Mountain Climbing (Exodus 18-20)

Dear Friends,

Shalom! Blessings!!! A small study from last week’s Torah portion and an invitation to join us, through thought and comments, for this week’s Torah portion.

Last Week: Exodus 18-20

We focused on two words, stoned, סקול, and shot through, ירוה. In context, from Ex 19:21, we read, “do not touch it (the mountain) with a hand, because stoned, (you) will be stoned, or shot through, (you) will be shot through.

In Hebrew, saying the same word in both the past and future tense gives it great weight, it is like an eternal injunction.

But why the intensified warning? For sure… The mountain was holy. Incomprehensibly holy. There was probably a volcano with an earthquake happening and so it was deadly. Curiosity would’ve been terminal. But Moses walked up through it unharmed. Why? Why was he able to do that?

It’s in the words.

Stoned.

Yeshua would say, in Matthew 24:21, that any who fell on the Stone would be broken into pieces, and any upon whom It fell would be ground to powder.

Shot Through.

The word that’s used for shot through is the verbal root for Torah, the noun. It applies to an archer who shoots the target perfectly, or to someone who teaches the perfect ways of God, or to someone living a perfectly righteous life. Thus the noun, Torah, teaches us how to live the verb, yaruah, how to live perfect lives that hit the Lord’s bull’s-eye every moment. An impossibly tall order for the natural man, but a requirement from God. Anyone who touches His mountain will die but anyone who avoids His mountain will never know true life. An eternal impossible blessing promise.

But for Christ…

He died for us at Golgotha, on Mount Zion, and we die for him when we choose true life. Every moment of life in Him is death, as we are pierced to the core, crushed to dust, shot through with His arrows, but truly, vibrantly, miraculously alive, sitting on His Throne, on the top of His mountain, reigning with Him. But for Christ…

In Christ, we see that the warning of death was the invitation into true life, something that God gave Moses permission to enter into. Something that we are invited into every moment of every day through Yeshua’s cross and resurrection.

The Ten Commandments

It is only after giving us this warning that God gave us the 10 Commandments (chapter 20). It is only when we choose to die to ourselves, to live for Christ, that we can walk out the 10 Commandments in trust and faith, in victory and fulfillment, because we must live on the top of God’s mountain, on his throne, to be able to do so.

So, going back over the steps above:

When we choose for our old man to be broken, we fall upon Christ.
He crushes the old man back into dust, piercing our beings to the very core, teaching us how to live new righteous lives in Him,
Giving us the capacity to walk up His mountain of grace, into complete and full relationship with Him.
Moses, as an extraordinary example of what would come in the future, was willing to pay that price.
All of us who walk in Messiah Yeshua have chosen to pay that price.
The mountain of God’s Holiness creates us anew in Him, and when we come to the top we discover we are seated with Christ in holiness.

This week: Ex 21-24

I invite you to look at the role of law, grace and faith in your lives.

We need to know on which side of the road to drive so we don’t run into each other. We need to know who is responsible in case of an emergency. But… an ambulance can drive on the wrong side of the road when necessary. And so can we. God can resolve an emergency without us needing to contact anybody. Prayer is often better than calling 911. Grace is always necessary as is wisdom.
The concept of corrective law is different under Yeshua. We no longer take an eye for an eye, but we offer our assailant the other eye. How does this relate to the world today and to the problems we are having? Theologically and practically?
Although the specifics of our society are completely different from ancient Biblical times, and none of the detailed laws recompensing people for transgressions in their transactions can apply to us today, the principles should … except that … in Matthew 5, Yeshua both reversed the way we restore someone who has transgressed against us to righteousness and He also made us accountable to God for our very thoughts towards them. Further, He made love the law of our hearts and He made breaking that law very very serious, perhaps the most serious crime of all

I would love hearing your thoughts about this in light of current affairs in Israel, in the Middle East, in your country, wherever you live, and in the world, in light of the law and the love of God written now in our hearts.

Shalom and blessings!!!