Spirit of Discernment

Is tithing required for salvation? November 28, 2014

The question that the title of this post raises, is derived from a blog post over at Christiscoming777.com (TITHING: Is it Required? and Are there Eternal Consequences for not tithing) and my intent in this blog is to examine whether the claims put forward by the blogger are biblical. Whilst I know nothing about the blogger personally, scripture calls us to do the following:

I urge you, brothers and sisters, to watch out for those who cause divisions and put obstacles in your way that are contrary to the teaching you have learned. Keep away from them. Rom 16:17

Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. 1 John 4:1

I therefore do not intend to assassinate his character or to pass personal judgment on him so I will therefore limit my judgment only to whether the claims he has put forward are biblical. My purpose in doing this is to warn others in the hope they may learn the truth and avoid such destructive teachings and if perchance the said blogger would turn and repent from this doctrine.

The first time I encountered this blog article was when a poster here replied to one of my posts on tithing, providing the link to the article and asking me to consider what was being claimed in light of my own writings. After reading the article I attempted to write to the blogger to point out his error but my plea fell on deaf ears. He refuses to post any replies that are contrary to his views and he will not respond or engage with anyone who attempts to point out his error. This is a classic trait of a false prophet.

So lets examine the claims put forward in the post. The caption on the picture accompanying the post defines tithing thus:

“Tithing: giving God the first tenth of your income”

Is this the biblical definition of tithing? What do the scriptures say? I submit that this is not the biblical definition as this does not appear anywhere in scripture. This definition is a reinterpretation of the tithe law which can be found in Lev 27:30-34. Under this Law Israel were commanded to give a tenth part of all that the land brought forth and set it aside for the Levites who did not get an inheritance in the land of Israel. The reason for this was that the priests and the servants of the temple were drawn exclusively from the Levite tribe and therefore were forbidden to tend land. The tithe of the produce of the Land was therefore their portion to feed them. Those who did not tend land did not tithe money to the Levites. Let’s pause for a moment and consider the following question: If God had intended for the tithe to be money why did He not simply ask Israel to give money rather than impose a penalty on those who would buy back the tithe from the Levites (with money) at an extra cost of 20% of the monetary value on top?

The idea that the tithe was the first tenth would violate the commandment to give the “firstfruits” of the harvest to the priests. This definition of the tithe is therefore not biblical and should be rejected.

Moving on to the meat of the blog post, the blogger claims that after struggling with the anti-tithing arguments, God fully convinced him of its requirement and its eternal consequences. This conviction he says is based on, “A) His Word, and secondly B.) 8 amazing testimonies of encounters with Jesus in Heaven & Hell where tithing is raised as an important eternal issue.”

Lets first look at how the blogger was convicted of God’s word on the tithe. He highlights Malachi 3:8-10 as his first point of biblical reference. He affirms here that the scriptures reference the Law but in order to get over the hurdle of why Mal 3:8-10 is applicable to the New Covenant church, he has to perform some “scriptural gymnastics”. According to him,

“Tithing is not a sacrificial, ceremonial or temple law that in the NT are clearly explained as no longer required, rather it is a moral law or command (as its defined as stealing in the above scripture) and is a commandment not a suggestion.”

On the face of it this might sound somewhat reasonable to the undiscerning but the problem is he offers no scriptural reference to back up this claim. I will however show using scriptural references as to why this claim is false and the key text is in the passage of Malachi 3 itself and in verse 7 specifically. If you look at scriptures in isolation you can make them say what they did not intend to say. In verse seven we see the rebuke God leveled against Israel that they had gone away from His ordinances and did not keep them. The ordinance in view here though was tithing which they had neglected which is why God said they were robbing Him. If we return to Numbers 18 we learn here again that the tithe to the priests was an ordinance (Number 18:8). This verse refers to the Lords heave offering which was to be an ordinance. Verse 28 tells us that the tithe to the priest was the heave offering so we know assuredly that the tithe was an ordinance. If we look at Eph 2:15 and Col 2:14 though we learn that all the commandments contained in ordinances were abolished or cancelled out – Jesus nailed them to the cross. The tithe being an ordinance was therefore cancelled with all other ordinances contrary to the argument posed by the blogger.

The blogger goes on to use Matt 5:17-20 and 1 John 3,4 to support his idea of a distinction between the ceremonial, sacrificial or temple law versus the moral law the former which is supposedly abolished and the latter being in tact. But again these verses cannot be used to support his claims because this division of the law is not found in scripture but “leaven” he himself has inserted into the text which he then tries to buttress using scripture. As I already pointed out the tithe was an ordinance and the commandments contained in ordinances were abolished after Jesus fulfilled them. We therefore now have a righteousness which is of faith without the deeds of the law (Rom 3:20, 28).

In a further attempt to emphasize his point the blogger attempted to show that the tithe was a “pre-law principle” referencing Abraham’s tithe to Melchizedek. It is spurious however to attempt to use Abraham’s example as a model for church giving as there are several problems with this account from Genesis 14. We do not know if Abraham was commanded to give a tithe as scripture is silent here. Whilst we know that Abraham was rich (Gen 12) scripture does not say that he gave tithes of his own wealth; He tithe to Melchizedek of the spoils of war, spoils which he did not want. This was a one time event and scripture does not say that this was ever repeated. It is therefore bogus to try to establish a principle from this account in instructing the church to tithe. It is even worse when this seemingly voluntary act is being used to prop up the argument to observe the tithe law in the church.

Another scripture the blogger attempted to use to support the argument for observing the tithe law is Matt 23:23. Here the blogger attempts to change the context of what Jesus said to put the focus of His address from the Pharisees to the church. In this verse Jesus rebuked the Pharisees and in this rebuke He affirms that, yes they should tithe, but should not have neglected the weightier matters of the LAW. The Pharisees who were Jews were still under the law and therefore were required to tithe. Jesus did not command them to tithe but affirmed that they were doing the right thing in tithing but not performing the weightier matters of the law. Incidentally the Levites and Priests who officiated over the temple and who received the tithes were also still around as Jesus had not yet gone to the cross. There is no record in scripture however where Jesus commanded His disciples and therefore the church to tithe and Matt 23:23 should not be translated into a command to the church to tithe. The blogger’s attempts therefore to place the tithing commandment within the Great Commission is therefore erroneous. If indeed Jesus had commanded the disciples to teach the church to tithe why is there no record in the New Testament of this? The simple answer is that tithing along with all other commandments contained in ordinances were abolished at Calvary (Eph 2:15) and this is why it is absent from the Apostles writings as something to be practiced in the church. Furthermore, only the Levites had a commandment to take a tithe of their brethren (Heb 7:5). It needs to be pointed out though that the commandment which established the priesthood of the Levites was also abolished such that their priesthood would be replaced by the priesthood of Jesus Christ. As a result of this change in the priesthood the law also had to be changed (Heb 7:12, 8:10, 10:16).

It is important to point out that Jesus did not simply abolish some of the old law and leave some in tact but the whole law which constituted the first covenant has been set aside and been replaced with the new covenant. Whilst the old covenant was based on the priesthood of the Levites, the new covenant is based on the priesthood of Jesus Christ. Under the new covenant love is the fulfillment of the law (Rom 13:10).

In his final support for the tithe law to continue in the New Church the blogger relies on extra-biblical sources in the form of 8 so-called testimonies of encounters with Jesus in heaven and hell which he has collated. I won’t give much attention to these testimonies except to say that if these testimonies were true then what I have presented from scripture must be false because these testimonies contradict what the scriptures teach. Since we know that God cannot contradict His words and that the Bible is true then it is easy to conclude that these so-called testimonies are false in the light of scriptures. These are nothing but lies designed to tug at the heart strings of people who are struggling with whether or not they should tithe. Scripture warns that we should take heed that no man deceives us and so we need to apply ourselves to a careful study of the Word instead of being carried to and fro with every wind of doctrine.

In summation scripture tells us that tithing is an ordinance (Mal 3:7, Num 18:8, 28) and that the commandments contained in ordinances have been abolished (Eph 2:15, Col 2:14). Anything that contradicts this position is false and should be rejected outright and therefore the conclusion is that tithing is not required to go to heaven.