FROM DARKNESS INTO LIGHT – The Noahide Laws & The Penalty of Death:
On the basis of the Word of God itself, we must move quickly to exclude the so-called Noahide laws. Though these laws may appear to have developed from the Ten Commandments, they are not the same. They were developed by Orthodox-believing rabbis. They add to Torah by oral tradition of the rabbinate and thus the Bible. On that ground alone, we must omit them.
Oral tradition of Torah is that which is understood and spoken. It is then extrapolated in time-honored, sagacious, further discourse in both the oral and written works of the Babylonian Talmud.
Few of us have heard of these laws; and only lately, through exposure on the internet and YouTube in particular, are we becoming aware of them.
Some commentators are of the view that the passing of the Congress Resolution, signed into law by George Bush Senior, can simply be ignored by believers in the Grace of Salvation through Jesus (Yeshua). They claim these ‘laws’ and their prescribed punishment of death by decapitation are harmless as such and align with the Bible.
Other commentators go so far as to say that these laws have never really been signed into law. I hope to convince you otherwise. This is a long discourse; and I beg you, please stay with me.
The (so-called) Seven Laws of Noah (Noahide Laws) < click on link to view
This link gives you an insight into the laws. Unfortunately, it fails to look at the implications of the penalties tied to them.
This next link shows an eminent rabbi who is a member of the new Sanhedrin (which is not recognized officially at this time) and who is highly connected to those rabbis currently planning to rebuild the third Temple on the Temple Mount. This one should justifiably set our alarm bells ringing.
Rabbi Says Kill Non-Jews Who Refuse to Follow Noahide Laws
There are also quite a few others concerning the Noahide deception on YouTube. However, please beware; some link to people whose stand is dedicatedly anti-Semitic. In researching this, I got deluded myself until certain discrepancies were pointed out to me as I edited and re-edited this part of my series. Satan lurks in every corner of the internet, so be very careful.
As students of biblical scripture, we know that we are witness to a time wherein believers in the Saving Grace of Jesus, the Christ of God, are now reviled and loathed. Worse, we are blamed for all the alleged shortcomings of the world that socialists and others are determined to overthrow in their race to install a one-world system of government for all mankind.
THE HATRED OF JESUS:
What the Noahide law teaches Christians is that we should now more clearly see why it was that the Sanhedrin (all those lifetime Talmudic scholars) hated Jesus and declared him an idolater and guilty of the worst kind of heresy.
And of course, as the Bible testifies clearly, from the High Priest down, they were insanely jealous of His wonderful miracles and acts of merciful charity – their fear being that they could see the threat He posed to their moral and religious ‘control’ over the lives of the people.
The Sanhedrin were rulers (even under their Roman masters). They controlled every aspect of Jewish life and, through sacrificial tithing, demanded much treasure for the use of the Temple. They acted as the arbiters of Jewish life; and their word was law, even under the dictatorship of their own Roman overlords.
The Sanhedrin had the power to ban a Jew from attending synagogue and the Temple. This would be like ‘pointing the bone’ of a deceased person at an Australian Aborigine. It signaled ‘moral’ death and the end of that person’s life as an accepted, practicing Jew.
No doubt, in the face of such threats, this is why many early converts turned away from Jesus, seeing this new way to worship God as a threat to their perceived status as a Jew. This was their world. As we know, the world inclines to the satanic, and so, invariably wins out.
There was never a moment when the Sanhedrin were collectively prepared (except for several secret converts such as Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea) to acknowledge Jesus as Lord and Savior.
THE SANHEDRIN’S ANSWER TO THE ‘JESUS’ STORY:
With respect to the Sanhedrin period in which Jesus was persecuted, arraigned, tried and condemned to the Cross, we are all more knowledgeable. We know the ‘Jesus Story’ well.
We are speaking, then, of all the steps taken by the Sanhedrin to strongly affirm to the followers of Orthodoxy that Jesus (Yeshua) never ‘rose from the death to everlasting life.’ On this basis, he was not, and could never have been, the promised Messiah.
Worse, the Talmudic bias of the Sanhedrin onsold the propagandist story that ‘this charlatan,’ allegedly a Nazarene, was possessed by demons; was a fraud; and finally, a magician and highly dangerous heretic.
Having so demonized him from the beginning and, specifically, following his execution (when the Sanhedrin bribed the tomb guards to say that the followers of Jesus had stolen his body), Jesus is finally declared an idolater. And to the present-day Sanhedrin and Orthodoxy, so He remains.
Although the present-day rabbinate would seem to prefer not to discuss Jesus (Yeshua) at all, they most certainly hold firmly to the agreed position.
‘That under the implications and penalties of the Seven Noahide Laws, Jesus, an itinerant troublemaker from the Galilee (whom some said was originally a Nazarene), was righteously tried and executed as should all idolaters and offenders against these laws.’
ANCIENT ROOTS OF THE NOAHIDE DECEPTION:
Although written to the Talmud during the Babylonian exile, I identify these laws as the foundation-brew. It was this vile potion that created the grounds for the conspiracy by the Sanhedrin, under the direction of the High Priest, Joseph Ben Caiaphas, to execute Jesus.
Perhaps these principles or laws (in similar form) were also domiciled in Egypt. And later, at the time of the Hebraic Exodus, were brought with them on their long, forty-year exile in the wilderness. It is biblically recorded that some other nationalities of people came out with the Exodus: “A mixed multitude also went up with them, and very much livestock, both flocks and herds” (Exodus 12:38).
If the Hebrews didn’t bring idolatry from Egypt, it’s highly likely that they attained both the idolatry and the nexus of these laws through their Canaanite neighbors.
Remember God’s injunction to destroy certain groups in Canaan utterly (every man/woman and child).
Exodus 34:11-14 “Observe what I command you this day. Behold I am driving out from before you the Amorite and the Canaanite and the Hittite and the Perizzite and the Hivite and the Jebusite. Take heed to yourself, lest you make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land where you are going, lest it be a snare in your midst. You shall destroy their altars, break their sacred pillars and cut down their wooden images, for you shall worship no other god, for the Lord, whose name is Jealous is a jealous God.”
Even following the death of Joshua, this instructed ‘cleansing’ was incomplete. And don’t forget that, apart from links to the Nephilim as in the case of Bashan and King Og, God did not want intermarriage with their neighbors because He knew their spiritual beliefs would be challenged and overcome. It had taken forty years of chastisement and teaching to bring the Hebrews thus far. Contact with the truly ungodly was known by God to be a catalyst that would bring His people undone. So it proved.
As I think long and hard on this, it is no stretch of the imagination to accept the view that we are speaking of a system of anti-God idolatry stretching back to ancient Sumerian cities and Ur of Chaldea in the time of the abandonment by Abraham of his own earthly father’s gods and lands.
TALMUD AND TORAH:
Those of Jewish Orthodoxy belief (today) accept all the revered and sagacious oral and written tradition of Torah. Particularly do they revere that which earlier esteemed members of the rabbinate have further developed (from alleged understanding by their best scholars) and which, subsequently, was written to the Talmud. Talmud, along with Torah, is to be reverently treated, taught to students (over a lifetime of study), and interpreted both in oral and written form.
Discussion is not only encouraged, but there seems to be apparent delight when an esteemed Rebbe of great reputation ‘discovers’ some new tangent of understanding to explore and teach. The writings and utterances of the great Rebbe sages are, therefore, very highly regarded.
They accept these Noahide laws simply because of their conviction that this is what the Ten Commandments were originally meant to represent. In the case of either Gentile believers or those Jews who convert to Christendom, the rabbinate sees enforcement of the death penalty as a highly moral outcome. The penalty is, therefore, just. This penalty is to be applied to Gentiles who break the rule of ‘the law.’
Under the Noahide laws, there are the ‘unrighteous’ Jews and Gentiles. They are those who are seen to break these laws.
There are, alternatively, both ‘righteous’ Jews and Gentiles. And a ‘righteous’ Gentile is clearly one seen to be obedient to the Noahide laws.
As Christian believers in the Saving Grace of Yeshua, the Son of God and, thereby, His Messiah, we are seen by Orthodoxy to break the Noahide law in relation to idolatry; and so we incur the penalty of decapitation by the sword in default.
We must never forget that Jesus (Yeshua) is under the interpreted implications of the Noahide laws, an idolater, and commits the worst type of heresy.
THE RETURN OF THE KING:
We must understand then, why Jesus is to return to ‘reconcile’ the Twelve Tribes to Himself (thus to God) in one day of revelation.
No, I am not speaking specifically about restoration of the nation state of Israel and what will prophetically occur before that finally comes to pass. I am speaking to the sheer number of secular Jews, totally opposed to God. They, in turn, reflect the reality of secular belief as it sits alongside of the evil idolatry of Orthodoxy, the rabbinate and the newly established Sanhedrin.
Woe unto all who are destined to face days of wrath yet to come because of their denial of God through Jesus.
Pray many questioning souls, both Jew and Gentile, find Jesus before the window of opportunity closes and the present Grace afforded to this, the church age, ends with our removal. For after this, the Jew must wait in chagrin, dismay and bitter tears until the Return of the King.
TALMUDIC ARROGANCE – ITS RELATIONSHIP TO PIETY:
The problem with Talmudic interpretation is that grounds for exception keep leading to even further exceptions or additions to ‘understanding.’ This becomes apparent as successive generations of revered Rebbe (the grand Orthodox sages) become convinced over time that there were yet further revelations to be uncovered from both the law and the work already written into Talmud. More tasty morsels for the wise to discover and upon which religious reputations can be built. In turn, over time, it leads to further extrapolation and even more interpretation. Perhaps a little like encyclicals relative to papal infallibility.
I rather think (in spite of claim of spiritual piety by revered rabbis down through the ages) that a certain level of ‘one-upmanship’ readily emerges as other ‘great’ sages made their mark by making even more ‘learned’ dissertations on a rule.
We should consider this: Just as the spirit of anti-Christ, at the direct oversight of Satan, has insidiously infiltrated and poisoned the Christian church, has Satan not also worked amongst some of the revered Orthodox sages?
All men err. All men can be, and are, challenged by Satan. Many of us are overcome and never find Jesus.
It was for this very same thing that Jesus took the teachers of the ‘law’ to task. He pointed out time and time again that the real purpose of the law had been lost. And it had become an intolerable burden upon Hebraic society – so intolerable that not even the teachers could obey it, or else were not prepared to obey it, so far had they strayed. The result was that even more interpretative exceptions came about. The teachers heaped these onerous laws upon the people, extracting an increasing burden of sacrificial offerings from them.
Stephen, in his dissertation before the Sanhedrin, told them directly how much they had deliberately erred and how the blood of the prophets – that they, directly, had caused to be murdered over past centuries by religious/judicial decree – was upon their literal heads. At this, ‘they hissed’ and thereupon moved on, racing Stephen outside to be stoned to death whilst the yet unshriven Paul watched.
This video clip is true to Scripture. I could not watch it without weeping.
THE ORTHODOX HOME:
In an Orthodox home where study is not a pastime but a pious obligation of faith, such discussions on points of both Torah and Talmudic ‘law’ is welcomed and encouraged.
An Orthodox father might well pose a question to his young, teenage son who is studying at the approved level of Yeshiva (educational system of Torah and Talmudic studies). The lad would be heartily encouraged to explore this ‘tasty’ intellectual exercise in piety. As such studies are the real focus of Orthodox life, the father is highly esteemed by his peers for such encouragement; and the lad, feeling the approval of his father is, himself, highly self-actualized by the experience.
A BIBLICAL EXAMPLE:
A case in point that we believers are very familiar with is the biblical story of the Pharisees posing to Jesus the case of seven brothers, each who subsequently died after marriage to the same woman. (Some woman; did she have the kiss of death?)
The question being asked, when each brother arrived in Heaven, was, ‘whose wife would she actually be?’ Jesus, you will certainly remember, gave this nonsense short shrift, bluntly reminding these ‘teachers of the law,’ that there was no marriage in heaven, only worship of the Father and the completion of whatever business is ordained to be conducted on his behalf.
Matthew 22:23-30 (also Mark 12:18-27; Luke 20:27-40):
“That same day the Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection, came to Jesus and questioned Him. ‘Teacher,’ they said, ‘Moses declared that if a man dies without having children, his brother is to marry the widow and raise up offspring for him. Now there were seven brothers among us. The first one married and died without having children. So he left his wife to his brother. The same thing happened to the second and third brothers, down to the seventh. And last of all, the woman died. In the resurrection, then, whose wife will she be of the seven? For all of them were married to her.’
“Jesus answered, ‘You are mistaken because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God. In the resurrection, people will neither marry nor be given in marriage. Instead, they will be like the angels in heaven.’”
I see this as typical of the way these great rabbis still, to this day, spend their lives, leaving their disciples in no doubt as to their erudite mental capacities and the level of their ‘spiritual’ greatness. And the greatest of all are those known as Rebbe, the undoubted and venerated sage and arbiter of life in the area in which he presides. He is considered ‘expert’ in every phase of life, from the compulsion to observe Torah and Talmudic study to the most mundane aspects of human interaction within the community.
Nevertheless, I should let the rabbinic scholars explain it themselves:
(Quoting from an abridged but relevant Wikipedia entry)
The Talmud is the central text of Rabbinic Judaism and the primary source of Jewish religious law (halakha) and Jewish theology.
Until the advent of modernity, in nearly all Jewish communities, the Talmud was the centerpiece of Jewish cultural life and was foundational to “all Jewish thought and aspirations,” serving also as “the guide for the daily life” of Jews.
The term “Talmud” normally refers to the collection of writings named specifically the Babylonian Talmud (Talmud Bavli), although there is also an earlier collection known as the Jerusalem Talmud (Talmud Yerushalmi).
The Talmud has two components; the Mishnah (Hebrew: משנה, c. year 200 CE), a written compendium of Rabbinic Judaism’s Oral Torah; and the Gemara (circa year 500 CE), an elucidation of the Mishnah and related Tannaitic writings that often ventures onto other subjects and expounds broadly on the Hebrew Bible. The term “Talmud” may refer to either the Gemara alone, or the Mishnah and Gemara together.
The entire Talmud consists of 63 tractates, and in standard print is over 6,200 pages long. It is written in Mishnaic Hebrew and Jewish Babylonian Aramaic and contains the teachings and opinions of thousands of rabbis (dating from before the Common Era through to the fifth century) on a variety of subjects, including halakha, Jewish ethics, philosophy, customs, history, lore and many other topics. The Talmud is the basis for all codes of Jewish law, and is widely quoted in rabbinic literature. – end of quoted source
The Talmud was a great bone of contention between the Catholic Church and the Jews all through the Dark and Middle Ages. Particularly so because Catholic scholars (some of them Jewish converts) were trying to prove the complicity of Judaism in the execution of Jesus.
However, to really understand the Talmud, you need to understand the Ultra-Orthodox Jewry as perhaps personified by the Haredi Jews in Stamford Hill in the U.K. I heartily recommend this link. It’s a long read, but exceedingly well researched and written, and above all, impartially thoughtful.
Inside the Private World of London’s Ultra-Orthodox Jews
This is the reason I am presenting the Noahide laws and their inter-connection to Orthodoxy to you.
Surely, if you believe the truth of a literally interpreted Bible, you will have little difficulty in accepting the basis of our love for Israel? Neither the Talmud, Orthodoxy or the Sanhedrin is ‘Israel.’ Just as the secular Jew stands outside of Orthodoxy, so the Talmud/Orthodoxy and Sanhedrin stand apart from Jesus the Messiah-King. That will change very suddenly by direct revelation of the divine character of the Christ King.
You will also understand and acknowledge that our constant prayers must focus on the true restoration and reconciliation of both the nation and the chosen remnant of the Twelve Tribes. Reconciliation means the re-joining of the remnant to the ‘true vine,’ Jesus. It is to that ‘vine’ that our own Gentile remnant must be joined.
Ten tribes are currently ‘missing in action,’ but God knows who now represents them and where they are presently to be found. The chosen remnant will comprise all those of the reinstated 12 Tribes that will be appointed by Jesus to serve God as a nation of priests and a true light to the Gentiles. And that is precisely why we should desire to understand completely the present state of the Jews. They are to be (in reconciliation to God, through Jesus) our true brothers and sisters.
Neither present Orthodoxy nor Reformed Jewry have or can have achieved Salvation Grace through God because they continue in disbelief, to deny His Son by their corporate condemnation.
Though Salvation Grace is freely available, only a few (messianic Jews) have humbled themselves to the Cross and accepted Jesus as Savior. Of these, some appear to join existing denominational churches, whilst others create for themselves a more Jewish teaching congregation. I suspect, those in particular would endeavor to keep with them some of the more familiar things that preserve the Jewishness that characterizes them, whilst embracing Salvation through Jesus.
I have little difficulty with this. In like fashion has the Christian church evolved throughout the world. If a group of folk choose to fashion a church that holds to the literal teaching of the Scriptures, including prophecy, teaching Salvation through the Grace granted by Jesus, where’s the problem?
Conversely, it is the conviction (under Orthodoxy) ‘that it is observance of the ritual customs and traditions along with pious study (all throughout their lives) that will earn them ‘righteousness’ and a seat at the banquet table that we have difficulty with.’ For although they are our brothers and sisters, many, like our own unbelieving deniers, are soon to be swept away if they continue in such denial.
Such rites, ritual customs and traditions must never replace the Salvation Grace of Jesus. In the case of Orthodoxy, they do. And we should know them for what they really are! They are ‘works.’ And Orthodoxy has put them before Grace as does the Catholic church, the latter which teaches that certain sacramental ‘works’ are necessary to get you into Heaven.
Come the day that the Jews realize that they have truly been ‘left behind,’ they are going to feel crushed, devastated and spiritually abandoned. Most of us who search for even a modicum of wisdom, even after a lifetime of our attempt to study the Scriptures, believe that it will be at this point that the reconciliation of the Jews will come or, at least, commence.
THE IMPACT OF THE NOAHIDE LAW ON THE WORSHIPERS OF JESUS:
It would appear that only now are people beginning to become aware of the Noahide Laws and how they are meant to impact upon those who worship God through His Son, Jesus (Yeshua).
The Seven Noahide Laws – though they appear to be precisely the same as the Ten Commandments given Moses – are definitively not the same. And there is a growing realization that they may well be the proposed vehicle to annihilate true believers of the Saving Grace offered by the Christ. Because, although the Orthodox might see our demise as religiously righteous, the secular deniers of the New World Order simply see a most effective tool to get rid of us forever.
Orthodoxy, Christians in name only, and the hatred of the secular Left are all agreed that the world will be a far better place without us. The Orthodox see us as heretics, and we who worship God through Him, as idolaters. The secular, conversely, see us as a continual ‘roadblock’ to progress of the system they are trying to force nations into.
Surprisingly, in the latter claim, we agree with them. We yearn for the day that the Bridegroom comes for us, his bride, and takes us home as promised.
The enemy (Satan) wants us dead as he wants the death of all natural mankind.
The rest of them (who cannot see that Satan is behind it all as our ancient enemy) also want us gone but, preferably, ‘dead and gone.’
Long had we wondered on what grounds would our martyrs suffer beheading. I think it is now abundantly clear.
JESUS IN THE TALMUD:
(From Wikipedia) (I looked hard at this quote and couldn’t find much to complain about):
In the first few centuries CE, there were many sects of Judaism (such as Pharisees, Essenes, and Sadducees) each claiming to be the correct faith. Some scholars treat Christianity, during that era, referred to as Early Christianity, as simply one of many sects of Judaism. Some sects wrote polemics advocating their position, and occasionally disparaging rival sects. Some scholars view the depictions of Jesus in the Talmud as a manifestation of those inter-sect rivalries – thus the depictions can be read as polemics by the rabbinic authors of the Talmud which indirectly criticized the rival sect (Christianity), which was growing and becoming more dominant.
Relationship to New Testament:
Peter Schäfer concluded and asserts that the references in the Babylonian Talmud were “polemical counter-narratives that parody the New Testament stories, most notably the story of Jesus’ birth and death” and that the rabbinical authors were familiar with the Gospels (particularly the Gospel of John).
Schäfer argues that the message conveyed in the Talmud was a “bold and self-confident” assertion of correctness of Judaism, maintaining that “there is no reason to feel ashamed because we rightfully executed a blasphemer and idolater.”
Peter Schäfer (born 29 June 1943) is a prolific scholar of ancient religious studies, who has made contributions to the field of ancient Judaism and early Christianity. He was a Professor of Religion and the Ronald O. Perelman Professor of Judaic Studies at Princeton University from 1998 to 2013. He is currently the director of the Jewish Museum of Berlin.
From 1983 to 2008 he was Professor for Jewish Studies at Freie Universität Berlin. Since 1993, he has been co-editor of Jewish Studies Quarterly. Schäfer’s research interests include Jewish history in Late Antiquity, the religion and literature of Rabbinic Judaism, Jewish mysticism, 19th and 20th-century Wissenschaft des Judentums and Jewish magic). – end of quoted source.
I have used these academic references by this eminent scholar so that we, as believers, having assessed the ‘evidence’ as best we can, hopefully, now understand that the Seven Noahide Laws, as they are found to pertain to Jesus (Yeshua), isolate Him by denial of his deity and, therefore, deny the Father Himself.
In turn, we must deny the validity of these laws. At the very least, we must come to appreciate that:
—the passing of them as law by the United States Congress,
—their acceptance by UN NGO reps of The Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) – which is the “United Nations’ central platform for reflection, debate, and innovative thinking on “sustainable development,”
—and support of them by eminent people of the ‘elite’ of our respective societies such as Herman Van Rompuy (previous European Union president) who said in a letter to Rabbi Shimon Cohen, author of The Theory and Practice of Universal Ethics: The Noahide Laws, “I am particularly honored to add my name to the cause of the dissemination of the universal values known as the Noahide laws” (see editorial review of the book at the above link)
has signed and sealed our Death Warrant. Our enemy (Satan) awaits only the time of his anti-Christ and his demonic horde.
THE POSITION TAKEN BY THOSE ADVOCATING THESE LAWS:
Their position, without exception, is that anyone who declares publicly that Jesus (Yeshua) is ‘the Son of God’ is a vile heretic and idolater.
Such offenders are ‘under the law’ and must be condemned to death by decapitation.
This is what the Noahide laws should mean to you as a true believer in the Saving Grace of Christ Jesus. Do not support them; they are not for us but against us.
Herein, we see at once how the biblical prophecy of the Book of Revelation, chapter 20, is thus confirmed, and (I sincerely believe) in our time, for there is little doubt that this horror is ‘just around the corner.’
REVELATION 20:4
“I saw thrones on which were seated those who had been given authority to judge. And I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded because of their testimony about Jesus and because of the word of God. They had not worshiped the beast or its image and had not received its mark on their foreheads or their hands. They came to life and reigned with Christ a thousand years.”
Selah (pause and think of that).
Amen
Denis Bowden