Torah Versus Torah, Covenant Above Covenant
Coming to an understanding of the Father’s heart takes some time and effort, at least until it becomes second nature to fall in line with His ultimate intent for our lives.
There’s a strange divide in the faith that would be easily eliminated if we put ourselves through a proper heart check.
There is a difference between instruction and covenant, and different instructions for a different system.
The New Covenant Isn’t the Old Covenant Renewed
Nowhere in the Old Testament scriptures are we told that the New Covenant is a renewal of the Sinaitic Covenant, but, on the contrary, we are told it is an entirely novel covenant.
With a new covenant comes a new direction and instruction manual.
Not that it’s dissimilar from the original covenantal obligations, but our Messiah, Jesus, is our righteousness in this covenant. Speaking of the coming Savior, Jeremiah 23:6 says: “In His days Judah will be saved, and Israel will dwell securely. And this is the name by which He will be called: ‘The LORD is our righteousness.’”
God Himself will be our righteousness, because, try as we might, walking perfectly in the commandments isn’t possible on our own strength. I believe it is possible to walk without sin, but being under the curse of the fall of man, we can’t walk apart from sin at some point in our lives.
Even if we did everything right, walked straight from this point forward. Somewhere back in the past, you had to have sinned. As Paul says in Romans, we have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.
The New Covenant has a new Torah, the Torah of Jesus Christ, who perfectly walked out the commandments without fail.
I see far too many well-meaning Christians out of the “mainstream” sect tear their brothers and sisters in Christ apart for not adhering to the Law of Moses.
Yet, in the Torah of the Old Covenant, the Book of Deuteronomy specifically, we are told that a new prophet like Moses would arise, and we must listen to everything He says to do.
Deuteronomy 18:15 “The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your midst, from your brethren. Him you shall hear….”
When Jesus came, He came to fulfill the Torah and the Prophets, not put them away for good. But His standards are far higher than only obeying the strict letter of the law.
Which is the higher instruction? Not to lie to someone, or not to even contemplate deceit in your heart?
Which is better? Not sleeping with your neighbor’s wife, or not even having the thought to begin with because you have the right heart about things?
Jeremiah 31:33 “But this is the new covenant I will make with the people of Israel after those days,” says the LORD. “I will put my instructions deep within them, and I will write them on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people.”
The Torah of the New Covenant is found within, not in external perfection and observance.
Jeremiah 31:32 “It will not be like the covenant I made with their fathers when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt—a covenant they broke, though I was a husband to them,” declares the LORD.”
The commandments are beautiful, and they are life, but they aren’t to be only outwardly observed. They are to be kept in the heart, which is internal, not with many commands about how to kill animals a specific way to cover for sins, and certainly not gouging out your neighbor’s eye when you lose yours (whether that be literal or metaphorical).
We must understand the New Covenant is not carrying the torch of Sinai, it is lighting a new torch based on better promises and love.
Romans 13:10 “Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law.”
A New High Priest in a New Priesthood Covenant
The Book of Hebrews is one of my favorite books in the New Testament, because the writer (which could be Paul, but no one knows for sure) explains how Jesus is the High Priest of a better covenant. Not the same covenant, but a better one. It is built upon better promises, promises that don’t nullify the eternal moral nature of the Torah. Not hurting your neighbor is always in style, sacrificing animals at the Temple, not so much.
Jesus is the final sacrifice for all time, the ultimate reality of the shadow of the Old Testament. He’s not going to offer Himself over and over, as the writer of Hebrews insinuates, but rather, once for all time He has given us true life and grace, real forgiveness and mercy.
God likes to use object lessons, as well as meeting us where we are at (perhaps in this instance when we are at). People in the ancient world believed you could commune with God by sacrificing animals and offering them up as burned offerings, a divine barbeque of sorts.
God always has perfect timing, meaning He stepped into the ancient world and called Abraham with intention and purpose behind the life of the father of our faith. We’ve had many millennia as a race to study and meditate upon the words of the Bible, under the banner of a long-suffering and patient God who wishes for all to come to repentance.
The sacrifices under that Levitical Priesthood paradigm pointed forward to Christ. They pictured the severe consequences of sin.
But that was a priesthood under another covenant, another legally attested-to system. Jesus is the High Priest of the Order of Melchizedek, who fulfills the role of priest and king in the reality of the heavenly Temple that the old Tabernacle and Temple merely foreshadowed.
Think of the ancient covenant as an outline, where you get the general idea of the picture, but the New Covenant Priesthood as the entire art piece. The outline is there to support the whole picture, but the picture is incomplete without the reality of the color and depth of detail.
Hebrews 7:11 “Now if perfection had been attainable through the Levitical priesthood (for under it the people received the law), what further need would there have been for another priest to arise after the order of Melchizedek, rather than one named after the order of Aaron?”
We cannot attain perfection through the system that has vanished away. We can only reach perfection in God’s sight through the things which are eternal, the unending forgiveness of the cross and the mighty King who used it to offer us new life.
The line of Aaron had one system, the endless life of Jesus Christ has another system.
The Jewish people have changed their systems because they were forced to without Christ as their Great High Priest. After the Temple was destroyed in 70 A.D., they needed a new form of religion that offered forgiveness when there wasn’t a Levitical system in place.
Jesus Christ is that new form, but they don’t see Him as He is just yet.
We must prayerfully hope that the adherents of Judaism and the Old Covenant come to realize the amazing opportunity to learn a higher Torah from the Messiah, the Promised Deliverer of mankind.
The Torah Doesn’t Mean the Five Books of Moses Only
The word Torah doesn’t mean “law” in Hebrew, so much as instruction or direction. It is common to refer to Moses’ teaching as the Torah, but there is much wisdom to glean from the rest of the Bible as well. Proverbs are definitely a form of Torah, of wisdom and instruction. Psalms often teach us what prayers for David looked like, the man whom God said was “after His own heart.”
The warnings of the prophets are also a “Torah” to a rebellious people.
Jesus taught us the true meaning of the Torah, the real law code to follow. It takes over six hundred commands and wraps them up into two:
Matthew 22:34-40 “But when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together. And one of them, a lawyer, asked Him a question to test Him. ‘Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?’ And He said to him, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.’”
Notice Jesus doesn’t toss away the original commandments but uses them to teach a higher Torah to the crowd that had gathered.
We must be “Jesus-observant” followers, not seeking to keep laws that only apply in a theocratic kingdom under a monarch.
Jesus is the perfect example of the Torah, and He taught us to love others with all our strength and capability.
That means everyone without exception, including those we don’t agree with.
Liberals.
Conservatives.
LGBTQ+ individuals, which isn’t as black and white as most Christians think.
Prayer for our leaders, to make wise decisions and not sink our home nations.
Not insulting those who rule over us, instead realizing the sovereign hand of God over the events of world history.
Perfect love means kindness to all who will receive it, and especially for those who will not receive it. Love your enemies is the higher Torah command over eye-for-eye thinking.
But cautiously, we must not be doormats. We must not let people walk all over us, and while long-suffering is good—we need to know we have intrinsic and wonderful value to offer this world and other people.
Jesus’ Torah is summed up in two great commandments, not hundreds that mean little if we don’t keep the first two commands in importance.
We have freedom in our Messiah, not legalistic check boxes.
I personally don’t eat unclean meats, but I will not judge another who doesn’t have that understanding. That’s Jesus’ job. He didn’t eat unclean meat, so I don’t. It’s that simple.
The Fall Feasts are coming up. I keep them to connect with God’s amazing, redemptive historical work, and find true value and meaning in them. They prefigure the Second Coming of Christ, and they teach us to rest and recharge in the Spirit.
But it’s not my job to judge the Christian down the street who doesn’t want to keep them.
When Jesus comes, He will institute what seems to be a modified form of the Torah, including the Feast of Tabernacles, at least.
Zechariah 14:16 “Then everyone who survives of all the nations that have come against Jerusalem shall go up year after year to worship the King, the LORD of hosts, and to keep the Feast of Booths.”
I find it strange that God wouldn’t consider these dates important after the cross, then He implements them again after He returns. Something doesn’t click there with me, so I keep them.
It’s the Torah of the Messiah I’m after, because who better to reveal its intricate mysteries than the One who gave it? He kept these days, so I do.
But I will not force my will like a tyrant on someone who doesn’t have that understanding.
It’s simply far too valuable to treat others with the love I see Jesus offer in the gospels. Christians today vehemently oppose anything they consider taboo or sinful, but if Jesus had decided to come in the 21st century for His first arrival, wouldn’t He be hanging around the very people that hateful Christians are so militant about?
Just something to think about. And, no, I don’t condone sin, but it’s the sick that need a doctor the most. A doctor heals regardless of situation.
Jesus loves YOU.
And someone else is their own YOU.
If He loves them, we don’t get to play ultimate judge.
Only the One who walked perfectly without sin has the right to judge others, and He won’t be doing that until the End of Time, meaning He gives plenty of grace about it, centuries or millennia, for people to accept Him.
Are there sinners in this world? Yes.
But Jesus loved them first, then told them to repent.
Fulfilled in Him
I want to end this exploration of the New Covenant Torah with a double entendre.
The shadows of the Old Covenant are fulfilled in Him.
And we, as modern Christians under the New Covenant, are fulfilled in Him.
Meaning we find our fulfillment in Him, and the prophetic shadows of ultimate realities find their fulfillment in Him as well.
I’ve written before that Torah observance is impossible today, in the normal sense of the concept.
But since the New Covenant has a new Torah, perhaps it's better to say that we can follow the Torah of our Messiah today, and that the Sinaitic expectations with their constant bloodshed are what’s impossible, and arguably unneeded, today.
And when you have the real thing, the substance of those things we hope for, aren’t you going to enjoy that more than a mere shadow?
We have freedom in Christ, and he whom the Son frees, is free indeed.
