Author: Steven R. Bruck

Parashah Bo 2022 (Go) Exodus 9 – 13:16

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God tells Moses to go before Pharaoh and tell him if he doesn’t humble himself before the Lord then more plagues will come, the next one being locusts that will destroy all that the hail left behind.

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Pharaoh asks Moses who will be going to the desert to worship and Moses says everyone, but Pharaoh says it is a trick to free all the slaves, so only the men can go.

Moses doesn’t accept this and the locusts come. As before, the Pharaoh asks Moses to relieve the plague and he will do as Moses asks, but the moment the plague is gone, the promises are forgotten.

After the locusts came complete darkness for three days, and Pharaoh at this time tells Moses the next time Moses sees Pharaoh, he will be killed.

God now tells Moses that the last plague will come and after this one Pharaoh will throw them all out of Egypt, so when that happens the people are to go to their neighbors and ask for whatever they want of them.

God tells Moses the angel of death will kill the firstborn of all Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh down to the firstborn of the lowliest slave, as well as the firstborn of all the cattle. The Israelites are to sacrifice a lamb and spread the blood over their doors, so the angel will know they are God’s chosen and to leave them alone. The rules for the Passover Seder are first enumerated here: which animal to use, how to cook it, when it is to be eaten, what to wear, and the restrictions against eating anything with leaven for the next 7 days.

The angel of death passes over Egypt, and the Pharaoh’s own son is taken. Pharaoh now is totally defeated and he calls for Moses and tells him to leave and take everyone and everything with him. The people ask their Egyptian neighbors for gold, silver, precious jewels- anything of value- and the Egyptian people gladly give whatever they have of value.

This parashah ends with God decreeing to Moses that, from this day forward, because God took all the firstborn of Egypt that all the firstborn of Israel will forever after belong to God.

One of the historical problems with people interpreting the Bible, especially the Hebrew found in the Old Covenant, is that they do not understand either the mindset of the Jewish people or the cultural usage and meaning of the Hebrew words; instead, they tend to use the modern and usual translation of the Hebrew in their interpretation.

For instance, the Hebrew word used in Exodus 3:22 where the women are to ask their neighbors for precious items is שאל (shah-ahl), which means to ask for a gift that isn’t expected to be returned. But some versions of the Bible render that word as “borrow”, and that is not correct. In fact, it is misleading because borrowing indicates the items belong to the Egyptians and should have been returned (which came back against the Jewish people many years after, which I will discuss later on in this message.)

Another example is Exodus 12:36: when the people leave and the Egyptians are giving them all the goodies, the Torah says that the people “despoiled the Egyptians.” We see the same Hebrew word used in Exodus 3:22, where God tells Moses that he will give the Israelites favor in the sight of the Egyptians and they shall spoil the Egyptians.

But “spoil” is not the correct interpretation of that Hebrew word, and the Chumash gives a wonderful explanation for this, which is why I recommend everyone get one so they can learn a truly Jewish understanding of the Torah.

The Chumash tells us the translation should not be “spoiling the Egyptians” but, rather, “saving the Egyptians”!

In the Chumash, we are taught that the Hebrew word used for “spoil” is נצל (nee-tzal). Throughout the scripture, this word occurs some 212 times and in 210 of those instances, within the context of the sentence, it is clear that its meaning is to snatch (from danger), to rescue (from a wild beast), to recover (property), or to plunder.

Now here’s the complicated part…the direct object of the word נצל is never the person or thing from whom the object is being saved, but the thing that is being rescued. In other words, if I say “I rescued the baby from the bear”, the bear is not the object of the word “rescued”, the baby is.

So, when using נצל in Exodus 3:22 (and today in Exodus 12:36), the use of נצל to mean “ye shall spoil the Egyptians” is wrong and would render the word’s meaning in the 210 other places in scripture to mean “spoil” instead of “save”.

Well, the other 210 places where נצל is interpreted to mean “save” or “rescue” is unchallenged by biblical scholars; therefore, the word’s meaning in Exodus cannot be totally different from all the other uses throughout scripture. No- the truest interpretation of the phrase “…and ye shall spoil the Egyptians” is “…and ye shall save the Egyptians.”

Huh? How can asking for gold and silver and precious jewels and such save the Egyptians? I mean, after the 10 plagues, there wasn’t much left to be saved!

Now you will see why I said earlier that the Chumash helps so much to know the Jewish mindset and rabbinical understanding of much of the scriptures.

As explained in my Chumash, by receiving gifts that are not expected to be returned, the Egyptian people would be remembered as having been kind to the Israelites upon their leaving, and since it was the people who were kind and generously gave whatever the Israelites asked for, the Israelites would realize that the cruelty heaped upon them all those years was only from the Pharaoh and his courtiers.

Because the generosity of the Egyptian people to the Israelites when they left Egypt would be remembered fondly, the commandment God gave many years later, in Deuteronomy 23:8, which was “Thou shalt not abhor an Egyptian.” would be gladly obeyed.

The misinterpretation of the Hebrew word נצל has been used by enemies of the Bible (and anti-Semites, as well) as a blot against the moral teaching of the scriptures. However, both Jewish and Gentile apologists reply that the silver and gold were given in exchange for the labors that the Jews performed for centuries, without any compensation.

Think of it as back-pay.

Remember how earlier I mentioned the misinterpretation of the word שעל as “borrow” led to thinking the Jews owed the Egyptians? Well, in the Talmud, there is a story of the Egyptians making a formal claim to Alexander the Great against Israel, claiming that they should return all the gold and silver they took with them at the Exodus. The Jewish spokesman, however, was able to successfully convince Alexander that if there was any indemnity to be paid, it was to be from the Egyptians to the Israelites for the 400 years of slavery that Israel served with no recompense for all the work they did.

Today’s lesson is not a spiritual revelation found within the scripture or some moral imperative that will help us to become better Believers, but I believe it is a good lesson all the same.

It is so very important to be able to do more than just quote verses and know the location of a passage in the Bible This is especially true of the Hebrew portions of the Bible because Hebrew is a consonantal language and as such, without vowels to define the exact pronunciation, the only proper interpretation must be the result of reading the entire sentence and making sure the interpretation of any word “fits’ contextually with that sentence, within that paragraph, and hermeneutically throughout the entire Bible.

This is how Rabbis were able to determine that the interpretation of נצל as “spoils” in these two places in Exodus can’t be correct. And once they were able to determine that it meant the Jews didn’t despoil, but actually saved the Egyptians, well, isn’t that a kick in the pants? After 400 years of cruel enslavement, when finally being freed, God had his people save those who were not guilty of the crimes instead of revenging themselves upon them.

I recommend whenever you are studying the scriptures, you don’t use just a Bible, but also have a Bible commentary, a Chumash (for the Old Covenant), the Interlinear Bible set, and maybe even the Talmud or Septuagint handy. Besides those tools, an understanding of Hebrew and Greek would be beneficial, but I am sure that the vast majority of us are not intending to dedicate our lives to becoming biblical scholars and linguistic experts. We have plenty of those.

Seriously, though, if you really want to understand what is in the Bible, you will need to have the proper tools to investigate and the proper knowledge to know when something you are reading or being told just doesn’t “fit”.

And never forget the best guide to knowing God is his Holy Spirit, the Ruach HaKodesh, which will not only guide your understanding but give you insight that no mere human being can ever have on their own.

Thank you for being here today. Share these messages with everyone you know to help this ministry continue to grow, and please subscribe to my website and my YouTube channel. Buy and share my books (after you’ve read them, of course), and remember that I always welcome your comments.

Oh, yeah- and don’t forget to join my Facebook discussion group called “Just God’s Word” (please make sure that you read and acknowledge the rules.)

That’s it for this week, so l’hitraot and Shabbat Shalom!

The Bible is Just a Book

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I once talked about how the Bible is just a book when I was giving a message at the place I used to worship, and not only did I get some pretty passionate disagreements, but one person actually walked out on me.

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Many people argued that the Bible is THE word of God, but it isn’t, really- it contains the words God told to Moses and the Prophets, and it contains what many people wrote. It contains the writings (Ketuvim), such as Esther, Judges, Psalms, and the Proverbs.

It contains the teachings of Yeshua, and the letters that were written to the (mostly) Gentile congregations of new Believers to help them stay on track, spiritually, with what they were learning about Yeshua and God and how God wants us all to live.

But when it comes down to it, the Bible can’t be the exact words from God simply because the words in the Bible have been interpreted from the original Hebrew and Greek so many times, in so many different versions of the Bible, that there is no way each interpreter interpreted the words exactly the same.

In fact, did you know that under Copyright law, each version of the Bible must have (literally) hundreds of words different from any other version, otherwise it is a copyright infringement?

I asked the most trustworthy source of information that exists today- Wikipedia- how many different versions of the Bible exist, and this is what I got:

“As of September 2020 the full Bible has been translated into 704
languages, the New Testament has been translated into an additional 1,551
languages and Bible portions or stories into 1,160 other languages. Thus at
least some portions of the Bible have been translated into 3,415 languages.”

And when I specifically asked how many English versions there are, I was told there are more than 100 complete translations in English.

So, nu? How can anyone think that the Bible they are reading is an exact and verifiable rendering of what God told Moses, or what Shaul wrote to his congregations, or what Yeshua said when he gave his Sermon on the Mount?

The closest thing anyone will come to the exact words God used when he talked to us, which he only did in the Torah, is to read the Hebrew Torah. And, to tell the truth (which is all I ever try to do), even though the Torah written today will have exactly the same words as the Torah written a hundred years ago (because of the strict standards used when copying the Torah), the way we interpret that Hebrew will be different from one person to another.

And here’s the real kicker! Even when we read the same version, different people may be given, through the Ruach HaKodesh (Holy Spirit), a different understanding of those very same words!

And both understandings may be valid.

If you don’t believe me, or maybe you don’t want to believe me, then let me give you the gospel truth, from the Gospel of Luke, itself (Luke 1:1-4):

Dear Theophilos:
Concerning the matters that have taken place among us, many people have undertaken to draw up accounts based on what was handed down to us by those who from the start were eyewitnesses and proclaimers of the message.  Therefore, Your Excellency, since I have carefully investigated all these things from the beginning, it seemed good to me that I too should write you an accurate and ordered narrative, so that you might know how well-founded are the things about which you have been taught.

Here we have the writer of the gospel usually thought to be the most accurate and trustworthy account, and he is saying that he has composed this based on what he heard from others who witnessed the events.

Have you ever told a joke in a group of people and then heard that same joke come back to you, later on? I’ll bet it wasn’t even close to the way you told it, was it? It may have had a similar lead-in and the punch line may have gotten the same point across, but it wasn’t the same, exact joke, right?

Or have you ever had to witness something that other people saw? The same event, seen by 5 people, will have 5 different versions. They may be similar, generally, but many of the specific details (height of the person, hair color, clothes worn, etc.) will be different.

This is why no two people understand the same thing the same way: we all filter the stimulus we receive through our senses in accordance with our own experience and knowledge. Therefore, it is impossible for any two people to understand and interpret what is heard, seen, or written the same exact way, and even more so when trying to interpret it from one language to another.

That is why I say the Bible is just a book.

“Okay, okay, so the Bible is a book. What’s your point, Steve?”

My point to all this is simple: when we read the Bible, we need to know that what we are reading is somewhat accurate, but not exact. It is someone’s understanding of the language that the narrative was written in, whether in the original Hebrew or Greek, and which will always be affected by that individual’s personal understanding and experience.

Now, given that my Bible, no matter which version or which language I have, is not an accurate accounting of what God or anyone else said, why should I believe any of it?

Because it is close enough to the truth to be trusted when we ask God to show us HIS truth! (read that again)

Every time you read your Bible, pray to God to lead you through his Holy Spirit to understand his truth. That way you can read any version you want to and trust that you will glean from it what God wants you to know.

And that works because we can ALWAYS trust God to teach us what he wants us to know about him.

Thank you for being here and please share these messages with everyone you know; subscribe to my website and Youtube channel, buy my books and after reading them share them with others, and remember this: I always welcome your comments.

That’s it for today so l’hitraot and Baruch HaShem!

Is It Ever Too Late For Closure?

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What is “closure”, anyway?

To many people, it means resolving differences; to others, it means getting retribution. For still others, it never comes.

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I looked up the word and here is one definition I think makes sense:

Closure means finality; a letting go of what once was. Finding closure
implies a complete acceptance of what has happened and an honoring of
the transition away from what’s finished to something new.

In the real world, where people are looking for closure because they have been mistreated, either verbally, physically, or professionally, it seems more often than not that closure is impossible because the people involved are unavailable.

In my life, I have been mistreated by people I worked for, and it affected my career choices in a bad way, although all things work to the good for those who love the Lord and are called in accordance to his purpose (Romans 8:28), even though most of the times I was mistreated I didn’t have anything to do with God, at all.

Yet, he still took care of me: it doesn’t make sense to humans, but that’s how God rolls.

So, what is the answer to the question? It’s actually quite simple: you don’t need anyone but yourself to find closure. In fact, closure can most confidently be assured if you restrict it to just you.

You see, closure is letting go, it is resolving that it is resolved, and if you have issues with someone you know, a parent, a friend, a professional colleague, whomever…no matter how badly they treated (or mistreated) you, the only way to overcome the pain and to have closure is to make it happen within yourself.

If that person is really as bad as your think they are, then even if you had the chance to talk with them to clear the air, so to speak, what would you do if they stayed true to form? If they were unreasonable and mean when you knew them, what makes you think they will be any different now as you try to attain the closure you need to get on with your life? In truth, going to the ones you need to have closure from might just widen the gap even more!

Do you really need anyone else to find closure? No. Trying to get closure by dealing with the ones you need closure from is not the way to go.

In my book, closure is just another word for forgiveness. The only way to stop the pain of having been mistreated is to forgive the one that did it to you. And the first step in being able to do that is to remember that when you forgive someone, it doesn’t affect in any way their relationship with God- for what they did to you, God will repay (Proverbs 20:22).

The second thing to remember is that forgiveness of others affects your relationship with God because God wants us to forgive on earth as he forgives in heaven (Matthew 6:14).

The only way to be certain that you can find closure to the pain you have suffered from being mistreated is to forgive the one who mistreated you.

Here is the third thing to remember, which has really helped me in getting closure through forgiveness: to make it easier to forgive that waste of flesh who hurt you, pray for them.

I know, because I have been guilty of this, that people who cruelly lash out and hurt others do it because they are hurting even more. So much so that they cannot contain it so it is directed at others, for no other reason than the person doing the hating hates themself so much they have no control over what they do or say.

When you accept that as truth, which I know it is, then you can’t help but feel sorry for them. Yes, what they did was wrong, and (as I said) they will have to deal with God for that, but as for you, your closure can only come when you forgive that person.

It isn’t easy, it goes against the flesh (as does almost everything that is pleasing to God), but when you constantly work at it, it will get easier and easier until one day you realize the pain is gone. You can talk about the event without hurting and without getting angry.

To recap, the way to achieve closure is to forgive and the way to forgive is to take it step by step:

  1. Remember that forgiving them will make you right wth God, not them;
  2. Recognize the pain the other person must be feeling;
  3. Pray for them to make forgiving easier for you.

Remember how Yeshua prayed for those who were crucifying him and said that they didn’t know what they were doing? Well, even if you are absolutely positive that the one who hurt you did know what they were doing, so what? They will have to deal with an eternity of suffering, so whatever suffering they caused to you is really nothing compared to what they will have to go through, is it?

Closure from the evil people have done to you comes more easily when you accept that your forgiveness of them will make you right with God and you will have eternal joy, whereas (unless they change) they will suffer forever.

And if you really love the Lord, God, and are thankful for his forgiveness of your sins, then knowing that someone, anyone- even that horrible person who hurt you so badly- will have to eternally suffer hell’s fire, well…if that doesn’t make you feel sorry for them and want to pray for their repentance, then I feel sorry for you.

Thank you for being there and please share these messages with everyone you know. Subscribe to both my Youtube channel and my website, buy my books, and join my Facebook group called “Just God’s Word” (please make sure you agree to the rules when you join).

That’s it for today, so l’hitraot and Baruch HaShem!

Parashah V’ayra 2022 (And I appeared) Exodus 6:2 – 9

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The last time Moses talked with Pharaoh the Pharaoh decided to make the Jews maintain their quota of bricks, but did not supply the straw so they had to glean their straw all night, but still work all day making bricks.

The people weren’t too impressed with Moses at that time.

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Moses returns to Pharaoh, and now begins God’s judgment on Pharaoh and all the Egyptians through the wonders and miraculous acts that are still considered astounding, even today.

Moses does the staff-to-snake thing, which the Egyptian magicians duplicate, although the snake of Moses eats up the Egyptian snakes.

Next, Moses has Aaron smite the waters of the Nile and the Nile turns to blood. After a week of a bloody Nile, the frogs came out and infested the entire land, followed by the plague of gnats.

With the gnats, this is the first time the magicians were not able to duplicate the acts that God had performed, and they were convinced that Pharaoh should let the people go.

But the Pharaoh refused.

The next plague was of flies, but now something else changed- God raised the bar by having all of Egypt infested, all except the land of Goshen where God’s chosen people resided. This time Pharaoh said if Moses takes away the flies, they could go to sacrifice (but not too far away.) However, once the flies were removed Pharaoh reneged on his promise.

After the flies, God sent a plague to kill all the cattle in Egypt, to cause boils to break out all over the bodies of every person in Egypt, and then the hail that turned to fire when it hit the ground. The hail also caused all the existing crops to be destroyed.

As Egypt is being destroyed, the Jews living in Goshen are not affected by any of these plagues.

Pharaoh pleads with Moses to stop the hail and promises that the people can go worship, but as before, once the plague was ended, Pharaoh reneged on his promise to let the people go.

This is where this parashah ends.

There is so much to work with here; I mean, really? Where do I start, and how can I end?

Don’t worry- what I feel I should talk about today won’t take that long.

Have you ever heard someone say that the Old Covenant is all about punishment and violence, but the New Covenant is all about love?

I have; too many times, in fact, and I try to point out to the Christians who say this (Jews don’t say this because they don’t consider the New Covenant valid) there is no “God of the Old Covenant” verse a “God of the New Covenant” because it is the same God.

God is just and holy, and yes- he is so compassionate and loving that a human being cannot even fathom the depth of God’s love for everyone, even those who curse and reject him. And it is precisely because God is just, loving, compassionate, and holy that he MUST punish the guilty!

He makes the rules and he abides by them, even to his own chagrin when he has to harm his creation.

For instance, in today’s parashah, Exodus 9:11-22, God tells Pharaoh (through Moses) that so far he has demonstrated his power, but has not destroyed all the people so that Pharaoh might see that he is fighting a power against which he cannot win. God is, in a way, actually pleading with Pharaoh to give in to God’s demands before everything and everyone in Egypt is destroyed.

In Exodus 9:19, God even warns Pharaoh against the next plague, saying:

Therefore, send and hurry to bring indoors all your livestock and everything
else you have in the field. For hail will fall on every human being and animal
left in the field that hasn’t been brought home, and they will die.

Here God is showing his compassion for all his creation, even those who do not know him. He tells Pharaoh to save the people, and the rest of this passage tells us that the Egyptians who recognized God’s power and authority did as he told them to do, but the ones who refused to listen stayed in their fields, and they and their cattle all died.

There is a midrash in the Talmud, in Megilla 10B, which states that when the Egyptian army was drowning in the sea the angels wanted to sing songs of praise and joy, but God rebuked them, saying:

“My creations are drowning and you are singing before me?”

God doesn’t want to destroy anyone or anything, and he tells us in Ezekiel 18:23 that he doesn’t desire the death of anyone (spiritual or physical), but because God is holy and trustworthy and he said that the guilty will be punished, he has no choice but to punish them.

The truth is, if we can’t trust God’s promise to punish the wicked then we can’t trust God’s promise to forgive our sins!

That is a very uncomfortable statement, but the truth of it is undeniable- God is compassionate and loving, but because he is holy and trustworthy we can expect that he will do terrible things to those who ignore his commandments.

The only real difference between the Old and New Covenant is that Yeshua taught the deeper, more spiritual understanding of the existing commandments. The letters from Shaul, Yakov, and Yochanon were not new commandments from God, and they were certainly not meant to teach people to reject the Torah. What those letters were meant to do is to help Gentiles who now accepted Yeshua as their Messiah to slowly adjust, step-by-step, to the lifestyle God demands of us all, which he outlines in the Torah.

When you reject the Torah, you reject God. Period! That’s all she wrote! End of line! Das ist alles! Don’t let the door hit your butt on the way out!

God has no choice other than to punish those who reject him, but you do have a choice- you can obey what God says to do in the Torah, or you can listen to what your religion tells you to do, but know this for certain: if what your religion says is different from what the Torah says, that means you will be standing unprotected in the field when the hail falls.

Thank you for being here and please share these messages, subscribe to both my website and YouTube channel, join my Facebook group, Just God’s Word (please make sure you agree to the rules), and remember that I always welcome your comments.

That’s it for this week: Happy New Year and Shabbat Shalom!

Does Jesus Forgive Sins?

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Back from a week off, driving up to visit Donna’s family in Philadelphia. The drive was full of problems with traffic, taking us nearly 40% longer than it should have, but the trip, overall, was good and we enjoyed being with family.

Now back to work.

As far as the question, “Does Yeshua forgive sins?” goes, the answer seems obvious, doesn’t it?

In Matthew 9, Yeshua tells the Pharisees and Torah teachers that he has the authority to forgive sins on earth.

(Keep this in mind: he specifically said he was able to forgive sins on earth. )

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John writes in his first letter (1 John 2:2) that when we sin, Yeshua “pleads our case with the Father”, and that he (Yeshua) is the Kappurah (covering) for our sins.

How do these two opposite statements, Yeshua says he can forgive sins but John says he pleads our case with God, be reconciled? How does Yeshua go from forgiver to intercessor? C’mon, you guys- does Yeshua forgive our sins or not?

I believe the answer is that he was able to forgive sins when he was walking the earth and spreading the Good News to prove he was (and still is, of course) the Messiah.

We need to remember that in those days, a physical impairment such as deafness or blindness, paralysis, etc. was considered often to be the result of one’s sinfulness. So, healing that infirmity demonstrated not just God-given power to perform miracles, but also the authority to forgive sins.

The healing that the Messiah did was proof of his authority ON THE EARTH to forgive sins.

Let’s look at another side of this: In John 20:23, Yeshua breathes the Ruach HaKodesh (Holy Spirit) on his disciples and tells them that whomever they forgive the sins of, those sins will be forgiven, and whomever they do not forgive, will not be forgiven.

This is not just giving his disciples the authority to forgive sins, but the authority to prevent forgiveness!

Now, wait a minute here! Is it really what it seems to be? Did Yeshua tell mere mortals that not only can they forgive the sins of people, but they can override God by preventing those sins from being forgiven?

Is God unable to forgive a sinner because some human being didn’t?

I really don’t have an explanation for this, but it doesn’t make sense when comparing this one statement to the entirety of the Bible (this is an exegesis system called Hermeneutics) because no one outranks God. Period! So, even though Yeshua told his disciples they could forgive sins, I believe this had to be a one-time event and to be understood as Yeshua granting them this authority specifically in order to continue the spreading of the Good News, in his place.

Even if by some chance Yeshua did grant that authority to them, it was to them- not to their descendants or people who took over their job, but just to them.

In fact, in John 20:21, just before he breathed the Ruach HaKodesh on them, he told them that just as God sent him, he is now sending them. This seems to justify my interpretation, in that it was meant for those specific people in order to continue proving that they, just as Yeshua, had God-granted authority through the Holy Spirit, and to prove the validity of the ministry.

Catholicism has stated that from the Pope down to the “greenest” Priest fresh out of Seminary school, these anointed leaders of the faith are allowed to forgive sins. I suppose their justification for that is based on the statement Yeshua makes here, in the Gospel of John. Too bad it doesn’t hold water, because it is clear from the rest of the Bible that no mere mortal is allowed to override God when it comes to forgiveness.

We have a similar issue with Yeshua’s statement that Kefa (Peter) holds the keys to the kingdom and whatever he does, the same will be done in heaven (Matthew 16:19). Again, it just doesn’t hold true to the rest of the Bible that a mere mortal can tell God what he will or will not do.

My interpretation is that the things Yeshua told Kefa he would do were not binding on God, but on people and that whatever he decided was a proper form of worship would be honored in heaven.

In other words, Yeshua told Kefa that he would be establishing the Halakah (Way to Walk) for the Believers, which we see happening later. It happened when Kefa went to the house of Cornelius and opened up the Kingdom of God to the Gentiles, as well as through his authority (with the other Elders in Jerusalem) he authorized the letter to the new Gentile Believers in Acts 15.

That delegation was specifically to Kefa and was not transferable to anyone else.

My answer to the original question of whether or not Yeshua forgives sins is that he did have that authority when he was on the earth, which was specifically given to prove he was the Messiah.

But now? No!

At that time Yeshua forgave sins but now he is the means by which our sins are forgiven. His sacrificial death replaced the need to bring an animal to the temple in Jerusalem (which no longer existed after 73 AD) and his position as Messiah is to plead our case before God, who is now the only one who can forgive sins.

As I have said many, many times: Yeshua is the Intercessor of prayer, not the Interceptor of it.

The same goes for the forgiveness of sins: Yeshua’s death is the means by which we are able to be forgiven, but he is not the one to pray to for forgiveness: that comes only from God, the Father.

Thank you for being here and please share these messages with everyone you know. Also, please subscribe to my website, my YouTube channel, and join my Facebook discussion group called “Just God’s Word”.

I have written 4 books which I believe you will also find edifying and educational, as well as even a little bit entertaining. Check them out on my website.

And lastly, remember that I always welcome your comments.

Das ist alles, so l’hitraot and Baruch HaShem!