STAND FAST IN LIBERTY
Pastor Dallas Henry
July 5, 2015
Galatians 5:1
“Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.”
There is a term in Christianity, called “legalism”. Legalism, by definition, is the excessive and improper use of the law (10 commandments, holiness laws, etc.). Legalism can take on different forms. One is where a person attempts to keep the Law in order to attain salvation. Another is where a person attempts keeps the law in order to maintain his salvation. And another is when a Christian judges other Christians for not keeping certain codes of conduct that he thinks need to be observed.
The New Testament clearly teaches that Christians have liberty in Christ, under Grace, which Old Testament believers did not have under the law. Much of Romans, practically the entire book of Galatians, and lots of other scriptures, deal clearly with this. God gave so much text on this issue because man has a tendency to reduce living out their Christianity to a set of rules.
The Bible clearly states that we are not under the law. Romans 6:14 says, "For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace." Since we are under grace, we are not under the law. The two are mutually exclusive.
Paul preached that Jesus Christ has delivered us from the curse of the law (Galatians 3:10-13). “For as many as are out of works of the Law, these are under a curse; for it is written, Cursed is everyone who does not continue in all things which are written in the Book of the Law, to do them. But that no one is justified by the Law in the sight of God is clear, for, The just shall live by faith. But the Law is not of faith; but, The man who does these things shall live in them. Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law, being made a curse for us for it is written, Cursed is everyone having been hanged on a tree);
Before faith came (faith in the person of Jesus Christ), we were kept under the law (Galatians 3:23-25). The "law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ. But after that, faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster”. How much clearer could it be? We are no longer under the Mosaic law as a rule of practice.
In Galatians, Paul goes even further. The very desire to be under the law is a carnal desire. He calls the Galatians "foolish" for trying to return to the practices of the law as a way to please God (Galatians 3:1-3). In chapter 4:21-31, he tells an allegory to those "that desire to be under the law" (v.21). He concludes that those who follow the law are "children of the bondwoman" (v.31), but those who follow faith are "free." Paul is not dealing with the law as a plan for salvation. He is dealing with those who have trusted in Christ and then desire to return to the law in order to please God.
In Acts 15, the council in Jerusalem plainly stated that the requirements of the law were not to be expected from Gentile believers. It also clearly states that Jews must come to Christ in the same way that Gentiles get saved; "But we believe that through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved, even as they" (v.11). The problem came when certain of the Pharisees decided that the Gentiles who had believed must also be circumcised and keep the law of Moses (v.5). The men at the conference (including Peter, Paul, Barnabas, and James the brother of Jesus) agreed that this was not to be required of the Gentiles. Peter even accused the Pharisees of tempting God, "to put a yoke upon the neck of the disciples, which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear" (v.10). It is an insult to God to require grace-age believers to keep the Jewish regulations of the law that has been fulfilled by Jesus.
Born-again Christians are not subject to the particular restrictions of the law. Colossians 2:16-17 states, "Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holyday, or of the new moon, or of the Sabbath days: Which are a shadow of things to come . . . ." The Jewish laws were shadows of
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things to come; that is, they pointed to Christ. But now that Jesus Christ has come, there is no need to hold on to the shadow BECAUSE THE REAL HAS COME!
So we have verses of scripture that tell us to; “Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.” [Gal. 5:1]
Freedom is at the very heart of the gospel and of godly living. It is not just a side benefit to the Christian life. God has called all believers to freedom. We are called to liberty. The Christian is free. Free from the guilt of sin because the believer has experienced God’s forgiveness. The believer is free from the penalty of sin because Christ died for the believer on the cross. And the believer is, through the Holy Spirit, free from the power of sin in daily life. The believer is also free from the Law with its demands and threats.
A few years ago, a member of Hosanna Church who was an avid reader got hold of a book that, in his words, “changed his life forever”. It was about the Jewish Roots of Christianity. From that point on, even with the warning of his pastors, he kept pursuing this new understanding and eventually left Hosanna Church and, today, worships in a Jewish congregation in Portland.
It is very important to know some of the history behind this movement that began in the 1900s under such names as, the Sacred Name Movement in 1937, and the Worldwide Church of God in the 1930s, under the well-known founder, Herbert W. Armstrong. The WWCG was identified as a cult for most of its history, but later modified its doctrines and teachings in order to be compatible with mainstream evangelical Christianity. Many of its members and ministers left and formed other churches that conformed to many of Armstrong's cultish teachings.
Consequently, the WWCG spawned numerous splinter groups, with most of these new churches adopting names bearing the term "Church of God" [not Church of God, Cleveland Tennessee or Church of God, Anderson Indiana] and retaining the belief system developed by Armstrong. In contrast, the Hebrew Roots (or sometimes called, Hebraic Roots) is a grassroots movement without an ecclesiastical superstructure and it does not adhere to the Armstrongs belief system, nor does it adhere to Messianic Judaism.
A number of their founders began teaching about the need to keep the 7th Day Sabbath, to observe annual Feasts, and to obey Old Testament commandments.
In 1994, Dean and Susan Wheelock received their Federal Trademark for the term Hebrew Roots®, after which they began publishing the Hebrew Roots® magazine in April/May 1998, and later posted a website. The Hebrew Roots movement began emerging as a distinct phenomenon in the mid-1990s.
The premise of the Hebrew Roots movement is the belief that the Christian Church has veered far from the true teachings and Hebrew concepts of the Bible. The movement maintains that Christianity has been indoctrinated with the culture and beliefs of Greek and Roman philosophy and that ultimately biblical Christianity, taught in churches today, has been corrupted with a pagan imitation of the New Testament Gospels.
Below are four quotes from a prominent Messianic leader that sum up the teaching in question.
1. "When we read the Bible with our Greek mindset, we inevitably misinterpret it because the human authors of the Scriptures were Hebrews, not Greeks. The eternal, inspired words of the Almighty are clothed in a Semitic worldview, not the garb of the Greek philosophers."
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2. "It is easy to see, then, that as we strive to return to a Torah perspective, it is necessary that we jettison our Greek worldview and seek to read and understand the Bible from the Hebrew mindset in which it was written."
3. "Indeed, if we fail to read the Scriptures from the Hebraic perspective in which they were written, we will inevitably misinterpret them by importing a Greek dualism and contorting the sacred text into a system of linear logic. In so doing, we not only miss the message itself, but we change it into something God never intended."
4. "The Scriptures, however, written by Hebrews from a Hebrew perspective, speak differently."
Within these four quotes lies fallacy #1:
That Scripture was written from a Hebrew mindset/perspective and clothed in a Semitic worldview. How do those statements harmonize with the following verses?
"All scripture is given by inspiration of Elohim, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:" 2 Timothy 3:16
"Knowing this, first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation. For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of Elohim spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit." 2 Peter 1:20-21
"Much every way: chiefly, because that unto them were committed the oracles of Elohim." Romans 3:2
"The Spirit of Yahweh spoke by me [David], and His word was in my tongue." 2 Samuel 23:2
Those of the Hebrew Roots belief hold to the teaching that Christ's death on the cross did not end the Mosaic Covenant, but instead renewed it, expanded its message, and wrote it on the hearts of His true followers. They teach that the understanding of the New Testament can only come from a Hebrew perspective and that the teachings of the Apostle Paul are not understood clearly or taught correctly by Christian pastors today.
Many denigrate our existing New Testament text which was written in Greek. This becomes a subtle attack on the reliability of our Bible. If the Greek text is unreliable and has been corrupted, as is charged by some, the Church no longer has a standard of truth.
Although there are many different and diverse Hebrew Roots assemblies with variations in their teachings, they all adhere to a common emphasis on recovering the "original" Jewishness of Christianity. Their assumption is that the Church has lost its Jewish roots and is unaware that Jesus and His disciples were Jews living in obedience to the Torah. For the most part those involved advocate the need for every believer to walk a Torah observant life. This means that the ordinances of the Mosaic Covenant must be a central focus in the lifestyle of believers today as it was with the Old Testament Jews of Israel. Keeping the Torah includes keeping the Sabbath on the seventh day of the week (Saturday), celebrating the Jewish feasts and festivals, keeping the dietary laws, avoiding the "paganism" of Christianity (Christmas, Easter, etc.), and learning to understand the Scriptures from a Hebrew mindset.
Most reject the use of the name "Jesus" in favor of Yeshua, claiming that these are the "true" names that God desires for Himself. In most cases, they elevate the Torah as the foundational teaching for the Church, which brings about the demotion of the New Testament, causing it to become secondary in importance and only to be understood in light of the Old Testament. They strongly believe that the New
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Testament is faulty and relevant only in light of the Old Testament, which brings the doctrine of the Trinity into question.
As opposed to what the Hebrew roots movement claims, the New Testament teachings of the Apostle Paul are perfectly clear and self-explanatory. Colossians 2:16-17 tells us; “Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holy day, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days: Which are a shadow of things to come but the body is of Christ.”
Romans 14:5 states; “One man esteemeth on day above another: another esteemeth every day alike. Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind.”
Scripture clearly indicates that these issues are a matter of personal choice. These verses, and many others, give clear evidence that the Mosaic Covenant laws and ordinances have ended. Continuing to teach that the Old Covenant is still in effect in spite of what the New Testament teaches, or twisting the New Testament to agree with the Hebrew Roots beliefs, is false teaching.
Gentile believers are not grafted into the Judaism of the Mosaic Covenant, they are grafted into the seed and faith of Abraham, which preceded the Law and Jewish customs. They are fellow citizens with the saints [Ephesians 2:19], but they are not Jews. Paul explains this clearly when he tells those who were circumcised (the Jews) "not to seek to be uncircumcised" and those who were uncircumcised (the Gentiles) "not to become circumcised" [1 Corinthians 7:18]. There is no need for either group to feel they must become what they are not. Instead God has made Jews and Gentiles into "one new man" in Christ Jesus [Ephesians 2:15]. This "new man" is referring to the Church, the body of Christ, which is made up of neither Jew nor Gentile [Galatians 3:27-29]
The influence of this movement is working its way into Christian churches today. It is dangerous in its implication that keeping the Old Covenant law is walking a "higher path" and is the only way to please God and receive His blessings.
Nowhere in the Bible do we find Gentile believers being instructed to follow Levitical laws or Jewish customs, in fact, the opposite is taught. Romans 7:6 says; "But now, by dying to what once bound us, we have been released from the law so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code." Christ, in keeping perfectly every ordinance of the Mosaic Law, completely fulfilled it. Just as making the final payment on a home fulfills that contract and ends one’s obligation to it, so also Christ has made the final payment and has fulfilled the law, bringing it to an end for us all.
We who are followers of Christ, comprised of many different cultures and lifestyles, are all of value and greatly loved because we've entered into the family of God.
Christianity is not built on the foundation of the Old Testament, but on the teachings of Jesus and the Apostles in the New Testament. After Peter identified Jesus as God’s Son, Jesus said that upon the foundation of who He was, He would build His church and the gates of Hell would not prevail against it.
