First Sabbat in Jerusalem (Argument 2)

Worship in the Temple is spectacular. The rabbi exhorted us out of the Law of Moses to cleanse ourselves from all impurities as we prepare for the Passover celebration. I remember when I was younger, scouring the house for the leaven which my mother would hide for my father, that he might prove to the family that our house was free from sin. Passover has become such a solemn time, where did the joy of our deliverance go? Is it not marvelous that God spoke to Moses, freeing Him people not only from Egypt, but from the idolatrous practices of surrounding nations through the Law? For we know that any man who perfectly kept the Law would be perfect in God’s eyes: how many could do this, though? Not even our father Moses who received the Law!

That is why our hope is in the perfection of Christ rather than the Law—we would be doomed to the same inability to obey the Law as Moses and the Kadesh Barnea generation. Even though Moses is the “father” of our Jewish heritage because God revealed Himself through the Law of Moses, Moses himself is not as great as Christ (for he cannot save us). Moses could not enable the people to obey the Law, he could only give them the Law. Yet in Christ, we who believe are made to be sons, and enabled by partaking in Christ’s death and His life to perfectly follow the Law. Christ is our righteousness, our ability to please and obey the Father while Moses was “merely” God’s servant.

However, like the generation of Kadesh Barnea, we are faced with a choice: to believe God and obey or to disbelieve God’s Word and sin. We see that those of Kadesh Barnea were given God’s grace in spite of their sin—God forgave them for countless sins before sending them to wander in the wilderness. All the grace they were given was the time in which God expected them to decide whether or not they would believe Him. The time called “today” passed when the ten spies and all the people besides Joshua and Caleb disbelieved that God was great enough to remove giants and large walls from their path into Canaan. God closed the window of opportunity for repentance after this last act of disbelief, fating the Kadesh Barnea generation to wander till dead for forty years in the wilderness.

What will we choose, to believe God’s word or to doubt Him? Do we believe that God is great enough to strengthen us through this persecution? The time is still “today,” and we cannot waver in the balance forever: we must either obediently claim Christ and endure persecution, or choose to believe the One who endured all trials as we do now and overcame them is incapable of helping us. If we fail to obey God and our window of opportunity passes, it is the same as if we chose not to believe God. Remember my brothers and sisters that this trial is only for a time—just as God promised rest in the land of Canaan to Israel if she obeyed Him, so He promises us rest after our time of persecution. His rest is still available to us now if we choose to obey, but a time will come when we cannot choose rest anymore. Let us obey now while we still can.

Think of our fathers leaving Egypt who disobeyed God: He caused them to wander 40 years and never enter His rest, leaving all the disobedient to die in the wilderness. And we who walk closer to God, what more terrible things would befall us to deny the truth of our Savior to save our own skins? Our fathers did not have the same atonement for sin that we have—Aaron had to continually sacrifice for both himself and the people that they might be right with God. With Christ as our high priest, there is no more sacrifice, for Christ’s perfect sacrifice paid once for all sins—enabling us to live freely from the law of sin and death. Let us take rest, then, in the completeness of our sacrifice in Christ and remain free through our obedience to God by persevering through this trial.