The Torah is the Law of Moses, the first five books of Scripture.
Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy are the written instruction God gave Israel through His servant Moses.
Jesus said He did not come to abolish the Law or the Prophets but to fulfill them.
The Torah is holy, good, and a witness to Christ.
It is not a second way of salvation beside the gospel.
Torah means instruction. In Israel it named the teaching of the Lord given at Sinai and written in the Book of the Law.
- Moses spoke all the words of the Lord to the people, wrote them, and put the book beside the ark as a witness.
- Joshua was told not to let that book depart from his mouth.
- Ezra read from it and gave the sense so the people understood.
- Jesus treated Moses as Scripture that cannot be broken. He said that if they believed Moses, they would believe Him, for Moses wrote about Him. After the resurrection He opened the Law of Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalms and showed that they spoke of His suffering and rising.
- Paul said the law is holy and the commandment is holy and righteous and good, and that Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.
The Torah therefore remains the foundation of the Old Testament,
the schoolmaster that leads to Christ, and
part of the sacred writings that make wise for
salvation through faith in Jesus Christ.
- The Torah is God’s instruction, not a human code invented at Sinai.
- It includes story as well as command: creation, promise, exodus, covenant, and wilderness.
- Jesus fulfilled the Law; He did not set it aside as error.
- Moses wrote of Christ, and the apostles preached Christ from Moses.
- The law shows sin and cannot justify the sinner.
- Righteousness comes through faith in Christ, not through the works of the law.
- The church still reads Moses as Scripture and hears in him the voice that points to the Lamb.
- Five Books – Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy.
- Covenant Instruction – Given to Israel after the Lord brought them out of Egypt.
- Witness beside the Ark – Written down and kept as a testimony against forgetfulness.
- Read and Explained – Not only stored, but taught so the people could understand.
- Fulfilled in Christ – Every line stands until it is accomplished in Him.
- Guardian until Faith – The law confined Israel until the promised Seed came.
- Still Scripture – Profitable for teaching, reproof, correction, and training in righteousness.
- Deuteronomy 31:24-26 – “When Moses had finished writing the words of this law in a book to the very end, Moses commanded the Levites who carried the ark of the covenant of the Lord, ‘Take this Book of the Law and put it by the side of the ark of the covenant of the Lord your God, that it may be there for a witness against you.’”
- Joshua 1:8 – “This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it.”
- Nehemiah 8:8 – “They read from the book, from the Law of God, clearly, and they gave the sense, so that the people understood the reading.”
- Matthew 5:17-18 – “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished.”
- Luke 24:27, 44 – “And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself… that everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.”
- John 5:46-47 – “For if you believed Moses, you would believe me; for he wrote of me. But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe my words?”
- John 1:17 – “For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.”
- Romans 3:19-22 – “Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped… For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin. But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it—the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe.”
- Romans 7:12 – “So the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good.”
- Romans 10:4 – “For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.”
- Galatians 3:24-25 – “So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian.”
- Acts 28:23 – Paul tried to convince them about Jesus “from both the Law of Moses and from the Prophets.”
- Deuteronomy 6:4-7 – “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might… You shall teach them diligently to your children.”
- Exodus 24:7-8 – “Then he took the Book of the Covenant and read it in the hearing of the people. And they said, ‘All that the Lord has spoken we will do, and we will be obedient.’ And Moses took the blood and threw it on the people and said, ‘Behold the blood of the covenant that the Lord has made with you in accordance with all these words.’”
- Malachi 4:4 – “Remember the law of my servant Moses, the statutes and rules that I commanded him at Horeb for all Israel.”
- 2 Timothy 3:15-16 – The sacred writings make wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus; all Scripture is breathed out by God.
- Psalm 19:7 – “The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul; the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple.”
- Psalm 119:18, 97 – “Open my eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of your law… Oh how I love your law! It is my meditation all the day.”
The Torah is the Lord’s instruction through Moses.
It is holy. It stops every mouth. It cannot justify the sinner.
Jesus did not abolish it. He fulfilled it, and Moses wrote of Him.
Read the five books as Scripture that leads to Christ. Love the Lord your God. Teach the words to your children.
Do not put the yoke of the law back on those whom Christ has set free, and do not treat Moses as a stranger to the gospel.
The law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith.
Grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. The sacred writings still make wise for salvation through faith in Him.
Entry compiled for the JESUSaves.com Bible Glossary. Optimized for wiki.js Visual Editor.