• What is Hebraic Roots / Ancient Paths / Messianic Studies / Midrashic Eschatology Studies / Messianic Judaism (Typology Studies)?
• What is a Yeshiva?
• What about the Grace and Law (Torah) issue for the Believer? 

Once you have decided to enroll for Formal Hebraic Root/Messianic Studies, or attending Hebraic Roots Short Modular Courses - Yeshivas, you are about to embark on an incredible journey of discovery. The road map is the Bible. The Tour Guide is the Spirit of God. He will direct your driver your mentor, the HRTI, to take you along the paths which lead to the foundations of your faith in Y’shua.   Your tour book is the Studies or Course, which you selected.

Many Believers around the globe are desiring to seek out their God-given roots. The central purpose and design of ‘Messianic Studies/Hebraic Roots’ is to lift up, reveal and to make known the work and revelation of Messiah Y’shua, and God’s plan for the redeemed community. His revelation comes alive if we understand the full context, meaning and history of the Old and Newer Covenant Scriptures.   As Believers in Messiah, we want to know the absolute truth about God from His Word. To a large degree there is much from His Word about which we can be completely confident. These are the things for which we should be willing to suffer rather than deny. However, because of our human frailties, none of us will ever know and perfectly understand all the truths in Scripture. We will never be completely able to perfectly elucidate and interpret all of Scripture. Moreover, apart from our human imperfections, there are many passages in the Bible which are extremely difficult to accurately interpret.

GRACE AND TORAH

Can One Follow the Torah (Law) Fully Today?

Are we under the Torah (Law) today?

Christian and law?

“The answer to this is of course, no. There is no temple, no sacrifices, no Cohen Gadol (High Priest), no Levites (priesthood), and so forth. It is an objective statement that the Torah (Law) cannot be followed. There are Scriptures that indicate that if one does not do the whole law, leaving out nothing, then he is guilty of breaking the entire law.” The argument by many "Christians".

This cause many "Christians" to say: "We are not under the Law anymore".

Gal 5:3

For I testify again to every man that is circumcised,

that he is a debtor to do the whole law.

James 2:10

For whosoever shall keep the whole law,

and yet offend in one point,

he is guilty of all.

James makes the point clearly. But what part of the Law is discussed in James and Galatians?

To understand the concept of Torah (Law) you must first understand how the Old Covenant was put together. The Old Covenant in Hebrew is known as the TaNaCh. TaNaCh is a Hebrew acronym (short form/contraction) for Torah, Nevi’im and Chetuvim.

In the “TaNaCh” the Five Books written by Moshe (Moses) is known as the “Torah” and is also known as the Chumash. Nevi’im the Hebrew for prophets, is the collected Books of the Prophets or the Prophetic Books. Chetuvim, Hebrew for the Writings, are the remaining Books. In other words the TaNaCh is the entire Old Covenant.

The purpose of TaNaCh is as different as its parts: the Torah (meaning teaching/ instruction) is YHWH’s ideas on how to live life in book form. The Torah is the Believer’s Life Manual. Nevi’im represents the blood and sweat and tears of the Prophets’ leadership over a period of 920 years, beginning with Samuel and ending with Ezra. Though the last Prophet died long ago, their prophecies still apply today. While many of their prophecies were immediately applicable, many are about Moshiach (Messiah), which is the most fundamental Jewish belief.

Chetuvim are the collected writings of Moshe (the Book of Job), King David (Psalms) and Solomon (Proverbs, the Song of Songs, Ecclesiastes), the prophets Samuel (the Scroll of Ruth), Jeremiah (the Scroll of Lamentations) and Daniel (the Book of Daniel), and the Men of the Great Assembly (the Scroll of Esther).

Listed below are the Books of the TaNaCh:

The Torah (Teachings or instruction from YHWH)

According to the Rabbinical Rabbis there are two Torahs, the Written Torah and the Oral Torah. The Written Torah is what YHWH gave to Moshe. The Oral Torah is the interpretation of the Written Torah with man’s perceptions and ideas on how to understand and live the Written Torah. This is mostly also the traditions of the Hebrew people.  YHWH outright forbids adding anything to the Written Torah (Deut 4:2, 12:32, Prov 30:6).

The Written Torah consists of the Five Books in the TaNaCh which Moshe wrote and the Oral Torah consisting of additional instructions passed down orally from generation to generation. The Rabbis understand the Written Torah as YHWH's expressed will, and the Oral Torah as the detailed instructions of how to fulfill that expressed will. After the destruction of the Second Temple, Rabbi Yehudah Hanassi (Judah the Prince) began to collect, sift, arrange, classify and edit the great body of Oral Torah into a basic compendium of authoritative Torah Law called the Mishnah. Over succeeding generations, as Rabbis continued their study of the Oral Torah, a tradition of commentary and explanation began to grow. This expanding mass of material became an object of study in its own right and was called the Gemara in Aramaic - meaning ‘study’. Both the Mishnah and Gemara were combined into a single document and called the Talmud - meaning 'to study' in Hebrew. The Talmud is divided into six parts, in which there are various tractates on different topical areas. Today, there are only thirty-seven of the original sixty tractates of the Babylonian Talmud (Bavli) and thirty-nine of the original sixty-three tractates of the Jerusalem Talmud (Yerushalmi).

Getting back to the Written Torah; there are 613 commandments in the Written Torah. These 613 commandments list what is required, permitted, and forbidden by YHWH, and range from activity of the lay person in everyday life to the strict procedures followed by the High Priest. The 613 commandments are codified and divided into the 248 positive and 365 negative Laws. It is interesting to note that there are 365 negative commandments corresponding to the 365 days of the year, one commandment for each day. There are also 365 ligaments, veins, and tendons in the body and 248 limbs and organs in your body. (According to various midrashim, the 248 positives correspond to the limbs in the human body and the 365 equals the sinews and nerves. The fulfilment of each mitzvah brings life and vitality to the particular part of the body to which it corresponds - http://www.wsat.org/drusha/knowing_the_mitzvos_of_the_torah.htm).  

Therefore the Jews do not take the Psalmist lightly when he wrote “And my soul shall be joyful in the LORD: it shall rejoice in his salvation. All my bones shall say, LORD, who is like unto thee, which deliverest the poor from him that is too strong for him, yea, the poor and the needy from him that spoileth him?” (Psalm 35:9-10). This is the reason why the Hebrew reel to and fro during worship, every part in their body is moved into worship! (Bones is “etsem” in Hebrew and it actually is the entire outer body that you see)

The Torah of Moshe in the Old Covenant is a series of instructions given to Israel to help them live holy lives. Within the core of the Mosaic Law (Moses Law) was the sacrificial system, evidence that YHWH knew Israel would not be able to keep the Torah, therefore the sacrificial system declares YHWH's grace and His willingness to forgive the sins of His people. The Torah consists of three sections: the Sacrificial (Rituals), Moral (Ethical), and the Civil (Governmental) section. These sections will be explained later in more detail. Further, the Torah was originally designed, as is still applicable today, for correction, protection and direction only, and cannot at all give you salvation. Torah was designed and built on the foundational teachings for Correction / Protection / Direction. With that as background let us summarize before we continue:

THE THREE SECTIONS OF TORAH - INTRODUCTION

The Sacrificial Section

There is a distinction between the three types of ‘laws’ in the Old Covenant. The first type is the Sacrificial ‘Laws’, also known as the Ceremonial/Ritual ‘Laws.’ These are the laws governing the Temple worship and the way we are to approach YHWH. They have to do with the layout of the Temple, the ways a person must be purified and the sacrificial system. We don’t sacrifice animals today because Y’shua has come, the perfect sacrifice. He, in His death on the cross, fulfilled the Sacrificial / Ceremonial section. Today each and every offering and sacrifice in the Torah is a shadow / type of Messiah Y’shua and His work and how He fulfilled it. This is what He meant by the concept “Think not that I am come to destroy the law (Torah), or the prophets (Nevi’im): I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill.” (Mat 5:17). Y’shua literally came to fulfill this specific Section of the Torah. Believers do not have to offer or sacrifice anything anymore as Y’shua has done the full atonement for us with His precious blood. What is extremely important to note is that Y’shua fulfilled this Section, but He never discarded the Moral or Civil Sections, they still remain to this very day! When Paul wrote to the various Assemblies of Galatians and the Romans he had this in mind. Paul never implied at all that the whole of the Torah is done away with, as that will directly contradict Y’shua’s teachings on Torah! The general "Christian" tends to read things into the Scripture which are not there and jump to conclusions which are not based on sound Hebrew thinking and doctrine.

The Civil Section

The second type is Civil ‘Laws,’ also known as the Judicial ‘Laws.’ They are about taxes, charging interest, punishing sin. When Paul wrote to Titus, he said we must adhere to the authorities who rule over us: “Put them in mind to be subject to principalities and powers, to obey magistrates, to be ready to every good work,” (Titus 3:1 and also Heb 13:7). He quoted directly from the Torah: “And the man that will do presumptuously, and will not hearken unto the priest that standeth to minister there before the LORD thy God, or unto the judge, even that man shall die: and thou shalt put away the evil from Israel.” (Deut 17:5), and Paul also quoted from the Chetuvim: “My son, fear thou the LORD and the king: and meddle not with them that are given to change:” (Prov 24:21), which means that the Civil / Judicial Torah teachings and instructions are still applicable to the Believer today!

The Moral Section

The third type is the Moral Laws. The Ten Commandments fall into this category. These ‘Laws’ are also still in effect, because they are a reflection of YHWH’s moral character, and that does not change. The Moral Section of the Torah deals with issues such as, “Do not prostitute thy daughter, to cause her to be a whore” (Lev 19:29), and “Neither shalt thou steal” (Deut 5:19), etc. This Section of Torah still remains firmly in place today both in the TaNaCh and Brit Hadassah (Newer Covenant – N.T.), and there is no Scriptural information from the Old or Renewed Covenant that we are allowed to break any part of this Moral Torah Section!

THE CEREMONIAL, MORAL AND CIVIL INSTRUCTIONS

As said there are three types of biblical precepts: ceremonial, civil, and moral. It is very important to note that YHWH had the civil and the moral in force even before the ‘Law’ was given at Mount Sinai! Since they, the civil and moral precepts, are part of the law of nature, i.e. you must rest on the Shabbat (seventh day), the land must rest every seventh year, and of the character of YHWH, i.e. you are not allowed to murder, or prostitute your daughter, etc.

On the other hand the ceremonial precepts deal with the forms of worshiping YHWH as well as ritual cleanness. The ceremonial commands were "ordained to the Divine worship for that particular time and to the foreshadowing of Messiah". They are all “shadows and types” of Y’shua’s work which He fulfilled. Accordingly, upon the coming of Messiah Y’shua they ceased to bind and to observe them now would be equivalent to declaring falsely that Messiah has not yet come. This would then be a mortal sin for the Believer.

But did YHWH establish three different kinds of ‘Laws’ in the Older Covenant? It is interesting to note that there is no place given in Scripture where the terms Ceremonial, Moral, and Civil Laws are found, but that they are there is factual. The bottom line is that it is extremely difficult to divide the Torah of YHWH into these three categories.

In summary, there are 613 Commandments in the Torah of Moshe. These are divided into 248 Affirmative Laws and 365 Negative Laws. Moses Margoliouth was one of the translators of the English Revised Version, and published a catalogue of the 613 commandments in English in 1743.

It is also common to divide the Mosaic Law into three other parts:

1)      the Ten Commandments (often called the heart of the Moral Law),

2)      the ordinances, and

3)      the judgments.

The ordinances are the laws governing Israel’s religious life while the judgments are the civil laws. These divisions are sometimes helpful for analysis and study but actually have no Scriptural authority. Many of Israel’s laws would belong in two of the suggested divisions. For example, the law of the tithe is both religious and civil. The Ten Commandments have a prominent place in the Torah but Y’shua taught that the greatest commandment was not one of the ten. A summary of the greatest commandment of the Torah is given below. Each of the 613 Laws can be classified into the two areas above.

But the entire Torah can be wrapped up in Two Commandments: “Master, which is the great commandment in the law? Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” (Mat 22:36-37). Why, because the heart of the Torah is Love and Grace!!!

The Moral Law is more clearly revealed in the New Covenant. The Believer’s standard of conduct should be holiness (Col 3:1). We are not without law but we are under “the law of Christ” (Gal 6:2), the law of love (James 2:8), and “the law of liberty” (James 2:12).

Conclusion:

The dividing of the Mosaic Law into Civil, Ceremonial, and Moral Laws violates proper Hebraic hermeneutical method, for it is inconsistent and illogical, and as said, the Older Covenant gives no hint of such distinctions. Sometimes one “Law” can be categorized in two or all three sections. We also need to be reminded that all Scripture is "useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness" (2 Tim 3:16).

Are you still under the Law? Absolutely, under the Moral and Civil Law sections of YHWH!

Now my beloved Reverent, Pastor, Dominee, Doctor, Professor, reason YHWH and Y’shua’s words listed below away from a literal context … remember dearly beloved we WILL BE confronted with these words one day (John 12:48):

“Think not that I am come to destroy the law (Torah), or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil.” (Mat 5:17)

“Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments (Mitzvahs (instructions) of the Torah), and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.” (Mat 5:19)

“Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen.” (Mat 28:19-20)

“And he said unto him, Why callest thou me good? There is none good but one, that is, God: but if thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments (Torah).” (Mat 19:17)

“And Jesus answered him, The first of all the commandments (Torah) is, Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord:” (Mark 12:29)

“And they were both righteous before God, walking in all the commandments (Torah) and ordinances of the Lord blameless.” (Luke 1:6)

“If ye love me, keep my commandments (Torah, and remember “keep” is a verb).” (John 14:15 )

“He that hath my commandments (Torah), and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him.”  (John 14:21)

“If ye keep my commandments (Torah), ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father's commandments (Torah), and abide in his love.”  (John 15:10)

“Circumcision is nothing, and uncircumcision is nothing, but the keeping of the commandments of God (Torah).”  (1 Cor 7:19)

“And hereby we do know that we know him, if we keep his commandments (Torah). He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments (Torah), is a liar, and the truth is not in him.”  (1 John 2:3-4)

“And whatsoever we ask, we receive of him, because we keep his commandments (Torah), and do those things (Torah) that are pleasing in his sight. And he that keepeth his commandments (Torah) dwelleth in him, and he in him. And hereby we know that he abideth in us, by the Spirit which he hath given us.”  (1 John 3:22, 24)

“By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God, and keep his commandments (Torah). For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments (Torah): and his commandments (Torah) are not grievous.”  (1 John 5:2-3)

“And this is love that we walk after his commandments (Torah). This is the commandment (Torah), That, as ye have heard from the beginning, ye should walk in it.”  ( 2 John 1:6)

“And the dragon was wroth with the woman, and went to make war with the remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments (Torah) of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.” (Rev 12:17)

“Here is the patience of the saints: here are they that keep the commandments (Torah) of God, and the faith of Jesus.” (Rev 14:12)

“Blessed are they that do his commandments (Torah), that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city.” (Rev 22:14)

For more detail, order the book “The Rape of the Torah in the New Testament” from us – admin@hrti.co.za (Also see the PRODUCTS section)

. Law and grace. We are not under the law anymore. Wimpie Liebenberg. Grace is sufficient. Law and grace. We are not under the law anymore. Wimpie Liebenberg. Grace is sufficient. Law and grace. We are not under the law anymore. Wimpie Liebenberg. Grace is sufficient.the law in the new testament. The law in the future.