One law, many kinds of command
If the whole Torah still stands (Question 1), a fair question follows: do we keep all of it, and if not, who decides which parts? The answer is not that we pick our favorites. The Torah was given to a nation with a land, a sanctuary, a priesthood and courts, and many of its commands are addressed to one of those. Where the thing a command depends on does not exist, the command is not abolished. It waits.
Jesus said not one stroke of the law would pass away until heaven and earth do (Matthew 5:17-19). He also said the scribes tithed herbs while neglecting justice, mercy and faith, and that they ought to have done both (Matthew 23:23). That is our posture: do everything we can, in the order of its weight, and invent nothing.
What we can keep now
Most of the Torah is addressed to ordinary people living ordinary lives, and none of it needs a temple. The seventh-day Sabbath (Exodus 20:8-11). The appointed times as days of rest, assembly and memorial (Leviticus 23). Clean and unclean food (Leviticus 11). Tzitzit on the corners of our garments (Numbers 15:38-40). Honest weights and honest speech (Leviticus 19:35-36). Sexual ethics (Leviticus 18). Honoring parents (Exodus 20:12). Paying workers on time and opening our hands to the poor (Deuteronomy 24:14-15; 15:7-8).
“‘If a stranger lives as a foreigner with you in your land, you shall not do him wrong. The stranger who lives as a foreigner with you shall be to you as the native-born among you, and you shall love him as yourself; for you lived as foreigners in the land of Egypt. I am the LORD your God.”
Leviticus 19:33-34
The gleaning laws show how a land-based command still speaks. Few of us reap fields, but the principle of leaving margin for the poor and the foreigner, rather than squeezing every last grain from what we earn, is one we can live out now (Leviticus 19:9-10; Deuteronomy 24:19).
And we can teach all of it to our children, which is itself a command.
“These words, which I command you today, shall be on your heart; and you shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise up.”
Deuteronomy 6:6-7
What waits for a temple, a priesthood, a land or a court
Sacrifices and offerings may be brought only at the place the LORD chooses, by the priests he appointed (Deuteronomy 12:13-14). With no temple and no functioning Levitical priesthood they wait, and doing them another way would be sin (Question 8). The priestly and Levitical duties wait with them, as do the tithes that supported the Levites in their temple service (Numbers 18:21; Deuteronomy 14:22-23) and the purity laws that governed who could approach the sanctuary.
The land laws wait for the land. The seventh-year rest for fields (Leviticus 25:4), the jubilee (Leviticus 25:10) and the cities of refuge (Numbers 35:11) all assume Israel settled in its inheritance under its own covenant order. So do the judicial penalties.
“If there arises a matter too hard for you in judgment, between blood and blood, between plea and plea, and between stroke and stroke, being matters of controversy within your gates, then you shall arise, and go up to the place which the LORD your God chooses. You shall come to the priests who are Levites and to the judge who shall be in those days. You shall inquire, and they shall give you the verdict.”
Deuteronomy 17:8-9
Judgment in Israel belonged to appointed judges and Levitical priests at the place God chose. No such court exists anywhere today, and the Torah never authorizes individuals to carry out its penalties on their own. Until God restores that order we live under the governments of the nations where we are, obeying them wherever they do not require us to break God’s law.
Commands that belong to a role
“When you build a new house, then you shall make a railing around your roof, so that you don’t bring blood on your house if anyone falls from there.”
Deuteronomy 22:8
This command binds anyone who builds a house with a roof people walk on. It does not bind a tenant in an apartment, and no one would say the tenant is failing to keep Torah. The command is in force; it is simply not addressed to him right now. The same is true of the harvest laws (Deuteronomy 24:19), the instructions for a king (Deuteronomy 17), and the duties of a priest, a husband, a farmer, a parent. Torah is addressed to a whole society, and each of us keeps the parts that speak to where we actually stand.
At a glance
| Instruction | Where it stands today |
|---|---|
| Seventh-day Sabbath (Exodus 20:8-11) | Keep it: rest, no work, no buying or selling |
| Appointed times (Leviticus 23) | Keep the days, the rest and the assembly; the offerings wait |
| Clean and unclean food (Leviticus 11) | Keep it |
| Tzitzit (Numbers 15:38-40) | Keep it |
| Honest weights, fair wages, care for the poor and the stranger (Leviticus 19) | Keep it |
| Teaching children (Deuteronomy 6:6-7) | Keep it |
| Gleaning (Leviticus 19:9-10) | Keep the principle, adapted to how we earn |
| Roof railing (Deuteronomy 22:8) | Keep it when you build the house |
| Sacrifices and offerings (Leviticus 1 to 7) | Waits: needs the altar God chose and Levitical priests |
| Priestly and Levitical duties | Waits: needs a functioning priesthood |
| Tithes to the Levites (Numbers 18:21) | Waits: tied to temple service |
| Sabbatical year and jubilee (Leviticus 25) | Waits: tied to the land |
| Cities of refuge (Numbers 35:11) | Waits: tied to the land and its courts |
| Judicial penalties (Deuteronomy 17:8-9) | Waits: belongs to a covenant court, never to individuals |
Do what is possible, invent nothing
“You shall not add to the word which I command you, neither shall you take away from it, that you may keep the commandments of the LORD your God which I command you.”
Deuteronomy 4:2
The same rule is repeated in Deuteronomy 12:32, and it cuts both ways. We do not take away by declaring the Sabbath or Leviticus 11 finished. We do not add by inventing a substitute altar, a self-appointed priesthood, or rules of our own taught as if they were God’s (Mark 7:8-9). Traditions that help us keep Torah are welcome as long as they never become Torah.
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint, dill, and cumin, and have left undone the weightier matters of the law: justice, mercy, and faith. But you ought to have done these, and not to have left the other undone.”
Matthew 23:23
Justice, mercy and faith come first, and the rest is not to be left undone. Nobody starts everything at once. Many find that the Sabbath, the food instructions, tzitzit and the appointed times are the natural places to begin, because each is plainly commanded and plainly possible. The rest follows as you read.
And all of it rests on grace. We are saved through faith, not by any of this (Ephesians 2:8-10). We keep what we can because we love the one who saved us (John 14:15), and we trust him with what we cannot yet do.