the "What's NEW?" series
A NEW Commandment?
by haRold Smith
a citizen of the Commonwealth (Ephesians 2:19)
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"A NEW
commandment I give to you, that you love one another,
EVEN AS I HAVE LOVED YOU,
that you also love one another. By this all people will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another." John 13:34-35
Context, context, context. Context is the key to understanding. Since words mean things, to properly understand the words of scripture, we must always consider the context they are presented in, the context of the Hebrew perspective they are presented from and the audience they are presented to. In this case we have to ask the latter question first - just who is Yeshua talking to in John 13 above? Is it to or about all the people in the world? Grammatically, that can't be His audience because He uses the people of the world in the second sentence as the reason for His instruction in the first. Are His Words directed to or about the crowds of people that followed Him around? That can't be His audience because
Matthew 13:34 (click on highlighted words to view content)
specifically states that to those people He "only spoke in parables" so (as we are told in
Mark 4:11-12
qupoting Isaiah 6:10)
that by hearing they would not understand thereby turning (or repenting) to be saved - and this clearly is not a parable. Here is where Christian "evangelistic" theology might need some
re-examination.
If His audience is not the world and not the crowds who followed Him - then who was this message directed to? He was speaking to those He had intimately lived with for three and a half years, those of
His Family
- His brothers (Luke 22:13-14).
After the article,
Who Is The Son?,
Ann wrote: "I totally get that the 10 commandments are real and vital today... To become love as Yeshua was is to be selfless and do the Fathers will - which in so doing you automatically would be keeping the 10 commandments." There is another distinction about this verse from John 13 that most are uninformed about when reading it - Yeshua did not speak these words in Greek, Latin or English. The Hebrew word He would have used for "new" among His Hebrew brethren is the same word found in Jeremiah 31:31,
chadash.
This is the same Hebrew word found underneath His comments on what it means to be
"born again"
while speaking to Nicodemus in
John 3:3-10.
The reason Yeshua chastened Nicodemus for being a rabbi and not understanding His Words in that instance, is because the same words He was using to explain what it means to be born again are to be found in
Ezekiel 36:26
- a passage from the Tanakh (OT) that, as a rabbi, Nicodemus should have been as well acquainted with as Yeshua was. And here, in Ezekiel, we also find the use of chadash. Notice that in verse 27 of the Ezekiel passage Yeshua was quoting is the ability "...to walk in My (YHVH's) statutes and be careful to obey My (YHVH's) rules". To belong in the Kingdom of YHVH's Family is to receive YHVH for Who He says He Is - not who we want Him to be and that means keeping His
10 Words
(with emphasis on verse one). "Doing His Will" does not mean one is "automatically" keeping His Words, it is the other way around - by keeping His Words, we find ourselves doing what YHVH would have us to do (see what it means to be in
the Father's Will).
What this means is that Yeshua's "new" commandment, (just like the
"new" covenant)
isn't new at all. In both Ezekiel 36:26 and Jeremiah 31:31 the same adjective that is translated as the English word "new" has as its origin the Hebrew actionable verb,
chadash
which means "RE-newed, RE-stored, to be MADE anew". It is restored instruction, recentered definition, revalued Torah. Yeshua's use of "love one another" is simply His rabbinic extension of the command given in
Leviticus 19:18
as follows:
"You shall not hate
YOUR BROTHER
in your heart, but you shall reason frankly with
YOUR NEIGHBOR,
lest you incur sin because of him. You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the
SONS OF YOUR OWN PEOPLE,
but you shall
LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF:
I am YHVH."
Leviticus 19:17-18
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Here, in Leviticus, it is clearly stated who is to be considered your neighbor - the "sons of your own people". This same contextual Hebraic examination holds true for Yeshua's parable concerning the Good Samaritan when asked "who is my neighbor" in
Luke 10:29-37.
In spite of Christianity's attempt to center both this parable and Yeshua's words from John 13 around an elevated sense of emotional concern for everyone on the planet, from Yeshua's non-religious Hebraic perspective the primary subject of His parable was addressing just who were to be considered members of YHVH's family - who were the "neighbors" of Leviticus 19:18. Yeshua was illustrating that whoever keeps the Words of the Father through their behavioral actions is a member of His Family. Thus, to love your "neighbor" as you would yourself is to consider the things of my brother as more significant than the things of my own
(Philippians 2:3-4).
With these words, Yeshua was upholding what He had already previously affirmed to
the lawyer
was the way to find Life - that to keep YHVH's Words was more than proclamation and ritual. To keep His Words is to become obedient to the Core Essence of YHVH's Nature in those Words (which is selfLESSness) by not allowing another member of His Family to be neglected
(Galatians 6:10).
Yeshua's comment found previously in John 13:34-35 was a further endorsement among the twelve that what they had witnessed in His Life was the
restored behavior
of the Kingdom they were to exhibit toward one another - which would distinguish them from the rest of the world and be a proclamation that
the promised redemption
of the Kingdom of YHVH had occurred. YHVH's family of Israel are not a people that define a religion but
a people of witnesses
to His love for His Family.
Scripture
shows us the Hebrew has always had the ability to keep the Words of the Father.
YHVH's Presence
was manifested to Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel immediately after their separation from the Garden. Keeping His Words brings those of His Family into His Presence - but, until Yeshua
restored the Kingdom,
they had only been able to come into His Presence externally.
While the Hebrew scribe of Genesis knew that
other men and women
existed outside of Eden, they did not matter to him or factor into his account. He was concerned with Adam and Eve and their progeny - not those outside of this group. Thus,
Genesis 5:1
begins with "This is the book of the generations of Adam." So, when these words are read from the Hebraic perspective the scriptures are written in, we see there are only two types of people described therein - Hebrews and "others". These others are what are known as
Gentiles
- those who worship gods other than the One True Elohim of Israel. Therefore,
Genesis 2
focuses upon a particular place upon the already created earth - the Garden of Eden (v.8 - the Hebrew phrase
gan 'aden
meaning "garden of delight"). Here we are even given specific directions about where this Garden was located in the earth (v.10-14) and told of a particular man YHVH had formed (not created) and placed there -
the first Hebrew, Adam.
It was into this particular person He breathed the Breath of LIFE - Himself (v.7).
Leviticus 17:11
tells us the Life is in the Blood and it is the Blood that makes atonement (brings us into at-one-ment with the Father) by the Life contained therein. The Life YHVH breathed into Adam was His very Essence - now contained in Adam's Blood. In the same way as my son looks and acts just like me because of my DNA coursing in his blood (in spite of how much he would wish it otherwise), in like manner Adam was formed into the image of YHVH because He carried within Him the pristine components of the Father's DNA -
the Essence of His Presence.
There was a necessary separation
from that Essence, from that echad (Hebrew for "one or unity"), caused by the first son's disobedience to YHVH's Word which corrupted his blood - setting in motion events that, if not addressed, would cause the sap of the
Tree of Life
to become permanently tainted. That echad was
restored
through the second son's
obedience - the pouring out of His Obedient Blood in exchange for this sin of His Family that had been passed from generation to generation
(also part of YHVH's Essence).
The Tanakh (OT) is a testimony of the faithfulness of the Father of the Family, YHVH, to restore what had been lost (echad) and serves as a chronology of the passage of
the Signet
from the first son, Adam, to validate the last son, Yeshua, as having the authority to accomplish that restoration.
By Yeshua's own confession,
the purpose
He was sent was for the restoration of the Kingdom to YHVH's family, Israel. Scripturally, the "story of redemption" is the
good news of the gospel
- that through the shed blood of Yeshua, the Kingdom of YHVH has been restored in the earth right now, today, as it was originally in the Garden. This is the act of selfLESSness that gives you and I the opportunity to become partakers of YHVH's Divine Nature, exampled by the Life of Yeshua, by having the fullness of Spirit
dwell within us.
We can be
with YHVH, the Creator of the universe,
just as
Yeshua is. The testimony,
the Word we keep, is His Life lived in and through us - today, in the here and now.
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...from the two, the rest inseparably hang.
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YHVH's Ten Words and the Torah are inseparable. Why? Because His ways are not our ways, so YHVH has to spell out to us what His ways ARE. For example, one of the Ten Words of the Father tells us that adultery is a
sin.
That’s all it says: "Do not commit adultery." It is a sin because it is an affront to YHVH's Nature of selfLESSness. BUT, in addition to that general principle, YHVH also gave His people specific instructions. The portion of Torah pertaining to adultery defines adultery, tells us why adultery is offensive to Him and how to deal with adultery according to YHVH’s standards of justice and mercy. So, if Yeshua claimed that
Deuteronomy 6:5
and Leviticus 19:18
are the most fundamental underpinnings of the Torah
(everything hangs on these two
- they do not replace anything), then how likely is it that a
bearer
of the Words of His Father would overturn them by invoking an additional commandment and, in so doing, violate the words of
Deuteronomy 4:2?
In order to teach anything different from what the Original Covenant taught, Yeshua would have had to dismiss
the Torah.
If Yeshua is sinless,
then He does not negate any of the Words of Torah - and that means His "new" commandment can't be
new from scratch.
It must be a clarification, embellishment or enlightenment of something already found in Torah. That is the Hebrew way and the way of the Hebrew Son of Man. The apostles understood this Hebraic perspective, also - after all, they, too, were all Hebrew. Consider John's assertion in
1John 2:7-11:
"Beloved, I am writing you no new commandment, but an old commandment that you had from the beginning. The old commandment is the word that you have heard..." And he also goes on to clearly make the distinction about who to love - your "brother". A brother is someone who upholds the Words of YHVH - the religious world does not. The Essence of Spirit is selfLESSness, to consider those
things of my brother
as more essential than the things of my own, and is the commonality found running through all of the ordinances contained in
Torah.
The challenge for us is to press into the Spirit of the Father to find out how these statutes apply to us
today.
The lone exception to this thought would be
the Sabbath.
because it was not instituted at Sinai, but at creation - the only one of the Ten Words spoken by YHVH at Sinai that says "to remember" to do.
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a discussion of A NEW Commandment?
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"It is written in the Prophets,
AND THEY WILL ALL BE TAUGHT BY YHVH.
Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to Me..." John 6:45
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the What's New? Series
Part One: the Beatitudes
Part Two: a NEW commandment?
Part Three: a NEW Covenant?
Part Four: Forgiveness
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???Questions???
Please feel free to email me at harold@hethathasanear.com.
While not claiming to have all
the answers, it would be an honor to partake with you of what Spirit is uncovering.
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