...What we refer to as the Old Testament or "the Law" is just as valid for the Believer today as it was when Moses brought it down from the Mount. This is true because the Believer at that time was saved by grace in looking forward to the cross, as we are saved by grace looking back at it.

There never were two tracks to salvation, one for the Jews and one for the Gentiles. There was and is only one Way. There is one Law for the Jew and for the stranger (Heb:Ger) too, as God says in Exodus 12:47-49:

All the congregation of Israel shall keep it. And when a stranger dwells with you and wants to keep the Passover to the LORD, let all his males be circumcised, and then let him come near and keep it; and he shall be as a native of the land. For no uncircumcised person shall eat it. One law shall be for the native-born and for the stranger who dwells among you."

Even the term "Old Testament" is a misnomer for the first books of the Bible. The only time we find a reference to the "Old Covenant" or "Old Testament" in the Bible is Paul's reference in 2 Cor 3:14:

But their minds were blinded. For until this day the same veil remains unlifted in the reading of the Old Testament, because the veil is taken away in Christ.

This obviously refers to those who read the Torah without the illuminating presence of the Holy Spirit to guide them or, in other words, without Messiah. So you could say in all honesty that no one was ever saved under the Old Testament.

There are several texts from Paul's writings that Christians point to as "proving" that the Torah is done away with, and I intend to write on each one at length in future articles, but let us set those aside for a moment and just assume that what I have been saying is true.

If it is true that what we refer to as the Old Testament is a book that we must apply to our lives literally as we read and understand it, not as a means to salvation, but as a road map to Messiah in whom are our salvation and sanctification, then how does that change our lives? It would change some of our habits, perhaps, and it would certainly deeply enrich our walk with our Savior, the Jewish Rabbi Yeshua, but would it throw us into a frenzy of legalistic works? Not if we believe that we are saved by grace through faith. Would it change our view of the Jewish people and open our eyes to what the Church has been doing for the last 1800 or so years? I certainly hope so.

It takes time to understand the paradigm shift that comes with this change, and it certainly will be uncomfortable for awhile, but that is often the way with true spiritual growth in God. He takes us out beyond our limited theology and shows us a bit of truth from His Word and we feel like we're hanging out over the cliff. Most of our Church friends think we've gone off the deep end, and they will parrot the line that the institutional church has said over and over for the last 1800 years, that we are getting into "legalism" (we're not) or that it all can be spiritualized away as being "fulfilled in Christ" or something. I guess that means that if my friend "fulfills" the speed limit then I don't have to.

Anyway, we could at least have the courtesy to do what the Bereans did. They searched the Torah daily to find out if what Paul was saying lined up with it; they didn't search Paul's writings and judge the Torah by what he said. The church has it exactly backwards. They say that the Old Testament is not valid or applicable to us, or that it has been done away with, but every teaching, argument, and doctrine that Yeshua, Paul, Peter, James, John, Jude, and all of the rest came up with were based on the writings of what we call the Old Testament. So if God changed, and did away with it, it certainly knocks the props out from under the New Testament.

Sit down and take the time to think about this, because it is critically important to your walk with God. There are people in churches all over the world who are having this awakening. They are tired of church as we have known it, and know in their hearts that there must be something more, but they keep running up against the wall that the devil has erected within the church. The false doctrines that have us celebrating Ishtar - I mean Easter - and neglecting Passover, a celebration ordained by God in perpetuity.

This doesn't mean that we are some kind of "super Christian" for doing more of God's Word, but we have the freedom to follow Messiah in areas that we were forbidden by the institutional church before. Doctrines that have us ignoring God's instructions regarding clean and unclean animals that we may eat to the point that we have pig roasts in church! Are you thinking that Yeshua, or Paul for that matter, would eat pork at your picnic? Don't be absurd, they would as soon eat dirt as eat an unclean animal.

Why is this not taught in the churches? Because of anti-Semitism. Since the Church has effectively banned anything Jewish, we have no idea what Yeshua is talking about in Mark 7 when it says:

"When He had entered a house away from the crowd, His disciples asked Him concerning the parable. So He said to them, "Are you thus without understanding also? Do you not perceive that whatever enters a man from outside cannot defile him, because it does not enter his heart but his stomach, and is eliminated, thus purifying all foods?"

This is widely taught as "Jesus declaring the nullification of the dietary laws outlined in Leviticus 11" when it is plain from a cursory reading of the text that the subject at hand is traditional hand washing, and the Pharisees' halakhah of ritual cleanliness, and not the written Word of God. To put it another way; the Jews (such as Yeshua) would not even consider unclean animals as food; they were not part of the discussion. They were debating about ritual purity, not whether we can eat pigs or not.

While we're at it, we may as well talk about Peter's vision. These verses in Acts are the next place that we are always directed to "prove" that God changed His mind and did away with the Kashrut dietary laws. Here it is in Acts 10:

9 The next day, as they went on their journey and drew near the city, Peter went up on the housetop to pray, about the sixth hour. 10 Then he became very hungry and wanted to eat; but while they made ready, he fell into a trance and 11 saw heaven opened and an object like a great sheet bound at the four corners, descending to him and let down to the earth. In it were all kinds of four-footed animals of the earth, wild beasts, creeping things, and birds of the air. 13 And a voice came to him, "Rise, Peter; kill and eat." 14 But Peter said, "Not so, Lord! For I have never eaten anything common or unclean." 15 And a voice spoke to him again the second time, "What God has cleansed you must not call common." 16 This was done three times. And the object was taken up into heaven again.

There are two things that we should observe about this passage as it relates to our discussion. First of all, it is a vision. It is symbolic. Peter says later on in verse 28:

"You know how unlawful it is for a Jewish man to keep company with or go to one of another nation. But God has shown me that I should not call any man common or unclean.

So we can see that the vision relates to the Jewish view or tradition of not keeping company with or going into the house of a Gentile. This is not specified in the written Torah, but is more Jewish halakhah, or oral interpretation of the Law. (It may relate to the custom of the Pagans to bury their dead in the floor of the house, as some commentators suggest. This would make the area unclean from a ritual perspective.)

Peter's comment about never having eaten anything common or unclean probably relates to the idea of butchering any of the animals himself, since a first century Jewish man would have his meat killed by a priest, or by a kosher butcher (or the first century equivalent) but it certainly doesn't follow that we can imply a doing away with dietary laws from the account of a vision that was clearly explained by the Holy Spirit. God does not contradict Himself, nor does He change.

That is why we can rely on the Written Word of God to guide us, and why we may still follow the writings of what we call the Old Testament.