The Law

Wanted to share a chapter of a book I'm reading. I'm loving the book! I'm so thankful for this book and hope you will enjoy the chapter. It's not all of the chapter, but some. To much to type!  :D

"Under the law" and "works of the law"
Much of Christian theology about the Torah is based on a mis-understanding of two Greek expressions which Sha'ul invented. First is upo nomon; it appears 10 times in Romans, 1Corinthians and Galatians, and it is usually rendered "under the law." The other is erga nomou, found with minor variations 10 times in Romans and Galatians, translated "works of the law."
Whatever Sha'ul is trying to communicate be these expressions, one thing is clear: Sha'ul regards them negatively: being "under the law" is bad and "works of the law" are bad. Christian theology usually takes the first to mean "within the framework of observing the Torah" and the second, "acts of obedience to the Torah." This understanding is wrong. Sha'ul does not consider it bad to live within the framework of Torah, nor is it bad to obey it; on the contrary, he writes that the Torah is "holy, just and good" (Romans 7:12)

C.E.B Cranfield has shed some light on there two phrases; his first essay on the subject appeared in 1964, and he summarized it in his masterly commentary on Romans. There he writes,
"... The Greek language of Paul's day possessed no word-group corresponding to our 'legalism,' 'legalist' and 'legalistic'. This means that he lacked a convenient terminology for expressing a vital distinction, and so was surely seriously hampered in the work of clarifying the Christian position with regard to the law. In view of this, we should always, we think, be ready to reckon with the possibility that Pauline statements, which at first sight seem to disparage the law, were really directed not against the law itself but against that misunderstanding and misuse of it for which we now have a convenient terminology. In this very difficult terrain Paul was pioneering.

At Mattityahu (Matthew) 5:17-20 Yeshua (Jesus) says he did not come to abolish the Torah, and that anyone who disobeys its least commands and teaches others to do so will be counted least in the kingdom of Heaven.

When castigating the religious establishment for majoring in minors he does not denigrate any part of the Torah: "woe to you hypocritical Torah-teachers (scribes) and P'rushim (pharisees)! You pay your tithes of mint, dill and cumin; but you have neglected the weighter matters of the Torah-justice, mercy and trust. These are the things you should have attended to-without neglecting the others!"  Without taking away from Yeshua's emphasis on justice, mercy and trust, we note that he adds the phrase, "without neglecting the others," in order to affirm that the less weighty commandments are still in force.


These quotes are from the book Messianic Judaism. I wanted to share what's on my heart! Happy reading.  :D