Should We Still Follow Old Testament Laws?

Show Notes

Episode 794: 
In this episode, hosts Chris and Jeff dive into a thought-provoking discussion sparked by a listener's question about the relevance of Old Testament holidays and laws in contemporary Christian practice.

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You're listening to The Bible Guys, a podcast where a couple of friends talk about the Bible in fun, in practical ways. Hey, everybody, welcome to The Bible Guys. My name is Chris and I'm Jeff, and we are the Bible Guys. Man. Hey, by the what an exciting day we have? How many episodes? Is it a gajillion? Officially? Officially? I think it's a gajillions Bible Guys episode. Yeah, let's let's see. Five hundred, six hundred. I'll pull it up on the podcast thing Andyway, guys all, you have to just go to your go to your podcast, your favorite podcast platform, and look up The Bible Guys, Okay, and then it'll tell you how many episodes we have here. Okay, what episode is this? Hey, I was just gonna mention that'd eighty eight seven eight. Wow, that's more than I thought, I know, So I was just gonna mention. So COVID hit in twenty twenty. Twenty twenty one was still a sort of a shaky time, and during that time we were going to do small groups. But then what ended up happening was the scare came out with you know, at the end of twenty one member. Yeah when the Omicron Yeah yeah, the Omicron thing actually came out and all of a sudden it just hit and everybody was like, yes, we're not doing small groups. And then we were like, oh no, And so in January of twenty two, we were like, what are we going to do, Like we were going to do small groups, Now nobody wants to go back in homes and so what ended up happening was we said, well, let's just do something called HC Daily and we'll just do like a month of podcasts and we'll just help. It was supposed to be like eight weeks, wasn't it, because it was the Life of Peter Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah yeah, the greatness in you? Yeah, great message, greatenst in you. And then and then we were like, hey, people sort of like it, let's just keep going. We did it for a month, and then we kept on doing it. We did like one hundred and fifty episodes or something like that, which is a very long time. 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Yeah, I forget how many total people, well, unique unique listeners. Yeah, anyway, it's very very cool, super cool. That's the history of the Bible Guys. So there it is. We have eighteen thousand monthly attendance audience on YouTube. Then it's about half of that, so it's twenty five thirty thousand listeners a month. Okay, ed listener. Yeah, okay, so we'll just we'll go thirty we'll run there, you go evangelistically. Yes, that seems reasonable. Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, that's fun. So it's a privilege. It is that. It is a privilege to spend time with people every day. And I always I always sort of say this from the stage, but so we're like, hey, we get thirty thousand people a month and Dave Wilson has four million a week? Is it four million? Yes? I thought it was. Yeah, I thought he was a million a week. At four million a month, Oh, maybe that's what it is that it is, but yeah, I still anyways, it doesn't matter. It's substantially more than us. Well, I mean, think about how much more a million is because he's a big dog from thirty thousand. Yeah, yeah, Dave. Will's great Dave. If you don't know Dave, David and Wilson lead Family Life the Radio today, Family Life Today the radio program, and then they have like millions of listeners. And then Dave and are also on our staff, are heir to shure it's helping us build out a great marriage and family ministry thing. And Dave's on our teaching team. So yeah, pretty very cool. So anyway, all that to say, you can go back and watch any archive of a lot of different series that we've done, and we're in the middle of a series called Stump the Pastor and a lot of these questions have been written in just this past week. Really good questions, yes, really good questions. Great questions. So this question starts with Logan c Hi logan, and Logan says, why do we still why do we still not follow the traditional holidays of the Old Testament? Lent I know is still prevalent, although the name itself, I'm uncertain if that's a modern term for it. However, others have been left behind. Uh Is it a matter of their connections to the Old Testament rituals, acts or something different? It's great, it's a great question. Good question. So, in other words, what you're saying is there are observations that were laid out in the Old Testament by God and and uh and and and they were commanded to observe different things, right, right, right? What was that? What was that hut that people make? Oh, come on, tabernacle? No, no, thestacles. No, No, I'm not referring to that. I'm referring to people still make it. They there's a little hot they put the things up, and it's a it's a it's a it's like a it's like a structure. It's referred to something. It's in a Jewish costure. They do it every year, called the Feast of Tabernacles, is it? Yes? Okay, but isn't there a name for the hut? Yeah? Okay, I'm I'm gonna look at I'm looking ahead. Anyways, So I think this is a really great question. This means that that Logan's been kind of paying attention to the Bible a little bit. God gave all these instructions. He said, Hey, you're supposed to celebrate Passover. You're supposed to celebrate the feast of unleaven bread. You're supposed to celebrate the feast of first Fruits. You're supposed to celebrate the Feast of Pentecosts. Right, there's all these feasts, these these religious holidays that the Jews were supposed to to celebrate. And so his question is why don't we celebrate that anymore? Now, let's go back. First of all, because he mentions Lent specifically, So Lent is not a Bible holiday. It's called a suka Suka. It's called a suka okay. It's a temporary hut or booths that Jewish people build during the festival of Suka, known as the Feast of Tabernacles. Spam. So you so you were right on the on the and I just wasn't occasion. I wasn't using the Hebrew words. Yeah, I knew it was called something. Anyway, go ahead, keep going. So Lent was not a Bible instructed holiday or event, right, So Lent is a fast that came up. We just talked about this this passive. Ironically, like three days ago. Yeah. So the idea of fasting giving up something typically food, is a Biblical idea, and that would be to show God that you were serious. And it's also to hold back your your flesh so you can dial into the spirit more all those kinds. There's lots of reasons for it. The idea of fasting between for the forty days leading up to Easter comes from forty days. Jesus faster for forty days, Moses fast for forty days, Elijah past forty days. So this was a thing and then they would have this fast leading towards Easter. To prepare themselves to be ready to celebrate the death, burrel and resurrection of Christ. And also, quite honestly, through medieval times, it was so that I would suffer to experience the suffering of Jesus, thinking that there's a little bit of paying for your own sins through the suffer. Yeah, go ahead, yeah, I was. Just gonna say. And then they eventually somewhere around the thirteenth century implemented ash Wednesday, which was a preparation of suffering, which is why they put ashes on their head. And it came from job ashes to ashes, right, I came out of my mother's womb, come back, and it's a sign of lamenting, just preparing for the crucifixion of Jesus. And so that's not a biblical thing. It's just a thing that the Church began to make a thing. The Catholic turn. Now we do know even before the Catholic Church existed in the three hundreds, some Christians of the de Decay explains it, even in the first century, some Christians were doing fasts like this. And as a matter of fact, you know, Christianity was begun when Latin was a big thing. Latin comes just after Jesus and Carnival is the big celebration before the feast or before the fast. Right, Garne in Latin means meat like carne asada whatever. Yeah, and valet means no no more okay, so no more meat. That's why we're having a big party today. We're gonna go buck wild today because there's no more meat for the next forty days. That's where it came from. Gosch. Now it's turned into crazy stuff, but you know, that's where it came from. And so those are just they're just tradition. They're not Bible, right, but passover, feast of on leaving bread, feast of first fruits, feast of Pentecost, feasts of the tabernacles. Which was probably let me just wrap up the let me button up the Lent thing by saying, so many people today, like myself included, grew up, you know, fasting from certain things like oh, fast from chocolate, right, raw, fast from dessert. No meat, that's why you only eat fish, eat. Yeah, I did you ever heard Jim Gaffigan talk about that? And he goes, he goes no meat on Fridays unless you forget. But anyway, but the point is is that that that's not that's not the bod definition of fasting, right. The only, the only definition of fasting in the Bible is to go without food, right, although I don't think that going. You know, if you if you fast from something as a demonstration of sacrifice, it is a is always a good thing, right, because it reminds us it's the same heart, which is to pray, to go to God when you when you're tempted, when you're hungry, when you're whatever. It is. Right. The core of Logan's question really is why don't we follow the Old Testament? That we were about to get it right? So we dealt with lent for a little while. That's the core is why don't deal with the Old Testament? Ones? And the simple answer is this, Logan, all of the festivals that God commanded as holy days to be set apart, we're all pointing to Jesus. They were all shadows pointing to Jesus in some way. And for instance, the passover pointed to Jesus. Death is the lamb of God. We know that's true. One quent, chapter five seven tells us that the feast above unleavened bread high lighted his sinless body that was going to be sacrificed for us. It's what is in our communion. This is my body which is given for you. Right. The feast of first Fruits represents his resurrection. We know this because Paul tells us in First Corinthians chapter fifteen, verse twenty, that Jesus is the first fruits of God. The feast of pentecosts is was the celebration of the idea that the spirit of God was going to come. This happens in Acts chapter two on Pentecost Sunday, right, And so so all the feasts pointed to Jesus. And so in Colossus chapter three, I've pulled clastions chapter two, I pulled this up verse sixteen. It's says he's trying to explain to them, don't feel bad about what you're choosing to eat or not eat whenever. Don't feel bad about the holy days. Here's what he says. So don't let anyone condemn you for what you eat or drink, or for not celebrating certain holy days. For these rules are only shadows of the reality yet to come, and Christ himself is that reality. So when we say that we don't have to celebrate the feast because Jesus fulfilled all the feasts. That's not just us connecting dots. That's literally what Paul says in the Bible. And so in what is it? Is it the Book of Romans where I had it written out here in the Book of Romans, where the Bible says that Jesus is the fulfillment of the law. In Matthew, Jesus said I didn't come to certainly end of the law. He says, I can to fulfill the law. And then then Romans says, Jesus fulfills the law of God. And so now it's called the New Covenant. That was the old Covenant. The old Covenant was all of these traditions pointing to Jesus. Now, because Jesus is here, you and I, because of the Cross, because of the resurrection, we live under what the Bible calls the new covenant. Covenant just means contract right, the new Covenant. And so in Hebrews chapter thirteen, the author of Hebrews is connecting the old beliefs of the Hebrews to the new resolved solutions that Jesus brings. So he's writing it from a theological standpoint. And the author says in Hebrews eight thirteen, when God speaks of a new covenant, it means he has made the first one obsolete. Right by the way, it's Romans ten to four. Oh, there you go. Christ is the culmination of the law, so that there may be righteousness for everyone who believes right. And so in Romans it tells us that the law was just to show us that we couldn't perfectly keep it right right. It was a teacher for us. And he's talking specifically about the religious laws. I think we should. This is a great point opportunity to pivot over to his second question. Jogan has another question because now we're shifting into the laws. Jesus fulfilled all the feasts, and then he says, the new contract, the new covenant means he suspended the old covenant. That's what it means. But now we got to get into the laws because there's three different kinds of laws. Yep. And then he says his second question is he said, why have traditional Jews that don't recognize Jesus' coming for its legitimacy discontinued the practice of ritual sacrifice. That is his second question. Yeah, this is a great question Logan one. The ritual sacrifice required, the arc of the covenant required, the altar required, the temple. But the last temple was destroyed in seventy eight by the Romans, right just as Jesus. Jesus said prophesied, it happened, it happened, so they wiped it out. So there has been no temple for those sacrifices. They dream of it, they desire it. On the Temple Mountain Jerusalem. You've been to the Temple mount under Jerusalem. The Western Wall is still there. Sometimes they call it the whaling Wall because they'll go. The Dome of the Rock. They place prairie quests in there, into the cracks and they weep over the place. Because this is the last vestige of where the temple was. It would be the most they would view that as the most sacred spot in Judaism. So on top of that mount, because that's just the foundation to the Temple mount on top there's the Alaksa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock sit there that if you ever see a picture of Jerusalem, that's that gold domed thing, and that's a Muslim holy place. And so there is no temple there because the dome of the Rock sits where the temple was. Mohammed was on a donkey. Did you know this. Yes, he's on a donkey and he jumps on a rock and he kind of pulled straight up into. Heaven right and leaves his footprint there. That's the belief. Yeah, and they also believe that Abraham had some impact there. So yeah, it's like the third holiest place in Islam. And so you have this problem between the Jews who want to build their temple again and the Muslims that are keeping their temple or their their mosque in their their holy place there. So so there is no there's no sacrifices anymore because there is no temple to sacrifice in, there's no arc of the Covenant, there's no there's no altar. And so instead they went to Rabbinic Judaism, which is similar to the kind of Judaism that that Daniel would have worshiped in because the first temple, Salomis Temple, had been destroyed, and so when he's in Babylon, they there's this sacrifice of the heart, sacrifice of the spirit and building around prayer and a heart felt sacrifice towards God is what they did. And then now there's no temple again, and that's what they're doing, is this rabbinic thing there. But beyond that, you know, there is this question about, well, what about the laws? Then? If God made laws about about feasts and holy days and we don't celebrate those anymore because God suspended those, and then God made laws about sacrifice and we don't do those anymore because God suspended those, then what laws are we supposed to keep? What laws are are we supposed to just throw off all the law? No more law? Right? Right? So what do you have to say about that? Well, I would just say that Jesus came to fulfill all the loss. So, just like you said, every single ritual for instance, even like the Passover. So you and I we we have a Passover feast that is presented to us by our elders of our church, right and. And by our residents, any anybody that's studying for ministry with us. They helped put it together, which is kind of neat. We've done that for the last several years, and and so and and by the way, a Passover traditional Passover feast is very very symbolic in and of itself. It's not necessarily a great meal, right right, but it's it's but it's symbolic. So you're chewing on bitters and and uh, crackers and crackers and different things that necessarily you wouldn't say, Wow, this is great. But it was not crackers. It's matsa matza mazza bread. But you're basically doing everything symbolically for a reason, as instructed by God, very specifically, because every single peace again, just like you said earlier, was looking forward to the Messiah, the solution of sin. Well. To be honest, ever, every time, uh not every time, I just lost my train of thought. Jesus was the fulfillment of the reason why God put into motion the observance of the passover. Right, and it's it's okay to observe the passover. There's nothing wrong with that. There's nothing wrong with it. Not which is which as we did. Yeah, it's not, it's not it's not required because Jesus said, hey, I'm the fulfillment of this. This is my body which is broken for you. This is why you've been doing this for thousands of years since Moses. Right, every time you've poured out the cup and you've done it once a year. You know, this is the fulfillment of of This is my blood being poured out. You know that they they thought that they that it was just you know, some sort of a tree you of Moses and the Angel of Death passing over. But it's really everything's pointing to Jesus. Right, So the so the blood on the posts, everything, so anyway, not just the Passover feast, but every single holiday is is you know, all been fulfilled? Yeah? Through Christ? So so then through Christ then he does he said he didn't come to suspend the law. He came to fulfill the law. But let's talk about that. Then if we're not doing those law things anymore, then none of the law applies. None of the law applies, is in like the Old Testament law? Yeah? Well, I think that there are different types of laws, right, And there's there's levitical laws, there's there's there's laws that were given just to the Jewish people, and then there are there are certainly laws that are that are that carry over, like thou shalt not kill that would apply, right. How do you know? How do I know? How do you know which ones apply and which ones don't apply? Well? You have the different categories of laws. Yeah. Yeah, so uh, here's what I would say on that. There are the civil laws where God is setting up how the Israelite government was supposed to be run. It was going to be a theocracy. And so God says, this is what you do when somebody steals something, and this is how you make restitution when something when you ruin something, And this is what you do to murderers and to rapists and to this is how you make sure that you have fair weights when you're trying to do business. And He's got all these rules. A big chunk of the laws and Exodus. The laws in Deuteronomy are civil laws, and those are for theocracy. They're for the nation of Israel specifically. We get a lot of benefit from it. Our nations the West has built a lot of our laws around those things. We're just not bound by those because they weren't for us. They were for the Jews. And they're fairly clearly delineate where God pivots from the other laws and gets into civil society laws. And so while they're good principles, the judgments for those laws are not on us as gentiles. Right, So that's part of it. So I would say, the principles, yes, the penalties, no, they're not for us. Then there's also the levitical law or the ceremonial law, and this is how worship happened, and this is how a sacrifice would happen. And all of those things were built into the civil law because it was a theocracy, right, and instead of a government of the people, it was a government of God for the people. That's what worked. And so they also had their religious laws. And this was the rules for the priests, and the rules for the sacrifices, and the rules for whether or not it's a good lamb or a bad lamb, and the rules for their tithes and offerings, and the rules for their social connection to the temple, and all these things God God gave. God gave specific rules about exactly the size of the lamp stand in the in the temple or in the tabernacle. Right, he gave rules about everything about religion. So all of the ceremonial laws were designed to point to Jesus. And Paul says all the ceremonial laws were achieved and finished by Jesus, the author of Hebrews says, so then after Jesus. The old contract was done. Now we have a new contract in Jesus. But the moral law is the law that Jesus kept reaffirming. He reaffirmed almost all the ten commandments, right, So don't kill, don't steal, don't have any other God before me, honor the Sabbath day, you know, don't don't covet, don't lust. All these things Jesus not only reaffirms, he elevates them. Jesus goes beyond just the obedience of the law to the heart of the law man. He says, I know you read don't don't uh, don't commit adultery. I'm telling you. If you lust after somebody, you're committing adultery. Jesus takes it to the heart and intent. So Jesus actually revs up the moral code, even while he fulfills the ceremonial Code. And we are not part of the civil Code because we were never Israelites, right, And so that's how it's divided. So we're not absolved from the moral Code and the civil Code. They're good principles. And Jesus resolved all of the levitical code, the worship code. Yeah yeah, yeah, So that's amazing. And uh and I bet you that that probably explains a lot to somebody currently who's reading through the Book of Leviticus. Yeah, tons of people. Well, you know there are people who who they have those questions. You know. Did I ever tell you a story about when I was When I was a kid, and I was probably I don't know, twelve thirteen years old, and I remember looking through the closet for some reason, and I pulled out an old Bible and I remember specifically it was all ripped on its cover. It was a paper jacket on it and that was ripped. And I looked at it and I was like, ooh, a Bible. I was like ooh. I was like, I haven't even touched the Bible before my life. He was a holy book twelve years old. And I opened it up and it said if you touch something dead, you'll be unclean, and I just shut it real quick. Now, looking back at it, I'm pretty sure that what I was reading was the rules of a Nazarite, right. You know, Well, any any of the Jews, either Elijah, any of the Jews, you no, Samson, Yeah, any Israel stuff they touched a dead thing. They were unclean, they had to go through ceremony. But I think it was something else too. It was something like not cutting your hair, so like you know, somebody like Samson or John the Baptist or somebody. Right, So, but I remember just reading it like briefly, and I and I shut not knowing anything at all about it. I said, I touched a dead frog the other day. Yeah, so you're like, I was like, I don't know what that means, right, not realizing that wasn't for me. Yeah, right. But so anyway, I just think that, like there are probably a lot of brand new people. Sure if they read through the Old Testament, they're just thinking themselves, Well, that explains it. There's the civil law for government, there's the ceremonial law, there's the moral law. Right, and Jesus came to fulfill all the ceremonial law. That's right. So Hebrews ten tells us that Jesus fulfilled all the ceremonial law. We don't need to deal with that anymore. Roma's ten reminds us that all of the commandments in the law and the prophets can be summed up in loving God, loving people. It's Matthew Chapter twenty two does the same thing. Yep, it hangs on there. Yep. Okay, very good. Well, hey, that is our time for sure, and so tomorrow is the last day of this series. We have some pretty good questions about Jesus, God and the spirits and also the Bible put together by human author. Yeah good, So if you want to learn about that, tune in tomorrow on the Bible Gus