Those who claim with their lips and the words of their mouth that they accept Salvation--Jesus Christ/Yeshua Messiah--but who then turn around and teach that all must still keep the entire old covenant law are in actions rejecting Salvation. Some openly reject Paul and all his writings, but since Paul was very much at one with Salvation, they also reject Salvation's teachings with their actions, though they don't dare do so with their words.
Friend, are YOU one being deceived by such teachers? Are YOU then turning around and teaching others they must do the same?
THE NEW COVENANT CERTAINLY DOES NOT DO AWAY WITH THE LAW OF GOD, BUT THE NEW COVENANT DOES DO AWAY WITH THE OLD COVENANT!
First, you must identify whether you truly are a Paul-rejector or not. Some openly reject Paul, but others know if they reject Paul's writings, the validity of all the scriptures then comes into question, so they accept Paul's teachings with their lips, but in their actions and their teachings to others, they in fact reject Paul. In rejecting Paul, people are truly rejecting Salvation, too, although they may not realize it. Now, read the following words of my sleeping brother Paul, and ask yourself whether you are allowing yourself to be blinded and whether you ACCEPT or REJECT Paul's words:
But their minds were blinded: for until this day remaineth the same vail untaken away in the reading of the old testament; which vail is done away in Christ. But even unto this day, when Moses is read, the vail is upon their heart (2 Cor. 3:14-15).
Before I write more, I want to share the commentary on verse 14 by Albert Barnes, the 19th century Protestant theologian, as his commentary on this is very applicable (my bold and underlining for emphasis):
But their minds were blinded - The word used here (πωρόω pōroō) means rather to harden; to make hard like stone; and then to make dull or stupid. It is applied to the heart, in Mark 6:52; Mark 8:17; to persons, in Romans 11:7; and to the eyes, in Job 17:7. Paul refers here to the fact that the understandings of the Jews were stupid, dull, and insensible, so that they did not see clearly the design and end of their own institutions. He states simply the fact; he does not refer to the cause of it. The fact that the Jews were thus stupid and dull is often affirmed in the New Testament.
For until this day ... - The sense of this is, that even to the time when Paul wrote, it was a characteristic of the great mass of the Jewish people, that they did not understand the true sense of their own Scriptures. They did not understand its doctrines in regard to the Messiah. A veil seems to be thrown over the Old Testament when they read it, as there was over the face of Moses, so that the glory of their own Scriptures is concealed from their view, as the glory of the face of Moses was hidden.
Of the Old Testament - Greek, "of the old covenant." See this word "testament," or covenant, explained in the notes on 1 Corinthians 11:25. This, I believe, is the only instance in which the Scriptures of the Jews are called the "Old Testament," or covenant, in the Bible. It was, of course, not a name which they used, or would use; but it is now with Christians the common appellation. No doubt can be entertained but that Paul uses the terms in the same manner in which we now do, and refers to all the inspired writings of the Jews.
Which vail is done away in Christ - In the manifestation, or appearance of Jesus the Messiah, the veil is removed. The obscurity which rested on the prophecies and types of the former dispensation is withdrawn; and as the face of Moses could have been distinctly seen if the veil on his face had been removed, so it is in regard to the true meaning of the Old Testament by the coming of the Messiah. What was obscure is now made clear; and the prophecies are so completely fulfilled in him, that his coming has removed the covering, and shed a clear light over them all. Many of the prophecies, for example, until the Messiah actually appeared, appeared obscure, and almost contradictory. Those which spoke of him, for illustration, as man and as God; as suffering, and yet reigning; as dying, and yet as ever-living; as a mighty Prince, a conqueror, and a king, and yet as a man of sorrows; as humble, and yet glorious: all seemed difficult to be reconciled until they were seen to harmonize in Jesus of Nazareth. Then they were plain, and the veil was taken away. Christ is seen to answer all the previous descriptions of him in the Old Testament; and his coming casts a clear light on all which was before obscure.
Adam Clarke's commentary may be even better, and it's shorter and more to the point:
But their minds were blinded - By resting in the letter, shutting their eyes against the light that was granted to them, they contracted a hardness or stupidity of heart. And the veil that was on the face of Moses, which prevented the glory of his face from shining out, may be considered as emblematical of the veil of darkness and ignorance that is on their hearts, and which hinders the glory of the Gospel from shining in.
Until this day remaineth the same veil - They are still ignorant of the spiritual meaning and intention of their own law, called here παλαια διαθηκη, the old covenant. See the word explained in the preface to St. Matthew.
In the reading of the Old Testament - Here is an evident allusion to the conduct of the Jews in their synagogues: when they read the law they cover their whole head with a veil, which they term the טלית tallith, veil, from טלל talal, to cover; and this voluntary usage of theirs, the apostle tells us, is an emblem of the darkness of their hearts while they are employed even in sacred duties.
Which veil is done away in Christ - It is only by acknowledging Christ that the darkness is removed, and the end and spiritual meaning of the law discerned.
Aha! The false teachers out there who are into this "Messianic Judaism" religion and others who teach the new covenant is not really the new covenant but rather a "renewed" old covenant are BLIND like the Jews, not understanding the meaning of the old covenant scriptures. They do not want to accept the new covenant so that they can have the veil removed, because they are too concerned about LOOKING OUTWARDLY RIGHTEOUS TO MEN! (Note: I blow to pieces the false teaching of the "renewed covenant" by going to the actual Hebrew. Click here for my study article. It's the first point after the introduction.)
If a person would just READ the gospels and Hebrews and Paul's writings, I would think the confusion would go away, mostly, anyway, but I'm not sure what people are doing. I think they are too busy listening to their false teachers and desiring to look outwardly righteous, instead of actually READING and STUDYING the scriptures.
Let's look at some of the laws that CONDEMN the false teachers out there who teach we must go by ALL the law as given to Moses, the written law that was given as what we now call the old covenant. Remember first, the promise of the Savior was given to Abraham 430 years BEFORE the old covenant, so the old covenant could not annul the new covenant (see Gal. 3:15-29). Please get your bible, and CHECK the scripture references. PROVE what I'm saying, whether it's right or wrong:
1. Under the old covenant, the law states that gentiles must be circumcised (in the penis) in order to partake of the Passover (ref. Ex. 12:48). The new covenant Passover was instituted by Christ (ref. Luke 22:20; Mark 14:24; Matt. 26:28). Under the new covenant, gentiles who wanted to join God's covenant, circumcision is not required (ref. Acts 15:24; Rom. 2:28-29; I Cor. 7:19; Gal. 5:12-13, 15) and for those of Israel or Judah who enter the new covenant, at that time it would have been irrelevant to discuss circumcision, because such men were already circed in the penis from infancy. What our parents do to us during infancy has no bearing on what kind of person we end up being and whether we choose to serve God when we become adults. We are to examine ourselves before partaking of the new covenant Passover so that we do not partake of it unworthily. If the old covenant regulations still stand, then an uncircumcised male (regardless of blood heritage) would be partaking of it unworthily.
2. Under the old covenant, per the law of Moses, a person is commanded to choose a physically unblemished lamb, a male yearling, on the tenth day of the first month of the year and keep it up until the fourteenth day of the same month, take the blood and paint the doorposts of his home, roast the lamb whole (no boiling) and eat the flesh of the entire lamb along with unleavened bread and bitter herbs (Ex. 12:13). It was to be an ordinance throughout Israel's generations, forever, to remind them of God's saving power to deliver them from Egyptian bondage (vs. 14, 17). However, under the new covenant, Salvation the Anointed King is our spiritually unblemished (I Pet. 1:19) Passover lamb, and he commanded us to keep the NEW covenant Passover with unleavened bread and wine to symbolize his broken body and shed blood and that we are to keep it to remind us of his death, which is God's saving power to deliver us from bondage to sin (Luke 22:20; Matt. 26:28). Do you keep the old covenant Passover or the new covenant one?
Uh-oh! Those old-covenant teachers MUST reject Salvation's teaching, if they are going to reject Paul for adding or taking away from the law of Moses, because Salvation did it!!!!!!!!! THEIR MOUTHS NEED TO BE SHUT! They keep leading people astray. This goes back to the scriptures Paul wrote to the Corinthians that the Jews were so foolish that they could not see in the reading of the old covenant that the old ordinances were to come to an end. They were TEMPORARY! A daughter is to obey her father FOREVER! But, unless you are a complete fool, you know that the meaning of "forever" that I just used is not as long-lasting as some would like to make you believe that the "forevers" in the old covenant are. When a daughter is given in marriage, she then belongs to her husband and obeys him! IT NEEDS NOT TO BE DIFFICULT TO UNDERSTAND!
3. Under the old covenant law of Moses, a person was commanded to pay damages for physical hurt done to another human being (Ex. 21:24-25; Lev. 24:20), but the Anointed One pointed out that we should have mercy for those who deserve it (Matt. 5:38-40).
4. Under the old covenant law of Moses, it was permissible for a man to write a bill of divorce to his wife, if she did not find favor in his eyes and that she could then be another man's wife (Deut. 24:1-2; Matt. 19:7). But, Salvation said that unless she was put away for fornication, one should not divorce, and if one does and marries another, it is adultery and causes the woman to commit adultery if she marries another (Matt. 19:9; 5:31-32). He said, Moses, because of the hardness of your hearts allowed you to put away your wives: but from the beginning it was not so (Matt. 19:8). DID YOU CATCH THAT? READ IT FROM YOUR BIBLE. MEDITATE ON IT. FROM THE BEGINNING IT WAS NOT SO! JUST LIKE FROM THE BEGINNING, A LOT OF THINGS DONE UNDER THE OLD COVENANT WAS NOT SO. IT WAS A CARNAL COVENANT MEANT TO BE A TEMPORARY SCHOOLTEACHER, BUT SO MANY STILL DON'T GET IT.
5. Under the old covenant law of Moses, vows were to be sworn unto Jehovah by His name (ref. Deut. 23:23). Salvation, however, when he came to preach the Kingdom of God (Matt. 11:13; Luke 16:16), taught that we should not swear by the name of God nor anyone or anything else, but let our yes be yes and our no be no (Matt. 5:33-35).
6. Under the old covenant, it was commanded that we hate certain enemies, for example the Ammonites and Moabites (modern-day Jordanians) were not to enter into God's congregation forever (Deut. 23:3). Oh, look! There are those words "for ever" again (even though it had just said ten generations, so we can use LOGIC and conclude that "for ever" in this verse meant that UNTIL the ten generations were up, the people were forever not to let those people in God's congregation). The Lord Salvation taught that we should love our enemies (Matt. 5:43-48) and be forgiving and merciful. We shouldn't judge anyone by what their ancestors did.
7. Under the old covenant, in order to keep the Feast of Tabernacles, you were commanded to take the fruit of good trees, the branches of palm trees, fruits of thick trees, and willows of the brook. (Wonder how I'd obey, when there are no palm trees here. Lev. 23:40) Under the new covenant, of course, a visit to Jerusalem is not required to keep the feasts of God, and the new covenant temple are the members of the Church, the Body of Christ. Jesus, our Lord Salvation, said that the Father sought those to worship him in SPIRIT and TRUTH, and so would not be worshiping in Jerusalem (John 4:21-24). This applies to everything else festival-related that was required under the old covenant to be done in Jerusalem. Are you reading the scriptures? Are you checking these things out for yourself? Are you either blindly agreeing with me or blowing off what I say so that you can continue on believing as you are setting your heart to do so, or are you putting away your laziness and checking these scriptures?
8. Under the old covenant, the priesthood was of the tribe of Levi (Deut. 18:1; 21:5; 31:9). Priests were to be chosen only from the Levites. In addition, such men were not to bear any physical blemishes, such as blindness, lameness, flat nose, hunch-backed, scarred or scabbed up, etc. (Lev. 21:18-23). Under the new covenant the priesthood is headed by Christ (who was of Judah), his being the high priest and all those during the Church age who are begotten with God's Spirit--the Holy Seed--make up the new covenant priesthood. Whereas the Levitical priests offered up physical sacrifices of grain, flesh, etc., we are to offer up spiritual sacrifices. Study the following scriptures: 1 Pet. 2:5, 9; Rom. 12:1; Eph. 5:27; Rev. 1:6; 5:10. Salvation (Jesus/Yeshua) was prophesied by Isaiah not to be a good-looking man that any person would naturally desire him for his looks (Isa. 53:2). It says no where that he had any deformities, but he was not handsome. It was to be deliberate. God desires sons who look at things as He does, judging the spiritual things and not the physical. Believe it or not, this was revealed here and there throughout the old covenant writings! It was repeated that one should circumcise his heart and that one should not judge outer appearance and that God didn't desire sacrifice but obedience and on and on.
If you read and study carefully, you'll notice the very few people you read about in old covenant times who possessed God's Spirit were not carnal. David did not even visit the priests for sin sacrifice after his adultery with Bathsheba and the murder of her husband Uriah (Psa. 51:16-17). He spoke to Heavenly Father and said that he knew God did not desire burnt animal sacrifice, OTHERWISE HE'D GIVE IT, but he knew God wanted a broken spirit (over his sin) and a contrite heart. He and the priest also broke the law of Moses at another time when he was running away from Saul, by eating the shewbread (I Sam. 21:1-6; Matt. 12:1-7). Yet, David has been chosen to be the king heading the entire twelve tribes of Israel during the Kingdom of God age on this earth (Eze. 34:23-24). Of course, Salvation shall be the top King of all, and there will be ranks. Underneath David, but also over the twelve tribes of Israel, will be the original twelve apostles (not Judas Iscariot but Matthias, his replacement) over each tribe, and so on. David was truly a man after God's own heart, and he could see past the old covenant rituals. He understood that they were a schoolteacher for carnal men. He knew it was a man's covenant, a carnal covenant, to point out the fault of the way a man thinks and judges things, all based on OUTWARD SHOW in the FLESH. Then the new covenant shows God's heart, His view, the perfect way God thinks and judges things, all based on the INWARD HEART in the SPIRIT.
If you want to please God, you need to start thinking the way Salvation did, the way David did, the way Paul did, the way all God's true Spirit-begotten servants think. You need to stop thinking carnally, because you cannot please God that way, though you may be deceiving yourself and others that you can.
9. Under the old covenant, Israel was commanded not to eat an animal that died of itself. We who live with our modern advanced knowledge don't need an in-depth explanation of this. We know why it's not a good idea to do this. The animal may have died of a bad disease, which could then be passed on to you. Now, it was allowed, however, to be given to the gentiles who lived within Israel's borders (Deut. 14:21). Now, if you have a Godly heart, I would hope that you do not have BLINDERS on your eyes, that you cannot see a problem--a FAULT--with this. Now, as I explained in my recently published book God's Law of Love, The Perfect Law of Liberty: Jehovah's Ten Commandments Still Apply Today, for a very poor gentile neighbor, if he had nothing to eat and would otherwise be starving, eating the flesh from such an animal might be a better risk than not having anything to eat at all, but if you truly have the HEART OF A SON OF GOD, and you could afford to do so, then you would rather let the death of such an animal be a REMINDER to offer a GOOD and SAFE animal's flesh to your foreigner neighbor who is living in poverty. What true Christian person thinks with the mind of, "My cow just died, and who knows what caused it, but I'm going to give it to my black neighbor to eat. He's just a Blackie. He's not as clean as I am, all white and sanctified by God because of my white flesh. It may not be safe for me to eat, but ol' Blackie can eat it."
How SICK, if you actually think this way! Do you not READ through the law of Moses and see the GOOD principles, but do you not also see the FAULT, the SHORTCOMINGS of some of it??? Are you BLIND to it all, as Paul said of the Jews of his day? Are you so carnal? Some things were ALLOWED under the old covenant, because of the HARDNESS OF THEIR HEARTS, the CARNALITY of the people. But those who possessed Godly hearts lived more Godly than what the law of Moses allowed. They did not seek divorces over little things. They did not seek out multiple wives. They did not give animals that died of themselves to their foreigner neighbors. They did not feel the need to wear phylacteries on their foreheads (ironically enough, Jews still do this today, as seen here, but I've YET TO SEE those who insist on penile circumcision of their sons and wearing of tassels in their clothes wear phylacteries on their foreheads. INSANITY!!!!!! HYPOCRITES, HYPOCRITES, HYPOCRITES! CAN YOU SAY, "HYPOCRITES?!" Oh, yeah, of all those who hurl their condemnations at me because I live the new covenant and will not live their old covenant ways and teach others to do so (b/c they won't to make a boast in the flesh--Gal. 6:13), NOT ONE have I seen wear phylacteries on their foreheads and things attached to their hands!
Now, is it SIN to circumcise your sons or to wear tassels or any of these other things? NO, absolutely NOT! But, it is a sin to reject the new covenant by mandating that others keep the old covenant (the promise of Messiah was BEFORE the old covenant, do not forget). And they are certainly putting themselves under a CURSE, because CURSED is the person who enters the old covenant and who fails to do all the things commanded therein. Many of the things are IMPOSSIBLE to keep right now, for there is no temple in Jerusalem, and many could not visit three times a year, every year, even if there was. Just CRAZY, the things people believe and teach.
10. The last example I care to give time to give (ten is enough) is that under the old covenant women who gave birth to a child were to go through a cleansing period (Lev. 12:1-8). Now, it is true that a woman should rest and recover, and it is true that a woman should abstain from sex until she is finished bleeding and goes through her physical cleansing. Usually the bleeding lasts no longer than six weeks (or around the 40 days the law of Moses prescribed for cleansing for a male child). The law of Moses, though, prescribed EIGHTY days for a female child. In addition, during the entire time of this cleansing, a woman was not allowed to go to worship services or to touch ANY HALLOWED THING. Can you imagine that God, who wants to be worshiped in SPIRIT and in TRUTH, would mandate a woman under the new and better covenant not to touch her bible so that she can read the Word of God for six to twelve weeks? The HOLY Word of God. Do you believe a woman is to stay away from her congregation (if she has one) for six to twelve weeks? What about the sacrifice that she is to make at the temple afterward? You are not doing a good job of keeping the old covenant if you are not visiting the Jerusalem temple to make the commanded sacrifices! A bit of a dilemma, wouldn't you say?!
Of course, if you are reading this and have any sense at all, and especially if you have the heart of God, if you are truly a begotten son of God and know or are learning to know how to please God, you surely realize how UTTERLY RIDICULOUS some people can be, and they are DECEIVING many. False prophets abound!
The bottom line is this: The new covenant does not do away with doing good, keeping the law in the spirit, but it does do away with the old covenant! People loved God and their fellow man BEFORE the establishment of the old covenant. People kept the Ten Commandments BEFORE Moses delivered them at Sinai, BEFORE all those added old covenant things were enacted. People put God first, worshiped Him in Spirit and Truth without bowing to images, they did not worship him in vain or blaspheme His Holy Name, they kept the Sabbath holy, they honored their parents, they did not murder, they did not commit adultery, they did not steal, nor did they lie, nor did they covet. They kept the dietary and agricultural regulations that were given from the beginning. All that was done by righteous men BEFORE the old covenant, and it can surely be done now.
