Shabbat shalom and welcome to the final sabbath of the fifth month. Here in Scandinavia the school year has begun, or is about to begin, as vaccations come to an end and as we say farewell to summer and start buttoning up for autumn (fall) and winter, even though we are still in a very welcome heatwave. Most of us here would like summer to go on forever though to be quite honest I am ready for a vaccation from gardening! There has been an enormous rush to get things ready for what is going to be a deep global winter of discontent, I regret to say, but more about that at the next Rosh Chodesh assembly tomorrow.

Last week we talked about the mysterious second set of tablets on which Yahweh wrote as Moses was carrying them down the mountain. Yahweh reveals to us the deeper and more important things of life as we are on the move and not as we are stationary, would be one lesson to learn from this. We are 'on the move' now, even if you may not yet realise it. In other words, great change is rising up behind and ahead of us ready to propell us into new spiritual dimensions and there is no going back. Those who are prepared will ride this wave like a surfer; those who have no are going to have a major struggle to keep their heads above water so I pray everyone is prepared.

Our task today, and over the next two or three weeks leading to the Collapse, is to make a survey of the Gospels to find out who the historical Yah'shua (Jesus) really was so that we will be ready to meet Him. This is the spiritual side of 'prepping' we must do. That will mean deconstructing the mediaeval view of Him which has prevailed since the rise of Protestantism, as well as Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy.

When we first meet Yah'shua (Jesus) in the four Gospels, we are confronted, not by a Protestant Jesus, but by a typical Hebrew navi (prophet). And there are those who argue that in some very important respects the Gospels ought therefore to be a part of the Tanakh or Old Testament, at least in their openings, and in some ways they are right, as there is no clear boundary between the Old and New Testaments. The first thing we see Yah'shua (Jesus) doing is announcing the arrival of the Kingdom of Elohim (God:

"...Yah'shua (Jesus) began to preach, 'Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near'" (Matt.4:17, NIV).

In doing that, Christ not only set Himself up against the mighty Roman Empire, and the Herodian puppets (the ruling Idumæan dynasty in Palestine set up by Rome), but against those revolutionaries like the Zealots who were against Rome and the Herodians too. He immediately found Himself against all the political factions of the day, a reason He did not take political sides. So from Day #1 of His ministry, when He announced a Reign or a Kingdom (because that's what a 'reign' is - it's what monarchs do), even though he would say, "My kingdom is not of this Olam/Æon (world [system], Age)" (John 18:36, NIV), He guaranteed that He would be controversial from the word go. Reality check: being controversial comes, irresistably, with being a believer, because we stand against the world system, the way power and politics are 'done'.

Every age has its controversies, and every controversy is sparked by someone challenging the official narrative of society and its core symbols. As you all know, some people can get very touchy and defensive about their countries. In most Evangelical Churches in the United States, for example, you'll find a US flag, and in many others an Israeli one too. I guarantee that if you were to go into many, if not most, of those churches and insist that either or both flags be removed from the sanctuary (for whatever reason, but certainly if you were to suggest that secular symbols have no place in the 'House of God'), you'd get an immediate backlash. Symbols such as flags can arouse great passions if they are burned, trampled, on, and otherwise disrespected. In some countries it is a crime to do so. It's the same with religious symbols and today I want to take a look at the four principal religious symbols of first century Judaism which Yah'shua (Jesus) challenged, to the fury of the religious leaders of the day. As we look at these I want to make a mental note any emotional or gut reactions which you might experience.

A reason Yah'shua (Jesus) ended up being so controversial was because He both implicitly and explicitly attacked the main symbols of the Judaism of His day which were either twisted, false, idolatrous, or all three. In many cases, the symbols which Judeans, and their religious leaders, so highly esteemed, were quite simply out-of-date and therefore redundant. As such they became obstacles to the Kingdom which He was announcing, and just as many Christian and Messianic symbols are an obstacle to the complete restoration of the Kingdom in our day. In their place, Yah'shua (Jesus) introduced new symbols which were deeply provocative to the Judeans because they implied (at first), and then unambiguously shouted (at length), that at every point the people of Elohim (God) had to be redefined in and around Himself and the work He was called to do. The core of their culture had to be completely changed.

Go to any Protestant denomination and they will typically tell you that Yah'shua (Jesus) came to teach 'love and grace'. He came to the earth, they say, to teach inward observance of the heart as opposed to the outward observance of legal codes. This is the standard narrative of the Reformation and was a reaction to the legalism of Rome. The Reformers of the 16th and 17th centuries read their 1500's political and religious situation back into the New Testament text and envisaged Yah'shua (Jesus), in a similar way to Martin Luther, being opposed by the Pharisees on the grounds that they falsely believed in a religion of law and outward observances and could not bear the thought of free forgiveness, love and grace (undeserved loving kindness). Am I right? As a former Anglican with baptist leanings that's what I was basically taught and practically no word was ever said about the Torah except as historical background noise.

In other words, the Reformers saw themselves as representing a religion of the heart over and against the legalistic Roman Catholic view of the Gospel which they viewed as negatively propagating a religion of law, merit and outward observances. Add to that, first, the worldview of the Enlightenment and then the Romantic Movement which highlighted ideas and reason, on the one hand, and the worldview of the Romantics who emphasised the feelings, and you get some idea of how Protetants read these developments back into the New Testament Gospels which they assumed they were restoring. Thus Protestantism, in a nutshell, became 'love and grace' + reason + romance. That's Western Protestantism which managed to work under its own steam for a few centuries and then, as we're seeing now with all the factionalism, collapsed under its own weight for lack of proper Torah structure. I want to suggest to you that not only did the Protestants make a fundamental mistake (because grace-reason-romance that wasn't the world of Messiah and the apostles at all) but they actually damaged the Gospel message in making that assumption. With one hand they reformed and restored and with the the other they destroyed.

Now we as Messianic Evangelicals, along with other Messianics, have for decades being pointing out that Yah'shua (Jesus) never spoke against the Torah or Law as Martin Luther and as many other Reformers did. Some, like Calvin, saw the Law as something positive with which to highlight sin (a bit like Ray Comfort in that respect) but not to necessary live in its every detail. Indeed, what Yah'shua (Jesus) is reported as saying in the four Gospels would not have been particularly irritating to the Pharisees at all. He defended the Torah (Law), down to the very tiniest letter or yod and the smallest pen-stroke or tittle -- "one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the Torah (Law) till all is fulfilled" (Matt.5:18, NKJV). So Luther and the other Reformers were quite incorrect on that matter. So were the Catholics and Eastern Orthodox. Their particular problem was not that they failed to recognise the importance of Law in the Gospel but the fact that they had changed the Torah (Law) into something else, blending it with pagan ideas and practices. And, as inevitably happened, because nature abhors a vaccuum, the Protestants ended up inventing their own rules and commandments.

As you read the Gospels, moreover, you cannot fail to notice, if you are alert, matters that figure prominently in the rest of the Messianic Scriptures (New Testament) years after the Resurrection and Ascension, such a circumcision and the gift of speaking supernaturlly in foreign languages (co-called 'tongues') receive little or no mention at all. Matters that were important to the early Messianic Community (Church) did not figure in the period before the Resurrection. Moreover, things that figure prominently in the Gospels receive little mention from Acts onwards either.

An ignorance of first century history by both the early Reformers and by their successors in over half a millennium have not helped matters one bit. Indeed, those early assumptions made by Luther, Zwingli and Calvin have simply become more entrenched ever since. Indeed these errors have been a major cause of all the denominational strife and factionalism. That is why we have to painstakingly reconstruct the historical past, and do it accurately, as well as deconstruct many of the symbols of Protestantism that are holding it back, not to mention those of the Western and Eastern Churches generally. I hope in saying that you don't think of me as some sort of spiritual 'Postmodernist' because the agenda is partial, not total, deconstruction, plus we believe in emet (truth) which the Postmodernists, who are secularist-atheist, do not.

Let's take the Pharisees as a case in point. It would be fascinating if each of you were to write a short summary of who you think the Pharisees were, what they believed, and give explanations for their hostility to Yah'shua (Jesus) and His followers. What do we know about them? Firstly, there were several thousand of them and they were active throughout Galilee, Judea, and elsewhere in the diaspora (dispersion). More importantly, do we know exactly what their 'agenda' was? Now the common Western view is that they were primarily obsessed with individual purity, whether their own or other people's. We know a lot about them now going back as far as the Hasmonean and Herodian period and on through the war of AD 66-70, thanks to a fantastic amount of scholarship that has been done, and one thing is clear: their main aim was not purity itself but that which religious purity symbolised. What do we mean by that? We mean that purity was important to them mostly (if not entirely) because of their perceived need to maintain Yehudi (Judahite, 'Jewish') identity and to realise the dream of national liberation from Roman occupation. So the two key words of Phariseeism were identity and national liberation.

There were two schools of Pharisee back then, the ultra-strict School of Shammai, who, though interested in personal purity were more interested in purifying, cleansing and defending the country as a whole against paganism. Saul (Sha'ul) of Tarsus (Paul, as he would become after his conversion) belonged to thus ultra-fanatical faction (although he was actually tutored by Gamaliel, which is interesting as you'll see in a moment - Ac.22:3). The other faction was the more lenient or moderate School of Hillel who, like the wise Gamaliel, believed in 'living and letting live' (Ac.5:34-39). The two disasterous revolutionary wars against Rome of 66-70 and 132-135 destroyed the morale of the Shammaites, making it clear what Yahweh thought of their enterprise. And as is to often the case, the moderates did not come to ascendancy until after the destruction, first, of the Temple, and second, of the nation as a whole, as Yah'shua (Jesus) had accurately prophesied. You may remember that the Shamaites wanted to wipe out the first believers whereas the Hillelites wanted to let them be, just in case it turned out (as proved to be the case) that Yahweh was with them. What's interesting to note is how the 'ultra's', as I call them, or the fanatics, tend to lose face after war and destruction has thoroughly discredited their arrogant zeal. We're going to see the same thing happen in Christianity and Messianism in the months ahead.

The third point about the Pharisees, which I have made before, is that they were not an official 'thought police force'. You may remember that they held no post or office of any kind in the nation. Saul of Tarsus, the Shammaite Pharisee, had to get authorisation from the Cohen Gadol (High Priest) to launch his campaign of persecution against the early Messianic Community (Church) (Ac.9:1-2). They were more like an unofficial, self-appointed pressure group who liked to spy on their fellow Yehudim (Judahites) to see if anyone was breaking the Torah, not unlike a few modern ultra-Messianics I could mention whose spirit they have sadly imbibed. Philo describes them as "full of zeal for the law, strictest guardians of the ancestral traditions, who have their eyes upon transgressors, and are merciless toward those who subvert the laws" (Philo, Special Laws 2.253). And by "laws" Philo doesn't just mean the written Torah but all the man-made Rabbinical rules of the oral tradition too - the 'tradition of the elders'.

The fourth and last point highlights the problem we have with Protestantism which claims that Yah'shua (Jesus) taught (or at least insinuated) that the Torah (Law) was becoming wholly redundant. Consider this: if Yah'shua had taught this to any degree, then the later believers would not have debated whether the Torah was valid or not. What Yah'shua (Jesus) in fact did was to announce that "a new day had dawned, the kingdom was indeed breaking in, and that as a result everything would now be different" [1]. The Torah would still be valid morally and ethically and as the nation's lifestyle, but Israelites would come to view, approach and implement it in a new light. Paul's discussions about the Torah were not about whether the Torah is valid or not, but what the conditions were for Gentiles being admitted into the people of Elohim (God), or New Covenant Israel, were. And as you know, on that particular subject, Yah'shua (Jesus) is entirely silent, which is why a Council had to be convened in Jerusalem to decide what the immediate, miniumum Torah requirements were for new Gentile converts, people who had no background in Torah at all and who would need to pick up the way things were done in the Kingdom. And again, as we know, the several Pharisee converts were not at all happy with the Messianic Community's (Church's) rejection of the Rabbinical traditions, which formed a part of their cherished collection of distorted spiritual symbols.

Here is the important point about the Pharisees and what they believed, because this was the backround out of which Yah'shua (Jesus) necessarily operated as a navi (prophet): what mattered to the Pharsees was not so much religion but eschatology (for those of you who have forgotten, that's the doctrine of the end-times - death, judgment, heaven and hell), not morality (because they weren't always very moral themselves, as we know) but the coming of the kingdom. And the 'kingdom', as they understood it, was a little different to the 'Kingdom' that Yah'shua (Jesus) announced and brought with Him. So different was Yah'shua's (Jesus') Kingdom to the Pharisees' kingdom that in effect what He did was to tell them that they had to give up their version of it along with all their traditions and interpretations thereof because, He declared, it was driving them, and the people who followed them, to ruin. And that is the only reason we can ever ask people to give up their false traditions, is it not?

To give up personally held and cherished traditions can be a daunting challenge because there is a very real sense of loss involved. Yet what to us, and indeed to the Pharisees and the Yehudim (Judahites) of Yah'shua's (Jesus') day, may seem to be a frightening loss, is in reality always the way to victory. It was this challenge made by the Master, backed up by a number of scary (for them) symbolic actions, that generated so much heat and opposition, resulting ultimately in plots to muder Him. That's how dangerous dearly guarded false traditions can be. And in the case of the Shammaite Pharisees, it meant the loss of literally everything when first the temple, and then the nation as a whole, were destroyed by the Romans in the two major uprisings. We face an exact parallel situation in the formerly Christisn West today, even if it's an entirely different set of traditions that are being tenaciously clung on to by Christians to the bitter end.

To understand what exactly is going on here in the Gospels you have to recognise the differences between personal and collective religion. The purity codes, both the legitimate Torah rules and the man-made Rabbinical ones, were not simply about personal cleanliness, but were coded symbols for the purity and maintenance of the race (the descendants of Abraham) and nation (Israel), the tribe (e.g. Judah), and each individual family. Western believers have all these mixed up and confused which is why I always go to great lengths to line these up in the same way the annual moedim (appointments, festivals) line up from Pesach (Passover) to Sukkot (Tabernacles). The failure of Chaledonian Christianity (Catholicism, Protestantism and Eastern Orthodoxy) to do this is a major reason for their confusion and plethora of false traditions which are so closely and jealously guarded by them in our day in the same way the Pharisees guarded their own in their time. You only have to read in the Jewish writers of the period, and indeed in modern Rabbinical scholarship (and sadly in not a few Messianic groups today) their belief that the torot or laws were a kind of legalist's ladder up which one might climb to heaven. But for the Pharisees of the second temple Judaism of the first century AD, the torot (laws) - both the authentic and the man-made ones - were viewed by them as boundary-markers for a beleaguered people, ironically a bit like Andy Stanley's 'guardrails'.

Here's the thing: Yah'shua's (Jesus') clash with the Pharisees came about not because He was antinomian (anti-Torah, anti-Law), nor was it because he believed in 'justification by faith' while they believed in 'justification by works' (as Protestants and others would have you believe) but, as N.T.Wright neatly puts it, because "His (Yah'shua's/Jesus') Kingdom-agenda for Israel demanded that Israel leave off her frantic and paranoid self-defense, reinforced as it was now by the [Talmudic-interpreted] ancestral codes, and embrace instead the vocation to be the light of the world, the salt of the earth" [2].

So what you're actually seeing in the four Gospels is a clash between Yah'shua (Jesus) and His Yehudi (Judahite) contemporaries - especially the Pharisees (but also the Sadducees and Torah-teachers or Scribes) - of two very different political agendas generated by alternative eschatological (end-time) beliefs and expectation. I put it in those terms to make what was going on more comprehensible to the 21st century mindset. Yah'shua (Jesus), you see, was announcing the Kingdom in a way that did not reinforce - but rather called into question - the agenda of revolutionary zeal that dominated the vision especially of the leading Shammaic faction of the Pharisees. And in doing that, he was challenging, as it were, the very 'flag' that represented their hopes and aspirations. He was telling them that they had it all wrong. And that was pretty upsetting for them, much in the same way my warninging people not to blend nationalism with religion, because that is how Israel went astray and was destroyed.

So what we're going to do now is take a look at the four mistaken or distorted symbols of first century Judaism, see how Christians and Messianics have sometimes fallen for the same traps, and then look at Yah'shua's (Jesus') redefinition of them that so agitated the religious folks of His day to such blind, murderous rage. These four symbols are:

• 1. The Sabbath;
• 2. The Kashrut Law;
• 3. The Nation and the Land; and finally,
• 4. The Temple.

We looked at the Sabbath Controversies (Mk.2:23-3:6) in some depth last year when we began our study of the Phronemic Gospel of Mark so we won't cover all of that again. We have seen so far today how two Agenda's - the Pharisees' and Yah'shua's (Jesus') - which is no better illustrated than in the Sabbath Question. And the Pharisees, as you will remember, were no 'thought police' hanging around cornfields on the off chance of catching people committing minor transgressions. Rather, they were a self-appointed pressure group, rather like modern mainstream media, who were highly suspicious of alternative movements with rival plans.

The question they most wanted answering was this: Was Yah'shua (Jesus) a loyal Torah-observant Yehudi (Judahite)? which, of course, He was, 100 per cent. The question they were not asking, as perhaps a Protestant might, was "is He attempting to justify Himself by works, to earn Yahweh's favour by good morals?" Rather, what they wanted answering was: "Does He exhibit those symbolic actions by which the loyal Yehudi (Judahite) would show grattitude to Elohim (God)?" And one of the most important symbols, to them, was the Sabbath.

To give you an idea of the kind of mindset or attitude the Pharisees had towards their interpretation of how the Sabbath should be lived, just try to drive in some parts of modern Jerusalem on a Saturday and see if you don't get pelted with stones by some angry Ultra-Orthodox Jews infused with the spirit of Shammai.

By contrast, Yah'shua (Jesus) behaved with sovereign freedom toward the Sabbath. The problem was, the perfectly legitimate justification He used for His behaviour failed to calm down the Pharisees' suspicions that He had sedicious motives. You may recall in Mark 2:24-28 he responded with a Davidic parallel, reminding them that David, the true anointed King, who was on the run from Saul, ate the normally forbidden showbread from the Tabernacle - you will remember the account, I'm sure, in 1 Samuel 21. The Pharisees were behaving like Doeg the Edomite who observed what David was up to and then snuck off to report back to his master. To remind you of the account, turn with me to Mark 2:23-28 (p.1391 in your Evidence Bibles):

"Now it happened that [Yah'shua/Jesus] went through the grainfields on the Sabbath; and as they went His talmidim (disciples) began to pluck the heads of grain. And the Pharisees said to Him, 'Look, why do they do what is not lawful on the Sabbath?' But He said to them, 'Have you never read what David did when he was in need and hungry, he and those with him: how he went into the house of Elohim (God) in the days of Abiathar the Cohen Gadol (High Priest), and ate the showbread, which is not lawful to eat, except for the cohenim (priests), and also gave some to those who were with him?' And He said to them, 'The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath. Therefore the Son of Man is also Master (Lord) of the Sabbath'" (Mark 2:23-28, NKJV; cp. Lk.6:1-5).

Now maybe you know exactly what the Saviour meant when He said He was "Master (Lord) of the Sabbath" but it baffles a lot of scholars today. Does it mean that He could do whatever He wanted to do on the Sabbath? Does it mean we can? Does it mean He could 'constructively' break the Sabbath (how do you draw the boundaries?) to, for example, save life or assuage hunger? Does it mean He (and believers) can change the Sabbath day from the original biblical one? I am sure you all have ideas. Only one of these ideas is true, namely, that we can somwtimes break a lower law (like the Sabbath) in order to obey a higher one (like preserve life). Where exactly you draw the line will be up to your freedom of conscience. The Pharisees decided to be everyone's conscience by inventing thousands of new laws in order to ensure absolute unformity of behaviour and thus (in their minds) national purity.

There are two stories in Luke's Gospel that inform us the Sabbath was the most appropriate day for healing to take place (Lk.13:10-17; 14:1-6). Why did He heal on the Day of Rest? Was He the 'trendy liberal' out to provoke the 'stuffy conservatives'? Was it merely a political gesture? Was He just trying to be provocative for provocation's sake? If we know anything about Yah'shua's (Jesus') provocative actions it was always to teach a deep truth or announce something important prophetically. Was He out to prove, as 'Lord of the Sabbath', that He was Elohim (God)? Given the number of times He tried to keep His messiahship and divinity quiet and hidden until the appropriate time toward the end of His ministry, so that He would not be arrested and killed prematurely, that seems pretty unlikely, even though there are plenty who make that claim without bothering to consider the historical context. There's a bigger picture involved here that's easy to miss. The revelation of who He was had to be given piecemeal because most people choke on too much meaty truth all at once. He unfolded His mission and true identity gradually over three years' of ministry, laying a careful groundwork.

I want to suggest to you that Yah'shua (Jesus), at this stage, was announcing that He was the true Representative of Israel which He backed up with all His miracles. Israel - or what was left of it as the two tribes of Judah and Benjamin with some Levites - was under Roman occupation, it was oppressed - once again, because of the people's sin, but Yah'shua (Jesus) is telling them as their Representative, though they are threatened by evil every day, He is there so that they will be vindicated by Israel's Elohim (God) and He is showing them by His actions in what sort of way that is going to happen.

You see, the Sabbath Day was, and remains, a prophetic image that signals release from bondage and captivity. Yah'shua (Jesus) was announcing, by His teaching and His miraculous works, that Israel's long-awaited Sabbath Rest was breaking in through His ministry in the form of healing. The big issue with the Pharisees was not 'religion' or 'ethics' in the abstract sense. It was a matter of eschatology (end-times things) and agenda. Yah'shua (Jesus) affirmed Israel's vocation or mission, her belief in her Elohim (God) and her eschatological hope. However, the way they were expecting, and hoping, it would happen was all wrong, so Yah'shua (Jesus) had as one of His main tasks (which is born out by the four Gospel witnesses, a reason, I suspect, we have so 'Good News' accounts), to redefine the primary symbols of the faith which would clearly indicate the type of new day that was dawning.

I want to suggest that the Messianic Community, or Church, today, like first century Judea, has likewise misidentified the primary symbols of the faith and has, accordingly, gone looking for the wrong things. Today we are plagued by false hopes such as:

• 1. The 'Prosperity' Health & Wealth) Gospel;
• 2. The 'Rapture' escape route;
• 3. Political and religious 'Zionism'; and
• 4. 'Kingdom-Now' [3] political theology

Just look at all the confusion over the Sabbath, the 'Lord's Day' and the Calendar!

Next we come to the Kashrut, Kosher or Food laws of Israel. We can make similar points about the complex chapters of Mark 7 and Matthew 15 where the purity laws and diet code are discussed. The claim is usually made that the Dietry law was given simply to distinguish Israel from her pagan neighbours. And whilst a limited case can be made for that claim, it's hardly the only reason it was given as many, such as ourselves, also believe, following ample scientific evidence, that it was a health code too.

We know historically that those who observe kosher and the hygiene laws have generally fared much better than those who have not over the centuries. The Jews of mediaeval Europe during various plagues as a whole survived far better than the Catholics and others who no longer observed Kashrut. That's just a fact. But for the Pharisees, all that concerned them was whether Yah'shua (Jesus) and His talmidim (disciples) were loyal to the ancestral codes that kept Israel separate from the pagans, ensuring the preservation of national purity, a temporary barrier Yah'shua (Jesus) had come to break down.

Of course, there's the added issue of all the extra handwashing laws invented by the Rabbis that according to Mark, Yah'shua (Jesus) didn't bother with, part of the so-called "tradition of the elders" (Mk.7:3,5; Mt.15:2). And you all know the excuses made by antinomian (lawless) Protestants, Catholics and others for ignoring the Torah, and Mark 7 is one of those chapters they love to twist. Let's look at that passage where Yah'shua (Jesus) takes His talmidim (disciples) aside after the handwashing incident to explain some deeper things:

"When He had called all the multitude to Himself, He said to them, 'Hear Me, everyone, and understand: There is nothing that enters a man from outside which can defile him; but the things which come out of him, those are the things that defile a man. If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear!' When He had entered a house away from the crowd, His talmidim (disciples) asked Him concerning the parable. So He said to them, 'Are you thus without understanding also? Do you not perceive that whatever enters a man from outside cannot defile him, because it does not enter his heart but his stomach, and is eliminated, thus purifying all [kosher] foods?' And He said, 'What comes out of a man, that defiles a man. For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lewdness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within and defile a man'" (Mark 7:14-23, NKJV - EB, p.1399).

This is not a case of Yah'shua (Jesus) reversing the kosher laws, because to have changed one would have been a negation of His messiahship. The issue here was the man-made ritual of washing hands so as to be considered ritually pure. This was mere human tradition without any authority in the Torah. What Yah'shua (Jesus) is doing here is giving Israel the understanding that washed, or unwashed hands do not change a man's or woman's heart - nothing more. Remember, He's not saying washing is wrong, because all visitors to a house were washed upon entry. The criticism is of ritual washing not commanded by Torah.

Now we know that the Kosher laws were never abolished by Yah'shua (Jesus) or by the apostles because of, for one thing, the decision reached by the Jerusalem Council instructing Gentile converts, with no background in Torah or the Kashrut code, to amongst other things drain blood from slaughtered meat and not eat strangled animals (Ac.15:19-31). So in what way did Yah'shua (Jesus) change or modify the symbol surrounding the Kashrut Law? Consider the way in which He approached the Sabbath and I believe you can reasonable deduce that in exceptional circumstances (like the saving of life) you can constructively break a lower law in order to obey a higher one (like eat pork if that's all that's available for someone dying of starvation). But there's more - Yah'shua (Jesus) has come to lower the barriers between Yehudim (Judahites) and Gentiles (or 'Greeks'), not by abolishing the food laws, but by inviting Gentiles to accept Messiah, become Israelites by adoption or ingrafting, and to thereafter live the Torah lifestyle of true believers.

Which brings us onto the next cherished symbol of Israel' identity - their common descent from Abraham and the prohibition from eating and intermarrying with Gentiles. Now it's true by the first century AD the rules about this had become somewhat relaxed and were not nearly as strict as they had been, for example, in the days of Ezra. Nevertheless, certain of the sayings and actions of Yah'shua (Jesus) would still have been regarded as highly subversive by the Pharisees. The sense of family identity was a central and vital symbol amongst the Yehudim (Judahites) and some of the Saviour's most remarkable sayings appeared to be undermining that.

Let me give you an example from Matthew 8:19 (EB, p.1340) which even now is read with disbelief by many Western Christians in certain cultures:

"Then a certain Torah-teacher (Scribe) came and said to Him (Yah'shua/Jesus), 'Teacher, I will follow You wherever You go.' And Yah'shua (Jesus) said to him, 'Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head.' Then another of His talmidim (disciples) said to Him, 'Master, let me first go and bury my father.' But Yah'shua (Jesus) said to him, 'Follow Me, and let the dead bury their own dead'" (Matt.8:19-22, NKJV).

Or as the fuller Lucan account records, telling us the only legitimate reason for failing to do this family duty:

"...'Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and preach the kingdom of Elohim (God).' And another also said, "Master, I will follow You, but let me first go and bid them farewell who are at my house.' But Yah'shua (Jesus) said to him, 'No one, having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of Elohim (God)'" (Luke 9:60-62, NKJV - EB, p.1448).

Now ignoring a parent's funeral, even in our relaxed Western culture, is 'bad' enough but back then, according to the culture of that day, the obligation to bury ones father took precedence even over saying the Shema, "Hear, O Israel..." (Dt.6:4-5). So Yah'shua (Jesus) is challenging a precious tradition, saying that preaching the Kingdom is even more important than burying your parent. Are you shocked?

What about:

"'Who is My mother, or My brothers?' And He looked around in a circle at those who sat about Him, and said, 'Here are My mother and My brothers! For whoever does the will of Elohim (God) is My brother and My sister and mother'" (Mark 3:33-35, NKJV).

Two thousand years family and national identity were supremely important so what Yah'shua (Jesus) said would have been unthinkable. There's really nothing to compare it with. And then He went on to say:

"I have come to 'set a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law'" (Matt.10:35, NKJV).

'To inherit the æon (age) to come,' Yah'shua (Jesus) said, 'you must even be prepared to let go of your family' or, in other words, to lose one of the sacred symbols of the Rabbinical worldview [4].

'Additionally,' He said, 'you have to be prepared to let go of your material possessions.' Though Catholics and Eastern Orthodox have seen in such challenges a kind of invitation to monasticism and therefore the supreme test of personal devotion, in Yah'shua's (Jesus') day this command had quite a different meaning.

The central possession in that culture was land, and 'the [holy] land' was another central symbol of Jewish identity, as it is in Zionism today.

And then the challenges of land and family come together in a shocking and cryptic passage in Luke 14:

"Whoever comes to Me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, even even life itself, cannot be My talmid (disciple). Whoever does not carry the cross and follow Me, cannot be My talmid (disciple)" (Lk.14:26-27, NRSV).

And with that comes the double warning about whether Israel is ready to face the crisis that is coming upon her. She is building the Temple for all she's worth, but will it ever be completed? She is eager to fight a 'holy war' of liberation, but could she ever win it? You see, all of these shocking teachings have a central, unified purpose, and that is to challenge His contemporaries be prepared to let go of all those central symbols of national identity at odds with the ones Yah'shua (Jesus) says now matter...because (He is warning), not to do so will result in losing everything, because what they are clinging onto, though not unimportant of themselves in their proper place, become idolatrous when seen in the light of Yahweh's demand for all of us.

And this is the big truth of Christianity/Messianism: to come into possession of all that Messiah wishes to give us, we have to let go of all that we have previously valued - the good, the bad, and the ugly, trusting that having done so, Yah'shua (Jesus) will give back all that we have up to now valued that will be needed in His Kingdom service. That is the core phronema of His teaching because His Kingdom is all or nothing. That's actually what emunah, or faith - trusting - means. Yah'shua (Jesus) isn't - never was, and never can be - just an 'add-on' to Judaism. It all has to go - all of your old life, your Judaism, your paganism, your atheism, four selfism - so that He can sort out, return and reprioretise what it is we actually need.

Which brings me to the last 'big' symbol that in a way explains all I have been saying up to now, the Temple. In the time period covered by the Gospels, the Temple had become the heart and centre of Judaism. It was the vital symbol around which everything else orbited. It was where Yahweh dwelt - or to be precise, had dwelt and would do so again one day, they believed (and hoped). It was the place of sacrifice, the place where sins were forgiven, the place where the union and fellowship between Israel and her Elohim (God) was endlessly and tirelessly consummated like the bed chamber of a married couple. It was, in a nutshell, the centre of Israel's national and political life. It was the very beating heart of Israel's universe. And there the chief cohenim (priests), who were in charge of this magnificent building, were also, in company with the shaky Herodian dynasty and under Roman supervision, in charge of the whole nation.

But the Temple was far more than that. It was a tangible link to Israelite royalty - planned by David, built by Solomon, restored by Hezekiah and Josiah, it was an historial cord tying the contemporary generation back to the great days of Israel's early monarchy. Zerubbabel was supposed to rebuilt it after the Exile. Judas Maccabeus and company cleansed the Temple after the Syrian débâcle (celebrated by Hanukkah) and founded a dynasty that lasted a century even though they had no connection with David and never claimed one. When King Herod rebuilt the Temple he was mostly interested in legitimising his kingship as he was a foreign Idumean or Edomite. Menahem and Simon bar-Giora, two would-be 'messiahs' in the war with Rome (AD 66-70), presented themselves in public in the Temple before being killed by rivals and by the Romans during the triumph of Titus, respectively. The last messianic claimant of the time, Bar-Kochba, even had coins struck on which the Temple was depicted - he intended to rebuild the Temple and establish himself as king. My point is that the Temple, Kingship and Messianic claims went hand-in-hand. So as an important Israelite symbol, the Temple was supreme, bringing everything together in one.

That said, many Yehudim (Judahites), like the Essenes, disapproved of the existing Herodian Temple as well as the ruling élites which is why they broke off and formed their own groups at Qumran and elsewhere. They represented an alternative to the Temple, which was the power base of their rivals. They looked forward to a time when a new Temple would be built which they doubtless imagined they themselves would run.

After the Temple was destroyed by Titus, the Pharisees invented the new doctrine that the blessings once obtained from the Temple could be obtained just by studying and practicing the Torah. They taught that if two students sat together reading the Torah, that the Divine Presence rested between them, which meant they believed they could enjoy the presence anywhere in the world now even without the Temple. Does that sound familiar? I have a sneaking suspicion that they hijacked the teaching of Yah'shua (Jesus), don't you?

"Again, I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything you ask for, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven. For where two or three come together in My Name, there am I with them" (Matt.18:19-20, NIV).

This new tradition may well have come into use before AD 70 for Yehudim (Judahites) in the Diaspora (since Temple attendance was obviously impossible for them...in Rome, for example) but it certainly came into its own after the Temple was destroyed, enabling the Pharisees to regroup and carry on to invent the new 'Judaism' that exists today. So they had already started relativising the Temple, another reason they scrutinised and criticised Yah'shua (Jesus) since He was offering an alternative to the Temple too.

Other Judeans, especially the socio-economically disadvantaged like the rebels or revolutionaries, saw the Temple as a symbol of oppression by a rich aristocracy and their systematic injustices. When they took over the Temple, the first thing they did was destroy all the debt records.

So we now have three prevailing attitudes toward the Temple in the first century as:

• 1. The main symbol of the nation and its religion (Pharisees);
• 2. A symbol of apostacy (Essenes); and
• 3. A symbol of corruption and injustice (Zealot revolutionaries).

So what was Yah'shua's (Jesus') attitude toward the Temple? Well, He certainly viewed it as the House of His Heavenly Father whom the merchants and cohenim (priests) had turned into a "den of thieves" (Mt.21:13; Mk.11:17; Lk.19:46 - cp. Jer.7:11) and yet He had quite plainly not come to reform it or to replace its corrupt officials with honest ones.

Again, Yah'shua (Jesus) saw this symbol in primarily eschatological terms: for Him the time of judgment for the Temple, and the Mosaic system as a whole, had definitely arrived, for it had served its temporary purpose. It was not to be destroyed (the Temple) or phased out (the Mosaic sacrificial system). The original intention of the Temple had become perverted and now symbolised the very injustuce that characterised the society on both the inside and outside, a society that had rejected its mandate to become a light to the world, a city set on a hill that would draw to itself all the peoples of the world. Israel was a complete failure.

Yahweh, of course, had foreknown all of this was going to happen from the beginning. Nothing took Him by surprise and Yah'shua (Jesus) arrived there and then as the mortal Messiah precisely because it was judgment time for the preparatory system. It had had its chance. But more than that - and this is the really important part - during His Galilean ministry, the Master acted and spoke as if He was in some sense called to do, and be, what the Temple was, and did. The Temple had always been a type of the Messiah Himself. Thus His very presence as the New Temple in human flesh undercut the official system by making the claim that He was the New Temple, come to replace the old one.

Thus we should not be surprised by the fact that a great deal of Yah'shua's (Jesus') warning about impending judgment was focussed on the Temple. The Saviour's action in the Temple (throwing out the money-changers) was a prophetic parable of judgment of the whole system. Thus when he came to Jerusalem you might say that the city 'wasn't big enough for both of them' - for both the Temple and the person of Christ, the Living Temple. The central system of the national life was under threat of divine judgment, and unless Israel repented, it would fall to the pagans.

Likewise, the exiled Israelites and Judahites had been given the opportunity of having a new Temple according to the pattern Ezekiel was shown in vision, but they refused to repent, that Temple was never built and never will be built. They remained in exile, the northern Israelites becoming assimilated in to the nations and the Judahites serving a 70 year term in Babylon. It was a conditional promise. And whatever is subsequently built in the Israeli Republic in Jerusalem, even if it follows the design of Ezekiel's temple, will not - and cannot - ever be an authentic temple to Yahweh. The Zionist Temple will be a counterfeit and serve the interest of forces hostile to the true Messiah, Yah'shua (Jesus).

What we see in the Gospels, then, is Yahweh, the Elohim (God) of Israel, in the process of both judging and redeeming His people through Christ as the climax of Israel's history. This judgment would take the form of destruction by Rome which would itself, later, hijack the Messianic Community and mutate it into the Chalcedonian and then Catholic Church with its false 'temple' in the Vatican, named for the apostle Peter. And - this is very important - this judgment, which would take a generation to completely execute, would not be followed by the rebuilding of a new physical Temple.

It would rather be followed by the establishment of the Messianic Community (Church) focussed on Yah'shua (Jesus) Himself as the King of Messianic Israel who would, in His person, replace the Temple once and for all, as John the apostle testified:

""I did not see a temple in the city (New Jerusalem), because the Master Yahweh Almighty and the Lamb are its temple" (Rev.21:22, NIV).

Thus would be born Messianic Israel, a Torah-observant community of those trusting in the Messiah as the New Temple that would require no physical temple ever again and, at least in this Æon. or Age, no 'Holy Land' either, not, at least, until Messiah returns.

This subject has confused so many Christians and Messianics over the ages, and we even had our own schism over it 25 years ago. But it is critically important to staying on track in these the last of the 'last days' which is why we must be crystal clear in our enunciation of this important subject. Too many Zionist Christians and Messianics have their eyes on the coming Orthodox Jewish Temple announcing their messiah, as do the Mormons on their neo-masonic temples when all eyes should be on the one Living Temple which is in Heaven, which is Elohim (God) and the Lamb.

Next week we will look at the 'new' symbols of Messiah that form the core identity of Messianic Israel that the arising Remnant must know how to present accurately and with passionate conviction to the last generation. Then over the weeks ahead, Yahweh willing, we will look at each of these in depth so that our core witnessing will be the same as the first believers. Until then, Yahweh bless you.

Endnotes

[1] N.T.Wright, The Challenge of Jesus: Rediscovering Who Jesus Was and Is (IVP Academic, Downers Grove, Illinois: 1999), p.57
[2] Ibid., p.58
[3] See, for example, the Kingdom Road series
[4] Matthew 8:21-22 cp Luke 9:59-60; Matthew 10:34-39; Mark 3:33 cp. Matthew 12:48

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