The Law

“Do not think I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished.” Matt 5:17, 18

I am unsatisfied (crabby frustrated conflicted, in fact I am flat out irritated) with how the church seems to at best ignore and at worst flat out disregard the “Law and the Prophets.” I think they have lost their way, for it is only through Torah-aware glasses that we can accurately interpret the instruction of the “New Testament.”

If you ask a 21st century Christian to define the law, I expect you will get a wide array of responses. Some will say the system of sacrifices in the temple, some will say the 10 commandments, some will say the whole of the Old Testament, others will say the Pentateuch, but what does Yeshua really mean when he speaks of the law.

There are theologians and scholars who debate the dichotomy of what seems to be the teaching of Yeshua regarding the Law, they also hold the Pauline letters up with Hebrews and other texts to try and ascertain what the true teaching of the new testament is. I believe we have lost our way in this regard. At first I need to define how I will use the terms so that you understand very specifically what I mean when I use words like Pentateuch, the 10 words, the law, the prophets, torah, mitzvot etc…

When I use the word Pentateuch I am referring to the 5 books of Moses, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy.

To a Jew, I expect that these 5 books that are referred to as the Pentateuch, would be regarded as the Law. They look to basically 3 or 4 groups of writings as the whole counsel of Yah to man. The Law is the foremost authority. Period. Next in line are the prophets. These are the Major and Minor prophets whose writings make up many of the books of our old testament. Isaiah, Nehemiah, Daniel, Hosea, Obadiah…etc. Finally, they have the part of the law that was transmitted from generation to generation orally. This is sometimes referred to as tradition in the New Testament. After many generations of oral transmission things get a bit convoluted. If you have ever played the game where you whisper something in someone’s ear whom then passes it on and then the last person shares what they heard you know exactly what I mean. After awhile these oral traditions started to get structure and were called Mishna (a word that also describes a method of teaching). Finally, folks came along in history that systematically organized and wrote them down in what is in current times called the Talmud. The fourth group of writings is the wisdom literature, which is Proverbs, Psalms, and Ecclesiastes etc.

For me, I will use the words Pentateuch, Prophets, tradition or Talmud, and wisdom to indicate these 4 groups of writings. The commonly understood meaning of Yashua’s words above is the Pentateuch and the Prophets combined. The written word is what is referenced as the oral tradition was not mentioned.

We need to dig a little deeper. We know what the church today thinks, and what the Jews more than likely believe. We need to understand the term Torah and the building blocks that comprise the Law.

Torah is a much more global kind of word that evokes very specific feelings, imagery and meaning. It can be considered as the sum of all the instruction Yah has given to man to keep him on the pathway of righteousness that will lead man back to Him. It is the law, the prophets, the wisdom, the tradition, that all points man in the direction he is to go. I like the sense I get from the word of motion and movement that Torah is in a way living guideposts showing us the way back to righteousness and ultimately back to Yah himself. This is the sense of the word and the way in which I will use it. Many people interpret naively the word Torah to mean the Pentateuch.

When I use the word the Law I will be using it very specifically. I believe it can be divided into very meaningful and distinct pieces. There is the universal law that every man is bound by, there is the ten words, there is the covenants, and there is the mitzvot.

Romans 1:20 is the clearest description of what I will call universal law. Yah’s divine power has been clearly seen in creation so that no man is without excuse.

The 10 words or the 10 commandments as they have been come to be know by are a clear subset of the law given to Moses. They were inscribed on stone and carried in the Ark of Covenant the very seat of Yah himself here on earth.

The mitzvot are the rest of the laws given to Moses that can be found in Exodus and Leviticus. They are the reason most Christian get bored reading those books. There are generally considered to be 613 mitzvot that the common man needs to be worried about. The other laws are very specific to the priesthood and are not considered a part of the mitzvot.

There are also specific covenants in which Yah himself makes with mankind through the Pentateuch. The Adamic, Noahic, Abramic and Mosaic covenants are the ones I am referring to.

So when I use the word Law I will be referring to the full collection of all the things described above. If I am referring to something other than the full collection I will use its term; so in order, the universal law, the 10 words, the mitzvot, or the covenants.

I came upon a fascinating sidebar realization while thinking about this lately. I attribute this thought to the fact that it is an election year this year. The community of Israel, the Jews, the Israelites whatever you want to call them in all the thousands of years of their history have never once attempted to add, subtract or anyway change the Law. The judges were given to help interpret the Law, the prophets were given to help remind them of the Law, the kings were charged with upholding the Law, but not once were lawmakers given to try and improve upon, update, or for that matter fit the laws to present technological, business, climate, or worldly advances in civilization. This is an amazing testimony to the complete trust and faith the Jews have in the all-knowing, all powerful, ever-present Lawgiver Yah himself. Think about all the time, effort, and pain we go through each year churning out volumes after volumes of new codified laws. I just threw that in for fun….back to the topic at hand.

So let us back up a bit and ask ourselves what is the function of law in a society. What I learned from Sociology 101 in college is the cultures and groups of people work out either systematically or by trial and error a system of values and mores that define the boundaries of acceptable behavior. That set of values and mores in effect define for that group of people their identity. So, in a very real sense I like to think of the law as the summation of Yah’s values and mores that give identity, value and purpose to the people of God.

Remember, when Yah chose Abram and called him out from all the people on the earth it was after the Tower of Babel. The languages of the earth had already defined cultures and people groups. Abram was no different he was a man that lived in a place defined by their language that Yah gave them at Babel. However, Yah did not call out his whole people group. Through Abram Yah would create his own special people. My favorite description of them is when Yah calls them his royal priesthood, treasured possession, and holy nation. I could preach a whole sermon just on those 3 descriptions but I am getting ahead of myself.

Another brief side note, the calling of Abram and it’s significance can be considered the major foundation for the theological doctrine of election. Yah chose Abram. Period. But again, I get ahead of myself.

I believe the church has thrown the baby out with the bath water!! Yashua himself has stated in Matthew that he did not come to abolish the Law, but that is how the modern church behaves. We are so confused over this matter, let me point out a few areas to illuminate my point.

If you ask a Christian if he is to obey the Law, you will get a resounding no. Yeshua died and none of that is valid anymore. But if you ask a Christian if he is to obey the 10 words, you will get a response of yes. You will hear a dissertation about how there is no longer a need to do animal sacrifices because of what Yeshua accomplished on the cross but we still want to be ‘good people’ and part of that is the Set-apart Spirit working in us to give us the strength to obey.

Obviously, it is not really worth saying, however to be complete I will say that of course there is no need anymore for animal sacrifice. But does that discount the whole of the Law? Where is the line, what do we keep, what passes away, what did Yeshau mean by the word fulfilled?

Think with me about another well known passage of scripture in Romans 11. Yeshua says “I am the vine and you are the branches” in John 15. Then in Romans 11 Paul points out that the gentiles are ‘grafted in’. Other branches were pruned off, or died and fell off to make room for the wild olive which is grafted in and can now partake of the root. Perhaps the church should be characterized by being the people of Yah on the earth, living out, loving and enjoying the rich Law and observing Torah so that we would benefit from the blessings of being called the royal priesthood, treasured possession and holy nation.

The church should not look as different as it does, it should look and feel much more like a synagogue. After all, we have the Set-Apart Spirit living inside enabling us to live out the Law. Romans 7 shows us that the Law no longer is stumbling block to the Christian.

At this point I need to back up and build the foundation I intending on building. I am getting to excited and far ahead of myself. Now I understand the Name and who Yah is, and I understand how we account for time and the calendar, and we understand about a possibility of how Yah has protected his knowledge and us from obliteration through hiding information so as to limit our accountability. Finally we understand the myriad of terms used when describing the Law.

Next time we will jump in and start looking at the Feasts, the appointed times to see how they can illuminate our understanding.

In the meantime I will bask in the glow of knowing that Yah elected a special people set-apart to Himself intended to be His treasured possession and that Yah gave them a clear understanding of who they were, how to act, and what to do through a covenant relationship with them and the guiding light of the precepts, mores and values that created them as a people.

“How happy are those whose ways of life is blameless, who live by the Torah of Yah! How happy are those who observe His instruction, who seek Him wholeheartedly!” Psalm 119 (read it all and be refreshed)