This is a continuation (part 3) of my response to a friend on the subject of the follower of Jesus and the Law of Moses. I hope you find it helpful in your understanding of Scripture. The words of my friend will be in italics to make it easier for you to follow along. As always, I welcome your comments and questions.
My Friend: It is also my understanding that we need not to offer sacrifices anymore because Jesus was the ultimate sacrifice.
Cody: Correct.
My Friend: But what about the other laws and regulations written in the Torah? There's too many of them for me to list here. It seems to me that those are written to govern the everyday life of the Israelites (sort of a theocracy). Are they not valid anymore for us? Should they not be, if they are not cancelled?
Cody: I think I’ve addressed this. In what I’ve previously written, so let’s move on.
My Friend: What about the Sabbath? Should it not still be Friday sundown to Saturday sundown?
Cody: Apply my previous thoughts to this. I will say that in my meditation on and exegesis of Sabbath commands in Scripture that I don’t see them as mostly about setting aside time for worship but rather primarily about resting. I don’t really like how people – I think it was the Puritans who started doing it – began referring to Sunday as the Sabbath. I think for many people, Sunday is a Sabbath rest. But for those of us in full-time ministry, it almost never is. I worship then, but I don’t really rest. Monday tends to be more of a Sabbath for me.
I believe that Sabbath commands in Scripture reveal something of God’s purpose in designing us to live balanced lives that are structured around a core dependence upon Him. I think it is very good as a spiritual discipline for Christians to rest one day in seven. However, to pursue this in a legalistic fashion falls into the traps mentioned previously.
Having said that, the Jewish Sabbath was (and is) the last day of the week (as you mentioned). As long as you don’t pursue this legalistically nor seek to impose upon another brother’s freedom, you are free in Christ to keep this day as a spiritual discipline. The reason Christians worship on Sunday is unrelated to the Biblical concept of Sabbath – or at least it should be. From the early days of the Church, believers worshipped on the first day of the week in commemoration of the resurrection of Christ which occurred on that day (Mt. 28:1, Acts 20:7, 1 Cor. 16:2).
My Friend: I know the NT has addressed the issue of kosher food (in Acts 10). Everything that God has called clean we must not call unclean. So, we can eat whatever we want, including those that were called unclean, such as camel, shellfish, etc. But what about eating blood?
Cody: The Jerusalem Council (Acts 15) handed down some guidelines to the gentile believers that included warnings against idolatry, sexual immorality, strangled food and blood (15:29). These commands are connected to the presence of Jewish people who are presumed to be living among these gentile believers (15:21). One of the things you would need to do to understand this passage better is to figure out what was meant by abstaining from blood. Did this mean only well-done steaks were appropriate to eat? Or is there something else to it? I’ll let you work through that. There are plenty of New Testament commands to confirm the evils of idolatry and sexual immorality, so it’s really the apparent food-related issues that pose us some difficulty. Whatever the case, this is a clear break from Torah-oriented spirituality.
