What About Paul?
Is he Friend or Foe?
    âLove has great patience [and] is [still] kind; love is not envious.   Â
    Love is not boastful; [it] is not arrogant.
    It does not act unbecomingly, does not demand [things] for oneself,Â
    is not [easily] irritated, does not keep a count of wrongs [done],
    is not glad when [another is] hurt [by injustices],Â
    but is delighted along with others when the truth [comes to light].
    It puts up with whatever [it needs to], has faith in all kinds [of people],Â
    expects [the best in] every [situation], [and] perseveres [through] anything.
    Love never failsâ¦â (1 Cor. 13:4-8a)
This beloved poem has graced not just many a wedding program, but the lips of many who aspire to live up to its high ideals. But some would like to remove it and many things like it from the pages of Holy Scripture. Paul, the author of these beautiful lyrics, has been getting a bad rapâeven hate speechâamong many who are trying to get back to a more original Hebraic view of Yeshua. Â
And this is understandable; on first glance he appears to say some things that denigrate the Torah that Yeshua upheld. But some are dead set on âcancelingâ him like speakers on university campuses who donât parrot the party line. They want him written out of the history of Messianic faith. Is this really warranted? Should his reputation be toppled like the statues of eminent slaveholders?
Or should we give him a fair hearing and try to hear what he was really saying? For he himself said he had âdone nothing against the [Hebrew] people or the customs of our fathers.â (Acts 28:17) If that was how he thought, should we not give him the benefit of the doubt and try to listen more closely to what he was trying to communicate? As Nicodemus asked, âDoes our law condemn a man before it hears him out?â (Yochanan. 7:51)
What is at Issue?
The doctrine of Paul that is most disputed is ârighteousness apart from the works of the Lawâ, which has many corollaries like âfaith without worksâ (supposedly), âthe letter versus the spiritâ, and grace as contrasted with being âunder the Torahâ.
The book of Acts records rumors that arose during his lifetime that he had not only said that Gentiles are not obligated to take on the yoke of the whole Torah, but that he even discouraged Jews living in the diaspora from following such Torah requirements as circumcision. (Acts 21:21) If true, this would be a serious charge and would indeed put him at odds with the prophets (notably Isaiah 8:20 and Malâakhi 4:4) and Yeshua himself (Mat. 5:17ff). But was he understood properly?
Where the rub comes is in determining just who held the views Paul was questioning, especially in his epistles to the Galatians and the Corinthians. Was it James and Yeshuaâs first apostles, or someone else?
Who Were the Essenes at Qumran?
Most see the Qumran community as Tzadoqite priests who left the Temple in protest of Sadducean abuses. Scholar Robert Eisenmann, who knows the Dead Sea Scrolls better than almost anyone else and did much to liberate them for the general publicâs access, has the unique view that they can instead be identified with the followers of James the brother of Yeshua, possibly due to the common idea that John the Baptizer appears to have had connections to that group, and of course Yeshua cooperated with him.Â
Because of such an identification, some fellow Messianic believers have felt obligated to take on all of that communityâs rules, including their canon (which includes some helpful scrolls but whose status as infallible is questionable, such as Yasher, which is endorsed to some extent by Joshua and 2 Samuel, but has stories such as Judahâs bringing an entire army against Joseph in Egypt, which strike me more as fanciful than as having the same tone or tenor as the miracles in Scripture). From others, like Jubilees, sprang their highly-unusual calendar, which makes practical sense in isolation, but ignores the actual new moon and puts them out of synch with all others who are trying to follow a Biblical festival schedule.
But this identification is far from certain, especially when Dr. Eisenmann posits that Paul and James remained lifelong enemies. As we shall see, this is contrary to the book of Actsâ account. He and others point to contemporary writings like the Pseudo-Clementine epistles and other Ebionite documents in addition to the Dead Sea Scrolls to uphold a theory that Paul was at odds with the other apostles for much longer than the brief dialectics in the book of Acts would lead us to believe. Galatians, they say, is a direct attack on James and his views, and Jamesâ words about âfaith without worksâ being âdeadâ in his own epistle are a very specific rebuttal to Paul.
I have met Dr. Eisenmann and want to be charitable toward him. I pray he will understand the things he now scoffs at as an outsider looking in at Yeshuaâs community. If he has not experienced the wonders Paul describes, how can he critique them accurately? He considers Acts, which is written as an eyewitness account, to be a cobbling together of legends from various Jewish sources which were then deliberately turned in an anti-Semitic direction. His tomes are replete with speculation based on words that suggest related themes and similar-sounding names, but to me, as a linguist, the connections between persons he identifies with one another seem loose and often anachronistic.
I am grateful for the primary sources he helped to make available, but I cannot accept his interpretation that the when the Damascus Document and Peshers found at Qumran talk about a âliarâ and a âwicked priestâ who oppose a certain âteacher of righteousnessâ, the former refer to Paul and the latter is James. How could they? No Benjamite was a priest. These writings seem rather to stem from the days when the Hasmoneans took over both the kingdom and the priesthood, about two centuries before Yeshuaâs public ministry, or possibly a little later when the Temple intrigues seen also in the New Testament were gaining an even stronger foothold. If any priest opposed James it was the one who finally ordered him killed, and Paul had nothing to do with him, at least not after his change of heart on the road to Damascus. (Jeffrey Bütz has a more balanced treatment of James and Paul in The Brother of Jesus.)
The Ebionitesâ writings do have to be taken seriously, as they were some of the earliest believers in Yeshua and had a much more Jewish viewpoint. But they are not infallible, many being based on polemics. And are they one and the same with the Essenes, who predated Yeshuaâs community? Allies they may have been at some point, as Yeshua seems to have had Essene friends who let him use their donkey and upper room, but this does not mean they were identical.
If they were not, then we have no more obligation to be like the Essenes than like the Pharisees (which Nicodemus was and which Paul remained, even if neither considered this his primary identity after meeting Yeshua). Their rules may be worthwhile as a voluntary discipline, like any other, but I have seen people who follow this path get so angry at Paul that they curse him and anyone who accepts any of his doctrine; this is not the direction the revival of Hebraic understanding should take us.
The inhabitants of Qumran (an Arabic name for this place that predated Arab inhabitants in this region by centuries) called their settlement Dameseq (Damascus), as evidenced in the eponymous Document found there. It seems to have been one of several code-names they used to stay âunder the radarâ. But this leads some to suggest that this (rather than the better-known Damascus, now the capital of Syria) is where Paul was going to search for believers in Acts 9. I have serious doubts, since Paul was directed to a particular street in that city. Iâve been to Qumran four times and it was a very small settlement, hardly capable of boasting even one street needing to be distinguished from others. But even if we grant that, it would not mean the whole community there were followers of Messiah; if they were, Paul would have attacked all of them, not just searched for some with the help of sympathetic synagogue leaders there.
So if the whole of Qumran cannot be equated with a âproto-Christianâ Ebionite group, then believers in Yeshua need not share all of their views, though if they were truly the heirs of the Tzadoqites that Ezekiel blessed, they are at least worthy of consideration.
Did Paul Really Hate James?
James was a vegetarian by Hegesippusâ account, but some say this is because the Qumran sect was, and then make the logical leap to Yeshuaâs zealous protest in the Temple being not about merchandising things meant to be holy, but about slaughtering animals in general and even against eating them at all, and they tie this to Paulâs description of âweaker brothersâ eating only vegetables to set Paul and James further at odds. (Rom. 14; 1 Cor. 8. What was in fact at issue there was eating meat offered to idols, an idea on which Paul seems to have even changed his mind between his two mentions of the topic, so as to cause fewer schisms and to safeguard the consciences of those who were all too aware of the demons behind the idolsâin whose worship we of course want to have no part.)
But as Michael Ohman of the Olive Branch Fellowship in the U.K. has pointed out, Paul expressed no animosity toward the other apostles in Galatians 1; he did have a controversy with someone who (by the apostlesâ own description) was NOT sent by them, even if others with similar motives later âcame from Jamesâ on a different occasion. (Gal. 2:4, 12; Acts 15:24) We must not conflate the two, but read carefully; every word matters.
It may very well be that, when he wrote âFaith without works is deadâ, James was answering some of Paulâs followers who carried his words further than he himself did, or that he was just counterbalancing Paulâs words about Abrahamâs faith counting as righteousness before he did any âworksâ of obedience (including circumcision) by pointing out considerations Paul might have missed. Both angles are needed; faith and works are like two wings of a bird, without either of which all it could do is fly in circles.
But Paul went well beyond mere civility to potential opponents and even made himself accountable to Kefa/Peter and Yaaqov/James. (Galatians 2:2) To see it as a hateful statement when he said, âThey added nothing to meâ (2:6) requires the assumption that this can only be read within a framework of hostility. Ohman says it is quite plausible to read him not as denigrating the value of the other apostlesâ words, but only as saying that they were âOKâ with what he presented as his plan in regard to the Gentiles and would not try to alter it with any other considerations that he did not already have in mind.
Did Peter Hate Paul?
Dr. Eisenmann calls Peter âanti-Semiticâ, especially in regard to his public speeches in Acts, though Peter, like Paul, was Jewish as well. Neither is more anti-Semitic than any of the prophets who address Israelâs or Judahâs sins from an internecine standpoint. Would we be anti-Semitic to call out George Soros for collaborating with the Nazis to betray his own people, simply because he is a Jew? Then who is to criticize when it is needed? Peter was reprimanding particular Jews or groups of them for specific atrocities; it was no across-the-board rejection.
We clearly do want to separate ourselves from anything that is pagan. But is that what Paulâs words are? He himself is the one who told us that those who worship idols are actually worshipping the demons that are behind them, and he wanted his protégés to have no fellowship with such things. (1 Cor. 10:20) He was clearly not in favor of incorporating paganism into a ânew religionâ that some claim he invented!
Certainly Christians have misconstrued some of the words of the Renewed Covenant. But who hasnât heard the Talmudic story of how a voice from heaven vouched for an interpretation put forward by Rabbi Eliezer (whom many think was a believer in Yeshua), but by truncating âYou shall not incline after a majority to turn justice asideâ (Ex. 23:2) into just âIncline after the majority!â, and wresting the verse âIt [the Word of YHWH] is not in heavenâ (Deut. 30:12) from its context, the rest of the rabbis claimed that YHWH had given them the right to override His own wordsâand that He found it to be both amusing and pleasing? (Baba Metzia 59b) Something is far from right about that; it goes beyond chutzpah and borders on blasphemy, yet rabbinic Judaism bases its right to âupdateâ Torah on that. So just because something is Jewish does not always make it a better viewpoint.
When Paul became fed up by many Jewsâ by-and-large rejection of the Gospel he had described as âfor the Jew firstâ (Rom. 1:16), he said, in essence, âWe wanted toâwe had toâgive you the message first, but because you do not appreciate it, we are turning our focus to Gentiles who are eager to receive it.â (Acts 13:46; compare Mat. 21:43) This is not anti-Semitism, but judgment of people who should have known better because of all the revelation that had been given to them for millennia. Again, it was not across the board, as the apostles pointed out that thousands of Jews did believe in Yeshua. (Acts 21:20)
But âGentilesâ by what definition? The lost tribes were the only Gentiles some Jews at that time even considered fully human. They had become Gentiles by choice. (Hos. 7:8) In A.D. 46âwhich is right at this timeâthe doubling (Jer. 16:18) of Ezekielâs 390-year sentence (Ez. 4:5) came to an end, and soon those whose ancestors chose to mix with the nations became people whom Paul started calling âformer Gentilesâ, for now they were no longer estranged from the covenant. (Eph. 2:11; cf. Hos. 8:12)
The Pseudo-Clementine writings (Recognitions and Homilies) purport to include letters from Peter to James, and one of them refers to âthe man who is my enemyâ, an unnamed person influential among some Gentiles who was guilty of âcertain lawless and trifling preachingâ. Many assume he is talking about Paul. But in a letter from Peter that is commonly accepted as non-pseudepigraphal, he refers to Paul as âour beloved brotherâ. (2 Peter 3:15) This immediately casts suspicion on such an identification, especially when the same book later has Clement telling James about âthe wicked one who withstood himâ (Peter) with a description of him that sounds nothing like Paul.
Another commentator on this document (identified only as âR.â) cites a conflated quotation from two of Yeshuaâs statements in the same context as an example of âthe loose method of Scripture citation characteristic of the Clementine literatureâ, so the author is probably called âpseudo-Clementâ for good reason. There is much of value as in any collection of sermons, but they do not have the ring of inerrant Scripture. These letters depict Peter as the opposite extreme from anti-Semitic, for there he tells Clement not to let any Gentile see his letter. Again, this contradicts Peterâs growing openness to Gentiles as depicted in Acts, and leans toward a Gnostic-type theology of initiation into the mysteries only for a very limited inner circle of Jews.
This seems to be a âpseudo-Peterâ too. If it contradicts what is commonly accepted as âholy writâ, which depiction of Peterâs relationship with Paul should we consider the more genuine?
This, of course, begs the question of who has the right to judge canonicity. But even if men did put their fingers into the pot, donât we believe in YHWHâs sovereignty? What got into the canon is apparently what YHWH wanted to survive--for the long haul and for the majority of believers, at least. While âAll things work together for goodâ does not mean that everything that occurs is necessarily good in itself, still it suggests that YHWH makes the final outcome a positive one: â[Even] the wrath of men will praise You, and the remainder of wrath You will restrain.â (Psalm 76:10)
Other books that were not chosen for the common canon may give us particular, important directions for specific problems. (70 of them are said in 4th Esdras to be reserved for the end of this age, when more specific wisdom is needed, and that could well be the case.) But what we know as the Renewed Covenant has been more practical for the long age we have had to wait for the culmination of the Kingdom to come, while we have been scattered and unable to return very fully to Torah as we are being graciously permitted to do today. He knew that at times the Torah alone would be too intense if it was our only focus, so He mercifully allowed us to prioritize these writings that not only explain its underlying attitudes more overtly, but tell us of what YHWH did behind the scenes to provide us with the power we need to carry them out, and specific ways to access it. A few examples from Paul himself:
âWeâ¦do not stop praying ⦠that you might be filled with the ability to discern what He desires, with every [kind of] wisdom and spiritual understanding, to walk in a manner worthy of the Master into everything that pleases [Him], bringing forth fruit in every good work and [continually] adding to [your] knowledge of Elohim, being energized with every [kind of] ability [to change], according to the dominion [that completes] His honor, into every [kind of steadfast] endurance and patienceâwith joyâgiving thanks to the Father, Who has qualified us to share [a portion] of the inheritance [assigned to] the holy onesâ¦â (Colossians 1:9-12)
âSince you have been raised together with the Messiah, seek out the things that are above, where Messiah is seated at the right hand of Elohim. Direct your minds [to] things above, not [to] the things on the earth, since you have died in regard to [them], and your life has been concealed with Messiah within Elohim. Whenever Messiah, your life, is made manifest, then your true value will also be manifested with him⦠Do not lie to one another, since you have divested yourself of the old humanity with its practices, and have put on the newâthe one being changed step-by-step through experiential knowledge to align with the One who is creating itâ¦â (Col. 3:1-4, 9-10)
What We Would Stand to Lose
Dr. James Tabor (another personal friend who has done much for my family over the years), in his book Paul and Jesus, takes a more minimalist view, seeing Paulâs writings as having influenced the Gospel accounts and Acts, which he sees as later than they themselves imply they were written, and as altered from what Yeshua probably originally said. He sees Paul preaching a âdifferent Gospelâ than Yeshua and the other apostles. He takes some of Paulâs letters at face value, but considers others pseudepigraphic (written by someone else later in Paulâs name either out of admiration for Paul or to push an agenda). But to uphold this conflict, he is forced to conclude that Luke was putting a âspinâ on his writings when he knew that in fact some of what he was writing was untrue. He sees the details of differing Gospel accounts as âirreconcilableâ, thinking they were not actually eyewitness accounts but compiled later after some theological dogmas seemed to demand the need for them to say what they said rather than being truly directed by YHWHâs hand and the honest reporting/vetting techniques Luke claims to employ.
This may sound provocative and intriguing, but step back and look where such a critical view of the texts would take us: If we cannot take the Bible at face value, when it is the book of the highest moral stature anywhere, what then can we trust? How then can we know anything for certain? And if we cannot, how can we be motivated to give our lives for more than mere pragmatic goals? How can we speak definitively and authoritatively against the many âwinds of doctrineâ that are rampant today?
Worse still, such seeds of doubt would destroy the faith of many, for if we cannot trust these writings in regard to earthly history, how could we trust them in regard to more important spiritual facts they discuss that are much less proveable, but just as necessary, if not more so? (See John 3:12.)
If Paul was a deliberate liar, we should not give space or time to any of his words. But think of what other words we would then be without, at least in a form spelled out so clearly:
âAll things work together for good to them who love YHWH and are called according to His purpose.â (Rom. 8:28) Could we live with this in doubt?
âMy empowering is sufficient for you, for My strength is best accomplished through [your] weakness.â (2 Cor. 12:9) Could we do without this being true? And then there is this:
âBeing confident⦠that He who has begun a good work in you will bring it to completion.â (Philippians 1:6) How could we persevere if we were not sure this was so?
And what person who is experiencing the oppression of âthis present evil ageâ (Galatians 1:4) would want to be without the tremendous hope that comes from Paulâs words, âThe sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the [weight of] glory that is to be revealed in usâ? (Romans 8:18)
And these are just the tip of the iceberg. What would discarding them leave us lacking?
Without Paul, we would be left with very little interpretation of what the events in Yeshuaâs life and death actually mean for usâtheir deeper significance, on the sod (unseen, concealed) or, as Dr. Tabor would say, cosmic level, in which we are âcalledâ¦out of darkness and transferredâ¦to the kingdom of His dear Sonâ. (Col. 1:13) Yochanan (John) gives us some, touching on this new birth as well, but he often seems cryptic, at least to those unfamiliar with the Jewish wisdom literature genre such as Philoâs works.
Without Paul, we would lose explanatory passages that tell us who we are after this spiritual rebirth:
âI have been crucified with the Messiah; nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Messiah lives in me, and the life I now live in the flesh I live by the faithfulness of the Son of Elohim, who loved me and gave himself for me.â (Galatians 2:20)
âIf anyone is in the Messiah, he is a new creation: old things have passed away; indeed, all things have become new!â (2 Cor. 5:17)
âYou are not in the flesh, but in the spirit, if indeed the Spirit of Elohim dwells in you.â (Romans 8:9)
No one elucidates our positional sanctification in as much depth as Paul does. âThe flesh versus the spiritâ is a dichotomy Yeshua spoke about, but did not explain; only Paul went into great detail about the interplay between the two and how to let the latter overcome the former. (Rom. 8:13; Gal. 5:16ff)
âIf, then, you are risen with Messiah, seek the things aboveâ¦for you have died, and your life is hidden with Messiah in YHWH.â (Col. 2:2-3)
Paul alone details, as Norman Grubb put it, âhow total our transference is from the first Adamâs family to the last Adamâs, by the radicalness of Messiahâs once-for-all death to sin and aliveness to Godâ:
"If by one manâs offense death reigned by one; much more, they who receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one, Yeshua the Messiah.â (Romans 5:17)
Without Paul, we would have very little information about the meaning of Yeshuaâs resurrection or the nature of our coming physical resurrection, and no direct reference to Messiah being the firstfruits thereof (1 Cor. 15), which makes overt what the Hebrew calendar previously hinted at.
Without Paul, the Renewed Covenant would not include a direct command (addressed to Gentiles!) to continue to keep YHWHâs feasts (1 Cor. 5:8), without which Renewed Covenant believers might think they had an excuse to consider them unnecessary today.
And there are promises that only show up explicitly in Paulâs writings (being only implied elsewhere):
"Be anxious about nothing, but in everything, with prayer and petition, let your requests be made known to YHWH, and the peace that surpasses understanding will guard your hearts and minds through Messiah Yeshua." (Philippians 4:6-7)
"Elohim is able to make all empowerment overflow to you, so that always having all sufficiency in all things, we may abound unto every good work." (2 Cor. 9:8)
And the list could go on. This is too much to lose! There is just no parallel in anyone but Yeshuaâs input into the Renewed Covenant. Other writers (like Kefa/Peter and Yochanan/John) say things that agree with and confirm these truths, but they are much more terse, with far less explanation, written more as a backdrop for the practical commands that logically follow once we grasp their significance.
Some say, âThese things were only attributed to Paul; they were actually written by someone else.â That could be the case, I suppose, but this far removed in history, how would we know who? To what purpose bring it up, then? What difference would it make, if the words are true? Then why waste time speculating when we could be living them out?
Why would we think Paul could not have written some of the letters that bear his name? And of course the Gospels of Mark and Luke are influenced by Paul, because they were written by men he knew personally. Why would we think they were products of a much later time? It is most often because of a disbelief in the miraculous that textual critics argue for a late date (as they do with the prophets, who âof courseâ could only predict things accurately after the fact!) They think no one so early in time could be so advanced or know where things were headed. It is just one more corollary of the evolution theorem that advancement always comes later, not earlier, in time. The facts say otherwise, since the fall initiated the law of entropyâthat things fall apart rather than becoming more orderly, unless acted on by something that restores order, which is exactly what redemption history is all about.
My point is that such treasures should not be rashly thrown in the rubbish heap. If such things were not true, this would be the cruelest form of tantalizing, building up false hope in us. We would be the poorest and most scammed of peopleâor to borrow a phrase from Paul himself, âof all people most to be pitiedâ! (1 Cor. 15:19) But Paul does not seem to be of that kind of character.
In Defense of Paul
YHWH will judge His own servants. (Rom. 14:4)Â We should be careful about accusing someone who so often put his life in danger for the Messiahâs mission. That is exactly how the apostles against whom some would try to pit him actually described his track record. (Acts 15:26) They were in favor of him, so who are we to cast them as hating each other? Do you really think you are a higher-caliber scholar than Paul, the top student of Gamliel? Do you really think someone of his stature did not know what he was talking about?
Paulâs own words should answer many accusations that are being leveled against him. After all, who can explain a personâs motives better than himself? Many years after his encounter with Yeshua, he still called himself a Pharisee. (Acts 23:6) So any critique he has of what today is called âJudaismâ would be as an insider rather than a hostile attacker. That should keep us from over-interpreting things he said.
His companion Barnabas was a Levite, so he would have also kept him in line with the Torahâthe Levitesâ job. We are told YHWH Himself made them a team, endorsed by the Antioch congregation (Acts 13:2), which was under the apostlesâ oversight. (Acts 11:22) That they were sent on a mission (15:25) makes them apostles at least in a âlower caseâ sense, but Paul claims Yeshua himself sent him as well.
Near the end of his life, he was convinced that he had done the right thingââfought a good fight, finished the course, kept the faithâ (2 Tim. 4:7)
âIt is my deep desire and my eager hope that I not be put to shame in anything, but that with perfect boldness, as always, so that his honor may be seen in my body whether I live or dieâ¦â (Philippians 1:20) âForgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to the things up ahead, I press on toward the target for the prize of the high calling of YHWH in Messiah Yeshua.â (Phil. 3:13-14)
This does not sound like a man who was deceitful and wanted to subvert or derail the true faith of his ancestors. YHWH had just done something new, as Isaiah said He would (43:19), and Paul was enthralled with the magnitude of its ramifications, which amplified the mercy and vividly illustrated the compassion and power He had always spoken of in the earlier Scriptures, in ways that directly impact each of us.
Dr. Taborâs emphasis is on contrasting the Gospelsâ portrayals of Yeshua with Paulâs; I see them as complementary, two sides of the same coin, one dealing with facts on the ground, the other with what was going on behind the scene and its significance for us, which is not always obvious on the surface.
What seem at first to be contradictions often turn up the deepest insights into YHWHâs paradoxical ways, if we take the time to search out how they can indeed fit together.
Keys to Understanding Paul
The way Paul phrased things might sometimes have lent itself to being misconstrued, but he was writing to particular audiences who knew the exact context he was talking about, since he was responding to issues that had come up in their own congregations. Some of his comments were clearly âventingâ his frustration with those who did not âgetâ what he was trying to say, and he probably did not expect other people to read his mail. He was as flawed as our patriarchs, but we do not define themâor King Davidâby their worst moments; we remember them for the great strides they did make, and considering the conditions he lived in compared to what we have today, I cannot think of anyone short of Yeshua who worked harder or sacrificed more to fulfill the vision of extending the Kingdom to the nations than Paul.
To be misconstrued, oneâs words must also be able to be properly construed. I.e., it is not the writings themselves that are spurious, but menâs (mostly Gentile) interpretations of them.
Kefa (Peter) gave us the key: ââ¦our beloved brother Paul has written to you according to the wisdom granted to himâ¦in all his letters, in which there are some hard-to-understand things which unlearned and unstable [people] twist, as they do to the rest of the writings, to their own ruin. This being the case, you, beloved, [being] aware of these things in advance, be on guard lest you, too, be carried away by the erroneous thinking of those who break through restraints [to gratify their lusts] and fall from your position of stability.â (2 Peter 3:15-17)
Indeed, by the second century, Paulâs descriptions of the deeper significance of Messiahâs body and blood were already being taken in the direction of physical transubstantiation rather than understood in terms of the genetics of the Second Adamâs restored human race. In a less-scientific age, that might be more easily forgiven had Marcion not also twisted his words about the limited power of the Torah into the idea that the âGod of the Old Testamentâ was totally different from the one of the New, and was in fact evil! Peter forewarned us that Paulâs words would be abused. Why did we not therefore forearm ourselves with the mindset to resist the temptation to think he himself had ill intent?
Peter should know; his own words too were twisted far beyond recognition. Reading Acts 10 as if it is saying YHWH told Peter he should not consider any food unclean, when Peter himself explained the meaning of the vision which the succeeding events showed him was about men, not animals (for he knew what it could not mean, since he knew what YHWH had already said), is just shoddy hermeneutics at best and âunlearned, unstable twistingâ at worst.
That should be all we need to put this controversy that is again rearing its ugly head to rest.
Paul said, âThe Torah is holy, and the commandment [is] holy and just and good.â (Romans 7:12) This is the touchstone of how we must interpret Paul if we are to not make him contradict himself. He was speaking about different contexts and did not feel it necessary to say, âI donât mean this in that other way it could be interpreted or the way I used it over thereâ, because his other writings, and those that came before them and are the test of everyoneâs doctrine put limits on how we can take what he said:
âTo the Torah and to the testimony! If they do not speak in agreement with these, ⦠there is no light in them.â (Isaiah 8:20) The internal consistency of Scripture is how we determine what Paulâs words cannot mean: Read Paul with the assumption that his writings have to harmonize with Torah, and you will avoid twisting them, for that is what he himself said about his ministry. When his accusers âlaid many and grievous complaints against Paul, which they could not prove, he answered for himself, âNeither in regard to the law of the Jews nor the temple, nor [even] against Caesar, have I committed any violation at all⦠To the Jews have I done no wrong.â (Acts 25:8-10)
Paul may overstate things at times to make a point, as most teachers do. We can see he was well aware of this when in 2 Corinthians he adds, âI am speaking like a madman!â to show that some of his words should not be taken too seriously; he was answering ridiculous claims in kind. (Ps. 18:26; Prov. 26:5)
Yeshua and Paul did not see what they were saying as in any way contradicting the revelation from YHWH that had come before them. So, in looking at their words from a perspective of 20 centuries later, we must be the ones missing something, for any real inconsistencies would have been worked out early on and explained more clearly; apparently to people still living in that context, explaining away any discrepancies did not seem necessary. So we must surmise that the distinctions he made were intended to remain intact along with what came before them. What appear at first to be contradictions are flags to make us look more closely at the nuances of the relationships between two equally-valid truths.
When we realize what Paul actually IS saying, we see that it is absolutely amazing.
What He Did Mean
Different uses of the term âlawâ (nomos) throughout Paulâs writings cause some of the confusionâbut we do the same thing today. Here is a classic passage where he uses the same word in numerous ways: âI find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me. For I delight in the law of YHWH after the inward man, but I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.â (Rom. 7:21-23) What he said next--âthe law of the spirit of life in Messiah has set me free from the law of sin an deathâ (Rom. 8:2)--could be paralleled with a modern saying such as, âThe law of aerodynamics has set me free from the law of gravity.â Both laws remain in effect and active, but one can supersede the other without cancelling it.
But one phrase that Paul uses in a negative sense over and over is âunder the lawâ, contrasting it with being âled by the spiritâ. (Romans 6:14-15; Gal. 4:21; 5:18) He distinguishes âworks of the lawâ from faith (Rom. 9:32; Gal. 2:16; 3:2-10)âa dichotomy the Hebrew scriptures never seem to make. What are we who, like David, love YHWHâs Torah (instruction) to make of that?
Avi Ben Mordechai (in Galatians: A Torah-Based Commentary) has shown that this phrase âworks of the lawâ (maâaseh haTorah) had a specific meaning in his day that Paul assumes his readers are familiar with: âIn Pharisaic context, a maâaseh or âworkâ was the action of a rabbi or sage that justified the practical manner in which a tradition should be observedâ¦precedents or role models on how to behave when the so-called âoral lawâ may be unclear.â He quotes Nehemiah Gordon, a Karaite Jew who said that âto do according to the maâasim of the rabbis means to accept man-made lawsâ In Galatians 3:10, Paul seems to contrast those who put themselves under these man-made rules with those who âabide by all things written in the book of the Torahâ. In other words, menâs additions to the Torah as opposed to the Torah itself that YHWH actually gave. That changes our perspective completely, doesnât it?
One of the Dead Sea Scrolls called â4QMMTâ (the 4Q identifies it as from cave 4 at Qumran) uses the terminology âworks of the lawâ to denote a particular body of halachic rulings (which translator Florentino Garcia Martinez says distinguish the Qumran halachahâthat is, their way of âwalking outâ the Torahâfrom that of other forms of contemporary Judaism). It is introduced with the line, âWe have written to you some works of the Law [âMiqsat Maasey Torahâ; thatâs the MMT part] which we think are good for you and your peopleâ¦â (Fragment 2) They are explanations of how this community thought Torah should be practiced. It is essentially an Essene equivalent of the Mishnah, though much shorter.
So for Paul to question the âworks of the Torahâ does not mean he was denigrating the Torah itself, which could very well be interpreted in many ways other than this particular one.
Recognizing this, we know that when Paul speaks of circumcision being of no value or even something contradicting Messiah, he cannot be speaking of the command that we know YHWH gave in the Torah. Instead he is using a literary form called a metonymyâa âfigure of speech where a thing or concept is referred to indirectly by the name of something closely associated with itâ, just as we might call business executives âsuitsâ. âCircumcisionâ at that time was a shorthand for what today we would call âconversion to Judaismâ. They did not have such terminology in his day, just as he did not have a separate Greek word for what we call âlegalismâ, so he had to resort to creative ways to talk about using the Torah for something that was not its purposeâfor there are things it can do and things it cannot do.
Just as Moshe could bring Israel up to the banks of the Jordan and no further, needing Joshua to do the rest, even so âMosheâ (which Yeshua used as shorthand for the Torah that Moshe wrote) can only take us so far, and the latter Joshua (Yâhoshua, of which Yeshua is a shortened version) must take us the rest of the way: âWhat the Torah could not do, weakened as it was by the flesh, YHWH [did] by sending His own Sonâ¦â (Rom. 8:3) I.e., the Torah cannot do some parts of what YHWH wants done. That does not mean it is in any sense worthless. As Paul said, âThe Torah is holy, and the commandment [is] holy and just and good... We know that the law is spiritual: but I am carnal, sold under sin.â (Rom. 7:12-14)
What it can do, Paul shows here: âThrough the Torah comes the knowledge of sin.â (Romans 3:20) It sets the standard. It tells us what sin is, and can help us avoid it in many cases, but does not solve the root problem. We need something else for that.
The Torahâs place is to deal in a just and balanced way with the non-ideals that come up because we live in a fallen world, making life in a less-than-perfect context as smooth as it can be. The Gospel, on the other hand, addresses ultimate forgiveness (even where a death sentence has to take place on the bodily level since in some areas legal pardon would not maintain the deterrent potential criminals need) and an entrance into the age to come when ârighteousness will be permanently at homeâ (2 Peter 3:13) and these principles will be the norm rather than the exception. There is no contradiction between the Torah and the Gospel. They deal with different, though complementary, realms.
Therefore, as Solomon told us, we should âtake hold of the one and not let go of the other, because the one who reveres Elohim will come out with them both.â (Eccles. 7:18) Yeshua put it this way: âEvery scribe who is discipled into the Kingdom of Heaven is like the ruler of a household who brings out from his storehouse [treasures both] new and old.â (Mat. 13:52) He also told the Pharisees (Pârushim), âYou tithe mint and dill and all kinds of herbs, yet skip over judgment and the love of Elohim: these you ought to have done without leaving the other undone.â (Luke 11:42)
Thus he made it obvious which was the cart and which was the horse. I think this is what Paul was driving at when he made the distinction between the âletterâ and the âspirit of the Torahââthe motives and attitude that underlie each of YHWHâs commands. Paul tells us how we carry the Torah over from the very specific settings described in the âletterâ to the universal application of the âspiritâ of the Torah. (Rom. 2:29; 7:6; 2 Cor. 3:6) But this is why he insisted on being âfreed fromââi.e., not tied to the individual examples given in the Torah (the letter), because if you put the letter first, it âkillsâ (2 Cor. 3:6), for we have to force a âsquare pegâ into a situation where the particular example doesnât fit.
In contrast, the spirit makes the letter come alive when we understand the purpose behind it, which does fit every situation (but in different ways) and like David we rejoice at the amazing wisdom YHWH built into His commands. The original apostles agreed; they kept the requirements for Gentiles coming into the faith to a minimum (just enough to let them sit at the same table as the Jews) until they learned, week by week, what else Moshe had said, so that they could take on more as they let the spotlight focus on each individual concept long enough to understand what it meant and became excited about how revolutionary and life-saving it was. (Acts 15:19-21) And to this Paul was in full agreement.
I regard Messianic Jewish interpretation as especially worthy of consideration, because they have a much-less-diluted dose of both covenants. An Israeli believer in Yeshua, Dr. Eli Lizorkin-Eyzenberg (in The Jewish Apostle Paul) took as the key to Paulâs philosophy his question, âIs He the Elohim of the Jews alone?â (Rom. 3:29) Paul, rather, recognized that the prophetic age in which âYHWH [would] be King over all the earthâ (Zech. 14:9) had already begun, which is why he did not want Gentiles to convert to Judaism any longer. If they did, YHWH would not be the Elohim of all nations, but only of Israel.
I would only add that there is a third category that Paul alluded to: âformer Gentilesâ, (Eph. 2:11-12) those âgrafted back into their own olive treeâ (Romans 11:24) He doesnât come right out and say that these are the lost sheep of the House of Israel, but the very next verse uses code words that make it clear: âWhen the fullness of the Gentiles comes inâ¦â (Rom. 11:25) This is a direct allusion to Genesis 48:19, which defines the âfullness of the Gentilesâ (meloâ ha-Goyim) as descendants of Ephraim in particular. And when he says, âOnce you were far offâ (a phrase Daniel 9:7 used of a different part of âall Israelâ than just the Jews), there is no question. Those returning to the covenant they were once part of may have fuller obligations to the Torah than the Gentiles who are mercifully allowed to benefit from their association with Israel just because YHWH loves them too and wants to include them. (Isaiah 49:6)
So what did he mean by âSin shall not have dominion over you, because you are not under law, but under graceâ? (Romans 6:14) Grace is not antithetical to âlawâ, but is the additional impetus to accomplish what the âlawâ is driving at, as we see in John 1:17: âThe law was given by the hand of Moshe; grace and truth came through Yeshua the Messiah.â (There is no âbutâ between the two phrases; that was added by translators.) This sounds somewhat vague, though; a clearer rendering of âgrace and truthâ as used here is âempowering favor and the actual accomplishmentââthe ability to carry out the instruction and bring it to fulfillment, not just struggle under our own natural power in hopes of pleasing YHWH.
That is extremely good news: He has not just told us what needs to be done but given us the ability to do it, not just in a weak, striving minimal way, but as âmore than conquerorsâ (Rom. 8:37) because âit is YHWH who is at work within you, helping you [not only] want to do what He desires, but to [actually] carry it out.â (Phil. 2:13) Even where he says our salvation is ânot of worksâ, he follows it immediately with âbecause we are His work of art, creatively shaped through the Messiah Yeshua, [founded] on good works that YHWH has prepared beforehand for us to walk in.â (Eph. 2:9-10) I.e., we donât have to figure out how to please Him on our own, by trial and error; He already has a path tailored to the unique way He created each of us!
This is the sense in which Paul meant we are âdischarged from the lawâ. (Rom. 7:6) He was quite clear that he did not mean to become lawless, do anything contrary to it, or stop doing the kind of good it exemplifies, but that we are turned loose to carry out its principles in settings the âletterâ does not directly address, but that fit the same âspiritâ its specifics provide concrete examples of. It is a step toward something even more complete. He says it is like graduating from being under a tutor into full recognition of adulthood. (Gal. 3:24-25) We donât despise the tutor who taught us what we needed to know to grow up; his teaching remains valid, but it brought us to something even greater which does not obliterate but subsumes what came beforeâa more direct relationship with the One who gave the Torah from the outside, which enables us to meet the outer command with an inner strength that matches it and resonates with it, and thus makes it work in a way that the command alone cannot do. (Rom. 8:3)
Yeshua said something similar: âI no longer call you servants, because the servant no longer knows what his master is doing; I have called you friends.â (Yoch. 15:15) Norman Grubb opined, âOur freedom, Paul says, is total freedom from any other claimantââ even the Torah, if placed as the central focus. It is a tool, but it still takes second place to the One who gave it, and should not stand between us and Him. It is a matter of priority: does the relationship come first, or the details?
The Fruits of Each Viewpoint
Yeshua said, âYou shall know them by their fruit.â (Mat. 7:16) Does a controversy of this sort produce beauty, or anger and hate? Some people like to find any reason to be contrary and start arguments, creating reasons for antipathy where there does not need to be any.
Attitude is half of what makes or breaks us. Paulâs counsel was, âWhatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is worthy of having and embracing, whatever is admirable, if there is any [moral] excellence or anything praise[worthy], think about these things.â (Philippians 4:8) Focusing on the other side will only make our already-short lives bitter too.
Yeshua said, âBlessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of Elohim.â (Mat. 5:9) Luke, a master peacemaker, understood this well, so he did his best to portray the different factions in as unified a light as possible, knowing that an uncharitable approach would only fan the flames into greater polarization. âDivide and conquerâ is the oldest tactic among the strategies of war.
Did Luke, as some accuse him, âsmooth overâ what was a real fight? Possibly, but isnât the amicable outcome the part of the history we want to preserve most prominently when a past argument, however heated it may have become at one time, is resolved? If âallâs well that ends wellâ, shouldnât we forgive as Yeshua said? Donât we want the vitriol to pass away once the points have been made and the hands finally shaken? For they were. As Paul himself said, âLoveâ¦is not [easily] irritated, does not keep count of wrongs [done], is not glad when [another is] hurt, but is delighted⦠when the truth [comes to light].â (1 Cor. 13:5-7) Do we want to become that kind of people, or those who divide brothers?
In the final analysis, Paul, James, and Peter came out in agreement. And so must we, or, in Randy Stonehillâs words, haSatan will âeat [us] for dessertâ.
Yes, âour fathers have inherited liesâ (Jer. 16:19), but our real enemy has alternate lies; do we just want to go from one type of lie to another? We have to unite against the real threat, not âkill our own alliesâ.
As the prospect of reuniting Israel becomes a real possibility, it is more important than ever to unite based on time-tested truth, not scattered speculations and winds of uncertain doctrine. Why should we alienate the half of Israel that has been sustained by Paulâs words for so many centuries? That is not conducive to âbreaking down the wall that divided usâ. (Eph. 2:14) Paul may have been short-sighted and not anticipated the direction some of his words would be taken. But can we, whose achievements have been far smaller, forgive whatever mistakes he made, for the sake of the unity and the greater fruitfulness it makes possible, and appreciate the magnificent truths he was trying to communicate?
If Paul truly hated James, he would be suspect indeed. Lacking the very love he spoke about in 1 Cor. 13 would render his arguments worthless, by his very own description in the poetry with which we opened: âIf I understand all mysteries and all knowledge, â¦but do not have love, I am nothingâ¦â But he then said, âLove⦠has faith in all kinds [of people, and] expects [the best in] every [situation].â (1 Cor. 13)
Can we turn this back on the one who wrote it, and believe the best and not the worst about him, if there is a reasonable doubt? I certainly want to be that kind of person!