You Can’t Buy Righteousness

by:  Lonnie Lane

Have you ever considered how much we take our language
ability for granted? We utter sounds that are divided into units we call
“words” with which we communicate our thoughts to one another. God spoke to
Adam who understood Him, so language is a part of our human makeup. We make
certain marks on a page (unless you’re still using a rock or clay tablet) to
further communicate with others. But that had to be discovered. Someone had to
even conceive of the idea and then teach it to others. Linguists believe the
Hebrew language has been around since about 3500 BCE. It is believed that Hebrew
set the stage for almost every modern alphabet, making it the first written
language simple enough for everyone, not just scribes, to learn. It made it
possible for written records to be available to the masses for the first time. The language being that of the Hebrews, we would
think that God has something to do with it, especially since He calls Himself “The Word.” Being able to communicate in written
language was surely something of a necessity to God considering He gave Moses
His teachings to write down.

Supposedly almost every modern system of writing descends
from Hebrew. Most of us read translations of the Bible, and some read translations
or paraphrases of translations. We can get pretty far from the original
meanings this way. Because of the translators’ unfamiliarity with the
indigenous Hebrew language or culture, there are many errors in the translations
due to ignorance of the way Hebrew speakers think. The
translators, such as those who translated the King James Version (KJV), had
basically no understanding of Hebrew culture or the spoken language. They just knew classical Hebrew from their studies
with no interaction with Hebrew speaking people.  They
just translated what they expected it said from their limited knowledge of
Hebrew and Greek.

Some of the problem has to do with idioms, which are common
expressions, but when translated word-for-word make little sense in the new
language. Imagine someone translating such expressions as, “It’s raining cats
and dogs” or “I could eat a horse” or  “sweating bullets” or “born on the wrong side
of the tracks” into another language word-for-word. We understand what we’re
saying but it would make no sense in another language. Such is the case with many
translations of idioms from Hebrew to English in our very own Bibles. Imagine
that, error in our Bibles! Who would have thought? As a result of these
translation errors, doctrines have been formulated and held to for centuries
that are just not based on what the texts said in the original languages. It is
a fascinating study and numerous books (see footnote 1) are
available today so that laypersons like me can address those errors and set
things straight. My next few articles will address some of these translation
errors in order to clear up some misperceptions and erroneous doctrines.

It would seem that these corrections, now
becoming available to us, are part of God’s end time plan of restoration to
prepare the way for Yeshua’s return, as Peter prophesied, “…that He (God) may send Yeshua, the Messiah appointed for
you, whom heaven must receive
until the  period of restoration of all things” (Acts 3:20b, 21). That verse
seems to be coming up a lot lately. So let’s look at a number of these
mistranslations and address what changes in our theological thinking they may
call for.

A good place to begin is at the beginning. So let’s start
with Adam and Eve and the famous Genesis 3:16 statement by God, that has
reverberated down through the centuries, to define relationships between men
and women in Jewish, Christian and Arab cultures. We are citing the KJV because it is the foundational
translation for all other English translations. The
verse tells us of God’s words to Eve: “Unto the woman He said, I will greatly
multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth
children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.” Not too
pleasant a prophetic word, is it?  But
what if that’s not what God actually said? What if the words traditionally
interpreted as “to rule” as which can also mean “to reign,” actually said “to
be like” or “to be comparable” or “he will be just like you”?

If that is how it
should have been correctly translated, in what way might Adam be just like
Eve?  Let’s look at what God then said to
Adam:  “And unto Adam He said,
Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the
tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is
the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy
life” (:17).  Well, now. It’s
not only Eve who will be the bearer of sorrow, but Adam as well. They are both experiencing the consequence of sorrow
for their sin though they will experience it for different reasons. The sorrow for Eve is related to the bearing of
children, whereas Adam’s sorrow would come through the hard work he would be
required to do in order to produce food for them.

Their sorrow, or
grief, was not to rob them of the blessings of progeny and produce, though they
would continually have to deal with fatigue and pain of his or her labor. Their mutual sorrow was of the realization of their
own foolishness and of what they had forfeited, and in the realization of human
mortality now that they were forever banned from Garden and the Tree of Life. The penalty for each is essentially the same –
sorrow, which makes sense of the statement, “He will be just like you” when God
told her of her sorrow. Rather than “he will rule over you,” Adam and Eve alike
would be subject to sorrow and death, neither of which any person, male or
female is exempt. This verse has been the justification for oppressive and
sometimes cruel male dominance over women for centuries. I wonder how much
oppression of women would have been eliminated if the verse had been
translated this way.

While we’re here with Adam, the words in 3:19, “sweat of your brow” can also be
translated as “the dripping of your nostrils,” though nostrils also represent
“face” which, either way, may well mean crying due to the sorrow of hard work,
especially when you consider the life Adam lived in the Garden of Eden where
there was no sorrow and only great joy. He may have wept over how he took it
all for granted and didn’t appreciate the blessings of God that were his then.
Enough to cry about, wouldn’t you think?

Moving on from Adam and Eve, we follow the sequence of
events in which we learn of God’s own sorrow at the sin of mankind and His relentless
intention to bring man back to righteousness and to Himself. That was God’s
goal in giving Moses the Torah. An unfortunate translation is calling Torah “the
law” or “works of the law” when the Hebrew calls it the “teachings” or
“instructions” of God. The root of
the word Torah means to teach, or to instruct. Torah was never meant to be a
legal treatise but is the world’s first and lasting code of morality. It is to
introduce Israel and subsequently the world on how to live in justice and
righteousness with one another, and before God who Himself is holy, righteous
and just. The whole theme of the
Bible, beginning with Genesis and Exodus, which are primarily books of history,
is to reveal that God will deliver mankind from the torments of sin by
restoring them to Himself.

When we are rightly related to Yehovah, we are at peace and
secure in a relationship with Him and with each other. Happiness and peace
cannot be separated from morality and morality is inseparably linked to the
salvation God brings, whether individual or corporate. Torah was not God’s idea
of setting up rules that we better keep or else. He was providing a way of life
that would be the most fulfilling life, and a way back to Him. For this reason,
when believers ignore Torah, they are ignoring what would enhance our lives in
Him as we live them out in the spirit of grace.  Torah also defines an elaborate sacrificial
system for the purpose of, not just making Israel aware that sin is a violation
of relationship with Him, but in order that the sin would be paid for so that
the person could be freed from the guilt of the sin. It is, of course, a shadow
of the ultimate payment for sin and full restoration to God that Yeshua would
bring, but Torah is the very foundation of all in the Bible that comes after
it. The prophets were all about
keeping Israel
faithful to Torah and not sinning as defined in Torah.

How then did the church come to see Torah as being a
“legalism” to stay away from? When Paul wrote Galatians there was no word for
legalism in Greek, but he was trying to convey to the Galatians that any extra
laws, oral or otherwise, would never bring salvation. To break into the middle
of his conversation, he was telling them, “…nevertheless knowing that a man is not
justified by the works of the Law but
through faith in Christ Jesus, even we have believed in Christ Jesus, so that
we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the Law; since by the works of the Law no
flesh will be justified” (Galatians
2:16). There
is much more to say on this matter, but enough to say here that Paul was not
speaking about the teachings or instructions of Torah but that which was added could
not bring salvation. So here is a case where even the Greek didn’t have a correct
word for what Paul was saying, and made worse by our use in English of what we
understand “law” to mean.

What faith in
Yeshua brings us is freedom from the penalty of sin. God’s intention was for
mankind to realize that a violation of the teachings in Torah did more than
just break a law for which payment must be made, but that it broke fellowship
with others as well as fellowship with God. They
violated a morality that mars the fabric of trust and justice within the
community. David said that he hated the ways of those who sin for that reason. The sin of one can demoralize those touched by the
violation, even if it’s only to be made aware of it, it still affects us. When
you hear of something negative, sinful or evil that has taken place, it affects
you not just emotionally, even if only for a moment, but our body chemicals and
hormones respond to negativity. Even our brains are affected if we hold too
many negative thoughts in our minds for a while. God has designed us for
righteousness, peace and joy and Torah was designed to optimize those qualities
in the communities in which we live.

So what
about those Pharisees and the “laws” they added to Torah? They thought they were living lives that made God
smile at them – so pleased at their law-keeping. Their
claim was that God also gave Moses an Oral Law to tell them how to keep the
written law He gave him. God said to keep the Sabbath, for instance, but Torah
doesn’t say how to keep the Sabbath. The Oral Law in
minutia defines rules and laws the rabbis say must be kept. That’s where
the “legalism” of the Pharisees came in. Much of what they held against Yeshua
had to deal with accusing Him of not keeping those laws. In response, Yeshua
had this to say about maintaining Torah but it not being effective for the
added laws of the Pharisees and Scribes:
For
truly I say to you, until heaven
and earth pass away, not the
smallest letter or stroke shall pass from the Law until all is accomplished. Whoever then annuls one of the least
of these commandments, and teaches others to
do the same, shall be
called least in the kingdom of
heaven; but whoever keeps and
teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.”

Okay, the Pharisees are
good here. They are sure they’re
keeping them to the ‘nth degree. But then Yeshua goes on to say, “For I say to you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will
not enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:18-20). The
Pharisees and scribes were sure they were the only ones who qualified for the kingdom of heaven. And they had
many of the people convinced as well. What then did this statement mean to those
who heard Him say it?

Righteousness had always been that
quality of life which brought salvation or deliverance from God. But in
Yeshua’s day, as part of the Oral law, another meaning had been added; that of
giving money to the poor or almsgiving. To the Pharisees, almsgiving, prayer
and fasting were the three most important aspects to righteous living, with
almsgiving being the most important of the three. (One wonders if the funds
given to the poor didn’t first go to the temple treasury to then be dispersed
to the poor. Is there a 1 Timothy 6:10 application here?) So at that time,
according to the teachings of the Pharisees and scribes, righteousness (tsedakah) took on the more narrow
meaning of almsgiving. Tsedakah is
still thought of the same way today in many Jewish circles. My orthodox Jewish
grandmother kept a tsedakah box in
her kitchen to save her extra coins to give to the rabbi for those in need. I
have no doubt that’s where they went then, but I’m less sure about it in Yeshua’s
day considering the corrupt practices of selling sacrificial animals at high
prices. You know, the ones Yeshua set free with a whip one day: “And He found in the temple those who were
selling oxen and sheep and doves, and the money changers seated at their tables. And
He made a scourge of cords, and drove them all out of the temple, with the
sheep and the oxen; and He poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables.”
(John 2:14,15). There’s something in
me that wants to cheer Him on when I read that story.

But here’s Yeshua saying,
“If your Tsedakah isn’t more than the
puny tsedakah of the Scribes and
Pharisees, and not the great tsedakah
the prophets spoke of, then you will not get into the kingdom of heaven. If
you’re just giving money and not living in the righteousness of the Torah which
is summed up as love for God and for your neighbor, even in the way you love and
care for yourself, then there’s no kingdom admittance for you.  That was a revolutionary statement and one
which, needless to say, the Pharisees and scribes felt was an attack against
them. In reality, He was attacking their false beliefs, not them. He came to
die for them! He wanted to rescue them with truth.  He was saying, if your righteousness is
reduced to almsgiving, it’s your tsedakah,
not God’s tsedakah.

If there is any
application to this today, we might say if anyone is giving their tithe to the
church but they are not walking in righteousness, their tithe counts not at all
with God. And if the tithe is in order to buy favor with God rather than out of
a heart of love, it counts for nothing as well. You can’t buy righteousness
from God! It’s a heart issue.