Christians, Jews and Torah
Some Christians say silly things about the Jewish Torah. They think its moral teaching has been abolished. They think that it’s a legalist’s handbook written by God himself. They think that God gave Israel the Torah knowing full well that they couldn’t keep it; and then he got mad at them all the time for not keeping it. They think the Torah demanded sinlessness if Israel was to maintain a relationship with God. They think that the Jewish Torah is the same thing as the generalised moral law that the Western world always talks about. They think the Torah required that one earn a relationship with God though, of course, no one could do that. They think that the moral and religious teaching of the Torah (and the OT in general) has no relevance for Christians. All of the above I’ve read and continue to hear. I’ve even said some of it in the past.Paul wrote the book of Romans to Christians—Jew and Gentile. No one disputes that. In dealing with Christian moral and ethical response, he calls on the teaching of the Torah and says that Christians are obligated to it. For example, in 13:8-10, he insists that Christians should owe no one anything "except to love one another." And why does he say they should love one another? The NT in many other places will give us many reasons why we should love one another but Paul gives us one reason in this text. He says we’re to love one another "for"—what follows is why we should love one another. For "love is the fulfilment of the law." He then proceeds to quote from the Decalogue. The word "law" (nomos) here designates the Torah from which Paul quotes the strictures against adultery, stealing and the like.
Yes, but these are Christians he writes to. We can understand if he said we’re to love one another "for" Christ loved us all and we’re to be like Christ. This would be true and central to the Christian faith. But why would he say we’re to love one another because love fulfils the Torah? What does the Torah have to do with us?
Part of the answer of course, is that the ethical response God asked of Israel and is proclaimed in the Torah is as true now as ever it was and it’s true for the entire Christian community. To rip away the first thirty-nine books of the Bible as irrelevant to us is sheer nonsense. And it only adds insult to injury to dismiss them and then call on them as "illustration material" as if that’s all that Paul had in mind in Romans 15:4.
A full response to the Torah involves more than upright behaviour—it would call to Jews to accept the person and work of Jesus of Nazareth as the Messiah, in whom God has reconciled the world to himself. The Torah had more than one role to play in God’s drama of redemption so it doesn’t help anyone if we reduce it to "a call to live uprightly".
But to deny that the NT writers call us to bring our lives into line with the ethical and moral teaching of the Torah is silly. To the Gentile Galatians Paul makes a similar use of the Torah in 5:13-14. This has added significance since he fairly explodes in anger when Jews want to make Jewish proselytes out of Gentile Christians (see chapter 2 and elsewhere in the epistle). He will not tolerate for a moment the idea that Gentiles have to become Jews to be treated as fellow-Christians in full fellowship and yet he calls on Gentiles to live by the Torah’s love command. He then goes on to insist that they follow the Spirit. So being guided by the Spirit and manifesting the fruit of the Spirit don't conflict with fleshing out the central call of the Torah. They’re all part of the Christian’s ethical and moral response to God.
But Christians aren’t the only people that say silly things about the Torah. Some Messianic Jews that receive Jesus of Nazareth as the Messiah do the same thing.
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