Is It Dangerous To Follow The Torah?
Is It Dangerous To Follow The Torah
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I am writing this as a response to a short video teaching I recently listened to from a Jewish Christian who is considered a leading scholar and Bible teacher. I have chosen not to call this person by name in this message. While the statements this person made are nothing short of absolute heresy, in my opinion at least, I want to address the statements that were made with the agenda to aid people with a guide to answer such teachings while not to disparaging someone who seems to have a heart for God but has embraced some very wrong beliefs. As it is always possible that even those with such beliefs, including the person whose statements I will be addressing here, may read this message and see their error I would ask that anyone who thinks they know the person or even the message I am writing this rebuttal to please keep the name to yourself and do not associate it with this message. You may notice, I have not even so much as disclosed whether this person is a man or a woman.
The greatest hindrance to truth today is not the atheist who shakes his or her fist at God, nor the agnostic who questions whether or not there is such a thing as God. It is not the radical Muslim declaring Jihad, it is not the Buddhist monk or the New Age guru or the psychic looking into their crystal ball. The greatest hindrance to Bible truth today is the established religion of “Christianity”.
I was watching a program where three professional chefs have a celebrity guest bring in a particular food item from a favorite restaurant chain. The chefs first compete to make a replica of the original item from scratch and the celebrity chooses the winner. They call this the copycat round. From there the chefs take inspiration from the original food item and create a meal that looks like something you would order at a five-star restaurant. They call this the remix round where they try to reimagine the flavors of the original item and create something entirely new.
This is a lot like Christianity. The first century movement was a wholly Jewish sect called the Nazarenes, and though those in the movement itself appear to have referred to themselves primarily as “The Way”. As time went on, and historical records show, after several hundred years a new religion evolved out of the original—a copycat religion. At the establishing of this religion the Emperor Constantine required all converts to his new “Christian” religion to make an oath where they were to “renounce all customs, rites, legalisms, unleavened breads, and sacrifices of lambs of the Hebrews, and all other feasts of the Hebrews, sacrifices, prayers, aspirations, purifications, sanctifications and propitiations, and feasts, and new moons, and Sabbaths, and superstitions, and hymns and chants, and observations and synagogues, and the food and the drink of the Hebrews.” He basically led them to renounce “all things Jewish.” Then the creed goes on to have the convert swear their allegiance to the New Roman Religion by declaring to “accept all rites, legalism and feasts of the Romans, sacrifices, prayers, purifications of water, sanctifications by the Pontificus Maximus, propitiations, feasts, and the New Sabbath, Sol Dei (Day of the Sun), all new chants and observances, and all the foods and drinks of the Romans.” The “Christian” religion was established as a replacement of everything in The Bible with a counterfeit version of those things.
Today “Christianity” has completely reimagined and remixed the teachings of The Bible into something so completely different from what was known by those who wrote The Bible. “Christians” believe in interpreting The Bible, but The Bible is not a book to be interpreted. The Bible is a book to be understood in context and followed through what was intended by those who wrote it. Unlike the fun and friendly competition of the three chefs in the television program I was watching, we cannot take Scripture, turn it on its head, reimagine it and remix it, and come up with something completely different from what The Bible actually says and teaches.
The Bible is a Hebrew Book, written by the Hebrew people, written about the Hebrew God and the Hebrew Messiah, and written within the context of Hebrew culture where Torah-keeping was central. Yeshua, The Messiah, was a Torah-keeping Jewish Rabbi who taught His disciples and anyone who followed Him to live according to The Torah—He was not a lawless “Christian” pastor who spreads the lie that “we’re not under the law now” and leads people to seek out Bible passages that provide inspiration and blessing and apply those to their life, usually taking them completely out of context and reimagining what they mean, instead of submitting themselves wholly to The God of The Bible and applying their whole life to following the whole Bible.
So I want to take some time and address the statements made in the short video teaching I listened to. There is, after all, a pronomian (Torah-positive, favorable toward following The Torah) biblical response to all such arguments the antinomian (against Torah) people make. I do hope that the responses I provide will help those who encounter such people as the one I am in this message responding to.
Torah, A Dangerous Path?
The first thing that was stated in the video teaching is that any “Christian” who begins to take an interest in following The Torah is on a dangerous path that can ultimately lead to denying Yeshua and converting to [Orthodox] Judaism. “The moment you say Torah-obedience is required,” the presenter stated, “you are in serious error.”
In The Bible there is a lawless one (2 Thessalonians 2:8-9) and a righteous one (Isaiah 53:11). In case there is any question on who these two figures are, in Thessalonians it tells us very directly that the lawless one is connected with the activity of Satan and Isaiah 53 is the famous “suffering servant” passage that is unanimously accepted in every “Christian” denomination, including those of Messianic Judaism, as prophetically describing the events of Yeshua’s crucifixion. So we can accurately say that Yeshua is the righteous one and Satan is the lawless one.
What is often overlooked is that The Bible gives us definitions for many of the most important words in Scripture. Sin (lawlessness) is defined in 1 John 3:4 as: “breaking, transgressing, violating The Torah.” Righteousness is defined in Deuteronomy 6:25 as: “obeying The Torah.” The first appearance of Satan in The Bible is in Genesis 3 where he leads the only two people on the planet at that time to “break, transgress, violate” a commandment received from God. In contrast, we find Yeshua constantly promoting obedience to The Torah with statements like “if you love Me, keep My commandments” and “if you want to enter into life, keep the commandments”. Our first introduction to Yeshua in Scripture is in Matthew 1, where in verse 21 it says: “You shall call His name Yeshua, for He shall save His people from their sin [Torah-breaking].” So, anyone who would lead you away from The Torah, discourage you from following The Torah, tell you that The Torah is a dangerous path, is a prophet of the lawless one, Satan.
Matthew 7:14 (TLV) says: “How narrow is the gate and difficult the way that leads to life, and those who find it are few.” Psalm 119:1 (TLV) says: “Blessed are those whose way is blameless,who walk in the Torah…” So, I would ask anyone, and especially the person who made the statements I am responding to here, how can Torah be a “dangerous path” when Scripture says Yeshua is the righteous (Torah-promoting) one and The Torah is the way and if you want to enter into life you have to keep the commandments?
Romans 2:13 (TLV) says: “For it is not the hearers of Torah who are righteous before God; rather, it is the doers of Torah who will be justified.” Revelation 12:17 says that Satan wages war against those who both follow Yeshua and keep God’s commandments (The Torah). Revelation 14:12 says that the perseverance of the holy ones is that they both keep God’s commandments and follow the faith of Yeshua. How can you possibly say it’s “serious error” to teach that Torah-obedience is a requirement with such statements all throughout the apostolic writings and, again, Yeshua saying that if you want to enter into life you need to keep the commandments? It would seem to me that the “serious error” is teaching people that there is no obligation to follow Torah, even if they say that Torah-keeping is “a good idea” for whatever reason.
Recently I was discussing the biblical food laws (Leviticus 11, Deuteronomy 14) with a “Christian” person. I was told that keeping these commandments might be a “good idea” for our health, but it’s wrong to call them a requirement and that there are no dietary restrictions in the “New Testament”. But these commandments about what things are not to be eaten are not about “good health practices”. Yes, there is evidence that suggests there are positive health benefits linked with keeping them, but Leviticus 11:44 and 20:25-26 make it very clear that keeping these food laws is about being holy, as God is holy, just as Revelation 14:12 associates holiness with keeping the commandments of God—The Torah. Also, most “Christians” do adhere to some dietary restrictions. Most will say that it’s wrong to drink blood based on Acts 15:20, and many believe that it’s a sin to drink alcohol at all, even in extreme moderation. So when they say they have no dietary restrictions they are usually lying and really are just trying to make an excuse for why they live in defiance of God’s food laws from The Torah.
Periodically within Torah-positive circles you hear about someone who went down a path that led to them renouncing Yeshua and embracing either Orthodox Judaism or developing some really bizarre theology like flat earth theory or the racist doctrines of the Black Hebrew Israelite cult. These cases are far from the norm within Torah-positive Yeshua-following groups. Yet for some reason anytime some random person goes down this path all of the people opposed to Torah start saying that this is what will happen if you dare to follow The Torah. Yeshua said Moses wrote about Him (John 5:46), and Moses wrote the five Books of The Torah. Literally, a proper following of Torah leads you to the real Yeshua of The Bible. A few people may end up rejecting Yeshua because of a strange view of The Torah, but most “Christians” are following the false “Jesus” of 2 Corinthians 11:4 because they reject The Torah.
This is nothing but a religious spirit of control. Those saying these things may not even realize what they are doing, as they too are usually deceived, but the devil realizes what happens when someone catches on that the teaching of the apostles was to both follow Yeshua and The Torah (Revelation 12:17, 14:12). So it is only natural for those who sit under full or partial antinomianism to jump on everything they can find to prevent people from finding the whole truth. And that’s all that is happening here. A very small number of people have been snared by some bad theology and some have even renounced Yeshua through it. That simply does not mean that following The Torah that Yeshua told us to follow will lead to this dangerous road that ends with us renouncing Him. Such an idea as a blanket statement and warning to all is just plain ridiculous.
You Better Keep ALL The Commandments!
One of the things antinomian people use to challenge Torah-keeping, and which the presenter in the video teaching I watched also deferred to, is the idea that there are, according to traditional counts, 613 total commandments in The Torah and if you don’t keep all of them you are not keeping The Torah and you are a hypocrite. Well, that just simply is not true at all.
More than half of the commandments have a prerequisite that you need to meet before you are even allowed to keep them. There are commandments specifically for Levitical priests, Israel’s kings, court judges (like the Sanhedrin), lepers, farmers, people with servants, people with livestock animals, men, women, and married couples. If you are not in any of these categories then the commandments applicable to them are not imposed on you.
Of the remaining commandments, those that would apply to everyone, there are really only a few that “Christians” object to, primarily the food laws (Leviticus 11, Deuteronomy 14), The Sabbath Day (Exodus 20:8-11), the Feast Days (Exodus 23, Leviticus 23, Numbers 28-29, Deuteronomy 16), the application of passages like Deuteronomy 12:29-31 to holidays like Christmas, Easter, and Halloween, and perhaps for some the prohibition against tattooing your body (Leviticus 19:28). There are others “Christians” may object to, such as the commandment against wearing wool and linen together (Leviticus 19:19), but these are usually a non-issue because of modern culture—you rarely find clothing items today with this blend in the fabric and most people would not wear linen clothing made for summer in combination with wool clothing made for winter.
So it is, in actuality, “serious error” to say that anyone who promotes living by The Torah is bound to all of the commandments because more than half cannot be kept by most people. A little later in this message I will address some specific arguments that people make about Torah-positive Believers, some of which the person who inspired this article made. Do you stone your children? Do you follow the laws of niddah? Do you practice Levirite Marriage? These are some of the ways people attempt to claim Torah-keeping Believers “are not really keeping The Torah”, but as you will see these arguments aren’t quite as strong as some would have us think.
What do things like that have to do with following a Torah-based diet or keeping The Sabbath or celebrating the same Feast Days that Yeshua celebrated or not marking up your body with tattoos or not celebrating pagan holidays? It would seem that this is all just excuse making by people who have a heart of stone (Ezekiel 11:19) instead of a new heart (Ezekiel 36:26) with The Torah written on it (Hebrews 8:10) that would drive them with a passion to live by The Torah. It’s as if they think that since there is no Temple in Jerusalem to make sacrifices and no Torah-established judicial system like the Sanhedrin to judge whether or not someone should be stoned then that means the don’t have to adhere to parts of Torah that have no obstacles preventing us from following them today.
The presenter in the video teaching said that when Yeshua told His followers “If you love Me, keep My commandments” he was talking about things like love your neighbor and follow in My footsteps. The implication being made is that He was NOT talking about following the food laws, keeping The Sabbath Day, or celebrating the Torah Feast Days. But this too is a logical fallacy.
Yeshua said that on loving God and loving neighbor hang all of The Torah and The Prophets. In context these two commandments would be like two nails you pound into a wall and hang a piece of art on or the hinges that a door would hang on. As such, when everything is in place, the focus is not on “the two love commandments” but on keeping The Torah with love working in the background of the whole thing.
Romans 13:8 says: “Owe no one anything except to love one another, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the Torah.” Romans 13:10 continues: “Love does no harm to a neighbor; therefore love is the fullness of the Torah.” Galatians 5:14 picks this thought back up in declaring: “For the whole Torah can be summed up in a single saying: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’” None of these are saying that loving your neighbor is the only commandment in The Bible, quite the contrary in fact. They are reminding us that we must keep The Torah if we are to love our neighbor biblically.
As for walking in Yeshua’s footsteps, this is an even more ludicrous argument for a “not under the law” position. 1 John 2:4-6 says: “The one who says, ‘I have come to know Him,’ and does not keep His commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But whoever keeps His word, in him the love of God is truly made perfect. We know that we are in Him by this— whoever claims to abide in Him must walk just as He walked.” Few if any legitimate Bible scholars, teachers, or pastors would say that Yeshua walked any other way but according to The Torah. Now, many say that He had to do this so we don’t, but clearly Scripture says the opposite telling is we must walk as He walked.
Deuteronomy 18:15-19 speaks of the prophet like Moses that would come and how we are to shema Him. In the Book of Acts we are told that this prophet like Moses was and is Yeshua. The word shema means to hear, listen to, follow, obey. In other words, whatever Yeshua did we should do and whatever He did not do we should at least evaluate against Scripture. For example, we see Yeshua keeping all of the biblical Feasts throughout The Gospel records, including Hanukkah and Purim. As such, through the commandments to shema the prophet like Moses and walk as He walked we are to keep all of these as well. In contrast, we never see Yeshua celebrating holidays like Christmas, Easter, and Halloween. So we should begin by evaluating the history of these holidays and weighing them against Scripture. When we do, we find out that they are the creation of the pagan religion of Roman Catholicism—likely influenced by other religions—and as such violate the commandment of Deuteronomy 12:29-31 and other similar passages. Therefore, we know Yeshua would never celebrate these popular holidays and neither should we. At the very least, this is the smart and safe approach. The biblical Feasts should be more than enough celebration for us; there really is no good argument to celebrate something that God might see as wicked and a violation of His commandment.
Not Under The Sinai Covenant
The next objection to new covenant Believers being required to follow The Torah is that we are not under the Sinai Covenant, and that in the new covenant God writes His Laws on our hearts and that is what’s reflected in the “New Testament” writings. This is a true statement, we are in the new covenant where The Torah is put into the mind and written on the heart of the covenant Believer just as prophesied in Jeremiah 31 and verified in Hebrews 8. My question, then, is: Why would this be an argument that we do not follow The Torah in the new covenant?
Let’s think about this for a moment. I have addressed this in past messages, but it is always worthy of repeating. If something is in your mind, that thing will consume your thoughts. The person with Torah put into their mind will want to read and study The Torah. If something is on your heart, that thing will drive your passions. The person with Torah on their heart will want to do what The Torah says as they read and study it. Then the complimenting prophecy in Ezekiel 36:26-27 will do its work where, upon having a new spirit with Torah in it and a new heart with Torah on it, the new covenant Believer will receive God’s Spirit that will CAUSE him or her to walk in God’s Laws, The Torah.
How is it that people think a “new and better covenant” somehow voids the requirements of The Torah? The reason it’s “new and better” is because in the old covenant The Torah was written on tablets of stone and put into a container (the Ark of the Covenant). The Believer was charged with the responsibility of knowing and following Torah, consistently we see in the language of the old covenant God telling His people: “You will…” In the language of the new covenant we see the shift from “You will…” to God saying over and over “I will…”
In the old covenant David, the king of Israel, said: “Your Word have I hid in my heart.” In the new covenant God says: “I will write my Torah on your heart.” In the old covenant The Torah was only written on stone and only kept in a box within the physical Jerusalem Temple. In the new covenant your body becomes the Temple of God (1 Corinthians 3:16-17, 6:19) and your heart and mind become the Ark of the Covenant and The Spirit comes in and CAUSES you to walk in The Torah.
The covenant changed, but The Torah did not.
Think of it like this. In manufacturing to build a particular product there is a set of instructions that must be followed. These might include blueprints of the product, a document detailing the process to make the product, safety protocols that must be followed, and testing requirements to ensure the product will not fail the person who ultimately purchases it. Periodically these documents are reviewed and updated, but the basic assembly instructions and final product are still the same. It could be that a new technology was developed that can produce the item that previously people had to make by hand. A person may need to operate the machine or turn it on, but then the machine does the work of production. In the old covenant the people had the responsibility to follow The Torah, but in a different way. In the new covenant we still have to follow The Torah, but the process is that we submit to The Spirit—turn on the machine with the new technology—and The Spirit then does the work of producing a Torah-obedient life. None of this says that The Torah is no longer to be followed.
Another way to look at it is how when Yeshua came and told us that murder is not limited to a physical act but also includes hate speech and that adultery is not just limited to a physical act but also includes lust. The commandments themselves did not change, it’s still against Torah to murder people or commit adultery. But there was a better and more full explanation of the commandments making for a better covenant.
Recently someone was trying to tell me that the only thing we need to follow in the new covenant is what he called “The Royal Law of Love”. So far as I can tell he got this from James 2:8, where it says: “If, however, you fulfill the royal law according to the Scripture, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself,’ you do well.” There are, however, problems with taking this passage and coming up with some fantasy land “Christian” fiction pseudo-theology like a “Royal Law of Love”.
The word usually translated royal in James 2:8 is the Greek word basilikos (βασιλικός), and it primarily means “king’s”. In other words, James was clearly not talking about a single command that is exclusive and voids all others, but was simply referring to one of The King’s commands. To further support this, James says in verse 11 that “the one who said, ‘Do not commit adultery,’ also said, ‘Do not commit murder.’ Now if you do not commit adultery but do commit murder, you have become a transgressor of the Torah.” In other words, you can say you love your neighbor as much as you want, if you are not following other parts of The Torah you are a transgressor of The Torah and you don’t even love your neighbor according to the biblical view of loving your neighbor. Loving God and neighbor biblically can only be accomplished through doing what it instructed in The Torah.
Building A Third Temple
The next statement made by the presenter said that if you wish to call yourself Torah-observant you need to advocate for the rebuilding of The Temple so there can be animal sacrifices again. I often wonder if people even read The Bible before they say things like this.
Daniel 9:27 is widely believed to be a reference to a coming anti-Messiah figure we see throughout Bible prophecy, and it says one of the things he will do is cause sacrifices to cease. It would seem that, regardless of one’s eschatology—rapture or no rapture, pre-tribulation, mid-tribulation, post-tribulation, etc.—a third Temple will need to be built and animal sacrifices resume in order for all to be completed and Messiah to rule and reign.
Besides that, it’s not like there needs to be a physical Temple in Jerusalem for physical sacrifices to be conducted. Was there a Temple or even a Tabernacle when Abel, Noah, or Abraham made sacrifices? Of course not! If our body is God’s Temple, then we could make sacrifices wherever we are, assuming we raise animals and meet the requirements to conduct sacrificial offerings first—a topic outside of the scope of this message.
Animal sacrifices are an often-misunderstood thing today. Most tend to think of satanic occult groups in a dark room with candles lit and a pentagram on the wall with some animal strapped down and chanting incantations to Satan while slaughtering the animal. That’s not what animal sacrifices were in ancient Israel. The sacrifice was primarily the selection of the best of one’s flock, what would have had the best genetics for breeding, and offering that to God. It had very little to do with the actual slaughter of the animal; it was more about animal husbandry. Further, in general Israelite sacrifices were essentially roasted and eaten as a meal. The confusion comes from the word “sacrifice” itself and people applying modern views of this—again, things like occult rituals—to what they read about in The Bible.
We know from the record of Acts 21:26 that Paul was still making sacrifices to complete a vow. This was clearly prior to the destruction of The Temple, but it was also long after the ministry of Yeshua showing us that the apostles did not believe that animal sacrifice was obsolete. Whether or not modern Levite priests perform these sacrifices in a truly biblical manner, now being nearly 2,000 years separated from when they ended at the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple in 70 A.D., is not so important. I absolutely advocate for the building of a third Temple and the resuming of animal sacrifice because The Bible says this must happen before Messiah can return to rule and reign. And so should every Believer, regardless of whether or not they think, as “Christians” or whatever, that they themselves should be involved in a renewed sacrificial system. If you genuinely want Messiah Yeshua to return, this is simply a part of Bible prophecy that must happen.
As a side note before moving on, it is also worth remembering that there were more than just sin and atonement sacrifices in The Torah. There were sacrificial offerings for the completion of a vow, thanksgiving offerings, Feast Day offerings, and other special offerings that would not be related to whatever may have been “no longer required” through Yeshua being the final sacrifice for sin and atonement. “Christians” tend to carry their general objection to sin and atonement sacrifices into many of these other categories, and clearly the testimony of Scripture would indicate that these other categories of sacrifices were to continue as part of religious practice, at the very least so long as there was a standing Temple in Jerusalem.
Nullifying The Work Of The Cross
The presenter continued to say that if one advocates for animal sacrifices to resume then they are nullifying the work of the cross. So I want to now address this common view that anyone who says we are to follow The Torah is somehow voiding the work of the cross.
This too is a very misguided view of certain things the apostle Paul said in his writings. Romans 4:14, for example, is often used to say that if Torah is still required then “faith is made void and the promise made of no effect”. This ideology is heavily flawed, however.
Let’s think about this for a little bit. Generally speaking the modern “Christian” will say that if we are still obligated to follow the food laws, keep The Sabbath, celebrate the Torah Feasts, and perhaps a few other commandments that “Christians” don’t want to follow then we are “voiding the work of the cross, fallen from grace, and nullifying our faith”. So my first question is: Why would only following those commandments void the work of the cross?
If this aspect of “Christian” theology is true, then why aren’t “Christians” committing adultery (sex with someone else’s spouse), homosexuality (sex with someone of the same gender), and bestiality (sex with animals) in order to make sure they are not “voiding the work of the cross”? Why aren’t they carrying a pistol and murdering anyone who gets in their way in order to make sure they are not “voiding the work of the cross”? Why are they still paying for their groceries and anything else they need to buy? Shouldn’t they be stealing everything they need so that they don’t “void the work of the cross”? After all, where sin abounds grace abounds much more (Romans 5:20). Doesn’t that mean we should sin (break The Torah, 1 John 3:4) as much as possible so we can receive as much grace as possible? That’s literally how a great many “Christians” speak of grace, whether they will admit it or not.
Another way this fails is when we look at 1 Corinthians 1:17, where Paul says: “For Messiah sent me not to immerse, but to proclaim the Good News—not with cleverness of speech, so that the cross of Messiah would not be made of no effect.” So, if “Christians” believe their own theology about not wanting to “void the work of the cross”, why then is water baptism considered one of the most essential acts in their entire faith practice? If I read this verse the way “Christians” read other “voiding the cross proof-texts” then I must conclude that carrying out water baptism also “voids the work of the cross”.
The fact of the matter is that the work of the cross is the essential act for us to enter into the new covenant where The Torah is put into our mind and written on our heart so that we will be consumed with and driven to read, study, and follow The Torah with the added benefit of God putting His Spirit in us to CAUSE us to accomplish that. Obeying The Torah does not “void the work of the cross”; rejecting The Torah is what does that.
What Is Central To Faith?
The next thing the presenter said is that if The Torah is made central, Yeshua is no longer central. “They will not be trying to lead people to ‘Jesus’,” the presenter said, “they will be trying to get people to observe Torah.”
Well, seeing as Yeshua spent His whole time on earth trying to get people to follow The Torah, I fail to see why this is a problem. The reality is that it is true that if Torah is made central, Yeshua is no longer central. But it is also true that if Yeshua is made central, Torah is no longer central.
Revelation 12:17 and 14:12, which I have already mentioned, make it abundantly clear that Yeshua AND Torah, TOGETHER AND EQUALLY, are central (see my article The Two Pillars Of Truth). Just as we see statements throughout the Tanakh made of The Father that parallel statements made in the Apostolic Writings about Yeshua, we also have statements made in the Tanakh about The Torah that parallel statements made in the Apostolic Writings about Yeshua.
• In John 14:6 Yeshua declares: “I am the way, the truth, and the life…” Psalm 119:1 says The Torah is the way, Psalm 119:142 says The Torah is truth, and Psalm 119:153-154 says The Torah restores life. What’s more fascinating is that Psalm 119 is the longest “chapter” in The Bible, it’s in the exact middle of The Bible, and it’s an acrostic psalm, which means that each segment is sequentially built on the letters of the Hebrew alphabet.
• In John 18:12 Yeshua says He is the light of the world and that those who follow Him will no longer walk in darkness. In Proverbs 6:23 it says that Torah is a light.
• In John 6:47-52 Yeshua declares that He is the bread of life. Deuteronomy 8:3 says that man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God—which, essentially, would be The Torah.
• In John 10:7-9 Yeshua said He is the gate, or the door depending on what Bible translation you might be reading. Deuteronomy 6:4-9 is The Shema, the central prayer of God’s people, and it says that The Torah should be written on the doorposts of your home and on your gates.
You see, the person I am contesting says that it is problematic to make Torah central, and I agree with that statement. But it is also equally in error to make Yeshua alone central. From cover to cover The Bible makes it very clear that both are to be central, together, in our faith. Wherever one is elevated and the other minimized there is religious error.
The reality is that when I hear people talk about “coming to Torah” (instead of “coming to Jesus”, I suppose), I do not hear an anti-Messiah message at all. Most of these people were raised in “Christianity” and have simply recognized that the “Jesus” of “Christianity” is not the Torah-keeping Yeshua of The Bible. So, what they are actually saying through phrases like “came to Torah” or “coming to Torah” is that they have found the real and true Messiah of The Bible. Sure, it may be poor word choice. I prefer something more like “come to Yeshua and His Torah lifestyle”, which makes it clearer that we are talking about both (Revelation 14:12). But people aren’t “no longer trying to lead people to ‘Jesus’” when they pursue Torah. In at least most cases they are now pursuing the correct Yeshua Messiah, not the 2 Corinthians 11:4 “Jesus” of “Christianity” and they recognize that the key to having the correct Messiah is having the one that pairs with The Torah.
Torah Hinders Worship?
The next point that was made in this message claimed that when people begin to follow The Torah there is a lack of worship and a shunning of songs that “lift up the name of Jesus”. This has to be one of the more bizarre statements that this person made. I do not know what his exact experience has been and maybe he saw someone do this—maybe he has seen multiple people do this—but if someone’s pursuit of Torah causes them to deviate from worship that lifts up our King Yeshua then that person was immature spiritually long before they saw the importance of The Torah in the life of the true covenant Believer.
And let me point out before going much further that the majority of mainstream “Christian” worship today does not lift up the name of the biblical Yeshua at all. At best it lifts up the name of the cultural “Jesus” of the day, the 1 Corinthians 11:4 “Jesus” of the day, the fantasy land Christian fiction “Jesus” of the day. And when it’s not doing that modern “Christian” worship presents a humanist form of worship.
I once heard one of the most popular television ministers in America tell their church of over 30,000 people and millions more who watch them on their televised broadcast that we do not worship God for him, we worship God for ourselves. I was shocked and appalled that such a horrendously humanist statement was made and millions of “Christians” who adore these people went right along with it as if it was some great revelation from heaven. People would do good to read Isaiah 14:13-14 where Lucifer said: “I will ascend to heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God. I will sit upon the mount of meeting, in the uttermost parts of the north. I will ascend above the high places of the clouds—I will make myself like Elyon.” A lot of this “worship” that this person was concerned about people shunning when they begin a path of keeping The Torah is not truly lifting up the name of Yeshua. And the people who embrace Torah often recognize it and that is why they shun it.
Another critical point to this is that Yeshua said we are to worship The Father in spirit and in truth (John 4:24). Well, The Bible says that the evidence a person is filled with The Spirit is that they will be CAUSED to walk in The Torah (Ezekiel 36:27) and, as already noted, that The Torah is truth (Psalm 119:142). So worshiping in spirit and in truth would be worship that comes from a heart of keeping The Torah.
Now, I am not at all saying you should shun all worship that is not produced by Torah-keeping Believers, but you have to be mindful that there is a spirit on all music. Take, for example, music produced by hardened antinomian Calvinists, like a lot of the old Reformationist hymns are—there is a strong antinomian spirit on that music. Take also music produced by liberal progressive ministries that are filled with scandal—the same spirit in the scandal is on their music. I once heard a pastor say that once in their church many people started committing adultery and getting divorces. They found out that a member of the worship team was involved in gross sexual immorality, and concluded that the spirit on that person attached itself to the music in their church services. Whether or not there is truth to that story I cannot say, I only heard the story from the pastor. But it sure does make you think about what spirits can be attached even to so-called “worship” music being produced by people involved in certain lifestyles or are generally against keeping The Torah.
When ministers are leading alternate lives, the worship music and “truth-filled sermons” they produce are an essential part of concealing it. People have a much harder time seeing error when they believe the music is “anointed” and the preacher is “speaking truth”. We have to be mindful of this. I promise you there are plenty of great Torah-keeping Believers producing wonderful and anointed worship that lifts up the name of the biblical Yeshua.
I doubt there are very many people who set out to keep The Father’s Torah who are shunning worship that lifts of the name of Yeshua. What seems more likely to me is that they gain enough discernment through embracing Torah to know what actually does lift up the name of Yeshua and what promotes the cultural “Jesus” of the day. Some people, like the one who produced this crazy video message, would do good to think about that before uttering statements of ignorance.
Dressing Like A Jew
I can’t even comprehend the next thing this person said, in that people who follow Torah “begin to seek out Jewish identity” and dress like a Jew and wear a yarmulke (also called a kippah), and other such things. I mean, this statement sounds outright anti-Semitic, and I know the person who made these statements would be appalled at such an accusation that they are anti-Semitic.
Look, this person said and I agree that a kippah has nothing to do with Scripture; it is Jewish tradition. But at the same time if someone sees value in his or her walk through such things and it does not take away from their faith practice, I see no issue at all with it.
There is not one thing wrong with a tradition so long as it does not violate Scripture or is not treated as a commandment. Lighting candles on Shabbat is a Jewish tradition, there’s nothing wrong with it but it is not mandated anywhere in Scripture. Eating cheesecake for the Feast of Shavuot is a tradition—and a rather good one, I might add—but nothing in Scripture mandates dairy foods for this biblical Feast. Putting a mezuzah on your doorpost is a tradition—it’s based on The Shema from Deuteronomy 6:4-9 and it seeks to be an expression of the commandment to place The Torah on the doorposts of our homes, but it’s still a tradition.
Then when we look at “Christianity” there are a lot of traditions. In fact, the overwhelming majority of what churches do is tradition that does not map back to Scripture, but a good amount of “Christian” traditions do map to other religions. Seriously, what is more problematic and dangerous: following traditions of the Jews that do not oppose Scripture and are often built on Scripture or following the traditions of “Christianity” that are not based in Scripture at all and entirely too often are tied to some pagan religion? What seems of greater concern: seeking “Jewish identity” because you realize that the Jewish people are the ones who wrote The Bible or seeking worldly identity as most “Christians” do because they seem to think that the way to win the world is to offer the world what the world already has, but with a little bit of religion sprinkled on it?
Romans 11:17-24 is all about being grafted into the cultivated olive tree of Israel. Yeshua was Jewish. The Apostles were Jewish. Pretty much everyone who wrote any part of The Bible aside from maybe Job and Luke were Hebrews—and there are good and valid arguments that both of them were as well, though that is not the focus here. There is not one thing at all wrong with embracing the culture and traditions of the people who descended from the writers of The Bible, so long as those things do not cause one to deviate from the actual requirements of The Torah. I am not even going to say more on this point, as it is such an absurd and anti-Semitic thing to say.
Good… But Not Mandated?
From here the person in this short anti-Torah video teaching takes a passive stance in regard to things like keeping The Sabbath or following the food laws. If you want to keep The Sabbath on the seventh day of the week, fine, “God bless you,” but don’t say it’s mandatory for “Christians” to do so. If you want to follow the food laws, The “New Testament” apparently tells us that this does not affect us spiritually, but fine, follow the food laws. “That’s totally different than saying that God requires ‘Gentile Christians’ to observe The Law,” is what this person says.
Let’s take a look at some important passages that are overlooked, seemingly intentionally, by people like this.
The same Torah applies to the native as well as the outsider who dwells among you.
—Exodus 12:49 (TLV)
The same Torah and the same regulations will apply to both you and the outsider residing among you.
—Numbers 15:16 (TLV)
Take a look at that word “outsider”. Some translations render it sojourner or stranger. In Hebrew it is the word ger (גֵּר), and it is literally one of two Hebrew words used in reference to Gentiles, in this case individual people—the other being goy (גּוֹי), which speaks of an entire nation of people not of a native Israelite bloodline. This means that in The Torah it establishes that The Torah applies to both native Israelites and anyone else from the nations who would come into covenant with The God of Israel. As this is in The Torah, it’s a commandment—the same Torah applies to anyone and everyone who is in covenant.
A final word, when all has been heard:
Fear God and keep His mitzvot!
For this applies to all mankind.
—Ecclesiastes 12:13 (TLV)
Here is the final conclusion, now that you have heard everything: fear God, and keep his mitzvot; this is what being human is all about.
—Ecclesiastes 12:13 (CJB)
Now, I don’t know about you, but I would tend to think that if The Bible is saying something applies to all mankind it means all mankind and if it says something is what being human is all about it’s referring to anyone who is a human being. If you dig down deeper into the Hebrew it is saying that keeping the commandments, the mitvot, The Torah, applies to “all Adams”. This doesn’t mean it only applies to people named Adam, of course, it means it applies to anyone who is a human being—anyone descended from Adam.
There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female—for you are all one in Messiah Yeshua.
—Galatians 3:28 (TLV)
We know that we are in Him by this—whoever claims to abide in Him must walk just as He walked.
—1 John 2:5b-6 (TLV)
Even here in the writings of the Apostles, Paul and John to be specific, we see the same thing repeated that there is no distinction between Jew and Greek (the same Torah applies to the native born and the ger), all our one in Messiah Yeshua—and as we saw a moment ago Yeshua and Torah are also synonymous. Those who abide in Him—Jew or Greek, native born or ger—must walk as He walked. And He was a Torah-keeping Jewish Rabbi who taught His followers to live by The Torah, not a lawless “Christian” pastor telling people the same lies that Satan said in Eden about not being under the law and “you won’t really die and go to hell” if you eat pork or don’t keep The Sabbath.
Look, be careful about these people that mock Torah-keeping and make it sound like it’s a dangerous path to go down. Not too long ago a pastor I know told me that shunning pagan ways and following The Torah is a dark and lonely hole. Well, I have read Matthew 7:13-14 and 21-23. I am perfectly OK being in a lonely place of obeying The Bible if that’s what obeying The Bible actually results in. I won’t be lonely when I am with The King worshiping Him day and night for all eternity surrounded by everyone else who may have been alone in this life for their unabashed and determined keeping of the whole counsel of Scripture.
Here is the perseverance of the kedoshim—those who keep the commandments of God and the faith of Yeshua.
—Revelation 14:12 (TLV)
This verse continues to come up, but not without good reason. Are we kedoshim—the holy ones—or are we not? Think about it. This verse doesn’t say: “Here is the perseverance of the Jews.” There is no distinction made here. It is very clear that this is referring to anyone who is in covenant pursuit of holiness.
These ideas that so-called “Gentile Christians” do not have to keep The Torah is built on a completely unbiblical belief that is popular in Messianic Judaism. Those who hold to this seem to want to create some special identity, which they feel they will lose if they concede to what Scripture says: that everyone is supposed to follow The Torah. What they are doing, in actuality, is robbing people of the desire of their Father’s heart and the blessing that comes with it. Don’t ever listen to someone who preaches anti-Torah rhetoric. Scripture is clear, if you truly place your faith in Yeshua that faith will include upholding The Father’s Torah.
Jeremiah 31:32 and Hebrews 8:10 tell us that the sign and seal of the new covenant is that The Torah will be put into the mind and written on the heart of the covenant Believer. That which is in your mind will consume your thoughts and drive you to study it. That which is on your heart will drive your passions and cause you to do it. In the new covenant the same Torah is put into the mind and written on the heart of the native born and the ger—neither Jew nor Greek, but all who are one in Messiah Yeshua—and studying The Torah and doing what it says applies to all mankind—all Adams—and is what being human is all about. People like the one I am refuting in this article, saying “God bless you if you want to do those things like keeping The Sabbath and the food laws, but don’t you dare say they are mandatory” are deceivers of the same spirit as the Eden serpent—they are liars and heretics and if you listen to them you may find yourself the recipient of the words: “Depart from Me, I never knew you, worker of LAWLESSNESS” (Matthew 7:23).
Do You Stone Your Children?
Now, this is one that just drives me up a wall when people say it (or ask it). As with the person who made this little video message that, in less than ten minutes, spewed out more blasphemy and heresy than I have heard by most “Christian” preachers throughout the whole of all their teachings, they say that Torah-positive Believers “pick and choose” what they follow, “for the most part.” Are you stoning your children? Are you living by the purity laws for women? Do you dig a hole in your backyard every time you have to poop?
Now, I am not going to speak in great detail about the purity laws for women. This is a topic that should be discussed among women with a woman who is learned in the Scripture and the commandments pertaining to this. But there is no reason why these commandments cannot be kept in some capacity today, and I really wonder about people who desire certain activities during certain times—and that’s all I will say about that.
In similar fashion, there seems no real need to go too deep into the commandment of Deuteronomy 23:13-14, but if you read the context starting in verse 10 it is dealing specifically with an army going out to battle. It does not prohibit modern plumbing or demand that regular people dig a hole in their backyard every time they need to defecate. Additionally, even in modern times members of an army are often issued a small shovel tool for this exact same purpose when they deploy to missions in remote areas where they do not have access to indoor plumbing. Nothing more really needs to be said about this either.
Let’s talk a little bit about this “stoning your children” thing though—and really all capital punishment offenses of The Torah, as breaking The Sabbath and numerous other offenses also warrant the death penalty. Exodus 31:15, in many English translations, says something along the line of: Whoever does any work on The Sabbath must be put to death. Antinomians love to bring this up as if this is the ultimate “proof” that Torah-positive Believers “aren’t really keeping The Torah”. So, you know, because we don’t stone our children when they act foolish or we don’t stone people who break The Sabbath—including the 2.4 billion “Christians” who think Sunday is their Sabbath or “Jesus” is their Sabbath—it somehow means we aren’t really following The Torah, because it says we are supposed to “kill ‘em all”, whoever commits these heinous acts against The Torah.
First of all, the antinomian “Christians” who make this argument are inconsistent with it. Adultery, like The Sabbath, it is one of the “Ten Commandments”. Both breaking The Sabbath and committing adultery are offenses that authorize capital punishment. I have never once in my life heard a “Christian” say that it’s OK to commit adultery now and everyone who wants to engage in such behavior is free to do so because we don’t or can’t legally stone adulterers. Lack of enforcing capital punishment for committing adultery does not invalidate the commandment, so why should it invalidate The Sabbath or determine how we discipline our children? All of this shows that “Christians” actually do believe commandments are to be kept even if we do not enact the authorized death penalty for breaking them, but are inconsistent in how they use this logic and apply a different hermeneutic to commandments they believe in keeping from those they do not. Other Torah offenses that warranted the death penalty like murder, adultery, and witchcraft continue to be regarded as sin, so why is breaking The Sabbath somehow not a sin?
Another important point is that stoning was optional for most violations that authorized the death penalty, with one exception—cold-blooded murder. Whenever a matter that could result in the death penalty was committed it was brought before the court of the Sanhedrin and a ruling was issued. Typically a lesser sentence would have been imposed. We see this through some ancient Jewish writings outside of Scripture. Mishnah Makkot 1:10 says that a Sanhedrin [court] who would order the execution of more than one person in seven years is a bloodthirsty generation or a destructive tribunal. The text goes on to say that a Rabbi named Elazar ben Azarya went further in saying that if they executed more than one offender in seventy years they were a murderous court. In other words, Torah-keeping Israelites following the whole counsel of The Torah historically looked for every way possible not to impose the death penalty when someone was brought to trial.
It should be noted, however that another Rabbi, Shimon ben Gamliel, is also recorded in Makkot 1:10 as saying that it is important not to go too far in the direction of non-execution of capital punishment so that it does not lose it’s power of deterrent—in other words, people are more likely to carry out a crime if they believe the sentence will be lenient, and that only if they are caught and sent to a trial. All things should be done with the proper balance and while it is right to not impose the harshest of sentences on every offender, it is also necessary to impose it on some. This is why Torah established such a court system for these cases and why it is against Torah for the average Believer to invoke a vigilantly form of justice.
There are numerous prerequisites that must be met in order for the death penalty to be carried out for a Torah violation. As we know from the cited Mishnah passage, there has to be a Sanhedrin court in Israel to hear cases and rule whether or not the death penalty is to be carried out. This does not exist today, and even if it did most of us do not live in Israel. Therefore, because we cannot follow the required judicial process needed to determine if the death penalty is to be carried out, we would be breaking The Torah to execute such a judgment through our own ruling. This is similar to people in Torah-positive circles that think they figured out a better calendar to determine Feast Days or who use the “sighted moon” tradition—which is not found in Scripture—to determine a new month. These things were given a final ruling through the Hillel II calendar under the authority of the Sanhedrin prior to its disbanding, so to use any other system, even if you truly believe it’s what people in The Bible used or what Yeshua Himself may have used, actually makes you a transgressor of The Torah because obedience is better than sacrifice and we know what the final ruling was. Only a reinstated Sanhedrin or the returning Messiah has the authority to overturn the Hillel II calendar. We can make an exception if something is clear in The Torah and differs from the Hillel II calendar, but I can assure you nothing in Scripture even hints at the “sighted moon” tradition. So, it is a violation of Torah for laymen to create their own calendar system just as much as it is for laymen to enact the death penalty on someone who may have committed an offense that warrants it. If you are not an authorized member of a Torah-based Sanhedrin court, there are things you are not allowed to make a ruling on—it really does not matter how well you think you know The Torah or history.
This is a major driving factor in why Yeshua did not enforce stoning the woman caught in adultery. It wasn’t because He was overturning The Torah. It was because He was upholding The Torah. He knew that if she were stoned without the proper court proceedings it would violate The Torah, and He knew that the consensus view was that the death penalty is to be the absolute last resort reserved for the worst of the worst. The religious leaders who brought the woman to Him were trying to trap Him and He saw right through it. But He was not changing The Torah. On the contrary, He was following The Torah to give us an example to follow The Torah as He did—walking as He walked.
In modern society the death penalty is still in place for certain offenses, and those may mirror the ones in The Torah. But in order for the sentence to be carried out specifically because it was a Torah-violation, certain prerequisites must be met—and currently some of them cannot be met. This would mean that if you tried to stone someone for breaking The Torah in some area, you would be breaking The Torah by stoning them. Yeshua knew this, that’s why he didn’t stone the woman caught in adultery—He knew they were trying to get Him to break The Torah by stoning the woman, which was fully allowed for her crime, by executing the penalty without following the proper protocols.
When people try to argue with these straw-man questions it shows that they have not dug very deep into these passages. I recently had someone ask me about Levirite Marriage, the thing in Deuteronomy where you have a kid with your brother’s wife if he dies. It’s funny because if you read the whole thing it specifically says that the two brothers need to be living together and the one who dies does not have a son. So, if you can show me in modern society two brothers who are married and live together in the same house with their wives and any kids they may already have and one dies before having a son, perhaps then we can talk about whether or not Levirite Marriage rules should be enacted. Good luck with that.
Don’t You Know, Galatians Says…
Then, to bring this toward a close, the person in the video brings up the Book of Galatians, as well as Colossians 2:16-17. I will briefly get to Colossians in a moment, but let’s take some time to talk about Galatians. If you are a person who endorses keeping Torah—which really boils down to keeping The Sabbath, the Feast Days, the food laws, and calling Christmas and Easter pagan holidays, because “Christians” tend to actually uphold most of The Torah—you have almost certainly had someone object to you with the whole “foolish Galatians, you have fallen from grace” line and asked: “Haven’t you ever read Galatians?”
Yes. Yes I have read Galatians. Now, I have some questions for my “Christian” friends and people like the “Bible scholar” who made this video with all of these points I am addressing.
I have read Galatians. Paul also wrote Romans. Have you read Romans?
• In Romans 2:13 (TLV) it says: “For it is not the hearers of Torah who are righteous before God; rather, it is the doers of Torah who will be justified.”
• In Romans 2:18 (TLV) it says: “[We] know His will and determine what matters because you are instructed from the Torah.”
• In Romans 2:20 (TLV) it says: “…having in the Torah the embodiment of knowledge and the truth…”
• Romans 2:25-29 tells us that keeping The Torah is evidence of being circumcised in heart.
• In Romans 3:20 (TLV) it says: “…for through the Torah comes awareness of sin.”
• In Romans 3:21 says that The Torah and The Prophets are a witness to Yeshua.
• In Romans 3:31 (TLV) Paul asks and answers: “Do we then nullify the Torah through faithfulness? May it never be! On the contrary, we uphold the Torah.”
• In Romans 6:16 (TLV) it says: “Do you not know that to whatever you yield yourselves as slaves for obedience, you are slaves to what you obey—whether to sin resulting in death, or to obedience resulting in righteousness?”
• In Romans 7:7 (TLV) Paul again asks and answers: “What shall we say then? Is the Torah sin? May it never be! On the contrary, I would not have known sin except through the Torah. For I would not have known about coveting if the Torah had not said, ‘You shall not covet.’”
• In Romans 7:12 Paul calls The Torah holy and righteous and good.
• In Romans 7:22 Paul says he delights in The Torah of God.
• In Romans 8:7 Paul says that it is a fleshly mindset hostile toward God that is not submitted to The Torah.
• In Romans 13:10 (TLV) it says: “Love does no harm to a neighbor; therefore love is the fullness of the Torah.”
Isn’t it amazing that the same person who wrote what some people think is “the ultimate antinomian proof text” of Galatians had all of these things to say in Romans? But let’s not stop there.
Have you read 1st and 2nd Corinthians where Paul, the same guy who wrote Galatians, admonished Believers to “keep the Feasts” (1 Corinthians 5:6-8) and “touch no unclean thing” (2 Corinthians 6:17)? You know, if you look up Leviticus 11 and Deuteronomy 14 in The Septuagint, a translation of the Hebrew Bible into Greek by commissioned Jewish sages before the time of Yeshua, they used the same Greek word for “unclean” that Paul uses in 2 Corinthians. Paul was quoting Isaiah when he said that, and the only references to “unclean things” Isaiah made were in regard to the food laws. Often I hear people respond that 2 Corinthians 6:17 can’t be talking about the food laws because of what they think is not in the context of the chapter, but the whole chapter is about how there cannot be a partnership between righteousness and lawlessness (vs. 14) and other such things. Paul was absolutely talking about the food laws, even if among other “unclean things”, in verse 17.
Have you read the writings of John, another of the apostles? 1 John 2:4-6 (TLV) says: “The one who says, ‘I have come to know Him,’ and does not keep His commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But whoever keeps His word, in him the love of God is truly made perfect. We know that we are in Him by this— whoever claims to abide in Him must walk just as He walked.” 1 John 3:4 (CJB) says: “Everyone who keeps sinning is violating Torah — indeed, sin is violation of Torah.” Revelation 12:17 says that the people Satan wages war with are those who both follow Yeshua and keep The Torah. Revelation 14:12 says that the holy or set apart ones are those who both follow Yeshua and keep The Torah. Revelation 22:14 says it is those who keep The Torah who will be given access to eat of The Tree of Life.
Have you read the teachings of Yeshua the Messiah who defined loving Him as keeping the commandments (John 14:15, 21), if you want to enter into life you must keep the commandments (Matthew 19:17), and those who live by The Torah and teach others to do the same will be called great in His Kingdom (Matthew 5:19)? Sometimes “Christians” will actually object to these statements by saying that Yeshua said these things prior to His crucifixion “under the old covenant”. Never once, however, did He ever say, “Once I am crucified and rise again you can ignore everything I ever told you about Torah-keeping.” Nor did He say after His resurrection that we could throw out everything He taught prior to His crucifixion. YESHUA IS THE MESSIAH! Just take a moment to think how absurd it is for “Christians” to dismiss the words of The Messiah because they think Galatians somehow overrides them.
Around the middle of the second century A.D. a heretic named Marcion decided that the only writings that should be canonized as Scripture were Luke’s Gospel and most of Paul’s letters, all of which to be edited so they would be “less Jewish”. The “Have you read Galatians?” thing is way more absurd than Marcionism, because it essentially makes Galatians the foundation of The Bible and all other books of The Bible must now conform to the antinomian interpretation of Galatians instead of trying to harmonize Galatians with the rest of The Bible. If a Bible verse, book of The Bible, or even the writings of a single Bible author appear to go against everything else in The Bible and the context of the whole counsel of Scripture, the proper approach is to say that you are reading that verse, book, or author wrong and seek to understand them in harmony with the rest of God’s Word.
Have I read Galatians? Yes, I have. Have you read The Bible? Have you read all of the other 65 books of The Bible that conflict with the antinomian view of Galatians—including the other letters written by Paul? Galatians is not the only book in The Bible and Paul is not the sole author of Scripture. The person who made the video I watched that inspired this message said that Torah-positive people “turn Galatians upside down in its meaning.” Excuse me, but don’t you think that’s a little backwards? In order to hold a view that Galatians is the “proof text” of your antinomianism you have to take every other book in The Bible and turn all of them upside down in their meaning. You have to go against the whole counsel of Scripture in order for Galatians to mean what lawless “Christianity” wants it to mean.
Yes, I have read Galatians. I have read it in the context of a Bible that from cover-to-cover tells us to obey God’s commandments. Questioning, rejecting, and breaking God’s commandments was initiated in Genesis 3 with the words of the serpent and the Book of Revelation that most people consider to be describing events in the yet-to-come future is still telling us to keep God’s commandments. The Prophets tell us that The Sabbath, the Feasts, and the food laws—the very things at the top of the list of commandments “Christianity” claims we know longer have to follow—will all be kept in The Millennium. The Bible literally says that the sign and seal of the new covenant is The Torah put into the mind and written on the heart of the covenant Believer (Jeremiah 31:32, Hebrews 8:10) and that in the new covenant God will put His Spirit in us to CAUSE us to walk in His Laws (Ezekiel 36:27)—those laws being The Torah that is in our mind and on our heart. So, yes, I have read Galatians. Have you read anything in The Bible other than Galatians?
Have you read Galatians… IN CONTEXT? Have you read Galatians in harmony with the rest of The Bible, or are you just determined that it goes against the rest of The Bible because in your heart and mind you don’t want to obey the simplest of commandments?
As I mentioned, before I wrap this message up, this person also brought up Colossians 2:16-17, stating that it is a warning against putting “Gentile Believers” under pressure to keep things like The Sabbath. “These are a shadow,” is what the speaker said. Some time back I put out an article titled Living In The Shadow that goes into depth on the context of this passage. I would recommend reading it if you want to study beyond the points I will make here, but to highlight a few things about the context of Paul’s statements:
• First of all, we find an important part of context in Colossians 2:8 (TLV) where it says: “See that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception, according to the tradition of men and the basic principles of the world rather than Messiah” (emphasis added). The things commanded in The Torah are not “traditions of men” and “basic principles of the world”.
• The letter to the Colossians was addressed to a fellowship composed primarily of people who converted out of the pagan worship of the Roman religion. The “judgment” Paul was admonishing them not to be discouraged by was the mockery of the pagans they walked away from—ridiculing them for their keeping of such Torah basics as the Leviticus 11 food laws, the Leviticus 23 Feast Days, the new month festivals, and The Sabbath Day. You have to turn Colossians upside down in its meaning to say that verse 16-17 are against keeping these Torah basics.
• Colossians 2:14 speaks of the “handwritten record of debts that was against us”. Many view this as a reference to The Torah. However, Paul used a specific Greek word here that is only used this one time in his writings: Cheirographon (χειρόγραφον). This was a legal term used in the Greco-Roman world that referred to a list of charges against someone being tried for their crimes. It is basically a written record of a person’s law breaking. In other words, Paul was saying that the record of our sin (breaking The Torah, 1 John 3:4) gets nailed to the cross when we repent (turn from our sin and commit to living by The Torah). The proper understanding of this verse is the exact opposite of what most “Christians” believe it means—it’s telling us to stop breaking The Torah through faith in Yeshua so that our past transgressions of Torah can be nailed to the cross. Paul was not saying that The Torah itself was nailed to the cross so “we don’t have to do what it says anymore”.
• If Paul was speaking against the traditions of men and principles of the world in verse 8, then speaking in favor of upholding The Torah in verse 14, then it only stands to reason that verses 16 and 17 are encouragement to keep these elements of The Torah—the food laws, The Sabbath, the Feasts, etc.—no matter what happens and no matter who doesn’t like you for it.
• Last, Colossians 2:17 says: these things ARE a foreshadowing of things TO come. It does not say: these things WERE a foreshadowing of things ALREADY come. Paul wrote this passage long after the resurrection. If he was trying to say that because of the resurrection we no longer have to follow the food laws or keep The Sabbath or celebrate the Feasts he sure did have a weird way of saying it—especially when he told the Corinthians TO keep the Feasts and TO touch no unclean thing. These antinomian interpretations of Paul’s writings make him out to be bipolar or schizophrenic or something—they make his teachings inconsistent in telling some people to obey The Torah and other people to reject The Torah. But I can assure you that a proper reading of Paul’s writings is consistently pronomian through and through. We see this in Peter’s warning that lawless men are the ones who twist and manipulate Paul’s words. Lawless men would be the exact opposite of Torah-keeping Believers.
Following The Torah Is Not Dangerous
I have to say, I am still beside myself that there is even a need to write a message like this. I can feel the burden that Tertullian must have felt when he was writing against the heretics of his day—like Marcion, Praxeus, Hermoneges, and the Valentinians. While I will maintain not to identify the person who made the short video with all of the points I have refuted in this message, I will say that this is a person with a legitimate earned doctorate degree who reaches a large audience of “Christians” and even identifies as being Jewish, yet I can only declare the person to be a heretic for saying all of those things in less than ten minutes.
Some might say that this is too harsh a ruling and I should consider other things that a person teaches. Well, that’s the thing about deceivers and heretics though—they tend to teach a lot of things that are solid and true, but those truths merely serve to lead you toward acceptance of the heresies. I have had people tell me “truth is truth, no matter the source”, but the source really does matter. I have heard preachers quote Muslim scholars and people defend them saying “truth is truth”. But that truth is serving to lead you into Islam. It’s the same with those who use truth to hide behind while living in some kind of sinful lifestyle. Not all truth is the same and the source matters and heretics will use truth to gain trust before they deceive you. The source of any statement of truth really does matter and heretics are heretics and deceivers are deceivers no matter how much “truth” they pile on top of it.
Every single person who played a role in writing The Bible believed in living according to The Torah. Every one of them. They all kept The Sabbath Day, biblically on the seventh day of the biblical week (which corresponds with sunset ‘Friday’ to sunset ‘Saturday’ on modern calendars). They all celebrated the biblical Feast Days. They all adhered to the Leviticus 11 food laws. They all shunned the various pagan religious practices of “the nations”. They were wholly committed to a holy following of The Torah.
People who say the kind of ludicrous and ridiculous things I have rebutted in this message are voices of the Genesis 3 serpent. You can feel the hissing of the serpents slithery tongue in their words of deception, telling you that it’s wrong to teach obedience to God’s commandments.
I fear for the great deceivers of religion when they have their turn at the throne of judgment. I realize that Matthew 5:19 says that those who might teach against Torah will be called least in the Kingdom, indicating that at least they will “get in” if they meet some minimum requirement. But James 3:1 says that those who hold an official “teacher” position in the earth will fall into a stricter judgment. I don’t want to say anything determinative, as that role belongs to God alone, but I have a hard time wrapping my head around the idea that someone who can utter such heretical nonsense as what I have spoken against in this article will actually make it beyond The Judgment Seat—I feel like if there is anyone who will hear the words “Depart from Me, I never knew you, worker of lawlessness” it would be the person who made the statements I have addressed here. I can only hope that I am wrong or if I am right that this person repents.
Yeshua said: “How narrow is the gate and difficult the way that leads to life, and those who find it are few” (Matthew 7:13). Psalm 119:1 says, “Blessed are those whose way is blameless, who walk in the Torah of Adonai,” and John 10:7-9 tells us that Yeshua is the gate. The way of Torah might be difficult and may be the path of few, but I assure you it is not dangerous. What is dangerous is to hop and skip along the broad path of religion that rejects The Torah as popular “Christianity” does or rejects Yeshua as Messiah as Orthodox Judaism does or rejects both as pretty much all of the religions of the nations do. The most dangerous thing is to listen to people who would dare tell you that it’s dangerous to follow The Torah and then proceed to twist Scripture to convince you. That’s literally exactly what Satan did in Eden.
We must constantly be on guard and watching for deceivers and liars who say the kinds of things I have addressed in this message. Too many people are led astray by every wind of doctrine. They are like tumbleweeds in the desert. Anything that sounds good and is said by some “credentialed” preacher is taken as Bible truth and nobody bothers to call them out on it. Well, I am calling it out for what it is.
It’s not dangerous to follow The Torah. Yeshua taught His followers to follow The Torah and we are told quite emphatically that as His followers we must walk as He walked (1 John 2:6). The danger of religion lies in following those who say we have no obligation to follow The Torah. They are teaching the exact opposite of what our Messiah taught, they are turning the whole counsel of Scripture upside down in its meaning and reinterpreting the intent of those Torah-keeping Hebrew people who wrote The Bible, and THAT is a dangerous path to follow.
Blessings and Shalom
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