I know the Messiah said in Matthew 5:17-18 that He did not come to abolish the Law, but Galatians 3 and Romans 7 talks about how those who are of belief are blessed, and how those of the works of Torah are under the curse. What is Paul trying to say here?
ANSWER:
We will go through each chapter, taking time to clarify important points. I'm not going to write the whole chapter out, though, so you may want to have your Scriptures open.
Matthew 5:19 -- "Whosoever therefore shall break one of the least of these commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called he least in the kingdom of heaven; but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven."
OK, let's start with Galatians 3.
Verse 1 -- We must obey the truth. What is truth? Psalm 119:160 - "Thy Word is true from the beginning, and every one of Thy righteous judgments endureth forever." John 17:17 - "Set them apart through Thy truth; Thy Word is truth."
Verse 2 -- It is not because of the works of the Law that we receive the Spirit. Elohim did not choose us because of anything good we did. Rather, when we believe in Him and receive His Spirit, we keep His Law because of that belief / faith.
Verse 3 -- Torah-keeping does not save us. We need something more than works, or we will never reach perfection.
Verse 6 -- Abraham's belief was accounted to him for righteousness. This is because when we truly believe the Father, we strive to obey Him as well.
Verse 9 -- Here we see that "having faith" and "being faithful" go hand-in-hand. Abraham believed, but he was also faithful. The wertern world's idea of faith is that it is simply knowing in one's mind that something is true. Scripture's context, however, is different.
faith - Hebrew word # 529 - "faithful, trustworthy"
faith - Hebrew word # 530 - "faithfulness, steadiness, trustworthiness"
faith - Greek word # 4102 - "faith, faithfulnes, belief, trust, with an implication that actions based on that trust may follow"
Now we will talk about verse 10. The translators have purposely made this verse very confusing, but it is really such a wonderful bit of wisdom. Let's read it: "For as many as are of the works of the Torah are under the curse: for it is written, Cursed is everyone that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the Torah to do them." Does the writer seem to be contradicting himself? It seems to me that he rather does. "The Word of Yahweh" translation sheds beautiful light on this Scripture, and with this translation it makes completely perfect sense. "For as many as are out of (apart from) the works of the Law are under the curse: for it is written, Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them." Greek # 1537 in the Strong's clarifies the mistranslation. This Greek word means "of, out of; from, away from". So it can mean two exactly opposite things. The translators picked the confusing and seemingly contradictory meaning rather than the one that made perfect sense.
Verse 11 -- We are cursed if we do not keep the Law. However, we cannot be justified simply by the Law. We must also believe in Yahweh and commit our way to Him, for otherwise we can never be faithful to the works of the Torah.
Verses 11-12 -- "The just shall live by faith(fulness)." (See Habakkuk 2:4.) "The man that doeth them (Yahweh's Laws) shall live in them." (See Lev. 18:5.) Faith (in its broad sense as explained previously) and Law are closely related.
Verse 13 -- How has He redeemed us from the curse? By purifying our hearts, taking away our sins, inscribing His Law upon our hearts, and helping us to keep and guard it.
Verse 14 -- "But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel, After those days, saith Yahweh, I will put My Law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts, and will be their Elohim, and they shall be My people. and they shall teach no more every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know Yahweh; for they shall all know Me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith Yahweh; for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more." (Jer. 31:33-34) This is one of the many promises of the Spirit which we receive through faith. (See Heb. 10:15-17.)
Verse 15 -- Covenants can not be broken.
Verse 17 -- The Law does not annul faith. (But then, neither does faith annul the Law.)
Verse 19 -- Until Messiah (the seed) comes (enters into each of our hearts), we all walk in transgression. The Law, then, is for the purpose of pointing out our sin so that we might come to realize our lost condition and turn in faith to Yahshua.
Verse 20 -- "Now a mediator is not a mediator of one, but Elohim is one." See also Mal. 3:6; Heb. 13:8. If Yahweh changes like a shifting shadow, one minute expecting us to keep His Law, and the next minute annuling it, then we never know what to expect, and we are in a dangerous predicament. But that is not how Yahweh operates.
Verse 21 -- If Yahweh does not change, then He cannot contradict Himself. He cannot make a promise and a Law that contradict and do away with each other.
Verses 21-22 -- The Law cannot give life on its own, for we have all sinned, and without a higher power to redeem us, we are hopelessly lost in a cycle of breaking the Torah over and over again.
Verses 23-25 -- It is important to understand that all of the "unders" in these verses refer to being "beneath".
under - Greek # 5259 - "under (in space as well as in status or authroity)"
Without faith we do not measure up to the Torah. This is a personal thing for each one of us, not a time period thing where thousands of years went by without faith (so that no one was measuring up to the standard), and suddenly faith flourished for everyone, thus bringing the Law into true practice in people's lives. No, we each must experience faith springing up in our own lives, thus helping us to measure up to the Law, no longer shut up unto the faith, but having His perfect instructions finally revealed in our hearts and spirits. Once we do walk in faithfulness, we progress to a higher level. Instead of being shut up to the faith, and living beneath the standards of the Law, we are now under - Greek # 1772 - "subject to the law; legal"
1 Corinthians 9:20-21 -- "... to them that are under (Greek # 5259; beneath, underneath, below) the Law, [I became] as beneath the Law, that I might gain them that beneath the Law (In other words, he related to them, for he had once been without faith, and thus beneath the true Law of liberty too.): to them that are without Law, as without Law (again, relating to them), being not without Law to Yahweh, but under (Greek # 1772; subject to) the Law to Messiah, that I might gain them that are without Law."
Verse 28 -- Messiah Yahshua is for everyone. The Law is for everyone. Belief and faithfulness are for everyone. We are all one.
So there is Galatians 3. Now, let's move on to Romans 7.
Verse 1 -- Just like Galatians 3, this chapter starts with a definite affirming of the validity of the Law.
Verse 2 -- It is obvious which law the woman is loosed from (not the entire Torah, but simply the law of her marriage to the deceased man). As verse 3 goes on to clarify, "she is free from that law".
Verse 4 -- This is talking about the same law. By Messiah's death (and the crucifying of our flesh with Him), we are dead to the law (of our marriage to the prince of this world) that we should be married to another (that is, Elohim).
Verse 5 -- By remaining married to sin (keeping the marriage law), wickedness was working in our flesh and bringing forth death.
Verse 6 -- This is the same law again. We are delivered from being held in unrighteousness. "... that through death He might destroy him that had the power of death, that is the devil, and deliver them who, through fear of death, were all their lifetime subject to bondage." (Heb. 2: 14-15)
Verse 7 -- As we have been discussing how Yahshua's death (and our death with Him) frees us from the law (that binds us to union with unrighteousness), Paul now asks, "What shall we say then? Is the Torah / Law (as a whole) sin? Elohim forbid!" In other words, we were discussing one little commandment in the spiritual sense. But the fact that Yahshua frees us from that does not mean that the law is sin. He delivered us in accordance with the law (by causing us to die to our flesh). The Law is profitable for the purpose of revealing what things are pleasing to Yahweh and what things aren't.
Verse 8 -- Without a law, sin is dead so to speak, for in that case, there is nothing that says, "This is wrong", etc.
Verses 8-12 -- Sin takes advantage of the Law and slays those who are not rooted in sincerity and faithfulness. But this does not make the Torah bad. Nay, "the Torah is set-apart, and the commandment set-apart, and just, and good."
Verse 13 -- I will write this one out, using THE SCRIPTURES translation, because it is a key verse and is extremely important in understanding Romans 7. "Therefore, has that which is good become death to me? Let it not be! But the sin, that sin might be manifest, was working death in me through what is good, so that sin through the command might become an exceedingly great Sinner." To the carnal mind it may appear that the Law (that which is good) is the curse, but Scripture is very clear that sin and the transgression of the set-apart Law is the real curse.
Now we hit some verses that can really seem very confusing, but there is an answer to them as well.
Verses 14-23 -- Paul is talking about his past here (Compare to the past tense wording in verses 9-11.) as will clearly be made known to us through study of Romans 8. Verse 23 -- Contrary to his past, Paul is not captive to sin anymore, but is a victorious warrior for truth. "For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal (whereas Paul was previously carnal; Rom. 7:14), but mighty through Elohim to the pulling down of strongholds, casting down imaginations and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of Elohim, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Messiah." (2 Cor. 10:4-5) This is complete submission to the Father and freedom from the bondage of unrighteousness.
Verse 24 -- The "body of death" that Paul is talking about is the flesh which we die to. Verse 25 -- Why is he thanking Yahweh? Because Yahweh is the One who delivers him (and each one of us) through Yahshua. Now we do not walk after the lawless flesh anymore, but after a mind renewed in Torah.
Romans 8 affirms this:
Verse 1 -- We do not walk after that flesh which violates the Law anymore. "But with the flesh [I serve] the law of sin" is an old practice that is put behind those who are renewed in the Spirit of Elohim.
Verse 2 -- "The Law of the spirit of life" is the Torah given to Moses. "He made Moses to hear His voice, and brought him into the dark cloud, and gave him commandments before His face, even the Law/Torah of life and knowledge, that he might teach Jacob His covenants and Israel His judgments." (Sirach 45:5; "Apocrypha") "The law of sin and death" is the curse which comes upon us when we transgress the Law of life. (Refer back to Gal. 3:10,13.)
Verse 3 -- On our own (that is, walking in the flesh), we cannot keep the Law. Messiah Yahshua puts away the sin in our flesh.
Verse 4 -- In place of the old ways, He puts His righteousness (which is revealed through His Law and our obedience to it) within us. The word "fulfilled" in this verse certainly does not mean "done away with".
fulfil - Greek # 4137 - "to fulfil, make full; to be filled, full, complete"
This means that we are full of His spirit, completely renewed, and truly measuring up to the standard of Torah by the mercy of our Heavenly Father.
Another translation of this Greek word is "to make replete, i.e. to cram (a net), level up (a hollow), or furnish,..... satisfy, execute (an office), finish (a period or task), verify (or coincide with a prediction), etc." Obviously, the righteousness of the Law is not something that is finished (done away with) in our lives. Rather, the emptiness that we experience when we are not right with our Heavenly Father is filled in and leveled up. We are made complete. And just as was predicted in Jer. 31:31-34, all who believe with sincerity of heart (past, present, and future) will have His Law written on their hearts.
Verse 7-8 -- This is the old life. Compare to Rom. 7:14-23.
Verse 9 -- "But ye are NOT in the flesh (any longer), but in the spirit, if so be that the spirit of Elohim dwell in you."
Verse 10 -- That body/flesh (Rom. 7:24-25) is now powerless.
Verse 13 -- It is so important that we do not any longer live after the flesh that Paul boldly states, "For if ye live after the flesh ye shall die, but if ye through the spirit do mortify (kill, Greek # 2289) the deeds of the body, ye shall live."
Verse 15 -- This spirit of bondage is bondage to the flesh and its sins, not bondage to the Law. Being free from this bondage that the devil would wish us all to be held captive in, we are now adopted into the family of Yahweh, and with our hearts and spirits we cry, "Abba, Father!" Then shouldn't we cry the same thing with our lives, by truly trusting in Him as our Father and living in humble obedience to His commands?
Selah. Think on these things. And may a blessed shalom from the Father fill your heart and life. Philippians 4:7 -- "And the peace of Yahweh which passeth all understanding shall keep your heart and mind through Messiah Yahshua."
For further study, check out The Works Of The Apostles