Pedagogue

In a recent discussion with a believer online, I found myself navigating his attempts to prove to me, not only that Torah had been done away with in the coming of Yeshua, but that it was actually wrong for me to believe otherwise. After I showed him how his idea was in direct contrast to Yeshua's own words in Matthew 5:17-19, he countered with the text of Galatians 3:23-26. His primary interest, though, was to hear my understanding of verse 25, specifically. He asked, "What do you think it says?" It confounded him to learn that I thought it said exactly what it actually says.

“But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian…” or pedagogue, as the Greek renders it. The role of the pedagogue, in the Greek culture of the time, was to protect and prepare the child until he was old enough to sit under the schoolmaster. Rav Shaul uses the concept of the pedagogue to illustrate that Torah was our guardian, our caretaker. It protected us until Messiah Yeshua appeared. It prepared us by showing us what to look for - what to expect. Now that we're old enough, so to speak, we've graduated to the next level. Now that faith in Yeshua has come, now that He has appeared, the laws of the Temple sacrifice, for example, finally make sense to us.

How many of you would expect to take a prep course for a college class, only to find that once the class started, the professor instructed you to forget everything from the prep course - or even taught you contrary to it? Should this ever happen to you, know that you're in the wrong class.

Messiah Yeshua expounded on Torah in hundreds of enlightening ways. What we had come to understand of Torah paved the way to receive His teaching - for He is the Living Torah, the very Word of G-d! We have now come to realize that the entire sacrificial system pointed (and points) to Him. Truly, because of His sacrifice, “It is finished.” Not the instruction of HaShem, but our sentence for breaking it. Our sin, as long as we believe, has been atoned for. Now that we have faith in Yeshua, we no longer need to bring sacrifices for our sin to the Temple. Not to mention, we don’t even have a Temple at the moment - and that may serve as some measure of proof. The sacrifices of the Temple, the regulations of the priesthood, the particulars of unblemished offerings, etc. are the laws that we, as believers, are no longer under. We’re no longer under the pedagogue, the guardian, in that respect, but have now progressed to higher learning. The guardian, in order to continue our education, has handed us over to the schoolmaster. He will take what we know and build upon it - not negate it. We, unlike the rest of humanity, need nothing more to point us toward Messiah. He’s right in front of us! We’re now to sit at His feet and learn from Him. The rest of the world, however, seems to have foregone education altogether, opting instead, to enter the world ignorant and try to figure things out on their own.

Many people, like the one to which I was speaking, would like to pretend that Torah has been erased. It's human nature, after all, to gravitate towards that which requires nothing of us - the path of least resistance. The problem with that is, now that we're in Messiah, we're supposed to be moving away from the things human nature causes us to gravitate towards (Romans 12:2).

The "lawless" view thriving today, both firmly rests upon, and has enabled the tragic history of antisemitism within the Church. With the influx of gentiles into Messianic Judaism over the first few centuries, it was quickly transformed into what became, under Rome, the Empire of  Roman Catholicism. The original Hebraic understanding, structure and framework would be exchanged for pagan ideas and, eventually, a Papal domination of belief and doctrine - even salvation - a true pia fraus. The Reformation that followed was successful in shedding many false ideas within Christianity, but it didn't accomplish near enough - and, as is clearly seen in history, only served to stoke the flames of hatred and ignorance toward Jews and Judaism. This prevailing and errant view in Christianity is less about what "Jesus" accomplished, and more about a legacy of distancing Christians from Yeshua, the Jewish Messiah. That may seem somewhat of a rabbit trail, but understanding our past relations is essential to making sense of the chasm we see today between Judaism and the countless Christian denominations borne of reformed Catholicism.

But, returning to our topic, if it were true that Torah no longer applied, there would be no more sin in the world, and no one would be sinful before G-d (Romans 3:20b). How many of you understand that to be the case? Further, and this is very important to understand, if Messiah Yeshua did away with Torah, with the instruction of HaShem, He is no longer Messiah - or never was to begin with. One couldn't possibly be the Word of G-d and nullify it.

Do you fit in?

A Christian asked, "Where exactly do Messianic Jews fit in as far as the End Times are concerned?" and "Do they count as Israel or as the Church?" I'm tempted to point out that those mentioned in Revelation 12:17 don't exactly sound like the average church group to me, but instead, I ask, "Do Messianic Jews “fit in” at all? Must they “fit in”, necessarily? And why? Who chooses the container in which we must fit? Do the plans of G-d always (or ever) fit into our neat, tidy, eschatological theories, compartments and such? Will many, just like those in the first century, be too wrapped up in their own misunderstandings to discern the things that unfold in the days to come? Then, I try to relax a bit.

While we’re asking; where, actually, does the “church” fit in? I mean, even Rav Shaul referred to these things as a “mystery”, did he not? Perhaps it's the other groups that need to “fit in”. It might sound crazy, but let's not lose sight of the facts. Messiah Yeshua came solely to Israel. His disciples later carried the message of salvation to the surrounding nations and outsiders. Maybe they are the ones who are unable to accurately find their place. Just a thought, but that would explain why we were given Romans 11, no?

People have always been quite fond of pointing out what words aren't in scripture - and in this instance, you'll find I'm no different. If you consider the fact that the word “church” is found nowhere in the original scriptures, but is used as a translation of the word ἐκκλησία – the ekklesia, or the “called out assembly”, it begs the question; is it possible that even our nomenclature has contributed to massive distortions in understanding? Let me present it this way; the word “church” is from the old English word “cirice”, which is from the ancient Germanic word “kirika”, which, strangely, is from the Greek word κυριακὴ, which means “of the L-rd”, but is not even the word used to refer to this assembly in the Greek text originally. So, why the change? It's not as though English speakers wouldn't have understood the word "assembly". Why substitute it with a tri-translated distortion? Does taking what was once referred to as the “called out assembly”, and re-naming it the “church”, cause it to appear that those who are not the “church” are not “of the L-rd”?