Is our Creator a “conditional” God or a God of “continuity”?
13 Tishrei 5777 הַאֲזִינוּ, י”ג תשרי תשע”ז
The Creator appears to be conditional meaning if we don’t obey Him then we will be punished. Most people see Him as a God who constantly points a finger at us waiting to punish us the minute we fail. There are other people who say “You created me, how I act is your problem, not mine.” I often see this in children who blame their parents for their behavior. This attitude is called “passing the buck” where we justify our actions and refuse to acknowledge that we are responsible for our behavior.
The other view is the God of continuity. The Ten Commandments being the basic constitution of Israel hold the remainder of the Torah upon its foundation. They give us the building blocks for our relationship with our Creator, with ourselves and finally with our neighbors. Once our Creator has given us His teachings of what to do and not to do, the consequences belong to us. Being forewarned is forearmed. The very reason that He warns us is for our own good and when we disobey we harvest the consequences of that disobedience. This is the concept of “free will”, God’s greatest gift to mankind.
There are many examples in Scripture of people who placed the blame of their decisions upon others beginning with Adam and Eve. We constantly blame others when our behavior is questioned. For this reason I hold more to the position of God’s continuity rather than Him being conditional. The Creator doesn’t punish us; we punish ourselves. However because of man’s depravity sadly many innocent are caught in the cross fire of our disobedience and they also have to suffer the consequences but it is not the Creator who does this to us.
Moshe warned the Israelites that they needed to be careful not to be contaminated by the values of the people who were living in the land. The way to be protected from this was to be strong in the principles that the Creator had handed down to them. Today all who hold onto to the true values of the Torah are more challenged than any other groups because we live in a contaminated environment. Our values are denigrated; we are called bigots and brain-washed fanatics who cannot think for ourselves. Our children are being bombarded in schools by various ideologies that used to be wrong but today are right. When moral values are changed, there are consequences that ensue.
Our Creator is merciful, loving and caring and He will never force you to turn back to Him. The message of Moshe to his people then and now is to always keep the Words of the Creator in mind. That is why he told them to write the Torah and to have it read aloud to the entire people every seven years. We needed a constant reminder of what our Creator wanted for us. When religious people took His Word and changed it, the consequences for the world were dire. It was no longer universal and simple. The greatest treasure of the world was hidden from a spiritually starved people. The spiritual food of the Torah is no longer shared.
Little by little Israel has been copying the other nations and has now lost its flavor. This is exactly what Yeshua warned us about in Mathew 5:13-15. What good is Israel if we are not a light to the nations? Now our Creator brought other people to the place where they would make us jealous. They might have less understanding but they would be more faithful.
At this time we need to make sure that we are not being holier than thou, that we humble ourselves before the Creator as Yeshua the Messiah told us to do, that we not place ourselves upon any pedestal but instead lower ourselves and look up to our father, the Creator and that we work daily to improve ourselves. We need to be an example to others. It doesn’t matter how big or small we are, we can shine brightly when we are doing what is right; otherwise, we bring darkness to the world. We will struggle as the Scriptures say but our struggles help us to grow and become stronger. Let us honor Messiah Yeshua in his desire to bring us back to Torah.