What are we supposed to "do" with Old Testament Law?

[Guest onethang]

If eating things, pork, stones, non-food, or unclean things, could defile us, Christ certainly would have said so here, when He directly tells us what defiles us. I will go with the words of Christ first.

The Bible already said which animals to eat/not eat. He was arguing against the man-made rules. the OT Law is the word of God. If Jesus is Divine, then he already commanded that pig not be eaten! or is Jesus a different God than the OT God?

The options you give are not the only options at all, not even close. We have how we are to live directly in the New Testament.

I said "some" options, because i know those arent the only options. you wanna give me some different options? It looks like you chose option #2.

If people don't want to eat pork or shrimp for health reasons, and I think there indeed is guidance from Christ for us to treat our bodies right, that is fine, but it has nothing to do with the need to follow OT law. Why does Paul make such a point about NOT getting circumcised? Circumcision was certainly a central part of the OT command to the Jews. So if this is not followed, certainly the other rituals not relating to the moral law of Christ are also not important.

The Law says to circumcise your children on the 8th day. It never says that adult Gentiles have to be circumcised to join the people of God. Paul was arguing against the idea that a gentile had to be circumcised or he couldn't be saved. Paul never spoke against people obeying the Law by circumcising their sons on the 8th day. Acts 21:21 there's a false rumor that Paul was saying not to circumcise children according to the Law. Paul takes steps to confirm that the rumor is a lie.

How do you decide what is empty ritual and what is moral law? Listen to your heart? My heart tells me to keep Sabbath. This homosexual guy over there says his heart tells him that there's nothing wrong with homosexuality. How do you know who's heart is right or wrong?

Paul goes on to say not to worry about new moons or Sabbaths; once again we have direct guidance.

Which verses are you reading from an anti-Law perspective to get that guidance? I'm sure those verses can be read in context from the perspective that Paul's Bible was the OT, and we will see that he says nothing against Sabbath or the Feasts of God.

But it has nothing to do with salvation or faith in Christ and it earns or profits you nothing as Paul very pointedly states. If you do it thinking you are special or deserving of merit, in that case it is a very dangerous practice. It is no different from thinking you have to go to Mass on High Holy Days and if you don't and don't repent you will go to hell, it is a works based idea, an empty ritual.

Right it's not about salvation, it's about obeying God and avoiding sin.

[Guest onethang]

But Christ in that discussion of washing the hands took the opportunity to make a major point about what defiles a person. His point is sound, Christ stated that NOTHING that enters your digestive tract can defile you, what proceeds from the heart is what defiles us. He could have said, not washing your hands or not following this particular ritual, but He didn't He broadened the point, getting to the heart of the matter, the heart of the difference between the moral law of Christ and true faith, and the empty worries and rituals concerning food, Sabbaths, circumcision, and animal sacrifice, and all of the other ceremonial and ritual laws of the Jews of the Old Testament. This is a very old debate about reintroducing a works based empty ritual system, taking away from the sacrifice of Christ. Paul addressed this whole debate in Galatians, I encourage everyone to read Galatians again, and Paul is very strong about the need to reject this sort of works based thinking.

Christ shows us a better way.

In Luke 14:26 Jesus says that a follower of his must hate his father and mother. Jesus could have said you must love me more than your father or mother, but he said to hate them. So was he doing away with the 5th of the 10 Commandments?

Galatians is about circumcision. Gentiles don't have to be circumcised to be saved. No work can save you. Keeping Sabbath can't save you. Being a heterosexual can't save you. Telling the truth can't save you. But, shall we sin so that grace will increase? NO! We are righteous by faith. Does faith do away with the law? No, it strengthens the law.

[tah]

I shudder to think what kind of answers are going to appear with this one!

you must remember the last thread of foods...

This is what I stick with..makes me happy...

Mar 7:15 There is nothing from outside a man which entering into him can defile him. But the things which come out of him, those are the ones that defile the man.

[Floatingaxe]

Excellent, WhySoBlind!

[Guest onethang]

In Genesis 9:3, we see God tell Noah and his family that EVERY living thing would be for him to eat. We don't see religious looking qualifier words like "sanctified" or clean or unclean. God simply said:

Gen. 9:3 EVERY moving thing that lives shall be meat for you; Even as the green herb have I given you ALL things. (Emphasis mine.)

Here "Meat" is the same word that appears in Genesis chapters 1 and 2 regarding the herbs, which the latter half of this verse points back to for additional clarification.

So then God himself told Noah that it was OK AND GOOD AND EXPECTED for man to eat ANY LIVING CREATURE. The only qualifier was that it had to be thoroughly purged of its life blood.

No qualifiers. Not even a distinction between man and animal in that verse. People are living, moving things. But in the next few verses it kindof seems like shedding the blood of a person might be worse than shedding the blood of an animal.

Even in Genesis 1 and 2 it wasn't actually every plant that they were allowed to eat. one tree was off limits.

And if you look before, Noah knew the difference between clean and unclean animals. He knew to only sacrifice clean animals. Perhaps it was understood that he would only eat clean animals. Remember he took 7 (or actually 7 pairs i think) of each clean animal and only 2 of each unclean animal. So it would make sense that once you started eating animals, you would start with what you had the most of which would have been clean animals.

And it's interesting to note that Abraham, Isaac and Jacob were shepherds not pig farmers.

This refutes any claims by the legalists, then, that there is something medically wrong with Pork or shellfish. God doesn't give man bad things. I have never heard of any of these legalists refuting this argument of mine, and because they can't do so without contradiction of their own basis for their doctrines.

I don't buy the claim that the food Laws are for health reasons.

Pardon for a moment while I discuss some other applications of the terms "clean" and "unclean". A man and woman were "unclean" until evening after having sex, even if they were married. Did that mean they were sinning? No, as sex in marriage is obviously sanctioned by God. Yet by the logic of those who refuse to eat Pork based on Levitical law, sex too, even between a man and his wife, must be abstained from, since it too would make you unclean. Obviously such isn't the case.

A person was "unclean" if they touched a carcase of a strangled animal or of a person. or touched a woman with an issue of blood, and usually even if it was by accident. So "clean" and "unclean" really had little to do with "sin" and what was morally right or wrong, or medicaly healthy or unhealthy, it was all religious ceremony.

You're right here. A person being clean or unclean has little or nothing to do with sin. It is not a sin to be unclean. Leviticus doesn't say eating unclean animals makes you unclean, it says don't eat unclean animals.

1 Cor. 8:8 But meat does not commend us to God. For neither if we eat are we the better, nor if we eat not are we the worse.

Now the immediate context of that passage is actually in reference to foods, usually meat from an animal, which had been sacrificed to a pagan god. Paul basicly said that we know those gods don't really even exist at all, so it doesn't matter whether you eat it or not because you don't believe in their false god anyway, you believe in the true God and thank him for the food and he blesses it.(see 1 Tim. 4:3).

1Cor 10:20-21 seems to be saying not to eat food sacrificed to idols. And in Acts 15 the counsel clearly states that Gentiles should not eat anything sacrificed to idols. Is Paul so wishy washy?

So those who teach "Don't eat pork, shellfish, etc" are actually teaching contrary to God's original commandments in Genesis.

Those who say that the Sabbath is just like any other day are teaching contrary to God's original declaration in Genesis.

[eric]

Personally, I will stick with what Jesus said. in the gospel of Mark 7 : 18-19. If something tastes good, I'll eat it. Saturday or Sunday.

18And he saith unto them, Are ye so without understanding also? Do ye not perceive, that whatsoever thing from without entereth into the man, it cannot defile him;

19Because it entereth not into his heart, but into the belly, and goeth out into the draught, purging all meats?

That's good enough for me. Jesus said, I believe it and I don't care a whit about the SDA teachings.

[Floatingaxe]

Personally, I will stick with what Jesus said. in the gospel of Mark 7 : 18-19. If something tastes good, I'll eat it. Saturday or Sunday.

18And he saith unto them, Are ye so without understanding also? Do ye not perceive, that whatsoever thing from without entereth into the man, it cannot defile him;

19Because it entereth not into his heart, but into the belly, and goeth out into the draught, purging all meats?

That's good enough for me. Jesus said, I believe it and I don't care a whit about the SDA teachings.

Ditto, brother!

[Smalcald]

Galatians is about circumcision. Gentiles don't have to be circumcised to be saved. No work can save you. Keeping Sabbath can't save you. Being a heterosexual can't save you. Telling the truth can't save you. But, shall we sin so that grace will increase? NO! We are righteous by faith. Does faith do away with the law? No, it strengthens the law.

No we should not sin, but sinning has NOTHING to do with the empty rituals of the ceremonial law of the OT Jews, who were blinded, to Christ. That is the danger of playing around with things you don't understand. Christ did not sin, yet He told us that we could eat anything, that anything that entered our digestive tract could not defile us.

If you actually believe Galatians is about nothing more than circumcision than I seriously doubt you understand Law or Grace or even what the Gospel is about. Galatians is about grace, faith and Christian liberty; it is central to what we believe. We are not to be entangled again in the yoke of bondage as Paul states. Circumcision is mentioned because it is very central to the OT ceremonies, and Paul says it profits us NOTHING, ZERO, as those who want to attempt to be justified by keeping other ceremonial or ritual law are profited nothing by it, in fact they have fallen from grace.

But there is another law, the true law written on all of our hearts, this is the moral law, and it is clearly laid out in the New Testament, if you are born again you will want to follow this moral law of Christ. These things are also mentioned in Galatians, in the same book that Paul says circumcision is meaningless from a spiritual perspective, he states however, those who envy, get drunk, are violent, are adulterers, fornicators, etc, those who practice and live in those things will not inherit the Kingdom of God, not those who don't eat pork or get circumcised. If those things helped we would not need Christ.

I have nothing against you playing around with old testament Jewish Ceremonial law if it makes you feel good, but God does not require this, and frankly if you feel that you are somehow justified, that somehow this earns you anything than as Paul says you have fallen from grace.

We avoid sin because as born again Christians we want to avoid sin, and we also know that we will fail, that we all sin. The Holy Spirit has prepared good works for us to walk in, all good is only from God all evil is from us. The only thing, which shows a lack of faith, is actually believing that you don't sin, that you don't need repentance or grace or Christ. We are nothing, only in Christ do we mean anything or have any good in us. Any other view takes away from Christ and is a works based idea and very dangerous indeed.

[Floatingaxe]

What excuses, Lawyer? The Lord Jesus Christ came to free us from these obligations. When the Word tells me Jesus freed us, as in:

""Are you so dull?" he asked. "Don't you see that nothing that enters a man from the outside can make him 'unclean'? For it doesn't go into his heart but into his stomach, and then out of his body." (In saying this, Jesus declared all foods "clean.")"

...then as I said before, I am indeed free! Why be a pharisee about it?

We are free to eat, and we are free NOT to eat!

[billie]

You Christians will never get it. Keep going for your excuses. They are incorrect.

Medically incorrect.

Spiritually incorrect.

You Christians? Lawyer, don't you mean us Christians, or are you not a Christian?