One nice warm summer day two Christians were discussing the bible but their views were drastically different in many ways. Let's listen in on them for a while.
Joe: How is it going Bill?
Bill: Pretty good Joe. How about with you?
Joe: Oh so so! I have been feeding on the bible lately. The word of God sets us free, ya know?
Bill: Yeah, it sure does, the grace of God is incredible. He accomplished for us what we could not accomplish for ourselves by dying on the cross for our sins and making us new creatures, giving us new desires and helping us to do the right since he lives within us now.
Joe: For sure! Another Christian brother that I met recently has been telling me that I need to keep the Sabbath day since it is in the 10 Commandments and we should be obeying them and I told him I agree so he told me when the Sabbath was, it is sundown Friday to sundown Saturday, I told him that I had the night shift where I work and I work on Friday. He went to tell me that I need to find a new job quickly,
Bill: Joe, the guy who told you that was probably being sincere BUT he was sincerely wrong. A lot of Christians are confused on this issue even today as they were in the bible back then. Paul chewed out Peter because he was telling the Gentiles to live like the Jews but he was living like a Gentile. Paul reproved him for playing the hypocrite,
Joe: Keep talking Bill, I was getting confused listening to this other brother, he told me he was a Hebrew Christian and he has some deeper things from God that I need to know. He told me that God's law was eternal and God never changes. I didn't' say anything, I just listened.
Bill: God NEVER changes BUT he has changed his laws many times. He said under the old covenant that they could not eat certain meats, and couldn't wear certain material for clothes, the men had to be circumcised, etc. BUT in the new covenant God tells us all meats are sanctified by the word of God and prayer in I Tim 4:3-6. Let's read it now. You still use God's pure word, the KJV, right?
Joe: Yeah Bill, I will never forget all the mistakes, contradictions and overall confusion in the new bibles.
Bill: Cool! NOW let's read I Tim 4:3-6
3 Forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats, which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth.
4 For every creature of God is good, and nothing to be refused, if it be received with thanksgiving:
5 For it is sanctified by the word of God and prayer.
6 If thou put the brethren in remembrance of these things, thou shalt be a good minister of Jesus Christ, nourished up in the words of faith and of good doctrine, whereunto thou hast attained.
Now notice here Joe, that the last day "church" so called will be telling people to abstain from meats which God created to be received with thanksgiving to them that BELIEVE. Watch v. 4 "For EVERY creature of God is good, and nothing to be refused IF it is received with thanksgiving." Think about that Joe, I have talked to Hebrew Christians, Jewish believers who can't seem to understand that God has done a new thing in these last days just as he said he would in the old covenant. He said in the old covenant in Isaiah 43,
"18 Remember ye not the former things, neither consider the things of old.
19 Behold, I will do a new thing; now it shall spring forth; shall ye not know it? I will even make a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert."
God does this at times through the old covenant, testament showing his people that these things under the old covenant will pass away. Let me show you another one real quick. God made circumcision an eternal thing BUT not the typology but the reality. Let's read back in "Deut 10: 16 Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no more stiffnecked." Here God is giving a big hint what the purpose of fleshy circumcision was. There were all kinds of typologies under the old covenant that would pass away under the new.
In Jer 4
3 For thus saith the LORD to the men of Judah and Jerusalem, Break up your fallow ground, and sow not among thorns.
4 Circumcise yourselves to the LORD, and take away the foreskins of your heart, ye men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem: lest my fury come forth like fire, and burn that none can quench it, because of the evil of your doings.
One more OT verse for now and I will tie in one NT verse then go to another subject.
Reading Ezek 44
9 Thus saith the Lord GOD; No stranger, uncircumcised in heart, nor uncircumcised in flesh, shall enter into my sanctuary, of any stranger that is among the children of Israel.
Here we see that under the OT or old covenant, they were held to both circumcision of the flesh and spiritual circumcision of the heart, showing that they wanted to walk in the new NOT the old fleshy ways.
I can do a lot more in the NT or new covenant but a couple will suffice.
Acts 7
51 Ye stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost: as your fathers did, so do ye.
Rom 4
11 And he received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of the faith which he had yet being uncircumcised: that he might be the father of all them that believe, though they be not circumcised; that righteousness might be imputed unto them also:
12 And the father of circumcision to them who are not of the circumcision only, but who also walk in the steps of that faith of our father Abraham, which he had being yet uncircumcised.
So we see that Peter, Paul and the other disciples didn't put these and other old covenant laws on the new believers in the Lord Jesus Christ; That truth is spelled out clearly in the book of Acts and many of the epistles. Under the new covenant God tells us not to put one day above another thus negating the Sabbath day law. God does things differently, when he created the earth and the sun, the universe, he did something different BUT he remained the same. Under the old covenant, adulteresses were stoned BUT when Jesus came the author of the old covenant told the woman caught in the very act of adultery, that he doesn't condemn her either BUT told her to go and sin no more.
Well, I have to be at work in about an hour so we will talk more later, this is a very important subject.