Messianic Jewish Theology - Overview of Issues

Overview of Issues

Traditional Christianity affirms that the Torah is the word of God, though some Christians deny that all of the laws of the Pentateuch apply directly to themselves as Christians. The New Testament suggests that Yeshua established a new covenant relationship between God and his people (Hebrews 8; Jeremiah 31:31-34) and this new covenant speaks of the Torah being written upon the heart. Various passages such as Matthew 5:17-19, Matthew 28:19-20, 1John 3:4 and Romans 3:3, as well as various examples of Torah observance in the New Testament, are cited by Messianics in suggesting that the Torah was not and could not have been abolished.

Many Messianics believe that it is absurd to assume that any of the 613 Mitzvot would be abolished simply because certain commandments are or are not repeated or reaffirmed individually in the New Testament, proclaiming the belief that such was never the job of the Apostles in the first place, and that the Torah has always been immutable. Messianics sometimes challenge Christians by arguing that if they believe Jesus is the Messiah, then according to the Torah itself Yeshua could not have changed the Torah.

As with Orthodox Judaism, capital punishment and animal sacrifice are not practiced because there are strict Biblical conditions on how these are to be practiced, requiring a functioning Temple in Jerusalem with its Levite priesthood. When the power of capital punishment is available, often its exercise is only after exhausting loopholes in Torah which are used to set a suspect free. According to the Talmud, capital punishment in Jewish law always had to lean on merciful alternatives to execution and make every effort not to give the strictest punishment within the confines of the Torah: "A Sanhedrin which kills once in seven years is considered murderous. Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah said: once in seventy years. Rabbi Akiva and Rabbi Tarfon said: if we had been in the Sanhedrin, no one would have ever been killed."

Most Messianics believe that observance of the Torah brings about sanctification, not salvation, which was to be produced only by the Messiah.

Like so many other elements of Messianic Judaism, the issue of Torah observance varies widely across the movement. The following subsections attempt to explain the differing opinions about Torah observance within Messianic Judaism as a whole.

A number of subjects have become off-limits within the complicated world of Messianic Judaism and some find this intellectually dishonest and damaging to the movement.