Congregation Shema Yisrael

“If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” -John 14:15

Jesus replied, ” ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind’. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself’. All the Torah (Law) and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” -Matthew 22:37-40

Anyone who calls themselves a Christian or a believer in Yeshua (Jesus), assuming they’re sincere, will say wholeheartedly, that they love Yeshua and so of course, they’ll keep (obey) his commandments. We all have some sort of idea of what those commandments are, but are we basing our thoughts on what the Bible actually says, or on our church or congregational theology? What commandments was Yeshua referring to in John?

I’ve already provided something of an answer in the quote from Matthew, in which Yeshua is quoting Deuteronomy 6:5 and Leviticus 19:18. Let’s take a look at Yeshua’s source material:

Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the way, when you retire down and when you arise. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorposts of your houses and upon your gates. -Deuteronomy 6:4-9

To most Jews and Messianics, the quote from Deuteronomy is abundantly recognizable as the Shema; the most holy prayer in Judaism. Quoting The Mitzvah Project, the Talmud directs an observant Jew to recite the Shema twice a day while wearing a tallit (prayer shawl) with tzitzit (fringes) tied at the four corners. The portion of Deuteronomy 6 that states “…when you retire and when you arise”, also specifically indicates the frequency of saying the Shema. This is what Yeshua taught was the greatest commandment.

Do not hate your brother in your heart. Rebuke your neighbor frankly so you will not share in his guilt. Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against one of your people, but love your neighbor as yourself. I am the LORD. -Leviticus 19:17-18

This is Yeshua’s second greatest commandment, which in context, seems to be connected to not only loving your neighbor, but the converse, not to hate him, not to seek revenge or hold a grudge against him, and to show love to him by rebuking him (or her) when he sins. Now compare those again to the following:

“If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” -John 14:15

It’s also important to pay attention to the tail end of what Yeshua said in Matthew 22: “All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” Why this is the lynch pin of Yeshua’s position of supporting obedience to all of the Word of God, will become apparent as you progress through this article.

Some believers have suggested that Yeshua issued a separate set of commandments that replaced the Ten Commandments or the Torah, yet if we take him at his word in Matthew, this does not appear to be so. I’m not going to enter into an exhaustive analysis of what Yeshua taught (teaches) vs. what the Torah of Moses teaches, but I am going to “borrow” some of the commandments that are offered up by some believers to say the commandments of the Messiah were distinct from Torah:

If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father’s commands and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. -John 15:10-12

This doesn’t sound any different than “If you love me, you will obey my commandments”, so it could be just a restatement of that comment. Yeshua also links our love and obedience, to his love of and obedience to God the Father and His commandments. We then have to ask, are God’s and Yeshua’s commandments the same? The context of the verse seems to imply that they are. Also, would Yeshua be obeying a separate set of commandments than what he requires of his (non-Jewish) followers? Actually, some Christians say “yes”. They believe that, while in his Earthly ministry, having been born a Jew, Yeshua had to obey Torah in order to fulfill all righteousness (which is typically interpreted as “end the Law”), but that once he was resurrected, all bets were off.

However, if we take a look at the people Yeshua is talking to, they were almost certainly a Jewish audience, so they would be keeping the same commandments in any event. If so, why would Yeshua have to tell them to keep the commandments? It’s important to remember that, at this point in history, Israel was under Roman rule and the religious hierarchy of the Land was in Rome’s hip pocket, so to speak. Also, just about a ton of man-made traditions had made their way into the general theology of the times, so what was and wasn’t a commandment had become horribly confused. One of Yeshua’s missions at this time was to “straighten out” the lost sheep of Israel; that is, to reinterpret Torah as it was originally given at Sinai, as opposed to inventing a whole new structure of commandments based on Grace rather than Law. If Yeshua had come to give “new” Torah, Matthew 22:37-40 should read quite differently. If we accept the idea that all of Yeshua’s teachings apply equally to modern non-Jewish believers, as they did to his largely Jewish audience in the 1st century, then we can’t “pick and choose” what commands of Yeshua to accept and what commands to disregard.

As far as the latter part of John 15:10-12, loving each other isn’t new, either. It’s the second of the two greatest commandments, which is Torah.

If anybody thinks he is a prophet or spiritually gifted, let him acknowledge that what I am writing to you is the Lord’s command. -1 Corinthians 14:37

Standing all by itself out of context, this “command” doesn’t appear to transmit a great deal of meaning. Let’s expand the reading to the surrounding verses and see what we come up with:

Two or three prophets should speak, and the others should weigh carefully what is said. And if a revelation comes to someone who is sitting down, the first speaker should stop. For you can all prophesy in turn so that everyone may be instructed and encouraged. The spirits of prophets are subject to the control of prophets. For God is not a God of disorder but of peace. As in all the congregations of the saints, women should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission, as the Law says. If they want to inquire about something, they should ask their own husbands at home; for it is disgraceful for a woman to speak in the church. Did the word of God originate with you? Or are you the only people it has reached? If anybody thinks he is a prophet or spiritually gifted, let him acknowledge that what I am writing to you is the Lord’s command. If he ignores this, he himself will be ignored. -1 Corinthians 14:29-38

I could have expanded this further, but what we have here should be sufficient to understand if this is a “new” command and something distinct from the rest of the Word of God (I’ll address the “women should be silent” issue at another time, though I did previously write an article on the topic). It seems in the larger context, the “command” being referred to is a matter of orderly conduct during worship. However, since this is Paul speaking, is this a formal command of Yeshua or Torah, or is this a matter of protocol that Paul is introducing, and relevant primarily to the congregation he’s addressing? The connection to Torah seems to be in the recognition that any prophesy comes from God, not from men, which would have been understood from the time of the ancient prophets all the way back to Moses and Abraham. There doesn’t seem to be a “disconnect” from the Torah here.

Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” -Matthew 28:16:20

Only verse 20 is referenced as a separate and distinct command of Yeshua, and yet it doesn’t seem like you can infer anything new here, either. Going back to Yeshua’s original statement about the two greatest commandments, it seems what he is telling his Jewish disciples to do, is to make disciples of all the non-Jewish people they encounter, teaching them to obey what Yeshua taught them: Torah, minus the man-made traditions.

A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another. -John 13:34

This is the only statement of Yeshua we can point to so far, that says he’s actually giving a “new” command. What is the new command, though? To love one another? How is that new? The second greatest commandment covers this, doesn’t it? The second part of the verse may be the clue. It seems that one of the proofs of identity as disciples of Yeshua, is to love one another. It’s not so much that loving is a new commandment, but it’s interpretation, relative to outside witnesses, is new. You love one another, not just because of what is says in Leviticus 19:17-18, but because it is a sign or indication to the rest of the world that, by loving one another, you are identifying yourselves with the Messiah.

I want you to recall the words spoken in the past by the holy prophets and the command given by our Lord and Savior through your apostles. -2 Peter 3:2

On the surface, Peter seems to be drawing a distinction between recalling the words of the holy prophets of old and the words of the Messiah and his apostles, but is necessarily the case? Consider the following:

…you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. -Exodus 19:6

This is God addressing Moses regarding the Children of Israel at Sinai. On the surface, it seems as if God is saying that the Israelites will be a kingdom of priests and a holy nation; two separate roles, but is this really so? In fact, it’s fairly common in the Bible, to express a comment in two, parallel statements. Ancient Hebrew poetry doesn’t rhyme, but is written in these sorts of parallel statements. It’s kind of like saying, “He was a tall man, a person of great height”. This is saying the same thing twice for emphasis.

Going back to the verse in 2 Peter 3 with that in mind, we could easily say that “…recall the words spoken in the past by the holy prophets…” and “…the command given by our Lord and Savior through your apostles” as being parallel statements in the same manner as Exodus 19:6. If you take Matthew 22:37-40 into consideration at the same time, it becomes more apparent that Yeshua’s commands were also the words of the holy prophets. Peter wrote his verse the way he did for emphasis, not to delineate between the commands given by the prophets and by Yeshua.

Some Christians get hung up on the Torah being just the 10 Commandments and that Yeshua gave many more than 10 Commandments, and thus assume that Yeshua’s commandments are different. However, the whole of Torah and the Prophets are more than the 10 Commandments, though of course, they are the core of Torah. Traditional Judaism considers there to be 613 Commandments, so the “war of the numbers” argument, quickly falls apart.

Now let’s go back to Matthew 22 and “All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”. Yeshua isn’t saying that, to love God and to love your neighbor are the only commandments, but the two greatest commandments. He’s also saying something else. He’s saying that those two commandments are the embodiment of all of the rest of the commandments (all the commandments “hang on” the greatest two). If you were to look at each and every commandment in the Bible, you’d see they fall into one of two general categories: Commandments that have to do with a person’s relationship with God, and commandments that have to do with a person’s relationship with other people (neighbors and brothers). The first great commandment is of the former type, and the second great commandment is the latter. Yeshua was saying that the two greatest commandments are representative of all of the commandments and all of the other commandments are rooted in either the first or second great commandment.

Yeshua was teaching that all commandments from God are important and valid. He wasn’t replacing old commandments with new, he was creating commentaries on the commandments, so that they could be more correctly understood by his audience, a nation of first century Jews. Almost 2000 years later, a “nation” of 21st Century non-Jews (for the most part) are trying to work their (our) way back through those commandments, determining what Yeshua is saying and what it means to us. What I discovered long ago, and what I hope this short article illustrates, is that in order to really understand Yeshua’s commandments, you have to understand Torah. During Yeshua’s trials at the hands of the Adversary, (Matthew 4:1-11, for example), Yeshua responded to the Accuser by quoting almost exclusively from Deuteronomy (Deuteronomy 6:13, 6:16, and 8:3, along with Psalm 91:11-12). If Yeshua wanted to create “new commandments” or Laws, his “face down” with the Adversary would have been a good time to do it.

Someday, should God be willing, I will take the opportunity to review and record each of the Messiah’s commandments in the Gospels and see the connections to Torah, noting if any of what Yeshua said (or Paul, John, Peter, and the other apostles for that matter) departs from Torah and the Prophets. Nothing that I’ve seen in the past 10 years of worship and study within the “Hebrew Roots” context, has thus far told me Yeshua or the apostles distanced themselves from the Word of God as it was given in the Tanakh (Old Testament), and created a new theology. In fact, God warns the Children of Israel on several occasions (Deuteronomy 4:2, Deuteronomy 12:32, and Proverbs 30:6) not to add or remove anything from His commandments. If Yeshua or the disciples had done so, they would have come under the condemnation of God the Father. Yeshua already said in John 15 that “I have obeyed my Father’s commands and remain in his love”. Let us love Yeshua by listening, learning, and obeying what he teaches, for he teaches the commandments of God.