We are no longer an earthly nation; we are a nation of hearts. We no longer have a Temple and accompanying rituals; we are the Temple.
When Paul encouraged people to be diligent in studying the Old Testament (their Bible at that time), “rightly dividing the Word,” he meant for them to seek out the new boundaries that come with recognizing how some of the Ritual Law no longer applies. Think about all the provisions in the Law regarding ritual purity; discern how many of them require drawing new boundaries.
There is no covenant nation on this earth today; the Temple veil was torn open. There never will be another covenant nation. There will never be a literal Temple with a Levitical priesthood serving. Most of the old restrictions don’t matter. Remember the fracas between Paul and Peter about whether to eat with Gentiles? Eating at the same table with Gentiles was a matter of declaring peace, when the national identity under the Covenant forbade that. If Israel did not dominate by enforcing the Code of Noah on a Gentile tribe, then there could be no covenant peace.
The Gibeonites and Jebusites were allowed to stay in the Promised Land under the Covenant of Noah. But a Gentile observant of Noah was always allowed to share the table with Israelis, with the exception of Passover. The Pharisees had made a doctrine of spiteful racism against Gentiles, and hid the truth about Noah. Peter should have recognized that Christian Gentiles are inherently covered under the Covenant of Noah, which is what Acts 15 was all about. Scrupulous Jewish Christians needed to recognize that the Law of Moses was not the same as the Talmud, so that false Pharisaical customs were wrong. Those rules didn’t apply in the first place.
The business of dining together no longer represents peace between nations, particularly because there are no valid national covenants. It’s not a Covenant ritual any more. You can eat with the grossest sinners. The reason Jesus ate with tax collectors was a declaration that they were unjustly excluded from Covenant privileges by the Jewish leadership. Those people could have covenant peace with God, and that’s what Jesus was doing at their feasts. That’s a different message. It’s for a different reason that you and I cannot socially distance ourselves from sinners. For us today, it’s because of the limits of physical dominion.
Your dominion under the Covenant of Christ is highly variable with the context, and it’s your duty to recognize it. If you can take dominion in your home over the rest of your family, then the family table becomes a covenant table. At that point, you could discriminate against non-covenant folks, provided you enforce the provisions justly. You may still have convictions that welcome outsiders, but the option is there under those very restricted boundaries.
This is why I keep saying that we cannot ape the Covenant life of the Hebrew people, particularly in the ritual details. There’s a tremendous confusion about that, mostly because churchians tend to believe the lies told by Pharisees, claiming to give us the “real” Law of Moses. All it takes is comparing their lies with the Gospels, and it become readily apparent what God said.
Kosher becomes a mere matter of health ideas, as does questions like circumcision. Follow your convictions; let others follow theirs. When Phinehas skewered the straying Israeli in his tent with the Midianite prostitute, he didn’t need to quote from Moses to know this was what God demanded. Phinehas had God in his heart and knew what his Lord required of him personally. You are supposed to read about the Law Covenants so you can know the heart of the Father.
