It is NOT “Faith Plus Torah”
There is this false teaching going around in some “Christian” circles (I use that term Christian in a loose and general sense here), which has always been the case since the life of Jesus, that we have to have faith PLUS reverence for the Torah. People who fall into this unscriptural view, post graphics like this one:
They claim that you have to have BOTH — both trust in Jesus and a life of Torah commandment keeping. They misunderstand those as 2 separate things. No, the two are ONE. The Trust In Messiah and the Keeping the Commandments are ONE AND THE SAME THING.
It is not, as the English translation might seem to imply, “Faith + Torah.” The proper understanding is “keep God’s commands — AKA faith in Messiah Jesus” The word “and” in the translation throws the understanding off, when the right translation to English would be a hyphen or AKA (also known as). Faith in Messiah and Keeping Torah are one and the same thing.
Believing in God is the foundation of everything. If we don’t have faith in Him, it’s impossible to please God (Hebrews 11:6). We must trust that He is who He says He is — the Lord Almighty — and that He can do what He says He can do.
The “work” of God unto righteousness is to believe in the one He has sent (John 6:29). To keep His command, finally focuses down to Believing that Jesus is exactly who he said he is — sent From Father to be the final sacrifice (The Lamb of God) that completes the entire Torah sacrificial system, once and for all.
The result of the belief that God commanded, “This is my Son in whom I am well-pleased. SHEMA to him!” (Matthew 3:16 and Matthew 17:5) To “listen” to God’s Son, is to hear and to do likewise. Thus to really “hear” God’s Son is to DO what He says.
The RESULT, the natural outcome and byproduct, of keeping God’s commands is:
• Fruit of the Spirit (Galatians) and Abiding in the Vine of Jesus’ own life (John 15)
• Love + pure Heart + Good Conscience + Sincere Faith (1 Timothy 1:5)
• Conversational and harmonious Intimacy and Holy Oneness (being Echad) with the Trinity Itself (John 17)
• Loving others with Father God’s own love as Jesus specifically demonstrated Torah Keeping in His life (John 13:34, 35)
• A heart fully SET FREE! (I love to run in the path of Your Commands, for you have set my heart free! — Psalm 119:32–37) A heart FREED FROM sin/death/corruption/selfish ambition, and FREED TO receive divine love and to give out (re-transmit and radiate) divine love.
If we think of “Torah keeping” as LESS than, or religious actions, or other than any of this scripture, then we are not really understanding “keeping God’s commands.”
It is in light light that the way that Rabbinical Judaism imagines “keeping God’s commands” and “doing Mitzvot” — doing good deeds (plural) — is the INVERSE AND OPPOSITE of what the Torah actually teaches.
Mitzvah: any commandment, ordinance, law, or statute contained in the Torah (first five books of the Bible) and, for that reason, to be observed by all practicing Jews.
The GOOD DEED (singular) that God commands, is that you put your full trust in Gods Son as Messiah. In keeping this one command, all that the Torah commands is fulfilled.
Matthew 19:16,17 brings it all into focus: “Just then a man came up to Jesus and asked, ‘Good Teacher, what good deed (singular) must I do to get eternal life?’ Why do you ask me about what is good?”
Jesus replied. “There is only One who is good. (the good deed is not a thing to obey; it is a PERSON to trust and follow) If you want to enter into God’s Life, KEEP THE COMMANDMENTS.” (plural)
“Yes of course, but which of the 10 Commandments is THE ONE MAIN ONE (singular) — the CORE COMMAND — that I must keep?” he inquired. Jesus replied, “’You shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not give false testimony, honor your father and mother,’ and ‘love your neighbor as yourself.’” (Jesus replies with the PLURAL commandments, stating most of the 10, and then summing the 10 up with the ONE command — to love with divine and unselfish love just as God loves)
“All these I have kept,” the young man said. “What do I still lack?” Jesus answered, “If you want to be perfect (whole and complete, lacking nothing as to righteousness), go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, FOLLOW ME.”
This ALL the “commandment keeping” comes down to (a) repenting and discarding your idols / rebellion. In this particular case the man’s idol (the thing in his heart keeping him from fully believing and wholeheartedly following Jesus) was his money, and then (b) FOLLOWING JESUS HIMSELF.
The ONE COMMAND of all commands is to follow Jesus Himself. And to really understand this is to understand and to do ALL God’s commands.
All that God commands is to receive Jesus for who He is — God’s Son, SENT from Father God, a TRUE Son of His Father (John 20:21 — It was the Father who sent me, and I am now sending you in the same way.) — thus embodying and representing Father God.
Getting this life of Father God INSIDE YOU by getting Jesus inside of you (John 6:45 — Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him.).
When Jesus is “in you” and you are “in him” — this is ECHAD. This is you being ONE with the divine life of God. Jesus said, “For unless you believe that I am He (The prophesied Messiah, sent from Father God as the Atonement Lamb of God — the ultimate sacrifice that completes all Torah sacrifices, for it fully replaces death with life), you will die in your sins.” — John 8:24
If we are commandment keepers as religious activity, as self-empowered good deed, and human love, we are just as DEAD as the lawless are. For we have failed to keep the one command — to BELIEVE that Jesus is exactly who He said He is.
To keep God’s command is to believe. And to believe is to follow Jesus. Only this person is justified in Revelation 14:l12.
And THAT IS WHY Revelation 14:12 speak of both commandment keeping and faith in Yeshua/Jesus as ONE AND THE SAME THING. The two are one. Jesus fully and perfectly kept God’s commands, and told others to do likewise (as the above passage about the rich young man demonstrated).
When Jesus is IN our spirit, by belief/faith/trust, what is also inside us? The righteousness of all commandment keeping, fully fulfilled in us, because the PERSON who fulfilled God’s law is ALIVE by Grace/Faith in and through us.
Understanding this, Paul writes in Romans 10:4 “For the law of God finds its fulfillment in the Person of God — the Messiah — to everyone who believes.”
“Fulfillment” meaning its completion — the end of the road as in this is where the entire Torah law was leading to and pointing to. The whole Bible says this over and over again, in various words:
“The work of God unto righteousness is to believe in the one He has sent.” (John 6:29)
