Saturday study 1/31/26

 Part 6: On Purification laws

I posed the theme of this series in the form of a question:

Did Jesus actually change the Law of Moses?

• The point is to see whether Jesus came to merely repeat Moses or whether, as the New Covenant lawgiver, Jesus came to change Torah at certain points.
• Today we look to see if Jesus changed purification laws.

"You Have Heard it Said": Lev 13-14; Num 5; 19

• Illnesses like leprosy/skin disease; chronic discharges, including a woman with a flow of blood (Lev 15)
• Contact with corpses and other sick people (Num 5:1–4; 19)
• Purification laws required washing, sometimes offering sacrifices (e.g., being sprinkled with the red-heifer water)
• For a time the "unclean" had to be banished/excluded from the Jewish community and the Temple, i.e., the presence of God. 

"But I say": Matt 8; Luke 8:40-56

• He touches the sick, like lepers, paralytic and eats with "sinners" (i.e., Gentiles or bakcsiliding Jews, Luke 5:12-32; a woman with blood discharge, Mar 5:25-34; Luke 8:43-48).
• He touches a dead girl (Mark 5:35-43; Luke 7:11-17); raised Lazarus (John 11). 
• And although he could heal with a word at a distance (servant of the Roman soldier) he instead wilfully comes into contact with the so-called "unclean," including the dead. 
• NOTE: the Gospels never record Jesus following purification laws. 
• This only really makes sense if Jesus is functioning under a different Law than that from Sinai.

What About?

• Jesus sometimes seems to be under Torah:
• He tells the cleansed leper: “Show yourself to the priest and offer the gift Moses commanded” (Matt 8:4). But don't stop there, "as a testimony to them," i.e., Torah-observant Jews.
• In other words, as a claim to show them of his Messianic ministry boinafide. 
• He is using their own Torah to verify his claims, without being under Torah. 

The early church: Hebrews 9-10

• Purification laws, e.g., about menstruating, corpse impurity, leprosy quarantines, etc., are not repeated to the church. 
• The whole Torah was but a single shadow (Heb 10:1) imposed only until the coming of Messiah, "he abolishes the first in order to establish the second." (Heb 10:9b)  
• As AB notes:

Just as in Col. 2:16-17 the Messiah, who has come, is the reality of which the calendar of “holy days, new moons and weekly sabbath” are a single shadow. 

• Note v.20 If you have died with Messiah to the elemental spirit forces of the world, why, as if you were alive in the world, do you submit to decrees 21 do not handle, do not taste, do not touch? 22 All these regulations refer to things that will perish with use; they are just human commands and doctrines. 23 These rules may seem to be wise with their invented religion, ascetic practices, and severe treatment of the body, but they are in reality of no value in stopping sinful indulgence.
• So "Obligatory vegetarianism would be an example of such teaching. Or total abstinence from alcohol which goes beyond the standard set by God and Jesus." AB footnotes
• The only “washing” emphasized is baptism, the metaphorical (non-literal) “washing of water with the word” (Eph 5:26), and the inner cleansing of conscience (Heb 9–10).
• Heb 9:13–14: ashes of the heifer for the defiled now superseded; Christ’s blood purifies the conscience, not external corpse impurity. 
• Acts 9; 20: apostles handle the dead to raise them, with no corpse purification.
• James 5:14-16 says prayer not Temple purifications, take care for the sick by repenting, forgiveness—not a hint of the Apostles repeating purification laws for the church. 

Notice how “cleansing” language is redirected:

• Hebrews 10:22 speaks of our hearts “sprinkled clean from an evil conscience” and our bodies washed with pure water. 
• The focus is on conscience and heart, not avoiding corpse contamination or menstruating women or "eating with sinners."
• Paul constantly exhorts Christians to purity in terms of holiness and behavior(2 Cor 7:1; Eph 5:3–5; 1 Thes 4:3–7), not ritual washings or observing niddah(7-day menstrual impurity), corpse laws, etc. 
• If Torah purity laws were still binding, Paul's letters to mixed Jew-Gentile churches should be full of instructions about them. They aren’t.
• READ: the story of Peter and Cornelius in Acts 10:17-35 it is crucial. 
• Peter says: “You yourselves know that it is unlawful for a Jew to associate with or visit a Gentile. But God has shown me that I should not call anyone unholy or unclean." (Acts 10:28)
• Acts 10:34b-35: “I now truly understand that God does not show favoritism, but He welcomes from every nation the person who fears Him and does what is right." 
• This comes immediately after the vision with “unclean” animals. The apostolic conclusion is crystal clear:
• The old clean/unclean categories that barred Jews from Gentile fellowship are gone.
• People once considered “unclean” are now acceptable in Messiah, without first passing through Torah purification.

READ: Galatians 2

• Paul rebukes Peter for refusing to eat with Gentile Christians when “certain men from James” (i.e., Torah-observant Jewish-Christians) came:
• Paul says Peter “lives like a Gentile and not like a Jew”; compelling Gentiles to Judaize is hypocrisy.
• The issue is shared table fellowship (food law keeping) despite previous Torah barriers.
• If purification laws are still binding, Peter couldn’t “live like a Gentile” at all; yet Paul treats that freedom as the normal Christian stance.

But What About?

• In Acts 21 Paul joins four other Jews under a vow and participates in purification rites in the Temple. Some argue this proves continued obligation to Torah rituals.
• But following his letters, it looks like missionary accommodation, diplomacy not Torah-observance necessity: 1Cor 9:

20 To the Jews I became like a Jew, so that I may win Jews. To those who are under the Law I became like someone under the Law — even though I myself am not under the Law — so that I may win those under the Law.  21 To those outside the Law I became like one outside the Law, not myself being outside the Law of God, but within the Law of Messiah, so that I may win those who are outside the Law. 

• Paul is willing, for the sake of being a witness to Jesus as the Messiah, to "become like a [Torah-observant] Jew." 
• Yet in his letters he insists that all Christians—whether Jew or Gentile—are not under the Law of Moses but are subject to the Law of Messiah. 
• These are two different, competing, and therefore contrasting sets of laws, just like there are two different covenants!

Summary

• Jesus changed temple purification laws therefore, didn't have to follow any prufication laws because he did not remain Torah-observant. 
• Jesus was the promised Messiah who was uniquely authiorized to establish a new covenant Law.
• Jesus was the spotless lamb of God and his own unique holiness overcomes impurity, where mercy outweighs ritual, and where Temple-based cleanness is replaced by cleanness through him.
• Hebrews describes the old covenant as having “various washings, regulations for the body imposed until the time of reformation” (Heb 9:10), including the ashes of the heifer for defilement by the dead (Heb 9:13; cf. Num 19). 
• But now, “the blood of Messiah… cleanses your conscience from dead works to serve the living God” (Heb 9:14), granting us a new “boldness to enter the holy place by the blood of Jesus… our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water” (Heb 10:19–22). NOTE centrality and importance of the cross! 
• For sickness, James instructs believers to call elders for prayer and anointing with oil, with no mention of Levitical uncleanness: “The prayer of faith will save the sick” (James 5:14–15).
• Contact with the dead (once a major impurity source, Num 19) requires no purification;
• Peter takes Tabitha by the hand and she lives (Acts 9:36–41); 
• Paul embraces Eutychus who fell from the window and seems to revive him (Acts 20:9–12).
• Regarding people, Peter declares, “God has shown me that I should call no person common or unclean” (Acts 10:28), and that God “cleansed their hearts by faith” (Acts 15:9), calling the Law’s demands a “yoke… which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear” (Acts 15:10).
• Paul confirms he is “not under the Law [of Moses]… but under the law of Messiah” (1 Cor 9:20–21) and calls Christians to “fulfill the law of Messiah” (Gal 6:2).

NEXT: Last Part 7, On food laws.