Weren’t Food Laws Nailed to the Cross?

God’s word also commands us what foods are good and what things he considers unclean and unfit for eating.

Acts 10:14: But Peter said, “By no means, Lord; for I have never eaten anything that is common or unclean.”

Most mainstream Christian teachers, as well as many modern translations of the bible will insert into scripture that this dream meant that God abolished the food laws. Nothing is further from the truth.

Peter’s dream had nothing to do with food, and in fact did two things. First, it verified that Peter kept the Torah food laws, and second he understood the dream to mean that God intended for Yeshua’s sacrifice to cover all of mankind, not just the Jews, but also the “unclean” Gentiles.

He made this clear in Acts 10:28: “…you yourselves know how unlawful it is for a man who is a Jew to associate with a foreigner or to visit him, and yet God has shown me that I should not call any man unholy or unclean”. He reiterates this again in Verses 34 and 35.*

At the Jerusalem council meeting, Peter retells the story and the leaders come up with the following conclusion in Acts 11: 18 “When they heard these things they fell silent. And they glorified God, saying, “Then to the Gentiles also God has granted repentance that leads to life.”

Until this point, all believers in Messiah were Jewish. Now they understood God meant to save all those who are grafted into Israel as part of the covenant, whether Jew or Gentile.

The early leaders of the Jewish sect known as “The Way”, later dubbed “Christianity”, followed Torah and made in known in their Jerusalem council that new Gentile converts would not understand or know any of God’s laws.

Therefore new believers in Yeshua were to first abstain from idolatry, adhere to the clean food laws in Leviticus, and keep from sexual impurity as these things ran rampant among pagan ritual.

As newly grafted in Hebrews, they would learn how to be Hebrews and follow God’s commandments in the Synagogue on Shabbat as the laws of Moses (Torah) were taught there every week.

Acts 15:21: For from ancient generations Moses has had in every city those who proclaim him, for he is read every Sabbath in the synagogues.”

Newly grafted in Hebrews should not be burdened with the expectation of immediately knowing and observing all of God’s instructions in Torah, as they were not culturally raised with knowledge of God’s commands.

In addition, observing God’s commands were never a means of salvation, but rather the evidence of a believer’s covenant with Yehovah. Those who belong to God are holy (set apart) and follow his instructions as a way to show their love for God.

Over time is was expected that the ways of God will be revealed to them by this learning of Torah each week on Shabbat in synagogue, and there they would learn how to follow all of God’s commandments.

This philosophy holds true today. Christians who are new to the truth of following God’s instructions in the Torah should begin by being sexually pure, following the food restrictions (no pork, no shellfish) and not worship idols or worship God in the way the world does. The rest we can learn on Shabbat by gathering and learning the instructions (law). We’ll get the hang of it over time.

It’s important to keep in mind that “kosher” food laws are not biblical. Although they may contain the biblical instructions concerning food, they also add many more that are not instructed and therefore are breaking the command not to add to nor take away from God’s commandments. We do not follow kosher, only food laws laid out by God in scripture.

*This unlawful behavior was a Judaic “tradition” of men, not actual law of God. The word unlawful here is also translated as abominable