Early on in the thread I wanted to establish that I was NOT claiming that Law = salvation.
If that were true then we could throw out Yahoshua - (Jesus). In fact, that is the contention that Messiah had with the Pharasies - they were teaching that very thing.
Messiah cam against that teaching when He said:
John 5:45 "Do not think that I shall accuse you to the Father; there is [one] who accuses you--Moses, in whom you trust. 46 "For if you believed Moses, you would believe Me; for he wrote about Me. 47 "But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe My words?"
I think we are facing a similar situation today in the Churches because we treat the Old Testament as "OLD" - how can we believe Yahoshua - (Jesus) - if we don't know what Moses is saying - (Torah)?
Keeping the Law will NOT get you saved. Only the faith in Yahoshua - (Jesus) - and the Lamb of God Sacrifice will do that.
But the commands of YHVH - (God) - are NOT done away with due to the fact that God is unchanging.
Why would the King of the Universe give us the Law only to take it away later. That doesn't make any sense. Israel was always expecting the savior. We read that in Job:
Job 19:25 For I know [that] my Redeemer lives, And He shall stand at last on the earth;
How did they know about Him? Moses. Torah.
The point that many of us are trying to make has nothing to do with Grace. Grace is a free gift of the Holy One and because of its "user friendly" nature, mankind has no excuse for not turning to YHVH in the end. Just believe in him - easy, right?
Romans 11:29 For the gifts and the calling of God [are] irrevocable.
And AMEN to that!
But once you are saved, is that it? Can you check out? Did you win the game? NO - you are still learning. So what do you learn?
TORAH.
That is the only point that I was trying to make.
The Holy Spirit is a councellor and a teacher - what does He teach? Torah!
When you study Torah, inevitably you will come across laws that you cannot do. That's okay. If you can't do them because you're not a priest or you don't have goats or you don't live in the land or there's no temple - that's okay. But it's no reason to throw the whole thing out.
He loves each and every one of us. And I love each and every one of you. That is why I was hoping to openly discuss this.
I'll admit that there are several passeges and things that I'm going to go back and study. I thank all of you for that!
We are ALL still learning.
But I do think that we have to recognize that YHVH is multi-dimensional and multi-temporal - something that is, IS - it doesn't change. To do so would cause YHVH to be a liar - (violating HIS own laws). I wouldn't want to serve a God like that!
Thankfully I don't have to.
Shalom.