Situation Normal:

Because of Sin, Love Has Grown Cold

The Apostles foresaw a day when people would forsake sound doctrine, turn aside to myths, accumulate teachers according to their own desires, and embrace traditions of men and doctrines of demons (Mark 7:7–9; Colossians 2:8; 1 Timothy 4:1; 2 Timothy 4:3–4).

They do not point forward to some coming assembly of teachers bearing enhanced, progressively revealed, argued-out, or updated commandments. Rather, they point us back to the man through whom the earliest believers could recognize and validate Yahushua: Moshe.

Yahushua said:

“For if you believed Moshe, you would believe Me, for he wrote about Me. But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe My words?”
—John 5:46–47

Moshe validates Yahushua because Yahushua fulfills and reflects what Moshe wrote. Conversely, anyone claiming to follow Yahushua must reckon honestly with Moshe. If we reject the writings by which Yahushua said He could be recognized, we have rejected Yahushua’s own stated standard of validation (Deuteronomy 13:1–5; 18:15–22; Luke 24:25–27, 44–47; Acts 3:22–26).

This is also why, when the Apostles considered how believing Gentiles should begin turning to Yahuwah, they instructed them to cease immediately from four practices incompatible with fellowship and then added:

“For Moshe from ancient generations has in every city those who preach him, since he is read in the synagogues every Sabbath.”
—Acts 15:21

Ya’akov did not argue that Moshe was irrelevant because Yahushua was now being proclaimed. His reasoning depended upon Moshe continuing to be read and taught every Sabbath. The four immediate prohibitions were not presented as the entire moral obligation of a believer, but as an entry point into a community in which the Torah of Moshe was already being taught week by week (Acts 15:19–21).

Why must believers know Moshe? Because Yahushua wants us to know Moshe so that we may properly know Him. Moshe wrote the Torah that testifies concerning Him. Therefore, to understand Messiah, we must understand the Torah of Moshe.

Yahushua did teach that certain provisions within the Torah addressed the hardness of men’s hearts. Regarding separation, He said, “Because of your hardness of heart Moshe permitted you,” while immediately directing His hearers back to the created order: “but from the beginning it has not been this way” (Matthew 19:4–8; Mark 10:5–9). Such provisions must be identified and understood as provisions. They do not justify throwing away the Torah as a whole. The Torah must be studied carefully, interpreted faithfully, and understood according to the purposes for which Yahuwah gave it.

Scripture identifies sin with lawlessness — Torahlessness [Greek: anomia] (1 John 3:4). Yahushua warned that “because lawlessness is increased, most people’s love will grow cold” (Matthew 24:12). We now see the fruit of that lawlessness acutely in the West: rampant promiscuity, routine separation, failed or abandoned marital formation, the collapse of household formation, and deepening distrust between men and women.

People do not know Moshe and therefore do not truly know Yahushua. Many nevertheless want to claim Yahushua’s name. They want their claim validated—or, at minimum, protected from ever being invalidated. Yet Yahushua warned that many who call Him “Lord” will hear:

“I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness.”
—Matthew 7:23

Calling Yahushua “Lord” is not a substitute for doing the will of His Father (Matthew 7:21–23). If we desire to be known by Yahushua, we must know the Scriptures by which He identified Himself, including the writings of Moshe, and we must return to the commandments for what they always truly were: the righteous instruction of Yahuwah, grounded in creation and reflected in the faith and obedience of Noach, Malkiy-Tsedeq, Avraham, Yitschaq, and Ya’akov long before Sinai (Genesis 7:1–5; 14:18–20; 18:19; 26:5; 35:1–7).

The Yahwist Papers is a project devoted to using Scripture and sound reasoning to recover the ancient faith obscured through generations of human tradition and schism within the assemblies. Its purpose is not to invent another revised faith, but to point people back to the faith once delivered to the saints: the faith of Yahushua, the Apostles, Moshe, and the patriarchs (Jeremiah 6:16; Jude 3).