Introduction

There is some confusion today about the place of what can be called the ceremonial commandments of the Law of Moses, regarding circumcision, meats, sacrifices, ritual cleansing, and observance of the Sabbath. Today, millions of people who consider themselves Christians believe that some or all of the ceremonial laws must still be observed in their literal sense, such as Seventh Day Adventists, the Hebrew Roots Movement, and certain strands of Messianic Judaism. The stakes are potentially very high with this issue, as on the one hand we do not want to disobey God’s commandments, but on the other hand, we do not want to forsake the Gospel. The Apostle Paul said that “if you accept circumcision, Christ will be of no advantage to you… You are severed from Christ, you who would be justified by the law; you have fallen away from grace” (Gal. 5:2–4). Article VII of the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion states that “the Law given from God by Moses, as touching Ceremonies and Rites, do not bind Christian men,” and this has been the consistent teaching of the universal Church from ancient times. In the late first century to the very early second century, the Epistle of Barnabas said that certain aspects of the Law of Moses, such as the sacrificial system and the Sabbath, were “abolished” in favor of “the new law of our Lord Jesus Christ, which is free from the yoke of compulsion.”[1] A short time later in the early second century, Ignatius of Antioch wrote that since Christians do not “live in accordance with Judaism” we should be “no longer keeping the Sabbath.”[2] The Epistle to Diognetus in the late second century also taught against the observance of the Sabbath, food laws, and circumcision.[3] These men were simply following the teachings of the Apostle Paul, who wrote that Christ had “abolish[ed] the law of commandments expressed in ordinances” (Eph. 2:15) and “set aside” the “legal demands of the Law,” including its stipulations regarding “food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath” (Col. 2:14–16). But from whom did Paul receive these teachings? This article will argue that he received them from Jesus himself, but in a more direct sense than is often supposed.

Jesus and the Ceremonial Laws

Jesus did not merely foreshadow that his death would release his followers from the requirements of the Law, but also abrogated many parts of it through his public teaching and example. However, it is very rare to hear Christians say this, instead they will often say that in his ministry Jesus upheld and observed all of the Law—ceremonies included—and taught others to do the same. Aside from being a mistaken interpretation of Jesus’ words and actions, this understanding creates a problem since Paul so clearly did not observe all of the Law, and even taught against observing parts of it. Dispensationalism can then arise, with Jesus on the one hand telling his Jewish audience to follow the Law to the letter, and Paul on the other hand telling his Gentile audience not to (Rom. 7:6), and thus heretical movements such as the Right Dividers have arisen. The solution is instead to accept that the common presentation of Jesus upholding the letter of the Law is mistaken, as we see with the Sabbath, for example.

The observance of the Sabbath was one of the most important stipulations of the Law of Moses. It was forbidden for anyone in Israel to work on that day (Ex. 20:8–11). However, Jesus’ ministry as a miracle-worker did not cease on the Sabbath, which was criticized as it was seen as him working (Luke 13:14). Jesus did not respond to this charge by denying that he was working, instead he said: “my Father is working until now, and I am working” (John 5:17). John tells us that “this is why the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him, because… [he was] breaking the Sabbath” (John 5:18). The plain sense of this verse is that Jesus was in fact breaking the Sabbath, rather than merely breaking a man-made Pharisaic tradition. In that particular episode, Jesus even told the man he had healed to take up his bed and walk, but in Exodus 16:29 the Lord says regarding the Sabbath: “remain each of you in his place; let no one go out of his place on the seventh day.” Moreover, in Jeremiah 17:21 the Lord says: “do not bear a burden on the Sabbath day or bring it in by the gates of Jerusalem.” It would seem then that the Pharisees had a strong basis for their complaint that Jesus was permitting this man to break the Sabbath. The reason why Jesus did this is simple enough: the man had just become able to walk for the first time in thirty-eight years, and so he could not be expected to have to then remain in his place or leave behind what may have been his only possession. The principle at play here is that love is more important than rigidly observing every jot and tittle of the Law (Luke 14:5).

While it is true that the Law did not give much detail about what would constitute work on the Sabbath, we see two important examples of what would count when God forbids the Israelites from gathering and eating bread on the Sabbath day (Ex. 16:27–30) and commands a man to be executed for gathering sticks on the Sabbath (Num. 15:32–36). However, we are told that on one Sabbath day Jesus and his hungry disciples travelled to a field and plucked heads of grain to eat, rubbing them in their hands (Matt. 12:1–8; Luke 6:1–5). The Pharisees saw it and accused Jesus of allowing his disciples to violate the Sabbath. Jesus responds, not by denying that he is breaking the Sabbath, but by tacitly admitting that he is breaking it when he compares his action to how David also broke the Law by eating the bread of the Presence—which was reserved for priests—when he was on the run (Matt. 12:3–4). He also compares his action to how priests profane the Sabbath when they fulfil their duties (12:5). His point is that just as in those examples the strict sense of the Law was allowed to be broken, so also may it be broken in this instance. Next, Jesus says that “if you had known what this means, ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned the guiltless” (12:7). It is not the outward and ceremonial aspects of the Law that ultimately matter, but our love of God and neighbor, as even the Psalms and the Prophets said (Ps. 40:6; 50:7–15; Isa. 1:11–17; Jer. 7:22–23; Hos. 6:6). Jesus then shockingly claims that “the Son of Man is lord of the Sabbath,” essentially saying that he has the authority to judge what can and cannot be done on the Sabbath because of his divinity (Matt. 12:8). Finally, Mark in his account adds that Jesus said: “the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath” (Mark 2:27), thus, God does not intend the greater purposes of man to be stifled by having to observe the Sabbath to the letter. What matters most is that we do good to one another, even if it is on the Sabbath day (Matt. 12:12). Jesus’ words and actions thus lead us to believe that Jesus was in fact breaking the Sabbath regulations in their strict and literal sense in favor of obeying the more important commandment to show mercy and love. Jesus’ views would become the basis for Paul’s own rejection of strict Sabbath observance (Col. 2:16).

Moving onto other ceremonial laws, in John’s Gospel, the first miracle of Jesus is his turning of water into wine at a wedding in Cana. What is sometimes missed about this miracle is that Jesus did not transform water from ordinary jars, but jars that were specifically kept for “the Jewish rites of purification” (John 2:6; cf. Lev 15:13). Because the water was kept in stone rather than clay vessels, the regulations of Leviticus 11:32–36 did not apply and the water inside them could remain ritually clean so long as the jars contained only water. Jesus implicitly disregards this purification system, however, when he turns the water into wine while it is still in the jars. On one level, this miracle is another example of Jesus breaking the strict sense of the Law in order to follow the greater commandment to love his neighbor, since the bridegroom’s family risked being shamed for not providing enough wine. However, on a deeper level, this event symbolized that the great Messianic banquet was on its way (Isa. 25:6; Matt. 22:2; 26:29; Rev. 19:9) and the ceremonies of the Old Covenant had become obsolete. The Gospel was not added alongside the Law but had replaced the Law (John 1:16), which is why Jesus would go on to say that “new wine must be put into fresh wineskins” (Luke 5:38). The redundancy of the Law’s ritual washings is picked up by the New Testament Epistles when Paul says that his readers were “washed” not by ritual water, but by Jesus Christ (1 Cor. 6:11), and when Hebrews says that the “various washings” of the Mosaic Law “cannot perfect the conscience” of those who undergo them and are simply “regulations for the body imposed until the time of reformation” (Heb. 9:9–10).

As Jesus’ public ministry begins, Mark tells us that Jesus, “moved with pity” stretched out his hand and touched a leper, making him clean (Mark 1:40–42). However, the Law declared that leprosy was uncleanness, that lepers had to therefore separate themselves from the people, and that if anyone touched a leper, they would become unclean themselves and had to be purified of their uncleanness and “guilt” (Lev. 5:3–6; 22:4–6). The Law also forbade anyone from touching a dead body and said that one who did so would be unclean for seven days. If someone did not cleanse themselves after touching a dead body, he would “defile the tabernacle of the Lord, and that person shall be cut off from Israel… His uncleanness is still on him” (Num. 19:11–13). Despite this regulation, Jesus held a dead girl’s hand before raising her to life (Mark 5:35–42). Touching a woman with a discharge of blood was also prohibited and would make one unclean (Lev. 15:19–31), but Jesus nevertheless allowed a woman who had a discharge of blood for twelve years to touch him, and even made a point to make a whole crowd aware of this (Mark 5:24–34). Jesus thus disregarded the OT’s ostracism of those who suffer from physical ailments and paved the way for the inclusivity we see in Paul’s letters, particularly Galatians 2–3.

The Law declared a great number of animals to be unclean, abominable, and detestable, and forbade Israel from eating them or touching their carcasses, saying that if anyone did so they would become unclean and detestable themselves (Lev. 11:1–47; 20:25; Deut. 14:3–21). Jesus, however, taught that “there is nothing outside a person that by going into him can defile him, but the things that come out of a person are what defile him… whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile him, since it enters not his heart but his stomach, and is expelled” (Mark 7:15–19). Mark writes after this that he thus “declared all foods clean” (7:19). The kosher food laws of the OT have therefore been totally done away with by Jesus, who taught that what matters is not ceremonial purity, but moral purity. True religion is not about keeping oneself undefiled from certain meats but keeping oneself undefiled from evil thoughts and actions (7:20–23). This is why Paul would go on to say that because Christ “set aside” the Law, “let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink” (Col. 2:14–15). Moreover, Paul says that since we have “died to the elemental spirits” and are no longer “alive in the world” we do not need to “submit to regulations” about not touching or tasting certain things (Col. 2:20–21). Paul even says that those who “require abstinence from foods that God created to be received with thanksgiving” are “devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons” because in fact “everything created by God is good” (1 Tim. 4:1–4).

Lastly, Jesus is even dismissive of the most important symbol of ancient Judaism: the Temple. Jesus says to the Pharisees that “something greater than the temple is here,” which is another reason why he is able to break the Sabbath regulations (Matt. 12:6). This is a truly shocking claim for Jesus to make since the Temple was understood to house the very presence of God himself. And he says to the Samaritan woman at the well that “the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father … when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth” (John 4:21–23). Thus, the ideal form of worship is not to be centered on this or that piece of land or on the Temple, for these are earthly, but true worship is spiritual. After clearing the Temple of its animals, thus preventing the sacrifices from taking place, Jesus said that once the Temple is destroyed, he would raise up another one, referring to the Temple of his Body (John 2:15–21). God is concerned with creating a spiritual temple, not an earthly one (2 Cor. 6:16; Eph 2:21–22; 1 Pet. 2:5). And when Jesus as our great High Priest gave his body and blood as the only true sacrifice to the Father on the cross, the curtain of the Temple, which divided the Holy of Holies, was “torn in two from top to bottom” (Matt 27:51) after Jesus himself said “it is finished” (John 19:30). God thus illustrated that the Temple system had been abrogated. This is what we find throughout the Epistle to the Hebrews, which tells us that the sacrificial system of the Temple was “set aside because of its weakness and uselessness, for the Law made nothing perfect” (Heb. 7:18). Meanwhile St Stephen and Paul said that God does not dwell in temples made by hands (Acts 7:48; 17:24).

The Fulfilment of the Law

Saying that Jesus abrogated the ceremonial laws of Moses naturally raises the question of what he then meant when he said: “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfil them” (Matt. 5:17). Jesus cannot have meant that Christians must obey everything in the Law of Moses, since his own Apostle said that he had abolished and set aside the Law (Eph. 2:15; Col. 2:14–16). Instead, what Jesus meant was that he had not come to abolish the Law and the Prophets in the sense of throwing out the Old Testament. While many of the laws found within the OT no longer bind us, it is still an integral part of the story of God and his people. Jesus came to fulfil the OT in the sense of bringing its story to its conclusion and fulfilling its prophecies. The Law’s ultimate purpose was to bring us to Christ (Gal. 3:24), and now that he has arrived it has come to an end, as Jesus says: “The Law and the Prophets were until John; since then the good news of the kingdom of God is preached” (Luke 16:16).

Regarding the Law’s commandments, Jesus also came to fulfil them in the sense of elucidating their overall intent. Later in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said that “whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets” (Matt 7:12), and in another place he said that “all the Law and the Prophets” depend on the commandments to love God and love our neighbors (Matt. 22:37–40). We have already seen Jesus teach this when he said that God desires us to do good and show mercy, not rigidly observe the Sabbath regulations (Matt. 12:7; Mark 3:4), and to keep ourselves pure in our heart rather than pure from meats that supposedly defile (Mark 7:20–23). Paul also taught this, when he said that “the whole Law is fulfilled in one word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Gal. 5:14; cf. Rom. 13:8–10), and that “neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love” (Gal. 5:6). Paul taught, as Christ did, that what matters to God is what happens inside our hearts rather than the performance of rituals. For Paul, “a Jew is one inwardly, and circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter” (Rom. 2:29). We have been “released from the law, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve in the new way of the spirit and not in the old way of the letter” (Rom. 7:6).

Why then did God command things in the Law that we are no longer expected to obey? Jesus’ teachings against divorce may help us reach an understanding. When Jesus said that man shall not separate what God has joined together, the Pharisees retorted that Moses allowed divorce (Matt. 19:7), and Jesus responded saying: “because of your hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so” (19:8). Some of the laws of Moses are therefore temporal commandments that are not perfectly reflective of God’s principles. Since “God is love” (1 John 4:8), and the Father loved the Son “before the foundation of the world” (John 17:24), love is the ultimate and eternal standard. The ceremonial laws of Moses, then, are merely temporary while the fulfilment of the law—love—is timeless. Those laws served a purpose for a time, but with the coming of the Son of God that time has come to an end.

There is also a sense in which the ceremonial laws belong to the lower fleshly order of things rather than the higher spiritual order. We have already seen Jesus say that external things cannot defile us, what defiles us are things that come from the heart (Mark 7:14–23), and that since God is spirit, he should be worshipped in a spiritual rather than an earthly manner (John 4:21–24). Paul expands on these ideas when he links the Law of Moses with the flesh. He juxtaposes the Spirit and faith with the Law and the flesh (Gal. 3:2–3) and says that “it is those who want to make a good showing in the flesh who would force you to be circumcised (Gal. 6:12). He says that circumcision and righteousness under the Law are reasons for “confidence in the flesh” (Phil. 3:4–6). And he says that “while we were living in the flesh” we were under the Law, but now that we have died to the flesh and serve by the Spirit we are released from the Law (Rom. 7:5–6), for “if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the Law” (Gal 5:18). Those who observe the Law are “born according to the flesh” while those who have been set free from the Law by faith in Jesus Christ are “born according to the Spirit” (Gal. 4:29). The ceremonial laws of Moses are fleshly in a very obvious sense: they hinge on the cutting off of foreskin, the slaughter of animals, the avoidance of food, ritual cleansing, and so on. But now that we have died to the flesh and have been reborn in the Spirit (John 3:3–6; Rom. 8:9), elevated beyond the fleshly world and into the heavenly places in Christ Jesus (Eph 2:1–6), we have been set free from serving God in this fleshly manner. Now, we serve him not by the letter of the Law, but by the spirit of the Law (Rom. 7:6; 2 Cor. 3:6).

Conclusion

Whether through words or actions, explicitly or implicitly, Jesus abrogated the ceremonial laws of Moses. He showed that ritual cleansing was unnecessary, that we should work for the good of others on the Sabbath, and that no one is untouchable; he taught that nothing from outside can defile us, that the Temple had become obsolete and would be replaced, and that what matters is loving God and one another in our hearts rather than the outward observance of rituals.[4] When Paul taught these same things it was not a novel idea; he received them from Jesus. Those who claim that Jesus did not abrogate the ceremonial laws must then prove how Jesus and Paul are not at odds with one another. There must either be some incongruity between Jesus and the Law of Moses, or between him and Paul. The differences between Jesus and Moses are simply the result of a new age dawning (John 1:17). The Law was “but a shadow of the good things to come instead of the true form of these realities” (Heb. 10:1). Having been set free from slavery to the Law, and the need to rigidly observe every jot and tittle of its outward and ritualistic requirements, we are now free obey God simply through love.

Notes

[1] “The Epistle of Barnabas,” in The Apostolic Fathers in English, ed. Michael W. Holmes (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2006), 383 (2:6).

[2] Ignatius of Antioch, “The Letter of Ignatius to the Magnesians” in The Apostolic Fathers in English, ed. Michael W. Holmes (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2006), 209 (8:1; 9:1).

[3] The Epistle to Diognetus, 4:1–6.

[4] This should not be interpreted to mean that Baptism and Communion are unnecessary. Rather than being an outward ritual that propitiates God, Communion is a sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving by which we celebrate, remember, and experience the grace God has already shown us in Christ. And Baptism brings about a change in our hearts rather than our bodies, through the regeneration of the Holy Spirit that it effectuates. Baptism and Communion are therefore rituals of the spiritual order, rather than the fleshly order.