If you ask someone in the Hebrew Roots Movement whether Christ is the centre of their faith, the answer will be immediate and sincere. Of course he is. They believe in him completely. They affirm his death and resurrection. They call him Messiah and mean it. The problem is not that they have removed Christ from their faith. The problem is that he has been repositioned within it - from the fixed point around which everything else orbits, to a component within a larger framework that Torah defines and governs.

This repositioning does not happen overnight. It happens gradually, a few degrees at a time, through sincere study and genuine devotion. Which is precisely why it is so difficult to see from the inside - and why naming it clearly matters.

The Diagnostic Question

There is one question that reveals where the actual centre of a theological framework is. It is not a trick question. It is simply this:

Does Christ explain Torah - or does Torah explain Christ?

These are not the same question asked two ways. They describe two fundamentally different relationships between the Old and New Testaments, and the answer determines the direction of every theological conclusion that follows.

If Torah explains Christ, then Torah is the centre. Jesus is understood primarily as the perfect Torah observer. His death is understood as the payment for Torah violations. His return is understood as the restoration of Torah observance in its fullness. He fits inside the Mosaic framework. The New Testament becomes a commentary on the Old rather than the announcement of its fulfilment.

If Christ explains Torah, then Christ is the centre. Every Mosaic requirement finds its meaning in what it was pointing toward. The Passover lamb is understood by looking forward to the one whose bones would not be broken. The priesthood is understood by looking forward to the eternal high priest after the order of Melchizedek. The Sabbath rest is understood by looking forward to the rest found in him. Torah is not diminished in this reading. It is honoured most completely - because it is followed all the way to its destination.

Luke 24:27 shows which direction Jesus himself used. After the resurrection, walking with two disciples on the road to Emmaus, he began with Moses and all the Prophets and explained what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself. Not Torah explaining Christ. Christ explaining Torah. The direction is explicit, deliberate, and comes from Jesus himself.

Complement Versus Confirm

The Hebrew Roots Movement typically says that Christ and Torah complement each other. Two parallel authorities enriching one another. The New Testament adding depth to the Old. Each making the other more complete. This sounds generous toward both Testaments. The problem is that it is not what the New Testament actually says about their relationship.

The New Testament says that Moses and the Prophets confirm Christ. They pointed forward to him, anticipated him, described him in advance. John 5:46 - Jesus speaking: "If you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote about me." Moses wrote about Christ. That is not the language of two co-equal authorities enriching each other. That is the language of a witness and the thing witnessed.

A witness does not complement what it witnesses. It confirms it. The shadow does not complement the substance. It is made meaningful by the substance arriving. Hebrews 10:1 states this precisely: the law has a shadow of the good things to come, not the reality itself. The shadow is real. The shadow is valuable. But the shadow exists because of the substance, and once the substance arrives, the shadow has served its appointed purpose.

The complement reading places Christ and Torah side by side as co-governing authorities. The confirm reading places Christ at the destination and Torah as the road that was always heading there. These produce entirely different frameworks for reading Scripture, different conclusions about what Christians are obligated to observe, and different answers to the question of what the finished work of Christ actually accomplished.

A Few Degrees Off Centre

Here is the most practically important point in this article. A framework that begins with Torah as the lens through which Christ is understood - rather than Christ as the lens through which Torah is understood - starts only a few degrees off the true centre. At the beginning the deviation is barely visible. The Hebrew language feels like authenticity. The feast calendar feels like connection to something ancient. The Torah Club feels like depth after years of shallow contemporary Christianity.

But a few degrees off centre, followed consistently and sincerely over sufficient time and distance, compounds into something far from where the journey began. This is not a theoretical observation. It is documented.

First Fruits of Zion (FFOZ) is one of the most prominent Hebrew Roots teaching organisations in the world. They did not set out to undermine the gospel. They set out to recover the Jewish roots of Christian faith - a concern that is not entirely wrong. But they began with Torah as the interpretive lens, integrated the Talmud and rabbinic tradition as co-equal voices, and moved toward normative Judaism as the defining community. A decade of sincere, scholarly, Torah-faithful effort later, independent researchers documented FFOZ teaching that innocent human suffering can atone for sins and that this merit can be transferred to others. Nobody who entered a Torah Club ten years ago intended to arrive at a theology that diminishes the unique sufficiency of Christ's atonement. But a few degrees off the centre of the gospel, compounded faithfully over sufficient time, produces destinations that nobody at the beginning knew they were heading toward.

The protection against this compounding is not more careful study of secondary material. It is a fixed reference point - the centrality of Christ and his finished work - applied to every claim at the point of entry. Not waiting for the destination to become visible. Measuring the direction at the first degree.

What Happens When Torah Occupies the Centre

When Torah becomes the governing framework rather than the forward-pointing witness, several specific shifts follow. None of them are dramatic at first. All of them move in the same direction.

Christ becomes the vehicle for accessing Torah rather than the destination Torah was always pointing toward. His life is cited primarily as a model of Torah observance rather than as the fulfilment of everything Torah anticipated. His death is understood primarily as paying for sin so that Torah obedience can continue, rather than as the once-for-all accomplishment of what the entire sacrificial system was designed to foreshadow. His finished work becomes a starting point rather than a completed reality.

The believer's standing before God shifts from resting entirely on what Christ accomplished to depending partly on continued Torah performance. The gospel moves from announcement - what God has done - to programme - what you must now do. And with that shift, however gradual and however sincere, the finished work of Christ is being functionally supplemented. Something is being added to what he said was finished.

Galatians 2:21 identifies where this leads: "If righteousness comes through the law, then Christ died for nothing." Paul is not accusing the Galatians of malice. He is showing them the logical consequence of a position they hold sincerely. If Torah observance is the governing framework for covenant standing, then the cross accomplished less than the New Testament says it accomplished. The supplementation, however well-intentioned, subtracts from the finished work rather than enriching it.

Christ at the Centre - What This Actually Means

Placing Christ at the centre of the gospel is not a dismissal of the Old Testament. It is the highest possible honouring of it. Because it means following the Old Testament all the way to where it was going, rather than stopping at the road and building a dwelling there.

Moses pointed to Christ - John 5:46. The Passover lamb pointed to Christ - 1 Corinthians 5:7. The priesthood pointed to Christ - Hebrews 7. The temple pointed to Christ - John 2:19-21. The sacrificial system pointed to Christ - Hebrews 10:1-14. The Sabbath rest pointed to Christ - Hebrews 4:9-10. The feast calendar pointed to Christ - Colossians 2:16-17. Every element of the Mosaic system was a forward-pointing structure. Honouring that structure means recognising what it was pointing toward and receiving the substance when it arrives - not continuing to observe the shadow as though the substance has not come.

Christ at the centre means that the Old Testament is read as the New Testament reads it - as a comprehensive testimony to the one who was coming. It means that Torah is understood through the lens of its fulfilment rather than the fulfilment being understood through the lens of Torah. It means that the finished work of Christ is received as actually finished - complete, sufficient, requiring no supplement from feast observance, Sabbath keeping, or any other Mosaic covenant practice.

This is not a lower standard than Torah observance. The law of Christ - love as Christ loved, serve as Christ served, forgive as you have been forgiven - goes deeper than any external code. The Sermon on the Mount does not lower the bar. It relocates it from external compliance to the interior transformation that only the Spirit of God can produce. The standard is higher. The source is different. And the standing is entirely secure - resting not on performance but on the one who said from the cross, in the moment the Passover requirement was met for the last time:

Tetelestai.

It is finished. Not Torah observance supplementing an incomplete work. Not a programme waiting to be completed. The finished work of the one around whom everything else finds its meaning. One centre. One sun. Everything else in orbit.

Not complement. Confirmation.

And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself. - Luke 24:27