God gave food and purity laws for ceremonial/ ritual and health purposes. The ceremonial purpose was to set God’s people apart from the rest of the world; that is, they were to be a holy people.
Leviticus chapter 11 outlines a number of laws regarding what beasts, insects, birds, and fish may be eaten and what conditions under which particular water may be drank.
Leviticus 11:1-8 deal with beasts of the field.
Leviticus 11:9-12 deal with water life.
Leviticus 11:13-20 deal with air life.
Leviticus 11:21-23, 29-30 deal with creeping things such as insects and mice.
Leviticus 11:24-28 deal with touching the carcasses of various things
Leviticus 11:31-43 deal with touching things, washing clothes, conditions for drinking water, and not defiling oneself in general.
Leviticus 11:44-47 tells why God set all of these laws in place. It ends with Leviticus 11:47 saying: To make a difference between the unclean and the clean, and between the creature that may be eaten and the creature that may not be eaten. The basic idea was for Israel to be set apart as a visible sign to the other nations of Israel’s consecration and sanctification to God.
Leviticus 12:1-8 gives laws concerning a woman’s purification after childbirth. The woman is considered impure for 40 days if the child is a male, and 80 days if the child is a female. During this time she cannot enter the sanctuary or otherwise participate in holy or sacred matters. After the days of her purification she was to bring a burnt offering and a sin offering to the priest as an atonement for her.
Leviticus 13 and Leviticus 14 give laws about what constitutes leprosy and how to cleanse and otherwise handle those leprosy.
Leviticus 15 addresses bodily discharges from males and females. This includes bedding, spit, clothes, vessels, semen, menstrual blood, having sex during menstrual period, furniture. If a man has sex with his wife while she was on her menstrual period, he would be unclean for seven days along with her.
Deuteronomy 14:1-21 also deal with food laws as well as cutting one’s hair and making cuts in one’s body seemingly for the dead.
Numbers 19:1-22 provides some additional discussion on purification laws.
Leviticus 21 concerning holiness of priests says priest are not to touch dead bodies not even of family members. 1 Peter 2:9 speaks of believers been a royal priesthood, a holy nation. Deuteronomy 19:5-6 says that also. Therefore, Christians been royal priest in a general sense does not qualify for us falling under the Numbers 21 provisions regarding priests.
Now under the New Covenant, it is reasonable to conclude that such laws do not apply for they were ceremonial/ritual ordinances that are nailed to the cross.
Indeed, Jesus says in Matthew 15:17-20:
(17) Do you not perceive that everything that enters the mouth goes into the belly, and is expelled into the sewer?
(18) But the things that go forth from the mouth come out of the heart, and these defile the man.
(19) For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witnessing and blasphemies.
(20) These are the things that defile the man; but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile the man.”
Therefore, it seems that Jesus is saying purity laws which are about the outward appearance or outward person do not apply under Christ for they do not defile a person. For Jesus purity was not a matter of food we eat, the bodies we touch whether dead or alive, nor the bodily discharges. For Jesus it is about the inward condition of the heart.
Colossians 2:14-17 speaks to this as well. Colossians 2:16 lists some but not all of the ordinances nailed to the cross based on Jesus sacrifice to include as represented in Ezekiel 45:17 which also talk about meats, and drinks, and feasts, and new moons. For example, cutting away the male flesh but not the female flesh in circumcision was ceremonial.
Purification laws just like circumcision if right to do if one chooses to do them. Of course, the health aspects of them such as staying away from those who have leprosy is also wise to do. It is similar to wearing a mask during the Pandemic of 2020; that was a wise thing to do though not all chose to do it.
References:
Uncleanness in the Bible: 16 Important Old Testament Insights
What to Do with the Bible’s Purity Laws
