Vlad Kiselov via Unsplash
John McKee delivers the September 2024 Outreach Israel News update.
Committing oneself to having a Torah foundation in your theology, is frequently not something which is easy. While it is true that the Lord said, “For this commandment which I command you today is not too difficult for you, nor is it out of reach” (Deuteronomy 30:11, NASU), it is also true that proper Biblical interpretation involves more than just reading the text (in an English translation), and somehow applying it or making it relevant. The Torah’s instruction broadly composed direction issued to the Ancient Israelites in the Ancient Near East: “These are the commandments which the Lord commanded Moses for the sons of Israel at Mount Sinai” (Leviticus 27:34, NASU).
There tends to be no disagreement, across today’s Messianic spectrum, how all of God’s people should be submitted to the moral and ethical principles of Moses’ Teaching—and with that how its stories and accounts should help all to appreciate His ongoing plan of salvation history, culminating in the work of Yeshua the Messiah. There is disagreement, when factors involving native born and sojourner in Ancient Israel, issues such as what Jewish people are supposed to follow and what non-Jews or Gentiles are supposed to follow, and theological debates from One Law/One Torah to bilateral ecclesiology to now Distinction Theology—are all introduced into the mix.
A huge part of the debate, over the applicability of Torah commandments to the Jewish and non-Jewish people in today’s Messianic movement, just assumes that the Torah was written directly to us living in the Twenty-First Century. That is why discussions and divisions often occur on the basis of Jews follow this and Gentiles can follow that. Very quickly, however, when study and examination of Torah instructions are conducted, that becomes an overly-simplistic grid by which to view its code of conduct. Indeed, the more Torah and Tanach study in which I have engaged, and the experiences I have had within the Messianic community, have led to a much different method of approach regarding applicability of commandments than is commonly seen. While I do believe in the post-resurrection era validity of the Torah for all of God’s people, and that institutions such as the seventh-day Sabbath/Shabbat or a kosher style of diet are important to consider—I nonetheless do not read the Torah as though it were written directly to me.
I believe God’s commandments are important, but many of today’s Messianic people are in need of an adjustment in how to approach the Torah—and specifically matters of native born and sojourner in Ancient Israel, and who we are today as God’s people.
Is the Torah Timeless?
One of the biggest challenges facing any reader of the Holy Scriptures, is that simple, yet complicated rule of Biblical interpretation: interpret a text from the perspective of its original audience first, and then deduce a modern application for the Twenty-First Century. In my experience as a Messianic Teacher over many years, many within the Messianic sphere of influence have been starting to understand how necessary this is for reading and applying the Apostolic Scriptures (NT). The letters of the Apostle Paul, for example, were clearly someone else’s mail, being directly composed for people living in the First Century Mediterranean basin. Likewise, many of the difficult matters Yeshua spoke about in the Gospels, can only be best understood through some grid of Second Temple Judaism.
Because of our steadfast belief in Yeshua as the Messiah of Israel, most of us are involved in things Messianic, to in some way affirm His words of Luke 24:44: “These are My words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things which are written about Me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled” (NASU). All of us believe that the Bible of Yeshua and His first Disciples was the Tanach (OT). We all likewise believe that Yeshua’s purpose with the Torah Teaching was one of fulfillment, not abrogation (Matthew 5:17-19). In the Messiah’s teachings, we find the definitive interpretation of Moses’ Teaching. And, a number of the corrections witnessed in the Messiah’s teachings, often involved ancient misinterpretations and misapplications of what Moses intended.
While it is to be highly appreciated how many Messianic people strive to understand the Apostolic Scriptures from the vantage point of some original First Century C.E. audience first perspective—this same courtesy is not applied as frequently as it should be to the Tanach (OT). And this is even more true of the Torah or Pentateuch itself. Part of this may be due to the fact that unlike classical civilizations such as Greece and Rome, intersecting with Second Temple Judaism—there is a much greater unfamiliarity with Sumer, Egypt, Canaan, Assyria, Babylon, Persia, and others intersecting with the people of Israel, throughout the many centuries of the Tanach. While it is to be commended how today’s Messianic movement widely and appropriately does consider the Torah to be the foundation of Holy Scripture—a reality too many have dismissed—it is entirely wrong to assume that the Torah is something which is somehow timeless. The Torah’s code of instruction was originally given to the Israelites, who were being prepared and readied by God to enter into their inheritance of the Promised Land. A responsible Bible reader has to read the Torah’s accounts and directions in the context of Ancient Israel in the Fifteenth/Thirteenth Century B.C.E. (depending on how one dates the Exodus).
Much of the conflict which can be witnessed within the Messianic community, regarding the applicability of commandments to Jewish or non-Jewish people, often comes because not enough people are reading Torah instructions with any kind of ancient vantage point in mind. None of us here today are the people who were directly given the Torah, so that we might enter into the Land of Canaan via the leadership of Moses’ successor Joshua. For Jewish Believers, the Torah for certain composes not only a major part of their spiritual heritage, but most especially their ethnic and cultural heritage. For non-Jewish Believers, the Torah composes their spiritual heritage. While it is inappropriate to view the Torah or Pentateuch as simply being dusty and old Biblical history, today’s Messianic people need to recapture some sort of original Ancient Israelite audience first approach to reading and applying its instructions. If we are able to do this, it would be my hope that a number of present schisms can be mended.
Torah Instructions Are Inclusive
Throughout much of today’s Messianic movement, one will see the view expressed that non-Jewish Believers are to be likened unto the sojourners or gerim who entered into the community of Ancient Israel. It was not only descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob who were delivered by God out of Egypt, but also a mixed multitude of others who acknowledged Him (Exodus 12:38). The admonition to the native born of Israel, regarding the sojourner, was fairly clear: “You shall not oppress a stranger, since you yourselves know the feelings of a stranger, for you also were strangers in the land of Egypt” (Exodus 23:9, NASU). It was specifically directed, “The stranger who resides with you shall be to you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt; I am the Lord your God” (Leviticus 19:34, NASU). While it would be naïve for any Bible reader to think that the sojourner who entered into the community of Ancient Israel was exactly the same as the native born of Israel—sojourners were to be welcomed in, especially as they acknowledged the One God of Israel.
Gerim in the community of Ancient Israel did not have any kind of rights of tribal inheritance. Gerim in the community of Ancient Israel had to be circumcised to eat of the Passover sacrifice (Exodus 12:48). Gerim in the community of Ancient Israel could be given an animal which died of natural causes (Deuteronomy 14:21), as a form of welfare, among others (cf. Leviticus 19:10). It is plain from Deuteronomy 31:12, though, that both natives and gerim in the community of Ancient Israel were to be educated in the principles of Moses’ Teaching, and hardly discouraged from obedience: “Assemble the people, the men and the women and children and the alien who is in your town, so that they may hear and learn and fear the Lord your God, and be careful to observe all the words of this law” (NASU).
While circumcision on the eighth day would be an institution expected of the native born of Israel (Leviticus 12:1-3)—with the question only asked of gerim in the community of Ancient Israel in association with Passover—Torah institutions on the whole were inclusive of both native and sojourner. The Fourth Commandment explicitly directed: “the seventh day is a sabbath of the Lord your God; in it you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter, your male or your female servant or your cattle or your sojourner who stays with you” (Exodus 20:10, NASU). Not only were the families, servants, and animals within the community of Ancient Israel to experience a Shabbat rest—but the gerim of Ancient Israel were to experience a Shabbat rest as well. And presumably, “Everyone who profanes it shall surely be put to death (Exodus 31:14, NASU), l’khem mchal’leha mot yumat, could have indeed included both native and sojourner within Ancient Israel. It has been recognized how the importance of the Sabbath to Ancient Israel, was rooted within God’s intentions of cosmic history.[1]
If a non-Israelite sojourner entered into the community of Ancient Israel, he or she was to be welcomed and loved by native born Israelites—and not actively turned away—especially as they acknowledged the One God of Israel. Instead, gerim or sojourners in the community of Ancient Israel were to learn Moses’ Teaching, just as native born Israelites were to learn Moses’ Teaching. In reading through the Torah, it is worthwhile to investigate to what degree, in various places, the wide company of Ancient Israel, composed of both native born and sojourner, was possibly addressed as b’nei Yisrael—as opposed to just male, ethnic Israelites being addressed as b’nei Yisrael. Yet, in stark contrast to what has been commonly espoused by the One Law/One Torah sub-movement, there were various differences between native born Israelites and gerim or sojourners within the community of Ancient Israel. Some more targeted studies and reviews of Torah instructions, albeit uncomfortable for various sides, will be necessary in the future.[2] It can be fairly recognized, though, that native and sojourner in Ancient Israel had far more in common than not, and such commonality should control the reading of today’s mature Messianic people.
Still, one of the things which should never escape our notice, is how no Twenty-First Century Jewish or non-Jewish Believer in Israel’s Messiah is a native born or sojourner living in the community of Ancient Israel. An institution like the seventh-day Sabbath, when properly followed, was inclusive in that both native born and sojourner in Ancient Israel would be receiving a Shabbat rest. Questions regarding the institution of the Sabbath in the post-resurrection era, among other Torah practices, are affected by further developments in salvation history.
No Longer Sojourners
Appreciated throughout a great deal of the contemporary Messianic movement, is Paul’s sentiment of Ephesians 2:19: “you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints, and are of God’s household” (NASU). R.J.D. Knauth raises an uncomfortable point for how “Pentateuchal law made no provision for aliens to gain full Israelite status (at least until the third generation for Edomites and Egyptians [Deut 23:7-8]).”[3] While Ancient Israel was to be a welcoming community toward gerim or sojourners who entered in, as Israel proper itself had sojourned in Egypt, such persons were not going to have too close equivalence to the native. They would frequently always be labeled as ger.
Given the elimination of the dividing wall between the Jewish people and the nations, and emergence of one new humanity (Ephesians 2:15)—Paul indicated how a new reality had emerged for those from the nations who sought after Israel’s God and Messiah: “you are fellow citizens of God’s consecrated ones; you are members of his household” (Ephesians 2:19, God’s New Covenant-Cassirer). Paul further expressed how
“For this reason I, Paul, the prisoner of Messiah Yeshua on behalf of you, the nations—if indeed you have heard of the administration of the grace of God which was given to me for you; that by revelation was made known to me the mystery, as I wrote before in brief. To which, when you read, you can perceive my insight into the mystery of Messiah, which in other generations was not made known to the children of humanity, as it has now been revealed to His holy apostles and prophets in the Spirit; that is, that the nations are fellow heirs and fellow members of the body, and fellow partakers of the promise in Messiah Yeshua through the good news” (Ephesians 3:1-6, author’s rendering).
Through the sacrifice of Yeshua on the tree, via the good news, Paul testified how non-Jewish Believers in Israel’s Messiah were a part of the same body along with Jewish Believers. They were to be regarded as fellow citizens with Jewish Believers, within the Commonwealth of Israel (Ephesians 2:11-13). The designation sojourner, alien, or foreigner, was to give way to the new and equitable designation of: fellow citizen.
This would hardly mean that Jewish and non-Jewish Believers were to be regarded as one-hundred percent the same. Paul may have regarded the history of Ancient Israel as the spiritual heritage of all Messiah’s followers (1 Corinthians 10:1), but for him as a Jewish Believer it was most especially his ethnic and cultural heritage. Non-Jewish, Greek and Roman Believers in the First Century, still would have had an ethnic and cultural heritage from outside the Biblical story to reckon with. But as citizens of the Commonwealth of Israel, they would need to have to have seen themselves purged of the sin laden affects and influences of the old humanity, as dynamics were in play, via the good news of Yeshua’s arrival, to see them become one in the body with their fellow Jewish Believers.
“The Words of the Prophets”
All of today’s Messianic people recognize some of the difficult dynamics, both spiritual and social, which were in play, as non-Jewish people began recognizing the Messiah of Israel in great numbers. The controversy present in Antioch was caused by some overly-conservative Jewish Believers, who insisted that the Greeks and Romans recognizing Yeshua be ordered to keep the Torah, and be circumcised, to be saved (Acts 15:1, 5). When everyone was gathered at Jerusalem to resolve the matter about what was to be done, the Apostle Peter testified how Jewish people and those from the nations, were saved the exact same way: by the grace of the Lord Yeshua (Acts 15:7-11). So to be sure: no forced Torah observance or circumcision were mandatory for salvation.
James the Just, half-brother of the Lord Yeshua, testified at the Jerusalem Council that what was taking place was in accordance with “the words of the Prophets” (Acts 15:15), making specific reference to Amos 9:11-12 (LXX) and the restoration of the Tabernacle of David (Acts 15:16-18). He issued the Apostolic Decree, mandating “abstain[ence] from things contaminated by idols and from fornication and from what is strangled and from blood” (Acts 15:20, NASU). It seems fair enough to deduce that when the Apostolic Decree was followed, which would indeed have been a burden to many of the new, Greek and Roman Believers (cf. Acts 15:28), that they would have been cut off from their old religious and social spheres of influence in paganism. Instead, they would be attached to a new religious and social sphere of influence, where the One God of Israel was acknowledged and Moses’ Teaching was declared every week (Acts 15:21).
To be sure, when James said that what had started to take place was in accord with the Prophets of the Tanach, there were likely many other prophecies in his mind, beyond that of Amos 9:11-12. Among the possible additional prophecies, proposed by various commentators, may have included: Isaiah 2:2; 19:18-25; 45:20-23; Jeremiah 12:15-16; Hosea 3:4-5; Zephaniah 3:9; Zechariah 2:11; 8:22; 9:7. With the salvation of the nations occurring in the First Century C.E., future realities had begun to break in to the present. And how much closer are we today to their completion, especially given the emergence of the modern Messianic movement?
Consider how in Ancient Israel, the ger or sojourner was to have a Sabbath rest, along with the native (Exodus 20:10). An institution such as Shabbat was inclusive. But in the case of non-Jewish Believers coming to faith in Israel’s Messiah, in the First Century C.E., none of them were mandated to keep Shabbat. What if, instead, the trajectory they were placed onto, was indeed the expectation of Tanach prophecy steadily taking shape and the work of the Holy Spirit to manifest? Consider what is foretold by Isaiah 66:23:
“From new moon to new moon, and from sabbath to sabbath, all flesh shall come to worship before me, says the Lord” (Isaiah 66:23, RSV).
Are You Called? Commonality Before Differences
Today via the rise of the modern Messianic movement, all of us agree that the expectations of Romans chs. 9-11, and a massive Jewish salvation, have begun to take shape. With all of the non-Jewish Believers who have entered into the Messianic movement, over the past several decades, it seems obvious enough that the nations are streaming to Zion to be taught from Moses’ Teaching (Micah 4:1-3; Isaiah 2:2-4). Many are keeping Shabbat (Isaiah 66:23). For many, wanting to grow in holiness, sanctification, and have a more authentic experience similar to Yeshua and His Disciples—this has been a genuine work of the Holy Spirit via the power of the New Covenant (Jeremiah 31:31-34; Ezekiel 36:25-27), and not one of legalistic bondage. My own family, having been involved and having stayed in the Messianic movement since 1995, may be accounted among these people. Prophecies are being fulfilled!
The common Messianic Jewish emphasis, one will encounter toward non-Jewish Believers being involved—is actually not to turn them away—but instead to ask the critical question: Are you called? How many non-Jewish people do not stay in the Messianic movement? How many, while being interested in connecting to the Scriptures of Israel, are not too interested in serving as co-laborers in the salvation of Israel? Today’s Messianic Jewish Believers, do often use the buffer of Are you called? to keep out potential troublemakers, and especially those who may cause them harm. In our day of growing anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism, that is actually pretty fair and reasonable.
We find ourselves in a very interesting phase of Messianic development in 2024, especially given some of the challenges witnessed in the past several decades. As we edge closer and closer to the Messiah’s return—and there are fewer and fewer true Believers, actually plugged into what God is doing—we are going to need to focus our theological and spiritual attention around our common faith in what Yeshua has done for us as redeemed men and women. Emphasizing commonality over differences and distinctions, has proved to be rather difficult in recent days. But it is not impossible. Yet each one of us is probably going to have to go back, and adjust our approach to some of the various matters which have divided far too many…
NOTES
[1] Cf. Richard Elliot Friedman, Commentary on the Torah (New York: HarperCollins, 2001), 278.
[2] For a useful guide, consult R.J.D. Knauth, “Alien, Foreign Resident,” in T. Desmond Alexander and David W. Baker, eds., Dictionary of the Old Testament Pentateuch (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2003), pp 25-33.
[3] Knauth, “Alien, Foreign Resident,” in Dictionary of the Old Testament Pentateuch, 31.