The Torah is Truth
The Torah is Truth
By
James Scott Trimm
There is a spiritual battle taking place. A battle between light and darkness. A battle between truth and deception. Paul writes:
“and put on all the armour of Eloah, so that you may be able to stand against the strategies of ‘Akel Kartza, because your struggle is not with flesh and blood, but with principalities and with authorities and with the possessors of this dark world and with the evil spirits that are under heaven. Because of this, put on all the armour of Eloah that you may be able to meet the evil one, and being prepared in everything, you may stand firm.”
(Ephesians 6:11-13 HRV)
Paul goes on to describe the parts of this armour as:
- The Belt of Truth
- The Breastplate of Righteousness
- The Shoes of the Goodnews of Peace (Shalom)
- The Shield of Faith
- The Helmet of Salvation
- The Sword of the Word
Now Paul is making a play on words here. The Aramaic word for “Armour” is ZAYNA while the Aramaic word for for “whiles” is TZEN’TA. Paul is contrasting the ZAYNA with the TZEN’TA. The four fixed (non mobile) pieces of armour correspond to the four whiles of HaSatan which are depicted in the Tanak:
- Deception/Lies (Gen. 3) / Belt of Truth
- Temptation/Pride (1Chron. 21:1) / Breastplate of Righteousness
- Oppression (Job) / Shoes of Peace
- Accusation (Zech. 3:1-5) / Helmet of Salvation
Now we will not cover each of the items here, instead we will concentrate only on the belt of truth.
Now it should be understood that the armour Paul is speaking of is not Roman armour, it was not inspired by Roman Soldiers. The armour was originally inspired by the book of Isaiah (Isaiah 11:5; 52:7 and 59:17) as well as the apocryphal Wisdom of Solomon (5:17-20). Therefore the subject of this passage is ancient Hebew armour and not Roman armour at all. Now ancient Hebrews wore a skirt like garment. Before going into battle a Hebrew warrior would gird himself with the a belt, he would gather his skirt-like garment up and tuck it up under his belt to allow free movement. This prevented him from getting tripped up in his own garment while trying to fight.
Now when he was on trial before Pilate Yeshua said:
“For this I have been born, and for this I have come into the world, to bear witness of the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears my voice.”
(John 18:37-38)
To this Pilate asked the all important question:
“What is truth?”
(John 18:38)
Let us look back to the Tanak to find the answer to Pilate’s question:
“Your righteousness is an everlasting righteousness, and your Torah is truth.”
(Psalm 119:142)“You are near, O YHWH, and all your commandments are truth.”
(Psalm 119:151)
This definition explains many phrases in the New Testament:
“Obey the truth”
(Galatians 3:1)“But he that does truth…”
(John 3:20)“And I rejoice that I found your children walking in the truth, as we have received a commandment from the Father.”
(2 John 1:4)
The Tanak definition of truth gives whole new meaning to Yeshua’s words:
“For this I have been born, and for this I have come into the world, to bear witness of the truth.Everyone who is of the truth hears my voice.”
(John 18:37-38)
Yeshua came to bear witness of the Torah, those who hear the Torah hear his voice. This leads us to another important saying from Yeshua:
“Then Yeshua said to those Jews who believed on him, ‘If you continue in my word, then are you my disciples indeed. And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.’ “
(John 8:31-32)
Paul, however, speaks of those “who changed the truth of God into a lie” (Rom. 1:25) Now if Messiah came to bear witness of the truth then what has HaSatan to bear witness to? The scriptures tell us:
“He [the devil] was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not the truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks of his own: for he is a liar, and ther father of it.”
(John 8:44)“…HaSatan, who deceives the whole world…”
(Revelation 12:9)
When HaSatan speaks a lie, he is merely speaking his native language.
Now if the Torah is truth, then what is HaSatan’s lie? His lie is that there is not a Torah, that the Torah has been done away with. There is a Greek term for this teaching. This term is ANOMOS (Strong’s Greek #459). ANOMOS is made up of the Greek prefix A- (there is not/without) with the Greek word NOMOS (Torah). ANOMOS means “without Torah” or “Torah-lessness.” While Messiah came to bear witness to the Torah, HaSatan comes to bear witness of ANOMOS (Torah-lessness). Two entire books of the New Testament (2Kefa and Jude) are dedicated to combating this false ANOMOS teaching. Yeshua tells us that these teachers will be called “least” in the Kingdom (Matthew 5:19).
Now lets take a look at how the Bible uses this term ANOMOS:
“…I [Yeshua] will profess to them, I never knew you, depart from me, you that work ANOMOS.”
(Matthew 7:23)“…and they [angels] shall gather out of his Kingdom all things that offend, and them which do ANOMOS.”
(Matthew 13:41)“And many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many. And because ANOMOS shall abound, the love of many shall grow cold.”
(Matthew 24:11-12)“For the mystery of ANOMOS does already work… And then shall the ANOMOS one be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth,… whose coming is after the working of HaSatan with all power and lying wonders, and with all deceivableness… because they received not the love of truth… That they might be damned who believed not the truth…”
(2 Thessalonians 2:7-12)
Many people have been taken in by the ANOMOS teaching. In fact two of Christendom’s largest theological sub-sets, Dispensationalism and Replacement Theology, submit detailed theories to explain why they teach that the Torah is not for today.
Dispensationalism is a form of Premillennialism which replaces the eternal “covenants” with finite “ages”. Two of these finite ages are “The Age of Torah” which basically encompasses “Old Testament times”, and “The Age of Grace” which basically encompasses “New Testament times”. According to these Dispensationalists, during “Old Testament times” men were under Torah, but during “New Testament times” men are under grace. Some Dispensationalists, called “Ultra-Dispensationalists”, even teach that men were saved by Torah in “Old Testament times,” but are saved by grace in “New Testament times.” As a result, Dispensationalists teach that “the Torah is not for today” or “we have no Torah.”
Replacement Theologians teach that G-d has replaced Israel with the Church; Judaism with Christendom; The Old Testament with The New Testament; and Torah with grace. As a result, they too teach that “the Torah is not for today” or “we have no Torah.”
Now you may be saying to yourself: “Ok, so they teach Torah-lessness, but don’t the Torah-less teachers of 2Peter & Jude go so far as to teach sexual immorality? Surely the Torah-less teachers of within the church would never use their “the Torah is not for today” teaching to promote sexual immorality.” Wrong! Some of Christendom’s teachers have already carried the “the Torah is not for today” reasoning to its fullest and logical conclusion. A sect of Christendom known as “The Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches” has published a tract which does just that. The nameless author of the tract writes:
“Another Scripture verse that is used to show that the Bible condemns the gay lifestyle is found in the Old Testament Book of Leviticus, 18:22, “Thou shalt not lie with a man as thou would with a woman.” Anyone who is concerned about this prohibition should read the whole chapter or the whole Book of Leviticus: No pork, no lobster, no shrimp, no oysters, no intercourse during the menstrual period, no rare meats, no eating blood, no inter-breeding of cattle, and a whole host of other laws, including the Law to kill all divorced people who remarry.
“As Christians, our Law is from Christ. St. Paul clearly taught that Christians are no longer under the Old Law (for example in Galatians 3:23-24); that the Old Law is brought to an end in Christ (Romans 10:4); and its fulfillment is in love (Romans 13:8-10, Galatians 5:14). The New Law of Christ is the Law of Love. Neither Jesus, nor Paul, nor any of the New Testament Scriptures implies that Christians are held to the cultic or ethical laws of the Mosaic Law.”
(Homosexuality; What the Bible Does and Does not Say; Universal Fellowship press, 1984, p. 3)
Thus Christendom’s teaching that “the Torah is not for today” is already being used to “turn the grace of our Elohim into perversion.” (Jude 1:4; see also 2 Peter 2:18-21)
There is indeed a spiritual battle taking place. It is a battle between the truth and a lie. It is a battle between light and darkness. It is a battle led by the one who came to bear witness to the Torah, and the one who comes to bear witness to Torah-lessness. The Torah is truth. The belt of truth is the belt of Torah. Gird yourselves with the belt of Torah that you may withstand the Torah-less one.
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