24. Christians Have Changed the Torah

The Christian Statement

The Jewish objection that Christianity has abandoned the Torah — the dietary laws, the Sabbath, circumcision, the appointed feasts — is a serious one that deserves honest engagement rather than dismissal.

The honest answer is complex. The New Testament itself contains a vigorous debate about the application of Torah to Gentile believers — the Jerusalem Council of Acts 15 addressed it directly. Paul's letters argue that the ritual and ceremonial elements of Torah pointed forward to their fulfillment in Christ and are now understood differently in light of that fulfillment. Jesus's declaration that He came not to abolish the law but to fulfill it (Matthew 5:17) is the key claim.

Fulfill does not mean abolish. It means bring to its intended completion. The sacrificial system pointed to the ultimate sacrifice. The Temple pointed to the ultimate dwelling of God among His people. The Sabbath rest pointed to the ultimate rest available in Christ. The dietary laws that separated Israel as holy pointed to the holiness that is now available to all peoples through the Holy Spirit.

The Messianic Jewish community holds that Jewish believers in Jesus should maintain their Jewish identity and observe the Torah as an expression of that identity — not as a requirement for salvation, but as a gift of their heritage. This position, developed by scholars like Arnold Fruchtenbaum and Mark Kinzer, represents a sophisticated engagement with the question that the simple "Torah is abolished" answer does not.

✶ Jewish Objection: Jesus abolished the Torah and started a new religion for Gentiles. Judaism and Christianity are completely different religions.

✔ How to respond: Jesus was a Jew who read the Torah, kept the Sabbath, attended synagogue, celebrated the festivals, and died as the Passover lamb was being slaughtered. His first followers were all Jewish. The New Testament was largely written by Jewish authors. The church's separation from Judaism was a painful historical process, not the original intention of the first Jewish followers of Jesus. The question of what Torah observance means in light of the Messiah's coming is a genuinely complex theological question that Jewish followers of Jesus today continue to engage. But the claim that Jesus started a Gentile religion that has nothing to do with Judaism is historically and theologically unsupportable.