If Torah does not justify, why should Christians still learn from it?

If Torah does not justify, why should Christians still learn from it?

Christians often close the discussion by saying that we are under grace, not law. The New Testament phrase protects the gospel from an economy of merit. But if it means that God’s former words have no value, grace becomes an excuse to refuse instruction.

Torah is first of all teaching. It contains creation, ancestors, Exodus, covenant, worship, social justice, and daily life, not only courtroom statutes. Jewish reading, debate, and practice respond to this whole world, which Christians should respect before making claims about ‘the law.’

Paul opposes justification by works of Torah and rejects making Gentiles become Jews before entering Christ. He does not suddenly make murder, adultery, greed, or idolatry freedom. He calls love Torah’s fulfillment and turns to the Spirit for the inward healing external rules alone cannot produce.

Jesus says he came not to abolish Torah and the Prophets but to fulfill them. Traditions differ over food, festivals, Sabbath, and civil commands, but fulfillment cannot mean contempt. Christian reading asks how a command worked in Israel’s covenant and how Christ illuminates it.

The Ten Commandments address worship, time, family, life, marriage, possessions, truth, and desire. The new covenant does not erase these questions but presses them inward: murder confronts hatred, adultery confronts possessive desire, and refraining from theft grows into generosity.

Jeremiah’s new covenant does not remove God’s will but writes Torah on hearts. This does not make believers infallible or eliminate teaching and communal correction. God forgives and renews through the Spirit so obedience is not maintained only by pressure.

Jews and Christians still genuinely disagree. Judaism does not accept New Testament claims about Jesus; Christians confess him as Messiah toward whom Torah and Prophets point. Honest dialogue neither erases the difference nor makes the other a simplistic negative example.

Xiaoyang compares Mosaic Torah with concrete early education and the indwelling Spirit with more mature inward learning. The analogy can describe development but must not call Jewish faith childish; it is not a biblical ranking of peoples or traditions.

Read one command with two questions: whom did it protect in its first setting, and what inward direction must it heal in Christ? Not being justified by Torah does not mean refusing divine instruction. Grace finally allows obedience without self-salvation.