THE PURITY LAWS OF GOD, DID JESUS ABOLISH THEM?
LAWS ABOUT RELIGIOUS CLEANNESS
The Old Testament contains rules that claim to be from God and which are about
hygiene as well as about right and wrong. Some think that as the gospels
only explicitly abolish such laws in relation to food and washing that the other
impurity rules remain. So sex is dirty!
In the sight of the God of Law, certain actions and people and things were
declared to be dirty or unclean. Women who had given and lepers were considered
unclean and to be avoided for that reason. Certain foods were regarded as
unclean. The Lord said it was dirty to eat pigs and hares (Leviticus 11). Sex
was considered unclean. Touching a chair that an unclean person had touched was
supposed to be unclean.
Are these rules abolished according to the New Testament?
The Seventh-Day Adventist Church has retained the Old Testament food laws. It
recognises the fact that the Bible gives no authorisation for scrapping them.
The other Churches have done away with them.
Before we can ask if they were dropped we have to ask if they could have been
dropped.
Some think that many or all of the forbidden foods and actions were honoured by
the pagan neighbours of ancient Israel and they are forbidden with a view to
creating a barrier between Israel and its neighbours so that Israel wouldn’t be
seduced by error. The animals that Israel could not eat were held sacred by the
pagan neighbours and considered to be emblems of the gods. The problem with this
is that the Hebrews didn’t get rid of the Canaanites and the two races mixed so
that explanation doesn’t hold water.
But if what these people thought was right, this could mean that the uncleanness
laws only apply where there is a danger of being led into unlawful religious
practices. It might be thought, “When the Law declares that the laws are
abolished that is the context it means it in. It is not saying that the laws are
wrong or are abrogated. The rule that what attracts one to indulge in sinful
religious practices remains. Today, the food made by an enemy of Jesus is
unclean for eating it puts one at risk of apostasy.”
This view is silly because the pagans had liturgical worship, had images, had
holy books, had miracles, had priests, had sacrifices and had public prayer just
like the Hebrews. If a Christian keeps a cow in India that does not prove that
he or she will end up worshipping it or want to worship it as a god like people
there would do. If a person wants to forsake God, having zero cows will be no
barrier.
The purity laws were only concerned about avoiding infection. That was why they
enacted that lepers and women who had given birth recently must not be touched.
Obviously, the rules were based on morality and not on custom or on the need to
make Israel different. It is a sin to be dirty without need. Leviticus 12:37,38
says that if a carcass falls on seed to be sown the seed is clean but if the
carcass falls in the water for watering the seed the seed is unclean. It is
plain that this material is about avoidance of what may spread illness.
God thought that certain foods make a person more prone to disease. The pig
being a dirty animal was banned from the dinner plate because it was disgusting.
Pagans were portrayed as evil so naturally their food would have been thought to
be mostly evil.
Scholars would object that the laws were not about hygiene but about
superstition because nobody knew in those days that being dirty could spread
bacteria, many would have seen that there was a connection between dirt and
sickness. In Egypt, the doctors used dung to cure septic wounds which made
things worse. Those who went untreated would have been better off. Just like
many things can’t be said or promoted today so in those days you would have been
considered mad for saying that dirt caused disease. The world did not see germs
and so it would have been against anybody saying infection can be spread by it.
Deep down it knew for it is obvious that when something spreads over the body it
can go on to someone else’s body too.
Israel was controlled by prophets who were able to make them mature and honest
about infection coming from dirt. And Israel did not care what other nations
thought for it became aloof and distant so it was able to shed the prejudices
against hygiene.
Some would argue that the laws could not be about hygiene when a dirty animal’s
meat would be clean if it was boiled and yet their meat was banned. God could
have said eat them but cook them right first. But the Bible has made an
understandable mistake here. It proves that the Christian claim that it seems to
know about bacteria is false for if it had it would have urged the boiling of
unclean materials instead of avoiding them and instead of washing them. It was
seen that infection and dirt had a connection but it was not known what the
connection was. The poor needed bad meat to live and it was still banned so let
nobody say that God never mentioned boiling for there was no need to be using
bad meat in the first place.
The Bible condemns some food and actions as unclean not just because they really
spread infection but because it was thought there was magic power in them that
would harm you. Magic not germs was believed to be behind disease.
These laws could not be done away. If Jesus made all food clean he was
counteracting the magic. He was not doing away with the law but doing away with
the need for the law. The law still exists. The law that the ancients should not
blow up an airplane existed even though there were no planes to explode. By the
way, by making food clean Jesus could have been saying that germs do not cause
infection.
Christians believe that when Jesus touched unclean people he gave them his
cleanness so the rule about avoiding the unclean did not apply to him. He gave
that cleanness to us. So Christians not keeping the purity laws does not mean
they object to them. Quite the contrary.
RELIGIOUS PURITY NOT DROPPED, GOSPELS AND ACTS
Nowhere in the Bible is it stated that the religious hygiene laws of the Law are
no longer obligatory. Out of anti-Semitism and the desire to make religion
easier for converts the Christian Church says they are dead and manufactures
evidence.
Ezekiel 4:12-15 seems to say that the purity laws are not absolutely binding
because Ezekiel was instructed by God to cook food in a dirty way using human
excrement and to eat it. There is no reason to suppose that the episode was a
parable – it does not purport to be fictitious. Ezekiel protests and reminds God
of the purity laws and God tells him to use cow dung instead. But God explained
that the laws were not applicable in this case for doing what he asked was
essential for bringing down vengeance on the people (v16, 17). The Jews became
unclean by touching dead bodies but it had to be done and God wanted the dead
buried. The notion that exceptions prove the rule is applied by many in this
case.
The bread did not come into contact with the dung and nothing you put on a fire
is clean anyway. Ezekiel did not have to touch anything dirty to make the fire.
It seems that Ezekiel was not told to break the purity laws but Ezekiel only
thought he was. God was in a hurry and did not enlighten him and told him to get
cow dung for continuing to insist on human dung would have caused an argument or
a great hesitation. God does not give in when a person won’t do what he is told
unless it is urgent.
In Mark 7, Christ claims that what goes into you cannot make you unclean. Only
what is inside your heart can make you unclean. This does not attack the Jewish
purity laws that are based on the Torah but the ones based on tradition for it
was the Jews complaining that the disciples of Jesus did not obey the rules they
added to those of the Torah that started him off saying all that. So, the
invented purity laws are the context for what he is on about. Jesus said that
disobedience defiles you and makes you unclean so he is not talking about the
dirtiness that comes from dirty food but moral dirties. He is saying that even
unclean food can’t make you morally dirty.
Disobeying God to eat it would make you morally dirty. The choice not the food
makes you impure. Jesus however was certainly not advocating that we eat dirty
food.
Mark says that Jesus declared all foods morally clean because Jesus said that
food can’t go into the heart to make it sinful. Maybe, the Jews had come to
believe that this was what the purity laws were about avoiding. It is evidence
that he could not have declared them all the other kind of clean because not all
of them are. It is ridiculous to say that Jesus abrogated the laws about food in
Leviticus 11 for that would mean that its law banning people from eating certain
disgusting insects is cancelled as well. If Jesus abrogated that then he was
insane or evil or dead stupid.
Jesus did not breach the purity laws by touching lepers (Matthew 8:3) and other
unclean souls and things though the Old Testament laid it down that it was dirty
to do so. If he was the Son of God he was holy and could not contract impurity.
He had miraculous powers to avoid the dangers of catching something from
ignoring the purity laws or the protection of God.
Jews did not go into Gentile houses for they were thought to be unclean. Jesus
said he would go to the Centurion’s house (Matthew 8). But he did not say he
would go in. If he had went in Jesus might have thrown a cloth on the floor and
touched nothing to avoid contamination.
“In Acts 15, the Holy Spirit though the apostles told the Gentile Christians to
keep just four rules, avoid idolatry, eating blood, meat of strangled things,
fornication, from the Law. Just four. The apostles agreed that they did not want
to put the burden of the Law on the Gentile Christians. This proves that the
other laws of the Old Testament were abolished.”
It only proves that the apostles needed to be gentle on them and get them into
the habit of adhering to the Law bit by bit.
Christians say that the apostles’ decision was temporary. In other words, they
only wanted the believers to keep these laws for a while. If they had they would
have said so. Nobody give a temporary decrees without saying so for that is
misleading and leaves them open to the charge of caprice. A decree that does not
say what it means is no good and not worth considering.
The only temporary thing about the rules is their number for the rest of them
were to be enforced later when the time was right. When a food law about blood
was put in with a command against sex outside marriage that suggests that the
two were considered to be equally valid and important.
RELIGIOUS PURITY NOT DROPPED - THE EPISTLES
In Romans 14, Paul declares that there is nothing unclean in itself and that
something only becomes unclean if you believe that it is wrong to come into
contact with it. This is supposed to refute the view that the food laws are
still binding. The context does not mention the Jewish food regulations at all
but people who think that wine or meat is unclean. The Law never commanded total
abstinence or vegetarianism so Paul is not criticising the Law. What Paul is on
about is not ritual or religious uncleanness but moral uncleanness – making
yourself unclean morally by doing what you think is wrong even if it is not
wrong.
Some might argue that when Paul said that something is only dirty if you believe
that it is then the purity laws are not about hygiene but are just rules (Romans
14). Paul said that a person who eats meat and vegetables should not ridicule
the convert who is a vegetarian. He is not talking about Jewish scruples about
food but about pagan ones for he mentions people who wouldn’t take wine for they
thought it was unclean (v21). Judaism was fond of its tipple. So, he is saying
that the food is clean but it makes you dirty if you believe that it is dirty –
meaning morally dirty for what is clean does not become unhygienic just because
it is believed to be bad. Paul did not believe in pushing new converts too far
too fast. He tolerated their scruples as long as they tried to get away from
them. The old homophobe wasn’t so understanding with homosexuals.
When Paul said that the kingdom of Heaven is not a matter of eating and drinking
in Romans 14:17 but doing good he was not saying that it is right to eat and
drink what you like be it bad or good. He was only saying it was silly to have
more interest in your diet than in holiness, and holiness includes avoiding
whatever food and drink God says is bad for you. The Jewish laws forbade certain
kinds of flesh. But Paul is speaking about disputes between people who believed
in vegetarianism and that only fruit and vegetables were clean and holy and
those did not. Romans 14 is not related to the food laws of the Jews that were
in the Bible at all.
When we have no Pauline verse telling us out straight that the supernatural food
regulations are now out of date we can’t take Paul to be saying that there is no
harm in breaking them.
In Galatians, Paul condemned Peter for refusing to sit with the Gentile
Christians in case they were unclean. This is not an indication of the abolition
of the cleanness laws simply because there was no such law among them forbidding
contact with non-Jews. The Law permitted the Hebrews to keep slaves of another
race. The only Gentiles they had to keep away from were those who were suspected
of being unclean.
Paul, or his disciple, said that nobody may judge you over what you eat and
drink for food laws have only a symbolic value (Colossians 2:17). Paul was
speaking to heretics and those influenced by them. He may have meant the food
laws that they made up.
Does Paul say in his 1 Corinthians that we can and may eat meat offered to idols
when it does no harm proving that the uncleanness rules are a thing of the past?
The Torah never said that such meat was unclean and forbidden but by implication
it condemns eating if it becomes a source of scandal or bad example. Paul agreed
that it was bad to eat it if it leads to the downfall of others. Paul never said
that we can eat such meat when it does nobody else any harm. He is just talking
about when it does do harm and forbidding it.
Christians object that he wrote that you can eat it in an unbeliever’s house
(10:27). But he made it clear that that is only when nobody tells you what it
is. When you don’t know it is not your fault.
It is argued that when Paul wrote that all things are lawful he meant that it is
fine to eat idolatrous communion sacrifices when it harms or misleads no one
(10:23). But before Paul said this he claimed that you could not lawfully
partake of the sacrificial cup of the Lord and that of demons disproving this
interpretation (10:21). He said that because eating a Jewish sacrifice was a
sign of sharing in the altar – of offering yourself to God – it was wrong to eat
a pagan one for it is offering devotion to non-existent gods or demons (demons
are not gods, you see). He does not forbid the cup of the demons here because of
it giving evil example for he does not mention that ramification here.
After Paul said about all things lawful – meaning that all harmless things are
lawful - he said that not all these are an advantage and that this indicates
that your neighbour’s good comes first. He is just saying that Christians do not
scandalise others by doing good and then he goes on past this instruction to
discuss the problem of eating sacrificed meat and the harm it does to those who
see you doing it - a different issue.
Tradition does not universally support the end of of the food taboos.
Tertullian, the important third century Christian author, said, “Blush for your
vile ways before the Christians, who have not even the blood of animals at their
meals of simple and natural foods; who abstain from things strangled and that
die a natural death…To clench the matter with a single example, you tempt the
Christians with sausages of blood, just because you are perfectly aware that the
thing by which you thus try to get them to transgress they hold unlawful” (page
167, The Truth that Leads to Eternal Life).
The Bible has been wrested by Christians to make it say that the ritual purity
laws are old hat.