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I am hoping that you find this title- No Way Out of This One– interesting because it makes you wonder, “No way out of what?” And, remarkably enough, I have the answer, which is, “No way out of obedience to the Torah!”
You see, Yeshua preached and taught from the Torah, but later the Gentile Christian leadership (most notably Constantine and his cronies) changed the dogma and structure of Christianity.
When Yeshua walked the earth, what he taught was something that those Jews who accepted him as their Messiah already knew, i.e., the Torah. And that was the same thing that the Gentiles who chose to follow Messiah and worship God were being taught, which effectively meant they were converting to Judaism. But after Constantine took charge of Christianity, he created a totally different religion based on Jesus Christ as the Messiah, rejecting everything Messianic (i.e., Jewish) about him, except for the teaching that through him we can receive forgiveness of sin.
The main difference between modern-day Christianity and its root, Judaism, is the Torah. Christians have been taught that the Torah is for Jews, and they only need the blood of Christ. Obedience to all of God’s instructions has been reduced to simply loving each other and being a “good” person; they have been taught that is all you need because this guy Jesus has got your back, so long as you ask him to forgive you.
In Catholicism you don’t even need to ask Jesus to forgive you- the local Priest can do that!
The reason I say you can’t get out of this one is that the Torah, whether anyone likes it or not, is the direct word of God given to Moses. God gave it to Moses to bring to the entire world. It is not, and never was, intended just for Jews. The Torah is not a set of laws, so much as God’s instruction to everyone about how he wants us to worship him and how he wants us to treat each other.
Let me go off on a bit of a tangent: there are parts within the Torah that are specific to a certain class of people, such as certain requirements for the High Priest and the Levites are different than for everyone else. Also, there are some instructions that apply only to women (for physiological reasons.) However, overall the Torah (which means “instruction”) was given to the Jews to learn so they could live it as an example to the rest of the world to show them how they should live.
Now that we know what God intended the Torah to be, let’s address the wrongful teaching that it is only for Jews. To do this we first have to establish some basic “givens”:
- God gave the Torah to the Jewish people;
- God has stated throughout the Bible that all who sojourn with the Jewish people (i.e., live with and worships as) are subject to the same treatment as natural-born Jews (Lev. 24:22; Numbers 15:15);
- God says eventually the entire world will worship him (Isaiah 60:1-3; Zech. 8: 22-23)
- God wants the people to learn Torah from the Jews (Deut. 4: 6-8);
- Yeshua’s Disciples preached obedience to the Torah (Luke 24:47; John 14:15; Romans 3:31; John 2:3-6; Rev. 22:14)
All of these statements from the Bible lead us to the same conclusion: the Torah is what God gave to the world so we can live and worship as he wants us to so that we can have eternal life.
And it is most clearly stated in Numbers 15:15 (your bible may have it as 15:14 or 15:16):
As for the congregation, there shall be one statute both for you, and for the stranger that sojourneth with you, a statute for ever throughout your generations; as ye are, so shall the stranger be before the Lord.
That’s it! If you profess to worship the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, which means if you are a Christian you are included in that group, there is no way you can argue that God or Messiah say you are not subject to the same requirements for worship and interpersonal relationships as the Jewish people are.
God said it- one law for Jews and anyone who sojourns with them. And the New Covenant writings also confirm, absolutely, that if you have faith in God and Messiah you are an adopted son or daughter of Abraham- in other words, like it or not, as an adopted child of Abraham you are required to live subject to the same rules as his natural-born children.
Period; end of argument; close the door on your way out.
I know many of you have been taught differently, and you may not only dislike what I am saying but will passionately refute it. Go ahead- try. Look throughout the Bible and find the place where God says his commandments are just for Jews. Find where Yeshua says forget what my Father told you- it isn’t for you. Show us any place in the entire Bible where God or Yeshua or any of the Disciples say Christians don’t have to obey any of the laws or commandments in the Bible.
Obedience to Torah just makes sense, doesn’t it? If you are going to worship God then you should want to do as he says. Abraham did, David did, the Prophets did, the Apostles did, and even that nice Jewish tentmaker from Tarsus did. And the Gentiles that were accepting Yeshua as their Messiah, and worshiping God instead of their pagan deities were converting to Judaism… and THEY also were doing as God said to do in the Torah. Not all at once, but slowly over time they were expected to learn it (Acts 15:21.)
Starting right now, if you have been living your life separated from God’s instructions, read the Torah. What can it hurt you to learn how God wants you to live? And once you know what is in the Torah, if what some “person” has told you is the way to worship God but it is not confirmed by the Torah, ignore it.
Most people know that if something is really easy to do it probably isn’t all that worthwhile doing, and believe me when I tell you that worshiping God correctly, as he said to do it in the Torah, is not easy. But it is the most worthwhile thing you will ever do.
I don’t think the early “Christians” were converting to Judaism… isn’t that whole issue with Paul? “Physical” circumcision was the sign of Judaism, but “circumcision” of the heart was necessary to follow Yeshua…but the early “Christians” did follow all the laws of Torah…until Constantine came on the scene..
Joyce,
Thank you for your input.
The reason I say the early Christians were converting to Judaism is that they were leaving their polytheistic pagan beliefs and worshiping the one God of the Jews, as well as accepting that Yeshua was the Messiah of the Jews. There weren’t any other religions that had those two, so by definition when leaving one religion for another, you are converting.
The issue with circumcision is a different issue, which wasn’t regarding conversion. The circumcision argument from Shaul was that being circumcised to earn performance-based salvation is useless because we must be spiritually circumcised, which represents a faith-based salvation. Being circumcised is not the path to salvation if it is done only to meet a physical requirement. That was his argument, which is (of course) true.
James also argued that faith without works (i.e., Torah obedience) is dead, meaning if we do not perform the works of a faithful person, we don’t really have faith, whether circumcized or not.
Circumcision is one sign of Judaism, but it is not the only and unique sign: Ishmael was circumcised and he certainly wasn’t “Jewish.” I believe that what indicates who we are and what we believe is not what we say but what we do; living a Jewish lifestyle, which is obedience to Torah, is what really makes one “Jewish.”
Like the old saying goes: If it walks like a duck, and squawks like a duck, and looks like a duck- it is probably a duck. 🙂
Thanks for the response.. I guess I just “misunderstood “ what you were saying… but I did think, from reading in the B’rit Hadashah that they “required” circumcision as a sign of Judaism.and that was a major part of the argument .. but you are right, Ishmael was circumcised…
Joyce,
In Galatians Shaul was writing against those who required circumcision, which he called the “Circumcision Group”. The other name given to those that required absolute and immediate adherence of the converting Gentiles to the Torah was “Judaizers.”
Much of what Shaul wrote has been misunderstood because he wrote mainly to Gentiles who did not have even a basic understanding of Judaism or worshiping a single God. Their culture, religion, and even their language, in many cases, did not have any reference to much of what Shaul wrote about. He often used a sort of Hebrew-Greek language, which came from the Septuagint, in trying to get across the meaning of what he was saying, and because he was so well learned, he couldn’t stop using (what I call) Jewish Logic.
Jewish logic (my own definition) is how Jews argue- we will not come right out and tell you what something is until we have first told you everything it isn’t. If you analyze Shaul’s writings, you will see he often argues against the Torah, then he will conclude that the argument he just made is wrong. So he will tell us all the reasons we might think that we don’t need Torah, then conclude that they are wrong because we DO need Torah. I am sure you can see how confusing that can be for someone who doesn’t understand how Jews argue among themselves; I believe this is why so many people have been taught that only the first part of Shaul’s arguments are what they should follow. This, and Constantine really screwing things up, is why Christians have been taught that the Torah is not for them.