So recently I was thinking about clean and unclean foods and it came to me that the torah of God concerning this is still in active effect just like his word is generally concerning all things.
It also became apparent that the written law even concerning food or other things cannot be eternal where it relates to two things that is human behaviour and human physical state of being. Why? Because these things are subject to change which would make the law concerning them change or become obselete.
The matter that brought me to meditate on this was concerning salmon which as far as I understood was considered clean according to levitical law however not in my reality. In reality we must ask of God wether a food is clean for us individually because of our personal state of being and present circumstances.
In this we can see that the true instruction of God maybe relative to a time place and people as the spirit of God that gives instruction(Torah) is actively present according to the moment. Nothing written in stone is everlasting. Yet the spirit that gives instruction is was and forever will be
What are your thoughts on the written laws of scripture?
Shalom bro,
The more I look in the scriptures and the wider I look to understand the overall plan the Father has/have for creation, the more I'm realising the purpose of the scriptures and of the old Israel.
What I'm about to say might shake the faith of some believers and raise righteous anger in others, but this is not my intention, I'm just expressing what I came to believe in light of my personal research regarding scriptures.
As you know I'm coming from an SDA background, very strict on observing the sabbath and dietary laws from the Old Testament.
For a long time I was looking to understand the symbols of prophecy, the sanctuary, the jewish festivals, and others. I came to the understanding that all these things supposed to point one specific thing in one particular human: Messiah.
From the beginning there was a distinction between God's people, the Israelites, the set apart people, and through them God wanted to reveal aspects of the human condition and also the plan of redemption for the human race.
As you mentioned above, there is a distinction between the written word, and God's spoken word through the spirit.
Today we are not the Israelites, at least not the literal ones with whom God made a special contract based on specific rules and regulations.
We are the gentiles that are grafted in Messiah, the true representative of that deal, who truly fulfilled everything in that contract in spirit and in truth. The deal now is made with him, and last time I checked, Paul and the other apostles didn't put over the gentiles anything else besides 4 things:
1. Abstain from food polluted by idols
2. Abstain from sexual immorality
3. Abstain from meat of strangled animals
4. Abstain from blood.
The entire thing is Acts 15...
As I said, I think we are gentiles by birth, so we are not part of that old contract.
Now, if any man is convicted in his heart by the Spirit to abstain from any food, that is between him and God, and he shouldn't put that burden on any other brother. Moreover, he should make sure he doesn't deceive himself believing something is from God when it comes from church culture or taken from others.
I was guilty of thay for many years without knowing. But I'm realising that the old "circumcision or no circumcision" is still alive and thriving.
So no, I don't think those laws and regulations bind in the same way for us the believers today as it did for the old Israel. I think the Father requires from us today more than just that basic standard over physicality. We need to understand the meaning of those symbols by putting all scriptures together under macro lense, not a microscopic one.
Let me know if I'm clear in my response 🙌