Lesson 15 - Matthew Ch 5 cont 3

[Music] alright let's go ahead and get into our lesson today and I want to begin by saying that I think from a from a very personal level that what we're about to study today changed my life it probably is the single thing that had the most influence on me moving away from what I would call churchism into understanding God better and understanding his word better into loving God better into truly wanting to search his scriptures and understand how I should think how I should live and I want to begin by acknowledging we spent the better part of three lessons covering only the first sixteen verses of Matthew chapter five I know it's a slow pace and I'm afraid it's not likely to increase very much for a while my goal however is not to teach you scriptural minutia or theology my goal is to add the necessary context some of it historical some of the cultural and some of it language oriented so that the true meaning of what we're reading comes to the surface unadulterated by unintended errors man-made doctrines and modern Christians spin the tries to make it compatible with contemporary beliefs and and agendas now in the case of the Sermon on the Mount the considerable amount of time that I'm taking with these many detours and expect extended explanations is only because what those regular everyday Jews who came to here yes held his common knowledge well it's unknown and foreign to us in the 21st century now the past three lessons have essentially been a build-up to what we're going to encounter today and what comes today is nothing less than a plain firm and unequivocal refutation of one of the most broadly held doctrines of the Christian Church worldwide even more what Yeshua says to the crowd of thousands and thousands of Jews that have come from as far away as the southern desert of Judea to the northern reaches of Syria and even from several Roman provinces on the eastern side of the Jordan River most of the people by the way coming in hopes of a miraculous healing of their illnesses and injuries and deformities and demon possessions this all sets a foundation for all of his followers juror Gentile then and into an indefinite future of exactly how we are to understand his speech how we are to interpret all of his words and actions as recorded in the Gospel accounts so before we open our Bibles together out I just want to relate a brief story to you for the past 25 years I've had the privilege of taking several hundreds of people to Israel on a tour and on some of the tour's especially when I had a pastor or two on the bus I took them to the Mount of Beatitudes there we would spend a couple of hours on the lovely grounds not just for the beautiful view of the Sea of Galilee but also for a Bible lesson and naturally we would read at least part if not all of the Sermon on the Mount invariably I would ask a Stewart on the tour to read it for us and they were always kind to accommodate me and starting at Matthew 5:1 I could see the easy familiarity these pastors had with the moving words of the Beatitudes and one or two of them even had it memorized often they spoke with teary eyes but then as I asked them to continue they would encounter verse 17 and then 18 and then 19 some paused partway through perhaps not sure they wanted to proceed others had a deer in the headlights what come over their faces some seemed puzzled as though after reading this chapter numerous times in the past jesus' words of verses 17 to 19 were suddenly new to them such can be the case when one visits the Holy Land of Israel now I'm sure it's obvious to you as it quickly we came to them why I chose these pastures in particular to read the Sermon on the Mount to the group it was my intent to make an impact now it's my prayer that these words we are about to dissect will make a similar impact on you so without further ado I want you to open your Bibles to Matthew chapter 5 and let's talk about what it is that makes these words so monumental so important to our faith so unsettling to much of the institutional Christianity that these words are often ignored so once again Matthew chapter five let's move right down to verse 17 we're gonna read only four whole verses if you have a complete Jewish Bible as page 12 28 don't think that I have come to abolish the Torah of the prophets I have come not to abolish but to complete yes indeed I tell you that until heaven and earth pass away not so much as a you'd or a stroke is going to pass from the Torah not and tell everything that must happen has happened so whoever disobeys the least of these meets vil these commands and teaches others to do so will be called the least in the kingdom of heaven but whoever obeys them and so teaches will be called great in the kingdom of heaven for I tell you unless your righteousness is far greater than that of the Torah teachers and the parish eeeem the Pharisees you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven let's go over by verse yeah let's go word by word the opening text is depending on your English Bible version do not think or do not suppose or think not I don't have to dwell on the meaning of this simple phrase because it's self-evident Christ means something like now I know what some of you might be thinking about what I've already said and how you might take what I'm about to say but you'd be wrong in other words Yeshua is interrupting the regular flow of his speech to make a point because he knows that some will object to what he has to say others will read into it things he does not mean in fact I can imagine him making a rather dramatic pause taking a few seconds inhaling deeply and then scanning the crowd making sure he has the attention of everyone listening the purpose is to clarify the interpretation of his instructions and teaching in order that the people listening rule out a certain way of thinking that some maybe most of them might automatically assume why might they automatically assume wrongly because they like us had mental filters humans have always had mental filters without even being fully conscious of it we all have since we were very young children developed a certain way of looking at our world and that view of our world colors everything we see in here and come into contact with therefore our personal mental filters filter out some information and allows other information to pass through some of the way our mental filters develop has to do with the temperaments were born with and the sensitivities we develop along the way that might be inexplicable some of it has to do with our family history maybe our family system the culture we've been raised in our maybe we have joined two plays a significant role as does the teaching whether it's formal or informal that we've received our personal experiences and the prejudices and the preferences that we develop and so much more all take their place to help form our views and thus they become the blueprints that construct our personal mental filters the Jews that Christ was speaking to that day naturally all had their own mental filters and while not Universal among every attendee we can probably make some general conclusions about the nature of those mental filters first of all the attending Jews were aware since their earliest age of their rich Hebrew heritage they knew of their ancestral father Abraham of their ancestors time in Egypt of their Exodus they knew of the wilderness journey about the happenings on Mount Sinai who Moses was and the lofty place he holds in Jewish religious history second the multitude were entirely aware of the Torah and of the law of Moses even though most were not well versed in his details remember at that time in history the Hebrew Bible was still being painstakingly hand copied onto Scrolls and no one but the priesthood possessed more than a book or two at best and that was due to the expense time involved in creating each copy third there is no question as to the continuing and never-ending validity and truth of the Torah and the prophets and the entire Tanakh the Old Testament the Hebrew Bible of this there was no debate among the Riju --is-- religious and academic elite it's taken for granted forth since the majority of the people of Israel had long ago dispersed to regions all over Asia and Europe in the Middle East in North Africa few of the Jewish Diaspora were able to make the several annual cateura commanded pilgrimages to the Temple in Jerusalem whether that journey was to sacrifice to atone for their sins or attend a biblical festival so their contact with Jerusalem the temple and the priesthood was rare if ever unless they lived within the immediate area of the Holy Land or were both wealthy and religiously zealous FIF although the torah itself commands that it is the Levite priests who are responsible to teach the Hebrew people the Torah that had ceased to happen centuries earlier the Exile of the Jews to Babylon had created this huge vacuum in Jewish religious leadership and ritual as well as in the people's knowledge of Scripture so sixth out of this vacuum was born the synagogue as more or less a necessity each synagogue was local and it sold served a fairly small community of Jews very much really like the way the church operates each synagogue was independent of the others and so the religious expression of each varied a bit in time however some Jewish leadership developed then standardized to a degree the synagogue system the synagogue at first served the Babylonian exiles who had decided not to return to their homeland but to make wherever it was that they were their permanent home later on the institution of the synagogue spread even to the Holy Land even though those Jews resided in relative close proximity to the temple therefore whatever religious training and instruction that the average Israelite received came from his or her local synagogue and who operated these synagogues who did the teaching this was the province of the Pharisees for the most part that is the synagogue leadership and the teachers were laypeople they were non priests and they had no connection to the temple and because the synagogues were dominated by the tradition driven instruction of the Pharisees than it was tradition and man-made Jewish law as opposed to the actual biblical law of Moses that the typical Jew learned and practiced so the mental filters that Jews had in the first century were created primarily on the basis of their distinct Jewish culture and on the traditions and Jewish law that the religious leaders taught them so this large crowd of Jews without realizing it filter every word Yeshua says through their mental matrix of knowledge and viewpoint therefore much of what Yeshua says sounds new to them even though it's old some of it sounds wrong because they've been taught wrongly sometimes their skepticism of Jesus's words is because they don't know what the Torah actually says and they don't have the proper reference point to judge the difference between the actual biblical god-given Torah and the man-made traditions the doctrines they and their forefathers have been taught in the synagogue all their lives now this honest sound familiar to us even if we might not be terribly happy to have it pointed out because it's like that in the typical Christian Church and it's been so since shortly after its inception I mean the people either don't have a Bible or don't read and study the Bible and so whatever the church authorities say that the Bible says and means is what the people generally accept as unassailable truth the name for these many interpretations of the Bible and resulting rules is doctrines so while the church has nearly always been doctrine based as opposed to Bible based the synagogue has nearly always been tradition based as opposed to Torah based Christ concerned then is that the people who are listening to him will think that under his own authority he is either changing the law of Moses or effectively abolishing it and replacing it with new teachings of his own so he begins with what words do not think so the people are told not to think what exactly what are they not to think he says they're not to think that he came to abolish the law or the prophets now what exactly did that mean to his listeners quick reminder now whatever we in the West might think we have to always keep in mind that Matthew was a believing Jew who's thought processes followed a Hebrew path so first whatever the people sitting on that hillside think Yeshua was trying to tell them in his sermon he insists that nothing of what he says involves him abolishing anything polishing overturning destroying that's not what he came to do the Greek word being translated as abolish is cataluña and the Greek lexicon they all agree it means to abolish or to overthrow and so our English Bibles have it right second the thing he specifically emphasizes that he's not overthrowing is the law and the prophets so precisely what is Christ meaning by the law and the prophets in Greek the term law is Nomos and the term prophets is prophetic in this use in Matthew 5:17 the term the law is referring to the law of Moses or more accurately in Hebrew thinking the Torah the five books of Moses the term prophets this is exactly what we what it sounds like it means it means the books in the works of the Old Testament prophets like Isaiah Daniel Ezekiel the name a few of them now let's take a tiny detour to discuss a serious language issue that to my great surprise seems to go unrecognized by nearly every commentary written on the Gospels one of the most difficult matters to sort out in the New Testament not as much in the Gospels but far more so on Paul's writings is the prodigious use of the word wah Nomos that we find in it and we all know that the term law is within most of Christianity a negative now when translating from Hebrew to Greek and then further on to English the word Nomos gets used in a number of ways that cause great confusion how and explain that when the Hebrew word is Torah then the Greek translation that's used for it is Nomos so the English translation then from the Greek is law so Torah in Hebrew becomes law in English but that's not what Torah means Torah means teaching instruction doesn't mean law or it can be referring to the entirety of the first five books of the Bible so right off the bat we have a distortion built into our English Bibles further when the Hebrew thought is law of Moses then the Greek word chosen to translate it is also Nomos so the English translation of the Greek becomes law now a few Christians know that the law of Moses is but a section this contained within the Torah it's not the whole of it another example when the Hebrew meaning is of oral torah that is Hebrew customs and traditions handed down for centuries that are said to have been given to Moses by God but were not recorded in the written Torah again the Hebrew or rather the Greek word chosen is know most and so the English translation is law when the Hebrew term Holika meaning Jewish law which consists of interpretations of the law of Moses the Pharisees used and expected the Jewish people to obey again the Greek word used is no most and so the English translation is law one more instance when the Bible talks about sick euler civil law including Roman civil law the Greek word used is you guessed it Nomos which becomes law in English you see the problem the only Greek word used and therefore the only English word used for all these quite different situations and varying elements of literature and law codes and Holy Scripture within Jewish religious practice and culture are all translated using the same Greek word and it winds up using the same English word law and so because of our Western and Christian mental filters naturally it seems that they must be referring to the same thing and whatever it is well that thing's negative and we've got to avoid it so what is Christ actually referring to when we read our English Bibles the law and the prophets well the good news is that when the New Testament went in the New Testament those two terms are coupled together in other words it says the law and the prophets it is used as a single expression that is speaking of the actual Hebrew Bible it's not speaking of traditions or Jewish law or civil law or even oral torah there is no doubt in my mind that the original Hebrew thought that Matthew had and probably wrote down was the Torah and the prophets that is because the Torah and the prophets very early on in Jewish history became technical terms for names for naming two of the three sections that in Jewish scholarship together make up the Old Testament the Tanakh the Hebrew academic leadership saw the Bible as consisting of three parts the Torah the prophets and the writings but rather than having to say all those words when referring to the entire Old Testament then a standard expression used among Jews became the law and the prophets and we're gonna see Paul use that same expression in several of his letters indicating exactly the same thing and here me they're speaking of the entirety of the Hebrew Bible exiting now our brief language lesson and the dilemma that some strained biblical language translation can cause the incredibly important bottom line is this in Matthew 5:17 Christ emphatically said he did not come to abolish any part of the Hebrew Bible and just so there's no confusion going forward the terms Tanakh Hebrew Bible and Old Testament all mean exactly the same thing and so I'll rotate the use of them to knock Hebrew Bible Old Testament same thing so if what Yeshua has said and is about to say is decisively not to be taken to mean that a he is in some way change in or scrapping any part of the Old Testament that exactly what is he doing in his speech the last half of verse 17 says in English I have not come to abolish but to fulfill the King James Version says I have come not to destroy but to fulfill other versions are nearly identical but whatever minor word difference occurs still amounts to the same thing in other words our English Bible versions are in full Accord as to how to translate these words from Greek to English Christ says he came to fulfil now the part this particular part this last part of this verse that's where the trouble really begins a large segment I estimated to be the majority of Christians institutions fiddle with those few words to substantially change their meaning in order that they would accord with a long-standing Christian doctrine that the law of Moses which among so many denominations means the Old Testament in general is dead and gone and so it's irrelevant to Christians some go so far as to make the law of Moses and most of the Old Testament is a danger to Christians because delving into it or thinking that it still has relevance to us could draw us away from our faith in Christ so let's look at this word by word notice that the term abolish is used again that is Christ first says I did not come to abolish and then he repeats himself but adds more information and both instances the word is cataluña which the several Greek Lex guns all agree means abolish or overthrow now some language scholars claim it could also mean to destroy nonetheless any of those meanings arrived as at the same place within this first but now what does it mean when he said he came to fulfill the Greek word used is playroom playroom here is the standard agreement among Greek lekha lexicons as to the meaning of this word this is a quote I am NOT paraphrasing to make full to fill up that is to fill to the full or to render full as in to complete here's the rub Christianity often distorts the meaning of play root to include the concept of terminating concluding stopping that's worse than error it's fraudulent it's a fraudulent changing of the meaning in order to uphold and defend a predetermined doctrine play ruh fulfill is the Greek word used in the Bible when describing the fulfillment of a prophecy for example fulfilling a prophecy certainly doesn't mean to stop it doesn't mean to terminate it doesn't mean to conclude it some of the standard commentaries I've read on the the matter claiming that the meaning is to complete but for them complete means terminate the reason that the Greek liquor lexicon say it means to complete even say it means to complete within the context of rendering something full a common example in Western society is for one spouse to lovingly say to the other that they complete me this is the proper sense of the word play ruh it means to bring to the full not bring to an end under no circumstance nor usage in the Bible does the Greek word playroom mean to end terminate conclude none of those things now one of the illustrations that I've used to help picture the meaning is that it is like in the old days you kids won't know anything about this you know what gas stations used to have what they called service attendants and they would put gasoline into your car for you and then they'd walk up to your car window and they'd ask you what they could do for you and a standard response was what fill it up if we were speaking Greek we'd say playroom that is we want our gas tank to be made as full of fuel as it can hold we want to bring it to its fullest capacity we don't want the man to terminate our tank but because I'm in the process of discrediting one of the most widely accepted and passionately defended doctrines within Christianity I'm gonna say a little more about it when one takes Christ's meaning in this passage as terminating then we have him saying the unintelligible I mean the false interpretation has Jesus say I come not to abolish but to terminate that's gibberish if I abolish a lot don't I terminate it if I abolish the struggle destructive relationships in my life do I not stop them rather Yeshua is saying that all that the Hebrew Bible points to is him and yet in another senses we're gonna soon see he means that he will bring all that the Old Testament has established to its fullest heights and intents so in a couple more says he's gonna begin with now you have heard that our fathers were told but I tell you although it's not a perfect analogy not at all it's not unlike when the atom was first discovered a little more than a century ago at that time it was thought to be the absolute smallest particle that all matter consists of but a few years later it was brought to light that atoms themselves consisted of even smaller particles called neutrons and protons and electrons now this new revelation didn't in any way end or terminate or abolish the atom the truth of the existence of the atom is a building block of all matter remained true the discovery of the deeper mysteries of the atom added necessary understanding of it it didn't abolish it we need to see what Christ meant about what he came to teach us and what he certainly in no way intended to do with Holy Scripture in the same light as we think about atoms and electrons and deeper meaning clearly Yeshua felt that his definitive unambiguous statement but verse 17 could still be misunderstood or more likely intentionally corrupted in order for various Jewish religious factions to find fault with him or to support a doctrine that he did not establish her agree with so now he expands upon verse 17 with verse 18 yes indeed I tell you that until heaven and earth pass away not so much as a uterus stroke will pass from the Torah not until everything that must happen has happened other English versions have it essentially this with the same meaning and intent but I'll quote a couple of the most accepted versions for you King James Version for verily I say unto you till heaven and earth pass not one jot or tittle shall in no wise pass from the law till all be fulfilled the NAB amen I say to you until heaven and earth pass away not the smallest letter are the smallest part of a letter will pass from the law until all things have taken place so in verse 17 he says that nothing he personally says or does is meant to add subtract change or terminate any part of the holy scriptures any part of the Hebrew Bible in other words by beginning with don't think I have come to he is saying that he is in no way advocating for nor will he be the responsible party for abolishing the Tanakh but now in verse 18 his statement becomes more general and broad in scope that is however it could theoretically happen whoever might be the responsible party it's a moot issue because such abolition or change isn't gonna happen period then he adds a statement that a casual reading of it sort of sounds a great deal like a common expression that employs hyperbole exaggeration he says well the Hebrew Bible and its relevance and content rue mean as is alive in force until when until heaven and earth pass waste for so many believers for me many years ago this statement is very similar to the meaning of until hell freezes over that is we say that because hell isn't ever gonna freeze over just as heaven and earth aren't going to pass ah not so fast not so fast turns out indeed heaven and earth are gonna pass away and the Bible tells us when this events going to occur revelation 21 2008 when t11 then I saw a new heaven and new earth because the old heaven and Old Earth have passed away and the seas no longer there now John who wrote the book of Revelation was actually quoting a much earlier prophet when he wrote down that prophecy Isaiah 65 17 for look I create new heavens and a new earth past things will not be remembered they will no more come to mind we're not going to spend too much time with this you can go to my teaching on Revelation for a much more extensive treatment on the passing of the heavens and the earth but a few points do need to be made first of all all the major English translations agree on the wording of this passage in Isaiah but notice that in Isaiah it is heavens plural that is being recreated this is well understood to be referring to the physical universe not to heaven where God dwells but in Revelation 21 because commentators don't seem to acknowledge that John is merely quoting Isaiah the meaning has changed from there being a new universe to there being a new heaven where God dwells that's simply incorrect the intent is to say that all physical things that together make up our entire universe will be broken down and then rebuilt sometime after the millennial reign millennial reign of Christ now assuming John's sequence of these events is the correct one but second clearly according to Isaiah and to John and remember John outlived Jesus by a long way this recreation of the heavens and earth upon the passing away of the old it's a future event and obviously enough it hasn't happened yet but I got to tell you I was personally confronted on this matter and told by serious people that the old heavens and earth had already passed away and it happened at the crucifixion in other words this confrontation had mainly to do with whether or not God's Torah had passed away along with Christ these folks agreed it is simply not possible to accept Matthew 17 and 18 in any other way that until the heavens and the earth did pass away to be replaced with new that the tour and the Old Testament enforce for believers according to Yeshua so the only solution was to determine that this event had already happened I'm still at a loss for words to reply to what is so obviously untrue but such as the lengths that some Christians will go to in order to defend the undefendable among long-held church doctrines now third because in his Sermon on the Mount Yeshua was not using the passing of the heavens and the earth as a mere expression and hyperbole but rather he was telling of an actual and real event that includes a real marker in the timeline of redemption history it is self-evident that in heed the content and the relevance of the Tanakh is going to end at some defined point and that defined point is a pump upon the passing of the old heavens and earth and the recreation of a new heavens and earth but as he said not until all that must happen happens and by the way because it was Isaiah who foretold the destruction of the old heavens and earth and the recreation of the new many Jews would have been familiar with this statement not at all put off about such a thing coming from the mouth of the issue of Yeshua and yet Christ is so intent on getting this crucial understanding across to the crowd that obviously had been taught they had been taught something different in their synagogues and those who might scoff at what is saying a pervert what he is saying is something he's not saying he goes even further he says that not even the tiniest part the Holy Scriptures are going to be abolished or changed or added to or subtracted from leading up to the passing of the current heavens and earth not even a single letter in a single word will be altered by the only authorized entity that can ever legitimately do that God but as he insists that's not gonna happen and since Yeshua is the word I think that promise comes on pretty good authority now some of you hearing this I know may be wrestling with it some may be just dismissing it all together regardless of the plain nature of what these few verses say because this seems to fly in the face of all that you've heard at church since you became a believer suddenly you're hearing that not only is it not wrong to keep following all the Old Testament which includes the part that Yeshua is gonna focus on the law but you are obligated to do it I feel your pain a long time ago I was confronted with this as well and let me tell you it took prayer and time for me to realize that how I felt I just felt about it emotionally is simply not relevant how shook up I am about it is merely the result of me not personally studying and then believing God's Word for what it says instead I was looking to the very religious authorities of certain Christian denominations whose jobs it was to defend that denominations existing doctrines it was their sworn duty to maintain the status quo let's face it how nice it is to hear and believe that all you have to do is pray the sinner's prayer now you're saved and so you're relieved of any further obligations to God you have the fullest freedom in Liberty no boundaries no rules no duties in fact there's no reason you can't go right back to your old sinful life because Christ paid for those sins anyway so for you there's no consequences but should you be so foolish as to try to actually obey God's written Commandments what you're doing wrong you're being a legalist our Messiah would never want that right well Matthew 5:19 so whoever disobeys the least of these Commandments and teaches others to do so they're gonna be called least in the kingdom of heaven but whoever obeys them and so teaches in what we called great in the kingdom of heaven that's the complete Jewish Bible version what does the King James Version sound like whosoever therefore shall break one of these least Commandments and shall teach men to do so he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven but whosoever shall do and teach them the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven all the other English versions say essentially the same thing Christ has given the instruction now he tells his listeners the consequences of a bang or disobeying this is sadly another verse that has been intentionally spun and violated in order to pound a square peg into a round hole you know honestly I can't tell you how many sermons I have heard many years ago that this was not talking about the very thing Yeshua was talking about the Hebrew Bible the law and the prophets this was talking only about entirely new commands that he would issue that would abolish and replace the older ones I've also heard a few sermons that claim it ought to be the goal of a Christian to be the least in the kingdom of heaven because for some that's an indication of humility and meekness why you certainly don't want to push yourself to the head of the line for other pastors they say it's the believers reward for dutifully breaking God's commandments the jesus is emotionally is supposedly just abolished so seeking to be the greatest in god's kingdom well that's wrong just as a being God's old biblical Commandments well that's wrong so what would Christ's words have meant to the ears of the many Jews hearing this directly from him it was the common traditional understanding in synagogues that there were lesser and greater laws these amounted to the heavy and light Commandments the ones that brought the dyers consequences for disobedience and that's opposed to the ones that just kind of brought brought you a slap on the wrist Christ says that despite what those scribes and rabbis may have told you I tell you you are to obey all the laws and commandments of God with equal devotion he says in matthew 5:20 for I tell you unless your righteousness is far greater than that of the Torah teachers and the Pharisees you'll certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven I think that's enough to ponder for today we'll continue with Matthew 5 next time [Music] [Music] [Music] you

Channel: Torah Class

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Keywords: Jesus, Christ, Yeshua, God, Torah Class, New Testament, Son of God, Tom Bradford, Matthew, Seed of Abraham, Bible, Christian, Christianity, Hebrew Roots, Bible Study, Jews, Sermon on the Mount, Beatitudes

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Length: 53min 59sec (3239 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 10 2020