While there is some truth in your post, I don’t think it’s as white and black as you make it out to be.
Was this precept from the law of Moses no longer in affect?
Acts 3:22-23 Moses said, ‘The Lord God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your brothers. You shall listen to him in whatever he tells you. And it shall be that every soul who does not listen to that prophet shall be destroyed from the people.’
Why would it matter if they had to flee on a sabbath?
Matthew 24:20
20Pray that your flight may not be in winter or on a Sabbath.
why were the Christian jews still zealous for the customs and laws of Moses?
Acts 21:20-22 when they heard it, they glorified God. And they said to him, “You see, brother, how many thousands there are among the Jews of those who have believed. They are all zealous for the law,
21and they have been told about you that you teach all the Jews who are among the Gentiles to forsake Moses, telling them not to circumcise their children or walk according to our customs.
22What then is to be done? They will certainly hear that you have come
why did the old covenant still need to vanish, it was already removed?
Hebrews 8:13 In speaking of a new covenant, he makes the first one obsolete. And what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away.
AD70 was not the end of the old covenant. That occurred 40 years earlier. When Christ said
"it is finished" on the cross that was the end of the old covenant arrangement. From a heavenly perspective the renting of the veil finished the temple sacrifices forever. Whilst Matthew doesn’t identify what Christ said before He gave up the ghost John does in 19:30: “When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, he said,
It is finished: and he bowed his head, and gave up the ghost.”
The continued practice of the Jewish sacrifice system and the strict religious laws that the apostate Jewish religious leaders enforced after Christ's death did not in any way negate the abolition of the old covenant at the cross. To say otherwise is to fight with multiple NT Scripture.
The book of Hebrews shows the removal of the old covenant arrangement and its replacement by the new superior covenant. Hebrews 8:6 declares (before AD70):
“now hath he (Christ)
obtained a more excellent ministry, by how much also he is the mediator of a better covenant, which was established upon better promises.”
Hebrews 8:7-8 explains (before AD70),
“For if that first covenant had been faultless, then should no place have been sought for the second. For finding fault with them, he saith, Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah.”
The old covenant was
faulty or defective. It had many limitations. It had to be replaced. Those who suggest it was still active and useful between Calvary and AD70 undermine the cross and fight with clear and repeated Scripture.
Albert Barnes contends:
“it did not contain the ample provision for the pardon of sin and the salvation of the soul which was desirable. It was merely ‘preparatory’ to the Gospel.”
The Preachers Homiletical states:
“Not merely ‘free from defect’, but ‘incomplete’, unable fully to meet man’s case. The old system was complete enough for its limited sphere and purpose: fault was found with its limitations.”
John Wesley explained:
“For if the first had been faultless - If that dispensation had answered all God's designs and man's wants, if it had not been weak and unprofitable unable to make anything perfect, no place would have been for a second.”
Scripture (before AD70) describes the old covenant sacrificial system as
“that which is done away” (2 Corinthians 3:11) and
“that which is abolished” (2 Corinthians 3:13). It makes clear:
“the old testament … vail is done away in Christ" (2 Corinthians 3:14). Hebrews 10:9 confirms:
“He taketh away the first, that he may establish the second.”
The sad thing is: many Christians today speak on this subject as if the cross never happened. They talk as if the old covenant still exists and is still relevant today or in the future. They fail to see that it has been eternally removed and the new covenant has replaced it. This is why they get messed up when they get to this subject. They want to go back to the old imperfect arrangement or they want Israel to go back to the old imperfect arrangement. They yearn for an old-covenant-type physical kingdom that is focused on the natural, temporal and earthly.
Equally, they want to elevate Israel to a place that they no longer own in the New Testament. Many want to render circumcision (the sign of the old covenant) meritorious or advantageous when the New Testament says it avails nothing.
The fact is, on the authority of God’s Word, we are never going back to the shadow, the type and the abolished. The reason being: God was, and is, fully and eternally satisfied with the new covenant. It doesn’t need modified, added to or replaced. The cross did it all!
The old covenant was only a signpost to the new covenant – the substance, fulfilment and the reality. It simply pointed to the new covenant arrangement that was focused on the real Jerusalem (the heavenly), not Christ-rejecting carnal Jerusalem. The old has been eternally abolished.
Hebrews 10:1 (before AD70) makes it perfectly clear,
“For the law having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things."
The old Jewish temple in Jerusalem, which is now destroyed, served as an impressive physical, yet, imperfect temporal type of the living temple of God – the Lord Jesus Christ and His mystical body. It was the focal-point for the whole Judaic sacrificial system for many centuries.
Paul the Apostle addresses this in Galatians 4:9-10 (before AD70), asking,
“now, after that ye have known God, or rather are known of God, how turn ye again to the weak and beggarly elements, whereunto ye desire again to be in bondage? Ye observe days, and months, and times, and years.”
The New Testament writer is referring here to the old covenant ceremonial calendar. His contention is simple: why would a liberated Christian want to go back to the old elaborate abolished Jewish arrangement? This phrase “days, and months, and times, and years” refer to the many holy days, feasts and festivals that Israel had to carefully maintain until Jesus died on the cross. All of these were a heavy bondage to them. Paul despaired because some believers were looking back to the bondage of the old that was gone. This is so opposed to the freedom that comes in Christ.
The phrase “Ye observe” is one Greek word
paratēreō meaning you
‘assiduously observe’ or you
‘painstakingly observe’. The word translated “weak” here (
asthenes) means
strengthless or impotent. The word interpreted “beggarly” in this passage (
ptochos) relates to
the condition of a pauper. It is derived from the original word
ptoeo meaning
fallen or
flown away. The word “bondage,” which relates to the old Judaic system, is the word
douleuo, meaning
to be a slave.
As we piece these original Greek words together, we start to get a real sense of how the New Testament viewed the whole Old Testament ceremonial law. The old covenant ritualistic system has been abolished because it is expressly
‘impotent, impoverished and slavish’. The old covenant could not remove sin. It could never eradicate a guilty conscious. It was destitute. It has fallen and flown away. It has been rendered redundant. It is obsolete!
It has no ongoing purpose in the plan of God because of its weakness. It could never secure eternal salvation because it was not an eternal covenant. It had an expiration date. The coming in of the new perfect covenant removed the old imperfect system. When Christ came, He introduced “the everlasting covenant,” thus making the old temporal system useless. The shadow simply pointed to the substance.
Why would God ever want to bring back an insolvent and ineffective religious system that has been replaced by a perfect arrangement?
Colossians 2:14 (before AD70) plainly declares, speaking of these Old Testament ordinances and what happened at Calvary:
“Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross.”
The Greek word for “blotting out” here is
exaleiphō meaning:
‘to wipe off, wipe away, to obliterate, erase, wipe out, blot out’
Q. When did/will the "blotting out the handwriting of ordinances" occur?
A. Christ "took it out of the way" by "nailing it to his cross.”
These ordinances embraced the old covenant civil, ceremonial and ecclesiastical law. They were finished at the cross. When Christ made that final sacrifice for sin He satisfied all God’s holy demands for sin and uncleanness and thus Christ became the final propitiation and substitution for the sinner.
Colossians 2:16-17 (before AD70) continues, keeping on the same theme:
“Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holyday, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days: Which are a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ.”
The Greek word translated “holyday” here is
heorte meaning a festival or feast. The normally precise KJV should probably have used feast or festival here rather than holyday because out of 27 mentions of this word in the New Testament it is interpreted “feast” in all of them apart from here.
New American Standard puts it like this:
“Therefore let no one 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.”
The Living Bible says,
“So don't let anyone criticize you for what you eat or drink, or for not celebrating Jewish holidays and feasts or new moon ceremonies or Sabbaths. For these were only temporary rules that ended when Christ came. They were only shadows of the real thing-of Christ himself.”
Paul is saying here that the old covenant feasts and festivals simply served as types and shadows of things that were to come. They looked forward to the new covenant arrangement and the reality and substance in Christ. The Jews of Ezekiel’s day and Zechariah’s day would never have understood this.
Colossians 2:20-22 (before AD70) adds, summing up the new covenant freedom:
“Wherefore if ye be dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world, why … are ye subject to ordinances, (Touch not; taste not; handle not; Which all are to perish with the using) after the commandments and doctrines of men?”
The phrase “are ye subject to ordinances” is interpreted from the lone Greek word
dogmatizo, which literally means to submit to ceremonially rule. Christianity took us completely away from the bondage of the old Mosaic ceremonial law. These festivals were filled with numerous ordinances and blood sacrifices that had to be stringently observed.
Speaking of these impotent religious ordinances, Scriptures counsels: “Touch not; taste not; handle not.” This couldn’t be clearer!
Matthew Henry adds:
“Christians are freed by Christ from the ritual observances of Moses's law, and delivered from that yoke of bondage which God himself had laid upon them. Subjection to ordinances, or human appointments in the worship of God, is highly blamable, and contrary to the freedom and liberty of the Gospel.”
Adam Clarke explains:
“all the rites and ceremonies of the Jewish religion now perish, having accomplished the end of their institution; namely, to lead us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith.”
Romans 15:6-7 (before AD70) tells us:
“One man esteemeth one day above another: another esteemeth every day [alike]. Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind. He that regardeth the day, regardeth [it] unto the Lord; and he that regardeth not the day, to the Lord he doth not regard [it]. He that eateth, eateth to the Lord, for he giveth God thanks; and he that eateth not, to the Lord he eateth not, and giveth God thanks.”
The strict religious insistence on observing precise sacred days and the keeping of the old arrangement is exposed here as erroneous. Under the new covenant we are at liberty to worship God anywhere at any time, and it is totally acceptable unto God.
