be true.
Where do these beliefs come from and are they true? When you ask someone about this topic, many go directly to Paul’s letters to try to reaffirm this belief. Most responses only reference Paul, not the gospels, not the other letters or the first half of the book. By doing so does this give us the full and correct context? I don’t believe it does.
When we seek to answer important questions like this, it is important we research the whole word of God before we draw a conclusion on the matter. We also should set aside any prior bias if we are truly seeking to understand God’s truth. We need to test everything anyone says to the whole word of God. Instead seeking man’s commentary we need to let scripture interpret scripture through patterns.
As I started researching this topic for myself, I came up with the following questions:
- What is our identity when we leave the world to follow God?
- Who is the true church of God? Are we grafted into Christianity or Israel?
- Does God care about DNA? Does your fleshly origin automatically give you a golden ticket?
- How does God truly see His people? Does He separate them into two groups?
- If there are separate groups, does he give different laws for each to follow?
Before we get to these questions, it is important to understand why God chose Israel to be His people from the beginning. What was and is the purpose in God’s story?
- God made all mankind in His image.
- He doesn’t want anyone to perish.
- He set aside a people to learn His ways.
- They learn and keep His ways to be a light to the nations.
- They are tasked with teaching the rest of the peoples on this earth about the one true God and His ways.
- He wants all mankind to know Him and follow His perfect ways.
- By doing so this glorifies His name. His name is above all names.
This purpose still continues today with the great commission.
These people who are sanctified by God are known as Israel or the house of Jacob. What is the meaning behind the name Israel?
Genesis 32:28 -And He said, “Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel; for you have struggled with God and with men, and have prevailed.”
True Israel are those who not only struggle with God but also man and have overcome. This is so significant as we run the race of life. Revelation also talks about he who overcomes.
So what happens to the nations (aka gentiles) who call themselves by the name of God. How are they to be treated and seen?
The following verse provides a clue to this question.
Ephesians 1:4-5 -“just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will”
What does it mean to be adopted? I know the true meaning of this term as I was adopted by my father when I was 10 years old. It was a bit of a bomb shell as I didn’t realize he wasn’t my real dad before then. My dad treated me as his own flesh and blood. My siblings didn’t get special treatment and we all had to follow the same rules. There were no separate rules for me and my siblings. We were treated and seen as the same by my father. Thankfully my siblings didn’t treat me differently either as this isn’t always the case.
Why would this be any different with our heavenly father?
Does DNA really matter to God?
What does God’s word have to say about this matter?
John 1:12-13 -But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name: who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.
Galatians 3:7 -Therefore know that only those who are of faith are sons of Abraham.
Romans 9:6-7 -But it is not that the word of God has taken no effect. For they are not all Israel who are of Israel, nor are they all children because they are the seed of Abraham; but, “In Isaac your seed shall be called.”
John 3:5-6 -Jesus answered, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.
As we can see with the pattern, true Israel is not associated with one’s flesh, blood or DNA. It’s who we are after we are born of the Spirit that matters to God.
So how does God view gentiles as they come into the fold through adoption?
Lev 19:34 -The STRANGER who dwells among you shall be to you as ONE BORN AMONG YOU and you shall love him as yourself.
Leviticus 19:33-34 -If a STRANGER dwells with you in your land, you shall not mistreat him. The STRANGER who dwells among you shall be to you as ONE BORN AMONG YOU and you shall love him as yourself….
Ezekiel 47:21-22 -“Thus you shall divide this land among yourselves according to the tribes of Israel. It shall be that you will divide it by lot as an inheritance for yourselves, and for the STRANGERS who dwell among you and who bear children among you. THEY shall be to you as NATIVE-BORN among the children of Israel; they shall have an INHERITANCE WITH you among the tribes of Israel.”
Isaiah 14:1 -For the Lord will have compassion on Jacob and will again choose Israel, and will set them in their own land, and sojourners will join them and will attach themselves to the house of Jacob.
Isaiah 44:5 -One will say, ‘I am the Lord’s’; Another will call himself by the name of Jacob; Another will write with his hand, ‘The Lord’s,’ And name himself by the name of Israel.
Ephesians 2:11-13, 19 -Therefore remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh, called “the uncircumcision” by what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands— remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints (commonwealth of Israel) and members of the household of God,
Romans 11:24 -For if you were cut out of the olive tree which is wild by nature (gentiles), and were grafted contrary to nature into a cultivated olive tree (Israel), how much more will these, who are natural branches (Israel), be grafted into their own olive tree?
Have you seen a consistent pattern so far?
So if believers are seen as part of the commonwealth of Israel do they need to keep the same rules and laws as their other siblings? Or are there separate laws specified? What does scripture say and over and over again?
The Law/Instructions/Torah
Exodus 12:49 – ONE law shall be for the native-born and for the STRANGER who dwells among you.
Lev 24:22 – You shall have the SAME law for the STRANGER and for one from your own country, for I am the Lord your God.
Numbers 15:15, 16, 29 – ONE ordinance shall be for you the assembly (church/congregation) and for the STRANGER who dwells with you, an ordinance forever throughout your generations; as you are, SO SHALL THE STRANGER BE BEFORE THE LORD. ONE law and ONE custom shall be for you and for the STRANGER who dwells with you.
Lev 18:26 – You shall therefore keep My statutes and My judgments and shall not commit any of these abominations, either any of your own nation or any STRANGER who dwells among you.
Deuteronomy 31:12 -Gather the people together, men and women and little ones, and the stranger who is within your gates, that they may hear and that they may learn to fear the Lord your God and carefully observe all the words of this law,
Isaiah 56:2-7 -“Blessed is the man who does this, And the son of man who lays hold on it; Who keeps from defiling the Sabbath, And keeps his hand from doing any evil.” DO NOT let the son of the FOREIGNER Who has joined himself to the Lord Speak, saying, “The Lord has utterly separated me from His people”; Nor let the eunuch say, “Here I am, a dry tree.” For thus says the Lord: “To the eunuchs who keep My Sabbaths, And choose what pleases Me, And HOLD FAST MY COVENANT, Even to them I will give in My house And within My walls a place and a name BETTER than that of sons and daughters; I will give them an everlasting name That shall not be cut off. “Also the sons of the FOREIGNER Who join themselves to the Lord, to serve Him, And to love the name of the Lord, to be His servants— EVERYONE who keeps from defiling the Sabbath, And HOLDS fast MY COVENANT — Even them I will bring to My holy mountain, And make them joyful in My house of prayer. Their burnt offerings and their sacrifices Will be accepted on My altar; For My house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations.”
The Lord’s Feasts/Appointed Times
Numbers 9:14 – (Passover) And if a STRANGER dwells among you and would keep the Lord’s Passover, he must do so according to the rite of the Passover and according to its ceremony, BOTH for the STRANGER and the native of the land.
Exodus 12:19 – (Unleavened Bread) For seven days no leaven shall be found in your houses, since whoever eats what is leavened, that same person shall be cut off from the CONGREGATION OF ISRAEL, WHETHER HE IS A STRANGER OR A NATIVE OF THE LAND.
Lev 16:29 – (Day of Atonement/Yom Kippur) This shall be a statute forever for you. In the seventh month, tenth day of the month, you shall afflict your souls, and do no work at all, whether a native of your own country or a STRANGER who dwells among you.
Deuteronomy 16:11 -(Feast of Weeks aka Pentecost) And you shall rejoice before the Lord your God, you and your son and your daughter, your male servant and your female servant, the Levite who is within your towns, the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow who are among you, at the place that the Lord your God will choose, to make his name dwell there.
Deuteronomy 16:13-14 -(Feast of Sukkot/Tabernacles) “You shall keep the Feast of Booths seven days, when you have gathered in the produce from your threshing floor and your winepress. You shall rejoice in your feast, you and your son and your daughter, your male servant and your female servant, the Levite, the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow who are within your towns.
Offerings to God
Leviticus 17:8-9 – “Also you shall say to them: ‘Whatever man of the house of Israel, or of the strangers who dwell among you, who offers a burnt offering or sacrifice, and does not bring it to the door of the tabernacle of meeting, to offer it to the Lord, that man shall be cut off from among his people.
Lev 22:18 – Speak to Aaron and his sons, and to all the children of Israel and say to them: Whatever man of the house of Israel OR of the STRANGERS in Israel, who OFFERS his sacrifice for any of his vows or for any of his freewill offerings, which they offer to the Lord as a burnt offering.
Numbers 15:14 -And if a stranger dwells with you, or whoever is among you throughout your generations, and would present an offering made by fire, a sweet aroma to the Lord, just as you do, so shall he do.
Deuteronomy 26:11 – So you shall rejoice in every good thing which the Lord your God has given to you and your house, you & the Levites & the STRANGER who is among you.
Consequences of Sin
Lev 20:2 – Again, you shall say to the children of Israel: Whoever of the children of Israel OR of the STRANGERS who dwell in Israel, OR of the STRANGERS who dwell in Israel who gives any of his descendants to Molech, he shall surely be put to death.
Numbers 15:30- The person who does anything presumptuously, whether he is native-born or a STRANGER, that one brings reproach on the Lord..
The Everlasting Covenants Given
Gen. 17:12-13 -“He who is eight days old among you shall be circumcised. EVERY male throughout your generations, WHETHER born in your house or bought with your money from any FOREIGNER who is not of your offspring, BOTH he who is born in your house and he who is bought with your money, shall surely be circumcised. So shall my covenant be in your flesh an EVERLASTING COVENANT.”
Deuteronomy 29:10-13 -“ALL of you who stand today before the Lord your God: your leaders and your tribes and your elders and your officers, all the men of Israel, your little ones and your wives—ALSO the STRANGER who is in your camp, from the one who cuts your wood to the one who draws your water— that you may enter into covenant with the Lord your God, and into His oath, which the Lord your God makes with you today, that He may ESTABLISH you today as a PEOPLE for Himself, and that He may be God to you, just as He has spoken to you, and just as He has sworn to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.”
Through these scriptures we can see that God always wanted all mankind to be part of his treasured possession. To be a holy people worthy of His kingdom. All believers who come into the fold are to be seen as Israel, the native-born, grafted into the cultivated olive tree. God’s laws and commandments are to be kept by all of His people. All believers are to be seen and treated as the same. All the promises made to Israel apply to you as a believer.
I pray God has used this blog to open your eyes to see the truth of His word completely. I pray the veil has been lifted.
LIFTING THE VEIL 