For Our Good, Always Good Food
“Her priests have violated My law, and have profaned Mine holy things; they have put no difference between the holy and profane, neither have they showed difference between the unclean and the clean, and have hid their eyes from my Sabbaths, and I am profaned among them.” Ezekiel 22:26
“And they shall teach My people the difference between the holy and profane, and cause them to discern between the unclean and the clean.”
Ezekiel 44:23
It is the preachers’ job to teach God’s people the difference between the clean and the unclean. The preacher of the Gospel must not eat unclean food or he violates God’s law and profanes His holy things. When the preacher advocates that there is no difference between clean and unclean, he profanes Almighty God according to His Word. The laws and commandments of the Old Testament are very plain about this. The ancient rules fit modern times.
Certainly God had a purpose in establishing that certain plants and animals were to be eaten and others were not to be eaten by His people. From the Garden of Eden God’s law was established, and to this day it is relevant. You cannot violate God’s law and expect God’s blessing. You cannot eat what God calls unclean and expect to be clean in His sight. You cannot abrogate the law of God because of ignorance, indulgence or indigence. Certain animals are unfit for God’s people no matter how much modern science has provided preservatives and preventatives.
What about the New Testament?
Jesus did not come to destroy the law, but to fulfil it (Matt. 5:17). The death of Christ on Calvary fulfilled all the demands of blood atonement for sin, once for all, “having forgiven you all trespasses, blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to His cross.” (Col. 2:14) The vicarious sacrifice of Christ “abolished in His flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances.” (Eph 2:15) So it was that these ordinances which required the shedding of blood for the remission of sin were consummated in the shed blood of Jesus Christ.
Peter’s vision of the sheet let down from heaven with the invitation to kill and eat (Acts 10:13) was met with a denial that he ever ate anything that was unclean (v. 14, 11:8). Peter himself interprets his own vision after his ‘Visit by Cornelius, a. non-Israelite, and said plainly, “God hath showed me that I should not call any man common or unclean.” (Acts 10:28) The purpose of the vision was to get Peter to see that the Gospel of the Kingdom of Christ and the laws of God and the message of salvation were to be preached to those people outside Israel.
There is no spiritual merit in keeping the law of the clean, except that of obedience to God. No one is saved or cleansed from sin merely by something he does in the flesh.
Written By R. T. Woodworth