WALKING TORAH

June 9, 2019

1 John 2:6 "whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked."

If we are to walk as Yeshua walked then we need to ask just how did our Lord and Savior walk?  What was the "derek" (Hebrew term for the way in which a person walks and lives)?  Yeshua told us clearly in Matthew 16:24-25, "Then Yeshua said to His disciples, “If anyone wants to follow after Me, he must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow Me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it."  Yeshua took His own cross, and so we must walk with ours as well if we are to follow Him. I have heard many sermons on this topic, and while many have accurately detailed giving up this world for service and obedience to the Lord, most failed to accurately state what that looks like.  There are probably over one hundred books on living a Christian lifestyle.  Is that what we are talking about? No.  Lifestyle is not necessarily the “Derek”, but it is a part of it.  We will probably revisit and rewrite this article from time to time because as we grow and learn, this topic will change to everyone here, as it should for you.  I would like to encourage you, the reader, to write up your own story.  Tell us about it if you want, but write it up; tell us how you walk, what your struggles are, what are the miracles in your life.  Of course, send us comments.

He also said that if we love Him, we keep His commands (John 14:15).  We often hear from the pulpit that we need to "follow" Yeshua.  That term has a specific Rabbinic connotation that we rarely hear.  When a student of a Rabbi "followed" their teacher, they learned at his feet until they were ready and knew his teaching enough to go out on their own, teaching just as their master had taught.  Are any of us ready to do that? If we are truly following Yeshua, are we preparing to teach and disciple others?  The answer for most of us is "no".  Most simply want to go to a weekly service and then go home, not considering the gathering of the saints again until another week has passed.  Anyone that practices this way and yet states they want to walk as Yeshua (or Jesus) walked is simply not telling the truth.  The Apostle John would have called that person a “liar”.

I hope to go through, step by step, discovering the true "derek"; the way we are to walk.  It will be uncomfortable as it is the rare exception that is attempting to come close to this mark.  We all must change; become what Yeshua wants us to be, new creations that follow Him, making disciples as we walk.

1 John 2:6 "whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked."

Understand that this is not a discussion of salvation; that is assumed if you are reading this article.  This is a discussion on maturity and walking in righteousness.  So, what is the overall way in which He walked?  Matthew 5:19 explains

Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others the same, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven. But whoever keeps and teaches them, this one shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.

We can pretty much assume that there is no one in the Kingdom of Heaven greater than Yeshua.  But, I thought the commandments are too hard to bear; aren’t we told that? No, actually we are told the opposite for those that are in Christ and have the love of God in them:

 John 5:3 -

For this is the love of God—that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome.

No, they are not burdensome.  It comes down to how Yeshua summed up the Torah and Prophets – Matt 22

37 And He said to him, “‘You shall love Adonai your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’  40 The entire Torah and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

Sermons have often been heard stating that Yeshua’s commandments are just love the Lord God and love your neighbor as yourself. After all, He threw out the 10 commandments and all other Torah commands. That is not what this passage states. It states that all of the Torah and prophets “hang on” (rest on, are summed up by, are best described by) these two commandments. Moses himself made these statements:

Deuteronomy 6:5 5 You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.

Leviticus 19:18 18 You shall not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge against the sons of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself; I am the Lord.

Yeshua also stated in John 14:15-16

15 “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments. 16 I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper so He may be with you forever— 17 the Spirit of truth…

…and again in John 15:10

10 If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love.

John’s 2nd Epistle is critical to add to this discussion:

2 John 1:5-6

5 Now I ask you, dear lady, that we love one another. It is not as though I am writing you a new command, but the one we have had from the beginning.  6 Now this is love: that we walk according to His commands. This is the commandment—just as you heard from the beginning—that you walk in love.

There is a loose reference here to Leviticus 19:18,34, both stating to love your neighbor (both Hebrew and foreign born) as yourself and to walk in love as commanded by YHWH.   John makes it clear that this command to obey Yeshua’s and the Father’s commandments is the same one they heard in the Mosaic covenant, the Torah (from the beginning).  

By the way, as we are talking about love, I should help define something about love – the opposite of love.

Deuteronomy 21:15-17

15 If a man have two wives, one beloved, and another hated, and they have born him children, both the beloved and the hated; and if the firstborn son be hers that was hated:

Hatred here stems from the Hebrew word “śə·nū·’āh” and “sânê'”. It is translated as the “opposite of love”.  We know that it doesn’t mean “hated” as it is used to refer to Jacob’s wife Leah (Genesis 29:31) when in the previous verse Rachel is said to be loved “more than Leah”; so she wasn’t hated, she was just loved less.  In Hebrew, the opposite of “loved” isn’t hated, it is “non-elected” or “non-chosen”.  Does this sound familiar?  Ezekiel 33:11 sheds light on this controversy.

11 Say to them: ‘As I live’—it is a declaration of Adonai—‘I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live. Return, return from your evil ways.

It discusses that he wished they become the “elect”

So if you don’t love God, guess what, you haven’t chosen Him. If you are not one of His loved ones, you are currently non-elect. But you all have a chance to be the “elect” or “chosen”

Luke 14:26 “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.” – ESV

Back to the original discussion…

The full quote from 1 John 2, verses 2 through 6 states:

3 Now we know that we have come to know Him by this—if we keep His commandments. 4 The one who says, “I have come to know Him,” and does not keep His commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him. 5 But whoever keeps His word, in him the love of God is truly made perfect. We know that we are in Him by this— 6 whoever claims to abide in Him must walk just as He walked.

What these previous verses and others show is that to walk as Yeshua walked means that if we are in Him, Yeshua, then we will be keeping His commandments, following in the ways He promoted while He was here, and mostly that we are constantly seeking the Father, pursuing righteousness and abiding in Him. 

We have to keep the commandments of the Lord in order to walk as, and abide with, Yeshua. Which commandments? The answer here is simple, we keep Torah. It is obvious that our Messiah kept the Torah. Otherwise he could not be called “sinless”. Since Yeshua could not have sinned, it is fair to say that he kept Torah. This is the way in which He walked in obedience to the Father. Anyone stating today that we don’t keep Torah, hasn’t tried to piece together what exactly 1 John 2 means when it states we must “walk just as He walked”.  There is no other conclusion that can be reached.  Since in 1 John 3, John identifies sin as “transgression of the Torah” or breaking the Torah, then we should be pursuing a lifestyle that is in close relationship with Torah. 

Back to Matthew 22 and Yeshua’s statement of the summation of the Torah and the prophets. If Yeshua stated that these are the greatest commands in the Torah and that on them, hang, or sum up, all the Torah and the prophets, then was he saying that the Torah and prophets are to be obeyed? 

Matthew 5 answers this in verses 17 to 19:

17 “Do not think that I came to abolish the Torah or the Prophets! I did not come to abolish, but to fulfill. 18 Amen, I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or serif shall ever pass away from the Torah until all things come to pass. 19 Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others the same, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven. But whoever keeps and teaches them, this one shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.”

In this passage, by stating that he came not abolish but to fulfill, He stated that he came not to teach Torah improperly but to teach Torah properly and to live it out, or, walk it out (Rabbinic statement).  He then states that whoever keeps the Torah and teaches others to do so will be called great in the Kingdom of heaven, so keeping Torah and teaching it is part of our "derek".  Who will be greatest in the Kingdom?  Yeshua.  Which means that certainly he kept or walked out Torah and taught others to do so as well.  If we want to “walk as Yeshua walked”, then we need to learn a little more about Torah observance and endeavor to set that way of life as our own “derek”. 

Consider the following traits we see in Yeshua's earthly ministry, how he walked:

- He called us to observe Torah

- He observed Torah

- He attends synagogue (the fellowship of believers)

- He taught others in righteousness

- He observed Sabbath

- He observed the traditional dietary laws

- He threw off the yoke of the traditions of the Pharisees

- When faced with a choice between peace and righteousness, He chose righteousness

- He was zealous for the Lord, His Temple (House), and His Laws (Torah)

- He called others to repentance

​Yeshua quoted the Torah frequently, Deuteronomy the most.  Torah, Psalms, and Proverbs teach us the way we are to walk and live.  The Prophetic writings expound on these topics, usually calling the Hebrews and those tied to Israel’s God to return to following the Lord, YHWH.  Does the Brit Hadashah (New Testament) teach we are to observe Torah. I contend that Paul, in Romans 6, teaches just that.  What about Paul and his statements that seem contrary to Torah?  I will show below that “Love the Lord and Obey His Commandments” is reconciled in Paul’s statements for the discerning reader.

Paul tells us in Galatians 2 that he, John, Jacob (James), and Peter, all agreed on the message they were preaching, we should trust this statement.  So if we read something that seems to say otherwise, you can be certain it is because we don’t understand it or are reading into it something that isn’t there, a likely modern Christian bias against Torah.

What about Romans 6:14 “ For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.”

- Simply keep reading to reconcile this statement

15 What then? Are we to sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! 16 Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness?

(1 John 3 – Sin is transgression of the Torah – breaking the Torah – disobeying Torah)

17 But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, 18 and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness.

Romans 7 - 7 What then shall we say? That the law is sin? By no means! Yet if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. For I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.”

It is clear from Paul’s writings that he is stating that we are no longer condemned by the Torah if we are in Messiah Yeshua.  He is also clear that if we are in Messiah Yeshua, then we will be obedient to the Father, which means a life filled with increasing obedience to Torah. The disciples did not teach Torah obedience to converts, Acts 15 displays this.  Instead, they taught them to be ritually clean so that they could be in amongst the believers and YHWH, through the Holy Spirit, would lay on the believer what they are to do and how to be obedient, since “Moses is taught every Sabbath in the synagogues”.  Had they taught obedience preliminary to the convert forming a relationship with God, then the convert would be focused on observance of rules instead of their relationship with the Father.  Obedience is not a requirement to become a believer, but obedience will follow as our relationship grows, naturally. 

So what does that look like, practically, in your life?  You won’t like this answer.  Read, pray, and let the Lord lay on you, the reader, how you are to be Torah observant.  For me to tell you to do anything too specific would be contrary to the New Covenant teaching - this is a personal walk.  Start with observing Shabbat as that was required of 1st Century converts because that was how they could be in fellowship with like-minded believers.  So start by attending a Shabbat gathering with those like-minded believers.  There are likely no ritual purity requirements with these people so just start attending.  Then seek the Father as to what He wants and let the Spirit guide you, read your Bible daily and ask for the Spirit to open your heart to the Torah and the rest of the scriptures.  I can tell you that I and my family are led to follow dietary laws, wear tzitzit, observe Shabbat, observe the Feasts and New Moons, and other practices.  But, that came through years of seeking.  We have friends that do more and friends that do less.  But most of them share their faith as the Father permits and are eager to pass on what they have learned.  Don’t be hasty; pursue righteousness and your relationship with Yeshua and the Father.  Love your Lord and love your neighbor.  Ask God to put people in your path that can both teach you and have you teach them.  Don't ever quit - you are a child of God, His precious treasure.