Tag Archives: Galatians

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Does Jesus Matter?

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Why Native American religions, when scholars acknowledge that Native American tribes do not traditionally distinguish between religion and the rest of life?

-William T. Cavanaugh
Chapter 1: The Anatomy of the Myth”
The Myth of Religious Violence: Secular Ideology and the Roots of Modern Conflict

But what does it say? “The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart” (that is, the word of faith that we proclaim); because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

–Romans 10:8-9 (ESV)

Disclaimer: This is a long “meditation.” I’m sorry. I couldn’t make my point and keep it under 2600 words. Just letting you know.

I’ve been reading Cavanaugh’s The Myth of Religious Violence, albeit somewhat slowly, but I came to a complete stop when I read the quote from his book I placed at the top of this blog post. Cavanaugh is trying to refute those people who believe that religion is inherently more violent and prone to causing wars than secular systems of finance or government. One of his main criticisms against this viewpoint is the lack of definition for what is a “religion” which, on the surface may seem easily defined, but in the world of scholarly analysis, is pretty difficult to pin down.

But look at what he says about Native American religions. “Native American tribes do not traditionally distinguish between religion and the rest of life.” But shouldn’t it be that way for all other religions as well?

If you’re a Christian, you may be nodding your head and agreeing that your faith is your life, but I think for a great many of us, we tend to compartmentalize what we do into “religious” and “secular” activities. When you go to church, it’s “religious.” When you pay your taxes or take out the garbage, it’s “secular.” A lot of Christians say that their faith “isn’t a religion, it’s a relationship.” If that’s so, then are there times in your day-to-day life when your relationship with Jesus doesn’t exist or doesn’t matter? If you are married, are there times when your marriage or your spouse doesn’t matter or doesn’t factor into your decision-making, particularly when those decisions don’t have a direct connection to your being married?

Who we are in Christ should permeate every single part of our lives, everything we do, every thought we have. It was Paul who wrote (see 2 Corinthians 10:5) that we must “take every thought captive to obey Christ.” If our Christianity is supposed to function down to the level of our very thoughts, shouldn’t it be ingrained into everything else we are as well?

I’ve been participating in a number of online discussions, including one at Gene Shlomovich’s blog Daily Minyan, regarding the relevance of the Mosaic covenant between God and the Israelites as applied to non-Jewish Christians today. The principle question is, do Christians become obligated to the Law of Moses when we first confess faith in Christ?

I know the vast majority of Christians (and probably Jews) will immediately answer, “No.” But then, most Christians believe that the Law or Torah of Moses was wholly replaced by the grace of Jesus Christ when our Master died on the cross. I disagree with this “replacement theology” (and those of you who’ve been reading my blog for long know this quite well) and believe that the Jewish people continue to be bound to the covenant they made with God at Sinai.

But Christian brothers and sisters, you and I weren’t at Sinai. Our covenant connection to God isn’t dependant on that event, even though there were non-Israelites, the so-called “mixed multitude” of people groups, who also stood at the mountain and agreed to obey God in all things.

However, there are some folks out there who believe that the non-Israelites at Sinai sets a precedent that not only allows, but actually requires all Christians to be fully compliant (or as much as we can be living outside Israel, and without a Temple, Priesthood, and Sanhedrin) to the 613 commandments that the Jews must perform as a condition of their covenant with God through Moses.

But that raises one big, giant red flag for me. If all any Gentile ever had to do to have a covenant relationship with God was to perform the mitzvot as a Jew would, then why do we need Jesus in order to enter into relationship with God and be saved?

This issue is actually more complicated than I’m making it here, but the details would result in an impossibly long blog post. Also, I’m not historian, linguist, or Bible scholar, so I lack the educational “chops” to fully explore all of the niggling little details this topic brings up. On the other hand, any “ordinary person” should be able to discuss their faith in a reasonably intelligent manner without having to possess multiple advanced degrees. If we can’t, then we must relegate ourselves to the status of “sheep” and be at the mercy of anyone who comes up with a theology based on some understanding of what certain Hebrew and Greek words might mean in English.

(I have to say here that I am not denigrating scholarship and education. Far from it. I possess one graduate and two undergraduate university degrees, so I value education and learning very highly. However, it is important to search out and study the findings of legitimate scholars in religious studies. You won’t always find them involved in online religious debates in the blogosphere.)

Let’s get down to it. If Torah obedience is the primary key to entering into covenant relationship with God, then why don’t we all just convert to Judaism? More to the point, why did God bother to send Jesus Christ to be born, live, teach, suffer, die, be resurrected, and ascend to Heaven? That’s a lot of trouble and certainly it wasn’t any fun for Jesus. All God had to do was send a prophet to go to the Gentiles (someone like Paul perhaps) and say, “Convert to Judaism and you will be saved.”

But that’s not what Paul said. And that’s not what Jesus said. I don’t believe Jesus, Paul, Peter, or anyone else said that the Jews must give up Judaism and become Christians, since even Jesus, Paul, and Peter remained Jews, sacrificed at the Temple, and kept kosher throughout their entire lives. I do believe though, that something had to be done for the rest of the people in the world who were worshiping mute idols of stone, wood, and metal.

But if the Gentile pagans didn’t convert to Judaism, what did they become when they abandoned polytheism and began to exclusively worship the God of Israel through faith in the Jewish Messiah?

For a whole year they met with the church and taught a great many people. And in Antioch the disciples were first called Christians. –Acts 11:26 (ESV)

The term “Christians” could more or less be thought of as “Messianics” as well, or people who are disciples of the Jewish Messiah. But it doesn’t translate into “Jews” and it doesn’t translate into “Israelites” or any other such thing. What the believers in Jesus as the Jewish Messiah were called was directly connected to his Messianic identity and what we can think of as the “Messianic” covenant; the covenant that makes it specifically possible for non-Jews/non-Israelites to come into relationship with God “without surrendering their ethnic, racial, or national identity as Gentiles.”

If we were expected to surrender our “Gentileness” and covert to Judaism or in some manner or fashion, become obligated to the full mitzvot of Torah, even while retaining our Gentile identity, why would Paul say this?

Look: I, Paul, say to you that if you accept circumcision, Christ will be of no advantage to you. I testify again to every man who accepts circumcision that he is obligated to keep the whole law. –Galatians 5:2-3 (ESV)

He said something even more dramatic on the same subject:

I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose. –Galatians 2:21 (ESV)

Galatians by D.T. LancasterGranted, Paul’s letter to the Galatians is amazingly difficult to understand (see D. Thomas Lancaster’s book The Holy Epistle to the Galatians for an excellent analysis of this letter) but it’s hard to get around the idea that Paul was severely “discouraging” the non-Jewish members of the churches in Galatia from converting to Judaism (being circumcised) because doing so would place them under the full weight of the Torah mitzvot. Also, if the Gentiles thought they had to convert to Judaism and take on board the entire Torah as an obligation in order to be justified, it would make Christ’s bloody, humiliating, agonizing death on the cross completely meaningless.

So I just don’t see how Jesus is requiring every non-Jewish person who comes to him as a disciple to be obligated to the Torah of Moses.

Having said all that, is the Torah such a bad thing? No, absolutely not. Paul knew that even Jews were justified by faith and not by works of the law. (Galatians 2:15-16)

Is the law then contrary to the promises of God? Certainly not! For if a law had been given that could give life, then righteousness would indeed be by the law. –Galatians 3:21

Paul didn’t abolish the law and neither did Jesus (Matthew 5:17). In fact, Jesus said that “until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished.” (v. 18) As far as I can tell, Heaven and Earth are still with us and not everything the Messiah was supposed to accomplish has happened yet. So the law continues to exist.

I can confidently say Jewish people remain obligated to the mitzvot, both in Second Temple times and today. This, in my opinion, includes the Jews who have come to faith in Jesus as the Jewish Messiah. Jesus never got rid of the Mosaic covenant or replaced it with a newer covenant. I do believe the newer “Messianic” or “Davidic” covenant ratifies the older ones for the Jews so the Messianic promises are realized for them in Christ.

What about the Torah for the rest of us? Modern (non-Messianic) Jews believe that the rest of the people of the earth are obligated to what is called the Seven Laws of Noah and that the covenant of God made with Noah (see Genesis 9) puts all of us in relation with God as long as we obey our Noahide obligations.

But that doesn’t take anything we know from the Gospels or Epistles into account. The Messiah’s mission was not just to restore Israel nationally and spiritually, but to bring the rest of the world into relationship with God. That isn’t dependant on Noah or on Moses but only on Christ.

I’ve heard it said that the Messianic covenant with the Gentiles “travels back in time” as it were, so that the non-Jews at Sinai were brought into relationship with God through Christ and then obligated to the Torah mitzvot as a consequence, but to employ Occam’s razor, when two hypotheses are in competition, the one that makes the fewest assumptions is more likely to be true. The “time traveling” covenant hypothesis creates a lot of hoops to jump through just to support a theory.

Moses didn’t tell the Israelites that they had to obey God in all things and believe in the coming Messiah in order for God to be their God. This is what happened right before God gave the Torah at Sinai:

So Moses came and called the elders of the people and set before them all these words that the Lord had commanded him. All the people answered together and said, “All that the Lord has spoken we will do.” And Moses reported the words of the people to the Lord. –Exodus 19:7-8 (ESV)

Because of faith in God, the Israelites unreservedly agreed to obey everything God told them to do, including everything He hadn’t told them yet. Their agreement is the Mosaic covenant and the Torah mitzvot are the conditions applied to each party subject to that agreement (the Israelites and God). Belief in the future Messiah isn’t specifically mentioned so at that point in time (I know, mysticism could probably “explain” this but I’m trying to stick to the mechanics of the text), Israelites and the Gentile “mixed multitude,”  because of their faith, agreed to obey God and in order to fulfill their agreement, they obeyed all the conditions of the Torah.

But the mixed multitude who became “alien sojourners” among native-born Israelites have disappeared from history. We can argue back and forth that their lives in relation with God did somehow involve the Messiah and absolutely required mitzvot obedience that was identical to the Israelites, but what of the Gentiles who wanted to attach themselves to Israel during and after the earthly ministry of Jesus. Were there “sojourners” in those days or were they “God-fearers” like Cornelius the Roman Centurion? (see Acts 10) What was their status and was Torah obedience required?

While I think we can make a pretty good argument that even Jewish believers in Christ retain their obligation to God relative to Sinai, that seems to be unique to the descendents of Jacob. I do believe that the very first Gentile Christians probably worshipped God in a way that looked much more “Jewish” than we do today, but that’s just a guess. We only have “hints” of Gentile observance that looks Jewish in scripture, (see the aforementioned Cornelius in Acts 10 for example) but no “smoking gun” pointing to Paul teaching Gentiles to say the Shema, wear tzitzit, or lay tefillin. We never actually see an illustration of the Gentile Christians behaving exactly like the Jewish believers in all of the mitzvot.

the-joy-of-torahI don’t see any harm in Christians performing many or even most of the mitzvot. After all. The commandments have a great deal to do with feeding the hungry, treating even the neighbor you don’t like with respect and dignity, and loving God. In fact, if you actually read all 613 commandments, for those that we can actually perform outside of Israel, and without a Temple in Jerusalem, a Priesthood, a “Biblical” court system, I can’t find much that would violate a Christian’s faith.

I think it is mandatory to feed the hungry, to find shelter for the homeless, to comfort the widow, to make sure the orphan is taken care of. If you’re a Christian and you aren’t seeking social justice and performing acts of mercy and kindness, then there’s something wrong with your faith and your lifestyle. Recently, I’ve encouraged Christians to seek God and repent of sins during the month of Elul. I think it’s perfectly fine for Christians to participate in the High Holidays, light candles on Chanukah, eat the Passover meal with their Jewish brothers, count the Omer, celebrate Shavuot/Pentecost, and build a Sukkah.

Certainly Jesus did all these things in accordance to the halachah that was normative for the Jews of the late Second Temple period. Perhaps (though there’s no way to know for sure) even Cornelius the Roman built a sukkah. It don’t think it’s an outrageous idea.

I do think, believe, and endorse with all my heart, mind, and spirit, that Jesus, or Yeshua as he’s called in Hebrew, absolutely, positively must be the center of our faith and covenant connection with God. Without Christ and the specifics of the Davidic covenant that allows us to be in relation to God and to call Jesus Lord and King, we among the nations are lost. We have nothing. Neither Jew nor Gentile has ever been justified by obedience to Torah commandments. As Paul said, we’re justified by faith.

Jesus does matter. He matters to anyone who wants a relationship with God.

Make Christ your everything. He is not irrelevant. He is indispensible. He is the key. He is the vine and we are his branches.

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Debating Fulfillment Theology

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This “logic” is plainly presented in Galatians 3. God had a very good reason to institute the Law of Moses and it has nothing to with “bait and switch.” It had to do with point and lead until the fulfillment of its goal. The emphasis of the salvation that was to come for all of mankind goes back to the promise made to Abraham.

-Eugene Adkins
in his January 27 comment on my blog post
The Lord’s Sabbath

This understanding of the function of a paidagogos clears up Galatians 3:23, where Paul says, “Now before faith came, we were held captive under the law, imprisoned until the coming faith would be revealed” (Galatians 3:23). The paidagogos was the child’s guardian, not his jailer. When we understand that the paidagogos was responsible for protecting, supervising, and directing a child, then we have a better understanding of how the Greek text of Galatians 3:23 should be rendered in English. The Greek word which the English Standard Version translates as “held captive” has a different connotation. It can also be rendered as “protected,” “kept safe,” or “guarded.” The word should be understood as speaking about how a pedagogue kept a child safe and out of trouble. Similarly, the Greek word which the ESV translates as “imprisoned” (the same word appears in 3:22) can be rendered as “kept in” or “enclosed” in a positive sense. The word should be understood as speaking about how a pedagogue kept a child inside for his school lessons. He did not allow the child to run off and follow his friends into trouble. He kept him shut up inside for the purpose of education and protection.

-D. Thomas Lancaster
“Sermon Eighteen: The Pedagogue (Galatians 3:19-26), pg 182
The Holy Epistle to the Galatians
First Fruits of Zion
August 2011

Ziesler, “Role of the Tenth Commandment,” p. 50, makes the important observation in Rom. 8:4 of the use of the singular…(“requirement”) in Paul’s conclusion: “having talked in 7.1-6 about dying to the Law, Paul now in a notably bald statement appears to bring us back to life again in relation to the Law, if not under it. We died to the Law in order to keep it better.” He further suggests that this singular reference keeps the singular sin of covetousness in perspective (pp.50-51).

Snodgrass, “Spheres of Influence,” p. 107 states: “If the law is not involved in salvation, then sin is a victor because it defeated God’s law which was for life (7.12.10). But now the law is placed within the sphere of the Spirit (cf. 8.4), where it belongs (7.14). The law in the right sphere frees us from the tyranny of the law in the sphere of sin. I do not think we can ignore a reference to the OT law. It is through the law that Paul died to the law.”

Footnotes 55 and 56
from “Summary and Appendix I,” pp 365-66
in the Mark D. Nanos book
The Mystery of the Romans
Fortress Press (1996)

Important Note! Please read the first comment made by Eugene Adkins below, as he corrects some mistakes I made about his background and role. I apologize to Eugene and to everyone reading this for my errors.

I’ve been debating with Pastor Eugene Adkins in the comments section of my blog post The Lord’s Sabbath regarding what he refers to as “fulfillment theology” and what I consider supersessionism or “replacement theology” (see our series of comments on the aforementioned blog post for full details of this discussion and specifically Pastor Adkins’ comments submitted on Jan 27, 2012 @ 17:31 hours).

In response to some of Pastor Atkins’ points, I’ve quoted from both Lancaster’s recent Galatians book and the classic Nanos tome on Romans (or rather, some footnotes contained within the Nanos book). I’m doing this for several reasons. The first is that, unlike Pastor Adkins, I do not have a post-graduate degree in any form of religious studies (I assume as a Pastor that Adkins is so educated) and thus do not have skill sets equal to his own as far as debating the scriptures. In order to support my arguments, I must rely on the scholarship of external sources, namely the previously mentioned Lancaster and Nanos books.

Secondly, I want to introduce valid and scholarly sources that refute or at least bring into question the traditional Christian view that the Torah was only temporary for the Jewish people (and I have never said that the Law was intended to apply equally to the Jewish and Gentile disciples of Jesus in any equal fashion) and that once Christ lived, died, was resurrected, and ascended, that the Law became null and void (or “fulfilled” in the sense that its temporary purpose as completely satisfied and then ended), and wholly replaced by what Pastor Adkins refers to as Christ’s “international covenant” that applies uniformly to Jewish and non-Jewish disciples of Jesus. I’m trying to point out here that perhaps Pastor Adkins’ interpretation of scripture (which seems to be the interpretation of the church in general) is not the only possible way to understand what Paul was saying to the congregations of Rome and Galatia.

Finally, I want to be fair. There is a tremendous tendency for me to simply dig in my heels, say “you’re wrong,” and base my subsequent responses on my emotional states, particularly those that have to do with Christian supersessionism and its terrible (and often fatal) effect upon the Jewish people across 2,000 years of church history. But that’s not the right thing to do. I want to respond based not only on my spiritual “understanding” of God’s relationship with both Jews and Gentiles (which is completely subjective and therefore, unable to be objectively demonstrated) but on Biblical scholarship as well. The problem here is that I’m like Woody Allen trying to go a few rounds in the ring with Mike Tyson as far as our relative educational backgrounds go (well, probably not that bad).

I have two undergraduate degrees and a post-grad degree, but none of them are in subjects relevant to this conversation. Given my job, my book writing, and my family commitments, I don’t have the time or other resources to go back to school and take another degree, or to perform the necessary research to adequately respond to all of the specific points being brought up in this discussion in order to sufficiently represent my point of view. I believe I’m right based on everything I’ve learned thus far, but belief isn’t enough. I must have proof beyond what I have already demonstrated, both online and in print. Also, assuming that I can be wrong (and I know I can be), I need to either confirm or refute my current belief system using concrete evidence (or as “concrete” as anything gets in theological debates).

That’s where you, dear readers, come in. I’m calling for backup. Or I’m willing to be presented with irrefutable proof that the New Testament writings can be interpreted in one and only one, single manner, and that the one and only interpretation is held under lock and key by the 21st century evangelical Christian church. I personally don’t think it is, but like I said, I want to be fair.

I want to say to you personally Eugene, that I’m not writing this to try and be mean or unfeeling or offensive in any way. I know you are sincere and are representing the truth based on everything you’ve been taught and everything you believe, both intellectually and through your faith. I don’t have a problem with any of that. None of this is motivated by any dislike of or anger toward you. I respect your service to God and thank you for continuing to participate in our dialog rather than summarily “writing me off” as some sort of “religious nut.”

My problem with the traditional Christian position on supersessionism is that, even clothed in a pleasing and benign exterior, this “fulfillment theology” is a nearly 2,000 year old artifact that was first created when the schism between Jewish and non-Jewish believers began to develop and then exploded across the early history of the church, in order to artificially justify the ascension of the Gentiles over the Jews in Messiah, and to literally re-write the nature and character of Christian vs. Jewish “Messianism,” as we see in part here:

The destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE and the subsequent expulsion of the majority of Jews from what would be called Palestine marked a disastrous shift in the Jewish authority over the Messianic community. Up until that time, the head of the Jerusalem leadership of the Messianic community, otherwise referred to as “the bishop of the church”, had always been Jewish. Once the Jews were expelled from Jerusalem by Hadrian, for the first time a Gentile had to be elected into the role. As events moved forward from that point in time, the Gentile presence in the Messianic community grew dramatically while the Jewish leaders and worshipers of Yeshua struggled under the heartbreak of the loss of the Temple and the ejection from their land. Scant decades later, the failure of the Gentile “church” to support the Jewish revolt of Bar Koshba drove another significant wedge between the Jewish Messianic community and the body of Gentile believers.

With the Jewish population now scattered, humiliated, and fearing destruction at the hands of the Romans, the Gentile Messianics continued to secure their dominance and control of the worship of Yeshua. The self-identity of the Gentile Christians shifted from grafted-in to the root of Judaism through Abrahamic faith to the new inheritors of the Messiah, replacing Israel on a spiritual level. Origin of Alexandria and Justin Martyr were the earliest authors of this tradition and among the first to declare that the church had superseded Israel. Attached to this belief was the rise of Christian blame against the Jews for the murder of Jesus. The Jews became unworthy of their own Messiah and were pushed out of the worship of Yeshua by the Gentile disciples they had once taught and nurtured.

-James Pyles
Excerpt from “Origins of Supersessionism in the Church” (pp. 33-34)
Messiah Journal
Issue 109/Winter 2012

I previously said that I don’t have an advanced degree in religious studies, but as a published author, I do know how to do research, including delving into the history of how “the Way,” which started as a sect of Judaism inclusive of non-Jews but administered and guided by Jewish mentors who understood God and Messiah in a completely Jewish religious framework, into a newly created non-Jewish religion which found it necessary to eliminate any aspects of Judaism from its background.  In my review of the early church, I could see the early “church fathers” virtually reframe the letters of the early Jewish disciples, principally written by Paul, into words that would ultimately be used to discount and eventually all but exterminate the Jewish people.

I’m opening this blog post up for debate on the pros and cons of “fulfillment theology” and asking for those who are far wiser and much better educated and I in religious subjects to enter into the conversation. I do insist however, that this conversation remain polite and respectful. Disagreement is absolutely no excuse for undue emotionalism or any personalizing of conflict. Any apparent “attacks” on someone who differs from your point of view will not be tolerated and I, as the blog owner, reserve the right to edit or delete any offensive comments at my discretion.

This debate is specifically focused on the pros and cons of “supersessionism,” “replacement theology,” “fulfillment theology,” or whatever else you want to call it. It is NOT about One Law or Two House perspectives, so I am not inviting statements on those viewpoints to be presented here. If you find it necessary to disregard my wishes in this, your comments will be removed. Thank you.

With those disclaimers out of the way, please feel free to refer back to the full stream of comments on the “Sabbath” blog post, then return here and discuss how you support or refute my statements and Pastor Adkins’s statements. Please cite specific Biblical or other sources to support your arguments. I am asking for information, not unbridled passion.

One last thing before we begin. Eugene, you previously said:

How is lighting candles a confirmation of Jesus’ grace if that person doesn’t believe in Jesus to begin with?

Shabbat candlesI do have faith in Jesus, as you do Eugene. Watching the lighting the Shabbos candles is a beautiful and unique way of inviting him into my home and to experience something of a preview of his return to us, may it be soon and in our days. If perhaps, your comment were meant as a remark toward my wife who is Jewish but not a believer, I can only ask that you try to consider her with the same compassion and love that God has toward His am segulah; His “wondrous and treasured people” (Exodus 19:5). I can’t tell your attitude toward Jews and thus toward my wife and children through our “text-only” conversation, but if you cannot see them with the same compassion as God does, and believe God has discounted if not completely destroyed them, then I suppose my argument has already been made for me.

With that, I look forward to everyone’s contribution now and in the days ahead. I hope to learn a lot.

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Living in the Echo of Genesis

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And Hashem God made for Adam and his wife garments of skin, and He clothed them. –Genesis 3:21 (Stone Edition Tanakh)

Not only did God Himself make them comfortable garments, He Himself clothed them to show that He sill loved them, despite their sin. -R’Bachya

If Judaism had relied exclusively on the human resources for the good, on man’s ability to fulfill what God demands, on man’s power to achieve redemption, why did it insist upon the promise of messianic redemption? Indeed, messianism implies that any course of living, even the supreme human efforts, must fail in redeeming the world. It implies that history for all its relevance is not sufficient to itself.

There are two problems: the particular sins, the examples of breaking the law, and the general and radical problem of “the evil drive” in man. The law deals with the first problem: obedience to the law prevents evil deeds. Yet, the problem of the evil drive is not solved by observance. The prophets answer was eschatological…”Behold, days are coming, says the Lord, and I will form a covenant with the house of Israel…not like the covenant that I formed with their forefathers…I will place My law in their midst and I will inscribe it upon their hearts” (Jeremiah 31:30-33). “And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit will I put within you, and I will take away the heart of stone out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh. And I will put My spirit within you and bring it about that you will walk in My statutes and you will keep My ordinances” (Ezekiel 36:26-27).

-Abraham Joshua Heschel
God in Search of Man : A Philosophy of Judaism (p. 379)

Creation, existence, devotion, obedience, sin, failure, humiliating shame, but still love.

The story of Genesis is the story of humanity. We are born into the universe and spend our lives trying to understand who we are and why we exist, and then we attempt to live up to what we believe is the purpose of our lives. Those us who have an awareness of God and a faith in our Creator strive to connect to the object of our faith and to join with Him in creating acts of holiness in the world around us.

I acknowledge You, for I am awesomely, wondrously fashioned; wondrous are Your works, and my soul knows it well. My frame was not hidden from You; that which I was made in concealment, which I was knit together in the lowest parts of the earth. –Psalm 139:14-15 (Stone Edition Tanakh)

But we fail, not all the time, but often. How like Adam and Eve we sometimes feel shame and stand naked and exposed in our transgressions against Him.

But love and the struggle to continue in the face of our failures for the sake of Heaven is also the story of Genesis.

Man’s ability to transcend the self, to rise above all natural ties and bonds, presupposes further that every man lives in a realm governed by law and necessity as well as in a realm of creative possibilities. It presupposes his belonging to a dimension that is higher in nature, society, and the self, and accepts the reality of such a dimension beyond the natural order. Freedom does not mean the right to live as we please. It means the power to live spiritually, to rise to a higher level of existence…Freedom is an act of self-engagement of the spirit, a spiritual event. -Heschel p. 411

It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery. –Galatians 5:1

The irony in Paul’s words is in how the church has misunderstood them to believe that the Torah was slavery and that grace and “lawlessness” was the only freedom. In fact, we are declared free the first moment we touch the hem of the garment of God and acknowledge that we are not chained to the laws of an earthly existence. In the spiritual person’s freedom, we escape the shackles that secular man rattles proudly in our faces as evidence of his emancipation from “religion”.

Religion becomes sinful when it begins to advocate the segregation of God, to forget that the true sanctuary has no walls. -Heschel p. 414

The mysterious forbidden fruit and the deceit of the serpent are failure, sin, and slavery, but God’s love for us and our bond with Him are our continued freedom. For Christians and Jews and Muslims and all the other traditions struggling to understand the nature of man and God, even “religion” can become a barrier when it becomes an idol in our lives and a greater force than God Himself. For Jews, Heschel (p. 415) says something even more startling.

Even the laws of the Torah are not absolutes.

Only God is absolute and the Torah, the mitzvah, the prayers, all of them exist as the interface by which we connect with God to perform His will, but like the stars in Heaven and the great seas, they are creations, not the Creator.

The ultimate concept in Greek philosophy is the idea of cosmos, of order; the first teaching in the Bible is the idea of creation. Translated into eternal principles, cosmos means fate, while creation means freedom…The essential meaning of creation is, as Maimonidies explained, the idea that the universe did not come about by necessity but as a result of freedom. -Heschel pp.411-12

Under heavenChristianity, in depending on the Greek philosophy imposed on church’s understanding of the New Testament due the original language of the text, accidently or perhaps deliberately filters out the Jewish meaning of the teachings and wonder of Jesus Christ. As the Apostle Paul said in Galatians 5, we are not possessed by God nor owned by the Master, though our Master he is, but we are free of the weight of human frailty and sin. We are free to allow ourselves to be clothed in not only righteousness but in the performance of the mitzvah, joining as humble partners with God in the task of repairing the world and preparing the way for the coming of the Messiah.

The next day the great crowd that had come for the festival heard that Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem. They took palm branches and went out to meet him, shouting,
“Hosanna!”
“Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!”
“Blessed is the king of Israel!” –John 12:12

As the people in Jerusalem spread palm branches in the road, paving the way for the entry of Christ, so by our faith and our deeds do we pave the road for his return, in triumph, glory, and splendor, for as sin has made man a slave on earth, the King of Kings will break our bonds and we shall be free under his reign and under God.

Hashem, what is man that You recognize him; the son of frail human that You reckon with him? –Psalm 144:3 (Stone Edition Tanakh)

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. –John 3:16

We must continue to ask: what is man that God should care for him? And we must continue to remember that it is precisely God’s care for man that constitutes the greatness of man. To be is to stand for, and what man stands for is the great mystery of being His partner. God is in need of man. -Heschel p. 413

After the failure at Eden, we continue to ask ourselves why God loves us. We try and comprehend beyond our own small ability to reason, that God’s love is boundless and timeless and does not depend on our ability to adequately love Him, for we have no such power. In our weakness, He is strong and gives us strength to love an unknowable God. However, we must grasp onto that strength, lest we fail and fall away.

Man’s survival depends on the conviction that there is something that is worth the price of living. -Heschel p. 422

This is especially true of the Jewish people, but it is no less true for the rest of us.

In trying to understand Jewish existence a Jewish philosopher must look for agreement with the men of Sinai as well as the people of Auschwitz. -Heschel p. 421

We must cling to our God as tightly as possible for only in that attachment may we remain nourished in His love and find our way along the path. Only with God can we survive the failure of humanity and achieve the glory for which we were truly created, both for the Jew and the Gentile.

Israel is the tree, we are the leaves. It is the clinging to the stem that keeps us alive. -Heschel p.424

I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. –John 15:5

If some of the branches have been broken off, and you, though a wild olive shoot, have been grafted in among the others and now share in the nourishing sap from the olive root, do not consider yourself to be superior to those other branches. If you do, consider this: You do not support the root, but the root supports you. You will say then, “Branches were broken off so that I could be grafted in.” Granted. But they were broken off because of unbelief, and you stand by faith. Do not be arrogant, but tremble. For if God did not spare the natural branches, he will not spare you either.

Consider therefore the kindness and sternness of God: sternness to those who fell, but kindness to you, provided that you continue in his kindness. Otherwise, you also will be cut off. –Romans 11:17-22

ForgivenessThe antidote to the cruelty of this broken world is kindness and love, not just to those who are kind and loving to us, but to everyone, because God loves everyone, the sinner and the saint alike, with equal passion and devotion, for we are all devoted sons and daughters but we are also prodigals and wayward.

We cannot hate what God loves. Rabbi Aaron the Great used to say: “I wish I could love the greatest saint as the Lord loves the greatest rascal.” -Heschel p. 424

Both Christians and Jews await the return of the Messiah and the hope of the world to come, though each tradition denies the validity of the other’s interpretation. God is God and He is One, in spite of how we misunderstand and misconstrue. A Christian waits for the end of Revelation and a Jew waits for this and remembers.

We remember the beginning and believe in the end. We live between two historic poles; Sinai and the Kingdom of God. -Heschel p. 426

A person of faith is caught between two realities; the one we live in now and the one we hope for, when God will reign and tears and dread are banished forever. We cannot ignore one for the other. We cannot live in the present without the hope of the future, but we cannot look at the end of the tale without realizing that it will never occur unless we work with God here and now to bring the Moshiach. We live in the echo of Genesis while awaiting the sound of the final Shofar of Messiah. In between, we have palm branches to gather in order to prepare his way.

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Children of God

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Children of GodYou foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? Before your very eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed as crucified. I would like to learn just one thing from you: Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by believing what you heard? Are you so foolish? After beginning by means of the Spirit, are you now trying to finish by means of the flesh? Have you experienced so much in vain – if it really was in vain? So again I ask, does God give you his Spirit and work miracles among you by the works of the law, or by your believing what you heard? So also Abraham “believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.” –Galatians 3:1-6

Lancaster identifies the influencers in Galatia (called by most Christian commentators “judaizers”, though “judaize” is derived from an intransitive Greek verb – that is, you can judaize [yourself], but you can’t judaize someone else, cf. Nanos, The Irony of Galatians [Minneapolis, Fortress, 2002], 116) as Gentile proselytes to Judaism who are anxious to secure their status in the Jewish community by influencing believing Gentiles to also become proselytes. His thesis makes more sense than Nanos’s (in which unbelieving Jews are the influencers) due to Nanos’s difficulty with Galatians 6:12.

Lancaster writes that the “different gospel that is not really a gospel” being peddled by these influencers is the message that Jewish identity and full Torah observance were necessary conditions for entrance into the believing community and access to the World to Come. This message was attractive for the Galatian Gentile believers because as liminals, they existed between two worlds.

from the review of
D. Thomas Lancaster’s book
The Holy Epistle to the Galatians
from the Hope Abbey blog.

This is the second part of a blog I wrote on Gentiles, Christians, and Noahides. Please read yesterday’s “morning meditation” called The Sons of Noah before continuing here. Things will probably make more sense if you do.

I wrote my own review of Lancaster’s Galatians book about a month ago, but once picked up, it’s hardly a book or a subject that can be casually laid down again. As much as any of his other letters, Paul’s words to the Galatian non-Jewish disciples of Jesus have a great deal to say to those of us who are Christians today.

In yesterday’s “morning meditation”, I introduced the concept of Gentiles and the Noahide Laws. In Judaism, it is understood that all Jews will be “saved” (to put it in the Christian vernacular), however, non-Jews are not expected to convert to Judaism in order to also attain a “saved” status. Jews are obligated to a very high standard of conduct toward God and other people, but the “nations” (i.e. everybody else)  are not expected to comply with these obligations (and in many cases, Gentiles are forbidden to obey the mitzvot as a matter of halachah). According to Judaism, the obligations of the Gentiles are outlined in Genesis 9 as the Divine code God gave to Noah which today are called Noahide Laws.

But who is a Noahide?

At Caesarea there was a man named Cornelius, a centurion in what was known as the Italian Regiment. He and all his family were devout and God-fearing; he gave generously to those in need and prayed to God regularly. –Acts 10:1-2

When Paul and his companions had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where there was a Jewish synagogue. As was his custom, Paul went into the synagogue, and on three Sabbath days he reasoned with them from the Scriptures, explaining and proving that the Messiah had to suffer and rise from the dead. “This Jesus I am proclaiming to you is the Messiah,” he said. Some of the Jews were persuaded and joined Paul and Silas, as did a large number of God-fearing Greeks and quite a few prominent women. –Acts 17:1-4

No, I can’t draw a direct connection between the God-fearing Gentiles of the Second Temple period and the later Gentile Noahides, but I can make a suggestion that they are related and then explore that possibility. Both groups are considered “righteous Gentiles” in the sense that they have abandoned pagan idol worship and polytheism and have attached themselves to the One God; the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, without abandoning their Gentile ethnic and cultural identity (that is, by not attempting to convert to Judaism).

That said, the God-fearers in the day of Peter and Paul, though not attempting to become Jewish, did have only one model on which to draw to describe and practice a life of faith in the God of Israel:

Cornelius answered: “Three days ago I was in my house praying at this hour, at three in the afternoon. Suddenly a man in shining clothes stood before me… –Acts 10:30

Cornelius is describing performing the Minchah prayers or the afternoon prayers that are required in Judaism. Observant Jews pray three times a day: morning (Shacharit), afternoon (Minchah), and evening (Maariv). We can infer from this brief passage in Acts 10 that as a God-fearer, Cornelius did the same, though probably not in a manner identical to his Jewish mentors.

But Peter, in his encounter with Cornelius, saw something amazing take place:

While Peter was still speaking these words, the Holy Spirit came on all who heard the message. The circumcised believers who had come with Peter were astonished that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even on Gentiles. For they heard them speaking in tongues and praising God.

Then Peter said, “Surely no one can stand in the way of their being baptized with water. They have received the Holy Spirit just as we have.” So he ordered that they be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. Then they asked Peter to stay with them for a few days. –Acts 10:44-48

Receiving the SpiritThis certainly recalls the events of Acts 2:1-4 when the core group of Christ’s Jewish disciples received the Spirit on Shavuot (Pentecost) and definitively establishes that both non-Jews and Jews have equal access to God through the Covenant of the Messiah.

Now let’s explore a few ideas. Let’s say that Cornelius and his fellow God-fearing Gentiles were the First Century equivalents of today’s Noahides, that is, they were righteous Gentiles who had a relationship with God but not on the same level as the Jewish people (Noahide Covenant vs. Mosaic Covenant). Now we see these God-fearing “Noahides” undergo a startling transformation by receiving the Holy Spirit in just the same manner as the Jewish disciples of Jesus. The status of the God-fearers changes to become more alike with the status of the Jewish disciples.

So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise. –Galatians 3:26-29

Paul is saying that in relation to access to God and the love of Jesus Christ, all people of faith are equal. Men are no greater than women in God’s eyes and Jews are no greater than Gentiles in God’s grace and compassion. Does this mean that Jews and Gentiles are absolutely equal in terms of role and function? Of course not, no more than men and women existing in unity as non-gendered, androgynous beings. The Jerusalem Council ruled on this when they issued their now famous edict to the Gentile believers (Acts 15:22-35).

Jewish and non-Jewish equal access does not mean we have identical responsibilities nor identical identities.

It also means that God-fearers or “Noahides” are not equivalent to Gentile Christians. The Covenant of Noah and the Covenant of Christ are not the same, otherwise why would God-fearing Gentiles need to be brought to faith in Jesus by Paul? The non-Jewish people of the world, even those who choose to comply with the Noahide obligations, do not possess the same status as those who take on the greater responsibility of the Messianic Covenant.

2,000 years later, we’re still trying to understand what this all means since, depending on who you listen to, both Noahides and Christians serve God and merit a place in the world to come. I suppose that’s why we have books such as Lancaster’s Galatians and a plethora of blogs on the web such as mine (and of course, in Jewish thought, a Noahide is “saved” by what he does and in Christian thought, a believer is “saved” by what he believes).

So as Christians, if we are no longer simply “Sons of Noah”, who are we?

Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God – children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God. –John 1:12-13

See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. All who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure. –1 John 3:1-3

Paul said that “Therefore, be sure that it is those who are of faith who are sons of Abraham” (Galatians 3:7 [NASB]), which does not undo the status of the Jews as Sons of Abraham, but allows the Gentiles who come to faith to attain equal status in terms of access (though not of Legal obligation and ethnic status). Christians are not Noahides and we are not Jews. Christians are both alike and unlike their Jewish counterparts who have come to faith in Jesus as Moshiach. The Hope Abbey blog provided the following quote illustrating this:

What [Paul’s opponents] evidently failed to appreciate is that Paul made a distinction between Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians… while he saw it as perfectly legitimate for Jewish Christians to express their faith in Jesus through traditional Jewish practices, he strenuously opposed the imposition of these practices on Gentile Christians either for full acceptance by God or as a normative way of life. (Galatians, WBC 41 [Dallas: Word, 1990], xcviii)

While it may be compelling for Christians who are specifically attracted to Judaism and Jewish studies to pursue the status of Noahide (or in some extreme instances, to convert to Judaism) so that they can better associate with the Jewish synagogue and cultural community, in terms of our relationship to God, it’s a step backward. We have a clear record in the Apostolic Scriptures of God-fearers drawing closer to the Almighty by accepting the Messianic Covenant and placing their trust in Jesus Christ as Lord, Savior, and Jewish Messiah. We have been given the right to call ourselves children of the Most High God.

Raising HandsI don’t think that it’s inconsistent for a Christian to pray the three times daily or to observe a Shabbat rest in a manner similar to the Jewish model. We see these practices in the early (non-Jewish) church. I don’t believe Cornelius gave up the “Jewish” pattern of his prayers after he received the Spirit and perhaps becoming a “Christian” enhanced the meaning of coming into the Presence of God. But keep in mind that as a non-Jew, taking up faith in Jesus, becoming “Messianic”, becoming Christian, enables us to be true children of God and not merely servants. We have a greater duty and intimacy to the Father as sons and daughters. We must not lose that. We must not discard that. Like the prodigal son (Luke 15:11-32), if we desert our Father, we are throwing away “sonship” but perhaps “servanthood” as well”.

Cling to your faith. He’s coming.

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Finding Freedom

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CaptureTell me, you who want to be under the law, are you not aware of what the law says? For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by the slave woman and the other by the free woman. His son by the slave woman was born according to the flesh, but his son by the free woman was born as the result of a divine promise.

These things are being taken figuratively: The women represent two covenants. One covenant is from Mount Sinai and bears children who are to be slaves: This is Hagar. Now Hagar stands for Mount Sinai in Arabia and corresponds to the present city of Jerusalem, because she is in slavery with her children. But the Jerusalem that is above is free, and she is our mother. –Galatians 4:21-26

Speak and act as those who are going to be judged by the law that gives freedom, because judgment without mercy will be shown to anyone who has not been merciful. Mercy triumphs over judgment. –James 2:12-13

So what is it? Does the Law take away freedom or does the law give freedom? Are we even talking about the same Law; the Torah?

I’ve often suspected that Paul and James didn’t see eye-to-eye on many issues. Paul was operating for years at a time in the diaspora, bringing the Gentiles to faith in the Jewish Messiah and teaching them his ways and how to trust in God. There wasn’t a lot of oversight going on from the Jerusalem Counsel, so Paul could have gotten away with re-writing the Gospel message in his own image, diluting or even eliminating the law and replacing it a type of “grace” that is the antithesis of the law (though in reality, they are not mutually exclusive). It’s clear that James wouldn’t have agreed with that message.

However, if you read D. Thomas Lancaster’s new book The Holy Epistle to the Galatians, you’ll see that Paul and James were more alike than unalike (though I still suspect that they had their individual perspectives). For one thing, despite the common Christian tradition of interpreting Galatians 4:21-26 as “anti-Law” (and in the plain English text, it certainly seems that’s what Paul’s saying), the issues are more complex. Lancaster interprets them this way:

The passage contrasts two types of proselytes: the legal proselyte and the spiritual proselyte. The one becomes part of Abraham’s family by conventional conversion, the other through faith in Messiah, the promised seed of Abraham, in whom all nations find blessing. The passage does not contrast the Old Testament against the New Testament or the Old Covenant with the New Covenant. It does not equate Judaism and Torah with slavery, nor does it pit Christians against Jews.

It means that if you are a Jewish believer , you should be proud of being Jewish because you are a child of Abraham, legally, physically, and spiritually. It means that if you are a Gentile believer, you, too, are part of the people, a spiritual son of Abraham, and that is remarkable – miraculous even. You are a child of the promise that God made to Abraham so long ago.

I’ve already written a review of Lancaster’s book and I’m not going to “reinvent the wheel”, so to speak, but I’m presenting this “extra meditation” this afternoon, in response to the following:

No one can say he is free today because yesterday he was granted freedom.

Freedom is a source of endless energy.
Freedom is the power behind this entire universe.
Freedom is the force that brings existence out of the void.

You are free when you take part in that endlessness. When you never stand still. When you are forever escaping the confines of today to create a freer tomorrow.

Rabbi Tzvi Freeman
“Perpetual Freedom”
Chabad.org

As an Orthodox Jew, Rabbi Freeman isn’t considering that the Torah is somehow slavery or bondage, even for a single moment. So how are Christians to interpret his words of freedom as well as the apparent conflict between Paul and James, both observant and devout Jews, on how they view the Torah?

It is said that the world was created for the sake of Torah and that, without the Torah, the world could not have been made. The analogous teaching we have in Christianity is this:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. –John 1:1-3

TeshuvahHere, we see a sort of “fusion” or co-identity, in some mystic sense, between the Torah and the Messiah, Son of the living God. Christians know that Jesus gives us freedom from the slavery of sin and Jews know that the Torah is the gateway to God’s endless energy, the power behind the universe, and the limitless, eternal source that creates existence out of nothingness. Through Torah, God does not enslave, but provides the means by which men may know God and understand our relationship to Him. If the same can be said of Jesus, then we can all understand from where our freedom comes.

While non-Jewish disciples of the Jewish Messiah are not obligated to the same “yoke of Torah” as the Jewish people (see Acts 15), we nonetheless are grafted into the root of the Tree of Life and like branches on the vine, we draw our nourishment and the ability to live a life of holiness from an identical source; God.

To do so requires more than just believing and more than just learning; we must do, we must behave, we must live out the values we understand from the Torah and how they were taught to us by the “living Torah”, the Moshiach, Jesus Christ. Part of that living is understanding where we came from, who we are, and our need to separate from sin and embrace holiness and peace. To gain freedom from sin, we must recognize the depth and despair of sin, which is what the Torah aptly defines, and only upon achieving that understanding, can we truly turn away from that sin and turn toward the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob:

The Ohr Hachaim HaKadosh, zt”l, writes that one can only do teshuvah if he first recognizes the gravity of his sin.

A certain person committed a sin. When Rav Mordechai Aryeh Halevi Horowitz, zt”l, gently nudged him to repent the sinner displayed his relaxed attitude towards teshuvah. “Why repent now? Soon enough it will be Elul, the season when the shofar is sounded to remind us to do teshuvah. Can’t my teshuvah wait until then?”

Rav Horowitz rejected this attitude out of hand. “As is well known, the main element in teshuvah is havdalah, separating between what is proper and what is not. It is only by determining which actions lead to darkness and which generate light that we act as is fitting. Even if a person with understanding falls to sin chas v’shalom, he knows to repent and change his ways. But many people wait until Elul to do teshuvah. After all, isn’t that when we are aroused to repentance by the shofar as the Rambam writes?

“We find in the Mishnah in Chulin 26 that whenever the Shofar is sounded we do not say havdalah. Conversely, whenever we say havdalah we do not sound the shofar. Although on a simple level this is a sign for when they would blow the shofar to signify the onset of Shabbos or Yom Tov, this statement also teaches a lesson about teshuvah. When one feels justified waiting to do teshuvah until the shofar is sounded during Elul, this shows he lacks understanding. He does not comprehend the gravity of sins since this leads to havdalah, healthy separation between what is right and what is wrong. One who has fitting discrimination between good and bad doesn’t wait to hear the shofar to repent!”

Dam Yomi Digest
Stories off the Daf
“Time for Repentance”
Chullin 26

If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. –1 John 1:8-9

Good Shabbos

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Book Review: The Holy Epistle to the Galatians

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Galatians by D.T. LancasterThe passage contrasts two types of proselytes: the legal proselyte and the spiritual proselyte. The one becomes part of Abraham’s family by conventional conversion, the other through faith in Messiah, the promised seed of Abraham, in whom all nations find blessing. The passage does not contrast the Old Testament against the New Testament or the Old Covenant with the New Covenant. It does not equate Judaism and Torah with slavery, nor does it pit Christians against Jews.

It means that if you are a Jewish believer , you should be proud of being Jewish because you are a child of Abraham, legally, physically, and spiritually. It means that if you are a Gentile believer, you, too, are part of the people, a spiritual son of Abraham, and that is remarkable – miraculous even. You are a child of the promise that God made to Abraham so long ago.

-D. Thomas Lancaster
The Holy Epistle to the Galatians
“Sermon Twenty-Two: Sarah, Hagar, Isaac, and Ishmael (Galatians 4:21-31)”
pp 227-8

This is just a sample of how Lancaster’s view of Paul’s epistle to the Galatians presents a fresh and startlingly different understanding of the apostle’s message to the Gentile believers. This book takes Paul’s letter, virtually line-by-line, and re-interprets it from what most Christians would see as a radically different perspective. The book’s subtitle, “Sermons on a Messianic Jewish Approach” reveals the specific lens by which Lancaster views the letter and the stance from which he presents his argument: that Paul was supporting the unique covenant identity for the Jewish believer and at the same time, was instructing the non-Jewish disciples that they could have the same access to God, though the Messiah, without converting to Judaism.

But let me back up a minute.

Lancaster’s book is based on a series of 26 lectures or sermons he delivered in 2008 to Beth Immanuel, his community of faith, in Hudson, Wisconsin. It’s not unusual for Lancaster, a long-time contributor of books and other educational text to First Fruits of Zion (FFOZ), to “mine” his previous works for the sake of a new publication (for instance, Toby Janicki’s book Tefillin used some of Lancaster’s previous writing as a basis). Since each chapter represents one sermon in a series, I got an “episodic” feel as I moved from chapter to chapter, particularly in the first part of the book. I was also pleased that Lancaster’s ability to create the illusion that the reader is in the situation being described, was present in his current book. As I read through the chapters, I felt as if I were listening to Paul in one of the churches of Galatia, struggling with the issues he was trying to communicate, and experiencing the conflict between his teaching and the “influencers”.

As I mentioned before, this isn’t your typical Christian commentary on the Book of Galatians. Lancaster, using his knowledge of the Greek language, history, and accessing authoritative scholarly sources, “refactors” Paul’s letter into an almost completely different form, reflecting the Messianic Jewish viewpoint on Paul in general as well as FFOZ’s perspective in particular. There were a number of times when Lancaster would present the traditional Christian interpretation of a set of verses and then say something like, “this interpretation isn’t acceptable in Messianic Judaism”. I kind of wish he didn’t say it that way.

Sure, the focus of this book is to illustrate how Messianic Judaism views Paul’s letter in a dramatically different way, through its own “looking glass”, in order to understand his message in a way that makes more sense to both Jewish and non-Jewish disciples of the Jewish Messiah, but unfortunately, it could also be seen by a Christian reader as Lancaster just making the text say what he wants it to say to match his theology. The real value that I find in this book, (and many of FFOZ’s other materials) is in how it peels away almost twenty centuries of unchanging, set-in-stone, Christian theology and lets the reader see credible (and even very likely) alternatives to what Paul could have been saying. Questioning assumptions and courageously challenging dogma is not a property exclusively possessed by Messianic Judaism, Christianity, or any other religious movement. These qualities should be used by all people of honesty and faith when reading and studying our holy writings. These qualities should transcend denomination, movement, and sect, and be embraced by anyone who truly is a disciple of the Master and who seeks the truth of God and human existence.

The revelations Lancaster presents are too numerous to mention in this simple review (and I don’t want to give away too many “surprises”), but in reading this book, you will be introduced to a Paul and a Galatians letter that are completely new to you. This book offers a way of looking at Galatians, not as Paul’s anti-Jewish, anti-Torah rant, but as his answer to a complex dilemma facing the non-Jewish believers in the various churches in Galatia: does a “goy” have to convert to Judaism in order to be “saved”? The 21st century church would say emphatically “no” and in fact, would present the counter-argument that a Jewish believer would have to abandon Judaism and convert to Gentile Christianity in order to be a disciple of the Jewish Messiah. Conversely, Paul, at least as Lancaster understands him, would be appalled to hear that his letter had been so misappropriated by the modern church.

The book isn’t perfect. In general (and I agree with him), Lancaster uses various portions of Galatians to support his argument that Jewish believers (and non-Messianic Jews for that matter) were expected to obey the commands of God that He gave to the Children of Israel through Moses at Sinai, while at the same time, saying that the standard of non-Jewish “Torah” obedience to God was different…not non-existent, just different (see Galatians 5:13-26 for Paul’s interpretation of Gentile “Torah”). Unfortunately, there are any number of points in the book that, taken out of context, could be used to support the “One Law” argument (the position that states when a Gentile is “grafted in” to the Jewish root, they take on obligations to God absolutely identical to Jewish obligations). Other parts of the book make Lancaster’s position clearer, but I tended to stumble a few times when I encountered these ambiguous paragraphs.

Laying TefillinTo be fair, Lancaster is providing a detailed, in-depth analysis to a very difficult and wholly misunderstood piece of writing. Paul wasn’t easy to understand and trying to get into his head and into the culture and language in which he lived in the 1st century of the common era, let alone write an entire book about it, is a major undertaking. While I think the book succeeds overall, the reader is going to have to exercise a certain amount of patience and not jump to conclusions. Getting the entire message of Galatians means reading all of Lancaster’s book (I had to take copious notes) before coming to any sort of conclusion. Bringing an open mind as well as a notepad is also essential.

I don’t doubt that many of the people who read this book will either try to ignore it or start an argument about what it says. Lancaster completely disassembles the traditional Christian understanding of the letter and rebuilds it an atom at a time. That doesn’t make for comfortable reading if you’ve been taught for most of your life that the Torah is slavery for the Jews and grace is freedom for the Christians. For the One Law supporters in MJ, the book will also challenge many of their assumptions and at a few points, Lancaster even directly confronts the OL assumptions. Lancaster makes it clear in many of his comments that Paul never intended for the Gentile disciples to take on the entire “yoke of Torah” and that the “Torah” for the Gentiles was the “Torah of the Messiah”.

If you consider all that “the bad news”, I’ve also got “the good news”. The good news is that, if you set aside your preconceptions of what you think Galatians says, and by inference, many of the assumptions you have about what it means to be a Christian or to be “Messianic”, you’ll be able to read Lancaster’s book as an adventure in learning and an exploration of what it must have been like to be among the first Gentiles, having recently come out of pagan idolatry, entering a world and a relationship with God that had only previously been accessible to the Jewish people.

Who is Paul? Where did he get his “gospel”? Who did he see as his Master, Jesus or the Jerusalem Council? Who were the “influencers” who were disturbing the Gentile believers in Galatia? How did Paul see his fellow Jews and Jewish converts? What was Paul’s unique solution to the puzzle of integrating the people of the nations into the community of faith in the God of Israel?

The answers to those questions can be found in D. Thomas Lancaster’s new book, The Holy Epistle to the Galatians. Click the link to find out more. You may not believe it now, but there are answers in this book that you need to hear.

Besides the review you’ve just read, I’ve commented on different portions of Lancaster’s book in other recent blogs. They include Building Fellowship, Knowing, Intermediaries, and The Tefillin and the Shoemaker. These blog posts include mentions of Lancaster’s book within the context of other topics and resources, but taken together, I think this material provides a rich understanding of not only what the book says, but how it applies to a life of faith and to the wider contexts of Christianity and Judaism.

Enjoy.