A Wider View
This is the second book in which I have included a chapter titled “A Wider View.” I have found that certain kingdom truths are difficult to comprehend unless we first envision the grand panoramic scope of Yahweh’s works and plans. When we focus narrowly on a subject, apart from discerning the ultimate intent of the Ruler and Creator of the Universe, we are hindered from apprehending truth and arriving at the mind of Christ. This is certainly true when one begins to explore the purpose and limits of the Law which was delivered to Moses at Mount Sinai.
The following story is presented to illustrate the role of the Law, and how two different peoples can see its purpose and role in vastly different ways.
The Parable
There was a great man of immense wealth, power and vision. He conceived a plan to build a city wherein he could place his name. This city would be the center of his empire, and the greatest work he would ever accomplish. The man begins to form his master plan. The city is to be built perfect and entire when it is begun. There will be nothing unsightly in the city. The power lines will all be run underground. Sewer and waste collection will likewise be accomplished through means that will make it possible that nothing unclean, malodorous, or obnoxious to the senses will ever pass before the eyes of the inhabitants.
The city will be one of beauty, purity, and peace. Vast gardens are designed, and quiet spaces for contemplation. A transportation system is envisioned that will run totally on solar power, with efficient quietness and zero emissions. There will never be an automobile, or other device to fill the air with noise, or pollution, or add congestion to the streets. The thought going into this city’s design is immense. No aspect is left unconsidered. No expense is considered too great.
The location of the city is chosen. It will sit on a parcel of barren wasteland. The land is to be transformed into a paradisaical condition. The site has been chosen with care. It will receive adequate light from the Sun, and is free from nearby environmental pollutants. The site chosen has no inhabitants. No one regards it, for it is in its appearance a dry and weary land with nothing to attract the soul of man.
This great visionary knows that it will be many generations before the city construction can begin. Vast amounts of money and material must first be stored up for it is a colossal work to be undertaken. It is important to preserve the land in its natural condition until the time arrives for the city to be built. Anything that would defile the land and make it unsuitable for development must be guarded against until the time for the city to arise from the desert.
The man therefore hires a people to build a wall all around the property. He gives them charge of the wall, instructing them to keep out all intruders. He warns them to be vigilant that nothing should enter that would alter the condition of the land until the time should come that he is ready to build his city. He then goes away to prepare for his great work.
Generations pass. The vision of the city is passed to the man’s son, and then to that man’s son. With a single focus they continue to lay up wealth, to develop technology, and to store up material for the construction of the city.
At the same time, the people charged with guarding the wall continue their task. As one generation passes into another, the people guarding the wall forget the purpose envisioned for the land. All that matters to them is that they have a duty, and a charge to keep. They are to protect the land, and keep out all intruders. They are to prevent the land from being altered in any way.
These people are proud of their calling. They begin to think of the land and the wall as their own. It was given to them as their own sacred charge. Though all is barren within, they believe that no place on earth is more valuable. The immense wall around the property gives evidence to its value. Indeed, the wall becomes immensely valuable to them as they focus more on it and the purpose it serves, than the land within which it guards.
More generations pass, and the time is at hand for the visionary’s descendant to build the city. All is in readiness. An immense procession of workers accompany the owner of the land to the property. They arrive at the wall with equipment, engineers, blueprints, and every necessary thing to build this paradise in the wilderness. It is an hour of momentous importance. The hour to transform the barren wilderness into a paradise is at hand. The work envisioned generations before, which has been the desire and passion of the land owner and his descendants is to be brought to glorious fruition.
At the wall the land owner and his laborers are confronted by the people who were given charge to guard the land. These guardians have forgotten the reason the land was purchased. They have been so focused on the wall, and their part in maintaining it, that they have lost completely the larger vision. They do not understand that the wall was constructed for a season, and a specific role. To them the wall has become all important. Their role as guardians is all that they perceive.
Being a prideful people, the guardians of the wall are unwilling to relinquish the work that gave them distinctiveness and purpose. Though they are invited to enter into this far surpassing enterprise, and are assured of key roles in the construction of the city and homes when it is complete, they are unmoved. They refuse to cooperate with the land owner.
How blind are these people! They do not see that all inside their walls is barren wilderness. They could be possessors of paradise. Familiarity and the pride of their unique role holds a greater attraction than seeing the glorious vision of the landowner fulfilled.
The wall has stood for centuries. It has become an idol to the people who guard it, a thing to be worshiped. In the owner’s eyes, it is merely ancient stone and mortar. It has served its purpose. It fulfilled the intent for which it was constructed by his forebears. Though the wall is impressive, it is a mere shadow of that which is to replace it. The hour has arrived for the wall to give way to far better things. The wall must be brought down for the paradisaical city to rise.
The Explanation
The great man of vision is God. He has developed a master plan of immense glory. He will transform the barren and lifeless heart of man into a garden of glory and abundant life. Yahweh appoints a time for a Son to arise who will fulfill His vision. The time is yet far off when the plan is established. The heart of man must be safeguarded until the work is to be accomplished. The Law is therefore given, and a people assigned as ministers of the Law, until the time of reformation, when the heart of man will be re-formed.
If the ministers of the Law ever perceived the true plan of Yahweh for transforming barren souls into oases of life and beauty, they have lost the understanding. The Law has become all important to them. Indeed, it is a thing they have come to worship. When the time arrived for the Son to accomplish the vision of the Father, the guardians of the Law resisted Him. In their actions they revealed that they cared more for their position than for the vision of the God who had chosen them as ministers.
People of God, because spiritual vision is at ebb tide in this late hour, there are few who perceive the greater scope of the Father’s plan. It is not taught in the churches of this hour. Consequently, Christians today, like the Jews before them, do not perceive that the Law was given for a specific time and purpose. Its divine role was only one part of a larger plan. The Law was truly divinely inspired; its function very important, but it must give way to greater things.
The Limits of the Law
It is revealed through numerous Scriptures that the Law has a role of limited duration. It was not intended to hold sway over man forever. Those who look too narrowly at God’s work are hindered from perceiving the end of the Law. They are unable to perceive it in the larger scope of Yahweh’s master plan. Many Christians are returning to an observance of feast days, new moons, sabbath days, and dietary regulations. They are seeking to become more “Jewish,” believing that this constitutes a return to authentic Christianity. Concomitant with adopting Jewish culture is a return to the rule of the Law. This does not lead to authentic Christianity, but rather away from Christ.
Galatians 5:4
You have been severed from Christ, you who are seeking to be justified by law; you have fallen from grace.
The following Scriptures proclaim the Law’s limited duration.
Galatians 3:19
Why the Law then? It was added because of transgressions, having been ordained through angels by the agency of a mediator, until the seed should come to whom the promise had been made.
This is the truth that many will not receive in this hour. The Law was given to fulfill a purpose UNTIL the Seed should come. Yahshua is the Seed of the Father. He has come. The Law has fulfilled its role of judge. It is no longer the arbiter of righteous and unrighteous behavior for those who have been born of the Spirit. This is a subject for a later chapter. Following are more Scriptures announcing the limited duration of the Law.
Romans 7:1-4
Or do you not know, brethren (for I am speaking to those who know the law), that the law has jurisdiction over a person as long as he lives? For the married woman is bound by law to her husband while he is living; but if her husband dies, she is released from the law concerning the husband. So then if, while her husband is living, she is joined to another man, she shall be called an adulteress; but if her husband dies, she is free from the law, so that she is not an adulteress, though she is joined to another man. Therefore, my brethren, you also were made to die to the Law through the body of Christ, that you might be joined to another, to Him who was raised from the dead, that we might bear fruit for God.
Over and over the apostles declare that the Law’s duration was limited. Its intent and purpose is complete when a man or woman is born of the seed of Christ and they become a partaker of a better covenant.
Galatians 4:1-5
Now I say, as long as the heir is a child, he does not differ at all from a slave although he is owner of everything, but he is under guardians and managers until the date set by the father. So also we, while we were children, were held in bondage under the elemental things of the world. But when the fulness of the time came, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the Law, in order that He might redeem those who were under (past tense) the Law, that we might receive the adoption as sons.
Hebrews 9:9-10
Accordingly both gifts and sacrifices are offered which cannot make the worshiper perfect in conscience, since they relate only to food and drink and various washings, regulations for the body imposed until a time of reformation.
Hebrews 8:13
When He said, "A new covenant," He has made the first obsolete. But whatever is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to disappear.
The truth of the Law’s limited purpose in the plan of Yahweh is stated repeatedly, yet men who have not grasped the larger view of Yahweh’s divine plan are reluctant to accept this fact. The Law has become all important to some. It has become an idol, standing in the place of relationship with God through Christ.
In subsequent chapters I will set forth the scope of Yahweh’s plan for mankind. I will labor to show the Law in is proper place in this plan. It is my earnest desire that those who love truth will be helped in arriving at the knowledge of the same.
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Joseph Herrin
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