2. Obediently submitting to her prospective husband's rule over her - his spiritual and temporal authority and ownership;

3. Being satisfied with what he provided to sustain her.

Dowry as Security in case of Divorce

It was never just a question of accepting the 3 cows, 18 sheep, 2 camels and the 12 shekels of silver she received, which would be her security in the event of her being divorced by him so that she should start life again. Should he divorce her, she would leave the marriage with the dowry which she brought into the marriage. A young Hebrew lady was never allowed to accept her suitor's gift and then go about her own business seeking out another partner. This was adultery and she would be stoned for this.

The Cost of a 'Free Gift' - Nothing is Free

We are here learning something about the mind and heart of Yahweh from His own given Torah. Now consider this. My parents used to teach me that 'nothing is free in this world'. And they were right. There is strictly speaking no such thing as a 'free gift'. When someone advertises a free gift, that gift cost someone something. The gift may have cost the recipient nothing, but it definitely cost somebody something. The giver either bought it, made ir, or stole it. If they bought it, it cost money. If they made it, it cost labour. And if they stole it, it cost somebody else either money or labour. So my parents were absolutely right: there is no such thing as a free gift. All the term a 'free gift' is saying is that the recipient did not pay for it. The gift for the bride cost her nothing - however, there was a price paid. The groom paid the price. This giving of the gift was the "earnest" (KJV) or "promise" to fulfil the covenant being cut (2 Cor.1:22; 5:5; Eph.1:14). The covenant is not complete until after the covenant ceremony, some blood is shed and all written and emplied conditions are completed. Is blood shed under the New Covenant? Most definitely. When the groom 'goes in' to his virgin, he breaks her hymen and sheds a little blood. This is the covenant being 'cut' in the flesh.

Covenant vs. Romance

Shelly accepted Hans' but did not accept her covenant obligations and responsibilities required for marriage. She did not accept his authority nor did she accept her conjugal responsibility. The covenant wasn't even 'cut'. She was not entering into a marriage covenant but instead was accepting the diamond ring or the romantic notion of being married.

The 'Idea' of Being Saved

Sad to say, there are many who are supposedly accepting the free gift of Yahweh when in reality all they are accepting is the 'ring' or the IDEA of being saved. The result of this attitude is that they will end up not being the Bride of Messiah at the last day just as if they had not accepted anything at all. The acceptance of the marriage proposal is also an acceptance of the husband's rule. Submission to a just and righteous authority is not bondage. Anyone who tells you that the Torah is bondage is not submitted to Yahweh but to themselves. They are very likely not saved!

Torah as Matrimonial Duty

Yahweh has written very plainly what He wants from us. He informs us, in the Torah, of what He expects prior to our entering into relationship with Him. Yahweh's laws are duties given to those who enter into covenant with Him. But this is not the entire relationship between Him and His people. When a woman marries a man, her relationship is not fulfilled in just doing what he says. There is communication, love, enjoying time together, doing things together, and sticking it out through hard times. Trust, loyalty, common goals, working together and passion are all part of a good relationship. Yahweh wants no less in our relationship with Him. Thus the Law is in no way the entirety of our communication. The focus of keeping Yahweh's Torah should always be obedience because of love - after all, we accepted His rule. We should never use our actions as a way to manipulate Yahweh or think of them as a means by which we can gain salvation. It was part of what we accepted when our free gift was offered.

Israel and Judah Divorced

In Jeremiah we read of how Yahweh dealt with Israel and Judah when they did not submit to His laws:

"Then I saw that for all the causes for which backsliding Israel had committed adultery, I had put her away and given her a certificate of divorce; yet her treacherous sister Judah did not fear, but went and played the harlot also" (Jer.3:8, NKJV).

Seeking Another's Laws

So the antithesis of acceptance of this free gift is the rejection of the commandments laid down by a loving husband, and the reducuction of an intimate relationship to a ceremonial observance where we go through the motions, but keep our distance.

The Idea of a 'Free Gift' in Scripture

I am sure, if you have come from a Protestant background, that you have been well taught concerning the 'free gift of salvation'. Go into any Evangelical Church and they will, in most cases, explain it to you as what Yah'shua did on the Cross for me and you. And they would be right. But in how many would you be taught that our responsibility in accepting this free gift is obedience to Torah? How did this half-complete doctrine come to be taught? Let us review the scriptures to see.

The Presumptuousness of Bible Translators

The wording, a 'free gift', is found three times in the KJV (King James Version), NKJV (New King James Version) and YLT (Young's Literal Translation), and an additional time in the ASV (American Standard Version), RSV (Revised Standard Version) and NRS (New Revised Standard Version). In the group of versions where it is written only three times, all of them are in the same chapter within a few verses of each other. The other group includes a verse in the next chapter which refers back to the previous three mentioned verses. So all of the usages of this popular phrase come from one small section of the Bible. This section is Romans 5:15-18 with a kind of 'supplement' in Romans 6:23.

An Evangelical Half-Truth

They say that half truths are more dangerous than outright lies so I believe we have a duty to thoroughly examine this teaching of the 'free gift' and correct a major error in Christendom. I am going to use the New King James Version as that is one we commonly employ - in this instance I am not making any changes to Sacred Names but leaving the text exactly as it stands. I would like to invite you to follow through with me with your own bibles:

"12 Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned -- [NKJV Genesis 2:17 "but of the tree of knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die"] 13 (For until the law sin was in the world, but sin is not imputed when there is no law. 14 Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those who had not sinned according to the likeness of the transgression of Adam, who is a type of Him who was to come. 15 But the free gift is not like the offense. For if by the one man's offense many died, much more the grace of God and the gift by the grace of the one Man, Jesus Christ, abounded to many. 16 And the gift is not like that which came through the one who sinned. For the judgment which came from one offense resulted in condemnation, but the free gift which came from many offenses resulted in justification. 17 For if by the one man's offense death reigned through the one, much more those who receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ.) 18 Therefore, as through one man's offense judgment came to all men, resulting in condemnation, even so through one Man's righteous act the free gift came to all men, resulting in justification of life. 19 For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so also by one Man's obedience many will be made righteous. 20 Moreover the law entered that the offense might abound. But where sin abounded, grace abounded much more, 21 so that as sin reigned in death, even so grace might reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord" (Rom.5:12-21, NKJV).

Verse Insertions and Commentaries

Note that we have added a quotation from Genesis 2:17 after verse 12 which records Yahweh informing Adam what will result from eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Adam is told that death will result. We know that he soon succumbed to the peer pressure of his wife and ate of this tree which resulted in Adam's death and the death of all the following human generations. Then the dialogue actually jumps down to verse 18 to continue the thought. The verses inbetween (vv.13-17) are explaining the statement just made in v.12, much like the way I inserted the verse from Genesis.

Those Parentheses...

Some commentators are in doubt that Paul actually wrote these verses, ascribing them to an an early scribe who copied them into the text after getting a copy of Romans with someone's footnotes. (That's why they are in parentheses). Long explanations, they argue, of things stated in the text or short ones that the original readers would probably already know are usually later additions. There may be several of these in the New Testament though we can never be sure which are additions and which were explanations by the original writer since they occurred so early - they were copied into the text by the scribes of that day. I am not sure if this is true or not but I mention it simply because this is advanced by some commentators and has some credibility. Either way, they do not conflict with the rest of Scripture.

...and Italics

The Charismatic Movement

For those of you not accustomed to using analytical concordances I need to decode this for you. Now I am quite sure that most of you, when you heard me mention the word 'charisma' immediately thought of the evangelical movement which begamn in the 1970's and '80's called the 'Charismatic Movement'. This movement, as you know, emphasises the gifts of the Ruach. Accordingly, its adherents anglicised the Greek word for 'gift' and names the movement after it. We will not here enter into a debate as to whether this Movement actually had those biblical 'gifts'.

The Word 'Free' Inserted

Introducting Confusion

So when English translators added the word 'free' in front of 'gift' their motive was probably to drive home the idea that the gift given by Yah'shua is without cost to the receiver. However well-intentioned this addition was, it has caused all kinds of confusion and had led to misintepretation and false doctrine, chief of which is the rejection of Torah. For then someone has to define what 'free' means, which is ironic since the word 'free' isn't even there to be defined!

False Rationalisations

Paul's use of the word 'charisma' in these verses is exactly the same as the use of it elsewhere in the New Testament. We all know that the gift of salvation is 'free'. But consider this: If your father gave you a birthday gift, would you for one minute even dream that your receiving of this free gift somehow entitled you to stop obeying his commands? Would you assume that accepting this gift somehow entitled you to be completely lawless, or even partly lawless? Would you, in your wildest imagination, conclude: 'Great! I don't need to do what Dad says anymore!' Of course not! That would be idiotic. Would you then conclude: 'Great! I can continue obeying Dad's moral and ethical rules but no longer obey his rule about going to church on the Sabbath - I can go whenever I want to!' Obviously not. And yet these are the kinds of rationalisations we hear from Evangelicals and others. Even if the gift from your Dad was demonstrating forgiveness for some past infraction, it would still not give you the right to overturn his house rules. Did the father of the Prodgical Son even so much as hint, when he gave his repentant son new things and a feast, that he could do whatever he liked thereafter? Yah forbid! He returned to his father's House and to his Rule. And so it is with us.

Torah Reveals the Need for a Messiah

This word diakethe does not mean something new that has never been before - it means to 'renew', 'refresh' or 'replenish'. Thus in English we both have the sense of 'new' as something that has never been before (like a 'new house') as well as something that has been redone (like a 'new car' after it has been to the body shop and had a complete restoration). This has led many Messianics to speak of the New Covenant as the 'Renewed' Covenant, but like the idea of a 'Free Gift' in the New Testament, it is only a half truth. The New Covenant for sure brought a refreshing of the Old (and specifically, the Torah) but it also brought something completely New that had never been before, namely, salvation in Yah'shua the Messiah.

The Torah Landscape for Shaping Relationships

Torah provides the landscape that is to shape our relationships in marriage and with each other. It provides the cultural flow in the pattern of the festivals, new moons and sabbaths, defines the economic structures and correct gender rôles of the two parts of the covenant relationship, and as a result shapes the intimacies of that relationship. Love brings us to the point where we say 'yes' but thereafter - after we have agreed to the Gift - the foundation of the relationship is always Covenant. Upon that Covenant the Echad house is built, which is why the concept of covenant is stressed from Genesis to Revelation. When at times our feelings dry up and we can't seem to sense the eternal life within because of sin or whatever, we will then always fall back on Covenant so that the union does not break apart. It is then that our troth (from which we get we get the word 'bethrothe') - our pledge or vow or fidelity, loyalty and obedience - will always hold us together because Yahweh will always honour that.

Origins of the Authentic Spiritual Life

Together, Covenant, Love, Torah and Ruach make for the dynamic of authentic spiritual life. Whereas romance, sexual attraction, the secular state, the politics of gender relations, global culture and the unfettered carnal nature define modern man's relationship to his spouse and (if he is religions) to his God, a whole different cluster of realities and truth define relationships in the divine sphere. Christians and Messiancs alike need to reprogram their thinking and behaviour accordingly. This has been my consistent message throughout my ministry and it will continue to be so. For we live in a time of great trouble when both religion and marriage are under colossal assault - there will be times when we are so worn down and exhausted we may not be able to feel much of anything or have energy to keep going. Then Covenant, as a fixed and immovable anchor, will come into its own and be seen for the blessing that it is. In a world where everything seems to be governed by the feelings of the moment, Yahweh wishes us to be governed by the covenants of eternity. When we accept them, the Ruach haQodesh seals them. And with that seal - that invisible heavenly imprimatur - you are SAFE AND SECURE! Therefore I urge you to frequently reaffirm your covenants to both Yahweh and your spouses for they are a matter of life and death. No one is eternally saved or a true Christian without them.

Conclusion

I hope that this study today has been helpful to you. Next week we will continue with this series on graces and gifts. Until then, may Yahweh bless you with a new vision and understanding of the Gift which is the Salvation of Messiah and our obligation to obey His Renewed Torah under Covenant in the Ruach. Amen.