Why this question settles so much
If the cross ended the Sabbath, the feasts, and the food laws, the people who would have known first are the apostles. Jesus taught them for three years, breathed the Spirit on them, and sent them out. The book of Acts follows them for roughly thirty years after the resurrection, and the letters they wrote cover the same decades.
So the test is simple. If the apostles kept living by the Torah after Jesus rose, then “the law ended at the cross” is a conclusion they never reached. If they dropped it, we should be able to see the change. Here is what the record shows.
The feasts stayed on their calendar
The first thing the disciples did after the ascension was gather on an appointed day of the Torah.
“Now when the day of Pentecost had come, they were all with one accord in one place.”
Acts 2:1
Pentecost is Shavuot, the feast the LORD commanded fifty days after the wave sheaf, “a statute forever in all your dwellings throughout your generations” (Leviticus 23:15-16, 21). The Spirit was poured out on people who were keeping the feast. Roughly twenty-five years later, Paul was still arranging his travel around it.
“For Paul had determined to sail past Ephesus, that he might not have to spend time in Asia; for he was hastening, if it were possible for him, to be in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost.”
Acts 20:16
In the same chapter Luke dates the journey by “the days of Unleavened Bread” (Acts 20:6), and earlier Paul had cut short a stay in Ephesus because he had to keep a coming feast in Jerusalem (Acts 18:21). On the voyage to Rome, Luke marks the season this way.
“When much time had passed and the voyage was now dangerous because the Fast had now already gone by, Paul admonished them”
Acts 27:9
“The Fast” is Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement). Luke is writing for a reader named Theophilus, and he expects him to know what “the Fast” means and when it falls. That is how you write when the biblical calendar is the one you live by.
Paul also expected a mostly Gentile congregation to keep Passover (Pesach) and Unleavened Bread.
“Purge out the old yeast, that you may be a new lump, even as you are unleavened. For indeed Christ, our Passover, has been sacrificed in our place. Therefore let’s keep the feast, not with old yeast, neither with the yeast of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.”
1 Corinthians 5:7-8
“Let’s keep the feast” is a present instruction to the church in Corinth, and it is built on the Messiah being our Passover, not offered in spite of it.
Sabbath after Sabbath
Luke records the Sabbath as the apostles’ regular day of gathering and teaching, in city after city.
“But they, passing on from Perga, came to Antioch of Pisidia. They went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day and sat down.”
Acts 13:14
“So when the Jews went out of the synagogue, the Gentiles begged that these words might be preached to them the next Sabbath. Now when the synagogue broke up, many of the Jews and of the devout proselytes followed Paul and Barnabas; who, speaking to them, urged them to continue in the grace of God. The next Sabbath, almost the whole city was gathered together to hear the word of God.”
Acts 13:42-44
“On the Sabbath day we went outside of the city by a riverside, where we supposed there was a place of prayer, and we sat down and spoke to the women who had come together.”
Acts 16:13
“Paul, as was his custom, went in to them; and for three Sabbath days reasoned with them from the Scriptures,”
Acts 17:2
“He reasoned in the synagogue every Sabbath and persuaded Jews and Greeks.”
Acts 18:4
Someone will say Paul went to the synagogue on the Sabbath only because that is where the Jews were. The record does not fit that. In Antioch the Gentiles asked to hear more, and they were told to come back “the next Sabbath,” not the next day (Acts 13:42). In Philippi there was no synagogue at all, and the Sabbath was still kept by the river (Acts 16:13). In Corinth Paul persuaded “Jews and Greeks” every Sabbath (Acts 18:4). Luke calls it Paul’s custom, the same phrase he uses of Jesus (Luke 4:16; Acts 17:2). Acts never records the Sabbath being moved or set aside.
Peter and the food laws
Years after the resurrection, Peter saw a vision of unclean animals and was told to eat. His answer tells us how he had understood everything Jesus taught.
“But Peter said, “Not so, Lord; for I have never eaten anything that is common or unclean.”
Acts 10:14
Peter had walked with Jesus and heard him teach about what defiles a person, and he still had never eaten anything unclean. He did not understand Jesus to have changed the food laws. Peter’s own interpretation of the vision was about people, not animals: God had shown him not to call any man unclean (Acts 10:28). We take that up in Question 12.
Peter’s letter points the same direction. When he tells believers how to live, he reaches for the Torah.
“but just as he who called you is holy, you yourselves also be holy in all of your behavior, because it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.”
1 Peter 1:15-16
“You shall be holy to me, for I, the LORD, am holy, and have set you apart from the peoples, that you should be mine.”
Leviticus 20:26
“You shall be holy, for I am holy” is the refrain of Leviticus (Leviticus 11:44-45; 19:2; 20:26), and in Leviticus it is tied directly to the food laws and to being set apart from the peoples. Peter quotes it as the standard for believers’ behavior, with no hint that its content had changed.
Paul on trial
Paul was accused, repeatedly, of teaching against the Torah. Every time, he denied it. The first accusation came from believers in Jerusalem, and James proposed a public way to answer it.
“They, when they heard it, glorified God. They said to him, “You see, brother, how many thousands there are among the Jews of those who have believed, and they are all zealous for the law. They have been informed about you, that you teach all the Jews who are among the Gentiles to forsake Moses, telling them not to circumcise their children and not to walk after the customs. What then? The assembly must certainly meet, for they will hear that you have come. Therefore do what we tell you. We have four men who have taken a vow. Take them and purify yourself with them, and pay their expenses for them, that they may shave their heads. Then all will know that there is no truth in the things that they have been informed about you, but that you yourself also walk keeping the law.”
Acts 21:20-24
Paul did exactly what James asked (Acts 21:26). Then, before the Roman governor Felix, before Festus, and finally before the Jewish leaders in Rome, he described what he actually believed and taught.
“But this I confess to you, that according to the Way, which they call a sect, so I serve the God of our fathers, believing all things which are according to the law, and which are written in the prophets;”
Acts 24:14
“while he said in his defense, “Neither against the law of the Jews, nor against the temple, nor against Caesar, have I sinned at all.”
Acts 25:8
“After three days Paul called together those who were the leaders of the Jews. When they had come together, he said to them, “I, brothers, though I had done nothing against the people or the customs of our fathers, still was delivered prisoner from Jerusalem into the hands of the Romans,”
Acts 28:17
“Believing all things which are according to the law.” “Neither against the law of the Jews, nor against the temple, nor against Caesar, have I sinned at all.” “Nothing against the people or the customs of our fathers.” If Paul had in fact taught that the law was finished, these would be false statements made in court by a man on trial for his life. We take him at his word. His letters are treated in Question 14.
Moses read every Sabbath
The council in Acts 15 is often read as the moment the apostles released the Gentiles from the Torah. What it actually decided was that Gentiles do not need to be circumcised in order to be saved (Acts 15:1, 5). Having settled that, James gave four starting requirements (Acts 15:20) and then said this.
“For Moses from generations of old has in every city those who preach him, being read in the synagogues every Sabbath.”
Acts 15:21
The new believers would be in the synagogues each Sabbath, hearing Moses read. The council did not need to write out the whole Torah in a letter, because the Gentiles were going to hear it every week. That only makes sense if the apostles expected them to keep learning it and keep doing it.
What the record shows
Put it together. Shavuot in Acts 2 and again in Acts 20. Unleavened Bread and Yom Kippur used as ordinary time markers. The Sabbath kept in Antioch, Philippi, Thessalonica, and Corinth. Peter, years on, having never eaten unclean food. Paul denying in court that he ever taught against the law, and telling Corinth to keep the feast. Not one passage in Acts shows an apostle setting aside a commandment of God.
None of this was done to earn anything. The apostles knew they were saved by grace (Ephesians 2:8-10). They kept walking the way their Master walked because that is what disciples do (1 John 2:6), and so do we.