Did God Change the Jewish Law?

Tom: This is our Understanding the Scriptures segment, and we’re in the Book of Acts 11. Dave, we’ve said this before and it bears repeating: This is a privilege for us to encourage people, to take them through the Scriptures verse by verse, to give them our perspective, our opinions; but to encourage them to search the Scriptures daily on their own, you know, if they know the Lord and they have the Holy Spirit, let the Holy Spirit give them understanding of these things, and check us out. We have perspective, because we’ve walked with the Lord—certainly you a lot longer than I have—but we hope the Lord has given us some insights, some experiences with these. But we want people to do it themselves, not just follow what we say or put stock in what we say without going to the Scriptures themselves. 

Acts:11:1And the apostles and brethren that were in Judaea heard that the Gentiles had also received the word of God.
See All...: “And the apostles and brethren that were in Judea heard that the Gentiles had also received the Word of God. And when Peter was come up to Jerusalem, they that were of the circumcision contended with him.” Of course, the circumcision refers to the Jews; they needed to be circumcised. Verse 3: “Saying, Thou wentest in to men uncircumcised, and didst eat with them. But Peter rehearsed the matter from the beginning, and expounded it by order unto them, saying, I was in the city of Joppa praying: and in a trance I saw a vision, a certain vessel descend, as it had been a great sheet, let down from heaven by four corners; and it came even to me: Upon the which when I had fastened mine eyes, I considered, and saw fourfooted beasts of the earth, and wild beasts, and creeping things, and fowls of the air. And I heard a voice saying unto me, Arise, Peter; slay and eat. But I said, Not so, Lord: for nothing common or unclean hath at any time entered into my mouth. But the voice answered me again from heaven, What God hath cleansed, that call not thou common. And this was done three times: and all were drawn up again into heaven.”

Dave: Tom, on the one hand, it seems almost redundant. We just had this whole thing in chapter 10. It must be a very, very important juncture in the history of the church.

Tom: Sure, for the Holy Spirit to impress upon Luke to repeat this to us. You’re right, Dave.

Dave: Well, of course, he’s only recounting what happened when Peter got back from Jerusalem, and Peter had to tell the whole story. In other words, I get the impression, Tom, that Peter was not the pope. He couldn’t just say something, speak ex cathedra, and all of the other apostles or whatever would just follow what he said. Nor does he call for a council to discuss this matter: “Well, what do you think now? Should the Gentiles be allowed in the church?” 

Christ has made it very clear to them: “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.” And you could look all through the Old Testament, and it very clearly said that the Gentiles would be saved, that the Messiah would be for the Gentiles as well as for the Jews. They missed that entirely, and there are many Jews today who still miss that. And so this is being emphasized; we can’t escape it. It really happened. This is something that God did: he sent an angel to this Gentile, this Roman centurion who was devout, at least in his desire, to worship the true God. And so Peter goes through the whole thing with them. But when they heard that the Gentiles had received the Word of God, they were not ready to accept it, and of course Peter wasn’t. That’s why God had to let the sheet down three times and say, “Rise, Peter, kill and eat, and don’t call anything unclean that I have called clean.”

Tom: Dave, I have a question about that, because it does seem a little bit confusing in this sense. Basically, this refers to the Gentiles, but it’s dealing with the law that the Jews were subjected to, what they were not allowed to eat. Is God changing this for the Jews, or is it just making a statement with regard to the Gentiles?

Dave: Well, the Scripture says—and here we have some conflicts between, for example, Seventh Day Adventists, who still want to keep the sabbath, and I often explain it this way: In Romans 2, God says He has written his law in every conscience. I know of no one who had “Keep the Sabbath” written in their conscience. There are certain things that were for the Jews only, and they were for the Jews for a time because they were looking forward to the Messiah. For example, it’s not proper for a Gentile Christian to keep the Passover. My ancestors were not part of that, but it certainly would be for a Jewish person. But they don’t keep that now as this is God’s salvation through this Passover lamb, but that was a picture of the Lamb who was to come. When John the Baptist saw Christ he said, “Behold, the Lamb of God who bears away the sin of the world.” So Paul tells us that there’s nothing unclean except to the person who thinks it is unclean. 

Now, I think we have some hygienic rules in the Old Testament that we would still benefit from if we followed them: avoid certain animals, and so forth. But we are no longer under that law, because that was a picture of a salvation that was to come. So Paul in Romans 14, for example—let me just read it very quickly. It’s a very important passage, Romans 14: “Him that is weak in the faith receive ye, but not to doubtful disputations. For one believeth that he may eat all things: another, who is weak, eateth herbs. Let not him that eateth despise him that eateth not; and let not him which eateth not judge him that eateth: for God hath received him,” and so forth. He goes on and he says, “One man esteemeth one day above another: another esteemeth every day alike. Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind,” and so forth. 

So there’s a clear indication in the New Testament that there are certain—what could we call them?—rules and regulations pertaining to what you eat, and rituals, observances of days, and so forth. They were for a time, because they were a picture of the new life that we would have in Christ and the salvation that would come through Him. But we are not bound by that now, because we have a higher law. Actually, the higher law is the law of Christ Paul talks about. And it’s not that I’m trying to keep—how many are there?—hundreds of commandments in the law of Moses…

Tom: Over 600, I think; 600 and some.

Dave: Right. We have one command, and that is to live as Christ would live in us. 

So Paul said, “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.” Galatians:2:20I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.
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So now what is my law that I follow? I follow the law of Christ, it says, and that is just to allow Him to live His life through me, and there is no law against anything that Jesus Christ would do living through me. 

But this is such an important part in the history of the church that suddenly the gospel is open to the Gentiles. Well, that’s what the Old Testament always said; that’s what Christ said. But they had a very difficult time finding it, and when we get into the book of Galatians, for example, we find that there were people we call “Judaizers” who are coming and talking to even Gentile Christians saying, “You’ve got to keep the law, you’ve got to do this,” and so forth. And that is a very difficult conflict that comes into the Christian life and into the Christian church, and so God is taking a lot of time to deal with it.