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Japanese The Bible forbids tattoos in a law given to Israel. Leviticus 19:28 reads: “You shall not make any cuts on your body for the dead or tattoo yourselves: I am the Lord.”
Christians disagree over whether the ban still applies. Carmen Imes of Biola University recalls of her family: “It was simply obvious that Christians shouldn’t get tattoos because it directly contradicted Scripture.” Wayne Grudem counts the verse among “the physical purity laws that were unique to the Mosaic covenant” and concludes that it “is not directly binding on us today.” The Pulpit Commentary reads the clause as tattooing “in memory of the dead” and says these customs “had been connected with idolatrous practices.”
Tattoos and cuts for the dead in the law of Moses
Leviticus 19:28
“You shall not make any cuts on your body for the dead or tattoo yourselves: I am the Lord.”
Reflection: Leviticus 19 opens with “You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy” (19:2) and then gives Israel laws that include “you shall love your neighbor as yourself” (19:18), a ban on sowing two kinds of seed (19:19) and a ban on fortune telling (19:26). Verse 27 forbids rounding off the hair at the temples, and verse 28 sets cuts “for the dead” beside the ban on tattoos, closing with “I am the Lord,” the same words that close 19:18. The Hebrew phrase for tattoo joins kethobeth, writing or inscription, to qa’aqa, incision; neither word occurs anywhere else in the Old Testament. The King James Version renders the clause “nor print any marks upon you.”
Deuteronomy 14:1-2
“You are the sons of the Lord your God. You shall not cut yourselves or make any baldness on your foreheads for the dead. For you are a people holy to the Lord your God, and the Lord has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth.”
Reflection: Moses repeats the ban on cutting oneself “for the dead” and states the reason: Israel is “a people holy to the Lord your God” and his “treasured possession.” Leviticus 21:5 applies the same rule to priests, who were not to “make any cuts on their body.” 1 Kings 18:28 shows cutting as part of worship elsewhere: the prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel “cut themselves after their custom with swords and lances” as they cried out to their god.
Marks on the hand in Isaiah
Isaiah 44:5
“This one will say, ‘I am the Lord’s,’ another will call on the name of Jacob, and another will write on his hand, ‘The Lord’s,’ and name himself by the name of Israel.”
Reflection: God promises to pour his Spirit on Jacob’s offspring (44:3), and this verse describes what follows: one person says “I am the Lord’s,” and another writes “The Lord’s” on his hand and takes the name of Israel. The verse does not say how the name is written on the hand. It pictures people openly claiming to belong to God.
Isaiah 49:16
“Behold, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands; your walls are continually before me.”
Reflection: God is answering Zion’s complaint, “The Lord has forsaken me; my Lord has forgotten me” (49:14). He asks whether a nursing mother can forget her child and says that even if she could, “I will not forget you.” The engraving is on God’s own palms, and the second half of the verse says the same of Zion’s walls: they are “continually before me.”
What the New Testament says about the body
1 Corinthians 6:19-20
“Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.”
Reflection: Paul writes this in an argument about sexual immorality. The verse before says “Flee from sexual immorality,” because “the sexually immoral person sins against his own body.” The body belongs to God because it was “bought with a price,” and the Holy Spirit lives within it.
Romans 12:1
“I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.”
Reflection: Paul grounds the appeal in “the mercies of God” and asks for the whole body to be presented as a living sacrifice, “holy and acceptable to God.” The next verse turns to the mind: “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God.”
Paul on the law, circumcision and food
Galatians 5:1
“For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.”
Reflection: Paul writes to believers in Galatia who were being urged to accept circumcision, and the yoke he warns against is the law of Moses: “every man who accepts circumcision… is obligated to keep the whole law” (5:3). Verse 13 sets the limit of that freedom: “do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another.”
Romans 14:1-4
“As for the one who is weak in faith, welcome him, but not to quarrel over opinions. One person believes he may eat anything, while the weak person eats only vegetables. Let not the one who eats despise the one who abstains, and let not the one who abstains pass judgment on the one who eats, for God has welcomed him. Who are you to pass judgment on the servant of another? It is before his own master that he stands or falls. And he will be upheld, for the Lord is able to make him stand.”
Reflection: Paul writes about believers in Rome who disagree over food and, in verse 5, over holy days. Neither side is to despise or judge the other, “for God has welcomed him,” and each servant stands or falls before his own master. Verse 5 asks that “each one should be fully convinced in his own mind,” and verse 23 warns the person who acts against conscience: “whatever does not proceed from faith is sin.”
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