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Can
we love Israel and reject the Torah
Over several
decades, there has been a growing awareness on the part of Evangelicals
as to the importance of Israel in God’s plan. There are
churches that hold Israeli Awareness Day with Israeli dancing
and songs. Others are engaged in financially supporting Israel
or helping Jews making Aliyah. There are groups that are committed
to praying for the peace of Jerusalem. These are certainly improvements
after centuries and centuries of anti-Semitic attitudes that have
existed in the Church beginning with the so-called “Church
fathers”. I will call them so-called because these men were
not responsible for writing Scripture; yet significant importance
has been attributed to them and the role they played in laying
down the foundations of Church doctrine. But if we examine the
statements of some of these men who were highly revered, we find
them seriously lacking in the kind of love that our Messiah Yeshua
talked about. I will not go into all of the implications of their
influence on the second and third century believers because it
is too complex for the scope of this article. I will not go into
great detail about the anti-Semitic attitudes of the Catholic
Church that developed by the third century Common Era either.
Books could be written on this subject and already have, but I
will ask this simple question: Can we love Israel and reject the
Torah?
Before giving
a response to this question, we need to look and see who Israel
is exactly and what is the role of Torah in the life of Israel.
From the patriarchs we have Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, whose name
was later changed to Israel because he persevered with God. Israel
had twelve sons whose names then represented the twelve tribes
of Israel. Israel was a people chosen by God to be a light to
the nations. We all know how many times they fell short in that
role.
When Moses
led ancient Israel out of Egypt with the mixed multitude, God
gave him what we commonly refer to as the Law at Mt. Sinai. The
instructions were very clear, that if they obeyed these laws they
would be blessed, but if they disobeyed the laws they would be
cursed. Many times over they were told
“Be
careful to do according to all the law which Moses My servant
commanded you; do not turn from it to the right or to the left,
so that you may have success wherever you go. This book of the
law shall not depart from your mouth, but you are to meditate
on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according
to all that is written it; for then you will make your way prosperous,
and they you will have success. “ Joshua 1: 7-8 .
We know that
King David also took great delight in the commands of God. He
said,
“How
blessed are those whose way is blameless, who walk in the law
of the Lord.” Psalm 119:1.
We also know
that the prophets rebuked Israel time and time again for disobeying
God’s holy laws and that Israel was severely punished for
this disobedience just as God said they would be.
Well that
was ancient Israel and now we have the New Covenant, which is
through the blood of Yeshua, right? Indeed, we have the blood
of Yeshua that cleanses us from our sin, but who is the New Covenant
with and what is it exactly?
“Behold
days are coming” declares the Lord, “when I will make
a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of
Judah not like the covenant which I made with their fathers in
the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land
of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, although I was a husband
to them, “ declares the Lord. “But this is the covenant
which I will make with the house of Israel after those days”
declares the Lord, “I will put My law within them, and on
their heart I will write it: and I will be their God, and they
shall be My people. And they shall not teach again, each man his
neighbor and each man his brother, saying, “Know the Lord”
for they shall all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest
of them,” declares the Lord, “for I will forgive their
iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more. “ Jeremiah
31:31-34.
In this passage,
we notice several things. First of all the New Covenant is not
with the Church as many have come to believe over the centuries.
It is with the House of Israel and the House of Judah. The New
Covenant did not abolish the Law, but wrote it on the hearts of
the two houses of Israel. We see this repeated in Hebrews 8:8.
Here, we need
to stop and think about why this distinction is made between these
two houses. We see that the same distinction is repeated in Ezekiel
37:15 –28, and in numerous other passages in the Tanach.
All the promises given are to the house of Judah and the House
of Israel, as God has promised that He will write the Torah on
their heart.
Again we return
to the question who is Israel. We know that Israel is the descent
of the twelve tribes, but in the book of Ephesians we are told
that in Yeshua those who were “far off were brought near”
by the blood of Yeshua and that they become part of the Commonwealth
of Israel. The Torah was the marriage contract or ketubah that
God gave to Israel. We know from the Book of Hosea He divorced
the Northern Kingdom, which is also know as Ephraim or the House
of Israel, but He promised that He would restore them. Talking
about Israel God says,
“I will
heal their apostasy, I will love them freely, for My anger has
turned away from them.” Hosea 14:4
The Book of
Hosea compares Ephraim with a harlot who commits adultery, it
prophesies the exile in Assyria when Ephraim will be mixed with
the gentiles and lose their identity as God’s people. It’s
important to remember that Ephraim was exiled for their numerous
violations of Torah. Later on we see Judah also going into exile
for their violations of Torah, although Judah returns and maintains
their identity. It is after Judah’s exile in Babylon that
we see the expression Jews begin to be used in the Bible. There
are some of the House of Israel who crossed over and became part
of Judah, but we never see a corporate restoration of the Northern
Kingdom that is prophesied.
Why all this
lengthy explanation about the division and exile of the Northern
and Southern tribes of Israel? I think it is important today for
us to recognize that the restoration of all of Israel is not only
for the Jews. There is a future restoration that includes the
scattered tribes of the Northern Kingdom. Do we know where these
tribes are? No. The whole point of them losing their identity
is that they actually became just like the gentiles. In other
words, they disobeyed the Torah and did not act as the light to
the nations as God asked of them, so they got what they wanted.
They got to be gentiles. One could view this as a punishment,
but one could also view this as the accomplishment of God’s
plan to make Ephraim a “multitude of nations” as was
promised by his grandfather Israel. Since we know that God is
sovereign, it is surely both. On the one hand a punishment, and
on the other hand a fulfillment of the blessing of Israel when
he deliberately laid his hand on the head of Ephraim and repeated
the promise that God had given years earlier to Abraham.
What does
all this have to do with Torah? I think that it is important to
recognize that God’s in the process of not only restoring
Judah, but also Ephraim and the nations who come into the Commonwealth
of Israel with Judah and Ephraim (Ezekiel 37:15-28).
We know that
through the blood of Yeshua we are no longer subject to the penalty
of death, which Torah delineates. We are all worthy of death.
We have all fallen short of the righteousness that the Holy One
of Israel demands. Thankfully, we have the blood of the unblemished
Lamb, Yeshua that was poured out for our sake as a sin offering.
What about the Torah though? Yeshua was an Israelite from the
tribe of Judah, who came and lived a perfectly Torah observant
life so that His death would count as the perfect sacrifice to
satisfy a Holy God. Did He not tell us to obey all that He commanded,
down to the smallest letter of the Law? Did He not come for the
lost sheep of the House of Israel and show them how to live? Was
He not the rabbi who gave perfect interpretation to the Torah
of Moses? How would Israel recognize Him had He not done all of
that? How will Israel recognize Him know if He is any less than
a perfect Torah-observant Jew, who obeyed the Torah of Moses and
then laid His life down? How can we say that we love Israel, and
not follow Yeshua by obeying the very same Torah that He obeyed
so that the Jews will see their Messiah. What if some of those
who call themselves “gentiles” are of Israelite descent
and are still turning their back on the Torah by mixing Yeshua
with the “ways of the nations”. How are we to set
an example for those who are not yet saved if we don’t obey
the Torah? These are all questions that I ask, wondering if we
really understand what it means to love Israel.
To love Israel,
is to do as Yeshua did, to live a life modeled after the Master
Himself. To obey all that the Father commanded, not in a legalistic,
self-righteous way, but in complete humility, pouring out our
lives as an offering for those who need to see Torah lived out
in the power of the Rauch HaKodesh.
Do we really
love Israel, if we don’t love Torah? It’s not just
a question of loving some things from the Jewish culture. It’s
a question of understanding who Israel is and where Israel has
failed. Are we not part of this same Commonwealth (those who are
not physical Israelites) grafted in by the blood of Messiah? If
we were, would we not want to consider it a privilege to bring
Torah to the nations? The prophet Isaiah says,
“Now
it will come about that in the last days, the mountain of the
house of the Lord will be established as the chief of the mountains,
and will be raised above the hills; and all the nations will stream
to it. And many peoples will come and say, come let us go up to
the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob, that
He may teach us concerning His ways, and that we may walk in His
paths. For the law will go forth from Zion, and the word of the
Lord from Jerusalem.” Is 2:1-3
This doesn’t
sound like language that suggests that the Law has been done away
with. The Law is not our salvation. Yeshua is. Yeshua is the word
that became flesh and dwelt among us. Can we say that He is the
word in the flesh and deny the very word given to us by Himself?
He and His Father are one. Can they contradict one another? If
we who profess to love the Bible say we don’t need Torah,
what kind of example are we setting for the Jews in Israel, or
anyone else for that matter? Am I talking about following all
the decrees of the rabbis? No. We can learn from rabbis. There
are some that are better than others. The greatest rabbi however
that we can learn from is Rabbi Yeshua. He never renounced the
Torah. He taught only from the Torah and Prophets and pointed
His disciples to Himself in it.
There are
many passages and verses that people will quote to try to say
that Torah has been abolished, but these verses when put in proper
context can all be explained. Our salvation is by faith in Yeshua,
but our walk should be based on His word in its entirety.
If we truly
love Israel, we will tell them about Yeshua and His Torah. He
always upheld it and so should we.
God said,
“ I will bless those who bless you and curse those who curse
you” referring to Israel. Much of what was done to the Jews
in Diaspora had to do with denying them their right to practice
Torah. If we examine history, we see the strong trend to denounce
Shabbat. There were times where Jews were forced to eat pork,
in order to cause them to violate the Torah’s dietary laws.
In Morocco where they had the Mellahs (Jewish quarters), the Jews
were constantly being rendered “unclean” because they
were forced to touch the dead when they were required to preserve
human’s heads in salt. We can see from history that the
Jews were always persecuted on the basis of Torah.
In these days,
as we have the nations, including perhaps many who are descendants
from the Northern Kingdom and don’t even know it, many who
make up “the church”, we have another trend taking
place. In the last 40 or so years, many Jews have come to faith
in their Jewish, Torah-observant Messiah Yeshua. Remember Yeshua
did not come to abolish the Law, but to fill it up to the full
measure with meaning. As these Jews have come into a relationship
with their Messiah, they have not stopped being Jews. Many of
them come with a great depth of understanding about Torah that
the Church has lost through centuries of propaganda and sometimes
poor translation from original language texts. The Jews have brought
a Hebraic understanding, which was grossly lacking in the understanding
of even the Apostolic Scriptures. Is it possible that God is fulfilling
Ezekiel 37:15-28 before our very eyes and we are blind to what
He is doing because of centuries of anti-Torah sentiment?
We need to
remember first and foremost, if we belong to Messiah Yeshua, we
are part of the Commonwealth of Israel. The document that was
used to seal the marriage contract between God and His people
was the Torah. The person who came and lived out Torah as it was
to be lived out was none other than our Messiah Yeshua, who paid
the death penalty that Torah imposes, for those of us who are
not in Him. What He fulfilled by His death and resurrection was
to take away the penalty of death. He never took away the document
that taught us about the holiness of God and what He desires for
His people. Granted, much of Torah does not apply to us if we
are not Levitical Priests, not living in the Land of Israel, if
there is no standing temple, etc., etc. The Torah still represents
the marriage contract that God has with Israel, and if we love
Israel, as we should if we are “grafted in”, then
we should love the document, which God gave to Moses to outline
the terms of our relationship. If we want to know Him and His
holiness, we should want to obey the requirements that He set
out for Ancient Israel, to the extent that they apply to us. These
will not bring us salvation. They will just affirm that we are
the people of the God of Israel, and that we do indeed love Israel
with all of our heart.
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Joyce Benati
joyce.benatti@earthlink.net
Joyce and
Ben Benati run a Messianic congregation in Nice 06000, 4 rue Papon,
France
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