Wednesday 28 May 2014

Two covenants, one Torah


I came across this while researching a piece on Christian Anti-Semitism:

But Christians and Messianic Jews should understand that everyone under the New Covenant has the Torah to observe. That is the plain sense of the phrase, “I will put my Torah in their minds and write it on their hearts.” It is not some new Torah, different from Old Testament Torah. It is the one and only Torah, understood in the spirit of the Messiah, “as upheld by the Messiah” (Ga 6:2&N; 1C 9:21&N). Christian theology all too often tries to escape or water down the plain sense of what is said here, so that what is required is very little, usually a vague “sensitivity to God’s will” that becomes impossible to pin down. Not infrequently the motivation for devising such theology has been to portray or create separation, spiritual distance and invidious comparison between the Church and the Jews. But other Christians have had a correct understanding, for example, A. Lukyn Williams:

“God’s words through Jeremiah do not announce the coming of a new Law, but of a new principle of keeping the Law, according to which God forgives the sinner, writes the Law on his heart, brings him into a new relation to Himself, and makes Himself known to him.” (Manual of Christian Evidences for Jews, London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1919, I:184.)

Stern, D. H. (1996). Jewish New Testament Commentary : a companion volume to the Jewish New Testament (electronic ed., Heb 8:6). Clarksville: Jewish New Testament Publications.

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