Paul’s Letter to the Romans
The theme of Paul’s (Sha’ul’s) letter to the Romans is similar to that of his epistle to the Galatians, only more comprehensive. The main topic is justification, or righteousness (the same root is used for both in Hebrew and Greek). In Romans, the rabbi is seeking to expound on the theme of God’s righteousness in all its various aspects. As in Galatians, he also must deal with the concept of the Torah, for there were some in Rome as well who sought to be justified or made righteous by following the system of law that they thought was the Torah1In the Holy Bible, the first five books of Scripture (PEN’TATEUCH=“5 books” in Greek) together are referred to as “The Torah.” “The Torah” = Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy.
Since the themes are similar, the traditions of interpretation of the “law passages” are also similar. The church has consisted mostly of non-Jews throughout the centuries, most of whom have neither comprehended nor appreciated the Torah of Moses. Therefore, they have taken little care to interpret the “law passages” properly. There are two key passages in Romans which have been especially misunderstood by many exegetes, resulting in a gross anti-Torah sentiment among the people of Christianity.
Key Passage: Romans 10:4
The first key passage is:
Romans 10:4 MKJV
For Christ is the endG5056 of the law for righteousness for everyone who believes.
Many understand this verse to mean that Jesus put an end to the Torah; and that anyone who believes in Him no longer has any responsibility to follow the Torah because Jesus followed it for him.
A closer look at the Greek however reveals a different meaning.
G5056 Τέλος telos (tel’-os) From a primary word τέλλω tellō (to set out for a definite point or goal); properly the point aimed at as a limit, that is, (by implication) the conclusion of an act or state (termination [literally, figuratively or indefinitely], result [immediate, ultimate or prophetic], purpose); specifically an impost or levy (as paid): – + continual, custom, end (-ing), finally, uttermost.
The Greek word translated “end” is the word telos. This word actually stresses the “goal” or the purpose for something. When used in this verse, we can say that Christ is the “goal (telos) of the law”. Or, as Stern commentary translates it,
“Christ is the goal at which the Torah aims”
In other words, in the context, Paul is speaking of people seeking the righteousness of God. They should seek it as revealed in the Torah and most fully realized in the Christ. Stern writes,
‘The goal at which the Torah aims is acknowledging and trusting in the Christ, who offers on the ground of this trusting the very righteousness they are seeking. They would see the righteousness which the Torah offers is offered through Him and only through Him.’
Thus, instead of teaching that through faith in Christ the Torah is now done away with, this verse teaches that the Torah’s goal is to point someone to the righteousness found through faith in the Christ.
However, as a new creation in Christ after receiving Jesus, he is now able to live the Torah lifestyle through the power of the indwelling Spirit of God. In so doing, he is living out who he now is-the righteousness of God in Christ. The Torah is the revealed righteousness of God. The Torah lifestyle is the living out of that righteousness. What is it that is written in the new-creation heart and mind? The very Torah of God!
Jeremiah 31:33 NIV
“This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after that time,” declares the LORD. “I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people.
Book of Romans, Chapter 7
Now we will look at one of the passages most commonly used to demonstrate that the believer has no responsibility to follow the Torah: Romans Chapter 7.
To be sure, this is a difficult passage to understand completely.
However, it can be interpreted accurately enough to confirm that it has nothing to do with eliminating a believer’s responsibility to live the Torah, to live the righteousness of God that he has become as a new creation in Christ.
Key Questions asked
The key questions that we must ask about this passage are these:
- What has died?
- What has changed?
- Was it the Torah that died, or was it something else?
We ask these questions because the first half of the chapter speaks about a death, a separation, a change that occurred when Christ came into our lives.
We know from reading Mathew 5:17 that the Torah could not have died.
Matthew 5:17 NIV
“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.
It is God’s eternal Word! Therefore, something else must have died.
What has changed is our relationship to the Torah, because of our changed relationship to sin.
Before we knew Christ’s righteousness by faith, we attempted to use the Torah as a means of earning righteousness, something it was never intended to be. Only one outcome could ever have resulted from such an illegitimate usage, and it is condemnation – because such works, righteousness could never remove our sin.
However, when God brought us to faith in Christ, everything changed.
By faith, we transferred our trust from works we attempted to do ourselves to the finished work of Jesus.
Our new reality is that Christ has atoned for our sin and made us new creations. In other words, we submitted to God’s (Yehovah’s) righteousness found in Jesus instead of relying on man’s righteousness through our own efforts.
Thus, our relationship to the Torah has changed.
Prior to Christ, we were using it wrongly by attempting to earn our justification through following it. And all the Torah could do was condemn us.
Now, because we believe in Christ and are trusting in God to justify us, the Torah has become something completely different. Just as its Author designed it to be, it is “Holy, Righteous, and good.”
Romans 7:12 NIV
So then, the law is holy, and the commandment is holy, righteous and good.
Our relationship to the Torah can change, according to Paul, because the problem was not the Torah-it was sin.
Romans 7:13 NIV
Did that which is good[Torah], then, become death to me? By no means! But in order that sin might be recognized as sin, it produced death in me through what was good, so that through the commandment sin might become utterly sinful.
For years, many have been hearing a different interpretation of this crucial passage.
Yet, listen to it one more time as a summary.
This passage teaches that our enemy was sin, not the Torah.
Because we are new creations in Christ, our entire relationship to sin has changed.
Therefore, our entire relationship to Torah has changed.
Before Christ, sin caused the Torah to be a book which, because we followed it in an attempt to earn righteousness, largely served to condemn us.
But Christ has shown us that we cannot earn righteousness. Rather, it is a gift from God to all who trust in the sacrificial atonement and the subsequent resurrection of Christ.
Hence, after we trusted in the Christ, the Torah became for us what it was really meant to be all along: a holy, righteous, and good book.
Torah is God’s (Yehovah’s) teaching to men about righteousness – what it is and how it behaves.
The true believer (anyone who is redeemed by the blood of the Lamb) does not do, in order to become.
He does because he is what God has made him – the righteousness of God in Christ.
Thus James writes,
James 2:18 MKJV
But someone will say, You have faith, and I have works. Show me your faith without your works, and I will show you my faith from my works.
The true Torah is the walk of faith – faith and rest in the finished work of Christ.
Isaiah 30:15 NIV
This is what the Sovereign LORD, the Holy One of Israel, says: “In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength, but you would have none of it.
Instead,
Romans 10:3 NIV
Since they did not know the righteousness that comes from God and sought to establish their own, they did not submit to God’s righteousness.
These words of Paul summarize perfectly why and how man has perverted the true Torah of God into a system of works by which he believes he can establish his own righteousness. Read the rabbi’s words once again, and think about them carefully:
Romans 10:3 NIV
Since they did not know the righteousness that comes from God and sought to establish their own, they did not submit to God’s righteousness.
James, fully comprehending this, declares,
James 2:18b MKJV
… I will show you my faith from my works.
James 1:25 NIV
But the man who looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues to do this, not forgetting what he has heard, but doing it—he will be blessed in what he does.
Let me paraphrase that:
“The man who looks into the perfect law [Torah]” – the what? – “the perfect Torah that gives freedom” – that gives what? Freedom! Freedom for what? Freedom to be who we are now!-“and continues to do this, not forgetting what he has heard” that is ‘who he is’, but doing it that is, doing ‘who he is’ – he will be blessed in what he does.”
There is a righteousness that is by the Torah:
Romans 10:5 NIV
Moses describes in this way the righteousness that is by the law: “The man who does these things will live by them.”
It is a righteousness that is ours in God:
Romans 10:3 NIV
Since they did not know the righteousness that comes from God and sought to establish their own, they did not submit to God’s righteousness.
…and it is by faith:
Romans 10:6 NIV
But the righteousness that is by faith says: “Do not say in your heart, ‘Who will ascend into heaven?'” (that is, to bring Christ down)
This is the Good News of Romans 10:16:
Romans 10:16 NIV
But not all the Israelites accepted the good news. For Isaiah says, “Lord, who has believed our message?”
But not all the Israelites accepted the Good News. Instead, they and mankind throughout the ages, have developed the concept of ”law”. As we have seen, performance-based acceptance is a detrimental theological idea all in itself.
Jeremiah 6:16 NIV
This is what the LORD says: “Stand at the crossroads and look; ask for the ancient paths, ask where the good way is, and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls. But you said, ‘We will not walk in it.’
In Torah lays Wisdom. And Wisdom is:
Proverbs 3:16-18 NIV
Long life is in her right hand; in her left hand are riches and honor.
(17) Her ways are pleasant ways, and all her paths are peace. (18) She is a tree of life to those who embrace her; those who lay hold of her will be blessed.
When the words of life (true Torah) are changed into “law”, they cease to be the words of life.
Let’s examine clearly some of the passages2“Hold Fast” a book of 365 Devotions for Men by Men by Our Daily Bread Publishing, pages 137-143 in Romans.
Romans 2:28-29
Romans 2:28-29 MKJV
For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is circumcision that outwardly in flesh;
(29) but he is a Jew who is one inwardly, and circumcision is of the heart; in spirit and not in letter; whose praise is not from men, but from God.
The question from this passage is, “Who is a real Jewish person?”
It seems to be teaching that anyone whose heart is circumcised is a Jewish person. Thus, the thinking goes, gentile believers in Jesus, having their hearts circumcised, are “spiritual Jews.”
We do not interpret this passage to mean that gentile believers in Jesus are “spiritual Jews”. The reason is simple. In the context, Paul is addressing the physical descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, or the physical Jewish people. Gentiles were addressed in Romans 2:1-16, then, beginning Romans 2:17, Paul began to speak directly to Jewish people.
In that light, Paul is making an important distinction in this passage.
He’s saying that although he is a descendant of Jacob and is circumcised (in the flesh), that alone does not make him the kind of Jewish person God called him to be.
To prove his point, Paul makes a play on the word “Jew”. The readers understood that the word “Jew” is a derivative from the word “Judah” (Yehuda), which means “one who praises Yah.”
Hence Paul is saying that a descendant of Jacob who praises God from a new creation heart is a true worshiper of God. Mere physical circumcision does not make one’s heart circumcised.
It is clear from the context that Paul was saying that the only way to receive this circumcision of the heart was to submit to God and receive His righteousness as a gift of grace through faith in Jesus the Christ.
Any Jewish person who has done this is a spiritual, as well as physical, descendant of Abraham.
Romans 3:19-31
Romans 3:19-31 MKJV
But we know that whatever things the Law says, it says to those who are under the Law; so that every mouth may be stopped and all the world may be under judgment before God,
(20) because by the works of the Law none of all flesh will be justified in His sight; for through the Law is the knowledge of sin.
(21) But now a righteousness of God has been revealed apart from Law, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets;
(22) even the righteousness of God through the faith of Jesus Christ, toward all and upon all those who believe. For there is no difference,
(23) for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God, (24) being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus;
(25) whom God has set forth to be a propitiation through faith in His blood, to declare His righteousness through the passing by of the sins that had taken place before, in the forbearance of God;
(26) for the display of His righteousness at this time, for Him to be just and, forgiving the one being of the faith of Jesus.
(27) Then where is the boasting? It is excluded. Through what law? Of works? No, but through the law of faith.
(28) Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the works of the Law.
(29) Or is He the God of the Jews only, and not also of the nations? Yes, of the nations also,
(30) since it is one God who will justify circumcision by faith, and uncircumcision through faith.
(31) Do we then make the Law void through faith? Let it not be! But we establish the Law.
In this section, Paul appears to say that the purpose of the Torah (rendered “law” in just about every English translation) is to give one a knowledge of sin (Romans 3:20). That is true.
However, that is not the only purpose for the Torah.
This, it seems, is where many Bible teachers become confused.
The reason that Paul says in this passage that the Torah reveals sin is because he is teaching that no one may be justified by living according to the Torah. If one were to attempt to do so, the Torah could only do two things for him:
- help to make him aware that he is sinful and desperately in need of God’s righteousness instead of trying to establish his own, and
- reveal the Christ to him.
Verse 28 states the issue clearly when Paul declares that justification is a gift from God and has no connection whatsoever to what a person does, especially what a person does concerning Torah obedience.
In verse 31, Paul affirms the validity of the Torah. He says that the Torah itself teaches the principle of justification by faith and faith alone. Receiving God’s gift of salvation (justification) is perfectly consistent with the Torah’s teaching on the matter (see God’s Covenant with Abram, Genesis 15).
Because of this, believing in Jesus does not nullify the Torah; rather it upholds its teachings.
Romans 4:13-15
Romans 4:13-15 MKJV
For the promise that he should be the heir of the world was not to Abraham or to his seed through the Law, but through the righteousness of faith.
(14) For if they of the Law are heirs, faith is made void and the promise is made of no effect;
(15) because the Law works out wrath, for where no law is, there is no transgression.
Here is another passage that appears to teach the purpose of the Torah. Like the previous section of Romans, many Bible students read, “for the law brings about wrath” and assume that, along with revealing sin, the purpose of the Torah is to bring about wrath.
Comments for this passage are similar to those made in Romans 3.
The only things the Torah can do for the unbeliever who relies upon his adherence to a set of rules in order to earn his righteousness, is help to reveal his sin, warn him of the impending judgment of God’s wrath, and point him to the Christ.
This passage is not in a context that speaks about following the Torah as a lifestyle for believers. Like most of the passages in Romans, the context is a refutation against the attempt to use the Torah as a means of justification.
Romans 6:14
Romans 6:14 MKJV
For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under Law, but under grace.
When doing any teaching, from the pages in the books of Moses, is suggested to some believers in Jesus, the usual response is something like, “Does not that make me under the law? In Jesus I am under grace, not the law.” This rather typical response is based on such passages as Romans 6:14.
There is a better way to understand this passage.
First, let us quote a respected Bible scholar on the meaning of the phrase in question and then I’ll will finish with my own comments.
C.E.B. Cranfield has shed some light on the meaning of these two Greek phrases, helping us to perceive what Paul actually meant as well as to understand more fully his true stand on the Torah.
‘It will be well to bear in mind the fact (which, as far as we know, had not received attention before it was noted) that the Greek language of Paul’s day possessed no word group corresponding to our “legalism”, “legalist”, and “legalistic”. This means that he lacked a convenient terminology for expressing a vital distinction, and so was surely seriously hampered in the work of clarifying the Christian position with regard to the law. In view of this we should always, we think, be ready to reckon with the possibility that Pauline statements, which at first sight seem to disparage the law, are really directed not against the law itself but against that misunderstanding and misuse of it for which we now have a convenient terminology.’
We encounter the same dilemma in the Hebrew language. There is no Hebrew word which can easily convey the concepts of “legalism” or “legalist”. Thus Paul, whether using his Hebrew-oriented mind or his Greek language, was hindered in his attempts to explain that legalism was not what God intended.
Based on this understanding of the Greek in Romans 6:14, we can say then, this verse is teaching that because God regenerated us and caused us to believe in Jesus, we now have an entirely new relationship to sin.
We no longer rely on any legalistic efforts to earn God’s righteousness.
Instead, we rely on the grace of God.
Legalism and grace never mix! Or, to put it in slightly different terms, law and grace never mix. But Torah and grace go hand in hand.
One of the many implications of trusting in the grace of God is that we become new creations in Christ. This means, among other things, that we now have a new relationship to sin. It is just as 6:14 states, “sin is no longer our master” or “sin shall not have dominion over you”. For the new creation person, this is most definitely true!
Relying on legalistic methods to attain salvation could never change our relationship to sin.
Only trusting in the grace of God could affect such a change.
For those of us who are now a new creation by virtue of the new birth, our relationship to sin is forever changed.
The Torah is not a legalistic document. It describes the lifestyle of the redeemed, and it was never God’s intention that obeying it would achieve salvation.
Romans 7:1-12
Romans 7:1-12 MKJV
Or are you ignorant, brothers; for I speak to those who know the Law; that the law has dominion over a man as long as he lives?
(2) For the married woman was bound by law to the living husband. But if the husband is dead, she is set free from the law of her husband.
(3) So then if, while her husband lives, she is married to another man, she shall be called an adulteress. But if the husband dies, she is free from the law, so that she is no adulteress by becoming another man’s wife.
(4) So, my brothers, you also have become dead to the law by the body of Christ so that you should be married to Another, even to Him raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit to God.
(5) For when we were in the flesh, the passions of sin worked in our members through the law to bring forth fruit to death.
(6) But now we having been set free from the Law, having died to that in which we were held, so that we serve in newness of spirit and not in oldness of the letter.
(7) What shall we say then? Is the law sin? Let it not be said! But I did not know sin except through the law. For also I did not know lust except the law said, You shall not lust.
(8) But sin, taking occasion by the commandment, worked in me all kinds of lust. For apart from law sin was dead.
(9) For I was alive without the law once. But when the commandment came, sin revived and I died.
(10) And the commandment, which was to life, was found to be death to me.
(11) For sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me, and by it killed me.
(12) So indeed the Law is holy, and the commandment is holy and just and good.
At first glance, this seems like a very devastating passage for those believers who desire to live by the Torah. After all, does it not say, “you were also made to die to the Law through the body of Christ?”
Indeed, this is a tricky passage. Keeping in mind two things will help to open up this passage for us in a more accurate way.
First, as always, notice the context. These verses fall in the larger context of Romans 5-8. In this section of Romans, the rabbi from Tarsus is discussing some of the practical effects of being justified by grace through faith. As we stated in the previous verse, one of these effects is that a believer in Jesus now has a completely different relationship to sin than he had before. He has died to sin and sin is no longer his master.
Secondly, verses 10-12 provide us with an insight into what Paul really thought of the Torah. As we can readily see from those verses, the Torah was not the problem. Sin was the real culprit in man. Let us see how this unfolds from this passage.
In Romans 7:1-2, it becomes clear that before we trusted in Christ, our problem was not the Torah, but sin! Sin is that which wrecked havoc with our lives. One of the miracles of the new birth (as this passage is pointing out) is that a believer does not relate to sin the same way any longer. Consequently, Paul says in verse 11, “for sin, taking opportunity through the commandment deceived me, and through it killed me.” Sin, not Torah was the problem. Human sin is what messed God’s pure word up!
Hence when Christ comes into our lives we are released from our bondage to sin and any legalistic relationship we may have previously had with God’s teaching. That is what Paul means in verse 4 when he says that we were made to die to the law. Before Christ came into our lives, we related to the Torah in a legalistic way. The only thing the Torah could do for us in those circumstances was to condemn us by revealing our sin to us. That relationship to both the Torah and to sin had to change.
Thank God that in Christ it did change! As far as sin is concerned, it was circumcised from us and relegated to our flesh.
Romans 7:17 MKJV
But now it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwells in me.
Colossians 2:11-13 MKJV
in whom also you are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ,
(12) buried with Him in baptism, in whom also you were raised through the faith of the working of God, raising Him from the dead.
(13) And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He has made alive together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses,
As far as Torah is concerned, once our relationship to sin was changed through our becoming a new creation, the real value of the Torah for the believer began to come to light. Accordingly, Paul says several positive things about the Torah in Romans 7:10-12.
God’s Intention for Torah3In the Holy Bible, the first five books of Scripture (PEN’TATEUCH=“5 books” in Greek) together are referred to as “The Torah.” “The Torah” = Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy
God’s intention that the Torah4In the Holy Bible, the first five books of Scripture (PEN’TATEUCH=“5 books” in Greek) together are referred to as “The Torah.” “The Torah” = Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy would be real life for His people can now become fulfilled.
It was our own sin that caused the life of the Torah to become death in us.
Now in Christ, God’s real intention for the Torah can be fulfilled in us.
God’s Torah5In the Holy Bible, the first five books of Scripture (PEN’TATEUCH=“5 books” in Greek) together are referred to as “The Torah.” “The Torah” = Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy is Holy.
There is nothing about it that needs to be avoided. It is not evil. It is not unhealthy for God’s people. In fact the Scriptures themselves clearly declare:
Deuteronomy 32:47a NIV
They are not just idle words for you—they are your life.
It is a covenant and a set of instructions making clear to God’s people how to live out their new creation lives in the righteousness of God.
God’s Torah6In the Holy Bible, the first five books of Scripture (PEN’TATEUCH=“5 books” in Greek) together are referred to as “The Torah.” “The Torah” = Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy is good.
The Greek word translated “good” is:
G18 ἀγαθός Transliteration: Agathos Phonetic: ag-ath-os’ Definition: 1. of good constitution or nature, 2. useful, salutary, 3. good, pleasant, agreeable, joyful, happy, 4. excellent, distinguished, 5. upright, honourable. Strong’s: A primary word; good (in any sense often as noun): – benefit good (-s things) well.
“Good” stresses both external and moral goodness, and usefulness and perfection. It can also be rendered “useful”. In other words, far from the Torah being a detriment to the believer’s life, it is useful and helpful to follow for our spiritual, moral, and ethical wellbeing.
God’s Torah7In the Holy Bible, the first five books of Scripture (PEN’TATEUCH=“5 books” in Greek) together are referred to as “The Torah.” “The Torah” = Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy is righteous.
Torah is the teaching about God’s righteousness.
Moreover, being intrinsically righteous, it was meant only for those whom God has made righteous by His grace.
Torah is not a vehicle to attain righteousness; rather it is a book of instruction revealing what God’s righteousness looks like and how to live out the righteousness that we now have become in Christ.
Let’s now let’s return to: A Menu of Important Things
- 1In the Holy Bible, the first five books of Scripture (PEN’TATEUCH=“5 books” in Greek) together are referred to as “The Torah.” “The Torah” = Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy
- 2“Hold Fast” a book of 365 Devotions for Men by Men by Our Daily Bread Publishing, pages 137-143
- 3In the Holy Bible, the first five books of Scripture (PEN’TATEUCH=“5 books” in Greek) together are referred to as “The Torah.” “The Torah” = Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy
- 4In the Holy Bible, the first five books of Scripture (PEN’TATEUCH=“5 books” in Greek) together are referred to as “The Torah.” “The Torah” = Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy
- 5In the Holy Bible, the first five books of Scripture (PEN’TATEUCH=“5 books” in Greek) together are referred to as “The Torah.” “The Torah” = Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy
- 6In the Holy Bible, the first five books of Scripture (PEN’TATEUCH=“5 books” in Greek) together are referred to as “The Torah.” “The Torah” = Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy
- 7In the Holy Bible, the first five books of Scripture (PEN’TATEUCH=“5 books” in Greek) together are referred to as “The Torah.” “The Torah” = Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy