What the Bible Really Says About...
What would you think of a baseball team that threw away all the rules? They might be fun to watch, but they certainly wouldn't be playing baseball. Yet this is exactly what some people think Paul meant when He said we were "no longer under the Law". But all his references to the judgment awaiting the "lawless", as well as his own record of continuing to endeavor to attend the festivals and even offering sacrifices (Acts 18:18-21; 21:21-26, etc.) makes it clear that this is not at all what he was talking about.
Paul did nothing against the Law (Torah), according to Acts 25:8. He remained a Pharisee all his life. (23:6) He told even Gentiles to celebrate the Passover. (1 Cor. 5:8) Yahshua the Messiah Himself said he would again celebrate that feast with us in the Kingdom as well. So anything that either of them said which appears to say the Torah was done away with was only meant to be a fine-tuning of where the heaviest emphasis should be placed. Every Scripture must be interpreted within the parameters set up by the Torah. (Isaiah 8:20) Otherwise, we make our Creator,Yahweh, appear to contradict Himself.
We are often reminded that "by grace you were saved...not by works, lest anyone should boast." (Eph. 2:8-9) But the very next verse says that Yahweh has prepared particular good works for each of us to walk in! (2:10) That verse literally begins, "We are His poem..."! Each of us is painstakingly crafted into an original work of art that shows never-before-seen facets of who our Creator is and what His love can mean. But we must still "color inside the lines". Or, to change the analogy, we have to sail our ship in the proper channels to avoid the rocks, because we are not in a friendly world since that day in Eden.
The Torah's procedural details are the "milk"--the most basic principles we must understand first before we can get to any of the deeper meanings of Scripture. (Heb. 5:12) But many people want to skip right to the meat and forget the milk! Any baby knows that would be disastrous!
Even Jewish scholars say the Torah is only a set of concrete examples of what it means to "love your neighbor as yourself" in whatever situation in life we find ourselves (Gal. 5:14). Many of its commands only apply in the land of Israel or when the Temple is standing. Some are only for women, others only for men. Only about 200 are applicable literally by most individuals today.
Adam and Eve forfeited immediacy with Yahweh, opting to look at particular things as either right or wrong, carrying the burden of such "knowledge" in themselves, so they wouldn't have to keep coming back to their Designer, who would gladly have told them how to avoid harm without the agonizing trial and error. So a rigid fence had to be erected to prevent Man's annihilation. The world's way eventually requires dictators or more subtle manipulation if it is to prevent total chaos. But the model of love we follow is no impersonal behaviorism that denies freedom and dignity. The Last Adam restored the lost relationship: He did nothing but what He saw the Father doing. (John 5:19, 30) Yahweh had provided Him with a body through which to walk it out. (Heb. 10:5, quoting Psalm 40:6-8, LXX)
It wasn’t the Law of Moses as a whole that was nailed to the cross--only the curses it carried. Our success at obeying doesn't get us onto--or even keep us on--the team (the theme of Galatians). Our "Coach" realizes we'll make mistakes in the process. But playing by the rules is the only way the team can function as a unit. And how hard we try will determine the lineup in the "game" that really matters--Messiah's coming Kingdom--and who gets to spend most of his time on the bench. (Matt. 5:19; 25:28; Deut. 4:2; Rev. 22:19)
If anything, Yahshua raised the standard ("But I say unto you...", Matt. 5). With His Spirit in us, we can't be content just to do good deeds outwardly; they must come from the heart. The specifics of the Torah are only a few concrete examples of what it means to love Yahweh and one's neighbor as ourselves--attitudes meant to pervade our every action and thought, i.e., the "spirit" (underlying intent) behind the "letter". But the spirit can never be in opposition to the letter.
Of course, when He comes back physically, we would rather talk directly with Him than just read a letter from Him, but when we just "listen in prayer", there are many spirits all too willing to impersonate His voice, so we need an objective standard by which to judge when it is really Him. And while we may interpret the Renewed Covenant (His latest letter to us) a little more clearly since He visited us in between letters, even it must still be interpreted only within the parameters set by His earlier writings.
The "letter" is the only objective standard we have by which to "test the spirits" or define what it means to love Yahweh and love our neighbor, since worldly definitions of love change with the current mood of each culture. Yahshua Himself said the way to prove we love Him is to keep His commandments! (John 14:15) They are not different from His father's commands.
It's Who We Are
We avoid lawlessness because we are now dead to sin; are we to go back to disobeying Torah just to prove its condemnation has been lifted? (Rom. 6:2) Just as physical laws explain how things work, there are also spiritual laws that teach us how to line up with the only way the spiritual world can operate properly. The New Covenant allows Yahweh's Law to be written on our hearts. What was once outside us, accusing us because we couldn't obey it, can now be inside us--part of us. We avoid sin because we belong to a "new race" to which sin is foreign and repulsive.
As we have Adam's physical seed in us, we have the Second Adam's spiritual "seed" in us. His "seed" cannot sin, because it is "born of Yahweh" (1 Jn. 3:9). Whatever in us sins is still part of the first Adam's dying nature, "the flesh", which will never get any better (Eph. 4:22). Yahweh knows we'll always have the struggle between these two natures, and He has mercy as long as we work with Him rather than against Him. (Heb. 10:26)
Moses (who symbolizes the Torah which he wrote down) couldn't take us across the Jordan into the Promised Land; Y'hoshua (Joshua, the longer form of Yahshua's name) COULD! At any given moment we can choose whether to walk according to the first or second Adam's nature. But only what our new nature does will survive into the Kingdom (1 Cor. 3:10-14); only its deeds will be rewarded. Yet because of Yahshua, what was once outside of us, accusing us since we couldn't obey it, is now inside us, part of us--the spirit behind the "letter". The two are not in opposition.
But there is another reason the Torah is not just for the Jews. Yahweh promised that Jacob's descendants would become a “congregation of Gentiles”. Jacob passed this blessing on to his grandson Ephraim, whose tribe later led the Northern Kingdom's secession from Judah, and became involved in much idolatry, considering the Torah "a strange thing". (Hosea 8:12) These tribes, known as the "House of Israel", departed from the covenant, and became indistinguishably mingled with other nations. But over and over the prophets reiterated that one day Yahweh would nonetheless restore them to the Covenant.
Over 700 years later the Messiah said He had come "only for the lost sheep of the House of Israel". (Mat. 15:24) So He considers anyone who has responded to His message to be a part of Israel. His "congregation of Gentiles" is identified as the ekklesia, or “called-out ones”. Those who left the Covenant are being called back out of any paganism into which they were assimilated, and back into the commonwealth of Israel. That means responsibility to the Covenant our ancestors agreed to at Mount Sinai. The "New Testament" is really a renewal of this Covenant.
We have to think of this "New Covenant" in context of the way the ancient ones worked. If the situation changed for one party, a covenant could be amended. But only what no longer fit would be revised; everything else remained in effect just as before. We do have a different situation since we are in exile. It’s not completely possible to live out every aspect of the Torah without a Temple, or even simply outside the Land of Israel. So we have a stopgap; Yahshua more than makes up for the difference. The Apostles also knew it would take time to make the transition back from living like Gentiles. They decided not to burden us with too much too soon. So they gave only four rules to start with: "Abstain from pollutions of idols, from illicit sexual intercourse, from things strangled, and from blood..." (Acts 15:20)
But they implicitly expected all returnees to keep learning the rest of the Torah:
"...because from ancient times Moses has those who proclaim him in every city, being read in the synagogues every Sabbath day." (15:21)
In other words, they could learn the Torah lifestyle at a reasonable pace, a little each week, but with a view toward getting to where we no longer need special interim measures.
James, who addresses his epistle to "the twelve dispersed tribes", says the Torah is like a mirror that shows us our "natural face". Though our ancestors forgot their identity, when we look back into the Torah, we can again recognize who we really are--Israel! Paul says that when we look at that mirror, we'll see Messiah's face and begin to look more and more like Him. (2 Cor. 3:18)
Just What is Grace?
So this “age of grace” is like the amnesty granted to an offender. He is allowed to come back home a free man, debts all cleared, but he has to start obeying the laws of his nation again!
Everyday experience tells us that having a few “days of grace” doesn’t mean we don’t have to eventually pay the rent if you want to live there! That Yahweh overlooks past ignorance and our mis-steps while we learn to walk again is a far cry from permission to totally disregard many of His commands!
“Grace”, as used in the Renewed Covenant, is not exemption from Yahweh's requirements, but rather the supernatural provision of power to rise above our natural inability to obey, letting us fulfill the requirements we once found unattainable, just as the law of aerodynamics does not invalidate, but can overcome, the law of gravity. Both laws work simultaneously; if you ride on top of the wave, it does not crash down on you.
So the Torah now becomes not our executioner, but our friend. Paul describes it as our tutor. (Gal. 3) When a child grows up, he’s no longer punished if he touches the hot stove, but he certainly appreciates the information from a mentor about what will happen to his hand if he does! A truly mature son has learned and internalized the reasons his father's rules are beneficial to him. (Ex. 15:26)
Until All is Fulfilled
The Sabbath and the Festivals mandated in the Torah were given as a “statute forever”. If they were annulled, then Yahweh’s word was broken. But Yahshua said nothing in the Torah would be abolished until everything was fulfilled. (Mat. 5:18) In fact, all it literally says is "until everything takes place"--in other words, until history comes to a close. That certainly hasn't happened yet!
The Festivals are also called “appointments” in Hebrew, and indeed Yahshua kept the first set of appointments that fall during the spring on their very days. He died at the precise moment the Passover lambs were being slain in the Temple. Three days later, He fulfilled the meaning of the Firstfruits of the Barley Harvest, becoming the “firstfruits of those who rise from the dead” (1 Cor. 15).
But not all of them have been fulfilled. There is a second group of festivals that come in the later part of the year, which prefigure the resurrection of the dead, the day of judgment, and the Messianic Kingdom respectively. When we all reach the point of no longer needing any teachers, then and only then will the Renewed Covenant (Jer. 31) be here in its fullness and the old revised.
Some translators have altered the text of Colossians 2:17 to say the Sabbaths, New Moons, and Feasts "were a shadow of things which were to come, while what cast the shadow is the Messiah." But it is actually in the present tense: they "are a shadow of things to come." A shadow still does accurately show the shape of what cast it! It's just not the main point. The commandments are not an end in themselves, but If we say we love Him, don't we want to know as much as we possibly can about Him? And the Torah gives us a fast track, a hands-on way to learn what He wants us to know about Himself.
That's Grace, Not Legalism!
How did "the perfect law of liberty" (James 2:12), which only made David rejoice (Psalm 119), come to be thought of as legalism? "The law is holy, and the commandment is holy, righteous and good." The only alternative is slavery again--to our sins. (Romans 7)
Because of the Messiah's blood, Yahweh can mercifully waive the penalty for our once having abandoned His Covenant. So there are no negative aspects of the Law left. In Hebrew, torah means not so much "law" as "teaching" or "instruction"--the way to navigate in an unfriendly world.
When we look at the world's legal systems, we feel very little confidence that justice will be done. In contrast, Solomon said the Torah brings "refreshment to our bones" (Prov.3:8). In medieval Europe, those who followed the Torah’s purity rituals were not affected by the Black Plague; Jewish soldiers in the trenches did not get the same diseases that uncircumcised men contracted when they could not bathe for weeks on end. Yahweh said the obedient would receive none of the diseases the Egyptians had. (Ex. 15:26)
"His commandments are not burdensome!" (1 Jn. 5:3)
They really never have been, though certainly they are a nuisance to our more unruly side. They give us guard rails to avoid the sheer cliffs that real life so often brings us to the edge of. "The law" only bears a "police" sense if we respond according to our evil inclination, which opposes it. (Acts 9:5) But we don't need to. We have a positive inclination now too. We're free to walk as children of light, since "now we are light". (Ephesians 5:8)
There’s nothing legalistic about acting like who you really are!