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FOLLOWING THE ANCIENT PATHS If being holy is the act of being set apart then we can understand what it means when HaShem tells us that we must be holy because He is holy. We must be set apart from the world, we must not be like those who serve other gods. I remember being so overjoyed when I realized that my loving Father, HaShem, outlined just HOW I am to be holy, how IÂ’m to be set apart from the world in Scripture. What a blessing His Word is.
So we know what holiness is. We are in control of our holiness. What about righteousness - what does that mean? Righteousness is the right-standing before HaShem. Righteousness is equated with sinlessness. We remember that our righteousness is as filthy rags. We remember that it is the righteousness of the Messiah that is imputed to us so that we can be considered righteous via HIM and Him alone. There is nothing we can do to affect our righteousness. Our ability to stand before the Most High is based on the righteousness of our Messiah. We are covered by His blood.
Our own holiness is in our hands - we can be covered by His blood and yet choose to live an unholy life. But it is our responsibility to be holy because of His righteousness.
“Do not yoke yourselves together in a team with unbelievers. For how can righteousness and lawlessness be partners? What fellowship does light have with darkness? What harmony can there be between the Messiah and B’liya’al? What does a believer have in common with an unbeliever? What agreement can there be between the temple of G-d and idols? For we are the temple of the living G-d…”
In this passage we are given a series of opposites. Light is the opposite of darkness. The Messiah is the opposite of a false god. A believer is the opposite of an unbeliever. So righteousness is listed as the opposite of lawlessness (sometimes translated as wickedness or another similar word). This makes complete sense once we understand what righteousness is. How do we learn what sin is? The Torah tells us. HaShem is faithful to us to explain to us what is sin and what is righteousness. The Torah is our tutor to teach us and lead us down a path that brings our Father glory and joy.
So what is lawlessness? It can also be translated as Torahlessness. The Greek word is anomia, meaning without law. What, Biblically speaking, is the law? It is the Torah, the Word of G-d as given through Moses. When a Pharisee, such as Shaul (the Apostle Paul’s Hebrew name), is writing a faith-based letter to a group of Believers in Corinth it stands to reason that his use of the term anomia would be in reference to the Torah. When speaking Biblically, any reference to “Law” is a reference to Torah.
In many traditional churches today we hear that we are “free”. What are we free from? We are told that the Law is done away with and that we are free from it, that it is a burden. I am afraid that there are many who believe that the Word and Will of G-d Most High is somehow a burden or somehow too hard for us and that His Word prior to the ministry of our Master is different than His Will after the ascention of the Master. In reality, nothing changed. The teachings that say we are free from the law are teachings of anomia. I’m afraid for what the spiritual implications and the long-term theology this anomia teaching is having on our loved ones.
If we are saved by our faith in Yeshua the Messiah, we are grafted into the lineage of Abraham. We are instructed in the Scriptures that we are to be holy because our Father is holy. This instruction is so often repeated throughout Scripture that I wonder if it is the most often repeated phrase throughout the entirety of Scripture. Knowing what holiness is helps us to “be holy” but somehow we have seemed to confuse holiness with righteousness. If we can understand the difference between the two and have a solid understanding of what righteousness really is, I believe that we will understand our need to be holy based on the gift of righteousness that we have been given through the Messiah. It is NOT anything we can do, but it is being under our Master’s righteousness that saves us. We need to be holy
because we are saved.