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If you have studied with us this far then you know by know that long before the Jewish people existed God made Covenants with non-Jews and that their relationship and good-standing with God was determined by how they lived up to their Covenant stipulations (Laws). In particular we have been looking at the Laws of Noah and the Covenant of Noah where a non-Jew was considered "righteous" by God if he lived up to his Covenant and repented when he strayed from his Covenant Commandments and returned to obedience unto God.
In our day and time if you are reading this article then you are most likely a contemporary Christian and most likely highly indoctrinated by your denominational or non-denominational theology. If you have been faithful to study with us up to this point then you have seen beyond any doubt that the Jesus Movement of the first century instructed non-Jews who came to faith in God through Yeshua's followers to obey the Covenant of Noah and the Laws of Noah. As a typical Christian or otherwise I assume that you are basically a "good person" and not the chiefest of sinners. Yet when we examine in detail these Laws of Noah which frame our Covenant with God then we encounter many things that not only challenge how we live in America today but which should bring shame to the best of Christians as you will come to quickly realize that your Gentile denominational religious belief system in normative Christianity has caused you to sin in many areas which before now you had no knowledge that such beliefs and actions were sinful. It is our hope at Bet Emet Ministries that your love for God is greater than your love to eat with the Pastor after Sunday's service and that you take to heart the matters that will be discussed here for let us end this introduction with these words:
I Jn 5:3 3 For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments: and his commandments are not grievous. (KJV)
In the Laws of Moses, which many are but reiterations of the previous Laws of Noah, Maimonides/Rambam codies this Commandment as #182 of the negative Commandments given by God by which man must not do. By this prohibition we are forbidden to eat a limb of a living creature: that is, to cut off a [whole] limb from a live animal or fowl and eat as much as an olive's size of the limb in its natural condition [that is, together with its veins and sinews]; and even though there is only the smallest amount of meat on it, whoever eats it is punished by whipping. The prohibition is contained in His words, Thou shalt not eat the life with the flesh (Deut. 12:23).
There are distinctions between this prohibition as it pertains to a Jew and as it relates to a non-Jew. A Jew's prohibition is only concerned with kosher animals, while for a Gentile it applies to all animals.
The Sifr'e says:
"Thou shalt not eat the ljfe with the flesh: this refers to a limb of a living creature." The verse is interpreted similarly in the Gemara of Hullin (102b [Sonc. ed. p. 569])3 where we also read: "He who eats a limb [severed] from a living creature, and also flesh [severed] from a living creature, is liable twice." The reason for this is that there are two prohibitions, of which the first, Thou shalt not eat the life with the fles forbids eating a limb, and the second, Ye shall not eat any flesh that is torn of beasts in the field (Ex. 22:30) forbids eating the flesh of a living creature, as we have explained.
This prohibition occurs again, in another form, in His words to Noah forbidding the eating of a limb of a living creature: Only flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof shall ye not eat (Gen. 9:4).
"It is forbidden to cut off a limb of a living animal and eat it, because such an action would produce and develop cruelty; besides, the heathen kings used to do it; it was also a kind of idolatrous worship to cut off a certain limb of a living animal and eat it" (Moreh Nebuchim III, 48).
All commentaries are unanimous in their explanation. The purpose of this prohibition against eating the limb of an animal while the animal is still alive-a mitzvah which is applicable to the Noahide as well as to the Jew-is for man to refrain from an act of unspeakable cruelty and inhumanity. Maimonides adds another reason to that given above. This was a heathen practice and should, therefore, not be imitated by the Jew or the non-Jew.