Romans 25: The Works or Deeds of the Torah

[Rebbe]

PAUL'S LETTER TO THE ROMAN CHRISTIANS (25)
Analytical Commentary on Romans

THE WORKS, OR DEEDS, OF THE TORAH

Copyright © BRI 2017 All Rights Reserved Worldwide by Les Aron Gosling,
Messianic Lecturer (BRI/IMCF)

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"The Ten Commandments, one of the most negative documents ever written" -- Dr Francis Macnab, psychotherapist and executive minister of St Michael's Uniting Church, Melbourne, Australia

Scattered throughout the writings of the apostle Paul we find the expression "works of the law" or "deeds of the Torah" (Romans 2.15; 3.20,27,28; Galatians 2.16; 3.2,5,10). The Romanised-Greek term used by Paul is erga nomou ("works of the Law") or in Hebrew miqsat ma'ase haTorah more often than not used to denote works/deeds/ precepts prescribed by the Mosaic Law. This expression is not located in the Hebrew Scriptures but it does appear in the literature of Qumran (ma'ase torah, 4QFlor 1.1-7; cf 1QS 6.18; 1 QpHab 7.11). Paul sometimes abbreviates this expression, in Greek, to erga, "works" in which setting he contrasts our relationship to the Torah to faith in the Messiah (See Romans 4.2,6; 9.11, 32; 11.6).

WAS PAUL HOSTILE TO LAW?
Until very recently Christian expositors and commentators (scholars and non-scholars alike) attributed this phrase invariably as being a reflection of Paul's hostility to the Sinai Covenant and Torah (Law, or better, "Instruction"). In the '60s onward this dogmatism about a renegade Jewish Paul was about to become somewhat modified. For, in 1953 through to 1959 some 6 small fragments of a Second Temple period text were located in Qumran Cave 4 in the area of the Dead Sea sectarians and these fragments have proved to be very interesting indeed to biblical and archaeological scholars. These mss were identified as pertaining to a single document which had an authoritative stance in fact. Issuing from Qumran the document was a directive from a rabbinic source to outlying sectarian cells originally thought to have been Essene. Many scholars now realise these groups to which the directive was being sent were in fact struggling Nazarene settlements which probably consisted, not merely of Jewish disciples of Yeshua the Nazarene King, but also of Gentile followers. Together, what remains of the original ms, consists of about 130 lines and the circular directive very likely originated from James the brother of the Lord Yeshua. Today they can be seen housed at the Rockefeller Museum in Jerusalem, Israel. They are officially termed 4QMMT. I have written about this momentous discovery in other lectures over the years on the BRI/IMCF site.

The translation of this Halakhic Letter was released in 1985 and contains about two dozen laws.

What we now realise is that when Paul utilises this terminology "works of the law" he is speaking specifically of this document -- and not generally as an anti-Moses sentiment -- which was circulating widely among Gentile converts to Messianic Judaism.

In a nutshell MMT contains an emphasis on asceticism -- don't handle -- don't eat -- don't taste: indeed, the foundational strictures obstructing the Colossian Messianic community. Unfortunately, the initial part of the text which would include the opening formula and the name of the sender, is absent. In the light of this document (really, a circular directive) the statements of Paul, misused and misapplied for over 1800 years, now begin to make sense. Pseudo-Paul in the composite Epistle to the Galatians also makes sense now that this small document has been released for publication. The author is speaking of a specific document called the "Works of the Law," which is what this text is. Paul argues effectively that in no way can this teaching (MMT) confer justification. Justification, the apostle makes clear, is only found in Mashiach Yeshua.

The Gentile Galatians had become obsessed with ritual cleanliness! It had become a religious fetish.

MMT is a radical new discovery, and its contents reveal a prime reason as to why the Qumran texts were delayed (and in some cases, withheld) for 50 years before being made available to the public. For, its inclusions destroy outright the antinomian arguments of modern day churchianity.

Furthermore, the letter mentions a calendar that is solar oriented, and of course this would mean that the annual Sabbaths (the great feast days of Israel) would all fall on different days than the rest of first century "Judaism" which, of course, observed the Lunar Calendar. The letter certainly makes an authoritative statement about its own intent:

"These are some of our (legal) rulings (regarding Go)d's (Torah)."

The second part of the letter presents the writer's general views on either a schism that has occurred, or a voluntary separation of this body from the mainstream of Israel. The author states:

"You know that we have separated from the mainstream of the people and from all their impurities and from mixing in these matters and from being involved with them regarding these matters. But you know that there cannot be found in our hands dishonesty, falsehood, or evil."

This schism was either an original departure of some of the "top brass" of the Essene Community -- namely James and John and others who had decided to follow Yeshua and to leave behind their New Jerusalem sectarians at Qumran -- or more than likely it was the later departure or exodus of three thousand Essene disciples on the day of Shavuot (Pentecost) in 30 CE when the Yeshua-Messianic Movement was actually birthed (Acts 2).

In any event, the letter continues:

"And indeed, we have written to you some of the rulings pertaining to the Torah, which we considered were good for you [plural "you"] and your people, for [we have seen] that you have wisdom and knowledge of the Torah."

4QMMT AND JUSTIFICATION
It then proceeds to mention a calendar of 364 days and this follows with a list of more than twenty rulings in Halakhot. It concludes with an epilogue attempting to persuade the addressees to adopt and inculcate these legal views in their assemblies (ekklesias).

When reading Galatians at face value, and without an understanding of certain phrases, Gentiles are led to believe that Paul was contradicting outright what the Mashiach had taught during his ministry. One of the phrases which has caused so much misunderstanding is "the works of the law." Taken at face value, a Gentile could conclude that the author of Galatians and Romans is against commandment observance. A number of prominent Protestant Christians believe this is the case to this day. Jews understood the phrase differently. For, the "works of the law" or "deeds of the law" is terminology referring to sacrifice and cleansing, i.e. ritual purifications. Rav Shaul first mentions them in Romans 3.20.

The monumental issue in Galatians revolves around the attempt by some to enslave Gentile believers into some form of halakha (a way of obedience; from "the trodden path") in order to gain the Lord's acceptance of them. The issue once again surfaces as whether we are in fact justified by faith -- the FAITH OF CHRIST -- or by our personal keeping and maintaining faithful unbroken obedience to the Torah. (This issue is not simply reduced to the argument against observance of the Sinai Torah but equally includes the observance of the New Covenant Messianic Torah: but the keeping or not keeping of the commandments, indeed ANY law, for salvation (justification) purposes is absolutely excluded in the matter of God's free GRACE.)

What it boils down to, is this: is obedience to the Torah and/or halakhic regulations -- stressing ritual or ceremonial purity -- based on Torah, a condition for restored spiritual acceptance in the Mashiach OR is obedience the natural consequence of that spiritual standing. (I am purposely avoiding the term legal in this context.)

JAMES THE BROTHER OF YESHUA AND 4QMMT
Scholars believe that these fragments could date back to around 200 BCE. It is my view that this is sheer conditioned tunnel vision and that the mss come from the later Second Temple period and moreover they were in circulation until the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE. These same scholars contend that the majority of the mss known as the Dead Sea Scrolls came from the same period circa 200 BCE. Modern opinion -- in a growing minority -- has adjusted that date to the Herodian period. I am in complete agreement with this assessment. Whatever the case with regard to the 4QMMT there was a particular doctrine called Ma'aseh haTorah ("works of the Law") and this was based on 24 particular Mosaic laws of ritual purity.

There is little doubt that Yaakov (called "the Just") and the brother of Yeshua was the leader who espoused this Essene doctrine. Certainly the Essenes claimed to be the authentic Tzadokite priesthood that had been deposed by the Hasmoneans and the corrupt Roman government. (Dead Sea Scroll documents 4Q394-399 document this in some detail.) Christian scholars have known for decades that Essenes frequently condemned Jerusalem and her children. These are facts of history.

Now let me say this: The events covered in Acts 15 cannot be fully appreciated without a knowledge of 4QMMT. Understanding what was occurring back then among the followers of Yeshua, with the light we now possess about the circulation of this Jamesian Essene document from the "New Jerusalem" at Qumran, explains at long last Paul's antagonism to what he calls "the Deeds of the Torah" or "Works of the Torah" (NOT the Torah itself but man-made extra biblical additions which James as the alternative High Priest of the Jewish nation and Chief Apostle of the Church -- these two terms may actually refer to the same identical Office -- was promulgating at the time and imposing on the Gentile converts to the Messianic Judaism of the time. Recall there were two Torah's in Second Temple Judaism. One was the literal Torah of five volumes penned by Moses, and the second was called "the oral law" which the Pharisees claimed had originated from God and was given to Moses at Sinai in order to explain and properly observe the commandments contained in the written Law. Today's modern Orthodox Jews believe this as well).

UNDERSTANDING IS NEEDED: ESPECIALLY IN RELATION TO "REASON"
Rav Shaul made it patently clear in his Letter to the Roman Christians that "by the deeds of the Torah no flesh would be justified." (Most of our Yeshiva students realise there is no need to worry when they come across certain puzzling aspects of information in BRI/IMCF material... its entirely healthy to agree to disagree. In Jewish thoughtform, absolute dogmatism takes a back seat. God seeks always to reason with His people.)

With Gentiles, its either black or white. In the Jewish mindset its black and white with shades of grey along with a multiplicity of dabs of rich colour. To illustrate this clearly, consider that the apparent purpose of creating living human beings was for those human beings to reproduce as many children as possible -- "be fruitful and multiply" was the determinate charge of God -- yet later God Incarnate stated quite explicitly that "castration" was a calling for those who could avail themselves of it: a virtual denial of the original perceived purpose and decree of God (Mt 19.12).  

Of course, Our Lord Yeshua was not advocating physical castration as the Ideal nor was he expecting us to cut off other parts of our body which sometimes/oftentimes offend. Yeshua knew the human heart was the problem, not a physical adjunct of the human body. Still, he said that remaining single was a "gift." So here we have the One who inspired the original Genesis record saying the opposite (in effect). But this is a God-peculiarity.

For instance, later the same One stated that a man must never marry two sisters. Yet He set the example by marrying two sisters -- Israel and Judah. God was against divorce. But God divorced both His wives. God demanded that a man not return to a divorced wife after taking a new wife. He forbade such a thing as this. Yet, as I have shown in other lectures, God Himself begged Israel as His divorced wife to "return unto me." Moreover, Scripture shows us plainly that God will AGAIN in the future marry His divorced wife, Israel.

Prostitution was outlawed by God Himself, but He expected Isaiah to have compassion on a whore who was selling her body in order for her children to be properly clothed and fed (Isa 23.17,18). We always need to maintain an overview of reality as it actually is. Thus we come to appreciate flexibility in God and in ourselves.

God wants us to reason with Him -- because its an accommodating God we worship and adore. The sacred text doesn't say "Now listen, stupid! Come over here and listen to what I gotta tell you because you're a mashugg'nah and need to heed my awesome wisdom!" Rather the Lord says, "Come, let us reason together" (Isa 1.18).

There is a stark difference between the doctrines of the world's churches and the truth of God when restored to the biblical revelation by a new understanding of Jewish thoughtform. He doesn't make it easy, does He?

A good example of this is found in Mt 26.6: "And when Yeshua was in Bethany at the house of Simon the leper....." (KJV) But as any Bible student knows, lepers were not permitted to live in the city (see Lev 13.46). Stern's "Jewish NT" attempts to fix the problem by translating as:

"Yeshua was in Beit-Anyah, at the home of Shim'on, the man who had had the repulsive skin disease." But in fact the Greek does NOT say that Shim'on HAD BEEN a Leper. The Greek calls him "Simon the Leper."

The solution? Since ancient Hebrew and Aramaic were written without vowels, there was no distinction between the Aramaic words gar'ba (leper) and gara'ba (jar merchant, or maker of jars). Intriguingly, in this story a woman pours oil from a jar and it is apparent that Simon was a jar merchant or jar maker and not a leper.

This is only one area that must be adjusted in research involving a restoration of the truth of God.

JAMES AND HIS ROLE IN THE MESSIANIC MOVEMENT
In restoring the truth about Paul we have of necessity discussed his relationship with Yaakov (James), the Lord's brother. In an incident which fairly describes the apostle's youthful pre-conversion days, a report is given of Paul assaulting James in the Temple (Recognitions I.43-71). Therefore, the paths of both men had crossed long prior to the events recorded in Acts.

We have seen in other lectures in years past that Yaakov was not only the physical head of the early Messianic Assemblies, and the one to whom all listened and obeyed, but he was also a strict Essene and the alternative High Priest of the Jewish nation headquartered at Qumran.

In Acts 15 he issues a decree which he expects the entire Assembly to obey. In past years we discussed this edict for close to 20 hours of Yeshiva time!

Now we have been discussing a letter in the form of a decree, apparently from James, which has been recently discovered and translated. In scholarly circles it is referred to as 4QMMT. This stands for Miqsat Ma`ase haTorah or "Some Works [rules/precepts] of Torah."

QUMRAN -- THE ORIGINAL EKKLESIA OF GOD
What is not generally known, is that the Essene movement (which was closely allied to the Zealots) had spread its influence as far afield as Galatia, inhabited by the Gauls, located in the central region of Asia Minor (modern-day Turkey). Whoever the author of Galatians was, he was definitely against the movement led by James. He was certainly against these regulations imposed on the Gentiles because these halakha struck at the efficacy of Mashiach's sacrifice.

This new information is most important in our pursuit to uncover the lost Jewish rabbi, Sha'ul who penned this remarkable Letter to the Roman Christians.

Certainly, while Rav Shaul and his Party had little time for those who practiced ritual and ceremonial asceticism, especially that related to the hard-core Jamesian variety, he was obsessed with the mysticism of Essene doctrine especially as it related the origin of all existence to the Archetypal Man, the Ad'am Kad'mon. I covered much of this in an early series of lectures I gave on The Real Apostle Paul.

In Paul's own words (see Greek of Acts 17) God gave birth to the universe out of Him/Her Self. Further testimony to this effect is located in Rom 11.36. In Colossians 1.12ff he refers to the Archetypal Man as the Cosmic Mashiach (or, Cosmic Christ) and develops this theme to include all of us.

As to the latter assessment we shall see in the next lecture a progressive revelation of God, through Paul's intellectually contemplative musings, of GRACE as both extended and accomplished in an ultimate universal salvation.

If we have been JUSTIFIED by the shed blood of the Messiah -- "Justified by His Faith Alone" -- and have authenticated that same justification in our acknowledgement and acceptance of the work of Yeshua on the bloodied torture tree of Golgoleth, then we have a personal responsibility to accord in outward and certainly inward behaviour with God's expectations of us -- WHATEVER THEY MAY BE. God's expectations of us are to be found in the expanded New Covenant Torah of God, the Messianic Torah: the entire biblical revelation including the demands on believers found in the Messianic Scriptures.

THE RESTORATION, RESUSCITATION, RESURRECTION OF PAUL
The approach I have taken in examining Paul's Letter to the Roman Christians is quite deliberate inasmuch as I have set my heart and mind to a restoration, resuscitation, reconstruction, and resurrection of the most misunderstood apostle of the primitive Messianic Movement -- Paul. This will engage my best articulation of a reconstruction of early church history (which I am working on at present, among other things) and I honestly do not believe that we can be entirely knowledgeable about Paul and his beliefs (and necessarily by extension our own) unless we can grasp what lay behind Paul's thinking -- only by understanding this can any of us truly appreciate the content matter of his Letter to the Roman Christians.

That God gave birth to the universe out of His/Her/Its Self-Consciousness AND for His/Her/Its Satisfaction is an awesome truth that has been neglected by the church for almost 2000 years -- God gave birth to the universe out of THE ETERNAL SELF, and this pattern occurs right throughout nature. God is reproducing Him/Her/Itself in each of us. God is conceiving us by means of the Ruach haKodesh. We are the sperma of God, as John calls us. We are the children of God -- literal, as well as spiritual, children.

God only has sons and daughters. He does NOT adopt children. God begets them.

I have been saying for decades that if the transcendent Deity -- THAT "Infinite Intelligence" and "Endless Love" -- has produced the universe, as the Sacred Scripture declares and in the way the texts indicate, then there should be actual evidence of it, Somewhere.

And if there is, then that evidence would point to BRI/IMCF as the ONLY authentic Messianic Jewish organism today with which God is dealing in the revealing of ALL His truth. Remember, that I have said that we are the ONLY Messianic body which testifies to God's awesome and precious Grace. If anybody here disagrees with this assessment please point me personally to ANY other Messianic organisation that teaches an ultimate universal salvation by Grace through Christ!

There are other churches and sects and publishing concerns which understand "universal reconciliation" and "universal redemption," and "universal restoration." But they are decidedly not Messianic. If anything, the vast majority are antinomian, as a matter of fact. And, I might also add, we are the ONLY Messianic body which, while laying enormous stress on the holiness of the Messianic Torah, is not legalistic!

Whatever the case in relation to the BRI/IMCF the biblical revelation seems to indicate that the entire world will eventually know this engaging wonderful GRACE-filled TRUTH concerning God's Grace. We are overjoyed to have an engaging part in the restoration of the lost Jewish thoughtform of the Second Temple period.

In the following lecture we shall conclude Romans 5 with an analysis of Paul's progressive thoughts regarding a universal salvation.

THIS CONCLUDES LECTURE 25

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