Torah – Snapshots

Unlearned and Unstable

Near the end of his 2^nd epistle, Peter warns that those who are “unlearned and unstable wrest” the teachings of Paul “unto their own destruction” (2Pe 3:16), highlighting how easy and eternally dangerous it is to misinterpret Paul without a proper grounding in the Tanakh (the Hebrew scriptures or Old Testament). Since Christianity has, ever since the mid-2^nd century, consistently been reinterpreting both Christ and the Tanakh in light of Paul, this is deeply concerning.

The Tanakh teaches all God’s laws are good for all people. (Ps 1:1-3), and that we are to reject any teaching as darkness which does not align with any part of Torah. (Is 8:20) We are commanded to hide the very words of Torah in our hearts and meditate on them continually (De 6:6-7), desiring them more than silver and gold (Ps 19:7-11), continually asking God to open our eyes that we might behold wondrous things out of His law. (Ps 119:8)

The Tanakh also claims all of God’s judgements are unchanging and timeless (Ps 119:160); we are not to add to them or diminish any of them in any way, ever. (De 4:2) There is no indication anywhere in the Tanakh that any part of Torah is only for Jews or temporary in nature. (De 4:6-8) Shame is the expectation for anyone who breaks the least of God’s commands (Ps 119:6); God will eventually trample underfoot all who error from His statutes. (Ps 119:118)

Since Paul clearly grounds all of his teaching in the Tanakh (2Ti 3:16-17), particularly the gospel (Ro 16:25-26), it is a serious mistake to think Christ came to provide a new way for us to be saved or that He changed anything about how we are to relate to God; rather He came to explain what has always been God’s way. So, if our understanding of the Gospel is not firmly grounded in the Tanakh, we are in a very dangerous place.

What Christianity has been claiming since the post-apostolic era is that Christ abolished almost all of Torah, such that only “moral law” remains, effectively re-defining sin as well as repentance, which is no longer a change of mind about breaking Torah, but rather submission to the Christian Church and her dictates.

Yet this step corrupts the gospel itself since it fundamentally changes what salvation is all about: Christ came “to save His people from their sins” (Mt 1:21): from violating Torah. (1Jn 3:4) Inviting the lost to come to Christ for any other reason is offering them false hope in a false Christ (2Co 11:4); using all the same terminology while proclaiming something fundamentally different is a lie of the very worst kind. (2Pe 2:19)

A firm grounding in the Tanakh immediately exposes this as darkness. (Pr 6:23, Pr 4:19) But those unfamiliar with the Tanakh, unstable and inconsistent in how they are interpreting scripture (2Co 2:17), can easily be deceived. Many will be misled in this way, thinking they’re eternally safe only to be turned away by Christ at the end. (Mt 7:22-23)

Are all who are deceived about Torah eternally lost? Certainly not; there are evidently a few souls sincerely seeking God who have not yet understood their obligation to obey Torah. Those of us who would run to Christ even if He were preached authentically and truly, offering to write Torah into our hearts and enable us to obey His Torah in spirit and truth, have received Him even though we have not yet seen Him as He is. (1Jn 3:2) He is longsuffering and merciful in our ignorance (1Ti 1:13); He will lead us into all truth as we continue to seek Him. (1Jn 2:27)

articles ♦ blog

A More Sure Word

There are many religions claiming to have the truth about how we relate to God. Though they all evidently have some truth, they do, in fact, make contradictory claims, so they can’t all be entirely true. How do we know which one is true? How do we know if any of them are true? How should we evaluate their truth claims? How do we know when we have finally found the truth?

To coherently evaluate truth claims we must evaluate evidence for and against each claim, assuming truth claims cannot contradict or be inconsistent with each other.

We should also perceive from the very existence of multiple, contradicting religions, as well as from the evil apparent in the world, the existence of a lying personality, a spiritual Deceiver determined to mislead us, and expect it to be very convincing. In other words, our search for truth requires honesty and rigor; we must lay aside our bias; we must be thorough and relentless.

A useful device in any pursuit of truth is proof by contradiction: if assuming a truth claim is false implies a contradiction this proves the claim is true.

For example, assuming there is no god implies abiogenesis: that life randomly sprang from non-life, and that the universe spontaneously created itself ex-nihilo, from nothing. Both implications contradict basic, well-established science; therefore, there is a god: both atheism and agnosticism are irrational, invalid world views.

The next natural step is historical; examine the most verifiable fact of all human history: the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. Assuming Christ did not rise from the dead implies every single one of His twelve apostles suffered immensely for what they knew was a lie without expecting any earthly benefit; not one of them ever recanted, even under extreme torture. This contradicts human nature on a very basic level. This proves Jesus Christ did rise from the dead.

The next reasonable step is literary: examine the reliability of the Bible. Assuming the Bible is unreliable contradicts Christ Himself; atheists (e.g. Bart Erhman) admit historical records of Christ’s beliefs are reliably preserved for us in the four Gospels, which document Christ’s implicit trust in the Tanakh (the Hebrew scriptures) as the inspired Word of God. (Jn 10:35, Lk 16:31) He claimed to be Jehovah God of the Tanakh (Jn 8:58), and He lived accordingly. His testimony is all we need; we may safely trust the Tanakh as more reliable than any supernatural sign we might encounter. (2Pe 2:19-21)

So, we may conclude that any religion which does not align with both the Resurrection of Jesus Christ and the Tanakh is a lie, the work of the Deceiver. Let’s cross-check and verify this, testing each world religion for consistency.

Assuming Islam is false leads to no contradiction: Muhammed could plausibly have been assisted by the Deceiver; he denied the Resurrection, was irreconcilably inconsistent with his own teaching, adapted it conveniently over time and benefited immensely from it.

Similarly, assuming Hinduism is false leads to no contradiction; oral tradition and idolatry mixed with supernatural visions and experiences aided by the Deceiver is certainly plausible.

Assuming Buddhism is false leads to no contradiction; an ancient eastern philosopher got some basic things wrong. Not an issue.

Assuming Judaism is false leads to no contradiction; though He rose from the dead, they continue to reject their own Messiah, presuming they can cover their sins through ritual and tradition, which is inconsistent with the Tanakh. (Eze 18:4) No contradiction here.

Surprisingly, assuming Christianity itself is false also leads to no contradiction; claims that Christ abolished Torah (the supposedly civil / ceremonial parts of Mosaic Law) evidently emerged in the mid-second century in response to Fiscus Judaicus to create a new religion distinct from the Torah-centered apostolic faith, presenting another Jesus which Christ’s Apostles would not have recognized. Though Christianity may contain more truth than any other religion, its rejection of Mosaic Law as the standard by which we define sin (1Jn 3:4) exposes it as an elaborate counterfeit, another work of the Deceiver.

Every other world religion fares similarly; they are all man-made, corrupt, broken. We should not rely upon any of them to guide us in seeking God.

Where does this rigorous pursuit of truth inevitably lead? the Tanakh is where we find our answers (Jn 5:39), carefully using the New Testament as a guide, aware that Christians consistently misinterpret the Apostle Paul to wrest much of scripture, potentially leading us to spiritual death rather than life. (2Pe 3:16)

As we search scripture, we find we are all sinners in need of salvation (Ps 14:2-3); we have all broken Torah and are at enmity with God as a result, deserving of spiritual death. (Eze 18:4)

God has made a way for us to be reconciled with Him through faith in Messiah (Ha 2:4), trusting Jesus Christ to take our place and die for us, being punished for our sin. (Is 53:6, 11)

God imputes perfect righteousness to all who believe in God, submitting to Torah as His righteous law (repentance) and trusting Him as our atonement for sin through Jesus Christ (faith). (Ge 15:6) As we believe on Him He imparts spiritual life into us (Ps 119:140), forgives us of all of our sins against Himself and counts us as perfectly righteous, gives us a new heart and begins writing His Torah into our hearts, enabling us to obey and love Him. (Je 31:33-34)

To all who wish to be reconciled with God, saved from both the penalty and practice of violating Torah, who are willing to give up everything to be transformed by Him, the witness of the Tanakh echoes the call of Jesus Christ, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life.” (Jn 5:24) This is how we are reconciled to God; this is the way of salvation. There is no other way.

Ask God for understanding and faith until you receive; seek until you find, knock until God opens the door and you know deep within that you are His and He is yours. (Mt 7:7-8)

articles ♦ blog

To Fulfill

Christ our Messiah didn’t come to destory or abolish Torah, the Mosaic Law, He came to fulfill it. (Mt 5:17) Fulfill comes from the Greek play-ro’-o, meaning to fill up, make replete, cram; it’s used in many places in scripture to indicate a fulfillment of prophecy by bringing to pass what was predicted. (e.g. Mt 1:22, 2:15, 17, 23, 4:14, etc.) Christ certainly fulfilled hundreds of biblical prophecies as God used Him to accomplish what they foretold.

Another way in which Christ fulfilled the Law and the prophets was by His perfect obedience to Torah, and to all the godly precepts and principles which the prophets have derived from Torah. (Mt 3:15) It was necessary for Christ to live like this, to be perfectly righteous, in order to suffer for our sins: He had to be innocent, pure and holy in every possible way so He could become a proper substitute for the ungodly (Ro 5:6), that He might bring us to God. (1Pe 3:18)

Yet many presume that since Christ has kept God’s law for us, we don’t have to keep it; He has obeyed Torah for us, on our behalf, so we are free break it. But since God defines sin as the violation of Torah (1Jn 3:4), this is equivalent to claiming that since Christ died to save us from our sins we are now free to sin. In other words, since He is our Great Physician, we are now free to be sick; since Christ has set us free from the bondage of sin we are now free to be slaves of sin (Ro 6:16); since Christ is our Resurrection and our Life, we are now free to pursue death. It’s a contradiction on such a basic level only the reprobate mind can tolerate it. (Ro 1:28) Nothing could be farther from the truth. (2Ti 2:19)

Clearly, Christ did not come to save us so we can persist in our sin, delivering us from sin’s lawful penalty so we could go on living in disobedience without consequence. No. Christ also came to set us free from the power and dominion of sin (Ro 6:14), to work godliness and holiness within us as a manner of life. (He 12:14) We are elect unto obedience (1Pe 1:2), created in Christ unto good works, which God has preordained that we should walk in them. (Ep 2:10)

We might think this settles the matter, yet most Christians still ignore Torah and use this idea that Christ fulfilled the law as justification. The claim is that much of Torah was temporary in nature, either applicable only to Jews to distinguish them as God’s chosen people until Christ came or foreshadowing what Christ would accomplish in His ministry. The assertion is that though Christ did not actually abolish any of Torah, in completing His ministry He fulfilled or completed certain types of laws such that they are no longer useful or binding; they have served their purpose and are therefore now obsolete.

To support this claim, ever since the mid-second century, post-Apostolic Christianity has been cleverly partitioning Torah into moral, civil and ceremonial laws, and claiming the civil and ceremonial laws are fulfilled. So, while the moral law is still valid (clearly, we’re not free to murder, lie, cheat and steal, etc.), Sabbath, dietary law, God’s feasts and the like are no longer applicable. This avoids obvious absurdity and may seem reasonable on the surface, but no justification is ever provided for the partition itself; it is taken for granted.

However, dismissing certain parts of Torah as obsolete plainly violates the immediate context, in which Christ states (as clearly as it can be stated) that every single detail of Torah will remain relevant in God’s kingdom until every single prophecy has been fulfilled, until Heaven and Earth pass away. (Mt 5:18) He emphasizes and affirms that anyone breaking any of the least of Torah’s commands will be considered least in God’s kingdom, and whoever does and teaches all of Torah will be considered great in His kingdom. (Mt 5:19) It is difficult to imagine how Christ might have been more explicit, or how He might have stated this more clearly.

As we consider the rest of scripture, we find no indication how to partition Torah into sections we might ignore; Torah is consistently treated as an integrated whole, like a mirror (Ja 1:23); breaking any part of it makes one a law-breaker. (Ja 2:10) Each command elaborates on how to love God and our neighbor (Mt 22:40), so dismissing any part of Torah diminishes and corrupts this biblical revelation of love.

Apart from having no biblical precedent for a formal Torah partition, actual attempts to classify Torah this way, sorting commands into these arbitrary classes, are rare and deeply problematic (for example, why classify Sabbath as civil instead of moral?). Rather than discarding parts of Torah, this entire man-made paradigm should be discarded; it is evidently a lie and should be scrapped entirely. Each of God’s commands outlives the universe. (Lk 16:17, Ps 111:7-8, 119:44, 152, 160)

Even so, post-apostolic Christianity persists in discarding the bulk of Torah and ignores it as God’s perfect standard of righteousness for today (Ps 119:172), leveraging numerous Pauline passages to effectively abolish the supposed civil and ceremonial laws. Paul does write many things which are hard to understand; those who take him out of context in an unlearned and unstable manner, as they do the rest of scripture, do so to their own destruction. (2Pe 3:16) This should concern any earnest soul; we may not choose between Christ and Paul, we must reconcile them.

In my experience, we won’t get much help from organized religion, and this should be no surprise. Yet if we are prayerful, persistent and careful, taking each passage in context, we find Paul’s new, godly nature loves Torah (Ro 7:22); he affirms and validates Torah as God’s definition of sin (Ro 7:7); he sees no inconsistency between faith in Christ and strict Torah observance (Ro 3:21), and he never encourages us to break it. (Ro 6:1-2) We find what we should expect to find: there’s no inconsistency between Paul and Christ; Torah is the law of God’s eternal kingdom, and if we love Him we should be obeying all of it that we can. (1Jn 5:3)

articles ♦ blog

The Whole Law

During the apostolic era, Christians were viewed as members of a Jewish sect, a subset of Judaism; the Twelve Apostles and their disciples were passionately Torah-observant (Ac 21:20), including the Apostle Paul. (24) As the Holy Spirit lead them to delight in Torah as the law of God (Ro 7:22), the early church remained Torah-centered; except for their love for Messiah, they looked and acted Jewish.

The distinct religion which we now call Christianity began to emerge late in the 1^st century, distinguishing itself from Judaism by rejecting Torah as God’s Law. Though Christ plainly warns against this (Mt 5:17-18), and though Paul anticipates this type of apostasy (2Ti 4:3-4), desperation to escape the devastating Fiscus Judaicus, the additional tax imposed by Rome upon all Torah-keepers, beginning shortly after the destruction of the temple in 70 CE and continuing for hundreds of years, opened the door wide to deception. The relentlessly crippling financial burden — imposed simply for being Torah-observant — drove post-apostolic leadership to wrest key Pauline passages (2Pe 3:16) to decouple the burgeoning, predominantly lower-class gentile Christian population from its biblical foundation. (Ps 11:3)

Since no reasonable soul would believe all of Torah has been abolished, especially laws such as Do Not Kill, Do Not Commit Adultery, etc., key figures such as Justin Martyr and Ireneus began to arbitrarily partition Torah into moral and civil or ceremonial laws, claiming ceremonial commands were temporary shadows fulfilled by Christ and civil laws were only for Jews. They started encouraging believers to cease sabbath observance, abandon God’s feasts, ignore dietary laws, leave their children uncircumcised, etc. Conveniently, as it turns out, they began teaching precisely what suffering believers were desperately wanting to hear: how to stop being identified as Jewish and avoid debilitating taxation without renouncing their faith in Christ.

Thus the “itching ears” predicted by Paul a few decades earlier played itself out in the churches (2Ti 4:3-4), corrupting the faith and starting yet another false religion. The burdensome tax continued right up until just before this new religion, Christianity, was officially recognized as the state religion under Constantine (380 CE). Evidently, this is no coincidence, but calculated extortion and deception. In retrospect, we should expect as much; as God further reveals Himself (1Co 2:8) Satan strategically creates the clever counterfeit. (2Co 11:13-15)

Yet the trained soul perceives that dismissing parts of Torah as civil or ceremonial openly contradicts the plain teaching of Christ Himself (Mt 5:17-18) and changes the very definition of sin (1Jn 3:4), amounting to a radical departure from the faith which was once delivered onto the saints. (Ju 3) We know Torah is spiritual (Ro 7:14); it is all good if we use it lawfully. (1Ti 1:8) Rejecting this arbitrary partition of Torah collapses the entire superstructure of Christian dogma like the proverbial house of cards and exposes Christianity as a massive fraud. (Mt 7:26-27)

Even so, most Christians accept this artificial classification of Torah as a given, mentally substituting whatever definition of the law they happen to prefer in any biblical context. They instinctively dismiss the parts of Torah they despise while thinking they are respecting God’s law as a whole, and they do not even seem to realize they are doing so. (I certainly didn’t.) Pointing it out and challenging this key step might be a gamechanger for the elect: challenge them to show from scripture where and how God partitions His laws like this. When we stop doing so, Torah-relevance becomes an all-or-nothing proposition (Mt 22:40), as it should be (Is 8:20), exposing biblical objections to Torah observance as inherently inconsistent: they simply cannot stand. (2Ti 3:16-17)

The reality is that deliberately and routinely breaking any part of Torah defines one as a lawbreaker. (Ja 2:10-11) Intentional, willful disobedience is the defining characteristic of Satan and his own. (1Jn 3:8)

Yet God’s mercy towards sins of ignorance (1Ti 1:13) is evidently graciously extended to those who remain blinded by the enemy (2Co 3:14), who literally cannot see what they are doing. It is no small thing to acknowledge this level of deception and repent; it effectively amounts to following another Jesus, a very different one, evidence that the Jesus preached in Christianity since the 2^nd century is not the Jesus of the Bible. The same language is used, but the actuality is quite different.

Preaching Christ as Messiah offering to save us from breaking Torah, equipping and enabling us to live in obedience to Torah (Ro 8:4), reveals who is willing to receive the true King and who is content to follow the counterfeit. (Ro 8:6) The foundation of God stands sure, having this seal: Jesus Christ knows those who are His (2Ti 2:19), and He is saving us from our breaking of Torah. (Mt 1:21)

articles ♦ blog

As In a Glass

Torah’s role in spiritual life has always been controversial, swinging between extremes; we’re either abusing it trying to earn right standing with God (Ro 10:3) or claiming it’s largely obsolete, fulfilled (abolished) by Christ.

The reality is the entirety of Mosaic Law, “the ministration of death, written and engraven in stones”, is so glorious unregenerate souls cannot bear to look deeply and honestly into it (2Co 3:7a); the god of this world has blinded their minds (2Co 4:4) such that they cannot yet see Christ’s glory in Torah. (2Co 3:14a)

In other words, the beauty of Torah is hidden, or veiled, to those whose hearts have not yet turned to God. (15) Once we receive Christ, Who is the perfect embodiment of Torah, as He truly is the veil or blindness is healed and this covering over our heart is taken away (16), such that we can now enjoy Christ’s glory through Torah. (14b)

Torah by itself, though it is powerless to make anyone righteous (Ro 8:3), being the ministration of condemnation, is unfathomably glorious (2Co 3:9a); God’s righteous standard is spectacular, amazing, breathtakingly desirable (Ps 119:20), more precious than gold. (Ps 19:10)

Even so, the Gospel is even more glorious than Torah. (2Co 3:10) Torah was never intended as a means of salvation; rather, in showing us how God requires us to live, Torah exposes our sin and condemns our carnal mind, revealing our desperate need of redemption. (Ga 3:24) Though Torah will become obsolete (2Co 3:11) in the new Earth, until then (Mt 5:18) it gloriously reveals the nature and character of God so we may be transformed into His likeness. (Ps 119:35)

Redemption and salvation are discovered in God’s New Covenant as He writes Torah into our hearts (He 8:10), ministering true righteousness into us, which is even more glorious than Torah alone. (2Co 3:9b) Since our unregenerate mind is enmity against God, unwilling to submit to His Law (Ro 8:7), He must supernaturally give us new minds and hearts which delight in Torah (Ro 7:22); this is the miracle of the new birth, and it is by means of Torah (1Pe 1:23), through which God saves our souls. (Ja 1:21)

Thus, the glory of the Gospel itself enhances and extends the glory of Torah by creating the practical reality of it within us (Ep 2:10); the New Covenant enables us to keep Torah in spirit and in truth, to obey it from the heart such that the righteous requirements of the law are actually fulfilled in us as we walk after the Spirit. (Ro 8:4)

God works His righteousness into us over time as the Spirit transforms us into the image of Christ through Torah (Ps 19:7a), grafting Torah into us as we behold the glory of Christ’s character and essence embodied in Torah (Ps 119:18); Torah serves as the glass or mirror reflecting God’s nature into us by the Spirit. (2Co 3:18)

If Christ were preached as He truly is, honoring the entire Torah (Mt 22:37-40), offering to save us from our tendency to violate Torah (in other words, to sin – 1Jn 3:2), by supernaturally engrafting Torah into our hearts and minds (He 10:16), transforming us so we will love His laws and meditate on them all day long (Ps 119:97), even ranking us eternally based on how we honor it all (Mt 5:19), and threatening to trample underfoot all who will not submit to Torah (Ps 119:118), who would receive Him?

As it turns out, those who will not receive this Christ, who willfully persist in despising Torah and discounting it (He 10:26-27), are indeed following another Jesus whom Paul did not preach (2Co 11:4a); they’ve received another spirit (2Co 11:4b), a seducing spirit (1Ti 4:1), not the Holy Spirit; they’re accepting another gospel (2Co 11:4c), one promising freedom from Torah rather than giving us repentance and engrafting Torah into the core our being, making it an integral part of us.

Most who think they’re safe in Christ are not (Mt 7:21-22); they’re still on the wide road to destruction (Mt 7:13-14), heedless of their fate, only in the end to hear from Christ Himself the most dreadful of all pronouncements: “I never knew you, depart from Me, you who work iniquity (practice lawlessness).” (23) Unlearned and unstable, they wrest the words of Paul, as they do also the other scriptures, unto their own destruction. (2Pe 3:16)

articles ♦ blog

Great in the Kingdom

audio

Jesus tells us there’s a hierarchy in Heaven, a ranking or metric whereby some believers are counted great and others least in God’s kingdom. (Mt 5:19) Though salvation is by grace and not by works (2Ti 1:9), works are evidently very important. (Ro 2:9)

Jesus Christ explains the standard by which He will measure us all to define this eternal ranking in His kingdom; He lays it out very plainly: “Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.” (Mt 5:19) Jesus is talking about Torah, the Mosaic Law; (17-18) He will evaluate everyone in His kingdom based on how we have respected Torah, His Law, the Law of God. Did we do our best to keep all of it as a manner of life and teach others to do so? Or did we break certain parts of it and encourage others to do so?

So, Jesus will give every one of His saints a grade in Heaven based on how we keep His Law, even the least of His commandments: the seemingly obsolete and obscure laws He laid out for us in the Old Testament in Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. Do we love them (Ps 119:97), delight in them (Ro 7:22), and try our best to love and honor Him in keeping them? (Jn 14:21) Or do we ignore some or all of them? (Ro 2:8-9)

Jesus mentions two grades in His Kingdom: Great and Least: in other words, we’re evidently either getting an A+ or an F.

Clearly, those trying to convince us God’s Law is just for Jews, if they’re in God’s kingdom at all, are ignorantly aiming for an F, and they want us at the bottom as well. Not smart.

We don’t even know what sin is apart from Torah (Ro 7:7); how can we strive against sin (He 12:4) if we have no clue what it actually is?

Jesus’ focus on obedience to the least of His commandments tells us they’re all important. He wasn’t careless or arbitrary in giving us His Law; if we break any of His commandments on purpose, we expose ourselves as lawbreakers (Ja 2:10), those who despise His Law and trample Him underfoot. (He 10:28-29)

Those who don’t yet know Jesus Christ as Judge, don’t yet know Him as He is. (He 10:29-31) Those of us who do, serve Him with fear and rejoice with trembling. (Ps 2:11, Php 2:12)

articles ♦ posts

By the Scriptures

The thought that Christ came to start a new religion, which we now call Christianity, evidently lies at the heart of Christianity itself as a distinct religion. Christians claim to follow Christ, to believe in Him and worship Him, find their salvation in Him, and believe their unique practices and beliefs are what Christ Himself has commanded of them. For these divine instructions they rely exclusively upon the New Testament.

There is, however, a very basic problem with this understanding: Christ Himself never taught this, that He came to start a new religion, neither did any of His apostles. Both Christ and all of His apostles, including the Apostle Paul, believed the one true faith (Ep 4:4) was an old one, largely lost in Judaism yet embodied within the Tanakh, what we now call the Old Testament, which they referred to as the scriptures. (Jn 5:29) There was no concept of a New Testament (NT) scripture during the lifetime of Paul or the Twelve Apostles; they never based any of their teachings on anything but the Tanakh. They had no other scriptural authority, and scriptural authority was all they truly had. (Ac 17:11)

Both Christ (Jn 3:10) and the Apostles taught that the true and correct religion (Ju 3), the way to be in right relationship with God, was the historic faith embodied in the Tanakh, the Old Testament. (Ro 16:25-26) Christ’s work and message didn’t alter this in any way, shape or form. (Ps 19:7-9) This is, in fact, how Christ Himself frames His entire ministry: He affirms that His message and redemptive work are grounded in, explained by and perfectly consistent with the Tanakh. (Mt 5:17-19)

While it is evident (at least to me) that the NT writings are just as inspired as the Tanakh, it is also evident that if we’re not properly grounded in the Tanakh we can easily misread, misinterpret, and misapply the NT, particularly the writings of Paul. This is, I believe, the fundamental problem with Christianity as a whole, and it is not a recent problem; it traces as far back as the early second century CE and includes nearly everything which makes Christianity a distinct religion, such as Sunday worship, the Eucharist (the Lord’s Supper), a belief that Christ has abolished or annulled Torah, and a variety of corruptions of the gospel which are deeply inconsistent with the Tanakh. Though considered fundamentals of Christian faith today, such beliefs were foreign to the early Church.

In the earliest days of the Faith, during the Apostolic Age, the disciples of Christ were considered a Jewish sect, The Way (Ac 9:2), a subset of Judaism; gentile believers were largely indistinguishable from their Jewish brothers and sisters in their worship and practice. (Ga 2:14) This sect was distinct from traditional Judaism in two fundamental ways: [1] a return to justification by faith (rejecting Judaism’s legalism) and [2] recognizing salvation was available to gentiles even if they didn’t become Jewish proselytes and observe Jewish customs and man-made traditions (as required in Judaism). Apart from these two key differences, the early Church was essentially identical to Judaism; the Church simply corrected the errors of Judaism in these two key areas where she had departed from the way of truth defined in the Tanakh.

It wasn’t until after the death of the apostles, as persecution of the Jewish people become more intense, that a move began to distance the churches from Judaism and from the Tanakh, to redefine the Faith as distinctly non-Jewish. Deceitful workers found plenty of fuel in the Pauline epistles (2Co 11:13), inventing another Jesus, another gospel, and fabricating an entirely new religion. (1Co 11:4)

Peter himself warns us about this, that some of what Paul writes is hard to understand and easy to misinterpret, such that those who are unlearned and unstable typically wrest Pauline statements, as they do also the Tanakh, unto their own destruction. (2Pe 3:16) And Paul himself warned that soon after his departing grievous wolves would enter into the Church, not sparing the flock. (Ac 20:29)

To the degree any Christian sect strays from the Tanakh it will be in error, and when the lies are couched in the very language of scripture, those who are deceived in them are exceptionally difficult to reach, since the words and many of the key concepts are already accepted and believed, but incorrectly, out of context.

This is particularly true of the gospel itself; very few (if any) Christian presentations of the gospel are based on the Tanakh, and what most Christians actually believe about salvation cannot be found within it. In fact, most Christians believe Christ actually came to change the way we’re saved, such that we’re now saved in a different way than those in the old dispensation. Nothing could be farther from the truth, or more eternally dangerous.

As it was for me personally, Christians may indeed find themselves inoculated against the true faith of God, thinking they’re eternally safe when they aren’t, hoping they have spiritual life when they’re still dead in sin. (Re 3:1) It is sobering to realize that many, perhaps most of those complacent in their Christianity will fail to make their calling and election sure (2Pe 1:10), and will be lost in the end, as Christ Himself predicts. (Mt 7:21-23)

Given this tendency to misinterpret and misapply the NT, and the eternal danger this poses, a good litmus test for any Christian teaching about the nature of God or Man (Ro 3:10), or about our duty to God or Man, or about how to be rightly aligned with God and in fellowship with Him (Ro 4:3), is that it must be grounded solidly in the Tanakh. (2Ti 3:16-17) This is following the example of Christ and His apostles; it is exactly what they did. (14-15)

So, if our understanding of the gospel, the ground of our salvation, is not firmly established within the Tanakh (Ro 4:16), and perfectly consistent with it (Ps 119:115), we need to keep seeking and praying until we find God in truth. (Lk 16:27-31) Inundated by counterfeit gospels, the Tanakh makes us wise unto salvation, teaching us what faith in Christ looks like and how to obtain it (1Ti 3:14-15); we cannot afford to be amiss here. (Mt 26:16)

And if any other teaching or doctrine cannot be derived primarily from the Tanakh (Ro 15:4), being only reinforced and supported in the NT, we should hold it loosely, with a bit of suspicion and caution, at arm’s length as it were, and not close to the heart. And, certainly, if any doctrine contradicts or dismisses any part of Torah in any way, we may safely discard it as darkness. (Is 8:20)

articles ♦ blog

Circumcision is Nothing

audio

The Apostle Paul faced a severe dilemma in the early days of the Church; circumcision, commanded by God (Ge 17:10) as an expression of saving faith (Ro 4:11), and obediently observed by Abraham and the patriarchs, had also come to represent ritual conversion to Judaism (Ac 15:1), a religion teaching legalism: salvation by works (Ga 5:4), entirely contrary to justification by faith. (2-3)

Should Paul discourage obedience to one of God’s core commands (Mt 5:19) now that it’s been twisted into the foremost expression of rejecting God’s salvation? symbolic of earning salvation by works? (Ro 10:3) How could he neglect a plain command of God in good conscience, knowing saving faith establishes the law? (Ro 3:31) Yet how could he encourage obedience here without compromising the gospel? (1Co 9:22-23)

Paul circumcised Timothy (Ac 16:3), evidently not as a convert to Judaism, but to fulfill Torah as a good testimony to the Jews in his community, since Timothy would be a constant, faithful fellow worker with Paul throughout his ministry. (1Co 4:17)

However, when Titus was being pressured into ritual conversion to Judaism Paul objected fiercely, understanding this as a direct denial and corruption of the gospel. (Ga 2:3-5) Making a severe and costly break with the legalistic traditions of his people (5:11), Paul concluded those pushing Judaism on the Gentile saints as a condition of salvation were unsaved and cursed (1:10); he even wanted God to kill them. (5:12)

Paul clearly taught that those who converted to and depended on Judaism for salvation were not trusting Christ and were unsaved. (Ga 5:2-3) However, though he was accused of teaching the Jews to forsake circumcision (Ac 21:21), both by his public example (24) and testimony (25:8) it is clear Paul never did teach it was appropriate to neglect physical circumcision as an act of obedience to God.

If Paul didn’t discourage Jewish believers from circumcising their children, he wouldn’t have discouraged Gentiles from doing so either; circumcision was not a particularly Jewish thing (Jn 7:22); it existed in Abraham, the father of us all (Ro 4:16), long before the Jewish people.

So, Paul encourages circumcision in the context of obedience to God’s Law and forbids it when it is embedded in the larger context of ritual conversion to Judaism. Further, Paul teaches it is unnecessary for Jews to renounce their Jewishness by undergoing a formal act of becoming uncircumcised (1Co 8:18a), and encourages Gentiles to retain their ethnic and national identity rather than becoming Jewish. (18b) Effectively, he sees national identity as irrelevant in the context of defining a right relationship with God (19a); what’s important is staying true to the gospel while faithfully keeping God’s commands. (19b)

articles ♦ blog

The Law of Christ

There are many references to “the law” in Scripture; most of these are references to Torah, the Law of Moses. But Scripture also speaks of the law of Christ. (Ga 6:2) What is this law of Christ? How is it different from Torah?

It seems reasonable to define the law of Christ as the set of commands Christ gave throughout His ministry, yet most all of these don’t appear to be new or unique, merely inferences from Torah, what we should understand from meditating on God’s Law and fleshing out what it means to obey it. In this sense, Christ’s Law would be identical to Torah, unless He added something which can’t be found in Torah. Did He?

Yes. Christ did, in fact, at the end of His earthly ministry, introduce a command He explicitly identified as new, a law which isn’t found in Torah: “A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another.” (Jn 13:34)

Now, the command to love each other certainly isn’t new; it’s embedded in the very foundation of Torah. (Mt 22:40-41) What is evidently new here is: as I have loved you; Christ has given us the perfect, timeless example of what it means to love one another, which we didn’t have before.

Christ is evidently not so much telling us to love here, but how to love; He is modeling what real agape love looks like. He loved us all during His earthly life, and His example is certainly new and unique, different from all who came before … or after. (Jn 15:24) Christ Himself has Personally demonstrated what He is commanding us to do, and He is telling us to follow His example. (1Pe 2:21)

So, is this command new or not? Well, when John comments on this, he first says it isn’t new at all, but an old commandment we’ve always had. (1Jn 2:7), However, he then in the same breath admits it evidently is new. (8-9) So, in one sense, we have always had the law of love, so it isn’t new; yet in another sense we’ve not understood the implications of this command in light of Christ’s perfect example, which essentially enlightens us to it’s true meaning, which isn’t actually a new meaning, just new to most of us.

In fact, before Christ, it was common for Torah teachers to actually encourage us to hate our enemies (Mt 5:43), but Christ dismisses this as darkness: it flatly contradicts the obvious nature of God. (44-45) Darkness claims malicious hatred is consistent with love, but the Light, which makes this lie obsolete (Jn 8:12), is even now shining. (1Jn 4:8b)

So, in light of Christ’s new command, if someone thinks they’re in the light, united with Christ, yet they still hate someone else, anyone else, we know they’re deceived, still in the dark: this isn’t Christ. (1Jn 4:9,11) If we claim to love God and hate another, Christ’s new command exposes us as liars (4:20); we can’t love God while failing to love who He loves, in the same way He loves.

And as we carefully ponder Christ’s new command, we find there’s nothing in it which actually contradicts or dismisses any part of Torah. This is to be expected, for Torah itself is the perfect Law of Liberty (Ja 1:25), the definition of love (Ro 13:10), just as Christ is. One can’t add to or take away from perfection and make it any better.

In fact, the Law of Christ itself commands us all to not think He has abolished Torah (Mt 5:17); we should be both keeping it, and also teaching others to do so. (19)

It appears then that the Law of Christ actually is Torah itself, understood and applied in light of God’s heart … nothing more, and nothing less.

articles ♦ blog

Put Apart Seven Days

Certain commands in Torah relating to uncleanness appear cumbersome, inconvenient, and obsolete today, yet this concept of uncleanness is repeated in the New Testament as if it were eternally relevant. (Ep 5:3) As with many of God’s laws, the benefits of observing them are not easily understood.

As an example, laws regarding menstruation require a woman on her period be put apart for a week. (Le 15:19) If this is a quarantine, requiring the woman to be physically isolated and left alone whenever she’s on her monthly cycle, this may seem cruel, unnecessary, and terribly inconvenient for both the woman and the rest of her family.

However, the Hebrew word for apart is נדּה (niddâh), the same word for the menstrual fluid (Le 19:24), so the word itself evidently doesn’t require the woman be physically separated from others, simply identified as being on her period: set apart from others in this sense. This is actually helpful to the woman; others in the family understand she’s under additional physical and emotional stress and give her additional space and mercy.

Additionally, the law specifies that everything the woman sits or lies on during this time becomes unclean, tainted or polluted, and that anyone touching these objects must bathe and wash their clothes and is unclean the rest of the day.

Without access to recent advancements in feminine hygiene, from what we know scientifically, this practice of actually separating objects potentially contaminated with menstrual discharge seems very healthy for preventing disease, and providing a separate physical space for the woman during this time certainly helps contain the uncleanness.

Yet even with advanced hygiene it’s not generally an imposition for all in the home to bathe and/or shower daily and to wash the bedsheets and clothes as the cycle ends. Nothing here is terribly onerous, needlessly inconvenient or necessarily troublesome.

Toward the end of the immediate context, comprising similar laws relating to bodily discharges, we see the ultimate and primary application: when we’re interacting with the physical presence of God in the earthly temple, this kind of uncleanness can be lethal. (Le 15:31)

We may infer from this what we will, but the implication seems to be that we all become unacceptably unclean in just living life in this filthy world and are in constant need of purification. To followers of Christ, this is no surprise: we’re in continual need of cleansing and forgiveness. (1Jn 1:8-9) Perhaps these kinds of laws are given partly as a cyclical physical reminder of God’s holiness (Is 64:6) and of our innate uncleanness apart from Him. (Is 6:5)

Apart from the earthly temple, the impact of uncleanness evidently vanishes in the ceremonial context; what remains is simply physical hygiene, the spiritual lessons we might infer from this, and respecting God’s commands as well as we can because we love Him and delight in His laws. (Ro 7:22)

Becoming ceremonially unclean isn’t sinful; after all, the human body is simply functioning according to God’s perfect design. What is sinful is neglecting to take appropriate steps to manage the uncleanness and limit its impact in our family and community, thereby promoting unnecessary uncleanness and exposing others to harm. (Ep 5:5) This violates the law of Love. (Ro 13:10)

All of God’s laws are faithful (Ps 119:86), truth (151), and righteousness (172); in keeping them as intended there is great reward. (Ps 19:11)

articles ♦ blog