The Law & The Covenant
Typically, growing up in church we are taught that the Law of Moses doesn't apply to us anymore; that we are now under the Law of Christ which is grace. If you ask questions about what laws we are to keep now, the typical answer is the moral laws. Christian doctrines have broken the law into three categories: Moral, Civil, and Ceremonial. However, the bible does not make this distinction. I am also pretty confident that Yahuah considers ALL of His law to be moral since it’s just the written format of His character and how He ordained Creation.
I also want to address the 613 laws thing- that is a man-made number from third century rabbinic Judaism, and if you actually go down the list you’ll see some laws were left out and some were numbered multiple times BECAUSE many are situational laws. Yes, there are quite a few that apply to everyone across the board- FYI if you’re generally a good person, not worshipping idols, not hurting people, stealing, or fornicating- you're already keeping the majority of the law that applies to you. Many are specifically for the Levites, some for men, some for women, some for land owners, and so on. But the covenant as a whole and the law contained in the covenant was given for all mankind who desire to follow the Most High- whether native-born or foreigner, all are given the same instructions for life and abiding in Yahuah’s creation.
Ecclesiastes 12:13 When all has been heard, the conclusion of the matter is this: Fear God and keep His commandments, because this is the whole duty of man.
So keep and follow the words of this covenant, that you may prosper in all you do. All of you are standing today before the LORD your God—you leaders of tribes, elders, officials, and all the men of Israel, your children and wives, and the foreigners in your camps who cut your wood and draw your water—so that you may enter into the covenant of the LORD your God, which He is making with you today, and into His oath, and so that He may establish you today as His people, and He may be your God as He promised you and as He swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. I am making this covenant and this oath not only with you, but also with those who are standing here with us today in the presence of the LORD our God, as well as with those who are not here today. Deuteronomy 29:9-15
Again, the covenant was being established with native born Israel AND the foreigners who grated into Israel, this is because Abraham was to be ‘the father of many nations’. The covenant spoken at Sinai and repeated in Moab is the same covenant given to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; it was not separated into ‘Abrahamic’ and ‘Mosaic,’ it was the same! Yes, there were additions or amendments to the Law portion of the covenant for community living around the tabernacle and in the land; these are situational stipulations a.k.a common sense- but, the covenant as a whole has never changed- the people, they required more instructions as more issues arose with such a multitude of people.
The entire story- the point of the covenant, is to get us back to original design and the Law is the road map for us. Yahuah is restoring His whole creation back to perfection- eliminating sin and death in order for His children to live abundantly in His garden land.
In short- The “old covenant” gives an explanation of how to do life as we dwell on this earth in the flesh, AND includes the promises of future restoration- life after the resurrection in eternal bodies.
The covenant for both this life and the next includes the following aspects:
•Law/ Circumcised Heart
•Forgiven/ Cleansed
•The Spirit
•Land inheritance ('Promise Land')
•Messiah as our High Priest (previous priesthoods)
•YHWH is our God, we are His children
We have each of these aspects in a portion, a DEPOSIT for this life. But in the next, they will be complete; full; perfected FOREVER! For this study, we are going to focus in on the divisions of the Law- what is for crucifying our flesh now, and what is built into the very world Yah created. (Disclaimer: I am aware this is still a man-made division so take it with a grain of salt and be sure to test everything!)
A Biblical Division of Law
Laws built into Creation: These we see apparent from beginning to end and into eternity.
Laws for flesh pointing to Restoration: These laws we see as a part of our sanctification and carry into significant points regarding the Kingdom.
Law of Sin and Death: These laws govern sin. Being under the law of sin and death means that you’re continually breaking these laws and will receive judgment. But these laws will also come to an end- there is no sin or death in the Kingdom so these will no longer be necessary.
The Matthew 19 dynamic when Jesus replied, “Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because of your hardness of heart. But it was not this way from the beginning.” This is one example of how there are laws that were not intended to be there from the beginning but needed to be added to govern sin.
Laws Built Into Creation
These include:
Day 1 firmaments and angelic beings with their heavenly systems and orders.
Jubilees 2:2 For on the first day He created the heavens which are above and the earth and the waters and all the spirits which serve before Him--the angels. . .
Day 2 and 3 boundaries for our firmament and the waters.
Job 38:11 I declared: ‘You may come this far, but no farther; here your proud waves must stop’
Day 4 sun, moon, and stars which govern the calendar and festivals of YHWH.
The festivals are built into creation by the signs of the heavens as well as the seasons of the earth- seed time and harvest.
Genesis 1:12 And God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to distinguish between the day and the night, and let them be signs to mark the seasons (appointed times) and days and years.
Day 5 and 6 animals were created clean or unclean. He instructed Noah:
Genesis 7:2 You are to take with you seven pairs of every kind of clean animal, a male and its mate; a pair of every kind of unclean animal, a male and its mate.
Day 7 Sabbath day of rest.
Jubilees 1:17 And He gave us a great sign, the Sabbath day, that we should work six days, but keep Sabbath on the seventh day from all work.
Even when the heavens and the earth are renewed, these laws are built into the very fabric of reality. They ARE the world YHWH created. So yes, the Leviticus 11 laws for clean and unclean still apply today and always will.
Isaiah 66:22-23 “For just as the new heavens and the new earth, which I will make, will endure before Me,” declares the LORD, “so your descendants and your name will endure. From one New Moon to another and from one Sabbath to another, all mankind will come to worship before Me,” says the LORD
-The seventh day sabbath still applies today and always will.
Hebrews 4:9-11 There remains, then, a Sabbath rest for the people of God. For whoever enters God’s rest also rests from his own work, just as God did from His. Let us, therefore, make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one will fall by following the same pattern of disobedience.
-The Leviticus 23 festivals still apply today and always will. They are all a part of creation.
Jubilees 6:17 For this reason it is ordained and written on the heavenly tablets, that they should celebrate the feast of weeks in this month once a year, to renew the covenant every year. And this whole festival was celebrated in heaven from the day of creation till the days of Noah. . .
Laws for Flesh & Restoration
When YHWH promises to circumcise our hearts and make us clean, all of these laws are engraved into our beings- we’ll never be able to transgress them again, men will rise physically circumcised, the lame will rise whole. All laws for sin and death will be removed because the flesh that desires those things will no longer be a part of us. We’ll no longer struggle to deny the flesh- it will be removed, completely. (The following are only a few examples).
Circumcision
Genesis 17:11 You are to circumcise the flesh of your foreskin, and this will be a sign of the covenant between Me and you.
Exodus 12:48 If a foreigner resides with you and wants to celebrate the LORD’s Passover, all the males in the household must be circumcised; then he may come near to celebrate it, and he shall be like a native of the land. But no uncircumcised man may eat of it.
*The Passover IS a prophetic feast pointing to the resurrection & wedding banquet of the lamb.
Ezekiel 44:9 This is what the Lord GOD says: No foreigner uncircumcised in heart and flesh may enter My sanctuary—not even a foreigner who lives among the Israelites.
Deuteronomy 30:6 The LORD your God will circumcise your hearts and the hearts of your descendants, and you will love Him with all your heart and with all your soul, so that you may live.
Cleanliness
There are a lot of cleanliness laws, pretty much all of them are common sense for basic hygiene, many are regulations for health that modern science is just now catching up to. I do want to stress this point- being unclean does not mean that you are covered in sin. Even Messiah had times of being unclean just from using the bathroom, that does not mean He was sinning. Refusing to adhere to cleanliness is sin because it's rebellion. But normal, unclean human functions are not sinful. However, there are sins that make you unclean physically and spiritually. There are many instances where rebellion causes plague to break out. Yahusha explains that heart position can defile you and remaining in uncleanness is sinful. But what's interesting is that physical cleanliness is an outward expression of a pure heart prepared to enter the holy place. Even Adam and Eve had to observe this law after their “birth”; their creation.
Jubilees 3:9-13 And after Adam had completed forty days in the land where he had been created, we brought him into the garden of Eden to till and keep it, but his wife they brought in on the eightieth day, and after this she entered into the garden of Eden. . . Therefore, there was ordained regarding her who bears a male or a female child the statute of those days that she should touch no hallowed thing, nor enter into the sanctuary until these days for the male or female child are accomplished.
Cleanliness in the flesh does point to being cleansed completely from all sin and fleshly uncleanness.
Ezekiel 36:25 I will also sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean. I will cleanse you from all your impurities and all your idols.
Jeremiah 33:8 And I will cleanse them from all the iniquity they have committed against Me, and will forgive all their sins of rebellion against Me.
Deformity Restrictions
These are pretty self-explanatory. Even mainstream Christians understand that there will be complete healing in the Kingdom.
Leviticus 21:18 No man who has any defect may approach—no man who is blind, lame, disfigured, or deformed.
Micah 4:6 “On that day,” declares the LORD, “I will gather the lame; I will assemble the outcast, even those whom I have afflicted.
Jeremiah 31:8 Behold, I will bring them from the land of the north and gather them from the farthest parts of the earth, including the blind and the lame, expectant mothers and women in labor. They will return as a great assembly!
Land Management
I imagine the land will have its Sabbaths and so forth but the following are regarding borders of land.
Deuteronomy 19:14 You must not move your neighbor’s boundary marker, which was set up by your ancestors to mark the inheritance you shall receive in the land that the LORD your God is giving you to possess.
Joshua 18:10 And Joshua cast lots for them in the presence of the LORD at Shiloh, where he distributed the land to the Israelites according to their divisions.
Ezekiel 47:21-23 You are to divide this land among yourselves according to the tribes of Israel. You shall allot it as an inheritance for yourselves and for the foreigners who dwell among you and who have children. You are to treat them as native-born Israelites; along with you, they shall be allotted an inheritance among the tribes of Israel. In whatever tribe a foreigner dwells, you are to assign his inheritance there,” declares the Lord GOD.
That passage in Ezekiel is amazing! Again, we see that Abraham is the father of many nations. Gentiles who come in by faith and obey the God of Israel, are given a portion of land in the Kingdom and are considered to be Israelites!
Laws That Govern Sin & Flesh
Paul paints this picture for us in Romans 7:
Romans 7:22-23 For in my inner being I delight in God’s law. But I see another law at work in my body, warring against the law of my mind and holding me captive to the law of sin that dwells within me.
The flesh craves what it doesn’t have. The flesh lusts, hates, envies, lies, has addictions, and is led by emotions. While we are in the flesh, it is necessary to control our flesh; to crucify our flesh every single day and not be consumed by these things.
Romans 8:6-8 The mind of the flesh is death, but the mind of the Spirit is life and peace, because the mind of the flesh is hostile to God: It does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so. Those controlled by the flesh cannot please God.
Galatians 5:19 The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity, and debauchery; idolatry and sorcery; hatred, discord, jealousy, and rage; rivalries, divisions, factions, and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.
Revelation 22:15 But outside are the dogs, the sorcerers, the sexually immoral, the murderers, the idolaters, and everyone who loves and practices falsehood.
It goes back to the necessity of circumcising your heart in order to enter into Yah's Kingdom! Fear God with humility and obey His voice (Ecc. 12:13) This is not a new testament concept - being about the heart now; it has ALWAYS been about the heart!
Jeremiah 9:6 Egypt, Judah, Edom, Ammon, Moab, and all the inhabitants of the desert who clip the hair of their temples. For all these nations are uncircumcised, and the whole house of Israel is uncircumcised in heart.
The solution has always been the same; the definition of denying the flesh and obeying God has always been the same.
When Messiah taught denying the flesh, the definition was already established within His Fathers instructions. For example, Matthew 5-7 and Matthew 19 was correcting bad interpretations of the Law, and calling people to repent. He makes a clear point that the issues being discussed should not even exist in the heart of a child of God. Messiah preaching "you heard it said,” was a mix of man-made laws, and laws of God that were added “because of the hardness of your heart,” but they were not meant to be necessary - “It was not so from the beginning.”
The laws pertaining to cleanliness, deformity, and where we live are things a person can't really control. These are the issues dealt with by Yah; they are restored and perfected in His Kingdom. The things we do have control over however - controlling the flesh - we see come with serious consequences in this life but in the descriptions of life in the Kingdom, those sins are not mentioned. For those who are of the faith, who do genuinely love God but struggle with the flesh- the laws pertaining to circumcising your flesh/ denying your flesh will vanish away, because those struggles and temptations will no longer be apart of our spiritual, perfected bodies- no lust, no vanity, no hunger or thirst, no temptations, no struggle with emotions and anxiety- we will be made perfect! Which literally means: whole, complete; able to abide in the holy place with the Father and with our Messiah.
Walking In The Spirit
So what do we do now? We practice what we are looking forward to! We operate in faith- not in manifesting, but in faith. And we practice the behavior of the kingdom that we preach. This is what Yahuah commanded for mankind from the beginning-
Deuteronomy 10:12-13, 16 And now, O Israel, what does the LORD your God ask of you but to fear the LORD your God by walking in all His ways, to love Him, to serve the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to keep the commandments and statutes of the LORD that I am giving you this day for your own good?. . .Circumcise your hearts, therefore, and stiffen your necks no more.
Micah 6:8 He has shown you, O man, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you but to act justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?
Matthew 16:24 Then Jesus told His disciples, “If anyone wants to come after Me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me.
Galatians 5:24-25 Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. Since we live by the Spirit, let us walk in step with the Spirit.
Steven's speech in Acts 7 tells us that refusal to deny the flesh and heed the Spirit has always been the issue.
Acts 7:51 You stiff-necked people with uncircumcised hearts and ears! You always resist the Holy Spirit, just as your fathers did.
Obedience to Yah’s Law, is walking in the Spirit. It is abiding in the Spiritual character and ways of the Most High. Refusal to walk in His ways and in His Spirit is denial of His covenant; it is denial of eternal life in the kingdom. Now please understand this- there is grace for sins of ignorance and deception, this is a part of the priesthood system- atonement for sins of ignorance. But outright refusal to deny the flesh is rebellion and it is punishable by the lake of fire.
Priesthood
One last note at the mention of the priesthood. If you notice I didn’t mention the ceremonial laws for the priesthood…or did I? If we look back at Day 1 of creation “angelic beings with their heavenly systems and orders.” We see that the angels are a priesthood- they are messengers and ministers. The priesthood order on the earth was modeled after what was already going on in the Heavens. Therefore, the priesthood system is built into Creation. It carries on from beginning to end and into eternity. Yahusha is a priest FOREVER in the order of Melchizedek.
When Colossians and Hebrews speak of a shadow of things to come; a copy of the heavenly, we ought to take that seriously. Ezekiel 40-48 goes into grand detail of the temple that will be established in the Kingdom; the temple that perfectly fits into the descriptions of the temple of New Jerusalem in Revelation 20-22. We will be priests under the rulership of Messiah, and there will also be Levites raised up from the nations to minister on behalf of the survivors of the nations.
Revelation 5:10 You have made them to be a kingdom and priests to serve our God, and they will reign upon the earth. (Repeated in Rev. 1:6, 1 Peter 2:9, Exodus 19:6, Isaiah 61:6)
Isaiah 66:20-22 “And they will bring all your brothers from all the nations as a gift to the LORD on horses and chariots and wagons, on mules and camels, to My holy mountain Jerusalem,” says the LORD, “just as the Israelites bring an offering in a clean vessel to the house of the LORD.” And I will select some of them as priests and Levites,” says the LORD. “For just as the new heavens and the new earth, which I will make, will endure before Me,” declares the LORD, “so your descendants and your name will endure.
Jeremiah 33:18-19 For this is what the LORD says: David will never lack a man to sit on the throne of the house of Israel, nor will the priests who are Levites ever fail to have a man before Me to offer burnt offerings, to burn grain offerings, and to present sacrifices.
Ezekiel 44:15 But the Levitical priests, who are descended from Zadok and who kept charge of My sanctuary when the Israelites went astray from Me, are to approach Me to minister before Me. They will stand before Me to offer Me fat and blood, declares the Lord GOD.
I understand the law of the priesthood is often demonized as this horrible thing. It is commonly taught to be done away with after Messiah’s sacrifice on the cross. I am presenting to you that that is not what the scriptures say. Messiah’s death was necessary in order for Him to resurrect and assume His priesthood. But he was not a literal altar sacrifice and He did not carry buckets of blood into Heaven’s temple. His blood speaks of His righteousness. He Himself is a minister, serving at the original altar that the earthly was only a copy of. And when He returns, a full priesthood will be established.
We will be without sin and not in need of atonement, but we can still offer gifts of peace and joy to Yahuah. And the mortal survivors of the nations will be in need of atonement and judicial systems. The priesthood is an eternal ordinance. It is a prominent part of the covenant and creation itself. To deny the importance and reality of the priesthood is a blatant disregard for what the scriptures repeatedly say. It was built into the order of creation with angelic ministers and it will be operable Law in the Kingdom of Yahuah.