The Law Was Spiritual

     Parts of the Law of Moses were given to the people of Israel by
the direct command of God, but the bulk of the law was given as Moses
was moved by the Spirit of God to teach the people rather than by
commandment.  One of these was his instructions regarding the types of
animals that the people were allowed to eat.

     Some of these that they weren't to eat were pork, rabbits,
weasels, an eagle or a hawk, a crow, or any fish that didn't have
scales such as a catfish.  Most of us no longer believe that we are
bound by these dietary laws, but we still wonder why they were given
in the first place.  Everyone likes a little bacon with their
breakfast or all the catfish you can eat for $4.95?

     What we need to understand was that Moses was teaching the people
spiritual principles by using the things of nature that most everyone
was familiar with.

     Barnabas, a co-worker with the apostle Paul wrote a letter that
explained what he felt some of these things meant.  In this letter he
explains that swine were forbidden so that believers should not attach
themselves or make agreements with people who live like the pigs. 
Their nature being such that while they live in pleasure, they forget
their God; but when their needs pinch them, they suddenly know the
Lord just as the sow doesn't know her master while she is full; but
when she is hungry she makes a noise; and being again fed, is silent.

     Like the eagle, the hawk or the crow, there are those who do not
know how to get food for themselves by working, but provide by
scavenging off the labors of others.  They hang around just plotting
and planning how to set a trap for those who they can take advantage
of while at the same time they appear to be perfectly innocent of any
wrongdoing.  They become destructive through their wickedness.

     Then some are like the fish without scales who wallow and tumble
in the dirt in the bottom of the lake.  And those who like the rabbit
which knows nothing other than conceiving.  Or like the hyena and the
weasel that is an adulterer and goes around corrupting others, not
knowing whether it is male or female itself.

     Since these things were given to us as examples of those things
which displease God, what should we do when we find ourselves guilty
of these sins?  The obvious answer is to seek God's forgiveness
through Christ Jesus.  Once we have found that forgiveness we are then
washed clean and are free to live our lives as one of the creatures
that God has called clean.

     The apostle Peter answered this question in Acts 10:9-15.  In his
vision of a sheet that was let down from heaven that was full of
unclean animals, he was told to get up and eat.  Peter answered, "Not
so, Lord!  For I have never eaten anything common or unclean." The
voice from heaven responded by saying, "What God has cleansed, you
must not call common."

     Just as Cornelius the gentile was then accepted into christian
fellowship, let us in the church today make sure that we do not
despise those who have sinned before God but have found His
forgiveness.  Once God has called them clean, who are we to ever again
call them common?

Frank Cooke


1 Deuteronomy 4:1
2 Deuteronomy 14
3 The Lost Books of the Bible, World Bible Publishers, (C) 1926.