'Faith working through love’: a new food law for a new world

In this article, I argue that in regard to dietary choices, the New Testament, while moving beyond the ritual purity found in the Mosaic dispensation, does not replace it with a libertarian freedom – a kind of antinomian indifference – or even a harsh asceticism, but with what the Apostle Paul calls ‘faith working through love’ (Gal. 5.6). The faith talked of is based on the death and resurrection of Christ and hopes in his coming. Moreover, this faith is inserted within the framework of the initial Genesis ideal of peace and the entire story of Israel, as well as the expectation for the final renewal of the cosmos beyond sin and death (Isa. 11.6–9; Matt. 19.28; Rom. 8.19–21).