How Can I Break Away From Torah Observance?
First, I want to say how much I appreciate your teachings/ministry. I am torah observant, but I have seen error in some the legalism in these communities. I want to break from them, but there are a few passages I keeping stumbling over. Could you offer insight with the following?
- Colossians 2:17 is in the present tense when it states they ARE a shadow of the things to come. How am I to reconcile these things? My current understanding about that passage in Colossians is that new gentile believers were coming out of paganism and were being judged in their community about keeping the mosaic festivals, and Sabbath. Paul said, don’t let them judge you for keeping these things as they are shadows of things that are to come. It would make more sense if he said they WERE a shadow instead of ARE a shadow. It’s confusing to me…I looked up the Greek and it definitely is in the present tense. Any thoughts?
- In Acts 15 they only mention a couple things that the gentiles needed to stop doing, but they follow it up with, “For Moses is read in the synagogue every Sabbath” (paraphrasing). It sounds like they were saying when new converts come in, just have them stop these things, and as they come to the synagogues on Sabbath they will be taught more about the Mosaic law on the Sabbath. James didn’t state that they didn’t have to go to the synagogue on the Sabbath; it actually sounds like James is assuming they would be going.
Paul also said in his defense before Festus he had not broken the law of his people, and he also mentions his feast keeping in Acts 18:21 and Acts 20:16. Additionally, in 1 Corinthians 16:8 he mentions staying in Ephesus until Pentecost.
I want to break away from the legalism, but I am scared and cannot get past these Scriptures. My heart is complete turmoil. Any insight is appreciated. I am afraid to admit that if these things are still meant to be followed that it would expose my lack of wanting to follow the festival calendar; there are so many interpretations of how and when to do them and no one agrees. It’s frustrating to say the least, and I have grown weary of it all….
—VIA EMAIL
Editor’s Response
Thank you for writing. I completely understand your questions and fears. They are deeply familiar.
The first concern is that Torah-observant religions as well as Adventism do not understand the biblical covenants. The covenants teach us God’s sovereign promises and show us what is unilateral and unconditional and what is conditional and bilatera. These covenants actually provide the framework for God’s revelation of Himself and of His eternal plan of salvation which began in the Garden, in Genesis 3, when He met the newly-spiritually-dead Adam and Eve and promised that a Seed from the woman would crush the serpent’s head.
The covenants of Scripture are those that the Bible actually names. People have assigned “covenant” status to many of God’s promises, such as His conditions with Adam, but unless Scripture calls them covenants, we cannot.
Second, the way we read the Bible is important. The Bible is to be read like a normal book: it uses all the normal conventions of grammar, context, and vocabulary. We can’t remove any verse from its context. For example, when God says in Exodus 31 that anyone who does not keep His sabbaths is to be cut off from His people and killed, we have to read that in the context of God’s speaking to Israel. He was not speaking to anyone else, even though there were uncounted numbers of gentiles in the world. Only Israel had the Mosaic covenant with God.
The Mosaic covenant, importantly, was not an addition to the Abrahamic covenant. God’s unilateral, unconditional covenant with Abraham was ratified by God Himself. He represented Himself in two forms of fire (our God Is a consuming fire), and He promised to give Abraham seed, land, and blessing. He is STILL fulfilling those covenant promises. When God gave Israel the Mosaic covenant, it did not replace nor add to the Abrahamic covenant. Rather it began at a specific time: 430 years AFTER Abraham (see Galatians 3:15–21). It was given only to the nation who was fulfilling God’s unconditional promise to Abraham that he would have countless descendants from a son of promise, people that He would ultimately bring into the land where Abraham was when God covenanted His eternal promises.
The Mosaic covenant was between God and a nation. It was their constitution, their directions for worship and for life in a hostile, pagan land. The nation promised to do all that God asked them to do, and God promised to bless them if they kept His terms. God also promised to discipline them and even to cut them off from His people individually if they failed to keep the covenant. Yet God had no such restrictions on His unilateral, unconditional covenant with Abraham. God alone was involved in keeping that covenant.
The Mosaic covenant was given UNDER the overarching umbrella of the Abrahamic covenant which God is still fulfilling. It was not part of the same covenant but was separate and specifically made with a nation. Galatians 3 also tells us the end-point of that covenant: when the Seed came. Read Galatians 3:15–21. The Ten Commandments were not a separate document eternal in the heavens. Rather, they were the actual “words of the covenant” (Exodus 34:27, 28). The Ten Words were the actual terms of God’s covenant with Israel, and all the other 603 commands included in the Torah were the explanations of how to apply the Ten Words.
The Mosaic covenant was not an eternal promise from God as are His unconditional covenants like the Noahic, the Abrahamic, the Davidic, and the New. The Mosaic covenant had fallible human promises at its core. The Mosaic covenant was a covenant of death (read 2 Corinthians 3). It contained a curse and a death sentence for anyone breaking its terms. It was this death sentence that the Lord Jesus fulfilled. He is the reason that the Mosaic covenant lasted “until the Seed”. The Mosaic covenant—the Law—was a SHADOW of the good things to come (Hebrews 10:1).
Law Is Fulfilled, Not Destroyed
The grammar in Colossians is present tense because the actual Mosaic covenant document still exists. Paul wrote the epistle to the Colossians before the temple and Jerusalem were destroyed in AD 70. Not only were Jews trying to put gentiles under the law, but they were also trying to move born-again Jews back into temple Judaism. This reality is made clear in the entire book of Hebrews which is explaining to Jewish Christians how Jesus is better than every single aspect of the law.
The Mosaic covenant has not gone away—it has only become obsolete. In Galatians 3, Paul compares it to a human covenant, or a will and testament, or a trust, as we would say today. A person describes how he wants his estate distributed when he dies. Until he dies, that legal covenant protects the estate, and the person who made the trust has complete control over it and its terms. But when that person dies, that document describes in detail how everything is to be disbursed. When the full disbursement is completed, that document doesn’t cease to exist. My mother’s living trust, for example, still rests in a locked safe box. But is has no more authority because it has been fulfilled. Its job is done. Yet that document is still there, and descendants, if they have any questions about my mom’s estate or even about the people in my mom’s life that she included in her trust, could look at that document and learn how she thought and what she intended. It is a witness to her purposes and intentions even though it has no more authority.
This reality of a fulfilled trust or will, Paul is saying (and also in Romans 7), is an example of how the Mosaic law worked. It was God’s direction for Israel, and its terms would be firmly in place UNTIL the Seed would come and fulfill them. Jesus fulfilled every single shadow described in the law. In fact, in Matthew 12, when the Pharisees were angry with Him and His disciples for breaking the Sabbath, Jesus ended up telling them that “something greater than the temple is here.” To the Jews, the temple represented their national and spiritual identity. It contained all the representations of God’s character and person: the candlesticks which represented the Light of the World; the shewbread (bread of life), the incense (prayers of God’s people), the ark of the covenant housing God’s own handwriting of His covenant with the nation. And originally, the very presence of God in the shekinah glory was over the ark in the Most Holy Place in the tabernacle. Imagine the shock when Jesus said, “Something greater than the temple is here.” By saying that, He was saying that every single revelation and representation of God was IN HIM!!
In Him was the Light of the World, the Bread of Life, the intercession for the saints, the regular and yearly sacrifices, the intercession of the priesthood—and most importantly, the actual living reality of God’s LAW: God’s moral character and holiness and all LAW was IN JESUS personally! No wonder they wanted Him dead—they knew what He was saying!
In Jesus Himself was holy righteousness—including Sabbath rest. The Law was realized IN HIM. This shocking fact is what Paul explains in Galatians, in Colossians, in Romans and Ephesians, and it is what Hebrews explains.
The law was for a specific time and specific people. We cannot read the Bible and assign new meanings to the context. We can’t read Deuteronomy (or any of the Torah) and say that now the church is the new Israel. There is absolutely no place in Scripture where that is said. We cannot read the New Testament where it states that gentiles are not required to be under the law and say that the law actually applies to us because we have assumed the identity that Scripture never gives us.
So, Colossians is present tense because the law existed when Paul wrote—and it still exists today. But its function has been fulfilled. And when Paul wrote to the Colossians, the Jews were actively teaching the gentiles to keep that law. But Jesus is its fulfillment. Paul’s statement not to let anyone judge them for the day they keep is repeated in Romans 14. No day is required in the new covenant. One can’t argue that the law was still required because of “is” while ignoring that Paul also said, in the present tense, to let no one judge them for a day! The law, which was very much in front of them, IS FULFILLED in Christ! That is not just a fact that was true on a day in the past, it continues to be true. Jesus IS the reality to which the Law pointed. Even today, the Law is proof that Jesus is who He said He was. Only He fulfilled the law. Only HE could touch a dead man and not be defiled. Only He could break the Sabbath and not sin (John 8). He broke the ritual laws consistently because HE WAS FULFILLING THEM AND REVEALING THAT HE WAS THE PROMISED MESSIAH. The law was made to reveal the One to whom it pointed. (See Romans 3:20, 21).
Circumcision: Access to the Law
Acts 15 specifically said that the gentiles should not placed under the law, but it is stated in terms that were at work then. Circumcision was the ritual that marked a gentile’s conversion to Judaism. Until they were circumcised, gentile God-fearers could not participate in temple worship except in the outer Court of the Gentiles. They were not permitted to offer sacrifices. They were not under the diet restrictions. They were not under the law! They had no right to practice the law until they were circumcised. Furthermore, Peter himself said,
After there had been much debate, Peter stood up and said to them, “Brethren, you know that in the early days God made a choice among you, that by my mouth the Gentiles would hear the word of the gospel and believe. “And God, who knows the heart, testified to them giving them the Holy Spirit, just as He also did to us; and He made no distinction between us and them, cleansing their hearts by faith. “Now therefore why do you put God to the test by placing upon the neck of the disciples a yoke which neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear? “But we believe that we are saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, in the same way as they also are.”—Acts 15:7–11 LSB
Peter stated that the gentiles should not be put under the law when they themselves and their fathers had NOT “been able to bear” the burden of the law!
Read Acts 15:1–21 in context without extracting words and verses. Just read it in context. James is not saying the gentiles needed to observe the law or go to synagogue. Rather he was saying that god-fearing gentiles had heard the law preached for years when they went to the synagogue—there was no more law those gentiles needed! Even as synagogue attenders, those gentiles had not been under the law because they were not circumcised. James was saying NOT to put the gentiles under the law! God had saved them without being under the law, and He saved them the same way He was saving Jews!
Paul did not break the law of his people. The law did not require synagogue attendance—although Paul went on Sabbath—because the synagogues were never part of the law. They were an addition developed during the Babylonian exile when the Israelites had no temple. The law only required that people literally stay in their tents on Sabbath. It was a day of REST. The synagogues were human additions, and they attached the synagogues to the fourth commandment like Adventists and Torah-observers do today. But Paul did not break the law. The fact is that the law was alway a witness and a shadow of Christ. Had Paul rejected Christ, that is when he would have broken the law! By refusing to embrace the reality and fulfillment of the law and of its purpose, the Jews actually did break their own law. They refused to believe it and to see that it was pointing to their Messiah!
The feasts and shadows Paul performed were not illegal for him as a born again Christian. They were part of his being like a Jew when he was ministering to Jews (1 Cor 9:20-23). Yet if he was with gentiles, he did not practice the law. He became a gentile to the gentiles. The REALITY is Christ. He had Christ! In Christ, all things were lawful for him!
And one more comment on the grammar of Colossians 2:16, 17: if they are saying that “present tense” means that it wasn’t fulfilled in the past and that they ARE a shadow of the reality found in Christ, they are actually denying that Christ Has Come! If they’re looking forward to the eternal state and saying sabbaths aren’t fulfilled until then, they are ignoring that Christ came! They are still a shadow! The law is in God’s eternal word as a witness and testimony of His purpose, will and provision. The law exists, but it is still only a shadow, just as it was then. Christ HAS COME! To cling to the shadow instead of the Christ is like getting out of the car and clinging to the sign that says, “Jerusalem: 25 miles”, and refusing to go to Jerusalem but holding onto the sign, a “shadow” of what the reality is! Using their “tense” argument, if Paul was saying the Sabbath isn’t fulfilled in Christ until He returns, then Paul should have said it WILL BE fulfilled in Christ. But He said it IS. That means that today, now, from that day forward, every single day, Sabbath is fulfilled in Christ!
Paul says that the sabbaths and foods are a shadow “of what is to come”. But notice that he says “the substance belongs to Christ”. He is saying the actual reality of what the Sabbaths represented are IN and AVAILABLE in Christ right now. Yes, there will be eternal rest when we are finally glorified and with Him in person, but right now, if we have Christ, we have everything including the promised inheritance that is the legal privilege of all who are children of God by adoption and by the new birth (Romans 8:14–17). Paul’s argument here is an echo of Jesus telling the Jews that one greater than the temple was there with them. ALL of God’s attributes, provisions, and glory ARE in Christ, and when we have Him, we have ALL that He is for eternity.
I suggest that you get a notebook and literally copy the book of Galatians, asking God to teach you what He wants you to know. †
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