Understanding the the Law's role in Christianity

Many people think the Torah (the Law), often mistranslated as law but literally meaning instructions, is worthless, invalid, and flawed. We need to set the record straight and address this misconception. Jesus' own teachings are inseparable from the Mosaic Law, because he taught from the Torah, and to understand Him requires embracing the profound wisdom within it.

First off, what is the Torah? It is the first five books of the Bible: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, also known as the Pentateuch, from the Greek penta meaning five and teuchos meaning book or scroll. These first five books cover the creation of the world, the history of humanity, the liberation of the Israelites from Egypt, the giving of the law at Mount Sinai, and their journey through the wilderness. The books emphasize God's guidance, moral principles, and the covenant with His people, and sit as the foundation for Israel's history and all of our religious practices.

In John 5:46-47, Yeshua emphasizes the crucial link between belief in Moses and belief in himself. He says that if one believes in Moses they will believe in him, because Moses wrote about him in the Torah. In Luke 24:44 Yeshua drives that home when he told the disciples, "This is what I told you while I was still with you, that all things which were written in the law of Moses, the prophets and the Psalms concerning me must be fulfilled." So understanding the Mosaic Law is key to understanding Yeshua's fulfillment of God's Law and the Prophets, bridging the so-called Old and New Testaments and revealing the depth of God's plan.

Many Christians believe the fallacy that Paul contradicted Yeshua and that he truly said there is no law to adhere to, because Yeshua ended the law by nailing it to the cross. This is a common misunderstanding of what Paul said. Sadly, it has been widely taught and accepted. Most get this from Colossians 2:14 which says, "wiping out the handwriting in ordinances which was against us. He has taken it out of the way, nailing it to the cross." The Greek word Paul uses translated as "handwriting " here is cheirographon, a term for a handwritten certificate of debt, an IOU, not his word for the law itself. Paul is not saying that the entirety of the law is nailed to the cross, but that the penalty of sin and the legal consequences for our transgressions have been. Paul actually taught obedience to the law, as did Christ. 

Here are a few scriptures that show Paul taught this:

Romans 2:13, "For it is not those who hear the law who are righteous in God's sight, but it is those who obey the law who will be declared righteous."

Romans 3:31, "Do we then nullify the law by this faith? Not at all! Rather, we uphold the law."

Romans 7:12, "So then, the law is holy, and the commandment is holy, righteous, and good."

Acts 24:14, "But this I confess to you, that after the Way, which they call a sect, so I serve the God of our fathers, believing all things which are according to the law, and which are written in the prophets;"

If you think Paul taught against the law, it's worth setting aside what you've been taught and asking the Holy Spirit to show you what he actually said. He did not supersede Yeshua, but in practice that's how many believers treat him, quoting Paul to override Yeshua's words without realizing that's what they're doing. The idea that God's teachings and instructions were nailed to the cross with Yeshua is a misunderstanding of what Paul said in Colossians 2:14.

People believe that they understand Paul, but even Peter warned about Paul's teachings and how they are hard to understand. Peter's cautionary words about the difficulty of understanding Paul's teachings serve as a reminder to approach Scripture with humility and discernment. The danger lies in twisting these teachings to fit personal desires rather than submitting to what they actually say. 

In 2 Peter 3:16-17, Peter says, "speaking of these things in all his letters, some things in these letters are hard to understand, things the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they also do with the rest of the writings. Therefore beloved, since you have been forewarned, be on your guard, so that you do not get led astray by the error of these unprincipled men and fall from your firm grasp on the truth."

By ignoring this warning, tradition ends up elevating itself above the words of someone who walked with Yeshua himself. Many claim Paul taught against the law, directly contradicting the teachings of Yeshua and the rest of scripture. Misinterpreting these passages to fit traditional views isn't just a simple misreading of scripture. Setting aside God’s word in favor of tradition is something the Bible explicitly cautions against and calls rebellion. 

In 1 Samuel 15:23 it says, "For rebellion is like the sin of divination, and arrogance like the evil of idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of Yahweh, he has rejected you."

Many are lost in search of the truth. If they persist in seeking, God will grant them the truth. Unfortunately, many are lost thinking that they have found the truth, but it is just self-serving. Others remain stubborn and rebellious, indifferent to the truth. They only care about what is right to them in their own eyes, not in the God they profess to follow, worship, and love.

Does it even matter how God wants to be worshiped and loved? If you show love for your partner in a way you thought was loving, but they didn't feel loved by it, does that gesture even count? Good intentions mean nothing if you're not paying attention to what they actually want. The same goes for God. He tells us how he wants to be worshiped, in the Torah. 

In fact, in John 14:15, Yeshua says, "If you love me, keep my commandments." But they are really the Father's commands. For Yeshua said in John 6:38, "For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me." And again, John 9:4, "I must work the works of him who sent me." The Torah is called the Law of Moses, but Moses didn't write it, he only delivered it. It's actauly the Law of God. The same is true for the law of Christ, it is truly the Law of God. 

In Deuteronomy 12:29-32 it says, "When Yahweh your God cuts off the nations from before you, wherever you go in to dispossess them, and you dispossess them and dwell in their land, be careful that you are not ensnared to follow them, after they are destroyed from before you, and that you do not inquire after their gods, saying, 'How do these nations serve their gods? I will do likewise.' You shall not do so to Yahweh your God, for every abomination to Yahweh which he hates, they have done to their gods. Whatever thing I command you, that you shall observe to do. You shall not add to it, nor take away from it."

This is exactly what they did in Exodus 32, when they made the golden calf while Moses was on the mount getting the law from God. It was not to worship other gods, as so many translations make it seem, for in verse 5, Aaron proclaims, "Tomorrow shall be a feast to Yahweh." Is this not what the Church has done with Christmas, Easter, and all the other syncretism within the body, taking pagan traditions and forms of worship and relabeling them in Christian or biblical terminology to make them acceptable? 

I have heard it said too many times, when I show people that something is outright pagan, against God, or unbiblical, they say, "Well, that's not what it means to me!" The scripture we just looked at shows God disagrees. But honestly, if you don't even know the law, how do you know how to worship and show love to God, or how he said not to?

Isaiah 5:20 says, "Woe to them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!" And Job 14:4, "Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? No one."

Most Christians are thinking of the wicked ways of the world when they read these scriptures, not realizing that it pertains to believers taking the ways of the pagans and trying to worship God in that way. 

The law is how we know how to worship God rightly, and Yeshua himself made clear it was never going anywhere. 

Yeshua said in Matthew 5:17-20, "Don't think that I came to destroy the law or the prophets. I didn't come to destroy, but to fulfill." Most Christians stop there and say, "See, Jesus fulfilled the law so that we don't have to." But if you keep reading, you will see that this is not at all what Yeshua meant. He goes on:

"For most certainly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not even the smallest letter or one tiny pen stroke shall in any way pass away from the law, until all things are accomplished. Therefore, whoever breaks 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 obeys them and teaches others to do the same will be called great in the Kingdom of Heaven. For I tell you that unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, there is no way you will enter the Kingdom of Heaven."

Yeshua fulfilled the law by bringing its true meaning to light, rather than abolishing it. Note that Yeshua names two groups here, those who follow and teach the least of the commandments, and those who follow and teach the greatest, but both are still in the kingdom of heaven. He says nothing about those who reject the commandments altogether, no category, no place given to them at all. He goes on to specify why most will not make it, in verses 21 to 23. He says, "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter into the Kingdom of Heaven, but he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will tell me in that day, 'Lord, Lord, didn't we prophesy in your name, and in your name cast out demons, and in your name do many mighty works?' And I will tell them, 'I never knew you. Depart from me, you who work lawlessness.'" The last part of that sentence is constantly brushed aside, because admitting what lawlessness actually means changes everything. 

The choice was never between Yeshua and the law, they were never in conflict to begin with. The Torah, God's eternal instructions, was never abolished, replaced, or nailed to the cross. Yeshua lived it, taught it, and explicitly warned against setting it aside, while Paul's words have been continually twisted to justify a lawlessness scripture strictly warns against. True love and worship of God are not defined by our own opinions or man-made traditions, but by faithful obedience to the very commandments he gave us. If we claim to follow him, we return to his word and honor God the exact way he asked to be loved.