FALSE APOSTLES…Bill Thoughts For Today…

Understanding important truths from the Bible….

Hebrews 7:18-19

¹⁷ For it is attested of Him,               

“You are a priest forever
According to the order of Melchizedek.”

¹⁸ For, on the one hand, there is a setting aside of a former commandment because of its weakness and uselessness

There has arisen a present day Pharisaical Judaism that is pure deceit.  Every word of the New Testament that describes and charges deceivers is true of those who teach and profit by what is called the Jewish Roots Movement.  The ones I have seen are profiteers on the naïve who listen to them.  But what is the truth?

The quote from Hebrews is only one of many available to combat any attempts to return to Judaism.  It is well for us to listen to the teaching of the church for the last 400 years, which is not inconsistent with the 1600 years prior to those quotes.

John Owens, Hebrews, 1650 Reformed, Congregationalist.

“the law”, in verse 19; for the same thing is intended in both words.  It is not, therefore, the peculiar command for the institution of the legal priesthood that is intended, but the whole system of Mosaical institutions.  For the apostle having already proved that the priesthood was to be abolished, he proceeds on that ground and from thence to prove the whole law was also to be in like manner abolished and removed.  And indeed it was of such a nature and constitution, that pull one pin out of the fabric, and the whole must fall unto the ground; for the sanction of it being, that “he was cursed who continued not in all things written in the law to do them,” the change of any one thing must needs overthrow the whole law. 

Brooks Foss Westcott, Hebrews 1899, Church of England Greek Scholar.

The conclusion there pointed to is confirmed by the decisive fact that the promised priesthood is not only distinct from the Levitical but also irreconcileable with it, exclusive of it; so far, that is, that the Levitical priesthood has no longer any ground for continuance when this has been established. 

James Stephens, Hebrews, 1943, English Baptist.

When we speak of liberty we must be most careful to keep in mind that it is not Priesthood that is no longer necessary, but the Levitical priesthood, and with it anything that is of the nature of an imitation of it. 

Phillip Hughes, Hebrews, 1977, church of England Evangelist and Scholar.

The former commandment refers in particular to the legislation whereby the levitical priesthood and its succession were regulated (vv. 11ff. above).  This legislation has been set aside or cancelled, because of its weakness and uselessness in the sense that it was incompetent to effect the justification of sinners before God.  The law is a principle of life only to the man who fulfils the righteousness it prescribes (Rom. 7:10-12, 2 Cor. 3:7ff), and the human predicament is precisely that of the law-breaker.

William L. Lane, Hebrews A Call to Commitment, 1985, Wesleyan (Methodist).

The Levitical priesthood and the old Law have been set aside by the new and “better hope” based on the superior quality of the new priest.  The old priesthood and the old Law were set aside because they had been ineffective in achieving God’s purpose.  Their ineffectiveness is a reflection on the weakness of the persons upon whom the priesthood and the Law depended for the accomplishment of the divine purpose.  The people of God failed to be brought into a right relationship with God through the cleansing of the conscience or the heart.

Owen’s statement, that the whole law was in like manner to be abolished, “is as applicable as it is current.  Good scholarship, without regard to camp, has continued to maintain this.  Those who pretend to return to Judaism, they are as false in their pretension as they are in their theology, have a motive they cannot hide for long.  Simply put it is “buy your gadgets from us”.  Again - Follow the money trail.

Look once more to Galatians 2:21 with John 1:18.