Why Are Old Testament Commands No Longer Binding?

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00:00:06.000 | Peter, a podcast listener from Hong Kong, writes in to ask this.

00:00:09.500 | Dear Pastor John, Thank you for the Ask Pastor John podcast.

00:00:13.100 | Your thoughtful answers provide a great help to me.

00:00:16.340 | My brother, who is a non-believer, says we Christians change the Old Testament commands

00:00:21.380 | to suit our needs.

00:00:23.600 | For example, he reiterates that God forbids Israelites to eat pork, while Jesus allows

00:00:29.360 | Christians to eat pork.

00:00:31.600 | Can you offer some pointers on perhaps how we can explain why it is okay for Christians

00:00:35.600 | to now eat pork, while God forbid it from the Israelites?

00:00:39.820 | And how do I explain this change with the Old Testament commands more generally to my

00:00:44.360 | non-Christian brother?

00:00:47.160 | It sounds to me like Peter's brother, who's not a believer, hasn't had any serious Christian

00:00:57.520 | teaching about the basic flow of redemptive history.

00:01:04.800 | In other words, how does the Bible work?

00:01:07.840 | What is God up to in creation, fall, prophecy, fulfillment, redemption, more promise, consummation?

00:01:22.320 | In other words, God, God, there's a history that's flowing from creation to consummation,

00:01:27.720 | and there are phases in the history that are designed and built in.

00:01:33.440 | So it's not arbitrary when we Christians view certain aspects of the Old Testament as not

00:01:43.800 | binding anymore, because those aspects themselves gave evidence that they were pointing to something

00:01:50.400 | that would one day abrogate themselves.

00:01:54.740 | So if the brother of Peter says that we are just making it up as we go along, it might

00:02:06.200 | be good for Peter to offer to do a Bible study with him.

00:02:09.720 | I don't know, maybe he's done that already, but a Bible study, or read a book together,

00:02:16.800 | if he's a very thoughtful person, you might take up Tom Shriner's biblical theology, like

00:02:22.200 | The King and His Beauty, which is a big, weighty sweep of the whole Bible that would help answer

00:02:29.200 | some of the things.

00:02:30.200 | And if he doesn't want to tackle something that heavy, there are simpler books that give

00:02:34.800 | the sweep of the whole Bible.

00:02:37.720 | Or less intimidating, perhaps, would be simply take a cluster of passages of Scripture, and

00:02:44.480 | I'll give some here, and study them with him so that he can see, "Oh, you Christians, you

00:02:51.320 | aren't bringing this to the Bible.

00:02:53.120 | This is coming out of the Bible."

00:02:55.920 | So here's the fundamental thing that needs to be grasped.

00:02:59.880 | When Jesus Christ came into the world, he was the fulfillment of the entire Old Testament.

00:03:09.780 | The Old Testament had looked forward and pointed to the coming Messiah who would bring his

00:03:17.160 | kingdom, his new kingly rule, and when he did, they knew things would change.

00:03:24.440 | There was a new covenant promised where things would be written on the heart, the old covenant

00:03:28.600 | would pass away, and that was already there in the prophetic writings of the Old Testament.

00:03:35.200 | And now Jesus, that Messiah, has come, and everything has changed, and he himself gave

00:03:42.760 | the pointers to how they changed.

00:03:46.340 | So the key statement that he made is in Matthew 5:17, "Do not think I have come to abolish

00:03:54.860 | the law or the prophets.

00:03:56.660 | I have not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them."

00:04:01.700 | In other words, all the precious history and forms and structures and offices in the Old

00:04:11.220 | Testament aren't merely thrown away, they are consummated, they are filled up in Jesus.

00:04:20.640 | And then you start getting examples.

00:04:22.100 | So here's some examples.

00:04:23.620 | Jesus said, "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up."

00:04:29.100 | And he meant his body, and John talks about Jesus as the place where we will worship.

00:04:36.140 | So Jesus is the new temple.

00:04:39.660 | He's the new place where people meet God.

00:04:44.520 | Or 1 Corinthians 5:7, "Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed."

00:04:50.100 | So now he's the Passover, so that whole celebration, and all the sacrifices go with him.

00:04:56.620 | Hebrews 5:1, "For every high priest chosen among men is appointed to act on behalf of

00:05:01.940 | men in relation to God, to offer gifts and sacrifices, but we have a great high priest."

00:05:08.460 | So Jesus is now the high priest, and he takes the place of the entire priesthood of the

00:05:14.980 | Old Testament.

00:05:16.260 | Galatians 3:24, "The law was our guardian until the Messiah came, until Christ came,

00:05:23.700 | in order that we might be justified by faith."

00:05:27.560 | So it sounds like Peter's brother is not aware of the built-in progress of redemptive

00:05:35.600 | history from promise to fulfillment, with Christ himself being the main fulfillment.

00:05:43.860 | But then there's this as well, and this helps to explain some things.

00:05:47.420 | The new people that Jesus is gathering as his church, this people is no longer defined

00:05:56.580 | by political and ethnic unity, but rather as a people from all nations, all ethnicities,

00:06:05.860 | scattered among all political states, and not identified with any one of them, and unified

00:06:12.140 | in their connection with Jesus.

00:06:14.780 | Therefore, the laws which dealt with Israel as a state are no longer applied that way,

00:06:23.180 | since the people of God are no longer a political entity.

00:06:26.740 | They aren't a state, but are aliens and sojourners and exiles on the earth.

00:06:33.140 | So for example, the church excommunicates people at the very point where in the Old

00:06:38.980 | Testament they would have been executed, like for adultery.

00:06:42.660 | And so you can see already profound changes have happened in the kinds of structures and

00:06:49.940 | the kinds of guidelines for behavior.

00:06:53.220 | Now that means, for example, and this is the one that Peter asked about, the food laws,

00:06:59.360 | that the food laws which were created to set Israel off from the nations and symbolize

00:07:07.180 | her purity for God are no longer used that way.

00:07:11.620 | And we see Jesus undoing that in Mark 7, 18.

00:07:16.780 | Do you not see that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile him, since it enters

00:07:24.100 | not his heart, but his stomach, and is expelled?

00:07:28.860 | And then Mark adds, "Thus he declared all foods clean."

00:07:35.460 | And then he continues.

00:07:36.780 | He said, "What comes out of a person is what defiles him."

00:07:40.380 | So the reason—here's what Peter can say to his brother—the reason we eat catfish

00:07:46.340 | and pork is because Mark, the inspired spokesman interpreting Jesus' words in Mark 7, 19,

00:07:56.740 | said, "Thus he declared all foods clean."

00:08:01.580 | Meaning those laws which once defined Israel as a people of ethnic, religious, and political

00:08:09.860 | distinction from the world don't function that way anymore.

00:08:14.440 | So Jesus brought a new covenant into being, which is already promised there in Jeremiah

00:08:20.060 | 31, and Hebrews, which is a key book on this topic, said, "In speaking of a new covenant,

00:08:27.380 | he makes the first one obsolete."

00:08:31.180 | And what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away.

00:08:36.060 | And Paul put it like this in Romans 7, "My brothers, you have died to the law through

00:08:41.220 | the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from

00:08:46.820 | the dead, in order that we might bear fruit for God."

00:08:50.260 | So we do bear fruit for God, but we don't key off of the law, we key off of Jesus.

00:08:54.820 | Verse 6, "But now we are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive,

00:09:02.020 | so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit," and not the old written code.

00:09:08.060 | So the most basic thing for Peter's brother to see, I think, is that Christ has come and

00:09:16.620 | died and risen, and now we belong to him, not to the law as a way of salvation.

00:09:24.300 | He is our righteousness before God.

00:09:26.940 | He dictates in his person, in his example, in his word, what our lives should look like

00:09:33.700 | in this world.

00:09:35.020 | Wonderful.

00:09:36.100 | This food question is really a sweet invitation to talk about Jesus Christ.

00:09:40.780 | Thank you, Pastor John, and thank you, Peter, for the question.

00:09:44.140 | Peter, arise and eat.

00:09:45.740 | If you want to send in a question to us, and really, if you want to find anything related

00:09:51.020 | to this podcast, go to our landing page at DesiringGod.org/AskPastorJohn.

00:09:58.660 | We're going to break for the weekend and return on Monday.

00:10:01.060 | I'm your host, Tony Reinke.

00:10:02.180 | Thanks for listening to the Ask Pastor John podcast.

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Why Are Old Testament Commands No Longer Binding?

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