The Messiah’s Shema
My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me; John 10:27 NASB
Hear – How do you know if you hear the voice of the Messiah? The answer is simple, but the implications are profound. If you hear the voice of the Messiah, you follow him. Of course, speaking Hebrew, Yeshua would have said, “My sheep hear/obey my voice.” His use of shema means that his halacha is binding on his community. How do I know that I hear him? I do what he says. And what he says is to follow Moses (but that is another story, isn’t it?).
The profound implication is that there are millions who claim to hear his voice but do not do what he says. They ignore Moses. They do not adopt a Jewish, first century worldview. They are quite convinced that following what the Church says he said is sufficient. How could they think otherwise? Everyone in the Christian world tells them that this is what the Messiah meant. They claim to follow “Jesus,” but since Yeshua follows Moses, there is an inherent contradiction in this assertion. It can only be justified if we can somehow dispose of Moses. And we do, of course, by replacing Moses with the Church.
There is a second profound implication. Matthew Wilson makes it clear.[1] Yeshua speaks to those who already hear him. This means that they are already “saints,” citizens of the Kingdom, followers of the Messiah. They are not on the path toward sanctification. They are already sanctified. That’s why they hear. They are already attuned to the voice of the Messiah. Since holy means devoted, holiness already incorporates the idea of sanctified. We hear because we are already accepted. In the past, many Christian teachers considered sanctification to be a process, slowly ridding us of our sinful flesh in order to one day (hopefully) become acceptable to God. But this makes no sense at all. As Wilson says, “We do not follow His instructions to become holy; we follow His instructions because we are holy, because we are dedicated to following Him”[2] The corollary to the idea that we become sanctified over time is the postulation of the carnal Christian. In other words, it is patently obvious that some people who claim allegiance with the Christ do not follow his commandments (or anyone else’s). But they still claim to have “faith.” How is this to be explained? Voilà! The “carnal” Christian, that is, someone who believes but acts as if they do not. Principally as a result of the theological work of Lewis Sperry Chafer and the popularization of Campus Crusade for Christ, Christians were taught that there was an in-between state of spirituality, a place where men could be believers but continued to live according to the “flesh.” This mistake caused enormous grief and serious self-deprecation. The theological error haunts those who recognize that they desire to follow the Messiah but still struggle with prior natural inclinations. It’s time to put the mistake to rest (in the grave). Devotion to God and His Messiah means hearing what he says, not as a condition of acceptance but as a fact of inclusion.
Topical Index: hear, commands, devotion, holy, carnal Christian, John 10:27
[1] Matthew Wilson, The Simplicity of Holiness, pp. 168-169.
[2] Ibid., p. 168.
Hi Skip, can you say more about the last statement you made: “Devotion to God and His Messiah means hearing what he says, not as a condition of acceptance but as a fact of inclusion”. You lost me at the very end.
What I meant is that you are not acceptable to God because you act according to His voice. You are accepted because He invites you, not because you do something to get the invitation. You are included because of what He does, not what you do. As a result of the invitation, you are asked to participate in the Kingdom. You then choose how to respond. He doesn’t wait to see what you will do before He offers.
Hi Skip, thanks for the insight. If I could ask a simple question, does all this “Law” term that we’ve heard over and over, that has made the Torah sound like its an evil mastermind, really boil down to people not wanting to call the Sabbath, Friday evening to Saturday, as well as the dietary laws? It seems to me, when it comes to following God, most would agree with how God calls His people to live (whether they obey or not is a different story), but it seems like much of this has to do with Sunday and bacon?
HI Dana and yes these are often presenting arguments but I think it is more often our learned propensity to cultural assimilation vs the hard work of cultivation. Torah is a picture of a culture yet it is also the social construct through which cultivation of the mind is designed to take place,(which creates this culture) and further it is the living infrastructure through which the power to be joined to the Lord is established. Cultivating is hard work especially when there are deeply rooted tings to be uprooted.
A great insight. Thanks. Now we have to UNPACK before we can re-pack
Stephen. You wrote: “Torah is a picture of a culture yet it is also the social construct through which cultivation of the mind is designed to take place…
Just as the most important word in Real Estate is “Location, Location, Location”; so it is with
Punctuation! Because of my poor grammar interpretative skills I initially read your above sentence as “Torah is a picture of a culture yet.” And it worked! While Israel was a storied culture in the past and is a vibrant present culture, it’s future is yet. And what a YET it will be! Thanks for both the intended and unintentional readings.
I think there’s something else as well. Living a life that goes counter cultural is difficult and painful. Having services on Saturday we’ve been considered “not a real church.” The hour outline on Sunday has such power that anything outside of it is not real.
Skip, I believe you already unpacked it, http://www.skipmoen.com/2013/06/accommodation.
I think there’s a middle ground, though it may come down to semantics. You are either “in Christ” or you aren’t. There’s no middle ground. Can one who is “in Christ” still choose to do a very selfish un-Christlike thing? I’d think so. They’d “hear” His voice, but just choose otherwise. This is one of the points Paul is making throughout his epistle to the Colossians, e.g., but most especially in chapter 3.
I’ve never thought Sanctification could be used as a “cop-out” or an opportunity to live carnally. Wouldn’t that just be the stance of the unbeliever?
I’ve thought of “salvation” as reaching a point when I acknowledge God’s call on my life. He called, I finally answered. If I’m following Him, I can’t stop there. “Sanctification” is my life after salvation. The life I live, and the fruits I demonstrate, as a follower of Him. If I live according to scripture, I am presumably growing closer and closer to an understanding of His purpose for my life (and laying aside my own selfish desires).
That’s going to mess the Church mindset up !!!
Skip, if we are not careful, we can (and do!) mix up the concept of justification with sanctification. Being justified is where we are forgiven, but that is God’s part. Our part is to appropriate that forgiveness through repentance. The Christian world went through millennia where they were ‘trained’ in the ways of sin by going through other men to get to God. First, they were told about a fiction called “original sin” which meant they were never free from sin. Then they got indulgences, where you were trained to ‘pay’ for sin, as well as plan ahead for it, as well as ‘make up’ for it, but in none of it did you get deliverance FROM it. Repentance became just another instrument to get smashed with. I think we still use repentance to beat up on each other and ourselves, instead of recognize it as a way to FREE ourselves. We would repent to God and to each other a whole lot more if we understood it better as a tool to responsibility and freedom instead of just another acknowledgement that we are stuck.
If we don’t understand freedom FROM sin, we are not going to understand sanctification. I was thinking yesterday about the enormous struggle I had with trying to follow the Ten Commands. It was awful; I never felt able. Even when I tried and it looked as if I had succeeded, I never felt empowered or free; which is to say, my choice options did not increase. Something was missing.
I did not understand repentance. The reaction to guilt, fear and shame, which is what got taught by that corrupted church, is NOT repentance! True repentance frees us to obey; empowers us and returns our choices to us. I was doing it wrong, for sure.
The way I experience it now, sanctification is where the presence of the Holy Spirit in me empowers me to do right, for it brings the Source of that empowerment TO me to work THROUGH me. Sanctification is a partnership. The bush Moses saw was not holy (sanctified) until the Presence showed up. We do not understand the vital partnership with the right relatedness (righteousness) of Yeshua with all creation that is imparted to us by the presence of His promised Spirit. We become holy when He lives in us and loves through us. (I think the Christian world is messed up because it thinks that He is going to go do that over in some corner without them having to get involved. I consider this as being perhaps just more bad fruit from those bad ideas about original sin, et al., but I digress.) This is the needed power to obey that we cannot supply for ourselves. This goes way, way beyond just following the words of those Commands! It is interpretation OF those Commands and application, too. I had no clue, much less power, to do either back in the days that I lacked that partnership, even though I was trying with all my might and heart, too. .
Sanctification is where He lives in me; where we are devoted – as Skip puts it so well – to each other. Halleluah!
You go Girl! And so eloquently expressed.
My experiance supports much of this discussion. If Messiah is the word incarnate must we only read that word? Is not Torah also the person of Messiah.? If the Messiah is a person is his word only the scriptures? At the age of four or so I walked through our yellow kitchen picked up a green apple walked out the back door across the deck and down the stairs. I passed our sand boat, (a wooden row boat my father had filled with sand) across the grass, passed the Eucalyptus tree. Atter taking a bite out of that small green apple I threw it away. It was then I heard a loving yet commanding voice say “Mark are you gonging to waste that apple?” I said I’m sorry, and went and picked it up and finished the apple. It was then I think the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob said to himself “this one I can walk with”. It was the religious, and the resonable intelectuals that later in my life taught me to doubt I could here my God. I have had to stand firmly on the words of the Prophet Isiah who Sayes ” you will hear a voice behindyou saying this is the way walk in it whenever you turn to the left or the right “.
“In the past, many Christian teachers considered sanctification to be a process, slowly ridding us of our sinful flesh in order to one day (hopefully) become acceptable to God.” “…[the] corollary to the idea that we become sanctified over time is the postulation of the carnal Christian.” OK, I’m lost (figuratively and theologically).
I understand that if we hear his voice, we follow the Messiah. The REALITY is, I often do not, whether by ignorance or willfully. I have always understood the process of sanctification to be the slow process of growth the believer experiences as one chooses to make godly choices and depends less on the flesh. I graduated from Dallas Theological Seminary, so I know very well the schematics of Chafer. It is where, however, I learned to appreciate grace, God’s unmerited favor, in bringing me into a right standing with God, completely apart from my effort, works, or self-righteousness. At no point did the idea of sanctification imply that I was somehow becoming acceptable to God. It meant that I was becoming more conformed to the image of Christ, whatever that means. While most of us would not consider ourselves to be “carnal Christians” (or carnal Messy-antics), how shall we describe this state of failure? Faithlessness? Living without faith? Does this not imply that I no longer hear his voice? It is almost as if one has to live in a state of perfection, ALWAYS hearing the voice of the Messiah, in order to be considered faithful. What am I missing? And yes my worldview is in transition.
Yes…isn’t sanctification the same as making “Aliyah”? That is, going to a higher place of closeness to our Father? And looking more like Him in the process?
Hi Daniel, I feel like I’m always in the state of “go to the land that I will show you.” Just as Skip refers to a Greek mindset of wanting to control everything, “going to the land,” forces me to walk with God one day at a time. In today’s society, that “is” counter-cultural! Giving up control in all its facets has been one of the hardest trials of my life. I don’t think most people realize how much they try to control so much of their lives. So I look at it much more as learning how to “depend/trust” God completely in every area of my life. Along the way, HE shows me the idols I have trusted that I thought were Him but weren’t. It’s painful.