Conclusion
The Divine Dilemma
To convey the magnitude of the problem of sin, the Torah began at the beginning with a description of creation. In that brief “look back,” we saw the origin of sin and how quickly sin caused man to turn away from God, requiring God to destroy all but eight individuals in a world-wide flood. We also read how those eight soon became millions, but the world once again turned away from God.
The Torah then focused on one man and how he was called by God to be the progenitor of a special group of people that would eventually be known as the people of Israel. God made an unconditional covenant with that man, Abraham, who then obeyed God and went to the land known as Canaan to build a family. God began to form a new nation from that family, structured around the twelve sons of Abraham’s grandson Jacob. God chose to build that nation in Egypt over a period of several hundred years.
In response to their cries, God led them out of Egypt under the leadership of Moses to the land that was promised to their patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. They were to be known as God’s people, a holy people, all dedicated to serving God. But since sin prevents mankind from having any intimate relationship with God and condemns them to an eternal separation from God, the problem of sin needed to be resolved. God provided the solution by introducing the people of Israel to the rules and regulations required for a proper relationship between sinful humans and God, which included all the requisite shedding of innocent blood for the temporary atonement of sin.
These rules and regulations became, over time, a way of living, a process blindly followed without much regard or concern as to why they were doing them. The process became just another activity, like planting a harvest or hauling water from a river or well for drinking or to water crops.
Then comes a man, someone claiming to be the Son of God, and He has the audacity to ask people to follow Him instead of the following those rules and regulations. That Son of God was Jesus, the Messiah (Christ) who lived a sinless life, suffered, died, and rose to life again to completely fulfill the requirements of the law (the Torah) in order to offer permanent salvation to those that believe in Him.
It would take a diluted mind to think that human beings are comparable to God, so as a person who believes that there is a God, they can easily see, without knowing the details, that there is a huge gap between God and mankind. With that understanding, it is also easy to see why history is replete with protocols, rituals, religious services, and other methods that attempt to close that gap. With the focus on, “what I need to do,” people fail to recognize two extremely important facts:
So here is the dilemma: follow the on-going procedures given to the people of Israel by God or follow Jesus, God’s Son, who flawlessly and completely fulfilled all these rules and regulations,[1] suffered and died on our behalf and came back to life again and invites us to join Him in heaven without doing anything except accept His offer? The answer seems obvious, a “no-brainer” as some might say. But what if protocol and ritual is all you know? What if tradition has become comfortable and reassuring? Accepting Jesus’ offer would not be easy. Remember what He said regarding the difficulty in choosing the right road in the Sermon on the Mount, “Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few.” (Matthew 7:13-14)
The people of Israel became known as the Jews. The name ‘Judah’ (Hebrew ‘yehûdāh’)[2] was given to fourth son of Jacob, the people in his lineage were known as the “Tribe of Judah,” and then later the name of the kingdom that contained the tribes of Simeon, Judah, and Benjamin, retained the name of Judah. After the northern kingdom of Israel (all the other tribes) was conquered by the Assyrians, Judah was the only remaining nation of the people of Israel. The use of the term ‘Jew’, (Hebrew ‘yehûdiy’)[3] first appears in Scripture in 2 Kings 16:6 and can be found over 70 times in the Old Testament. The New Testament uses the Greek word ‘ioudaíos’,[4] which is translated in most English Bibles as ‘Jews’.
Jesus met a lot of opposition from both the Jewish leadership and Jewish laity. What Jesus was instructing seemingly was very different than what the Torah taught, or at least they thought it was. Going from a demanding way of life and structure to one of total surrender to Jesus was unacceptable and, in their minds, was certainly contrary to everything they were taught and believed in.
Did God change His mind? No. The part that most Jews failed to see, including those that were well educated in Scripture, was that the Word of God was laying out a plan of salvation that was more than a temporary fix, but something permanent allowing anyone to enter eternal life through the efforts of the Messiah, whom we know as Jesus. What He did was done once for all, for all those in the past, present, and future.[5]
The story of Jesus and His gospel message are found in the four books known as the gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John). The book of Acts (also referred to as the “Acts of the Apostles”) record the progress of the gospel’s spread during the first thirty years through the “message delivery” system known as the church. The book of Acts is followed by several letters (epistles) to those churches and church leaders, from several of Jesus’ apostles, that provide clarification (the title ‘apostle’ refers to one given information or instructions from one person to another, such as a king sending instructions to a general in the field).
Even though not addressed to a specific church or leader, the book of Hebrews is generally considered one of those epistles. It provides guidance for any person, especially any Hebrew or Jew that may be facing this divine dilemma. The book provides amplification of evidence and an explanation of the Biblical text as to how the Torah has always pointed to Jesus as the Messiah and how He, and He alone, is the path to salvation. In a sense, no study of the Torah would be complete without a review of the book of Hebrews (see next chapter, Supplemental).
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[1] See Matthew 5:17-18; Romans 10:4; Galatians 3:24.
[2] Strong’s Hebrew 3063.
[3] Strong’s Hebrew 3064.
[4] Strong’s Greek 2453.
[5] See Considerations under Deuteronomy 20:19-20 regarding Old Testament saints.