Created: Sun 15-June-2025 - 09:09

"Should Gentiles keep Torah?" is the wrong question

The real question is: "Why would someone saved by God's grace categorically refuse to obey God?"

Traditional Christianity has been washed down in an almost perverted gospel of grace, opposing any acknowledgement even that God's commandments—even those repeated through Yeshua—are in any way shape or form binding for Gentiles.

Any believer who refuses to at least acknowledge God's commandments is in grave danger, as Yeshua himself warned us.

Imagine you are being saved from sin, from death as your punishment, and then you can just go on with your life and do as you please...

What did Yeshua die for if we were to ignore the Torah, His Commandments?

Many self-professing Gentiles argue that the Law was given to the Jews, not Gentiles. That Yeshua spoke to Jews when He said over and over again "Go and sin no more". Paul abolished the Law for Gentiles.

The Scripture warns us of these false teachings.

But there's a question...

Gentiles' entitlement?

Where does this entitlement come from?

How can you claim all the benefits from the New Covenant without respecting the ground rules of it that God himself set?

Scripture tells us that Gentiles are grafted into the True Vine (Yeshua) together with the natural branches (Jews/Israel/Judah). How then can the wild branches claim to grow under different circumstances than the natural branches? How can the vine itself sustain both branches when applying different circumstances? Does Yeshua not tell us that every branch not bearing fruit will be cut?

Pick & Choose Christianity

Torah-denying Christians are quick to argue that everything concerning the Law in Scripture is for Jews only. Even in the New Testament. How can that be? Where is that sentiment—entitlement, even—coming from to pick and choose those parts of Scripture that suit?

We are not having a debate about the infallibility of the Bible. If someone does not have faith in almighty God to provide to His people His own word then we are not even on the same page (no pun intended).

The question is: can we pick and choose the parts which we like, and ignore those we don't?

Did Yeshua not say "Pick up your cross and follow me"?

Torah-denying Christians seem to marinate themselves in a gospel of grace which, so they say, entitles them to live as they please and disobey God. Because obedience to God would mean to keep the Torah. Sin, according to Scripture

Fear of God, or Fear of Torah?

It almost feels as if 'Gentile' believers are more afraid of the Torah than they are of God. Has God seized to tell us how he wants to be loved and worshipped? No, it's all in Scripture. Why believers ignore this is beyond any comprehension.

The body of Christ must come back to a fear of the Lord. The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom. What if we stop fearing God? Where does our wisdom go? Who are we to decide when we have enough wisdom?

Grace of God in vain

2 Cor 6:1 says that we are working together with Messiah. The passage urges us not to receive the grace of God in vain. He goes on in verse 4 to speak about us as "servants of God". How many Torah-denying Christians truly serve God? How can they know if they serve God if not through His own word?

Paul continues in 6:14 to highlight the difference between unbelievers and believers: Righteousness and Lawlessness.

If we deny Torah we are called lawless, which according to Scripture is sin.

Be separate

In 2 Cor 6:16-18, Paul refers back to Scripture (Isaiah 52:11, Ezek 20:41) saying "Be separate", and "do not touch what is unclean".

Why would he bring up Scripture in such context if he abolished the Torah? Why say "do not touch what is unclean" when Torah does not apply? None of these Torah-denying arguments hold any ground if we read Scripture (all of it, Tanakh and New Testament) in context and in its totality. The church in Corinth consisted mainly of non-Jewish believers, aka former Gentiles. Why would Paul even mention Torah if Torah was abolished and did not apply to Gentiles?

Paul keeps doing this, all other apostles keep doing it, Yeshua is doing it:

• Teaching Torah.
• Proving Messiah through Torah.
• Upholding Torah.

How else can we reconciles Yeshua's statement in Matt 5:17-19?

Salvation produces Obedience

Most Torah-accepting Christians obey God out of love, because they were saved. Salvation leads to obedience. Torah obedience does not lead to salvation, as Paul explains in a long letter to the believers in Rome.

The Holy Spirit produces the wanting to obey, and gives us the ability to obey.

Are we perfect? No. But at least we try. Can we be saved by keeping the Torah? No. Salvation came first through grace and faith in Yeshua. So how then would someone who was saved go about their lives? In the same way as before? Scripture says we are a new creation in Christ (Messiah). Lawless (Torah-less) before, now...now what actually? Still Torah-less?

A Privilege perverted

It almost feels as if Torah-denying Christians do not know the great privilege they were given. Salvation through grace does not mean to live however we want to.

Bacon? Bring it on.
Pork chops? Bring it on.
Sabbat? We rest in Christ.
God's Laws? Judaizer!
Judged by deeds? Liar!

God gave us instructions because he loves us and wants the best for us. Who are we to pick and choose? Yes, none of us is perfect. And as the apostles wrote in Acts 15, we shall not be overwhelmed with too many laws when we are just starting out and coming to Messiah. They were aware that faith requires growth and maturing; and they knew that Moses (Torah) was taught every week in the synagogues anyway. There was no need to overwhelm new (Gentile) believers with a full slap on the head with the Torah.

Christian doctrines, however, took this passage in Acts 15 to form a theology saying that Gentiles are exempt from the Law. Some denominations go even further and proclaim "There are only 2 commandments Jesus gave us".

This statement is both factually and theologically false. Depending on how one counts, Yeshua gave between 45-80 direct or indirect commandments in the Gospels. Something that is not taught in Churches today. Rather, Christians point their fingers on Torah-seeking believers.

Mocked and hated

How come that Christians who obey God are mocked and hated by their fellow body members? Have we come thus far as to self-sabotage the body of Christ? Does Paul not warn us that the wild branches are not to be arrogant towards the natural branches who fall away? Because as quickly as branches are cut off due to lack of faith in Messiah, as quickly they can be grafted in again (Romans 11).

Living for Messiah

2 Cor 5:15 tells us that we no longer live for ourselves, but for Messiah Yeshua.
Yet Torah-denying Christians live as such that they deny any obligation to obey God's instructions and chastising.

James 2:14 speaks of faith without deeds. What are righteous deeds if not those defined by almighty God our Father? Looking back at life, we all find situations where our deeds were not righteous, where we coveted, where we hated, where we gossiped, where we lusted.

How do we know that these were sinful and unrighteous deeds? Through Torah. God gave us 5 books—the number 5 is significant in Scripture—in order to be set apart from the nations (non-believers, pagans, gentiles). The Torah is not to dominate us negatviely, it is to make us set-apart from everyone else.

Welcome back: The Wall of Separation

Did Yeshua not tear down the wall of separation that stood between Jews and Gentiles? Socially, emotionally, status-wise.

For 2000 years, traditional Christianity has done a proper job building that wall back up again. Even Germany tore down the wall dividing its people in the West and the East. Why are we, as the body of Christ, not able to do the same?

We are judged by our deeds

Yeshua says it himself in the Gospel accounts. Paul echoes it in 2 Cor 10:
We cannot do as we please. We are judged by our deeds.

And who decides which deeds are good, and which ones are bad? Not us. God does. Torah-denying Christians are quick to argue that they always do what's right through the indwelling spirit. So are all of us who have the Holy Spirit then without sin? Not even Paul was free from sin and told us about His inner struggle between doing what's right (obeying God and Torah) and giving in to the desires of the body. (Romans 7:14-25)

Do we say then that Paul did not have the Holy Spirit? God forbid. Paul shows us that even though we want to do what's right, we struggle. How then can a believer argue that they always do what's right in their hearts and at the same time denying the Torah where God shows us clearly what's right and what's wrong. Torah is the basis of righteousness.

Amen.