Category: Nitzavim

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COVID, Vaccines, and Torah

My personal, commonsense, Biblical approach to COVID-19 vaccines

COVID-19 Is Everywhere.

It’s on everyone’s mind, in our conversations, on the news, and attached to every other Facebook post. They even say that it’s in the air. For almost two years, governments and corporations around the world have mandated lockdowns, social distancing, masks, and now vaccines to combat what we have been told is one of the most virulent and dangerous plagues in history.

Some people say we should ignore the governments and go about our business. If you love your neighbor, you won’t tolerate such tyranny. Others say it’s just common sense to wear a mask and keep your distance to protect vulnerable people. If you love your neighbor, you’ll wear a mask. They can’t both be right, can they?

The idea of masks and distancing make intuitive sense. If the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19 can be spread by tiny water droplets in our breath, then a mask to contain those droplets, and a little distance to keep them from getting on other people should help, right?

Well, there’s theory, and then there’s the real world.

I’m no expert–and I’m going to keep telling you that–but I’m also not stupid. I can read, listen, observe, and think for myself. I don’t need to be a doctor or a virologist to weigh the obvious implications of observable reality. I’ll share my conclusions with you, and then I’m going trust you to think through it for yourself and make your own health decisions.

Face Masks

From everything I’ve read, face masks have very limited utility in stopping or even slowing the spread of COVID. The designer cloth masks that so many people like to wear do almost nothing and bandanas and plastic shields really don’t do anything more than attenuate sneezes. I suppose that’s better than nothing.

Surgical masks vary widely in effectiveness based on how they are manufactured and how they are worn, but that effectiveness drops off sharply after…oh….a few minutes of use. They’re really designed for reducing transfer of bacteria from a surgeon’s mouth to a patient’s innards just a couple of feet away over a short period of time and following a very strict protocol. They are definitely not intended to be worn for hours on end, taken off and on with dirty hands, and pulled under chins.

If you wear a face mask for more than a few minutes, it begins to saturate with moisture from your breath, including all the viruses and bacteria that came with it. Much of your breath is then just blowing out the sides of the masks or–much worse–blowing that moisture through and off the outside of the mask in much smaller particles than had originally escaped your mouth, potentially helping any viruses to spread more efficiently than they would have if you hadn’t worn the mask at all.

Reality trumps theory every time.

Social Distancing

Even the deer are getting COVID. Seriously. How can anyone believe that “social distancing” is having any effect at all?

Study after study has shown that six feet of distance is no better than three and no worse than twelve. Don’t be rude and get right up in people’s faces, but skipping rows at church and standing on the Xs at the grocery store are wastes of space.

If you get sick, you should stay home. Otherwise, be social. It’s good for you. And everyone else too. We want to see you!

Like I said, I’m not an expert. I’m just some guy on the Internet who doesn’t like outsourcing my thinking to politicians and reporters who have proven themselves over and over and over to be liars.

So why should you believe me? You shouldn’t. I haven’t included any sources in this article, partly because I haven’t kept track of everything I’ve read and seen over the last 18 months, but also because you really need to do your own research. Don’t rely on me and, for God’s sake, don’t rely on the press!

What’s the Point?

If these extreme anti-COVID measures–businesses destroyed, lonely suicides, skyrocketing mental illness, pastors arrested for holding church–don’t actually do anything to help, why are we doing them?

Call me a paranoid conspiracy theorist if you want, but I am totally convinced that the real purpose of forcing masks, closures, and social distancing on the world has nothing to do with preventing illness and everything to do with promoting fear. Why do politicians and rumor mongers (“reporters” implies they’re reporting something instead of spreading lies) want us to be afraid?

Fearful people are easier to control. When they’re confused, they’re ready to be directed. When the masses are afraid, they beg for more government, to be wrapped up in a comforting, protective blanket of authoritarianism. The bigger and scarier the bogeyman, the more unreasonable the solutions can be.

Like a rushed, emergency vaccine using an experimental method that has never worked despite decades of research and trials.

COVID Vaccines

Various governments around the world have given emergency authorization to a large number of experimental vaccines for treating COVID. Some of them are fairly conventional, while others are just massive medical experiments using the general public as guinea pigs. That doesn’t inspire a lot of confidence in me.

Here is a summary of what I’ve been able to deduce from my own reading as a regular guy not being paid by the Gates Foundation, Pfizer, the CDC, or the Department of Division and Slander…

  1. The mRNA and DNA vaccines spread throughout the body and infect healthy cells with mRNA or DNA that hijack the normal processes of the cell to manufacture a portion of the SARS-CoV-2 virus known as a “spike protein”. This process destroys the infected cells, releasing millions (billions?) of the spike proteins.
  2. The cells that have been hijacked to manufacture spike proteins could be targeted by the body’s normal immune processes, creating autoimmune conditions in which the immune system begins targeting healthy, non-hijacked cells of the same type.
  3. The SARS-CoV-2 spike proteins are designed to cause mechanical damage to cells so that the virus can inject its own DNA. The spike proteins created by the mRNA and DNA vaccines must be identical (or nearly identical) to the spike proteins on the virus or they would not work. It is inconceivable that releasing millions (or billions) of those same spikes would not cause damage to cells throughout the body.
  4. Widely available statistics appear to indicate that none of the available COVID vaccines provide any significant protection against the contraction or spread of SARS-CoV-2. Since the vaccines do not provide immunity to vaccinated individuals, they do nothing to achieve herd immunity, but do accelerate mutation and facilitate transmission. The claim that they reduce symptoms of COVID once infected by the virus appears to have some statistical support, but this actually compounds the problems of mutation and transmission.
  5. Many well-credentialed physicians and medical experts have stated that the COVID vaccines pose significant health risks, potentially far exceeding the health risks of COVID itself.
  6. SARS-CoV-2 is already mutating into new strains, which will soon make current vaccines obsolete, and unable to do anything except cause further harm.
  7. Many well-credentialed physicians and medical experts have stated that there are proven and effective treatments for COVID that significantly shorten the duration of illness and lessen its symptoms without the use of vaccines.
  8. Despite official ingredients lists to the contrary, all COVID vaccines that I know of use tissue cultured from aborted babies at some point in the development or manufacturing process. These babies were not voluntary tissue donors, but the victims of elective abortions, also known as murder for convenience. Vaccine makers that use fetal tissue in the manufacturing process attempt to remove that original human tissue to varying degrees through the use of chemical and mechanical means, but it is impossible to remove all traces. Every one of those COVID vaccine doses contains some bits of cells cultured from those murder victims. Vaccine makers that use fetal tissue in the development of their vaccines are still participating in and benefiting from murder for profit.
  9. Vaccine makers are generally exempted from being held accountable for fraud, malpractice, and assault related to vaccines. This alone is sufficient justification for any reasonable person to reject their products.
  10. Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson, GlaxoSmithKline, AstraZeneca, and other pharmaceutical companies involved in the development, manufacturing, and marketing of COVID vaccines have decades long histories of fabrication of test results and statistical data, massive fraud, and human rights violations that demonstrate a clear tendency to prioritize profits and technical advancements, while holding the health and rights of real, individual people to be next to worthless. This alone is sufficient justification for any reasonable person to reject the vaccines of these companies in particular.

The Biblical Case for Vaccination

Deuteronomy 22:8 says that, when you build a house, you should build a parapet (something like a railing or low wall) around the roof so that nobody falls off and gets hurt. In the Ancient Near East, where most of the Bible was written, the flat roofs of houses often doubled as an extra room of the home. People would sleep on the roof during hot weather or visit there with guests. The principle of this command is that we should take reasonable precautions within our own spheres of responsibility to prevent other people from being injured. If you have a dangerous animal, keep it penned up. If you have leprosy, stay in quarantine. You don’t have to go looking for problems in other people’s homes and businesses, but you should definitely see to your own.

It only makes sense to take precautions with COVID as well. No good person wants others to be sick and miserable, so why not? If masks work at preventing or “slowing the spread” (they don’t), we should wear them. If social distancing works (it doesn’t), we should keep our distance. If vaccination against COVID works (it doesn’t), we should get vaccinated, assuming there aren’t other good reasons that God might not like it (there are).

If you love your neighbor, you won’t unnecessarily put your neighbor at risk by breathing pathogens at him.

The problem with all of these justifications is that they depend on the first IF statements being true before the THEN statements become true.

The Biblical Case Against Vaccination

As you can see from my list of ten facts about the COVID vaccines , the IF statements above don’t pass the test. Masks don’t work. Social distancing doesn’t work. The COVID vaccines don’t work!

Sure, they probably reduce the symptoms a little, but this actually makes the problem worse, because it tricks people into thinking they’re well, when they’re actually sick. Infected, contagious people are walking around as if nothing is wrong because they’ve been vaccinated, but they’ve become breeding grounds for new strains that they freely pass on to others.

The parapet you build on your roof doesn’t actually fulfill the commandment unless it works to keep people from falling off. If it looks solid, but it’s actually made of cardboard, then it’s much worse than if you hadn’t built it at all. Your neighbor will lean on it, thinking he’s safe; it will collapse throwing him from the rooftop, and that will be your fault.

Concert venues, airlines, and entire countries are refusing to allow people to enter without proof of vaccination, because they’ve been told that vaccination will keep people safe, except that it does exactly the opposite. The vaccines are making people even more vulnerable and spreading COVID even faster.

If you love your neighbor, you’ll accept a little risk on his behalf, and not make panicky decisions that put him in even greater danger than before.

This isn’t even considering what happens when you reward pharmaceutical companies with billions of dollars for buying and using body parts of murdered babies as factory components. Those particular babies were sacrificed on the alter of convenience decades ago, so does that still matter today? If the vaccines were actually saving a significant number of lives, that might be an argument worth considering. But they’re not, and do you think Planned Parenthood isn’t watching today and seeing what sins are being rewarded with fat bank accounts?

Is the COVID Vaccine the Mark of the Beast?

Since the book of Revelation contains so much allegorical imagery, almost anything can be made to fit the descriptions of the Mark of the Beast if you take just the right angle and make the right assumptions. Unfortunately–or fortunately–it’s not easy to make these vaccines fit. Indulge me in making another numbered list…

  1. As far as I can tell, it doesn’t contain the “number of a man” or the number 666 anywhere. 60606, 666.66, and 66600 aren’t 666. John didn’t say that the number of of the beast would contain three sixes. He said it was six hundred, sixty, and six. No more and no less.
  2. Some people are taking the vaccination in their right arm, which, in some languages, equates to the right “hand”. Others are taking in the left arm and nobody is taking it in their forehead.
  3. People are being denied some business opportunities because of their lack of vaccination, but nobody has been blanketly denied all ability to buy and sell. Not yet, anyway.
  4. If the vaccine is the mark, who or what is the Beast? Okay, I’ll give you that one. The government, rumor mills, and pharmaceutical giants are all pretty beastly.

Exodus 13 says that Passover is to be a sign on the right hand and forehead of God’s people. Exodus 31:13 says that the weekly Sabbath is a sign between God and his people. Deuteronomy 6 and 11 say that all of God’s commandments will be a sign on the hands and foreheads of his people. Considering those passages, I am inclined to believe that the mark on the hands and foreheads of the people in Revelation 13 is not a literal mark, but submission to the law of the Beast. God’s mark is submission to his commandments. The Beast’s mark is submission to his.

Revelation says that the Mark of the Beast is the same as the Number of the Beast, and that it is the number of his name. Maybe the preterists are right–I suspect they are partly right–and this refers to some arrangement of the name and title of Emperor Nero. In any case, in biblical language, a name is more than just the label we use to call someone. It is the sum of his character and reputation. In this sense, the name of God is the totality of who and what he is. “YHWH” is a convenient abbreviation of his character.

Just as God’s Law is an extension of his Name, so is the Beast’s Law an extension of his. I don’t expect a stamp, tattoo, or implanted chip to be the Mark that John wrote of. In this light, the COVID vaccines, and even the masks and other restrictions, could be described as the mark of A beast if not THE beast. Just like government-enforced “tolerance”, these laws are an attempt by men to force all people into destructive, unloving behavior under the color of love. This is Orwellian doublespeak. It means the opposite of what they say it is. Their love is not love, but hate. Their “reasonable precautions” are not precautions, but reckless disregard.

Pick a Side

So we are all left with a choice. Who is our master? To whom do we owe ultimate allegiance? Do we pretend to believe that 2+2 equals 5 and obey the nonsensical dictates of men despite good sense and Biblical admonitions? Or do we stand with Peter who said, “We must obey God rather than men.”

I will not comply with the Man’s law to accept the COVID vaccines, aka “the jab”, because I have chosen to obey God rather than man.

There is always the possibility that I am wrong. That everything I have read and chosen to believe is false, that Anthony Fauci and Bill Gates really are selfless humanitarians. I have not done any laboratory tests myself. I have no formal education in virology or medicine.

I know that not everyone who chooses to take one of these vaccines is doing it because they’ve chosen Man’s law over God’s. Many people are probably just scared. Can you blame them? The mainstream press publishes nonstop horror stories about how terrible COVID is and how we’re all going to die if we don’t comply, while the technomafia of social media and technology giants do everything they can to suppress alternative views. Many of these people have never even heard anything but the party line.

However, I suspect that a great many people are more afraid of losing social status than of COVID. I know some very smart and knowledgeable people who have cut off family and close friends for refusing to be vaccinated. They’re not cutting them off because their afraid of getting sick, but because they’re afraid of being ostracized from whatever they view as “polite society”. They’ve chosen status over relationships. I hope they still have consciences when it’s all over.

A few people are actually convinced by the available evidence that the masks, distancing, and vaccines are the best options.

If you have honestly examined the evidence for yourself, rather than believing everything Facebook and MSNBC tells you to believe, and you still believe that masking up and getting vaccinated is the wisest, most loving course, then you should do that. More power to you. I disagree with you, but God bless you and honor your desire to love and protect your neighbor. I won’t stop you.

Please do me the same courtesy.

Read about my personal experience with COVID here.

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Parsha Nitzavim – Apostolic Readings, Commentary, and Videos

New Testament passages to read and study with Torah portion Nitzavim, along with links to commentary and teaching videos.

Readings

  • Deuteronomy 29:10-30:20
    • Luke 1:46-56
    • Luke 6:20-36
    • Romans 8
    • Romans 10:1-11:5
    • 1 Corinthians 3:12-23
    • Colossians 3:23-25
    • Revelation 7:9-17
    • Revelation 22:10-17

Additional Reading

Videos Related to Parsha Nitzavim

  • Civil Government and God’s Law – Proverbs 11:7-11 says that political entities that promote God’s standards of justice and righteousness will prosper, but those who discourage God’s law and promote wickedness will suffer. God knows what’s best for us. His commandments aren’t arbitrary.
  • What Is the Gospel? – Matthew 3:1-3. Isn’t the Gospel, “Jesus died for your sins?” How could John, Yeshua, and the Disciples have preached the Gospel before the cross? Isaiah 40, 52, 60, and 61 all talk about the Gospel, or the “Good News”, and define it as God’s presence among his people Israel, the repentance and restoration of the nation of Israel to righteousness and the land, the healing of the sick and the liberation of the oppressed. All of these things are just as much a part of the Gospel as the death and resurrection of Yeshua.
  • Strange Tidings from the Sea of Galilee in Matthew 8:28-34 – The story of Yeshua and the demon possessed men in the country of the Gadarenes contains several very odd elements. Is it Gadarenes or Gergesenes? Where there two men or one? What’s up with the pigs and the water? In this video, I’ll do my best to answer these questions with the limited information available to us.
  • Choose Your Yoke, Matthew 11:29-30 – Every decision in life involves an exchange of burdens. Sin imposes a heavy yoke even while it convinces us we are free. When we submit to Yeshua, we repent from sin, breaking the shackles of our well-deserved condemnation, and voluntarily submit to his yoke, but what exactly does that mean? Yeshua’s yoke is obedience to his Law, to Torah, not out of fear of condemnation for failure (that is the yoke that we throw off!), but out of gratitude for his forgiveness and out of love and a desire to honor him with out very lives.
  • A Chiasm on Sons and Slaves in Romans 8:12-17 – Paul uses the word spirit (pneuma) six times in this short passage, and he uses it in multiple ways. They don’t all refer to God’s Spirit, not even when most translations capitalize the word. There’s a chiasm in these verses that might help you see the idea that Paul was trying to explain.
  • What does “Foreknew” and “Predestined” mean in Romans 8:29-30? – Whenever you try to fit the Bible into a theological “system”, you are going to twist it into something it was never meant to be. “Foreknew” and “predestined” don’t mean what most Christians think they mean because they don’t know there’s another way to understand them.
  • Yeshua is the Word of Faith in Romans 10:5-11 – Quoting Deuteronomy 30:14 in Romans 10:8, Paul makes a powerful rhetorical connection between Yeshua and the Law of Moses. The Torah gives life, but only to those who have already confessed Yeshua as their Master and Savior.
  • Has God Rejected the Jews? Romans 11 – The apostate Israelites of Elijah’s day didn’t stop being Israel because they were apostate. God always preserves a remnant of the natural descendants of Jacob and, through them, the whole nation. Nor can he reject his covenant with them. So long as God himself lives and a single descendant of Jacob lives, God cannot annul the covenant that made Israel his people.
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What Bible Beliefs Really Matter?

What Bible beliefs really matter?

And what beliefs don’t?

I’m probably about to offend you. I don’t mean to, it’s just that there are things that need to be said, and those things won’t set easily on many. Everyone has beliefs that they hold so strongly that they get angry when they are challenged, that they will fight to protect. This is especially true when it comes to beliefs about the things that give our lives meaning.

Although the idea that religion is the cause of most wars is a myth invented by atheists who held propaganda value higher than factuality, religion has always been a contentious topic. People have been fighting over religion and doctrine since the very beginning, even to the point of being willing to snuff out millions of lives to promote one belief over another.

Jews killed Christians. Roman pagans killed Christians and Jews. Christians have even killed fellow Christians over esoteric theologies that were based more on human imagination than any divine revelation. In fact, the very first murder was over a religious difference. Abel’s offering was accepted by God and Cain’s wasn’t, so Cain killed Abel.

But few beliefs are all that important. Even among beliefs that we would never commit murder over, some matter more than others, and some hardly matter at all.

Let me propose a rule of thumb for judging the relative importance of a religious belief: Does it change what you do, how you live, or how you treat other people? If not, then you need to seriously consider whether it’s worth getting into an argument or an emotional bind over.

I want to give you a few examples of beliefs that don’t matter very much and some that matter somewhat more, but I need to ask you to set your ego aside first. Don’t rush to judgment, don’t assume more than what I have written, and accept the undeniable fact that you might be wrong about a whole lot of stuff.

Here’s why I want you to slow down while you read this:

  1. I know that you believe the Bible is crystal clear on some of these issues. The problem is that people who strongly disagree with you believe the same thing. You can’t both be right, so please consider the possibility that two perfectly reasonable–and Spirit-filled!–people can read the exact same passage and draw completely different conclusions from it. The Bible is ambiguous about a lot of issues, and living at peace with your neighbors often requires living at peace with that fact.
  2. I’m not saying that you’re wrong about anything in particular. Your belief about some esoteric point of doctrine might be correct in every respect…and still not be very important.
  3. I’m not saying that the facts of various mystical truths aren’t vitally important in many ways or that the truth doesn’t matter. Some spiritual truths are monumentally important to the mechanics of the spiritual universe, but they will go on functioning as they always have whether you are aware of them or not. What goes on at the center of the sun is really important for the entire solar system. What you believe about what goes on in there? Eh. Not so much. On a spiritual level the same thing is true about the internal structure of God.

What Bible Beliefs Don’t Matter?

Here are a couple of beliefs that are unlikely to have much impact on how you behave toward God, your neighbor, or even yourself:

The Trinity or No? Is God a single, indivisible entity, or is he three distinct persons in one being? People have been excommunicated, disfellowshipped, tortured, and killed over this question, but–other than how unbalanced people react to disagreement–I can’t even imagine how believing one or the other can have any real affect on your life. The anatomy of God is hinted at in Scripture, but is never spelled out clearly. Ultimately, we have less hope of understanding the structure of God as an ant does of becoming a neurosurgeon.

Does being a Trinitarian help you care for your elderly neighbor? Does being a Unitarian help you feed anyone? Probably not. No matter what you believe, it doesn’t change you, your relationship to God, or how you treat your neighbor.

Predestination or Free Will? Calvinism vs Arminianism is the soap opera of theological debates. There’s a new episode every day. Probably thousands of them. Forever. Those aren’t the only two camps, of course, and the extent and nature of predestination held in each camp varies significantly, depending on who you ask.

If one person believes he has no choice in whether he is eternally saved or not, he behaves as if he does. He studies, he considers, and he makes decisions. If a second person believes he is able to choose to accept salvation, he behaves exactly as the first, whether he actually has that ability or not. He studies, he considers, and he makes decisions.

Some people will choose (or not) a thoroughly immoral life and blame it on destiny. If we are automatons, then I can do whatever I want, because I have no control anyway. Other people do the exact same thing, while claiming they’re exercising their freedom to rebel against God.

I don’t think I have ever encountered a person whose life was change in any significant way because he believed in either predestination or free will. People appear to be moved to act or to choose to act in exactly the same manner, regardless.

There are many other such questions, but I think you understand my point, so I don’t need to see how many more angels I can cram onto it. (Bonus points if you understood that reference!)

What Bible Beliefs Matter?

On the other hand, there are many beliefs that do have a direct impact on how we live. If you hold one of these beliefs, then your life is different than if you did not hold it. You think differently and serve God differently; you are kinder or meaner to that irritating neighbor who talks too much. These are the beliefs on which we act.

Is the weekly Sabbath on the first day of the week or the seventh? Does the Sabbath apply to believers in Yeshua at all? These might seem like relatively unimportant questions, but you can’t deny that what you believe about them will have a real–and sometimes dramatic–impact on how you live. You will keep the Sabbath or you won’t. You will keep it with a holiness church on Sunday or you will keep it with a Messianic synagogue on Saturday or some other congregation. If you believe contrary to the majority opinion in your society, you will quickly discover how strongly you believe it.

Is the earth a sphere or a relatively flat disk? Amazingly enough, belief in a flat earth is on the rise in recent years. I have seen–and sometimes joined–numerous “debates” on this topic in online forums, and almost inevitably, some well-meaning soul will attempt to make peace between the sides by pointing out that whether the earth is flat or round has no significant impact on how anyone lives and no impact at all on anyone’s salvation. So why fight about it?

Before the advent of modern geometry, astronomy, physics, geology, cartography, and aeronautics, I would wholeheartedly agree with that assessment. Unfortunately the proponents of a flat earth must also believe that uncountable millions of people are actively involved in a conspiracy to hide the shape of the earth from the rest of humanity. Scientists and engineers in numerous disciplines provide fake, computer-generated evidence of a spherical earth and a vast universe beyond the atmosphere. Shipping and airline crews, business people, and athletes who cross the South Pacific every day are all lying about it. Travel agents advertise impossible flights. The United Nations maintains an enormous fleet to keep anyone from approaching the great ice wall that circles the world.

A person might be paranoid if he believes the earth is a sphere, but he would have to be paranoid, delusional, or both to believe it’s a disk. He would be guilty of false witness on a grand scale, or else he would have to be egotistical enough to believe he exists in a world like Truman Burbank‘s. I know that’s harsh, but I cannot see any way around the fact of it, and I have witnessed the truth of it many times. Flat-earthism has a profound negative impact on the social and spiritual lives of people who adopt it.

The tithe is mandatory or a good example to follow or a total waste of time. Whatever you believe about it, that belief will affect how you use your resources. Will you give to your local church or synagogue or some other charity? Will you share your garden produce with the Cohen family down the street? Your beliefs about the tithe will change how you see what God has given you and what you decide to do with it.

Humans bear the Image of God. If you believe that every single person you meet is a shadow of the Creator, you will look at the toothless beggar behind the dumpster and see God somewhere beneath the crud, and you will treat him differently than if you did not believe it.

What does it mean to love God with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind? If you have some idea of an answer, then your behavior will be measurably different than if you didn’t. You might spend more time in prayer, you might talk to people about God, or you might make an effort to keep his rules for living. You will certainly express more love for your neighbor. How you believe you are to love God is a profound matter that will impact every aspect of your life.

If I haven’t stepped on your virtual toes at some point in this essay, I will be surprised. As I wrote at the start, I haven’t set out to offend anyone, but offense is inevitable when discussing those religious beliefs around which people tend to build their identities.

Dogma as Identity

Perhaps that is the ultimate problem: we have identified with our dogmas rather than with our Creator and his people, Israel. On some level, the truth always matters. All truth is from God or else within God who is infinite. For that very reason, we also have to recognize that most of the truth in the universe is probably unknowable.

The secret things belong to YHWH our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our sons forever, that we may observe all the words of this law.
Deuteronomy 29:29

“For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways,” declares YHWH. “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways And My thoughts than your thoughts.”
Isaiah 55:8-9

It’s fine to talk about and even to debate almost any topic in the right circumstances, but we need to be careful about what we allow to disrupt our relationships. Whenever we feel the tension rising in a doctrinal discussion, we need to ask ourselves what Bible beliefs really matter relative to others? We need to keep all things in good perspective, weighing the value of establishing a particular truth with the value of the relationships and impact on our lives.

Love God with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind. Love your neighbor as yourself. Fear God and keep his commandments. All else is debatable.

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Tearing out the Tares

One vital point in understanding the parable of the wheat and the tares is that the two plants are very difficult to distinguish until they bear fruit.

The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field, but while his men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed [tares] among the wheat and went away. So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the [tares] appeared also.

And the servants of the master of the house came and said to him, “Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have [tares]?”

He said to them, “An enemy has done this.”

So the servants said to him, “Then do you want us to go and gather them?”

But he said, “No, lest in gathering the [tares] you root up the wheat along with them. Let both grow together until the harvest, and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, ‘Gather the [tares] first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.'”

Matthew 13:24-30 ESV
(I changed “weeds” changed to “tares” in this quote for clarity.)

When I was growing up, I heard this parable taught many times in Sunday School. The point made most often was this: Watch out for those tares. They look like real Christians, but that’s only a disguise on the outside. God knows what’s really in their hearts, and at the judgment, he will be able to tell them apart. The wheat will go to heaven, while the tares will go to hell. So don’t be like the tares. Be a real Christian, all the way through.

That’s good advice and all true as far as it goes, but it’s not complete. What about the man’s instructions to his servants?

Don’t pull out the tares, lest in doing so, you root up the wheat along with them.

I quoted the full parable in Matthew 13 at the top of this article from the English Standard Version, but I think this is one of those few cases where the ESV is clearly wrong. Certainly a tare is a kind of weed, but it’s a specific kind of weed, and that fact is important to the parable. I changed that word in the quote to make sure that point isn’t lost.

Fausset’s Bible Dictionary says this about the tare:

Darnel; at first impossible to distinguish from wheat or barley, until the wheat’s ear is developed, when the thin fruitless ear of the darnel is detected. Its root too so intertwines with that of the wheat that the farmer cannot separate them, without plucking up both, “till the time of harvest.” The seed is like wheat, but smaller and black, and when mixed with wheat flour causes dizziness, intoxication, and paralysis; Lolium temulentum, “bearded darnel”, the only deleterious grain among all the numerous grasses. (Fausset’s Bible Dictionary)

The landowner in Yeshua’s parable didn’t want his servants to weed out the tares because of three distinctive features:

  1. The tares are nearly indistinguishable from the wheat throughout most of their lifecycle. A worker, being unable to tell the difference, might pull up wheat and tares indiscriminately.
  2. The roots of the tares intertwine with those of the wheat, so that, even if correctly identified, removing them might still remove neighboring wheat plants.
  3. When they begin to ripen, the tares finally become evident to even the most untrained worker. All of the plants can be cut together and the tares separated out by hand.

Besides the Sunday School lesson I referenced above, what can we learn from this?

There are three kinds of believers that can be described as tares:

  1. Hypocrites who appear like saints to everyone else, but who harbor secret sins.
  2. The licentious who justify their behavior using alternative translations or interpretations of Scripture.
  3. Heretics who profess extra-Biblical revelation or who rely on obscure, mystical interpretations of Scripture to support a belief that could never be derived from a plain reading of the text.

Did you notice that I worded each of those to influence your opinion against the people being described?

Christians (and Jews and every other religious group…maybe I should just say “people”) have a long history of attacking their own over seemingly minor disagreements. We let our emotional attachments to our own opinions trump reason, knowledge, and love, and in the end, all we accomplish is destruction. We are like the servants in Yeshua’s parable, but instead of asking him what we should do, we take it upon ourselves to pull up what we perceive to be tares.

Let me give you some examples of the three types I listed above.

Secret Sins

A deacon at your church is respected and liked by the congregation. He has served honorably for many years. But recently you saw him exchange envelopes with a strange man in a restaurant. Was it a drug deal? A blackmail payoff?

This man looks like wheat to everyone else, but now you’ve seen something that makes you wonder if he might be a tare. Should you expose him?

What has he actually done? Did you see drugs, money, photos…anything actually bad at all? In reality, all you saw was two men exchanging envelopes. It could be a contract, landscape design, or project specs. You don’t really know anything at all.

God’s Law doesn’t authorize us to snoop in other people’s private lives. (See “So Shall You Purge the Evil from Your Midst“.) If someone is flaunting their sin or if it becomes public knowledge somehow, that’s another story, but if someone has sin in their closet that nobody knows about except him and God, then leave it be. You don’t know what unwarranted damage you might cause by meddling where you don’t belong.

Differences of Opinion

Reasonable and well-meaning people will have different opinions on what God’s instructions mean. That’s normal. As Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 13:12, “For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.”

One person believes they should never eat meat sacrificed to idols, while someone else believes it’s okay as long as you don’t participate in the ritual itself. They both might feel very strongly that they are right and that the other person is engaging in legalism or idolatry. They both love God with all their hearts and do all they can to help their neighbors, but based on this one issue, they are ready to excommunicate each other.

They have both identified the other as a tare, when in reality they are both wheat. Being wrong about something doesn’t condemn a person to hell or make them into a wolf in sheeps clothing. It just means that they’re wrong about something.

We all believe things that other people don’t, even things that seem to us to have clear and incontrovertible support from Scripture. Investigate why others believe the way they do, and you will almost certainly find that they have good reasons, and aren’t in rebellion against God. When we find ourselves on the opposite side of an issue from knowledgable and godly people, we need to step back and acknowledge that we might be wrong. That doesn’t mean you have to change your mind. It only means that you need to extend a little grace to your brothers and sisters in Yeshua when the Bible isn’t quite as black and white as we would like it to be.

Religious Dogmas and Esoteric Theories

Infant baptism or only adults? Sprinkling or immersion? Trinitarianism or unitarianism? Yeshua or Yahusha? Cessationism or continuationism? Young earth creationism or theistic evolution? There are countless more examples of controversies within Christendom that have no real impact on how we look or behave.

If you keep the Sabbath and don’t bow down to any graven images, does it really matter if you believe that God does or doesn’t have semi-autonomous parts? Nope.

If you don’t murder or steal, what practical difference does it make if you call the Messiah Jesus, Yeshua, or Yahusha? Zilch.

Does believing that the earth is 6000 years old or 5 billion years old matter if you honor your parents and respect your neighbor’s property? Not a bit.

Does reading the Bible in English make you any more or less a Christian than reading it in Latin? Christ didn’t read the Scriptures in either one, so I can’t see how it could.

These are matters of vain philosophy and imagination. They are myths and just-so story telling. Yet so-called devout Christians have killed each other over these issues because they refused to heed the parable of the wheat and the tares. In attempting to uproot what they believed was a tare, they caused hatred and division in the Body of Messiah. They destroyed lives, both innocent and guilty, and they continue to do so today by accusing their brothers and attacking one another over relatively trivial matters.

Deuteronomy 29:29 says “The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law.” The secret things that belong to God are sins that are done in secret as well as those things that God has not chosen to reveal to us in any detail.

The Bible hints at many things that are not explained in depth and never addresses many others. For example, there are a number of instances in the Old Testament in which an angel is referred to as God. There are seven spirits of God. In mystical language, John said that Yeshua is God, and then there is the Holy Spirit, but the Scriptures also say that God is one. So is God one, three, or seven? We are created in God’s image, yet God doesn’t have a body. We have a body, so how can we be made in the image of a God that doesn’t? I don’t know the answers to these questions, and the plain fact is that neither does anyone else. God is God, and he is beyond human comprehension. He has not chosen to give us a detailed description of himself or his anatomy, and if he had, we shouldn’t expect to understand it anymore than an amoeba would understand ours.

Only pride insists otherwise.

When we insist, in the guise of stamping out heresy, on attacking one another over questions to which nobody could possibly know the answers or that don’t have any practical application, then we are like hamfisted workers, carelessly tearing out good wheat with bad tares because we think we know better than our master.

In our zeal to purify the Body of Messiah, we have tainted it by filling our hearts with hatred.

There are things that are clear in Scripture. In the context of the parable, we might say that thistles are easy to tell from wheat. Someone with spiritual eyes to see and hands to touch will never confuse the two. If you can uproot what is clearly evil without harming what appears to be good, do so. This is also part of our master’s instructions.

Open homosexuality, murder, theft, idolatry… Only those who are are in active rebellion against God and his Law will defend them. These things mark the truly reprobate from the righteous, and we are commanded by God to remove them from our communities to prevent their spread. We aren’t authorized to go looking for them in people’s closets, but if they are revealed, then we have to deal with them.

Speculations about esoteric matters that have not been revealed to us can be interesting, even enlightening at times, but are more often simply a waste of time. As long as they don’t lead people to reject what has been revealed or to behave contrary to God’s commands, they aren’t worth fighting over and driving off good people.

In the end, even every stalk of grass will be known by its fruit, and sometimes we just need to let them all grow and leave it to the Master to sort them out.

The master wanted his servants to wait for the harvest because there are things they don’t know. They can’t see the roots of those tares. They can’t see the DNA that truly defines one from the other. There’s a good chance they can’t even tell the difference between the wheat and the tares by looking directly at them.

Those things that God has not chosen to reveal to us are his business, not ours.

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The Two Trees of Moses

Ecclesiastes 12:13 Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.

Psalm 111:10 The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom; all those who practice it have a good understanding. His praise endures forever!

Proverbs 3:18 Wisdom is a tree of life to those who lay hold of her; those who hold her fast are called blessed.

God placed two distinct trees in the Garden of Eden and told Adam that he could eat of one–the Tree of Life–but not the other–the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. You know the story. Adam ate from the wrong tree and died spiritually, condemning all mankind with him. He was exiled from the Garden.

God’s Law (aka Torah) also is a tree of life. Moses said that those who keep it will live and those who do not will be cursed. In Deuteronomy 29:18-20, he described a man who chose the other tree, who said, “I know better than God what is good for me. I don’t need a book to tell me what is good and evil, and I will be blessed despite my flagrant disregard of Torah.” Moses said, “God will not overlook his transgressions. God’s anger and jealousy will smolder against him, and all the curses of the Torah will settle on him, and God will blot out his name from under heaven.”

Proverbs 14:12 There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death.

Choosing to keep Torah is choosing to submit to God and acknowledge his lordship and superior understanding. Rejecting Torah is claiming to be greater than God or, at the very least, to be equal. This was the same temptation Satan used to persuade Eve in the Garden.

If obedience to God’s Law brings life, as God and his prophets clearly stated many times in Scripture, why then was Israel rejected? Why were they scattered and persecuted as if they had not obeyed?

Paul wrote that Israel followed after “a law of righteousness” in their Zeal for God, but they never attained it. (Romans 9:31) They didn’t really submit themselves to God because they didn’t really have faith in him. The had faith in themselves and submitted to a law mostly created by men. They said, in effect, “If obedience is good, greater obedience must be better,” and added a host of rules on top of God’s commands.

Legalism replaced God's Law with man's. Obedience to God's Law is not legalism.
Legalism replaces God’s Law with man’s, while licentiousness ignores God’s Law. Reject both. Fear God and keep His commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.

The Jewish teachers rejected the essence of Torah, and chose love of knowledge and tradition over love of God and man. In trying to gain life, they rejected it in favor of self, and they lost both. They failed to see that, although Torah can enhance one’s life in the here and now, its ultimate end is the salvation of the soul. “For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness for everyone who believes.”

The story isn’t over, yet, though. We have all been redeemed from Adam’s sin if we repent. Just so, God promised to restore Israel and punish those who persecute her. As Israel repents and elevates her love and fear of God over her love of tradition, she is even now being regathered from her long exile.

Deuteronomy 30:1-6 And it shall be when all these things have come on you, the blessing and the curse which I have set before you, and when you shall call them to mind among all the nations where YHWH your God has driven you, and shall return to YHWH your God and shall obey His voice according to all that I command you today, you and your sons, with all your heart, and with all your soul, then YHWH your God will turn your captivity. And He will have compassion on you, and will return and gather you from all the nations where YHWH your God has scattered you….And YHWH your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your seed, to love YHWH your God with all your heart and with all your soul, so that you may live.

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Be Ye Perfect Right Now or Else!

Torah teaches us the meaning of grace and mercy.God wants us to keep His law, but He doesn’t expect perfection. He never did or else Torah1 wouldn’t include instructions for handling missteps. You will fail, but it will be OK in the end if you trust in God. That doesn’t mean obedience is optional. Knowingly disregarding what God has told you to do is the same as rejecting God himself. Either He is King or He isn’t.

Studying and living Torah helps a person to develop a better understanding of God’s character. It teaches us what mercy and grace really mean, and it should give one great hope in God’s goodness. Consider that the blessings & curses of Torah are guaranteed to the nation of Israel2, of which we have been made citizens, but the curses are temporary. If you repent, God is eager to forgive. According to Torah, all of Israel will repent. Whatever she has done in the intervening eras, she will return to Torah and to her Husband, and she will be restored in full.

See Deuteronomy 30:1-5 & Romans 7:25-8:4.

I talk a lot about “Law”. Keep the Sabbath. Keep the commandments. Study Torah. Et cetera. Sometimes I’m afraid that I give the wrong impression.

Recently I had a conversation with a man who couldn’t understand why I say that followers of Jesus should be keeping Torah. I explained from Scripture how Paul fought a persistent battle against Jewish teachers who taught that new converts must keep the whole Torah plus all of the rules that men had added to it (the “burden that neither we nor our fathers were able to bear”) in order to be saved. The Jerusalem Council refuted this false teaching, instead giving new converts four simple rules to start with, expecting that they would continue to study the Word and grow in maturity and righteous behavior. Obedience to God’s Law has never been a requirement for salvation, but it has always been a standard of behavior for God’s people.

When I had answered all of the man’s questions, he was in a near panic. He said he would pray about this because, if he had unrepented sin in his life, he needed to fix it right NOW! The next morning he said that the Spirit had told him that I was wrong and that Jesus cancelled all of the old laws and gave us new ones.

To be honest, I was relieved. This man clearly had an unbalanced perspective on sin, believing that any error would endanger his salvation. He was already a legalist. If he had been convinced that it’s a sin to work on the Sabbath or eat bacon, I’m afraid he would have become what’s known in Messianic Jewish circles as a Torah terrorist. I think you probably can guess what that means. A new set of rules to obsess over was the last thing he needed.

Long after Paul became a disciple of Jesus, he admitted that he still sinned. He didn’t like it, but he had to be honest.

For the good that I will to do, I do not do; but the evil I will not to do, that I practice. Now if I do what I will not to do, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me. (Romans 7:19-20)

The Apostles didn’t tell new converts to stop all sin immediately. That would just be replacing one unbearable yoke with another one. They gave them just four things:

For it seemed good to the Holy Spirit, and to us, to lay upon you no greater burden than these necessary things: that you abstain from things offered to idols, from blood, from things strangled, and from sexual immorality. If you keep yourselves from these, you will do well. (Acts 15:28-29)

But that didn’t mean that it was now okay to steal and kill. This list was never intended to be the sum total of righteous behavior. It was just a place to start. “For Moses has had throughout many generations those who preach him in every city, being read in the synagogues every Sabbath.” (Acts 15:21)

The fact is–and we all need to face this–nobody in this life will ever be sinless. It is completely beyond our power to be perfect. As a much greater man than I once said, If we could be saved by good behavior, then Christ would have died for nothing. Thank God for His grace and mercy!

I’m not excusing anybody’s sin. God hates it and wants us to keep working it out of our lives. “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling,” Paul said. What he didn’t say was, “Do it right now or you’re going to hell.”

I’m going to give you the same advice that I gave to my friend, the same advice that James and the Jerusalem Council gave to the new converts at Antioch: Start with the big stuff, the things that cause you and your community and God the most grief. Next, work on those behaviors that the Holy Spirit convicts you of personally. Finally, keep studying, praying, worshiping, and fellowshipping.

Trust me. If you follow this plan, you will find no end of sins to work on.

 

1 Torah is God’s Law as written in the books of Moses. Extra-Biblical Jewish writings are the work of men. Some of it’s good–some isn’t–but it isn’t Torah. The same thing goes for extra-Biblical Christian writings.
2 The “nation of Israel” is not the modern state of Israel, although there must certainly be significant overlap.

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An Invitation to Behold

“Behold, I am setting before you today a blessing and a curse…” (Deuteronomy 11:26 ESV…sort of.)

We are all sufficiently able to understand God’s commands to keep them by simply hearing them. They aren’t complicated. They were intended to be understood and followed by poorly educated laborers and herders. As Moses said later,

“For this commandment that I command you today is not too hard for you, neither is it far off. It is not in heaven, that you should say, ‘Who will ascend to heaven for us and bring it to us, that we may hear it and do it?’ Neither is it beyond the sea, that you should say, ‘Who will go over the sea for us and bring it to us, that we may hear it and do it?’ But the word is very near you. It is in your mouth and in your heart, so that you can do it.” (Deuteronomy 30:11-14 ESV)

None-the-less, there is more to Torah and to the blessings and curses that it contains than is easily discernible in a strict, literal reading. There are treasures to be found if you look closely.

Every single parsha* tells of the Messiah and his role as the redeemer of all mankind, but Moses didn’t highlight those bits with a yellow marker. You have to look under the surface text. You have to see, to behold. Many passages contain layer upon layer of meaning bringing guidance and understanding to our relationships with each other and with the Creator. To discover those layers, you have to look closely and from different angles.

This is a command to pay attention to the blessings and curses, but beneath the plain text, it is also an invitation to search the Torah more deeply.

* Thousands of years ago, the Pentateuch (aka Torah) was divided up into portions called parshim (plural) or parsha (singular). Each week almost every Jewish and Messianic congregation around the world reads and studies the same parsha.

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Because He Said So

And it will be, if you shall listen carefully to the voice of Yahweh your God, to observe and to do all His commandments which I command you today, Yahweh your God will set you on high above all nations of the earth. And all these blessings shall come on you and overtake you, if you will listen to the voice of Yahweh your God….(Deuteronomy 28:1-2)

If you will not observe to do all the words of this Law that are written in this book, that you may fear this glorious and fearful name, Yahweh Elohim, then Yahweh will make your plagues remarkable, and the plagues of your seed great and persistent plagues; with evil and long-lasting sicknesses….(Deuteronomy 28:58-59)

These are the words of the covenant which Yahweh commanded Moses to make with the sons of Israel in the land of Moab, besides the covenant which He made with them in Horeb…. (Deuteronomy 29:1)

Therefore, keep the words of this covenant and do them, so that you may act wisely in all that you do. You stand today, all of you, before Yahweh your God; your captains of your tribes, your elders, and your officers, all the men of Israel, your little ones, your wives, and your stranger that is in your camp, from the cutter of your wood to the drawer of your water… (Deuteronomy 29:9-11)

Nor do I make this covenant and this oath with you only, but with him who stands here with us today before Yahweh our God, and also with him that is not here with us today. (Deuteronomy 29:14)

(Quotes from the MKJV.)

The Law of God applies to all men in all times who would please him by their lives: civil, religious, military, and familial leaders; men, women, and children; foreign laborers; everyone near and far, and more; all who have left the world to be called by God’s name. Once we have come out of the world (aka Egypt) to serve him, he expects us to follow his rules.

We do not obey for salvation from the final death, because Israel was saved from death in Egypt by the blood of the Passover lamb and baptized by their passage through the Red Sea before ever receiving this Covenant. Their faith in God’s promise saved them, not circumcision or observance of the Sabbath.

God wants us to obey his rules, because they are his rules. Although the Law was given for our own prosperity, it is not optional. How can we call him Lord and then act as if his commands are merely helpful suggestions?

Deuteronomy 29:29 says, “The secret things belong to Yahweh our God, but the revealed things belong to us and to our sons forever, so that we may do all the words of this Law.”

Among the “secret things” are many whys.

  • Why should we worship this way and not that way?
  • Why does it matter if a pig doesn’t chew its cud or if a rabbit doesn’t have split hooves?
  • What difference does it make if the ashes are of a red heifer or of a Holstein?

I’ve heard two interpretations of “secret things.”

  1. Deep mysteries that are irrelevant to us, are beyond our comprehension, or that might harm us if revealed. The revealed things are those which we can sense or examine.
  2. Secret sins–victimless crimes–that God deals with privately so long as they are not flaunted. The revealed things are those which are made public and have identifiably direct victims, such as murder, theft, and adultery.

In this post I dealt with the first interpretation, but I think they are probably both correct in different contexts.

We can speculate about the things God hasn’t told us, but when push comes to shove, what matters is obedience. If we really have faith in God, we will obey his Word, especially when we don’t understand it.

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Under the Law of Christ

The Law of God is both life and death depending on how it is used.What is 4? 4 is 2+2. It is also 2*2, the square root of 16, 2^2, 4*1, 100/25, a representation of the Messiah, a common term of a first enlistment in the army, and the month of April. If, in the course of a math lesson on squares, I ask “What is 4?” and you reply “April,” I would say “Wrong. 4 is not April; it is the square of 2.” I would be correct and you would be incorrect, but only in that context. In a discussion on calendars, “April” might be just what I was looking for.

The Torah (sometimes ambiguously known as “the law”) is both life and death. It is death in that if we try to earn our salvation by adherence to it, we will only earn death. It is life in that it is God’s standard for human behavior and teaches us how to live with each other and with God. If, in the course of a lecture on obtaining salvation, I ask “What is the Torah?” and you reply “Life,” I would say “Wrong. The Torah is not life; it is death.” I would be correct in that context. But if, in the course of a lecture on living peacefully with your neighbor or on crime and punishment, you answer “Life,” I would say “Correct! The Torah preserves our lives and teaches us how to live with our fellows in a way that is pleasing to God.

“We are not under the law” does not mean that we cannot learn from it or that we must reject every teaching of the Torah that was not explicitly retaught by one of the Apostles after Jesus’ death and resurrection.1 It means that we are no longer subject to the eternal consequences of the Law. If we fail, we do not lose our souls. To be under the Law is to be below, inferior to the Law. We are not inferior to the Law, because Jesus fulfilled its requirements. The Law does not rule us, because we have been redeemed from our obligation to it by the blood of the Lamb. The Law does not condemn us because the handwriting of the accusations and curses against us has been washed away2 and there is no witness against us. That is what it means to be “under the Law:” to be condemned by it because we remain under the Law of death, which is the Law that requires our death.

Obeying the Law, not as a means of salvation or of justification, but out of love for God and in obedience to God, is not being “under the law.” It is being willingly and gratefully obedient to the commands of God without fear of failure or condemnation, because we have forgiveness and because the price for our failure has already been paid. That does not mean that we are now free to behave as we wish, to ignore God’s teachings concerning his Law. That would be the ultimate insult to our Messiah. Was he killed so that we could spit in God’s face? We are no longer inferior to the Law, but we heed God’s teachings concerning it, because to do otherwise is to spite God.

The sole purpose of the Law (or the Torah, God’s teachings concerning the Law) is not to condemn anyone. That is one purpose. Even if that was its only purpose, it would still be worth using as a standard of behavior. How could it condemn anyone if it was not a standard of righteousness? Can anyone be condemned for doing something right? If anyone is condemned by the Law, it is because of their disobedience and not their obedience. It follows then that disobedience to the Law is undesirable, whatever its affects. If we are forgiven for our disobedience are we then free to disobey at will? That’s absurd! If disobedience condemns, obedience does not.

If we rely on obedience to the Law for our salvation, we will be condemned because we cannot obey everything perfectly. Our obedience to the Law in such a state is a curse, because it is so much wasted effort, and the Law is death to us. If we are forgiven and the accusations against us are blotted out, then our obedience to the Law is a blessing to God and to us. Our obedience to the Law in that state is life, and not death.

1 Romans 5:8-6:23 expresses the core sentiments of this article more eloquently than I ever could.
2 Numbers 5:11-31