Why do we keep Torah? (Colossians 2:16–17)

The common interpretation of Colossians 2 is wrong — very wrong. Unlike what is often taught and explained in commentaries, Apostle Paul never dismissed the Torah’s instructions regarding food, circumcision, the Sabbath, or God’s festivals. He followed them even after he came to faith in Yeshua.¹Hebrew name for Jesus He reinforced the need to walk in Yeshua by the same faith through which He is received, a faith characterized by obedience to God’s commandments.

Colossians 2 is a difficult topic to discuss with those who disrespect Torah. They believe that Paul dismissed the Torah’s laws regarding food, festivals, etc., despite the fact that he kept the feasts and even once kept a nazarite vow, first explained in Numbers 6.

“Therefore no one is to act as your judge in regard to food or drink or in respect to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath day — things which are a mere shadow of what is to come; but the substance belongs to Christ.”

Colossians 2:16–17 NASB

The things of the Law were all shadows that point forward to Christ. That’s often interpreted to mean that now Christ has come, the shadows no longer have value. You will usually hear an argument something like this: “Why do you think the Law is applicable to Christians? Haven’t you read what Paul says about this in Colossians 2?”

This talk is a condensation, with permission, of Messianic scholar Tim Hegg’s teaching “Why We Keep Torah: Ten Persistent Questions.” I also would recommend watching 119 Ministries’ video series “The Pauline Paradox,” which goes into this in great detail.

We know that Paul did not see the Torah in a negative light, that the “loss” (Phil. 3:7) he wrote about wasn’t “every word that proceeds from the mouth of God” (Matt. 4:4, quoting Deut. 8:3). He understood, as any good rabbi, that the Torah includes both blessings and curses, and that there’s a curse that comes upon those who transgress Torah.

We know that Paul had an abiding love of Torah because he told Timothy this:

“All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.”

2Timothy 3:16–17 NASB

The “Scripture” Paul is referring to here is referring to what we call the “Old Testament,” and the Torah is the first five books of the Old Testament. What we call the “New Testament” hadn’t been written and compiled when Paul wrote to Timothy.

Key to understanding Paul: Listen to Yeshua

If we see a contradiction or conflict in Scripture, the conflict or misunderstanding is within us, not within the Scripture. God does not contradict Himself. And the Son of God gave this explanation of His teaching and mission in relation to the Torah:

“’Do not think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to abolish but to fulfill. For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass from the Law until all is accomplished. Whoever then annuls one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever keeps and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I say to you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.’”

Matthew 5:17–20 NASB

Yeshua said this at the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5–7) and just before launching into six corrections of misinterpretations in that day of Torah teachings (“You’ve heard it said … but/and I tell you …”). Rather than being in opposition to the gospel and the “new covenant,” the Torah actually is key to the both. When Yeshua connected the annual memorial of Passover to His coming death, calling one of the four cups of the ceremony “the new covenant in My blood” (Luke 22:20; 1Cor. 11:25), He was bringing to fulness the prophecy of the “new covenant” through the prophets Jeremiah and Ezekiel:

“’Behold, days are coming,’ declares the LORD, ‘when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not like the covenant which I made with their fathers in the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, although I was a husband to them,’ declares the LORD. ‘But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days,’ declares the LORD, ‘I will put My law within them and on their heart I will write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. They will not teach again, each man his neighbor and each man his brother, saying, “Know the LORD,” for they will all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them,’ declares the LORD, ‘for I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.’”

Jeremiah 31:31–34 NASB, quoted in Heb. 8:8–12 and referenced in Heb. 9:15; 12:24

“’Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to observe My ordinances.‘”

Ezekiel 36:25–27 NASB

Early scholarship viewed the struggle in the early church as a confrontation between Jewish Christianity and Gentile/Hellenistic Christianity. This so-called struggle existed in Gentile Christianity seeking to unshackle itself from the Judaism out of which it was born. Judaism in the first century was never a homogenous belief system. There were many sects that bickered with each other over issues such as the Sabbath, the festival calendar, ritual cleanliness, etc.

Most recently, that the Colossian philosophy that Paul was warning about a form of Judaism that incorporated a lot of mysticism into its practice, which they may have picked up from the Qumran community, which sought to mystically enter into the heavenly worship of God conducted by the angels. The Qumran community even developed a liturgy that was used by the angels in the heavenly realm.

Akiva, who was a second century rabbi, is one of the early proto-kabbalalistic teachers who also believed that one could use mysticism to literally enter heaven. Paul was confronting people who were teaching this kind of false teaching that wore a coat of Judaism but actually incorporated pagan ideas about how people could enter into the heavenly realms, through a secret knowledge, which is also called Gnosticism.

Paul is seeking to reinforce a biblical Judaism to the Colossians. Christendom has twisted Paul’s words to the point that they contradict what Paul was actually saying.

Paul emphasizes that all true knowledge is found in the Messiah, and that Messiah is above all since He is the Creator and Sustainer of the Universe.

Their walk, or halachah in Hebrew, is to be grounded in the faith they were taught when they first believed in Yeshua.

“Therefore as you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, having been firmly rooted and now being built up in Him and established in your faith, just as you were instructed, and overflowing with gratitude.”

Colossians 2:6–7 NASB

There were those who came in and told the Colossians that what Paul had taught them was not sufficient. They were telling the Colossians that unless they followed their traditions of men, they would not be reconciled to God.

When Yeshua was on Earth, the oral Torah had become so commingled with the written Torah in the minds of most of the people that Yeshua had to spend a disproportionate amount of time to untangle it.

“See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception, according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the world, rather than according to Christ.”

Colossians 2:8 NASB

The word “to take captive” means to carry away like a pirate steals treasure. Paul is warning them not to allow false teachers to carry them away from the simple halachah of Messiah Yeshua from them to follow the burdensome traditions of men.

“The elementary principles of the world” is not a reference to the Torah, which was divinely inspired by God himself from Sinai. Christians who twist that phrase to mean Torah, are the ones who are twisting Paul’s words to their destruction and also to the students to whom they teach this falsehood.

This is juxtaposed with Hebrews 5:12:

“For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you have need again for someone to teach you the elementary principles of the oracles of God, and you have come to need milk and not solid food.”

Hebrews 5:12 NASB

The Colossians and Galatians were gentiles, they had been enslaved in paganism. The Colossians were being tempted away by Jewish Kabbalah, while the Galatians were being tempted to mix paganism with their faith in Yeshua. Both were wrong and Paul had to call them out.

“But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how is it that you turn back again to the weak and worthless elemental things, to which you desire to be enslaved all over again?”

Galatians 4:9 NASB

The Colossians were being encouraged to join the kabbalists via circumcision, but they had already experienced the true meaning of circumcision, which is the circumcision of the heart. Paul is strongly warning them against following these false teachers.

Paul tells them that the mikvah (baptism) they had already performed when they first accepted Messiah Yeshua had already demonstrated their commitment to the faith. The false teachers were trying to force the Colossians into a corner.

Paul enforced and reinforced the complete work of Yeshua as the only means of salvation.

“Therefore no one is to act as your judge in regard to food or drink or in respect to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath day — things which are a mere shadow of what is to come; but the substance belongs to Christ. Let no one keep defrauding you of your prize by delighting in self-abasement and the worship of the angels, taking his stand on visions he has seen, inflated without cause by his fleshly mind.”

Colossians 2:16–18 NASB

There is no worship of angels in the Torah, or anywhere in the Old Testament so whatever heresy Paul is confronting, it has nothing to do with the words of God in the Old Testament.

In certain sects of Judaism, praying to the dead, as though they are our intercessors, is actually more common than it is even in Catholicism. They pray at the graves of dead holy people as though the can intercede to God for us.

We pray in Yeshua’s name because He is alive, and not dead. The question is this: Are we ready to be with God in eternity? We need to show ourselves that we can follow God’s commandments so that we will become people God will actually want to spend eternity with.

This is why Paul was laboring so hard. He wanted the Colossians to be people fit for living eternally with God.

I get a lot of pushback from my Christian brothers and sisters on this point. They will say that I am trying to earn my salvation but nothing is further from the truth. We do the works He gave us because we love Him.

The false teachers who came into the Colossian congregation were suggesting that the Colossians were not properly keeping the commandments as the false teachers wanted them to be observed, not that the Colossians were neglecting the commandments altogether.

What is a ‘shadow’?

The laws of kashrut, festivals, new moons and the Shabbat are a “shadow of what is to come.” They are not a “mere” shadow or “just a shadow” as the translators of some of the English Bibles falsely inserted.

In Hebrew thought, when they talk about shadows, they look to what is casting the shadow. The shadow is a reflection of a greater reality. The shadow is not of little value but, rather the shadow has immense value because the shadow points to the one casting it.

The “shadows” in the Torah are important insofar as they point back to the Messiah Himself. Paul did not allow anything or anyone to demote Messiah Yeshua. Paul vehemently fought against heresies that tried to reduce Yeshua’s status from a status of divinity and equality with God the Father to the status of an angel.

Just as the Jewish philosopher Philo’s pointed out that Moshe knew God face to face while the other prophets knew God “in shadow.”

False teachings at issue in Colossians 2

The false teachers claimed to offer the Colossians a higher more pious form of wisdom but Paul warns that what they were doing is working to defraud the Colossians of their essential salvation in Yeshua.

False teaching 1: Extreme asceticism

The first false teaching Paul was targeting in Colossians 2 was the practice extreme asceticism, and their debasement of the body in favor of the spirit. This was done with extreme fasting, and abstinence.

The Apostle Paul was combating a form of Jewish practice that contradicted the plain teaching of the TaNaK. If you read the TaNaK from Genesis to Chronicles (or Malachi), there is no asceticism.

False teaching 2: Worship of angelic hosts

These false teachers also incorporated the worship and adulation of the angelic hosts or a preoccupation with how the angels worship God into the congregation worship. The Colossian philosophy may have incorporated a mystical ascent to the angelic realms through vision or even bodily ascent. This group harassing the Colossians may have been the predecessors to the gnostics of the 2^nd century A.D.

Paul was battling a sectarian Judaism that had incorporated a great deal of mysticism and even pagan practice into its theology.

False teaching 3: The do-nots

“If you have died with Christ to the elementary principles of the world, why, as if you were living in the world, do you submit yourself to decrees, such as, “Do not handle, do not taste, do not touch!” (which all refer to things destined to perish with use) — in accordance with the commandments and teachings of men?”

Colossians 2:20–22 NASB

‘Do not handle’

Meaning complete and utter abstinence of sexual relations, even within the marriage bed, on the premise that such relations lowers one’s purity.

‘Do not taste’

Meaning refusing to eat foods that would normally be allowed within the Torah’s regulations, but were prohibited by the additional rules of their sect. Some extreme ascetics of the time even believed that of one served food handled by Gentiles or found in their presence was somehow made unfit for consumption.

‘Do not touch‘

This may refer to their desire to remain separate from those outside their group in order to attand a higher level of ritual purity, similar to the Qumran sect.

These points are expanded on in length in Romans 14. All these false teachings had the aura of purity and holiness but actually contained no real power against sin.

“But realize this, that in the last days difficult times will come. For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good, treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, holding to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power; Avoid such men as these.”

2Timothy 3:1–5 NASB

“These are matters which have, to be sure, the appearance of wisdom in self-made religion and self-abasement and severe treatment of the body, but are of no value against fleshly indulgence.”

Colossians 2:23 NASB

Paul had a positive view and a high regard for the Torah. If there are discrepancies, than we have to see what we may have misunderstood Paul’s meaning because the Scriptures do not contradict themselves. The scriptures Paul referenced weren’t his own letters or the letters of his fellow Apostles, he was only referencing the TaNaK²Hebrew acronym for Torah, Nevi’im (Prophets) and Ketuvim (Writings), or the Hebrew Bible.

If we interpret Colossians in such a way that Paul is teaching the Colossians to disregard Torah, we make him a false teacher and a liar.

If Paul and Messiah taught us to no longer follow Torah, the Torah itself says that such men should be executed (Deuteronomy 13 and 18).

If what the Church at large teaches us about Paul and Yeshua’s dismissal of Torah is true, than the Jewish leaders were perfectly justified in persecuting and turning them over to the Romans for execution. The New Testament tells us repeatedly that the Jewish leaders were wrong in having them executed. The Church maligns both Messiah Yeshua and Paul when they teach their people that they no longer have to follow God’s Torah.

All the stringent rules Paul was fighting were man-made rules that can’t be found anywhere in the TaNaK. The false teachers believed that only with extreme self-abasement, such as fasting, abstinence from any sexual relations, especially martial relations, they could worship God with the angels. They debased Yeshua by making Him equal to the angels, rather than the exalted Son of God. Yeshua is the head of the angels, not their peer.

Paul did not teach that The Torah and its commandments have been set aside. He reinforced the need to walk in Yeshua by the same faith through which He is received, a faith characterized by obedience to God’s commandments.

Banner Photo: We are called to walk in Torah, not despise and ignore it. First father-daughter hike of 2016 in Virginia, USA. (Photo by Virginia State Parks via creative commons license).

Speaker: Larry. Summary: Tammy.