The Hebrew Roots Movement's most foundational argument is deceptively simple. God does not change. His character is eternal and immutable. Therefore his law - the Torah - is eternal and immutable. To suggest that the Mosaic covenant has been superseded or that its specific requirements are no longer binding is, on this view, to suggest that God himself has changed. And since God cannot change, the Torah cannot change.

It sounds airtight. It has the feel of a logical proof. And it is almost never examined - because the people making it move so quickly from "God doesn't change" to "therefore Torah" that the step between them is never put under any pressure.

That step is where the entire argument lives and dies. And when you press it, it collapses.

The Assumption Nobody Examines

The argument is: God doesn't change → therefore his laws don't change.

But this only works if God's laws and God's character are the same thing. If the Torah is simply the direct, unmediated, permanent expression of who God is - if every statute and ordinance is as eternal as his holiness itself - then yes, changing the Torah would imply changing God.

But the HRM never actually argues for this equation. They assert it. They assume it. They move past it so quickly that most people listening don't notice it hasn't been defended. And the reason it hasn't been defended is that it cannot be - because the Bible itself gives us a clear and consistent picture in which God's character and God's laws, while deeply related, are not the same thing.

God's character is who he is. His laws are what he commands - and what he commands can vary according to his purposes at different points in redemptive history, without his character varying at all. God commanded Abraham to circumcise every male in his household. God did not command Adam to do this. God commanded Israel to build a tabernacle in the wilderness. God did not command Noah to build one. God commanded the Israelites to exterminate the Canaanites. God does not command this today. In none of these cases has God's character changed. His holiness, his justice, his covenant faithfulness, his hatred of sin - all of these remain absolutely constant. What varies is the specific form his commands take at each stage of his unfolding purposes.

The Torah is not God's character. It is God's covenant with Israel - the specific legal and ceremonial framework through which he governed his people during a particular period of redemptive history. It reflects his character, certainly. It expresses his moral requirements in forms appropriate to that period. But it is not identical with his character, any more than a parent's household rules for young children are identical with the parent's character. The rules reflect the parent perfectly. They also change as the children grow. The parent has not changed. The rules have served their purpose.

Why the HRM's Logic Proves Too Much

If "God doesn't change, therefore Torah doesn't change" is a valid argument, it has to apply consistently. And when you apply it consistently, it produces conclusions that no HRM teacher actually believes.

God commanded the Levitical sacrifices. They are in the Torah. They were required - not optional, not symbolic gestures, but mandatory covenant obligations with specific penalties for neglect. If the Torah is eternal and unchanging because God doesn't change, then the sacrificial system is still fully in force. There should be a temple. There should be a functioning Aaronic priesthood. There should be a Day of Atonement with a high priest entering the holy of holies with blood. The HRM does not believe this. Most HRM teachers say the sacrificial system pointed to Christ and has been fulfilled in him - which is exactly what mainstream Christianity has always said about the whole Mosaic covenant.

God commanded the death penalty for gathering sticks on the Sabbath (Numbers 15:32–36). The Torah is clear, specific, and unambiguous. If the Torah is eternal and unchanging, this penalty is still in force. No HRM teacher applies it. They have, without acknowledging it, already made a judgment that some parts of the Torah no longer operate in their original form. They just haven't provided a principled framework for which parts those are.

God commanded that a rebellious son be stoned by the elders of his city (Deuteronomy 21:18–21). God commanded that a woman who cannot prove her virginity at marriage be stoned on her father's doorstep (Deuteronomy 22:20–21). God commanded that anyone who worked on the Sabbath be put to death (Exodus 31:15). The Torah is eternal and unchanging. These commands are in the Torah. The HRM does not observe them.

At some point every HRM teacher makes a selection - these parts still apply, those parts have been fulfilled, this is ceremonial, that is moral. They are doing exactly what they accuse mainstream Christianity of doing: dividing the Torah into categories and deciding which parts remain binding. The difference is that mainstream Christianity has a principled theological framework for making that distinction - the new covenant, the fulfilment of Christ, the Hebrews argument, the Galatians argument - while the HRM simply has preferences dressed up as comprehensive Torah obedience.

The Word Study They Hope You Never Do - Olam

The HRM's case for Torah's eternal status leans heavily on a Hebrew word: olam. Whenever the Torah describes a regulation as applying le'olam - "forever," "for ever and ever," "as a perpetual statute," "for all generations" - the movement points to this as proof that the regulation was never designed to end. The Sabbath is olam. The Passover is olam. The priesthood of Aaron is olam. Therefore: eternal. Unchanging. Non-negotiable.

There is one problem. Olam does not mean what they need it to mean.

Olam is one of the most fascinating and misunderstood words in biblical Hebrew. Its root meaning is not "eternity" in the philosophical sense - endless, timeless, outside of time altogether. Its root meaning is closer to "beyond the horizon" - that which extends past the point where you can see. In practice, olam refers to an indefinitely long duration appropriate to whatever is being described. It means "as long as this thing lasts" or "throughout the age in which this is relevant" or "for an unspecified but significant time." Context determines how long.

The evidence is in the Hebrew scriptures themselves. Consider these uses of olam:

In Exodus 21:6, a Hebrew slave who chooses to stay with his master rather than go free has his ear pierced and serves him le'olam - "forever." This clearly does not mean philosophical eternity. It means "for the rest of his life" or "for the duration of his service." The slave will eventually die. Olam here means "for the relevant duration," not "without end."

In 1 Samuel 1:22, Hannah says she will bring Samuel to the house of the Lord and he will remain there le'olam - "forever." She means for his lifetime, for the duration of his service. Olam is bounded by the natural limits of the situation.

In Jonah 2:6, Jonah inside the fish says "the earth's bars closed upon me le'olam." He means "it felt like forever" - a poetic expression of indefinite but actually quite finite duration. Three days, to be precise.

In Deuteronomy 23:3, an Ammonite or Moabite shall not enter the assembly of the Lord "even to the tenth generation... le'olam." The text itself defines olam with a generational limitation - "to the tenth generation" and "forever" are used in parallel. Ruth the Moabitess enters the assembly of the Lord in the very next generation after this command, and is celebrated as the ancestor of David and ultimately of Christ. Either God broke his own eternal law, or olam does not mean what the HRM needs it to mean.

The Aaronic priesthood is described as le'olam - a "perpetual" priesthood (Exodus 40:15). Hebrews 7:12 states plainly: "For when there is a change in the priesthood, there is necessarily a change in the law also." The priesthood has changed - from Aaron to Melchizedek's order, from mortal succession to the indestructible life of Christ. Therefore the law has changed. God's word said the priesthood was olam. God's word also records its supersession. There is no contradiction - because olam meant "throughout the age in which this priesthood serves," and that age is now complete.

The Passover is olam - a perpetual ordinance throughout all generations (Exodus 12:14). The Day of Atonement is olam (Leviticus 16:34). The Sabbath is a covenant le'olam (Exodus 31:16). If olam means "endless philosophical eternity," these observations are still fully binding in exactly the form Moses specified - including the specific priestly rituals that require a functioning temple and an Aaronic high priest to perform them. If olam means "throughout the age for which this is given" - which is what the word actually means - then these observations belonged to the Mosaic age and have been fulfilled and superseded in Christ, just as the New Testament argues.

The HRM has built a large part of its doctrine on a word it has never carefully studied.

What the Torah Itself Says About Its Own Duration

Remarkably, the Torah does not claim to be the final or permanent form of God's covenant with his people. It points beyond itself.

Deuteronomy 18:15–18: Moses tells Israel that God will raise up a prophet like him from among them, and they are to listen to him. This is a promise of a future voice that will carry greater authority than the Mosaic code - because when that prophet speaks, Israel is commanded to obey him. The New Testament identifies this prophet as Jesus (Acts 3:22–23, Acts 7:37). If Torah was the permanent and final word, why did Moses promise a coming prophet whose word would supersede even his own?

Jeremiah 31:31–34 is even more explicit: "Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah - not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke." God himself, speaking through his prophet, announces that the Sinai covenant will be replaced by something new and different. Not improved. Not renewed with the same terms. New - explicitly contrasted with the Mosaic covenant. The author of Hebrews draws the inevitable conclusion: in calling it new, God made the first one obsolete (Hebrews 8:13).

A covenant that God himself describes as coming to an end is not eternal in the sense the HRM requires. It was olam - it lasted for its age. Its age is complete.

God's Character and God's Laws - A Crucial Distinction

None of this means that God's moral requirements have evaporated. The holiness God required of Israel at Sinai reflects his own character - and his character does not change. Murder is still wrong because God is still the author of life. Theft is still wrong because God is still just. Sexual faithfulness is still required because God is still pure and covenant-keeping. The moral content of the Torah is grounded in the character of God and therefore cannot simply disappear.

But - and this distinction is everything - the moral content of the Torah does not require the Mosaic covenant structure to remain in force. The moral content has been taken up, fulfilled, deepened, and internalised in Christ and by the Spirit. The law of Christ - love God with everything, love your neighbour as Christ loved you - does not abolish God's moral requirements. It exceeds them, producing from within what the written code could only demand from without.

God's character is expressed in his law. But it is not captured by his law, as though the 613 commandments of Sinai exhaust what God is. God is more than his Torah. His character preceded the Torah - he was holy, just, and loving before Sinai existed. His character will outlast every covenant form - the Mosaic covenant will give way to the new covenant, and the new covenant to the consummated kingdom, and through all of it God's character remains the same. The form changes. The reality behind the form does not.

The HRM has confused the form with the reality. It has taken the scaffold for the building, the shadow for the substance, the pointer for the thing being pointed to. And in doing so, it has not honoured the Torah. It has missed what the Torah was always about.

A Note on Where This Leads

There is a deeper question lurking behind the HRM's claim that God's character and his laws are identical - a question we explore in a dedicated article elsewhere on this site: Is Jesus himself the Torah? Is the Word made flesh the living reality to which the written Torah was always pointing?

John 1:1 says the Word was in the beginning with God and was God. John 1:14 says the Word became flesh. Paul in Romans 10:6–8 quotes Deuteronomy 30:12–14 - Moses's description of the Torah as near to Israel, in their mouths and hearts - and applies it directly to Christ. The word that is near you, in your mouth and in your heart, is the word of faith in Jesus. Moses was describing something he saw only from a distance. Paul says it has arrived in person.

If Jesus is the living Torah - the eternal Word of God embodied - then the HRM's instinct that the Torah is eternal is not wrong. It is just pointed at a document when it should be pointed at a person. The Torah is eternal because Christ is eternal. The Torah does not change because Christ does not change. And the Torah has been fulfilled not because it was abolished but because the one it was always about has come, and living in him is the only way to truly keep it.

For when there is a change in the priesthood, there is necessarily a change in the law also. - Hebrews 7:12