On Being Generous with Grace

Dear Jack,

Thanks for your thoughts. You said:

You did not say that “we” are to learn from what is meant for the Jews but instead you said that we “are to observe ALL that He taught us. not just part.”

Okay, you got me. I was painting with a broad brush. I should have said, “The teachings of Jesus are not set on a timer — some for now and some for later.” Within the Gospels, Jesus often addresses different people groups and situations. We can think of differences in genders, differences in what he expects of those who follow him (sell all, don’t follow me but go back and tell people what God has done, etc). Jesus never addressed the distinction between Jewish and gentile believers because that did not come up until the Book of Acts, just as the issue of divorce of a believer from an unbeliever and desertion did not come up until I Corinthians 7:10-13.

If you want to say that the SOM applies only to Jewish believers, but applies perpetually because of the context, I would still disagree with limiting it to the Jews (because its extensive inclusion in the Gospels implies it applicability to all believers), but I would confess that you at least have an argument. But as far as saying it is for the future, where does it say or even imply that?

Thus the Jewish believers were to observe those in the seat of Moses’ rulings. I do not believe Jews were constrained to remain Jews as believers, but that they were advised to do so. I do not think that Christ told his Jewish disciples to blindly follow the rulings of those in authority (obeying God was always primary).

The history behind this statement is involved. Let me be brief. Bet Hillel (School of Hillel) had been trumped by the more powerful Bet Shammai. Bet Shammai placed restrictions on the people opposed by Bet Hillel. But Bet Hillel taught his disciples to submit to the authoritative majority who controlled the seat of Moses in the main Jerusalem synagogue. Jesus, I believe, is advocating a similar “team player” attitude. Much of the relevance of this was reduced after the Temple was destroyed and mainstream Jews rejected Messianic Judaism. Messianic Jews, as early as 150, built their own synagogues.

Yes, they were zealous of the Law during the Acts period but in the epistles that were written after the Acts period came to an end we read:

“As free, and not using your liberty for a cloke of maliciousness, but as the servants of God” (1 Pet.2:16).

That practically mirrors what Paul said here in regard to being free from the Law:

“For, brethren, ye have been called unto liberty; only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another” (Gal.5:13).

The events of Acts 21 are dated at 60A.D. Galatians is dated at either 49 or 55 A.D. This means that Acts 21 and Galatians HARMONIZE — or at least SHOULD harmonize if you have a consistent paradigm. I Peter is but a few years after Acts 21.

Church history tells us that the apostles and Jewish believers continued to be Torah observant.

There are certainly senses in which the Law is temporary and other senses in which it is eternal (2 Timothy 3:16-17).

The Christian, whether Jew or Gentile, relates to God apart from the Law. But that does not mean a Jewish believer cannot elect to follow the Law to identify with his people.

This is a COMPLEX discussion we are having, you know! But you are worthy of it, for sure.

[Jack Hampton]

[Ed Vasicek] Thus the Jewish believers were to observe those in the seat of Moses’ rulings. I do not believe Jews were constrained to remain Jews as believers, but that they were advised to do so.

Ed, what do you think that Peter was referring to in the following verse, words that were written after we see those in the Jerusalem church keeping the Law?:

“As free, and not using your liberty for a cloke of maliciousness, but as the servants of God” (1 Pet.2:16).

That practically mirrors what Paul said here in regard to being free from the Law:

“For, brethren, ye have been called unto liberty; only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another” (Gal.5:13).

By Peter’s own words they have been set free from the Law. At another place he referred to the Law as being a “yoke” (Acts 15:10) and that is exactly how Paul referred to the Law:

“Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage” (Gal.5:1).

If Peter was not referring to being set “free” and at “liberty” from the Law then what was he referring to?

If you want to say that the SOM applies only to Jewish believers, but applies perpetually because of the context, I would still disagree with limiting it to the Jews (because its extensive inclusion in the Gospels implies it applicability to all believers), but I would confess that you at least have an argument. But as far as saying it is for the future, where does it say or even imply that?

From the way that the Lord Jesus opened the Sermon on the Mount I would say that the application of that sermon relates to the time when the kingdom will be set up on the earth:

“Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven…Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth…Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness’ sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Mt.5:3,5,10).

At the end of the sermon He also ties what He had been saying into the “kingdom”:

“Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity” (Mt.7:21-23).

Not only that, but I believe that the Lord’s words in regard to turning the other cheek should be understood in a “literal” manner. The fact that the Lord Jesus Himself did not turn His other cheek when He was struck tells me that that teaching was not for the time then present nor is it for the present time.

Jack, If you want to interpret turning the other cheek as only a literal turning, that’s fine. But, as quoted above, Peter interpreted Jesus’ response as non-retaliation. If you interpret that literally, what about the beam in the eye vs. the speck?

Granted, if you do not buy the proposition that Jesus is teaching as other Jewish rabbis taught, I can understand where you are coming from. My belief is that Jesus DID teach as in the other rabbis taught, only better and with more authority. Rabbinic literature is filled with legal rulings about applying portions of Torah, and that’s what I understand the SOM to be. You apparently see it otherwise.

When we talk about the Law or the Kingdom, we are dealing with terms that have a variety of aspects. I believe that there will be an earthly Millennial Kingdom, but I also believe that the Kingdom can refer to the eternal state, the fellowship of believers we call the church, and, as quoted in my book the Midrash Key, any time one studies the Word he “enters the Kingdom.” These terms do not break into the highly organized, neat, clean systems modern westerners are used to. From The Midrash Key:

Torah study was a privilege because when one studied, he “entered the Kingdom of Heaven,” “took the yoke of the Kingdom of Heaven,” or came “under the wing of heaven.” Note the words of Hillel and the Talmudic commentary that follow those words:

He [Hillel] would stand at the gate of Jerusalem and meet people going to work. He questioned them, “How much will you make at work today?” One person would answer, “A denarius.” Another replied, “Two denarii.” Then he would ask them, “What will you do with your earnings?” They would reply, “We will buy what we need to live.” Then he challenged them, “Why don’t you come follow me and acquire knowledge of the Torah. Then you will receive life in this world as well as life in the future world?” In this way Hillel lived all his days and was able to bring many people under the wing of heaven.

Dr. David Flusser comments regarding the sages of Bet Hillel:

In their opinion, what mattered was not whether one accepted Roman rule or rejected it; for the Kingdom of Heaven could come about at any time, once the people repented and took upon themselves the yoke of the Kingdom of Heaven – and once that happened, no nation or tongue would hold sway over them. Only then would God fulfill his promise to rule over Israel…the kingdom of Rome would vanish once the people had taken upon themselves the yoke of the Kingdom of Heaven…The Sages believed that even when a man recites “Hear O Israel,” he is taking upon himself the Kingdom of Heaven and is living under it…Jesus developed the idea of the Kingdom of Heaven in a personal manner…It is reasonable to assume that…Jesus thought that he was not only at the center of this process, but that he was himself the Messiah, who was bringing the Kingdom of Heaven upon Israel.”

Since the Jews did not pronounce God’s Name (Yahweh) and minimized pronouncing his personal titles (Lord, God, etc.), they would sometimes substitute Ha Shem (“the Name”) or “Heaven” for God. Thus Jesus probably actually said, “The Kingdom of Heaven” (and “heaven” is used in Matthew’s Gospel, the Gospel honed for Jewish readers), but the term is probably dynamically translated by Mark, Luke, and John for gentiles as “The Kingdom of God.”

I have already pointed out how that the fruit of salvation (works) are often not distinguished from the cause of salvation (by grace through faith). Take John 5:27-29, for example:

And he has given him authority to judge because he is the Son of Man. “Do not be amazed at this, for a time is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice and come out—those who have done what is good will rise to live, and those who have done what is evil will rise to be condemned.

This is obviously not the separation of the sheep and the goats before the Millennium. Yet it is very similar in end result to the Matthew 7 passage you quoted.

You cannot avoid these apparent discrepancies by relegating them to different dispensations.

As far as the Law goes, the tedious rulings of the Pharisees (esp. Shammai) made it a burden. Thus the Jewish believers were not CONSTRAINED to follow rabbinic customs, but when it talks about rulings of the Seat of Moses, these were the few major rulings that applied to all Jews; the idea of Jesus’ command to Jewish believers would have been consistent with Jesus’ practice while training them. He modeled what it meant to turn the other cheek (do you agree with that?) and he modeled what it meant to follow the rulings of those in the Seat of Moses. Please answer this: Do you believe Jesus’ obeyed the commands that He gave to His disciples while He ministered on earth?

Yet, in Mark 7:6-13, he spoke out AGAINST these additions to the Law. So, however one interprets obeying those in the Seat of Moses, if you believe Jesus practiced what He preached, then his very actions model what He meant.

It was the constraint to follow the Law and the additional commands to the Law that made them burdens (or difficult, as used in the NIV of Acts 15:19).

The Scripture itself pictures the Law as a DELIGHT:

Psalm 119:16

I delight in your decrees; I will not neglect your word.

Psalm 119:24

Your statutes are my delight; they are my counselors.

Psalm 119:35

Direct me in the path of your commands, for there I find delight.

Psalm 119:47

for I delight in your commands because I love them.

Psalm 119:70

Their hearts are callous and unfeeling, but I delight in your law.

Psalm 119:77

Let your compassion come to me that I may live, for your law is my delight.

Psalm 119:92

If your law had not been my delight, I would have perished in my affliction.

Psalm 119:143

Trouble and distress have come upon me, but your commands give me delight.

Psalm 119:174

I long for your salvation, LORD, and your law gives me delight.

These verses mean something. The Law did not (and does not) serve merely ONE purpose. For Messianic Jews [the Israel of God] in the first century, the Law was their schoolmaster to bring them to Christ (Galatians 3:21-24). The Law restrains sin in those not regenerate (I Timothy 1:8-9).

Faith upholds the Law (Romans 3:31). The Law of God is written on the hearts of the believer.

Paul’s statements that seem to put the Law down as a bad thing seem to conflict with his statements that the Law is a good thing. Paul addresses the misuse of the Law or seeking to be justified by the Law or living by the Law as though the Messiah had not come. I agree that there are sense in which the Law has passed away, but there are also senses in which it is everlasting and profitable for doctrine and necessary to make us fully righteous (2 Timothy 3:16-17), though in what sense is certainly a complex issue.

Jack, I don’t see these verses in the context of people choosing of their own volition to follow the Law to identify with their people. I have already explained in as many words that the yoke of bondage was the endless barrage of qualifiers many rabbis added to the Law, the Mark 7 thing and the traditions of men — and the misuse of the Law as an attempt to gain merit before God.

So do you believe that the Psalmist in Psalm 119 was under a yoke of bondage? If so, he seemed to be enjoying it. How do you account for the delight in the Law of Psalm 119?

to confirm Jewish Christians by showing that Old Testament Judaism had come to an end through the fulfillment by Christ of the whole purpose of the law.

Jack, Scofield was right on this point. OLD TESTAMENT Judaism had come to an end, replaced by the New Covenant. The New Covenant is not about which rules we obey, but rather a covenant of the individual that only includes the regenerate, they of whom God’s Law has been written upon their hearts.

Do you believe that the Jews will offer sacrifices in the Millennium? If so, you have to say that in some sense Judaism has not been done away with.

The New Covenant is about what those verses in Hebrews say it is: a better way to draw near to God. The Law IS weak and useless to accomplish what some were purporting it to accomplish, because it did not regenerate the soul.

Romans 7:14

For we know that the Law is spiritual, but I am of flesh, sold into bondage to sin.

And Romans 8:3

For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh,

That New Covenant includes only those who know the Lord, whereas the Old Covenant included regenerate and non-regenerate Jews. In the New Covenant, God covenants with the individual, so that ALL under this covenant know the Lord.

Thus the Jewish believers in Acts 21 who were zealous for the Law were under the New Covenant because they had come to God on the basis of Jesus’ sacrifice and were not dependent upon the Law as a way to gain God’s favor. But they still obeyed the Law.

Acts 21:20-26

When they heard this, they praised God. Then they said to Paul: “You see, brother, how many thousands of Jews have believed, and all of them are zealous for the law. They have been informed that you teach all the Jews who live among the Gentiles to turn away from Moses, telling them not to circumcise their children or live according to our customs. What shall we do? They will certainly hear that you have come, so do what we tell you. There are four men with us who have made a vow. Take these men, join in their purification rites and pay their expenses, so that they can have their heads shaved. Then everyone will know there is no truth in these reports about you, but that you yourself are living in obedience to the law. As for the Gentile believers, we have written to them our decision that they should abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meat of strangled animals and from sexual immorality.”

The next day Paul took the men and purified himself along with them. Then he went to the temple to give notice of the date when the days of purification would end and the offering would be made for each of them.

Paul saw to it that a sacrifice was paid for (an integral part of taking a Nazarite vow), thus endorsing the idea of sacrifice and Torah obedience for the Messianic Jew; these believers who cut their hair did so to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that one could abide under the New Covenant and still obey the Law (taking a Nazarite vow). A paradigm that does not integrate all this criteria is defective, IMO.

This absolutely proves that Torah observance for Jews and the New Covenant are compatible.

Please understand: I am not saying Jewish believers must follow the Torah, but neither am I saying that it is wrong for them to do so.

The issue is two-fold for the believer: the standards he is to obey, and the power to obey those standards. The New Covenant is primarily about the latter.

Jack, another way for me to state my case is this.

In Acts 15, Jewish believers recognized that they needed to accept gentile believers who did not observe the Torah of Moses.

They let the gentiles in who did not embrace the Law, but, once gentiles got in control of the church, they refused to allow Jews who obeyed the Law into the fold.

Do you see the injustice of this?

Jack, it is a pleasure to discuss these matters with you. I feel like I am being stretched and I appreciate it. You are an ethical debater. Let me try to address the items you brought up.

With this in mind we can understand that when thre Lord Jesus spoke of breaking one of the least commandments that He can only be speaking about the time when the Law will once again be in effect.

Jack, if the Law will once again be in effect, it is not abolished. It may be temporarily set aside, but it is not abolished.

Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled. Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, 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” (Mt.5:17-19).

“To fulfill” is an idiom used by the Hebrews to properly interpret and apply (to complete our understanding). In addition, the Jews did expect the Messiah to make some adjustments to the Torah. So Christ is teaching here that the Torah portions he is teaching upon need to be obeyed as He presents them. He could do this because He is the Messiah, not just a Rabbi. Our greatness in both His earthly kingdom (when we will reign with him) and perhaps our heavenly reward is affected by our obedience or lack thereof.

“Having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances; for to make in himself of twain one new man, so making peace” (Eph.2:15).

The enmity here is not the Torah, but, to quote David Stern, ” (1) Gentile envy of the special status accorded by God to Israel in the Torah, (2) Jewish pride at being chosen, (3) Gentile resentment of that pride, (4) Mutual dislike of each other’s customs…Jewish customs are unique for a reason. They did not merely evolve; rather, they were the Jewish people’s response to the Torah, with its commands set forth in the form of ordinances…That is why it is appropriate to say that the enmity between Jews and Gentiles was occasioned by the Torah…The enmity was destroyed in Messiah’s body when he died for all sinners…”

The NIV captures the thought better, IMO, although the translations vary quite a bit on this one:

14 For he himself is our peace, who has made the two groups one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, 15 by setting aside in his flesh the law with its commands and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new humanity out of the two, thus making peace,

The enmity or hostility is the barrier war between Jew and Gentile. By removing the Law as a means for drawing close to God and because the NT sets a different criteria for status, namely, all under the New Covenant know the Lord, the points enumerated by Stern are addressed.

If you still maintain your view that the Law is the culprit rather than its misuse, how do you justify the Eph. 2:15 text being written perhaps in the same year Paul went to the Temple and paid for sacrifices to held Jewish believers take a Nazarite vow? And how do you justify an interpretation that makes the Law a culprit in Galatians when Galatians was writtten 7 to 11 years earlier?

I never intended to express the view that the Law is a culprit so excuse what I said that led you to that conclusion. What I was trying to do was to express the thought that the Law is not now in effect for any believer. Different aspects of the Mosaic Covenant worked together. For instance, the Ten Commandments was the knowledge of sin and therefore those who broke any of those commandments knew that their sin had defiled them. Then another part of the Law, the ordinances, provided a means whereby those who had sinned could be cleansed from their sins. In fact, one of those ordinances applied to the whole house of Israel and provided for the cleansing for the children of Israel (Lev.16:3).

Without the Temple there is no cleansing for the nation so therefore it is obvious that the Mosaic Covenant cannot now be in effect.

Thank you, Jack, for clarifying things. Your paradigm is neat, orderly, and logical. However, I do not think it takes into account all the Scriptures, which is why I personally disagree with it.

The Law was never about taking sin away from the inner person, but rather allowed for sacrifice to cleanse one ritually so that he could participate in the religious life of Israel. The sacrifices could only make one ritually clean. You probably agree with this, so I will just refer any readers to Hebrews 9:8-14, with a special emphasis on Hebrews 9:13.

So you are right in saying that the Law cannot be fully in effect now because the Temple is no more (and it appears that the writer to the Hebrews, in particular, picks up on this). But the Jews, like Ezekiel or Daniel, for example, still followed what part of the Law they could after the first temple was destroyed and they were in exile. They did not trash the rest of the Law because there was no Temple, but they viewed their inability to comply with it all as temporary. This did not create a new dispensation.

I do not want to split hairs, but, in my understanding (and that may change through correction), I see a distinction between the Mosaic Covenant and the Torah. The first covenant is an agreement, a contract. So is the second. The demands God places upon his people may or may not change. Thus, as I understand things, the New Covenant went into effect with the Last Supper, and the Jewish believers who were zealous for the Law in Acts 21 (including the apostles) were under the NEW covenant, not the Old. The essence of the New Covenant is not a distinct set of rules (for Jews in the Millennium are under the New Covenant) but the idea that all those under it have the Law of God written on their hearts (regeneration, circumcision of the heart, new birth). It is not the particular set of obligations that make the covenant new, but the relationship of all those under the new covenant to God.

Since we see in the very early church that Jewish believers continued to observe the Torah in a New Covenant way (Acts 21:20-25, Acts 10:14) and seeing that gentile believers were allowed to fellowship with Jewish believers without obeying the Law, and seeing that faithful Jews in the Babylonian captivity obeyed what parts of the Law they could (Daniel 1:8-16), and seeing that the Law will be observed by the Jews during the Millennium, what makes it so incompatible to say that believing Jews can, if they so desire, obey what portions of the Law that they can obey if they so choose, as long as they do not look down on believers who do not do so and they are not trusting in Law observance to justify them? I don’t get it.

Cannot one observe a day to the Lord and another not?

Brother, I think we are just recycling our discussions from above. I guess we just disagree. I think this is a fair summary:

I do not dispute the verse to which you refer, but I interpret them as “in some sense.” For example, Christ is the end of the Law for everyone who believes.” I interpret it mean that a function of the Law has been fulfilled in Christ, but that the Law still has other uses, and that Christ is the end of the Law in this sense for all time. You understand that Christ is the end of the Law for everyone who believes, except in the Millennium.

I understand the Hebrews verses to teach that the Old Covenant is obsolete because the New Covenant has replaced it, but the main difference is not the rules but the disposition of the hearts of those under the covenants, and thus the Old Covenant has ended forever, even in the Millennium (when Jews will obey the Torah under the New Covenant).

We are at an impasse. But it has been a pleasure, brother.