It has come up again - the idea that we must not single out the laws mentioned in Leviticus and apply some today and not others.

I want to address that issue in this post so that I can refer back to the teachings concerning these laws without needing to rewrite it all over and over again. In doing so I will draw heavily on the writings of someone I simply know as “farstrider”, now a Church of England theological student planning to enter the ordained ministry very soon, but an experienced and learned student of the Bible with a considerable knowledge of traditional Scriptural exegesis, and sound understanding of Biblical Hebrew and Greek. Should “farstrider” ever get to read this, I would like him to accept my heartfelt thanks for his teaching and hope he doesn’t mind too much my reproducing much of it here (mostly in his own words) for others to read too.

There are many ways that people have used to try to get out of obeying the Biblical commands. Revisionists often attempt to denigrate the Old Testament’s moral laws (particularly those touching upon homosexuality in Leviticus) by pointing out that we now eat shellfish, wear garments of mixed fibres, and don’t execute Sabbath-breakers, etc. If we have “abandoned” the latter laws, they ask, why do we hold onto the former laws as absolutes? Surely we are being inconsistent, picking and choosing, rejecting some and applying others?

The answer is No, we are not being inconsistent and making arbitary whimsical decisions about which to apply and which to ignore. Far from it. Instead, we are applying scholarly knowledge concerning the different categories of those laws and the intentions for which each category was given. To lump them all together without further consideration is to show ignorance of their different purposes.

The Christian faith teaches that God’s over-arching purpose has always been to restore mankind to Himself. We are told that all of us, each one of us, has sinned (done wrong things) and fallen short of His glory - messed up in relation to Himself who alone is holy and righteous.

In the Old Testament we read how God had a plan to bring about this reconciliation and restoration, and began to unfold this plan by calling out a man from Ur of the Chaldees - Abram. God then made a covenant with Abram, promising to make him a nation and bless him so that he could be a blessing to all nations (all of humanity is in focus here). Israel would be a light to the nations and would ultimately produce the Messiah who would restore all of humanity - and indeed all of creation - to God.

Israel was given a unique place in God's grand scheme, although while honourable, was temporary. At the right time God would draw all nations to himself through an “ideal Israel” as found in her rightful King (Jesus) and would create a new people not distinguished by language or ethnicity. So how does this touch upon the laws written in Leviticus?

The Law:

God used the law to transform a rabble of ex-slaves into a holy nation that would reflect his glory to the nations. It acted as a kind of constitution for Israel, defining the rights and responsibilities that they shared in their covenant with God. It had to tell them what was right and wrong (moral), and it had to tell them what kind of nation they would be (national).

1. Moral

The moral components deal with what is right and wrong - it is right to love the Lord your God and your neighbours, to care for the needy, to shelter orphans etc. It is wrong to commit murder, to steal, to have sexual relations with animals, near relations, members of the same sex, and so on. These morals find their origin in the unchanging holiness of God, and are in themselves unchanging. It is worth noting that one finds them echoed in the New Testament as well as the Old. These laws remain absolutes - it is wrong to murder, steal, commit adultery and so on whenever and wherever you live. They are universal laws.

2. National

The first category:

The national components cover everything from administrative, criminal, and civil laws to ritual laws.
The first category describes how God wants Israel to function - and it is comprehensive. They are told where to put toilets in relation to the camp, how kings should reign, how to deal with refugees, how to punish crimes and resolve disputes and more. Food laws (shellfish would be unsafe to eat in that climate, there being no refrigeration!) and food hygiene (prevention of illness) was spelled out. While we can learn lots from it (it reveals God's heart and is full of wisdom), it remains their constitution and not ours.

The second category (ritual) operates on at two levels:

a) It deals with how one relates to God (issues of sin, atonement through the shedding of blood and the releasing of the scape-goat, remembrance of God’s acts in the Passover and other festivals, and so on). These served as “types” (pictures) foreshadowing what Christ would accomplish through his life, death and resurrection. They were fulfilled in him, and so they no longer apply.

b) It also explains how Israel, as a nation, is to keep itself holy, separate from its pagan neighbours. That included instructions on how to cut ones beard, and what kind of clothes to wear, which are examples of this level. Again, Israel's place at centre stage was temporary. Now, through Christ, there is no longer any distinction between Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male or female - all peoples have been made clean through Christ's acts. The laws of separation no longer apply.

Therefore, in summation:

Basically moral laws are to be distinguished from ritual and other laws.
Having had seminary educations the revisionists shouldn’t have so much trouble with these categories, but maybe that’s not the real point for them.

There is an over-arching narrative within (and surrounding) the books of Scripture.
Genesis 1-11 serves as an introduction - God creates all things; creation is good; something goes badly wrong; God makes a promise to fallen humanity (Genesis 3:15). Humanity continues to go from bad to worse.
The rest of the Old Testament deals with how God begins to unfold his promise to Adam and Eve.
Firstly, he sets apart a nation to serve as a show-case of the kingdom. This nation has to be distinct, for they were to be a light to the nations. This nation (a la Exodus) is refined in the fires of Egypt and then the Sinai, but when they come out of the wilderness they are a people, united by the law, (but, alas, without a land).
Then they supplanted the peoples of Canaan, who had been given almost 500 years to repent before their sin had reached its full measure, thus leaving God no choice but to judge them (Genesis 15:16), but Israel herself proved to be unfaithful.
Throughout Israel’s history the promise of God, first given in Genesis 3:15, became more and more precise. The “seed of the woman” would be a descendant of Abraham; he would be from the tribe of Judah; he would be a son of David; he would be born in Bethlehem; he would be both a king and a suffering servant.
The coming of Jesus, the promised seed, marks the end of one age and the beginning of another - and the putting aside of one covenant for another (the New Covenant which had been prophesied in advance by Jeremiah, Ezekiel and others).

The question for the early Christians, and for Christians today, is this: what is the difference between the Old Testament and the New Testament?

As explained above, we see the main difference. The Mosaic Covenant was given to a particular people at a particular time for a particular purpose. Yet that covenant describes for us the difference between good and evil (the moral component), and this moral aspect is anchored in the very nature of the God who is Holy. Paul, in Romans notes that this moral law, revealed most clearly in the Torah, is nonetheless separate from the Torah. The Gentiles, who did not have Moses, still understood the basics of right and wrong (Romans 2:14). This is what theologians have refer to as “Natural Law” - it is most clearly evidenced in the human conscience. The moral aspects of the Torah are still in effect because they are in accordance with the nature of God and in accordance with the moral laws that are woven into creation itself.

Not so the ritual laws. Hebrews is very careful to point out that these were merely shadows pointing to Christ.
Not so the racial laws. Paul, in Galatians (and most of his Epistles) demonstrates that these laws have fulfilled their purpose. They set Israel apart until the time when Messiah would make an end to racial divisions, creating a new people of God which encompasses every nation (in accord with God’s first promise to Adam and Eve).

Revelation serves as a conclusion to the Biblical narrative (although we are still living within that narrative). There, in Rev 5 and 7 we see the redeemed from every nation gathered around the throne worshiping the Lamb. In Rev 21 and 22 we see the earth itself remade and joined together with heaven.

Some of the following may be nothing more than a re-telling of the original post, but it is important to see the basic “breakdown” of Scripture.
Introduction - A good Creation gone wrong, and a promise
Israel - the people of promise
Christ and the people of Christ - the promise fulfilled/being fulfilled
Conclusion - the consummation of the Promise
This big picture helps us see where the pieces fit, and helps to makes sense of them.

Postscript (added 30 December, 2006): An excellent outline and explanation of these different categories of Old Testament laws can be found here on the Covenant Theology blog, written by contributor August.

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It is commonly claimed that Jesus said nothing about homosexuality, and from there an argument is made that He did not consider it a sin. But Jesus does speak of sexual immorality. In those Biblical times there was no such word as “homosexual” as the concept of such was not understood then as it is today. A wide range of sexual behaviours outlined in the Torah (as written in Leviticus) were considered abhorrent to God, considered to be a sin, a transgression against God’s holy and righteous character. These behaviours included incest, paedophilia, bestiality, sodomy, adultery, etc. The Jews understood that lust for another, of either gender by either gender, and sexual behaviour that followed on from that outside of marriage was sin covered by the term “sexual immorality”. This was their knowledge and understanding, and that this umbrella term included the full range of forbidden behaviours. Jesus does not single out incest and bestiality either, but it would be utterly foolish to assert the argument that, by not naming the actual behaviour, He did not regard bestiality and incest as sin either.

The following are the words of Jesus.

Matthew 15: 16 “Are you still so dull?” Jesus asked them. 17 “Don’t you see that whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and then out of the body? 18 But the things that come out of the mouth come from the heart, and these make a man ‘unclean.’ 19 For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander. 20 These are what make a man ‘unclean’; but eating with unwashed hands does not make him ‘unclean.’ “

So Jesus is indeed recorded as having made mention of sexual immorality (the full range of sexual sins written in the Torah - in Leviticus) despite what revisionists would have us believe. He was being asked by some Pharisees why His disciples break the tradition of the elders and don’t wash their hands before they eat. Jesus taught the distinction between the Moral Law and the Mosaic Covenant (national law) and that sin arises from within our own hearts and minds.