However, when Paul was dealing with similar subjects in his letters to the Corinthians (1 Corinthians chapters 8-10) and the Romans (Romans chapter 14), he does not mention the decision in Acts 15. Does that mean that we can eat black pudding with impunity? That particular question may be difficult to answer, but reflecting on the broader principle might give us some food for thought with regards to our attitude towards meat in general. Don't we eat too much meat today? Do we think hard enough about just how many animals have been killed to provide us with the quantities of meat we eat in the West, or about how much of the planet's agricultural land was used to rear those animals when it could have been producing other food in greater quantities? Don't we have too little concern about the conditions in which the animals which we eat were reared and slaughtered? Do we really value their lives in a way that is honouring to God?
Copyright: Jubilee Centre www.jubilee-centre.org
The role of the Holy Spirit in Christian obedience
Christians have been given the Holy Spirit to help them internalise God's law and to guide them as they reflect upon it. The Spirit transforms our understanding of God's law. The Christian understanding is that God is the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, united in love for one another, and reaching out in love to the world which God has made.
Although Judaism and Islam can take God's law seriously, and might even be able to think in terms of obedience to God's law as an expression of love for God, neither of these non-Trinitarian religions can offer either the assurance of God's forgiveness or the promise of God's personal, empowering presence, equipping us to live more godly lives.
Because they do not know God to be Trinity, these religions are bound to have difficulty in understanding law other than in authoritarian terms, whereas Christians, knowing God to be love, can understand God's law as an expression of that love, offering us God's wise guidance for our lives together.
At the Last Supper, Jesus explained the relationship between loving him, obeying his laws, and experiencing the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit. He said: 'If you love me, you will obey what I command. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counsellor to be with you forever - the Spirit of truth...[H]e lives with you and will be in you' (John 14:15-17).
Jesus is plain that obedience to his commands is the expected evidence of our love for him. Whilst their obedience in this life will never be perfect,[30] it is to be expected that with the Holy Spirit's assistance, Christians will grow to become more Christ-like. As Jürgen Moltmann put it in a sermon he preached on Jeremiah 31:33, because of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, Christians no longer live 'under' the law but instead 'in' the law.[31]
But how can this living 'in' the law be understood as Christian freedom? This can perhaps best be explained by giving an analogy. Imagine you are a fan of the music of Bach. You want to introduce your friend to that music so you ask them to listen to it. At first they listen to it because you have asked them to. Your hope would be that as they listen to it more and more, so they would discover for themselves the beauty in the music. The Christian life is a bit like that: at first we live by God's laws simply because they are God's laws, but as we go on so we discover that they are good, that they show us healthy patterns of living, which enable every member of the community to flourish in their unique identity before God.[32]
Christian freedom is not the aimless licence of having the right to do absolutely anything; it is the joyous discovery of our true humanity which results from our relationship of love with a God who is triune. Through the guidance of the Spirit, we learn wisdom, we discover that God's laws are good, and we discern what it means to love God and to love others. If we were to co-operate fully with the Holy Spirit, Christians would be beyond the law, in the sense that we would freely and fully obey all that God's laws require, because we would have perfectly internalised God's law and integrated it into our lives.
