STRANGE CULINARY DOCTRINES

HEBREWS 13:9–13

Do not be carried away by all kinds of strange teachings. It is good for our hearts to be strengthened by grace, not by ceremonial foods, which are of no value to those who eat them

(Hebrews 13:9).

Strange teachings have always plagued the Christian church. Somebody begins to teach an exotic or bizarre idea that has no place in the historic doctrines of Christianity, and soon loads of people are fascinated by it. We find that it is easy to raise money for such weird ideas, but difficult to raise money to promote the central truths of Christianity in a sober fashion.

One of the false teachings circulating on the fringes of the early Jewish Christian community was that the Mosaic food laws were supposed to be kept. Evidently there were those who taught that keeping these food laws was a form of spiritual discipline that would strengthen the heart. The author of Hebrews repudiates such an idea. The heart is strengthened by grace. The food laws of Leviticus were never designed as some kind of ascetic dietary regimen, but were largely symbolic teaching devices whose time has passed with the coming of the new covenant.

The believer, says the author of Hebrews, eats food from the altar (v. 10). Under the law only priests might eat food given to the Lord in the full sacrificial sense of being given to the altar (see Lev. 7:28–35). Now in the new covenant, all believers can eat such sacrificial food. The altar here is either the cross or Christ’s body. The altar-food we eat refers either to spiritual feeding on Christ (as in John 6), or to the communion meal—or both. Certainly, the Lord’s Supper fulfills all the food laws and communion meals and festivals of the Old Testament.

The priests of the tabernacle ate only some of the sacrificial food. They never ate the flesh of the goat sacrificed on the Day of Atonement. It is the Day of Atonement that is in view in these verses. That sacrifice was the central variety of the sin offerings. The lesser sin offerings were partially eaten by the priests. But on the Day of Atonement, the blood was taken into the Holy of Holies, and the animal was completely burned up (v. 11; Lev. 16).

Christian believers, however, feed on Christ, the ultimate sin offering. Because of this, we have no interest in going back to the mere shadows of the old covenant sacrifices, meals, and food laws. We have lost our taste for them.

CORAM DEO

Psalms 115–118

One problem with our age is that some strange ideas have been in circulation for so long, they look normal. There is, however, a core of historic Christianity expressed in the early creeds and the great Reformation confessions. Make it a project to reread the creeds and confessions of your church.

For further study: 1 Cor. 8 • Eph. 4:14–24 • Col. 2:6–23

wednesday

september