Many Christians are not aware of the Hebrew Roots Movement (also known as Jewish Roots and Hebrew Roots Awakening). We believe it’s important that Christians become aware because of the impact the movement is having on churches and families.

The first section of our series includes an introduction into HRM and its leadership along with the movement’s stated beliefs and what some of their critics are saying.

The second section of our series will look at our findings after years of research into HRM.

Here is a reminder about some of what various Hebrew Roots Movement group believe:

  • Restoring Christianity to its Hebrew (Jewish) roots
  • Requiring the use of the name Yaweh rather than God or Lord and Yeshua rather than Jesus
  • Belief that Jesus (Yeshua) is God (Yaweh) (there seems to be some disagreement by different HRM groups about whether Jesus is God in the Flesh or if God elevated Jesus the man to a position of deity .. we’ll look into that as our investigation continues)
  • Helping believers express their faith in Yeshua as Messiah by returning to and keeping the Torah of Yeshua
  • People are not saved by works, but the precepts of the Torah are eternally binding
  • Viewing the Torah as the primary document for living the life God intends for followers of Jesus (Yeshua)
  • Every believer should walk a Torah-observant life
  • Believers must ‘endure to the end’ in their observance of the Torah
  • The original Hebrew versions of Gospel writings are superior to Greek texts, which many in the HRM believe were corrupted. (Hebrew Roots has its own Bibles – Qodesh Cepher, Sacred Name New Testament, Sacred Name Bible, Holy Name Bible)
  • The Epistles of the Apostle Paul are often ignored and sometimes rejected
  • Pagan traditions adopted by Christians are not to be followed
  • Hebrew terminology is used in meetings along with Jewish symbols and ‘Messianic’ music and dancing (known as Davidic Dancing)
  • Believers should keep the seventh-day Sabbath and annual Passover
  • Believers should keep the annual Feast Days (e.g. Feast of Weeks, Feast of Trumpets, Day of Atonement, Tabernacles)
  • Removed from Protestant Christianity because of core belief differences
  • Removed from Messianic Judaism because of core belief differences
  • Removed from Rabbinic Judaism because of core belief differences
  • Gentiles keep the Law through the One Law theory and Two House theology

We now move to Part Five of the first section of our series as we look at what critics have written about HRM beliefs concerning restoring Christianity to its Hebrew (Jewish) roots, viewing the Torah as the primary document for living the life God intends for followers of Jesus (Yeshua), and helping believers express their faith in Yeshua as Messiah by returning to and keeping the Torah of Yeshua (becoming Torah-Observant).

If you haven’t read Part Four of the series to see what HRM groups say about their beliefs, please click here.

[*We do not necessarily endorse the critics listed below or their ministries or websites. Our purpose is to share some of the oppositional viewpoints to beliefs in the Hebrew Roots Movement. We will share our research observations in the second section of this series.]

Restoring Christianity To Its Hebrew Roots

“Although there are many different and diverse Hebrew Roots assemblies with variations in their teachings, they all adhere to a common emphasis on recovering the “original” Jewishness of Christianity. Their assumption is that the Church has lost its Jewish roots and is unaware that Jesus and His disciples were Jews living in obedience to the Torah. For the most part, those involved advocate the need for every believer to walk a Torah-observant life. This means that the ordinances of the Mosaic Covenant must be a central focus in the lifestyle of believers today as it was with the Old Testament Jews of Israel. Keeping the Torah includes keeping the Sabbath on the seventh day of the week (Saturday), celebrating the Jewish feasts and festivals, keeping the dietary laws, avoiding the “paganism” of Christianity (Christmas, Easter, etc.), and learning to understand the Scriptures from a Hebrew mindset. They teach that Gentile Christians have been grafted into Israel, and this is one reason every born-again believer in Jesus the Messiah is to participate in these observances. It is expressed that doing this is not required out of legalistic bondage, but out of a heart of love and obedience. However, they teach that to live a life that pleases God, this Torah-observant walk must be part of that life.” Got Questions

“Over the past few years, an increase of those who hold to the Hebrew Roots theology has occurred. Some Christians are abandoning traditional biblical orthodoxy and orthopraxy (justified by Hebrew Roots believers since they believe the church corrupted beyond repair.) Seminary students, pastors, and self-taught theologians have joined the movement. The dangers are expressed well here…

“The Hebrew Roots movement is dangerous in its implication that keeping the Old Covenant law is walking a ‘higher path’ and is the only way to please God and receive His blessings. Nowhere in the Bible do we find Gentile believers being instructed to follow Levitical laws or Jewish customs; in fact, the opposite is taught. Romans 7:6 says, “But now, by dying to what once bound us, we have been released from the law so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code.” Christ, in keeping perfectly every ordinance of the Mosaic Law, completely fulfilled it. Just as making the final payment on a home fulfills that contract and ends one’s obligation to it, so also Christ has made the final payment and has fulfilled the law, bringing it to an end for us all.” David Tarkington

Torah The Primary Document

“One thing that causes some confusion about the Law are the verses that say the Law is good, and will never pass away. They take this to mean that we have to keep Mosaic Law after all, but that is not the case. Take note that scripture doesn’t say the Law is dead, but that we are dead to the Law. There is a clear distinction between the two. The Law is in fact still alive and well, but it exists solely to condemn unbelievers to Hell.

As servants of Jesus Christ we are are not under the Law, but under grace, period! We cannot voluntarily put ourselves back under the Law without first removing ourselves from being under the grace of God as expressed through Jesus dying on the cross for our sins! Those who put themselves back under the Law in so doing have literally lost the ability to receive forgiveness for their sins. This is a grave matter with eternal consequences! Do you dare to even think you can do a better job than the Son of God at keeping the Law?” The Prophetic Explorer

“The HRM makes much of the fact that Jesus said he did not come to abolish the Law and that he stressed the importance of keeping commandments. In their view, this means that the law must still be in force today—even on Gentiles, although they were not under the law in Old Testament times (Ephesians 2:11–13).3 Somehow they seem to overlook or interpret the last part of Matthew 5:17 in a much different way than Christians have typically done. Jesus said he came to fulfill the Law and the Prophets.4 By living a sinless life (2 Corinthians 5:21), and then dying as the ultimate sacrifice, our Passover (1 Corinthians 5:7), Jesus Christ fulfilled the law (Colossians 2:14). This is why the Apostle Paul confidently wrote that those who have been saved by faith in Jesus Christ are “not under the law” (Romans 6:14, 7:4; Galatians 5:18).

Furthermore, it is highly questionable to assume that Jesus had the Mosaic5 Law in mind when he told the disciples to keep his commandments. Earlier in the same evening, he commanded the disciples to love one another (John 13:34), and he gave them several commands during his ministry that are not spelled out in the Mosaic law. It is far more likely that Christ’s words in John 14:15 referred to these instructions. Before he ascended, Jesus delivered what is popularly called the Great Commission, in which he instructed his disciples to make disciples of all nations, and part of that process was to teach them to obey everything he had commanded them (Matthew 28:18–20). Notice Jesus did not command them to bring their future disciples into the nation of Israel, as God told Moses (Exodus 12:48), but to make disciples of Jesus among the nations.” Answers In Genesis

“This movement is seeking to cast doubt on the faith once delivered to the church by challenging the very Scriptures we have been given by the Lord. They claim Christians can’t fully understand the Scripture until we understand the Torah. But the opposite is true. You will not understand the OT (or the Torah) until you have true revelation of the NT. And if you have true revelation of the NT, you will not allow yourself to fall back under the weak system of the Old Covenant, because you will know the liberty you have found in Christ fulfills all.

The Old Testament (or Torah) is not the greater revelation, nor does the OT shine light on the NT, the NT opens and reveals the OT and shows what the symbols and shadows really meant. The DEEPER things of God are found in the NT, not the OT, because Christ is revealed in all of his glory in the NT. We are rooted, all of us, in CHRIST and while the OT is filled with the glory of the Lord, the NT opens up and reveals His glory in splendor and shows us that intimacy with Christ comes through his sacrifice which surpasses all that went before. Emphasis on the Torah over the NT is emphasizing that which could not save. The Holy Spirit given to all those who are in Christ Jesus, gives us understanding and leads us into all truth, not the Torah.

Jesus instituted a New and Better Covenant with those who believed on him. To Give greater credence to the Torah attempts to alter that Blood-bought covenant by adding back to it the lesser system of the Old Covenant, which was totally fulfilled in Christ.” The Dangers of the Hebrew Roots Messianic Movement

“Let me immediately address the last claim: that we are to keep the Torah (the law), and that first-century believers did so. Scholars commonly and wrongly assume that what they call The Jerusalem Council in Acts 15 addressed circumcision only. But notice this from the letter composed after the meeting: “They wrote these things by their hand: ‘The apostles, the elders, and the brothers, to the brothers who are of the Gentiles in Antioch, Syria, and Cilicia: greetings. Because we have heard that some who went out from us have troubled you with words, unsettling your souls, saying, “You must be circumcised and keep the law,” to whom we gave no commandment” (verses 23-24, emphasis mine). In other words, this meeting, besides the question of circumcision, also settled that the Gentiles did not have to keep the law. Earlier in the meeting, speaking of this attempt to make the Gentiles keep the law, Peter said, “Now therefore why do you tempt God, that you should put a yoke on the neck of the disciples which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear?” (verse 10, emphasis mine). Peter called the law a yoke on the neck, and he spoke of even the Jews’ keeping of it in the past tense.” Word Of His Grace

“Can a person even keep all of the Torah today?

Hebrew root followers will tell you that we are to keep the Torah today with all of the laws and ways God gave to Israel. Do you realize there are over 600 laws God gave to Israel? ( not the gentiles ) We often ask Hebrew root people; so how many of the laws are you keeping today and we have yet to ever get even one answer back. They will usually say it isn’t about keeping ALL of the laws you just need to “try your best”? “Really” we say? We then remind them that people were stoned to death for NOT keeping Torah ways and they never have a answer other then to admit; they are not in Jerusalem so they can’t keep all of the law. In truth they they are hypocrites as they are teaching you to do things they don’t and can’t even fully do themselves. Don’t believe me? It is a fact that a good Torah keeping Israelite must go to Jerusalem 1-3 times a year to visit the Temple to do sacrifices through a levitical priest and so already they have a real problem. Their is no temple and there is no priesthood today. God’s Word says that if you cannot keep “all of the Torah” you are guilty of them all. James says so: For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all. / James 2:10. So you see; them trying to keep the Torah today is futile as it cannot be done and so they are guilty of not keeping any of it at all.” Spirit and Truth Discernment

Believers Becoming Torah-Observant

Many in the HRM claim to be “Torah observant” (living according to Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy), when what they actually are is Talmud observant. Adherents of the HRM believe that they are following biblical customs when, in fact, they are recreating later practices and even medieval traditions. For example, the wearing of the yarmulke or kippa (a type of skull cap) by Jewish men is a human tradition with no basis in the Law of Moses. Another apparent necessity in the HRM is the wearing of what is called a “prayer shawl,” also called a Tallit, a Hebrew term that is found in the Talmud but nowhere is there evidence of such a practice in the Hebrew Old Testament. The widespread practice of interpreting Talmud content as though it were true to biblical content creates misinformed Jews. Among HRM followers there is a serious lack of searching out the genuine biblical roots of their beliefs and practices, including the aforementioned erroneous belief that the Gospel of Matthew, and perhaps the other three Gospels, were first written in Hebrew. More critical, it seems, is the lack of understanding of the Old Testament versus the New Testament, and the concept of Law versus grace. Hebrew Roots and the Leaven of Works Salvation

While the OT provides only a few specific circumstances that require Gentile obligation to certain elements of the Law, the NT is completely void of any command that Gentiles are generally subject to the Torah commandments. In fact, as demonstrated by the sample of verses below, the opposite is what is found in the NT.

Perhaps the most instructive text is Acts 15. Having encountered “Judaizers” in Antioch, Paul, Barnabas, and others were sent to Jerusalem to get clarification from the apostles regarding the claim that “Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved” (15:5). Having heard the testimonies of Peter, Paul, and Barnabas, the apostles responded (28-29): “For it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay upon you no greater burden than these essentials: that you abstain from things sacrificed to idols and from blood and from things strangled and from fornication; if you keep yourselves free from such things, you will do well.” Although there is some overlap between these instructions and some OT laws, it is clear that Gentiles are not required to “keep the law of Moses” as presented to the Israelites in the Torah. Notice that this decision is not simply that of the elders, the Holy Spirit also consents.

Colossians 2:16-17 instructs Gentiles, “Therefore no one is to act as your judge in regard to food or drink or in respect to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath day – things which are a mere shadow of what is to come; but the substance belongs to Christ.” Although some suggest this means “be so precise in your observance of the Law that no one can judge you as guilty,” Paul clearly says these issues – food, drink, and holydays – are not the main objective, Christ is. In Galatians 3:1-7, Paul rebuked the Galatians for trying to mature in the faith by works of the flesh rather than maturing in the way they were redeemed, which was by faith. He continues in 3:23-26 to say the Law was intended as a tutor to bring people to faith in Christ, after which, “we are no longer under a tutor.”

1 Corinthians 7:17-18 – Here, Paul is adamant that Gentiles should not get circumcised. Rather, “… each person should live as a believer in whatever situation the Lord has assigned to them, just as God has called them. This is the rule I lay down in all the churches. Was a man already circumcised when he was called? He should not become uncircumcised. Was a man uncircumcised when he was called? He should not be circumcised.”

Based on the Acts 15 and 1 Corinthians 7 verses above, HR groups typically exclude circumcision as a requirement for Gentiles while still insisting the rest of the Law is a requirement. Clearly, if circumcision is excluded, then “the Law” has changed in some way, which is what Hebrews 7:12 says: “For when the priesthood is changed, of necessity there takes place a change of law also.” Thus, in consideration of the change in the Law and the lack of a NT command for Gentiles to obligate themselves to the Law, it is reasonable to conclude they are not obligated to “the Law of Moses. Watchman Fellowship

This imposition of Jewish practice on non-Jewish believers really does constitute a serious issue that promotes elitism, unnecessary division, wide confusion, and unbiblical practices. We can almost understand Jews who convert to Christ who still try to keep some of the cultural aspects and celebrations of their familial heritage. If their intentions and motives are not legalistic, and if these things are not done for salvation or out of religious elitism, there may be some minor benefit. Yet to impose them on Gentiles (as is the case, more often than not) is a direct violation of Paul’s words to the Colossians: “So let no one judge you in food or drink, or regarding a festival or a new moon or Sabbaths, which are a shadow of things to come, but the substance is of Christ” (2:16-17). So Paul tells the Gentiles at Colossi that they are not to let anyone force Judaism on them. Didn’t Paul tell the Ephesians that saved Jews and Gentiles were now one new body and one new man—the church (Ephesians:3:1-8)? The Berean Call

eBook

You can download a free eBook of Chapters One – Five of this study here. Please share with family and friends as God leads.

Next Time

In the next part of our special series, The ‘Hebrew Roots’ Movement, we’ll look at the HRM belief that the original Hebrew versions of Gospel writings are superior to Greek texts and that HRM leaders and followers often ignore and sometimes reject the Epistles of the Apostle Paul.

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