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About six months ago, a friend and I were having a conversation about “entertainment centre” churches and evangelism without discipleship. We don’t agree on everything (who does?), but in principle we both believe in doing what the Bible says. It came around to the fact that while there are some people who truly love YHVH and want to serve Him, they try to go about it their own way, rather than YHVH’s way.

We should serve and worship YHVH the way He wants to be served and worshiped, which can be found in the Bible. I think that all too often we try to follow YHVH’s way in our own way.

Most christians will agree that we should do the following:

Love YHVH with all our heart, soul, mind and strength.

Love our neighbour as ourself. (Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.)

Live as Yeshua lived.

Keep the 10 commandments. (On this, there is more variance.)

At the same time. They will argue that the Torah has been abolished, which it hasn’t:

But it is easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for one stroke of a letter in the Torah to become void. – Luke 16:17

“Don’t think that I have come to abolish the Torah or the Prophets. I have come not to abolish but to complete. – Matthew 5:17

Does it follow that we abolish Torah by this trusting? Heaven forbid! On the contrary, we confirm Torah. – Romans 3:31

Furthermore, all four things above are rooted in Torah. Yeshua himself said the following regarding the first two on the list:

“Always treat others as you would like them to treat you; that sums up the teaching of the Torah and the Prophets. – Matthew 7:12

He told him, “‘You are to love YHVH your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.’  This is the greatest and most important mitzvah.  And a second is similar to it, `You are to love your neighbor as yourself.’ All of the Torah and the Prophets are dependent on these two mitzvot.” – Matthew 22:37-40

Living like Yeshua lived would require following Torah since He Himself lived according to Torah. In fact, He completed it (lived and interpreted it perfectly), as He said in Matthew 5:17 (above).

As for the 10 commandments, they are a part of Torah, as are the first two commands (Love YHVH & love your neighbour).  In fact, Yeshua says that on these two commands hinge the rest of the Torah and the Prophets. Take, for example the 10 commandments, the first four concern loving YHVH and the last six concern loving your neighbour.

This concept could easily be extended to the rest of Torah. In fact, Rabbi Hillel is attributed to have made a very similar comment to the ones Yeshua made in Matthew 7:12 and Matthew 22:37. He is supposed to have said That which is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor. That is the whole Torah; the rest is commentary. Go and study it. Obviously that was not a new concept brought by Yeshua, rather one that was probably common knowledge at the time.

As can be seen, Torah tells us how to love YHVH and our neighbour. The problem is that when we remove Torah from the picture, we try to come up with our own ways to do YHVH’s way. This, I think, has led to a lot of division and strife. It has also led to the development of “holidays” such as Christmas and Easter which are not Biblical and are, in fact, pagan. Reality is that Sunday worship and Christmas, amongst other things, were created by the Catholic church to separate the “Christians” from their Jewish roots.

That isn’t to say that the exact solution to absolutely every problem is found explicitly in Torah or that it dictates exactly how we are to live, down to every minor detail, but rather that it was given by YHVH to be our guide. As for me, I choose to serve and worship YHVH his way rather than my own way. What about you?

If the Law (Torah) were a curse, then…

• YHVH (God) would have given his Chosen People a curse.
• David would have delighted in a curse and meditated on it day and night.
• Then the curse (Torah) would be summed up in 2 commandments: Love YHVH with all your heart, soul, mind and strength and love your neighbour as yourself.
• People would have died because of disobedience to a curse.
• Yeshua and Paul would have followed a curse all their lives.
• …

Doesn’t make much sense, does it? There are so many more instances I could think of that really wouldn’t make sense if Torah was a curse. Yeshua came because Torah alone was insufficient to save us. He did what it couldn’t do. That doesn’t make observing Torah wrong, or make it a curse. Point being, Torah (the Law) isn’t the curse. It never was.

The problem was sin, not the Law. Yeshua observed the Law properly and was (consequently) without sin. Paul continued to observe Torah after He was saved. How could this be if Torah was the curse  Yeshua came to save us from? It doesn’t make sense. Torah isn’t a curse.

Somehow, the statement “The Jews Killed Jesus!” is a reason why we shouldn’t follow Torah (or a justification for the idea that those who follow Torah, although not legalistically, are not Christians). But really, who “killed” Yeshua? And really, does it even matter?

Who Really Killed Yeshua?

When we look in the Gospels we see that Judas betrayed Yeshua and brought the Jewish leaders (the Sanhedrin) and their guards (not Jews) to Him. They (the Sanhedrin and guards) arrested Jesus. Then, the Sanhedrin tried to find a fault in Yeshua, eventually accusing Him of blasphemy.

They brought Him to Pilate (not a Jew) who tried to find fault in Him. Pilate offered to release Yeshua or a dangerous criminal, hoping they would release Yeshua. Then the Sanhedrin (corrupt Jewish leaders) convinced the crowd to release the criminal and have Yeshua crucified. Pilate allowed this, soldiers ridiculed Him, then they (the soldiers (not Jews)) would have actually nailed Him to the cross.

Now, we can see that physically, it was not only the Jews who crucified Yeshua, but also the Gentiles. The Jews who actually played the part were the Sanhedrin (Jewish leaders) who would’ve liked to see Yeshua gone for many reasons (He was somewhat of a threat to their authority and taught against their additions to Torah). In fact, the ones who allowed Him to be crucified and nailed Him to the cross were Gentiles.

Another interesting thing to note is that the Jewish days started at Sunset on the previous day, so these events would have occurred much earlier than we think they did (early morning), which means the crowd wouldn’t have been big and would have been composed mostly of Roman soldiers and Jewish leaders. (Read Sitting at the Feet of Rabbi Jesus for more information about this.)

But aside from who physically nailed Yeshua to the cross, who really did it? To answer that, I think we need to look at why He died. He died for our sins: your sins, my sins, my family’s sins, Wayne Gretzky’s sins, Stephen Harper’s sins… everyone’s sins (and we know that no one other than Yeshua lived a sinless life, Romans 3:23), both Jews and Gentiles. The reason Yeshua died is because WE SINNED, so really WE nailed Him to the cross. If we hadn’t sinned Yeshua wouldn’t have had to come or die for us!

Why Does This Matter?

The short answer: it doesn’t. Yeshua came to die for us. He HAD to die so that we might live. It shouldn’t matter who exactly physically did it. It HAD to happen. If He hadn’t died, we shouldn’t be here right now discussing this, we wouldn’t have any assurance of getting to heaven and really, we might not even be here. So, it doesn’t matter who physically killed Him, because in reality, He died BECAUSE of us and FOR US. How great is His Love!

On a side note, saying the Jews killed Yeshua is rather silly seeing as Yeshua was Himself a Jew!