Discovering the New Covenant by Greg Taylor - exAdventist Outreach

THE SABBATH IN GALATIANS
circumcision, the food laws, 1 and the Sabbath laws were
specifically included in that which was no longer in effect.
He uses the same construction found in Colossians 2, making
it crystal clear that the seventh-day Sabbath was also
temporary.
At this point I realized that the issue of the Old
Covenant food laws was intertwined with the Sabbath
regulations. I will not take significant time to discuss this in
this book. I will, however, mention a few scriptural
references that are important to notice in this regard. First of
all, the Gospel of Mark records the discussion of Jesus and
the Pharisees over the issue of eating with unwashed hands.
The discussion moves on to what truly matters as far as what
clean and unclean meant to Jesus. In Mark 7 we read:
Again Jesus called the crowd to him and said, “Listen to
me, everyone, and understand this. Nothing outside a
man can make him ‘unclean’ by going into him. Rather,
it is what comes out of a man that makes him ‘unclean.’
After he had left the crowd and entered the house, his
disciples asked him about this parable. “Are you so
dull?” he asked. “Don't you see that nothing that enters a
man from the outside can make him ‘unclean?’ For it
doesn't go into his heart but into his stomach, and then
out of his body.” (In saying this, Jesus declared all
foods clean.) He went on: ‘What comes out of a man is
what makes him ‘unclean.’ For from within, out of
men's hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality,
theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness,
1 This issue of table fellowship with gentiles was the result of what the
Old Covenant law said about certain foods. The Levitical code (Leviticus
11) forbids the use of “unclean foods.” For a Jew to eat with a person
who ate such forbidden foods was to become unclean himself. Some of
the Jewish Christians believed that these laws were still binding, and
Peter was influenced by them to withdraw from the Gentiles to avoid
criticism.
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