THE NEW TESTAMENT VALIDATES TORAH Does the New Testament Really Do Away With the Law?

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1 THE NEW TESTAMENT VALIDATES TORAH Does the New Testament Really Do Away With the Law?

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3 THE NEW TESTAMENT VALIDATES TORAH Does the New Testament Really Do Away With the Law? R E F E R E N C E E D I T I O N J.K. McKee

4 The New Testament Validates Torah Does the New Testament Really Do Away With the Law? 2006, 2008, 2012 John Kimball McKee first edition 2004 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the author(s). Cover photos: Istockphoto Published by Messianic Apologetics, a division of Outreach Israel Ministries P.O. Box Richardson, Texas (407) originally produced by TNN Press 2012 in Kissimmee, Florida Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are from the New American Standard, Updated Edition (NASU), 1995, The Lockman Foundation. Unless otherwise noted, quotations from the Apocrypha are from the Revised Standard Version (RSV), 1952, Division of Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America.

5 Dedication The New Testament Validates Torah is dedicated to my spiritual and ancestral forbearers in both the Reformed and Wesleyan theological traditions. These were men and women who have always valued the moral instructions of God from the Old Testament as a standard of Christian holiness and piety, emulating the life and faithfulness of our Lord and Savior, Jesus the Messiah. The moral law doth for ever bind all, as well justified persons as others, to the obedience thereof; and that, not only in regard of the matter contained in it, but also in respect of the authority of God, the Creator, who gave it. Neither doth Christ, in the Gospel, any way dissolve, but much strengthen this obligation. Westminster Standards I cannot spare the law one moment, no more than I can spare Christ: seeing I now want it as much, to keep me to Christ, as I ever wanted it to bring me to him Indeed each is continually sending me to the other, the law to Christ, and Christ to the law. On the one hand, the height and depth of the law constrain me to fly to the love of God in Christ; on the other, the love of God in Christ endears the law to me above gold or precious stones; seeing I know every part of it is a gracious promise, which my Lord will fulfill in its season. John Wesley, Properties of the Law Today s Messianics have the responsibility to build upon the positive work of the generations of those faithful Christians who have preceded us in faith

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7 Table of Contents Preface to the Reference Edition...xi Introduction... xvii PART I HAS THE LAW REALLY BEEN ABOLISHED? 1 Christian Misunderstanding or an Antinomian Assault? Answering: What is the Law? Answering: The Purpose of the Law Answering: No One Should Keep the Law Answering: The Law as a Unit Answering: The Verses Given Against Torah Observance Answering the Claims Matthew 5: John 1: Romans 3: Romans 3: Romans 4: Romans 6: Romans 6: Romans 7: Romans 8:2 & Romans 10: Romans 11: Corinthians 6: Corinthians 10: Corinthians 3: Galatians 2: Galatians 3: Galatians 3:24 & Ephesians 2: Ephesians 2: Philippians 3: Colossians 2: Timothy 1: Timothy 1: Titus 3:5 & Titus 3: Hebrews 7:12 & Hebrews 8: Hebrews 10: Hebrews 10: Answering: Under Grace

8 PART II THE ROLE OF GOD'S TORAH IN THE LIFE OF A BORN AGAIN BELIEVER 8 What is the New Covenant? Jeremiah 31: Ezekiel 36: Romans 11: Hebrews 8: Hebrews 10: Matthew 5:17-19: Has the Law Been Fulfilled? What Does Under the Law Really Mean? Galatians 3: Galatians 4: Galatians 4: Galatians 5: Corinthians 9: Romans 6: James 2: Romans 2: Romans 3: Philippians 3: Hebrews 7: Hebrews 9: Luke 2: What Are Works of the Law? Galatians 2: Galatians 3:2, Galatians 3: Romans 3: Romans 3: The Faithfulness of Yeshua the Messiah Galatians 2: Galatians 3: Romans 3: Philippians 3: Ephesians 3: How Do You Become Torah Observant? About the Author Bibliography

9 Abbreviation Chart and Special Terms The following is a chart of abbreviations for reference works and special terms that are used in publications by Outreach Israel Ministries and Messianic Apologetics. Please familiarize yourself with them as the text may reference a Bible version, i.e., RSV for the Revised Standard Version, or a source such as TWOT for the Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament, solely by its abbreviation. Detailed listings of these sources are provided in the Bibliography. Special terms that may be used have been provided in this chart: ABD: Anchor Bible Dictionary AMG: Complete Word Study Dictionary: Old Testament, New Testament ANE: Ancient Near East(ern) Apostolic Scriptures/Writings: the New Testament Ara: Aramaic ATS: ArtScroll Tanach (1996) b. Babylonian Talmud (Talmud Bavli) B.C.E.: Before Common Era or B.C. BDAG: A Greek English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature (Bauer, Danker, Arndt, Gingrich) BDB: Brown Driver Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon BECNT: Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament BKCNT: Bible Knowledge Commentary: New Testament C.E.: Common Era or A.D. CEV: Contemporary English Version (1995) CGEDNT: Concise Greek English Dictionary of New Testament Words (Barclay M. Newman) CHALOT: Concise Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament CJB: Complete Jewish Bible (1998) DRA: Douay Rheims American Edition DSS: Dead Sea Scrolls ECB: Eerdmans Commentary on the Bible EDB: Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible eisegesis: reading meaning into, or interjecting a preconceived or foreign meaning into a Biblical text EJ: Encylopaedia Judaica ESV: English Standard Version (2001) exegesis: drawing meaning out of, or the process of trying to understand what a Biblical text means on its own EXP: Expositor s Bible Commentary Ger: German GNT: Greek New Testament Grk: Greek halachah: lit. the way to walk, how the Torah is lived out in an individualʹs life or faith community HALOT: Hebrew & Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament (Koehler and Baumgartner) HCSB: Holman Christian Standard Bible (2004) Heb: Hebrew HNV: Hebrew Names Version of the World English Bible ICC: International Critical Commentary IDB: Interpreter s Dictionary of the Bible IDBSup: Interpreter s Dictionary of the Bible Supplement ISBE: International Standard Bible Encyclopedia IVPBBC: IVP Bible Background Commentary (Old & New Testament) Jastrow: Dictionary of the Targumim, Talmud Bavli, Talmud Yerushalmi, and Midrashic Literature (Marcus Jastrow) JBK: New Jerusalem Bible Koren (2000) JETS: Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society KJV: King James Version Lattimore: The New Testament by Richmond Lattimore (1996) LITV: Literal Translation of the Holy Bible by Jay P. Green (1986) LS: A Greek English Lexicon (Liddell & Scott) LXE: Septuagint with Apocrypha by Sir L.C.L. Brenton (1851) LXX: Septuagint m. Mishnah MT: Masoretic Text NASB: New American Standard Bible (1977) NASU: New American Standard Update (1995) NBCR: New Bible Commentary: Revised NEB: New English Bible (1970) Nelson: Nelson s Expository Dictionary of Old Testament Words NETS: New English Translation of the Septuagint (2007) NIB: New Interpreter s Bible NIGTC: New International Greek Testament Commentary NICNT: New International Commentary on the New Testament NIDB: New International Dictionary of the Bible NIV: New International Version (1984) NJB: New Jerusalem Bible Catholic (1985) NJPS: Tanakh, A New Translation of the Holy Scriptures (1999) NKJV: New King James Version (1982) NRSV: New Revised Standard Version (1989) NLT: New Living Translation (1996) NT: New Testament orthopraxy: lit. the right action, how the Bible or oneʹs theology is lived out in the world OT: Old Testament PreachC: The Preacher s Commentary REB: Revised English Bible (1989) RSV: Revised Standard Version (1952) t. Tosefta Tanach (Tanakh): the Old Testament Thayer: Thayer s Greek English Lexicon of the New Testament TDNT: Theological Dictionary of the New Testament TEV: Today s English Version (1976)

10 TLV: Tree of Life Messianic Family Bible New Covenant (2011) TNIV: Today s New International Version (2005) TNTC: Tyndale New Testament Commentaries TWOT: Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament UBSHNT: United Bible Societies 1991 Hebrew New Testament revised edition v(s). verse(s) Vine: Vine s Complete Expository Dictionary of Old and New Testament Words Vul: Latin Vulgate WBC: Word Biblical Commentary Yid: Yiddish YLT: Young s Literal Translation (1862/1898)

11 Preface to the Reference Edition How do many of today s Messianic Believers approach the issue of the validity of the Torah? Many feel that throughout history, the Jewish people have followed the Law, and that Christians have believed that the Law was abolished after the time of Christ. For many cases this is an accurate assessment, yet for many other cases this is not only too simplistic an approach, but it can also cause us as Messianics to foment some negative and inappropriate attitudes toward faithful Christian men and women who have preceded us in the faith. It is not difficult for us to see how not every Jewish person since the time of Yeshua has been obedient to the Torah, and so it should similarly not be too much of a stretch for us to acknowledge that there have been many Christians who have looked to follow Moses Teaching, at least as a guide for ethics and morality. One of the most useful and important exercises that I conducted during the completion of my M.A. in Biblical Studies at Asbury Theological Seminary ( ) was to read the analysis contained in Stephen Westerholm s book Perspectives Old and New on Paul. While his purpose was to address a contemporary debate in terms of the Jewish background of the Apostle s letters, several of the opening chapters were most useful, as they summarized the approach that three significant figures of Protestant Christianity had in terms of the relevancy of the Mosaic Torah for Christians: Martin Luther, John Calvin, and John Wesley. i What was basically presented is that two of the three main Reformation traditions had a largely positive view of the Torah (Calvinism, Wesleyanism), as including foundational instruction and commandments that all of God s people were to follow what is often termed to be the moral law with the other tradition tending to pit God s Law and God s grace against themselves as polar opposites (Lutheranism). It is very true that a distinction within the Torah between commandments that are classified as being moral, civil, or ceremonial is a bit artificial. ii It cannot be denied, though, that throughout much of post Reformation history the two great theological traditions of both Calvinism and Wesleyanism have largely looked to the Mosaic Law and the Ten Commandments to include ethical principles that all followers of Jesus Christ are to obey and not disregard. These are arguably the two main Protestant strands that have made the most amount of positive difference in Western society, either through the promotion of what is called the Protestant work ethic (Calvinism), or simply encouraging faithful Christians to be active in their communities and in accomplishing significant humanitarian works (Wesleyanism). This is important to someone such as myself, whose religious background from both sides of my family is principally Methodist and Presbyterian. At no time in evangelical Christianity was I ever raised or taught to believe that the Law of Moses as a whole was abolished by Jesus. While I may have thought that some of its aspects were exclusively for Ancient Israel or the Jews for a time long before me, never would it have been tolerated for me to think that the Ten Commandments were smashed into pieces at the foot of the cross of Christ. i Stephen Westerholm, Perspectives Old and New on Paul: The Lutheran Paul and His Critics (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004), pp, ii The division of the Torah s commandments as witnessed in the six divisions of the Mishnah (Agriculture, Appointed times, Women, Order of Damages, Holy things, Purities) seems to be more accurate. Consult the FAQ on the Messianic Apologetics website, Torah, division of commandments. xi

12 The New Testament Validates Torah It can definitely come as a shock to many of today s Messianic Believers, when they realize that well known figures throughout Christian history have recognized at least in a broad sense that the Torah serves as valid instruction for Believers in Yeshua. Notwithstanding some of the finer points of the Law, one can survey some rather significant works that have molded the Christian psyche since the Reformation, and see how various instructions within Moses Teaching, albeit largely moral, are lauded as being relevant for those who wish to emulate the Lord Jesus. The following are a small snapshot: John Calvin: The third and principal use, which pertains more closely to the proper purpose of the law, finds its place among believers in whose hearts the Spirit of God already lives and reigns. For even though they have the law written and engraved upon their hearts by the finger of God [Jer. 31:33; Heb. 10:16], that is, have been so moved and quickened through the directing of the Spirit that they long to obey God, they still profit by the law Here is the best instrument for them to learn more thoroughly each day the nature of the Lord s will to which they aspire, and to confirm them in the understanding of it. It is as if some servant, already prepared with all earnestness of heart to commend himself to his master, must search out and observe his master s ways more carefully in order to conform and accommodate himself to them. And not one of us may escape from this necessity. For no man has heretofore attained to such wisdom as to be unable, from the daily instruction of the law, to make fresh progress toward a purer knowledge of the divine will. Again, because we need not only teaching but also exhortation, the servant of God will also avail himself of this benefit of the law: by frequent meditation upon it to be aroused to obedience, be strengthened by it, and be drawn back from the slippery path of transgression (Institutes of the Christian Religion ). iii John Wesley: I am afraid this great and important truth is little understood, not only by the world, but even by many whom God hath taken out of the world, who are real children of God by faith. Many of these lay it down as an unquestioned truth, that when we come to Christ, we have done with the law; and that, in this sense, Christ is the end of the law to every one that believeth. the end of the law: so he is, for the righteousness, for justification, to every one that believeth. Herein the law is at an end. It justifies none, but only brings them to Christ; who is also, in another respect, the end, or scope of the law, the point at which it continually aims. But when it has brought us to him, it has yet a farther office, namely, to keep us with him. For it is continually exciting all believers, the more they see of its height, and depth, and length, and breadth, to exhort one another so much the more. Therefore, I cannot spare the law one moment, nor more than I can spare Christ: seeing I now want it as much, to keep me to Christ, as I ever wanted it to bring me to him. Otherwise, this evil heart of unbelief would immediately depart from the living God. Indeed each is continually sending me to the other, the law to Christ, and Christ to the law. On the one hand, the height and depth of the law constrain me to fly to the love of God in Christ; on the other, the love of God in Christ endears the law to me above gold or precious stones; seeing I know every part of it as a gracious promise, which my Lord will fulfill in its season (Sermon #34, Properties of the Law ). iv Dietrich Bonhoeffer: This is the fundamental presupposition of the whole Sermon on the Mount. Jesus manifests his perfect union with the will of God as revealed in the Old Testament law and prophets. He has in fact nothing to add to the commandments of God, except this, that he keeps them. He fulfills the law, and he tells us so himself, therefore it must be true. He iii John T. McNeill, ed., and Ford Lewis Battles, trans., Calvin: Institutes of the Christian Religion, Vol 1 (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1960), pp iv N. Burwash, ed., Wesley s Doctrinal Standards Part I: The Sermons, with Introductions, Analysis, and Notes (Salem, OH: Schmul Publishing, 1988), pp 349, 350. xii

13 Preface to the Reference Edition fulfills the law down to the last iota.jesus vindicates the divine authority of the law. God is its giver and its Lord, and only in personal communion with God is the law fulfilled. There is no fulfillment of the law apart from communion with God, and no communion with God apart from fulfillment of the law (The Cost of Discipleship). v Generally speaking, those Christians who have preceded today s generation of Messianic Believers in faith, who have had a positive view of the Law of Moses, have sub divided it into the moral law, ceremonial law, and civil law. The ceremonial law and civil law are thought to have only been given to Ancient Israel until the destruction of the Second Temple, whereas the moral law was given to all of humanity to be followed by all people for all time. Theologians, who have approached the Torah this way, have undoubtedly had an incomplete picture of its intention but to their credit they have certainly advocated that Yeshua the Messiah did not come to completely abolish the Torah, and perhaps replace it with an under disciplined way of living by the Spirit. What is often classified as composing the moral law makes up a considerable majority of commandments in the Torah. It can be rather easy for us to criticize the approach of dividing the Torah into divisions like the so called moral law and ceremonial law. Rather than be negative toward it, though, we need to instead recognize that figures like Calvin or Wesley, from the Sixteenth and Eighteenth Centuries respectively, were products of their time. They lacked many of the Jewish sources and academic dialogue with the Synagogue from which Twentieth and Twenty First Century scholars benefit. They did the absolute best that they could, by utilizing little more than the Biblical text by itself in Hebrew and Greek, various extant historical works like Josephus and Philo, the writings of the Church Fathers, and different figures from classical history. Even though Protestant countries in Europe were a bit more liberal and understanding toward the Jews than their Roman Catholic counterparts, it was not until the Nineteenth Century that Christian scholars began to really have access to ancient Jewish literature like the Mishnah, Talmud, or Midrashim. Only in the more modern era has direct access to the lands of the Bible become commonplace not to mention the discovery of texts like the Dead Sea Scrolls in 1947! And, how long has it taken such information to finally filter down to the average layperson? Today s Messianic Believers need to appropriately recognize and highly laud the positive benefits that many of our Protestant Christian forbearers have left us. We should be able to emphasize the areas of strong theological agreement and ideological commonality, in our quest to have an even healthier appreciation of the Torah in our faith practice and integration of our Hebraic and Jewish Roots. None of us should ever be caught making unfounded claims about all of the past generations of Christians somehow being lawless, perhaps in violation of the Fifth Commandment (Exodus 20:12; Deuteronomy 5:16), when many of them clearly did not benefit from the information and resources in Biblical Studies that we possess today. On the contrary, all of us know of Christians in our past history or even immediate history, or personal discipleship who made significant contributions to society and were greatly instrumental in the spread of the gospel and the transformative love of Christ to the unsaved of Planet Earth! Many of them had a very high regard for the Law of Moses and the Old Testament for guiding their faith in Yeshua the Messiah (Jesus Christ). In many cases, such previous generations may specifically include various godly and saved persons from our own families, who may very well have followed the Mosaic Law and Ten Commandments to the best of their understanding. We have the definite responsibility to v Dietrich Bonhoeffer: The Cost of Discipleship, revised edition, trans. R.H. Fuller (New York: Collier Books, 1963), pp 137, 138. xiii

14 The New Testament Validates Torah honor and respect their legacies to us, and to recognize the awesome task we have at letting the heritage they have given us, encourage us to continue forward in our faith s reformation (cf. Hebrews 12:1). I ask you to ponder the thoughts of my late third cousin, Dr. Charles L. Allen ( ), vi formerly the pastor of Grace Methodist Church in Atlanta, GA and First Methodist Church in Houston, TX (and who interestingly enough led many Christians on guided tours to Israel). In his best selling book God s Psychiatry, he wrote the following on the importance of the Ten Commandments: We have these rules, known as The Ten Commandments, recorded in Exodus 20. They are not only the basis of conduct, both moral and spiritual, but also the basis of peace and prosperity for the individual and for the world. The Bible says, The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God (Psalm 14:1), and it is only a fool who thinks he is big enough or smart enough to violate the unchangeable laws of the eternal God and get by with it. No man can break God s law, he breaks only himself. vii What does any of this have to do with the book that you are about to read: The New Testament Validates Torah: Does the New Testament Really Do Away With the Law? It has much to do with the fact that since this publication was originally released in 2004, the Messianic conviction that the Torah of Moses remains relevant instruction for born again Believers is something that has had to be further researched, detailed, and fine tuned. My own belief that the Law remains valid is something unchanged, but my ability to defend this position with greater skill, precision, strength, engagement with contemporary Biblical scholarship and relevant ancient literature but most importantly in agreement with many Christian interpreters on the New Testament has certainly improved, if not mushroomed. Being able to demonstrate a thorough approach to what is a controversial subject matter is imperative, as the definite tendency in much of Messianic Bible teaching is to do the exact opposite: make things more simplistic and disengaged from current Biblical Studies. This consequently helps to foment unfair conclusions and grossly negative attitudes that castigate a huge majority of Christians throughout history as being anti Law, when this is not at all the case. Quite contrary to this, the 2010s must be a decade when our still developing and very much emerging Messianic faith community has to become more complex and engaged in its Biblical Studies. Some of our current, negative attitudes demonstrated toward the Christian Church need to seriously change as we learn to focus on how there are many more things we agree, than disagree, on (cf. Ephesians 4:2 6). I have taken considerable strides in our discussion of the Torah s continuance to reference various Christian scholars and theologians who recognize that the Law as a whole has not been abolished by the sacrificial work of the Messiah, and that it is at least to guide Believers ethics and morality. But with this does come our need to fairly dialogue with those Christian scholars and theologians who do believe that the Law of Moses was abolished, and was intended exclusively for the pre resurrection period. This new paperback edition of The New Testament Validates Torah may be considered a Reference Edition because of the information expansions, its conversation with relevant scholars and commentaries, and with more attention given to different Hebrew and Greek linguistic issues. Much of what has been included comes as a direct result of the release of vi Charles Allen was the first cousin of my maternal grandmother, Mary Ruth Franklin Jeffries (1919 ), who herself is the daughter of the late Bishop Marvin A. Franklin ( ), who served as President of the Council of Bishops of the Methodist Church from The information on the Bishop Marvin A. Franklin Historical Marker can be accessed online at <georgiainfo.galileo.usg.edu/gahistmarkers/bishopfranklinhistmarker.htm>. vii Charles L. Allen, God s Psychiatry (Grand Rapids: Fleming H. Revell, 1953), pp xiv

15 Preface to the Reference Edition different volumes in Messianic Apologetics Practical Messianic commentary series. viii It would be a stretch to consider this book like a release of a Jane s Defence manual used by either the CIA or MI 6 in intelligence and warfare. But the purpose of The New Testament Validates Torah providing critical and thorough analyses, from a broad perspective on the continued importance of the Law for God s people today, will undoubtedly aid Messianic Believers should they ever be criticized for their pro Torah convictions. More thoughts, observations, and poignant questions are offered to prime today s Messianic community to be more effective in His service. Because The New Testament Validates Torah deals with the general authority of the Law for Believers, and largely not specific issues, by necessity there is an overlap of content throughout the various chapters with various points repeated especially now with a wider level of scholastic engagement. Many of the finer issues that commonly make up a lifestyle of Torah observance, such as the seventh day Sabbath/Shabbat, the appointed times of Leviticus 23, or the kosher dietary laws, are specifically handled in other articles and materials available from Outreach Israel Ministries. With the various new additions, you will be able to notice some distinct changes made from the last released edition of The New Testament Validates Torah. Chapters have now been divided into Part I and Part II: Has the Law Really Been Abolished? and The Role of God s Torah in the Life of a Born Again Believer. The new material compiled for Part II has been largely taken from various articles I wrote from Even though this paperback edition is highly enlarged, due to space constraints most of the Appendices which appeared in the previous 2008 edition of this book have been transplanted into the Messianic Torah Helper edited by Margaret McKee Huey. This 2011 release of The New Testament Validates Torah can definitely be used as a primer or springboard for you to access the Practical Messianic volumes. J.K. McKee November 2011 viii To date (2011), this includes commentaries (listed in order of release) on: James, Hebrews, Philippians, Galatians, Ephesians, Colossians and Philemon, Acts 15, and the Pastoral Epistles of 1&2 Timothy and Titus. It also includes survey workbooks on the Tanach and Apostolic Scriptures. xv

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17 Introduction It is clear and obvious that the Body of Believers today has lost much of its direction for the future. There are many problems among those in our faith today. The foremost of these problems is the widespread proliferation of sin and unbiblical behavior, which results in people having an ineffective spiritual walk and being unable to fulfill the mission of God in the world. In response, many Believers strongly and rightfully advocate a return to a foundational grounding in the Holy Scriptures. By all means, we could not agree more! This is perhaps most evidenced by the popular question: What Would Jesus Do? Many are earnestly and sincerely seeking the Lord and want Him to have total control over their lives. He is guiding them into His truth and people are being supernaturally changed. Unfortunately for some of those who ask this question, parts of the answer may not come to their liking. The truth is that while our Lord and Savior lived a perfect life and is our example of how to serve and love one another, He also obeyed God s commandments. If we believe that the Messiah is the LORD God made manifest in the flesh, then the commandments of God are in fact His commandments. These commandments are not just vague concepts, but are instructions that we encounter within the first five books of Scripture, the Law of Moses or the Torah. The Torah was given by God to His people to make them holy unto Him and set apart from the world. i And if there is any concept that must be clearly emphasized to today s generation of Believers who want to live like the Lord would expect them, it is separation from the evil of the world! ii We are a generation that largely does not know how to be different from everyone else. Many Christians are of the false assumption that we will impact the world by spending more time blending in with contemporary culture, rather than by being substantially different in our behavior and conduct. The majority of Messianic Believers, including myself, strongly believe that the evangelical Christian community has missed out on many of the eternal truths contained in the Torah. In response to the widespread Christian question What Would Jesus Do? it is clear from the Scriptures that our Messiah Yeshua iii obeyed the Torah. If we truly wish to emulate our Savior in all respects, we will expel the extra effort needed and likewise want to honor and obey the Torah. If we truly want to be spiritually mature, we will cede God more control of our lives and not seek to do what is minimally required. We will heed what Moses Teaching has to say on the ills of modern society! But with this come some serious problems. A majority of Christians, while often wanting to live a life consistent with Scripture, only feel inclined for the most part to follow and study the Apostolic Scriptures or the New Testament. Many fail to realize that the early Believers in the First Century largely had no New Testament, but only had the Old Testament, the Hebrew Bible or the Tanach, iv to follow as their Scriptures. Many Christians today are of the false impression that the Apostolic Scriptures tell us that the Law of Moses or the Torah is no longer i Deuteronomy 28:9. ii John 17:15. iii Yeshua ([:WvyE) is the original Hebrew name of Jesus meaning, He is Salvation (Matthew 1:21). Jesus is derived from the Greek transliteration of Yeshua, Iēsous (VIhsou/j), originally employed by the Greek Septuagint. iv Or in many cases, such Scriptures in their Greek Septuagint translation. xvii

18 The New Testament Validates Torah to be followed and is relatively unimportant for today, if important at all. Many have misinterpreted the Apostolic Scriptures or at least have an incomplete view of them because they do not have a foundation in the Torah and Tanach. On the whole, too many Believers do not know how Yeshua the Messiah was obedient to His Father, nor do they know what it really means when it is said of Yeshua, BEHOLD, I HAVE COME (IN THE SCROLL OF THE BOOK IT IS WRITTEN OF ME) TO DO YOUR WILL, O GOD (Hebrews 10:7; quoting Psalm 40:7). How many know who the Messiah truly is from what Moses communicated of Him and how He was to live (cf. John 1:45)? With the rise of the Messianic movement, and many Believers realizing that in our time God is consciously awakening His sons and daughters to the forgotten truths of His Torah, comes criticism from various Christians regarding our obedience to it. Usually, as it has been my sad observation as a Messianic Bible teacher, vehement discussion among Christians and Messianic Believers can often occur, without any clear, rational, reasoned, or for that matter scholastic examination of Biblical texts. I hope to see this significantly change with The New Testament Validates Torah. I recognize that the message of Torah observance that the Messianic movement widely has is controversial and life changing, and want to assure the most skeptical reader that many of us who follow a Torah obedient walk by keeping the seventh day Sabbath or Shabbat, the Biblical holidays of Leviticus 23, and eating kosher among other things have not done this without careful and reasoned examination of the Scriptures. We have each spent a great deal of time in prayer, seeking the Father s will, desiring to emulate the Messiah Yeshua (Christ Jesus) through the empowerment of the Holy Spirit. We are not trying to earn our salvation, but we are trying to more fully understand what it means to have good works (Matthew 5:16)! The following treatise you are about to read addresses one of the most serious problems among Messianic Believers today. We believe that the Torah should still be followed today, but there are those who have told us that we are in (gross) error because of this belief. They are concerned for us, and believe that at the very least we have become rigidly legalistic in our approach to Scripture, or at the worst we have basically left the company of the redeemed. They quote verses and passages at us from the New Testament that to them demonstrate that the Torah or Law of Moses is not important to be followed by born again Believers. The analysis provided in The New Testament Validates Torah discusses many of these passages from the Apostolic Scriptures, which are provided to supposedly prove that the Law has been done away. These verses are examined in their proper context, and are exegeted from an academic and fair minded Messianic perspective. As this book s author, I do have to sadly say that the point of view and ideology I represent is something that you will often find lacking in various other Messianic works you may encounter. We do have a few of those in our midst who most haphazardly believe that Yeshua the Messiah and the Apostle Paul are at ideological odds, with Paul probably being a false teacher and apostate, or at least as one who was misguided and whose letters are not to be taken too seriously. These are persons, though, who are mostly unable to reasonably engage with the Pauline Epistles in their ancient historical context, and who lack the skills required to examine their Greek source text. While many of these people are overly simplistic in the way they approach topics of spirituality and life, some of them are just flat lazy in committing the necessary time and effort into doing an adequate level of Bible study. The Apostle Peter would rightly say of them, in [Paul s letters] are some things hard to understand, which the untaught and unstable distort, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures, to their own destruction (2 Peter 3:16, emphasis mine). Dismissing books of the canonical Scriptures outright, that you may xviii

19 Introduction have difficulty interpreting, is certainly irresponsible much less the fact that it sets a rather dangerous trend. v Concurrent with this, it is my further sad observation that there is a responsibility on my part to help Messianic Believers work beyond some of the unscholarship that exists in various sectors of our faith community, and set the record straight. Serious problems have been created from the errant belief that the Greek New Testament is not inspired of God and cannot be trusted, and that the Apostolic Scriptures as we have them today are but a bad translation of a Hebrew original that supposedly once existed, which was not anti Law. This assessment is flawed because no historical or textual case can be made for an original Hebrew New Testament, and failure to find a so called Hebrew New Testament had led some away from faith in the Messiah of Israel. vi Let the record show that I fully uphold not only the inspiration of the Hebrew Tanach, but also the Greek Apostolic Scriptures. Yet as you will see in this analysis, the Greek New Testament is not what is in error at all, but varied and biased English translations of various verses that exist today are. Some of these English translations from the Greek are notably disputed by well known and highly respected commentators and will be referenced. Like any good scholar, though, my principal loyalty is to the text! While this publication may not address every issue related to the Torah, I believe it addresses enough to get you thinking and will answer most of your questions in relation to its validity. If you believe that the Law has been done away with, you will most definitely be forced into the Scriptures to reevaluate your beliefs as you read this. If you already believe that the Torah is valid and for today, this analysis will help you in your dealings with others who do not believe so, and will only shore up your confidence in the validity of regularly heeding God s Instruction. Most importantly, it is my hope and prayer that you see in this publication the fact that Torah obedience comes as one willingly submits himself or herself to the will of God, and truly seeks to grow and mature in his or her walk of faith. I pray that this will help you in your walk of faith, and enable you to know our Creator on a deeper level, as He has surely saved you by grace but made you for good works (Ephesians 2:8 10). I know that I have experienced great spiritual growth and change since I embarked on this course, and I want to see you grow in your faith as well! J.K. McKee Editor, Messianic Apologetics v Few of today s Messianics who would embark on this course with the Apostolic Scriptures would ever question the reliability of the Hebrew Tanach, although it is bereft with far more potential problems of historicity and authorship. For a review and relatively conservative approach to the Hebrew Scriptures, consult the author s workbook A Survey of the Tanach for the Practical Messianic. Also useful to consider would be Walter C. Kaiser, The Old Testament Documents: Are They Reliable and Relevant? (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2001), and K.A. Kitchen, On the Reliability of the Old Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003). vi For a detailed examination of this subject, consult the author s workbook A Survey of the Apostolic Scriptures for the Practical Messianic. xix

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