Jewish Dietary Laws No Longer Exist

[TurnRight]

David Ben-Ariel's argument that the dietary laws... and perhaps an argument by him that the whole Law... are still in place for believers in Jesus being the Christ, is something of the frame of mind that killed Jesus on the cross.

David, I don't by saying this imply that you are knowingly associated with or uphold the events of the cross, simply that the Pharisaic temperament of much if not most of first century Jewry is alive today in the form presented by the Seventh Day Adventists, the Worldwide Church of God and others who cling to and advocate parts of the Law, such as circumcision being necessary to salvation. This is a shame and distorts the Christ.

You say that the dietary laws are in force and always will be, and that "God's clean and unclean food laws are consistent from Genesis to Revelation (Lev. 11 & Deut. 14)."

But there is an issue involved here that is almost theoretical, in that a basic underpinning of faith and God's gift of grace and of salvation enters the scene in an obscure reality. It is that of the combination of Jesus being rejected by the nation of Israel, Paul's being brought in, and Peter's never fully answering the call, and God's fulness of grace.

Had Israel turned to the Lord rather than crucifying Him, all would have been different. The Christ would have been on His earthly throne, the Thousand Year Reign would have occurred and satan would have been cast into the Lake of Fire. We wouldn't have been born.

But as we know, things didn't go that way. Why? Because God in His infinite mercy... His agape love and mercy... has as His delight the salvation of as much of mankind as will come to the Son, and so to Him. For these two thousand years God has been patient, gathering all who will come. And He is not through waiting. He will wait and call until the last.

When God changes His mind it is always toward mercy. That is what happened when Abraham argued with God to save the people of Sodom and Gomorra, getting the threshold number progressively reduced. God changed His mind toward mercy at each stepwise decent in number.

And this is what God is doing by nailing the decrees of the Law to the cross, now to be seen as the Cross. 'Thou shall not eat; Thou shall not touch; Thou shall observe; ...' These went to the Cross with Jesus. How do we know? Because Jesus is vicarious. This is alluded to in "Jesus paid it all". But it is more than that. Jesus IS it all. That is the essence of vicariousness. I don't have to be circumcised to be saved because Jesus was circumcised and IS my circumcision. I don't have to be the penalty for my own sinful unworthiness, because Jesus became my penalty for me. I don't have to keep the Law, because Jesus kept the Law for me and IS the Law toward me and for me. Jesus' perfection brought the two of us... Jews and nations... together in God's great mercy and salvation.

The name "Paul", "Paulos", derives from "cease" in the Greek. God gave Saul of Tarsus that name after separating him from the Jerusalem apostles, to be sent out to the world at large. There is meaning in the name. God, at the rejection of the Christ by the nation of Israel, ceased to be God to Israel in the way He had been since Abraham. When they rejected Jesus, they rejected God. This cessation of that particular relationship between Israel and God points up the need for a Paul to be in place to carry out God's will... which is God's secret Administration presented to us in Ephesians. The Jews, their scholars, their priests, didn't see it coming... "Christ among you (the nations), the expectation of glory", as given in Colossians 1:27 had been an invisability to the Jews, who weren't looking in that direction at all.

And of Peter's vision... Peter, and James and John, the three foremost of the Jerusalem apostles, as well as the others, didn't truly and lastingly heed the vision Peter had. Those apostles, 'apostle' means 'the sent'...'from-put-ed'... in literal Greek, held on to traditions and decrees, the things Jesus nailed to the Cross. They were never fully caused to see, as was Paul, that the things other than faith, that made a Jew a Jew, were erased.

And if true with the apostles, it was more so with the judaizers who followed after Paul, seeking to destroy his work in Christ. This is what ultimately killed Paul. The judaizers, whether they were believers in the Messiah having come as Jesus, or yet to come at some later time, hounded Paul mercilessly for carrying out the Administration of God... the bringing of the message of salvation to the world without the necessity of the world becoming Jews. That was his great crime in their eyes. They couldn't have the Law diminished, even at the hands of an extreme miracle worker, proven to be from God, just as Jesus had been.

It was necessary for Peter and the other Jerusalem apostles to have their wings clipped by God, and for Paul to soar. Paul's message to the nations from God, that the Christ is among us and is our expectation of glory had very little home with the twelve apostles. They were for the Jews. Paul was the apostle to the nations. And again, had the nation of Israel repented and turned to the Lord God through His Christ during the efforts of the Twelve, things would have been different... the Christ would have come to set up His earthly kingdom.

But the final assignment was given to Paul. He was to bring the whole world and more to Christ, or die trying. Ephesians is one of the three 'completion' epistles of Paul. Ephesians, Philippians and Colossians are the last general epistles we have. In chapter one of Ephesians Paul spells out for us his task given to him by God and Christ. In verses 8 through 11 Paul tells us that he was "to have an administration of the complement of the eras, to head up all in the Christ, both that in the heavens and that on the earth... in Him in Whom our lot was cast also... "

Peter and the other Jerusalem apostles were not up to this task. The world wasn't going to become Jews in order to come to Christ. The Jews weren't even willing to become Jews in order to come to Christ. How many among them followed the Law perfectly? Other than Jesus can we think of any?

It was necessary for the Law to be taken out of the way by God. No one was being saved by it, and something infinitely better... grace... was here, so the Law had to diminish, just like John the Baptist at Jesus' arrival. The better supplanted the inferior. This is the whole tenor of the book of Hebrews. When the High Priesthood changed lineage, not just different priests within the Aaronic Priesthood, but the whole priesthood, then the Law itself was caused to change. The seventh chapter of Hebrews is very clear on this. Jesus was not of the lineage of Levi. He was out of Judah... "to which tribe Moses speaks nothing concerning priests." Jesus is now God's High Priest, and the Law has therefore been changed. And God, in changing His mind away from the Law, has changed it in the direction of mercy.

We are no longer to follow dietary laws as condition of God's favor. Christ followed them for us. As a result we don't have to. This is part of God's grace to us. The Law didn't work to bring salvation to the Jews... and it won't work for us. Christ is all that works, nothing else. In this sense we must get away from Peter and cling to Paul.

Paul disqualifies both Peter and James, and probably John and the rest of the Twelve, in the second chapter of Galatians. Verse 6 says: "Now from those reputed to be somewhat - what kind they once were is of no consequence to me..." Verse 9: "... James and Cephas and John, who are supposed to be pillars..." Verse 11: " Now when Cephas came to Antioch I withstood him to the face, for he was self-censured." Verse 14: "But when I perceived that they are not correct in their attitude toward the truth of the evangel, I said to Cephas in front of all, 'If you, being inherently a Jew, are living as the nations, and not as the Jews, how are you compelling the nations to be judaizing?"

And as verse 15 continues: "We, who by nature are Jews, and not sinners of the nations, having perceived that a man is not being justified by works of law, except [alone] through the faith of ('of' => vicarious) Christ Jesus, we also believe in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by the faith of Christ and not by works of law, seeing that by works of law shall no flesh at all be justified."

So... the dietary laws? Good for health perhaps, but not for entrance into or maintenance in Christ. "Everything that is sold at the meat market be eating, examining nothing because of conscience. For "the Lord's is the earth and that which fills it." (I Corinthians 10: 25, 26).

We are saved by grace and to follow in faith.