What really is the Law of Moses and is it still valid today? What is the understanding of the average Christian today toward keeping it. What have we been taught about the fourth commandment (Exodus 20:8-11)?
I was raised in a Christian family of the Lutheran faith. At the age of 24, I moved away from Church doctrines and pursued my own spiritual journey, reading the entire Bible and asking the Holy Spirit to teach and lead me. One of those doctrines are infant water baptism in the Church and later in our early teens, we learn the Ten Commandments, and Church doctrines, and then you are “confirmed” in the faith (Confirmation).
One of those errors and lies that every unsuspecting Lutheran kid learns is in relation to the Fourth Commandment. We learn that “Sunday must be kept holy”. This is un-Biblical. Sunday worship was instituted by Emperor Constantine in the 4th Century through the Council of Nicaea, when he divorced the Church from the Hebrew roots of faith. Breaking YAH’s Commandments and teaching others to do so brings curse upon our lives (see Deuteronomy 28 and Mathew 5:17-18).
The Law of Moses, also called the TORAH, refers to the Commandments, Laws and statutes YAH gave through Moses on Mt Sinai. The first five (5) books of the Hebrew Holy Scriptures are collectively called the Torah or the Law of Moses.
The Hebrew Holy Scriptures consists of the Torah (Instructions in Righteousness), the Prophets (Nevi’im) and Writings (Ketuvim).
Malachi 4:4-6 admonishes us to remember the Torah of Moshe which YAH gave at Horev, with the laws and rulings. The remembrance of the Torah and the reception of the spirit of Eliyahu will cause teshuvah – return, repentance and restoration. These are the two key witnesses for the end-time revival that will usher the return of the Messiah and the complete fulfillment of the Torah and the Prophets.
A fundamental deception or false doctrine in Christianity today says: “Don’t worry about the Law because it is Old Testament. We are not living under the Law or under the Old Covenant, but under grace in the New Covenant”.
The only New or Renewed Covenant the Bible speaks of has to do with YAH’s Torah as recorded in Jeremiah 31; 31-34. It is renewed covenant with the house of Israel and Y’hudah. YAH will put His Torah within them and write it on their hearts by the Holy Spirit. It is impossible for us to be in the New Covenant without Yah’s laws and commandments.
This prophecy was fulfilled through the Messiah. Yeshua is the Living Torah. Jochanan said of Him “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God…and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us…(John 1:1 & 14). Yeshua is one with the Word. The Word is the Law and the Law the Word.
Yeshua said in Matthew 5:17 – 19 that He did not come to abolish the Law and the Prophets, but to fulfill. He came to interpret the Law to the full and to show us how to live and walk practically according to the Torah.
The Law has simply changed location. From the tablets of stone to the tablets of human hearts, written by the Holy Spirit and inked by the blood of Yeshua HaMasiach.
The great revival and restoration of the third millennium spoken by the Prophet Malachi (the Messenger) is about the restoration of fatherhood. The fatherhood of God, the fatherhood of Israel to the nations and mother to the church, the restoration of the Gentiles back to the original Hebrew roots of faith, the restoration of strained family relations.
YHVH as our Father gave us Instructions in Righteousness (His Torah) out of love, for our own good, so we can live a long and prosperous life on earth. When the Holy Spirit writes the Law in our hearts and puts them in our minds, we experience revival. Complete change happens. We are convicted on sin, and it causes us to repent. We receive healing, deliverance and restoration. We honor, respect and obey our Father’s commandments out of love, and not legalism. Good. You are right.
The understanding of the average Christian today that the Law is not longer applicable is a false doctrine started through the Council of Nicaea in the 4th Century, which divorced the Church from its Hebrew roots.
For example, Christians can obey nine (9) of the ten (10) Commandments but find it so hard to simply obey the fourth Commandment which talks about YAH’s Shabbat. If we break one commandment, we are guilty of breaking all of them.
I have been taught in Christianity of the Lutheran faith that the Shabbat is a feast for the Jews, not for the Christians. The Church doctrine substitute Shabbat for Sunday in the Fourth Commandment and teach us. Christians need teaching that the whole Law of Moses belongs to them, too. What a blessing the Shabbat is for all of His people – Jew & Gentile!