By Rick Barker
Do followers of Christ need to concern themselves with clean and unclean meats?
To understand the question of clean vs unclean meats, we must start with the basis for this concept. The Mosaic law defines what food is clean and what isn’t clean in Leviticus chapter 11 and again in Deuteronomy chapter 14.
However, clean vs unclean isn’t limited to the consumption of food. It also includes:
- Touching the carcass of either a clean or an unclean animal makes one unclean (see, for instance Lev. 11:24 and 11:39).
- A woman who gives birth is unclean (Lev. 12) and must wait 2 to 3 months before she can have an atonement offering and go to the sanctuary or touch anything sacred.
- A person with a skin disorder may be unclean (Lev. 13:1-46) and is required to live outside of the community, live alone, and cry out “Unclean”—presumably to warn others away.
- Moldy clothes may be unclean (Lev. 13:47-59).
- A man who has an unusual body discharge is unclean and so is everything that he touches (Lev. 15:1-15) for seven days beyond the last of the discharge.
- When a couple has sex, they are unclean until evening (Lev. 15:16-18).
- A woman is unclean during her period (Lev. 15:19-24) and touching her, in any manner, makes the other person unclean. Anything that she sits on or lies on is also unclean, and anyone touching these items is also made unclean.
- Entering a place with a dead body apparently makes a person unclean (Lev. 21:11).
- Touching an unclean person, or an object that was unclean, caused the person touching it to be unclean as well.
Israelites were commanded to separate from unclean things under the threat of death for defiling God’s dwelling place (Lev 15:31).
These laws surrounding what is clean and what is unclean are not scattered laws arbitrarily grouped together because of the words “clean” or “unclean”. These are grouped together in a section of Scripture all relating to the same subject. The laws on clean and unclean are a collected group of laws that either continue to apply together or have been fulfilled together.
Fulfilled or still required?
The early church faced this question in Acts. At its beginning, the Christian church was a Jewish offshoot; church members were Jewish. It wasn’t long, however, before this ethnic dominance changed, and with this change came questions.
The implications of this ethnic shift are first addressed in Peter’s vision in Acts 10:9-16 (New King James Version):
The next day, as they went on their journey and drew near the city, Peter went up on the housetop to pray, about the sixth hour. Then he became very hungry and wanted to eat; but while they made ready, he fell into a trance and saw heaven opened and an object like a great sheet bound at the four corners, descending to him and let down to the earth. In it were all kinds of four-footed animals of the earth, wild beasts, creeping things, and birds of the air. And a voice came to him, “Rise, Peter; kill and eat.”
But Peter said, “Not so, Lord! For I have never eaten anything common or unclean.”
And a voice spoke to him again the second time, “What God has cleansed you must not call common.” This was done three times. And the object was taken up into heaven again.
The immediate application of this passage is seen a few verses later (v 28):
Then he said to them, “You know how unlawful it is for a Jewish man to keep company with or go to one of another nation. But God has shown me that I should not call any man common or unclean.
Peter’s vision was about clean and unclean foods, but the immediate application was made to people. This application raises the question, “When God showed Peter a bunch of unclean animals and declared that there wasn’t a distinction between clean and unclean, was God only referring to people, or did that vision include the animals that were the specific content of the vision?”
We could speculate and offer our own reasons, or we could rely on Scripture.
Allowing Gentiles to join the church created controversies within the Church. Is the Church an extension of Judaism; or is it something else entirely? This question was brought to the Church leaders in Acts 15:5:
But some of the sect of the Pharisees who believed rose up, saying, “It is necessary to circumcise them (the Gentiles), and to command them to keep the law of Moses.”
Some have insisted this question is be about circumcision, but the Bible plainly states that it is also about the “law of Moses”. We must consider the response in light of both of these elements if we want to follow the teachings of the Bible.
Part of the response to this question included,
“Now therefore, why do you test God by putting a yoke on the neck of the disciples which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear?” (verse 10).
Was circumcision a yoke that Israelites were unable to bear, or was the difficult aspect to bear the additional laws outlined by Moses? We aren’t left guessing; we are provided with a clear answer:
Therefore I judge that we should not trouble those from among the Gentiles who are turning to God, but that we write to them to abstain from things polluted by idols, from sexual immorality, from things strangled, and from blood (vs. 19-20).
For it seemed good to the Holy Spirit, and to us, to lay upon you no greater burden than these necessary things: that you abstain from things offered to idols, from blood, from things strangled, and from sexual immorality. If you keep yourselves from these, you will do well (vs. 28-29).
The answer from the leaders of the Church wasn’t limited to a discussion of circumcision, to which some insist the question is limited, but rather it addresses what aspects of the Mosaic Law still applied to Christians. Nothing in this description referenced clean and unclean foods. Those who insist that followers of Christ need to obey the Law of Moses in regards to clean and unclean foods are directly opposing the inspired conclusion reached in Acts 15.
Still, it is a reasonable principle of Scripture that everything should be established by two or more witnesses (Deut. 19:15; Matt. 18:16; Jn. 8:17).
Are there any other “witnesses” from the New Testament that corroborate the idea that the distinction between clean and unclean has been done away with?
In order for a change in what is clean and unclean there would need to be a change in the Mosaic Law. Scripture tells us that there was a change in the Law, because if there wasn’t a change in the Law, then Jesus couldn’t serve as our High Priest:
Therefore, if perfection were through the Levitical priesthood (for under it the people received the law), what further need was there that another priest should rise according to the order of Melchizedek, and not be called according to the order of Aaron? For the priesthood being changed, of necessity there is also a change of the law. For He of whom these things are spoken belongs to another tribe, from which no man has officiated at the altar (Heb. 7:11-13 NKJV).
Just because there was a change of the law doesn’t mean that the laws regarding clean and unclean have been changed, but it does open the possibility that food laws could be included in the law that was changed. What else does the New Testament tell us about the laws regarding clean and unclean?
I know and am convinced by the Lord Jesus that there is nothing unclean of itself; but to him who considers anything to be unclean, to him it is unclean (Rom. 14:14 NKJV).
Just in case there is any doubt that Paul is including food in this statement, one only need to look to the next verse:
Yet if your brother is grieved because of your food, you are no longer walking in love. Do not destroy with your food the one for whom Christ died (Rom. 14:15).
Paul makes a similar point in 1 Timothy 4 when he rebukes those “who forbid marriage and enjoin abstinence from foods which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth. For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving; for then it is consecrated by the word of God and prayer” (vs. 3-5).
The Gospels support this same conclusion:
When He had entered a house away from the crowd, His disciples asked Him concerning the parable. So He said to them, “Are you thus without understanding also? Do you not perceive that whatever enters a man from outside cannot defile him, because it does not enter his heart but his stomach, and is eliminated, thus purifying all foods? And He said, “What comes out of a man, that defiles a man. For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lewdness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within and defile a man” (Mk. 7:17-23 NKJV).
There is, admittedly, variation in translating this passage depending on the source text used as other versions would replace “the purifying all foods” with “making all meats clean” (ASV, ESV, NASB & RSV).
The fundamental difference between versions of this passage, however, is whether Jesus said “purifying all foods” or whether this was Mark’s inspired commentary on what Jesus meant by His words. However, neither of these translations change the basic message. What matters isn’t what goes into a person’s mouth but what comes out of his or her mouth. That same message is abundantly clear regardless of the translation (or source text) that one chooses.
Could Jesus really have been dismantling the law regarding clean and unclean during His ministry? Consider that Jesus routinely and systematically ignored laws regarding clean and unclean:
- Jesus touched those with skin disorders without going through ritual purification after (Matt. 8:1-4; Mk. 1:40-45 and LK. 17:11-17).
- Jesus touched the dead, also without performing the required purification (Mat.t 9:25; Mk. 5:41; and Lk. 8:54).
- Jesus touched, or was touched by, unclean women (Mat.t 9:20-22; Mk. 5:27; LK. 7:36-38) without going through the required purification.
- In the parable of the Good Samaritan, the ones subject to rebuke from Jesus are the ones who took a course of action assuring that they would remain clean (Ll. 10:30-37).
There are many commands written to Christians in the New Testament. Some of these commands repeat the commands given the Jews in the Old Testament. Others are new commands. But there is no command in the New Testament for believers to follow the Mosaic Law concerning clean and unclean states. The passages that deal with food in the New Testament strongly support that the New Covenant brought in by Christ no longer has a distinction between clean and unclean.
Does this change from the Old Testament mean that God has changed? Of course not; God is still the same, but His covenant has changed. In the Old Testament, His people (the Jews) were uniquely called and separated from the other nations by God. This division was symbolized by the laws governing clean and unclean. In the New Covenant, the division between Jew and Gentile has been abolished and, therefore, the symbols pointing to these distinctions no longer have any meaning. †
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Very clearly explained. Thank you. I have a related question. In SDA theology, they don’t call it just “clean” or “unclean” but they add the word ceremonial. How is that different? If something is clean can it be “ceremonially” unclean? My understanding is that if something was forbidden, it was a sin to do it. But, if something was ceremonially wrong, there was something to be done, usually a washing and a time period to wait, to atone for it. Or is the ceremonial aspect just something SDA’s add to make it sound more authentic?