Clean Up & Don’t Get Dirty
Series Title: Life Lessons from
Leviticus? (For
More In This Series )
A Sermon By Jim Hammond from Leviticus 11
The OT Laws in Leviticus Chapters 11-15 deals with
various kinds of uncleanness and how people can clean up after they have
become dirty. Chapter 11 is the description of which foods were Kosher
and which were not. It describes which foods were clean and which were
not. It is not easy to understand why certain foods were unclean.
These laws were meant for a particular people for a
particular time. These are not eternal principles or eternal laws. In
fact, according to the New Testament teachings, the distinction between
clean and unclean foods is now as obsolete as the distinction between Jew
and Gentile. Nevertheless, there are life lessons to be learned from this
description of what is clean and what is unclean.
Focus: Because God is holy (wholesome, set
apart, pure, awe inspiring) and has saved us to be in a covenant
relationship with him, we are to consecrate ourselves and be holy, because
he is holy.
Consecrate means to dedicate for a holy purpose. To consecrate ourselves
means to dedicate ourselves to God for his purposes.
KEY
VERSES: Leviticus 11:44-45
I am the Lord your God;
consecrate yourselves and be holy, because I am holy. Do not make
yourselves unclean by any creature that moves about on the ground.
45I am the Lord who
brought you up out of Egypt to be your God; therefore be holy, because I
am holy.
I. The
Prerequisite for A Relationship With the Holy God is Mediated Atonement
This is saying something that is a review of the last
10 chapters of Leviticus. God is Holy, and we are not, so we need
atonement and mediation for intimacy with a Holy God. Last week we
learned what happens when sinful people experience unmediated exposure to
a Holy God--Judgment. But God loves us and has provided by means of his
grace a means by which we can have our sins atoned for, a system of
mediation through a covenant of grace that we might be saved from
judgment. This teaches about salvation.
II. A Close
Relationship with the Holy God Can Be Maintained…
A. …When the difference between what is Clean and what is
Detestable is understood.
The Lord teaches his people how to be different from
those who defile themselves with no personal concern for wholeness and
Holiness.
Leviticus 11:1-47
The Lord said to Moses
and Aaron,
2"Say to the Israelites: 'Of all the animals that live on land,
these are the ones you may eat:
3You may eat any animal that has a split hoof completely divided
and that chews the cud.
4" 'There are some that only chew the cud or only have a split
hoof, but you must not eat them. The camel, though it chews the cud, does
not have a split hoof; it is ceremonially unclean for you.
5The coney, though it chews the cud, does not have a split hoof; it
is unclean for you.
6The rabbit, though it chews the cud, does not have a split hoof;
it is unclean for you.
7And the pig, though it has a split hoof completely divided, does
not chew the cud; it is unclean for you.
8You must not eat their meat or touch their carcasses; they are
unclean for you.
9" 'Of all the creatures living in the water of the seas and the
streams, you may eat any that have fins and scales.
10But all creatures in the seas or streams that do not have fins
and scales--whether among all the swarming things or among all the other
living creatures in the water--you are to detest.
11And since you are to detest them, you must not eat their meat and
you must detest their carcasses.
12Anything living in the water that does not have fins and scales
is to be detestable to you.
13" 'These are the birds you are to detest and not
eat because they are detestable: the eagle, the vulture, the
black vulture,
14the red kite, any kind of black kite,
15any kind of raven,
16the horned owl, the screech owl, the gull, any kind of hawk,
17the little owl, the cormorant, the great owl,
18the white owl, the desert owl, the osprey,
19the stork, any kind of heron, the hoopoe and the bat.
20" 'All flying insects that walk on all fours are to be
detestable to you.
21There are, however, some winged creatures that walk on all fours
that you may eat: those that have jointed legs for hopping on the ground.
22Of these you may eat any kind of locust, katydid, cricket or
grasshopper.
23But all other winged creatures that have four legs you are to
detest.
24" 'You will make yourselves unclean by these;
whoever touches their carcasses will be unclean till
evening.
25Whoever picks up one of their carcasses must wash his clothes,
and he will be unclean till evening.
26" 'Every animal that has a split hoof not completely divided or
that does not chew the cud is unclean for you; whoever
touches the carcass of any of them will be unclean.
27Of all the animals that walk on all fours, those that walk on
their paws are unclean for you; whoever touches their
carcasses will be unclean till evening.
28Anyone who picks up their carcasses must wash his clothes, and he
will be unclean till evening. They are unclean for you.
29" 'Of the animals that move about on the ground, these are
unclean for you: the weasel, the rat, any kind of great lizard,
30the gecko, the monitor lizard, the wall lizard, the skink and the
chameleon.
31Of all those that move along the ground, these are unclean
for you. Whoever touches them when they are dead will be unclean
till evening.
32When one of them dies and falls on something, that article,
whatever its use, will be unclean, whether it is made of
wood, cloth, hide or sackcloth. Put it in water; it will be unclean
till evening, and then it will be clean.
33If one of them falls into a clay pot, everything in it will be
unclean, and you must break the pot.
34Any food that could be eaten but has water on it from such a pot
is unclean, and any liquid that could be drunk from it is
unclean.
35Anything that one of their carcasses falls on becomes
unclean; an oven or cooking pot must be broken up. They are
unclean, and you are to regard them as unclean.
36A spring, however, or a cistern for collecting water remains
clean, but anyone who touches one of these carcasses is
unclean.
37If a carcass falls on any seeds that are to be planted, they
remain clean.
38But if water has been put on the seed and a carcass falls on it,
it is unclean for you.
39" 'If an animal that you are allowed to eat dies, anyone who
touches the carcass will be unclean till evening.
40Anyone who eats some of the carcass must wash his clothes, and he
will be unclean till evening. Anyone who picks up the
carcass must wash his clothes, and he will be unclean till
evening.
41" 'Every creature that moves about on the ground is
detestable; it is not to be eaten.
42You are not to eat any creature that moves about on the ground,
whether it moves on its belly or walks on all fours or on many feet; it is
detestable.
43Do not defile yourselves by any of these creatures. Do not make
yourselves unclean by means of them or be made unclean
by them.
44I am the Lord your God; consecrate yourselves and be
holy, because I am holy. Do not make yourselves unclean by any creature
that moves about on the ground.
45I am the Lord who brought you up out of Egypt to be
your God; therefore be holy, because I am holy.
46" 'These are the regulations concerning animals, birds, every
living thing that moves in the water and every creature that moves about
on the ground. 47You must distinguish between the unclean and the
clean, between living creatures that may be eaten and those that
may not be eaten.' "
4 Possible Ways of
understanding these distinctions
Leviticus chapter 11 has fascinated and perplexed
generations of Biblical scholars. Why did God decree that certain foods
could be eaten and others must be rejected? There has been a great
variety of suggested answers to this question. Gordon Wenham in his
Commentary on the Book of Leviticus categorizes all the various answers to
why God gave these food laws into 4 basic categories.
(1) The Distinctions are arbitrary.
People with this viewpoint believe that the rationale
for which foods are clean and which foods are unclean are known only to
God. The reason he gives these laws to his covenant people was merely as
a test of obedience. It is a test of obedience, but were these
distinctions really arbitrary?
(2) The Distinctions are Religious.
The second possible way to understand these
distinctions is for religious reasons. Wenham uses the word “cultic”
rather than “religious.” This explanation argues that the unclean
animals are those animals which were used in pagan worship and those
associated with particular pagan deities. There is some evidence, for
example, that pigs were used in pagan celebrations. Large quantities of
pig bones have been found on some pagan ritualistic sites. The problem
with this view however is that many of the animals that are so-called
clean animals such as a bull were also used in pagan practice. Remember
the golden calf? So if the reasoning was to make sure the Israelites
worship was completely unlike the pagan worship, why is the bull not also
forbidden for religious reasons?
(3) The Distinctions are hygienic.
The hygienic interpretation holds that the unclean
creatures are unfit to eat because they are carriers of disease. The
clean animals are clean to eat because they are safe to eat. This
explanation has been adopted by many modern writers. Pork can be a source
of trichinosis. The Coney and rabbits are carriers of tularemia. Fish
without fins and scales tend to burrow into the mud and can be a source of
dangerous bacteria. Birds of prey tend to feed on carrion and can be
dangerous sources of bacteria also. This interpretation is particularly
attractive to 20th century Western readers who are obsessed
with health-care and medical science. And it may be that God in his
Providence did give rules that contributed to the health of his nation.
But just because we can see hygienic considerations underlying some of
these laws does not mean that the human authors of scriptures did also.
There are good reasons for believing that they did not see these
provisions as hygienic.
First of all, hygiene can only account for some of
the prohibitions. Some of the clean animals are more questionable on
hygienic grounds than some of the unclean animals. If God wanted his
people to avoid trichinosis from eating pork he could have also just
commanded them to make sure to cook it thoroughly before eating it.
Besides this fact, the Old Testament gives no hint that it regarded these
foods as dangerous to one's health.
In addition to this reasoning, if these laws are
given merely to protect people’s health, why were not laws included to
classify poisonous plants as unclean?
And lastly, and perhaps most important to us is this
question. If these laws were given in order to protect people from foods
that are bad for you, why then did Jesus remove the these laws by
pronouncing all foods clean? If indeed the primary purpose of the food
laws were for hygienic purposes, it is surprising that Jesus abolished
them (See Mark 7:18-23, Acts 10).
(4) The Distinctions are symbolic
To illustrate this I need three volunteers from the
audience that don’t mind wearing some silly props in front of this
audience [chewing gum & shoes on the hands for animals that chew the cud
and walk on all fours, fins, goggles for the fish, and wings for the
birds].
The symbolic interpretation of the food laws views
the behavior and habits of the clean animals as living illustrations of
how the righteous Israelite ought to behave, while the unclean represent
sinful man. One second century writer, Aristeas, suggested that chewing
the cud made an animal clean, because it reminded men to meditate on the
law. Another writer argued that sheep were clean because it reminded the
ancient Israelites that the Lord was a shepherd. Where as the dirty
habits of the pig spoke of the "filth of inequity." The danger of such
symbolic interpretations is that no one has told us what the symbols are.
One can run with this concept anywhere he wants to.
One social anthropologist, Mary Douglas, appears to
have avoided these dangers when she based her interpretation on the
combined reading of all the laws from Leviticus itself. Her reasoning
goes like this, what is clean is what is whole and normal. What is
unclean is what is unnatural, or abnormal. She says that Leviticus
classifies animal foods into three basic categories, those that walk on
the land, those that fly in the air, and those that swim in the seas. Of
these three categories all three categories have a "normal" mode of
locomotion versus an abnormal mode of locomotion. What is normal and
abnormal is contrasted in the text. Normal birds fly with two wings and
walk with two feet. Normal fish had scales and fins with which to swim.
Normal land animals have hooves to run with. The clean animals are those
that conform to these norms. The creatures which in some way are
"abnormal" are described. That's why fish without fins and scales are
called unclean. Insects which fly , which have many legs are also called
unclean. Whereas the locusts which have wings and hop on only to legs are
called clean. Animals with an indeterminate form of locomotion, i.e.,
they "swarm", are called unclean. Although this sounds far-fetched to us,
it explains many of the divisions.
But what about the pig? Why is a pig called unclean
then. The reason for this is that the differentiation is due mostly to
social background. Sheep and goats would have been the standard food
source for shepherds. So it was natural for sheep and goats to be
regarded as clean and since pigs and camels did not conform to the normal
behavior of sheep and goats they were considered abnormal or unclean. In
other words they may have walked on all fours but didn’t chew the cud as
in the case of the pig, or they may chew the cud but not have cloven
hooves, as in the case of the camel. But what is the point of all this?
The point is that the animal world reflects what is
normal and abnormal in visual illustration at a couple of different
levels. In one way, these animals symbolize the human world. The
uncleanness of the birds becomes intelligible once you understand this.
The reason normal two wings birds and two leg birds are unclean if they
eat dead animals, is not necessarily for hygienic reasons, but because
they are eating from dead bodies that have not been drained of its blood.
This was considered immoral.
The division into clean (edible) foods and unclean
(inedible) foods corresponded to the division between holy Israel and the
Gentile world. Among those animals that were clean were a few the animals
that could be offered in sacrifice. Similarly there was a group of men
within Israel who could offer sacrifice, namely the priests. Through this
system of symbolic laws the Israelites were reminded at every meal of
their redemption to be God's people. Their diet was limited to certain
meats by way of imitation of their God, who had restricted his choice
among the nations to Israel. Every meal served also to bring to mind
Israel's responsibility to be a holy nation as they distinguished between
clean and unclean foods, they were reminded that holiness was more than a
matter of meat or drink but a way of life characterized by purity and
integrity.
There is a second century writer who wrote that man
must behave like the clean birds, not like the wild and carnivorous
unclean birds. These regulations teach Israel to act "with a
discrimination according to the standard of righteousness -- more
especially because we have been distinctly separated from the rest of
mankind."
The net result was that these laws did created
division between Jew and Gentile. The New Testament also regards the food
laws as symbolic of the division between Jew and Gentile. So the
abolition of these laws is in effect took down the wall that divides Jew
from Gentile.
Both qualifications of chewing the cud and cloven
hoof is required for an animal to be clean. Either one without the other
disqualifies the animal. Having only half the necessary qualification is
not enough to be declared clean. How do you explain this? The symbolic
interpretation understands this rule as follows. Sheep, and goats, and
oxen were the standard sacrificial animals of shepherds and they have in
common cloven hooves and rumination. Interpreting this theologically one
might say that as God has limited his "diet" to these animals, so must his
people. It is man's duty to imitate his creator. When the Israelite
restricted his food to God's chosen animals, he recalled that he owed all
his spiritual privileges to divine election. As God had chosen certain
animals for sacrifice, so he had chosen one nation "out of all the nations
on the face of the earth" to be a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.
The regulation about clean animals is often coupled with the concept of
Israel's election. Total commitment is required. Outcasts and the
halfhearted will not enjoy covenant blessings. Animals with only half the
required characteristics were on similar grounds unclean. Only those who
subscribe fully to the law could count themselves as truly clean.
Application: We had better understand what defiles us.
(Mark 7:18-23)
Mark 7:18-23
"Are you so dull?" he asked.
"Don't you see that nothing that enters a man
from the outside can make him 'unclean'?
19For it doesn't go into his heart but
into his stomach, and then out of his body." (In saying this, Jesus
declared all foods "clean.")
20He went on: "What comes out of a man is
what makes him 'unclean.'
21For from within, out of men's hearts,
come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery,
22greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy,
slander, arrogance and folly.
23All these evils come from inside and
make a man 'unclean.' "
Jesus spoke these words to a culture that defiled
itself primarily through actions and behavior. I believe if Jesus were to
speak to our culture today, his words would have included not just a
contrast between defilement by taking food into the stomach versus
defilement by what comes out of the heart, but also a contrast between
spiritual intake defilement that parallels, the physical intake
defilements.
In Jesus’ culture people did not have opportunities
to defile the heart through the intake of media. They didn’t have smutty
books, smutty movies, smutty music, smutty magazines, and the smutty
internet. That was not predominantly how people participated with the
defiling elements of the world. In other words, the heart gate was a gate
that usually opened from the inside. What came out of the heart is what
defiled a person back then. It was the actions, and the words, and the
thoughts expressed that defiled a person. Today, more than ever, and
certainly more than in Jesus day, we must carefully guard our spiritual
intake, what goes in defiles what comes out! If your intake is good and
guarded against corruption, your output will also be good rather than
corrupted.
Why is it that there are perverts and criminals
preying on children? They have become addicts to sin. They have not
guarded their intake. In principal, we also are told to guard our
hearts. We must distinguish between what is clean and what is unclean.
We must distinguish between what is clean and what is detestable.
How are you doing in the area of guarding your heart
and mind against the things that defile your thoughts. God clearly
teaches us to avoid “porneia”, sexual immorality. When Jesus said,
Matthew 5:27-28
"You have heard that it was said, 'Do not commit
adultery.'
28But I tell you that anyone who looks at
a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.
Let me ask you, what does this verse alone say about
what is clean and unclean about our entire entertainment industry?
B. …When we Cleanse and consecrate ourselves regularly
1. The Old Testament state of being “unclean” was not necessarily as
a result of an ethical or moral breach
Some natural functions caused a state of
“uncleanness” that one needed to deal with before worship interaction with
the Holy.
Ex: childbirth, married sex, accidental contact with
a carcass.
The awe and respect for what is set apart, is at the
heart of these laws. God is set apart, and different, the people also are
to be set apart and different, i.e., consecrated, which means cleaned up
and dedicated to God.
God is so set apart, certain natural things are
profane enough that you don’t bring them before God’s presence with a
nonchalant apathetic casualness.
Like coming before the president on a special
occasion you prepare well. You wash, you choose what you wear, you brush
your teeth. You are concerned about making a good impression.
Like a first date. You want to please. You don’t go
with your hair un combed, face unwashed dried food still on your face,
body odor from sweating all day working in the hot sun. You wash up and
prepare. You aim to please.
God is establishing what kind of attitude and
preparation he desires from us in relationship to him.
2. Prepare Well For Special “Dates” with God, & go on “Dates”
regularly
Even when you are not officially on a date with God,
you constantly represent God to the rest of his world. Because you are in
a covenant relationship with God, he wants everything in everyday living
to be a matter for God’s honor, and God’s Name.
3. Everything Is a
“Date” with God
These laws are still instructive in this sense
·
They were constant reminders to Israel that they were a
chosen nation and they were to be different
·
They were called to imitate God (even in what they ate)
Here is my concern for us today. What ever happened
to the Christian’s understanding of the word “Holy”. It means to be
different. I struggle with the fact that Christians as a whole are not
much different than with those who do not know God and are profane, and
altogether unconcerned with what is holy.
What’s the answer? I still believe the answer is
carefully guarding your diet. But this time we must carefully guard our
spiritual diet. Guard carefully what feeds your soul. Guard carefully
what feeds your spirit. If you feed your soul and spirit junk, or even
worse, poison, you will suffer spiritually for it. The greatest damage
you do, is to put something between you and God so that your relationship
is damaged.
Let’s finish where we began this morning. With the
KEY VERSES:
Leviticus 11:44-45 I am the Lord
your God; consecrate yourselves and be holy, because I am holy. Do not
make yourselves unclean by any creature that moves about on the ground.
45I am the Lord who
brought you up out of Egypt to be your God; therefore be holy, because I
am holy.
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