Proverbs 28:9
“If a person will not listen to Torah (The Law) even his prayer is an ABOMINATION.”
This message is for every Christian who says that the law is done away with based on Matthew 5:17-20, so this will be a breakdown of those verses and I believe this will answer many questions and prayerfully open up some eyes. I want to show that there is a difference between the Written Torah/Law and the Oral Torah, and that Christians have confused the two. And what does verse 20 mean that rarely gets discussed, then you can ask yourselves if your righteousness surpasses the Pharisees or not.
Before breaking down Matthew 5:17-20 verse by verse, I have a question to those who say the Torah/Law is done away with. When you come to a stop sign do you stop? When you come to a traffic light do you stop? Every Christian will undoubtedly answer “YES” To all these questions. So technically, the world has no problem obeying man’s laws but they don’t want to obey our Father YAHWEH’s laws! Another example, the owner’s manual of whatever car you drive will tell you to put gas in the tank, no one disregards those instructions by saying to the manufacturer “No! I’m going to do whatever I want; I’m going to put water or soda in the gas tank!” Why? Because the manufacturer of the car knows what is best for the car, the same way our Father YAHWEH is the manufacturer of our bodies and He gave us laws about food we can eat and those we cannot eat, why? Because He is the manufacturer of our bodies knows what is best for it, just as the manufacturer of your car knows what is best for it. Yet, YAHWEH’s laws get tossed to the side and questioned and people are basically saying “Why can’t I put soda in the gas tank?” The same Christian who questions our Father’s instructions will NOT question the human beings instructions for the car. I want you to think about this and tell me if that makes sense? You cannot alter a stop sign and make it so “Go!” The same way we cannot alter YAHWEH’s laws to say “Go away!”
A brother in YESHUA brought up a good point, he said “Name one king in history that did not have laws? Since we know that YESHUA is our King then wouldn’t He would have laws too, but why are His being done away with?” That’s a beautiful way of wording it, because if the president said, “Today I’m abolishing all laws, DO AS THOU WILT, the purge is on!” Then crowds of people start to head towards your house to take what you have because there are no laws in place and you have to fend for yourself, then people would be begging for the laws to come back so they would be protected again. Likewise, YAHWEH has given us laws to protect us from Satan and his purge on humanity, while we are in the world. Let’s now breakdown YESHUA’s words in Matthew 5:17-20. I have covered versus 17-19 to some extent in previous messages, but in this message I will also cover verse 20 which has been overlooked.
Matthew 5:17 (Hebrew)
“Moreover YESHUA MASHIACH said to His talmidim (disciples), “Do not think that I came to throw down the Torah and the prophets, ON THE CONTRARY (The opposite of), I came to CONFIRM.”
YESHUA says “Do not think” in other words do not let it even enter your minds that I came to get rid of the Torah or the prophets. And as I mentioned in a previous video “What is the law of Christ?” How could He change the law when He did not speak His own words, but only the words of YAHWEH The Father?
John 12:49-50
“For I do not speak of Myself; but the Father who sent Me, He commanded Me to speak and to command—and I know that His commandment is everlasting life. And that which I speak is identical to that which the Father speaks so I speak.”
Oxford languages defines “identical” as: similar in EVERY DETAIL; exactly alike.
YESHUA is the written word that became Living Flesh which means that He is the Living Torah/Law that came to confirm the Torah still stands and to show us how to walk in the Torah as He did:
1 John 2:6 (Complete Jewish Bible)
“A person who CLAIMS to be continuing in UNION with Him (YESHUA) ought to CONDUCT HIS LIFE THE WAY HE DID.”
For us to be in union/covenant with YESHUA we must conduct our lives the way that He did; and the fact is that YESHUA obeyed the Torah, just as we should be doing. Furthermore, with the understanding that YESHUA is the Living Torah; this means if you want to do away with the Torah/Law you are wanting to do away with Him because they are one in the same. This is why YESHUA says in John 14:6 I ‘am THE WAY, THE TRUTH, AND THE LIFE, these were not idle words as He was telling you who He is:
The WAY
Psalms 119:1 “How happy are those whose WAY of life is blameless, who live by the TORAH OF YAHWEH!”
The TRUTH
Psalms 119:142 “Your righteousness is eternal righteousness and your TORAH IS TRUTH.”
The LIFE
Deuteronomy 32:46-47 “He said to them, “Take to heart all the words of my testimony against you today, so that you can use them in charging your children to be careful to OBEY ALL THE WORDS OF THIS TORAH. For this is not a trivial matter for you; on the contrary, IT IS YOUR LIFE!”
As we clearly see from the scriptures, the Way, the Truth, and The Life all connect to the Torah/Law! So we can now see that YESHUA is the Living Torah/Law made flesh! So, how do you abolish the Law that He Himself is? This is another reason why He says:
John 5:46-47 (Hebrew)
“And if you have believed Moses, you would perhaps believe Me; but if you DO NOT BELIEVE HIS LETTERS, HOW WILL YOU BELIEVE MY WORDS?”
YESHUA is saying, if you do not believe in the words of the written Torah/Law by saying they are done away with, then how will you believe the words of the Living Torah? You won’t! So, again YESHUA the Living Torah came to show us how to walk in the written Torah the way YAHWEH intended for it to be kept.
Matthew 5:18 (Hebrew)
“I say to unto you in truth, that NOT ONE WORD of the Torah will be diminished, every WORD WILL BE PERFORMED-UNTIL THE END OF THE WORLD.”
Matthew 5:18 (Aramaic)
“For truly I say to you, until HEAVEN AND EARTH PASS AWAY, not even YOD or a DASH shall pass away from the law until all of it is fulfilled.”
In the Hebrew YESHUA says the Torah shall be PERFORMED! Perform is defined by Oxford Languages as: “CARRY OUT, FULFILL, DO, EXECUTE”. If you notice these are all action words requiring something for the believer to DO; and one of the synonyms is “fulfill”, which shows that fulfill means to perform, to execute, to do, to carry out, and does NOT mean “abolish” or “do away with” as Christianity has promoted. If every word shall be “performed” until the end of the world, how can it be done away with when the world hasn’t ended? YESHUA stresses this point and drives it home by saying that even not one “Yod” which is the smallest letter in Hebrew and Aramaic will not be done away with. He wants the reader and the hearers of His day to understand that nothing in the Torah is done away with, until heaven and earth pass away.
So, ask yourself, are you still on earth right now? The answer is yes! And being that the answer is yes that means that the Torah still stands because earth has not passed away! When does earth pass away?
Revelation 21:1-3
“Then I saw NEW HEAVENS and NEW EARTH, for the FIRST HEAVENS AND EARTH HAD PERISHED, also the first sea was no more. An I Yochanan (John) saw the set-apart city, the NEW YERUSHALAYIM (NEW JERUSALEM), descending from the heavens to the earth, and it was adorned like a wife who is adorned before her husband.”
Matthew 5:19
“And whosever transgresses one of these smallest commandments, or teaches to break them, he will be small in the kingdom of heavens. On the contrary, whosoever teaches it and carries it out, great will he be in the kingdom of heavens.”
I’ve heard it said, “Well as long as I make it in heaven, I’ll accept being the smallest,” therefore they feel that breaking the commandments and teaching others to be lawless will still get them a golden ticket into eternal life. Is this true? Firstly, a brother in YESHUA shared another Hebrew manuscript with me that says otherwise.
Matthew 5:19 (Hebrew Z-Subgroup of family B)
“He who violates ONE WORD of these commandments that I teach, I will UTTERLY DESTROY!”
That is pretty clear about how YESHUA feels about the lawless ones! Which is a perfect match with what He said in
Matthew 7:23
“Depart from Me you workers of LAWLESSNESS!”
Matthew 5:20 (Hebrew)
“And I say unto you in truth, that if you do become righteous ones, MORE THAN THE WISE ONES AND THE PHARISEES, YOU WILL NOT ENTER THE KINGDOM OF HEAVENS.”
Matthew 5:20 (Complete Jewish Bible)
“For I tell you that UNLESS your righteousness is FAR GREATER than that of the Torah-teachers and Pharisees, you will CERTAINLY NOT ENTER THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN!”
Verse 20 leaves no doubts just as verses 17-19 did not leave any doubts of what YESHUA is saying. The scribes and the Pharisees had a degree of righteousness, why? They did follow the written Torah (The first five books of Moses), but they also followed the Oral Torah! Their problem was that they put the Oral Torah above the Written Torah. Before I explain what, the Oral Torah is, I’ll quote from Brittannica.com which says:
“In Orthodox Judaism, therefore, both the WRITTEN LAW (Torah, the first five books of the Old Testament) and the ORAL LAW (codified in the Mishna and interpreted in the Talmud) are immutably FIXED and REMAIN in the sole norm of religious observance.” Orthodox Judaism | Britannica
What is the Oral Torah/Babylonian Talmud/Traditions of the elders? It can be found in Galatians 1:13-14 which Paul USED to be involved in as a Pharisee (Acts 23:6), Mark 7:1-13, Matthew 23:1-5 (The burdens of Oral Torah), and Luke 6. I’ll quote one:
Matthew 15:1-3
“Then the scribes and Pharisees from Jerusalem drew near to Him, and they said “Why do your disciples break the TRADITIONS OF THE ELDERS? They do not RITUALLY WASH THEIR HANDS WHEN THEY EAT? But He answered them and said, “And why do you transgress the COMMANDMENTS OF EL (God) on ACCOUNT OF YOUR DECREES?”
The ritualistic washing of the hands is called “Tiqunim” which means “manmade regulations, or manmade amendments or improvements to the Torah, that ARE NOT A PART OF THE ORIGINAL COMMANDMENTS OF YAHWEH’s TORAH.”
Matthew 15:8-10
“This people which honors Me with words but their heart is far from Me, they honor Me in vain, imposing YOUR INSTRUCTIONS AND COMMANDMENTS OF THE MEN.”
Do you see how YESHUA distinguished between the written Torah of YAHWEH and the man-made Oral Torah of men? This is the part that has confused Christianity, because they believe the written Torah is bad, when in actuality the written Torah is beautiful and set-apart! Christianity has believed that the written Torah and the Oral Torah are the exact same thing and when they are not. YESHUA and Paul rebuked the Pharisees because of their Oral man-made Torah not the written one given by ELOHIM on Mount Sinai.
Judaism believes that Moses received TWO TORAH’s on Mount Sinai, one was the written Torah the 10 commandments on two tablets of stone and the other was an Oral Torah that was NOT WRITTEN DOWN which is why it’s called “oral”, and they say it was passed down from generation to generation which includes “Rabbis” interpretation. They believed that if they followed these man-made commandments step by step then they will be saved based off their own works, when we all know it’s the blood of YESHUA that saves! And this is the only reason why Paul says this:
Ephesians 2:8-9
“For you have been delivered by mercy through trusting, and even this is not your accomplishment but ELOHIM’s gift. You were not delivered by YOUR OWN ACTIONS; THEREFORE NO ONE SHOULD BOAST.”
Paul clearly said in Romans 7:12 “So the Torah is set-apart (holy), just and good”, Paul also said not to do away with the law because of faith (Romans 3:31). Paul is simply saying that we can’t be saved based off of our own works, why? Because ALL of us have broken the Torah at some point (Isaiah 53:5-6, Romans 3:23) and we cannot boast in our own actions to save us, this is why we need a Savior! Does the mean we stop observing the commandments? No! The commandments are how we know Him (1 John 2:3-4) and how we love Him (John 14:21 and 1 John 5:3) and it’s still a part of righteousness in this walk (Deuteronomy 6:25.)
Titus 2:14 (Complete Jewish Bible)
“He (YESHUA) gave Himself up on our behalf in order to free us from ALL VIOLATION OF TORAH and purify for Himself a people who would be His own, eager to do good.”
YESHUA came to die because we broke the law, so how do we continue to break the law when that is the reason why He died? That’s like being set-free from an electric chair for a murder and as soon as you have been freed from prison you commit another murder. You would be doing everything you can to obey the laws from that point on. YESHUA set us free from our imprisonment of transgressions, so how do we go on continuing to do what got Him put on the stake? Does that make any sense?
So, does your righteousness surpass that of the Pharisees? The Pharisees did at least observe the Shabbat, do you? Their problem was adding man-made traditions to the Shabbat making it a burden for people to keep it (Matthew 23:1-5); and they also kept the set-apart feast days found in Leviticus 23, do you? So, the question I pose to Christians is this, if you are not keeping the Shabbat AT ALL as the Pharisees did, nor observing the feast days as they did, and rejecting ALL the commandments by saying “They are done away with!” Then how does your righteousness surpass that of the scribes and Pharisees? This would mean your righteousness is less than theirs and you will not inherit the kingdom! It’s time to repent, hear and obey!
As always may our Father YAHWEH bless you all in YESHUA’s Name!