Refraining from mixing wool and linen, from marring the corners of our beard, and the death penalty for breaking the Sabbath are laws that God has given. .
So you keep them then?
You don't wear jumpers/scarves/socks that are mixtures of polyester and cotton, or viscose/wool or any other combination?
How many people have you stoned to death for not keeping the Sabbath?
The fact that God considers breaking the Sabbath to be worthy of the death penalty and the fact that Jesus gave himself to pay that penalty should lead you to want to keep the Sabbath holy.
Keeping the Sabbath and how to keep it is a separate thread - the point is that the Israelites were told to stone anyone who did not keep it. If you insist we follow the same law today, that's what you should do.
Something that is holy is set apart, so the various commands against mixing things are related to and are an expression of God's holiness.
It was how they were to show that they were holy - set apart - for God; yes.
WE are made Holy by Jesus and the Holy Spirit who lives in us.
As I said before, no one walking down the street would say to us "your coat is a mixture of wool and nylon; you are dishonouring God and besmirching his holiness." What speaks to people of God is our changed lives, new hearts and transformed habits and values. Clothes are just outer things. Holiness comes from within; from the Spirit who is in us.
God could have given any number of laws, so either the laws that God has given are completely arbitrary, or there is a reason why God chose to give the laws that He did
God knew exactly why he was giving those laws to those people - and he knows exactly what laws he has given to us, too.
Many of God's laws straightforwardly obvious why God commanded them and are clearly derived from the principle of loving our neighbor as ourselves (mishpatim), how other laws are not straightforwardly obvious why God commanded them, like not plowing an ox and a donkey together or against wearing clothing mixed with wool and linen (chukim). No explanation being given for them, so they almost invite us to ponder why they were given, such as with you thinking that some of them are in regard to hygiene, and I think many people have come up with good reasons for them, but ultimately they are at most educated guesses. When we don't understand why God commanded something, then it makes it easy to find excuses not to obey it,
Not exactly.
How do you suggest that people in busy cities plough their fields at all; never mind not mixing oxen and donkeys?
How do you suggest that people show respect to their slaves in countries where slavery has been abolished? (Not, employees are not the same as the slaves that they had in the Bible.)
or to obey simply because it was commanded by God.
It wasn't commanded by God for us or given to us.
Israel is God's people, so decide whether on not you want to be included because the New Covenant was only made the house of Judah and the house Israel (Jeremiah 31:33), and Jesus only came for the lost sheep of Israel (Matthew 15:24).
So in which Israel am I included? The Israel of Solomon's day? The Israel made up of 10 of the tribes after the country split, or the two tribes, which included Jerusalem and the temple?
Am I part of the Israel who were sent into exile for their repeated disobedience and breaking of the covenant - 10 of the tribes being wiped out by the Assyrians, and the rest being taken captive into Babylon, where some of them died? Am I part of the Israel that returned from Babylon, rebuilt Jerusalem and the temple, and centuries later were occupied and taken over by the Romans?
I am a child of God; one of God's people through Jesus. Jesus died for everyone and gave eternal life to all who came to, and received, him.
The Mosaic Law is the way (Jeremiah 6:16-19), the truth (Psalms 119:29), and the life (Deuteronomy 32:47),
So you think the Mosaic law is at least equal to Jesus, who said that he is all those things and the ONLY Way to the Father?
Jesus set a sinless example of how to walk in obedience to the Mosaic Law, so he is the the way, the truth, and the life (John 14:6).
No, Jesus is the Way to God because he IS God, and came to earth as fully God and fully man, to reconcile us to the Father.
Jesus was conceived by, and filled with, the Spirit of truth.
Jesus came to give us life, John 10:10 and is the only one who can give eternal life.
Jesus did not teach that faith, eternal life nor salvation would be given by keeping the Mosaic law.
Jesus set a sinless example of how to walk in obedience to the Mosaic Law, so he would have still taught full obedience to it by example even if he had said nothing,
No, if Jesus had wanted everyone to obey the Mosaic law he would have said so, told them to follow his perfect example and made it very clear that that was what he was doing.
He would not have touched unclean people, women who were bleeding or dead people, because the laws in Leviticus say not to. He wouldn't have healed on the Sabbath, nor allowed his disciples to walk through a cornfield, picking and threshing the grain. He would have insisted on following the handwashing laws and told everyone else to do so too. He would have insisted that the law be obeyed to the letter and the woman caught in adultery be stoned to death.
He did not.
He never sinned but he either did, or did not, do the above. If he had kept the Mosaic law perfectly, the Pharisees would have loved him and not opposed him, and the lawyers would have had nothing to complain about.
Furthermore, to tell someone to repent from their sin is tell them to obey the Mosaic Law.
No, that's your interpretation of repentance.
I doubt very much that anyone who has heard the Gospel today and understood they are sinners has said "yay; now I am a child of God and free I have to put myself under slavery to the law." I doubt that most hear about the OT laws until they have been Christians for a while.
In Matthew 11:28, Jesus invited people to learn from him, not refuse to learn from what he taught by word and by example.
He never taught obedience to the law.
You have not yet come up with one verse where Jesus says "follow me and obey the OT law."
In order to testify about God's holiness. Treating things are being holy is an expression of the character trait of holiness.
Being filled daily with his Holy Spirit is a expression of God's holiness.
Putting God first, Matthew 6:33 and following Jesus is an expression of God's holiness - not wearing an M&S coat which you later find is made from more than one fabric. And no one has ever looked at my plate of steak and chips in a restaurant and said "God is holy; I see it by your example - you have no pork."
Mosaic Law is God's instructions for how to walk in His ways,
For the Israelites who were living among pagan nations, who believed in more than one god and had different, and possibly debauched, lifestyles.
They were to be different - sat apart for, and dedicated to, one God, and keep his word to them.
These are not his word to us.
Jesus is THE Word; God's final Word on salvation and holiness.
Those actions were never in violation of God's law. There is nothing in Leviticus that says that he shouldn't have done that, just that those who do that become unclean.
And if they were unclean they could not come to God nor touch others until they were clean.
Besides, God told them not to do them, so if they did, they disobeyed his law.
There are many examples of the Mosaic laws being followed in Genesis prior to Sinai.
For example, in Leviticus 19:17, we are instructed not to hate our brother, which is something Jesus taught.
That's obviously not an example of the Mosaic law being followed in
Genesis, then.
How can God be the same yesterday, today, and forever, yet the way to live for God not be the same yesterday, today, and forever?
Easily.
God works in different ways, says different things to people and people/nations have different customs.
For example, when Abraham, Isaac and Jacob met with God they set up a stone, or maybe built an altar to mark the spot where God had met with, and spoke to, them. We are not told that they had to go back to this stone, or to a special place, to meet with God.
In Moses' day if anyone wanted to meet with God they went to the tabernacle, spoke to a priest or asked Moses to ask God for them. God instructed Moses to build the Tabernacle and gave very detailed instructions for it and its furnishings. The Tabernacle included the ark of the Covenant.
Many years later, God told David that his son would build him a temple, and Solomon did. We hear nothing of the tabernacle - that God had once commanded to be built - after this point.
Many years later still, the Israelites were taken into exile in Babylon and the temple, that God had commanded to be built, was destroyed by pagans. In exile, the Israelites built synagogues, and they still have them today.
They rebuilt the temple, God's house, which was condemned by Jesus and destroyed by more pagans in AD 70. It has never been rebuilt. At the crucifixion the curtain of the temple - the bit that prevented anyone but a high priest from entering the Holy of Holies, was torn in two from top to bottom. Whereas only a high priest, specially chosen and consecrated, could once enter God's presence, now we all can.
The early church taught that WE are God's temple - that his Holy Spirit can live in us.
In the OT people could only speak to God through prophets; now we can all speak to God directly.
In the OT people were told to offer sacrifices when they sinned against God; now we are forgiven through Jesus, the Lamb of God.
In the OT certain people only received God's Holy Spirit, and then only for a shirt time, or a special task - e.g if they were anointed as kings. Now we are told to be filled with the Holy Spirt daily.
So God hasn't changed - but the way that people approach him, find forgiveness, pray to him and worship him, has.
