A number of years ago I was invited to the home of a friend of a friend, who happened to be an Orthodox Jew. He practiced his faith very devoutly, and while we were gathering together in his dining room, he took some time to explain to me all the ways in which his kitchen was set up for him to be able to cook kosher, from having two sets of plates and cooking utensils (one for meat and one for dairy), to having separate sinks for washing up afterwards.
It was my first real introduction to the practice of eating kosher. I say this somewhat sheepishly, given the fact that the Scriptures that the Jewish kosher traditions are based on are, in fact, the same Scriptures I receive as divinely inspired, that is, the Law of Moses. As a Christian, I’ve never paid much attention to the particulars of these dietary regulations, though, because the New Testament is crystal clear that followers of Jesus are not bound by the food laws we find in Torah. In Colossians 2:16, Paul says it plainly that Christians should not judge one another by “what they eat or drink.” He says this while he’s explaining that the Sabbath rules and the Jewish Festivals are not “required practices” for Christians either, so it’s clear that he’s talking about the Mosaic food laws specifically there. His reasoning for why Christians are not required to keep the Mosaic Law is fascinating, but also consistent with how the New Testament Christians invariably read the Old Testament: it’s because Christ has fulfilled the Law for us. “These thing [i.e. the Sabbath rules and Kosher food laws] are a shadow of things to come,” Paul says, “but the reality is found in Christ.”
To be clear then, I did not feel compelled to observe the Mosaic dietary laws that day, while my Jewish host was explaining them to me, even though he and I both believed that we were living in harmony with the Mosaic Law. (I should note, however, that even though Christians are not required to observe the Torah, that does not necessarily mean they can’t observe it, if they are doing so out of faith in Christ and as a way of honoring God. Paul himself went to the temple to offer sacrifices in keeping with Jewish tradition (Acts 21:26), and this was well after his conversion (see also Romans 14)). That said, even though I did not feel compelled to start eating kosher myself, I actually found something profoundly beautiful in the practice.
I feel I need to go carefully when I say that, though. Many modern evangelicals have been so conditioned to think of the Gospel solely as a way of guaranteeing that their disembodied souls will get into heaven, that they can think of no other reason for eating kosher than simply as an effort to “earn your salvation.” We know that we are saved by faith and not by the works of the Law, they might say, so something like eating kosher is at best a distraction, and at worst a futile attempt to earn something that God offers us freely in Christ. And to be sure, I have seen some churches where the idea that you have to eat kosher in order to be saved (or do other things prescribed in the Law of Moses), has wreaked havoc on people’s spiritual lives, creating all kinds of division, and fear, and bondage. So if there is some caution, even suspicion, among Christians about the dietary laws in Torah, I suppose it’s understandable.
You can’t “earn” your way to heaven by eating kosher.
Agreed.
But in my study, it never looked to me that this was what the ancient Jews were trying to do by eating kosher: that they abstained from shellfish or pork, so that God would have to let them into heaven. Or at least, that is a gross over-simplification of how the Mosaic Law functioned in first-century Israel.
And as far as I could tell, it’s not how eating kosher functioned for my Jewish host, that night while he was explaining it all to me in his kitchen. It was a way of marking his distinct identity as a Jewish person, a way of expressing his devotion to God, a way of bringing all of his life under God’s will (as he understood it), his life at the table as much as any other aspect of his spiritual life.
When I read Torah myself—and this is true throughout Torah, but especially so in the Book of Leviticus—that seems to be one of the underlying assumptions of the whole thing. We are called to love the Lord God with all our heart, soul, and strength. The implication here is that we are to bring the whole of life, physical and spiritual, under his guidance, his direction, and his authority. This is why the laws we find in Torah cover almost every aspect of human life. There are laws about food, and home-building, and sex, and how to use the bathroom. After all, the God revealed to us in Torah is truly engaged with every aspect of human life. All of it is lived before him, and he invites us to bring all of it under his loving care.
Whatever else they do, the food laws in Torah remind us of this: that the whole of life is lived in God’s presence and all of it is meant to bring him glory, including what you eat and how you eat it.
Of course, as a Christian, I still don’t eat kosher, but that’s not because I disagree with the Law of Moses on this point. It is, rather, because in Christ I have received the ultimate fulfillment of this point.
In Christ, the word became flesh, God was found in appearance as a man, made like one of us in every way except for sin. The theological term for this truth is “the Incarnation,” and in the Incarnation, the divine life of God and the mortal life of human beings truly came together, in one place, in the person of Jesus Christ. As a consequence, for the Christian, there is no longer any sacred-secular divisions in human life. Jesus assumed all of it onto himself and so all of it is now sacred to him, and as we live our lives in spiritual union with him, all of it can, and will be sanctified.
That doesn’t change the meaning of the food laws in Torah for us, though; it simply changes how we fulfill and express that meaning. God is still interested in all aspects of our lives, and he still invites us to submit it all to his will and into his care. A Christian doesn’t do that by refusing to eat pork, necessarily, but it is still essential to do it. And even though it may not mean forgoing a cheese-burger at the next summer barbecue, still, Christians can draw inspiration from the Law of Moses, and its insistence that even what you eat and drink can be done to the glory of God.
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