Truth or Tradition

 

Tradition has played a significant role in how scriptures are viewed. We take for granted that translations, interpretations, and doctrines handed down through time accurately represent the will of God. From what I see, nothing could be further from the truth. Biblical translators have failed to produce an accurate interpretation of scripture.  This doesn’t mean that God’s message is lost; the essential message can be understood by following the principals of interpreting statutory law:

The principal rules of statutory (biblical) interpretation are as follows: (1) An Act (the context) must be construed as a whole, so that internal inconsistencies are avoided. (2) Words that are reasonably capable of only one meaning must be given that meaning whatever the result.

The practice of finding scriptures to support an accepted belief will not lead to an accurate interpretation. It is the root of the catastrophic fragmentation of Christianity.

Institutional Christianity adopts traditional interpretations of scripture, and denominational biases. “Churchism” is the same as Judaism was at the time of Jesus. Jesus repudiated the hypocrisy of the Pharisees and challenged the Jewish hierarchy. “This people honour me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching human precepts as doctrines.”

The ancient Hebrew scriptures were the core of Israel’s religion; they were the scriptures of the early followers of Jesus. Writings of the apostolic era were directed to recipients and circumstances of that time. The law of Moses remained in force Jewish Christians. That was the last days of the Law and first covenant and the end of the age. The writings of that period were addressed to people at that time. The Christian scriptures and Hebrew scripture have the same status. Together, the Hebrew and Christian scriptures provide principals and examples for people after the end of the first covenant.

The sixty six books of scripture represent God’s interaction with people from Adam to the end of the first covenant. During that time God executed his plan to bring humans back into a relationship with himself.

God’s reconciliation of man:

For if, because of one man's trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ.

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.  All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. 

With the end of the first law and covenant the new covenant became of full force; there was no more law, no rules or rituals.

Now it is evident that no one is justified before God by the law, for “The righteous shall live by faith.” But the law is not of faith, rather “The one who does them shall live by them.” Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us…

Abraham “believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness”? Know then that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham. 

…if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to promise. 

Behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the LORD.  For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people.