"BETTER THAN I DESERVE!"

Colossians 2:14                                                                              
Canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands.

 As much as Leviticus tells us of the blessings incurred by those who walk in Hashem’s instruction, it also tells us of the curses that befall those who don’t (Leviticus 26). There is a common teaching out there that claims that in his death and resurrection, Yeshua conquered and annulled the curse that comes through disobedience and that only the blessings remain. In essence, this would mean that the Torah has lost its teeth; there is no more retribution for sin. 

This view of the Torah is due to misinterpretations of Paul's letters, especially the one written to the believers in Galatia, is mostly due to mistranslation. This misinterpretation in turn is partly due to the influence of a translation done under an erroneous theology that discarded the writings of Leviticus assuming that the ancient Hebrew Scriptures are obsolete. The translators obviously were not familiar with the religious, theological, cultural, and social context of Paul's Letter to the Galatians.

One of the statements in question is, “Messiah redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us … (Galatians 3:13)” which most people interpret to mean that the Torah itself is a curse. This  would this fly in the face of its life giving purpose (Psalms 19:7) and eternal status (Psalms 19:9), and  go against everything King David said about it (Psalms 119. In addition, it is also recorded in Biblical and historical records of the life of the disciples, that they actually were very religious. Torah observance was in fact part of their testimony. Either Paul's statement is a forgery, Paul was wrong, the translators got it wrong, or there is a misunderstanding of its meaning. I stand for the two last options.

John the Disciple taught much about the nature of sin. He said that sin was the actual transgression, or breaking of Torah commands (1 John 3:4) and that those who say they don't sin deceive themselves (1 John 1:8). The Torah with its definition of sin is supposed to be life-giving to us (Deuteronomy 4:1). When it does not, could it be that it is because we are wrong? I have travelled to many places, and have very often seen people transform the good that is given to them into a curse or something evil. 

I heard a statement on the news the other day. Some law-maker claimed that crime would go down if they decriminalized a certain activity currently considered against the law.: When the law is altered, the criminal is no more a criminal. On the other hand, it doesn't change the behavior or the heart of the law-breaker, and it endorses criminal activity. In a Roman court of law, a record of debts, or law-breaking activities, is brought to the judge by the prosecutor. It is the same in the heavenly court but this time, it is the Accuser of the saints who brings legal charges against us, and he does so demanding the death penalty according to the. The death mentioned here is not the biological death which we all partake of, but the death that separates us from God forever. We must never forget though that the only reason we do not get the punishment of this death is because Mashiach takes it for us in a settlement out of court. The charges against us are not deleted; they are just paid by someone else! The credit found in the virtue of his innocent suffering is enough to pay for our debt. He is the only one whose righteousness successfully defied death and conquered it. In Yeshua, The prosecutor found its match!

We owe him our lives. Our lives belong to him and we should live in a state of eternal gratitude. When asked "How are you?" A famous radio show host always answers,”Better than I deserve”. That should be the sentiments that runs through our being day and night, for we certainly are “better than we deserve”!

 P. Gabriel Lumbroso
www.thelumbrosos.com

For P. Gabriel Lumbroso's devotional UNDER THE FIG TREE in Kindle edition click here

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THE HUMILITY OF MOSES

Matthew 11:29                                                                                     

… I am meek and lowly in heart: …

The Hebrew text of Scriptures contains several letters that differ in size, some bigger than the overall text, some smaller; there is even one that is broken in two. We find such a scribal oddity in what corresponds in English to the last letter of the first word of the Book of Leviticus, Vayikra, which is noticeably smaller than the rest of the text. The extreme scrutiny Jewish scribes used in replicating this text throughout millennia forbid us to assume a scribal error. Why would Moses then have diminished the ahlef אלף, the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet and the last letter of the word Vayikrah , meaning, "And he (God) called)"?

The oracles Moses wrote down cannot just be read as a chronological string of words giving instructions. In the Hebrew biblical text, everything matters; repetitions have their value in emphasis as well as the placement of certain clauses within the text. The particular choice of certain words and their lexical root also tells us much about the underlying meaning behind the text. We are not used to pay such attention to these things while reading the Bible, but this is part of the cultural context of the writing, and sad to say, many of these vital details are lost in translation.

Scholars do not really have a satisfying answer concerning the diminishing of the aleph in Vayikra, the first word of the Book of Leviticus, but since Torah students hate a vacuum, it has left room for speculation and here is the most widely accepted reason for it. Vayikra means, "And he (God) called …" (Lev. 1:1). Moses whom Hashem defined as the humblest of all men did not think himself worthy of being singled out and called by God, so he originally wrote Vayikar (same word without the last ahlef), a much more impersonal inflection of the verb also used when the Angel of the Lord meets with the idolatrous prophet Balaam. Hashem disapproved of Moses' writing style and of the comparison, so Moses reluctantly acquiesced and d that last aleph, but smaller. This story is probably not true, but thus being so, it has it does have its own homiletic value in teaching us the vaues endorsed by the fathers of the Judaism our Master Yeshua.

The sages here describe Moses, the man blessed with the highest form of divine revelation one could ever be blessed with, as a person who did not even feel worthy of his calling. This sets Moses, the greatest of the teachers and prophets of Israel, as a trend setter, a blue-print for teachers and would-be prophets for al ages; one by which even the coming Messiah should be identified (Deut. 18:15). There is a dictum in Judaism which our Master Yeshua used, "With the same measure that a man uses, it will be measured to him" (Matt. 7:2). It is believed that because Moses humbled himself, God also humbled himself as he called Moses from the Tabernacle (Lev. 1:1). In a certain sense, Hashem is not afraid of humbling himself as he did also in sending Yeshua, the prophet like Moses (Deut. 18:15), "who , being found in fashion as a man, humbled himself, and became obedient unto death …" (Phil. 2:8).

Many desire to be teachers and prophets and these are good callings. May these called to such offices never forget the blue-print of self-effacement and humility that is to be the earmark of all those Hashem chooses to teach and lead his flock. That is the standard measure that should be used, not eloquence, depth, or intelligence, but the spirit of utter humility because, "He dwells in the high and holy place, and also with him who is of a contrite and lowly spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly, and to revive the heart of the contrite" (Isaiah 57:15).