The typical Christian view regarding the letters Shaul (Paul) wrote is that they are telling Gentile Believers that they are not subject to the Torah.
But Shaul tells us exactly what he believes about the Torah in some of his letters, and it goes against Christian teachings.
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We need to understand what Shaul was doing when he preached the Good News to the Gentile pagans throughout Asia and the Middle East. In fact, we should first establish what that so-called “good news” was: it wasn’t that they didn’t have to obey the Torah, it was about being able to share in the eternal salvation that God made possible for the Jewish people by accepting that Yeshua was the Messiah.
Along with that acceptance came a paradigm shift in lifestyle, which Shaul was teaching them slowly, at a pace they could handle. Even the Elders in Jerusalem knew that was the best way to incorporate these ex-pagans into a Torah observant life, which is why they wrote the letter in Acts 15. That letter wasn’t telling the Gentiles that was all they had to do, it was telling them what they had to do initially. In Acts 15:21, James states that these Gentiles will learn the Torah hearing it preached at every Shabbat service: clearly, he expected the Gentiles to go to Shabbat services with the Jews and to learn the Torah from a slow, regular exposure to it.
So, in Romans Shaul doesn’t make an argument against the Torah, as Christianity has taught, but he was making a case FOR the Torah, in that the Torah teaches us what is right and wrong. Obviously, if there is no separation between right and wrong, then nothing is right and nothing is wrong, so everyone is either going to hell or is saved.
I think we can all agree that isn’t how it works.
In most Christian Bibles, the chapter in Acts where Shaul is knocked off his horse is titled “Paul’s Conversion on the Road to Damascus”.
WRONG!
Shaul never converted to anything- all his life he was a Torah observant Jew. The only thing that changed was his belief in who Yeshua was. That’s all there was to it; he never became a Christian and never told anyone to reject the Torah.
In all the years (nearly 30) I have been arguing that the Torah is valid for anyone who professes to believe in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the arguments against me have almost always come from Romans or some of the other letters Shaul wrote. But I rarely, if ever, have seen arguments against the Torah from 2 Thessalonians or 1 Timothy. Maybe that’s because of what he said in those letters?
Let’s see: let’s take 2 Thessalonians 2: 3-11, where Shaul says:
Don’t let anyone deceive you in any way. For the Day will not come until after the Apostasy has come and the man who separates himself from Torah has been revealed, the one destined for doom. He will oppose himself to everything that people call a god or make an object of worship; he will put himself above them all, so that he will sit in the Temple of God and proclaim that he himself is God. Don’t you remember that when I was still with you, I used to tell you these things? And now you know what is restraining, so that he may be revealed in his own time. For already this separating from Torah is at work secretly, but it will be secretly only until he who is restraining is out of the way. Then the one who embodies separation from Torah will be revealed, the one whom the Lord Yeshua will slay with the breath of his mouth and destroy by the glory of his coming. When this man who avoids Torah comes, the Adversary will give him the power to work all kinds of false miracles, signs and wonders.
It seems pretty evident Shaul is saying that the Evil One will separate himself from Torah and teach others to do so, even proclaiming himself as God!
That sounds Trinitarian to me.
He says something similar in 1 Timothy 1:6-11:
Some, by aiming amiss, have wandered off into fruitless discussion. They want to be teachers of Torah, but they understand neither their own words nor the matters about which they make such emphatic pronouncements. We know that the Torah is good, provided one uses it in the way the Torah itself intends. We are aware that Torah is not for a person who is righteous, but for those who are heedless of Torah and rebellious, ungodly and sinful, wicked and worldly, for people who kill their fathers and mothers, for murderers, the sexually immoral — both heterosexual and homosexual — slave dealers, liars, perjurers, and anyone who acts contrary to the sound teaching that accords with the Good News of the glorious and blessed God.
In both these letters, Shaul is absolutely confirming the value of the Torah and that it is necessary for teaching about God. In the letter to the Thessalonians, he is describing exactly what Christianity has done- its Gentile leaders separated themselves from Torah and declared Jesus to be God.
In his letter to Timothy, he confirms what Yeshua said in Matthew 9:12 that he came for the sinners and not the healthy. Shaul is saying the value of the Torah is to be the means by which to redirect sinners from their sins to the righteous living that God requires.
It’s not surprising to me that these verses never come up in discussions about the validity of the Torah for Gentiles because it’s easier to justify rejecting the Torah from twisting and misinterpreting what Shaul is talking about in his other letters, which is mostly about trust and faith being more important than a legalistic observance of Torah, specifically regarding the value of circumcision.
Read his other letters and you will see that circumcision is almost the definitive issue he had to deal with in those other congregations. He wasn’t ever against the Torah for Gentiles; he was against the Jews forcing the Gentiles to get circumcision and requiring total conversion to Judaism all at once to be saved.
Shaul’s good news was that salvation is available through faithful acceptance that Yeshua is the Messiah, that his sacrifice provides the means to be forgiven of sins, and that they must give up their paganistic lifestyle and live a righteous life.
The Torah is God’s “User Manual for Righteousness”, and that is why Shaul lived a Torah observant life and told his congregations to imitate him. And when he said that, he didn’t mean just to make their own living and not be a burden on anyone.
To imitate Shaul meant to live as he lived, which was a Torah observant life, just as the only way to follow Yeshua is to live and worship as he did, which was a Torah observant life.
There’s no question that a Jewish Believer should obey the Torah, and the issue of Gentiles accepting Yeshua as their Messiah needing to follow the Torah is really a no-brainer: the Torah is the way God said he wants those who worship him to live and treat each other. He tells us which Holy Days to observe, what to eat and what we shouldn’t eat, how to treat others in business and interpersonal relationships (including intimate relations), and how to punish those who break the laws.
And probably the most important thing of all- how to receive forgiveness of our sins.
Nothing in the Torah or the requirements of the Torah for all who profess to believe in and worship the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob changed in any way when Yeshua walked the earth. Even the requirement to bring an animal to the temple in Jerusalem as a sacrifice to be forgiven of sin did not change, but with the destruction of the temple that became impossible. Yeshua came and allowed himself to be a sacrifice in order to replace the need to bring an animal to the temple to receive forgiveness.
Like it or not, the Torah is how God wants you to worship him and how God wants you to treat others. There is nothing in the New Covenant writings that justifies rejecting God’s instructions for righteousness.
Now, you can make all the arguments you want to from Shaul’s other letters justifying your rejection of the Torah, but when you meet God at Judgement Day and he asks you why you refused to do what he said to do, you go ahead and tell him he needs to check with Paul before he decides where you will spend eternity.
Yeah, let’s see how well that goes over with the Almighty.
Thank you for being here and please remember to comment and share these messages with everyone you know, even non-believers. Hey, after all, you never know how fertile the soil is until you plant a seed in it.
That’s it for this week, so L’hitraot and (an early) Shabbat Shalom!