Worship & law
Did Jesus keep the Law: pork, circumcision, Sabbath
Jesus was born a Jew and lived under the Law of Moses. Most Christians today eat pork, do not circumcise as a religious duty, and worship on Sunday. This topic asks what Jesus himself taught about the Law, what he did about food, circumcision and the Sabbath, and how the letters after him, and the Qur’an, explain the change.
1The question
Did Jesus come to end the Law of Moses or to uphold it, and did he keep and teach the food laws, circumcision and the Sabbath?
2What Christians believe
Christians agree that Jesus kept the Law perfectly, as one “made under the law” (Galatians 4:4). They hold that he fulfilled it, and that his death and resurrection began the new covenant promised in Jeremiah 31:31, in which believers are “not under the law, but under grace” (Romans 6:14). Hebrews calls the first covenant “old” and “ready to vanish away” (Hebrews 8:13). The moral law, such as the command to love God and neighbour, still guides Christian life.
They read Mark 7:19 as Jesus declaring all foods clean, Peter’s vision in Acts 10 as opening the church to Gentiles, and the council of Acts 15 as freeing Gentile believers from circumcision. Paul tells believers not to let anyone judge them “in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holyday, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days” (Colossians 2:16), and Christians gather on the first day of the week, when Jesus rose.
3What the texts say
Jesus on the Law
Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil.
For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.
Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.
Jesus tells his followers to keep it
Saying, The scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat:
All therefore whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do; but do not ye after their works: for they say, and do not.
Circumcision
This is my covenant, which ye shall keep, between me and you and thy seed after thee; Every man child among you shall be circumcised.
And when eight days were accomplished for the circumcising of the child, his name was called JESUS, which was so named of the angel before he was conceived in the womb.
Food
And the swine, though he divide the hoof, and be clovenfooted, yet he cheweth not the cud; he is unclean to you.
Because it entereth not into his heart, but into the belly, and goeth out into the draught, purging all meats?
The Sabbath
And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up: and, as his custom was, he went into the synagogue on the sabbath day, and stood up for to read.
And he said unto them, The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath:
The letters after Jesus
Wherefore my sentence is, that we trouble not them, which from among the Gentiles are turned to God:
For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace.
Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holyday, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days:
In that he saith, A new covenant, he hath made the first old. Now that which decayeth and waxeth old is ready to vanish away.
4What scholars say
W. D. Davies and Dale C. Allison (The Gospel According to Saint Matthew, 1988–1997) read Matthew’s Jesus as upholding the whole Law and interpreting it with authority, not setting it aside.
E. P. Sanders (Jesus and Judaism, 1985) found no clear case of Jesus breaking the Law of Moses. His disputes with the Pharisees, he argued, were about how to keep the Law, the kind of debate Jewish teachers had among themselves.
Paula Fredriksen (When Christians Were Jews, 2018) shows that Jesus’s first followers in Jerusalem kept the Law after his death, including the food laws and the Sabbath, and went on worshipping at the temple. James G. Crossley (The Date of Mark’s Gospel, 2004) argues that Mark 7 concerns hand-washing and assumes the biblical food laws still stand.
Scholars agree that the Gospels show Jesus arguing about how to keep the Law, and that the decision that Gentile believers need not keep circumcision and the food laws came after Jesus, in the debates recorded in Acts 15 and in Paul’s letters.
5The Islamic perspective
In the Qur’an Jesus comes confirming the Torah, making lawful only some things that had been forbidden, and the Gospel God gave him confirmed the Torah before it. Pork stays forbidden, and Muslims follow the way of Abraham, which includes circumcision:
And (I come) confirming that which was before me of the Torah, and to make lawful some of that which was forbidden unto you. I come unto you with a sign from your Lord, so keep your duty to Allah and obey me.
And We caused Jesus, son of Mary, to follow in their footsteps, confirming that which was (revealed) before him in the Torah, and We bestowed on him the Gospel wherein is guidance and a light, confirming that which was (revealed) before it in the Torah - a guidance and an admonition unto those who ward off (evil).
He hath forbidden you only carrion, and blood, and swineflesh, and that which hath been immolated to (the name of) any other than Allah. But he who is driven by necessity, neither craving nor transgressing, it is no sin for him. Lo! Allah is Forgiving, Merciful.
And afterward We inspired thee (Muhammad, saying): Follow the religion of Abraham, as one by nature upright. He was not of the idolaters.
Muslims see Jesus as a prophet of the law, like Moses before him and Muhammad ﷺ after him: he was circumcised on the eighth day, kept the Sabbath by custom, never ate pork, and taught that not one jot would pass from the Law. Islam keeps a living sacred law of prayer, fasting, charity, food and purity. On two of these three points, food and circumcision, it is Muslims today who live as Jesus lived.
6Objections and responses
“Jesus fulfilled the Law, so it no longer applies, or only its moral commands do.”
Response: Jesus says “one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled” (Matthew 5:18), and that whoever teaches others to break the least commandment will be least in the kingdom (Matthew 5:19). He even tells his followers to do what the teachers of the Law say (Matthew 23:3). The line between moral and ritual laws is drawn by later teachers, not by Jesus in the Gospels.
“Paul and Hebrews say these things no longer bind believers (Colossians 2:16; Hebrews 8:13).”
Response: Those are the words of later letters, one of them by an unknown author, not the words of Jesus. Jesus himself kept all three laws, and his first followers went on keeping them after his death. Muslims ask that Jesus’s own example and teaching be the measure for the letters, not the other way round.
7Conclusion
Both sides agree that Jesus was circumcised, kept the Sabbath, lived by the food laws of the Torah and spoke of the Law with deep respect. Christians hold that after the cross the Law was fulfilled in a new covenant and its outward rules no longer bind believers. Muslims hold that Jesus upheld God’s law, taught others to keep it, and that his true followers should do the same.
Read Matthew 5:17–20, Matthew 23:1–3, Luke 2:21, Luke 4:16 and Acts 10:14, then compare them with Romans 6:14 and Colossians 2:16.
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Sources
- Bible, King James Version:Matthew 5:17Matthew 5:18Matthew 5:19Matthew 23:2Matthew 23:3Genesis 17:10Luke 2:21Leviticus 11:7Mark 7:19Luke 4:16Mark 2:27Acts 15:19Romans 6:14Colossians 2:16Hebrews 8:13
- Qur’an, translated by M. Pickthall:Qur’an 3:50Qur’an 5:46Qur’an 2:173Qur’an 16:123
- W. D. Davies and Dale C. Allison, The Gospel According to Saint Matthew (1988–1997)
- E. P. Sanders, Jesus and Judaism (1985)
- Paula Fredriksen, When Christians Were Jews (2018)
- James G. Crossley, The Date of Mark’s Gospel (2004)