Rich Robinson on PMJ, Pt 2

I am letting some scholars who disagree with Mark Kinzer’s Post-Missionary Messianic Judaism write a few articles on the blog. Rich Robinson here offers a respectful view of the role of Torah that differs with mine. I do think Rich is wrong, but I am pleased with a bit of a higher view than is sometimes held. I do hope Rich doesn’t imagine for a second I couldn’t write a paper challenging some of his points here. Maybe that would be a fruitful debate for a future week on the blog — to Torah or not to Torah, that is the question . . .

The Torah and the New Covenant
by Rich Robinson

I am grateful to Derek Leman for allowing me space on this blog.

Today I want to put forward some thoughts on one theological issue concerning the Scriptures, namely the place of the Old Testament and of the Law of Moses in Christian theologies and teaching.

I appreciate Derek’s honesty in sharing his own spiritual journey both here and in his books, because he has put his finger on one problem that is endemic in the American evangelical church, and that is the comparative neglect and de-valuation of the Old Testament in favor of the New. I’m reminded of Walter Kaiser, in the days when he taught Old Testament at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. He had his finger on the very same problem, and insisted that the OT not be neglected nor devalued. He even gave it hermeneutical priority over the NT. “Antecedent theology” was his name for this approach. Though he always had a twinkle in his eye as he said it, he had strong words for those who spoke of the “Ooooooold Testament” as though it were a relic of a bygone era.

So I can sympathize with Derek’s reaction to a very real problem. However, I fear that he has greatly misunderstood evangelical theology of the Old Testament; whereas my concern with Mark Kinzer’s book is that he has neglected to interact with these same evangelical theology(ies) of the Old Testament.

As to misunderstandings, and this is not to single out Derek, because I think many, many people in the messianic movement share a similar view – there is a great difference between saying that the Mosaic Law does not apply as a body of law today, and saying that such a view is anti-Torah or relegates the Old Testament to a lesser position.

There is no doubt that evangelical theology as a theology (communicating it to the person in the pew is another matter) takes a high view of the Old Testament as well as the Law of Moses within the Old Testament. Books have been written addressing the question of how we know the Old Testament is inspired, and much of the answer comes from the way Jesus, the apostles, and the entire New Testament treats the OT. In fact, it may be easier to demonstrate the inspiration of the OT than of the NT! But let there be no doubt, the OT and NT are both the Word of God. Both are relevant to us today, both find application into our lives now, and both are equally the inspired Word of God. There is no division of inspiration as in rabbinic theology whereby the Torah is more inspired than the Prophets. No, Genesis, Leviticus, Obadiah, Mark, Philemon, Revelation – all are equally inspired and given by God for our instruction and guidance.

The problem comes with the Law of Moses in particular. Here again, it is crucial to see that all evangelical theology upholds the Law of Moses as inspired Scripture. Yes, there is much popular theology that dismisses the Law as a burden, something we are now free from, and good riddance at that. However, that is not evangelical theology. There is often a major disconnect between what theologians say and what ends up in the pew. That is a problem of pastoral training and education, but it is not a problem of theology itself. The Reformed wing of the Church in particular, has always taken a very high view of the Law, enumerating its various uses even in the life of a Christian today.

If that is the case, why aren’t Christians keeping kosher or observing the festivals?

It is not due to an anti-Torah bias. Rather, it comes from the understanding that the Law of Moses was part of a particular covenant that was made with Israel, a covenant that was good because each law reflects something of the goodness of God. However, it is also understood that that particular covenant was only intended to be temporary, and that at this time in redemptive history, it is no longer binding; instead we are under a New Covenant. This understanding does not arise out an assumption of supersessionism or anti-Semitism; it arises from an examination of the texts, from exegesis. There are many, many non-supersessionists and pro-Jewish theologians who would nevertheless agree with this redemptive-historical approach to the Law of Moses.

Therefore is it not a question of being anti-Torah, but of our place in the history of redemption. An analogy may help. In the Law of Moses, sacrifices were meant to be done at “the place the LORD your God will choose,” meaning the Tabernacle or later, the Temple. Prior to that, sacrifices could apparently be offered anywhere. Suppose after the Law had been given, someone complained that the Law was “anti-anywhere,” restrictive, denigrating to the freedom that we had to sacrifice at any place prior to that time. The answer would simply have to be, we are in a different time in redemptive history, God has now given a Law, now we are to follow it. It does not follow that the Law is anti-pre-Law or somehow devalued the experience of the patriarchs before then.

So our time in redemptive history is one factor. Someone may disagree with this understanding of the text, but let us not imagine that this is “anti-Torah” or devaluing to the Law.

A second consideration that also upholds the value of the Law is that the specifics of the Law of Moses reflected a more general “law of God” behind those particular enactments. This is what Reformed theology seems to be getting at when it speaks of the high value of the law for the Christian. For example, the specific commandment in Deuteronomy that we put a parapet around our roofs (for the safety of guests, as entertaining was rooftop in those days), is a specific expression of larger principles that comprise “God’s law”, i.e. his character: concern for safety in general, which is an expression of God’s love. If anything, in the NT we are to apply “God’s law” in this sense, in ways that go beyond the specifics enumerated in the Law of Moses.

A third consideration is that it is very likely that some laws, such as those of kashrut, were intended as a symbol system to indicate that Israel was set apart from the nations. Under the new covenant, while Israel continues to play a role in God’s plan, the nations and Israel are not separate in the same way. It follows then, that the system of kashrut would not be obligatory. This is an anthropological approach to OT law, and while not everyone will agree, there is much to think about here. Gordon Wenham in particular has unpacked this in his commentaries on Leviticus (series New International Commentary on the OT) and Numbers (series Tyndale OT Commentaries). (This is substantially different from Derek’s remark that some say kashrut was a “primitive earlier” stage of revelation repealed as “unworthy.”)

In short, there is a complete difference between what I have outlined as (just a few) aspects of evangelical theology of the OT/Torah, and a devaluing of the OT. Many more points could be brought forward, but those are enough for now. As Walter Kaiser might have said about devaluing the OT and the Law of Moses, “Me genoito! (Paul’s words in Greek for ‘May it never be!’)

For a good look at evangelical interaction with the Law of Moses, I suggest not only Walter Kaiser’s books but also the Zondervan volume, “Five Views on Law and Gospel.”

I’m afraid that by confusing popular neglect of the OT with evangelical theology, we are not only throwing out the baby with the bathwater, but the entire tub and the plumbing as well!

May God be glorified by his entire Word.

ONE MORE POST TO COME…

Me (Derek) again. Good paper, Rich. I do not think your view of Torah and the New Covenant is truly doing justice to all the texts. There are points and counterpoints to consider, but the system that is persuasive makes all of them fit. Your system does not, for example, do justice the Jeremiah 31, the New Covenant passage, which states (a) that the New Covenant is for Israel and Judah and (b) that when the New Covenant arrives, no one will need to teach his neighbor about God (sounds like we’re not fully there yet, now but not yet) and (c) the Torah (scripture uses this term for the Torah of Moses) will be written on hearts. Torah is not obsolete in the New Covenant, but written on hearts instead of etched in stones. I do not believe our present experience of the Holy Spirit is yet the fulfillment. We have yet to see Torah written on hearts, a day when all will love God heart and soul and be glorified and sinless. Anyway, the conversation continues . . .

Michael Brown’s Response

I invited Dr. Brown to post a rebuttal to my rebuttal of his paper. You will find it here quoted in full. I will respond tomorrow.

Dr. Michael Brown

I appreciate Derek’s invitation to submit a rebuttal to his response to my recent paper, “Is a Postmissionary, Truly Messianic Judaism Possible?,” delivered at the LCJE-North America meeting on April 18th. For those of you who have not yet read the paper, please take a few minutes and do so now at http://realmessiah.org/postMissionary.htm, then read Derek’s response before reading further.

In all candor, I do not believe that any of Derek’s counterarguments even begin to refute the points put forth in my paper, and therefore the original paper, read against Derek’s response, serves as the best rebuttal to his arguments. I will, however, address some problems in the counterarguments he raises, although space precludes me from being comprehensive.

The first point of my paper was that, “Our calling as Jews in general and as Messianic Jews in particular requires us to be active witnesses.” In response, Derek writes, “I believe that finding culturally relevant forms of connection is a principle in modern missions.” Of course, I concur. He then argues “that pamphlet distribution, the mainstay of Jewish missions, is no longer effective.”

But where did I ever make reference to pamphlet distribution? It was never mentioned in the paper and, in fact, it never crossed my mind. Rather, my point was that, “As Jews, we are called to be witnesses of the one true God to the nations, and as Messianic Jews, we are called to be witnesses of the Messiah to our own Jewish people as well as to the nations.” Is not this entirely self-evident? Derek’s reference, however, to pamphlet distribution as part of an attempted counterargument to my point is similar to my stating, “It is important for believers to help the poor,” with Derek responding, “But the welfare system is not working.” So?

But is it even true that “pamphlet distribution” is “the mainstay of Jewish missions”? Actually, the mainstay of Jewish missions (especially in America) is Gentile believers sharing their faith with their Jewish friends and co-workers or, more narrowly, Jewish believers reaching out to their family, friends and co-workers.

Sadly, in PMJ (Postmissionary Messianic Judaism), Dr. Kinzer removes virtually all impetus for Gentile believers to evangelize Jews, encouraging the church to cultivate respect for Judaism rather than to recognize the lost condition of non-believing Jews. How many tens of thousands of Jewish souls would have been lost in the last century alone if that counsel was followed? (You can put my name on the top of the list!)

Dr. Kinzer’s counsel to Jewish believers is equally shocking, as outlined in my paper, which quotes PMJ extensively. Indeed, he argues that we who know the Father and have eternal life must receive the testimony about God from those whom Paul calls lost and cut off from the Messiah before we are fit to bear witness. How can any Jewish believer defend such a statement? Yet Dr. Kinzer actually writes that we should not only receive the witness of our fellow Jews who do not know Yeshua but that their witness should actually affect the substance of our testimony. This is outrageous.

It is one thing to be sensitive and to be good listeners. It is another thing to alter the substance of our witness in response to the witness of the non-believing Jewish community.

In defense of Dr. Kinzer’s position, Derek points to the “movement of contemporary and emerging churches in America” which, he claims “are at the forefront of bringing people to Yeshua in America.” First, I do not see these churches, generally speaking, as offering close parallels to PMJ’s proposed Messianic congregations. Second, there are a wide range of churches called “contemporary” or “emerging,” and some of them are quite bold and forthright in their witness. Third, it can be argued that in many other “emergent” churches, numerical growth is occurring, but true disciples are not being made. That is to say, the level of poor theology, the lack of repentance preaching, and the watering down of the gospel are producing strong church attendance but not real kingdom growth. For an important critique, see D. A. Carson, Becoming Conversant with the Emerging Church: Understanding a Movement and Its Implications (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2005).

Derek further argues that “Dr. Kinzer is calling for a widespread relational witness of Jews to fellow Jews, from within, not from without. He is calling for a witness from a position of mutual appreciation and not one side being triumphal with regard to the other. This kind of witness is active, not passive. By contrast, the active witness of Jewish mission agencies is harming the cause of Yeshua.”

Derek’s last statement can obviously be debated. The fatal flaw, however, to the larger argument is the belief that a major key to witnessing from “within” is for Messianic Jews to embrace “normative rabbinic halakha.” Indeed, the official UMJC statement, followed by Dr. Kinzer, states that the Jewish ekklesia “must place a priority on integration with the wider Jewish world.” In another context, I hope to address this fallacy at length, but I offer here two pragmatic observations: 1) When I queried an ultra-Orthodox rabbi about how rabbinically orthopractic Messianic Jews would be received by the religious community, he replied, “The first thing a rabbi would tell them is that every berachah they say over anything is invalid because they are idol worshipers.” He also reiterated to me that the more they claimed to be following Orthodox halakha, the more they would be rejected by the Orthodox community. 2) The very nature of our faith will cause us to be put out by our people, so the attempt to become insiders is doomed from the start. A schism has come, and it will not be repaired until Yeshua returns.

Dr. Kinzer called for “the restored Jewish ekklesia” to “take its stand as part of the Jewish people” (304) stating that, “Full healing of the schism will occur only when the wider Jewish community accepts the Jewish ekklesia as a legitimate participant in Jewish communal life” (307). As stressed in my paper, verses such as Matt 5:10-12; John 16:3; Heb 13:10-14, among many others, tell us that we should not expect this to happen.

Ironically, I have been strongly criticized in these posts for judging the motivation of people’s hearts by claiming that they want to be accepted by the Jewish community. But how else should such statements be interpreted?

As for not being “triumphal” in our witness, does this mean that we should not speak down to our people in haughty and arrogant terms? Then, of course, I concur. But if it means that we do not recognize that we are saved while Jews who do not believe in Yeshua are lost, that our sins are forgiven while theirs are not, that we have already passed from death to life while they have not, then I demur. We have something they desperately need, and we must share our faith with that deep conviction. Again, this is Gospel 101, not advanced soteriology.

Regarding my second main point, Derek restates it to say “that Jewish rejection of Yeshua today is the same as in Yeshua’s time” (my emphasis). Rather, I argued that “the Jewish rejection of Yeshua today is integrally related to our forefather’s rejection of Moses, the prophets, and the Messiah Himself” (my emphasis). That is to say, I fully concur with Derek that, “Supersessionism and antinomian theology have been the devil’s tool for far too long,” and, consequently, the Church has often made it more difficult for Jews to believe in Jesus. Indeed, I have addressed these issues for many years now, most recently in a paper delivered at an apologetics conference last June (see http://realmessiah.org/apologetics.htm). Yet I believe the New Testament points to a historic and ongoing pattern of Israel’s rejection of God’s purposes, one that resulted in the hardening of our people, and one that continues to this day. However, since Derek does not specifically address the points I raised in support of this position, I refer the reader back to the relevant pages of my paper.

Derek concurs with my third point, namely, that “The New Covenant documents make abundantly clear that our people are lost without explicit faith in Yeshua as Messiah.” He notes, however, that “Nothing Dr. Kinzer says in his book clearly denies this point. It may be an implication of some of Dr. Kinzer’s statements in this book, if you push the word implication a little far” (my emphasis). For a devoted disciple of PMJ, this is admitting a lot! In reality, Dr. Kinzer dances dangerously close to two-covenant theology, thereby raising concerns among many MJ leaders. This is hardly a matter of “pushing the word implication a little far.” In fact, in a glowingly positive review of PMJ, missiologist Charles Van Engen explicitly raised the question of where Dr. Kinzer stood on the issue of two-covenant theology. The very fact that this question was raised is telling in itself. (See http://www.hashivenu.org/papers/2006_Postmissionary_MJ_VanEngen.pdf)

Derek, however, challenges me “to cite PMJ as stating that salvation without faith is possible for any person,” which is a somewhat vague statement, not making clear who or what the object of that faith must be. Rather, let Dr. Kinzer state clearly and unambiguously that he believes that God has not made a way for Jewish people today to be saved without explicitly putting their faith in Yeshua. The ball is in his court.

Regarding my fourth point, “That the New Testament emphasizes Yeshua, not Judaism,” Derek states, “Of course this is true. But it is meaningless.” Meaningless? Meaningless to say that we should follow suit and put our emphasis where the New Testament puts its emphasis – on the centrality of abiding in the Vine, of knowing Yeshua and making Him known, of giving Him the preeminence in all things – as opposed to spending so much time trying to define what our “Judaism” should like?

Derek writes, “Dr. Brown . . . goes on to suggest that Paul had veritably left Judaism behind, at the very least relegating it to minor importance. He asserts that Paul made statements about the Torah no Orthodox Jew would make today. I disagree. The Orthodox Jewish position on the Torah and Gentiles is much like Paul’s: Gentiles are not required to keep all of it. If you are a Gentile, try an experiment, ask a rabbi if you should stop eating pork. You will find that Judaism believes there is nothing wrong with pig. It is simply forbidden to Jews.”

Unfortunately, Derek failed to interact with the many scriptures I cited to support my contention, specifically: Gal 1:13-17; Phil 3:2-11; Eph 2:1-7; Col 3:1-4; Rom 6:5-11; 7:6; 2 Cor 3:6-11; Rom 8:1-4. Please take a moment to read these verses again and then ask yourself, “What traditional Jew today could possibly pen such words?” The answer is: Only one who had found the treasure hid in the field and the pearl of great price (see Matt 13:44-46), someone for whom Jewish traditions had now been relegated to a very secondary place.

Plainly, this has nothing to do with whether a Gentile should observe the Torah. It has to do with an attitude towards the Torah and Jewishness itself that reflects a mindset completely different than that of traditional Judaism, and in many passages in Paul’s writings, he does, in fact, make statements about the Torah that no Orthodox Jew would make today.

This, then, brings us to my last point, which Derek summarizes as the idea “that PMJ, if followed, will result in apostasy,” something that he finds “preposterous,” noting that, “People leave the faith all the time and for various reasons” – which is tantamount to saying, “Yes, people fall off many cliffs, so why warn them about this one?” Simply because it is quite a dangerous cliff!

Dr. Kinzer wants us to accept rabbinic Judaism as legitimate and valid; he wants us to submit to rabbinic halakha; and he wants us, on a certain level, to modify and even mute our witness toward our people. Those wanting to follow this genuinely slippery slope would do well to ask an Orthodox rabbi, “What does it mean if your religion is legitimate and valid? What does that say of mine?” And if rabbinic Judaism is legitimate and valid, why do we so quickly discard its historic and ongoing denial of Yeshua?

Derek claims that, “Integrating Yeshua and Judaism was not Dr. Kinzer’s idea. It was Yeshua’s.” Certainly not. Yeshua’s whole purpose was to fulfill what was written in Moses and the Prophets, to inaugurate the kingdom of God, and to make a way for Jew and Gentile to be saved through His blood. Judaism was not the issue for Him; the issue was ushering in the kingdom, which often meant dismantling the manmade traditions that made void the Word of God – some of which became part and parcel of the very rabbinic Judaism PMJ wants us to embrace.

On some level, Dr. Kinzer and Derek want us to become disciples of rabbinic Judaism, but doing that – for many reasons articulated in my paper – will ultimately challenge and/or lessen our allegiance to Yeshua’s lordship. The slope is real, and it is more slippery than many understand.

Almost twenty years ago I voiced my concerns about the increasing fascination with rabbinic traditions in Messianic Jewish circles (see http://realmessiah.org/tradition.htm). Today, MJ’s are being told that God wants them to order their lives according to these very traditions, and even Gentile Christians are getting caught up in the lure of rabbinic Judaism. For some, this will be the path to spiritual dilution, for others, spiritual confusion, and for others, spiritual apostasy. At the risk of alienating some friends, I will continue to sound the alarm.

Is Dr. Brown right? Should we keep doing the same thing? Have we truly moved beyond supersessionism? Tomorrow I will respond. Meanwhile, expect another post from Rich Robinson today on the topic.