Galatians Chapter 4

October 31, 2015 Study

II Peter 3:16 – Peter is speaking concerning Paul.

CJB

Chapter 3:11 – Peter is consoling them about how to lead holy and godly lives as for the Day of God and work to hasten its coming.

This indicates that we can hasten it by our actions.  What does the Day of God entail?  Peter says, “That Day will bring on the destruction of the heavens by fire, and the elements will melt from heat;

Hmm….it is the heavens that are destroyed by fire and it’s elements from the heat of it.

Verse 13 “but we, following along with his promise, wait for new heavens and a new earth, in which righteousness will be at home.  14 Therefore dear friends, as you look for these things, do everything you can to be found by him without spot or defect and at peace.”

There is a great study by Pastor Biltz at http://www.elShaddaiministries.us that discusses what are the spots and blemishes.

15 And think of our Lord’s patience as deliverance…….God’s patience is like a deliverance to us.

Let’s look at Paul now.

“just as Sha’ul (Paul) also wrote you, following the wisdom God gave him.”

We find Yeshua encountering Sha’ul on the Road to Damascus (Syria) to stop him from kicking against the goads…teachers.  Yeshua is going to stop Paul, who was a Jewish Pharisee above all Pharisees (which means he was well educated in Judaism.)  Sha’ul’s sect of Pharisee did not believe in the resurrection of Yeshua nor what Yeshua came to do.  They were threatened because Yeshua was pulling down some walls that had been built up around the Torah so as to protect it.  Their intentions were good because they thought that if you added another instruction and the people failed at that instruction, then at least they had not yet failed at the basic instruction that came through Moses and the prophets.  Thus, there was a battle between  Mosche’s written Torah and the new Oral Torah… created through the years by the Pharisees.

Today, the church has gone the other direction and tore down the walls.  And they have actually gone into the basement foundation and removed the foundation stones and thee cornerstone.

That is why a serious study of Galatians and Paul are important.  Paul was not easy to understand and thus many books have been written to define what he has said.  In these books,,,,,,more information has lead to more dis-information.  So, it’s important we understand Paul from his context of where he lived and of whom and to whom he is was speaking.  He is called Paul when he is with the Greeks, but his Jewish name is Sha’ul.

Let’s continue as II Peter discusses Sha’ul.

God has given Sha’ul wisdom…

“Indeed, he speaks about these things in all his letters.  They contain some things that are hard to understand, things which are uninstructed and unstable distort, to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures (Tanak).”  Men have distorted the Tanak (writing of prophets) scriptures.  They have added thing that were not instructed….to their own destruction.

Circumcision was one that we all know was debated.  Sha’ul was showing them how the works of the hand/flesh ie. circumcision  was NOT key to their sanctification (walk) in Yeshua.  Their belief in Yeshua’s blood and rising was key to salvation.   Sha’ul never spoke against circumcision for the Jew but only that it was not necessary for Gentiles to join Messiah’s clan/family of God-fearers.

The Gentile’s set-apart festival and feasting were also not instructed.  In fact, they were to remove themselves from those false ways and follow the ways of Torah, which INCLUDED ‘The Lord’s Feasts’ (appointments) not made after the traditions of men, but made after the traditions of God.  As I type this, many will argue with me about Halloween.  This is a tradition not set up by God….and chases after evil.

Peter, who knew Paul personally, was not in disagreement with Sha’ul; but Peter knew the Jews needed confirmation that Sha’ul was not a traitor.  Before Damascus Sha’ul had gone around pulling Jews out of the synagogues and their homes arresting them and putting them in jail for being a follower of Yeshua.  Sha’ul actually was there encouraging and witnessing the stoning of Stephen who was a martyr in the name of Yeshua.

Yeshua reminded Sha’ul that they had had the same teachers.  Yeshua sat with the teacher whose grandson was Gamilel, of whom was Sha’ul’s teacher.  These two men were of the same schooling of all of the many schools available to attend.  Yeshua was also a well versed Pharisee which challenged their high walls and tore them half down…not all the way, but back to the original instructions of Mosche.  Abraham even saw into this day that Yeshua brought completeness.  Adam was told about Yeshua and that information was carried to Noah through Grandpa Enoch…they all looked forward to that salvation and also the sanctification of how to walk out their lives in the safest way on the earth.  If Torah is done away with, then God’s words are done away with, and there is no more righteous living on the earth.

Yeshua did Torah and we also know that Messiah Jesus/Yeshua IS the full embodiment of the Torah.  He has to be the full embodiment of it.  The returning/coming Messiah is the complete embodiment of it.  Therefore, the Jews have to know what the Torah is so they will know the real Messiah when He comes.  How can our churches want to take it away from them and teach their version of Christianity is beyond me!  This is being an anti-messiah/anti-Christ.  The Jews must know and do Torah….. but from their hearts.

The Gentile is to be grafted into this heart of Messiah that is the instructions of God.  It is through the blood of the Messiah who obeyed Torah, to the death, that we are saved.  He died because He obeyed every instruction given to him by the Father.  Yeshua tells us that he can not do one thing without the father saying to do it.  It is the father that sent Him to the execution stake.  Our world and 38,000 different demoninations need to get over the fact that His death was caused by the Jews.  He died a Jew and went silently as a lamb to complete all the pictures that perfectly described this perfect plan of salvation in God’s history.  It was ordained from the foundation of the world as seen in Genesis.

 ‘Church’ represent ‘Anti-Messiah’.   The Church drags Paul into this mess!

And now this same man, Sha’ul, with the blood of thousands on his hands was joining Yeshua’s forces telling people about the Messiah Yeshua.  Adonai gives Sha’ul blemishes that represent spots and defects.  He was blinded with scales on his eyes that would represent the scales on others eyes as they also could not see the truth of Yeshua being the living Torah.  Sha’ul didn’t see Yeshua as Messiah and the Gentile church does not see that Yeshua is Messiah.  They have replaced him with a Greek Jesus.

 Sha’ul’s scars from these scales were seen by others and they gave testimony to the personal experience that he had had in Syria with the Spirit of Yeshua.  The Gentiles would be the pain in his side for a life time.

And, this man’s words are still a ‘pain’ in the Gentiles side as the Gentile want to be grafted-in their way.

Peter calls the ones that he is speaking to dear friends.  They are Jews dear to him.  He says this to them “in advance to guard themselves; so that you will not be led away by the errors of the wicked (lawless) and fall from your own secure position.”

They must not have the spots and blemishes, but be walking in the Torah because they love Messiah Yeshua and what he is about…resurrection and halakah/walking out their lives on this earth…in Torah.

As believers they now have a position, but moving away from God’s instruction could weaken their position of strength. Torah is what gives us strength to walk….as Yeshua walked on this earth.

II Peter 3:18 “And keep growing in grace and knowledge of our LORD and Deliverer, Yeshua the Messiah.  To him be the glory, both now and forever?  Amein.”  Again, the Messiah is the Torah and it is this knowledge that is the grace that keeps us growing.  Grace is active…not only freely given….but bestowed upon us when we live out Torah.  Grace is living in Torah…something freely given and enjoyed by those that love Adonai who also is the Messiah Yeshua.  They can not be separated.

This book of II Peter is put in our bibles after the books of Paul and it is written after Paul.  Thus, these words are important to understand.  Paul in the Greek is hard to understand.  Sha’ul was hard to understand as the Jews thought he was again a traitor in their midst desiring to direct them wrong.  Once Sha’ul’s goal was to physically kill them and now they thought under the name Paul his goal was to spiritually deceive them.    Sha’ul was always defending himself that he was a complete born Jew through his heritage.  His lineage actually comes through King Sha’ul.  But, for the sake of the ‘Gentiles’ that could be drafted into the ways of Judaism but without having to ‘cut’ on themselves (circumcision)…which was a work of the flesh he journeyed the rest of his life in defense of Judaism but without a few of the works.    It was okay for anyone to be circumcised, as even Timothy did it, but it not a necessary act in order to be grafted in.

People love John 3:16 “As God so loved the world…..”  And, I also would exhort them to love II Peter 3:16 just as much.

16 “Indeed, he speaks of these things in all his letters.  They contain some things that are hard to understand…..”

Things that are hard to understand can not be taught by those who don’t understand. Blind can NOT lead the blind.  The scales must come off.

The church today has not understood Sha’ul because they view him in the Greek and call him, Paul.  He was a full Jew never leaving his heritage.  It was not an inheritance that someone passed to him, but it was his heritage, just as Yeshua was born a Jew.

Sha’ul was born a Jew and never stopped doing Torah.  Jesus is viewed Greek and he is viewed as stopping Torah.  Yeshua is a full Jew doing Torah according to Mosche and the prophets.   Our original fathers are Abraham, Isaac and Jacob…not Martin Luther or Constantine of 325 AD.  Rome is not our parent either; but a new Rome is trying to fool the world and have you call them your fathers.

Galatians Four Study….to be continued.

This writing on Cheshvan 19 5776