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Is Torah Obedience a Contemptible Yoke?
Challenging a Comfortable Assumption That Undermines Covenant Faithfulness
September 11, 2007
I always feel uncomfortable when I hear of people disparaging being yoked to the law. The reason is, this is God's Law, and and when we categorically regard it negatively, what does that imply about God?In
my view, we have inherited from Christendom supersessionist
assumptions about the Jewish people and about Torah, the unique pathway
of honoring God which He gave us.
I believe the "yoke" which
is disparaged in Acts 15:9-10 is not the Torah itself, indeed it cannot
be, for reasons I will state in a moment. The yoke disparaged there is
an attitude--"they (Gentiles who have come to faith in Yeshua) MUST be required to obey. . ." It is the way some
oppress others about Torah obedience that is the contemptible yoke; it
cannot be Torah which is the contemptible yoke.
Three reasons:
- God is
the source of the yoke;
- The Scripture (for example, Psalm 119) and
Jewish tradition rhapsodize about this yoke;
- And in the very community
in Acts where allegedly the yoke was disparaged, according to some
interpretations of Acts 15, some 15-20 years later the entire community
is all zealous for Torah, and the entire story in Acts 21:17 ff.
supports the interpretation that this is good and glorious. If Torah
were a contemptible yoke, would they not have shucked it off in 15
years, or would there not have been a sizable contingent in the
assumbly that had done so, instead of ALL of these myriads of Jewish
believers being zealous for Torah? And, in the same Acts 21 context,
would Paul himself have capitulated to performing a Temple ritual to
indicate his adherence to halacha simply to be Mr Nice Guy?
Again,
we have inherited what I term crypto-supersessionism, a submerged and
entrenched cluster of suppositions which assume the expiration of that
status and those status markers which formerly pertained to the Jewish
people.
Finally, Yeshua himself undermines this perspective. I spoke to this issue in a recent sermon.
Some would say that Yeshua has come to fulfill the Torah. Since he kept Torah’s demands perfectly, we don’t have to any more. Sounds good. However, Yeshua explicitly teaches against this when he states, "Don't think that I have come to abolish the Torah or the Prophets. I have come not to abolish but to complete.
Notice first the question being addressed in this text: “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Torah or the Prophets.” This is not an idle question: the reason Matthew has this text here is because already in his day some were saying that Yeshua had come to do away with the Torah and the Prophets. This text explicitly answers . . . and refutes this position.
But then many would say, “Well, Rabbi. What this text means is that Yeshua has come to fulfill prophecy.” Not adequate! Look what the text says . . . 18 Yes indeed! I tell you that until heaven and earth pass away, not so much as a yud or a stroke will pass from the Torah -- not until everything that must happen has happened. (O.K. That seems to refer to prophecy . . . but read on!)19 So whoever disobeys the least of these mitzvot and teaches others to do so will be called the least in the Kingdom of Heaven. But whoever obeys them and so teaches will be called great in the Kingdom of Heaven.” The text explicitly refers to “the least or these mitzvot,” grounding all of this in Torah.
As for those who would say, “Well, what he means is simply the commandment to love God and to love your neighbor,” that sounds nice, but is clearly NOT what is being taught here, where the entire issue is the persistence of the Torah and the Prophets and the mitzvot they embody. Speaking hyperbolically, Yeshua then seals his argument by referring to those people who are known as being most devoted to Torah obedience. He states that we must learn to be better at obedience than even these: 20 For I tell you that unless your righteousness is far greater than that of the Torah-teachers and P'rushim, you will certainly not enter the Kingdom of Heaven!
I can find nothing in the teachings of Yeshua that justifies the community of Jacob abandoning its Torah obligations. As we have seen in Matthew 23, Yeshua even states, “The Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat, therefore do whatever they tell you to do.” He is validating the Jewish community’s perspective on what Torah teaches. Clearly, in Newer Covenant as in the Torah, Jews are expected to walk in Torah obedience in solidarity with the people of Israel.
Well, if this is true, then why haven’t Jewish believers in Yeshua pursued these avenues before? One of the reasons is that most Jewish believers have operated out of a supersessionist mindset, accepting the assumptions of Christendom that the privileged and special status of the people of Israel has expired, with the Church being the New Israel. Secondly, this is an emphasis that the Spirit of God has begun to quicken in our days, as the Jewish people are being brought back to the Land, are experiencing spiritual renewal, with increasing numbers of Jewish people coming to Yeshua faith. In other words, it is just as Ezekiel promised . . . that in the latter days, the Jewish people would return to the Land, to the Torah, would experience spiritual renewal, and would increasingly see themselves as one people, gathered around Messiah. All five of these aspects of our mission statement are being quickened in our days . . . including a rebirth of awareness of Jewish covenant responsibilities.
Again, some contrast Yeshua's easy and light yoke (Matthew 11), with that of Torah. But to do that is to contrast the God of the Older Covenant
with that of the New, to ignore passages like Ezekiel 37, Deut 30, and
Jer 31:31 ff., which speak of Torah living as a characteristic of
renewed and restored eschatological Israel,
to imply that God's Torah is yucky, etc. It is also to ignore that
Paul's negative statements about Torah are given to Gentiles who are
being tempted to believe that their faith in Yeshua is not in itself
enough to incorporate them into the people of God, while Paul himself
remains Torah obedient all his life.
No, as comfortable
as a negation of Torah living might be, due to its compatibility with
our crypto-supersessionist inheritance, it raises more questions than
it answers. At least for me.
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