Below is a very small portion and part of a work I am writing, which eventually may include also additional material addressing the critic’s continued attacks against the teachings and writings of Pastor and Messianic Rabbi Jonathan Cahn.
The Pepster
As a man thinks within himself, so he is.
Proverbs 23:7a
The lot is cast into the lap, But its every decision is from the Lord.
Proverbs 16:33
"Do not petition G-d to go where you are going; rather find where G-d is going and travel with Him."-- Unknown Jewish Wise Man
"I shall pass through this world but once. Any good therefore that I can do, or any kindness that I can show to any human being, let me do it now. Let me not defer not neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again.".--- William Penn
"It’s not failure, but the fear of failure that stops most people.”-- Philip Anschutz
"THERE IS NOTHING MORE FRIGHTENING THAN ACTIVE IGNORANCE." -- Goethe
"To anger a conservative, lie to him. To anger a liberal, tell him the truth." - Unknown Author
“I have learned that success is to be measured not so much by the position one has reached in life, as by the obstacles that he has overcome while trying to succeed.” – Booker Taliaferro Washington, 1856 – 1915
“ A chief event of life is the day in which we have encountered a mind that startled us. ”— Ralph Waldo Emerson
"Truth is in history, but history is not the truth." - Nicolás Gómez Dávila
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__(o)_)--(o)_)--O-)_)
One of the Best Kept Secrets of Biblical History, September 2, 2014
Verified Purchase
This review is from: The Mystery of the Shemitah: The 3,000-Year-Old Mystery That Holds the Secret of America's Future, the World's Future, and Your Future! (Kindle Edition)
I admit, I'm a skeptical person by nature and I started this book wondering how the author would deal with the subject of the Shemitah. For those who might be a little hesitant as well, I hope to offer you some reassurances regarding the Biblical basis for the Shemitah, but first a brief summary of the book.
The Mystery of the Shemitah is basically a book about the Biblical Sabbath and Jubilee cycles and how they relate to socio-economic cycles in the context of a Biblical message of repentance. The author, Jonathan Cahn makes a pretty detailed case for his theory that financial and economic events of today may be influenced by these two ancient Biblical cycles. Like ripples in a pond or echoes in a canyon, one can't help but wonder if the 7 year Sabbath cycle and the 50 year Jubilee cycle still effect history today. Another way of looking at it is the famous quote by Mark Twain: "History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme".
Admittedly the author sticks to a more secular aspect of the Biblical cycles as they relate to America and world financial markets, but let me tell you why I think his underlying premise has some merit. Using 7 year Sabbath cycles as Mr. Cahn describes, and going back in Biblical time the Sabbath cycles do indeed mark important events:
*Yeshua (Jesus) was born on a Sabbath year
*Nehemiah and Ezra read the law in a Sabbath year
*Ezra when up to Jerusalem in a Sabbath year
*The 2nd Temple foundation was laid in a Sabbath year
*The 70 years captivity spoken about by Jeremiah ended in a Sabbath year
*The 1st Temple was destroyed in a Sabbath year
*Kind David died in a Sabbath year
*The Exodus took place in a Sabbath year
If you extend the same Sabbath cycles even further back in time (to Adam) using a reasonable rendering of the Old Testament chronology you find that:
*Joseph's 7 years of plenty & 7 years of famine fell during the Sabbath cycles
*Yahweh's covenant with Abram fell on a Sabbath year
*Enoch's birth and the year he was taken to "heaven" both fell on a Sabbath year
In my opinion the facts above show that Mr. Cahn's underlying premise has merit. Now, since this is intended to be a balanced book review I would like to give a few points where I find myself in respectful disagreement or in some way felt the book was lacking.
1. Mr. Cahn did not provide a Scriptural basis for his Sabbath and Jubilee cycles calculations. I think a premise so central to the book should be explained so that the reader can come to a reasonable understanding of the author's perspective. For instance his Sabbath year is one year different than my understanding of the chronology. It would be helpful to see how he arrived at his chronological basis so I could correct my own understanding if the facts make that necessary.
2. In my opinion Mr. Cahn misses a great opportunity to connect the Sabbath and Jubilee cycles to Yeshua, the true "spirit of prophecy".
On a more positive note I really appreciated Mr. Cahn explaining how the Jubilee and Sabbath cycles are synchronized. Using his explanation of a synchronized Jubilee and Sabbath cycle brings new understanding to the chronology of the Scripture.
Matthew 1 shows that Yeshua was the 41st generation from Abraham. Using Mr. Cahn's premise regarding the cycles being synchronized we find there are 41 Jubilee cycles between Abraham and Yeshua. Going even further back in time we find there were 41 Jubilee cycles from Adam to Abraham. Those of us alive today just happen to be living in the 41st Jubilee cycle from Yeshua. (41+41+41)
Mr. Cahn talked about the 70 years the land of Israel enjoyed it's Sabbath's during the 2nd temple captivity period. Amazingly those 70 years began in the 70th Jubilee.
As a final example of the beautiful symbolism inherent in such a premise we find a comparison in the Bible about the Messiah's return and "birth pangs". The typical human pregnancy lasts 40 weeks. Yeshua was seen of his disciples for 40 days before his ascension. Jerusalem was destroyed 40 years later. Today we are living in the 40th Jubilee cycle from the destruction of Jerusalem. (40 days > 40 yrs. > 40 Jubilees)
In summary, I think Mr. Cahn's book brings much needed attention to the wonderful subject of the Biblical Sabbath and Jubilee cycles. Even though I don't agree with all of his conclusions, I wholeheartedly agree with his message of repentance.
The Ninevites were given 40 days to repent and they repented from the king on down. Israel, during Yeshua's day, was given the "sign of Jonah" as a warning to repent. When they did not Jerusalem was destroyed 40 years later. Since that destruction it has been 40 Jubilees. Which example will todays generation follow?
Decent reflections throughout but based on a flawed, unbiblical understanding of America, March 23, 2012
By DerekF
This review is from: The Harbinger: The Ancient Mystery That Holds the Secret of America's Future (Paperback)
While this book has some decent reflections on OT prophesy and events and God's purposes behind both, it builds it's central message on a flawed, though apparently common, understanding of America. The author makes a comparison between the nation of Israel and the USA that has no basis biblically. The author says that there have been only two nations in the history of the world that have been established with a covenant between the nation and God. He then uses this reasoning to link an OT prophesy given to Israel with current day America. While the linking of the prophesies with current events is impressive, and surely we can learn something from these prophesies that applies to us today, there are some huge errors and dangerous implications if we make such a link between Israel and America.
First of all, Israel did not "choose" God. God chose Israel. So, any attempt to say that Israel and America are similar in that they both set out as nations that "chose" God falls flat. There is no evidence that God has a similar "choosing" of America. Sure, God has purposes for America in his overarching plan of redemption for the world, but America is not a "chosen" nation, whom God works with in elevated and special ways, different from other nations.
Secondly, such a comparison between pre-Christ Israel and current day America fails to rightly understand God's means of engaging and reaching the world. God chose Israel as his people, that he might reveal himself to them and reach the whole world through them. God chose to enter human history through a specific people at a specific time. He didn't only come for the Israelites but He came through them. Today, post-Christ, God's primary means of reaching and engaging the world is not through any nation or state. It's through his church, the universal, all nation encompassing body of believers. America is not his chosen means to spread his salvation and love to the world. The church is.
Such misunderstanding seems to be quite widespread in America and leads me to believe that it has at its root an idolatry of a certain perception of America. "America is a Christian nation and until we get back to these roots there is no hope for our country." False. Hope does not come from our government, from our country being based on Christian ideals, or from having a godly president (though none of these are bad things). Hope comes from God and as the church spreads His gospel to the world. Don't put your hope in our country or government aligning to certain ideals or us getting back to being a more "christian" nation. This is idolatry. Seek the good of our country for sure, but don't make our country the greatest good. God is our greatest good and are only hope.
America is not the current day Israel, God's chosen people. America is not the hope of the world. God is. The church is his means of spreading that hope.
Posted on Sep 30, 2014 10:14:19 AM PDT
Joshua Bell says:
Great Review. Thanks for sharing!
To Rafael: I'm not going to get into the Cahn book; I'll leave that to others. If you want to know what the hand gesture is that the pastor Cahn is making it is the blessing given by the Jewish priest congregants to the congregations they are a part of. His last name of Cahn is an indication he's of priestly (Cohen) descent, a descendent of Aaron. This is the gesture that Jewish priests have made for thousands of years when blessing the people. I haven't gone to the website you referenced, but if they say this is a Satanic symbol they are absolutely wrong. Anyone can say anything and when it comes to Jews the most outlandish things are said. Also, the Zohar is not "new age"; it is very old. Your assertion that rabbis who study the Kabbalah believe they have powers greater than God is truly a slander. No rabbi would ever believe such a thing. Additionally, the Kabbalah is not a book. Kabbalah is the term used to describe the Jewish mystical tradition.
http://www.chabad.org/kabbalah/article_cdo/aid/380617/jewish/Kabbalah-A-Brief-Definition.htm
SIDEBAR & EXPLANATION: The reviewer identifying himself as “Y” is replying to an earlier post by the reviewer calling himself RAFAEL who I also replied to. JB
You are incorrect in your typically goyish notion that keeping Torah is no longer necessary.
Consider a highway. There are myriad rules for driving on it. Suppose someone offered to pay any and all your penalties for failure to 100% comply with those laws. You'd effectively no longer be subject yourself to the laws since someone else being subject to your punishments for you. But you'd still need to obey the rules to avoid wrecks and the aftermath that follows. The Law is good. Yeshua is the Law made flesh. To follow Yeshua is, guess what, to follow the Law. The New Testament even states, he who loves his brother as he ought keeps the Law.
We keep Torah, not in order to be saved, but because we are being saved.
Dear Y,
You observation is absolutely correct, the Messiah Yeshua is the heart of God's righteousness. The Torah was that righteousness codified and made into Law for the children of Israel as they became the nation of Israel, and were about to enter and take their possession of the land that was promised four hundred thirty years before the Torah was given at Sinai.
Everything pertaining to Ha Shem's plan of redemption for Am Yisrael (the people of Israel) and the restoration and right of return - whether Messianic or non-Messianic is the birthright of every Jew and not to be prohibited by anyone, be they Jew or Goy. Messiah is the Living Torah who took upon Himself the wrath of G-d for the sins of Am Yisrael and the Goyim (the people of Israel and the nations).
And having done this, Yehudim and Goyim – Jew and Gentile alike – can in full repentance, recognizing their transgression of the commandment, can make T'shuvah (return and make peace with Ha Shem) and be reconciled with the Living Holy One of Israel.
If he chooses to live a Torah Lifestyle, he can, but with the understanding that he is not saved by the Law, he is not justified by the Law, he is not sanctified by the Law, nor is he made righteous by the works of the Law, nor by a thousand mitzvot (good deeds); but only Messiah makes us righteous, because He imputes upon us His righteousness, and only Messiah can sanctify and make perfect a person through the eternal Ruach Ha Kodesh (the Holy Spirit), and everything pertaining to G-d, because He is Adonai Tsidkeinu – the Lord our Righteousness. Shabbat
Shalom
Jose J. Bernal
Biblical Instructor
Beth Israel Arise & Shine Academy
11 Railroad Avenue
Wayne, New Jersey
Harry G. says:
This assumes there is a God. Many do not. In fact, the world would undoubtedly be happier and more peaceful place were there more atheists.
Harry,
Even the many whom you claim assume there is no god, believe in something. The denial of God is a belief in itself, and by nature, is designed by the human intellect that simply wishes to have a belief in something, but not God, because to have a believe in God requires that one live by a moral code attributed to Him. The “atheist” does not wish to live by this moral code, so He denies the existence of its Author. It is a convenient way out, but when the day of reckoning arrives, the most hardened “atheist” soon discovers for himself the reality of what he had spent so much time and effort to convince others and himself does not exist. There are no “atheists” on the other side, just a lot of very surprised people, and as far as those calling themselves “atheists” here, well, that’s debatable. Thank you.
Jose J. Bernal
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Jose J. Bernal says:
PART ONE OF THE ONGOING DISCUSSION ON THE MYSTERY OF THE SHEMITAH
A PRAYER
Eternal Father, we come before You as we begin to read the following examinations, and humbly ask that all misconceptions, all misunderstandings, all human error and false intuition be roundly and biblically addressed, as we lay aside ourselves and ask that You impart to us all an understanding of these things we discuss here and beyond this report, and please help us – everyone of us – to remember that we see in part, and know in part, but that You alone see and know all things from their end to their beginning as they ought to be seen and known. We look to You then, to open the eyes of our hearts and our understanding, and we humbly ask that You bring us to a knowledge of Yourself greater than what we have come to know thus far, so that we can continue growing in Your grace and truth, and speak to one another this truth in love. We ask this in the precious name of the Lord Jesus the Messiah, amen.
MY INVOLVEMENT IN THIS DISCUSSION AND PRIOR TO THIS, THE CONTROVERSY SURROUNDING THE HARBINGER
“O LORD, who shall sojourn in your tent? Who shall dwell on your holy hill?
He who walks blamelessly and does what is right and speaks truth in his heart; who does not slander with his tongue and does no evil to his neighbor, nor takes up a reproach against his friend; in whose eyes a vile person is despised, but who honors those who fear the LORD; who swears to his own hurt and does not change; who does not put out his money at interest and does not take a bribe against the innocent. He who does these things shall never be moved.”
(Psalms 15:1–5)
Additional Psalms
Psalms 48:1–14, Psalms 4:1–8
I was planning and had desired to end my discussions addressing the criticisms against The Harbinger and move on to other projects, and had prepared to do so after the publication of my book The Truth About The Harbinger on October 1st of 2013, and will Lord willing after I have posted this commentary, move on.
I have been writing in response to critics of The Harbinger since 2013. There are a myriad of articles also that I’ve addressed, some others I have yet to address, much of these I have already addressed and my articles can be accessed at my website, The Pepster’s Post: A Voice in Cyberspace.
I have had the privilege and the joy to have what has been since Pastor and Messianic Rabbi Jonathan Cahn first preached his first The Harbinger message, a front row seat to the teachings and messages that Pastor Cahn has given over a ten year period which comprise the message of The Harbinger, and I know these messages very well. What’s more, I also have read The Harbinger for myself several times, and I know Pastor Cahn personally. None of The Harbinger’s critics can make this claim, and those who wrote their polemic against the book, cannot make any of these claims.
It is my close and intimate knowledge of the topic, the one who has taught it for ten years in various messages which eventually became what the book contains, and know personally firsthand all of the aspects of this topic that needs to be known in order to examine it in the most thorough and biblical manner possible that has enabled me to write The Truth About The Harbinger and get it published October 1st of 2013. This book is available here on Amazon.com, and I highly recommend everyone get themselves a copy if they have questions about any of Rabbi Cahn’s books.
As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another. (Proverbs 27:17). The criticisms leveled at Rabbi Cahn and his book has provided us with a unique opportunity to fully examine everything possible according to the Scriptures, to verify both the efficacy of the message of The Harbinger and its particulars to the light of God’s Word, while we address man’s contentions with it by fully vetting the message it contains versus what its critics claim it contains. In doing this, we understand the purpose of such divisions these arguments pose to the body, and while we lament them, we also so God’s purpose in this, as Paul does when he writes in the Holy Spirit the following. I quote:
But if one is inclined to be contentious, we have no other practice, nor have the churches of God. But in giving this instruction, I do not praise you, because you come together not for the better but for the worse. For, in the first place, when you come together as a church, I hear that divisions exist among you; and in part I believe it. For there must also be factions among you, so that those who are approved may become evident among you.
(1Corinthians 11:16-19)
And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.
(Romans 8:28)
I believe that God more than fully supplies what is necessary to validate something that is His by allowing critics of it to have their say, and then raising His servants to defend it biblically. In the case of The Harbinger, He has used the critics to compel His people to get their noses back in their Bibles to verify the content of this incredible New York Times bestseller.
The critics of The Harbinger have given all of us a golden opportunity to closely examine the Scriptural, historical, and public records available to us, and the arguments they present, so that we may biblically arrive at a definitive conclusion about this topic and address its clarion call to all of God’s people and the leaders of this nation, and its citizens to know the degenerate state we are in, seek God, and call upon the name of Jesus Christ in full personal repentance individually and then collectively as a nation. This is something all Jews and Gentiles – by they Christians – Jewish Messianics, Evangelicals, and all people of faith can agree with and do, and we must do it sincerely and fervently to avert disaster.
The critics of The Harbinger, who are now stirring again because of Pastor and Messianic Rabbi Jonathan Cahn's new bestseller, The Mystery of the Shemitah, needed to be answered and addressed biblically. To that task in the grace of God I applied myself with my book, and I host a website called the Pepster’s Post: A Voice in Cyberspace, where you and the readers here will find additional material on The Harbinger and its critics, as well as on other topics, such as the current state of affairs.
Because I know Rabbi Cahn personally; I know his faith, I know his beliefs, I know his eschatology, and I know his teachings, and I know specifically his teachings on The Harbinger upon which his book is based, and have read and studied all of the writings of his critics; I felt compelled to write The Truth About The Harbinger, and am at work on another work on the same topic, picking up where The Truth About The Harbinger left off; but delving deeper into the critics' flawed hermeneutics and misreading of Rabbi Cahn's book.
Every age has had mockers and revilers of God's servants coming from within the religious community, even from within the Church itself. Some of the Apostle Paul’s most vehement opponents were former colleagues of his who had become believers, but held a very different view of Law and grace than he, and they did to him what these critics of Jonathan Cahn have done and continue doing to him.
Every age has its critics. The prophets of Israel had theirs. Christ had His, and so did the Apostles. Every one of them, except the Apostle John, were martyred for their faith. Jonathan Cahn has his. Unlike his critics, Rabbi Cahn does not go about spending his days traveling or going on the radio in different parts of the country to vilify other Christians over theological disagreements he may have with them. But many lies and mischaracterizations have been perpetrated against Rabbi Cahn whom I’ve known for over ten years by a small religious group within the Church.
Therefore it is up to people who know Rabbi Cahn personally, who know his teachings in and out, and who know how to biblically discern by the Holy Spirit applied to God's Word and a knowledge from Him; to defend the truth against those who would bear false witness against it. I have stepped up, because I could not remain silent when I beheld, as I behold even now, the same small group of critics create clever argumentations, but argumentations lacking any real biblical understanding, repeatedly commit the same egregious errors and misreading that they did of, as they do now with The Mystery of the Shemitah.
I will keep as much as is possible to my comments only to what these critics write here, because I am compelled to do so for the sake of the body of Christ and for the Gospel, because we do not have much time, and there are much too many things occurring, and yet to occur which Evangelical Christians must prepare for before the r eturn of Jesus Christ. It is for their sakes that I respond here. The body of Christ must prepare itself and always be vigilant and ready for the Messiah’s return, because He is coming at an hour that no one knows.
I dare not stand idly by and allow any end time mocker from inside or outside the Church, to revile without cause a dedicated fellow bond-servant whom I know personally, and bear witness before God who will require it of me. Therefore here, I will endeavor to remain focused on the topic, and present a biblical corrective by the grace of God, as I have done with my book, The Truth About The Harbinger. I dare not do any less. No. Not at this hour, and not in the face of such horrendous and misleading claims. There is nothing more that I abhor than a malicious false witness, especially about someone I personally know.
Jose J. Bernal
Biblical Instructor
Beth Israel Arise & Shine Academy
11 Railroad Avenue
Wayne, New Jersey
Your post: Nov 7, 2014 6:33:14 AM PST
Last edited by you 17 minutes ago
Jose J. Bernal says:
A BRIEF EXPLANATION ABOUT THE SHEMITAH BEFORE WE BEGIN
In the Hebrew Bible, the Shemitah (which is pronounced, SHEMEE-tah) – meaning Sabbath year, is the seventh year of the seven year agricultural cycle according to that which is commanded by in the Law of Moses specifically for the land of Israel. Every seven years, the land was not to be tilled, but was to remain untilled and fallow until the following year. This gave the land time to rest and replenish itself. Modern Agricultural Science bears this out. What’s more, at the end of every seven year cycle, all debts were wiped clean, all credit erased, and all slaves were given their freedom. The Shemitah was to be a blessing for Israel, but because both houses – that is both the northern kingdom of Israel and the southern kingdom of Judah did not follow this Law, but violated it when both kingdoms did not keep their covenant with God (the Mosaic Covenant) but broke the Mosaic Law, and judgment came and the Shemitah was imposed on them by God during both their exiles by force. Like other judgments of God as embodied in the Law, the same pattern recurs throughout history, both with Israel and the nations. We are now seeing it in our day, and will continue to see it as biblical prophecy is being fulfilled in our day and the return of Jesus the Messiah approaches.
This is the biblical pattern we see throughout the Scriptures from Genesis to Revelation, the only difference is that the codified Law given by God at Sinai is the embodiment of the types and standards God requires of all nations with regards to sin and judgment with the cross at the epicenter of human history, even predating it before the foundation of the world was laid.
CLAIM: MR. BERNAL DEFENDS THE INDEFENSIBLE – Mr. Bernal completely misses the point to defend the indefensible.
FACT: There is nothing indefensible in the truth. Fact is, there is much that can be discussed here and in many other forums and web pages without resorting to hyperbole and charged language, or getting personal. We’re dealing facts, not personalities or egos, just facts and what the Scriptures say about them. The use of emotionally charged language does not add to any discussion, and is unnecessary from anyone.
These are matters of fact, and ought to be discussed accordingly. For this reason I wrote my book, titled The Truth About The Harbinger in order to lift the veil the critic has tried to place over the topic of Rabbi Cahn’s first New York Times bestseller and set the record straight about what he wrote and about the author who was needlessly attacked then as he is now.
Your post: Nov 7, 2014 6:35:29 AM PST
Jose J. Bernal says:
WHAT THIS CRITIC WRITES HERE IS CLASSIC HYPER-DISPENSATIONALISM, AN EXTREME EXPRESSION OF DISPENSATIONAL THEOLOGY
There is a very good reason why the critic is so opposed to Pastor and Messianic Rabbi Jonathan Cahn’s bestsellers, and has much more to do with the reasons than those he cites here and whenever the opportunity arises for him to say anything against this author, this book, and his previous New York Times bestseller, The Harbinger. The two fundamental reasons are clearly as will be revealed, the extremes of Hyper-Dispensationalism and Cessationist Theology, an explosive and toxic mixture to anyone’s theology. These two have more to do with the critic’s reasons than any other as we shall see in our examination here.
CLAIM: THE SHEMITAH IS PART OF THE LAW AND THE LAW HAS NO RELEVANCE OUTSIDE OF ISRAEL – The Shemitah was a part of the Law in a way that was identical to the sacrificial system - and they are tied together because they are linked to the Feasts of the Lord through the calendar He put into place. The sacrificial system, the feasts of the Lord and the Sabbaths were exclusively given to Israel as part of their worship of the One true God. As such they were not given to any other nation - and no other nation could approach God on their own by observing these things - they had to come and be joined to the nation of Israel. Of course this doesn't mean we can't learn many things from them and apply the principles they contain.
FACT: ABSOLUTELY NOT TRUE. The two claims made by the critic above is nothing but a logical fallacy of composition built on the flimsy foundation of a Hyper-Dispensationalist opinion. A fallacy of composition arises when one erroneously attributes a property of some part of a thing to the thing as a whole. In the case of the Shemitah, the critic tries to make certain elements in the Law apply to the Shemitah which the Law does not present. Let’s examine these fallacies one by one and compare them to what God’s Word actually says.
FIRST FALLACY: The argument the critic presents before us is that – in his words – “The Shemitah was a part of the Law in a way that was identical to the sacrificial system” – That is the first problem. The Shemitah was part of the Law inasmuch as it is within the legal code of the Law embodied and recorded in the passage of Deuteronomy 15:1-18 - and they are tied together because they are linked to the Feasts of the Lord through the calendar He put into place.” That is the first logical fallacy of composition.
SECOND FALLACY: The critic attempts to say above that because the Shemitah is contained within the Pentateuch (the Five Books of Moses), it is part of the Law, and the Law does not apply to other nations, therefore the Shemitah does not apply to other nations. Sound’s plausible on its surface, except until one reads the writings of the New Testament and find that there are parts of the Law which under the New Covenant exist, but not under the Law of Moses, but under the Law of Messiah, or as most Bibles phrase it, “the Law of Christ.” (1 Corinthians 9:21, Galatians 6:2)
And there are parts of the Law fundamental to the cross and vice a versa, including the measurements of the tabernacle, the holy utensils used, the order of service, the east-west orientation of the tabernacle itself rather than north-south, the different sacrifices, the priesthood, everything mirrors heaven according to the writer to the Letter to the Hebrews. What this critic is promoting here is nothing but the teachings of Hyper-Dispensationalist Theology. This is an extreme expression of John Marcus Darby’s system developed in the 19th century. It has gained a large adherence within Evangelical Christianity, but the extreme expressions of it are what is causing problems for the body of Christ.
THIRD FALLACY: Next, the critic attaches to the fallacy of composition he makes above an additional one, attaching the Shemitah to the sacrificial system. His logic follows that because it was contained in the Law of Moses, the Shemitah was part of the sacrificial system, I quote; “The sacrificial system, the feasts of the Lord and the Sabbaths were exclusively given to Israel as part of their worship of the One true God. As such they were not given to any other nation - and no other nation could approach God on their own by observing these things - they had to come and be joined to the nation of Israel.” Here the critic confuses the sacrificial system which indeed was a part of the worship of God with the civic and agricultural laws contained with the Law of Moses which handled interpersonal transactions between Israelites and their neighbors.
FOURTH FALLACY: The critic begins with a logical composition fallacy and then adds to it an assumption that blurs between the sacrificial system and the civic and agricultural laws contained within the Torah. Then he uses this to promote the Hyper-Dispensational belief that because these were contained in the Law of Moses, and the Law of Moses was strictly given to Israel as part of the Mosaic Covenant, Gentiles and the nations they inhabit are not affected by these.
FIFTH FALLACY: Arguing that because the Shemitah is part of the Law and by connecting it to the sacrificial system; the critic argues that none of these are of any relevance for the Gentile and the nations apart from Israel today because they were part of the Law and given to Israel; not realizing that making such a claim, he makes the sacrifice of the Messiah null and void for nations outside of Israel, since the New Covenant (by this same reasoning if employed) was only made to the house of Israel and the house of Judah respectively (Jeremiah 31:31, Hebrews 8:8), not with the nations.
FACT: This Hyper-Dispensational argument here to help illustrate just how dangerous this theology is, because if carried to its conclusion, the cross, which embodies all of the sacrifices contained within the Law, would be inapplicable to the nations, because the sacrifices are part of the Law, form part of the Hebrew system of worship, was only and exclusively given to the people of Israel and to no other nation, and part of something that only a few kings and rulers outside of the commonwealth of Israel – from among the Gentiles, have ever taken part in.
You see how ludicrous and dangerously unbiblical Hyper-Dispensationalism is and how it misuses Dispensational Theology, a legitimate tool for studying Biblical History? Yet in making distinctions between Jews and Gentiles that God’s Word since the cross no longer makes, and only made it when Israel was established as a nation at Sinai and given its Law that would help it stand apart from other nations, the critic reestablishes within his mind a dichotomy that no longer applies and can be said never really did except for intermarriages and the true biblical worship of God within the Mosaic Covenant, because God’s Word is clear, where Paul writes in the Holy Spirit the following truth about Jews and Gentiles and God’s grace. I quote:
For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, abounding in riches for all who call on Him; for “Whoever will call on the name of the Lord will be saved.”
(Romans 10:12-13)
And:
Or is God the God of Jews only? Is He not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also, since indeed God who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith is one.
(Romans 3:29-30)
And herein is the context of what the fulfillment of the Law in Christ means for us, not what the critic attempts to redefine it as, God’s Word is very clear. I quote:
Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death. For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh, so that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.
(Romans 8:1-4)
Requirement of what Law, if indeed the Law is strictly for Observant Jews of the Law, and strictly for the people and nation of Israel? The Law of Moses, which Paul is clear in ALL of his writings not to make a distinction of, except to showcase God’s magnificent work of redemption through the illustration and legal, sacrificial, sacerdotal, ceremonial, and complete application of these to the cross, applying it not only to Israel and the Jewish people, but to Gentiles and the nations of the earth from which they hail. For centuries, this has been a foundational belief and hallmark of our Christian Faith. It is being attacked and questioned wholesale by these extreme Hyper-Dispensational opinions by, of all people, none other than a member of our own faith. But again, this is what happens when anyone unhinges themselves from the clear teachings of the Bible and replaces these with extreme opinions and points of view that God’s Word does not teach. It is dangerous.
Your post: Nov 7, 2014 6:36:09 AM PST
Jose J. Bernal says:
CLAIM: HYPER-DISPENSATIONALISM –The charge of hyper-dispensationalism is the type of rhetoric that can be expected by this commenter.
FACT: What the critic writes here is also a totally unnecessary and unprovoked personal slight of his against me, and deserves no response, just an identifying marker that it is what it is. We’ve seen that rather than engage it and prove that he is not a Hyper-Dispensationalist, the critic would prefer to divert attention away from the obvious and redirect it instead against me as he does here. The critic’s own statements bear witness to the fact he is ascribing and promoting Hyper-Dispensationalist doctrine when examined and deconstructed biblically as we do here.
FACT: Now about the views of Hyper-Dispensationalists and what they teach; on the website GotQuestions?.com, we read the following of this dangerous false doctrine. I quote:
“One of the inherent dangers of dispensationalism is that it can lead one to overly divide the Bible and see divisions and discontinuity where there shouldn’t be any. This is exactly what the ultra-dispensationalist does. Therefore, ultra- or hyper-dispensationalism would be a teaching that takes the basic tenets of dispensationalism to the very extreme, resulting in unbiblical and often heretical teaching and doctrine.”
CLAIM: THE SHEMITAH IS PART OF THE SACRIFICIAL SYSTEM WORSHIP, NOT THE CHURCH OR THE NATIONS –This has nothing to do with dispensationalism at all, in any form. If the nations or the church were to employ the sacrificial system as part of their worship - then they would also have to observe the Shemitah - and vice versa - but they don't. What lessons can we learn from the Law that is applicable today? God must be approached on his terms. That he must be worshiped exclusively. That sin requires sacrifice. That blessing requires obedience. And on and on.
FACT: The critic repeats the same logical composition fallacy he commits above; this time to claim that his claim is not Hyper-Dispensationalism. Hyper-Dispensationalism an extreme offshoot of mainstream Dispensationalism that sets theological dichotomies and divisions in the Bible that do not exist by using logical fallacies in order to present these as biblical doctrine. There are various expressions of Hyper-Dispensational Theology. The one the critic presents here is such an expression of this extreme version of Dispensationalism. It is at variance with the writings of the New Testament, which explicitly tell us in no uncertain ways that what was written before in the entirety of the Hebrew Bible was written for our instruction.
For whatever was written in earlier times was written for our instruction, so that through perseverance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.
(Romans 4:22-25, 15:4)
Indeed, Paul argues from the Law of Moses for the rights of predominantly Gentile Christian ministers to be compensated for their work. I quote:
My defense to those who examine me is this: Do we not have a right to eat and drink? Do we not have a right to take along a believing wife, even as the rest of the apostles and the brothers of the Lord and Cephas? Or do only Barnabas and I not have a right to refrain from working? Who at any time serves as a soldier at his own expense? Who plants a vineyard and does not eat the fruit of it? Or who tends a flock and does not use the milk of the flock?
I am not speaking these things according to human judgment, am I? Or does not the Law also say these things? For it is written in the Law of Moses, “You shall not muzzle the ox while he is threshing.” God is not concerned about oxen, is He? Or is He speaking altogether for our sake? Yes, for our sake it was written, because the plowman ought to plow in hope, and the thresher to thresh in hope of sharing the crops. If we sowed spiritual things in you, is it too much if we reap material things from you? If others share the right over you, do we not more? Nevertheless, we did not use this right, but we endure all things so that we will cause no hindrance to the gospel of Christ. Do you not know that those who perform sacred services eat the food of the temple, and those who attend regularly to the altar have their share from the altar? So also the Lord directed those who proclaim the gospel to get their living from the gospel.
(1Corinthians 9:3-14)
FACT: In 1 Corinthians 9:9, the Apostle Paul cites Deuteronomy 25:4 applying a fortiori argument known in Judaism as Kal Va-Chomer - using the SOFTER argument cited from the Law of Moses regarding of all things, agriculture and the use of cattle - such as the ox - an actual injunction against muzzling the ox while it is treading, to buttress his STRONGER legal argument when addressing the payment of Christian service for ministers. If the Law were as insignificant to the nations as Hyper-Dispensationalists like this critic say it is, Paul would not have employed it to make his argument, because it would have absolutely no application other than its direct literal cultural, historical, and agricultural setting.
Considering the treatment Rabbi Cahn has received from this critic for his research into how the Shemitah has affected this country the last 140 years; can anyone imagine how he would treat the Apostle Paul for citing an obscure agricultural law within the Law of Moses – a law that was exclusively given only to the nation of Israel as part of the Mosaic Covenant, now replaced by the New Covenant – using the argument he puts forward throughout his critique of the author’s book? He would criticize him for his use of the Law of Moses, for applying an agricultural law addressing cattle, to apply it to address a church matter that dealt with of all things, a minister’s wages. We know how it would play, because we read it here.
For this reason in his Second Letter to Timothy, as Paul awaited execution in prison, he wrote in reference to the Hebrew Bible in its totality:
All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.
(2Timothy 3:16-17)
Indeed the writer to The Letter to the Hebrews is clear in pointing out from the Torah the sin of the Israelites that the writer warns the Church is not to follow, but to avoid entirely. The sin of unbelief or disbelieving God, was treated severely; for of the generation that left Egypt only Joshua and Caleb and the descendants of that generation entered the promise land. No even Moses entered, but saw it from afar. The writer of The Letter to the Hebrews cites this example from the Hebrew Bible about Israel and uses it to teach the Church a valuable lesson. I quote:
Therefore, holy brethren, partakers of a heavenly calling, consider Jesus, the Apostle and High Priest of our confession; He was faithful to Him who appointed Him, as Moses also was in all His house. For He has been counted worthy of more glory than Moses, by just so much as the builder of the house has more honor than the house. For every house is built by someone, but the builder of all things is God. Now Moses was faithful in all His house as a servant, for a testimony of those things which were to be spoken later; but Messiah was faithful as a Son over His house—whose house we are, if we hold fast our confidence and the boast of our hope firm until the end.
Therefore, just as the Holy Spirit says,
“Today if you hear His voice,
Do not harden your hearts as when they provoked Me,
As in the day of trial in the wilderness,
Where your fathers tried Me by testing Me,
And saw My works for forty years.
“Therefore I was angry with this generation,
And said, ‘They always go astray in their heart,
And they did not know My ways’;
As I swore in My wrath,
‘They shall not enter My rest.’”
Take care, brethren, that there not be in any one of you an evil, unbelieving heart that falls away from the living God. But encourage one another day after day, as long as it is still called “Today,” so that none of you will be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. For we have become partakers of Christ, if we hold fast the beginning of our assurance firm until the end, while it is said,
“Today if you hear His voice,
Do not harden your hearts, as when they provoked Me.”
For who provoked Him when they had heard? Indeed, did not all those who came out of Egypt led by Moses? And with whom was He angry for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness? And to whom did He swear that they would not enter His rest, but to those who were disobedient? So we see that they were not able to enter because of unbelief.
(Hebrews 3:1-19)
What example did the writer of the Letter to the Hebrews use to warn us in order for us to avoid straying from the truth by falling into the disbelief of some and the unbelief of others? Writing in the Holy Spirit he used the example of the nation of Israel, and he took it example from the narrative of the Israelite’s breach of the Law which tells for posterity the wanderings and struggles of God’s people as they officially became a nation, received its national Constitution from its God and entered its land to take possession of it according the promises given to their ancestors in another covenant that preceded the bilateral and conditional Mosaic Covenant – the unilateral and unconditional Abrahamic Covenant. He used the example of the Israelites’ breaking the Law and applied the example to his readers who were believing members of the Church, not Jewish unbelievers. And among these were many God-fearing Gentiles, who through faith in the Jewish Messiah and the God of Israel, had gone from being Proselytes of the Gate to full-fledged members of God’s covenant community among the remnant from among God’s people and the nations – Yehidim and Goyim together – one in Messiah.
Your post: Nov 7, 2014 6:51:17 AM PST
Jose J. Bernal says:
HYPER-DISPENSATIONALISM IS AT VARIANCE WITH EVERY NEW TESTAMENT WRITER
Were we to use the same theological reasoning the critic uses and apply it to the writings of the New Testament, we’d be at variance with every single writer in it, because the argument would always revert to “that was only for Israel, this is now for us,” or in the words of the critic which he employs further on, “The revelation and commandments concerning the Sabbath years were given specifically and exclusively to the nation of Israel. They were the recipients of the revelation given to the author who is Moses.” I am not arguing here against the fact that God gave His Law to Israel through Moses. Where I digress is the unbiblical Hyper-Dispensational notion that it does not apply in any way outside of the historical and cultural environment in which it was given, because the New Testament does not in any place make that distinction between Jews and Gentiles, between Israel and the nations. None of the writers of the New Testament, in any place, make that erroneous theological error applied by this critic to the Shemitah Year. It is just not in the Scriptures. What the critic attempts to present as fact does not exist, and all one has to do is read the writings of the New Testament to see how its writers interpreted the Hebrew Bible and what it taught under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.
Now it is understood by this writer that the critic’s views are part of a branch of Dispensational Theology that has unhinged its anchor from the clear teachings of the Bible and replaced them with a modern invention built upon a fundamental misunderstand the role of the Law plays as well as a fundamental misunderstanding and misreading of the clear doctrine of righteousness and what constitutes it and true biblical sanctification, which has led to rather erroneous views of these based upon ironically works-based holiness and righteousness, even though the critic would foreswear that he does not promote this. He and they do, because they judge other Christians not by their profession of faith the its fruits, but by what they believe – what their doctrine is. If the doctrine is at variance with theirs, instantly they jump the gun, and quickly go public with their disagreements.
But they do not leave those disagreements there, citing them as disagreements; rather, they equate them with false doctrine and heresy. Thus, you will read this critic, and his colleagues, speak precisely in the same manner pertaining to these things. Rather than privately contact the person with they disagree, because the nature of their ministry is to “expose false doctrine” – a truly noble cause on its surface, but hiding a very dark and sinister purpose behind it – (I’ll get into that in a minute) they go pall mall right into open public criticism, justified as one of them says, because the work is a published work, therefore “all bets are off.” Well, that may be good practice in the world, but it is not in the Church of God, where God teaches clearly from His Word that this is not the manner in which Christians handle their differences, irrespective of what they may be. In future postings, I will make evident here how destructive and dangerous the doctrine of Hyper-Dispensationalism is to holiness, sanctification, Christian interaction and fellowship, even to salvation itself. This is being passed here is a plausible set of belief. It is not. It is not biblical, it is not taught in the New Testament, because the views are nothing more than the confusion of interpretations between Law and Grace, and what truly constitutes the role of the Law to our faith – it is not what this critic says it is – but much more than he has ever anticipated. Lord willing, we will delve into this, because in it is what Paul calls the mystery of righteousness in Christ, as well as the mystery of sin. The discussion dovetails The Mystery of The Shemitah, because the critic is attempting to apply a Hyper-Dispensational Fallacy to the reality of God’s redemptive purpose and is moving all over the theological map finding what he can to justify it.
Your post: Nov 7, 2014 8:07:05 AM PST
Jose J. Bernal says:
HYPER-DISPENSATIONAL FALLACY LEADS TO MORE EXTREME THEOLOGICAL EXPRESSIONS
Although the critic and his colleagues espouse Hyper-Dispensational Theology in various forms, one thing they do not agree with is the extreme form of this theology which a small but growing group of Hyper-Dispensationalists promote, and that is the one that is known as Dual Covenant Theology. Dual Covenant Theology teaches that since Israel was given the Law of Moses, it is the Law of Moses (when followed by Observant Jews) that saves Jews apart from the need for them to be evangelized and come to faith in Yeshua as Messiah. This wholly unbiblical and untrue.
The fallacy taught in Dual Covenant Theology purports that Gentiles need Jesus and Jews don’t, because Gentiles do not have the Law and Jews do. This is at variance with Scriptures of course, because the New Covenant established by the Messiah is one for both houses of Israel, but now Messiah Himself – following His resurrection – has given His people, Israel, the Great Commission to go to the nations. In this covenant, everyone will die for his own iniquity (Jeremiah 31:30a). I quote:
“But everyone will die for his own iniquity; each man who eats the sour grapes, his teeth will be set on edge.
“Behold, days are coming,” declares the Lord, “when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not like the covenant which I made with their fathers in the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, although I was a husband to them,” declares the Lord. “But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days,” declares the Lord, “I will put My law within them and on their heart I will write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. They will not teach again, each man his neighbor and each man his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they will all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them,” declares the Lord, “for I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.”
(Jeremiah 31:30-34)
There are some distinct characteristics about this New Covenant that sets apart from the Mosaic Covenant, which the prophet accuses both houses of Israel broke, and they are the following characteristics.
Your post: Nov 7, 2014 8:10:10 AM PST
Jose J. Bernal says:
WHO DID GOD ESTABLISH HIS NEW COVENANT WITH? WITH THE NATIONS?
God establishes the New Covenant with the house of Israel (the people of the northern kingdom who were exiled to the east by the Assyrians), and the house of Judah (the people of the southern kingdom who were exiled to Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar and later returned to the land by the Medo-Persians. The people of the divided kingdoms have been scattered for two thousand years from the land, but have since returned to it in the last days in the form of the modern migration of Jewish people from every nation they were scattered to, to the land promised to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and the historic date marker of the founding of State of Israel on May 14, 1948.)
“…with the house of Israel after those days” denotes both the last days and it denotes the united people of a new and resurrected Israel, the days after the long and final exile of the Jewish people from their land. ““I will put My law within them and on their heart I will write it,” denotes the change in the Law from Letter to a New and Living Way at the cross, the writer to the Letter to the Hebrews attests:
Therefore, brethren, since we have confidence to enter the holy place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which He inaugurated for us through the veil, that is, His flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.
(Hebrews 10:19-22)
Such a Law was changed (Hebrews 7:12), with its requirements of expiation based upon its sacerdotal, sacrificial and ceremonial system fully fulfilled by the Messiah’s atonement for sin (Isaiah 53:6, 8, 10-12), so that it could be transformed into the Perfect Law of Liberty (James 1:25) and come and live inside every believer in “a new and living way” (Hebrews 10:19-20), not on the basis of a law of physical requirement, but according to the power of an indestructible life, just as the Scripture says (Hebrews 7:16). This has been made possible by the resurrection of the Messiah, because it is His life that has come to live inside every believer who has placed his faith in His completed work at the cross of their salvation.
This is why the Scripture says He who was delivered over because of our transgressions, and was raised because of our justification. (Romans 4:25) By dying in our place as God’s sin offering, and resurrecting from the dead, He furnished conclusive proof that not only did He end sin’s power over us, but by overcoming the grave itself, He furnished conclusive proof that once and for all time, Christ put an end to its most glaring byproduct and result – death and the grave. With this He ended the power of spiritual/psychological/emotional/physical death – no longer could be imputed upon the one who put themselves under His cross. Thus, because of having died to the Law – that is with regards to the power of sin over a person through the commandment – with regards to righteousness, sanctification and favor with God for salvation, these no longer apply, because a person is dead to sin and the law, and made alive (born again) in Christ by the power of His resurrection, and imputed with Christ’s righteousness, and counted righteous by Him and in Him. Paul could then write confidently seeing the dichotomy between the righteousness imputed to him which inhabits his mind and spirit, and draw a distinction between this and the continual war waged by sin in the body he still inhabits; yet now even while inhabiting it, he is freed from it (as far as standing with God is concerned) to serve God unencumbered by its condemnation, because of the complete work of the Messiah. Many who did not understand this (most people, even Christians don’t) would think, as they did in Paul’s day, that this was a license to sin. They wrote then, I quote:
What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase? May it never be! How shall we who died to sin still live in it? Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death? Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin; for he who has died is freed from sin.
(Romans 6:1-6)
True new birth in Christ is of the spirit, it is not joining a church, a kingdom hall, a synagogue, or a fraternity fellowship; it is an act of human will recognizing through the Holy Spirit’s impartation of insight, the total depravity one find’s oneself in apart from God, and accepting the only way to reconciliation with Him that He has provided on our behalf – through the sacrifice of His Son – a Sacrifice that predates all covenants – and yet forms the heart of the Law and its sacrificial system, which legally bears witness to it.
The Law does not save, but it bears witness through is sacrificial system of God’s offering for sin. Remove the Law as a reference, and remove its legal witness of Christ, you remove the only witness apart from the Prophets regarding the significance and power of what God has wrought on our behalf through the death of His Son, the Lord Jesus the Messiah of Israel and Savior of mankind. We have been immersed in His death, and have been resurrected in Him to a new life based on His holiness imputed to us, not our efforts, and this is what Paul writes about with regards to the Law, not how it has been misinterpreted by some. Thus Paul can write:
Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, is never to die again; death no longer is master over Him. For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. Even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.
Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its lusts, and do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. For sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law but under grace.
(Romans 6:8-14)
This is what Paul means when he writes that we are not under Law but under grace. Under Law without Christ, we are under sin and its power, but under the grace of God in Christ, we are no longer under the power of sin, though it wages war against us, because our bodies have not yet been transformed. We still inhabit them.
What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? May it never be! Do you not know that when you present yourselves to someone as slaves for obedience, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin resulting in death, or of obedience resulting in righteousness? But thanks be to God that though you were slaves of sin, you became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching to which you were committed, and having been freed from sin, you became slaves of righteousness. I am speaking in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh. For just as you presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness, resulting in further lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness, resulting in sanctification.
(Romans 6:15-21)
So now before the regenerated person in Christ, there are choices we must make, and Paul is saying that for every choice we make, now that we are freed from sin’s hold and guilt imputed to us by the Law before the cross; now having died at the cross of Christ and dying daily in Him by carrying our personal cross – our decision from our hearts (the new heart promised by God) to live for Him, we becoming increasingly committed to His teaching, no longer slaves of sin, but slaves to righteousness, resulting in us continually being transformed into the image of Jesus Christ, taking on more and more His character, words, and behavior. Our nature and our being has been changed and is constantly changing by the sanctifying work of the indwelling Holy Spirit, so that now we derive through this continual consecration, presenting our bodies properly as God’s temple of His righteousness as we allow it and submit to it to work within us in our lives. This is very real, and few people understand it, but have developed complex theologies and make dichotomies to God’s Word that Paul does not speak about here because they have no true knowledge of what the process of sanctification means, which is what he is writing about here. For example, he continues writing:
For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. Therefore what benefit were you then deriving from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the outcome of those things is death. But now having been freed from sin and enslaved to God, you derive your benefit, resulting in sanctification, and the outcome, eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
(Romans 6:20-23)
Christ died as a sacrifice for sin, and was resurrected as the Proof of our eternal life in Him, the evidence that sin and its guilt and its power over mankind – DEATH – no longer be imputed upon us by the Law, because we are dead to it at the cross with Christ, as Paul writes in his Letter to the Galatians, I quote:
“We are Jews by nature and not sinners from among the Gentiles; nevertheless knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the Law but through faith in Christ Jesus, even we have believed in Christ Jesus, so that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the Law; since by the works of the Law no flesh will be justified. But if, while seeking to be justified in Christ, we ourselves have also been found sinners, is Christ then a minister of sin? May it never be! For if I rebuild what I have once destroyed, I prove myself to be a transgressor. For through the Law I died to the Law, so that I might live to God. I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me. I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness comes through the Law, then Christ died needlessly.”
(Galatians 2:15-19)
We are now made alive by Christ at His resurrection, to live in a newness of His life-giving Spirit!!! Sin can no longer be imputed upon someone who has died, and we have died with Him to the Law, because it was through the Law that the law of sin and death works in our members, tempting us to sin and become transgressors of the commandment; but because we are declared legally died by the cross, and have been born into a new life in Him (we have been raised with Him in our new birth), the condemnation of sin and death can no longer be applied to us, we are legally declared dead to it by Christ and born into a new life, while still inhabiting this body. Peter and his visiting Torah-Observant brethren from James in Jerusalem had to be reminded of this, and Paul is saying, “Look, though we live in these bodies, we have been legally declared dead to the condemnation of sin and its guilt, and its power over our lives that the Law legally imputed to us, because in dying at the cross with Him, we share through Him in His death – a declaration of death to that which we were formerly bound to though we as Jews continue to observe it (this is what Paul means here) – because it is not its observance that has made us holy before God or that justifies us before God, but Messiah’s holiness that has done this; not are efforts to work it out, but His completed work imputed to us for the rest of our lives, which now belong to Him in the grace He has freely given to us; a grace that is so great that Jesus the Messiah now is the one who lives in us, not us, and the life we now live we live by faith in Him alone, from which we derive our confidence, not in ourselves and our meager efforts to work our way to God. If our efforts to work our way to God had any merit at all, then the Messiah’s death is meaningless.” This is what Paul meant here, not what others have tried to interpolate into it.
Sin and its guilt cannot be imputed to a person to whom God’s righteousness has been imputed following that person’s death to the Law. That death must occur, because the Law brings about wrath, but where there is no law, there also is no violation (Romans 4:15). It is impossible for light and darkness to dwell together, because we have died in Christ and in Him been made alive again. The Lord Jesus Himself promised, “because I live, you will live also.” (John 14:19b), therefore sin can no longer be imputed to us, because we have been released from the clutches of its condemnation, the evidence of which is His resurrection power that lives in us, which bears witness that we live in Him because He has been raised from the dead and lives.
Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death. For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh, so that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.
(Romans 8:1-4)
Thus the Scripture says
For indeed He was crucified because of weakness, yet He lives because of the power of God. For we also are weak in Him, yet we will live with Him because of the power of God directed toward you.
(2Corinthians 13:4)
This is known as the Law of the Spirit of Life in Messiah (1Corinthians 9:21, Galatians 6:2), which has set us free from the law of sin and death (Romans 8:1) by causing our death at the cross where we have died to the power of sin over us because we have been released from it by dying to the commandment contained in the Letter of God’s Law. The Law has not been abolished, we have just died to its requirements because Someone who alone is worthy and Righteous has imputed His righteousness to us (Romans 8:3-5).
Jose J. Bernal says:
The unregenerate man is imputed unrighteousness through sin and is guilty according to the Law, because he must bear his own sin. Until he comes to God and makes peace with Him at the foot of His cross, confessing his sin and guilt and receiving God’s offering of grace in Christ, that man must bear his own sin and the guilt for it, because he has yet to accept Christ’s offer of redemption from it.
On the other hand, the regenerate and forgiven man has been imputed Christ’s righteousness and is no longer bound by the requirement of the Law because Christ has fulfilled it fully at the cross by taking all of God’s wrath upon Himself for the sins of every human being who has ever lived and will ever live, and Christ has imputed His righteousness onto him. When the regenerate believer sins, as all men do (Ecclesiastes 7:20 ), that sin is not imputed to him any longer – he must confess it (1John 1:9), and not deny it as some do (1John 1:8, 10), otherwise it will be burned up, and that person will suffer loss, but he will not lose his salvation over it (1Corinthians 3:15), because God’s favor spans one’s lifetime (Psalm 30:5) and the works that honor God will also be tested (1Corinthians 3:13, 1Peter 1:7), and if they remain, that person will receive a reward for them (1Corinthians 3:14).
God Himself writes His Law in human hearts as He wrote His Decalogue on two stone tablets when He gave the Law to Israel, and activates it through the sanctifying work of His indwelling Holy Spirit (Leviticus 22:32, Acts 20:32, 26:18, Romans 15:16). The following website lists the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit in the child of God, Holy Spirit, and sanctification.
Much of what passes for theology today has little to no concept of how sin and how righteousness operates in a person, and because of this, there is a great famine of God’s Word and understanding from it in the Church today. There is also confusion regarding the Law and Christians, and it has created more problems than it has understanding. Some have confused what is meant by Christ and His Apostles regarding the “fulfillment” of the Law as meaning that it has been abolished and has no relevance today, only to ancient Israel before the cross. This is incorrect.
Your post: Nov 7, 2014 9:22:37 AM PST
Jose J. Bernal says:
WHY THE TRANSFORMATION IN THE LAW? IT WAS TRANSFORMED, NOT ABOLISHED. ITS CEREMONIAL & SACRIFICAL SYSTEM WAS TEMPORARILY SET ASIDE & FULFILLED BY CHRIST SO THAT CHRIST’S RIGHTEOUSNESS COULD BE IMPARTED TO AND COME LIVE INTO THE BELIEVER
This transformation of the Law to be accomplished, because the Law had no power to make anyone righteous in God’s sight, though it did produce the appearance or shadow of that righteousness in those who observed it in other people. But the Law did not make anyone righteous before God, it just gave the external appearance of righteousness before other men, because the nature of man is to sin. So regardless of how many “good days” one has, there are enough “bad days” to more than make for them. And even our “good days” are nothing but “bad days” in His sight (Isaiah 64:6). No score card has ever been written that can remove the tally of guilt that sin brings to the transgressor.
Only a Righteous Life paying a price the other party cannot afford to pay, or even has the ability to pay; can erase that tally. This is what Christ has done for us. He lived that sinless life, tempted but without sin, died in our place, paid the price for our redemption, because Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law, having become a curse for us—for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree”— (Galatians 3:13). Then He defeated the byproduct of sin – death – by rising from the grave, and now coming to live in every believer (1 Peter 3:17-19). So we exult in the following Scripture, which says:
By this will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.
(Hebrews 10:10)
For by one offering He has perfected for all time those who are sanctified.
(Hebrews 10:14)
Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have obtained our introduction by faith into this grace in which we stand; and we exult in hope of the glory of God.
(Romans 5:1-2)
Further down the Apostle to the Gentiles continues, as he describes in the Holy Spirit what this One Solitary Righteous and Sinless Life has wrought for the many unrighteous and sinful lives – every one that every lived or ever shall live – as Paul continues. I quote:
Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life. And not only this, but we also exult in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation.
(Romans 5:9-11)
True righteousness did not and cannot just come by observing the Law, because it cannot produce in anyone the inner transformation necessary that would change a person from the heart and spirit into an entirely NEW MAN – a new creation made in the likeness of Christ (2 Timothy 2:21). This total transformation of the person is God’s work in the believer, and it makes it possible for us to mortify the flesh and its desires and live for God, because He lives and indwells us, we live too in Him, as we put to death the deeds of the body we inhabit (Romans 8:12-13). When someone submits to God their live as God’s child is governed and led by the Holy Spirit (Romans 8:14-17), not their human body where sin operates against the law of their mind which seeks to please God (see below).
Because of Adam’s sin, man is wired in his DNA to sin (Romans 3:9, 23). He needs a radical rewiring by God (the New Birth in Christ). No sooner do we do good, we transgress as well, and one transgression of the commandment is the transgression of the entire Law (all 613 commandments ), imputing guilt through the sin act in the transgressor (Romans 7:14-20).
And Paul is not referring here exclusively to the unregenerate, but to himself as a regenerate (born again) believer struggling within himself not to sin in the presence of God and the Law; which is meant for good, but is used by sin to cause him to be a transgressor of the commandment (Romans 7:17-20). The Apostle Peter dovetails what Paul writes about here regarding our new nature in Christ, where he writes. I quote:
and He Himself bore our sins in His body on the cross, so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness; for by His wounds you were healed.
(1Peter 2:24)
And the Apostle John in very simple language explains God’s redemptive the purpose for us in Christ:
By this the love of God was manifested in us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him.
(1John 4:9)
This is what Christ meant when He said the following:
“He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, ‘From his innermost being will flow rivers of living water.’”
(John 7:38)
This is what Jesus meant when Jesus answered and said to the Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, ‘Give Me a drink,’ you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.”
(John 4:9-10)
Paul is not describing the unregenerate person who couldn’t care less about God’s Law or God, but the Christian whose inner desire is as Paul’s – to live for God and please Him for His glory – behaving and speaking at times, and in some cases, doing the very things he now hates (Romans 7:14). The man Paul describes here (himself), joyfully concurs with the Law of God in his inner man, but sees a different and fallen law of sin and death at work in his physical body (which he still inhabits) that wages open spiritual, mental, emotional, psychological, and physical warfare against the law of his mind in his thought processes, now concurring joyfully with God’s Law (Romans 7:14), causing him to practice what he does not want to do (Romans 7:15).
Paul says that sin still dwells, meaning operates in his body, producing all manner of behavior, emotions, thoughts, and at times even activities and things said causes him to practice things that he no longer wants to (Romans 7:17-21). The reason that Paul writes here that he no longer is the one doing what he does not want to do, but sin is doing it (Romans 7:17-23) is because sin is no longer imputed to the believer as it was before (Romans 7:24-25, 8:1), because unlike before, he willfully does not want to sin within himself because God’s seed abides in him (Romans 8:1-17), but sin works through his body, which he still inhabits and struggles with (Romans 8:18-25).
The unregenerate person does not have this struggle within himself and wouldn’t care less (Romans 8:5-8). He has not repented, his sin has not been atoned for, because has not come to the cross and laid his sin there. Therefore the seed of God does not abide in him, he cannot bear fruit for God, because he has not been grafted into God’s Olive Tree. He does not have the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus living in him which sets one free from the law of sin and death (Romans 8:1) that works through sin activating the commandment against us (Romans 7:8-12), because he does not have the Holy Spirit of God and does not belong to Him (Romans 8:9). The unregenerate unbeliever does not have the indwelling Holy Spirit, or Christ’s righteousness imputed to him; so he is accountable for himself according to the Letter of God’s Law (Romans 7:5), and because he has yet to have it removed by Christ (Ezekiel18:20), his sins and guilt are still imputed to him for which he is accountable, because his sins have not been atoned for. He cannot claim with Paul and with those of us whom God has granted this grace; Nevertheless, it is not I who live, but Messiah who lives in me, and the life I now live in my body – the flesh, as some translations say it – I now henceforth live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and died in my place for me, so He can live in me and I in Him.
The legal requirement for righteousness is very well spoken of by the prophet Ezekiel, where he says:
The person who sins will die. The son will not bear the punishment for the father’s iniquity, nor will the father bear the punishment for the son’s iniquity; the righteousness of the righteous will be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked will be upon himself.
“But if the wicked man turns from all his sins which he has committed and observes all My statutes and practices justice and righteousness, he shall surely live; he shall not die. All his transgressions which he has committed will not be remembered against him; because of his righteousness which he has practiced, he will live.
(Ezekiel 18:20-22)
Ladies and gentlemen, this is humanly impossible. There is not a righteous person who has ever lived who can fully and completely lived up to these standards, and God knew it, and in His grace, He brought forth His Son, who fulfilled it, having lived a sinless and perfectly righteous life, so that through His sinless and righteous life, we too through Him could be imputed this sinlessness and righteousness by grace through faith in Him. There is no other has fulfilled this but Jesus the Messiah, and it is He who all men must turn to – Jew and Gentile – for their sin to be removed and forgotten by God. There is no other, and this is what Paul the Apostle takes great pains to write about, which some have distorted with incorrect theology. It has absolutely nothing to do with the Law having no relevance, because it is through the legal witness of the Law that we have the cross. Without the Law, the cross and God’s sanctifying work afterwards would be meaningless. We are not under it, but those who are not in Christ – Jew and Gentile alike – most surely are. Paul makes it clear that those who are not in Christ, are still under this universal Law, Hyper-Dispensationalist Theologies notwithstanding. I quote:
Now we know that whatever the Law says, it speaks to those who are under the Law, so that every mouth may be closed and all the world may become accountable to God; because by the works of the Law no flesh will be justified in His sight; for through the Law comes the knowledge of sin.
(Romans 3:19-20)
If the Law were as the critic writes throughout all of this articles and reviews, and book, and even an upcoming booklet; then Paul would not have included this clear language – without theology – the relevance the Law has to the world and its purpose in the redemptive purpose of God through the One Agent He has provided to liberate us from the bondage of sin which works through the activation of its commandments over the lost. This is what Paul means, we are not under the Law but under grace, not what Hyper-Dispensational Theology has attached to it. Therefore the Shemitah has great relevance to the world, to the nations, that await God’s full establishment of His kingdom over them. This too shoots down the heresy of Dominion Theology and A-Millennialists who claim God’s kingdom has been established on the earth. Not yet.
The curse of the Law cannot only be eliminated by itself, it must be eliminated by Christ; not by religion or effort, but by the work of Christ alone (Galatians 3:13). The false theological dichotomies set up by Hyper-Dispensationalists have absolutely nothing to do with this.
That my dear friends, is not the description of an unregenerate unbeliever who does not know God and wouldn’t care less whether he’s sinning or not. That is not someone who is dead to God, but alive to the world, as Paul describes elsewhere, but alive to God and struggling to die to self and the world. One who is dead to the world, but alive to God, has been washed in the blood of Christ, has had his sins forgiven because he has confessed them to God, has had his sins and guilt nailed to the cross, and no longer imputed unrighteousness, but warring with it in his body, which awaits its transformation at the resurrection of the righteous dead. This is a very BIG difference than what Hyper-Dispensational Theology attempts to reinterpret it as. It is earthshattering in its scope and makes the difference between what God’s Word is trying to communicate and what men have struggled for centuries understanding regarding the nature of sin and righteousness.
But now apart from the Law the righteousness of God has been manifested, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets, even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all those who believe; for there is no distinction; for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus; whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in His blood through faith. This was to demonstrate His righteousness, because in the forbearance of God He passed over the sins previously committed; for the demonstration, I say, of His righteousness at the present time, so that He would be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.
Where then is boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? Of works? No, but by a law of faith. For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from works of the Law. Or is God the God of Jews only? Is He not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also, since indeed God who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith is one.
Do we then nullify the Law through faith? May it never be! On the contrary, we establish the Law.
(Romans 3:21-31)
In summary, the path to God for Jew and Gentile is the same one, through the Person and finished redemptive work of Jesus the Messiah. There is no other, therefore Peter’s statement to his countrymen on Shavuot was precisely what the prophets bore witness to, when he spoke these words. I quote:
And there is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved.”
(Act 4:12)
Your post: Nov 7, 2014 9:28:31 AM PST
Jose J. Bernal says:
THE LAW FOR RIGHTEOUSNESS?
When you were dead in your transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He made you alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our transgressions, having canceled out the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us, which was hostile to us; and He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross. When He had disarmed the rulers and authorities, He made a public display of them, having triumphed over them through Him.
(Colossians 2:13-15)
This is what is meant when Paul writes that Messiah is the end of the Law for every person who believes and places their faith in His completed work at the cross (Romans 10:4). For all others, the law of sin and death activated by the Law of Moses’ commandment (Romans 7:13), produces all sorts of transgressions of the Law (Romans 7:8-12), all of it resulting in death (Romans 7:5). Christ has made us die with Him at the cross to the Law (its indictment and conviction of our sin guilt has been nailed to the cross ) so that we can be free to live in His newness of Life, – His Perfect Law of Liberty working within us (James 1:25), and no longer dragged and encumbered by sin activating the commandment against us with each infraction of it (Romans 7:1-7).
and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. This is self-explanatory since, God Himself will establish this new covenant with His people, and through it, fulfill the promise He made to Abraham to be a father of many nations, because the cross will usher in an era of grace towards non-Jews – to the Gentiles of the nations, and will allow a remnant of them, and of Jews to be grafted (Gentiles), and re-grafted (Jews) to the Olive Tree of God (Romans ).
The Apostle Paul, a Jewish Pharisee of Second Temple Judaism, wrote in the Holy Spirit the following, For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek, (Romans 1:16) meaning that the Great Commission is for the entire human race, just as Christ said (Matthew 28:18-20, Mark 16:14-20) not just for Gentiles.
The Scriptures teach that both Jews and Gentiles are under sin (Romans 3:9-9). The Messiah has declared “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.” (John 14:6, Romans 5:6-11), and Peter bore witness on Pentecost to his fellow Jewish brethren from the Diaspora the same thing, when he spoke the following words in the presence of three thousand of souls:
“And there is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved.”
(Acts 4:12)
Whose name was Peter talking about? Moses? No, he was speaking about the Messiah, Yeshua, for the Messiah Yeshua had already made this clear to a crowd of Judean Jews that had gathered to hear Him, who were still quite skeptical of His teachings, and challenged Him openly, whom He addressed in the following manner:
“You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; it is these that testify about Me; and you are unwilling to come to Me so that you may have life. I do not receive glory from men; but I know you, that you do not have the love of God in yourselves. I have come in My Father’s name, and you do not receive Me; if another comes in his own name, you will receive him. How can you believe, when you receive glory from one another and you do not seek the glory that is from the one and only God? Do not think that I will accuse you before the Father; the one who accuses you is Moses, in whom you have set your hope. For if you believed Moses, you would believe Me, for he wrote about Me. But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe My words?”
(John 5:39-47)
Your post: Nov 7, 2014 9:30:30 AM PST
Jose J. Bernal says:
Dual Covenant Theology is a form of another gospel, a false one, because it gives a false sense of security to lost Jews, because Scripture makes it clear that observance of the Mosaic Law cannot provide salvation (Romans 4:5), cannot provide justification (Romans 3:27-28), and cannot provide sanctification, nor does it have the power to make one righteous before God (Galatians 4:8-10), because righteousness is from the Lord (Romans 5:8-9), it does not originate in man for no man is righteous, and therefore it does not come from our own efforts, but it is a work of God we are given as His one of His gifts (Ephesians 2:8), contained within His redemptive work, therefore it belongs to Him and to no one else (Daniel 9:7); otherwise why would anyone call Messiah Adonai Tsidkeinu – the Lord is our Righteousness? (Jeremiah 23:6, 33:16) As the Psalmist declares:
But the lovingkindness of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear Him, And HIS righteousness to children’s children.
(Psalm 103:17)
Take note, God’s righteousness, not man’s. The only thing observance and study of the Mosaic Law can provide and is meant to provide by divine design is the knowledge (Romans 7) that one is indicted and convicted of sin before God’s righteousness (Romans 3:19-20). Indeed anyone who tries to live by it to justify themselves before God after coming to faith in the Messiah (Romans 5:1-2) severs themselves from His grace, because he openly rejects the unmerited favor God extends to him through Messiah and embraces a different way (Galatians 5:1-6). This is another form of “righteousness” – even one’s own through works, and it is as though a person were burning strange fire before God, and we remember what happened in Israel when Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, took their respective firepans, and after putting fire in them, placed incense on it and offered strange fire before the Lord, which He had not commanded them. And fire came out from the presence of the Lord and consumed them, and they died before the Lord (Leviticus 10:1-2), because they presumed to violate the edicts of God.
Another story from the narrative portions of the Law that teaches God’s approved sacrifice to Him by faith alone, contrasting it with another by works alone, is the story of Cain and Abel.
Long before the Law was given to Israel, it came about in the course of time that Cain brought an offering to the Lord of the fruit of the ground. Abel, on his part also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of their fat portions. And the Lord had regard for Abel and for his offering; but for Cain and for his offering He had no regard. So Cain became very angry and his countenance fell.
Then the Lord said to Cain, “Why are you angry? And why has your countenance fallen? If you do well, will not your countenance be lifted up? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door; and its desire is for you, but you must master it.” Cain told Abel his brother. And it came about when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother and killed him.
Then the Lord said to Cain, “Where is Abel your brother?” And he said, “I do not know. Am I my brother’s keeper?” He said, “What have you done? The voice of your brother’s blood is crying to Me from the ground. Now you are cursed from the ground, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand. When you cultivate the ground, it will no longer yield its strength to you; you will be a vagrant and a wanderer on the earth.”
(Genesis 4:3-12)
Cain tried to earn God’s favor through his own efforts by his works which he presented to God. When God rejected his self-centered effort to God, bitter jealousy arose in him, and he slew his brother Abel (Genesis 4:8), who was righteous and offered a better sacrifice, not from the ground, but of the firstlings of his flock and of their fat portions – a living sacrifice in blood. (Genesis 4:4, See Leviticus 13:11)
FACT: The Mosaic Law’s purpose is to compel the Observant Jew and God-fearing Gentile to come to God’s redemption and righteousness in the Messiah (Galatians 3:15-29). Dual Covenant Theology is also false, because it provides a self-justifying reason not to evangelize, which runs counter to the Great Commission. Anything that is counter-intuitive to God’s written Word is rank heresy and must be discarded as such.
FACT: On the Got Question?.org website, there is the following entry regarding Hyper or Ultra-Dispensationalism. I did not write this, somebody else did, and I defer to what they say here, because they are correct, as we witness an expression of it from the critic we’re examining as we review The Mystery of The Shemitah. I quote:
“…….the greatest problem with ultra-dispensationalism is not what it believes about when the church began but with the many other errors that come from its approach to Scripture. For example, at the heart of most forms of ultra-dispensationalism is the belief that Paul preached a different gospel than what the other apostles taught. Paul’s prison epistles only apply directly to the “body of Christ” or Gentile Church, and the sacraments of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper are relegated to the old dispensation and are not to be practiced by the church today. In reality, what ultra-dispensationalists do is wrongly divide the Word of God and split it into little pieces.
Other heresies that are common to some types of ultra-dispensationalism include such things as soul sleep and annihilationism. Still others proclaim a brand of universalism that grants salvation even to Satan himself. Without a doubt, whatever name you want to call it, ultra-dispensationalism is a dangerous error that almost always leads to other, even worse errors and often outright heretical teachings.
H. A. Ironside, a strong dispensationalist himself, wrote a very good booklet outlining some of the dangers of ultra-dispensationalism and in it says that he has “no hesitancy in saying that its fruits are evil. It has produced a tremendous crop of heresies throughout the length and breadth of this and other lands; it has divided Christians and wrecked churches and assemblies without number; it has lifted up its votaries in intellectual and spiritual pride to an appalling extent, so that they look with supreme contempt upon Christians who do not accept their peculiar views; and in most instances where it has been long tolerated, it has absolutely throttled Gospel effort at home and sown discord on missionary fields abroad. So true are these things of this system that I have no hesitancy in saying it is an absolutely Satanic perversion of the truth.”
FACT: The cross itself has finds its most impressive types, allegories, and metaphors in the sacrificial system codified and contained within the Mosaic Law! The Feasts of Israel are all prophetic metaphors of God's various dispensations in His redemptive plan throughout history! The moral code contained within the commandments govern the universe. The priesthood within the Law is a type of the Messiah's priesthood. I can go on and on and on, and the nations who did not have the Law or covenant with God have historically been judged as He has judged His people! God does not met out justice with differing weights and differing measures. This is pure nonsense. Where does such dichotomy exist in the New Testament? Indeed the Apostles do not cite the Law of Moses to say, "This is for you, and this is not for you; this is for you, and this is not for you." On the contrary, Paul goes to the Law and from the Law preaches the grace of God through faith in Jesus Christ, because he uses the Law to teach that by the works of the Law shall no flesh be justified in his sight.
FACT: Without the Law’s application of the sacrificial system codified within, the redemptive and eternal relevance of the cross would lose its meaning. Were we to go by the Hyper-Dispensational arguments the critic presents here, the cross would be meaningless, because there would be no point of reference, and there is none, that bears witness of the sacrificial aspects of God’s redemptive work in the death of the Messiah as our ransom for sin! The foundation of our faith would be lost!!!
FACT: To say that the Law has no relevance outside of Israel to any nation and people other than it, and set up theological arguments as dichotomies to apply it to Gentiles is a blanket denial of what purpose of every aspect within the Law that God purposely codified and gave to Israel so that it may be preserved and presented later on to the nations in the New Testament writings. I repeat, the New Testament writers did not flee the Law, but went to it and argued the case for grace from its sacrificial system, which according to this critic can only be applied to one nation – Israel. Is what the critic claims what God’s Word says? Absolutely not, for even in the Law there was the provision for the nations as well within the sacrificial system. So this critic’s Hyper-Dispensational arguments are wholly baseless and unbiblical and Anti-Christian in its core to the Gospel and God’s redemptive plan that can only be biblically and properly understood and appreciated by an impartation of God’s Holy Spirit and the proper application in referencing the cross to the Law of Moses and the significance and value it attaches to it as legally efficacious for redemption, justification, salvation, and everything pertaining to our eternal destiny in the Messiah – of what nation? Of the nation and people of Israel, who has always been the Rightful Ruler of all the earth and of Mankind.
Chris Pinto, the host of Noise of Thunder radio program spoke briefly on the topic of Hyper-Dispensational Theology also. About 18 minutes into his June 26, 2012 program, he said the following and I quote:
“Back to our discussion about Paul and about the promises of God... because there is a movement in the church. In fact, I just read a newsletter from a prominent ministry that was confronting the idea that Christians would associate the promises of God toward the nation of Israel OR the warnings of God in the Old Testament. You know, that somehow or other, warnings of judgment to the nation of Israel – that the circumstances of those warnings somehow or other ONLY apply to ancient Israel and they could not apply to the church or to America today.
“That idea is almost... is ENTIRELY foreign, not almost... it is ENTIRELY foreign to the teaching of the New Testament. You repeatedly have the apostles warning about how the children of Israel fell in the wilderness in rebellion against God, etc and so on, and that these are warnings that are being given to the New Testament church - not to follow their example and to learn from their example.
“And so to say that circumstances of judgment and this kind of thing... that happened to the ancient nation of Israel – that that cannot, in any way, apply to the church in modern times is a completely unbiblical viewpoint... not at all supported by the teachings of the New Testament. And we find, I mean, you don't find those kind of teachings, brethren, until you get into the 20th Century with Darbyism, with dispensational Darbyism, where it's almost like two separate gospels... one for the Jewish people and one for the church, even though most of your dispensationalists today will not come out, I mean, they won't... most of them are going to say they do not believe in a dual covenant, which is a good thing. Some of them DO believe in a dual covenant which is NOT a good thing.”
As the Lord has declared through the mouth of His prophet:
He says, “Be still, and know that I am God;
I will be exalted among the nations,
I will be exalted in the earth.” — Psalm 46:10
This declaration of God is His own witness which Paul confirms where he writes under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit the following. I quote:
For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from works of the Law. Or is God the God of Jews only? Is He not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also, since indeed God who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith is one.
(Romans 3:28-30)
Your post: Nov 7, 2014 9:34:59 AM PST
Jose J. Bernal says:
CLAIM: THE SHEMITAH IS NOT WOVEN INTO THE FABRIC OF THE UNIVERSE – However, this is completely different than suggesting that the Shemitah is somehow integrated and woven into the fabric of the universe - when that wasn't even evident in Israel to whom the Shemitah laws were given. There is not a single verse, passage, chapter or book in the entire Bible that suggest God has put in place something like is claimed in this book. If anyone doubts that is true, then they should respond with even a single verse or passage - or any group of verses or passages - or even a thematic thread that makes it clear that the Bible supports the fundamental premise of this book.
FACT: This is a patently absurd and unnecessary mocking Hyper-Dispensationalist statement that adds nothing to this discussion. There is no biblical grounds for it, and none are given by the critic, as can be readily seen. It deserves simply to be recognized for what it is, and dismissed as nothing but pure nonsense. It is nothing more than a mockery of the seriousness of this discussion and because it is lacks any substantive value in and of itself, but contains sweeping presumptions such as - “There is not a single verse, passage, chapter or book in the entire Bible that suggest God has put in place something like is claimed in this book. If anyone doubts that is true, then they should respond with even a single verse or passage - or any group of verses or passages - or even a thematic thread that makes it clear that the Bible supports the fundamental premise of this book.” Fact is, the burden of proof is on the critic who must present evidence to support his sweeping and presumptuous claim made here. Where is the proof? If there is evidence from the Scriptures that elements of the Hebrew Bible no longer apply, such as the Shemitah, then show where a single writer of the New Testament makes this claim. If it is not made by any writer in the New Testament, then do no lay such presumptions upon God’s Word or His providence, and do not mock His servants.
CLAIM:, MR. BERNAL’S BOOK, MIXES THE MOST OURTAGES CHARGES WITH THE REST – “Unfortunately, the book The Truth About The Harbinger perpetuates many, if not most of the same errors found in The Harbinger by Jonathan Cahn.
“And worse, because of the author's decision to not "name names," the more extreme and sometimes unfounded arguments against The Harbinger are mixed together with the more moderate, well-documented and biblical critiques of The Harbinger such that the reader thinks that all critics of The Harbinger have used the same arguments - or methods of argumentation, which is not the case at all.
“Although perhaps the decision to not "name names" was well-intentioned, this ends up being a great disservice to the reader, as well as to defenders and critics of The Harbinger alike.”
FACT: The statement above by this critic was an attempted rebuttal to what I wrote previously, when I recommended to Amazon.com reviewer Kathleen obtain a copy of my book, The Truth About The Harbinger, and wrote. Quote: “It very much answers the unfounded and unwarranted attacks against Rabbi Cahn’s book The Harbinger by its critics. I will you will find it a compelling biblical read. Also, visit my website, where you will find many articles that may peak your interest.” The following was my rebuttal: “The Truth About The Harbinger, exposes all of the outrageous false charges and mischaracterizations and inaccuracies of the critics. Unlike the policy of defamation that was carried and continues to be carried out by this critic and by his colleagues to this day, to this very hour; it was decided not to name anyone, because all of the outrageous charges were based upon the original criticisms leveled against the author, his ministry, his teachings, and his integrity by this critic and his colleagues. The aim of the book I authored was not to defame any of these people by following suit in their practice of public reproach, but rather present a biblical corrective to the false narrative that was cleverly weaved by the critics against the plain and clear narrative of The Harbinger.
FACT: Quote: “It is ironic that the most outlandish urban legends would be brought up by the critic here, because neither this critic or his colleagues have done one thing to either correct what they have written or said, or address the urban legends and false charges by those whose writings feature prominently in some of their own websites. They have not been taken down, nor have the offenders been corrected by this critic or by any of this colleagues. This is an omission that this critic or all of the rest would like to have laid to rest and not mentioned. It has yet to be properly addressed by them with proper remedial action in keeping with sincere repentance, and acts of reconciliation to the offended parties. The critic has not made any apologies to Rabbi Cahn, has made several attempts to drive a wedge between Rabbi Cahn and myself, presuming that Rabbi Cahn has not seen through this devilish ruse. My guilt? I have strongly admonished this critic and his colleagues to follow the biblical model on handling disagreements between themselves and other members of the body of Christ, or else stay quiet, but I warned them not to hold the other party in open reproach with personal and highly charged language, but staying to the facts, and privately discussing them with Rabbi Cahn. They did not do this of course. They continued pall mall into one of the ugliest public campaigns of public discreditation of another within the Church I have ever witnessed.
FACT: Quote: “As for the errors, I would challenge the critics to be specific and have a public debate about it. I would be more than willing to address in a public debate the with this critic or any other the alleged so-called errors, and also address the egregious inconsistencies in doctrine that these critics have presented as well. It is ironic that the critics would mention the urban legends without first addressing the errors they teach based upon their own writings, and have the temerity to speak of errors without presenting hard evidence in support of their contentions.”
It is also interesting how the critic unknowingly passively admits to egregious error above, even he uses measured and well-selected language to differentiate what he wrote and what the others wrote. The passive admission is there regardless of every effort to white wash it over.
CLAIM: SHEMITAHS ARE IMPOSED ON ISRAEL ONLY & GOD HAS NEVER IMPOSED SEVEN YEAR CYCLES ON ISRAEL AS A MYSTERIOUS FORCE –That God expects or will impose a Shemitah upon any nation other than Israel has no scriptural basis. Neither do the Scriptures provide any indication that the Shemitah is some sort of universal principle that operates throughout or even at various times in history. Yet, in spite of this, Jonathan Cahn argues that America has been subjected to the mystery of the Shemitah repeatedly over at least the last century, following the modern Hebrew reckoning of Sabbath / Shemitah years. However, this does not follow the ancient pattern to which he appeals for support since God has never subjected Israel to the operation of some mysterious universal force according to seven-year cycles.
FACT: Hyper-Dispensationalism/Ultra-Dispensationalism forgets that the Law has only a shadow of the good things to come and not the very form of things (Hebrews 10:1), therefore to deny what it contains within as irrelevant at any age, especially in these end times, when within it the feasts of Israel prophetically are the key to understand Biblical Eschatology; each feast contains types and metaphors, and even symbols of greater things to come. Hyper-Dispensationalism does not allow for this, because it teaches a dichotomy the Word of God does not give the Law of Moses, and imposes rules that God’s Word does not itself impose. Yes, it was given exclusively to the children of Israel at Sinai as they embarked as a nation – the nation of Israel – into their inheritance; but its moral code written in its commandments are universal and eternal, and to imply that because these were not given to any other nation, God imposes differing standards of morality and decency on nations than He does to Israel is both unsound and entirely unbiblical.
FACT: Paul when writing in the Holy Spirit, explicitly wrote that Israel and God’s dealing with it, is the template we must all follow. Why did Paul say this? Because the Law has only a shadow of the good things to come and not the very form of things (Hebrews 10:1). It is our tutor to repentance, to lead us to the foot of the cross and seek God’s mercy in His Son. The critic is trying to tell us not to do this, but to follow another which is a complete contrivance of Hyper-Dispensational Theology.
CLAIM: GOD NEVER IMPOSED A SHEMITAH ON ISRAEL PRIOR TO THE BABYLONIAN CAPTIVITY – in The Mystery of the Shemitah, the author uses many graphs to depict America's economic cycles, with significant rises in the S&P 500 during bull markets, which are inevitably followed by sometimes precipitous declines or crashes leading into a bear market. He further suggests that if one were to similarly graph ancient Israel's economy, because of the mystery of the Shemitah, it would track very closely with America's economy, and exhibit similar trends with sharp increases and rapid declines as Israel observed the Shemitah every seven years. This theory is without merit on multiple counts. First of all, during Israel's roughly 800 years of existence, between the time they entered the Promised Land around 1400 B.C. and Babylon's first attacks on the southern kingdom in 606 B.C., the nation did not observe the seventy of the required Sabbaths. Yet, in spite of this protracted period of disobedience, including the Sabbath-year laws, God did not impose a Shemitah upon them until the Babylonian captivity. In contrast, Cahn contends that God has imposed a Shemitah on America for many or most seven-year cycles going back to at least the beginning of the 20th century. Or at the very least, because America has turned from God, the nation has been subject to the natural consequences of the mystery of the Shemitah. Clearly, Cahn's theory does not fit the biblical pattern.
FACT: It never ceases to amaze me how this critic makes one sweeping statement, and then follows it with another that is a total contradiction of the first, in order to make a point. First he writes, alleging that the Shemitah was imposed on Israel and Israel only; I quote, “That God expects or will impose a Shemitah upon any nation other than Israel has no scriptural basis.” Then he follows this statement, with a contradiction. He writes, I quote; ”…during Israel's roughly 800 years of existence …God did not impose a Shemitah upon them until the Babylonian captivity,” – which one is it? Did God impose the Shemitah, or didn’t He? He did. He gave Israel the Law and contained in the Law was the Shemitah. The correct answer is that during this entire period of Israel’s history, the Law was in effect. How do we know this? We know it from God’s Word. The period leading up to the coming of John the Baptist, Christ referred to in this way:
“For all the prophets and the Law prophesied until John.”
(Matthew 11:13)
“The Law and the Prophets were proclaimed until John; since that time the gospel of the kingdom of God has been preached, and everyone is forcing his way into it.” (Luke 16:16) which in its context means eschatologically that the era where the Law and the Prophets bore witness of the coming of the Messiah had come to a close and would soon end at the cross; and the Era of God’s grace in the proclamation of the Gospel would soon follow.
In the midst of this happening, God’s kingdom – that is, His servants – would suffer and still suffer violence from that time to the end times. Religious zealots of every stripe, and false messiahs, false religious orders, would come against God’s faithful remnant of believers – Jews and Gentiles alike – but even the gates of hell would not prevail against God’s Church.
FACT: The second contradictory argument goes something like this, ”…during Israel's roughly 800 years of existence …God did not impose a Shemitah upon them until the Babylonian captivity,” therefore, according to this reasoning, this means that because God waited until the Babylonian Captivity to impose the Shemitah on Israel, the Shemitah had absolutely no legal power or status over Israel prior to the Babylonian Captivity, because, according to this reasoning, “God did not impose a Shemitah upon them until the Babylonian captivity,” This is a pure logical fallacy with biblical rationale whatsoever, because it is saying that because Israel did not follow the Law during most of this period, but broke the Mosaic Covenant, therefore God did not impose the Law of Moses (in the present case, The Shemitah) on Israel during all of this time, though it was ratified and given to Israel at Sinai. Then he uses this same logical fallacy to attack Jonathan Cahn’s book.
David James says:
ONLY ONE TINY LITTLE PROBLEM WITH BERNAL'S DEFINITION OF HYPER-DISPENSATIONALISM:
He builds his entire argument upon a definition of "ultra-hyper-dispensationalism" that not a single recognized non-hyper-dispensational OR ultra-dispensational theologian or Bible scholar would agree is correct.
The theology that stands against the claims made in The Harbinger and The Mystery of the Shemitah is EXACTLY the dispensational theology of all non-hyper-hyperdispensationalist such as John Walvoord, j. Dwight Pentecost, Roy Zuck, Stan Toussaint, Robert Gromacki, Mike Stallard, Robert Lightner, John White, Alva J. McLain, Homer Kent, John J. Davis, Dave Hunt, Mark Bailey, Steve Bramer, John MacArthur, Robert L. Thomas, Lewis Sperry Chafer, Charles Ryrie, H.A. Ironside, Renald Showers, Jack Wyrtzen, Tom Davis, Tommy Ice, Tim LaHaye, Harold Hoehner, Randall Price, Hal Lindsey, Mark Hitchcock, Jan Markell, and the list could be expanded by hundreds - including many in the Charismatic and Pentecostal traditions.
It reminds me of the line given by Andre the Giant in move The Princess Bride, when his smaller-statured sidekick kept using the word "inconceivable" - and after saying this dozens of times, Andre the Giant finally exclaims, "I don't think you know what that means."
So, for anyone who might somehow have the wherewithal to actually read all that is written here by this particular writer, all you will end up finding out is what hyper-dispensitonalism doesn't believe - and then that straw man is mercilessly attacked by someone who has not a whit of an idea what the term means.
Your post: Nov 7, 2014 10:00:53 AM PST
You edited this post
Jose J. Bernal says:
I am a commissioned minister of the Gospel, called by God’s grace and commissioned by the ministry of Pastor and Messianic Rabbi Jonathan Cahn’s ministry. The critic’s use of tautology, disrespectful and highly charged language was both unfortunate, un-christlike, and unnecessary. His use of bandwagon fallacy to resort to taughtology by listing some well-known theologians here does not work, because none of the esteemed men he’s named ever misused Dispensational Theology as he has in applying Hyper-Dispensationalism’s extreme points of view to this author’s books and teachings as he has here and every place he has a microphone he can speak from in the public eye. There is no substantive explanation to justify what he has written here. It does not have anything whatsover to do with the topic at hand, which is recognizing what God’s Word says pertaining to the topic, and what it does not say, and to discern the difference between the two.
Additionally, the personal ad hominem attacks directed at me is evidence of something much more sinister than a mere cordial disagreement between us. It is most unfortunate and uncalled for. This is a forum for discussion, and as the critic likes to claim on his own website, “It’s not personal, it’s not about Jonathan Cahn, it’s just about the subject.”
Well, here the critic has made it very personal, as he has against the author and his book. All one has to do is read some of what the critic’s colleagues have written, and they will see for themselves just how personal it is. No Christian minister worth his salt will come out in public and call the another Christian minister a “FALSE PROPHET” OR “FALSE TEACHER” as Rabbi Cahn has been erroneously named by these people based upon the writings of this critic to whom they owe their debt of gratitude. There is much more that I plan, as God wills, to expose and blow open about all of this on my own website The Pepster’s Post: A Voice in Cyberspace in coming weeks, and I am busy at work on an in-depth examination of this critic’s book, as a sequel to my own on it which is available here on Amazon.com, titled THE TRUTH ABOUT THE HARBINGER.
Your post: Nov 7, 2014 10:09:06 AM PST
Jose J. Bernal says:
CLAIM: THE MYSTERY OF THE SHEMITAH SUGGESTS THAT ISRAEL OBSERVED THE SHEMITAH AND WAS SUBJECT TO ‘WILDLY SWINGING ECONOMIC CYCLES’ – Secondly, Cahn is wrong when he suggests that when Israel did observe the Shemitah, the nation's economy experienced crashes or at least sharp economic downturns for a period of time following the last day of the Shemitah year (which Cahn refers to as "the Shemitah's wake"). His theory is that because debts were wiped clean and there had been no planting or harvesting during the Sabbath year, Israel must have been subject to wildly swinging economic cycles of seven years each that tested Israel's faithfulness.
FACT: There is no place in Rabbi Cahn’s book where the author claims – I’ll quote the critic here – that “Israel must have been subject to wildly swinging economic cycles of seven years each that tested Israel's faithfulness.” This is a claim that the critic wishes to impose on it, but the book simply does not say this. On the contrary, the author is careful to say that the Shemitah was a blessing of God on the people and the land of Israel, not what the critic claims here for Rabbi Cahn. I quote here from Rabbi Cahn’s book:
FACT: The critic is extremely clever. He argues that Jonathan Cahn claims that Israel, like modern America and Europe today have experienced and are experiencing – that in the critic’s own words, I quote; ”…when Israel did observe the Shemitah, the nation's economy experienced crashes or at least sharp economic downturns for a period of time following the last day of the Shemitah year.” He claims for the author that he is suggesting in the critic’s own words, I quote; “that because debts were wiped clean and there had been no planting or harvesting during the Sabbath year, Israel must have been subject to wildly swinging economic cycles of seven years each that tested Israel's faithfulness.”
Every statement made by the critic here, like the rest as we examine them, is completely false, but cleverly worded and argued to replace the narrative of what Rabbi Cahn’s book says with one interpolated here by the critic. I will now quote what Rabbi Cahn’s book says, which so that the reader may see the difference between what the book says and compare it to the critic’s twisted meaning of it as he attempts to read into it. From The Mystery of the Shemitah, I quote:
“When judgment fell in 586 B.C., the holy city would be left a burning ruin, the holy land a vast desolation, and the people captives in a foreign land. What does this have to do with the Shemitah?
“The nation had driven God out of their lives and the Shemitah from their land. Now it would return to them. What they had refused to observe freely would not come upon them by force. It would come back at them not in the form of blessing, but of judgment.
“They had driven the Shemitah form the land. Now the Shemitah had returned, and they themselves were driven out. They had removed God from their lives. Now their blessings would likewise be removed from their lives, and their lives from their blessings.”
Further down their plight is elaborated by the author. I quote:
“During the Shemitah there was no sowing or reaping of the land. The nation had rejected the ordinance and had worked the land continuously, exploiting it for gain. But when the Shemitah returned to the land in the form of judgment, all sowing and reaping ceased, all tending the vineyards and groves came to an end and no one worked the land. Through judgment and calamity the ordinance was now fulfilled.
“During the Shemitah everyone who owned a vineyard or a grove had to open it up to those in need. Every field had to now be accessible to the poor. The gates of walled and fenced lands were unlocked and left opened the entire year.”
The author is careful to point out that the pivotal period the Shemitah was imposed on Israel as a judgment was when the Babylonians invaded Judah and destroyed Jerusalem its capital, and exiled its population from the land to Babylon, and this is what Rabbi Cahn wrote regarding this, not what the critic intimates with clever argument. He writes:
“In the destruction of 586 B.C. the gates were opened by force, walls were broken down, fences were destroyed, vineyards were exposed, groves were left unprotected, and private land became public and accessible to all. In judgment the Shemitah was fulfilled.”
In their rebellion Judah did not observe the Shemitah, and when judgment came, it was imposed on the land when Nebuchadnezzar invaded, destroyed the cities, including Jerusalem and God’s temple, and exiled its population to Babylon.
CLAIM: THE SHEMITAH IS A BLESSING, NOT A JUDGMENT – However, this theory is without merit on biblical grounds. Rather, the Scriptures indicate that the Shemitah was a blessing in every respect with no downside whatsoever. While Cahn does acknowledge that the Shemitah was to be a blessing, he then turns around and argues that there was much economic hardship as the nation recovered from the effects of the Shemitah, because of both the release of debts and the lack of a crop during the Sabbath year-something that he must claim in order to set the stage for his theory concerning America.
FACT: The critic repeats his charge which he makes above by interpolating into the text of Rabbi Cahn’s book something that it does not contain. We have seen above the text in its context, and not the interpolated meaning of it by this critic. The critic’s claim here, as in other places, is entirely without merit and foundation. In attempting to establish another meaning to Rabbi Cahn’s writing, the critic is clearly misleading the reader and brazenly deceiving him with false information, while projecting what the critic does onto the author whom he accuses.
He argues that the author (in his own words), “does acknowledge that the Shemitah was to be a blessing, he (Jonathan Cahn) then turns around and argues that there was much economic hardship as the nation recovered from the effects of the Shemitah, because of both the release of debts and the lack of a crop during the Sabbath year-something that he must claim in order to set the stage for his theory concerning America.”
This is not what he says at all. The book does not argue that the release of debts brought hardship. The critic brazenly is putting a twist to what the book says about the Shemitah as blessing by purposely confusing what the Shemitah was when it was imposed by force during the Babylonian invasion of Judah. The destruction and devastation it left in its wake, with the temple and Jerusalem in ruins, and the population forcibly evicted from their properties and their land, and exiled to Babylon. I do know if this critic has ever been a evicted and forced to take everything and cross several thousand miles to another location and there start from scratch, but I’d wager that he would not find this experience pleasant at all.
The Shemitah when observed by Israel, was a blessing to the nation. This is what is borne out by the following passage in the book. I quote:
“The Shemitah was a sign of the nation’s covenant with God. Everything they had, the land and all its blessings, was dependent on that covenant and their relationship with God. It was all entrusted to them, but it belonged to God. If they turned away from God, then their blessings would be removed, or rather, they would be removed from their blessings.
“So for the people of Israel to keep the Sabbath year was to acknowledge God’s sovereignty over their land and lives. It was also an act of faith. It required their total trust in God’s faithfulness to provide for their needs while they ceased from farming. In the same way, to cancel all the debts owed to them was to sacrifice monetary gain and, again, to rely on God’s providence.
“Lastly, the keeping of the Shemitah was, above all, an act of devotion and worship, to put God above everything else in one’s life. But for all this, a blessing was promised. If Israel would keep the Shemitah, God would keep and bless Israel with all that was needed and beyond.”
(Ibid, page 38 under the heading The Covenant Sign)
Question; does anyone reading this see what the critic claims above? I don’t. Let’s continue to our next fact versus the critic’s claim.
Your post: Nov 7, 2014 10:13:36 AM PST
Jose J. Bernal says:
CLAIM: “CAHN” CLAIMS ISRAEL SUFFERED HARDSHIP BECAUSE OF THE SHEMITAH – In sharp contrast to Cahn's unbiblical notions, there is no scriptural evidence that ancient Israel experienced any hardship at all because of the Shemitah. Rather, quite the opposite was true because, as previously noted, in the sixth year God actually tripled the harvest so that the Israelites would not have to work in the fields during the entire Shemitah year. Furthermore, the nation also had more than enough to carry the Israelites all the way to the harvest season in the first year of the next seven-year cycle. Logically, this means that the Israelites would have been free to do other things, including perhaps selling some of the extra produce, which could have arguably allowed them to pay down their debts before the last day of the Shemitah year.
FACT: Another claim has been made by this critic; one of many, which has no foundation whatsoever, as we shall see from the biblical record whether this claim has merit or should be discarded, and that is the one made above where he writes, and I quote, In sharp contrast to Cahn's unbiblical notions, there is no scriptural evidence that ancient Israel experienced any hardship at all because of the Shemitah”. Let us look to God’s Word and read it in its proper historical context says.
When Daniel read from the Prophet Isaiah and the Prophet Jeremiah, he understood that the forced 70 year exile God had imposed upon His people was because of their transgression of the Law that caused this exile. Daniel wanted to understand what the fate of his people would be following it, so he fasted and prayed, and sought God for an answer. We read:
In the first year of Darius the son of Ahasuerus, of Median descent, who was made king over the kingdom of the Chaldeans—in the first year of his reign, I, Daniel, observed in the books the number of the years which was revealed as the word of the Lord to Jeremiah the prophet for the completion of the desolations of Jerusalem, namely, seventy years. So I gave my attention to the Lord God to seek Him by prayer and supplications, with fasting, sackcloth and ashes. I prayed to the Lord my God and confessed and said, “Alas, O Lord, the great and awesome God, who keeps His covenant and lovingkindness for those who love Him and keep His commandments, we have sinned, committed iniquity, acted wickedly and rebelled, even turning aside from Your commandments and ordinances. Moreover, we have not listened to Your servants the prophets, who spoke in Your name to our kings, our princes, our fathers and all the people of the land.”
(Daniel 9:1-6)
Daniel confessed his sins and his people’s sins, understanding that they had transgressed the Law and were accursed for it, suffering in exile from their land, which is precisely what we read in Rabbi Cahn’s book which we’ve cited above.
“Righteousness belongs to You, O Lord, but to us open shame, as it is this day—to the men of Judah, the inhabitants of Jerusalem and all Israel, those who are nearby and those who are far away in all the countries to which You have driven them, because of their unfaithful deeds which they have committed against You. Open shame belongs to us, O Lord, to our kings, our princes and our fathers, because we have sinned against You. To the Lord our God belong compassion and forgiveness, for we have rebelled against Him; nor have we obeyed the voice of the Lord our God, to walk in His teachings which He set before us through His servants the prophets. Indeed all Israel has transgressed Your law and turned aside, not obeying Your voice; so the curse has been poured out on us, along with the oath which is written in the law of Moses the servant of God, for we have sinned against Him. Thus He has confirmed His words which He had spoken against us and against our rulers who ruled us, to bring on us great calamity; for under the whole heaven there has not been done anything like what was done to Jerusalem. As it is written in the law of Moses, all this calamity has come on us; yet we have not sought the favor of the Lord our God by turning from our iniquity and giving attention to Your truth. Therefore the Lord has kept the calamity in store and brought it on us; for the Lord our God is righteous with respect to all His deeds which He has done, but we have not obeyed His voice.
(Daniel 9:7-14)
Your post: Nov 7, 2014 10:15:11 AM PST
Jose J. Bernal says:
Daniel clearly recognizes that the sins of transgressing God’s Law had brought the curse of the Law upon God’s people, and caused calamity to fall upon its capital city Jerusalem and the destruction of its temple. After confessing his and Judah’s guilt in transgressing the commandments and statutes of God – this includes the Shemitah which they failed to observe – Daniel confessed their collective sin against God as a nation in the following prayer, I quote:
“And now, O Lord our God, who have brought Your people out of the land of Egypt with a mighty hand and have made a name for Yourself, as it is this day—we have sinned, we have been wicked. O Lord, in accordance with all Your righteous acts, let now Your anger and Your wrath turn away from Your city Jerusalem, Your holy mountain; for because of our sins and the iniquities of our fathers, Jerusalem and Your people have become a reproach to all those around us. So now, our God, listen to the prayer of Your servant and to his supplications, and for Your sake, O Lord, let Your face shine on Your desolate sanctuary. O my God, incline Your ear and hear! Open Your eyes and see our desolations and the city which is called by Your name; for we are not presenting our supplications before You on account of any merits of our own, but on account of Your great compassion. O Lord, hear! O Lord, forgive! O Lord, listen and take action! For Your own sake, O my God, do not delay, because Your city and Your people are called by Your name.”
(Daniel 9:15-19)
Daniel did not presume upon God to even speak of his own righteousness, though he was a just and God-fearing man, but he numbered himself among the transgressors – his people – as equally complicit in violating the commandments of God and breaking His Law, and deserving of the calamity that befell them. Then he cries for God’s mercy, begging God to remember that the city of Jerusalem and His people are called by His name. Everything that Daniel has prayed here is about a great calamity having fallen both God’s city and its people and nation. One has to question whether the critic has read this passage of Daniel, when he made the statement above. I’m sure that he has many times, but has conveniently left the history behind what occurred left out in order to make a point that the biblical text does not.
FACT: Part of the Mosaic Law contains the curses placed upon its transgression. The entire Law was meant to be a blessing (when obeyed) and not a curse (Deuteronomy 28:1-14); but when transgressed, the blessings contained within the Law would work oppositely because the commandment contained in the Law would activate the sins enumerated and codified in it, and bring the curse of God’s judgment upon the nation (Deuteronomy 28:15-68). We return to Rabbi Cahn’s book, and pick up where we left off:
“On the Shemitah’s last and climactic day all debt was cancelled, all credit annulled, and the nation’s financial accounts were transformed in a massive nullification.”
(Ibid, page 40 under the heading The Shemitah’s Desolations)
FACT: The seventh Year was to be a Sabbath year, and all of the people, both native Israelites and the foreigners who dwelt as aliens. The Shemitah was primarily an agrarian law, not a sacrificial one (as the critic mistakenly maintains). I quote:
Six years you shall sow your field, and six years you shall prune your vineyard and gather in its crop, but during the seventh year the land shall have a Sabbath rest, a Sabbath to the Lord; you shall not sow your field nor prune your vineyard. Your harvest’s aftergrowth you shall not reap, and your grapes of untrimmed vines you shall not gather; the land shall have a sabbatical year. All of you shall have the Sabbath products of the land for food; yourself, and your male and female slaves, and your hired man and your foreign resident, those who live as aliens with you.
(Leviticus 25:3-6)
“In the ancient Israeli agrarian culture, the Shemittah year proved to be a difficult challenge for the people’s collective trust in the Creator, the One who bequeathed them the land of milk and honey.
“During the Shemittah (sic) year, the residents of the Land of Israel must completely desist from cultivating their fields. They also relinquish personal ownership of their fields; whatever produce grows on its own is considered communal property, free for anyone to take. This aspect of the Shemittah year is known as shemittat karka, “release of the land.”
And if you should say, “What will we eat in the seventh year? We will not sow, and we will not gather in our produce!” (Leviticus 25:20)
Yet those who put their trust in G‑d were richly rewarded:
I, [G‑d,] will command My blessing for you in the sixth year, and it will yield produce for three years. And you will sow in the eighth year, while still eating from the old crops. Until the ninth year, until the arrival of its crop, you will eat the old crop! (Leviticus 25:21–22)”
FOOTNOTES (From Chabad.org article What Is the Shemitah?)
1. The first cycle started after the years of conquering and dividing the land, in the fifteenth year after they crossed the Jordan River (1258 BCE).
2. While the Torah ordinarily counts months starting from Nissan (in the spring), the years of this cycle—and the Shemittah, too—begin with Rosh Hashanah, at the start of the autumn month of Tishrei.
3. When all the twelve tribes lived in Israel, in their ancestral estates, the year following seven complete Shemittah (sic) cycles—the fiftieth year—was observed as Yovel, the Jubilee year. During Yovel, too, the land was not worked, as during Shemittah (sic). In addition, during the Yovel year all slaves were freed, and all fields and houses sold during the past fifty years were returned to their original owners. Unlike Shemittah, however, the Yovel year is no longer observed. See When is the next Jubilee year?
This was the blessing of the Shemitah, and it released everyone from debt, as well as allowed for the poor to be cared for, even according to this passage, the resident alien who lived among the children of Israel and worked for them, tilling their ground. Since ancient Israel was primarily an agricultural society, the Shemitah was primarily but not exclusively an agrarian law that affected this predominantly agrarian society. It allowed for the proper adjustments of societal evolution in that ancient land. These adjustments came every seventh year, with the greatest ones coming at the end of every forty-ninth year at the time of the fiftieth year, as seen above, known as Yovel.
Of course, after seven Shemitahs Year cycles (7x7=49 years) of these releases, with the various land holdings continually becoming public lands, at the end of this cycle, these lands would be returned to their rightful owners; those who had relinquished them during the previous Shemitahs. We read:
“‘You are also to count off seven Sabbaths of years for yourself, seven times seven years, so that you have the time of the seven Sabbaths of years, namely, forty-nine years. You shall then sound a ram’s horn abroad on the tenth day of the seventh month; on the day of atonement you shall sound a horn all through your land. You shall thus consecrate the fiftieth year and proclaim a release through the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you, and each of you shall return to his own property, and each of you shall return to his family. You shall have the fiftieth year as a jubilee; you shall not sow, nor reap its aftergrowth, nor gather in from its untrimmed vines. For it is a jubilee; it shall be holy to you. You shall eat its crops out of the field.
“‘On this year of jubilee each of you shall return to his own property.”’
(Leviticus 25:8-13)
FACT: When the blessings of the Shemitah, as everything else contained within the Law of Moses as a unit of 613 commandments, was used as a remedial judgment by the Lord with the Babylonian invasion of Judah in 586 B.C., it displaced almost an population and brought to the people forced exile, and the land remained untilled and uncared for during this period of time. It was a calamity and a curse for disobedience to the Law (Deuteronomy 27:26, 29:21, Joshua 8:34, Nehemiah 10:29, Daniel 9:11), not a blessing. This is what Rabbi Cahn writes about at the bottom of page 40, which the critic has misread. When judgment and calamity fall, there is hardship, there is displacement, there is suffering. It is remedial in nature. It is administered in order to bring repentance. And God turns curses into blessings through these remedial judgments (Deuteronomy 23:5, Nehemiah 13:2, Galatians 3:13), IF THEY ARE HEEDED AND FOLLOWED WITH REPENTANCE. This is clear. It bears no resemblance to what the critic charges Rabbi Cahn with saying. None whatsoever.
FACT: Someplace else, the critic himself in his own article, supports what he criticizes here about what the author wrote in The Mystery of the Shemitah, where the critic writes the following. He begins with explain what the Shemitah as a blessing was meant to be. I quote:
“BACKGROUND: In the Law of Moses, God required that his people, the Children of Israel, cease from their work on the seventh or Sabbath day of each week. During the time that they were in the wilderness, God provided a double-portion of manna on the 6th day each week, so that they would not have to work on the Sabbath, even if it only meant gathering food for that day.
“In addition to the Sabbath day, the Lord also instructed them to observe a Sabbath year, during which the Israelites were to allow the land to rest from planting and harvesting. And not only was it an agrarian cycle, but it was also an economic cycle as lenders were required to forgive or "release" (the meaning of Shemitah) borrowers from the obligation of repaying their debts. In order to prevent the collapse of Israel's economy and to provide for their need for food during the entire seventh year, God actually tripled the harvest in the sixth year to carry them through.
Then the critic correctly explains how the Shemitah which was to be a blessing, became a curse during God’s judgment, and explains the historical backdrop to this judgment suffered by Israel when it disobeyed God’s Law. I quote:
“However, over time, as the Israelite men disobeyed the Law concerning marrying wives from the other nations where idolatry and the worship of false gods was practiced, these foreign wives brought their idolatrous practices and pagan worship into the nation of Israel. The result was that the worship of the one true God was abandoned and the Law of Moses was largely ignored. Consequently, Israel failed to observe the Sabbath year for 70 cycles - meaning a period of 490 years.
“In judgment against this pervasive sin, God used the merciless Babylonian empire as His agent of bringing judgment upon Israel because they had turned from Him. Furthermore, the Babylonians carried most of the nation of Israel into captivity - a captivity which lasted for 70 years - one year for each cycle of seven years that the nation had forsaken the Shemitah or Sabbath year. Thus through this God-imposed Shemitah, with the Israelites in captivity, this allowed the land of Israel to rest for the same number of years that the Israelites had failed to allow the land to rest voluntarily.
Here is one of many examples how this critic often contradicts himself in order to project error upon the author where such error does not exist, except in the critic’s thinking. There is much more, and much of it, God willing, will form the contents of a book I am at work on currently that will be a sequel to THE TRUTH ABOUT THE HARBINGER, I wrote in 2013 in answer to the fallacies presented by this critic against Rabbi Cahn’s first New York Times bestseller. We are dealing here with an acute state of double-mindedness, and it manifests itself where contradictions in argument present themselves during debates. Pertaining to this, I have nothing to say, but to warn the reader and the critic equally as to what Scripture tells us regarding double-mindedness:
But if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all generously and without reproach, and it will be given to him. But he must ask in faith without any doubting, for the one who doubts is like the surf of the sea, driven and tossed by the wind. For that man ought not to expect that he will receive anything from the Lord, being a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.
(James 1:5-8)
What is the source of quarrels and conflicts among you? Is not the source your pleasures that wage war in your members? You lust and do not have; so you commit murder. You are envious and cannot obtain; so you fight and quarrel. You do not have because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures. You adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. Or do you think that the Scripture speaks to no purpose: “He jealously desires the Spirit which He has made to dwell in us”? But He gives a greater grace. Therefore it says, “God is opposed to the proud, but gives grace to the humble.” Submit therefore to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Be miserable and mourn and weep; let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves in the presence of the Lord, and He will exalt you.
Do not speak against one another, brethren. He who speaks against a brother or judges his brother, speaks against the law and judges the law; but if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law but a judge of it. There is only one Lawgiver and Judge, the One who is able to save and to destroy; but who are you who judge your neighbor?
(James 4:1-12)
Your post: Nov 7, 2014 10:16:32 AM PST
Jose J. Bernal says:
CLAIM: ISRAEL’S ECONOMY & AMERICA’S ARE DIFFERENT – Another important point to consider is that ancient Israel's economy was not based on deficit spending and huge debts as is true in America today. In 2014, almost everyone has debt of some sort-and in many cases the debts are staggering. Consequently, if those debts were wiped off the books, the entire U.S. economy would collapse.
FACT: Nowhere in the book does it say anywhere anything remotely to what the critic claims above when he writes, and I quote; “ancient Israel's economy was not based on deficit spending and huge debts as is true in America today.” No one has made that claim. It is a fact and matter of history that ancient Israel’s economy was an agrarian economy, as we discussed above, because the modern manufacturing age was two millennia from becoming a reality.
FACT: Were a modern economy put under the stress of the Shemitah, it would collapse. I agree. This is what The Mystery of The Shemitah says. We have seen from Scripture when the Shemitah, which is meant to be a blessing, is used as a remedial judgment from God to a nation, that nation’s economy collapses. If the nation or civilization ignores repeated warnings from God, judgment comes upon that civilization and it collapses. God has destroyed nations and empires and entire civilizations throughout history. What makes this critic think He will not repeat it, especially in light of our own repeated disregard to them? The critic’s charges made here are entirely and absolutely groundless.
CLAIM: THERE WAS NO FDIC OR BANKING SYSTEM IN ANCIENT ISRAEL, LOANS WERE PERSONAL – In contrast, there was most likely very little debt in ancient Israel as compared to America today. There was no banking or lending system backed by the FDIC in ancient Israel, meaning that all loans were personal. Again, just common sense suggests that if potential lenders knew they had to recover all their money before the end of the next Shemitah year or forfeit it, there very likely wouldn't have been very many people who would have been willing to extend credit and personal loans to others.
FACT: What the critic offers here is an interesting bit of anecdotal information, including his mocking mention of the modern Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation not existing in ancient Israel, both of which have no substantive value to the book’s claims or his criticisms of it.
FACT: The explanation the critic offers about how observant or none-observant Israelites covered their losses during a Shemitah Year, has no historical basis in fact, and shows a glaring ignorance of Jewish Cultural Life during the Pre-Rabbinic Era that predated the Babylonian Exile and later the reforms within Judaism carried out by Ezra and Nehemiah.
FACT: Additionally, the critic forgets that his own previous statement about Israel’s 800 year history prior to the Assyrian invasion of Israel in the north on 722 B.C. and the Babylonian Empire’s invasion of Judah in 538 B.C., I will quote him here – “…during Israel's roughly 800 years of existence, between the time they entered the Promised Land around 1400 B.C. and Babylon's first attacks on the southern kingdom in 606 B.C., the nation did not observe the seventy of the required Sabbaths.” He is correct in this observation, rendering the conjecture he has just made above null and unnecessary to this discussion.
CLAIM: NON-ISRAELITES WERE RESPONSIBLE FOR PAYING THEIR DEBTS, WHILE ISREALITES WERE RELEASED FROM THEM: Beyond this, unlike today, only those who were poor were borrowers and only those who could afford to write off debts were able to give loans in the first place. In fact, there were a couple of provisions in the Shemitah laws for not wiping debt off the books-if a borrower was not an Israelite and if the entire country was prosperous:
Of a foreigner you may require it; but you shall give up your claim to what is owed by your brother, except when there may be no poor among you; for the Lord will greatly bless you in the land which the Lord your God is giving you to possess as an inheritance-only if you carefully obey the voice of the Lord your God, to observe with care all these commandments which I command you today. (Deuteronomy 15:3-5) So, once again, Cahn's theories and arguments simply have no biblical or logical merit.
FACT: Here again the critic continues to contradict his previous statement above where he wrote the following, ”…during Israel's roughly 800 years of existence …God did not impose a Shemitah upon them until the Babylonian captivity,” where he inferred to argue that because Israel had not observed the Shemitah during that period in its history, God did not – not “must have” – but “did not” impose the Shemitah on Israel. Here the critic argues that the Shemitah was indeed imposed, but not on the foreigner – the Gentile. Which is it? Was it imposed on Israel or wasn’t it imposed on Israel? One begins to see a pattern of contradiction in the critic’s arguments.
FACT: The critic argues here from the Law regarding the Shemitah, forgetting that whether or not it was imposed on Israelite and not imposed on Gentiles; most of the Israelites of that era did not in fact, observe the Shemitah because they abandoned the Law and began adopting the ways of the pagan nations around them. Ezra’s reforms did not take place until the year 539 B.C. – after the fall of the Babylonian Empire to the Medo-Persians, and king Cyrus the Great’s edict. It was during this period with the rebuilding of the temple in Jerusalem, and Ezra’s reforms (and Nehemiah’s about 50 years later) that we begin to see returning exiles adopting a Torah-centric Lifestyle. The critic’s speculation preceding his use of the Law (as if it buttresses his point) does not apply because he ignored the history. The history indicates that regardless of the Law, the people as a majority were not observing it at this time, therefore this anecdotal use to argue a theological point by making use of speculation and then citing Scripture from the Law to enforce that speculation is out of place here. The speculation is historically without foundation and does nothing to favor the argument.
I include here a Chronology of the historical events of the 7th to 6th century B.C. Era for the readers
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Reign of Jehoiakim (succeeded Jehoahaz, who replaced Josiah but reigned only 3 months) Began giving tribute to Nebuchadnezzar in 605 BCE. First deportation, including Daniel.
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Anti-Babylonian conspiracy
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Gedaliah the Babylonian-appointed governor of Yehud Province assassinated.
Many Jews flee to Egypt and a possible fourth deportation to Babylon
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Release of Jehoiachin after 37 years in a Babylonian prison.[26] He remains in Babylon
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Persians conquer Babylon (October)
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