Author: Steven R. Bruck
Is John 1 Talking About a Person or an Idea?
In the Gospel of John, we are told that the Word was with God and the Word was God (John 1-2). We are also told that the Word became a human being and lived with us (John 1:14.) This same “Word” was with God from the beginning and all things were made through him; in fact, nothing had any being without him.
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Spoiler alert!! Today’s message may be hard to understand so please try to stay with me.
The traditional understanding of this is that it is all about the Messiah, whose name is Yeshua (please don’t argue over the “real” name of the Messiah- it is not relevant to this discussion) and who was sent by God to bring the path to salvation to the world.
I don’t disagree with this at all; in fact, the entire Gospel of John tells us about the Messiah God sent, his life and his teachings.
What I want to talk about is the confusion over whether or not Yeshua was with God since the beginning. Because the entire Gospel of John is one long, on-going use of metaphor, I wonder if he was really referring to Yeshua the person or to the plan of God regarding a Messiah to come.
Here is what I am thinking: God knew his plan of salvation would involve a Messiah from the very start. He told Abraham this, in not so many words, when he said his descendants would be a blessing to the world. He told David, absolutely, that one of his descendants would have an everlasting kingdom. There are some 135 or more Messianic passages in the Tanakh, and everything we read in the Tanakh points to the coming of a Messiah to bring the Jewish people back into communion with God, who promises (through the Prophets) to regather his people, change our hearts and forgive us our sins.
Everything in the Tanakh is about the Messiah and God’s promise to “save” us from our sins. The New Covenant (B’rit Chadashah) is the narrative about the Messiah who God promised to send. We are given the narrative of his life in the 4 Gospels, and the rest is about the influence his Disciples had in the world. The main thing about the writings in the New Covenant is that the salvation provided for by the Messiah has been expanded to the rest of the world, i.e. the Gentiles.
I do not know if Yeshua was a spiritual being from the beginning, which would then (by definition) equate him with God, or if his future existence was just part of the original plan God had for saving the human race from our own sinfulness. If we take what John wrote, literally, then the Messiah either is God, or God is not unique, which he couldn’t be if another spiritual being was with him all the time.
I believe God has no beginning and no end, as he is described to us in the Torah, and that the Messiah had to have come later. As a person, the Messiah did not come until when we are told, in the New Covenant. As an idea, though, I believe the Messiah existed- in God’s mind- since the very first time God decided he would create the world and humans.
Therefore, what I believe John meant when he said the Word was with God and all things were made through him, is that God’s plan for humanity has always included the need for a Messiah, and as such everything that was created was done so with the Messiah in mind. Not the person of a Messiah, but the need of a Messiah, and when God knew the time for this Messiah to stop being a promise and become a living, flesh-and-blood entity, he created him through a virgin, in accordance with the prophecy he gave us through Isaiah.
This may seem somewhat radical to many, and I guess it is. I don’t believe Messiah is God, and I don’t believe he pre-existed himself. However, I don’t believe I am absolutely certain about that, either. Frankly, I don’t think it matters one iota if Yeshua pre-existed his human form or not.
We are not saved by belief in whether or not the Messiah had some form of pre-existence, or whether or not he, God and the Holy Spirit are one and the same entity, but only through faith in him as the Messiah who was born in the flesh, who walked the earth, died on an execution stake and was resurrected. If you can keep your focus on that, the other things become less important.
I will end with this other radical thought: personally, I think when people have to know absolutely everything about God, the Messiah and every single thing in the Bible, it will not result in holiness or be useful to save others, but it will feed one’s pridefulness. Being full of knowledge that has no practical use in saving people is just a form of Gnosticism which doesn’t feed the soul, it only enlarges the ego.
Here’s what you can do: write a long list of everything you want to know the answer to, and when you are in the presence of God and the Messiah you can ask them for the answers. I guarantee you that when you are there, in their presence, you will fold up your list and throw it away because you will realize the answers are important at all anymore.
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Until next time, L’hitraot and Baruch HaShem!
Video for Is John 1 Talking About a Person or an Idea?
Parashah Metzora 2019 (laws for the leper) Leviticus 14 – 15
These two chapters deal with the instructions for cleansing a person from the skin disease usually identified as leprosy (Tzara’at in Hebrew), as well as cleansing of the house if there is a form of Tzara’at (probably an infectious or dangerous mold) in the plaster of the house. Chapter 15 deals with the instructions regarding any issuance of a bodily fluid.
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The prior chapters taught us how the Cohen (Priest) is to identify Tzara’at in a person and these chapters give God’s instructions for the cleansing, once it has been determined that the person is no longer unclean (or infectious.) Only after the person has been completely cleaned may they re-enter the camp and the Sanctuary.
The basic formula is to bring two animals for sacrifice: one is a sin sacrifice and the other a burnt offering. The sacrifices are performed in this order since the sin sacrifice cleanses the person (spiritually) and the burnt offering represents their rededication to total commitment in obeying God’s instructions.
What I would like to talk about is the instruction in Leviticus 14:14, which is the placing of some of the blood of the guilt offering on the tip of the right ear, the thumb of the right hand, and the big toe of the right foot. This is the same procedure when anointing a Cohen.
This placing of the blood represents a consecration of the entire body. We know that placing the blood of the sacrifice on the horns of the altar, as well as sprinkling it on something, makes that thing holy. So, too, the placing of this blood on a person makes them holy, or more correctly in this case, re-consecrates them to the Lord.
The reason for placing it on the ear, thumb, and foot is explained in the Chumash this way: the priest must have his ears consecrated so that he will always be attentive to the commands of God; his hands are consecrated so that at all times he will do God’s will; and his feet consecrated to walk from that time on in holy ways.
When we review the anointing of the Cohanim and the cleansing of people from their sins, we see a pattern. We first ask for forgiveness through the sin and/or guilt sacrifice (this places us in a spiritually clean condition), followed by a burnt sacrifice which represents our total devotion to God. Finally, the blood which cleanses us from the sin is also used to anoint and consecrate us to doing as God instructs.
Only after we have been made “whole” again can we re-enter the camp (physical world), the community (spiritual world), and the Sanctuary (presence of God.)
Today, we don’t bring our sacrifice to the Temple in Jerusalem for two reasons: first, it isn’t there anymore (DUH!) and second, we don’t need to because the sacrifice of Messiah Yeshua replaced that one part of the sacrificial system. Thanks to Yeshua, we can be forgiven of our sins right in the comfort of our own home. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t perform, at least in our hearts and minds, the placing of the blood on our ear, thumb, and foot! That action was very important because of what it symbolized, and if we forget about it (because we don’t really have any blood with us) we might neglect to mentally and spiritually rededicate ourselves.
You may ask, “Why do we have to rededicate ourselves at all?” The answer is because when we sin we separate ourselves from God: sin places us outside the camp of the Almighty. We are not under his wings, not in his presence, and thereby unable to properly serve him in whatever house of worship you go to.
This is a hard word to hear, but the Torah tells us it is a fact: when we sin, we are separated from God and outside of his presence. In order to reenter his presence, we must first be cleansed of that sin, then rededicate ourselves to hearing, doing and walking as God directs. Those directions are on the roadmap called the Torah.
So, the next time you ask for forgiveness in Yeshua’s name by means of his bloody sacrifice, don’t forget to place some of his blood on your right ear, thumb, and foot. Mentally, emotionally and spiritually present yourself before the Lord with a heartfelt desire to start all over again, but this time with an even stronger will to sin less than you had sinned before. Don’t fool yourself into thinking you won’t sin again- we all will. Sinning is something God expects of us, and he assumes it might be by accident. That is why he gave us instructions in Leviticus 5:17 specifically for sins we committed accidentally or didn’t know we had done.
Every time we sin we are in the same position Yeshua was just before he gave up his spirit and cried out:
“Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?” (“My God, My God, why have you forsaken Me?”)
He was forsaken, meaning ejected from God’s presence, the very moment he took on the sins of the world because sin separates us from God.
Don’t beat yourself up when you sin, but do make sure when you ask for forgiveness by means of the blood of the Messiah that you remember to place that blood on yourself; consecrate yourself to hear, work and walk in obedience to God’s instructions, and rededicate yourself to do better.
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This being Friday, I wish you all Shabbat Shalom and until next time, Baruch HaShem!
Video for Parashah Metzora 2019
Another Day When I Have Nothing
Nada!
Nuttin, Honey!
Hello? McFly? Anyone home?
I have absolutely no message at all today; there’s no video to do with no message to give.
However, I do have this…Thank you.
Thank you for subscribing (if you haven’t, now would be a really good time to do so- click the subscribe button in the margin on the right) and thank you for your comments. Whether or not you agree, I appreciate your feedback, and any discussion can help to edify us, even if we present the wrong example.
For those that prefer the video, thank you for subscribing to my YouTube channel. I do not have a “Donate Here” button on my website, this is not a 501-C (Non-Profit organization) ministry, but if I get enough subscribers to my YouTube channel they will add advertising and I get some money from that. I use those funds to pay for shipping charges when I have people from Africa or India or any other third world country ask me if I can send them any of my books for their Bible study group. And I have sent books to these countries.
I also want to thank you for sharing me out, and helping this ministry to grow. I pray daily and always ask Adonai to send people to my website who need to hear what I say. I also have a very fervent prayer that whatever I say is always something that he approves of.
That is all for today; just a simple, plain-old, heartfelt “Thank you!”
Until next time, L’hitraot and Baruch HaShem!
How to Deal with Being a Sinner
Like it or not, you are a sinner. I am a sinner, and we all are not only sinners but sinful, filled with the desire to sin (which is called “iniquity”.)
So, how do we deal with this? We do that by, well…dealing with it. We can’t escape it, we can’t stop it, but we can learn to control it better than we used to.
The best answer I can give you is what I always say: We can never be sinless, but we can always sin less.
(No video today.)
Grace is what we call forgiveness from the sins we commit, but it is on a spiritual level; in the physical realm, we will always have to suffer from the consequences of our sins. And even worse than that- many times it will be the innocent people who we care about that suffer, as well.
There exists within Christianity a very popular teaching (popular because it removes any feeling of guilt or responsibility) that says once we have asked forgiveness in Yeshua’s name, we are forgiven forever. The term used is OSAS (Once Saved, Always Saved), and it is a lie from the pit of Sheol. It makes one feel good about sinning and removes any feelings of repentance.
How? Simple: when we think no matter what we do, we are automatically forgiven then we don’t worry about what we do. This is NOT the way to deal with your sinfulness.
Oh, yes, there are some who will make the excuse that the Holy Spirit will guide us and prevent us from doing wrong; others will say the Torah was already written on our hearts the moment we accepted Jesus. Both are wrong. Salvation is not a momentary change of heart, it is a life-long process. The Ruach HaKodesh (Holy Spirit) may warn us when we are about to sin, but if someone has been taught their sins are automatically forgiven why would they worry about listening to the little angel on their shoulder saying, “Uh, uh, uh- you really shouldn’t!”? Especially when the little devil on the other shoulder is saying, “Don’t listen to that one- you are already saved by the blood of Christ! If you think you have to obey God to be saved, you are not under the blood but under the law!”
That’s the same guy who told Eve, “You certainly won’t die.”
What do you think? If I continue to sin because I think I am already saved, is God going to accept me into his presence? Will my ignorance be forgiven and my sinfulness ignored because the reason I rejected his instructions in the Torah was a result of someone telling me I didn’t have to obey them?
I don’t think so.
I can’t speak for God, but I’m pretty sure that if I came before him on Judgement Day and said, “I am sorry I rejected your instructions, but my (Priest/Minister/Pastor/whatever) told me I didn’t have to obey them”, he might say something like: “I understand, my child, that someone told you what to do, but it’s what I say that counts!”
What was “nailed to the cross”, as Shaul (Paul) tells us, was not every sin we will ever commit, but only every sin we have already committed. The past is forgiven, but the future remains open. We can continually work at being better or we can continue to sin and make excuses. This is a very important truth to understand or you cannot properly deal with your sinning.
Let me remind you of the main point in this message- we WILL continue to sin. One way or the other, we each have to deal with this.
When we face up to the fact that we are sinful, the way to deal with it is the way God tells us to in the Torah: obey the instructions he gave us and when we sin, repent and ask forgiveness through Yeshua’s sacrifice. When we do that we can trust his promise that we will have life, eternal.
God says in Ezekiel 18 and elsewhere, throughout the Tanakh, that if we obey we will have life, meaning life eternal. We still suffer from sins on earth, yet we will be forgiven in the resurrection. BUT..only if we remain repentant and continually ask for forgiveness, demonstrating the genuineness of our repentance by working, every day until we are dead, to sin less each day.
Most of Christianity teaches an easy path to salvation: trust in Jesus and you’re saved forever. That sounds nice, but you know the old saying: if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Yeshua said that if we want to follow him, we must each of us pick up our execution stake and walk after him. If that sounds like a cake-walk to you, you have a real problem with comprehension!
And the Enemy? He wants you to believe that, and sometimes he will try to make you feel so bad about sinning that you might just think, “I can never stop sinning, no matter how hard I try! I might as well chuck it all and just enjoy myself. Why should I beat myself up any more for something I can’t control?” It should be obvious this is not how to deal with your sin.
We are sinners, we always will be, and that’s not okay but it is the way things are. We deal with it, first of all, by taking possession of our own iniquity, owning up to our weaknesses, and asking God’s help to be obedient to his instructions.
Think about it: God created this game called “Life, Death, and Resurrection”, and he gave us the instructions telling us how to win it. So, nu? why would anyone want to ignore them?
Amen?….AMEN!!
Thank you for being here, and if you like what you have heard please share me out, and don’t forget to SUBSCRIBE in the right-hand margin.
I welcome comments, just be nice, and until next time…L’hitraot and Baruch HaShem!
Parashah Tazria 2019 (She conceives) Leviticus 12 – 13
This parashah deals exclusively with two forms of impurity; a woman’s impurity as a result of birth and the impurity of a skin disease, generally identified as leprosy.
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A woman is unclean after giving birth due to the bodily excretions that occur (which are discussed later in Chapter 18) and there is a specified time for her to remain in that state after the birth of a boy and another time period if the child is a girl; please don’t ask me why there is a different time for each because I have no idea. I just put it down to being a law that is considered Chukkim (laws which must be obeyed but we can’t understand why.)
There are also instructions regarding the breaking out of a skin disease, which (as I said before) is generally interpreted as leprosy. The Hebrew word used is T’zarat.
In both cases, since the person is unclean, they are removed from the camp for the specified time period. Once that time period is over they are to offer a sacrifice and then they can rejoin the camp.
In the case of T’zarat, the Cohen must examine the person to ensure that the breaking-out on the skin is not communicable.
The arguments made for these instructions deal on one of two sides: one argument is that they are given for health reasons, and the other is that they are strictly levitical, i.e. ceremonial/religious.
The health arguments are fairly simple to comprehend- if someone has a communicable disease, such as some forms of leprosy, then it makes sense to remove them from the general population. And with regards to the levitical reasons, the Torah is clear that no one in a state of uncleanliness or with physical deformities is allowed in the Sanctuary.
It should be noted that these impurities relate to the Sanctuary and not necessarily with everyday activities.
I believe what we should take away from this parashah is that God has his reasons for giving us the instructions in the Torah, and we don’t need to know why. I have made this argument many times during the life of this ministry of mine, and will (no doubt) repeat it again, and often.
As the line from the famous poem, “Charge of Light Brigade” goes, “Theirs not to reason why, Theirs but to do and die;…” Now, I am not suggesting that we should either obey the Torah or cash in our chips, but I do believe we are to obey not because we understanding God’s reasons but only because God said we should. He tells us over and over (and over) again throughout the Bible that when we obey him, we will live. That doesn’t mean just live now but live eternally.
Maybe we shouldn’t have sexual relations with a woman during her time of Niddah (again, this is in Chapter 18) because some studies show that Jewish women (who follow this instruction) have a lower incidence of cervical cancer. That’s good news, and certainly good reason for obedience to that instruction. But what if there was no study? What if there was no relationship, in the health arena, for this particular abstinence? Does that mean we should say God made a mistake?
Of course not. God doesn’t make mistakes, but we sure do. And the biggest mistake we make, in my opinion, is trying to understand why God gives us these instructions.
Human beings have an unquenchable thirst for knowledge, which (in and of itself) is a good thing; but, just like too much of any good thing is not good, when we begin to pridefully believe we now understand why he gave them we are asking for trouble. Here’s my reason for saying this: based on my experience and understanding of human nature, once we think we know the reason for being told to do something if we do not really want to do that something, we rationalize reasons for ignoring that rule.
In other words, if I really don’t want to, I will make an excuse why I don’t have to, and knowing the “why” for the rule makes it easier to create that excuse.
The bottom line is this: there are health-related and levitical justifications for the instructions God gives dealing with impurity. And the truth is that if someone doesn’t want to obey, any excuse is just as good as any other excuse.
We have a choice- we can obey and choose life, or we can disobey and choose death. God has given us the right to decide where we spend eternity, and whether we understand his reasons for giving any specific instruction, or not, doesn’t matter to God. He knows what is in our hearts and minds, so say what you want and make any excuse you want; it can be logically, medically or legally justified, but it won’t make any difference to God.
Thank you for being here, and if you like what you have heard please share me out and help this humble ministry to grow. Please also don’t forget to SUBSCRIBE in the right-hand margin, and use the link above to subscribe to my YouTube channel, as well. If I get enough subscribers to YouTube I will be paid a small amount of advertising money, which I use to send my books to foreign countries.
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This being Friday, I wish you all Shabbat Shalom, and until next time L’hitraot and Baruch HaShem!
Video for Parashah Tazria 2019
Mercy Isn’t Amnesty
The Bible is rife with passages that talk about the forgiveness, compassion, and mercy that we can expect from God. He (usually) waits a long time before issuing his punishment only because he is giving us that amount of time to repent, and even when he does punish (which is often terrible to endure), he does so with mercy.
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There are too many houses of worship (meaning all religions) that teach only about the love and mercy of God, up to the point where people begin to believe that because God is merciful they will not have to suffer for their sins once they repent and ask for forgiveness.
Let’s get real people- that ain’t how it works.
God does not desire that anyone, at any time, should ever die in their sin. He says so, twice, in the Book of Ezekiel alone; the first time in Ezekiel 18:23 and then again in Ezekiel 33:11. He tells us he gets no pleasure at all from someone who dies in their sin, and that he would rather they turn from that sin, and live.
He also tells us that a righteous person who begins to sin will be guilty and die in their sin, yet a guilty (sinful) person who repents and does what is right will be forgiven and live (eternally.)
There are always consequences to sin, and more often than not, the innocent are the ones that suffer as a result of these sins. I am sure we all have seen people who are sinful and evil, yet it appears they go free, untouched by the legal authorities and blessed with wealth, success and what the world sees as rewards. That may be, but in the end, they will come before the Judge of the World and there won’t be any high-priced shyster to defend them.
For the purposes of this discussion, I would like to define “sin” as mindfully rejecting God’s instructions and being unrepentant about it, whether that unrepentance is because you choose to not care, or because you have been taught it is acceptable (i.e., the Once-Saved; Always-Saved teaching of many Christian religions.)
Too many religions teach that because God is merciful we can be forgiven of our sins, which is accomplished through faith in Yeshua Ha Mashiach (most know him as Jesus Christ); although this is correct, the implied lesson is that once forgiven, we are “off the hook.” Well, the Bible shows us this is not the case.
David was a person after God’s own heart, yet when he sinned with Bathsheba the child born of that sin was taken by God as punishment; Aaron’s sons were not unrighteous, but when they sinned by offering unknown fire they were killed immediately; Dathan and Abiram were leaders and important men within the community, yet when they were unrepentant of their rebellion against Moses (who was doing God’s will) they were swallowed up by the earth; and we can even include the fig tree Yeshua cursed (Matthew 21:18) in this list.
In case you are wondering how a tree can sin, the cursing of the fig tree was to demonstrate that someone who pretends to be righteous but is faking it will be judged correctly and suffer for their deception.
Sin always comes at a price that the sinner must pay in this world. The forgiveness we receive from God through Yeshua is only found in the spiritual realm, reserved for the Acharit HaYamim (End Days) where we spend eternity in God’s presence. The horrible truth of the matter is that the forgiveness we receive through Yeshua is not going to grant us amnesty from the consequence of that sin while still living on the earth. This is a hard word to hear, but it is one that we must accept because when we do, we will be less likely to sin again.
The idea that forgiveness through Yeshua means amnesty from the consequence of sin is traditional Christian teaching; I say this because I have never heard this teaching in any synagogue or read it in any Jewish theology book, but I see it all over the Internet and from many Gentiles (Believing Gentiles, too) whom I have met. This teaching is nothing more than a lie from the pit of Sheol and is setting us up for death. We must always remember that sin is hurtful to us and to others, usually the ones we love.
Don’t be fooled by those who seem to escape the consequence of their sins in this world- you can be sure they will suffer in the next. As for me, I would rather take my medicine now and get it over with, and know that when I repent of my sin and ask forgiveness through Yeshua I will have eternal peace and joy.
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Until next time, L’hitraot and Baruch HaShem!