A 06 Tom Bradford's Torah Class - Acts Ch. 2 cont.

A matter we took up last week was for the purpose of defining a pivotal Biblical term: lawlessness. Evangelical Christians immediately tend to think of the coming Anti-Christ as the “Lawless One”, and so they envision a very bad man who scoffs at societal laws or sees himself as above the law (somewhat like a tyrant, an outlaw or a gang member). But that is an incorrect mental picture. In fact Biblically speaking, this term “lawless” specifically applies to all who turn their backs on God’s Torah. The Greek word for law is nomos, and for lawless (without law, or outside of the law) it is anomos. I urge you to commit those two Greek words to memory. It shouldn’t be terribly hard to do because English uses similar grammatical word structure. Example: we call a set of agreed to ethical principles “moral”; and the lack of adherence to proper ethical principles “amoral” (without morals). Amoral however is not the same as immoral. Immoral means a person recognizes the ethical principles but decides to break them. However an amoral person recognizes no ethical principles as valid, binding or pertaining to them. So nomos and anomos work exactly the same way. Anomos doesn’t mean to break the law, it means to refuse to recognize the law as valid or pertaining to oneself. But what is essential for us to remember is that in the Bible the term law is always referring to either God’s law or to Hebrew Traditions that purport to convey the underlying principles of God’s law. And the only Biblical law that exists from God’s perspective is the Law of Moses, the Torah. So lawless or lawlessness is not referring to the breaking of societal laws or international law, or any set of laws that are manmade.

I don’t want you to think that this understanding that is a foundational belief and teaching at Seed of Abraham Ministries concerning the continuing relevance of the Torah Law is a unique one for us. F.F. Bruce, in his New International Commentary on the Book of Acts says this about the use of the word lawless in the Bible: “…..lawless men (are meant) in the sense of being outside of the law of Israel”. And what is the law of Israel? The Torah, the Law of Moses.

So before we re-read part of Acts chapter 2, let’s move from theory to practice as I hit you right between the eyes with an inescapable and uncomfortable reality that each Believer is faced with. Being labeled as anomous is always a wicked negative thing in the Bible (Old and New Testaments). And, sadly (dangerously) most of Christianity today (just like the Romans who crucified Christ) says that God’s Torah, the Law of Moses, doesn’t pertain to them. Thus most of Christianity today by every Biblical definition has classified itself, and proudly proclaims to be, anomos. Without God’s Law. I’ll let you ponder that as we move on.

Let me also mention that in the New Testament the word “prophesy” takes on a different meaning from the Old Testament. In the Old Testament most of the time (not always) prophesying involved predicting the future and/or establishing new Scripture. But in the New Testament predicting the future is the exception when it comes to the meaning of prophesying. In Christ’s era prophesying meant to teach, or to expound upon God’s Word (existing Scripture) in an inspired or profound way. The belief in the era of Paul was that God’s Word to mankind was complete and locked up. The Books that formed the Hebrew Bible, and especially the Prophets, represented the entirety of God’s Word to mankind. Thus Bible and Torah teachers were said to be prophesying when they taught; not predicting the future but also NOT adding to the Holy Scripture. Usually it simply meant interpreting what the Bible (the Old Testament) had to say about any matter, including the future. And that was essentially what Hebrew midrash was attempting to do. So in New Testament Bible speak, as your Torah Teacher, it could be said that I am prophesying to you the congregation. In modern terms, I am interpreting the Bible and teaching it.

Tom Bradford

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