The Two-Hundred-Seventy-First (Our Mission Part 2)

We’re going to continue last week’s topic with a look at why we think Christianity has not fully accomplished the mission talked about last week.  The reason is probably not what you think.  While we tend to lean towards blaming the umbrella of living in a fallen, sinful world, we’ll see that is not a sufficient explanation for the current situation.

It can’t just be a matter of living in a sinful world, and the reason is because of the words of Yeshua Himself.  This is a trap that Christians fall into time after time, and it’s one that, if challenged, we have no rebuttal to.  The question is whether or not we believe that Yeshua, our Lord and Savior, actually has all power and authority like He said He did (Matthew 28:18).

We can argue all day long until we’re blue in the face as to how much influence the “prince of this world,” the “prince of the power of the air,” the “god of this world,” has in the things that occur around us (John 12:31, 14:30, 16:11, Ephesians 2:2, 2 Corinthians 4:4).  The bottom line is whether or not we believe the power and authority of Yeshua can overcome whatever this false god does and his agenda.  Any true believer would say that it can, so why haven’t we, as believers, used that authority?

As a side note, regarding those particular verses, do you notice something in common with them?  How about with the timing of when they were said/written and the specific verbiage used?  Yeshua said he would be cast out, and that he was condemned.  He also said this prince, which is referring to Satan, had no claim on Yeshua, meaning he didn’t rule over Him.  After Yeshua’s resurrection, Paul wrote that Satan was working specifically in the “sons of disobedience,” and he specifically called Satan the “god of this age,” thereby limiting his reign to the age in which Paul lived.  We know that age ended at the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple in 70AD.  

In other words, not only do we have the power and authority of Yeshua being far greater than that of Satan, we have a change in how much power Satan actually wields in the world.  This change started once Yeshua died and was resurrected and culminated in the fall of Jerusalem.  Yes, man has some influence in the world and the evil that occurs in it.  After all, man is still inherently sinful.  As far as Satan’s power and influence though, we can’t use the excuse that Christianity has not been fully successful in its mission due to that power and influence, and if we do try to use that excuse we’re effectively stating that he has more power than Yeshua.

When it comes down to it, for the most part, Christianity has not used Yeshua’s power and authority in every aspect in order to fulfill the whole of its mission.  Based on what’s colloquially referred to as the “great commission,” it largely focused on an external mission of spreading the gospel, but is that all Yeshua said when He gave that commission?  Was it simply to tell non-believers about the salvation provided by Him?

If we read it again, we find that it’s not just telling others about the gospel and baptizing, it’s also teaching them to obey His commandments (Matthew 28:18-20).  These commandments are what we talked about last week as a part of what our mission is.  The only way we can be a true light to the world that causes it to glorify the Father, YHWH.  By neglecting to include, even focus on this aspect of His “great commission,” we effectively neuter the full extent of what His power and authority can do in the world.

So, it all starts there, but that’s certainly not where it ends.  We’ve looked before at how and why believers went from being Torah observant initially, before and after Yeshua’s death and resurrection, to distancing themselves about as far as they could from YHWH’s commandments, so we won’t belabor that point.  However, this was only a prelude to where we are today.

It’s time, based on everything we’ve learned through our studies over the past many weeks, to start looking at the whole of scripture as not only applicable to believers today but also as patterns that are applicable to our lives.  We touched last week on the blessings of following YHWH’s commandments and curses of not following them, but I believe what you see over the full history of Christianity is simply the fulfillment of the same pattern we see over the history of Israel, from the renaming of Jacob to the judgment in 70AD.  As a note, understand that there’s a reason I’m using Christianity as the term for believers vice Israel.  We know that true believers, those faithful and obedient to YHWH, are grafted into Israel, but by using the name Christianity we’re making a clear delineation between the continuation of Israel and what we see as Christianity today.

What do I mean by that?  Well, what we see over that part of Israel’s history is a people that became disobedient to YHWH, and as a result became blinded to the truth.  There were judgments against them that occurred throughout that time, of course, but they also became so unable to accurately understand scripture and the prophecies in it that they not only missed their Messiah, they played an active role in having Him crucified.    

When you look at Christianity, you see almost exactly the same thing.  Once they left the commandments, all kinds of false doctrine and heretical beliefs started getting incorporated.  Within a few hundred years, seventh-day Shabbat was done away with and YHWH’s feast days were replaced with pagan celebrations.  All this despite the fact that YHWH said that Shabbat especially was to be kept forever (Exodus 31:16-17).  

Skipping ahead about a thousand years, we come to the point in Christian history at which I believe things took a sharp left turn.  This is where you might be surprised, because you may not have realized, just like I didn’t, exactly how devastatingly influential this one event actually was.  In fact, nearly every Christian denomination has at least one belief from this incorporated into their doctrine in some way.      

The event is the publishing of the Scofield Reference Bible and the associated dispensational theology contained in it.  We won’t get into the background of how this Bible was developed and published, because whatever the truth about that is, it doesn’t really matter when it comes down to it.  The fact is it was such a novel thing it got just gobbled up by anyone and everyone interested in studying scripture, especially the academic theologians.  To the point that it became foundational in nearly every seminary curriculum.  It was one of the first, if not the first, Bible that included study notes right next to the actual verses of scripture, giving the feel of authority of the notes since they were adjacent to the Word itself.  

Let’s go through the doctrine provided in Scofield’s Bible, in summary, not with the goal of refuting each point but to demonstrate exactly how much it has infiltrated Christianity today.  The first, which has already been mentioned, was dispensationalism, including a future, literal 1,000 year reign of Yeshua on earth.  Other doctrines include pre-tribulation rapture, gap theory, and strong Zionist theology, to include a distinct separation between Israel and the “Church.”

Dispensationalism is a theological view that YHWH deals with man in different ways at different times.  There are seven dispensations, according to this view, with the most focused on being the dispensation of Law and the dispensation of Grace.  The future, literal 1,000 year reign of Yeshua is another dispensation.  

Pre-tribulation rapture is the eschatological view that there will be a future period of “Great Tribulation,” also called the time of Jacob’s trouble, which is a reference to a prophecy of Jeremiah (Jeremiah 30:7).  Prior to this time, as the view states, the “Church” will be raptured up to heaven and Yeshua, to return at the end of the tribulation with Yeshua for His reign on earth.  This view is dependent on a belief that YHWH still has promises to fulfill for the unbelieving Jews we see today, those that do not believe in Yeshua as the Messiah, since the purpose of this tribulation is to get them to repent and turn to Him.

The gap theory belief is that there is a gap of unknown time between the first two verses of the Bible (Genesis 1:1-2).  This is one way that Christians try to harmonize current scientific theory about the origin of the universe and how man came to be with what they read in scripture.  By believing there is a gap between these two verses, they can allow for that period of time to include billions and billions of years of universe creation and geologic formation.

Strong Zionist theology is another belief that requires a very distinct separation between Israel and the “Church.”  In this belief, similar to the pre-tribulation rapture, YHWH still has promises to fulfill for the unbelieving Jews.  The primary promise for this view is the restoration of the Jews to the Promised Land.

As you probably noticed while reading through those beliefs, our studies over the past few months have proven them to be false according to scripture.  I mean, you need to look no further than Paul’s explanation of grafting to see there is no separation between today’s believers and Israel (Romans 11:17-24).  Gap theory would require a view that, despite Paul’s words (Romans 5:12), death occurred before sin, since inherent in the belief of evolution is the existence of death.  

As stated earlier, you can see one or more of these beliefs in nearly every Christian denomination in some way, shape, or form.  The most obvious one being the Zionist theology.  This one is so pervasive that our nation’s foreign policy, interests, and actions have been in a stranglehold by it.

We’re certainly not going to get into politics here.  The point is to show how far, wide, and especially long the teaching/doctrine of man can have an impact, even, or maybe especially, if it’s wrong.  These views, in large part, have lost even their origin story and become embedded in not only Christianity but in how our nation is run.  They become treated as truth, accepted without even being questioned.  Some profess them without even being able to point to a verse to back them up.

When questioned, the response is “hand waving” at best and vitriolic or cancellationist at worst.  If you missed it, someone in Texas had the police show up at his door for posting things about a certain country on his social media.  In the nation that professes free speech as its foundational doctrine, no less!  On a personal note, I was recently called an Islamist by a fellow believer because I disagreed with that person on their views about a certain country.  Not to try and justify my position but only to provide context, the individual provided very few verses to support their view and would not directly respond to the multiple passages I provided for mine.

It just became a foundational belief for this individual without personal, in-depth study of scripture, just like the other beliefs do.  That’s the only explanation I can come to at least, because after going through scripture myself I just can’t explain it any other way.  For any belief you have, you must go through scripture yourself, all of scripture, with the guidance of the Holy Spirit, to come to the truth.  If you have to point to some pastor, preacher, or theologian’s words in order to prove a belief you have, then in my opinion you shouldn’t have that belief.  And that’s whether it’s true or not!

So, we come back to the main purpose of this week’s topic to ask again why this reference bible is likely the turning point in Christianity that has brought us to what we see today.  To answer this question, let me ask you this: if you thought, for over a hundred years, that tomorrow could be your ticket out of here to be with Yeshua in heaven, how much effort would you put into today?  How much effort would you put into preparing your children for tomorrow?  If you thought that your ticket depended on ensuring everyone outside your immediate circle and outside your religious group heard the gospel, how much effort would you put into ensuring your own house is in order according to YHWH?

The Scofield Reference Bible was published in the early 1900s, and I think it would be hard to argue that since then Christianity has been in a downward spiral.  It has largely lost its influence in shaping our nation, at a minimum, possibly even the world.  It has progressively lost its strict adherence to biblical morals.  It resulted in a group of believers that are focused on the imminence of dispensationalism and rapture.  Looking around the corner for the next indicator that the great tribulation has arrived and either they’re going to be raptured or the end has come and Yeshua will be here in minutes, we decided to focus on waiting for the end instead of using Yeshua’s power and authority to transform the world.

Christianity became just another religion, rather than becoming the undeniably only answer.  Personal expectations for what Christians should do and how they should live became “just be a good person,” rather than being living proof that YHWH’s Law is perfect, pure, and right, reviving the soul (Psalm 19:7-8), living and powerful (Hebrews 4:12-13), and not burdensome (1 John 5:3); that we show our love for Him by our obedience to Him.  Marriage became a “just figure it out,” rather than being a dedicated focus area to ensure every single believer was prepared and ready to enter into it and live it in a biblical way.  Much like our nation, the focus became an outward one rather than ensuring inwardly our house was in order, and stayed in order, before moving outward.

You may or may not agree with the assessment that the Scofield Reference Bible was a turning point in Christian history, but it’s hard to deny what we see in the state of Christianity today.  The good news is that it’s not too late to do something about it, and in many ways I see that happening already.  Going back to using ancient Israel as a pattern, I see a remnant of Christianity seeking and finding the truth.  They’re finding the truth about the application of YHWH’s Law to their life, and the truth about their identity as the continuation of Israel.  They’re realizing that many of the basic beliefs of mainstream Christianity are refuted by a plain reading of scripture and overcoming all the justifications for those beliefs made by the religious leaders.

They’re realizing that it’s not just about a belief in Yeshua, or even in the words of Yeshua about casting out demons, performing miracles, and prophesying (Matthew 7:21-23).  Having a relationship with Him and showing our love for Him is more than that.  It’s more than showing up weekly to some building, tithing, and asking Him for things, and it’s more than sending money to underdeveloped countries to build churches.  

It’s not that those things are evil or wrong, it’s that they’re man-made ideas of how we worship YHWH, show our love for Him, and do His will, rather than fulfilling the aspects of our mission we talked about last week.  A remnant of Christianity, which I believe is the latest iteration of a remnant of Israel, is coming to the truth, but unfortunately has started off on the wrong foot.  For the most part, they’ve replaced one religious version of Christianity with another, and even worse, have become isolationist in their practice of that version.

To be a light to the world, the world has to see it.  I’ve noticed a trend of the younger generation moving towards Catholicism, Islam, and Judaism, and I didn’t understand it at first.  These are religions that seem obviously wrong if you read and understand Yeshua’s teachings, but then it hit me.  The one thing that all those religions have is rigid structure and clear requirements to practice.  Through the downward spiral of Christianity and its effort to brand itself as something for the world to choose over any other religion, it lost its rigid structure and clear requirements and it turns out that’s actually something that people desire.  

Those other religions are not changing their structure and requirements in order to gain followers, but Christianity has the opportunity to return to YHWH’s Law, which includes the structure and requirements people desire.  That’s not to say these things are to be returned to as stepping stones to salvation.  Just like Yeshua, a resurrected Savior, is the one thing no other religion has as the method of redemption and salvation from the wages of sin, YHWH’s Law is a law of obedience out of love rather than obedience as the method of salvation.    

We have the opportunity to fulfill our mission of being a light to the world, and having the world glorify YHWH because of it.  Having ourselves and our house in order, and then going out and spreading His gospel, to include the structure and requirements provided in YHWH’s Law, which we do out of love not obligation, will have people flocking to Him.  Did you know that part of His gospel actually includes His Law?  Paul, when talking about Yeshua’s return and His inflicting vengeance on those who do not obey His gospel, quoted Isaiah (1 Thessalonians 1:7-10).  Did you know this quote actually references Yeshua executing judgment by fire and sword on those eating the flesh of swine, among other unclean animals? (Isaiah 66:15-17)

As you go through this week, think about if you’ve got a light shining in each level of your life and if you’re living every aspect of Yeshua’s gospel.  That’s the only way for us to fulfill our mission, and the best way for the world to see that Yeshua is the only answer for what they’re all seeking.  Shabbat shalom and YHWH bless you!

-Rob and Sara Gene

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The Gospel

We are born sinful as a result of Adam and Eve's sin (Genesis 2:17, 3:6, 1 John 1:8)

The consequence of sin, which is unavoidable through our own works, is death (Romans 6:23)

Yeshua, the Son of YHWH, lived sinless and was put to death (Hebrews 4:15)

His death, therefore, cleanses us of sin that would have required our death

(2 Corinthians 5:21)

He rose on the third day (1 Corinthians 15:4)

Because of His resurrection, we are confident in our future resurrection and eternal life

(1 Corinthians 15:17-18, John 3:16)