A ‘Christian’ in the Biblical sense is a “little christ”. Many people do not realize the word was actually used first in Antioch as a pejorative against Gentiles who were joining the Jews in the “Way of the Nazarene”. The “Way” of the Nazarene is the “way” in which He walked the Torah of His Father, God the Creator. Indeed, the Torah is known as “The Way” in the Scriptures. So, someone who was being insulted for being a ‘christian’ was to take joy in being laughed at for the sake of the Messiah Yeshua, the man from Nazareth, for choosing Him as their Rabbi. [1 Peter 4:14-16]
If one truly is following the Messiah [and ‘Christ’ is from the greek Χριστός, ‘christos’, which means ‘anointed’, where Mashi’akh in Hebrew means “Anointed One”: The Messiah], then one is walking in His footsteps doctrinally. So, anyone who names himself a ‘believer’ in Jesus Christ, who truly knows Yeshua the Messiah, does not turn away from the commandments He upheld by living out, and that He so clearly taught.
Yeshua spent probably the greater part of a day sitting on a Mountain in Israel that served as an amphitheater, preaching what many call the ‘Sermon on the Mount”, and in that message, He references Torah over and over, and actually strengthens the righteous requirements of the commandments of the Torah. ONE example:
“You have heard that it was said to those who were before you, ‘You shall not murder,’ and ‘whoever murders is guilty before the law.’ But I say to you that whoever becomes angry with his brother for no reason is guilty before the law: and whoever should say to his brother, ‘Good For Nothing!’ is guilty before the Sanhedrin; and whoever says to his brother, ‘You crazy fool!,’ is condemned to the fire of Gehinom.” ~ Mat 5:21-22
So, Yeshua took the commandment about physical murder, and showed us that even thinking about it makes us guilty, and then that even insulting our brother would send us to hell! [Praise God for His Son who suffered and died for all our transgressions!] And most people today who trust in Yeshua would say that physical murder of a fellow human being is still sin. So, those Christians uphold the Torah, on that one point.
We believe that our true Christian brothers are all beginner Torah keepers. They are taught the basic morality of the Bible, if their teacher has any merit at all. But, they falter in many ways.
There are those who are teaching that you do not even have to think about your sin after you become a believer in Jesus; that his forgiveness is utter and complete [and it is], but also that our behavior after the fact of conversion is irrelevant. That is error. If that were true, then the pastor of the congregation can take his father’s wife for his own, which is incest and is forbidden in the scriptures called Torah/Law, and it would be ‘okay’ for the whole church. They could rejoice in the new relationship ‘because they love each other’. The truth is, we had a New Testament example of that very thing, and Paul said that the Corinthian church should be ashamed, instead of rejoicing in it, and that they should hand the man who had done that over to Satan so that his body would be destroyed, and his soul hopefully saved. In other words, pray that he should die or repent!, If he died before he resisted the Spirit telling Him through the Word, to repent, he would not be saved. But, they handed him over, and the man repented, and Paul said in the second letter to restore him in compassion,, and the man was restored to faith and obedience.
We are supposed to obey Yeshua. He says not to commit adultery. He told the adulterous woman, “Go, and SIN NO MORE”. Adultery is still sin. The Spirit of God is trying to convince us of that. By The Word. It is the flesh and the anti-Messiah that reject that point of truth, and many others of His Word.
The sad fact is that today fornication, adultery, gluttony, embezzlement, betrayal, covetousness, drunkenness, and all other manner of sin is overlooked by modern ‘grace’ in the congregations. And the reason: because they have redefined “Jesus” to be a modern American, and have rejected the Jewish Messiah, Yeshua the Nazarene, the Son of the Living God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the Creator. They have preached another Jesus, just like Paul warned against, as was happening in his day. [2 Cor 11:1-4]
True believers keep the Ten Commandments. Not the Nine. The TEN. The one that makes the Messianic community more mature and closer to truth is that the Sabbath, the fourth commandment of the Ten, is not forgotten, and we protect its memory by keeping it on the SEVENTH day.
Christians think that since they keep a day every seven days, that they are keeping His Sabbath. They say that Jesus changed it by doing away with the Torah, and that they are to commemorate his rising from the dead on Sunday. They do not realize that the early believers did not do this, and that He actually rose from the dead on Saturday night. It was not until the second century that any Greek believers began to change their worship to sunday, because they did not like their Jewish brothers, while the Jewish believers and the true followers from among the Gentiles did not change their day or manner of worship. And it was not until the fourth century that it became the de facto standard among believers as a result of Constantine’s takeover of the various congregations, de-Judaizing the worship because of his utter hatred of Jews, and forcing the NEW days of worship on the whole Roman world, through murder. And that is why people are scared to do the truth today. They think anyone who keeps the Sabbath that was written in stone by the Finger of God is defying God: it is insanity. That logic would not hold up in a human court of law, and will not hold up in the Court of Heaven.
Read Psalm 119 and see how beautiful the Torah is. Look at how Yeshua lived His life, and live your life that way, so people will understand that He is the Son of God the Creator, who chose Abraham, then David, to bring to us Messiah Yeshua. “Come out from among them and be separate, says יהוה.” There really is a spiritual effort to deceive and weaken the congregations of Messiah, and we really are fighting for souls. Righteousness is indeed a free gift, but holiness is voluntary separation from evil, and unfortunately, many are not being separate from the world at all. In fact, churches look exactly like the world these days.
“You are a ‘peculiar’ people”, says Peter in the King James Version. If only that were so.
Excellent!