Did Paul Continue to Live Under the Mosaic Law?
Q: At my Bible study, they are saying that Paul remained a strict law-keeping Jew. I don’t 100% buy that, but having trouble finding good Scripture to back it up. Can you please point me in the right direction? Many thanks in advance.
We have no evidence at all that Paul kept ALL the feasts and sacrifices required of an observant Jew in that time. To say it clearly, there is no Scriptural reason to believe that “Paul remained a strict law-keeping Jew.”
There is evidence that he did observe SOME of the Jewish feasts and customs.
- In Acts 18:21, Paul said that he had to get back to Jerusalem to “keep this coming feast in Jerusalem.” The feast was likely connected with the fulfillment of a Nazirite vow, mentioned in the previous few verses.
- In Acts 21:23-26, Paul sponsored some other Christians from a Jewish background who were fulfilling dedication offerings at the temple. In other words, he took part in certain temple ceremonies.
Maybe he kept a generally kosher diet, but we don’t know. However, Paul did not keep a kosher table, because he rebuked Peter and the certain men from James who refused to eat with the Gentiles (Galatians 2:11-13). Jewish laws at that time did not only prohibit eating pork (among other things), but they also prohibited eating kosher food at the same table as a Gentile. Under pressure from legalistic believers, Peter also refused to eat with Gentile believers – and Paul rightly rebuked him for this.
In addition, there’s no way that he kept Passover the ways Jews of his day did. He would see it as fulfilled in Jesus, as he wrote in 1 Corinthians 5:7: For indeed Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us. Maybe Paul celebrated Passover, but he clearly would have done in as a Christian – and that is NOT being “a strict law keeping Jew.”
In Philippians 3:7-9 Paul renounced his past of strict Jewish observance.
But what things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ. Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith;
In Galatians 2:19-20 Paul says he died to the law.
For I through the law died to the law that I might live to God. I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.
We really have no biblical data on how Paul personally kept the Jewish law, other than to say that if he would have “remained a strict law keeping Jew,” he would have contradicted his own teaching on many points.
True, Paul did not completely renounce the customs and ceremonies of the Jewish people – but he never, never saw them as requirements for either Gentile or Jew.