Torah means instructions. It has often been translated into English as "law". but law is a cold, hard word. Law means obey, or be punished. Torah is much softer. It is like the loving instructions of a parent teaching a child to walk.
In the beginning Yah spoke and words
came out of his mouth mingled with his breath. The words were instructions (Torah). So every word that comes out of Yah's mouth is part of a loving Father's Instructions on how to live..
"By the word of Yah were the heavens made and all the hosts of them by the breath of his mouth." (Ps 33:6)
"my word that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it." (Is.55:11.
The Slave and the Son
Yahshuah said , I have not come to destroy the Torah but to fulfill it (to
bring it to the full realization) -Mt. 5:17
Think of Moses as a slave standing in the dark looking through the
window into his owner's house. He catches a glimpse of the owners back , the house
and the rules of the house.
Think of Yahshuah as the owner's son. He
lives in the house and knows perfectly the Father and the rules of the house. He said he
has not come to destroy the house rules, but to bring them out of the shadow
into the light. Yahshuah was not only a more reliable revealer of the house rules
but considered himself a conduit for the father -the father's microphone. he
said,
I am not the one speaking these words. The father is in me. "The words
that I speak are not my own" but the father speaking through me. (Jn.
14:11) "The words that I speak are spirit and life".
Nor did Yahshuah
think of himself as a miracle worker . he said,
"I can do nothing of myself."
I am not the one doing these miracles, the father is doing them through me. (See
Jn. 14:10)
You've heard of spirit-possession where a
demon can take over a person and speak through him, Yahshuah was God-possessed
and the Father was in him speaking through him. So if you want to know the house
rules (the Torah) look at the words that came out of Yahshuah's mouth, the owner
of the house, the giver of the Torah was speaking.
Robert Roberg's Life Long
Quest
When I was a young man I read in Matthew that Yahshuah said
"Man does not live by bread alone but by every word that
proceeds out of the mouth of Yah."
I wanted to live, and so I began a life long quest to find out what were those words that came out of Yah's mouth. I've read the Bible in many translations. I've read the books left out of the Bible. I've read the Books of other religions the Vedas, the Bhagavad-Gita, the I Ching, The Tao, the Egyptian Book of the Dead, the Tibetan Book of the Dead, the Book of Mormon, The Koran (in 4 different translations), the Writings of Baha'ullah, the Books of Krishna, the life of Buddha, the Zen Masters, Medieval Saints and theologians, modern saints and theologians etc. I learned many things from all these books, but I kept coming back to Yahshuah for he said:
"My words are spirit and life. Whoever keeps my saying will
never see death."
I have concluded that the red letter words of Yahshuah
are the true revelation of the Torah. Now I understand that when he said
"Think not that I have come to destroy the Torah, I have not
come to destroy it, but to fulfill it," He was presenting to humans
what Moses had had a glimpse of. When Yahshuah said, "Not one jot of tittle
shall pass from the Torah until all is fulfilled, he was not talking about the
Old testament glimpse that Moses wrote, but the Torah that was coming from
Yahshuah's mouth. Yahshuah's Torah did not replace the Torah of Moses but revealed the True Torah that Moses had only seen in the shadows.
Most Christian
preachers say that the Torah was only for the Children of Jacob and that
Christians are not under the Torah anymore.
But Yahshuah said:
"For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one
tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled. Whosoever
therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men 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."
(Mt.18:18-19)
By
"these commandments" he is not referring to the 613
commands expressed by Moses , but the commands that came from the mouth of
Yahshuah. For a full list of the heavenly house rules you can buy a book at
www.lulu.com/roberg or download a free
copy at
www.robertroberg.com/writings/commandments6.pdf
What About the Writings
of Yahshuah Followers Are They Also Torah?
No, none of them could claim to be the son who spoke with the father face
to face. Nor could they claim to be Yah's microphone. They were mostly unlearned
fishermen. Read them with caution and if anything they say does not agree with
the words that came from Yahshuah's mouth, reject it.
But isn't Every Word in the Bible the Word
of God?
To begin with we cannot be 100% certain, but we can be
reasonably sure that the 27 books contained in today's New Testament were
accepted by the early Christians. We have fragments of scriptures back to the
first century, and we have quotes from the writings of the first Christians
quoting from all 27 books. There were also many other books that were
rejected. I recommend you read them all , but with extreme caution.
What about the Old
Testament?
Yahshuah only validated of 3 sections of the Old Testament:
"all things must be fulfilled, which were written in the law of Moses and in the prophets, and in the
psalms concerning me." (Lk 24:44)
So
we can be reasonably certain that these books contain the words of Yah (at least
in their original versions, which unfortunately we no longer have). Still it is
a starting point. Does that mean Esther is out, and Chronicles and Maccabees
etc? I'd say they are good to read, but I wouldn't draw any doctrines from them.
Be Skeptical and Cautious
I would even be skeptical of the writings Yahshuah mentioned. Our oldest copies of the Hebrew Scriptures only date back to 1000 AD . Certainly when you look for many New Testaments quotes from the Prophets, they are neither found in the Hebrew texts, nor the Septuagint which sends up a red flag. Was Yahshuah reading from a different text?
Which Hebrew Text Can we
Believe?
To compound the matter even more, there are
5 differing versions dating from antiquity. There are the Samaritan Scriptures, the Aramaic Targums
(based on the Oral Tradition and which may have been quoted in the
Gospels), the Masoretic version, the Greek Septuagint, and the Mishna (also based on the Oral Tradition).
For four centuries Rabbis added debates, legends and analysis about the Mishna into a commentary called
the Gemara and then in the 7th Century AD it was complied into the
Talmud.
What About the Oral Traditions?
Yahshuah was a Karaite. That means he only accepted the written word as the Torah. He rejected the Oral Tradition. The problem with the Oral tradition is quite evident. There was no way to verify it. If a certain Rebbe says that he heard from someone who heard it from someone around a campfire who heard it from Moses then any one can add to it. People love to embellish. It's our nature. People also love to create commandments.
Men's Commandments
Yahshuah knew what was from Yah and what was
from men. He also knew that Yah's commandments were liberating and men's
commandments lead to bondage. Yahshuah railed at those who had added the
commandments of men to the Mosaic Torah.
- "And you experts of the Torah, woe to you, because you
load people down with burdens they can hardly carry" (lk.11:46)
- "Ye hypocrites, how well did Isaiah prophesy of you, saying, This people draws nigh unto me with their mouth, and honors me with their lips; but their hearts are far from me. But in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men." (Mt.15:9).
Yahshuah called these man-made commandments "the Tradition of the Elders." He said they used them to disobey the Torah. (Mt.15:3)
- "laying aside the Torah of Yah, ye hold the traditions
of men" (Mark 7:8)
- "Full well ye reject the Torah of Yah, that ye may keep your own traditions." (Mark 7:9)
Put
no faith in Oral Traditions, they are too unreliable. Don't t even take my word for it. I am nobody special. In fact don't take any man's word for it. Let Yah and Yahshuah instruct you.
- "And they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know Yah: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith Yah"." (Jerm.31:33)
My
Recommendation
I recommend that
you devote yourself to the study of the Torah as it came out of the mouth of
Yahshuah. Then when you know it inside out and backwards, read the rest of the
books. You will hear hundreds of voices and when you hear something that agrees
with Yahshuah' word then you have found light, but everything that disagrees
with his instructions is darkness and should be passed over.
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