It is difficult to break free of the concept that the Torah is equivalent to the books of Moses and/or the Sinai Covenant, since this understanding is so common in both Jewish and Christian circles. But once we can accept that Torah is contained in the writings of Moses and contained within the Sinai Covenant, then we are free to explore what Torah really is. Once we do that we can better understand what it means to internalize it as part of the New Covenant as prophesied by Jeremiah.
Torah is God's direction. It is his understanding of how we humans should live life. In one sense then all of his revelation is Torah. This might sound contradictory to what I have just written regarding Moses and Sinai, but it isn't really. God has revealed his ways to us not just by statutes and regulations such as what we find in the books of Moses. He has revealed these ways also through the narratives and poetry of the rest of Scripture. Even the specific regulations of the Sinai covenant are to be understood, not isolated from the rest of the Bible, but how we see them lived out in the historic passages, as interpreted by the prophets and elaborated upon by the Messiah and his followers. God's ways are best discerned through the careful study of the whole Bible. That is how we learn to walk in his ways. That is how we learn Torah.
The rabbinical view that Torah is a set of 613 commandments confuses the biblical perspective on this. By turning Torah into a legal code we find ourselves quibbling over its details rather than interacting with God and his directions for living as we seek to apply them in our day.
In Yeshua's "Sermon on the Mount" (Matthew 5 – 7), we see how the religious leaders of his day had failed to properly understand God's intent in several of his directives. He never contradicts God's actual commands, but instead the interpretations of the Torah teachers of that day. That is why he says several times, "You heard it was said, but I say to you" rather than "You know it was written, but I say to you." Throughout the New Covenant writings we read how Torah was being misunderstood and misapplied by the Jewish leaders of that day. Yeshua and his followers, as those through whom God was establishing the New Covenant, were providing God's perspective on Torah, which would result in its internalization just as Jeremiah prophesied.
To be continued…
3 comments:
I am not sure exactly why you referred to Exodus 24:12, which reads:
The LORD said to Moses, "Come up to me on the mountain and stay here, and I will give you the tablets of stone, with the law and commands I have written for their instruction."
Yes, God gave the commandments to Moses as part of the Sinai Covenant, but as a people we rejected that covenant. God's response was to provide the New Covenant of Jeremiah 31.
The implications of the internalization of Torah that occurs under the New Covenant is not fully thought through by those who advocate a continued Sinai-style Torah observance.
Torah is the Hebrew for "law", though other words, like "teaching" and "direction" may be better, since "law" may carry too much of a legal connotation.
Mitzvah is Hebrew for "commandment."
This is indeed something that needs to be focused on more. God is a God of law (as well as of grace, and of love, and everything else he truly is). God give commands, not suggestions. Yet it is not helpful to assume that every command that he gave at any time is always applicable to all people for all time. The Scriptures don't support that.
The main point I have been trying to make throughout this series is that the Sinai Covenant as a system is no longer in force, while much of what it contains is still applicable. How to discern which commands still are is not always straightforward.
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