Roots

America's bicentennial in 1976 saw the publication of Roots: The Saga of an American Family, a novel by African-American writer Alex Haley (1921–1992). The novel, which is loosely based on Haley's own family history, tells the story of an adolescent African boy named Kunta Kinte who was captured and taken to America as a slave in the eighteenth century. The novel traces his story and the story of his descendants—all the way down to Alex Haley himself—and it became a cultural sensation, holding the no. 1 spot on the New York Times Best Seller list for 22 weeks. It led to a hugely popular television adaptation, an eight-part miniseries that aired in January 1977 entitled Roots.

Both the novel and the miniseries generated tremendous interest among many Americans in their genealogies, and stimulated many people to dig into the roots of their own family backgrounds. It also engendered a greater appreciation of African-American history, particularly in regard to the sensitive issue of slavery.

Just as Alex Haley's novel and its subsequent adaptation sparked an interest in discovering and getting in touch with one's genealogical roots, over the last few years there has been a growing trend within the Church toward getting in touch with one's spiritual roots. It is a movement that is devoted to rediscovering the Hebraic roots of the Bible and of the Christian faith, and it is gaining widespread traction throughout mainstream Christianity. Although it goes by various names, it is most commonly known and referred to as the Hebrew Roots movement, or the HRM.

Churches that become involved in this movement often start out with a sincere and commendable desire to simply explore the Jewish roots of the Christian faith. By teaching their congregations about the Jewish feasts, the Torah, and some of the culture and traditions of first-century Judaism, they progressively deepen their understanding and appreciation of the Bible and what our very Jewish Messiah Jesus Christ said and did.

And that's a good thing.

But in many cases, it doesn't stop there. As time goes on and they get more deeply involved in the HRM, many such churches begin to host full-blown celebrations of the Jewish feasts, such as Passover, the Feast of Unleavened Bread, and so on. They begin to observe the Jewish Sabbath on Saturday. Their study of the Bible increasingly focuses on the Old Testament, especially the Torah (the first five books). They begin to place great emphasis on the fact that Jesus was a not merely a Jew, He was a Torah-observant Jew, as were His disciples, and they begin to explore ways in which congregants can live a "Torah-pursuant" life.

Torah pursuant. In other words, kinda sorta trying to be Torah observant. That's a euphemistic way to get around the fact that in reality nobody can actually follow the Torah today, because they can't go to Jerusalem and offer burnt offerings and sacrifices at the temple as required by the Law of Moses because...uh, sorry, but there is no temple.

Their vocabulary begins to change. Various Hebrew-isms begin to pepper their conversations. It's never "God," it's Yahweh. Not only that, but this may be pronounced in a special way such as "YUH-wuh" (or whatever) to emphasize that they have managed to hit upon the true pronunciation that pleases Yahweh...er, I mean YUH-wuh. They may contend that the name Jesus is of pagan Greek origins, so it's always Yeshua, or Yeshua HaMashiach (Jesus the Messiah). The Holy Spirit is the Ruach Hakodesh. Books of the Bible and the characters mentioned therein also begin to be called by their Hebrew names. The apostle Paul becomes Rav Shaul (shah-OOL), where rav is a Hebrew term for "rabbi" or "teacher."

Now, if it stopped there, the HRM would be, at the very worst, a harmless affectation, albeit a well-intentioned one. If it were just a bunch of Gentile believers who were sincerely interested in becoming better educated about the Hebraic roots of Christianity and in the process had become enamored with all things Jewish, I wouldn't be wasting my time writing this.

In fact, I might even join 'em.

Seriously. After all, exploring the Jewish roots of the Bible and of the Christian faith can be extremely rewarding and enlightening, and I would strongly encourage any and all born-again believers to do so. The Bible was written mostly by Jews about a Jewish Messiah who observed Jewish laws and customs and was sent by God first and foremost to the Jews and whose coming was foretold in Jewish Scripture. There is no denying that at the core of Christianity beats a Jewish heart, and ignoring that fact robs Christians of a great deal of understanding of and insight into Scripture, both Old and New Testaments.

By most accounts, the HRM is one of the fastest growing movements within Christianity today. I believe one reason for its rapid growth is the fact that many Evangelical Christians in America are simply fed up with glitzy, seeker-sensitive churches that spew PowerPoint pablum about having your best life now instead of the gospel of Jesus Christ—instead of stressing the pursuit of holiness and sanctification. They are more devoted to social programs than to spiritual growth, and so many sincere believers have been spiritually starved by a shallow, fleshly imitation of Christianity. It's no surprise they are hungry for something real and substantive, and for many such individuals the Hebrew Roots movement appears as veritable manna from heaven.

To give you a small taste of what I mean about gaining a deeper grasp of the Word from a Hebraic perspective, let me share with you one of my favorite examples of how knowing a little bit about Jewish traditions and customs reveals a depth of meaning of Scripture that would otherwise be glossed over or missed entirely.

There is an incident mentioned in three of the Gospels in which people were bringing small children to Jesus so He could bless them. The following version comes from Mark, but Matthew (19:13–15) and Luke (18:15–17) record the same event.

The vast majority of Gentile Christians read this passage and think it's just cute and adorable. When Jesus lets the children come to Him and says "Whoever will not receive the Kingdom of God like a little child, he will in no way enter into it" they think He's just saying that we should be innocent and pure like children, or something along that line. I've even heard Bible teachers for whom I have the greatest respect teach something similar.

Well, isn't that special.

First of all, understand this: Every single thing that Jesus said and did that is recorded in Scripture has such profound spiritual significance that we are still plumbing the depths and peeling back the layers two thousand years later. Trust me—nothing Jesus said or did amounted to simply being "cute and adorable."

Most Christians miss the full impact of what Jesus said here for one simple reason: They're not familiar with the Jewish customs of the day.

As is true today in many cultures, in traditional Jewish society a father was held legally responsible for his children, and that responsibility extended to liability for their misdeeds. If a child committed an offense, the child's father would be legally responsible to make remunerations on the child's behalf. In other words, the father had to "pay for the sins" of his children.

When the child reached the age of maturity, the father was relieved of this legal responsibility. That age varied from period to period—in first-century Judea, the age of maturity was 20. Centuries later, it was lowered to 13 for boys and 12 for girls. Today, the day after a Jewish boy turns 13, he takes part in what is known as a bar mitzvah, a traditional Jewish celebration that marks a boy's reaching the age of maturity. During the ceremony, the boy's father makes the following pronouncement in Hebrew:

"Baruch shepetarani me' onsho shel zeh."
"Blessed is He who has exempted me
from punishment for this boy."

In other words, "I thank God that I am no longer legally responsible for taking the punishment for my son's transgressions. Morally, he's on his own, and will have to take his due punishment by himself."

This is the part that blows right by Gentile Christians. When Jesus said "Whoever will not receive the Kingdom of God like a little child, he will in no way enter into it," He wasn't trying to be cute. He didn't just mean we had to be pure and innocent like children. He meant that unless we allow our Heavenly Father to take full responsibility for our sins and take upon Himself their due punishment—just as an earthly father did for his children according to Jewish custom—we will never enter heaven.

That's exactly why Jesus came to the world: He came as God in the flesh to take the punishment for our sin in our place. Only by repenting of our sin and believing in faith in what Jesus did for us on the cross can we be forgiven, be declared righteous before God, and live for eternity in His presence. There's no other way.

Thus, if we don't come as a "child" whose Father has taken the punishment for our sins, it's on us: We're on our own, and will have to take our due punishment by ourselves.

That's not cute and adorable—that's the stark reality of the gospel, but only a knowledge of Jewish customs brings it to life.

Again, if the HRM merely sought to educate believers about the Jewish roots of the Christian faith, that would be great. If they only wanted to deepen believers' understanding of God's Word, I'd say amen to that. If it stopped there, I'd be all for it.

But that's just the problem.

It doesn't stop there.

Out with the new, in with the old

One of the core beliefs promulgated by the HRM is that the New Testament cannot be properly understood unless it is viewed from an Old Testament, Hebraic perspective. The Hebrew Old Testament reigns supreme and is given precedence over the New Testament, and any Scripture in the New Testament that seems to undermine or contradict the HRM's theological positions must be reinterpreted from an Old Testament viewpoint.

In other words, the Old Testament trumps the New Testament.

Viewed on the surface, that may not immediately jump out at you as being seriously problematic. After all, the Old Testament is the Word of God, too, right? It came long before the New Testament, didn't it? I mean, it's sort of the foundation for everything, isn't it?

Well, yes and no. Yes, the Old Testament is the Word of God. Yes, it did come long before the New Testament. Yes, it is the foundation for much of what God wanted to reveal to us in His Word.

But stop right there.

What you have to understand is that the Old Covenant was merely a shadow of the New. God gave Israel the Law of Moses, which required the Jews to offer animal sacrifices in order to teach them that there was no remission of sin without the shedding of innocent blood. But the blood of animals only temporarily covered their sins. Paul explains:

The Old Testament points to the coming Messiah—the Redeemer—who would take away their sins permanently, and if they obeyed the Old Testament law and believed in faith in the Redeemer that God promised to send them, He would credit it to them as righteousness. We see reference to this in the book of Job, the oldest book in the Bible, probably written well over a millennium before that Redeemer came the first time:

But in spite of crystal-clear teaching throughout the New Testament to the contrary, people in the HRM vehemently insist that believers are still under the Law of Moses. This is the foundational teaching that props up and pervades the entire Hebrew Roots movement. They maintain that Jesus didn't establish a "New" Covenant, He merely renewed the Old. So the Law of Moses still applies to believers.

"You modern Evangelical Christians got it all wrong, because your so-called 'New' Testament was corrupted by Greek and Roman paganism. The New Covenant isn't 'new' at all. No, no, no. What really happened was that the Old Covenant was simply renewed. So believers are still subject to the Old Covenant, and so we need to follow the Torah and the Old Testament law as best we can if we really want to please God...er, YUH-wuh."

The Old trumps the New. The real problem, however, is the not-so-subtle implication that comes oozing out of this:

Law trumps grace.

Except it doesn't, because someone was able to fulfill the law for us and end our bondage to it if we believe:

Besides a lot of scriptural sleight of hand, their argument draws some support from the alleged mistranslation of one single word:

Some people in the HRM insist that the word in verse 31 really means "renewed," but was mistranslated. Sure it was. That means not one biblical scholar caught the error in over 2,600 years—that is, until modern times when it showed up as "renewed" in some extra-biblical writings that the HRM clings to in order to support their theology.

Here are the basic forms of the two words in question:

Strong's Hebrew #2318: chadash (khaw-DASH) (v.) to renew

Strong's Hebrew #2319: chadash (khaw-DAWSH) (adj.) new

Note the different pronunciation points under the middle letter (these exist because unlike most other languages, the Hebrew alphabet has no vowels).

Take a wild guess which word appears in Jeremiah 31:31. Go ahead, guess.

Oh, all right. I'll give you a hint: It's not the first one.

Now, don't think for a nanosecond that the fact Christ came to establish a new and better covenant hinges on one dinky little pronunciation point on one dinky little letter in one dinky little word in a 2,600-year-old piece of writing. That's stupid. No, that's insane.

All this does is serve as an example of how far some people in the HRM are willing to go to undermine and repudiate the thunderingly clear teaching that leaps from the pages of the New Testament, not to mention the Old.

The apostle Paul makes it crystal clear in the book of Hebrews that the New Covenant supersedes and is superior to the Old. The Old Covenant, based on the Law of Moses, was nothing more than a shadow pointing to what Christ would accomplish:

In other words, Christ came to establish a better covenant based on better promises. If the first one was perfect, why would we need a second? That was the whole point of God's plan of redemption: It all points to Jesus. The Old Covenant, under the Law of Moses, merely foreshadowed what Christ would come to do. The Old Covenant—the law—couldn't save us: It was never meant to. The law was intended to convince us of how hopelessly sinful we are by revealing our inability to keep it. In other words, the purpose of the law was to reveal our utter inability to attain God's standard of holiness through our own efforts, and thus make us understand our desperate need for a Savior.

The law couldn't save us because we couldn't fulfill it. Its purpose was to point to the one who would do both.

The Bible is clear—bondage to the Old Covenant is finished for those in Christ.

"How sweet the sound..."

As I said, the primary thrust of the Hebrew Roots movement is to convince born-again believers that they are really still under Old Testament law. This is certainly not a new idea, however. There were Jewish believers in the first century trying to do exactly the same thing.

As the apostle Paul went from place to place preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ to the Gentiles and establishing churches, there were Jewish believers who would come along afterwards and try to convince these new converts that they had to conform to the Law of Moses as per the Old Testament in order to really be saved. Faith in Jesus was not enough—obedience to the Law of Moses was also required.

These people were known as Judaizers, and for the most part they were overly zealous Jews who had come to believe in Jesus, but were not able to come to terms with the fact that the Law of Moses that had defined them and their culture for so many centuries was being set aside. The death and resurrection of Jesus Christ heralded something new and better:

Grace.

The amazing kind. The law could never justify us—it could only convict, condemn, and enslave us. Jesus fulfilled the law on our behalf so that God could show His righteousness and His grace—His unmerited favor—toward us apart from the law, and it is all based on faith in the finished work of His Son:

That's what the New Covenant is all about:

Grace trumps law.

Under the Old Testament law, faith was still required in addition to keeping the law. Jews were required to keep the Torah, but they also had to maintain faith in God's promise of a Messiah that He would send them.

God promised to send the Messiah—and then He did.

And that changed everything.

The law was a shadow—Christ was the substance.

That's the whole point. The Old Covenant pointed to Jesus, who came and fulfilled the law perfectly on our behalf to usher in the Age of Grace.

Under the law, faith was required. Under grace, the law is prohibited. Law and grace are mutually exclusive.

Ever since the Age of Grace began following Christ's death and resurrection, those who repent of their sin and believe the gospel receive the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit guides them, convicts them of sin, and gradually conforms them to the image of Christ. They are no longer under the law—it is dead to them. They are under grace.

That's why Paul could say this to all who are born of His Spirit:

And this:

And this:

And this:

And this:

And this:

S-s-s-s-somebody stop me...I feel like I could quote half the New Testament here. The idea that believers are no longer under Old Testament law but under grace is everywhere you turn. Paul drives this point home so clearly throughout his epistles that many in the Hebrew Roots movement consider Paul's teaching misunderstood or mistranslated—if not heretical, because a plain text reading of any one of several of Paul's epistles absolutely rips HRM theology to shreds.

I need to insert an important point here. A lot of Evangelical Christians seem to take the idea of being under grace (as opposed to the law) a bit too far, and effectively turn it into an excuse to have a lax attitude toward sin. A full treatment of this topic is far beyond the scope of this article, but it's important to note that Christ did not abolish the law—He fulfilled it. In other words, He performed it perfectly on our behalf (because we couldn't).

But that doesn't mean all of God's moral laws just dried up and blew away.

Christ actually did give us commands—commands that in some cases were basically restatements of Old Testament laws, and in many cases far exceed the requirements of those laws. For example, the Old Testament says murder is a sin. Jesus said it's sin if you so much as hate someone. The Old Testament says adultery is a sin. Jesus said it's a sin for a man to look at another woman with lust in his heart.

What is external and physical under the Old Covenant becomes internal and spiritual under the New Covenant.

Of course, when we repent and believe in faith that Jesus' death and resurrection paid the penalty for our sin, we are born again—born of the Spirit, and our sins are forgiven. All of them—past, present, and future. At that moment we are sealed by the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit, justified before God, reconciled to Him, and our eternal destiny is secure. Sin's eternal penalty is no longer the issue, because we have been set free from the law of sin and death. Jesus dealt with our sin once and for all on the cross.

But Christ told us to love God with all our hearts, all our souls, and all our minds, and to love others as we love ourselves, which is more or less the Reader's Digest version of the 10 Commandments. To the extent that we do that, to the extent that we obey the law of love He gave us, to that extent we fulfill the law. As we yield to the gentle, guiding power of the Holy Spirit and allow God's love to shine through us and to those around us, we obey His law, grow in our walk with Him, and store up treasure in heaven.

God's grace doesn't give us a license to sin—it gives us the power to love.

As a matter of fact, the apostle Paul is such a thorn in the side to the HRM that they have introduced a number of extra-biblical books that counter Paul's teaching, and one should pause and seriously consider just who it is that would try to effectively undermine the inerrancy, inspiration, and sufficiency of God's Word. They also claim that the Brit Chadashah (New Testament) was originally written in Hebrew (not Greek), and—luckily for us—they have recovered the original texts and had them published. And whaddya know—the material supports Hebrew Roots theology!

It's Greek to me: Jesus, His disciples, and just about everybody else in first-century Judea (although their native language was Aramaic), not to mention many parts of the known world at the time spoke Greek, the lingua franca of the day. It has been established beyond any reasonable doubt by reputable biblical scholars and historians that the entire New Testament was originally written in Koine ("common") Greek.

In fact, it has been so well established and it is so widely accepted that the entire New Testament was originally written in Greek that to argue that it was written in Hebrew is a bit like trying to convince people that Romeo and Juliet was originally written in Japanese. Nevertheless, that's what Hebrew Roots people do, and they do it because they have no choice. And they have no choice because good old Rav Shaul couldn't possibly have made it any clearer that Hebrew Roots theology is false teaching built on the shifting sands of legalism.

Pure self-glorifying, Christ-dishonoring, spiritually enslaving legalism.

A few months ago, I wrote an article about replacement theology, a pervasive trend in Christianity that teaches that the Church has replaced Israel in God's plan, and that God is finished with the Jews (except for punishing them, that is). In so doing, it elevates the Church to a position of superiority over Israel.

The Hebrew Roots Movement is the pendulum swinging to the opposite extreme. The HRM is replacement theology in reverse: instead of the Church replacing Israel, Israel has replaced the Church! I'll keep saying it until I'm blue in the face:

The Church is not Israel
and Israel is not the Church!

The spiritual slave trade

Now, there are HRM churches that don't come right out and state in so many words that following the Torah is required to obtain salvation. What they'll say is something like "Of course you're saved by faith in Jesus, but if you're really born again you will want to please God." (Well, yeah...OK.) And you please God by obeying His laws—the Torah. So if you don't obey the Torah, you must not love God. And if you don't love God, you can hardly be born again. Right?

Voilà—you're a slave to the law.

Another related tactic used by many HRM churches to enslave believers to the law is the teaching that Jesus is the "Living Torah." The problem starts with the opening verse of the Gospel of John:

Here's how they get there: Well, since Jesus is the "Word," and the "Word" is obviously the Bible, and the Torah is the most important part of the Bible, then Jesus is, you know, sorta like the Torah. Jesus—the Living Torah.

The problem with this line of reasoning is that the Greek word used for "word" in this verse is logos, which is mainly used in reference to Jesus expressing the thoughts of God the Father through the Spirit. If the Author of Scripture (the Holy Spirit) had meant "Torah," He would have inspired John to use the word nomos. Different word; different meaning.

Nice try, but I gotta chalk this up as a fail.

Actually this false teaching can be easily dispatched in a multitude of ways, but here's my personal favorite:

Notice that not one single guess about who Jesus was had anything to do with the Torah, nor did Jesus' response. And speaking of Jesus' response, this sure would have been a great place for Him to set things straight, don't you think?

Jesus isn't the Living Torah—He's the Son of the living God.

Big difference.

So, the reasoning goes, if you're saved then you must love Jesus. And since Jesus is the Living Torah, then obviously following the Torah is the primary way for you to express your love for the Lord. So, if you're truly born again, you should be filled with the desire to obey the Torah. Thus if you're not filled with the desire to obey the Torah, then, well...tsk tsk tsk. You must not be saved after all.

Voilà—you're a slave to the law.

That is precisely the ultimate goal of the HRM—to make believers slaves to the law. Or maybe I should say that's the ultimate goal of the one behind the Hebrew Roots movement...and that would be Satan.

Satan uses sincere but deceived people to drag believers back under the law, the same law that Christ's death and resurrection sets us free from if we believe. It is Satan who seeks to convince people they are still under the law because he knows that if he can, then he can cause many of them to waste their time trying to keep the law to please God—the same God who sent His Son to fulfill that law on our behalf. Satan hijacks people's sincerity and uses it to suck the spiritual life out of them—and he's good at it. After all, he's been at it ever since his little chat with Eve in the Garden of Eden:

"Did God really say you couldn't eat that fruit, Eve? C'mon, live a little."

The Hebrew Roots movement is nothing more than a slick repackaging of what the Judaizers of Paul's day were trying to do, and what we need to do today is exactly what Paul did to the Galatians two millennia ago—let 'em have it right between the eyes:

Never going back

When the miniseries Roots aired in 1977, it dredged up memories of the darkest, ugliest, most grievous sin in our country's history: slavery. Americans were forced to recall where we had been as a nation a mere century earlier, but at the same time we were reminded of how far we had come since then.

And on some level, I think we were reassured by the knowledge that slavery is a thing of the past, and that we're never going back.

Jesus Christ redeemed us from slavery to the law two thousand years ago. But today there those, including the Hebrew Roots movement, who seek to drag us right back into slavery to that same law, as if nothing had changed and Christ had accomplished nothing. And that's a lie from the father of lies.

Those who promulgate the lie that believers are still under the Old Testament law and need to slavishly follow the Torah to merit God's approval need to go back and re-read two passages of Scripture:

First, this part of Paul's definitive grace-trumps-law manifesto:

The law is not of faith.

Second, the finishing touches of Paul's airtight anti-legalism manifesto:

Whatever is not of faith is sin.

The law is not of faith, and whatever is not of faith is sin. Now, that doesn't mean the law itself is sin—it means it's a sin for believers to place themselves back into bondage under the law after they have been made dead to it by their faith in Christ's atoning sacrifice. When people allow themselves to be dragged back into slavery under the law in the sincere but misguided belief that by doing so they can please God and make their salvation more "secure" in some way, they dishonor and diminish what Christ accomplished on the cross.

A safe bet: When any doctrine detracts in any way from the glory of Jesus Christ or diminishes or dishonors in the slightest way what He accomplished on the cross, you can bet that something is wrong somewhere.

Of course, all of this business about not being under the law only applies to those who are in Christ. It only applies to those who have been born of the Spirit—those who have believed the gospel. That would be those who have realized they are sinners, repented of sin, and asked for the forgiveness that Christ's death and resurrection made freely available to all who ask in faith. Only then are you set free from slavery to the law.

Roots reminded Americans that slavery is a thing of the past and that we're never going back. Let Jesus' words remind us that if we are in Him, slavery to the law is a thing of the past for us.

And we're never going back.

Greg Lauer — APR '14

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