Should Christians Obey the Old Testament Dietary Laws....

Soyeong said:

I agree that there a deeper underlying principles to the Law, though I would say that those principles have always been there and that Jesus was certainly not the first to expound upon them. There are more ways to do what is righteous or sinful than the Law specifically prescribes or prohibits, but the Law is spiritual in that it has always been intended to teach us deeper spiritual principles of which the listed laws are just example, which which are the character traits of God, such as holiness, righteousness, goodness, justice, mercy, faithfulness, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, and self-control. Jesus expressed these character traits through his actions and what that looked like was complete obedience to the Mosaic Law, so that is what it should look like when he is living in us. Our sanctification is about being made to be more like Christ, to have and to express the same character traits.

So when we correctly understand a spiritual principle, then it will lead us to take actions that are examples of that principle in accordance with what the Law instructs. Likewise, when we have a character trait, then we will express it through our actions, so when God imputes His righteousness to us and declares us to be righteous, He is also declaring us to be someone who therefore expresses His righteousness through our actions in accordance with His instructions for how to do that found in His Law. In other words, the reason that we have received the righteousness of God was not in order to hide it under a bushel, but in order to let it shine through our obedience (Matthew 5:13-16). So the reason that we are to do what is righteous in obedience to the Law is not in order to become righteous, but because we have been declared to be righteous.

If Jesus had wanted to argue matters of halakhah with the Pharisees, then he could have done that. For example:

Shabbat 128a And one may pick them with his hand and eat, as long as he does not pick them with a vessel. And one may crush and remove the seeds with his hand and eat them, as long as he does not crush a lot with a vessel; this is the statement of Rabbi Yehuda. And the Rabbis say: One may crush them only with the ends of his fingers, in an atypical manner, as long as he does not crush a lot with his hand in the manner that he does during the week.

So when Jesus was in the grainfields with his disciples and being questioned by the Pharisees, he could have debated with them the correct way to walk out the Torah if he had wanted to, but he always went to the heart of the matter.

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Michael Collum said:

In the new testament, the law of God is embodied in a nature that lives within us, in a likewise manner, sin lives inside our body as a contrary nature.

Everything we need to know about God and sin is already inside us when we are born again, the written teachings help us understand what's being created within us, and how to serve effectively.

It's a lot to keep track of so I trust His saying that if I clean the inside of the cup, the outside will be made clean also. The Old Testament is about cleaning the outside, the New Testament is about cleaning the inside, so the application is simple.

Since that part is easier to focus on, I have more time to devote to service, which was the point of the new covenant, since the work wasn't getting done under the old covenant.

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Michael Collum said:

The dietary laws were perfect for a slave caste from Egypt with zero wilderness survival skills. But now we have refridgeration, varying climates, genetic requirements, and other factors that require a means to figure it out for each person individually.

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Soyeong said:

If the Old Covenant were just about cleaning the outside and that is what the Pharisees were doing, then Jesus would not have had any grounds to criticize them for doing what God had commanded them to do. Rather, in Exodus 20:6, God wanted His people to love Him and obey His commands, so obedience to God has always been a matter of the heart and never been about our outward performance. Otherwise God would not have always disdained it when His people honored Him with their lips while their hearts were far from Him (Isaiah 29:13).



While there are night and day differences between how healthy it is to eat clean and unclean animals and there are an incredible amount of diseases and parasites that have been transferred to humans through eating unclean animals, so it is reasonable to think that health concerns had something to do with it, however, God associated it with His holiness, so there is much more to it than that. In 1 Peter 1:16, we are told to have a holy conduct for God is holy, which is a quote from Leviticus where God was giving instructions for how to have a holy conduct, which includes refraining from eating unclean animals (Leviticus 11:44-45).

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Basil the Great said:

.... not for moral purposes, but because some contend that these dietary laws were instituted for reasons of health and that obeying them today will improve the life and longevity of Christians? I read an article way back in the 1980's where a Christian contended this very thesis. Thinking about it, modern scientific research seems to have proven that pork is not a healthy food to eat. Hence, perhaps we should consider abiding by the Old Testament dietary laws? What say all of you?

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