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Leviticus 11:44-45 For I am the Lord your God. Consecrate yourselves therefore, and be holy, for I am holy. You shall not defile yourselves with any swarming thing that crawls on the ground. 45 For I am the Lord who brought you up out of the land of Egypt to be your God. You shall therefore be holy, for I am holy.”
It was a common practice for Jewish boys to memorize the Torah by the age of 12 and then to memorize more of the OT if they were to become a disciple of a rabbi. Paul would have been required to have memorized the entire OT in order to become a disciple of Gamaliel. So it was a high context society where someone could quote a verse to bring to mind an entire passage, such as when Jesus quoted the first line of Psalms 22 while on the cross to bring to everyone's mind the entire Psalm. The NT authors quoted or alluded to the OT thousands of times and often times looking at the surrounding context of what they are quoting from helps to give a better understanding of what they are saying. So 1 Peter 1:16 would have brought to mind Leviticus 11:44-45, which talks specifically about dietary laws and telling us to have a holy conduct meant following God's instructions for how to have a holy conduct, so that was Peter making sure that they understood that they were to follow those laws.
If Peter was writing only to Jews, who had that practice or who were used to that, then possibly that is what they would have thought to begin with. But he wouldn't have expected others to read between the lines and assume that they knew what he was saying. Would a Gentile - or we - who read those words have thought, "ah, Peter says ' be holy because I am holy'. This appears in the OT where God is talking about food and hygiene laws, so therefore Peter must be saying that in order to be holy we have to keep all these laws"? If Peter was writing to Gentiles with little knowledge of the OT, or to people who didn't realise that quoting part of a verse brought to mind the rest of it - or may have known that one day such people would be reading his letter - he would have spelt out, plainly "it is God's will for you to follow all the food laws that he gave to our nation back at Mt Sinai, so go and read them and find out what they are."
We don't become righteous and holy, by having a righteous and holy conduct, but rather those who are declared righteous and holy by faith are called to have a righteous and holy conduct. In the same way that someone who is declared to be a Firefighter in now to go out and fight fires, being declared righteous and holy means we are now to go do what is righteous and holy.
Yes. We are made righteous and holy in Jesus.
God "chose us in him before the foundation of the world to be holy and righteous in his sight" (Ephesians 1:4) Jesus was made sin for us so that, in him, we might become the righteousness of God, (2 Corinthians 5:21).
If we are in Christ, if we abide in Jesus, we are righteous and God sees us as righteous. This gives us freedom to live in righteousness and holiness - because we already are; that is how God sees us. Also, if we love God we will want to live holy lives.
Neither Jesus, Peter, Paul or any of the other disciples said that being in Christ means obeying all the OT food laws and we cannot be in Christ unless we obey them.
God did not give the law to Moses and the Israelites to be a heavy legalistic burden or to put them in bondage, but rather it was meant to be received by faith as a divine privilege and a delight, as the Psalmists understood (Psalms 1:2, Psalms 119), and as Paul understood (Romans 7:22).
That's the point - he gave it to Moses and the Israelites.
Since then, Jesus, the Messiah has come, fulfilled Jewish law for the Jews (if they can accept it) and laid down his life for us all - Jews and Gentiles - so we can be reconciled to God and have eternal life. Jesus is the second Adam, bringing life where the first Adam brought death, and sealed the NEW covenant, prophesied through Jeremiah, with his blood. Hebrews says that where there is a new covenant, the old is obsolete.
Honestly, you shouldn't have to tell someone who is a servant of God that they should obey God and you shouldn't have to tell someone who a disciple of Jesus that they should imitate his sinless example of obedience.
You don't.
But if the NT writers expected their readers/audiences to obey Jewish food laws, that had been given to other people many years previously; if this was vital for living a holy life, was a command from God and was his will for them as Gentile believers, then I feel sure that they would have spelt it out and made absolutely sure these Gentile believers knew what was expected of them. Instead, what do we find in Acts 15? The Jewish believers in Jerusalem sent a letter to Gentile believers telling them to abstain from blood and from food offered to idols. No mention at all of what to eat or having to keep the rest of the law.
Jesus didn't come to start a new religion, but rather he was born a Jew, became a Jewish rabbi, had Jewish disciples, a is the Jewish Messiah in fulfillment of Jewish Prophecy. Muslims who are waiting for the Mahdi to come have no expectations that if he came he would start a new religion, but rather he would bring about the fullness of Islam, and in the same way Jesus brought about the fullness of Judaism. So Christianity is a Jewish religion and it is the fullness of Judaism, which Gentiles have been grafted into.
I don't think that's how the Jews see it.
Christianity has Jewish origins, Jewish Scriptures, a Jewish Messiah and was probably almost exclusively Jewish for the first few years. I do feel that any Jew who accepts Jesus as their Messiah has become a complete, or fulfilled, Jew.
BUT many of us are not Jews and never have been.
There are similarities between us. God rescued the Israelites from slavery and death in Egypt; we have been rescued from slavery to sin and saved from eternal death by God himself, who sent his Son to die for us. The Israelites were given God's law and were chosen to be his people; we believe in Jesus who IS the Word of God and are his people, and God's children, if we have received eternal life and his Holy Spirit. We don't have the wonderful, rich tradition that Jewish believers have; we have Jesus, only Jesus. But he is enough.
I grew up attending a Baptist church for 30 years, so I grew being taught in a similar way as you. It's only in the last few years that I've been studying the Jewish cultural context of the Bible that I was compelled to change my views about God's law and I've found that it makes much more sense of the Bible.
Studying the OT is great - and I would say necessary and advisable. I love Exodus and even Leviticus is interesting now. I haven't ditched the OT because I believe in Jesus; far from it. I can see now where Jesus' coming and ministry were prophesied and how he fulfils the feasts and so on. That is not to say that I have to put myself under Jewish law. And by the way, Jewish law isn't just about not eating pork, it includes circumcision, not wearing clothes of mixed fabrics, declaring yourself, or being declared, unclean at certain times (especially if you are a woman). It involves stoning people to death for blasphemy, adultery, or not keeping the Sabbath, it includes instructions to men about beards
Leviticus gives instructions about offering sacrifices for sin - yet we don't need to do this because Jesus offered his life, once and for all, upon the cross, and even the Jews don't do this now. So Jews and Gentiles alike disregard that part of the law.
If the law given to Hebrews applies to us too, then all of it applies - we can't pick and choose which parts of his law are important or acceptable.
The law is not about how we become justified, but about how God wants us to live out lives by faith as we grow in our relationship with Him and are made to be more like Christ in his character and obedience to God.
Jesus has told, and shown me, how he wants me to live my life, and no one did/does he say "you MUST avoid pork, shellfish, polyester/cotton mixes in order to prove to God that you are holy." Nowhere has he commanded Gentile believers to come to him for salvation and then do everything that God commanded Moses.
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