Soil from Stone: Torah

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The Law of Moses vs the Law of God

The Law of Moses is another name for the Law of God as it was given through Moses. God tailored the instructions he gave Israel through Moses to fit their specific circumstances, and this leads to some theologians to differentiate between the Law of Moses and the Law of God, but this is a shallow, self-serving doctrine that is completely foreign to the Scriptures.

Every single instruction that God gave to Moses was an expression of his own character and will. He told Israel to behave in a particular way because that behavior pleases him. No commandment is arbitrary. Every commandment is instruction in how to love God and love one another. Every single one. 

God didn't give Israel different rules than gentiles just to make them stand out from the other nations. He gave his Law to Israel and not to the nations because he chose Israel to be the conduit through which the rest of the world would learn his standards of behavior. He wasn't establishing special handshakes for his special club. He was teaching right and wrong and expecting Israel to teach the rest of the world.

If God had given Moses his law today, it might mention cars and cell phones instead of donkeys and clay pots, but that doesn't nullify any of the Law of Moses. It only means that it must be understood within the ancient context in which it was given and that modern applications must frequently be extrapolated.

The Law of Moses IS the Law of God as it applies in an ancient, agrarian context. Our job is to study it and figure out how to apply it in a modern, technological context.

A Chiasm in Matthew 5 on the Spiritual Nature of the Law

A - v2-12 - Spiritual application of Torah
-- B - v13-16 - Righteousness that glorifies God
---- C - v17a - Don't think that Yeshua will abolish the Law or Prophets
------ D - v17b - Yeshua didn't come to abolish them
-------- E - v18a - Until Heaven and Earth pass away
---------- F - v18b - Not an iota or dot will pass from the Law
-------- E - v18c - Until all is accomplished
------ D - v19a - Relaxes the least commandment and teaches others so
---- C - v19b - Does and teaches the commandments
-- B - v20 - Righteousness that glorifies man
A - v21-48 - Spiritual application of Torah

A few things that can be learned from this chiastic arrangement:

"Until Heaven and Earth pass away" and "Until all is accomplished" are not two possibilities for when the Law will pass away, but two descriptions of the same event. In other words "all" will not be accomplished until heaven and earth pass away.
Verses 13-16 are meant to exemplify a kind of righteous behavior that glorifies God. This righteousness is juxtaposed with that of the scribes and Pharisees in verse 20, which serves only to glorify men.
The Beatitudes in verses 2-12 concern the inner character of the perfectly righteous man, while the "You have heard it said" statements in verses 21-48 are specific instructions on how to become that righteous man. Both sets of statements are examples of literary anaphora, a form of parallelism in which the first word or phrase is repeated in each statement in order to connect them together.
Verses 17-20 are usually treated as a discrete passage with a complete message in itself, but this misunderstands Yeshua's real message. The Beatitudes are Torah. Letting the light of your righteous deeds shine before men in order to glorify your Heavenly Father is Torah. So long as there is a need for peacekeepers, for mercy, for endurance of persecution, there is a need for the Law. Only when the need for those qualities has vanished--when wickedness, covetousness, and hatred have been abolished--will the Torah, also known as the Law of Moses, no longer be necessary to teach and convict mankind.

For more on chiasms--including how to identify, map, and interpret them--check out The Chiasm Course!

Objections to Keeping Torah

Torah

Torah is a Hebrew word that means "instruction" or "law", depending on the context. It refers to the first five books of the Bible (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy), also commonly known as the Pentateuch. When Yeshua (aka Jesus) spoke of "the Law and the Prophets", he was referring to the Torah and the rest of the Old Testament.

You might also hear of the "oral Torah", which refers to a semi-mythical tradition that was passed down to the ancient rabbis from Moses by word of mouth, as opposed to the written Torah referenced above. Those rabbis debated and discussed them, and the records of those discussions are recorded in the various Talmuds. I don't think there can be any doubt that Moses gave oral instructions that were never written down, because there is much in the written Torah that can't be fully understood otherwise. However, I don't think those instructions survived intact for the rabbis to discuss them. Clearly the religious leaders of Yeshua's day had a very confused understanding of the Torah, so it seems very unlikely that they had straightened it all out a few hundred years later. It's much more likely that they had gone even further astray.

That's not to say that the Talmud and rabbinic traditions are worthless. If you understand that it contains a record of debates, not just a straightforward recounting of oral tradition, then you can look past some of the more offensive and blasphemous contents to find some really profound and insightful bits. It's not divinely inspired Scripture, but it is useful for historical context and perspective.

The written Torah, however, most certainly is divinely inspired, parts of it originally written directly by the hand of God himself. It is the foundation for all later revelation. None of the books of history, poetry, and prophecy, the Gospels, and the Epistles can be understood without a solid foundation in the Torah.

The Torah Movement

At this very moment, there is a spontaneous, global movement of people who worship the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob to study the Torah and apply its instructions to their real lives. There is no leader, no central committee, no parent organization, and no headquarters of this movement. There isn't even a commonly accepted name. People in this movement call themselves Christians, Messianic Jews, Messianic Believers, Torah-Keepers, Hebrew Roots, Pronomians, Nazarene Israelites, and numerous other labels.

I don't particularly care for any of those labels, but I've used several of them for myself at times.

Regardless of the labels, they all have two things in common:

Yeshua is the Son of God, Messiah, and King of Israel.
The Torah still applies today to followers of Yeshua.

Beyond that, there is an almost infinite variation in their interpretations of Scripture.

There is also a lot of controversy within the rest of the Body of Christ as to what to do with these upstart Obeyers of God's Commandments. Some even deny that we are a part of the Body of Christ at all, claiming that we have rejected God's grace in favor of earning our salvation. (I'm sure they're right about a very small minority.) Some radicals say that any willful attempt to obey any of God's commandments is a rejection of grace. Fortunately, most Christians reject those people in turn.

The Controversy

Of course, all of this means I've put together quite a few words on the subject of whether a follower of Yeshua--or Jesus, if you prefer...it's the same man--ought to obey the full Law of God or not.

A point of clarification on "the Law of God"... Some people make a distinction between the Law of God and the Law of Moses. The distinction is mostly artificial. The instructions that God gave through Moses at Sinai are a written expression of the Law of God. The Law of Moses is the Law of God as it was conveyed in a specific time and space, to a specific people as part of a specific covenant.

Below, I have attempted to catalog all of my online teachings on Torah-keeping, organized by sub-topic, but not in any other kind of order. There's a lot of overlap, and I'm sure to forget some articles or videos, so please search American Torah, Soil from Stone, Rumble, YouTube, and other sites for more from myself and many other fine teachers.

A caveat if you do search for other defenses or refutations of Torah-keeping, though: There is a vast spectrum of quality in the content you will find. Unless you are very thoroughly versed in the Scriptures and confident in your beliefs, I recommend that you set aside the teachings of anyone who denies the divinity of Yeshua or who denies that God has any objective standards of morality for his people.

Salvation by Faith

New Covenant vs Old Covenant

Does the Law Apply to Christians?

Under the Law

The Weekly Sabbath

Other Appointed Times

Food and Not Food

The Weightier Matters: Love Your Neighbor

Over the past two decades I have spent a lot of time discovering what it means to follow Torah. We all know that the essence of the Law is love: Love God with all your being, and love your neighbor as yourself. I have tried to learn how that applies to waking up in the morning, to eating lunch, to watching television, and to building relationships.

I can follow the right calendar, keep all the biblical feasts, not keep any "pagan" feasts, and avoid all the wrong foods and still not really live Torah. I know people who have never given a thought to whether or not they should eat a seafood salad, but who follow Torah much more closely than I do. The couple who give all their time to the spiritual redemption of murderers and thieves, the man who volunteers day after day to serve hot meals at the Rescue Mission, the woman who spends her afternoons teaching art to neglected and hard-to-teach children, the child who saves his allowance all year to buy Christmas presents for everyone but himself.

For if anyone is a hearer of the Word and not a doer, he is like a man studying his natural face in a mirror. For he studied himself and went his way, and immediately he forgot what he was like. But whoever looks into the perfect Law of liberty and continues in it, he is not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work. This one shall be blessed in his doing. If anyone thinks to be religious among you, yet does not bridle his tongue, but deceives his own heart, this one’s religion is vain. Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, to visit orphans and widows in their afflictions, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world….If a brother or sister is naked and destitute of daily food, and if one of you says to them, Go in peace, be warmed and filled, but you do not give them those things which are needful to the body, what good is it?

-James, the Just

The Weak and Worthless Elemental Principles of Pagan Rome

After a series of violent conflicts between Rome and the Jews in the late first and early second centuries, the gentile converts to the Jewish sect alternately known as the Way, the Nazarenes, and the Christians, pushed hard to distance themselves from the hated upstarts. Since most of the Empire couldn't tell the difference, it took a long while to make the break final. To put everyone's minds at ease, the gentile Christians decided to change all of their holidays so they could celebrate on the same days as the polytheistic Romans. Then they switched to a Sunday "sabbath" because only those dirty Jews kept God's seventh day Sabbath.

Eventually, the Christians began to look so much like the Jovians that they kind of forgot what the big fuss was about. Peter took over the robes, halo, and statue of of Jupiter. Mary ousted Juno. And Joseph, poor Joseph... Well, Joseph faded into the shadows as an eternally cuckolded almost-husband of Juno...I mean Hera...I mean Mary.

Roman Catholicism is little more than a Latinized Jewish makeover of Roman paganism. Sure, it has lots of ancient traditions and cool hats, but it's missing a lot of Bible. Even more importantly, it's missing the one and only very Jewish Messiah.

It's time to finish the job that the original Protestant reformers began.

Keep the Sabbath, God's Sabbath. Keep the feast days, God's feast days, not the replacements foisted on the illiterate, superstitious masses by the Abomination of Desolation in Rome. Keep the commandments and reject the weak and worthless elementary principles of Rome, because as wise Solomon once wrote, to fear God and to keep His commandments is the whole duty of man.

The Nashville Statement

You've probably heard about the Nashville Statement already. I finally got around to reading it yesterday, and I can't, for the life of me, figure out why any Christians are upset about it. I reaffirms doctrines that have been commonly held by Christians all over the world for two thousand years. It contains no surprises, nothing revolutionary. I might quibble with a few word choices here and there, but overall, I think it's very Biblical and sound. It's not insulting or hateful in any way. It sets out Biblical principals in a straight forward manner.

What could be so offensive about that? Hmm. Maybe it's actually God and God's Law that people don't like. Do you think?

Yeshua had a word or two about those people who call themselves the people of God (whether Christians or Jews) yet reject everything that God said is right and just. (See Revelation 2:14-16, 2:20-23, & 3:9.)

You can read the Statement here.

If Anyone Teaches Contrary to the Words of Jesus

Paul gave this instruction to Timothy who was on a mission to establish congregations among former gentiles in Ephesus:

If anyone teaches otherwise and does not consent to wholesome words, even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the doctrine which accords with godliness, he is proud, knowing nothing, but is obsessed with disputes and arguments over words, from which come envy, strife, reviling, evil suspicions, useless wranglings of men of corrupt minds and destitute of the truth, who suppose that godliness is a means of gain. From such withdraw yourself. (1 Timothy 6:3-5)

So what are the words of Yeshua?

Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. (Matthew 5:17)
Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. (Matthew 5:19)
Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness. These you ought to have done, *without neglecting the others*. (Matthew 23:23)
If you love me, you will keep my commandments. (John 14:15)
Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him. (John 14:21)
If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love. (John 15:10)

God Never Forgets or Annuls a Covenant

A: V2 - I am YHWH

B: V3-4 - I made a covenant with Abraham, Isaac, & Jacob to give them the land

C: V5 - I have heard the people groaning under the Egyptians

D: V6 - I am YHWH

C: V6-7 - I will rescue the people from Egypt

B: V8a - I will fulfill the covenant I made with Abraham, Isaac, & Jacob

A: V8b - I am YHWH

This chiasm in Exodus 6:2-8 demonstrates that God cannot forget or annul a covenant because faithfulness is an inherent aspect of His character. If He is YHWH and He never changes, then He will never forget His covenants.

Even more interestingly--and one of those characteristics of the text, which testifies to its divine origins--is a second chiasm embedded within the second half of the first:

A: V6 – I am YHWH
B: I will bring you out
C: I will deliver you from slavery
D: I will redeem you
E: V7 – I will take you to be my people
F: I will be your God
E: You will know that I am YHWH your God
D: Who brought you out of Egypt
C: V8 – I will bring you into the land
B: I will give it to you for a possession
A: I am YHWH

The Law, Rightfully Used

Making Torah (aka the Law) the object of our lives leads inevitably to failure. We ought never to keep God’s Law for the sake of the Law itself nor for the sake of the veneer of righteousness that it provides, but for the sake of the Lawgiver who gave us His Torah out of love for us and a desire to see us succeed as children of God and citizens of His Kingdom. Torah is a blessing and a guide to those who keep it out of love for our Creator and Redeemer. It is a curse and an obstacle to those who attempt to keep it pridefully. (Romans 9:30-32)

Galatians and Torah, the short version

Peter said that Paul's writings are difficult to understand and easily distorted by those who don't already have a solid Scriptural education. He called them ignorant, unstable, and lawless. (2 Peter 3:15-17) Keep that in mind whenever Paul seems to be clear and straightforward. Verify what he wrote against what the rest of Scripture says.

The controversy that Paul battled throughout his ministry was never about whether the Torah was good or worth keeping. He claimed to have kept the Law his whole life. The controversy was always about the definition of Torah, its purpose, and how it should be taught.

Is God's Torah defined only by the five books of Moses? Does it also include oral traditions? Does it include all of the Jewish traditions as well as the complete set of all Sanhedrin rulings? Can a person be "saved" by obedience? Can a gentile convert be allowed into fellowship without being fully converted to Judaism, including having been circumcised? Or can gentile converts ignore Torah altogether? These were the questions over which Paul argued with the "party of the circumcision". (Acts 15)

The Letter to the Galatians wasn't written to Jews; it was written to formerly pagan gentiles. When Paul talks about them returning to slavery under "weak and worthless elementary principles of the world", he can't possibly be talking about God's Law. (Galatians 4:9) They weren't keeping the Law before, so how could they return to it? And how could he justify calling God's Law weak, worthless, or worldly, when the Bible says the opposite literally hundreds of times? (See Psalm 119 for a number of examples.) The Galatians were keeping the laws of false gods and of men before they met Paul, things that are truly weak, worthless, and worldly, so it seems logical that these are the things Paul meant.

The voluminous traditions of the scribes and Pharisees, the rules for ritual conversion to Judaism (although it wasn't called that at the time), the circumcision of grown men, extra-Biblical fasts and feasts...all of these things are the laws of men, not of God. Paul never taught against the Law of God, but he incessantly taught against the anti-God laws of men.

He also taught that obedience to God's Law was not necessary for salvation, and the Jerusalem Council clearly agreed with him. (Acts 15 and 21) The law can't do anything for a faithless sinner except to point out and prove his sin. That's a useful function, but it's not where the Torah truly shines. Although Paul taught that obedience to Torah was never a requirement of salvation, all of his teachings were founded on Torah. Every instruction he gave to the gentile congregations was based on the five books of Moses. He called Torah good, just, and holy.

In claiming that salvation was by faith and not by strict obedience to rules, whether God's or man's, he didn't nullify the Law, but he established it. (Romans 3) We, whose hope is in Yeshua rather than in ourselves or some mere prophet, establish God's Law as the light it was intended to be by walking it out in our lives. Not instantly or as a prerequisite for salvation, but learning it gradually, working out out our salvation through study, prayer, and by every day walking a little closer to God's standards with full faith in His mercy to forgive our inevitable missteps.

Fear God and keep His commandments, for this remains the whole duty of a righteous man. (Ecclesiastes 12:13)

See also The Multifacted Law of God, Does Acts 15 Say We Can Ignore God's Law?, and Choosing to Sit in a Prison of Your Own Making.

What Does It Mean To Be Holy?

As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, since it is written, "You shall be holy, for I am holy." (1 Peter 1:14-16)

Where is that written “You shall be holy, for I am holy?”

That would be right here:

"Every swarming thing that swarms on the ground is detestable; it shall not be eaten. Whatever goes on its belly, and whatever goes on all fours, or whatever has many feet, any swarming thing that swarms on the ground, you shall not eat, for they are detestable. You shall not make yourselves detestable with any swarming thing that swarms, and you shall not defile yourselves with them, and become unclean through them. For I am the LORD your God. Consecrate yourselves therefore, and be holy, for I am holy. You shall not defile yourselves with any swarming thing that crawls on the ground.” (Leviticus 11:41-44)

Choosing to Sit in a Theological Prison of Your Own Making

"I am the LORD; I have called you in righteousness; I will take you by the hand and keep you; I will give you as a covenant for the people, a light for the nations, to open the eyes that are blind, to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon, from the prison those who sit in darkness." Isaiah 42:6-7 ESV

Throughout Isaiah 42 God speaks as if to an individual person. The word "you" in verses 6-7 is singular and verses 1-4 define the object as God's chosen servant. While this prophecy is ostensibly about the nation of Israel, it also seems to be addressed to the Messiah, and, in fact, the aging prophet Simeon alluded to this passage when he met the infant Yeshua for the first time:

"Lord, now you are letting your servant depart in peace, according to your word; for my eyes have seen your salvation that you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and for glory to your people Israel." Luke 2:29-32 ESV

However, prophecy frequently has dual meanings, even dual subjects. Since the roles of Israel and the Messiah are parallel in some ways, it isn't surprising that many prophecies use the same words to address both subjects. While Simeon (and many teachers throughout history) applied Isaiah 42 to Yeshua, Yeshua himself applied it to his twelve disciples, perhaps as a proxy for the twelve tribes of Israel:

"You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven." Matthew 5:14-16 ESV

Bible commentators like John Gill, a 19th century English theologian, (and myself too) often forget this principle of dual application and latch onto a single possible interpretation of a prophetic passage, sometimes even excluding the plain and most obvious meaning. Concerning Isaiah 42:6, Gill wrote,

'"I the Lord have called thee in righteousness..." Not the Prophet Isaiah, as Jarchi and Aben Ezra (two medieval rabbis) interpret it; nor the people of Israel, as Kimchi; but the Messiah, whom Jehovah called to the office of Mediator, in a righteous way and manner, consistent with his own perfections.'

Gill recognized the reference to Messiah, but dismissed the possibility that the same prophecy could apply to Messiah, Elijah, and the whole nation all at the same time. He was a very intelligent and thoughtful man, but I think this is a typical error of people used to more binary, Greco-Roman patterns of thought.

Think of prophecy as a gem with multi-dimensional images embedded below the surface. The very same stone could present a very different picture depending on how you turn it and on what light you place it under. Even while I offer possible interpretations of some of the elements of this prophecy, keep in mind that these are only possible interpretations and possibly only one of multiple completely valid interpretations.

Isaiah 42:7 talks about three different kinds of people who need to be freed by the light.

The blind - As in Isaiah 29:18, these are people who are ignorant of the truth through unfortunate circumstances. They were born to a pagan nation or unbelieving parents who never taught them, etc.
Those chained in prison - These are people who have been restrained from finding the truth by unjust rulers, such as the people of North Korea.
People who sit in prison - These are people who have rejected the truth in favor of lies, who wilfully remain in darkness. They are atheists and people who attend church and hear the word--at least in part--but refuse to believe it or to put it into practice.

The tragic mistake that many make shows clearly in John Gill's comments to this verse:

'"and them that sit in darkness out of the prison house": of sin, Satan, and the law; being under which, they were in a state of darkness and ignorance as to things divine and spiritual. The allusion is to prisons, which are commonly dark places. Vitringa [a 17-18th century Dutch theologian], by the "prisoners", understands the Jews shut up under the law; and by those in "darkness" the Gentiles, destitute of all divine knowledge.'

In other words, rather than being a light to the world, Vitringa, Gill, and many Christians believed that the Jews are imprisoned in darkness by God's Law, the very Law about which God said "YHWH was pleased, for his righteousness' sake, to magnify his Law and make it glorious," just 14 verses later in the same chapter of Isaiah.

Keeping the Law doesn't keep a person in prison. Quite to the contrary, God's Law is a source of light and understanding.

The law of the LORD is perfect, reviving the soul; the testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the simple. Psalms 19:7 ESV

How can the Law keep its adherents in a prison of darkness even while keeping it revives the soul and makes the simple to be wise?

Gill wasn't entirely incorrect. The Law can be a prison to those who use it wrongly, but it can be a liberator if it is used as it was intended. Many of the Sadducees, Pharisees, and others were (and still are) trapped in a rigid system of obedience to a set of rules that are based on the Torah, but are actually contrary to it. Like so many Christians today, they believed that if you obeyed God's Law perfectly, then you would earn a certain place in God's affections. To keep from breaking one rule or another, they added more rules on top of Torah like fences around a cliff's edge. If you can't get close to the edge, you can't fall over!

Such rules are fine if they really help you to stay on the straight and narrow and as long as you remember that they themselves are not God's Law. Unfortunately, by overemphasizing one rule, the Sadducees forgot or misinterpreted a host of others, and by adding more and more fences, the Pharisees ended up fencing off large portions of the Law itself. In their zeal to prevent people from breaking the Law, they prevented people from keeping it!

Because of his antinomian preconceptions, John Gill took one possible interpretation of Isaiah's prison of darkness and dismissed all others, thereby missing a very important message that was repeated throughout Scripture from Genesis to Revelation:

"Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished. Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven." Matthew 5:17-19 ESV

Yeshua anticipated and refuted John Gill's rejection of Torah 1700 years before he penned it. Unfortunately for Dr. Gill, he turned away from the light that was offered, choosing instead to remain sitting in his prison, writing about how unfortunate those Jews are because of the prison that God so lovingly imposed upon them.

Law & Grace in Circumcision & Passover

You have no doubt heard all your life about how Grace and Law are polar opposites, how you cannot be saved by Grace if you are committed to obeying the Law. This is directly contrary to the overall witness of Scripture. I will show you Grace and Law are not only not incompatible, but are absolutely necessary to each other.

Let's start in Ezekiel 16:6:

And when I passed by you and saw you squirming in your blood, I said to you in your blood, Live! Yes, I said to you in your blood, Live!

Albert Barnes wrote,

In thy blood - may be connected either with “I said” or with “Live.” In the latter case, the state of blood and defilement is made the very cause of life...

So that the last phrase in the verse could be rendered, "Yes, I said to you, 'Live through your blood.'" In other words, the blood brings life. But why does God say it twice?

In "Circumcision: The Individual's Covenant with God" Rabbi Yohanasan Gefen wrote that each iteration of this statement refers to a different shedding of blood. The first statement refers to the circumcision of Abraham, while the second refers to the Passover Lamb.

Circumcision represents our decision to commit ourselves to God, while the Passover Lamb represents God's decision to commit himself to us. Faith gets you inside the house as the angel of death passes over, but you can't eat the Passover Lamb unless you are circumcised. Without both commitments, we are lost and we have to accept both of them, hence we are commanded to eat of the Lamb by both Moses and Yeshua.

Circumcision was a physical manifestation of Abraham's faith in God's promises. He circumcised his flesh and the flesh of all of the males in his house, including Ishmael, as an outward sign of his complete trust in God's faithfulness. However, circumcision in itself was not the means of Abraham's salvation. It didn't replace his faith, and the act of cutting himself did not cause God to keep his promise of an heir and a great inheritance.

Consider Ishmael. He was circumcised also, but he did not inherit the covenant. Many years before the circumcision, God promised Abraham a son. When he began to doubt, he tried to force God's promise through his own power. Ishmael was conceived through his father's mistrust of God and a reliance on works to earn God's favors. Obedience alone will never be enough to warrant inclusion in the covenant with Abraham; one must also have faith.

But faith in what? In the Messiah Yeshua, our Passover Lamb whose blood covers us and takes away our sins. This is the ultimate inheritance of the children of Abraham, and the ultimate reason we must keep God's Law.

We do not (cannot!) obey to earn God's favor or to bribe or force him to keep his promises. God is faithful whether we are or not. No, we obey because we believe. If we believe in God's faithfulness to provide an atonement for us and to forgive us our sins, then we will obey him. Obedience follows true faith, and there are only two reasons why a a person would not keep God's Law:

Ignorance of his requirements, such as is the case with those many Christians who have been deceived their entire lives to believe that God didn't mean what he said.
Lack of faith. As James said, "Show me your faith without works, and I will show you my faith by my works." There is no such thing as faith without works. A lack of works always indicates a lack of faith.

As I have said over and over, this does not mean that anyone is saved by their works. Abraham did not circumcise himself before his faith, but because of it. We do not keep God's Law to earn salvation, but because we are saved. Likewise, a person can be perfectly obedient to every point of the Law and still be eternally lost because they put their hope for salvation in obedience instead of in God's faithfulness.

I can't tell you how many sermons I heard growing up in the Assemblies of God about how the Law was replaced by Grace. Even at the time it all seemed a little hypocritical. If the Law was done away (or "fulfilled" away) why did Jesus, Paul, Peter, James, and others spend so much time talking about it? Why do we put the Ten Commandments up on the Sunday School walls?

The Bible was very little help. James clearly wrote that the Law was still in effect, and Peter wrote that you had to have a good foundation in the scriptures (the Law and the Prophets) in order to understand Paul's letters. But why should an understanding of the Law be important to understand someone who used so much ink telling us to forget the Law?

"Don't take James so literally," I was told. "He's talking about a new spiritual law that has replaced the old written law."

OK, but what about Peter? He couldn't have been writing about spiritual scriptures. Scriptures means "writings". If they only exist on a spiritual plane, how can they be written? And how could one study writings that aren't written?

As I have demonstrated through numerous arguments elsewhere, that was all so much hot air and wishful thinking. The fact is that the Bible is only no help if you have assumed a priori that the Law is irrelevant to the Christian.

Grace and Law were never in opposition, but were always complementary. You cannot be saved by Grace unless you are first convicted by the Law, and you cannot be saved by God's Grace unless you are also committed to obeying God's Law. How can a person claim to believe in someone else if they refuse to believe what the other person has said?

Law and Grace are not opposed to one another, but are merely two sides of the same coin. If you are not committed to obeying God's commandments, then you cannot be heir to his promises. And if you are not under God's Grace, then all the obedience in the world will earn you nothing but damnation.

Love?

Leviticus 19:18 Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself: I am the LORD.

Leviticus 19:34 But the stranger that dwelleth with you shall be unto you as one born among you, and thou shalt love him as thyself; for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God.

Deuteronomy 6:5 And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.

Deuteronomy 10:12 And now, Israel, what doth the LORD thy God require of thee, but to fear the LORD thy God, to walk in all his ways, and to love him, and to serve the LORD thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul,

Deuteronomy 10:19 Love ye therefore the stranger: for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt.

Deuteronomy 11:1 Therefore thou shalt love the LORD thy God, and keep his charge, and his statutes, and his judgments, and his commandments, alway.

Deuteronomy 13:3 ...for the LORD your God proveth you, to know whether ye love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul.

Deuteronomy 30:16 ...I command thee this day to love the LORD thy God, to walk in his ways, and to keep his commandments and his statutes and his judgments, that thou mayest live and multiply: and the LORD thy God shall bless thee in the land whither thou goest to possess it.

Joshua 22:5 But take diligent heed to do the commandment and the law, which Moses the servant of the LORD charged you, to love the LORD your God, and to walk in all his ways, and to keep his commandments, and to cleave unto him, and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul.

Joshua 23:11 Take good heed therefore unto yourselves, that ye love the LORD your God.

Nehemiah 1:5 ...O LORD God of heaven, the great and terrible God, that keepeth covenant and mercy for them that love him and observe his commandments...

Psalms 31:23 O love the LORD, all ye his saints: for the LORD preserveth the faithful, and plentifully rewardeth the proud doer.

Psalms 97:10 Ye that love the LORD, hate evil: he preserveth the souls of his saints; he delivereth them out of the hand of the wicked.

Proverbs 10:12 Hatred stirreth up strifes: but love covereth all sins.

Proverbs 17:9 He that covereth a transgression seeketh love; but he that repeateth a matter separateth very friends.

Matthew 5:44 ...Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you.

Matthew 19:19 ...Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.

Mark 12:29-31 And Jesus answered him, The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord: (30) And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment. (31) And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these.

Mark 12:33 And to love him with all the heart, and with all the understanding, and with all the soul, and with all the strength, and to love his neighbour as himself, is more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.

John 14:15 If ye love me, keep my commandments.

John 15:9 As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you: continue ye in my love.

John 15:12 This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you.

Romans 12:10 Be kindly affectioned one to another with brotherly love; in honour preferring one another;

Romans 13:9 For this, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, Thou shalt not covet; and if there be any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this saying, namely, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.

Ephesians 4:2-3 With all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering, forbearing one another in love; (3) Endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.

Ephesians 5:1-2 Be ye therefore followers of God, as dear children; (2) And walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweetsmelling savour.

Ephesians 5:25 Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it;

1 Thessalonians 3:12 And the Lord make you to increase and abound in love one toward another, and toward all men, even as we do toward you:

1 Thessalonians 4:9 But as touching brotherly love ye need not that I write unto you: for ye yourselves are taught of God to love one another.

1 Timothy 6:11 But thou, O man of God, flee these things; and follow after righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, meekness.

Titus 2:4 ...teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children...

Hebrews 10:24 And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works...

Hebrews 13:1 Let brotherly love continue.

James 2:8 If ye fulfil the royal law according to the scripture, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself, ye do well...

1 Peter 1:22 Seeing ye have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit unto unfeigned love of the brethren, see that ye love one another with a pure heart fervently.

1 Peter 2:17 Honour all men. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honour the king.

1 Peter 3:8-9 Finally, be ye all of one mind, having compassion one of another, love as brethren, be pitiful, be courteous: (9) Not rendering evil for evil, or railing for railing: but contrariwise blessing; knowing that ye are thereunto called, that ye should inherit a blessing.

1 John 3:11 For this is the message that ye heard from the beginning, that we should love one another.

1 John 3:18 My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth.

1 John 4:7-8 Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. (8) He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.

1 John 4:21 And this commandment have we from him, That he who loveth God love his brother also.

2 John 1:5-6 And now I beseech thee, lady, not as though I wrote a new commandment unto thee, but that which we had from the beginning, that we love one another. (6) And this is love, that we walk after his commandments. This is the commandment, That, as ye have heard from the beginning, ye should walk in it.

Love. Love. Love. Love. Love.

We are commanded over and over again to love, but do we even know what love is? The scriptures are clear to an extent: To love God is to obey his commandments. To love others is to feed the hungry, to clothe the naked, to heal the sick. We have heard these things so many times that they have become meaningless!

What does it really mean to feed the hungry? Do we all need to go volunteer at the local Rescue Mission? Should we haul a pot of soup under the nearest bridge? What? What if there aren't any destitute nearby? What if you don't know where to find them? Should we just give some money to the Salvation Army and let them handle it? Is it enough just to be kind to those closest to you?

What does it really mean to obey God's commands? Do I love God if I wear my tzitziyot religiously? Do I love him if I read the Torah and teach it to others? What!?

It truly bothers me that I am asking these questions. I feel that I should know without any hesitation what it means to love in every circumstance. I pray for the time when God's law will be fully written on my heart, but that day isn't now. There are many things that I don't understand, many instances in which I have not shown love or even knew what love would be.

I have written a book examining the manual on marital and familial love, and I intend to write a few more, but still my understanding of love has not approached what it ought to be. This will be the focus of my Torah studies from now on because if keeping Torah doesn't teach you to love, then you are not keeping Torah. "Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and pharisees you will in no case enter the kingdom of heaven." The pharisees didn't love God; they loved their traditions. If you obey all the rules and say all the right things, yet don't have love, you don't have anything.

Love is the Law

If you love God, you will obey his commands.
If you are not obeying God's commands, you do not love God.
If you love God, you will love your neighbor.
If you do not love your neighbor, you are not obeying God's commands.
If you do not love your neighbor, you do not love God.

What, then, does it mean to love your neighbor?

Funny you should ask. God gave us a book all about it.

Update: After I wrote this, I listened to another sermon from Jim Staley called "Love vs. Law." It's good, but quite long.

Anarchy and the Christian Government

I dislike the word "anarchy". It's ambiguous. To one person it's a political theory characterized by idealized natural law, cooperation, and brotherhood. To another it's a nightmare of chaos and violence in which the strong enslave the weak and take what they want by force.

The original Greek word anarchos translates to "no ruler". According to Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, "anarchy" refers to "a state of lawlessness or political disorder due to the absence of governmental authority" or the "absence of order". And indeed, this is what most people have in mind when they use it. They think of slavery and incessant warfare; they think of Beirut or Somalia, not Utopia. Unfortunately, like so many English words, "anarchy" has two, opposing meanings. The same dictionary entry lists this as an alternate meaning: "a utopian society of individuals who enjoy complete freedom without government". In other words, the political philosophy commonly called anarchy describes a society in which no one rules over anyone else: each person is free to pursue their own interests without interference. The essence of modern anarchy is voluntary socialism, not unrestrained violence.

In reality, neither could ever exist for long in a world of humans. Both states are contrary to human nature. People are naturally selfish and are almost always looking for a way to get an unfair advantage over everyone else. Yet they are also social creatures; they require interaction with their fellows to exist happily. Eventually they tire of their oppressors and form permanent governments to promote their corporate interests. Anarchy just couldn't happen unless it were forced, and then it would no longer be anarchy. And so, I'm sure you can understand my frustration when people equate libertarianism to anarchy.

Libertarianism is not anarchy (I apologize to those self-described anarchists for my profane use of the word throughout this essay; I use it in its more base sense to more effectively convey my meaning to those most opposed to my own philosophy); minarchy might be a better term. Libertarians are generally rational creatures who understand that with liberty comes responsibility, and that at times people must be forced to accept responsibility. The current state of affairs in America in which citizens are forced to accept responsibility where they have no liberty or are offered liberty but denied responsibility will devolve into chaos long before a libertarian society would do so. The former is slavery while the latter is hedonism, neither of which is compatible with libertarianism.

A slave must work for others and is not allowed to make his own choices in matters of personal morality. In the United States, for one-half of the year you work for others under the threat of violence: if you choose not to work for my benefit, the sheriff will remove you from your home and possibly imprison you. Also in the United States, by claiming some underprivileged or victimized status you are free to kill, steal, and destroy without fear of reprisal. In some cases, if you refuse to live off the stolen lives of others, organizations like Child Protective Services may threaten to take your children.

According to the Apostle Paul the role of government is to be a terror to evil, and so far as government confines itself to that role for which God has ordained it, it does well (Romans 13:1-5). But when it steps beyond those bounds, assuming authority which God has not granted it, government becomes a terror to both the wicked and the righteous. And is that not the anarchy that we fear so much? The rule of whim rather than the rule of law? From this we Christians must ask if the role of government then is to enforce righteousness. (Thanks, Christlib!)

Jesus said that the Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath. I would extend that thought to say that all of the Law (by the "Law" I mean the laws given by Moses and codified in first five books of the Bible) was made for man and not man for the Law. Paul wrote that God gave the Law to highlight our failings and make God's righteousness evident (Romans 3:19-31). "But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus."

So the Law is important, but it is not all important. To make enforcement of the Law the central purpose of our lives is to commit the sin of the Pharisees whom Jesus called hypocrites. It is not an object to be worshipped, but a template to be applied to our lives as we are able.

Like the law and everything else that God has given us, government is a tool to be used to our benefit, not a master to enslave us. George Washington said, "Government is not reason; it is not eloquence. It is force. And force like fire is a dangerous servant and a fearful master." I am imperfect. I understand God's Word and His Law imperfectly. Would it be right to give me the power to interpret that Law and enforce my interpretation onto you? No matter how wise a leader may be, he will not live forever and someone else will have to take his place. Will that person be as wise? But they will inherit the same power and more, for government does not willingly give up authority, but jealously guards what it has and constantly accumulates more. To give today's wise ruler the authority to enforce his ideas of righteousness, is to give tomorrow's fool the power to enforce his. Washington knew this and refused the power he could have had. To allow government to master us is to invite the anarchy which looms imminent under the current marriage of slavery and hedonism.

There is only one political philosophy in America today that offers to limit government to its God-ordained role: libertarianism. No, not all people who call themselves libertarians are good people, let alone righteous people. But they at least avoid the hypocrisy of others who seek to use government force to enslave the rest of us to their own hedonism. They are willing to hold themselves responsible for their liberty. More importantly, they are willing to hold you responsible for your liberty.

It is a good thing to live your life according to the Law, but it is not the function of the Church or of the Government or of anyone else to force you to do so. It is a choice you must make on your own, and that you must not allow others to make for you.