Torah Times Messianic Ministry

Administered Justice vs. Justification

I will cover the last phrase of Romans 3:22 through Romans 3:24. Taking vs. 22b with vs. 23, the text says:

"There is no distinction" means that God does not have a double standard when administering justice to humanity. He applies the same rules and judgments to Jews and non-Jews alike. He loves those who keep his commandments the same whether Jew or non-Jew. Paul is also countering Rabbinic theology, which gives Jews a special personal salvation status before God based on their birthright alone. He means there will be no difference between Jews and non-Jews in regard to the administration of justice, which I will come to in v. 24. Paul's point is that the Most High is not discriminating between Jews and non-Jews in terms of his favorable or unfavorable justice. The Jewish people have had the greater advantage of knowing the truth. But the Messiah's justice requires everyone to do the right thing with the Truth. It is not enough to just know it. Both Jews and non-Jews have betrayed the Truth by turning to evil, as biblical history abundantly illustrates. And it is clear that unfavorable divine justice has been decided for Israel as well as favorable justice, depending on the wickedness or the righteousness of the people. And the nations are subject to the same justice and the same standards.

The Greek words for "no distinction" are ου...διαστολη. The exact same phrase is found in Romans 10:12, where there is a further explanation:

Here I translated the words "there is no difference." Paul cites Isaiah 28:16 in vs. 11, which is connected to the precious stone laid in Zion, which is Messiah. The same text was previously cited in Romans 9:33. Paul is indicating that there is no distinction in respect to the Messiah himself. It is to him that our faithfulness must be Throughout Romans 9 and 10, Paul makes holding faithful to the Messiah a requirement for receiving his favorable justice. A generation later, John brings home the point more forcefully: "The one holding to the Son is holding to Life. The one not holding to the Almighty Son is not holding to Life" (1 John 5:12). So there is no difference; Israel was told to look for Messiah and to obey the Messenger whenever he came. There is no "bilateral ecclessiology" as some may say. And there is no supersessionism," as some may accuse (aka replaement theology), because the same Assembly of Israel under the Messenger of YHWH is the same Assembly of Israel after the Messenger comes as Messiah to ransom Israel.

There is a difference between Israel and the nations that is not in terms of the justice provided or meted out to individuals. When the nations transgress, there is no everlasting covenant promise to restore any remnant of the faithful to their lands after judgment. But there is an everlasting covenant promise to deliver a faithful remnant of Israel and to restore it to their land. This is not unjust because evil gets judged, and the righteous are saved out of it and restored after evil is purged. God is not unjust, nor does he have a double standard. If any of the faithful remnants of the nations wish to receive the same promise, then they can join up with the remnant of Israel. So the same opportunity is afforded to the non-Jew for restoration through faithfulness. The reason divine favor has to be received through Israel at the end is due to the divine promise to remove evil from Israel and to preserve the faithful there. When all the nations have fallen into complete corruption, the faithful, Jews and non-Jews alike, will be removed to Israel, and Israel will be a beacon on the holy mountains of Israel, calling the nations to repent and join with Israel. I counsel the non-Jewish faithful not to be dissuaded by the fact that most of Jewish Israel is unfaithful. The promises of the Most High will be kept, and he will judge all Israel to accomplish his purpose, just as he will judge the nations. In order to accomplish his purpose, God will have to judge Israel first.

All have sinned. Please note that Paul never says that all are totally depraved. He says that all fall short of the Glory of the Almighty. And he will proceed to say that due to this fact, all will need the favorable justice of the Most High that only comes through and from the Messiah. To obtain his favorable justice, it requires a pledge of faithfulness to the Messiah, to be carried out by repenting from sin. All have sinned, including both rebels and those who seek the Most High. All fall short. All must repent and be forgiven the same way.

I should make one last remark on the phrase "the Glory of the Almighty." We see here that "Glory" is used instead of the previous phrase, "the Righteousness of the Almighty" or "the Justice of the Almighty." But we could substitute the one for the other here and get a good sense: "All have sinned and are falling short of the Righteousness of the Almighty." Back in Romans 3:21 I taught that the Righteousness of the Almighty can be taken as the same as YHWH our Righteousness in Jeremiah 23:6. As such, it is a direct reference to Messiah. The phrase Glory of the Almighty is likewise a reference to Messiah, as we see in John 5:44:

The Son of the Almighty is the Glory at the side of the Father, he who was with the Father in the beginning. Isaiah saw the Father's Glory, which is the Messiah in heaven. So also Ezekiel (1:27).

Why is the word Glory in a red font? This is what I use to mark places where the next edition will be edited. I capitalized Glory for the same reason Word is capitalized in John 1:1 and Glory is capitalized in John 5:44. Why did I not capitalize it the first time around? Because I am learning new things just as you'all are.

The green font shows what was changed to make the text one sentence. I have been tempted to consider this text less important than v. 24, because I have never had a problem with the divinity of the Messiah. It is a shame that in rejecting false Christian doctrines about Torah, so many have made rejectionism their goal rather than truth and, as a result, have rejected things based on their feelings rather than the truth. Satan is always ready to take advantage of any trend if he can. The Righteousness of the Almighty or the Glory of the Almighty cannot be explained apart from Messiah. It is he who makes be our righteousenss. His name is "He makes be" our righteousness. So he makes be is YHWH, Yahweh our Righteousness, YHWH Tzidkeynu.

We should not cloud our judgment with too much anger at the fact that we have been misled and deceived, but should consider soberly what it was in our own thinking that allowed us to be deceived, whether an oversight of logic, a lack of knowledge, deception by mistranslation, or deception by a fear-based belief in a doctrine instilled by a preacher that did not lay a rational foundation but a fear-based foundation. And by all means, we should not let our anger at institutional lies become anger and condemnation against those who are still deceived. You cannot shout people out of deception.

I will now turn to the subject that, as far as I know, every other Messianic ministry I know is deceived about. I only say I know of. I really mean those I know of with a significant exposure to the public. So I'm taking the lead on this point, and no doubt, as far as I know, the correction will have been learned through me. But I would be thrilled to find someone who did not who has a wholesome overall theology as well. It is not pleasant to be at the front of the battle alone, and it causes one to be doubly sure of the facts. So probably you have never heard before what you will hear now unless it came from me. So let us look at v. 24:

So obviously, I have supplied the words "All the faithful are" to form a complete sentence out of one verse in the midst of Paul's continuous prose: "All the faithful are being administered justice benevolently by his loving-kindness through the ransom release, which is through the Anointed Yeshua."

The justice referred to here is the forgiveness of sins for all who repent and pledge faithfulness to Messiah. Paul calls God's forgiveness benevolent justice. Where the versions go wrong is in the use of the verb justified. They read "being justified freely." It was once, way back, in the early days of English, that "to justify" could mean "to administer justice," but that sense has long since departed from the language, and the term now means to declare someone in the right or to acquit of all wrongdoing. In the original language, Paul's Greek, and also in Hebrew, the term means to do or make justice, whether favorable or unfavorable. And so, in the case of the guilty, it did not mean to justify them. Strictly speaking, the term describes what a Judge does to decide a case and its outcome.

The primary sense of this term in Koine Greek is to "administer justice" of a punitive nature, and in the many instances in the literature where this occurs, no one imagined that the guilty were getting an acquittal or being declared in the right. This justice getting administered was the usual justice, that is, the punitive kind. However, this does not mean there is no other sense of the word. And Paul makes this plain through the use of three terms. The first of these we ran into back in verse 21. This justice of the Most High is apart from "what is customary." It is apart from the NOMOS, the social norm for justice, which is punitive. The second term he uses to describe this administration of justice is "benevolently," which means the defendant is being given favorable or gracious treatment. We may also term this "being administered justice gratuitously." So we do not expect a punitive measure from justice administered in this manner. The third word that Paul uses in this very verse is the word "ransom."

A ransom is a price paid to gain the release of a captive. The classic ransom case is that of a bandit taking a captive and then demanding a large payment in gold to release him. The hostage is illegally held by the criminal. But the father of the captive or his relatives make the payment because they want their loved one returned. So the word ransom is used in a figurative sense to describe what Messiah does for us. Not only did we sin against God and then repent of the sin and receive forgiveness, but while in sin, sin and death took us captive. Therefore, the Most High, as judge, in administering justice to us, must also gain our release from sin and death, which is at great cost to himself. He has to expose himself to our sins and suffer from them to cleanse us and gain our release from bondage. This climax of the cost of our ransom was made visible in the incarnation of the Most High as Messiah and in his suffering to death at his execution.

Yeshua came "not to be served, but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many" (Mark 10:45). Therefore, his whole service, in life among us, in death, and in resurrection, is to gain our release from sin. Not only that, but Messiah teaches us to serve in the same way, to "fill up what lacks in the sufferings of the Anointed" as Paul stated in Colossians 1:24. In Messiah, the Most High has manifested his ransoming efforts in the spiritual realm in the flesh of Messiah.

So three terms describe how justice is administered for us. (1) Apart from what is customary, NOMOS, (2) benevolence, DOREAN, and (3) he ransoms us from evil, APOLUTRON. The cost is taken by evil and paid by the MOST HIGH. The Father, Son, and Spirit are all sharing the cost of the ransom. The Almighty is not divided against himself. The cost is not being paid to the Father. That is modern heresy. It is a reversal of the truth by Satan. It is the infiltration of pagan ideology into the institutional Church.

The institutional translations use the word "redemption." But the proper definition of the term is ransom. Or we may say that redemption used to mean ransom but does not anymore. To redeem means properly to buy back. To ransom also means to buy back, but it means to buy back from evil hostage holders. Redeem has come to mean to redeem by means of a coupon, which is part of the cost of a good from a manufacturer. This idea hardly communicates what Paul or Yeshua meant by the term "ransom." And it reeks of commerce. The institutional Church teaches a commercial gospel and not the ransom truth that Messiah taught and exemplified.

So then, through our sin, we wandered into hostile territory and were taken captive by sin. Then we wanted to repent, and so we are forgiven when we confess our sin. And this is where Messiah's ransoming work through the Spirit begins—to deliver us from our sin. All of us, like sheep, have gone astray, each one to his own way. His death and resurrection ransom us from sin and the fear of death.

I have an admonishment for Torah teaching ministries from the Most High and from the Spirit of the Most High. I have never invoked his name on any issue but this one. I'll start with a question. Do you really teach the whole Torah, the whole counsel of the Most High? The Most High says in the Torah, "I will not justify the wicked" (Exodus 23:7). Do you realize that Isaiah 53 says that Messiah died from our transgressions, because of them, and not to make a payment to God? It does not say there in the Hebrew "for" transgression. By so teaching, the institutional Church perverts the justice of God. But the sons shall not be put to death for the sin of their fathers. Why, then, do you crucify the Son of David for the sin of David? But David's forgiveness was announced on the day of his confession of it. You have discovered that the institutional Church lied to you about Torah, and you are teaching it. That is good. But half a job of teaching Torah is not teaching Torah. You must teach the Justice of the Almighty and not the false gospel of institutional Christianity.

You look for the restoration of the Temple? Do you realize it will be for nought unless the corrupt explanations of sacrifice are turned away from and corrected?

Do you realize that your version of the gospel is not accepted by all the institutional churches? For example, the Eastern Orthodox are not quite as keen on penal substitution as you are. Neither are denominations with an Anabaptist heritage. In the same Evangelical denomination, you have Gregory Boyd and John Piper, and the two do not agree on this subject. What then makes you think you can just repeat so-called Reformation doctrine and let your followers assume it is orthodox theology after calling them out on their anti-Torah heresy? In a good many cases, spending the time to find the truth and be right isn't good for the bottom line. If the Most High loves you, then he will not allow you to take short cuts, and if you refuse to take the long cut and learn to teach what is true, then he will cut you out and make you stop feeding the sheep. And I can attest that I have been stopped more than once because I needed to learn the truth first. There is danger in learning only one truth, and that is that one may be tempted to package it up with the traditional lies one has not yet unlearned.

I must be careful, my brothers and sisters, to make sure my zeal does not project unwarranted anger. These words are to shake you out of your complacency so that you realize the battle is not over, and so now I will turn to one last point.

In the highlighted footnote, I have provided Righteousness as an equivalent meaning for the word Justice. All the faithful are being administered righteousness benevolently. As Messiah pulls us forth from captivity to sin, he has to wash us, and to cleanse us, and to repair us in spirit and body. He is giving us his righteousness, as it is written, YHWH Tzidkeynu. He makes be our righteousness.