THE DIETARY DEBATE

Contents

The Controversy

The present controversy is probably a result of disagreement with our present thesis: that the Dietary Laws present a "difficult question." Controversies usually erupt when people take opposing views of a difficult question and announce that the difficult question is perfectly clear.1 It is our purpose to show that neither those who uphold the Dietary Laws nor those who oppose them have answered all the questions. What follows is not a defense of the abiding validity of the Dietary Laws, only a plea for humility and peace and further research.

Let us remember the proper place of the Dietary Laws. I don't believe that any Theonomists believe that the Dietary Laws are among the most important of all God's Laws. For my part, I know I too often find it easier to return a self-righteous "No way!" to even the best-prepared, most delicious pork dish,2 than to return a gracious, sincere, and cordial compliment to one who has served a macaroni and cheese dinner. Even if the Dietary Laws are still binding, we must not neglect the weightier matters of the Law (Matthew 23:23).

Diet and the State

Vine & Fig Tree Essay Number Four summarized a position on the State which holds that God nowhere commands men to form an Empire or State. What was ordained by angels at the hand of Moses was what we might call "the Church," not the State. Forming a State, and profiting from it, is basic to rebellion. It therefore characterizes all non-Christian societies. God's people are not to have any gods but the Lord.

The Bible says that all Babylons are towers of rebellion, a quest for political godhead (Genesis 3:5), and an assault on the Christian life set forth in the Law and lived by the Word. I Samuel 8 is an example of the violation of the substance of the Dietary Laws. It is a case of Israel imitating the unclean lifestyles of sinful men.

Some scholars have attempted to link the Dietary Laws to the Gentile nations. But the clean and unclean animals listed in Leviticus symbolized sinful men, not nations. Granted, the ideal was for the nation of Israel to be Godly (clean), leaving uncleanness to the nations around them. But these scholars have been trapped in "archist" presuppositions. The only way nations can be brought into the picture is the simple fact that all sinful people who form associations large enough to speak of form Empires which we call nations.3 All of man's Babylons are departures from God's central unit of social order, the Family. Patriarchy is the inescapable preferred social order of Jesus and the Prophets.

Far from being tied to any form of Empire or State, the distinction between Old Testament believers and Old Testament sinners is not national but Familial. The great message of the Gospel, which we can sum up in the word Adoption, is the end of the tribal distinctions and protections God gave to Israel and withheld from other Families. When the Gospel was preached to Abraham it was the promise that in the Messianic age "All nations (ethné, from which we derive our word "ethnic") shall be blessed" (Galatians 3:8).

The Psalmist recognized the universal extension of the promise to Abraham:

Glorious things are spoken of you, O city of God! Selah {4} "I will make mention of Rahab and Babylon to those who know Me; Behold, O Philistia and Tyre, with Ethiopia: 'This one was born there.'" {5} And of Zion it will be said, "This one and that one were born in her; And the Most High Himself shall establish her." {6} The LORD will record, When He registers the peoples: "This one was born there." Selah
Psalm 87:3-6

We can look back at the Old Testament in faith and know that Israel was a Spiritual type of the Church; the State as a form of social organization had nothing to do with it (except incidentally4).

We must still speak of unbelievers as "Gentiles" therefore (I Corinthians 5:1; 12:2; I Thessalonians 4:5; I Peter 2:12; 3 John 7) because what really divides men is their relationship to God, not the place of their birth. In John's Gospel even the Jews are spoken of as Gentiles (ethné). The relationship between "nations" (peoples, tribes, tongues, etc) and the Gospel must therefore be examined more closely. Non-Familial political organization must be contrasted with the Patriarchal social order of the Bible.

The Gospel of Reconciliation

Therefore remember that you, once Gentiles in the flesh; who are called "Uncircumcision" by what is called the Circumcision made in the flesh by hands; {12} that at that time you were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. {13} But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. {14} For He Himself is our peace, who has made both one, and has broken down the middle wall of separation, {15} having abolished in His flesh the enmity, that is, the law of commandments contained in ordinances, so as to create in Himself one new man from the two, thus making peace, {16} and that He might reconcile them both to God in one body through the cross, thereby putting to death the enmity. {17} And He came and preached peace to you who were afar off and to those who were near. {18} For through Him we both have access by one Spirit to the Father. {19} Now, therefore, you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, {20} having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief corner stone, {21} in whom the whole building, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord, {22} in whom you also are being built together for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit.
(Ephesians 2:11-22).

But the miraculous thing about the Gospel, in Paul's eyes, is that it has the power to unite these two perennially-fighting groups. For Paul, a Jew of Jews, this fact was particularly amazing, and it forms the basis for much of his instruction.

Most Evangelicals today don't like to consider the ethical and social aspects of the Gospel. But most of the New Testament is ethical and social in character. Even the "strictly theological" passages are often written as the basis for instruction in practical obedience. And perhaps one of the most important ethical considerations made in the New Testament is that the Gospel is a Gospel of Peace; the message of the Gospel is that men shall get along together.

This is a truly striking promise, if you stop to think about it. Most of our problems in life are simply problems of people not getting along together; people who aren't speaking to each other, or are yelling at each other, threatening each other, or engaging in intimidation or one-upmanship. Can you imagine a time when you will actually get along with your little brother? With your boss? With mean old Mrs. Morgenstern? With your mother-in-law!!? As you read the New Testament, it becomes clear that this dimension of the Gospel has been neglected. "Making two men one," "breaking down walls," "brotherly love" and other ways of looking at the answer are overlooked in favor of a more individualistic view of the Gospel. No one wishes to say that the individual's eternal destiny is unimportant, but that is not where the New Testament places the emphasis.

Justification and Theonomy

The heresy Paul was struggling against was not that the Jewish Christians continued to be committed to keeping certain aspects of the Law of the Old Testament; Paul was quite tolerant of those who held to such a conviction. He went out of his way to share their ritual faithfulness when in Jerusalem (Acts 21:20-26). It was not their thinking that by keeping the Law of God they could be justified before God, for the Jewish Christians did not believe that. Godly Jews had always known the place of the Law, and knew the one doctrine of justification that had been taught in the Bible from Genesis to Malachi. A Jew did not become a Christian by coming to see God as a righteous Judge and yet now also a gracious, forgiving Protector. The Old Testament teaches that, and he believed it already.

(We can see here the problem with Evangelicalism today: It teaches that men in the Old Testament were justified by obeying the Law but that men in the New Testament are justified by faith alone. Both sides of the coin are counterfeit. Men were justified by faith as much in the Old Testament as they are in the New. Men are justified by works as much in the New Testament as they were in the Old. The theologians are going to have to shed a number of unBiblical preconceptions before they can understand clearly the Biblical doctrine of justification.)

What it took for a Jew to become a Christian was, in many cases, not some new idea about the Law, about justification, about his sin, or about God's righteousness, but rather a new idea about the Gospel. The heresy Paul most often attacked was the failure of the Jewish Christians to believe that the Messiah was extending salvation to the Gentiles.

Statism and the Gospel

The Old Testament, in what some have called the "ceremonial law" and others, more descriptively, the "pedagogical law," singled out certain animals that in various ways could be pedagogically used to illustrate sin, and forbad the eating of these animals.7

But where the Old Testament had taught separation from sin, politically-minded and egotistic Israel legislated traditions that taught separation from other associations of people, namely, the Gentiles, even while they were emulating the Gentiles in all their political rebellion. Faithless Jews, in their hypocrisy and political pride, in effect added the men of other nations to this list of unclean animals, making them permanently unclean.

But not all Gentiles were on the "unclean" list. You see, the Pharisees were also statists, and while they professed abhorrence at the Gentile statists round about them, well, "birds of a feather, etc."

Throughout the Old Testament, faithless Israel trusted in kings and princes and military might rather than in the LORD of hosts. They saw their strength not in God but in their own political machinations. God had warned them time and time again that they should repudiate the political and military practices undertaken by the nations around them, and to be separated from them. God promised that "national security" would be the gift of God, not the result of political "détente" or a "military-industrial complex."

In their hypocrisy they claimed to be God's chosen people and cultivated a social hatred8 of the Gentiles, yet when one Gentile nation threatened them, they would run to another Gentile nation and form an alliance with it, hoping thereby to gain security (literally, "salvation"). Their hypocritical interpersonal etiquette developed into a strong nationalism; their chauvinistic hyper-patriotism distorted the Law of God into racist traditions. The Law and the Prophets spoke of the extension of the Kingdom to all nations; the elimination of all Babylonian political divisions and the uniting of all -- Jew and Gentile -- under the banner of the Kingdom of the Messiah (e.g., Micah 4:1-4). Faithless, statist Israel refused to believe this. And then they justified themselves by saying they were "pure" because they hated the Gentile poor and obeyed a lot of silly ritualistic traditions. Sound familiar?

We must remember, therefore that not all Gentiles were on this unwritten "unclean" list. Only the poor and politically powerless were "unclean." Would-be lenders, merchants, the rich, and the militarily powerful were regularly courted by the Jewish rulers. Can you imagine a wimpering Ahaz, after begging the king of Assyria for political and military support, while he is signing a covenant with Assyria (instead of God), checking with the Gentile king to make sure there wasn't any pork in the room? Not a chance. But ask such a Jew if he could be gracious to the man-on-the-(Gentile)-street. One could certainly never invite a Gentile over to one's house to tell him of the wonderful mercies of the LORD; that would be too much like a servant. Pharisees were true politicians: they lusted for power and control through hierarchical rank. The more pharisaical Jews would not even walk on the same side of the street as a (politically powerless, non-"influential") Gentile. How silly. How stupid.

We should note here something common to all man-made legislation: it reflects the pride and selfishness of its authors, and always maintains a double standard, one manner of law for the powerful and for favored "insiders," and another for the powerless. God's Law reflects the Justice of its Author: Leviticus 24:22.

Obviously the Law of God did not in any way -- letter or spirit -- say you couldn't be gracious to Gentiles, much less that you couldn't preach the Gospel to them. Although in the Older administration of the Covenant God did not normally call the Gentiles to be a part of His Kingdom, but only the seed of Abraham, it was clear that this "normal" state of affairs was in fact only temporary. The "norm" was a universal Kingdom. Noah reflected such a world-wide covenant: no Babylonian statecraft ("nations") yet the observation of the clean/unclean symbols of sin and unbelief. The good news of Adoption into the household of faith was everywhere spoken of in the Law and the Prophets. Ask Jonah! Those mean pharisees should have worried that God would put them in the belly of a whale for their pride and nastiness toward innocent Gentiles, and for their failure to tell the Gentiles of God's marvelous mercy (Jonah 4:2,11).

Acts 10

"Ye know how that it is an unlawful thing for a man that is a Jew to keep company or come unto one of another nation; but God hath shewed me that I should not call any man common or unclean."

The Greek adjective ("unlawful") is used but twice in the New Testament, and in both instances by Peter. According to its etymology and classical usage, it denotes what is contrary to ancient custom or prescription (Gk: themis), rather than to positive enactment (Gk: nomos); and this agrees exactly with the case before us, where the prohibition does not rest upon the letter of the law, but either on its spirit, as interpreted in later times, or on some traditional addition to it.

Acts 10 records a vision given to Peter in an effort to get him to repudiate the traditions of men. In the vision, Peter is told three times to kill and eat unclean animals. Some have quickly concluded that this is an endorsement of the eating of the meat of dogs, cats, swine, etc., and the setting aside of the Old Testament symbols of instruction. We are not necessarily trying to encourage a ham boycott, but these interpreters (mostly amillennialists) have missed the point of this particular passage.

Peter himself did not immediately understand the meaning of the vision (Acts 10:17). But the Spirit spoke with him (10:19-20) and he then understood the vision. And the meaning of the vision had nothing to do with food, but with community and postmillennialism. As he told those at the home of Cornelius, Jewish traditions had held it

an unclean thing for a man that is a Jew to keep company or come unto one of another nation; but God hath shewed me that I should not call any man common or unclean" (Acts 10:28).

"Then Peter opened his mouth and said, Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons (Deuteronomy 10:17) but in every nation he that feareth Him and worketh righteousness, is accepted with Him" (Acts 10:35).

"Then hath God also to the Gentiles granted repentance unto life" (Acts 11:18).

The Annulment of the Dietary Laws?

Let us remember the Theonomic position, as stated in this I.C.E. Position paper:

The principle of interpretation promoted by the Theonomist movement is this: if an Old Testament law has not been officially abandoned or modified by a passage in the New Testament, or if a New Testament principle has not annulled it, then it is still morally binding. . . .

It is important that we find a New Testament statement setting aside the clean/unclean distinction as it was expressed in the Old Testament. It would be so easy for a Theonomist to assume that the Dietary Laws were still in force. A Theonomist does not misinterpret the Law and the Prophets like the Jews did. A Theonomist is not a pharisee, but a follower of Jesus the Messiah (Matthew 5:19). And over and over again the New Testament encourages us to observe some kind of clean/unclean distinction (2 Corinthians 12:21; Galatians 5:19; Ephesians 4:19; 5:3; Colossians 3:5; I Thessalonians 4:7; Revelation 17:4). As Theonomists we might naturally assume it is the same clean/unclean distinction as set forth by the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament (and not, of course, the Pharisaical interpretation of same) in the absence of any New Testament statement to the contrary.

Naturally, Theonomists will not be shaken by the fact that antinomians don't accept the abiding validity of the Dietary Laws. The fact that we are now even thinking about whether they are binding on Christians is surely a healthy sign. As the Position Paper notes,

Prior to the mid-1960's, no one in the Christian world believed that the Mosaic laws concerning food are in any way binding in New Testament times. Only in the late 1960's, as the theonomic position was being initially formulated, was the question of the dietary laws even raised. . . .9

The question is: Are these Old Testament restrictions still morally binding on Gentiles? (For that matter, were they ever designed by God to be morally binding on Gentile converts who did not intend to live in Israel, such as those in Ninevah who were converted by the preaching of Jonah?)

What about aliens living in Israel (Deuteronomy 14:21)? Some have inferred that Gentiles were never obligated to obey the Dietary Laws. But this is only because they were not submitting to the Faith. Had they desired to submit to the True God and be adopted into His Household, they could have been. They also would have had to be circumcised, would they not? Aliens surely had an obligation to become members of the Church of God, but until they did, believers did not have to worry about whether Gentiles observed the symbolic order of the Church (Proverbs 13:22b).

New Testament Annulment of the Dietary Laws

The basic passages relating to the question of the eating of unclean or profane meats are Acts 10:7-16, Romans 14:14-23, and I Corinthians 8:1-13.

According to the Position Paper, the fact that I Corinthians 8 has yet to be discussed by the proponents of Christian "kosher" laws . . . testifies eloquently to the exegetical weakness of the position. Let's look at the passage.

1 Corinthians 8

{1} Now concerning things offered to idols: We know that we all have knowledge. Knowledge puffs up, but love edifies.
{2} And if anyone thinks that he knows anything, he knows nothing yet as he ought to know.
{3} But if anyone loves God, this one is known by Him.
{4} Therefore concerning the eating of things offered to idols, we know that an idol is nothing in the world, and that there is no other God but one.
{5} For even if there are so-called gods, whether in heaven or on earth (as there are many gods and many lords),
{6} yet for us there is one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we for Him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and through whom we live.
{7} However, there is not in everyone that knowledge; for some, with consciousness of the idol, until now eat it as a thing offered to an idol; and their conscience, being weak, is defiled.
{8} But food does not commend us to God; for neither if we eat are we the better, nor if we do not eat are we the worse.
{9} But beware lest somehow this liberty of yours become a stumbling block to those who are weak.
{10} For if anyone sees you who have knowledge eating in an idol's temple, will not the conscience of him who is weak be emboldened to eat those things offered to idols?
{11} And because of your knowledge shall the weak brother perish, for whom Christ died?
{12} But when you thus sin against the brethren, and wound their weak conscience, you sin against Christ.
{13} Therefore, if food makes my brother stumble, I will never again eat meat, lest I make my brother stumble.

What about Romans 14? Again, is it so patently obvious that this is a discussion of the Old Testament pedagogical law? Or is this a discussion of vegetarianism (vs. 2)? Perhaps it is a reference to other pagan rituals and ceremonies (vvs. 5-6).

At any rate, I can imagine a defender of the Dietary Laws giving a reasonable interpretation of these three passages that allow for the continuing obligation of the Dietary Laws of the Scriptures.

Mark 7

Probably the most compelling argument against the Dietary Laws is found on the first page of the Position Paper under the heading "The Cleansing of the Land." We are told

There is no ritual cleansing required by the civil magistrates in order to free the land of pollution.

All this infighting among Reconstructionists is really getting me down. When will we stop rallying behind traditions (Conservative, Reformed, or our own particular party of the Theonomists) and start testing all things by the Scripture (Acts 17:11)?

1. Is there a ritual cleansing required under the New Covenant?

2. Does a non-Familial "civil magistrate" have a monopoly on this ritual?

Since Christ's death and resurrection, the whole earth has been permanently cleansed of the death-curse it labored under as a result of Adam's fall. That release was established definitively at Calvary, and is being progressively revealed over time. The whole creation looks forward to the final release at the end of time (Rom. 8:19-23). This is one aspect of the release granted to the Church and to mankind in general by Christ.
In Old Testament Israel, for instance, the land was polluted -- religiously polluted -- by any unsolved murder. The elders of the city in which the murder occurred had to slay a heifer in order to remove the pollution from the land (Deut. 21:1-9). Calvary annulled this law; the death of Christ covered the pollution and permanently cleansed the land. There is no ritual cleansing required by the civil magistrates in order to free the land of pollution.

It is the purpose of the following paper to ask these questions, and to suggest possible lines of inquiry as to the answers.

NOTES

(2) and thereby preserve my holiness (while casting unmistakable doubts on the knave who's serving swine flesh for human consumption).  [Back to text.]

(3) There is no such thing as "anarchy." The chaos we picture when we speak of "anarchy" is actually the conflict of many Humanistic "archists," or would-be rulers. Christ will eventually put down all "archists," (I Corinthians 15:24) and His followers will be servants, not "rulers" (Matthew 20:25-28).  [Back to text.]

(4) That is to say, those who were to be the Church, the Bride of the Lord, often committed spiritual adultury by voting for other lords. Thus the connection between Israel and a State is not normative.  [Back to text.]

(5) by defining "true Judaism" in terms of their perception of the "ordinances" of the Old Testament Church [Ephesians 2:15], turning the Church into a State in order to rival the pagan States [I Samuel 8], adding to this their own pharisaical traditions, and then requiring the Gentiles to become "Jewish" by obeying this "law."  [Back to text.]

(6) by neglecting God's commands for brotherly love -- compare Leviticus 19:18 and Matthew 5:43.  [Back to text.]

(7) Hygienic considerations (which were summed up in the Command, "Thou shalt not kill") may also have been involved in the selection of these animals, but this is not explicitly stated in the relevant passages, and so need not be considered.  [Back to text.]

(8) anti-personalism.  [Back to text.]

(9) Actually, there have been many Christians who have observed the Dietary Laws. Most of them have been poor, persecuted, a part of a Christian "underground," because any people who take the Bible seriously as to believe that God's Law governs our diet, are likely to take other parts of the Bible seriously, and become thereby a threat to the Empire in which they live. But membership list of "the Christian world" tends to be defined by the politically and ecclesiastically powerful.  [Back to text.]