09.03.07
Question: What Mosaic Laws Are We Still Supposed to Follow?
Question:
Jesus died for our cheeseburgers.
Anyone who has read the Bible knows that the beginning bits are a little unpleasant. There is blood everywhere, people killing each other left and right. There are a lot of innocent people getting killed by god in a laundry list of atrocities. The most prominent example of this unpleasantness is in the book of laws.
There are laws for everything. Disobedient children, incest, rape, adultery, public defecation, bestiality, male genital injury, fighting, kosher food, working on Sunday, stealing, religious tolerance, tattoos, science, menstruation faux pas, haircut rules, unruly slaves, extramarital sex, being mentally handicapped, religious tolerance, blended fabrics, slander, divorce, astrology, homosexuality, and rules on how to treat darker skinned people. The list goes on and on. And if you haven’t guessed by now, each and every offense is punishable by death.
Now if you ask a Christian about this they will tell you that you really shouldn’t pay too much attention to this because later on Jesus let everybody off the hook. Unfortunately he had to die as part of the deal. Apparently God wasn’t satisfied to give everyone amnesty until He got His pound of flesh.
But here is where things get confusing. When Moses was making these laws he said, “The Law is permanent for all future generations. You must add nothing to what I command you, nor subtract anything from it, but keep the commandments of Yahweh your God just as I lay them down for you.” This sounds pretty explanatory.
Then later Jesus says, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law of Moses or the Prophets. I have not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them.” It sounds a little strange I know, but I am told that the “fulfill” part is the important bit.
From what I understand it is like paying the fine before committing the crime. So if you were to pay a traffic cop $50 and do some community service, you could then drive the wrong way down a one-way street. So by Jesus accepting the death penalty it is like he is paying in advance for all the little laws we break. And this is what they mean when they say “Jesus died for our sins.”
But it’s a little more than that. Jesus also died for our cheeseburgers, and our blended fabrics. And fortunately for us he died for every other odd law that could get you stoned to death.
Now my question after all of this is where is the line in the sand drawn. How far did Jesus’s fulfillment go? Did he die for all of our sins? When you turn on the TV and see Christians, when you see them preaching on the plaza, and when you check the policies of a church it’s plain to see that there are some Old Testament laws that made it, and some that didn’t.
For example, it’s ok to eat non-kosher food, but it’s bad to get divorced. Getting a tattoo is ok, but it’s still a bad idea to use an Ouiji board. 67% cotton undies good, Harry Potter bad. I have been told that “God Hates Fags” but nobody wants to stone your kids when they enter the rebellious teenager phase. And up until June 2, 1865 darker skinned people weren’t treated very well. (By the way, a few choice Bible verses were used as the primary justification for slavery.) And when was the last time that you heard of a court trial for someone who boiled a baby goat in his mother’s milk?
So what sins are ok? What sins are off limit? I think we can all agree that killing and stealing are bad. But if I was brawling with a friend of mine, and his wife decides to stop the fight by grabbing me by my testicles, I would not feel comfortable cutting her hand off.
Will Dave Thomas be sent to hell for leading us astray with his tasty meat and cheese abomination to the Lord? Will Carl Sagan find forgiveness for believing that the Sun and all the stars are older than the Earth?
So for the events of the Old Testament, what will Jesus forgive? Which laws do we follow? And which do we sweep aside?
Answer:
Jesus did die for all sins, across time and space. He will forgive all of them, if you accept what he did for you. He fulfilled all the old covenant Laws and legalisms; which were set up to help humans, but which had turned into a way of measuring people and binding them; by offering himself as a perfect sacrifice in the covenant the Israelites had made and agreed to – and then broke, several times.
I did a very thorough search and could not find the verse you are referring to when Moses said “It’s permanent,” do you still have the reference? In either case, Moses’ word is not binding – only God’s is. Moses was an imperfect human like the rest of us, albeit one with more contact with God than most of us. Jesus also didn’t add or subtract anything to the Law – he left it just as it is. He was simply fulfilling the terms of the covenant – he paid the $250 when you break your cell phone contract early, essentially. Or, a better example: the $1.2 million for pirating music or movies. $250 you might be able to pay. Hardly anyone can pay the $1.2 million on their own (and practically everybody in the US pirates).
What you are referring to are the things that are repeated in the new testament – things like divorce, sexual immorality, following other gods, etc. These are not laws per say – we are not compelled to follow them, our salvation does not rely on what we do or do not do anymore. That’s why we say we are saved by grace, and by faith. Not by works, so that no one can boast. If a Christian gets divorced or has premarital sex, or does drugs, or other things, their salvation is not in jeopardy. God isn’t going to revoke salvation if people sin, because God knows people aren’t perfect anymore, and we can’t live up to his standards on our own.
What we are called to do is to try, out of love for God, to be more like God. That means remaining faithful to your wife or husband no matter what, and to try to work things out in a Godly manner (see Five Love Languages book) rather than just give up and try someone else. God never gave up on Israel, even when they turned away from him, and we are to follow his example.
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20Corinthians%206:12-20;&version=31;
“Everything is permissible for me”—but not everything is beneficial. “Everything is permissible for me”—but I will not be mastered by anything.
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20Corinthians%2010:%2023-33;&version=31;
“Everything is permissible”—but not everything is beneficial. “Everything is permissible”—but not everything is constructive. Nobody should seek his own good, but the good of others.
Granted, these apply only to those who believe that Christ saved them already. It’s not that we are given a free pass and are allowed to sin all we want now, since it’s forgiven, but that God knows we’re going to sin anyway, no matter how hard we try not to, and he’s not holding it against us anymore.
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=jeremiah%2031:31-34;&version=31;
“This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel
after that time,” declares the LORD.
“I will put my law in their minds
and write it on their hearts.
I will be their God,
and they will be my people.
You don’t have to follow any laws, since there aren’t any in the New Testament / New Covenant. There are guidelines, which, when you follow them, are outward indications of spiritual growth and maturity. You can be saved and still be sinning – sex, drugs, etc – but you’re not very much a follower of Christ. That’s the part that involves work, and wanting to be changed, and asking God to help you stop sinning – help you to be a better person. That’s what makes you a Christian.
Let’s go back to your cop example real quick. If there were no cops, would it be ok to drive the wrong way down a one-way street? No. We have laws for a reason – because they prevent harm. What we have in the New Covenant aren’t laws written in a book anymore. We have an internal counselor, that we call the Holy Spirit. You are free to obey or disobey as you choose, but if you disobey, you’re likely to get hurt – no extra fines or community service, etc, needed. It’s self-fulfilling. Physically, spiritually, mentally, or emotionally, you’ll get hurt.
The original Mosaic laws were trying to keep people from harm. The dietary laws were trying to keep them in good health. The moral laws were protecting people from consequences of immoral behavior – and there are natural consequences. Extramarital sex, for example. STDs would not – could not – exist without extramarital sex.
In the prior Q&A, I discuss covenants and their consequences, and the cultural understanding of covenants at the time of the Israelites and first century Jews / Romans in great detail. See here.
The Israelites broke the moral laws, and it resulted in the collapse of their civilization – multiple times. What other people group can you think of who has had their kingdoms overthrown and conquered multiple times, yet still exist with their own distinct cultural identity?
So the real question is: Do you think the Mosaic Laws were designed to hurt people or to help them?
Addendum:
There’s nothing in the bible about how to treat people with darker skins – The only time it ever mentions it is by inference, by saying the Cushites were the descendants of Ham, and the Cushites were from Lower Egypt and Africa, so they were most likely darker skinned. There are NO verses in the bible dictating different treatment for different skin colors. See here. And here.
And not all Mosaic Laws were punishable by death. Many of them were simply fines, in money or property, or as you gave the example of, removal of various offending body parts. To say all Laws were punishable by death is a gross over-generalization.
Zach said,
September 4, 2007 at 12:48 am
Thanks for the reply, I learned quite a bit. Although I was a little more interested in is how you can decide which rules to follow and which not to follow.
It would be easy to understand that now that people have a better understanding of what happens when you mix dairy products with partially cooked meat, we could ignore some of the kosher rules and not get sick.
But how do you make a decision on some of the more ideological areas, where we don’t have hard facts to back us up.
On the subject of the Addendum
From what I have read of the Bible. After the flood Noah gets drunk and passes out naked. His son Ham sees him in the nude, and then Ham and his brothers cover him up. When Noah wakes up he gets super pissed at Ham for seeing his nakedness, and promptly curses him to be a servant to his brothers. But he doesn’t just curse Ham, the curse passes on to Ham’s son, and so on down the line. This leads to the Cushite thing that Raeliyah mentioned.
Now this appears in the book of Genesis, which is chock full of creation myths, and explanation myths. The story of genesis tells why people are different from other animals, and why snakes slide around on their bellies. Even the flood of Noah is a story of where rainbows come from. And Noah’s sons and immediate descendants were the forefathers of all the people of the earth. (Canaan begot the Canaanites etc) So, just as all of us inherit Adam and Eve’s original sin, any nation that came from Ham would inherit his curse.
Now the word “Cush” is important. It translates into “dark” or “black”. So Cushite literally means “black person” But of course this is the Bible and you can really interpret it any way you want. And so a modern apologist probably wouldn’t have to work very hard to make this little story sound morally acceptable to the society of today.
So it may never be clear what the writer of the Bible intended when they wrote that story down. But we do know that over time quite a lot of Christians have interpreted the story as being a justification for slavery. And if not slavery, then at least a good excuse for racism.
Now I would recommend that everyone reads the story of Noah and his sons for themselves in the Bible and makes up their own mind. I thought of posting a few good Wikipedia links on the curse of Ham that would be very helpful and educational. However I decided that it would be much more entertaining if I scoured the internet for the most racist, incendiary, and offensive page I could find. And it may be more effective in illustrating my point about bible based racism.
And so I present to you. The most racist Christian thing I have ever read on the internet ever.
http://baptistsforbrown2008.wordpress.com/2007/07/19/the-curse-of-ham-why-barack-hussein-oboma-will-never-be-president/
Raeliyah said,
September 4, 2007 at 11:42 am
Cheeseburgers don’t actually violate Kosher (I know you were being sarcastic but still). Beef is perfectly Kosher – cows have split hooves and chew the cud – so long as it is prepared correctly (draining the blood out of the meat, etc., which our processing plants usually do anyways.). There is no proscription against cheese, or lettuce, or tomato, or ketchup, or anything like that either.
Now a ham sandwich, made with actual ham, that is against Kosher. Pork, unless very thoroughly cooked, have cysts in the muscle meat which can make you seriously sick and possibly dead. That’s why pork was proscribed – the ovens back then couldn’t guarantee a certain high temperature for a certain amount of time.
I just explained that in the answer above. If it’s repeated in the new testament, we try to follow it. If it’s not, it should not be a point of dogma anymore, since there is no Biblical basis for enforcing it. If you are asking why we bother with the old testament at all any more, it is because:
2 Timothy 3:16-17
All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.
The curse bypasses Ham entirely and falls only on Canaan. If you read the relevant section of Genesis, it shows that the sons of Ham are Cush, Canaan, Put, and Mizraim (or Egypt). So, Noah’s curse does not fall on Cush, Put, or Mizraim – only Canaan. Why Noah cursed Canaan for his father’s misdeed I don’t know – The only explanation I have for it (and this is just my personal explanation, it’s not canon or anything) is that Noah had just woken up, had a bit of a hangover, was old, and therefore was slightly confused. What is important is that it foreshadows Israel’s taking over of Canaanite lands, and some of the Canaanites became Israel’s servants – like they promised, to avoid being dead.
However – this is Noah’s curse we’re talking about. Not God’s. It’s kind of like saying because someone prayed for X, Y, and Z to happen, that God automatically does so. He doesn’t. God doesn’t always do exactly what we want every time (could you imagine what would happen if was bound to do so? The world would be in an even bigger mess than it is. It is a good thing that God doesn’t always do what we say). God is free to enforce or discard whatever Noah says. Israelites at that time, however, held great store in the power of spoken blessings or curses no matter what the source, and so believed in the power of Noah’s curse even though God hadn’t said it. It’s obvious he chose to at least enforce part of it, however (the land of Canaan conquered by the descendants of Noah’s other sons).
Actually, as mentioned above, Ham wasn’t cursed. Only Canaan. So only nations from Canaan would be cursed. Cush, Put, and Mizraim weren’t cursed. The descendants of Canaan are:
“Sidon his firstborn, and of the Hittites, Jebusites, Amorites, Girgashites, Hivites, Arkites, Sinites, Arvadites, Zemarites and Hamathites.
Later the Canaanite clans scattered and the borders of Canaan reached from Sidon toward Gerar as far as Gaza, and then toward Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboiim, as far as Lasha. “
(from: Genesis 10)
Abraham is one of the descendants of Shem, and it’s Abraham who eventually “fathers” all of Israel – which is why another word for Israelis are “Semites” and why someone who is against them is called an anti-semitic – It comes from the name Shem.
Cush is the Hebrew word for “dark one”, yes. It was the word that Hebrews used to apply to people in Ethiopia and parts of Africa and southern Arabia. See here. It’s not that “modern apologists” have to make it sound morally acceptable, there’s nothing making the original story morally unacceptable – since Cush was never cursed, and was never “destined” to be a slave or servant. Only Canaan was. And Canaan does not now exist as a nation or people-group – they were even gone by the time of the Romans.
Which is very sad, because it has absolutely no Biblical support, as that second link in my addendum above pointed out. However, a lot of other Christians have interpreted the rest of the Bible – most notably the new testament, to mean that we are ALL God’s children, and we should ALL be treated as such – slave or free, white or black or red or yellow or brown, Jew or Gentile, Christian or not.
One of the reasons why slavery – in the connotation that we politically correct modern Americans have – was so bad in the colonial era and later was that we had no slave code. Romans, Israelites, and the pre-Medieval cultures had codes and standards of treatment for slaves / indentured servants, etc. Most of those codes were lost, and so when slavery started up again, it a) didn’t have a pre-determined standard of treatment to go by, and b) was assuming slaves are animals and to be treated as such, not as people who happen to be in a hard time (which, yes, that was how the Romans and Greeks and Israelites thought of slaves – they were property, but they were also people, not animals). Israelites had Israelite slaves!
Entertaining, perhaps. But that really depends on your standards of humor. Me, I call that sad, because the author obviously does not have a solid grounding in Biblical history or theology, nor does he appear to have actually read the sections of the bible he was quoting, otherwise he would have noticed that whole “Cush is not cursed.” We have no evidence that Canaan was dark-skinned. Nor, as that author claimed, was he “Cain”. Canaanites were probably just as dark as the Israelites, if not lighter, since by that time they originated farther north. The Israelites weren’t exactly pasty white Caucasoids either :
http://www.bobmay.info/images/bestofyear/palestine_israeli_soldier.jpg
http://www.bobmay.info/jan192004bestphotos.htm
http://english.people.com.cn/200607/28/images/0727_A44.jpg
There is a range of color among Hebrews / Israelites, from very dark to what we would call “light tan”. The other thing you must remember when dealing with God and his commandments is:
1 Samuel 16:7
“The LORD does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.”
Even with all we have talked about above – there still is NO bible verses dictating the treatment of people with different skin colors. Mosaic Law talks of treatment of foreigners and Gentiles, but not people of different skin colors. It does dictate treatment of slaves and servants, but not on the basis of their skin color. People who used the bible to justify racism did so with practically NO support. If you read the second link in the original addendum, it shows the various ways people used the bible to support racism – all of them use extra-biblical sources (pre-Adamic races, “curse of Cain” being turned black, etc).
Does that help?
Tim said,
September 5, 2007 at 4:25 pm
After reading that, it is nice to know that not everyone interprets the bible as a basis for being racist.
kristen said,
September 6, 2007 at 1:15 pm
I don’t know if this would be relevent in this particular section, but has anyone heard John lennon’s song “imagine”?
A Boy and His Dog said,
September 6, 2007 at 9:55 pm
I have a couple things to ask.
——————–
First:
What are the relevant parts of Genesis? Does that mean that not all parts of the Bible are relevant?
——————–
Second:
1 Samuel 16:7
“The LORD does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.”
Since you sited this, I’m assuming it’s “relevant.” So why are some people condemned for their outward affections? I’ve been condemned so many times, it’s unbelievable! I know I have a good heart, yet it hurts immensely when people shout hateful things at me and tells me that God hates me. If the Lord doesn’t looks at the outward appearance, why do people have the need to tell me He does?
Raeliyah said,
September 6, 2007 at 10:14 pm
Thank you for all the comments, guys!
A Boy – good questions. Let’s see if this helps:
Relevant as in relevant to the question / conversation at hand. Just like, you wouldn’t want to read an entire encyclopedia when all you’re looking for is an article on dogs or something. The entire encyclopedia is still useful and contains good information, just not what you’re looking for at the time.
I can’t answer that one for you, except to say that we people down here on earth aren’t perfect. God does look at the heart, and not the appearance, and someone telling you God hates you doesn’t make it true.
Why are some condemned? Why do people have the need? Probably to just make themselves feel better. It just seems like a common thread in humanity to put others down to build yourself up — “I’m better than them because I don’t [have tattoos, piercings, wear certain clothes, hang out with certain people, pick anything]…” People, I think, also really like to harp on anything that they can turn into a difference – and a difference into a division. Outward appearances are practically the only way to make such divisions. Sad, but true.
As Christians we are called to always lower ourselves, however, to humble ourselves… we shouldn’t be comparing ourselves with other people, we should be comparing ourselves with God – and if that doesn’t remind a person of their shortcomings, nothing will. =)
Next time someone says God hates you, you can always tell them to take the plank out of their own eye first. =)
Sean said,
March 4, 2008 at 9:19 pm
Your ignorance of this topic and of the books of Moses is staggering. Please understand I am not attacking your personal intelligence or calling you stupid. I’m saying you’re ignorant (without knowledge) of the books of Moses and how to read and understand them. I’d suggest you spend a year actually studying through the five books before you post about them again.
Raeliyah: There’s two topics and two commenters in this thread – which are you referring to?