Excerpt from Introduction:
“It is also important to distinguish God’s law (Torah) from man’s law (tradition and ordinances). God’s law demonstrates His character, and His intent for how we are to live. Man’s law is corrupt and seeks power/authority. God’s law came with punishments for transgressions and sacrifices as a means to an end –to bring about His glory through Christ. Christ is the unifying authority between Gods split people, Israel, who brings them into a New Jerusalem. There is no such thing as ‘the church’ and ‘Israel’ or ‘the body’ and the ‘bride’. There is only one church, one body, and one bride, and they are all Israel. While there are other ways to read scripture, they are disparate, incoherent, and contradictory –both ‘old’ and ‘new’ testaments represent a single continuous structure, imparted to us, by God.”
If you are Israel in the eyes of God, then how should we live in the new covenant? Is it new or just renewed? If new, how is it different? It’s easy to deny the power of the law if one thinks of the Church as ‘Israel’ and the ‘Gentiles’. But it’s a lot harder to deny it if you come to the realization that God’s people is, and always has been, Israel, and Israel ONLY. As was evident in Part One of ‘Who are we’, this Israel is NOT of genetic lineage, or land mass or boundary, but built on spiritual principles. Ultimately, Gods Israel is known only to Him.
In this light then, we can examine some of the promises made to Israel and see how fundamental the commandments were. Are these commandments just the 10 commandments? No, they are the Torah, the first 5 books of the OT.