Leviticus 11 — Thoughts

Which Laws Still Apply?

A common charge I hear made against Christians is that we shouldn’t follow any of God’s laws because there are so many laws in the Bible that we ignore anyway. For example, why do we still believe that sex is only for a married man and woman when we no longer believe that eating pork is wrong? (A lot of criticisms of the Bible have sex as their motive.)

What this charge misses is that not all of God’s laws are the same and not all of them are for everyone. When looking the laws of God in the Bible, scholars see a pattern of three distinct categories emerge:

• There are civic laws designed to keep order within Israel as a political nation. These laws — like the ones about what to eat and not eat in this chapter — were focused on producing a healthy society within their time and place.

• There are ceremonial laws to instruct the priests in carrying out the sacrificial system. These were focused on maintaining the symbolism that pointed God’s people forward to the Gospel.

• And there are moral laws to direct God’s people in how to live as God’s people. These are about universal right and wrong.

Nobody alive today is a part of the ancient Israelite society. So the civic laws no longer apply. (We can eat pork.)

The ceremonial laws pointed God’s people toward Jesus, but Jesus has now already come. We no longer need the symbol when we have the real thing. So the ceremonial laws no longer apply.

But the moral laws — like Ten Commandments and the Greatest Commandments — were reinstated by Jesus in the New Testament. These laws are based on God’s unchanging character. So they do apply to us today.

But by putting our faith in Jesus, we are made innocent of breaking ANY of these laws — civil, ceremonial, or moral — because Jesus fulfills them all for us.