One Thing God's Torah Doesn't Do, But Yeshua Did For Believers | Romans 8:1–10

We have reached the more or less halfway point in the book of Romans as we enter chapter 8. So, it's fitting that the first word of Romans chapter 8 is therefore because therefore is a word that indicates that what follows is a conclusion of things previously said. Because Paul has been using the Talmudic style of debate that was popular among rabbis, I mean complete with a straw man. Then the sentence and the religious ruling that Paul makes in verse one is meant to sum up at the least what he said throughout chapter 7. But from a higher view, it is actually a ruling of of uh the extensive case that Paul has been building all throughout the opening of chapter 1. for trusting Yeshua of Nazareth as Israel's Messiah and then how this solves the problem of sin and death. So, I too will begin today's lesson with a therefore. I'm going to use this opportunity to summarize some things we have learned in order to continue building up your general body of knowledge about various aspects of our faith. The goal of Bible study here at Seed of Abraham is not about study and knowledge for its own sake. It's a search for divine truth as a means to a spiritual and personal maturity in the Lord and an ever closer and more obedient relationship with him. Sometimes to achieve that it's necessary that we look at our own history as the body of Christ and kind of understand h how we got here from there. Now, while chapter 7 of Romans is thought by many Bible commentators to be the most theologically important chapter in the Bible, which is a very questionable p questionable perspective from my viewpoint, chapter 8 is thought by other commentators to be the pinnacle of New Testament narratives that portrays just what it means to be a Christian. Now, what I'd like you to take from this is that Western Christianity finds Romans chapters 7 and 8 to be both a Bible within a Bible and the primary source for doctrinal belief for the church from the time of the early church fathers right on up to our current current era. For those who have studied with seed of Abraham Torah class for a few years, learning what the Old Testament has to say, I suspect it's a little easier for you to see that there is danger in a mindset that makes a mere two chapters of the New Testament as essentially the molten core of our faith. two chapters that decides the most important of Christian doctrines. When studying the Bible, at any point in either testament, one must look not only at the meaning of individual words, but also one must must find a how they fit in a in within a chapter. We have to look at sentences. We have to look at chapters. We have to look at entire books. Even a Bible book must be taken within the larger context of the entire word of God. In other words, to arrive at a well-rounded conclusion and a proper doctrine, we must look at at scripture from the near, the mid, and the far view. Now, some time ago, I told you that many Christian Bible commentators readily admit that the church, as we have known it for centuries, and never more so than within the last 200 years, is not so much the church of Christ as it is the church of Paul. By no means am I saying that the modern church believes in Paul rather than Jesus as Lord and Savior. However, the church has decided to rely more [clears throat] on the words of but one single highly venerated man, Paul the Apostle to the Gentiles, for our doctrines and theology than all the other biblical writers combined. But even more, church authorities have decided to focus on words of one particular book in the Bible more than any other, the book of Romans. And even beyond that, Romans chapter 7 and 8 are regularly regarded as the epitome of doctrinal teaching above all else written in the New Testament or Old. Now, I'm speaking in broad generalities, of course, since the church is not monolithic in its thoughts and and doctrines. Thus, whatever else is written in the Bible, it is often made to conform to Paul's supposed thoughts of Romans chapter 7 and 8. Now, I say supposed thoughts because Paul has been miscast. He's been poorly misunderstood over the centuries. less so interestingly by Bible scholars but more so by church government. Now this leads me to a brief comment about church structure in order to perhaps help you gain some insight on how it is traditionally operated. See, the institutional church within its plurality of its mainstream denominations, including Catholicism, by the way, is usually organized into two basic branches. The academic branch and the governing branch. The academic branch is those scholars and Bible commentators whom the church looks to for biblical knowledge on the one hand, but on the other hand, they are also the scholars who devise what's called the apologetics for accepted church doctrine. Right? That is the scholars who are devoted to a particular denomination of Christ of Christianity provide for both Bible exposition and for a formal rationale as to why their denomination believes the things it does. However, this branch of church organization is visible only in books and commentaries as reference sources. It is the governing branch of the church that Christians are most familiar with because it's the visible branch. It's what we see and what we hear when we attend a worship service. The governing branch is on on the local level is the pastor and the ministerial staff. above him if he's part of a recognized denomination are usually a regional and then a national board that not only determines church rules and doctrine but also enforces them. However, their decisions on rules and doctrines influence and control the academic branch far more than the academic branch influences the governing branch. From the governing branch's viewpoint, the search for biblical truth was concluded long ago upon the establishment of their do denomination. It's over. With their founding, a set of doctrines were established by the original founders that would henceforth be considered as immutable truth. These doctrines are not meant to be re-examined. They are meant to be obeyed. The job of the governing branch is not to continue searching God's word to be certain that their beliefs are accurate. Their job is to enforce the status quo and to in to emphasize the validity and superior nature of their doctrines upon their members. From an institutional perspective, it is imperative that the research and the knowledge of its scholars validates what the governing branch of the denomination already believes. Now, as I've conducted my biblical studies and my research, I have found that the Catholic Church seems to allow their academic branch far more freedom of thought and doctrinal expression than pretty much any other denomination I've run across. It surprises a lot of people, but it's true. It can be quite striking to read the works and conclusions of some of the finest Catholic scholars that regularly run completely counter to Catholic Church doctrine even openly challenging it. However, it is also self-evident how little influence the academic side has on the governing side of the Catholic Church. And now I don't wish to communicate that other denominations don't have their mavericks as well. But my point is this. It is always dangerous to begin a search for truth from the consensus church doctrine and then working backwards from it try to establish it in the Bible. More times than not the doctrines will prove out and other times they just won't. So the typical solution for this dilemma is to either ignore those passages that fly in the face of a denominational doctrine and instead highlight those passages that seem it's a little bit of twisting around to uphold it. Now since Paul is the primary writer of the New Testament, then indeed it is nearly always Paul's statements that are used as the basis of Christian denominational doctrines. However, as anyone who has ever carefully studied Paul knows, he can be frustrating because on any particular subject, one doesn't have to look very hard to find more than one viewpoint from Paul. Thus, a denominational church board has to pick through those statements of Paul and choose the ones they will rely on the most and dismiss the others that they consider as lesser importance. So when we take two chapters out of one book in the entire Bible as the source of truth and the beliefs that we all ought to hold, two chapters out of hundreds of chapters in the Bible as having the most weight or even as a manual of corrections for what the other parts of the Bible seem to say. We need to be equal parts cautious and skeptical. To be clear, I'm not a Paul skeptic by no means, but neither do I hold up Paul as the highest biblical authority on spiritual matters. For a proper understanding of what Paul says at any given time, it must be taken in context. Not only within the particular book we find up, but within the overall context of the several books that he wrote. And not only within the several books that he wrote, but within the context of what our savior said within the gospel accounts. And not only that, but within the context of what other writers have said in all parts of the Bible, as I have stated on more than one occasion, to take Paul as the preeeminent writer to rely on for Christian doctrine is as wrong as taking Luke or King David or John as preeminent. This is not Paul's fault. It is gentile church authorities who've placed him in that position. It is critical that believers remain balanced. But if we're going to lean especially hard on anyone's words in holy scripture, it must be the father's first, Christ second, Moses's third. with all other biblical writers and characters falling in behind them. But the other thing that needs to be said at the halfway mark of our study of Romans is this. [clears throat] Because Paul is rightly called the apostle to the Gentiles. This is the main reason that the gentile church has held him up above all other writers of the Bible. The thought is that Paul is like a specialist. He is the theology for Gentiles specialist in the Bible. So we need to listen to the specialist first and foremost and give less credence to the non-speists meaning all other writers, all other Bible characters. Yet at the same time, because of this designation, Paul has also come to be perceived as more gentile than Jew with his Jewishness very nearly disregarded. Thus, his words are stripped of their Jewish cultural and religious context, and they're regularly misconstrued. This is why we are crawling along so deliberately through the book of Romans. Just as we did through the book of Acts, for the earliest readers of Paul's letters, those to whom his letters were addressed, the context was understood. You know why? They were living in it. However, for the early church fathers who were Gentiles, the Jewish cultural context was mostly a mystery. Some were even antagonistic against it. And over time, the Jewish component was deemed to be irrelevant. It is this combination of mindset and circumstance that has led us and the church body to some very dubious doctrinal conclusions that are said to originate from the words of Paul. Hopefully our lessons in Acts now in Romans have shown you that what Paul is supposed to have said is often terribly misunderstood due to a lack of knowledge about Paul's Jewishness about Judaism in his time and thus his intended meaning. And now as we take up Romans chapter 8, I'm going to spend more time adding in the Jewish cultural backdrop that I hope will aid and are taking Paul's words as he meant for them to be taken. So open up your Bibles now to Romans chapter 8. Romans chapter 8. If you have a complete Jewish Bible, it's page 14:10. Romans chapter 8. We're going to read it all. [clears throat] Therefore, there is no longer any condemnation awaiting those who are in union with the Messiah Yeshua. Why? Because the Torah of the Spirit, which produces this life in union with Messiah Yeshua, has set me free from the Torah of sin and death. For what the Torah could not do by itself because it lacked the power to make the old nature cooperate, God did by sending his own son as a human being with a nature like our own sinful one, but without sin. God did this in order to deal with sin. And in so doing, he executed the punishment against sin in human nature, so that the just requirement of the Torah might be fulfilled in us who do not run our lives according to what our old nature wants, but according to what the spirit wants. For those who identify with their old nature set their minds on the things of the old nature. But those who identify with the spirit set their minds on the things of the spirit. Having one's mind controlled by the old nature is death. But having one's mind controlled by the spirit is life and shalom. For the mind controlled by the old nature is hostile to God because it does not submit itself to God's Torah. Indeed, it cannot. Those thus those who identify with their old nature cannot please God. But you you do not identify with your old nature but with the spirit provided the spirit of God is living inside of you. For anyone who doesn't have the spirit of the Messiah does not belong to him. However, if the Messiah is in you, then on the one hand the body is dead because of sin. But on the other hand, the spirit is giving life because God considers you righteous. And if the spirit of the one who raised Yeshua from the dead is living in you, then the one who raised the Messiah Yeshua from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through the his spirit living in you. So then, brothers, we don't owe a thing to our old nature that would require us to live according to our old nature. For if you live according to your old nature, you will certainly die. But if by the spirit you keep putting to death the practices of the body, you will live. All who are led by God's spirit are God's sons. For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to bring you back again into fear. On the contrary, you received the spirit who makes us sons and by whose power we cry out, "Aba! The spirit himself bears witness with our own spirits that we are children of God. And if we are his children, then we're hes of God, joint hes with the Messiah, provided we are suffering with him in order also to be glorified with him. Now, I don't think the sufferings we're going through now are even worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed to us in the future. The creation waits eagerly for the sons of God to be revealed. For the creation was made subject to frustration, not willingly, but because of the one who subjected it. But it was given a reliable hope that it too would be set free from its bondage to decay and it would enjoy the freedom accompanying the glory that God's children will have. Now we know that until now the whole creation has been groaning as with the pains of childbirth. And not only with it, but we ourselves who have the first fruits of the spirit grown inwardly as we continue waiting eagerly to be made sons of God. That is to have our whole bodies redeemed and set free. It was in this hope that we were saved. But if we see what we hope for, it isn't hope. I mean after all who ho hopes for what he already sees but if we continue hoping for something we don't see then we still wait eagerly for it with perseverance. Similarly the spirit helps us in our weakness for we don't know how to pray the way we should but the spirit himself pleads on our behalf with groanings too deep for words. And the one who searches hearts knows exactly what the spirit is thinking because his pleadings for God's people accord with God's will. Furthermore, we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called in accordance with his purpose. Because those whom he knew in advance, he also determined in advance, would be conformed to the pattern of his son, so that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom he thus determined in advance, he also called. Those whom he called, he also caused to be righteous. To those whom he caused caused to be considered righteous, he also glorified. What then are we to say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare even his own son, but gave him up on behalf of us all. Is it possible that having given us his son, he would not give us everything else, too? So, who will bring a charge against God's chosen people? Certainly not God. He's the one who causes them to be considered righteous. Who punishes them? Certainly not the Messiah, Yeshua, who died and more than that has been raised. He's at the right hand of God and is actually pleading on our behalf. Who will separate us from the love of the Messiah? Trouble, hardship, persecution, hunger, poverty, danger, war, as the Tanakh puts it. For your sake, we are being put to death all day long. We are considered sheep to be slaughtered. No, in all of these things, we are super conquerors through the one who has loved us. For I'm convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor other nor other heavenly rulers, neither what exists nor what is coming, neither powers above nor powers below, nor any other thing create created thing will be able to separate us from the love of God which comes to us through the Messiah Yeshua our Lord. As I stated at the outset, the first word of this chapter is therefore. Now, this means that what Paul is doing is summing up, he's coming to a conclusion about what he has previously said. Now, remember that when Paul wrote this letter, there were no chapters and verses. So it only appears as though there is a break between the final verse of chapter 7 and the first verse of chapter 8. Originally it was just one long letter. The point being that we don't have to debate whether the therefore is truly Paul drawing the conclusion about what he said in chapter 7 and before. It obviously is. And what is Paul's conclusion is stated in verse one is Paul's conclusion, well the law is now a dead letter for Christians. That what he says. He says nothing of the kind. But you'd think so if you were to listen to most denominations and their scholars. Paul's words to open chapter 8 are very specific and I want to give them to you in three English versions so that you can see that there is no issue of different translation possibilities in our complete Jewish Bible. Therefore, there is no longer any condemnation awaiting those who are in union with the Messiah Yeshua. In the King James version, there uh there is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus who walk not in the flesh but after the spirit. Romans 8 uh in in the the NAS version. There is now therefore no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. I mean, as you can see, these words from various versions all say essentially the same thing, and they use the same key word, condemnation. That's the key word in that verse. What Romans chapters 1-7 all add up to according to Paul is everything he's had to say to this point is there is no condemnation awaiting those who are believers in Yeshua as their Lord and Savior. What does condemnation mean? Well, in modern times, to condemn mostly means to judge someone or to publicly censor them or or to denounce some action that someone has taken. [clears throat] It's not at all what condemn meant even a couple hundred years ago. In the Bible era, it meant only one thing. It meant to sentence to death. So to use modern words, this verse says, "Therefore, there is no longer a death sentence awaiting those who are in union with the Messiah Yeshua." Well, what death sentence is Paul speaking about? It's the death sentence that all humans have coming to us due to our being related to Adam, thus inheriting the consequences of Adam's original sin and for us as individuals who break God's divine laws. And as Paul has carefully pointed out in making his case during the previous seven chapters, God's laws come in three forms. First, a direct commandment given one- on-one from God to a specific person. The example that Paul used was when God told Adam not to eat a specific fruit from a specific tree. Second of all, the natural law which is inherently present within all human beings regardless of race, culture, ethnicity, nationality, doesn't matter. Third, the law of Moses. Now, I want to point out a couple of things for us to consider. If, as some Christians claim, the only divine law that believers have to obey is the law of love, then why doesn't Paul mention that as a fourth form of God's divine law? If our only commandment is to love, then why when we don't show love, isn't that breaking God's divine laws? And of all people that might overlook mentioning that, it would certainly not be Paul. The other thing Christians often claim is that the Holy Spirit directly tells each person the laws he or she should do and not do and that is the sum total that any particular individual has the obligation to follow in their lives or that the only only the things that Jesus repeated from the law of Moses are divine laws for his followers. Do we hear any hint of that? Have we heard any hint of that from Paul? No. For Paul, there's only three sources of God's laws and instructions, not four, five, or six. And all three come directly from the Old Testament, the Tanakh. These other so-called sources of laws that are popular in the modern church are no more than man-made doctrines. So it is the death sentence of God that believers no longer face as a result of our union with Christ. Does this mean believers don't die? No. This is referring to eternal or spiritual death that is the result of sin. So biblically and as it relates to any of the three forms of divine law, including the law of Moses, the only aspect of those laws that changes due to the advent of Messiah Yeshua is that the breaking of those laws does not condemn us. Or using the word that the law of Moses employs, and it means the same thing. Believers are no longer subject to the curse of the law. The law itself is not done away with, nor is the law itself a curse. Believers can still break the law and sin, as Paul lamented to end chapter 7. It is only that the eternal death penalty due to us has been paid for, hallelujah, by Messiah. and we don't have to suffer it. Now, verse two can create some problems for us if we don't recognize something important. The problem is that [clears throat] Paul uses different words and phrases for essentially the same thing. Why? Because within the Judaism in his day, all these words and phrases were in common use and people understood them. Too often we try to nuance what are essentially synonyms so that we can show some differences between those choices of words, but the differences aren't actually there. For instance, Paul says that the law of the spirit, which produces life, has set him free from the law of sin and death. This is not a new kind of law he's speaking about. It is simply a manner of speaking. And our modern English is like saying principle. I mean what else? What but what else can be confusing is the introduction of the word spirit into this narrative. What does he mean by spirit in this case? If you were in a Jew, if you were a Jewish day, you would probably understand his reference. I've told you of the doctrine of the two ways or the doctrine of the two masters that was common knowledge within Judaism and how even Yeshua used this longheld Jewish doctrine in his teaching, you know, no man can serve two masters. Throughout Romans, Paul constantly falls back on the doctrine of two masters in his teaching as an essential element of the effect of the gospel on this world. The essence, the writers of the Dead Sea Scrolls held essentially the identical doctrine. But being the separatists that they were, they gave it a slightly different name. They preferred to call it the doctrine of two spirits. So they thought and they wrote of the evil and good inclinations as the spirits of evil and the spirits of good. That's how they wrote about it. It's how they thought about it. Thus, Paul was merely using the essence vocabulary when he introduces the word spirit in verse two. But it is virtually synonymous with the two masters doctrine. And that's how Paul meant it. Now, Paul says a mouthful in verse three. enough that theologians could write entire essays just on pieces of it. Now, first Paul says that what the law could not do, God did. This is definitely referring to the law of Moses. And Paul is about to tell us that there was something that the law was not capable of. So God accomplished it using other means. Now, most often this is an aha moment for Christian pastors and Bible teachers. They see this as an admission by Paul that the law of Moses was defective. So God had to apply a patch. Or perhaps it was an excuse for God to just get rid of it for something else that worked better. All that's being said is that God did something that the law was never created to do. The law of Moses was not designed ever as some kind of a universal redemption device that solved all of mankind's problems with sin and death. It served a limited but a critical set of purposes that will remain needed until we have the new heavens and earth that were promised will eventually come. The thing that the Torah, the law was never created to do was this. It could not change human nature. That's his point. It could not affect the evil inclination that dominates what Paul calls our old nature. The law defines sin. It characterizes God's nature. It explains how to live a a right a righteous life. It tells us what to do to make peace with God when a law is broken. But the law could not cause a person to love God. The law cannot cause a person to obey God. The law can only in steer a fear of God in them due to the harsh consequences for disobedience. Yet in a certain very real sense, the law was God being accommodating towards his people. Yes, I said accommodating. He knew that his people needed a rather detailed road map on how to live as his redeemed people. The natural law was very broad and it left much for humans to determine for ourselves and almost always to our detriment. But the moment he issued the law, his people would need help for when they did not follow God's road map as they knew they should. They would need to be rescued from God's wrath. when they sinned. So in a marvelous act of grace, God instituted ritual animal sacrifice. Why is that grace? Because when one of his people broke a law, instead of them facing the spiritual death penalty, which is permanent separation from God, the life of an innocent creature, an animal could be substituted. That is grace. See, that is the essence of the purpose for the sacrificial system. And it's important to remember that the God principle behind that system is exactly what has saved us. Yeshua's death was nothing more nor less than substitutionary sacrifice on our behalf. In the second half of verse three, Paul says something that has caused enormous debates within Christianity. He says that the way God accomplished doing this thing that the law of Moses was never designed to do was by sending his son as a human being with a nature like our own sinful one. Wow. Notice that Yeshua was sent as a human being. He was not an apparition who only appeared to be human. He was fully human. In fact, says Paul, Yeshua had the same nature as all humans, a sinful one. That is another neverending doctrinal battle within Christianity. The idea that Yeshua had the same sinful nature as all of us is not universally accepted within the church. In most English versions, the word likeness is present to modify the words about Yeshua having sinful flesh. Here is an example of other English verses of this same verse, King James version. For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin condemn sin in the flesh. Now the word likeness is indeed there in the Greek. But what does it indicate? Does it mean that while Yeshua looked like he was made of the same stuff as regular humans, flesh, in fact, he wasn't an actual human? Was his physical pre presence merely an illusion? Was he like the Terminator? Flesh stretched over a non-human frame. If the word likeness was not there, then it would be it would unambiguously indicate that God sent his son in typical human sinful flesh. But the word is there. So what's the answer? Well, I think the most logical answer that fits within the context of the chapter with what Paul says elsewhere and within the context of what we have read about Messiah Yeshua in the Gospels, it's this. Indeed, he came in sinful flesh. But as we're going to find out later, he never succumbed to it. Not even once. He had within him an evil inclination. He could be tempted. You think Satan thought he was wasting his time? He didn't think he was wasting his time. He knew. He He could feel what all the rest of us feel. But he also had God's spirit in him. And with the power of the spirit, he was able to resist his evil inclination. So Yeshua theoretically could have lived to a ripe old age and died as all humans do, but he never sinned. He never once allowed himself to be a slave to the master of his evil inclination. Yet he could suffer. He could feel pain. He could feel cold and heat. He could feel hungry. He could feel thirsty. He had emotions including fear and anxiety. He could bleed. He could die. Listen to Matthew 26:es 38 and 39. He said to them, he said to them, this is Yeshua speaking, "My heart is so filled with sadness I could die. Remain here. Stay awake with me." And going on a little farther, he fell on his face, praying, "My father, if it's possible, let this cup pass from me." Yet, not what I want, but what you want. Or in this even more dramatic version, the same story in Luke 22 43 2-44, Father, if you are willing, take this cup away from me still. Let not my will but yours be done. And there appeared to him an angel from heaven giving him strength. And in great anguish he prayed more intensely so that the sweat became like drops of blood falling to the ground. So I can only conclude that Paul added the term likeness to make it clear that the word had become flesh. real human flesh. John 1:1 in the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God and the word became a human being and he lived with us and we saw his shehna the sheha of the father's only son full of grace and truth that is the word that was with God from the beginning remained himself even when he became flesh and blood Jewish flesh and blood when he was brought into this world through a human mother as are all humans and he was given a human Jewish name Yeshua. And since it was the word of God, who was the author of the Torah, then what else could he do but fulfill what Christians always say is impossible? He did the law and never once broke it. Deuteronomy 30 11-14. For this mitzvah, this commandment which I am giving you today is not too hard for you. It's not beyond your reach. It isn't in the sky so that you need to ask who will go up to the sky for us and bring it down to us and make us hear it so that we can obey it. Likewise, it's not beyond the sea so that you need to ask, well, who will cross the sea for us and bring it to us and make us hear it so we can obey it? On the contrary, the word is very close to you. It's in your mouth, even in your heart. Therefore, you can do it. So, since Yeshua had an evil inclination, then it means he had a free will. He could have chosen to avoid the cross. And clearly as he was in the garden of Gachman, Gethsemane, he was battling his own will that wanted to live and not die. But is good inclination again one as he virtually defined the difference between the good and the evil inclinations between the evil master and the good master when he said in Matthew 26:39 yet not as I will but as you will because the good inclination is doing the father's will all the evil inclinations doing our own will. The good news is that once arisen, Christ no longer suffered with an evil inclination. And that is one of the things that we can believers, we can look so forward to. When we arise from our rest upon our resurrection, we will no longer have to battle an evil inclination is gone forever. Never again to afflict us. Because as Paul said, we have died in Christ. That's what that means. Through our baptism, we have identified ourselves with Christ's death, burial, and resurrection. Now, we've already received the likeness of his death and burial, but now we await the end times and his return for the likeness of his resurrection. Now, I want you to appreciate why Paul spends all this time, all this ink speaking about the same two or three principles that were already well known and taken for granted within Judaism in his day. Now, please hear me. As much as Paul's teaching has crossed the boundaries and of of time and space to affect us in in the 21st century, he was by no means thinking in terms of speaking to Gentiles in the 3 millennium AD. He was writing this letter to the Roman congregations. He was addressing matters directly pertinent to them. He was using terms they generally understood. But at the same time, it's important to understand that because these principles that Paul quotes were wellestablished, they were operating within first century Judaism, then of course believers in every age need to understand them within that same Jewish context. I think one of the better ways to help bridge this this difficult gap is to hear what the renowned 12th century Jewish age Ram Amanades had to say about the limitations of the Torah, the limitations of the law. In his work, the guide for the perplexed, he says that the law of Moses indeed has no power over the human nature. And so no power to affect change. There's no power that can affect change to the human nature. There is no power that will ever come that can affect the human nature. That's what he says. See this belief was a core doctrine of Judaism in Paul's day. So this is why Paul is going to such depth and essentially repeating himself a number of times or better saying the same thing a number of different ways to get this difficult point across especially to his fellow Jews. I mean the gentile believers wouldn't have known much of any if anything about this Jewish doctrine. He was refuting this first century doctrine of doctrine of Judaism that there is no way to change our human nature and be rid of the evil inclination. Paul was explaining that while that may have been true at one time, it is no longer. Yeshua is able to do the impossible. He can change human nature. Listen to the Rambam. What was there to prevent God from causing the human inclination to accomplish acts of obedience willed by him to become a natural disposition fixed in us? God does not change at all the nature of human individuals by means of miracles. It is because of this that there are commandments and prohibitions, rewards and punishments. We do not say this because we believe that the changing of the human nature of any individual is particularly difficult for him. Rather, it is possible. It is fully within his capacity. But according to the foundations of the law of the Torah, he has never w it, nor shall he ever will it. For if it were his will that the nature of any human individual be changed because of what he wills from that individual, the sending of prophets and all the g giving of the law would have been useless. I mean what an amazing admission for mades. First that the human nature is untouchable by any earthly device including the law of Moses. And second, that if God decided to change the nature of humans to get rid of our evil inclination, then the ram couldn't understand what the role of the law would become. If only he would have read what Paul had to say here in Romans, he'd understand it. Again in his letter to the Romans, Paul was not establishing some distant ethereal theoretical systematic theology. He was directly uh directly addressing real issues of his time. It was a firm and settled belief within Judaism that God, although fully capable, would never undertake the task of changing the human nature. >> We'll continue with chapter 8 next time. For more teachings of real Bible study and to rediscover God's word with Tom Bradford, visit Torah class today on the web, streaming TV, or download the Torah class mobile app.