Keeping Torah as a Christian
For Christians, the law, or Torah, has negative connotations. And it is true that salvation isn’t something people earn by keeping the Torah, but at its heart, the Torah is meant to communicate God’s expectations for his people once they are already a part of his people. But that doesn’t mean that Keeping Torah as a Christian isn’t right. In fact, we are supposed to keep it. That’s what Jesus means when he says he hasn’t come to abolish the law and the prophets.
At the same time, Jesus keeping the Torah looks very different from what it meant to his contemporaries. Jesus fulfills the law, meaning, in him, we see what God’s standard of faithfulness was always supposed to look like. Jesus keeps Torah by communicating the Father’s best intentions. Christians are called to observe Torah, not by getting circumcised, or by eating kosher, but by imitating Jesus’ posture of purity, integrity and love. God gives us grace as we seek to keep Torah in this fashion, but his aim is that our lives change to reflect his glory to the world.
