R-INTRO-4: How These Two Leading Scholars Fought The Anti-Torah Bias Of The Christian Church

I’m going to introduce to you the names of two scholars you should know.

Their names are C.F. Keil and F. Delitzsch.

They were Germans who produced their works in the early to mid part of the 1800’s.

Why are these men so important?

Because practically every single Christian commentary written in the past century relies on the work of these two pioneering scholars.

This is nothing unusual.

The scholars of today have always stood on the shoulders of those who came before them.

So I’d like to share some choice quotes taken from the preface of one of their most monumental works simply titled “Commentary on the Old Testament”.

When you read these quotes, I want you to keep in mind they were written more than 150 years ago.

Way before Israel was resurrected as a nation in 1948…

And way before the evangelical movement in the United States took root. 

Pay close attention to what these men are saying.

Because they were eyewitnesses to that moment in history when the institutional gentile church took the Hebrew Bible (“Old” Testament) and threw it in the trash.

They recorded what happened and they fought tooth and nail against it.

It’s both funny and hypocritical how Keil and Delitzsch are still held in great esteem while at the same time the warning they gave has largely gone ignored by the church.

Here are the word-for-word quotes I selected because of their direct relevance to my mission with this Messianic Revolution blog.

“The Old Testament is the basis of the New. “God, who at sundry times and in diverse manners spake unto the fathers by the prophets, hath spoken unto us by His only- begotten Son.” The Church of Christ is built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets.”

“With firm faith in the truth of this testimony of our Lord, the fathers and teachers of the Church in all ages have studied the Old Testament Scriptures, and have expounded the revelations of God under the Old Covenant in learned and edifying works, unfolding to the Christian community the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God which they contain, and impressing them upon the heart, for doctrine, for reproof, for improvement, for instruction in righteousness.”

“It was reserved for the Deism, Naturalism, and Rationalism which became so prevalent in the closing quarter of the eighteenth century, to be the first to undermine the belief in the inspiration of the first covenant, and more and more to choke up this well of saving truth; so that at the present day depreciation of the Holy Scriptures of the Old Testament is as widely spread as ignorance of what they really contain.”

Well, there you have it.

A group of dare I say “Hebrew Roots” scholars who witnessed the decline of respect for the “Old” Testament and urged those who had ears to hear to take up the good fight to rediscover this foundational part of our Bibles.

That was the warning they gave to the church in their time…

And it is the same warning I believe we should also take to heart.

If you’re willing to fight the good fight that is…

But it won’t be easy.

You’ll be made fun of by blind spiritual leaders who head the world’s largest Christian organizations.

You’ll be accused of legalism…

You’ll be told you’re part of a cult…

You’ll be told to stop leading people into Rabbinical Judaism…

You’ll be told you’re undermining what Yeshua accomplished on the cross…

Interestingly, these were the very same accusations the Puritans and Pilgrims had to endure when they left a decadent and secular Europe for a fresh start across the Atlantic.

What’s even more interesting is that Yeshua himself shouted out the same warning thousands of years ago in his famous Sermon on the Mount

You can read it copied below…

When you read the Messiah’s words it’s almost as if he knew beforehand how the Torah would be cast aside leading believers everywhere to fall into apostasy.

Yet his words also contain a glimmer of hope that the Lord’s original and ETERNAL covenant with Israel would be re-discovered and taken to heart by a new remnant who would rise up to spark a new love and passion for the foundation of God’s Word.

If you’re reading this, I pray you are part of that group.

CONNECTING THIS TEACHING TO THE NEW TESTAMENT

“Don’t think that I have come to
abolish the Torah or the Prophets.
I have come not to abolish but to complete.
Yes indeed!
I tell you that until heaven
and earth pass away,
not so much as a yud or a stroke
will pass from the Torah-
not until everything that
must happen has happened.
So whoever disobeys
the least of these mitzvot
and teaches others to do so will be called the
least in the Kingdom of Heaven.
But whoever obeys them and so teaches will
be called great in the Kingdom of Heaven.”
-Matthew 5:17-19

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord!’
will enter the Kingdom of Heaven,
only those who do what my
Father in heaven wants.
On that Day, many will say to me,
‘Lord, Lord!
Didn’t we prophesy in your name?
Didn’t we expel demons in your name?
Didn’t we perform many
miracles in your name?’
Then I will tell them to their faces,
‘I never knew you!
Get away from me,
you workers of lawlessness!”
-Matthew 7:21-23