Torah Times Messianic Ministry

Introduction

Works means obeying the Torah, doing what is righteous, or keeping God's Law. Christianity has evolved to the point that the institutional teaching automatically condemns the Torah observant faithful with the accusation that they are trying to obtain salvation by works. The implication of this charge is that the Torah observant faithful believe a heresy so errant that they cannot be saved. It is their belief that works done by the believer can play no part in salvation. The purpose of this paper is to provide a sound Scripture based response for the Torah observant faithful in Messiah Yeshua.

Christians react differently when confronted with the Torah observant faithful, or just coming into contact with them. In order to be more specific, I will use the seventh day Sabbath as a proxy for Torah observance in speaking of the various reactions. The worst class automatically condemns the Sabbath observer upon objective evidence of Sabbath observance. All they have to know is that you keep Sabbath, and nothing else. They are 100% intolerant and will persecute the Sabbath observer from their sphere of influence as soon as they can. This reaction is at the bottom level, and is quite common.

Up one level from that type of Christian is a second class that regards the Sabbath observing faithful with extreme suspicion and prejudice. They refrain from public condemnation, but suspect that such people as us are legalists and are not saved. Eventually you can tell this is how they think, even though they refrain from expressing it. So, Don't plan on gaining any real tolerance from them. Also, if they think you have any influence they will deprive you of the freedom to have any. They will harden their opposition.

The next level up is one that the Torah observant faithful more often come into contact with when not being condemned by the first or shunned by the second. These Christians tolerate observance of the seventh day Sabbath in theory, but they generally do so only upon the assumption that the Sabbath observance of their friends is an anomaly, or because they are Jewish, and that the Sabbath observant person (or Torah observant faithful) holds to the same opinions of the relation of faith and works that they do. They like it when their Sabbath keeping friends say that Sabbath observing does not make them more righteous. But if the Sabbath observing should say that the faithful in the Torah are more righteous, then the theological truce will be over.

We will find that many Torah observant Christians also regard other Torah observant Christians by this same measure. So long as they believe the institutional doctrines of the Church, then they are considered acceptable. And any saying that Torah observance is a necessary obligation are accused of legalism, or worse labeled as a Judaizer.

This situation is the logical outcome of Christians repenting from Sabbath profanation and then expanding their Torah observance as they learn God's laws, but while still keeping to the doctrinal system that was taught to them by institutional Christianity. The reason that correction to this system is lagging in the thinking of most of the Torah faithful in Messiah is that they have been compelled to use the Scripture translations (bible versions) of the Church cult, and it is not easy to defend Torah observance from this system because it is reinforced by these corrupted translations in conjunction with a theological system specifically designed to discourage Torah observance.

Generally, speaking the theological system of the Church has been inserted into the writings of Paul by changing the definitions of key words or choosing among possible definitions according to their bias. And then these changes are supplemented with the heretical book of Hebrews, which is non-cannoncial. This book was added to the western canon by Jerome and Augustine. Before then, it was only accepted by the Church of Alexandria. The institutional Church uses a scattering of mistranslations in other parts of the New Testament Also. (Even the concept and idea of the New Testament itself is an error. I speak of the covenant of old made new, just as an old commandment is made new. The idea is that of renewing).

The cult of the Christian Church is maintained by Apologists using historical traditions from the Church "Fathers," a mass of mistranslations, and a theological frame work integrating it all the mistranslation. Like any cult this system places Christians in a prison that they cannot break out of unless they pay attention to the inconsistencies and listen to the Spirit of God. Not only is the NT mistranslated in many places to maintain this system, but also key passages in the Torah and Prophets are mistranslated to maintain it.

I will try to pop this bubble for you so that you can see clearly that the Church is a cult, not just in terms of non-observance of important Torah institutions, and observance of man-made traditions. But it is also a cult in the sense of its thinking system and theology. And ultimately, at the philosophic level it teaches the exact same error that Paul opposed in Romans and Galatians. This is the idea that the believer gains merit from which he is declared innocent of sin.

So, now my appeal is to my Torah observant brothers in Messiah Yeshua to depart from the doctrines, which came about as justifications for rejecting God's instructions. You should know that Messiah predicted this situation that would follow his departure, and come to be in the later day:

Since they did these things in Messiah's name, it is evident that he is talking about a religious establishment which preaches in his name and not paganism or secularism. He gives two additional identifying marks of this establishment. They are many and they practice lawlessness. And so he means mainstream Christianity here, its translations, and its doctrinal systems. The institution I judge, but the individual I do not judge, but I implore you to depart from the institution and its errors lest Messiah judge you when he comes. The congregation or assembly of the faithful is not the corrupted human institution called the Church. The Church is simply Mystery Babylon making itself appear to be the Assembly of Israel. But the remnant of Israel outside this institution is the true Assembly of Messiah Yeshua.

What do I mean? It used to be in the early days after Messiah's first coming that the faithful received a pure doctrine from the Emissaries of the Lamb along with the charge to hold faithful to Messiah and obey his commandments. The Emissaries of the Lamb taught the correct good news, and correct doctrines to support their message based on the Torah and Prophets. But over time, the script was flipped by lawless men who infiltrated among faithful, and the message has now become corrupted by the thing that calls itself Christianity, which institutionally has no right to name Messiah because it adopted Satan's message in place of Messiah, and this has spread all over the world.

Now I do not judge the individual, because there are many trapped in this web of lies who still hear the word of repentance and forgiveness of sins, but as is almost always the case have been taught the systematic theology of the lawless system that supports the lawlessness of the Church. They are loyal to Messiah, but weakly so because the swamp of false doctrine drags them down.

So now, the return to Torah observance is taken from these few who begin to depart from this system. But it must be realized that the usual first step taken is a return to Sabbath observance. And the rest of the false doctrinal structure remains intact as well as the use of false translations of Paul and even false books such as Hebrews. It is a great temptation to the faithful to accept the versions, translations, and some of the fundamental assumptions of the lawless system to attempt to interpret things in favor of Torah, when in fact, what they are trying to interpret is already corrupted.

And this situation Satan is able to exploit to keep those returning to Messiah's Law divided and on the back foot in any apologetics confrontation with Christianity. The majority of those who keep Sabbath are the most vocal and numerous on doubling down on the false doctrinal structure after adopting the seventh day. This reaction is motivated by some desire to find some acceptance within mainstream Christian doctrine, and also because they know nothing other than the errant doctrine and continue to believe it. This uncritical acceptance of Church dogma by some is the first problem, and the second problem is the desire of Torah observant leaders to say to the mainstream Christians on doctrinal issues, as their main apology so that they will be accepted is, "Oh well, on that we believe just the same as you!"

This stance avoids open war with the Church and makes the perseuction less. But the cost is greater in the end! Evil doctrine has consequences, and one should not cling to it while obeying Messiah.

So to repeat, rejection of Torah by the Church led to corruption of Church doctrine. And then a return to Torah begins with a return to the commandment, and the return to the commandment will result in a return to correct doctrine. The reason that things proceeded in these orders is that rejection of Torah was followed in time by a theology to justify rejection. First Torah was rejected. Then the rationalizations to reject it were invented. And in the return order, first the commandment is returned to, and then the justifications against it are later discovered and discarded by the Torah observant. So it is with the dry bones of the house of Israel. First the bones have to be put together. Then the flesh, and finally the Spirit has to be put back into the flesh. And this is how a correct understanding of matters is to outward observance of matters. The outward observance is the flesh of the matter, and the correct understanding is the spirit of the matter.

While the flesh is still being restored to the bones, Satan is able to get many to double down on the false doctrine they learned before discovering Torah. This is because part of the false doctrine is a false explanation of the good news, and the meaning of Messiah's death, and they have retained a great fear of the Church and its doctrines. Fear is a good thing if it keeps one from being dragged into the greater error of another cult. But it is an evil thing when it keeps one from discovering the truth! If we understand the love of Messiah and his Father in ransoming us from evil, then we will lose the spirit of fear as the basis for staying any place, and gain the Spirit of discovering the truth, and staying in it on the basis of love informed by knowledge.

For this reason my article on the meaning of Messiah's death is foundational to this article, and the reader will be able to best grasp matters after reading it first. But I don't think it will harm either to read this one first. I will be alluding to things there though without spelling them out completely.

Ok, to finish the point that was in the back of my mind. Satan is able to turn the fact of the slowness of most Torah observant Christians to correct the false doctrines into a discouragement against further correction. Satan's design is to prevent the faithful from going further toward the truth. Satan knows what truth Messiah is drawing them toward, and he wants to create fear of it. So to the Torah observant faithful I urge you to be aware of this problem and not to be overcome by it.

So now, I will return to that point about Christians who accept the Torah observance in their Torah observant friends chiefly on the basis that it is only outward observance that differs, but that they believe the same false doctrines they do. And these false doctrines were invented in the first place to justify lawlessness. The chief of these false doctrines manifiests itself in a denial of any requirement or obligation to keep the commandments to obtain everlasting life.

So I shall summarize the point first, and then flesh it out. It is necessary to obey Messiah if we want him to rescue us from sin. A sin that leads to death is a sin that leads to Messiah denying an entrance into life when he comes. If we hold faithful to Messiah, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. It goes without saying that one cannot be cleansed without obeying. So you see works are required.

Why then is Paul against works? As we shall see, Paul is only against a certain type of work, and not works of faithfulness. He is against works used to buy acquittal for the guilty. He is against the works that would be offered by the guilty to purchase a declaration of innocent in the face of God's judgment. Now God offers forgiveness to the repentant for their past sins. But he does not want payment for the forgiveness. He offers the forgiveness freely. So there is no need to perform penances to receive forgiveness of sins.

Yet it is the devlish trick of Satan to make the Christian believe that God requires some kind of compensation for forgiveness, as if forgiveness were something for sale, that can be purchased when needed. Therefore, in the confessional, the guilty confesses and then the priest makes so many "Hail Mary's" a condition of absolution. Or it could be praying the rosary, or it could be crawling up to a cathedral till one's knees are bloody. The people who best understand these kind of works are those who came out of systems where they are promoted. There are also indulgences. One kind of indulgence was a grant of clemency by the Church for a loved one that had departed to purgatory if one would make the required donation to the Church. Again, this comes down to paying for forgiveness.

The system that Paul was dealing with in his day was philosophically exactly the same, but in form different, because it was the system of the Judaism of his day. Judaism taught, and still teaches in some of its forms, that a good deed may be performed to gain a merit (zechut). Usually these good deeds are apart from the obligatory Torah observance. They are good deeds in addition to the obligations. That is how they achieve the properties ascribed to them, by being over and above what is required. Deeds qualifying as merit are alms and prayers. But it isn't limited to this. The philosophy is also connected to circumcision.

A Jew who gains a merit by doing a good deed, a zechut, is able to gain God's favor in respect to cancelling out a demerit or disfavor due to his sin. Do not expect Judaism to admit this to outsiders. There are many that wish to whitewash the real system of Judaism to outsiders. But this system has two faces. On the one hand its internal belief system, and on the other how it wishes the outside to perceive them. They thus find the theological sympathies of Christians very helpful. And this also extends to the Torah observant faithful who are unwilling to be critical because criticism of any sort will be labeled as antisemitism. Satan uses this so that no one will connect what Paul opposed with teaching of Judaism, or identify the same within the Church.

For this reason, I refer to the works of two ordinary religious Jews who inform us about the system of zechut in Judaism, so that none can claim I am projecting these doctrines on Judaism. Rabbi Arthur Marmorstein’s book, The Doctrine of Merits in Old Rabbinical Literature, illustrates the rabbinical teachings of merit (KTAV Publishing House, New York, 1920, 1968). Marmorstein’s summary states, “The latter [merit] assures [every person] of reward and saves him from punishment.... Judaism further teaches, as a supplement to the doctrine of imputed merits, the law of imputed sin (page 3-4).” And the second scholar:

So once again, the works that Paul opposed were the works done to buy God's favor. There is an easy way to tell which kind of work is heresy. Any good work done out of obedience contains its own merit, and is looked upon by the Most High as good and righteous. But as soon as one believes or argues that this intrinsic merit may be transferred to compensate for or pay for a demerit then we have the heresy that Paul was opposing. The very idea is opposed to God's forgiveness. And so it is anti-good news.

In the guilty human heart, there is always a temptation to try to appease the parent, or God, by doing some good deed. But understand that the loving parent wants the child to cease with the sin, and receive forgiveness. Doing good deeds to gain the favor of God to overlook the sin without asking for forgiveness is idolatry. Why so? Because it represents God as unforgiving. It represents him as taking payment for forgiveness. And here would be a good point to read the article on the meaning of Messiah's death, which is not a penal substituion (payment) but a ransom.

So as I say, this temptation has occured to almost everyone. And almost everyone has succumbed to it at one time or another, even if only as an inmmature child. It is self justification. The heart says I know I did bad, but I'll do this good, and the bad will be forgotten because of the good. Since this is motivated by the flesh, and failure to confront the sin with confession and repentance, it is no surprise that it has evolved into a false doctrinal system. This is the same sin that king Saul committed when he failed to destroy everything of Amalek. When faced with his disobedience by the prophet, he justified it by saying the best cattle he kept were to sacrifice to God. Thus the good deed of more sacrifices to God would cover up his disobedience in taking the devoted plunder. But this turned out to be like the sin of divination and witchraft (1 Sam. 15:23). And why is it like divination? Because the merit of a good dead is superstitiously perceived to atone for the disobedience. It is as a Sorcerer practices alchemy or a Witch to change one thing into another. So it is with trying to convert guilt into acquittal.

The sacrifice is believed to placate or appease the Most High. It is believed to propitiate him, and to make satisfaction for evil committed. It is a fundamental error of Atonement. (But really this is a bad word.) The scripture term means purging or wiping away, and relates to cleansing from sin, and not appeasement for sin. This is the error that Paul was against, his former name being Shaul, after that king of Israel. And one cannot help but think that Paul was so against this system because he grew up in that system, and when confronted with Messiah's forgiveness, his whole understanding changed.

The deception of relying on merit to appease the Most High in respect to sin is explained in Ezekiel 33. If personal merit will not deliver the transgressor, then neither will claiming to have merit by any other means deliver.

Now I have criticized the Roman Catholic and Judaism on these points. Protestantism, and Evangelicalism are guilty of the same philosophic error. Only it comes in a differant form. I will refrain from mentioning Eastern Orthodoxy in this regard, because my knowledge of it on this point is not good enough. But I will say that the temptation to appease vs. repent and be forgiven freely is an evil in every heart. And this evil is so bad, then even when obeying God, there is a subjective temptation to make more of the intrinsic merit of the deed than is warranted. This habit is so bad, that those having experienced some form of merit teaching cult, when leaving it, abandon all legitimate obedience to Messiah along with the cult.

So now, that is a rather long summary, but it was necessary, because now I am going to break down the details of Paul's teachings opposing this system.

First, I will briefly establish or prove the necessity of good works in the pursuit of everlasting life, and then I will take up texts where Paul opposes the kind of works that he speaks negatively against, concerning which I have already laid out the distinction between legitimate obedience and works done with respect to gaining merit against demerit.

The key question was asked directly to Messiah by the rich young ruler:

The note with the text:

The apologetical value of the note should be expanded. First is that the young man was looking for one thing that is best. But this reflects a thinking based on the merit concept of Judaism, zechut, whereby one deed causes the Most High to favor one even though one has demerits. Of course, he knew he had demerits. That is why he is asking the question, and looking for the one thing that will help his doubt.

So Messiah gives a direct answer, to obey the commandments, and upon being asked which ones, he enumerates them from the easiest to the hardest, ending clearly where the man was most failing. To be helped further, Messiah commands him to come and follow him after taking care to give his wealth to the needy and not to keep it all for himself. And Messiah will teach him that the Most High forgives sin, and not that obedience earns forgiveness.

The point is that Messiah Yeshua gives a plain and direct answer to the question of the place of obedience in relation to everlasting life. He says, "You must keep the commandments." This answer is explained away by the Church cult to mean that he was only stating a theory so that the man would find out it was impossible to keep the commandments. It is granted that it is impossible to be perfect. But that is not the point. Messiah wanted the young man to obey from the heart in sufficient degree that he was being faithful to the Most High. That is what is required, and not absolute perfection.

The demand for absolute perfection is based on the notion that God demands absolute perfection, and further when it is lacking, he still demains absolute perfection in the form of propitiation. This error that the Church is projecting onto this episode is exactly the error that Scripture is opposed to. And the fact is that the young man actually did go and follow Messiah's advice after his initial disappointment with the answer.

No other answer and example is given to this question. Some may point out that the Sabbath commandment is missing from the list, but Yeshua only goes from easiest to harder waiting for the man to ask what he is lacking. His purpose was not to give a comprehensive breakdown of the Torah, but to bring the man to ask the key question. Messiah's answer is joined with "Then you will have treasure in heaven." The point is that he will stop valuing his wealth so much and that he will value treasure in heaven. And learning about it is the reason he needs to follow Messiah, so he can have real treasure in heaven, which is everlasting life. For Messiah knows what that treasure is, cleansing from sin through his ransoming blood and forgiveness of the same.

Let us now turn and see how Paul echos the same answer:

So As Paul outlines it, seeking for everlasting life is done through good and faithful works. The note of the passage is as follows:

Reading the whole context it is clear that even Paul believes good works are a necessary contingiency to the inheriting of everlasting life. This answer is no different than the answer given in Torah. But whoever will keep the commandments will live by them. And the word is near you in your heart so that you may obey it. It is not up in heaven, that we must ascend into heaven to get it. This is the word of faithfulness which Paul preached.

So now it is time to explain in detail from the passages what Paul means by opposing a certain sort of works. And we should not misunderstand what he is opposing, because to miss the point is to misunderstand the whole message of our deliverance. It is to misunderstand our rescue and the means of our rescue. Naturally, I will only be repeating myself, but this time by interacting with the texts that communicate the concept.

Now recall what I said about institutional Christianity. It is a cult that has re-translated the Scripture to suit its false doctrines, so of course this text is going to read differently in their version:

We have to consider that Paul is referring to a person in the context of a trial, that is being on trial for the crime of sin. To be justified in English means to be found right and acquitted of the crime. It means in this NIV usage to be declared in the right in the sight of the Law. And so far, the first sentence is true. No sinner can be justified by the works of the law because the sinner has failed to do the works of the law.

Now if we take this reasoning and apply it to the next phrase, "but by faith in Jesus" what do we see? We find out that this version declares that a person is justified by faith, which most people take to mean just believing. But the problem is this, the sinner who cannot be justified by the works of the Law cannot be justified by faith either. Having broken the law, he can only be found guilty. He cannot be declared right by anything. This is because the Torah orders that the guilty be found guilty and the innocent be found innocent.

He says I will not justify the wicked. He doesn't just order the judges not to do it. He himself says he will not justify the wicked. To justify the wicked by faith contradicts this divine declaration.

Now faith itself is a work of the Law, but just a much smaller and simpler one. But one can substitute anything else and say, "but by baptism" or "but by circumcision" or any other specific act of obedience. The truth is that no one can be legally justified once they have broken the law. It is against the Law. Yet we see the Church cult claiming via their translation that the believer is justified by their believing.

This fact makes the Church guilty of legalism. The act of believing is somehow converted into an acquittal. And this is just a minimalist version of the Jewish doctrine of zechut, merit, or the Catholic doctrine of penance. The Roman Church also puts baptism in the place of faith, claiming a person is justified by the ritual. By baptism, the merit of Christ is infused into the novitiate, and thereby he is justified. It is likewise the case with a Jewish argument for circumcision. Circumcision makes a person a Jew, and then the Jew is entitled to a transfer of the merit of Abraham to his account, whereby the Most High regards him as righteous. And again, the doctrine is legalism. Something, whether faith, or baptism, or circumcision, is said to propitiate the favor of God sufficiently to declare the person righteous.

And so the Church cult ends up practicing exactly what Paul was preaching against. The legalistic argument changes the ransom we have in Messiah into a legalistic argument with respect to the divine Law. So now, since the assumed definition in the first part of the verse does not work in the second part, let us see what the term under justified really means.

The verb δικαιοω in Greek doesn't just mean "justified." It has a broader definition, meaning "to administer justice" or simply "to do justice." It is the judge who is doing justice. As God is the judge, he has several options or choices when doing justice. Acquitting or justifying the defendant and letting them go due to innocence is just one of the possibilities. He can also find the defendant guilty and then condemn the defendant, or he can find the defendant guilty and then forgive or pardon the defendant. The only choice that His Torah does not leave open is finding the guilty innocent. Yet it is precisely this last option that is claimed to happen when the sinner is said to be justified by faith.

So we see that in the positive statement, the meaning cannot be the justified option. It has to be one of the others. And I will come to that in a bit, but first we have to backtrack a bit.

Instead of "works of the law," I have corrected the translation to "the customary works." Taken from the Greek, the literal sense is "works of custom," and these do not include just what Torah commands, but also may be any work that has entered the tradition that Torah did not command, which may be used for legal justification. But mostly, a Torah command is used for this. To believe in God is an implicit Torah command. To trust God is also an implicit Torah command. One may argue that baptism was added to the Torah by the Messiah, and circumcision, of course, is a Torah command. Prayer and alms come closer to the category of traditional works, especially when these deeds are engaged in way beyond what Scripture actually commands us to do. The customary works are Torah commands done with the aim of compiling enough merit to obtain an acquittal, to obtain justification before the Law, to be declared righteous. So again, this is legalism.

It is legalism of the worst sort. It represents the judge, the Most High, as someone who can be bribed or bought off, so that he will justify the sinner, and issue a false verdict. It is what Satan wants us to believe about the Most High. Yes, I am saying that. Christian theology on this point is Satanist Theology 101.

A man is not getting administered justice based on the customary works. This clause says the same thing as the NIV, only using the broader definition of the relevant Greek word. So now, someone who thinks that they can bring faith, or baptism, or circumcision, or any other commandment that they have kept into God's courtroom, and then expect him to dispense justice based on what is being offered to the judge is in for a rude surprise. They will find that any customary work cannot be admitted to change the verdict. But only evidence concerning whether the defendant is guilty of the charge of sin or not can be entered into evidence.

It follows then that when a person is administered justice through the faithfulness of the Anointed, the Most High will do it by choosing the option to find the sinner guilty and then forgive him if he repents. Paul then describes the condition upon which forgiveness may occur for the guilty. If we the guilty pledge faithfulness to Messiah, then by the faithfulness OF Messiah he will forgive us and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. To pledge faithfulness to Messiah is another more positive way of say we are going to repent of our sins.

It is to be noted that besides forgiving us in the administration of justice, cleansing us from sin and unrighteousness is also part of the deal. And so long as we continue to hold faithful to Him, this will occur. In the margin of the Gal. 2:16 quotation from the latest edition of GNM, you will see "16 justice = righteousness." I put this there because English splits judicial justice and moral righteousness into two terms, justice and righteousness. Hebrew, Greek, and Latin do not. Spanish and other Romance languages do not either. Therefore, in addition to the judicial outcome of forgiveness, righteousness will also be administered. This comes in conjunction with our growing faithfulness to the Messiah. So we still have to wait for complete righteousness at the end, which is when the Messiah returns.

Now the administration of justice and righteousness is through the faithfulness of the Messiah. This is not just confined to the divine courtroom; as we return to life forgiven, so to speak, it is the administration of cleansing and righteousness to us also. Confessing our sins, we grow in righteousness through our faithfulness to Messiah Yeshua. Paul terms this "through the faithfulness of the Messiah" because it is the divine faithfulness or righteousness that is being taught to us by his word. His righteousness becomes our righteousness. This is not a legal transfer by fiat, but a practical transfer through our faithfulness to Him. It is not an infusion of perfection all at once, but it goes along with our faithfulness to him and will be completed in the day that we see Messiah Yeshua.

To summarize, then, Paul issues a negative verdict on works that are used to obtain an acquittal. In other words, bribing the judge into issuing a dishonest verdict is heresy. It isn't legal according to God's own Law. And we see that the Church has adopted this heresy by making faith or baptism a work of justification.

I will now repost our text one more time from the Good News of the Messiah:

We are administered righteousness in the form of forgiveness and then cleansing by the Judge, who is faithful to restore us to his full righteousness. To be judicially correct, and to pledge his righteousness to us after forgiveness, is the righteousness of the judge. It is his faithfulness. It is also his faithfulness to suffer the cost of delivering us from sin by entering into the world to show us his love, allowing sin to affect him and cause him to suffer in dealing with it. This is his ransoming work.

I will now return to the Protestant doctrine of justification, and more specifically, the reformed Calvinist version. But it should be understood that everything else, including the Roman Catholic version, is a variation on the same theme.

The legalism works in this fashion. First, the sin of the believer is imputed to the sacrifice, and it legally becomes the sin of Christ. This is anti-justice, a miscarriage of justice. It is theological sorcery. But let us continue. Second, the merit of Christ is transferred back over to fill up the legal deficit for righteousness in the account of the believer. On this basis, they say, the Father sees all the sin transferred to Christ and the righteousness of Christ transferred to the sinner. They call this imputed righteousness. And here you should read my article on Genesis 15:6. But my point is to charge the institutional Church with the heresy of legalism.

This reformed error is different than the Jewish error of personal merit or the merit of the fathers. It is different from the Catholic error of using the merit of baptism to justify the sinner. But it is the same error in terms of trying to achieve legal justification before God.

Why would God feel good about giving his righteousness to someone as a legal fiction? This projects a lie onto the Almighty.

Are we Jews by nature, and not sinners from the nations?

This whole question is expanded in Romans 3:9–20. The Rabbis taught that God shows racial favoritism. Therefore, they taught that the Jews were entitled to the merit of Abraham by virtue of their birth and circumcision, and that they were entitled to do their own works of merit so that God might overlook their sins. Thus, in their view, becoming Jewish or making a person Jewish by circumcision was an all-important ritual. These positions of theological Judaism are the historical means by which justification before God was achieved. As such, this system of Judaism is fundamentally legalistic. It depends on reaching an acquittal through the customary works and the merit of Abraham. So this is why Paul has asked his rhetorical question about a special position of the Jewish people in v. 15. In respect to divine justice and judgment for sin, the Jewish people are not shown favoritism over the nations. But in fact, the Jewish position depends on confession of sin, repentance, and faithfulness to Messiah Yeshua. And the same terms are applied to the nations. Sin is not paid for, and there is no imputation of merit to replace real repentance and forgiveness.

Part II: The Terms and Their Corruption

The phrase the works of the law I have translated the customary works. Just about every Greek dictionary beyond Strong's Concordance will indicate that the fundamental Greek meaning of NOMOS is "custom" or a "norm." The bottom-rung dictionaries, which are given to the laity by the clerics of the Church contain only the definitions they want you to see. This is also true of their study guides and printed educational material. The truth is completely hidden by the cult, and to defend the cult and expand it It is only when one crosses the scholarly barrier that one comes into contact with reference material containing the proper definitions. But by the time that the few who seek this out reach this point, they are already indoctrinated into the systematic theology of the cult, and so their superior knowledge of the language has no proper effect on them. They have been inoculated by the cult virus. Movement up the scholarly ranks depends on the degree to which they become dogmatic advocates of the cult. Finally, at the top, you find those who are both dogmatic and also serve as gatekeepers, whose job it is to weed out and cancel anyone who would question the cult after learning what they know and the laity does not. They are able to mobilize the laity to destroy anyone who questions them. And for this reason, the institution cannot be saved. Deliverance has to come from the outside. Meanwhile, the laity are fleeced, shorn, and deprived of their blessings in Messiah, as well as made to fear obeying the divine law under the slander of legalism, while at the same time a philosophy of legalistic justification is constantly spoonfed to them dressed up in a fig leaf of grace.

It is possible to translate ergōn nomou (εργων νομου) as "works of the law" and to explain that it means obeying commandments for the purpose of gaining an acquittal for the guilty before the Most High. But the more primitive meaning of the Greek is "works of custom," and it is understood that the custom was to observe Torah to be righteous, and the custom was also to do some good deeds to gain acquittal for the guilty. So you see that Paul's opposition depends not on the outward deed but on the theology in the mind of the doer. I could just as easily have translated works of the law and made my points. But there is a reason that I do not. And this is the history and redefinition of the cult.

The cult has managed to enter the phrase works of the law into the popular lexicon so that it means only objective outward observance of Torah commandments, especially in regard to Sabbath, circumcision, and the food laws, and more generally in regard to any commandment they consider Jewish or "old covenant," which is also a redefined term. My purpose, therefore, in using the literalism "works of custom" as the basis of the GNM translation is to break the cultic definition by using an equivalent and more literal translation that cannot mean the cultic theological baggage so easily attached to it.

How do we get from works of custom to customary works,? The meaning of the phrases is actually the same. In Greek and Hebrew, where an adjective might be lacking, the genitive or construct will be used. So, for example, crowns of glory means the same thing as glorious crowns. This transformation from genitive to adjective format is common knowledge among scholars. For those of you who are grammar challenged, the genitive or construct relation can be simplified with the word "of" in English. Works OF custom is like the Hebrew words RUACH ELOHIM, which means "Spirit OF God."

In the GNM translation, I have employed the phrase administration of justice for the noun thikeyosuney (δικαιοσυνη,) and "administer justice" for the verb thikeyō (δικαιοω). The helping word administer simply means to do or apply justice. We could shorten the sense to an unused verb in English, to justice. For example. *The judge justiced the defendants by finding them not guilty of the accusations against them, or *The judge justiced the defendants by finding them guilty whereupon the guilty may either be punished or forgiven as part of the justicing. These senses actually also belong to the uses of the word "justify" in older English. But the cult has managed to restrict the definition to just one sense, which is an acquittal, or to prove the defendant in the right. So obviously, we cannot use the word "justify" to explain all of Paul's usages. For this reason, the GNM uses the words "administer justice," which reflect the original general sense of the Greek.

However, even to administer justice is inadequate to cover the whole original range of senses. The English language, in this case, is simply not up to the task of giving one term to cover all the necessary senses. The chief reason for this is that the categories of justice and righteousness have been split into two categories. Justice has been limited to the sphere of getting people what they deserve or punishing people with what they do deserve, whereas righteousness is limited to individual moral behavior relating to making the moral choice for oneself. Righteousness is limited to one's character, whereas justice is defined as the legal relations between people.

I do suspect that this result in the English world has come about because of the influence of Protestantism on the English language. The Roman Catholic Church promotes the meaning of these words as "to make righteous," where the Protestants wanted to say it meant "to declare righteous" or strictly speaking, to legally "justify." But the Roman Catholics are correct about admitting the sense to make righteous. Their error comes in the how and the degree of the matter, not in the sense. I should make it clear that I mean older traditional Roman Catholic doctrine, because these days that Church has gone totally adrift from its original cultic teaching.

Therefore, in English, I can only restore the original sense by explaining it with more than one word and then explain what Paul meant. So wherever it says "adminster justice," it also means "administer righteousness." So beyond the courtroom procedure and the judge's role in administering justice, which in our case is to be found guilty and then be forgiven by the Most High, the promise is to administer righteousness to us in the form of cleansing from sin by taking from the faithfulness of Messiah Yeshua and adding it to our faithfulness through our faithful obedience to his word.

Finally, the cult has redefined the noun peestees (πιστις) and the verb peesteveen (πιστευειν) to mean faith and believe respectively. Sometimes even "belief" is used for the noun. This is, in fact, the first part of the systematic theology of the cult. Believing is limited to mental activity. In order to show evidence for this sense, they derived the words from another verb meaning "to persuade," peethō (πειθω), but this effort is not entirely successful because we see this root connected to the sense obey in such texts as John 3:36 by translators. In fact, like many verbs, the sense is to be derived from the more primitive adjective. In this case, that word is peestōs (πιστος), which means faithful.  When converted to a verb, the adjective FAITHFUL means to BE FAITHFUL, and when converted to a noun, it means FAITHFULNESS. As such, this word group is not limited to mental activity, but includes both mental activity and outward fidelity, in other words, faithfulness.

How then does the Good News of Messiah come to use "hold faithful" for the verb? Well, it means the same thing as to "be" faithful. But there are two reasons for "hold faithful." The first is that it agrees better with the Hebrew Hiphil and gives an excellent English sense of the Hebrew. The second is that "hold faithful" can be used in those cases where mental activity is the point. Such as "do you hold faithful the prophets?" "Do you hold the prophets faithful?" meaning do you believe them? But then, when we say "hold faithful to Messiah," it means both in the mind and in the body, in the outward doing.

The reduction of faithfulness to faith, and then to belief, is the result of the gnostic strain within the cult of Christianity. This is the chief corruption of Scripture in the furtherance of creating justification for rejecting the Torah. The final step in this reduction is to make belief a matter of predestination and remove its origin from the mind of the believer entirely.

There is some admission in the scholarly realm of the original sense of "faithfulness." We see this in the debate over the translation "faith in Jesus" vs. "the faithfulness of Jesus." See Richard B. Hays and Daniel Wallace. Consider the NET Bible renditions. But this admission or glimpse of the truth does not go far because the laity have been taught so well that the scholars could not go far in the right direction before being socially hanged as heretics to their traditions.

There are individual scholars who will admit the truth of every particular point made here within the cult because individual men often cannot help being honest with themselves. But most often the case is, a gatekeeper above them, if they notice, will act to make sure the institution is not threatened by the scholar, who may question the narrative in support of the canonical heresy due to personal integrity. Therefore, the operation of the Most High is to restore the truth from the outside to a remnant that will come out. And the fate of the cult is to be burned with fire by the beast and the ten kings, who will gain rule over all the earth, and all will follow them except the remnant of Israel. The Most High will allow this to happen.

Putting the Key Issues Together

The work that Paul opposed was the doctrine of doing good works to pay for sin or to appease God for sin. And this is opposed to the forgiveness of sins. But the works that Paul upheld are the same good works that Yeshua upheld for seeking after everlasting life. It is necessary to do these good works to inherit everlasting life. Obedience to the Torah does not pay for sin. It is only the work of love consistent with loyalty to Messiah Yeshua.

A distinction is to be made between what is necessary, and what is offered in terms of payment or compensation for sin. It is necessary to hold faithful to Messiah by keeping his commandments. Perfectionists still believe that God is seeking perfect compenstation for sin. On the contrary our faithfulness is imperfect, but forgiveness is available. The teacher following a payment model will assume that God demands perfection as the basis for any forgiveness. This is false.

No one is justified by works seeking to pay for forgiveness. Also, no one is justified (or acquitted) from sin by anything, not even faith. Not even our faithfulness justifies us from sin. There is no acquittal of the guilty because of righteousness. The teacher following the payment model will claim two things. Firstly, he will claim that the death of Messiah means he paid for sin, and second, he will claim that God transfers righteousness from Messiah to us for the purpose of legal acquittal.

However, we have seen that in the positive sense, the original language says that we are administered justice by Messiah and not justified. Further, referring to my other article, the death of the Messiah is a ransom from evil. I cannot repeat all that is necessary here, except for a necessary conclusion. The cross was never about the Messiah suffering the wrath of God or paying a penalty demanded by the Father. Finally, the administration of justice includes both forgiveness (after being found guilty) and cleansing from sin for all holding faithful to the Messiah. This way, the promise to Abraham is fulfilled: "And He considered it (the reward) to him (Abraham) to be righteousness. The Genesis 15:6b promise is about rewarding us with righteousness at the end and not about transferring merit to a legal account for the purpose of acquittal.

So this brings three elements together: proper good works, the meaning of the cross, and the ministration of righteousness. And on the opposite end, these three truths are opposed by works applied for acquittal, the payment theory of the atonement, and the imputation of righteousness in view of the acquittal theory. And inasmuch as the gospel is preached by a cross of payment, neglecting the necessity of obedience to Messiah's commandments, and imputing righteousness where there is none for acquittal, then clearly it is a false gospel.

A Key Passage:

So now realize that the Church believes a false history, a false chronology of history, and has false translations to support it. It also holds to false doctrine and uses false translations to support the doctrines. The Church exists in a huge circular echo chamber where the same assumptions go back and forth in circular reasoning. A key passage they have corrupted is from Romans 4. Here is the corrupted version:

It is impossible to rescue this passage from false teaching by reinterpreting it. This is because interpretation is only part of the issue. The greatest error here is the wholesale mistranslation of the original language using terms that have been redefined by Christianity. The passage claims that God "justifies the ungodly." And this claim is the exact opposite of the text I quoted from Exodus 23:7 above. Either Paul contradicts Scripture here or the translation is wrong. As we shall see, the translation is wrong. The Church reinvented Paul by mistranslating him. So here is the corrected translation in the Good News of Messiah.

Please note that the red font marks text that is to be updated in the next edition. And the marginal note is to remind the reader that "administration of justice" equally means "administration of righteousness." Next, notice that every case of the word "believe" or "faith" is restored to its original sense, "to hold faithful" or "faithfulness." Next, notice that instead of "justified," the false definition has been replaced by the correct definition in each context. Abraham was righteous by works but not justified by them. And God is the one administering justice to the ungodly, not justifying the ungodly.

Abraham's faithfulness is taken into account for the administration of justice, which is forgiveness, and also for cleansing and the promised reward of righteousness. The article on Genesis 15:6 would be helpful to the reader in understanding this. It explains how to view the text in a non-legalistic way.

Brothers and sisters, there is much to teach our own people, the house of Israel, and the Jewish faithful who keep Torah out of conviction and genuine love for God and not simply cultural appreciation for Jewish tradition. But if we are going to do apologetics with those on the outside who attack the faithful and try to justify their non-observance of Torah, then we must confront them squarely with their legalistic gospel that they base on the imputation of righteousness according to the "Reformation," and the imputation of sin to Christ, and penal substitution, and complete failure to recognize that faithfulness and repentance are necessary parts of the good news.