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The light shown in my second floor bedroom as my oldest napped across the hall. All was quiet and calm. I sat crisscrossed on my bed engrossed in my daily Bible reading, working my way through its entirety for the second time. The words leapt from the page and my jaw dropped.
The blood shall be a sign for you, on the houses where you are. And when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague will befall you to destroy you, when I strike the land of Egypt. Exodus 12:13
My mind felt completely blown. How did I not see this before? Why had I never made the connection that Jesus was THE passover lamb and the plan from the get go?! (That now HIS perfect, unblemished blood covers me so that the judgment of God would PASSOVER me.)
I instantly grabbed my phone and called my mom to excitedly describe the mind blowing connection that I had never made before. Later, I analyzed why it wasn't until I was 25 years old that I learned this after spending my whole life in church.
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As a human race, I feel that we tend to lean toward extremes, all or nothing. Especially if the opposite has been weaponized in our experiences. If the commandments and obedience was wielded heavily with little mercy, the recipients tend to push violently against it to an overabundance of grace.
On the contrary, in my childhood, grace was abundantly preached with no connection to the law. What Jesus did is it and as long as you have placed your belief in him, you are fine. Brush your hands off. Call it a day. You are a sinner, and never can turn away from sin so as long as you ask for forgiveness - no obedience of his law is necessary. Why the pendulum swing though? Because we know deep down that either extreme is not biblical.
We are saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ for our salvation THEN we are called to demonstrate that faith through obedience to God's commands.
“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished.Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven." (Matthew 5:17-20) "What then? Are we to sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness?
But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness. I am speaking in human terms, because of your natural limitations. For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification.
For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. But what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 6:15-23) “If you love me, you will obey my commandments. I will ask the Father, and he will give you another helper who will be with you forever. That helper is the Spirit of Truth. The world cannot accept him, because it doesn’t see or know him. You know him, because he lives with you and will be in you." (John 14:15-17)
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While we are passed over for Gods judgment day still to come - the Holy Spirit enables us to keep the commandments God gives us as our creator and Father- for OUR good. Not to earn salvation but to love the one who saved us even before we sinned against Him.
We need to have a healthy dose of both grace and law not too skewed in one direction or the other. Grace, because we will never be able to follow the law perfectly, while on this earth we will have to fight our flesh. Law, to point to our sin and need for the Holy Spirit to refine us to be more like Christ.
Coming to this realization I continued to read on in Exodus 12:14
“This day shall be for you a memorial day, and you shall keep it as a feast to the Lord; throughout your generations, as a statute forever, you shall keep it as a feast. Exodus 12:14 (emphasis is mine)
Woah. A Statute Forever. Other versions say: eternal, everlasting, forever, lasting ordinance. These words mean without end, not 'oh until Jesus, who obeyed God and these commandments perfectly comes and takes them away.' In fact Jesus said,
For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished. Matthew 5:18 (emphasis is mine)
I don't know about you, but heaven and earth have not quite passed away yet, hm, this struck me as a feast we are meant to keep eternally, forever, as Jesus did here on earth. My heart was pierced by the Truth of Yah's Holy word.
And that was the beginning of my journey turning from man made traditions (christmas, easter, halloween, pentacost) and out of context one verse only theology TO → obeying the TRUTH of Yahs Holy commands (his Holy feasts) - not for salvation but because He first loved me.
He has now given me the desire to love Him how He WANTS to be loved - not how I think he wants to be loved - and how he wants to be loved is laid out clearly in his Torah (the first 5 books of the Bible).
I had no outside influence to lead me in that direction just God's unadulterated word, but soon I found that other believers had come to the same conclusion - not by sermons or theological study but by reading the Bible for themselves. Two of those believers were Kayte and Luke Abaffy, who shortly after my own realization, released The Way Documentary and now Luke's new book The Truth: Reformation 2.0.
"If you had to reconstruct your theology with only the Bible how much of your theology would survive?" Mike Winger
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The Truth: Reformation 2.0 by Luke Abaffy is an apologetics book confronting 25 harmful biblical contradictions in today's popular christian theology. It answers common questions we get like:
Are we supposed to keep the feasts?
Did God tell Peter that he could eat unclean meat, and did he?
Are we apart of Israel or are we just gentiles with more lenient/easier rules to obey.
Has all but the "10 commandments" been done away with?
Luke provides a clear and concise argument using the truth of scripture against contradictions to the Bible that popular theology preaches. Diagrams, invoking images, simple explanations and comparisons bring the truth into tangible understanding.
God's Word stands on its own - to add or take away is a serious thing, but in todays day in age of over of abundance of information, commentaries, theological standings, many base their belief system on how they were raised or who they follow on various platforms. But we won't be answering to them on judgment day, now will we?
“So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.
“Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few.
“Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will recognize them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thorn bushes, or figs from thistles? So, every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit. A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus you will recognize them by their fruits.
“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’
“Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.”
And when Jesus finished these sayings, the crowds were astonished at his teaching, for he was teaching them as one who had authority, and not as their scribes. Matthew 7:21-28