Torah portion: Va’Etchanan, And I Pleaded, D’varim (Deut) 3:23 – 7:11; Yeshayahu (Isaiah) 40:1-26; Matthew 23:31-39, Mark 12:28-34
Does greeting you with ‘grace to you’ sound religious, pious, or even holier-than-thou? Many Hebrews like to greet each other with “shalom”. Why isn’t a greeting of “grace to you” more common among God’s people?
Grace in Va'etchanan
You may not see grace in the English translation – And I Pleaded, but the title Va’etchanan beautifully pictures the grace of our God in the ancient, pictographic letters. Let’s take a look at the Hebrew word – V’etchanan
Before the root word, Chanan, three pictographic letters point to the grace of our Messiah – the Wow (Vav) and the Alef and the Tav. Yeshua is the Wow Man who connects us by grace to the Father and one another through His work of being nailed to the cross. Our Savior is also the Alef and the Tav, the Beginning and the End, the First and the Last. Yeshua is everything else in between in the Hebrew aleph-bet that comprises the Word of God. The Alef and the Tav picture the power (Alef) of His amazing grace given to us from the cross (Tav).
Next in the Hebrew word Va’etchanan is Chanan, translated as ‘as grace,’ or ‘favor.’ Grace is not just a fundamental of the New Testament; grace is a fundamental principle of the Torah as well. Chanan is an absolutely beautiful word in paleo-Hebrew – spelled chet, nun; not seen in the abstract English word – ‘grace.’ What is the paleo picture of grace?
The word chanan starts with the letter chet, which pictures a wall or a fence. This is what sets apart what is inside from what is outside. Inside the Big White Fence of the tabernacle in the wilderness was the place of the beauty of holiness, compassion, and grace in the heart of the camp of Israel. What was outside was a barren desert of rocks, cruel, lifeless, and merciless.
Inside the Big White Fence resides YHWH, YHWH God, Whose primary attributes are mercy (rachum) and grace (chanun). He’s always been about grace! YHWH proclaimed this about Himself to Moses as He passed before him in the cleft of the rock (Exo 34:6).
The next letter is a nun, picturing the quickening or sprouting of life. It’s a picture of offspring vigorously growing and of all the activities of life in the camp. This active and beautiful life is only possible by grace, by His Divine favor for His people. The nun is a picture of the born-again soul vigorously growing and all the activities of a holy, set apart life in the family of our gracious and loving Abba Father.
The third letter is again a nun. At the end of a Hebrew word, a nun concludes the word with an embodiment or entity of life. The camp of YHWH is a living organism, the gracious Body of Messiah. When we are gathered together and actively showing grace to one another, we are a picture of what the Father sees as beautiful in His sight. So should we see ourselves as a beautiful, gracious people, full of the life of the Living God?
Grace Empowers!
YHWH commanded Moshe to impart to Joshua the favor of YHWH upon him for entering the land. One thing we could learn from this lesson in the Hebrew Roots Community today is to impart to others Chanan the enabling grace of YHWH. Grace empowers others to be strong and of good courage to keep moving in our walk of faith.
To impart the power of Elohim to encourage the children of Israel, Moshe first entreats Him for chanan, for His favor, for His grace. Every child of God can do the same on behalf of others at the Throne of Grace.
Let us, therefore, come boldly unto the Throne of Grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need. Hebrews 4:16
It takes grace to help anyone in their time of need. It takes showing the favor of God to truly be His servant in His Kingdom.
Prayer: A Fundamental of Faith
Moshe gives us an excellent example for our prayer life by first extolling the Almighty YHWH with praise and adoration for just how great He really is. Think about a bride lavishing her husband with praise and words of adoration. A loving husband always responds with favor towards his bride, who entreats him that way. Notice how Moshe starts his prayer for the enabling grace or favor of His Master YHWH by lavishing Him with praise:
And I prayed to YHWH for Chanan (grace, favor) at that time, saying, “Adonai YHWH, You have begun to show Your servant Your greatness and Your mighty hand, for who is a mighty one in the heavens or the earth who can do according to Your works and according to Your might?” Deuteronomy 3:23-24.
HalleluYah, give Him the highest praise; worthy is the Lamb of all glory, honor, and power! ‘Our Father Who art in Heaven – hallowed be Thy Name is what Yeshua taught His disciples to start with when praying.
The Fundamentals of the Faith
YHWH projected His words, Devarim, to the last generation that is us today. He gave a stern warning about what would happen if Yisra’el strayed away and left the fundamentals of the faith to follow after the Elohim (the gods) and the ways of other nations. How we need to hear words of exhortation like that today!
We must faithfully do the fundamentals to take on life’s tests and overcome our flesh and our enemies. We are all encountering times of increasing trouble in a fallen world and so need to discipline and strengthen ourselves with the basics of our faith.
Love - So Fundamental
Keeping a covenant relationship with our Elohim, that is, keeping His commandments, is a daily discipline for the believer in YHWH.
What should motivate us to keep His mitzvot (commands)? Because we love Him and love our neighbors as ourselves. We want our brothers and sisters to live well and have a good life. That attitude should be a primary motivator in everything we do. Yeshua said it best in John 15:9-11:
“As the Father loved Me, I also loved you; continue in My love. If you keep My commandments, you will continue in My love, as I have kept My Father’s commandments and continue in His love. I have spoken these things to you that My joy may abide in you, and your joy may be full.”
Staying the Course
And you shall be careful to do as YHWH your Elohim has commanded you; you shall not turn aside to the right or left. You shall walk in all the ways YHWH your Elohim has commanded you…
I love Moshe because he stayed the course until his last breath. Moshe was not a quitter when the going got rough, nor should we.
That’s just another way Moshe was like our Master Yeshua, Who, for the joy set before Him, endured the cross until His last breath. What compelled the Messiah to endure like that? The grace of Elohim, His love for all people. Moshe endured to the end out of love for his people and the joy of seeing the good land they would all enjoy in the near future.
What reward is there for staying the course, keeping His commandments? There are great blessings for doing so…
So that you may live, and that good may be to you, and you may prolong your days in the land which you will possess.
Deuteronomy 5:32-33.
There’s a reward for those who master the fundamentals of the faith and excel in this race called life!
His commandments are not grievous; they’re not hard to do when we pray for the enabling grace that the Ruach HaKodesh (Holy Spirit) supplies every day and when we faithfully keep on doing the fundamentals of our faith out of love for Him and out of love for one another.
Enduring to the End
How will we make it through great tribulation and the last all-out onslaught of the adversary in these last days? What kind of inner strength will take us through to the end?
Yeshua perfectly described our day, right here in America and the rest of the world, “Because lawlessness (Torahlessness) is increased, most people’s love will grow cold.” His solution to enduring a lawless, cold and cruel world?
“But the one who endures to the end, he will be saved. This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all the nations, and then the end will come.” Matthew 24:13-14, NASB
How can we be saved in the end? Yeshua said it will come with preaching the Gospel of the Kingdom as a testimony to every one. Notice that He didn’t say it would be by teaching and keeping the Torah, although we have a commission to teach the commandments and make disciples. The Gospel is what will save people in the end.
What is the Gospel in a nutshell? How is it that Yeshua offers salvation to a lost and dying world? Paul said it this way:
For by grace you are saved, through faith, and this not of yourselves; it is the gift of God; not of works, that not anyone should boast; for we are His workmanship, created in Messiah Yeshua unto good works, which God before prepared that we should walk in them. Ephesians 2:8-10.
Only by grace, God’s gift of grace, are we saved. Moshe knew YHWH as the God of mercy and grace. He appealed to Him for grace – V’etchanan – for a vision of the Promised Land that that generation of the children of Israel would go in to occupy by the hand of Joshua, Yehoshua, another type of the Messiah. The armies of Israel would need to be saved by grace when battling their enemies in the land they would soon go in to possess. How we’ll need grace in the Greater Exodus!
Greetings with Grace!
Have you ever wondered why no one greets anyone with “Grace to you and peace?” Hebrews love to say “shalom” to one another, which is just loaded with blessing and meaning. But what about grace? Why not say “grace to you and peace” when we greet each other?
‘Grace to you and peace is how Paul addressed the assemblies of YHWH ten times in his epistles. Peter wrote: ‘grace and peace be yours in the fullest measure, and ‘grace and peace be multiplied to you’ starting his two letters. Even John starts off writing the Book of Revelation with ‘grace to you and peace.’ (Revelation 1:4).
Paul always gave the greeting of grace and peace as coming from ‘God our Father and the Lord Yeshua the Messiah (TLV). Paul always reminds us that grace and shalom only come from God as a gift, not from any other source. Paul wasn’t coming across as pious, and the giver of grace; only the Father and Yeshua give us the grace we all need daily.
So why do Hebrews greet with ‘shalom’ and not add ‘grace to you? Could it be the bad reputation that grace has in Christianity that we don’t want to associate with?
The abuse and misuse of God’s grace was a problem even in Paul’s day, but that didn’t stop him from ministering grace to Yah’s people.
In Romans chapter 6:1, we discover the believers in Rome were using grace as a license to sin. Paul had to instruct us that if we use grace as an excuse to sin, we would be ‘under the law’ not ‘under grace. (Rom 6:14)’ In other words, if we sin, we are under the penalty and curses written in the Torah. But if ‘sin shall have no dominion over you,’ then we are no longer ‘under the law, but under grace.’ How is it that sin can have no dominion over us? Only by the grace of God are we saved from sin.
To follow the Torah cannot be done in any other way than by grace. Even the Torah teaches that. Moshe entreated YHWH for His grace to be able to see the Promised Land from the top of Pisgah. Moshe entreated YHWH many times to show mercy and grace upon a people who deserved His wrath and even death. Don’t we all deserve that? The Torah teaches us that the mercy and grace of Yah through intercession spares us from the dire consequences of our sins. To say that grace is the undeserved favor of God is not just a Christian cliché. It’s what the Torah teaches.
Grace to One Another
If YHWH shows us grace because He is primarily merciful and gracious, shouldn’t we be merciful and compassionate to one another? Even if we see a brother or sister in what we think is sin, shouldn’t we lean towards interceding, being gracious and merciful to one another, and not accusatory, judgmental, and demanding righteousness of one another?
In ministering one to another, Peter didn’t say that we should hold one another to the Torah as we know it but that we should be serving one another by ‘the manifold grace of God:.’
As each one has received a special gift, employ it in serving one another as good stewards of the manifold grace of God. 1 Peter 4:10
Grace in the Gospel
Paul was amazed that the Galatians were so quickly deserting the grace of the Messiah when he wrote:
I am amazed that you are so quickly turning away from the One Who called you by the grace of Messiah to a different “good news” – not that there is another, but only some who are confusing you and want to distort the Good News of Messiah. Galatians 1:6-7, TLV
The Gospel is all about the grace of God given to us through the sacrifice of the Messiah. Only by His enabling grace can we do anything right according to the Torah. Righteousness does not come through keeping Torah; living right in the Father’s eyes comes by His grace alone:
I do not nullify the grace of God – for if righteousness comes through Torah, then Messiah died for no reason! Galatians 2:21, TLV
We should not nullify the grace of God either in trying to be righteous through the Torah, apart from the Messiah dying for us and as disciples, picking up the cross and denying ourselves as our Messiah did. When walking out the Torah, let’s always be walking it out by the grace of God.
Entreating the Father in Heaven at the Throne of Grace, I close with this prayer for you:
Grace and shalom be to you through God our Father and our Lord Yeshua Ha’Mashiyach,
David Klug