Messianic Good News Torah Study Guide

 And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, Jesus explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself. (Luke 24:27)

All the prophets prophesied not but of the days of the Messiah (Sanhedrin 99a).

The world was created but only for the Messiah (Sanhedrin 98b).

Midrash means “inquiry” and seeks to go below the surface of the text and arrive at its spirit. The form of Midrash (exposition – including allegorical and literal interpretation and commentary) and Scriptural Exegesis adopted in these studies is to discern how the Messiah is revealed.

Therefore, holy brothers, who share in the heavenly calling, fix your thoughts on Jesus, the apostle and high priest whom we confess. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith …(Hebrews 3:1;12:2)

Concerning this salvation (in the Messiah), the Prophets, who spoke of the grace that was to come to you, searched intently and with the greatest care, trying to find out the time and circumstances to which the Spirit of Messiah in them was pointing when he predicted the sufferings of Messiah and the glories that would follow (1 Peter 1:10-11).

Introduction

The “Torah” usually refers to the five books of Moses. Some people think of the “Torah” as the body of Law that was given to the Israelites at Mount Sinai, but it also includes the record of the faithfulness of those who called upon the Name of the LORD from Seth to Jacob before the Law was given. Even before the Law was given at Mount Sinai the Scriptures record that Abraham obeyed the LORD and kept all his requirements, commands, decrees and laws (Genesis 26:5). It is also records that Abraham believed the LORD, (demonstrated by his obedient and faithful response to the word of the LORD), and that his faithfulness was credited to him as righteousness (i.e. right standing with the LORD. Genesis 15:6). The Law was only introduced 430 years after the LORD had promised Abraham that his Seed (i.e. the Messiah) would inherit the land. The Law was added later because of transgressions until the Seed (i.e. the Messiah) to whom the promises referred had come (Galatians 3:17;19). All the promises of God are only fulfilled in and through the Messiah (2 Corinthians 1:20).

Faithfulness to God was always in and through the hope of the coming Messiah. This was entrenched in the Law given at Mount Sinai: The LORD said concerning the Messiah, “I will put my words in his mouth, and he will tell them everything I command him. If anyone does not listen to my words that the prophet speaks in my name, I myself will call him to account (Deuteronomy 18:18-19). Even the Talmud (commentary of the Torah) confirms that Torah study is vanity without the revelation of the Messiah (cf. Midrash Rabbah on Eccl. 11:7). When the study of the Torah is reduced to a study of law upon law and external observances which have nothing to do with the faithfulness revealed in the Messiah, it becomes shallow and empty and ultimately leads to destruction (Isaiah 28:13 and 29:13). Some people asked Jesus, “What must we do to do the works God requires?” In other words, “How should we live – by what way or teaching?” (i.e. instruction for living in faithful obedience to the LORD). Jesus answered, “The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent” (John 6:28-29).

Faithfulness to the LORD is not some nebulous, lawless lifestyle by which people may try to justify their disobedience to the Law given at Mount Sinai. On the contrary, it is to understand how the Law and the Prophets testified to the coming Messiah and Redeemer so that we may live in obedience to him. For it is in the Messiah that the spirit or midrash of the Law is fulfilled. The promise of the LORD given through the prophet Ezekiel is only fulfilled through faith in Jesus the Messiah. Only through faith in him, do we receive the promised Holy Spirit: “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws” (In other words to know and be enabled to live according to the LORD’s way – i.e. the Torah of the Messiah Ezekiel 36:26-27).

This Torah study guide is intended to exhort and encourage people to know and study the Torah of the Messiah which they are only able to do by receiving the promised Holy Spirit and the change of heart that the LORD alone is able to do. Unless the LORD gives you a new heart and puts his Spirit in you, this study guide will have little or no value. Jesus said, “I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. He will bring glory to me by taking from what is mine and making it known to you” (John 16:12-14).

The prayer of the apostle Paul for the believers at Ephesus can serve as a guide for our own prayers and objectives as we embark upon the study of the Torah: “I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is like the working of his mighty strength, which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age but also in the one to come” (Ephesians 1:17-21).

May the LORD be our teacher!