Bruce, I wonder why the council in Jerusalem (Acts 15) did not find it necessary to instruct the Gentiles to observe the Law. The council did command them not to eat meat strangled with blood because this was offensive to Jewish believers within the church. Acts 15 would have been a perfect opportunity for the Apostles to command the Gentiles on issues like the Sabbath.
Also, back a few chapters in Acts 10. While Peter's vision had more to do with the inclusion of the Gentiles then it did with having unclean foods becoming clean, the imagery cannot be ignored. On the surface it seems that the Lord was changing part of the dietary law. Why and what implication does this have on the observance of the Law in the N.T.?
I adhere to the tripartate division of the Law, as explicated in the WCF, viz. moral, ceremonial, and civil. The moral aspect of the law is foundational to the rest. It is summarized in the 10 Commandments. It is not original with Moses or the constitution of the nation of Israel at Sinai as a covenanted people, but is written codification of the moral constitution embeded in man's nature, and broken by the Fall. Both the ceremonial and civil directions found in the law are altered in significant ways by the passing of the Old Covenant age, and the coming of the New.
Certain factions in the early church were attempting to keep Christianity within the orbit of Judaism. They were insisting that the Gentiles must become
Jewish to be good Christians. In particular, they needed circumcision, and the rest of the separation laws (diet, dress, etc.) of the Law. This, in particular, is what the council rejects, and declares them free and unconstrained from those ceremonies. Peter reminds them that God did by Peter open the door to the Gentiles, and put them on equal footing with the Jews. The vision he received did eliminate the clean/unclean distinction (although it was actually Jesus who did that, Mk. 7:19).
Verse 21 of Acts 15 speaks of the widespread preaching of Moses "in every city" of the nations. While it may not be immediately apparent at that place, this directly addresses the matter of morals. We know from biblical and extra-biblical sources that it was the moral rigor of Moses' Law that was attractive to so many of the "God-fearers" or "devout" (those who hung at the edge of Judaism, but had not joined that faith). These were those who eagerly and at first swelled the ranks of the church after Pentecost, and upon the missionary trips of Paul.
God the Holy Spirit, through his church, will not saddle the Gentiles with the hard "yoke" of the Jews. But free men from his moral law? That wasn't even the question at the council. No one questioned the validity of God's morality. Check out one of the last books written, 1 Timothy. Chapter 1:8 "The law is good, if a man use it lawfully," and that is followed by a litany of moral violations of the Law, which v. 11, is declared to be "according the the gospel."
Interesting too, the issue of eschewing blood--that is an ordinance God gave to NOAH (Gen. 9:4), so that requirement was NOT merely for the sake of Jewish sensibilities, but hearkend back to a general ordinance given to the whole human race (and of course forgotten and violated many times over among the Gentiles). So, this was more by way of reiteration of a universal law, not an exception to a general abandonment of Moses.
Bottom line is: God's moral law is one from the beginning of Scripture to the end. This issue is not theonomy, it is not a debate about how to draw lines between three types of the laws. The 10 Commandments are Moral. They summarize God's will. They are in turn summarized by Christ (in 2) and later still by Paul (in 1). But we need the ten to give us some more of the content because of the presence still of sin. And the rest of Scripture, to give us full moral direction.
