True Holiness

[Mark H. Stevens, Th.D]

You can wear long skirts, black suits, and doilies....and still go to Hell. If you haven't accepted Jesus as Lord you are lost, holiness starts on the inside when the Holy Spirit creates a clean heart in us. The only good thing in a Chritians is Jesus on the inside, our righteousness is like filthy rags.

[Mark H. Stevens, Th.D]

What does it mean for us to be holy? When God told Israel to be holy in Leviticus 11 and 19, He was instructing them to be distinct from the other nations by giving them specific regulations to govern their lives. Israel is God's chosen nation and God has set them apart from all other people groups. They are His special people, and consequently they were given standards that God wanted them to live by so the world would know they belonged to Him. When Peter repeats the Lord's words in 1 Peter 1:16, he is talking specifically to believers. As believers, we need to be "set apart" from the world unto the Lord. We need to be living by God's standards, not the world's. God isn't calling us to be perfect, but to be distinct from the world. First Peter 2:9 describes believers as "a holy nation." It is a fact! We are separated from the world; we need to live out that reality in our day-to-day lives, which Peter tells us how to do in 1 Peter 1:13-16.

Finally, how can we become holy? Holiness only results from a right relationship with God by believing in Jesus Christ as Savior (accepting His gift of eternal life). If we have not placed our faith in God's Son alone to save us from our sins, then our pursuit of holiness is in vain. So, we must first make sure we are born-again believers (see John 3). If we truly are believers, then we recognize that our position in Christ automatically sets us apart from the world (1 Peter 2:9). After all, we have a relationship with the living God! Then we must daily live a set-apart life, not trying to "blend in" with the world, but instead living according to God's Word as we study the Bible and grow in it.

[Anna]

Mark:
Based upon your statement above, how can one live according to YHWH's word, if they refuse to keep His commandments?

What good is studying the Bible if you are not going to live as it says you are to live?

As Messiah said, "Why do you call me Lord Lord and do NOT the things that I say"?

He said "if you would enter life, KEEP THE COMMANDMENTS" didn't He?

[Mark H. Stevens, Th.D]

James 2:10, "For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles in one point, he has become guilty of all."

Gal. 3:10, "For as many as are of the works of the Law are under a curse; for it is written, 'Cursed is everyone who does not abide by all things written in the book of the law, to perform them.'”

AGAIN JAMES YOU AND ANNA WON'T ANSWER THIS QUESTION! DO YOU KEEP THE WHOLE LAW?

[Mark H. Stevens, Th.D]

OK I'll answer for you NO, you DO NOT, Jesus was the only man that was without sin, and HE is the reason we are righteous, HE became RIGHTEOUSNESS for us, You "Torah Keepers" are full of yourselves and living a lie, NO ONE can keep the Law perfectly, BUT thank God for GRACE!

[Anna]

Mark, why do you keep cherrypicking the scriptures?
Don't you read the WHOLE BIBLE or just the texts that appear to agree with your theology?

I have stated before, that no one keeps the law perfectly. But we must have the desire to do so.
That is repeated over, and over and over in the NT even in Paul's writings!

No we are not perfect, we do sin, and when we do, 2 John tells us about the GRACE we recieve when we sin:

1John.2
[1] My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin (break God's law) not. And if any man sin (break God's law) , we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous:

[2] And he is the propitiation for our sins (breaking of God's commandments/law): and not for ours only, but also for the sins (violation of God's commandments/law) of the whole world.

[3] And hereby we do know that we know him, if we keep his commandments.</</u>b>

Mark, do you believe that 2 John was written from inspiration of the Holy Spirit?

Shouldn't you also be teaching people to not to break God's law??? But if they do Messiah is our advocate that provide forgiveness? That is where Grace is applied. By those attempting, desiring, willing to keep God's law, but fail.

Our advocate is the Messiah, through whom we get forgiveness of our since and are viewed THROUGH HIS BLOOD, with our sin covered, with MESSIAH'S PERFECTION!

This text also tells you that you know him, IF YOU KEEP HIS COMMANDMENTS....

Grace is not available for those willingly breaking and unrepentant of sin.

Thee is no grace from God, for the rebellion to God's law as you teach.....


1John.2
[4] He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him.

[Anna]

Mark, I am amazed with all your credentials of higher theological study and achievements that you have not kept up with recent archeological discoveries from the DSS which has shed light on the term
"works of the law". This term is only used in the writings of Paul, never anywhere else in the Tanakh or NT.

Please share with us from your deeper theological studies, what your definition of this term "works of the law" is and from where you get your interpretation.

[Archbishop Trevor 'Elihu' Greene]

So just because Paul was the only one to write it in the N.T., it is invalid?

[Anna]

I ask you too, then Trevor,

Please share with us from your deeper theological studies, what your definition of this term "works of the law" is and from where you get your interpretation

One thing you may not be aware of and that is that the "Law" has several definitions/meanings. Obviously that is something you are not aware of..

The Bereams "checked" Paul's writings according to the Scriptures "Genesis - Malachi" Shouldn't you and I do the same?

[Archbishop Trevor 'Elihu' Greene]

Anna, I'm curious about somethings:

-Bro. James says that circumcision is STILL in effect. Do you agree? If so, or if not, what scriptures do you provide to back your point?

-What is the seal of the new covenant? What scriptures do you provide to back your point?

-Whats the difference between the old covenant and the new one? What scriptures do you provide to back your point?

-Why are you against being called a Christian? What scriptures do you provide to back your point?

[Anna]

The difference between the Old and New Covenants is that we as parties of the Covenant, will have a new mind and heart in which the TORAH/Laws of YHWH will be written.

Check out Jeremiah 31:33 In the Hebrew it plainly says that in the New Covenant the Torah will be written on your mind and heart. To teach otherwise is twisting, misinterpreting scriptures.

There is no New Covenant without Torah, that is like the constitution of the USA, it will be the basis of what is taught in the Kingdom. See Is. 2 & Micah 4.

Do you read Hebrew?

If you need help interpreting these texts or an interlinear translation with the Strong's #s ask Mark, he can help you. Then ask him what the word TORAH means in these texts. I believe it is Strong's # H 8451. Interestingly he refused to answer this same question when I asked him the last time......I wonder why.....

Also the New Covenant is ONLY MADE WITH THE HOUSE OF ISRAEL AND HOUSE OF JUDAH.

Can you show me where YHWH is making a New Covenant with the Gentiles?

Hint, Hint, you come into the covenant by being GRAFTED IN to either of those tribes.......

Romans. 11:
13] For I speak to you Gentiles, inasmuch as I am the apostle of the Gentiles, I magnify mine office:
[14] If by any means I may provoke to emulation them which are my flesh, and might save some of them.
[15] For if the casting away of them be the reconciling of the world, what shall the receiving of them be, but life from the dead?
[16] For if the firstfruit be holy, the lump is also holy: and if the root be holy, so are the branches.
[17] And if some of the branches be broken off, and thou, being a wild olive tree, wert graffed in among them, and with them partakest of the root and fatness of the olive tree;
[18] Boast not against the branches. But if thou boast, thou bearest not the root, but the root thee.
[19] Thou wilt say then, The branches were broken off, that I might be graffed in.
[20] Well; because of unbelief they were broken off, and thou standest by faith. Be not highminded, but fear:
[21] For if God spared not the natural branches, take heed lest he also spare not thee.
[22] Behold therefore the goodness and severity of God: on them which fell, severity; but toward thee, goodness, if thou continue in his goodness: otherwise thou also shalt be cut off.
[23] And they also, if they abide not still in unbelief, shall be graffed in: for God is able to graff them in again.
[24] For if thou wert cut out of the olive tree which is wild by nature, and wert graffed contrary to nature into a good olive tree: how much more shall these, which be the natural branches, be graffed into their own olive tree?
[25] For I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery, lest ye should be wise in your own conceits; that blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in.
[26] And so all Israel shall be saved: as it is written, There shall come out of Sion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob:
[27] For this is my covenant unto them, when I shall take away their sins.


A child adopted into your family will keep all the laws rules regulation that apply to your other chldren.

Our heavenly Father treats His children the same way. God does not have a separate set of laws for Jew and the Gentile.

Matt. 28 our Messiah said that the Gentiles were to be taught
TO OBSERVE EVERYTHING HE TAUGHT HIS JEWISH DISCIPLES.

Why do your reject this plain teaching our Messiah Himself???

How do you interpret Messiah's words in Matt. 28?

[Archbishop Trevor 'Elihu' Greene]

You only answered ONE of my questions, Anna. Before I address your answer, how about the rest of them please?

-Bro. James says that circumcision is STILL in effect. Do you agree? If so, or if not, what scriptures do you provide to back your point?

-What is the seal of the new covenant? What scriptures do you provide to back your point?

-Why are you against being called a Christian? What scriptures do you provide to back your point?

[Archbishop Trevor 'Elihu' Greene]

Anna, you said:

"I ask you too, then Trevor,

Please share with us from your deeper theological studies, what your definition of this term "works of the law" is and from where you get your interpretation

One thing you may not be aware of and that is that the "Law" has several definitions/meanings. Obviously that is something you are not aware of..

The Bereans "checked" Paul's writings according to the Scriptures "Genesis - Malachi" Shouldn't you and I do the same?"

I too use Genesis to Malachi to not only cross reference, but teach Christians. However, there is a difference in what you believe is to be taught, and what the Apostles taught. You believe that the Torah laws given on Mt. Sinai are going to govern us in the future and are even governing us now. That is false. If anything, the laws found within the Torah that will govern us are NOT found in Exodus, or Leviticus, but in Genesis. GOD's original plan was given in Eden, and that is exactly where HE is bring us back to. A time before sin, before Sabbaths, and feasts, and circumcision. A time before "thou shalt not" because we will be in a time without the potential of sin. This time that we are in now is the preparation of it.