Some Aspects of My Torah-based Faith Explained in a Letter to a Reader

Dear JD: Thank you for making time to read my article published recently in my column on the Modern Ghana site titled No Heaven for Artificially Beardless or Bald-headed Men! (Part I) of URL http://www.modernghana.com/news/701538/no-heaven-for-artificially-beardless-or-bald-headed-men-pa.html and for the comments you sent to me in respect of it and on other general issues of my Torah-based faith.

Again, let me thank you for the information about Michelangelo and his paintings. In fact, I’ve never heard about him and so, thankfully, I never even said anything in my article under reference in praise of him nor credited my mention of a portrait of Yahushua at table with his talmidim to him.

I only wanted readers to know that anyone doing even a “crude” portrait of the Savior today—who may not necessarily even be a holy person according to the Scriptures (someone who may even be a worse sinner than Michelangelo) but with a little knowledge of the Torah and also minded by the cultural life of Yisroel, particularly in the years when Yahushua was on Earth—would not fail to portray all men with or around Yahushua as sporting full beards, with all their other facial hairs kept within the borders determined and delineated by Yahuwah Elohiym.

And so, I hope I did not draw the attention of my readers to the unholy work of any unholy painter and thus mark him for praise and appreciation, but instead to the fact that all painters today, irrespective of their holiness levels, would most likely be inclined to portray Yahushua as sporting a full beard, together with all other facial hairs, when making a portrait of him.

Dear JD, you can see that in this I am not teaching a doctrine but conveying to my readers the obvious fact that men of Yisroel wore beards, compulsorily, in their historic past.

I also know that in the days of the Savior people never sat at dining tables to eat! And so, even though today’s Yahushua-at-the-dining-table psyche among salvation-seeking people is wrongly acquired through a painting of an artist of olden days, I only brought it out in my article because of my admiration of facial hairs this portrait correctly depicts of the Savior and his talmidim in close fellowship!

By your third comment, Dear JD, I think we are saying the same thing! Here is what I said in the article which you also quoted in your comment: "I suppose you will agree with me that in the days of the Savior on Earth, none of his talmidim was in him in the sense in which Christians even claim to be in him (Savior)! These talmidim were only with him! And yet, by simply imitating him and his Av (Father) by obeying their Torah, all these talmidim bore the good fruit as they looked like his perfect image, facially!!"

Note my underlined phrase in my last sentence! Note also that the best way to obey any person is to imitate (and mimic?) him; thus, the saved in Yahushua are commanded in Eph’siyim 5:1 in the Orthodox Jewish Bible (OJB) to imitate Yahuwah, just as Yahushua has said he always mimics his Av!

And this thinking of mine is same IN PRINCIPLE as your comment, which is: “John 15 - If we hear, understand, obey/do - shama (Strong’s 8085) and keep - shamar (Strong’s 8104), we are in Him and He in us. This is my humble understanding.”

However, you and I are obviously looking at the spiritual lives of two different kinds of people under two different dispensations and hence your little worry of mind you seem to show by your comment!

You see, all the children of Yisroel, prior to the coming of Yahushua, were born biologically into the salvation of Yahuwah because of their unique election from among all kindred of Earth; and they were thereafter, therefore, mandated to shama and shamar the entire Torah in order to continue to be in or to remain in that salvation, and were thus permanently IN Him (Yahuwah) ONLY by their faithful obedience to His Torah.

Please note that under the covenant Elohiym cut with Avraham, He directly owned Yisroel as His firstborn of all mankind—cf. Shemot (Exodus?) 4:22!

But obviously, the same is not true of any of the people under the current dispensation of grace—any of today’s children of Yisroel or Goyim desiring the salvation of Elohiym in Yahushua—all of whom must first of all be led to enter the salvation of Yahuwah (not biologically this time, but spiritually) through being born anew in a tevilah in a mikveh mayim (baptism by immersion)!

In order for the one so baptized to be able to remain IN this salvation that has come by the power and new status received in this baptism, so that the one can continually live in the person of Yahushua, that person’s spiritual life must be lived by his daily and an all-the-time shama and shamar of the Torah!

Note that in our grace dispensation, we are owned directly by Yahushua and so are kept IN him; and it is his Av (Father) and Avinu (our Father) who becomes husbandman over us; just as you seemed to mean by your reference to John 15 in your comments!!

However, just by our shama and shamar of the Torah alone, and without being initiated into Yahushua in baptism, it is not correct for you to say “we are in Him and He in us”; otherwise, what was the need for Elohiym to send Shimon Kepha to Goy (Roman?) Cornelius, who, before Kepha went to him, was already diligent in his shama and shamar of His Torah!

Or why was it that Yahushua had to come to Earth to die, if, by simply walking in zeal and all diligence by the shama and shamar of the Torah alone, (like Sha’ul of Tarsus did once upon a time?) any of us people today, can be and “. . . are in Him and He in us” as you stated??

For any one of us today to be IN Yahushua,—that is, become a branch grafted into HaGefen HaAmittit (the True Vine) who is indeed Yahushua—cf. YahuKhanan (John?) 15:1, become a “member of his body, of his flesh (and of his blood too?), and of his bones”—cf. Eph’siyim (Ephesians?) 5:30, and also truly and confidently say that “For in him we live, and move, and have our being; . . . For we are also his offspring”—cf. Ma’asim (Acts?) 17:28, that person must be born anew and be filled with Ruwakh HaQuodesh (please, this Ruwakh HaQuodesh must not be equalized to the “Holy Ghost” of Christians, a Goyim name that is strange and unacceptable to Elohiym and all Shamayim) through his faith in and submission to the ritual of baptism—the tevilah (dip) in a mikveh mayim (place of naturally gathered living waters) after one has done a genuine teshuva (repentance from his sins)!

Now, since all these glorious blessings are made possible and receivable ONLY in and after the death and resurrection of Yahushua, nobody, including all the talmidim of Yahushua, could receive any of them while he was yet with them. So then, the talmidim of the Savior were never IN him at the time he was physically present with them on Earth; he was simply WITH them!!

You see, it is ONLY when the gift of Ruwakh HaQuodesh is received by any person that his being found IN Yahushua is guaranteed and sealed; and for Shimon Kepha and his friends, it had to take the departure of Yahushua to his Av in Shamayim before they could have this gift and sealing; whereby their being (found) IN Yahushua could ever be proven or genuinely demonstrable by their lives and deeds!

Sadly, followers of the evil phantom, JESUS CHRIST, a name crafted by Lucifer and established as a stronghold in the mindset of Christians, think and believe that they are IN the true Savior and that they possess all the glorious “in Yahushua” realities I have enumerated in the foregoing, by their profession of a JESUS CHRIST and their claim to having some HOLY GHOST power dwelling in them; and yet, they are unable to even look like Yahushua physically, by their worldly fashions regarding their facial hairs!

My mention in my article under reference of the claim by Christians that they are in the Savior, by their faith in some JESUS CHRIST, when they cannot show the simplest evidence or proof of being in the true Savior by sporting beards and all other facial hairs in shamar of the Torah, was all to let people know that Christians are yet to enter or be IN the salvation of Yahushua!

And finally, I’d love to make a comment to yours regarding my mention of HaDerekh in my article. Yes, I absolutely agree with you that Yahushua has been HaDerekh (The Way) even at and since Creation and is “the way of [to] the tree of life”—cf. Beresheet (Genesis?) 3:24—through Shemot (Exodus) 32:6, Malakhi (Malachi?) 2:8 to YahuKhanan (John?) 14:6, and to Ma’asim (Acts?) 24:14, etc!

In fact, the totality of the Ivrit Devar (Word) HaElohiym is Yahushua—a word that was eternally there, available, alive and active—right “in the beginning” and was later made to become human flesh, visible and tangible—cf. YahuKhanan (John?)1:1, 14 and YahuKhanan Aleph (First John?) 1:1-3!

But the most authoritative statement Yahushua ever made concerning himself to the hearing of people was his claim to being HaDerekh (The Way?), HaEmes (The Truth?), and HaKhayyim (The Life?), and how no one gets to HaAv without him—cf. YahuKhanan (John?) 14:6!

Christians have picked on the English translation of this authoritative revelation of Yahushua without even knowing in reality the one who made this claim and without even understanding the meaning of these words, and have thus willfully deluded themselves as being IN the person and personality of the true Savior when they are NOT; by their overzealous profession without knowledge of who the JESUS CHRIST they profess is! How sad!!

My specific reference to YahuKhanan 14:6 about HaDerekh [Yahushua] being in existence long before the coming of Christianity—and even before Avraham was born; cf. YahuKhanan (John?) 8:58—was to make Christians know their faith (Christianity) which came ONLY ca. 320 CE, was not HaDerekh (the ONLY right way) to Elohiym, and hence their willful disregard of the way of the Torah which demands all men to keep facial hairs in holy reverence to Yahuwah Elohiym.

Dear JD, I wish to leave these matters here, at least for now, until sometime later when need arises to go deeper into them. I am happy your comments have led me into all this talking. Hope I did not bore you with balderdash. Shalom aleikhem.

PS: Should readers of this and any of my articles have serious questions or suggestions, they may contact me via e-mail by clicking on “Contact” on the Home Page of my website, http://sbprabooks.com/BongleBapuohyele You may also want to purchase a copy of my book—Beware of This False Doctrine: Of Reciting the Sinners' Prayer for Salvation—via the same web address so, together, we walk the narrow way to the presence of Elohiym. Shalom aleikhem.