No One Can Be 100% Torah Observant

I have stated this a number of times, and sometimes I get someone who disagrees, stating that there were people in the Bible who are said to be blameless and righteous.
And they’re right, but does that mean they were also 100% Torah observant?

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So, we know Enoch walked with God, and that he was the only person, other than Elijah, who didn’t die. Clearly, he was pretty blameless, but- there was no Torah at that time.

Job is also said to be blameless, but -again!- there was no Torah at that time.

The Torah created sin by defining what it is (that’s what Shaul told the Roman Believers in his letter to them), and sin is anything that is against the Torah, so the question is: Is blameless the same as sinless?

What about King David? The Torah certainly was around then, and God said that David was a man after his own heart. David, himself, says that he is blameless a couple of times in some of his psalms, and yet he also said that he was born in sin from his mother’s womb (Psalm 51).

Noah was said to be blameless, but, oh, yeah, there’s that catch about there being no Torah at that time.

Wait a minute! The New Covenant, which came well after the Torah, said that Zechariah and Elizabeth (the parents of Yochanon, the Immerser) were blameless, but if Zach was so perfect, then why didn’t he believe the angel? That cost him the ability to speak for some 9 months.

Shaul says he was the greatest sinner of all (1 Timothy), and in Ecclesiastes 7:20 we are told that there is no one without sin; and what about Romans 3:23 (Shaul, again), Jeremiah 2:35, and Proverbs 20:9? They all indicate, clearly, that no one is without sin, so that means that no one is 100% Torah observant.

So, nu? If sin is against the Torah, and no one is without sin, then how can anyone be blameless after God gave the Torah to us?

The answer is… they can’t be. I know that the Gospel of Luke says Johnny’s Mom and Dad were blameless, but was he talking literally or figuratively?

Let’s confuse this even more: everyone can be blameless.

It is during that moment just after they ask God for forgiveness of sin, by means of the sacrifice Yeshua made on their part. Once God forgives you, you are, at that instant, blameless and 100% Torah observant.

At least, you are until you get in the car, start to drive home and find yourself cursing at the idiot in front of you who can’t make a left turn unless there isn’t a car visible for miles.

Look, no one can be 100% Torah observant, 100% of the time, and if you aren’t Torah observant 100% of the time, then you aren’t Torah observant.

That is why God gave us the sacrificial system. And that is why, a few millennia later, he sent Yeshua, the Messiah, to do his thing so that by means of the sacrifice he made (for all of us), we could find forgiveness despite the fact that we could no longer do that in accordance with the Torah after 73 A.D., when the temple in Jerusalem was destroyed.

Let’s end this with one, final, absolutely biblical reference to settle whether someone can be sinless: it’s in 1 John 1:8-10, and it goes like this:

If we claim not to have sin, we are deceiving ourselves, and the truth is not in us. 

So, yes, there were people in the Bible who we are told were blameless or righteous in God’s eyes, but that doesn’t mean they were 100% Torah observant. What the Bible tells us is that no one can be sinless and 100% Torah observant 100% of the time; no one, that is, except Yeshua, and he was the only one we needed to be that way.

You know, now that we do have the Torah, if any one of us could be 100% Torah observant, meaning sinless, meaning blameless, which is also righteous, and be that way all the time (as Yeshua was), then there wouldn’t have been a need for Yeshua because if one human being could do it, then all human beings should be able to do it.

And that would result in there being only three people in heaven: God, Yeshua, and that one idiot who ruined it for the rest of us.

Thank you for being here; that’s it for this week, so l’hitraot and let me wish you an early Shabbat Shalom!