The Great Guide Transfer
To understand what the great guide transfer is, you must understand some of the Jewish traditions.
Nowadays in Jewish life, the rituals and events associated with becoming a Bar Mitzvah play a crucial role in explaining one of most important biblical concepts. The medieval ceremony of a Bar Mitzvah is meant to mark the concept of a guide transfer that goes back earlier than the first century.
Bar Mitzvah
During a Torah analyzing event, thirteen years old boys are allowed inside the public Torah reading for the first time as adults. At this event, boys get to lead the synagogue in congregational worship. In this ceremony, the father also performs an interesting transitional role.
He pronounces a brief blessing: בָּרוּךְ שֶׁפְּטָרַנִי מֵעֹנֶשׁ הַלָּזֶה (baruch shepatrani meonesh halazeh). Which translates as:
“Blessed is He who released me from responsibility for this one”.
The Father’s Responsibility Transfer
Until this event when the son becomes a “son of commandment” (literally: Bar Mitzvah), the responsibility for the son rests with the father. This responsibility lasts until this time when the son can engage with the Torah as an adult. At this event, the father’s responsibility to provide him close guidance, is transfered.
The concept here isn’t that the thirteen-year-old son does not need parental guidance anymore. It doesn’t mean or suggest that the son is independent from the father or that the son now has the right to disobey or dishonor the father. In the contrary. This transfer means that Torah from this point forward has become the son’s number one guide. In essence, Torah replaces the father’s responsibility as the primary Torah guide.
What Would Paul Do?
The Apostle Paul, as a first century Pharisaic Jew, probably understood this close guidance transfer precept very well. Like other Jews of his time, he understood that now with the arrival of the Jewish Messiah, such responsibility transfer had happened at a higher level.
As recorded in the letter to the gentile followers of Yeshua, the apostle Paul describes his countrymen’s Torah experiences:
“Before the coming of the faith, we were closely guarded by the Torah (ὑπὸ νόμον ἐφρουρούμεθα συγκλειόμενοι), until the faith that was to come would be revealed. The Torah was our guardian (ὁ νόμος παιδαγωγoς) until Christ came that we might be justified by faith. Now that the faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian.
Galatians 3:23-25
For a reference, let’s read the same passage in two additional translations. The Complete Jewish Bible (CJB) and King James Version (KJV) below.
Now before the time for this trusting faithfulness came, we were imprisoned in subjection to the system which results from perverting the Torah into legalism, kept under guard until this yet-to-come trusting faithfulness would be revealed. Accordingly, the Torah functioned as a custodian until the Messiah came, so that we might be declared righteous on the ground of trusting and being faithful. But now that the time for this trusting faithfulness has come, we are no longer under a custodian.
Galatians 3:23-25 (CJB)
But before faith came, we were kept under the law, shut up unto the faith which should afterwards be revealed. Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith. But after that faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster.
Galatians 3:23-25 (KJV)
Going Deeper
In the same letter, he stated that the gentile’s position is the same as the Messiah-following Jews. They are to be primarily guided by the Holy Spirit and not by the Torah. This was Yeshua’s request to the Father (John 14:26) and recorded on Galatians 5:
But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the Torah.
Galatians 5:18
But if you are led by the Spirit, then you are not in subjection to the system that results from perverting the Torah into legalism.
Galatians 5:18 (CJB)
But the Counselor, the Ruach HaKodesh, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything; that is, he will remind you of everything I have said to you.
John 14:26
Paul believed with the arrival of the Messiah, a new age had dawned. This meant that before the Messiah you were primarily guided by the Torah, but now you are to be primarily guided by the faith in Yeshua HaMashiach (The Messiah). And, just as described above, in becoming a “son of commandment” (Bar Mitzvah), your obligation to keep the commandments remained.
The Transfer in Detail
The arrival of the Messiah was not an abolishment of the Torah. Therefore, you were not licensed to dishonor or disregard the Torah. In fact, this was just a transfer of responsibility between who was to be your guide. Before your coming to age it was your father, after your coming to age was the Torah. Before the Messiah’s arrival was the Torah, after the Messiah’s arrival is the Holy Spirit. The concept of a guide transfer never discarded the child’s previous guide (the father), the Torah, or the current guide the Holy Spirit.
Conclusion
All believers today must understand that the concept of a guide transfer is not an abolishment of what/who was previously assigned as the primary guide. But rather, a transfer to a greater authority. It is important to understand this distinction by understanding that the Torah is the Word of both the Father YVHV, the Son Yeshua, and The Holy Spirit the Ruach Hakodesh. And the Word is forever.
Furthermore, the laws once written in tablets of stone (Exodus 31:18), were now written in our hearts (Hebrews 8:10). Therefore, only the most lasting attribute of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit can activate who has the Torah written in their heart. Hence:
“If you love me, you will keep my commands;
John 14:15
“Don’t think that I have come to abolish the Torah or the Prophets. I have come not to abolish but to complete.
Matthew 5:17
“‘For this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Isra’el after those days,’ says Adonai:
‘I will put my Torah in their minds and write it on their hearts; I will be their God, and they will be my people.
Hebrews 8:10
When he had finished speaking with Moshe on Mount Sinai, Adonai gave him the two tablets of the testimony, tablets of stone inscribed by the finger of God.
Exodus 31:18
The tablets were the work of God; and the writing was the writing of God, engraved on the tablets.
Exodus 32:16
Shalom!
Rabbi Douglas